And he came next morning.
The Northmen came from the forest’s edge in six great streams. They still lacked sufficient horses, so many of them came on foot, but they all came in mail and helmeted, carrying shields and weapons, emerging from the far trees beneath their banners that showed eagles and axes, dragons and ravens, ships and thunderbolts. Some flags showed the Christian cross, and those, I assumed, were Conall’s Irishmen, while one banner was Haesten’s simple emblem of a human skull held aloft on a pole. The biggest flag was Ragnall’s blood-red axe that flew in the strong wind above a group of mounted men who advanced ahead of the great horde, which slowly shook itself into a massive battle line that faced Ceaster’s eastern ramparts. A horn sounded three times from the enemy ranks as if they thought we had somehow not noticed their coming.
Finan had returned ahead of the enemy, warning me that he had seen movement in the forest, and now he joined me and my son on the ramparts and looked at the vast army, which had emerged from the distant trees and faced us across half a mile of open land. ‘No ladders,’ he said.
‘Not that I can see.’
‘The heathen are mighty!’ Father Leofstan had also come to the ramparts and called to us from some paces away. ‘Yet shall we prevail! Is that not right, Lord Uhtred?’
I ignored him. ‘No ladders,’ I said to Finan, ‘so this isn’t an attack.’
‘It’s impressive though,’ my son said, staring at the vast army. He turned as a small voice squeaked from the steps leading up to the ramparts. It was Father Leofstan’s wife, or at least it was a bundle of cloaks, robes, and hoods that resembled the bundle he had arrived with.
‘Gomer dearest!’ Father Leofstan cried, and hurried to help the bundle up the steep stairs. ‘Careful, my cherub, careful!’
‘He married a gnome,’ my son said.
I laughed. Father Leofstan was so tall, and the bundle was so small and, swathed in robes as she was, she did resemble a plump little gnome. She reached out a hand and her husband helped her up the last of the worn steps. She squeaked in relief when she reached the top, then gasped as she saw Ragnall’s army that was now advancing through the Roman cemetery. She stood close beside her husband, her head scarcely reaching his waist, and she clutched his priestly robe as if fearing she might topple off the wall’s top. I tried to see her face, but it was too deeply shadowed by her big hood. ‘Are they the pagans?’ she asked in a small voice.
‘Have faith, my darling,’ Father Leofstan said cheerfully, ‘God has sent us Lord Uhtred, and God will vouchsafe us victory.’ He raised his broad face to the sky and lifted his hands, ‘pour out Thy fury upon the heathen, oh Lord!’ he prayed, ‘vex them with Thy wrath and smite them with Thine anger!’
‘Amen,’ his wife squeaked.
‘Poor little thing,’ Finan said quietly as he looked at her. ‘She’s got to be ugly as a toad under all those clothes. He’s probably relieved he doesn’t have to plough her.’
‘Maybe she’s relieved,’ I said.
‘Or maybe she’s a beauty,’ my son said wistfully.
‘Two silver shillings says she’s a toad,’ Finan said.
‘Done!’ My son held out his hand to seal the wager.
‘Don’t be such damned fools,’ I snarled. ‘I have enough trouble with your damned church without either of you plugging the bishop’s wife.’
‘His gnome, you mean,’ my son said.
‘Just keep your dirty hands to yourself,’ I ordered him, then turned to see eleven riders spurring ahead of the massive shield wall. They came under three banners and were riding towards our ramparts. ‘It’s time to go,’ I said.
Time to meet the enemy.
Four
Our horses were waiting in the street where Godric, my servant, carried my fine wolf-crested helmet, a newly painted shield, and my bearskin cloak. My standard-bearer shook out the great banner of the wolf’s head as I heaved myself into the saddle. I was riding Tintreg, a new night-black stallion, huge and savage. His name meant Torment, and he had been a gift from my old friend Steapa who had been commander of King Edward’s household troops until he had retired to his lands in Wiltunscir. Tintreg, like Steapa, was battle-trained and bad-tempered. I liked him.
Æthelflaed was already waiting at the north gate. She was mounted on Gast, her white mare, and wearing her polished mail beneath a snow-white cloak. Merewalh, Osferth and Cynlæf were with her, as was Father Fraomar, her confessor and chaplain. ‘How many men are coming from the pagans?’ Æthelflaed asked me.
‘Eleven.’
‘Bring one more man,’ she ordered Merewalh. That added man, with her standard-bearer and mine, and with my son and Finan as my companions, would make the same number as Ragnall brought towards us.
‘Bring Prince Æthelstan!’ I told Merewalh.
Merewalh looked at Æthelflaed, who nodded assent. ‘But tell him to hurry!’ she added curtly.
‘Make the bastards wait,’ I growled, a comment Æthelflaed ignored.
Æthelstan was already dressed for battle in mail and helmet, so the only delay was as his horse was saddled. He grinned at me as he mounted, then gave his aunt a respectful bow. ‘Thank you, my lady!’
‘Just keep silent,’ Æthelflaed ordered him, then raised her voice. ‘Open the gates!’
The huge gates creaked and squealed and scraped as they were pushed outwards. Men were still pounding up the stone steps to the ramparts as our two standard-bearers led the way through the arch’s long tunnel. Æthelflaed’s cross-holding goose and my wolf’s head were the two banners that were lifted to a weak spring sunlight as we clattered over the bridge that crossed the flooded ditch. Then we spurred towards Ragnall and his men, who had reined in some three hundred yards away.
‘You don’t need to be here,’ I told Æthelflaed.
‘Why not?’
‘Because it will be nothing but insults.’
‘You think I’m afraid of words?’
‘I think he’ll insult you and try to offend you, and his victory will be your anger.’
‘Our scripture teaches us that a fool is full of words!’ Father Fraomar said. He was a pleasant enough young man and intensely loyal to Æthelflaed. ‘So let the wretch speak and betray his foolishness.’
I turned in my saddle to look at Ceaster’s walls. They were thick with men, the sun glinting from spear-points along the whole length of the ramparts. The ditch had been cleared and newly planted with sharpened stakes, and the walls were hung with banners, most of them showing Christian saints. The defences, I thought, looked formidable. ‘If he tries to attack the city,’ I said, ‘then he is a fool.’
‘Then why is he here?’ Æthelflaed asked.
‘This morning? To scare us, insult us, and provoke us.’
‘I want to see him,’ she said. ‘I want to see what kind of man he is.’
‘He’s a dangerous one,’ I said, and I wondered how many times I had ridden in my war-glory to meet an enemy before battle. It was a ritual. To my mind the ritual meant nothing and it changed nothing and it decided nothing, but Æthelflaed was evidently curious about her enemy, and so we indulged Ragnall by riding to endure his insults.
We halted a few paces from the Northmen. They carried three standards. Ragnall’s red axe was the largest, and it was flanked by a banner showing a ship sailing through a sea of blood and by Haesten’s bare skull on its tall pole. Haesten sat on his horse beneath the skull, and he grinned at me as if we were old friends. He looked old, but I suppose I did too. His helmet was decorated with silver and had a pair of raven’s wings mounted on its crown. He was plainly enjoying himself, unlike the man whose banner showed a ship in a sea of blood. He was also an older man, thin-faced and grey-bearded, with a scar slashing across one cheek. He wore a fine helmet that framed his face and was crested with a long black horse’s tail, which cascaded down his back. The helmet was circled by a ring of gold, a king’s helmet. He wore a cross above his mail, a gold cross studded with amber, showing that h
e was the only Christian among the enemies who faced us, but what distinguished him that morning was the murderous gaze directed at Finan. I glanced at Finan and saw the Irishman’s face was also taut with anger. So the man in the gold-ringed horsetail helmet, I thought, had to be Conall, Finan’s brother. You could feel the mutual hatred. One word from either, I reckoned, and swords would be drawn.
‘Dwarves!’ the silence was broken by the hulking man beneath the flag of the red axe, who kicked his big stallion one pace forward.
So this was Ragnall Ivarson, the Sea King, Lord of the Islands and would-be King of Britain. He wore leather trews tucked into tall boots that were plated with gold badges, the same golden plaques that studded his sword belt, from which hung a monstrous blade. He wore neither mail nor helmet, instead his bare chest was crossed by two leather straps beneath which his muscles bulged. His chest was hairy, and under the hair were ink marks; eagles, serpents, dragons, and axes that writhed from his belly to his neck, around which was twisted a chain of gold. His arms were thick with the silver and gold rings of conquest, while his long hair, dark brown, was threaded with gold rings. His face was broad, hard and grim, and across his forehead was an inked eagle, its wings spread and its talons needle-written onto his cheekbones. ‘Dwarves,’ he sneered again, ‘have you come to surrender your city?’
‘You have something to tell us?’ Æthelflaed asked in Danish.
‘Is that a woman in mail?’ Ragnall addressed the question to me, perhaps because I was the biggest man in our party, or else because my battle finery was the most elaborate. ‘I have seen many things,’ he told me in a conversational tone. ‘I have seen the strange lights glitter in the northern sky, I have seen ships swallowed by whirlpools, I have seen ice the size of mountains floating in the sea, I have watched whales break a ship in two, and seen fire spill from a hillside like vomit, but I have never seen a woman in mail. Is that the creature who is said to rule Mercia?’
‘The Lady Æthelflaed asked you a question,’ I said.
Ragnall stared at her, lifted himself a hand’s breadth from the saddle, and let out a loud and long fart. ‘She’s answered,’ he said, evidently amused as he settled back. Æthelflaed must have shown some distaste because he laughed at her. ‘They told us,’ he looked back to me, ‘that the ruler of Mercia was a pretty woman. Is that her grandmother?’
‘She’s the woman who will grant you a grave’s length of her land,’ I said. It was a feeble answer, but I did not want to match insult with insult. I was too aware of the hatred between Finan and Conall, and feared that it could break into a fight.
‘So it is the woman ruler!’ Ragnall sneered. He shuddered, pretending horror. ‘And so ugly!’
‘I hear that no pig, goat, or dog is safe from you,’ I said, provoked to anger, ‘so what would you know of beauty?’
He ignored that. ‘Ugly!’ he said again. ‘But I command men who don’t care what a woman looks like, and they tell me that an old worn boot is more comfortable than a new one.’ He nodded at Æthelflaed. ‘And she looks old and worn, so think how they’ll enjoy using her! Maybe she’ll enjoy it too?’ He looked at me as if expecting an answer.
‘You made more sense when you farted,’ I said.
‘And you must be the Lord Uhtred,’ he said, ‘the fabled Lord Uhtred!’ He shuddered suddenly. ‘You killed one of my men, Lord Uhtred.’
‘The first of many.’
‘Othere Hardgerson,’ he said the name slowly. ‘I shall revenge him.’
‘You’ll follow him to a grave,’ I said.
He shook his head, making the gold rings in his hair clink softly together. ‘I liked Othere Hardgerson. He played dice well and could hold his drink.’
‘He had no sword-craft,’ I said, ‘maybe he learned from you?’
‘A month from now, Lord Uhtred, I shall be drinking Mercian ale from a cup fashioned from your skull. My wives will use your long bones to stir their stew, and my babes will play knucklebones with your toes.’
‘Your brother made the same kind of boasts,’ I responded, ‘and the blood of his men still stains our streets. I fed his right eye to my dogs, and the taste of it made them vomit.’
‘But he still took your daughter,’ Ragnall said slyly.
‘Even the pigs won’t eat your rancid flesh,’ I said.
‘And a pretty daughter she is too,’ he said musingly, ‘too good for Sigtryggr!’
‘We shall burn your body,’ I said, ‘what’s left of it, and the stench of the smoke will make the gods turn away in disgust.’
He laughed at that. ‘The gods love my stench,’ he said, ‘they revel in it! The gods love me! And the gods have given me this land. So,’ he nodded towards the walls of Ceaster, ‘who commands in that place?’
‘The Lady Æthelflaed commands,’ I said.
Ragnall looked left and right at his followers. ‘Lord Uhtred amuses us! He claims that a woman commands warriors!’ His men dutifully laughed, all except for Conall who still stared malevolently at his brother. Ragnall looked back to me. ‘Do you all squat when you piss?’
‘If he has nothing useful to say,’ Æthelflaed’s voice was filled with anger, ‘then we shall return to the city.’ She wrenched Gast’s reins unnecessarily hard.
‘Running away?’ Ragnall jeered. ‘And I brought you a gift, lady. A gift and a promise.’
‘A promise?’ I asked. Æthelflaed had turned her mare back and was listening.
‘Leave the city by dusk tomorrow,’ Ragnall said, ‘and I shall be merciful. I shall spare your miserable lives.’
‘And if we don’t?’ Æthelstan asked the question. His voice was defiant and earned him an angry glance from Æthelflaed.
‘The puppy barks,’ Ragnall said. ‘If you don’t leave the city, little boy, then my men will cross your walls like a storm-driven wave. Your young women will be my pleasure, your children shall be my slaves, and your weapons my playthings. Your corpses will rot, your churches will burn, and your widows weep.’ He paused and gestured at his standard. ‘You can take that flag,’ he was talking to me, ‘and display it above the city. Then I shall know you’re leaving.’
‘I shall take your banner anyway,’ I said, ‘and use it to wipe my arse.’
‘It will be easier,’ he spoke to me now as if he addressed a small child, ‘if you just leave. Go to another town! I shall find you there anyway, worry not, but you’ll live a little longer.’
‘Come to us tomorrow,’ I said in the same tone of voice, ‘try to cross our walls, be our guests, and your lives will be a little shorter.’
He chuckled. ‘I shall take a delight in killing you, Lord Uhtred. My poets will sing of it! How Ragnall, Lord of the Sea and King of all Britain, made the great Lord Uhtred whimper like a child! How Uhtred died begging for mercy. How he cried as I gutted him.’ The last few words were spoken with sudden vehemence, but then he smiled again. ‘I almost forgot the gift!’ He beckoned to one of his men and pointed to the grass between our horses. ‘Put it there.’
The man dismounted and brought a wooden chest that he laid on the grass. The chest was square, about the size of a cooking cauldron, and decorated with painted carvings. The lid was a picture of the crucifixion, while the sides showed men with haloes about their heads, and I recognised the chest as one that had probably held a Christian gospel book or else one of the relics that Christians so revered. ‘That is my gift to you,’ Ragnall said, ‘and it comes with my promise that if you are not gone by tomorrow’s dusk then you will stay here for ever as ashes, as bones, and as raven food.’ He turned his horse abruptly and savaged it with his spurs. I felt relief as Conall, grey-bearded, dark-eyed King Conall, turned and followed.
Haesten paused a moment. He had said nothing. He looked so old to me, but then he was old. His hair was grey, his beard was grey, but his face still held a sly humour. I had known him since he was a young man, and I had trusted him at first, only to discover that he broke oaths as easily as a child breaks eggs. He had tried
to make himself a king in Britain and I had thwarted every attempt until, at Beamfleot, I had destroyed his last army. He looked prosperous now, gold-hung, his mail bright, his bridle studded with gold, and his brown cloak edged with thick fur, but he had become a client to Ragnall, and where he had once led thousands he now commanded only scores of men. He had to hate me, yet he smiled at me as though he believed I would be glad to see him. I glared at him, despising him, and he seemed surprised by that. I thought, for a heartbeat, that he would speak, but then he pulled on his reins and spurred after Ragnall’s horsemen.
‘Open it,’ Æthelflaed commanded Cynlæf, who slid from his horse and walked to the gospel box. He stooped, lifted the lid and recoiled.
The box held Beadwulf’s head. I gazed down at it. His eyes had been gouged out, his tongue torn from his mouth, and his ears cut off. ‘The bastard,’ my son hissed.
Ragnall reached his shield wall. He must have shouted an order because the tight ranks dissolved and the spearmen went back towards the trees.
‘Tomorrow,’ I announced loudly, ‘we ride to Eads Byrig.’
‘And die in the forest?’ Merewalh asked anxiously.
‘But you said …’ Æthelflaed began.
‘Tomorrow,’ I cut her off harshly, ‘we ride to Eads Byrig.’
Tomorrow.
The night was calm and moonlit. Silver touched the land. The rainy weather had gone eastwards and the sky was bright with stars. A small wind came from the far sea, but it had no malice.
I was on Ceaster’s ramparts, gazing north and east and praying that my gods would tell me what Ragnall was doing. I thought I knew, but doubts always creep in, and so I looked for an omen. The sentinels had edged aside to give me space. All was quiet in the town behind me, though earlier I had heard a fight break out in one of the streets. It had not lasted long. It had doubtless been two drunks fighting and then being pulled apart before either could kill the other, and now Ceaster was quiet and I heard nothing except the small wind across the roofs, a cry of a child in its sleep, a dog whining, the scrape of feet on the ramparts, and a spear butt knocking on stone. None of those was a sign from the gods. I wanted to see a star die, blazing in its bright death across the darkness high overhead, but the stars stayed stubbornly alive.