‘Why not?’
‘Because you’ll end up surrounded when everyone else has run away. Then you die. It isn’t pretty.’
‘That’s what happened when my father fought Eochaid,’ he admitted.
‘So that’s why you don’t have all your best men in the household guard,’ I said. ‘We’ll put Tekil on one flank and Ulf and his men on the other.’ Ulf, inspired by a dream of unlimited silver and lasciviously evil women, was now eager to march on Eoferwic. He was not at Cair Ligualid when the dark horsemen arrived, but had taken his men to collect forage and food.
I divided the household troops into two groups and made them fight, though first I ordered them to wrap their swords in cloth so they wouldn’t end up slaughtering each other. They were eager but hopeless. I broke through both shield walls in the time it took to blink, but they would learn how to fight eventually unless they met Ivarr’s troops first, in which case they would die. After a while, when they were weary and the sweat was streaming down their faces, I told them to rest. I noticed that the Danes sat with the other Danes, and the Saxons with the Saxons, but that was only to be expected and in time, I thought, they would learn trust. They could more or less speak to each other because I had noticed that in Northumbria the Danish and Saxon tongues were becoming muddled. The two languages were similar anyway, and most Danes could be understood by Saxons if they shouted loud enough, but now the two tongues grew ever more alike. Instead of talking about their swordcraft the Saxon earslings in Guthred’s household troops boasted of their ‘skill’ with a sword, though they had none, and they ate eggs instead of eating eyren. The Danes, meanwhile, called a horse a horse instead of a hros and sometimes it was hard to know whether a man was a Dane or a Saxon. Often they were both, the son of a Danish father and Saxon mother, though never the other way around. ‘I should marry a Saxon,’ Guthred told me. We had wandered to the edge of the field where a group of women were chopping straw and mixing the scraps with oats. We would carry the mixture to feed our horses as we crossed the hills.
‘Why marry a Saxon?’ I asked.
‘To show that Haliwerfolkland is for both tribes,’ he said.
‘Northumbria,’ I said bad-temperedly.
‘Northumbria?’
‘It’s called Northumbria,’ I said, ‘not Haliwerfolkland.’
He shrugged as if the name did not matter. ‘I should still marry a Saxon,’ he said, ‘and I’d like it to be a pretty one. Pretty as Hild, maybe? Except she’s too old.’
‘Too old?’
‘I need one about thirteen, fourteen maybe? Ready to pup some babies.’ He clambered across a low fence and edged down a steep bank towards a small stream that flowed north towards the Hedene. ‘There must be some pretty Saxons in Eoferwic?’
‘But you want a virgin, don’t you?’
‘Probably,’ he said, then nodded, ‘yes.’
‘Might be one or two left in Eoferwic,’ I said.
‘Pity about Hild,’ he said vaguely.
‘What do you mean?’
‘If you weren’t with her,’ he said vigorously, ‘you might make a husband for Gisela.’
‘Hild and I are friends,’ I said, ‘just friends,’ which was true. We had been lovers, but ever since Hild had seen the body of Saint Cuthbert she had withdrawn into a contemplative mood. She was feeling the tug of her god, I knew, and I had asked her if she wanted to put on the robes of a nun again, but she had shaken her head and said she was not ready.
‘But I should probably marry Gisela to a king,’ Guthred said, ignoring my words. ‘Maybe Aed of Scotland? Keep him quiet with a bride? Or maybe it’s better if she marries Ivarr’s son. Do you think she’s pretty enough?’
‘Of course she is!’
‘Horseface!’ he said, then laughed at the old nickname. ‘The two of us used to catch sticklebacks here,’ he went on, then tugged off his boots, left them on the bank, and began wading upstream. I followed him, staying on the bank where I pushed under alders and through the rank grass. Flies buzzed around me. It was a warm day.
‘You want sticklebacks?’ I asked, still thinking of Gisela.
‘I’m looking for an island,’ he said.
‘Can’t be a very big island,’ I said. The stream could be crossed in two paces and it never rose above Guthred’s calves.
It was big enough when I was thirteen,’ he said.
‘Big enough for what?’ I asked, then slapped at a horsefly, crushing it against my mail. It was hot enough to make me wish I had not worn the mail, but I had long learned that a man must be accustomed to the heavy armour or else, in battle, it becomes cumbersome and so I wore it most days just so that it became like a second skin. When I took the mail off it was as though the gods had given me winged feet.
‘It was big enough for me and a Saxon called Edith,’ he said, grinning at me, ‘and she was my first. She was a sweet thing.’
‘Probably still is.’
He shook his head. ‘She was gored by a bull and died.’ He waded on, passing some rocks where ferns grew and, fifty or so paces beyond he gave a happy cry as he discovered his island and I felt sorry for Edith for it was nothing more than a bank of stones that must have been sharp as razors on her scrawny backside.
Guthred sat and began flicking pebbles into the water. ‘Can we win?’ he asked me.
‘We can probably take Eoferwic,’ I said, ‘so long as Ivarr hasn’t returned.’
‘And if he has?’
‘Then you’re dead, lord.’
He frowned at that. ‘We can negotiate with Ivarr,’ he suggested.
‘That’s what Alfred would do,’ I said.
‘Good!’ Guthred cheered up. ‘And I can offer him Gisela for his son!’
I ignored that. ‘But Ivarr won’t negotiate with you,’ I said instead. ‘He’ll fight. He’s a Lothbrok. He doesn’t negotiate except to gain time. He believes in the sword, the spear, the shield, the war axe and the death of his enemies. You won’t negotiate with Ivarr, you’ll have to fight him and we don’t have the army to do that.’
‘But if we take Eoferwic,’ he said energetically, ‘folk there will join us. The army will grow.’
‘You call this an army?’ I asked, then shook my head. ‘Ivarr leads war-hardened Danes. When we meet them, lord, most of our Danes will join him.’
He looked up at me, puzzlement on his honest face. ‘But they took oaths to me!’
‘They’ll still join him,’ I said grimly.
‘So what do we do?’
‘We take Eoferwic,’ I said, ‘we plunder it and we come back here. Ivarr won’t follow you. He doesn’t care about Cumbraland. So rule here and eventually Ivarr will forget about you.’
‘Eadred wouldn’t like that.’
‘What does he want?’
‘His shrine.’
‘He can build it here.’
Guthred shook his head. ‘He wants it on the east coast because that’s where most folk live.’
What Eadred wanted, I suppose, was a shrine that would attract thousands of pilgrims who would shower his church with coins. He could build his shrine here in Cair Ligualid, but it was a remote place and the pilgrims would not come in their thousands. ‘But you’re the king,’ I said, ‘so you give the orders. Not Eadred.’
‘True,’ he said wryly and tossed another pebble. Then he frowned at me. ‘What makes Alfred a good king?’
‘Who says he’s good?’
‘Everyone. Father Willibald says he’s the greatest king since Charlemagne.’
‘That’s because Willibald is an addled earsling.’
‘You don’t like Alfred?’
‘I hate the bastard.’
‘But he’s a warrior, a lawgiver…’
‘He’s no warrior!’ I interrupted scornfully, ‘he hates fighting! He has to do it, but he doesn’t like it, and he’s far too sick to stand in a shield wall. But he is a lawgiver. He loves laws. He thinks if he invents enough laws he’ll make heaven on earth.’
>
‘But why do men say he’s good?’ Guthred asked, puzzled.
I stared up at an eagle sliding across the sky’s blue vault. ‘What Alfred is,’ I said, trying to be honest, ‘is fair. He deals properly with folk, or most of them. You can trust his word.’
‘That’s good,’ Guthred said.
‘But he’s a pious, disapproving, worried bastard,’ I said, ‘that’s what he really is.’
‘I shall be fair,’ Guthred said. ‘I shall make men like me.’
‘They already like you,’ I said, ‘but they also have to fear you.’
‘Fear me?’ He did not like that idea.
‘You’re a king.’
‘I shall be a good king,’ he said vehemently, and just then Tekil and his men attacked us.
I should have guessed. Eight well-armed men do not cross a wilderness to join a rabble. They had been sent, and not by some Dane called Hergild in Heagostealdes. They had come from Kjartan the Cruel who, infuriated by his son’s humiliation, had sent men to track the dead swordsman, and it had not taken them long to discover that we had followed the Roman wall, and now Guthred and I had wandered away on a warm day and were at the bottom of a small valley as the eight men swarmed down the banks with drawn swords.
I managed to draw Serpent-Breath, but she was knocked aside by Tekil’s blade and then two men hit me, driving me back into the stream. I fought them, but my sword arm was pinned, a man was kneeling on my chest and another was holding my head under the stream and I felt the gagging horror as the water choked in my throat. The world went dark. I wanted to shout, but no sound came, and then Serpent-Breath was taken from my hand and I lost consciousness.
I recovered on the shingle island where the eight men stood around Guthred and me, their swords at our bellies and throats. Tekil, grinning, kicked away the blade that was prodding my gullet and knelt beside me. ‘Uhtred Ragnarson,’ he greeted me, ‘and I do believe you met Sven the One-Eyed not long ago. He sends you greetings.’ I said nothing. Tekil smiled. ‘You have skidbladnir in your pouch, perhaps? You’ll sail away from us? Back to Niflheim?’
I still said nothing. The breath was rasping in my throat and I kept coughing up water. I wanted to fight, but a sword point was hard against my belly. Tekil sent two of his men to fetch the horses, but that still left six warriors guarding us. ‘It’s a pity,’ Tekil said, ‘that we didn’t catch your whore. Kjartan wanted her.’ I tried to summon all my strength to heave up, but the man holding his blade at my belly prodded and Tekil just laughed at me, then unbuckled my sword belt and dragged it out from beneath me. He felt the pouch and grinned when he heard the coins chink. ‘We have a long journey, Uhtred Ragnarson, and we don’t want you to escape us. Sihtric!’
The boy, the only one without arm rings, came close. He looked nervous. ‘Lord?’ he said to Tekil.
‘Shackles,’ Tekil said, and Sihtric fumbled with a leather bag and brought out two sets of slave manacles.
‘You can leave him here,’ I said, jerking my head at Guthred.
‘Kjartan wants to meet him too,’ Tekil said, ‘but not as much as he wants to renew your acquaintance.’ He smiled then, as if at a private jest, and drew a knife from his belt. It was a thin-bladed knife and so sharp that its edges looked serrated. ‘He told me to hamstring you, Uhtred Ragnarson, for a man without legs can’t escape, can he? So we’ll cut your strings and then we’ll take an eye. Sven said I should leave you one eye for him to play with, but that if I wanted I could take the other if it would make you more biddable, and I do want you to be biddable. So which eye would you like me to take, Uhtred Ragnarson? The left eye or the right eye?’
I said nothing again and I do not mind confessing that I was scared. I again tried to heave myself away from him, but he had one knee on my right arm and another man was holding my left, and then the knife blade touched the skin just beneath my left eye and Tekil smiled. ‘Say goodbye to your eye, Uhtred Ragnarson,’ he said.
The sun was shining, reflecting off the blade so that my left eye was filled with its brilliance, and I can still see that dazzling brightness now, years later.
And I can still hear the scream.
Three
It was Clapa who screamed. It was a high-pitched shriek like a young boar being gelded. It sounded more like a scream of terror than a challenge, and that was not surprising for Clapa had never fought before. He had no idea that he was screaming as he came down the slope. The rest of Guthred’s household troops followed him, but it was Clapa who led, all clumsiness and savagery. He had forgotten to untie the scrap of torn blanket that protected the edge of his sword, but he was so big and strong that the cloth-wrapped sword acted like a club. There were only five men with Tekil, and the thirty young men came down the steep bank in a rush and I felt Tekil’s knife slice across my cheekbone as he rolled away. I tried to seize his knife hand, but he was too quick, then Clapa hit him across the skull and he stumbled, then I saw Rypere about to plunge his sword into Tekil’s throat and I shouted that I wanted them alive. ‘Alive! Keep them alive!’
Two of Tekil’s men died despite my shout. One had been stabbed and torn by at least a dozen blades and he twisted and jerked in the stream that ran red with his blood. Clapa had abandoned his sword and wrestled Tekil onto the shingle bank where he held him down by brute strength. ‘Well done, Clapa,’ I said, thumping him on the shoulder, and he grinned at me as I took away Tekil’s knife and sword. Rypere finished off the man thrashing in the water. One of my boys had received a sword thrust in his thigh, but the rest were uninjured and now they stood grinning in the stream, wanting praise like puppies that had run down their first fox. ‘You did well,’ I told them, and so they had, for we now held Tekil and three of his men prisoner. Sihtric, the youngster, was one of the captives and he was still holding the slave shackles and, in my anger, I snatched them from him and whipped them across his skull. ‘I want the other two men,’ I told Rypere.
‘What other men, lord?’
‘He sent two men to fetch their horses,’ I said, ‘find them.’ I gave Sihtric another hard blow, wanting to hear him cry out, but he kept silent even though blood was trickling from his temple.
Guthred was still sitting on the shingle, a look of astonishment on his handsome face. ‘I’ve lost my boots,’ he said. It seemed to worry him far more than his narrow escape.
‘You left them upstream,’ I told him.
‘My boots?’
‘They’re upstream,’ I said and kicked Tekil, hurting my foot more than I hurt his mail-clad ribs, but I was angry. I had been a fool, and felt humiliated. I strapped on my swords, then knelt and took Tekil’s four arm rings. He looked up at me and must have known his fate, but his face showed nothing.
The prisoners were taken back to the town and meanwhile we discovered that the two men who had been sent to fetch Tekil’s horses must have heard the commotion for they had ridden away eastwards. It took us far too much time to saddle our own horses and set off in pursuit and I was cursing because I did not want the two men to take news of me back to Kjartan. If the fugitives had been sensible they would have crossed the river and ridden hard along the wall, but they must have reckoned it was risky to ride through Cair Ligualid and safer to go south and east. They also should have abandoned the riderless horses, but they were greedy and took them all and that meant their tracks were easy to follow even though the ground was dry. The two men were in unfamiliar country, and they veered too far to the south and so gave us a chance to block the eastward tracks. By evening we had more than sixty men hunting them and in the dusk we found them gone to ground in a stand of hornbeam.
The older man came out fighting. He knew he had small time left to live and he was determined to go to Odin’s corpse-hall rather than to the horrors of Niflheim and he charged from the trees on his tired horse, shouting a challenge, and I touched my heels to Witnere’s flanks, but Guthred headed me off. ‘Mine,’ Guthred said and he drew his sword and his horse leaped away, mainly because Witn
ere, offended at being blocked, had bitten the smaller stallion in the rump.
Guthred was behaving like a king. He never enjoyed fighting, and he was far less experienced in battle than I, but he knew he had to make this killing himself or else men would say he sheltered behind my sword. He managed it well enough. His horse stumbled just before he met Kjartan’s man, but that was an advantage for the stumble veered him away from the enemy whose wild blow swept harmlessly past Guthred’s waist while Guthred’s own desperate hack struck the man’s wrist, breaking it, and after that it was a simple matter to ride the enemy down and chop him to death. Guthred did not enjoy it, but knew he had to do it, and in time the killing became part of his legend. Songs were sung how Guthred of Northumbria slew six evildoers in combat, but it had been only one man and Guthred was lucky that his horse had tripped. But that is good in a king. Kings need to be lucky. Later, when we got back to Cair Ligualid, I gave him my father’s old helmet as a reward for his bravery and he was pleased.
I ordered Rypere to kill the second man which he did with an encouraging relish. It was not hard for Rypere because the second man was a coward and only wanted to surrender. He threw away his sword and knelt, shivering, calling out that he yielded, but I had other plans for him. ‘Kill him!’ I told Rypere who gave a wolfish grin and chopped down hard.
We took the twelve horses, stripped the two men of their armour and weapons and left their corpses for the beasts, but first I told Clapa to use his sword to cut off their heads. Clapa stared at me with ox-eyes. ‘Their heads, lord?’ he asked.
‘Chop them off, Clapa,’ I said, ‘and these are for you.’ I gave him two of Tekil’s arm rings.
He gazed at the silver rings as though he had never seen such wonders before. ‘For me, lord?’
‘You saved our lives, Clapa.’
‘It was Rypere who brought us,’ he admitted. ‘He said we shouldn’t leave the king’s side and you’d gone away so we had to follow.’
So I gave Rypere the other two rings, and then Clapa chopped at the dead men and learned how hard it is to cut through a neck, but once the deed was done we carried the bloody heads back to Cair Ligualid and when we reached the ruined town I had the first two corpses pulled from the stream and decapitated.