Abbot Eadred wanted to hang the four remaining prisoners, but I persuaded him to give me Tekil, at least for a night, and I had him brought to me in the ruins of an old building which I think must have been made by the Romans. The tall walls were made of dressed stone and were broken by three high windows. There was no roof. The floor was made of tiny black and white tiles that had once made a pattern, but the pattern had long been broken. I made a fire on the biggest remaining patch of tile and the flames threw a lurid flicker on the old walls. A wan light came through the windows when clouds slid away from the moon. Rypere and Clapa brought Tekil to me, and they wanted to stay and watch whatever I did to him, but I sent them away.
Tekil had lost his armour and was now dressed in a grubby jerkin. His face was bruised and his wrists and ankles were joined by the slave manacles he had intended for me. He sat at the far end of the old room and I sat across the fire from him and he just stared at me. He had a good face, a strong face, and I thought that I might have liked Tekil if we had been comrades instead of enemies. He seemed amused by my inspection of him. ‘You were the dead swordsman,’ he said after a while.
‘Was I?’
‘I know the dead swordsman wore a helmet with a silver wolf on the crown, and I saw the same helmet on you,’ he shrugged, ‘or perhaps he lends you his helmet?’
‘Perhaps he does,’ I said.
He half smiled. ‘The dead swordsman scared Kjartan and his son halfway to death, but that’s what you intended, isn’t it?’
‘That’s what the swordsman intended,’ I said.
‘Now,’ he said, ‘you’ve cut off the heads of four of my men and you’re going to give those heads back to Kjartan, aren’t you?’
‘Yes.’
‘Because you want to frighten him even more?’
‘Yes,’ I said.
‘But there have to be eight heads,’ he said. ‘Isn’t that so?’
‘Yes,’ I said again.
He grimaced at that, then leaned against the wall and gazed up at the clouds drifting beside the crescent moon. Dogs howled in the ruins and Tekil turned his head to listen to the noise. ‘Kjartan like dogs,’ he said. ‘He keeps a pack of them. Vicious things. They have to fight each other and he only keeps the strongest. He kennels them in a hall at Dunholm and he uses them for two things.’ He stopped then and looked at me quizzically. ‘That’s what you want, isn’t it? For me to tell you all about Dunholm? Its strengths, its weaknesses, how many men are there and how you can break the place?’
‘All that,’ I said, ‘and more.’
‘Because this is your bloodfeud, isn’t it? Kjartan’s life in revenge for Earl Ragnar’s death?’
‘Earl Ragnar raised me,’ I said, ‘and I loved him like a father.’
‘What about his son?’
‘Alfred kept him as a hostage.’
‘So you’ll do a son’s duty?’ he asked, then shrugged as if my answer would be obvious. ‘You’ll find it hard,’ he said, ‘and harder still if you have to fight Kjartan’s dogs. He keeps them in their own hall. They live like lords, and under the hall’s floor is Kjartan’s treasure. So much gold and silver. A hoard that he never looks at. But it’s all there, buried in the earth beneath the dogs.’
‘Who guards it?’ I asked.
‘That’s one of their jobs,’ Tekil said, ‘but the second is to kill people. It’s how he’ll kill you. He’ll take your eyes first, then you’ll be torn to pieces by his hounds. Or perhaps he’ll take the skin off you inch by inch. I’ve seen him do that.’
‘Kjartan the Cruel,’ I said.
‘He’s not called that for nothing,’ Tekil said.
‘So why do you serve him?’
‘He’s generous,’ Tekil said. ‘There are four things Kjartan loves. Dogs, treasure, women and his son. I like two of those, and Kjartan is generous with both.’
‘And the two you don’t like?’ I asked.
‘I hate his dogs,’ he admitted, ‘and his son is a coward.’
‘Sven?’ I was surprised. ‘He wasn’t a coward as a child.’
Tekil stretched out a leg, then grimaced when the slave shackles checked his foot. ‘When Odin lost an eye,’ he said, ‘he gained wisdom, but when Sven lost an eye he learned fear. He’s courageous enough when he’s fighting the weak, but he doesn’t like facing the strong. But his father, now, he’s no coward.’
‘I remember Kjartan was brave,’ I said.
‘Brave, cruel and brutal,’ Tekil said, ‘and now you’ve also learned that he has a lordly hall filled with hounds that will tear you to bloody scraps. And that, Uhtred Ragnarson, is all that I will tell you.’
I shook my head. ‘You will tell me more,’ I said.
He watched as I put a log on the fire. ‘Why will I tell you more?’ he asked.
‘Because I have something you want,’ I told him.
‘My life?’
‘The manner of your death,’ I said.
He understood that and gave a half-smile. ‘I hear the monks want to hang me?’
‘They do,’ I said, ‘because they have no imagination. But I won’t let them hang you.’
‘So what will you do instead? Give me to those boys you call soldiers? Let them practise on me?’
‘If you don’t talk,’ I said, ‘that’s just what I’ll do because they need the practice. But I’ll make it easy for them. You won’t have a sword.’
Without a sword he would not go to the corpse-hall and that was threat enough to make Tekil talk. Kjartan, he told me, had three crews of men at Dunholm, which amounted to about a hundred and fifty warriors, but there were others in steadings close to the stronghold who would fight for him if they were summoned so that if Kjartan wished he could lead four hundred well-trained warriors. ‘And they’re loyal to him,’ Tekil warned me.
‘Because he’s generous to them?’
‘We never lack for silver or women. What more can a warrior want?’
‘To go to the corpse-hall,’ I said and Tekil nodded at that truth. ‘So where do the slaves come from?’ I asked.
‘From traders like the one you killed. Or we find them for ourselves.’
‘You keep them at Dunholm?’
Tekil shook his head. ‘Only the young girls go there, the rest go to Gyruum. We’ve got two crews at Gyruum.’ That made sense. I had been to Gyruum, a place where there had once been a famous monastery before Ragnar the Elder destroyed it. It was a small town on the south bank of the River Tine, very close to the sea, which made it a convenient place to ship slaves across the water. There was an old Roman fort on Gyruum’s headland, but the fort was not nearly so defensible as Dunholm, which scarcely mattered because if trouble loomed the Gyruum garrison would have time to march south to the larger fortress and find refuge there, taking their slaves with them. ‘And Dunholm,’ Tekil told me, ‘cannot be taken.’
‘Cannot?’ I asked sceptically.
‘I’m thirsty,’ Tekil said.
‘Rypere!’ I shouted. ‘I know you’re out there! Bring some ale!’
I gave Tekil a pot of ale, some bread and cold goat-meat, and while he ate he talked of Dunholm and assured me it was truly impregnable.
‘A large enough army could take it,’ I suggested.
He scoffed at that idea. ‘You can only approach from the north,’ he said, ‘and that approach is steep and narrow, so if you have the greatest army in the world you can still only lead a few men against the defences.’
‘Has anyone tried?’
‘Ivarr came to look at us, stayed four days and marched away. Before that Earl Ragnar’s son came and he didn’t even stay that long. You could starve the place, I suppose, but that will take you a year, and how many men can afford to keep a besieging force in food for a year?’ He shook his head. ‘Dunholm is like Bebbanburg, it’s impregnable.’
Yet my fate was leading me to both places. I sat in silence, thinking, until Tekil heaved at his slave shackles as if to see whether he could snap them. He could no
t. ‘So tell me the manner of my death,’ he said.
‘I have one more question.’
He shrugged. ‘Ask it.’
‘Thyra Ragnarsdottir.’
That surprised him and he was silent for a while, then he realised that of course I had known Thyra as a child. ‘The lovely Thyra,’ he said sarcastically.
‘She lives?’
‘She was supposed to be Sven’s wife,’ Tekil said.
‘And is she?’
He laughed at that. ‘She was forced to his bed, what do you think? But he doesn’t touch her now. He fears her. So she’s locked away and Kjartan listens to her dreams.’
‘Her dreams?’
‘The gods talk through her. That’s what Kjartan thinks.’
‘And you think?’
‘I think the bitch is mad.’
I stared at him through the flames. ‘But she lives?’
‘If you can call it living,’ he said drily.
‘Mad?’
‘She cuts herself,’ Tekil said, drawing the edge of a hand across his arm. ‘She wails, cuts her flesh and makes curses. Kjartan is frightened of her.’
‘And Sven?’
Tekil grimaced. ‘He’s terrified of her. He wants her dead.’
‘So why isn’t she dead?’
‘Because the dogs won’t touch her,’ Tekil said, ‘and because Kjartan believes she has the gift of prophecy. She told him the dead swordsman would kill him, and he half believes her.’
‘The dead swordsman will kill Kjartan,’ I said, ‘and tomorrow he will kill you.’
He accepted that fate. ‘The hazel rods?’
‘Yes.’
‘And a sword in my hand?’
‘In both hands, if you want,’ I said, ‘because the dead swordsman will kill you all the same.’
He nodded, then closed his eyes and leaned against the wall again. ‘Sihtric,’ he told me, ‘is Kjartan’s son.’
Sihtric was the boy who had been captured with Tekil. ‘He’s Sven’s brother?’ I asked.
‘His half-brother. Sihtric’s mother was a Saxon slave girl. Kjartan gave her to the dogs when he believed she tried to poison him. Maybe she did or maybe he just had a pain in his belly. But whatever it was he fed her to his dogs and she died. He let Sihtric live because he’s my servant and I pleaded for him. He’s a good boy. You’d do well to let him live.’
‘But I need eight heads,’ I reminded him.
‘Yes,’ he said tiredly, ‘you do.’ Fate is inexorable.
Abbot Eadred wanted the four men hanged. Or drowned. Or strangled. He wanted them dead, dishonoured and forgotten. ‘They assaulted our king!’ he declared vehemently. ‘And they must suffer a vile death, a vile death!’ He kept repeating those words with a rare relish, and I just shrugged and said I had promised Tekil an honourable death, one that would send him to Valhalla instead of to Niflheim, and Eadred stared at my hammer amulet and screeched that in Haliwerfolkland there could be no mercy for men who attacked Cuthbert’s chosen one.
We were arguing on the slope just beneath the new church and the four prisoners, all in shackles or ropes, were sitting on the ground, guarded by Guthred’s household troops, and many of the folk from the town were there, waiting for Guthred’s decision. Eadred was haranguing the king, saying that a show of weakness would undermine Guthred’s authority. The churchmen agreed with the abbot, which was no surprise, and chief amongst his supporters were two newly-arrived monks who had walked across the hills from eastern Northumbria. They were named Jænberht and Ida, both were in their twenties and both owed obedience to Eadred. They had evidently been across the hills on some mission for the abbot, but now they were back in Cair Ligualid and they were vehement that the prisoners should die ignominiously and painfully. ‘Burn them!’ Jænberht urged, ‘as the pagans burned so many of the holy saints! Roast them over the flames of hell!’
‘Hang them!’ Abbot Eadred insisted.
I could sense, even if Eadred could not, that the Cumbraland Danes who had joined Guthred were taking offence at the priests’ vehemence, so I took the king aside. ‘You think you can stay king without the Danes?’ I asked him.
‘Of course not.’
‘But if you torture fellow Danes to death they’ll not like it. They’ll think you favour the Saxons over them.’
Guthred looked troubled. He owed his throne to Eadred and would not keep it if the abbot deserted him, but nor would he keep it if he lost the support of Cumbraland’s Danes. ‘What would Alfred do?’ he asked me.
‘He’d pray,’ I said, ‘and he’d have all his monks and priests praying, but in the end he would do whatever is necessary to keep his kingdom intact.’ Guthred just stared at me. ‘Whatever is necessary,’ I repeated slowly.
Guthred nodded, then, frowning, he walked back to Eadred. ‘In a day or two,’ Guthred said loudly enough for most of the crowd to hear him, ‘we shall march eastwards. We shall cross the hills and carry our blessed saint to a new home in a holy land. We shall overcome our enemies, whoever they are, and we shall establish a new kingdom.’ He was speaking in Danish, but his words were being translated into English by three or four folk. ‘This will happen,’ he said, speaking more strongly now, ‘because my friend Abbot Eadred was given a dream sent by God and by the holy Saint Cuthbert, and when we leave here to cross the hills we shall go with God’s blessing and with Saint Cuthbert’s aid, and we shall make a better kingdom, a hallowed kingdom which will be guarded by the magic of Christianity.’ Eadred frowned at the word magic, but did not protest. Guthred’s grasp of his new religion was still sketchy, but he was mostly saying what Eadred wanted to hear. ‘And we shall have a kingdom of justice!’ Guthred said very loudly. ‘A kingdom in which all men will have faith in God and the king, but in which not every man worships the same god.’ They were all listening now, listening closely, and Jænberht and Ida half reared as if to protest Guthred’s last proposal, but Guthred kept speaking, ‘and I will not be king of a land in which I force on men the customs of other men, and it is the custom of these men,’ he gestured at Tekil and his companions, ‘to die with a sword in their hands, and so they shall. And God will have mercy on their souls.’
There was silence. Guthred turned to Eadred and spoke much lower. ‘There are some folk,’ he said in English, ‘who do not think we can beat the Danes in a fight. So let them see it done now.’
Eadred stiffened, then forced himself to nod. ‘As you command, lord King,’ he said.
And so the hazel branches were fetched.
The Danes understand the rules of a fight inside an area marked by stripped branches of hazel. It is a fight from which only one man can emerge alive, and if either man flees the hazel-marked space then he can be killed by anyone. He has become a nothing. Guthred wanted to fight Tekil himself, but I sensed he was only making the suggestion because it was expected of him and he did not really want to face a seasoned warrior. Besides, I was in no mood to be denied. ‘I’ll do them all,’ I said, and he did not argue.
I am old now. So old. I lose count of how old sometimes, but it must be eighty years since my mother died giving birth to me, and few men live that long, and very few who stand in the shield wall live half that many years. I see folk watching me, expecting me to die, and doubtless I will oblige them soon. They drop their voices when they are near me in case they disturb me, and that is an annoyance for I do not hear as well as I did, and I do not see as well as I did, and I piss all night and my bones are stiff and my old wounds ache and each dusk, when I lie down, I make certain that Serpent-Breath or another of my swords is beside the bed so that I can grip the hilt if death comes for me. And in the darkness, as I listen to the sea beat on the sand and the wind fret at the thatch, I remember what it was like to be young and tall and strong and fast. And arrogant.
I was all those things. I was Uhtred, killer of Ubba, and in 878, the year that Alfred defeated Guthrum and the year in which Guthred came to the throne of Northumbria, I was just twenty-one and m
y name was known wherever men sharpened swords. I was a warrior. A sword warrior, and I was proud of it. Tekil knew it. He was good, he had fought a score of battles, but when he stepped across the hazel branch he knew he was dead.
I will not say I was not nervous. Men have looked at me on battlefields across the island of Britain and they wondered that I had no fear, but of course I had fear. We all have fear. It crawls inside you like a beast, it claws at your guts, it weakens your muscles, it tries to loosen your bowels and it wants you to cringe and weep, but fear must be thrust away and craft must be loosed, and savagery will see you through, and though many men have tried to kill me and so earn the boast that they killed Uhtred, so far that savagery has let me survive and now, I think, I am too old to die in battle and so will dribble away to nothingness instead. Wyrd bi∂ ful aræd, we say, and it is true. Fate is inexorable.
Tekil’s fate was to die. He fought with sword and shield, and I had given him back his mail and, so that no man would say I had an advantage over him, I fought without any armour at all. No shield either. I was arrogant, and I was conscious that Gisela was watching, and in my head I dedicated Tekil’s death to her. It took scarcely a moment, despite my limp. I have had that slight limp ever since the spear thrust into my right thigh at Ethandun, but the limp did not slow me. Tekil came at me in a rush, hoping to beat me down with his shield and then hack me with his sword, but I turned him neatly and then I kept moving. That is the secret of winning a sword fight. Keep moving. Dance. In the shield wall a man cannot move, only lunge and beat and hack and keep the shield high, but inside the hazel boughs litheness means life. Make the other man respond and keep him off balance, and Tekil was slow because he was in mail and I was unarmoured, but even in armour I was fast and he had no chance of matching my speed. He came at me again, and I let him pass me by, then made his death swift. He was turning to face me, but I moved faster and Serpent-Breath took the back of his neck, just above the edge of his mail and, because he had no helmet, the blade broke through his spine and he collapsed in the dust. I killed him quickly and he went to the corpse-hall where one day he will greet me.