Warriors of the Storm

Eight

Later that morning Finan led two hundred and fifty horsemen into the country south of Eads Byrig where they discovered two of Ragnall’s foraging parties. They killed every man of the first and put the second to panicked flight, capturing an eleven-year-old boy who was the son of a Northumbrian jarl. ‘He’ll pay a ransom for the boy,’ Finan predicted. He had also brought back sixteen horses and a dozen coats of mail, along with weapons, helmets, and shields. I had sent Vidarr with Finan’s men to test the newcomer’s loyalty. ‘Aye, he killed well enough,’ Finan told me, ‘and he knows his trade.’ Out of curiosity I had summoned Vidarr and his wife to my house so I could see for myself what kind of woman drove a man to treason and tears, and discovered she was a small, plump creature with beady eyes and a shrill tongue. ‘Will we get land?’ she demanded of me, and, when her husband tried to silence her, turned on him like a vixen. ‘Don’t you hush me, Vidarr Leifson! Jarl Ragnall promised us land! I didn’t cross an ocean to die in a Saxon ditch!’ She might have driven me to tears, though never to treason, yet Vidarr gazed at her as though she were the queen of Asgard.

Finan’s tired horsemen were elated as they returned. They knew they were beating Ragnall’s horde and knew that any ransom and the sale of the captured weapons would bring gold to their purses. Men clamoured to ride, and that evening Sihtric led another hundred men to scour the same countryside. I wanted to keep Ragnall embattled, to let him know there would be no peace so long as he stayed close to Ceaster. We had hurt him badly on the day after Eostre’s feast and I wanted the pain to continue.

I also wanted to speak to my son, but he seemed incapable of speech. He lay heaped with blankets and furs, sweating and shivering at the same time. ‘His fever must burn out,’ Ymma, the gaunt woman who seemed to be the only sister allowed to talk to men, told me, ‘he needs prayer and sweat,’ she said, ‘a lot of sweat!’ When I had arrived at the house, the crippled gatekeeper had bashed the iron bar to announce a male visitor and there had been a scurrying of hooded women rushing to hide themselves as Sister Ymma emerged grimly from wherever she lurked. ‘His bleeding has stopped, thank God,’ she said, making the sign of the cross, ‘thanks to Saint Werburgh’s breastcloth.’

‘Thanks to what?’

‘The Lady Æthelflaed lent it to us,’ she said, ‘it is a holy relic.’ She shuddered. ‘I was privileged to touch it!’

‘Breastcloth?’

‘The blessed Saint Werburgh bound her breasts with a strip of cloth,’ Sister Ymma explained sternly. ‘She bound them tightly, so she would not tempt men. And she put thorns beneath the cloth as a reminder of her Lord’s suffering.’

‘She put pricks on her tits?’ I said aghast.

‘That is one way of glorifying God!’ Sister Ymma replied.

I will never understand Christians. I have seen men and women whip themselves till their backs were nothing but strips of flesh hanging from exposed ribs, watched pilgrims limp on bleeding broken feet to worship the tooth of the whale that swallowed Jonah, and seen a man hammer nails through his own feet. What god wants such nonsense? And why prefer a god who wants you to torture yourself instead of worshipping Eostre who wants you to take a girl into the woods and make babies?

‘The bishop himself prayed over him last night,’ Sister Ymma said, stroking my son’s forehead with a surprisingly gentle touch, ‘and he brought the tongue of Saint Cedd and laid it on his wound. And, of course, Sister Gomer tends him. If anyone can work God’s miracle it is Sister Gomer.’

‘The bishop’s wife,’ I said.

‘A living saint,’ Sister Ymma said reverently.

My son needed a living saint, or at least a miracle. He no longer lay curled about his pain, yet he still seemed incapable of speech. I spoke his name aloud and I thought he recognised it, but I could not be certain. I was not even sure he was awake. ‘You bloody damned fool,’ I told him, ‘what were you doing in Ireland?’ Of course he did not answer.

‘We can be certain he was doing Christ’s work,’ Sister Ymma said confidently, ‘and now he is a martyr for the faith. He has the privilege of suffering for Christ!’

My son was suffering, but it seemed Sister Gomer was indeed working miracles because next morning the bishop sent me a message that my son was recovering. I went back to the house, waited while the courtyard was cleared of women, then went to the small room where Uhtred lay. Except he was no longer Uhtred. He called himself Father Oswald now and I found him propped up in his bed with colour in his cheeks. He looked up at me and I looked down at him. ‘You damned fool,’ I said.

‘Welcome, father,’ he answered weakly. He had evidently eaten because an empty bowl and a wooden spoon lay on the fur covering. He was clutching a crucifix.

‘You almost died, you stupid bastard,’ I growled.

‘Would you have cared?’

I did not answer, but stood in the doorway and glowered out into the courtyard. ‘Do these damned women talk to you?’

‘They whisper,’ he said.

‘Whisper?’

‘As little as possible. Silence is their gift to god.’

‘A silent woman,’ I said. ‘It’s not a bad thing, I suppose.’

‘They are just obeying the scripture.’

‘The scripture?’

‘In his letter to Timothy,’ my son said primly, ‘Saint Paul says a woman should “be in silence”.’

‘He was probably married to some dreadful creature who nagged him,’ I said, thinking of Vidarr’s shrill wife, ‘but why would a god want silence?’

‘Because his ears are battered by prayers. Thousands of prayers. Prayers from the sick, from the lonely, from the dying, the miserable, the poor and the needy. Silence is a gift to those souls, allowing their prayers to reach God.’

I watched sparrows bicker on the courtyard’s grass. ‘And you think your god answers those prayers?’

‘I’m alive,’ he said simply.

‘So am I,’ I retorted, ‘and enough damned Christians have prayed for my death.’

‘That’s true.’ He sounded amused, but when I turned back I saw that his face was a grimace of pain.

I watched him, not knowing what to say. ‘That must hurt,’ I finally said.

‘It hurts,’ he agreed.

‘How did you get yourself captured by Ragnall? That was a stupid thing to do!’

‘I went to him with authority,’ my son said tiredly, ‘as an emissary. It wasn’t stupid, he had agreed to receive me.’

‘You were in Ireland?’

‘Not when I met him, no. But I’d come from there.’

‘From Stiorra?’

‘Yes.’

A dwarf woman arrived with a pot of water or ale and whimpered as a way of getting my attention. She wanted me to move from the doorway. ‘Get out,’ I snarled at her, then looked back to my son. ‘Did that bitch Brida cut off your cock as well?’

He hesitated, then nodded. ‘Yes.’

‘I don’t suppose it matters. You’re a damned priest. You can piss like a woman.’

I was angry. I might have disowned Uhtred, I might have disinherited him and spurned him, but he was still my son, and an attack on him was an attack on my family. I glowered at him. His hair was cut very short. He had always been a good-looking boy, thin-faced and quick to smile, though doubtless his smile had vanished with his cock. He was better looking than my second son, I decided, who was said to resemble me, blunt-faced and scarred.

He stared back at me. ‘I still honour you as my father,’ he said after a pause.

‘Honour me as the man who’ll take revenge for you,’ I said, ‘and tell me what’s happened to Stiorra.’

He sighed, then flinched in pain as he moved under the bed covers. ‘She and her husband are under siege.’

‘From?’

‘From the Uí Néill,’ he frowned, ‘they’re a clan, a tribe, a kingdom in Ireland.’ He paused, evidently wanting to explain more, then just shrugged as if any explanation would be too tiring. ‘Things are different in Ireland.’

‘And they’re Ragnall’s allies?’

‘They are,’ he said carefully, ‘but they don’t trust each other.’

‘Who would trust Ragnall?’ I asked savagely.

‘He takes hostages. That’s how he keeps his men loyal.’

I was finding it difficult to understand what he was trying to say. ‘Are you telling me the Uí Néill gave him hostages?’

He nodded. ‘Ragnall yielded them his land in Ireland, but part of the price was one crew’s service for one year.’

‘They’re mercenaries!’ I said, surprised.

‘Mercenaries,’ he repeated the word, ‘and their service is part of the land price. But another part was the death of Sigtryggr. If the Uí Néill don’t give him that?’

‘If they fail,’ I said, ‘he has a crew of their men in his power. You think he’d kill them as revenge?’

‘What do you think? Conall and his men are mercenaries, but they’re hostages too.’

And that, at last, made sense. Neither Finan nor I could understand why there were Irish warriors serving Ragnall, and none of the prisoners we had taken had been able to offer an explanation. They were hired warriors, mercenaries, and a surety of Sigtryggr’s death.

‘What’s the quarrel between Ragnall and his brother?’ I asked.

‘Sigtryggr refused to join his brother’s army.’

‘Why?’

‘They don’t like each other. When their father died he divided his land between them and Ragnall resented that. He thinks it all ought to be his.’ He paused to give a mirthless snort of laughter. ‘And, of course, Ragnall wants Stiorra.’

I stared at him. ‘He what?’

‘Ragnall wants Stiorra,’ he said again. I still stared at him and said nothing. ‘She’s grown to be a beautiful woman,’ he explained.

‘I know what she is! And she’s a pagan too.’

He nodded sadly. ‘She says she’s a pagan, but I think she’s like you, father. She says it to annoy people.’

‘I am a pagan!’ I said angrily. ‘And so is Stiorra!’

‘I pray for her,’ he said.

‘So do I,’ I growled.

‘And Ragnall wants her,’ he said simply. ‘He has four wives already, now he wants Stiorra as well.’

‘And the Uí Néill are supposed to capture her?’

‘They’re supposed to capture her,’ he agreed, ‘and to kill Sigtryggr. It’s all part of the land price.’

I prowled back to the door and gazed into the courtyard. A weak sun was casting shadows from the remains of a stone-walled ornamental pool that had long lost its water. The edge of the pool’s wall was carved with running nymphs and goat-legged men. The eternal chase. ‘Finan tells me the Uí Néill are the most powerful tribe in Ireland,’ I spoke from the door, ‘and you tell me they’re pursuing Stiorra?’

‘They were,’ my son said.

‘Were?’ I asked, but he only sighed again and seemed reluctant to speak. I turned and looked at him. ‘Were?’ I repeated harshly.

‘They’re frightened of her,’ he really was reluctant to speak, unable to meet my gaze.

‘Why would a powerful tribe fear Stiorra?’ I asked.

He sighed. ‘They believe she’s a sorceress.’

I laughed. My daughter a sorceress! I was proud of her. ‘So Sigtryggr and Stiorra are under siege,’ I said, ‘but the Uí Néill won’t attack because they think Stiorra has the gods on her side?’

‘The devil, perhaps,’ he said primly.

‘You think she commands Satan?’ I asked harshly.

He shook his head. ‘The Irish are superstitious,’ he said more energetically. ‘God knows there’s too much superstition in Britain! Too many folk won’t wholly abandon the old beliefs …’

‘Good,’ I said.

‘But it’s worse in Ireland! Even some of the priests there visit the old shrines. So yes, they’re scared of Stiorra and her pagan gods.’

‘And how did you come to be mixed up in it? I thought you were safe in Wessex.’

‘An abbot in Ireland sent me the news. The monasteries of Ireland are different. They’re larger, they have more power, the abbots are like lesser kings in some ways. He wanted the Uí Néill gone from his land because they were slaughtering his livestock and eating his grain. I went there, as he requested …’

‘What did they think you could do?’ I interrupted him impatiently.

‘They wanted a peacemaker.’

I sneered at that. ‘So you did what? Crawled to Ragnall and begged him to be a nice man and leave your sister alone?’

‘I carried an offer to Ragnall,’ he said.

‘Offer?’

‘Sigtryggr offered two helmets filled with gold if Ragnall would ask the Uí Néill to lift their siege.’

‘And Ragnall cut your balls off.’

‘He refused the offer. He laughed at it. He was going to send me back to Ireland with his reply, but then Brida of Dunholm came to his camp.’

‘That bitch,’ I said vengefully. I looked back into the courtyard. The women must have decided my presence was not too corrupting because a few of them were carrying linens and food across the worn grass. ‘Brida,’ I said, ‘was my first lover and she hates me.’

‘Love can turn to hatred,’ he said.

‘Can it?’ I asked savagely. I looked back to him. ‘She cut you because you’re my son.’

‘And because I’m a Christian. She hates Christians.’

‘She’s not entirely bad then,’ I said, then regretted the jest. ‘She hates Christians because they’re spoiling the land!’ I explained. ‘This land belonged to Thor and to Odin, every stream, every river, every field had a spirit or a nymph, now it has a foreign god.’

‘The one God,’ he said quietly.

‘I’ll kill her,’ I said.

‘Father …’

‘Don’t give me your Christian shit about forgiveness,’ I snarled. ‘I don’t turn the other cheek! The bitch cut you and I’ll cut her. I’ll cut her damned womb out and feed it to my dogs. Where is Sigtryggr?’

‘Sigtryggr?’ He was not really asking, just recovering from my blast of anger.

‘Yes, Sigtryggr and Stiorra! Where are they?’

‘On the other side of the Irish Sea.’ He sounded tired now. ‘There’s a great inlet of the sea called Loch Cuan. On its western side is a fort on a hill, it’s almost an island.’

‘Loch Cuan,’ I repeated the unfamiliar name.

‘Any shipmaster who knows Ireland can take you to Loch Cuan.’

‘How many men does Sigtryggr lead?’

‘There were a hundred and forty when I was there.’

‘And their wives?’

‘And their wives and children, yes.’

I grunted and looked back to the courtyard where two of the bishop’s hunchbacks were laying out heavy flax sheets to dry on the grass. As soon as they were gone a small dog wandered out of the shadows and pissed on one of the sheets.

‘What are you laughing at?’ my son asked.

‘Nothing,’ I said. ‘So there must be five hundred people in his fort?’

‘Close to that, yes, if …’ he hesitated.

‘If what?’

‘If they have enough food.’

‘So the Uí Néill,’ I said, ‘won’t attack, but they will starve them out?’

He nodded. ‘Sigtryggr has enough food for a while, and there are fish, of course, and there’s a spring on the headland. I’m no soldier …’

‘More’s the pity,’ I interrupted.

‘But Sigtryggr’s fort is defensible. The land approach is narrow and rocky. Twenty men can hold that path, he says. Orvar Freyrson attacked with ships, but he lost men on the only beach.’

‘Orvar Freyrson?’ I asked.

‘He’s one of Ragnall’s shipmasters. He has four ships in the loch.’

‘And Sigtryggr has none?’

‘None.’

‘So in the end he’ll lose. He’ll run out of food.’

‘Yes.’

‘And my granddaughter will be slaughtered.’

‘Not if God wills otherwise.’

‘I wouldn’t trust your god to save a worm.’ I looked down at him. ‘What happens to you now?’

‘Bishop Leofstan has offered to make me his chaplain, if God wills it.’

‘If you live, you mean?’

‘Yes.’

‘And that means you’ll stay in Ceaster?’

He nodded. ‘I assume so.’ He hesitated. ‘And you command the garrison here, father, so I assume you don’t want me here.’

‘What I want,’ I said, ‘is what I’ve always wanted. Bebbanburg.’

He nodded. ‘So you won’t stay here,’ he sounded hopeful. ‘You won’t stay in Ceaster?’

‘Of course not, you damned fool,’ I said, ‘I’m going to Ireland.’

‘You will not go to Ireland,’ Æthelflaed said. Or rather commanded me.

It was early afternoon. The sun had vanished again, replaced by another mass of low and ominous clouds that promised a hard rain before nightfall. It was a day to stay indoors, but instead we were well to the east of Eads Byrig and south of the Roman road along which I had led three hundred men from Ceaster. Almost half were my men, the rest were Æthelflaed’s. We had turned south off the road long before reaching its closest point to Eads Byrig, hoping to find more foraging parties, but we saw none.

‘Did you hear me?’ Æthelflaed demanded.

‘I’m not deaf.’

‘Except when you want to be,’ she said tartly. She was mounted on Gast, her white horse, and dressed for war. I had not wanted her to come, telling her that the country around Ceaster was still too dangerous for anyone except warriors, but as usual she had scorned the advice. ‘I am the ruler of Mercia,’ she had told me grandly, ‘and I ride wherever I wish in my own country.’

‘At least you’ll be buried in your own country.’

There seemed no likelihood of that. If Ragnall had sent foraging parties they must have gone directly eastwards because there were none to the south. We had ridden overgrown pastures, crossed streams, and now sat our horses among the remnants of a coppiced wood, though it must have been at least ten years since the last forester had come to trim the oaks that were growing ragged again. I was debating whether to turn back when Berg called that one of our scouts was returning from the north. I had sent half a dozen men to take another look at the Roman road, but the afternoon seemed so quiet that I expected them to find nothing.

I was wrong. ‘They’re leaving, lord!’ Grimdahl, a Mercian, was the scout, and he shouted the news as he spurred his tired horse closer to us. He was grinning. ‘They’re leaving!’ he called again.

‘Leaving?’ Æthelflaed asked.

‘All of them, my lady.’ Grimdahl curbed his horse and jerked his head eastwards. ‘They’re taking the road out and going!’

Æthelflaed kicked her horse forward. ‘Wait!’ I called, then spurred ahead of her. ‘Finan! Twenty-five men. Now!’

We chose men on the fastest horses and I led them across pastureland that was rich with spring grass. These lands had been abandoned for years because the Northmen were too close and anyone farming here could only face raids and killings. It was good land, but the fields were choked with weeds and thick with hazel saplings. We followed an overgrown cattle path eastwards, forced our way through a wood dense with brambles, and so out onto a stretch of heath. There was another belt of woodland ahead, and Grimdahl, who was riding beside me, nodded at the trees. ‘The road’s not far beyond those pines, lord.’

‘We should attack!’ Æthelflaed called. She had followed us, spurring Gast to catch up.

‘You shouldn’t be here,’ I told her.

‘You do like wasting your breath,’ she retorted.

I ignored her. Tintreg plunged into the pine trees. There was little undergrowth and thus little concealment and so I went cautiously, walking the stallion forward until I could see the Roman road. And there they were. A long line of men, horses, women, and children, all trudging eastwards.

‘We should attack,’ Æthelflaed said again.

I shook my head. ‘They’re doing what we want them to do. They’re leaving. Why disturb them?’

‘Because they shouldn’t have come here in the first place,’ she said vengefully.

I should talk to the priest Glædwine again, I thought. His song of Æthelflaed’s victory could now end with the enemy slinking away like whipped dogs. I watched Ragnall’s army retreat eastwards and I knew this was triumph. The largest northern army to invade Mercia or Wessex since the days of King Alfred had come, it had flaunted its power in front of Ceaster’s walls, and now it was running away. There were no banners flying, no defiance, they were abandoning their hopes of capturing Ceaster. And Ragnall, I thought, was in real trouble. His army could even fall apart. The Danes and the Norse were terrible enemies, fearsome in battle and savage fighters, but they were opportunists too. When things went well, when land and slaves and gold and livestock fell into their hands they would follow a leader gladly, but as soon as that leader failed they would melt away. Ragnall, I thought, would have a struggle on his hands. He had taken Eoferwic, I knew, but how long could he hold that city? He had needed a great victory and he had been whipped.

‘I want to kill more of them,’ Æthelflaed said.

I was tempted. Ragnall’s men were strung along the road and it would have been simple to ride among them and slaughter the panicked fugitives. But they were still on Mercian soil, and Ragnall must have given orders that they were to march in mail, with shields and weapons ready. If we attacked they would make shield walls, and help would come from the front and the rear of the long column. ‘I want them gone,’ Æthelflaed said, ‘but I also want them dead!’

‘We won’t attack them,’ I said, and saw her bridle with indignation, so held up a hand to calm her. ‘We’ll let them attack us.’

‘Attack us?’

‘Wait,’ I said. I could see some thirty or forty of Ragnall’s men on horseback, all of them riding on the flanks of the column as if they shepherded the fugitives to safety. At least as many other men led their horses, and all those horses were worth gold to an army. Horses allowed an army to move fast and horses were riches. A man was judged by the quality of his gold, his armour, his weapons, his woman, and his horses, and Ragnall, I knew, was still short of horses, and to deprive him of more would hurt him. ‘Grimdahl,’ I turned in the saddle, ‘go back to Sihtric. Tell him to bring everyone to the far wood.’ I pointed to the trees on the other side of the heathland. ‘He’s to bring everyone! And they’re to stay hidden.’

‘Yes, lord.’

‘The rest of you!’ I raised my voice. ‘We’re not attacking them! We’re just insulting them! I want you to mock them, jeer them! Laugh at them! Taunt them!’ I lowered my voice. ‘You can come, my lady, but don’t ride too near the road.’

Allowing Æthelflaed to show herself so close to a humiliated enemy was a risk, of course, but I reckoned her presence would drive some of the Norsemen to fury, while others would see a chance to capture her and thus snatch an unlikely victory from their humiliating defeat. She was my bait. ‘You hear me?’ I demanded of her. ‘I want you to show yourself, but be ready to retreat when I give the order.’

‘Retreat?’ She did not like the word.

‘You want to give the orders instead of me?’

She smiled. ‘I will behave myself, Lord Uhtred,’ she said with mock humility. She was enjoying herself.

I waited until I saw Sihtric’s warriors among the far trees and then I led my few men and one woman out onto the open ground beside the road. The enemy saw us, of course, but at first assumed we were just a patrol that did not want trouble, but gradually we veered closer to the road, always keeping pace with the beaten troops. Once within earshot we shouted our insults, we mocked them, we called them frightened boys. I pointed to Æthelflaed, ‘You were beaten by a woman! By a woman!’ And my men began chanting the words, ‘Beaten by a woman! Beaten by a woman!’

The enemy looked sullen. One or two shouted back, but without enthusiasm, and we edged still closer, laughing at them. One man spurred away from the column, his sword drawn, but sheered away when he realised that no one was following him. Yet I saw that men who had been leading their horses were now pulling themselves into their saddles, and other horsemen were returning from the front of the column while still more spurred from the rear. ‘Berg!’ I called to the young Norseman.

‘Lord?’

‘You’ll stay close beside the Lady Æthelflaed,’ I said, ‘and make sure she rides away safely.’

Æthelflaed gave an indignant snort, but did not argue. My men were still jeering, but I angled slightly away from the road and turned them back so we were now riding towards the place where Sihtric’s men were hidden. We had got as close as forty paces to the beaten army, but I widened the gap now as I watched the enemy horsemen gather. I reckoned there were over a hundred of them, more than enough to slaughter my twenty-five men, and of course they were tempted. We had ridiculed them, they were slinking away from a defeat, and our deaths would be a small consolation.

‘They’re coming,’ Finan warned me.

‘Go!’ I called to Æthelflaed, then twisted in the saddle. ‘We run away!’ I called to my men and put my spurs to Tintreg’s flanks. I slapped Gast’s rump to make her leap away.

Now it was Ragnall’s men who jeered. They saw us fleeing and the horsemen quickened as they pursued us. We plunged back into the pines and I saw Æthelflaed’s white horse race ahead with Berg close behind her. I touched the spurs again, putting Tintreg to a full gallop so I could get ahead of Æthelflaed and, once in the ragged stretch of heathland beyond the pine wood, I led my fleeing men directly westwards between the two strips of trees. We were sixty or seventy paces ahead of our pursuers, who were whooping and shouting as they urged their horses ever faster. I snatched a backwards glimpse and saw the glint of steel, the flashing sunlight reflecting from swords and spears, and then Sihtric came from the southern trees. The ambush was perfect.

And we slewed around, turf and torn bracken flying from the hooves of our stallions, and the enemy saw the trap and realised they had seen it too late and Sihtric’s men crashed into them and the swords fell and the spears lunged. I spurred back, Serpent-Breath alive in my hand. A black horse went down, hooves thrashing. Godric, my servant, who had stayed with Sihtric, was leaning from the saddle to plunge a spear into a fallen rider’s breast. A Norseman saw him and rode towards him, his sword ready to lance into Godric’s spine, but Finan was faster and the Irishman’s blade hissed in a savage cut and the Norseman fell away.

‘I want their horses!’ I bellowed. ‘Take their horses!’

The rearmost men of the pursuing enemy had managed to turn and were trying to escape, but a rush of my men caught them and the swords fell again. I looked for Æthelflaed, but could not see her. A man bleeding from the head was leading his horse northwards and I rode him down, letting Tintreg trample him. I snatched the reins of his horse and turned it back, then slapped its rump with Serpent-Breath to send it into the southern trees and it was then I saw the glint of steel among the thick undergrowth and kicked my horse into the woodland.

Berg was on foot, fighting off two men who had also dismounted. The trees and the bushes were too thick and the branches too low to let men fight on horseback and the two men had seen Æthelflaed ride into the wood and pursued her. She was just behind Berg, still mounted on Gast. ‘Ride away!’ I shouted at her.

She ignored me. Berg parried a sword cut and was struck by the second man with a lunge that started blood from his thigh, then I was on them, Serpent-Breath slammed down and the man who had wounded Berg was staggering away with his helmet split. I followed him, pushing a low branch out of my face, and hacked again, this time cleaving Serpent-Breath into his neck. I dragged her back savagely, sawing her edge through blood and flesh, and he half fell against the trunk of a hornbeam. I clambered out of the saddle. I was furious, not because of the enemy, but because of Æthelflaed, and my fury made me hack at the wounded man who was too hurt to resist. He was an older man, doubtless an experienced warrior. He was mumbling and I suspected afterwards that he was asking for mercy. He had a thick beard flecked with white, three arm rings, and finely wrought mail. Such mail had value, but I was angry and careless, disembowelling him with a savage thrust and a two-handed rip upwards that ruined the mail coat. I shouted at him, cut him clumsily across his helmeted head, then finally killed him with a lunge to the throat. He died with his sword in his hand and I knew he would be waiting for me in Valhalla, another enemy who would welcome me to the feasting-hall and pour ale as we retold our stories.

Berg had killed his man, but was bleeding from his thigh. The wound looked deep. ‘Lie down,’ I told him, then snarled at Æthelflaed, ‘I said you shouldn’t have come!’

‘Be quiet,’ she said dismissively, then dismounted to tend Berg’s wound.

We took thirty-six horses. The enemy left sixteen dead men among the bracken, and twice that number of wounded men. We abandoned those wounded after taking their weapons and mail. Ragnall could either look after his injured men or leave them to die, either way we had hurt him again.

‘Will he have left a garrison at Eads Byrig?’ Æthelflaed asked as we rode away.

I thought for a moment. It was possible that Ragnall had left a small garrison on the hilltop, but the more I considered that idea the more unlikely it seemed. There were no walls to defend such a garrison, and no prospect for them except death at Mercian hands. Ragnall had been trounced, driven out, defeated, and any men left at Eads Byrig would meet the same fate as Haesten’s force. ‘No,’ I said.

‘Then I want to go there,’ Æthelflaed demanded, and so, as the sun began to sink behind the thickening western clouds, I led our horsemen up the ridge and thus back to the ancient fort.

Ragnall had left men there. There were some twenty-seven men who were too wounded to be moved. They had been stripped of their mail and their weapons, then left to die. Some older women were with them and those women fell to their knees and wailed at us. ‘What do we do?’ Æthelflaed asked, appalled by the stench of the wounds.

‘We kill the bastards,’ I said. ‘It will be a mercy.’ The first heavy drops of rain fell.

‘There’s been enough killing,’ Æthelflaed said, evidently forgetting her bitter demands to kill more of Ragnall’s men earlier in the afternoon. Now, as the rain began to fall harder, she walked among the injured and stared into their inked faces and desperate eyes. One man reached out to her and she took his hand and held it, then looked at me. ‘We’ll bring wagons,’ she said, ‘and move them to Ceaster.’

‘And what will you do with them when they’re healed?’ I asked, though I suspected most would die before they ever reached the city.

‘By then,’ she said, relinquishing the wounded man’s hand, ‘they will have been converted to Christ.’ I swore at that. She half smiled and took my arm, leading me past the ashes of the buildings that had been burned on the hilltop. We walked to the wall where the palisade had stood and she gazed northwards into the rain-smeared haze that was Northumbria. ‘We will go north,’ she promised me.

‘Tomorrow?’

‘When my brother is ready.’ She meant Edward, King of Wessex. She wanted his army alongside hers before she pierced the pagan north. She squeezed my forearm through my stiff mail. ‘And you’re not to go to Ireland,’ she said gently.

‘My daughter …’ I began.

‘Stiorra made a choice,’ she interrupted me firmly. ‘She chose to abandon God and marry a pagan. She chose! And she must live with the choice.’

‘And you wouldn’t rescue your own daughter?’ I asked harshly.

She said nothing to that. Her daughter was so unlike her. Ælflæd was flighty and silly, though I liked her well enough. ‘I need you here,’ Æthelflaed said instead of answering my question, ‘and I need your men here.’ She looked up at me. ‘You can’t leave now, not when we’re so close to victory!’

‘You have your victory,’ I said sullenly. ‘Ragnall’s defeated.’

‘Defeated here,’ she said, ‘but will he leave Mercia?’

Lightning flickered far to the north and I wondered what omen that was. No sound of thunder followed. The clouds were darkening to black as the dusk drew nearer. ‘He’ll send some men to Eoferwic,’ I guessed, ‘because he dare not lose that city. But he won’t send all his men there. No, he won’t leave Mercia.’

‘So he’s not defeated,’ she said.

She was right, of course. ‘He’s going to keep most of his army here,’ I said, ‘and look for plunder. He’ll move fast, he’ll burn, he’ll take slaves, he’ll pillage. He has to reward his men. He needs to capture slaves, gold, and livestock, so yes, he’ll raid deep into Mercia. His only chance of holding onto what’s left of his army is to reward them with land, cattle, and captives.’

‘Which is why I need you here,’ she said, still holding my arm. I said nothing, but she knew I was thinking about Stiorra. ‘You say she’s trapped by the sea?’

‘In a sea loch.’

‘And you’d bring her back? If you could?’

‘Of course I would.’

She smiled. ‘You can send the fishing boat we use to provision Brunanburh.’ She was talking of a small boat with room enough for perhaps ten men, but well-made and a good sea boat. It had belonged to a stubborn Mercian who had settled in the empty land west of Brunanburh. We had told him that Norse raiders regularly crossed the mouth of the Mærse to steal cattle or sheep, but he had insisted he would survive. He did survive too, for all of a week, after which he and his family had all been killed or enslaved, but for some reason the raiders had left the man’s boat tied to its post in the river’s mud, and we now used it to send heavy supplies from Ceaster to Brunanburh. It was much easier to float ten barrels of ale around to the fort by sea than lumber them across the land by wagon.

‘Send men in that boat,’ she told me. ‘They can give Stiorra and her daughter the chance to escape.’ I nodded, but said nothing. Ten men in a small boat? When Ragnall had left dragon-ships crammed with sea-warriors in Loch Cuan? ‘We can spare a few men,’ Æthelflaed went on, ‘but if we’re to catch Ragnall and kill him? You must stay.’ She paused. ‘You think like Ragnall so I need you here to fight him. I need you.’

So did my daughter.

And I needed a shipmaster who knew Ireland.

We had sent scouts to follow the retreating army and, just as I had predicted, Ragnall’s force divided into two parts. The smaller part went north, presumably towards Eoferwic, while the other, about seven hundred strong, travelled on eastwards. The next day, the day after we had ambushed his retreat, we saw the first pillars of smoke smudge the distant sky, which told us that Ragnall was burning homesteads and barns in northern Mercia.

‘He needs to be harassed,’ Æthelflaed told me as we watched the far smoke.

‘I know what needs to be done,’ I said testily.

‘I’ll give you two hundred men,’ she said, ‘to add to your men. And I want you to pursue him, harry him, make his life hell.’

‘It will be hell,’ I promised her, ‘but I need a day to prepare.’

‘A day?’

‘I’ll be ready to leave before dawn tomorrow,’ I promised her, ‘but I need a day to get things ready. The horses are tired, the weapons are blunt, we have to carry our own food. And I have to equip Blesian.’

And all of that was true. Blesian, which meant blessing, was the fishing boat the Norse had left behind in the Mærse, perhaps because they thought the vessel cursed by the big wooden cross mounted at its prow. ‘I’m sending Uhtred to Ireland,’ I told Æthelflaed.

‘He’s well enough to travel?’

‘Not him! My younger son.’ I made sure she heard the resentment in my voice. ‘The boat needs food, supplies.’

She frowned. ‘It’s not a long voyage, is it?’

‘A day if the wind is good,’ I said, ‘two days if it’s calm, but you don’t go to sea without provisions. If they get hit by a storm they could be a week at sea.’

She touched my arm. ‘I’m sorry about Stiorra,’ she began.

‘So am I.’

‘But defeating Ragnall is our first duty,’ she said firmly. ‘Once he’s finally beaten, you can go to Ireland.’

‘Stop worrying,’ I told her, ‘I’ll be ready to leave before dawn tomorrow.’

And I was.