The Pagan Lord

Five

There will be an end to the killing.

That is what I told myself as I rode towards Bebbanburg, towards my home. There will be an end to the killing. I would slaughter my way into the fortress, then close its gates and let the world squabble its way to chaos and back, but I would be at peace inside those high wooden walls. I would let the Christians and pagans, Saxons and Danes fight each other till there was not one left standing, but inside Bebbanburg I would live like a king and persuade Æthelflaed to be my queen. Merchants travelling the coast road would pay us taxes, ships passing would pay for the privilege, and the coins would pile up and we would let life slip by.

When hell freezes over.

Father Pyrlig was fond of that saying. I missed Pyrlig. He was one of the good Christians, even though he was a Welshman, and after Alfred’s death he had returned to Wales where, for all I knew, he still lived. He had been a warrior once, and I thought how he would have relished this impudent attack. Nine men against Bebbanburg. I did not count Blekulf, the owner of Reinbôge, though he walked with us. I had given him the choice of staying beside his beloved and beleaguered ship, but he feared the villagers and feared for his son and so he walked behind the horses.

Nine men. My son was one. Then there was Osferth, faithful Osferth who would have been a king had his mother been married to his father. I often thought Osferth disapproved of me, just as his father Alfred had, but he had stayed loyal when so many others had scurried away in fear. There was one other Saxon. Swithun was a West Saxon, named for one of their favourite saints, though this Swithun was anything but saintly. He was a tall, cheerful, quick-tempered young man with a mass of fair hair, innocent blue eyes, a ready laugh, and the swift fingers of a thief. He had been brought to me for justice by villagers tired of his crimes. They wanted me to brand him, maybe cut off a hand, but he had challenged me to fight instead and, amused, I gave him a sword. He was easy to beat, because he was untrained, but he had been strong and almost as fast as Finan, and I had pardoned his crimes on condition he swore loyalty and became my man. I liked him.

Rolla was a Dane. He was tall, sinewy and scarred. He had served another lord, one he never named, and he had fled that service, breaking his oath, because the lord had sworn to kill him. ‘What did you do?’ I asked him when he came and begged to give me his oath.

‘His wife,’ he said.

‘Not a clever thing to do,’ I had said.

‘But enjoyable.’

He was weasel-fast in a fight, vicious and merciless, a man who had seen horrors and become accustomed to them. He worshipped the old gods, but had taken himself a plump little Christian wife who was with Sigunn in Lundene. Rolla frightened most of my men, but they admired him, and none more than Eldgrim, a young Dane whom I’d discovered drunk and naked in a Lundene alley. He had been robbed and beaten. He had a roundly innocent face and thick brown curls, and women adored him, but he was inseparable from Kettil, the third Dane who rode with me that day. Kettil, like Eldgrim, was perhaps eighteen or nineteen and thin as a harp string. He looked fragile, but that was deceptive because he was quick in a fight and strong behind a shield. A handful of my more foolish men had mocked Kettil and Eldgrim for their friendship, which went far beyond mere liking, but I had placed the hazel rods in Fagranforda’s yard and incited the mockers to fight either of them, sword on sword, and the hazel rods had gone unused and the mockery had died.

Two Frisians rode from Bedehal to Bebbanburg. Folcbald was slow as an ox, but stubborn as a mule. Put Folcbald behind a shield and he was immovable. He was hugely strong and very slow of wit, but he was loyal and worth any two other men in a shield wall. Wibrund, his cousin, was excitable, easily bored and quarrelsome, but he was useful in a fight and unwearying behind an oar.

So we nine, accompanied by Blekulf, went to Bebbanburg. We followed the track that led north from Bedehal, and to our right were sand dunes while to our left was soggy farmland stretching to the dark inland hills. The rain was heavier, though the wind was dying. Osferth spurred his horse to ride beside me. He was wearing a heavy black cloak with a hood that concealed his face, but I saw the wry smile he offered me. ‘You promised life would be interesting,’ he said.

‘I did?’

‘All those years ago,’ he said, ‘when you rescued me from the priesthood.’ His father had wanted his bastard son made into a priest, but Osferth had chosen the way of the warrior.

‘You could finish your training,’ I suggested, ‘I’m sure they’d make you into one of their wizards.’

‘They’re not wizards,’ he said patiently.

I grinned; it was always so easy to tease Osferth. ‘You’d have been a good priest,’ I told him, no longer teasing, ‘and probably a bishop by now.’

He shook his head. ‘No, perhaps an abbot, though?’ He grimaced. ‘An abbot of some remote monastery, trying to grow wheat in a swamp and saying prayers.’

‘Of course you’d be a bishop,’ I said savagely, ‘your father was a king!’

He shook his head more forcibly. ‘I am my father’s sin. He would have wanted me far out of the way, hidden in that swamp where no one could see his sin.’ He made the sign of the cross. ‘I’m the child of sin, lord, and that means I’m doomed.’

‘I’ve heard madmen make more sense than you,’ I said. ‘How can you worship a god who condemns you for your father’s sin?’

‘We can’t choose gods,’ he said gently, ‘there is only one.’

That is such nonsense! How can one god look after the whole world? One god for every plover, kingfisher, otter, wren, fox, lapwing, deer, horse, mountain, spinney, perch, swallow, weasel, willow or sparrow? One god for every stream, every river, every beast or every man? I had said as much to Father Beocca once. Poor Father Beocca, dead now, but like Pyrlig, another good priest. ‘You don’t understand! You don’t understand!’ he had answered excitedly. ‘God has a whole army of angels to take care of the world! There are seraphim, cherubim, principalities, powers and dominions all around us!’ He had waved a crippled hand. ‘There are unseen angels, Uhtred, all about us! God’s winged servants watch over us. They even see the smallest sparrow fall!’

‘And what do the angels do about the falling sparrow?’ I had asked him, but Beocca had no answer to that.

I hoped the low dark clouds and beating rain would hide Bebbanburg from any watching angels. My uncle and cousin were Christians, so the angels might protect them, if such magical winged creatures even exist. Perhaps they do. I believe in the Christian god, but I do not believe he is the only god. He is a jealous, sullen, solitary creature who hates the other gods and conspires against them. Sometimes, when I think about him, I see him as being like Alfred, except Alfred had some decency and kindness, but Alfred never stopped working or thinking or worrying. The Christian god also never stops working and planning. My gods like to loll in the feasting-hall or take their goddesses to bed, they are drunk, dissolute and happy, and while they feast and fornicate, the Christian god is capturing the world.

A gull flew across our path and I tried to judge whether its flight was a good or a bad omen. Osferth would have denied any omen, but he was deep in gloom. He believed that because he was a bastard he was beyond his wretched god’s salvation, and that the curse would last through ten generations. He believed it because the Christian’s holy book preached it. ‘You’re thinking about death,’ I accused him.

‘Every day,’ he said, ‘but today more than most.’

‘You have omens?’

‘Fears, lord,’ he said, ‘just fears.’

‘Fears?’

He laughed grimly. ‘Look at us! Nine men!’

‘And Finan’s men,’ I said.

‘If he gets ashore,’ Osferth said pessimistically.

‘He will,’ I said.

‘Perhaps it’s just the weather,’ Osferth said. ‘It’s hardly cheerful.’

But the weather was on our side. Men keeping watch from a fortress grow bored. Standing guard is to endure day after day after yet another day of little happening, of the same coming and goings, and a man’s senses grow dull under the weight of such a routine. It is worse at night, or in foul weather. This rain would make Bebbanburg’s sentinels miserable, and cold wet men make bad sentries.

The road dropped slightly. To my left were stacks of hay piled in a small pasture and I noted with approval the thick layer of bracken beneath each stack. My father used to get angry with the ceorls who did not use enough bracken beneath their haystacks. ‘You want rats, you fart-brained idiots?’ he would shout at them. ‘You want the hay to rot? You want silage instead of hay? Do you know nothing, you piss-for-brains fools?’ In truth he knew little about farming himself, but he did know that a foundation of bracken stopped the damp rising and deterred the rats, and he enjoyed displaying that small scrap of knowledge. I smiled at the memory. Perhaps, when I ruled again from Bebbanburg, I could afford to get angry about haycocks. A small black and white dog barked from a hovel, then ran at the horses who, evidently accustomed to the animal, ignored it. A man put his head through the hovel’s low opening and snarled at the dog to be silent, then bowed his head in acknowledgement of our presence. The road climbed again, only a few feet, but as we reached the crest there, suddenly, was Bebbanburg.

Ida, my ancestor, had sailed from Frisia. Family lore said he brought three boats of hungry warriors, and he had landed somewhere on this wild coast and the natives retreated to a wooden-walled fort built atop the long rock that lay between the bay and the sea, and that was the rock that became Bebbanburg. Ida, who was called the Flamebearer, burned their wooden wall and slaughtered them all, soaking the rock in blood. He piled their skulls to face the land as a warning to others what would happen if they dared attack the new fortress he made on the bloody rock. He had captured it, he kept it, and he ruled all the land within a day’s hard riding from its new high walls, and his kingdom was called Bernicia. His grandson, King Æthelfrith, scourged all of northern Britain, driving the natives to the wild hills, and he took a wife, Bebba, after whom his great fortress was named.

And now it was mine. We no longer had a kingdom, because Bernicia, like other small kingdoms, had been swallowed into Northumbria, but we still had Bebba’s great fortress. Or rather Ælfric held the fortress, and on that cold, grey, dark, wet morning I rode to retake it.

It loomed, or perhaps that was my imagination because the image of the fortress had been in my heart since the day I left it. The rock on which Bebbanburg is built runs as a ridge north and south, so from the south it does not look vast. Closest to us was the outer wall made of great oak trunks, but where the wall was most vulnerable, in places where dips in the rock allowed men to get close, the lower portion had been remade in stone. That was new since my father’s day. The Low Gate was an arch with a fighting platform above, and that gate was Bebbanburg’s best defence because it could only be approached along a narrow path that followed the sandy spit from the mainland. The spit was wide enough, but then the dark rock erupted from the sand and the path became narrow as it climbed to that massive gateway, which was still decorated with men’s skulls. I do not know if they are the same skulls that Ida the Flamebearer had flensed of flesh in a cauldron of boiling water, but they were certainly ancient and they bared their yellow teeth in a warning to would-be attackers. The Low Gate was Bebbanburg’s most vulnerable place, but it was still daunting. Hold that Low Gate and Bebbanburg was safe unless men landed from the sea to assault the higher walls, and that was a daunting prospect because the rock was steep and the walls high, and the defenders could rain spears, boulders and arrows down onto the attackers.

Yet even if an assault took the Low Gate they would still not have captured the fortress because that skull-hung arch led only to the lower courtyard. I could see the roofs above the wall. There were stables, storerooms and the smithy in that lower courtyard. Dark smoke came from the smithy, blowing inland with the rain-heavy wind. Beyond it the rock loomed again, and on its summit was the inner wall, higher than the outer, reinforced with great stone blocks and pierced by another formidable gateway. Beyond that High Gate was the fortress proper where the great hall was built and where more smoke showed above the hall roof over which the banner of my family flew. The wolf standard flapped sullen in that wet wind. That banner made me angry. It was my standard, my emblem, and my enemy was flying it, but I was the wolf that day and I had come back to my lair.

‘Slouch!’ I told my men.

We must ride like tired, bored men, and so we slumped in our saddles, letting the slow horses find their own way on a path they knew better than any of us. I knew it, though. I had spent my first ten years here and I knew the path and the rock and the beach and the harbour and the village. The fortress reared above us, and to its left was the wide and shallow sea-lake that was Bebbanburg’s harbour. That harbour was entered by a channel north of the fortress, and, once inside, a boat had to take care not to be stranded. I could see Middelniht now. There were a half-dozen smaller boats, fishing craft, and two ships as large or larger than Middelniht, though none of those boats appeared to have any crew aboard. Finan would have seen us by now.

Beyond the harbour, where the hills rose, was the small village where fishermen and farmers lived. There was a tavern there, and another smithy, and a shingle beach where fires smoked beneath racks of drying fish. As a small child I had been given the job of chasing the gulls away from the fish-racks, and I could see children there now. I smiled, because this was home, and then stopped smiling because the fortress was close now. The path divided, one branch going west to circle the lower harbour to reach the village, the other climbing towards the Low Gate.

And that gate was open. They suspected nothing. I guessed the gate was always open in daylight, just like a town gate. The sentries would have plenty of time to see an approaching threat and close the massive gates, but all they saw on that wet morning was what they expected to see and so none of them moved from the high fighting platform.

Finan and three men jumped off the Middelniht’s bow and started wading to the shore. So far as I could see they had no weapons, though that did not matter as we all carried our own and the ones we had captured. I assumed, rightly, that Finan had been told how many men could come ashore at any time, and that such men must be unarmed. I wished for more than four, because now we were thirteen, not counting Blekulf, and thirteen is a bad omen. Everyone knows that, and even the Christians allow that thirteen is bad. The Christians claim that thirteen is unlucky because Judas was the thirteenth guest at the last supper, but the real reason is that Loki, the malevolent murdering trickster god, is the thirteenth deity in Asgard.

‘Folcbald!’ I called.

‘Lord?’

‘When we reach the gate you’re to stay under the arch with Blekulf.’

‘I’m to stay …’ He did not understand. He expected to fight and I was telling him to stay behind. ‘You want me to …’

‘I want you to stay with Blekulf!’ I interrupted him. ‘Keep him under the arch until I tell you to join us.’

‘Yes, lord,’ he said. Now we were twelve.

Finan was ignoring me. He was some fifty paces away, trudging slowly towards the fortress. We were closer to the Low Gate, much closer, and our horses began to climb the shallow slope and the vast skull-hung arch was looming now. I kept my head down and let my stallion amble. Someone called something from the gatehouse summit, but the wind and rain snatched the words away. It sounded like a greeting and I just waved a tired hand in answer. We left the sandy track and the hooves clattered on the path that had been cut through the dark rock. The hoofbeats sounded loud, like a great war-rhythm. Still the horses ambled and I slouched in the saddle and kept my head low and then the gloom of the day was suddenly darker still and the rain no longer beat on my hooded cloak and I glanced up to see that we were in the gate tunnel.

I was home.

I was carrying Cenwalh’s sword concealed beneath the heavy cloak, but now I let it drop so that Finan would have a weapon. My men did the same, the weapons falling loud on the stone roadway. My horse shied from the sound, but I caught him and ducked my head beneath the heavy wooden beam that formed the inner arch.

The Low Gate had been left open, but that made sense because there would be constant coming and going in the daytime. A heap of baskets and woven bags lay just inside the gate, left there for the villagers who brought fish or bread to the fortress. The gate would be closed at dusk, and guarded day and night, but the High Gate, Cenwalh had told me, was kept closed. And that made sense too. An enemy could capture the Low Gate and all the courtyard beyond, but unless he could take the High Gate and its formidable stone-reinforced rampart he would still be no nearer to capturing Bebbanburg.

And as I rode out from beneath the inner arch I saw that the High Gate was open.

For a heartbeat I did not believe what I saw. I had expected a frantic and sudden fight to capture that gate, but it was open! There were guards on the platform above it, but none in the archway itself. I felt I was in a dream. I had ridden into Bebbanburg and not one man had challenged me, and the fools had left the inner gate wide open! I checked my horse and Finan caught up with me.

‘Get the rest of the crew ashore,’ I told him.

Off to my right there was a group of men practising shield drill. There were eight of them under the command of a squat, bearded man who was shouting at them to overlap their shields. They were youngsters, probably boys from the local farms who would be required to fight if Bebbanburg’s land was attacked. They were using old swords and battered shields. The man teaching them glanced our way and saw nothing to alarm him. In front of me was the wide open High Gate, just a hundred or so paces away, while to my left was the smithy with its dark smoke. Two guards armed with spears slouched by the smithy door. A man called down from the gate above me. ‘Cenwalh!’ he called, and I ignored him. ‘Cenwalh!’ he called again, and I waved a hand, and that response seemed to satisfy him because he said nothing more. It was time to fight. My men were waiting for the signal, but for a moment I seemed suspended in disbelief. I was home! I was inside Bebbanburg, and then my son spurred his horse beside me.

‘Father?’ he asked, sounding worried.

It was time to unleash the fury. I touched my heels to the horse, which immediately went to the left, following its regular path to the stables that lay close to the smithy. I pulled the rein, heading it for the High Gate.

And the dogs saw me.

There were two of them, great shaggy wolfhounds who were sleeping under a crude wooden shelter where hay was stored beside the stables. One saw us and uncurled himself and loped towards us with his tail wagging. Then he stopped, suddenly wary and I saw his teeth bared. He snarled, then howled. The second dog woke fast. Both were howling now and racing towards me, and my horse shied away violently.

The squat man who was training the boys was efficient. He knew something was wrong and he did the right thing. He bellowed at the guards on the High Gate, ‘Shut it! Shut it now!’

I kicked the horse towards the gate, but the two dogs were in its face. Perhaps they had been Cenwalh’s hounds because they alone in all the fortress had realised something was wrong. They knew I was not Cenwalh. One leaped as if to bite my horse and I drew Serpent-Breath as the stallion snapped its teeth at the hound. ‘Ride for the gate!’ I shouted at my men.

‘Close it!’ the squat man bellowed.

A horn sounded. I kicked the horse past the hounds, but it was already too late. The huge gates were being pulled shut and I heard the crash of the locking bar falling into its brackets. I cursed uselessly. Men were appearing on the rampart above the High Gate, too many men. They would be twenty feet above me and it was hopeless to try and assault that vast wooden arch. My only hope had been to take the gate by surprise, but the hounds had prevented that.

The squat man ran towards me. The sensible thing to do now was to retreat, to realise that I had lost and, while there was still time, flee through the Low Gate and run to Middelniht, but I was reluctant to give up so easily. My men had paused in the centre of the courtyard, unsure what to do, and the squat man was shouting at me, demanding to know who I was, and the hounds were still howling and my horse was skittering sideways to escape them. More dogs were barking from the inner fortress. ‘Take the gate!’ I called to Osferth, pointing at the Low Gate. If I could not capture the inner rampart I would at least hold the outer one. The rain was slanting across the fortress, driven by the sea wind. The two guards by the smithy had their spears levelled, but neither had moved towards me, and Finan now led two of his men towards them.

I could not watch what happened to Finan because the squat man had seized my bridle. ‘Who are you?’ he demanded. The dogs calmed, perhaps because they recognised the man. ‘Who are you?’ he asked again. His eight youngsters watched wide-eyed, their shields and practice swords forgotten. ‘Who are you?’ he shouted at me a third time, then swore. ‘Christ, no!’

He was looking towards the smithy. I glanced that way and saw Finan had begun the killing. The two guards were on the ground, though Finan and his men had vanished, and then I kicked my feet from the stirrups and slid from the saddle.

I was doing everything wrong. I was confused. Confusion is inevitable in battle, but indecision is unforgivable, and I had hesitated to make any decision and then made all the wrong ones. I should have withdrawn fast, instead I had been reluctant to abandon Bebbanburg so I had allowed Finan to slaughter the two guards. I had sent Osferth to capture the Low Gate and that meant I had men in and around that archway and more men in the smithy, while the crew of the Middelniht was presumably still wading ashore, but I was isolated in the courtyard where the squat man chopped at me with his sword. And still I did the wrong thing. Instead of calling Finan and trying to get all my men into one place, I parried the hard blow with Serpent-Breath and, almost without thinking, drove the man back with two hard strikes, took a pace back to let him attack and, as he took the bait and came forward, I lunged into his belly with the blade. I felt the blade burst the mail links, I felt it puncture leather and slide into softness. He shuddered as I twisted Serpent-Breath in his guts, then he staggered down to his knees. He fell forward when I jerked the blade out of his belly. Two of his youngsters started towards me, but I turned on them, my sword red. ‘You want to die?’ I snarled, and they stopped. I had pushed the hood away from my crested helmet and closed the cheek-pieces. They were boys and I was a warlord.

And I was a fool because I had done everything wrong. And then the High Gate opened.

Men poured through. Men in mail, men with swords, men with spears and shields. I lost count at twenty, and still they came.

‘Lord!’ Osferth called from the Low Gate. He had captured it and I could see my son up on the high fighting platform. ‘Lord!’ Osferth called again. He wanted me to back away, to join him, but instead I looked to the smithy where the two guards lay in the rain. There was no sign of Finan.

And then the spears and blades crashed on shields and I saw my uncle’s forces had made a shield wall in front of the High Gate. There were at least forty men there and they were beating their blades rhythmically on the willow boards. They were confident, and led by a tall man with fair hair who wore mail, but no helmet. He carried no shield, just a drawn sword. The shield wall was crammed on the roadway between the rocks, just twelve men wide. My own crew was arriving now, coming through the Low Gate and making a wall of their own, but I knew I had lost. I could attack, and we might even fight our way uphill into those tight ranks, but we would have to hack and lunge for every inch, and above us, on the High Gate’s fighting platform, there were men ready to hurl spears and rocks onto our heads. And even if we did force the passage, the gates were now closed again. I had lost.

The tall man at the front of the enemy snapped his fingers and a servant brought him a helmet and cloak. He donned both, took the sword back and walked slowly towards me. His men stayed behind. The two hounds who had caused all the trouble ran to him, and he snapped his fingers again to make them lie down. He stopped some twenty paces from me, holding his sword low. It was an expensive blade, its hilt heavy with gold and the blade shimmering with the same swirling patterns that glistened on Serpent-Breath’s rain-cleansed steel. He looked at the horses we had been riding. ‘Where is Cenwalh?’ he asked. And, when I said nothing, added, ‘Dead, I suppose?’ I nodded. He shrugged. ‘My father said you’d come.’

So this was Uhtred, my cousin, the Lord Ælfric’s son. He was some years younger than me, but I could have been looking at myself. He had not inherited his father’s dark looks and narrow build, but was burly, fair and arrogant. He had a short beard, fair in colour and trimmed close, and his eyes were very blue. His helmet was crested with a wolf, like mine, but his cheek-pieces were chased with gold inlay. His cloak was black and edged with wolf-fur. ‘Cenwalh was a good man,’ he said. ‘Did you kill him?’ I still said nothing. ‘Lost your tongue, Uhtred?’ he sneered.

‘Why waste words on a goat’s turd?’ I asked.

‘My father always says that a dog returns to its vomit, which is how he knew you would come here. Maybe I should welcome you? I do! Welcome, Uhtred!’ He offered me a mocking bow. ‘We have ale, we have meat, we have bread: will you eat with us in the high hall?’

‘Why don’t you and I fight here,’ I said, ‘just you and I?’

‘Because I outnumber you,’ he said easily, ‘and if we are to fight then I’d rather slaughter you all, not just give your guts to my dogs.’

‘Then fight,’ I said aggressively. I turned and pointed to my crew whose shield wall guarded the Low Gate. ‘They’re holding your entrance. You can’t get out until you defeat us, so fight.’

‘And how will you hold the entrance when you find a hundred men behind you?’ Ælfric’s son asked. ‘By tomorrow morning, Uhtred, you will find the causeway blocked. You have enough food, perhaps? There’s no well out here, but you brought water or ale?’

‘Then fight me now,’ I said, ‘show me you have some bravery.’

‘Why fight you when you’re already beaten?’ he asked, then raised his voice so my men could hear him. ‘I offer you life! You may leave here! You can go to your ship and leave! We shall do nothing to hinder you! All I demand is that Uhtred stays here!’ He smiled at me. ‘You see how eager we are for your company? You are family, after all, you must let us welcome you properly. Is your son with you?’

I hesitated, not because I doubted my answer, but because he had said son and not sons. So he knew what had happened, knew I had disowned my eldest.

‘Of course he is,’ Ælfric’s son said, and raised his voice again. ‘Uhtred will stay here, as will his whelp! The rest of you are free to leave! But if you choose to stay then you will never leave!’

He was trying to turn my men against me and I doubted it would work. They were sworn to me and, even if they wished to take his offer, they would not break their oaths so easily. If I died, then some would bend the knee, but right now none wanted to show disloyalty in front of their companions. Ælfric’s son also knew that, but his offer was really intended to take away my crew’s confidence. They knew I was beaten and were waiting to see what I decided to do before they made any choice.

My cousin looked at me. ‘Drop your sword,’ he commanded.

‘I shall bury her in your belly,’ I said.

It was a pointless defiance. He had won, I had lost, but there was still a chance we could reach Middelniht and escape the harbour, but I dared not lead my men back to the shore until Finan and his two men had reappeared. Where was he? I could not abandon him, not ever. We were closer than brothers, Finan and I, and he had vanished into the smithy and I feared he and his two men had been overwhelmed and were lying dead or, worse, were already taken captive.

‘You will find,’ my cousin said, ‘that our men are lethal. We train, as you do, we practise, as you do. It is why we still hold Bebbanburg, because not even the Danes want to feel our blades. If you fight then I shall regret the men I will lose, but I promise that you will pay for their deaths. Your own death won’t be quick, Uhtred, and you won’t have a sword in your hand. I shall kill you slowly, in exquisite pain, but not till I have done the same to your son. You will watch him die first. You will hear him call for his dead mother. You will hear him beg for mercy and there will be none. Is that what you want?’ He paused, waiting for an answer that I did not give him. ‘Or you can drop the sword now,’ he went on, ‘and I promise you both a swift and painless death.’

I was still hesitating, still indecisive. Of course I knew what to do, I knew I should take my men back to Middelniht, but I dared not do that while Finan was still missing. I wanted to look at the smithy, but did not want to draw my cousin’s attention to it, so I just stared at him and, as my mind raced, and as I tried to find some other way out of this defeat, I suddenly sensed that he was nervous too. It did not show. He looked magnificent in his black cloak, and with his wolf-crowned helmet incised with Christian crosses, and holding his blade that was as formidable as Serpent-Breath, but beneath that confidence there was a fear. I had not seen it at first, but it was there. He was tense.

‘Where’s your father?’ I asked. ‘I’d like him to see you die.’

‘He will watch you die,’ cousin Uhtred said. Had he bridled at my question? My sense of his discomfort was slight, but it was there. ‘Drop your sword,’ he ordered me again and in a much firmer voice.

‘We shall fight,’ I said just as firmly.

‘So be it.’ He accepted the decision calmly. So it was no fear of fighting that made him nervous, and perhaps I had misjudged him? Perhaps there was no uncertainty in him. He turned to his men. ‘Keep Uhtred alive! You will slaughter the rest, but keep Uhtred and his son alive!’ He walked away, not bothering to look back at me.

And I walked back to the Low Gate where my crew was waiting with their shields overlapping and weapons ready. ‘Osferth!’

‘Lord?’

‘Where’s Finan?’

‘He went to the smithy, lord.’

‘I know that!’ I hoped that Finan might have left the smithy and that I had not seen him leave, but Osferth confirmed he had not come out. So three of my men were inside that dark building, and I feared they were dead, that other guards had been inside and had overwhelmed them, but if that was the case why had those guards not appeared at the smithy door? I wanted to send men to discover Finan’s fate, but that would weaken my already weak shield wall.

And my cousin’s men had begun beating their shields again. They were beating a rhythm with steel on wood, and they were advancing.

‘In a moment,’ I spoke to my men, ‘we’ll make the swine’s horn. Then we’ll break them.’

It was my only hope. The swine’s horn was a wedge of men that would charge the enemy’s shield wall like a wild boar. We would go fast and the hope was that we could pierce their wall, break it and so begin to slaughter them. That was the hope, but the fear was that the swine’s horn would crumple. ‘Uhtred!’ I called.

‘Father?’

‘You should take a horse and ride now. Ride south. Keep riding till you reach friends. Keep our family alive and come back one day and take this fortress.’

‘If I die here,’ my son said, ‘then I’ll hold this fortress till Judgement Day.’

I had expected that answer, or something like it, and so I did not argue. Even if he rode south I doubted he would reach safety. My uncle would send men in pursuit, and between Bebbanburg and Saxon-ruled Britain there was nothing but enemies. Still, I had offered him the chance. Perhaps, I thought, my eldest son, the priestly son who was no longer my son, would marry and have children, and one of those sons would hear of this fight and want revenge.

The three Fates were laughing at me. I had dared and I had lost. I was trapped, and my cousin’s men reached the end of the rock-bound path and spread now. Their shield wall was wider than mine. They would overlap us, they would curl around our flanks and chew us with axes, spears and swords.

‘Step back,’ I told my men.

I still planned the swine’s horn, but for now I would let my cousin believe that I was going to make a wall inside the arch of the Low Gate. That would stop him from flanking me. It would make him cautious, and then I could charge him and hope to break him. Osferth stood beside me, my son behind me. We were under the arch now and I sent Rolla, Kettil and Eldgrim to the fighting platform so they could hurl stones at the advancing men. Osferth had told me the stones were piled there, ready, and I dared to hope we could survive this fight. I doubted I could take the High Gate, but just to survive and reach Middelniht would be victory enough.

My cousin took his shield. It was round, iron-bound willow with a big bronze boss. The boards had been painted red, and the wolf’s head badge was grey and black against that blood-coloured field. The enemy tightened their ranks, their shields overlapping. The rain was slicing from the sea, heavy again, dripping from helmet rims and shield rims and from spear-blades. It was cold, wet and grey.

‘Shields,’ I said, and our brief front rank, just six men constrained by the oak walls of the arch’s tunnel, touched shields. Let them come, I thought. Let them die on our shield wall rather than go to them. If I used the swine’s horn I would have to leave the shelter of the gate. I was still being indecisive, but the enemy had stopped advancing. That was normal. Men have to steel themselves to fight. My cousin was talking to them, but I could not hear his words. I did hear them cheer as they started forward again. They came sooner than I had expected. I had thought they would take time to ready themselves, time in which they would hurl insults, but they were well trained and confident. They came slowly, deliberately, their shields locked. They came as warriors advancing to a fight they expected to win. A big black-bearded man holding a long-hafted war axe was at their line’s centre, next to my cousin. He was the man who would attack me. He would try to tear down my shield with the axe, leaving me open to my cousin’s sword thrust. I hefted Serpent-Breath, then remembered that my hammer of Thor was still hidden beneath the mail. That was a bad omen, and a man should never have to fight under the thrall of a bad omen. I wanted to tear the silver cross from about my neck, but my left hand was threaded into the shield’s grips and my right was holding Serpent-Breath.

And the bad omen told me I would die there. I gripped Serpent-Breath more tightly, for she was my passage to Valhalla. I would fight, I thought, and I would lose, but the Valkyries would take me to that better world that lies beyond this one. And what better place to die than Bebbanburg?

And then a horn blew again.

It was a loud squawk, nothing like the brave, bold note of the first horn that had sounded the alarm from the High Gate. This horn sounded as if it was being blown by an enthusiastic child, and its raucous tone made my cousin look towards the smithy, and I looked too, and there at the door was Finan. He blew the horn a second time and, disgusted by the crude noise it made, threw it down.

He was not alone.

A few paces in front of him was a woman. She looked young and was wearing a white dress belted with a golden chain. Her hair was pale gold, so pale it was almost white. She had no cloak or cape and the rain was plastering the dress to her slim body. She stood motionless, and even at this distance I could see the anguish on her face.

And my cousin started towards her, then stopped because Finan had drawn his sword. The Irishman did not threaten the woman, but just stood, grinning, with his long blade naked. My cousin glanced at me, uncertainty on his face, then looked back to the smithy just as Finan’s two companions appeared, and each had a captive.

One captive was my uncle, Lord Ælfric, the other was a boy. ‘You want them dead?’ Finan called to my cousin. ‘You want me to slit their bellies open?’ He tossed his sword high into the air so that it turned end over end. It was an arrogant display and every man in the courtyard watched as he deftly caught the falling weapon by its hilt. ‘You want their guts fed to the dogs? Is that what you want? I’ll oblige you, by the living Christ I’ll oblige you! It would be a pleasure. Your dogs look hungry!’ He turned and took the small boy into his grasp. I saw my cousin motion to his men, ordering them to stay still. Now I knew why he had seemed nervous: because he had known his only son was in the smithy.

And Finan now had the boy. He held him by one arm and brought him towards me. Ulfar, another of my Danes, followed with my uncle, while the woman, evidently the boy’s mother, walked with them. No one held her, but she was clearly reluctant to leave her son.

Finan was still grinning as he reached me. ‘This wee bastard says his name is Uhtred. Would you believe today is his birthday? He’s eleven years old today and his grandfather bought him a horse, a fine one too! They were shoeing it, so they were. Just enjoying a sweet family outing which I interrupted.’

Relief was coursing through me like water pouring down a dry stream bed. A moment before I had been trapped and doomed, now I had my cousin’s son as a hostage. And his wife, I assumed, and his father. I smiled at my black-cloaked enemy. ‘It’s time for you to drop your sword,’ I told him.

‘Father!’ The boy struggled to escape Finan’s grasp, lunging towards his father, and I hit him with my shield, a stinging blow from the heavy iron-rimmed boards that prompted a cry of pain and a protest from his mother.

‘Stay still, you little bastard,’ I said to him.

‘He’s not going any place,’ Finan said, still holding the child’s arm.

I looked at the woman. ‘And you are?’ I demanded.

She stiffened defiantly, straightening her back and staring me in the eyes. ‘Ingulfrid,’ she said coldly.

Interesting, I thought. I knew my cousin had taken a Danish wife, but no one had told me what a fine-looking woman she was. ‘This is your son?’ I asked her.

‘He is,’ she said.

‘Your only son?’ I asked.

She hesitated, then nodded abruptly. I had heard that she had given birth to three boys, but only the one had lived.

‘Uhtred!’ my cousin called.

‘Father?’ the boy answered. He had a smear of blood where my shield had broken the skin over his right cheekbone.

‘Not you, boy. I’m talking to him.’ My cousin pointed his sword at me.

I dropped my shield and walked towards my cousin. ‘So,’ I said, ‘it seems we have each other at a disadvantage. Shall we fight? You and I? The law of the hazel rods?’

‘Fight him!’ my uncle called.

‘Let my wife and son go,’ my cousin said, ‘and you can leave in peace.’

I pretended to consider that, then shook my head. ‘It will take more than that. And you don’t want your father back?’

‘Him too, of course.’

‘You give me one thing,’ I said, ‘which is to go unharmed, and I have to give you three? That doesn’t make sense, cousin.’

‘What do you want?’

‘Bebbanburg,’ I said, ‘because it’s mine.’

‘It is not yours!’ my uncle snarled. I turned to look at him. He was old now, old and bent, his dark face deep-lined, but he still had clever eyes. His dark hair had turned white and hung lank to his thin shoulders. He was dressed richly in embroidered robes with a heavy fur-trimmed cloak. When my father rode off to war, only to die at Eoferwic, Ælfric had sworn on the comb of Saint Cuthbert that he would give the fortress to me when I came of age, but instead he had tried to kill me. He had tried to buy me from Ragnar, the man who had raised me, and later he had paid to have me sold into slavery, and I hated him more than I have ever hated any creature on this earth. He had even been betrothed to my beloved Gisela, though I had taken her long before she could reach his bed. That had been a small victory, but this was a greater one. He was my captive, though nothing in his demeanour suggested he thought the same thing. He stared at me disdainfully. ‘Bebbanburg is not yours,’ he said.

‘It is my birthright,’ I said.

‘Your birthright,’ he spat. ‘Bebbanburg belongs to the man strong enough to hold it, not to some fool who waves parchment deeds. Your father would have wanted that! He told me often enough you were an irresponsible lackwit. He meant Bebbanburg to go to your elder brother, not to you! But it’s mine now, and one day it will belong to my son.’

I wanted to kill the lying bastard, but he was old and frail. Old, frail and as poisonous as a viper. ‘My Lady Ingulfrid,’ I said to Osferth, ‘is wet and cold. Give her my uncle’s cloak.’

If Ingulfrid was grateful she did not show it. She took the cloak willingly enough and pulled the heavy fur collar around her neck. She was shivering, but stared at me with loathing. I looked back to my cousin, her husband. ‘Maybe you should buy your family,’ I said, ‘and the price will be gold.’

‘They’re not slaves to be bought and sold,’ he snarled.

I gazed at him and pretended to be struck by a sudden thought. ‘There’s an idea! Slaves! Finan!’

‘Lord?’

‘How much does a fine Saxon boy fetch in Frankia these days?’

‘Enough to buy a coat of Frankish mail, lord.’

‘That much?’

Finan pretended to appraise the boy. ‘He’s a fine-looking lad. Got meat on his bones. There are men who’ll pay well for a plump little Saxon rump, lord.’

‘And the woman?’

Finan looked her up and down, then shook his head. ‘She’s fair enough looking, I suppose, but she’s used goods, lord. Maybe she still has a few years left in her? So she might fetch enough to buy a packhorse. More if she can cook.’

‘Can you cook?’ I asked Ingulfrid and received nothing more than a hate-filled stare for answer. I looked back to my cousin. ‘A packhorse and a coat of mail,’ I told him, then pretended to think about it. ‘It’s not enough,’ I said, shaking my head. ‘I want more than that. Much more.’

‘You can leave unharmed,’ he offered, ‘and I shall pay you gold.’

‘How much gold?’

He glanced at his father. It was plain that Ælfric had yielded the day-to-day command of the fortress to his son, but when it came to matters of money then my uncle was still in charge. ‘His helmet,’ Ælfric said sullenly.

‘I will fill your helmet with gold coins,’ my cousin offered.

‘That will buy your wife,’ I said, ‘but how much for your heir?’

‘The same,’ he said bitterly.

‘Not nearly enough,’ I protested, ‘but I’ll exchange all three for Bebbanburg.’

‘No!’ my uncle cried loudly. ‘No!’

I ignored Ælfric. ‘Give me back what is mine,’ I told my cousin, ‘and I will give you what is yours.’

‘You can make other sons!’ Ælfric snarled at his son, ‘and Bebbanburg is not yours to give. It is mine!’

‘It’s his?’ I asked my cousin.

‘Of course it’s his,’ he answered stubbornly.

‘And you are his heir?’

‘I am.’

I stepped back to the prisoners and seized my uncle by the nape of his scrawny neck. I shook him like a terrier shaking a rat, then turned him so I could smile down into his face. ‘You knew I would come back,’ I said.

‘I hoped you would,’ he retorted.

‘Bebbanburg is mine,’ I said, ‘and you know it.’

‘Bebbanburg belongs to the man who can hold it,’ he said defiantly, ‘and you failed.’

‘I was ten when you stole it,’ I protested, ‘younger even than him!’ I pointed at his grandson.

‘Your father didn’t hold it,’ my uncle said, ‘and like a fool he rode to his death, and you’re the same. You’re a fool. You’re impetuous, feckless, irresponsible. Suppose for a moment you retook Bebbanburg? How long would you hold it? You, who has never held onto any estate? Whatever land you had, you lost; whatever fortune you made, you threw away!’ He looked at his son. ‘You will hold Bebbanburg,’ he ordered, ‘whatever the price!’

‘The price is your son’s life,’ I told my cousin.

‘No!’ Ingulfrid screamed.

‘We will not pay your price,’ my uncle said. He looked up at me with his dark eyes. ‘So kill the boy,’ he said. He waited, then sneered. ‘Kill him! You named the price, and I won’t pay it! So kill him!’

‘Father …’ my cousin said nervously.

Ælfric turned snake-fast towards his son. I was still holding him, tightly gripping the nape of his neck, but he made no effort to escape me. ‘You can breed more sons!’ he spat towards my cousin. ‘Sons are easily made! Haven’t enough of your whores whelped boys? The village is crawling with your bastards, so marry another wife and give her sons, but don’t ever yield the fortress! Bebbanburg is not worth a son’s life! There will never be another Bebbanburg, but there will always be more sons!’

I looked at my cousin. ‘Give me Bebbanburg,’ I said, ‘and I will give you back your son.’

‘I have refused that price!’ my uncle snarled.

So I killed him.

It took him by surprise; indeed, it took everyone by surprise. I had been holding the old man by his neck and all I had to do was lift Serpent-Breath and draw her blade across his throat. And so I did. It was fast, much faster than he deserved. The sword felt the resistance of his skinny gullet and he twisted like an eel, but I quickened the blade and dragged it fast and she broke through the muscles and tendons, through the windpipe and the blood vessels, and he gasped, a curious almost feminine noise, and then the only sound he could make was gurgling, bubbling, and the blood was pouring onto the ground as he collapsed to his knees in front of me. I put a boot on his spine and thrust him forward so that he fell flat. He jerked for some seconds, still fighting for breath, and his hands curled as if to hold the soil of his fortress. Then he twitched a last time and was still, and I felt a vague disappointment. I had dreamed of killing this man for years. I had planned his death in my dreams, I had devised ever more painful deaths for him, and now I had just cut his throat with a merciful swiftness. All that dreaming for nothing! I prodded the dead man with my foot then looked up to his son. ‘Now you’re the one who has to make the decision,’ I said.

No one spoke. The rain fell and the wind blew, and my cousin’s men stared at the corpse and I knew their world had suddenly changed. All of them, for all of their lives, had been under the command of Ælfric and suddenly there was no Ælfric. His death had shocked them. ‘Well?’ I demanded of my cousin. ‘Will you buy your son’s life?’

He stared at me, said nothing.

‘Answer me, you weasel vomit,’ I said. ‘Will you exchange Bebbanburg for your son?’

‘I will pay you for Bebbanburg,’ he said uncertainly. He looked down at his father’s corpse. I guessed that they had suffered an uneasy relationship, just as I had with my father, but he was still horrified. He looked up at me again, frowning. ‘He was old!’ he protested. ‘You had to kill an old man?’

‘He was a thief,’ I said, ‘and I have dreamed of killing him for a lifetime.’

‘He was old!’ he protested again.

‘He was lucky,’ I snarled, ‘lucky that he died so fast. I dreamed of killing him slowly. But fast or slow, he’s gone to the Corpse-Ripper in the underworld, and if you don’t give me Bebbanburg then I shall send your son to the Corpse-Ripper too.’

‘I will pay you gold,’ he said, ‘much gold.’

‘You know my price,’ I said, pointing Serpent-Breath’s bloodied blade at his son. The rainwater was dripping pink from the sword’s tip. I moved the sword closer to the boy and Ingulfrid screamed.

I had been indecisive and hesitant, now it was my cousin’s turn. I could see the indecision on his face. Was Bebbanburg really worth his son’s life? Ingulfrid was begging him. She had an arm around her son, tears were streaming down her face. My cousin seemed to grimace when she shrieked at him, but then he surprised me by turning and ordering his men back to the High Gate. ‘I shall give you time to consider,’ he said, ‘but know this. I will not yield Bebbanburg. So, for this day’s work you can end with a dead boy or with a fortune in gold. Tell me which you want before nightfall.’ He walked away.

‘Lord!’ Ingulfrid appealed to her husband.

He turned back, but spoke to me instead of her. ‘You’ll release my wife,’ he demanded.

‘She’s not a captive,’ I said, ‘she’s free to go wherever she likes, but I keep the boy.’

Ingulfrid kept hold of her son’s shoulders. ‘I stay with my son,’ she said fiercely.

‘You’ll come with me, woman,’ my cousin snarled.

‘You don’t command here,’ I said. ‘Your wife pleases herself.’

He looked at me as though I was utterly mad. ‘Pleases herself?’ He did not say the words, but rather mouthed them in astonishment, then shook his head in disbelief and turned again. He took his men away, leaving us in control of the outer courtyard.

Finan took the boy from his mother and gave him to Osferth. ‘Don’t let go of the little bastard,’ he said, then crossed to me and watched as my cousin led his men through the High Gate. He waited till the last man had disappeared and the gate slammed shut again. ‘He’ll pay a lot of gold for his boy,’ Finan said in a low voice.

‘Gold is good,’ I said with deliberate carelessness. I heard the High Gate’s locking bar drop into its brackets.

‘And a dead boy is worth nothing,’ Finan said more forcibly.

‘I know.’

‘And you’re not going to kill him anyway,’ Finan said. He still spoke quietly so that only I could hear him.

‘I’m not?’

‘You’re not a child-killer.’

‘Maybe now’s the time to start.’

‘You won’t kill him,’ Finan said, ‘so take the gold.’ He waited for me to say something, but I kept quiet. ‘The men need reward,’ Finan said.

And that was true. I was their hlaford, their gold-giver, but in the last weeks I had led them only to this failure. Finan was hinting that some of my men would leave. They had taken oaths, but the truth is that we only sanctify oaths with such high promise because they are so easily broken. If a man thought he could find wealth and honour with another lord then he would leave me, and I had few enough men anyway. I smiled at him. ‘You trust me?’

‘You know I do.’

‘Then tell the men that I shall make them rich. Tell them I shall write their names in the chronicles. Tell them they will be celebrated. Tell them they will have reputation.’

Finan gave me a crooked grin. ‘And how will you do that?’

‘I don’t know,’ I said, ‘but I will.’ I walked back to where Ingulfrid stood watching her son. ‘And what,’ I asked, ‘will your husband pay for you?’

She did not answer, and I suspected the answer would have been demeaning. My cousin had treated his wife with careless scorn and I suspected her value as a hostage was almost nothing. But the boy was worth a fortune.

And instinct told me to forgo the fortune, at least for this day. I looked at him. He was defiant, close to tears, brave. I weighed the choice again, to take the gold or trust my instinct? I had no idea what the future held, none, and keeping the boy would be a nuisance, but instinct told me to take the less appealing choice. The gods were telling me that. What else is instinct?

‘Finan.’ I turned sharply and pointed to the shelter where the two hounds had been sleeping. ‘Get all that hay,’ I told him, ‘and spread it around the palisade. Some in the gatehouse, too.’

‘You’re going to burn the place?’

‘The hay will get wet,’ I said, ‘but pile it thickly enough and some will stay dry. And the gatehouse, smithy and stables will burn. Burn it all!’

My cousin was not going to yield Bebbanburg because without the fortress he was nothing. He would be a Saxon lost in Danish territory. He would need to go viking, or else kneel in homage to Edward of Wessex. But in Bebbanburg he was king of all the land he could reach in a day’s ride and he was rich. So Bebbanburg was worth a son’s life. It was worth two sons’ lives and, as Ælfric had said, he could always make more. My cousin would keep his fortress, but I would burn what I could.

So we took the horses out of the stables and drove them out of the fortress to run wild, then we burned the courtyard. My cousin made no attempt to stop us, he just watched from the high inner rampart, and, as the smoke mingled with the rain, we went back to Middelniht. We waded out to her, taking Ingulfrid and her son with us, and we scrambled over the low midships. My cousin would pursue us in his long warships and I wanted to burn them, but their timbers were rain-soaked, so Finan took three men and they slashed the cords holding the masts aloft, then hacked great gashes on the waterlines with their axes. Both ships were settling onto the harbour’s muddy bottom as I ordered my men to Middelniht’s oars. It was still raining, but the flames of the burning buildings were bright and high, and the smoke poured up to the low smoke-coloured clouds.

The wind had dropped, though the seas were still high and the waves broke white in the shallow harbour entrance. We rowed into that white chaos and the water shattered on Middelniht’s high prow and my cousin and his men watched from the heights as we pulled the ship out to sea. We went far out to sea, out beyond the islands, out among the wild waves, and there we hoisted the Middelniht’s sail and turned her south.

And so were gone from Bebbanburg.