The Burning Land

ONE

The deep winter came and with it a fever. I have been lucky, rarely being ill, but a week after we reached Dunholm I began to shiver, then sweat, then feel as though a bear were clawing the insides of my skull. Brida made a bed for me in a small house where a fire burned day and night. That winter was cold, but there were moments when I thought my body was on fire, and then there were times when I shivered as if I were bedded in ice even though the fire roared in its stone hearth so fiercely that it scorched the roof beams. I could not eat. I grew weak. I woke in the night, and sometimes I thought of Gisela and of my lost children, and I wept. Ragnar told me I raved in my sleep, but I do not remember that madness, only that I was convinced I would die and so I made Brida tie my hand to Wasp-Sting’s hilt.

Brida brought me infusions of herbs in mead, she spooned honey into my mouth, and she made certain that the small house was guarded against Skade’s malevolence. “She hates you,” she told me one cold night when the wind pulled at the thatch and bellied the leather curtain which served as a door.

“Because I didn’t give her any silver?”

“Because of that.”

“There was no hoard,” I said, “not as she described it.”

“But she denies cursing you.”

“What else can have caused this?”

“We tied her to a post,” Brida said, “and showed her the whip. She swore she had not cursed you.”

“She would,” I said bitterly.

“And she still denied it when her back was bloody.”

I looked at Brida, dark-eyed, her face shadowed by her wild black hair. “Who used the whip?”

“I did,” she said calmly, “and then I took her to the stone.”

“The stone?”

She nodded eastward. “Across the river, Uhtred, is a hill, and on the hill is a stone. A big one, planted upright. It was put there by the ancient people and it has power. The stone has breasts.”

“Breasts?”

“It’s shaped that way,” she said, momentarily cupping her hands over her own small breasts. “It’s tall,” she went on, “even taller than you, and I took her there at night and lit fires to the gods, and put skulls in a ring, and I told her I would summon the demons to turn her skin yellow and her hair white and to make her face wrinkled and her breasts sag and her back humped. She cried.”

“Could you have done all that?”

“She believed so,” Brida said with a sly smile, “and she promised me on her life she had not cursed you. She spoke true, I’m sure.”

“So it’s just a fever?”

“More than a fever, a sickness. Others have it. Two men died last week.”

A priest came each week and bled me. He was a morose Saxon who preached his gospel in the small town that had appeared just to the south of Ragnar’s fortress. Ragnar had brought prosperity to the local countryside and the town was growing quickly, the smell of newly sawn wood as constant as the stink of sewage flowing downhill to the river. Brida, of course, had objected to the church being constructed, but Ragnar had allowed it. “They’ll worship any god they choose,” he had told me, “whatever I might wish. And the Saxons here were Christians before I arrived. A few have gone back to the real gods. The first priest wanted to pull down Brida’s stone and called me an evil heathen bastard when I stopped him, so I drowned him and this new one is a lot more polite.” The new priest was also reckoned to be a skilled healer, though Brida, who had her own knowledge of herbs, would not let him prescribe any potions for me. He would just open a vein in one of my arms and watch the blood pulse thick and slow into a horn cup. When it was done he was instructed to pour the blood onto the fire, then scour out the cup, which he always did with a scowl because it was a pagan precaution. Brida wanted the blood destroyed so no one could use it to cast a spell on me.

“I’m surprised Brida permits you to come into the fortress,” I told the priest one day as my drawn blood hissed and bubbled on the logs.

“Because she hates Christians, lord?”

“Yes.”

“She was sick three winters ago,” the priest said, “and Jarl Ragnar sent for me when all else failed. I cured her, or else God Almighty worked the cure through me. Since then she has endured my presence.”

Brida also endured Skade’s presence. She would have killed her given an excuse, but Skade pleaded with Ragnar that she meant no harm and Ragnar, my friend, had no stomach for slaughtering women, especially good-looking women. He put Skade to work in the hall kitchen. “She worked in my kitchen in Lundene,” I told Brida.

“From where she slithered her way into your bed,” Brida said tartly, “though I don’t suppose that took much effort on her part.”

“She’s beautiful.”

“And you’re still the fool you always were. And now another fool will find her and she’ll make trouble again. I told Ragnar he should have split her from the crotch to the gullet, but he’s as stupid as you.”

I was on my feet by Yule, though I could take no part in the games that so delighted Ragnar. There were races, tests of strength and, his favorite, wrestling. He took part himself, winning his first six bouts, then losing to a giant Saxon slave who was rewarded with a handful of silver. On the afternoon of the great feast the fortress dogs were allowed to attack a bull, an entertainment that reduced Ragnar to tears of laughter. The bull, a wiry and savage creature, dashed around the hilltop between the buildings, attacking when he had a chance and tossing careless dogs into gut-spilled ruin, but eventually he lost too much blood and the hounds converged on him. “What happened to Nihtgenga?” I asked Brida as the roaring bull collapsed in a frantic heap of scrabbling dogs.

“He died,” Brida said, “long, long ago.”

“He was a good dog,” I said.

“He was,” she said, watching the hounds tear at the thrashing bull’s belly. Skade was on the far side of the killing ground, but she avoided my gaze.

The Yule feast was lavish because Ragnar, like his father, had always adored the winter celebrations. A great fir tree had been cut and dragged to the hall where it was hung with silver coins and jewelry. Skade was among the servants who brought the beef, pork, venison, bacon, blood sausages, bread, and ale. She still avoided my eye. Men noticed her, how could they not? One drunken man tried to seize her and pull her onto his lap, but Ragnar slapped the table so hard that the blow upset a horn of wine and the sound was enough to persuade the man to let Skade go.

There were harpists and skalds. The skalds chanted verses in praise of Ragnar and his family, and Ragnar beamed with delight when his father’s exploits were described. “Say that again,” he would roar when some treasured exploit was recounted. He knew many of the words and chanted along, but then startled the skald by slapping the table again. “What did you just sing?” he demanded.

“That your father, lord, served the great Ubba.”

“And who killed Ubba?”

The skald frowned. “A Saxon dog, lord.”

“This Saxon dog,” Ragnar shouted, lifting my arm. It was while men were still laughing that the messenger arrived. He came from the dark and for a moment no one noticed the tall Dane who, it turned out, had just ridden from Eoferwic. He was clad in mail because there were brigands on the roads, and the skirts of his armor, his boots, and the richly decorated scabbard of his sword were spattered with mud. He must have been tired, but there was a broad smile on his face.

Ragnar noticed the man first. “Grimbald!” he bellowed the name in welcome. “You should arrive before a feast, not after! But worry not, there’s food and ale!”

Grimbald bowed to Ragnar. “I bring you news, lord.”

“News that couldn’t wait?” Ragnar asked good-naturedly. The hall had gone quiet because men wondered what could have brought Grimbald in such haste through the cold, wet darkness.

“News that will please you, lord,” Grimbald said, still smiling.

“The price of virgins has dropped?”

“Alfred of Wessex, lord,” Grimbald paused, “is dead.”

There was a moment’s silence, then the hall burst into cheers. Men beat the table with their hands and whooped with delight. Ragnar was half drunk, but had enough sense to hold up his hands for silence. “How do you know this?”

“The news was brought to Eoferwic yesterday,” Grimbald said.

“By whom?” I demanded.

“By a West Saxon priest, lord,” Grimbald said. The tall messenger was one of mad King Guthred’s household warriors and, though he did not know me, my place of honor beside Ragnar persuaded him to call me lord.

“So his whelp is the new king?” Ragnar asked.

“So it is said, lord.”

“King Edmund?” Ragnar inquired, “that’ll take some getting used to.”

“Edward,” I said.

“Edmund or Edward, who cares? He’s not long for this life,” Ragnar said happily. “What kind of boy is he?” he asked me.

“Nervous.”

“Not a warrior?”

“His father was no warrior either,” I said, “yet he defeated every Dane who came to take his throne.”

“You did that for him,” Ragnar said cheerfully and slapped my back. The hall was suddenly full of talk as men glimpsed a new future. There was so much excitement, though I remember looking down at one of the tables and saw Osferth frowning in lonely silence. Then Ragnar leaned close to me. “You don’t look happy, Uhtred.”

How did I feel at that moment? I was not happy. I had never liked Alfred. He was too pious, too humorless, and too stern. His delight was order. He wanted to reduce the whole world to lists, to organization, to obedience. He loved to collect books and write laws. He believed that if only every man, woman, and child were to obey the law, then we would have a heavenly kingdom on earth, but he forgot the earthly pleasures. He had known them as a young man, Osferth was proof of that, but then he had allowed the nailed Christian god to persuade him that pleasure was sin and so he tried to make laws that would outlaw sin. A man might as well try to shape water into a ball.

So I did not like Alfred, but I had always been aware that I was in the presence of an extraordinary man. He was thoughtful, and he was no fool. His mind had been fast and open to ideas, so long as those ideas did not contradict his religious convictions. He was a king who did not believe that kingship implied omniscience and he was, in his way, a humble man. Above everything, he had been a good man, though never a comfortable one. He had also believed in fate, a thing all religions seem to share, though the difference between Alfred and me had been his conviction that fate was progress. He wanted to improve the world, while I did not believe and never have believed that we can improve the world, just merely survive as it slides into chaos.

“I respected Alfred,” I told Ragnar. I was still not certain I believed the news. Rumors fly around like summer gossamer, and so I beckoned Grimbald closer. “What exactly did the priest tell you?”

“That Alfred was in the church at Wintanceaster,” he said, “and that he collapsed during the rituals and was taken to his bed.”

That sounded convincing. “And his son is king now?”

“The priest said so.”

“Is Harald still trapped in Wessex?” Ragnar asked.

“No, lord,” Grimbald said, “Alfred paid him silver to depart.”

Ragnar bellowed for silence and made Grimbald repeat his last words about Harald, and the news that the wounded jarl had been paid to leave Torneie prompted another cheer in the hall. Danes love to hear of Saxons paying silver to rid themselves of Danes. It encourages them to attack Saxon lands in hope of similar bribes.

“Where did Harald go?” Ragnar asked, and I saw Skade listening.

“He joined Haesten, lord.”

“In Beamfleot?” I asked, but Grimbald did not know.

The news of Alfred’s death and of the wounded Harald’s enrichment gave the feast an added happiness. For once there were not even any fights as the mead, ale, and wine took hold of the tables. Every man in that hall, except perhaps a handful of my Saxon followers, saw a new opportunity to capture and plunder the rich fields, villages and towns of Wessex.

And they were right. Wessex was vulnerable, except for one thing.

The news was a rumor after all.

Alfred lived.

Yet, in the dark of the year, every man in northern Britain believed the rumor, and it energized Brida. “It’s a sign from the gods,” she declared, and persuaded Ragnar to summon the northern jarls. The meeting was set for the early spring, when the winter rains would have ended and the fords made passable again. The prospect of war stirred Dunholm from its winter torpor. In town and fortress the smiths were set to forging spear-blades, and Ragnar let every shipmaster know that he would welcome crews in the spring. Word of that generosity would eventually reach Frisia and far Denmark, and hungry men would come to Northumbria, though for the moment Ragnar spread the rumor that he merely raised troops to invade the land of the Scots. Offa, the Mercian with his trained dogs, heard the rumors and came north despite the weather. He pretended he always struggled through the wet cold rains of Northumbria in the dead days of the year, but it was clear he wanted to learn what Ragnar planned. Ragnar, for once, was reticent, and refused to allow Offa into the high fortress on its river-bound rock. Brida, I think, threatened him with her displeasure, and Brida could always control Ragnar.

I went to meet Offa in a tavern beneath the fortress. I took Finan and Osferth, and I pretended to get drunk. “I heard you were sick, lord,” Offa said, “and I’m glad you are recovered.”

“I hear Alfred of Wessex was also sick?” Osferth put in.

Offa, as ever, considered his answer, wondering whether he was about to give away information that was better sold, then realized that whatever news he possessed would soon be known anyway. Besides, he was here to dig information from us. “He collapsed in church,” he said, “and the physicians were sure he would die. He was very ill! He was given the last rites twice, to my certain knowledge, but God relented.”

“God loves him,” I said, slurring my words and thumping the table for more ale.

“Not enough to give him a full recovery,” Offa said guardedly. “He is still weak.”

“He was always weak,” I said. That was true about Alfred’s health, if not his resolve, but I had spoken sourly, as a deliberate insult, and Offa gazed at me, doubtless wondering just how drunk I truly was.

I have often scorned Christian priests because they are forever telling us that the proof of their religion is the magic that Christ performed, but then they claim that such magic disappeared with him. If a priest could cure a cripple or make the blind see, then I would believe in their god, but at that moment, in the smoke-filled tavern beneath Dunholm’s high fortress walls, a miracle did occur. Offa paid for the ale and even ordered more.

I have always been able to drink more than most men, yet even so I could feel the room swirling like the smoke billowing from the tavern hearth. I kept my wits, though. I dropped Offa some gossip about Skade, admitted my disappointment about Skirnir’s hoard, and then complained bitterly that I had neither money nor sufficient men. That last drunken complaint opened the door for Offa. “And why, lord, would you need men?” he asked.

“We all need men,” I said.

“True,” Finan put in.

“More men,” Osferth said.

“Always more men.” Finan was also pretending to be drunker than he was.

“I hear the northern jarls are gathering here?” Offa asked innocently. He was desperate to know what was being planned. All Britain knew that the Northumbrian lords were invited to Dunholm, but no one was certain why, and Offa could become wealthy on that knowledge.

“That’s why I want men!” I said to him in a very earnest voice.

Offa poured me more ale. I noticed he was hardly touching his own horn. “The northern jarls have men enough,” he said, “and I hear Jarl Ragnar is offering silver for crews.”

I leaned forward confidingly. “How can I talk to them as an equal if all I lead is one crew?” I paused to belch. “And a small crew at that?”

“You have reputation, lord,” he said, somehow managing not to recoil from my ale-staled breath.

“I need men,” I said, “men, men, men.”

“Good men,” Osferth said.

“Spear-Danes, sword-Danes,” Finan added dreamily.

“The jarls will have enough men to crush the Scots,” Offa suggested, dangling the words like a baited hook.

“The Scots!” I said scornfully. “Why waste a single crew on the Scots?” Finan touched my elbow warningly, but I pretended to be oblivious of his gesture. “What is Scotland?” I asked belligerently. “Wild men in a bare country with scarce a scrap of cloth to cover their cocks. The kingdom of Alba,” I spat the name of Scotland’s largest kingdom, “isn’t worth the produce of one decent Saxon estate. They’re nothing but hairy bastards with frozen cocks. Who wants them?”

“Yet Jarl Ragnar would conquer them?” Offa asked.

“He would,” Finan said firmly.

“He would end their nuisance,” Osferth added, but Offa ignored both of them. He gazed at me, and I looked back into his eyes.

“Bebbanburg,” I said confidingly.

“Bebbanburg, lord?” he asked innocently.

“I am Lord of Bebbanburg, am I not?” I demanded.

“You are, lord,” he said.

“The Scots!” I said derisively, then let my head fall onto my arms as if I was sleepy.

Within a month all Britain knew why Jarl Ragnar was asking for men. Alfred, lying on his sickbed, knew, as did Æthelred, Lord of Mercia. They probably knew in Frankia, while Offa, I heard, had become wealthy enough to buy a fair house and a pasture in Liccelfeld and was contemplating taking a young girl as a wife. The money for such extravagances, of course, came from my uncle, Ælfric, to whom Offa had hurried as soon as the weather allowed. The news he carried was that Jarl Ragnar was helping his friend, the Lord Uhtred, to regain Bebbanburg and there would be a summer war in Northumbria.

And meanwhile Ragnar sent spies to Wessex.

It might not have been a bad idea to assemble an army to invade the Scots. They were trouble back then, they are trouble now, and I daresay they will still be trouble when the world dies. As that winter ended a party of Scots raided Ragnar’s northern lands and killed at least fifteen men. They stole cattle, women, and children. Ragnar made a retaliatory raid and I took twenty of my men with his hundred, but it was a frustrating errand. We were not even sure when we crossed into Scottish land because the frontier was an uncertain thing, forever shifting with the power of the lords on either side, but after two days’ riding we came across a poor and deserted village. The folk, warned of our approach, had fled, taking their livestock with them. Their low houses had rough stone walls topped by sod roofs that almost touched the ground, while their dunghills were taller than the hovels. We collapsed the roofs by breaking the rafters, and shoveled horse dung into the small rough-stone church, but there was little other damage we could do. We were being watched by four horsemen on a hill to the north. “Bastards,” Ragnar shouted, though they were much too far away to hear him.

The Scots, like us, used horsemen as scouts, but their riders never wore heavy mail and usually carried no weapon except a spear. They were mounted on nimble, quick horses, and though we might chase them, we could never catch them. “I wonder who they serve?” I said.

“Domnal, probably,” Ragnar said, “King of Alba.” He spat the last word. Domnal ruled the greater part of the land north of Northumbria. All that land is called Scotland because it had been largely conquered by the Scots, a wild tribe of Irish, though, like England, the name Scotland meant little. Domnal ruled the largest kingdom, though there were others like Dalriada and Strathclota, and then there were the stormbound islands of the western coast where savage Norse jarls made their own petty kingdoms. Dealing with the Scots, my father had always said, was like trying to geld wildcats with your teeth, but luckily the wildcats spent much of their time fighting each other.

Once the village was ruined we withdrew to higher ground, fearing that the presence of the four scouts might mean the arrival of a larger force, but none appeared. We went west next day, seeking something alive on which we could take revenge, but four days of riding produced nothing except a sick goat and a lame bullock. The scouts never left us. Even when a thick mist draped the hills and we used its concealment to change direction, they found us as soon as the mist lifted. They never came close, just watched us.

We turned for home, following the spine of the great hills that divide Britain. It was still cold and there was snow in the creases of the high land. We had failed to retaliate for the Scottish raid, but our spirits were high because it felt good to be riding in open country with swords by our sides. “I’ll beat the bastards bloody when we’ve finished with Wessex,” Ragnar promised me cheerfully, “I’ll give them a raid they won’t forget.”

“You really want to fight Wessex?” I asked him. The two of us were alone, riding a hundred paces ahead of our men.

“Fight Wessex?” He shrugged. “In truth? No. I’m happy up here.”

“Then why do it?”

“Because Brida’s right. If we don’t take Wessex then Wessex will take us.”

“Not in your lifetime,” I said.

“But I have sons,” he said. All his sons were bastards, but Ragnar did not care about their legitimacy. He loved them all and wanted one of them to hold Dunholm after him. “I don’t want my sons bowing to some West Saxon king,” he said. “I want them to be free.”

“So you’ll become King of Wessex?”

He gave a great neigh of a laugh. “I don’t want that! I want to be Jarl of Dunholm, my friend. Maybe you should be King of Wessex?”

“I want to be Jarl of Bebbanburg.”

“We’ll find someone who wants to be king,” he said carelessly. “Maybe Sigurd or Cnut?” Sigurd Thorrson and Cnut Ranulfson were, after Ragnar himself, the mightiest lords in Northumbria and, unless they joined their men to ours, we would have no chance of conquering Wessex. “We’ll take Wessex,” Ragnar said confidently, “and divide its treasures. You need men to take Bebbanburg? The silver in the Wessex churches will buy you enough to take a dozen fortresses like Bebbanburg.”

“True.”

“So be happy! Fate is smiling.”

We were following the crest of a hill. Beneath us scrabbling streams glinted white in deep valleys. I could see for miles, and in all that wide view there was neither a house nor a tree. This was bare land where men scratched a living tending sheep, though our presence meant that the flocks had all been driven away. The Scottish outriders with their long spears were on the hill to our east, while to the south the crest ended suddenly in a long hill that dropped steeply into a deep-walled valley where two streams met. And there, where the streams churned about rocks in their shadowed meeting place, were fourteen horsemen. None was moving. They waited where the two streams became one, and it was obvious that they waited for us, and equally obvious that it had to be a trap. The fourteen men were bait, and that meant other men must be nearby. We stared back the way we had come, but there was no enemy in sight on the long crest, nor were any visible on the nearer hills. The four scouts who had shadowed us were kicking their horses down the heather-covered slope to join the larger group.

Ragnar watched the fourteen men. “What do they want us to do?” he asked.

“Go down there?”

“Which we have to do anyway,” he said slowly, “and they must have known that, so why bother to entice us down there?” He frowned, then looked quickly about the surrounding hills, but still no enemy showed on the slopes. “Are they Scots?” he asked.

Finan had joined us and he had eyes like a hunting hawk. “They’re Scots,” he said.

“How can you tell?” I asked.

“There’s a fellow wearing the symbol of a dove, lord,” Finan said.

“A dove?” Ragnar asked, sounding disgusted. In his view, indeed in mine, a man’s symbol should be warlike; an eagle or a wolf.

“It’s the sign of Colum Cille, lord,” Finan explained.

“Who is he?”

“Saint Columba, lord. An Irish saint. He came to the land of the Picts and drove away a great monster that lives in a lake here. The Scots revere him, lord.”

“Useful people, saints,” Ragnar said distractedly. He looked behind again, still expecting to see an enemy appear on the crest, but the skyline stayed empty.

“Two of them are prisoners,” Finan said, gazing down at the men in the valley, “and one’s just a wee boy.”

“Is it a trap?” Ragnar asked of no one, then decided that only a fool would cede the high ground, and that therefore the fourteen men, who were now eighteen because the scouts had joined them, were not seeking a fight. “We’ll go down,” he decided.

Eighteen of us rode down the steep slope. When we reached the flatter land of the valley’s bed two of the Scots rode to meet us, and Ragnar, copying their example, held up a hand to check his men so that only he and I rode to meet the pair. They were a man and a boy. The man, who was wearing the dove-embroidered jerkin beneath a long blue cloak, was a few years younger than I. He rode straight-backed and had a fine gold chain with a thick gold cross hanging about his neck. He had a handsome, clean-shaven face with bright blue eyes. He was hatless and his brown hair was cut short in Saxon style. The boy, riding a small colt, was only five or six years old and wore the same clothes as the man I assumed was his father. The pair curbed their horses a few paces from us and the man, who wore a jewel-hilted sword, looked from me to Ragnar and then back to me. “I am Constantin,” he said, “son of Aed, Prince of Alba, and this is my son, Cellach mac Constantin, and also, despite his size, a Prince of Alba.” He spoke in Danish, though it was obvious he was not comfortable with the language. He smiled at his son. It is strange how we know immediately whether we like people or not, and though he was a Scot, I liked Constantin at once. “I assume one of you is Jarl Ragnar,” he said, “and the other is Jarl Uhtred, but forgive me for not knowing which is which.”

“I am Ragnar Ragnarson,” Ragnar said.

“Greetings,” Constantin said pleasantly. “I hope you’ve enjoyed your travels in our country?”

“So much,” Ragnar said, “that I intend to come again, only next time I shall bring more men to share the pleasures.”

Constantin laughed at that, then spoke to his son in their own language, making the boy stare at us wide-eyed. “I was telling him that you are both great warriors,” Constantin said, “and that one day he must learn how to beat such warriors.”

“Constantin,” I said. “That isn’t a Scottish name.”

“It is mine, though,” he said, “and a reminder that I must emulate the great Roman emperor who converted his people to Christianity.”

“He did them a disservice, then,” I said.

“He did it by defeating the pagans,” Constantin said smiling, though beneath that pleasant expression was a hint of steel.

“You’re nephew to the King of Alba?” Ragnar asked.

“Domnal, yes. He’s old, he won’t live long.”

“And you will be king?” Ragnar asked.

“If God wills it, yes.” He spoke mildly, but I got the impression that his god’s will would coincide with Constantin’s own wishes.

My borrowed horse snorted and took some nervous sideways steps. I calmed him. Our sixteen men were not far behind, all of them with hands on sword hilts, but the Scots were showing no sign of hostility. I looked up at the hills and saw no enemy.

“This isn’t a trap, Lord Uhtred,” Constantin said, “but I could not resist this chance to meet you. Your uncle sent envoys to us.”

“Looking for help?” I asked scornfully.

“He will pay us one thousand silver shillings,” Constantin said, “if this summer we bring men to attack you.”

“And why would you attack me?”

“Because you will be besieging Bebbanburg,” he said.

I nodded. “So I must kill you as well as Ælfric?”

“That will certainly add to your renown,” he said, “but I would propose a different arrangement.”

“Which is?” Ragnar asked.

“Your uncle,” Constantin still spoke to me, “is not the most generous of men. A thousand silver shillings would be welcome, of course, but it still seems to me a small payment for a large war.”

I understood then why Constantin had taken such trouble to make this meeting a secret, for if he had sent envoys to Dunholm my uncle would hear of it and suspect treachery. “So what is your price?” I asked.

“Three thousand shillings,” Constantin said, “will keep Alba’s warriors safe in their homes all summer.”

I did not have nearly that amount, but Ragnar nodded. Constantin plainly believed that we were planning to attack Bebbanburg, and of course we were not, but Ragnar still feared an invasion of his land by the Scots while he was away in Wessex. Such an invasion was always a possibility because Alfred took care to keep the Scottish kings friendly as a threat against the Danes in northern England. “Let me suggest,” Ragnar said carefully, “that I pay you three thousand silver shillings and that you vow to keep your warriors out of all Northumbria for one full year.”

Constantin considered that. Ragnar’s suggestion differed hardly at all from what Constantin himself had proposed, but the small dif ference was important. Constantin glanced at me and I saw the shrewdness in his mind. He understood that maybe Bebbanburg was not our ambition. He nodded. “I could accept that,” he said.

“And King Domnal?” I asked, “will he accept that?”

“He will do what I say,” Constantin said confidently.

“But how do we know you will keep your word?” Ragnar demanded.

“I bring you a gift,” Constantin said, and beckoned toward his men. The two prisoners were ordered out of their saddles and, with bound hands, fetched across the stream to stand beside Constantin. “These two men are brothers,” Constantin said to Ragnar, “and they led the raid on your land. I shall return the women and children they captured, but for the moment I give you these two.”

Ragnar glanced at the two bearded men. “Two lives as surety?” he asked, “and when they are dead, what’s to stop you breaking your word?”

“I give you three lives,” Constantin said. He touched his son’s shoulder. “Cellach is my eldest and he is dear to me. I give him to you as a hostage. If one of my men crosses into Northumbria with a sword then you may kill Cellach.”

I remembered Haesten’s joy at foisting a false son on us as a hostage, but there was no doubt that Cellach was Constantin’s boy. The resemblance was striking. I looked at the boy and felt an instant regret that my eldest son did not have his bold demeanor and firm gaze.

Ragnar thought for a moment, but saw no disadvantage. He kicked his horse forward and held out his hand, and Constantin took it. “I shall send the silver,” Ragnar promised.

“And it will be exchanged for Cellach,” Constantin promised. “You will permit me to send servants and a tutor with the boy?”

“They will all be welcome,” Ragnar said.

Constantin looked pleased. “Our business is concluded, I think.”

And so it was. The Scots rode away and we stripped the two prisoners naked, then Ragnar killed both men with his sword. He did it quickly. Mist was flowing soft and silent down the hills and we were in a hurry to leave. The two men were decapitated and their corpses left beside the junction of the streams. Then we mounted and rode on south.

Ragnar rode with the pledge that his northern frontier would be peaceful while he was fighting in Wessex. It was, indeed, a good agreement, but it left me uncomfortable. I had liked Constantin, but there was an intelligence and a calculation in him that promised he would be a difficult and formidable enemy. How had he arranged the secret meeting with Ragnar? By instigating the raid that had prompted our retaliatory attack, of course, and then Constantin had betrayed the men who had done his bidding in the first place. He was clever and he was young. I would have to live with Constantin a long time, and if I had known then what I know now I would have slit both his and his son’s throats.

But, at least for the next twelve months, he kept his word.

Spring came late, but when at last it arrived the land greened swiftly. Lambs were born, the days grew long and warm, and men’s minds turned to war.

The two powerful Northumbrian jarls, Sigurd Thorrson and Cnut Ranulfson, came to Dunholm together, and after them a slew of lesser lords, all of them Danes and even the least of them capable of leading more than a hundred trained warriors into battle. They came with just a handful of warriors, servants, and slaves each, but Ragnar’s capacious halls were still insufficient and so some of the lesser jarls were accommodated in the town south of the fortress.

There was feasting and gift-giving and, during the day, talking. The jarls had arrived believing the tale that we gathered men for an assault on Bebbanburg, but Ragnar disabused them on the first day. “And Alfred will hear we plan to attack Wessex,” he warned them, “because some of you will tell your men, and they will tell others, and this news will reach Alfred within days.”

“So keep silent,” Sigurd Thorrson growled.

Jarl Sigurd was a tall, hard-looking man with a beard plaited into two great ropes which he twisted about his thick neck. He owned land that stretched from southern Northumbria into northern Mercia and had learned his trade by fighting Æthelred’s warriors. His friend, Cnut Ranulfson, was slighter, but had the same wiry strength that Finan possessed. Cnut was reputed to be the finest swordsman in all Britain, and his blade, together with the horde of household warriors his wealth commanded, had given him lands bordering Sigurd’s estates. His hair was bone white, though he was only thirty years old, and he had the palest eyes I have ever seen, which, with his hair, gave him a spectral appearance. He had a quick smile, though, and an infinite store of jests. “I had a Saxon slave girl just as pretty as that one,” he had told me when we first met. He was gazing at one of Ragnar’s slaves who was carrying wooden platters to the great hall. “But she died,” he went on gloomily, “died from drinking milk.”

“The milk was bad?”

“The cow collapsed on top of her,” Cnut said and burst into laughter.

Cnut was in a serious mood when Ragnar announced that he wanted to lead an assault on Wessex. Ragnar gave a good speech, explaining that West Saxon power was growing and that West Saxon ambitions were to capture Mercia, then East Anglia and finally to invade Northumbria. “King Alfred,” Ragnar said, “calls himself King of the Angelcynn, and English is spoken in my land as it is in all your lands. If we do nothing then the English will take us one by one.”

“Alfred is dying,” Cnut objected.

“But his ambitions will live on,” Ragnar said. “And Wessex knows its best defense is attack, and Wessex has a dream of pushing its boundary to touch the land of the Scots.”

“Wish the bastards would conquer the Scots,” a man interjected glumly.

“If we do nothing,” Ragnar said, “then one day Northumbria will be ruled by Wessex.”

There was an argument about the real power of Wessex. I kept silent, though I knew more than any man there. I let them talk their way to sense and, under Ragnar’s guidance, they at last understood that Wessex was a country that had organized itself for war. Its defense was the burhs, garrisoned by the fyrd, but its offense was the growing number of household warriors who could gather under the king’s banner. The Danes were more feared, man for man, but they had never organized themselves as Alfred had organized Wessex. Every Danish jarl protected his own land, and was reluctant to follow the orders of another jarl. It was possible to unite them, as Harald had done, but at the first setback the crews would scatter to find easier plunder.

“So,” Sigurd growled dubiously, “we have to capture the burhs?”

“Harald captured one,” Ragnar pointed out.

“I hear it was only half built,” Sigurd said, looking at me for confirmation. I nodded.

“If you want Wessex,” Ragnar said, “we must take the burhs.” He forced a confident smile. “We sail to his south coast,” he went on, “in a great fleet! We’ll capture Exanceaster and then march on Wintanceaster. Alfred will be expecting an attack from the north, so we’ll assault from the south.”

“And his ships will see our fleet,” Cnut objected, “and his warriors will be waiting for us.”

“His warriors,” a new voice intervened from the back of the hall, “will be fighting against my crews. So you will only have Alfred’s fyrd to fight.” The speaker stood in the open hall doorway and the sun was so bright that none of us could see him properly. “I shall assault Mercia,” the man said in a loud and confident voice, “and Alfred’s forces will march to defend it, and with them gone, Wessex will be ripe for your plucking.” The man came a few paces forward, followed by a dozen mailed warriors. “Greetings, Jarl Ragnar,” he said, “and to you all,” he swept an expansive hand around the company, “greetings!”

It was Haesten. He had not been invited to this council, yet there he was, smiling and glittering with gold chains. It was a mild day, yet he had chosen to wear an otterskin cloak lined with rare yellow silk to show his wealth. There was a moment’s embarrassment fol lowing his arrival as though no one was certain whether to treat him as a friend or an interloper, but then Ragnar leaped to his feet and embraced the newcomer.

I will not describe the tedium that followed over the next two days. The men assembled in Dunholm were capable of raising the greatest Danish army ever seen in Britain, yet they were still apprehensive because all knew that Wessex had defeated every assault. Ragnar now had to persuade them that the circumstances were changed. Alfred was sick and could not be expected to behave as a young and energetic leader, his son was inexperienced and, he flattered me, Uhtred of Bebbanburg had deserted Wessex. So it was at last agreed that Wessex was vulnerable, but who would be king? I had expected that argument to last forever, but Sigurd and Cnut had discussed it privately and agreed that Sigurd would rule Wessex while Cnut would take the throne of Northumbria when the sick, mad, and sad Guthred died. Ragnar had no ambition to live in the south, nor did I, and though Haesten doubtless hoped to be offered Wessex’s crown, he accepted that he would be named King of Mercia.

Haesten’s arrival made the whole idea of attacking Wessex appear more feasible. No one really trusted him, but few doubted that he planned an assault on Mercia. He really wanted our troops to join his, and in truth that would have made sense because, united, we would have made a mighty army, but no one could ever have agreed on who commanded that army. And so it was decided that Haesten would lead at least two thousand men westward from his stronghold at Beamfleot and, once the West Saxon troops marched to oppose him, the Northumbrian fleet would assault the south coast. Every man present swore to keep the plans secret, though I doubted that solemn oath was worth a whisker. Alfred would hear soon enough.

“So I’ll be King of Mercia,” Haesten told me on the last night, when again the great hall was lit by fire and filled with feasting.

“Only if you hold off the West Saxons long enough,” I warned him. He waved a hand as though that task were trivial. “Capture a Mercian burh,” I advised him, “and force them to besiege you.”

He bit into a goose leg and the fat ran down into his beard. “Who’ll command them?”

“Edward, probably, but he’ll be advised by Æthelred and Steapa.”

“They’re not you, my friend,” he said, jabbing my forearm with the goose bone.

“My children are in Mercia,” I told him. “Make sure they live.”

Haesten heard the grimness in my voice. “I promise you,” he said earnestly, “I swear it on my life. Your children will be safe.” He touched my arm as if to assure me, then pointed the goose bone at Cellach. “Who’s that child?”

“A hostage from Scotland,” I said. Cellach had arrived a week before with a small entourage. He had two warriors to guard him, two servants to dress and feed him, and a hunchbacked priest to educate him. I liked him. He was a sturdy little boy who had accepted his exile bravely. He had already made friends among the fortress’s children and was forever escaping the hunchback’s lessons to scamper wildly along the ramparts or scramble down the steep slope of Dunholm’s rocks.

“So no trouble from the Scots?” Haesten asked.

“The boy dies if they so much as piss across the border,” I said.

Haesten grinned. “So I’ll be King of Mercia, Sigurd of Wessex, Cnut of Northumbria, but what of you?”

I poured him mead and paused a moment to watch a man juggle with flaming sticks. “I shall take West Saxon silver,” I said, “and reclaim Bebbanburg.”

“You don’t want to be king of somewhere?” he asked disbelievingly.

“I want Bebbanburg,” I said, “it’s all I’ve ever wanted. I’ll take my children there, raise them, and never leave.”

Haesten said nothing. I did not think he had even heard me. He was staring in awe, and he stared at Skade. She was in drab servant’s dress, yet even so her beauty shone like a beacon in the dark. I think, at that moment, I could have stolen the chains of gold from around Haesten’s neck and he would have been unaware. He just stared and Skade, sensing his gaze, turned to face him. They locked eyes.

“Bebbanburg,” I said again, “it’s all I’ve ever wanted.”

“Yes,” he said distractedly, “I heard you.” He still stared at Skade. No other folk existed for them in that roaring hall. Brida, sitting further along the high table, had seen their locked gazes and she turned to me and raised an eyebrow. I shrugged.

Brida was happy that night. She had arranged Britain’s future, though her influence had been wielded through Ragnar. Yet it was her ambition that had spurred him, and that ambition was to destroy Wessex and, eventually, the power of the priests who spread their gospel so insidiously. In a year, we all believed, the only Christian king in England would be Eohric of East Anglia, and he would change allegiance when he saw how the wind had turned. Indeed, there would be no England at all, just Daneland. It all seemed so simple, so easy, so straightforward and, on that night of harp music and laughter, of ale and comradeship, none of us could anticipate failure. Mercia was weak, Wessex was vulnerable, and we were the Danes, the feared spear-warriors of the north.

Then, next day, Father Pyrlig came to Dunholm.