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‘We’re going south,’ I confirmed.
‘Where the worst of the trouble comes from. But don’t travel through Lindcolne,’ he sounded unhappy.
‘No?’
‘There’s a report of the plague there.’
Finan, standing beside me, crossed himself. ‘I’ll avoid Lindcolne,’ I said, raising my voice slightly. There were a dozen servants and household warriors within earshot and I wanted them to hear what I said. ‘We’ll take the western road through Mameceaster.’
‘Then come back soon,’ Sigtryggr said, ‘and come back alive.’
He meant that, he just didn’t sound as if he meant it. We left next day.
I had no intention of going south by any road, but I had wanted any listeners in Sigtryggr’s court to repeat my words. Æthelhelm had his spies in Sigtryggr’s court, and I wanted him watching the Roman roads that led south from Northumbria to Wessex.
I had ridden to Eoferwic, knowing it was my duty to speak with Sigtryggr, but while we rode, Berg had taken Spearhafoc down the coast to a small harbour on the Humbre’s northern bank where he would be waiting for us.
Early on the morning after my meeting with Sigtryggr, and feeling sour with the ale and wine of the night before, I led my five men out of the city. We rode south, but once out of sight of Eoferwic’s ramparts we turned eastwards and that evening we found Spearhafoc, manned by a crew of forty, riding at anchor on a falling tide. Next morning I sent six men to take our horses back to Bebbanburg while the rest of us took Spearhafoc to sea.
Æthelhelm would hear that we had been in Eoferwic and would be told that we had left the city by the southern gate. He would probably assume I was heading for Mercia to join Æthelstan, but he would be puzzled that I travelled with only five companions. I wanted him to be nervous and to be watching all the wrong places.
In the meantime I had told no one, not Eadith, not my son, not even Finan, what we were doing. Eadith and Finan had expected me to travel south on the news of Edward’s death, but, though the king still lived, I had left in a hurry. ‘What did that priest tell you?’ Finan asked as Spearhafoc coasted south under the summer wind.
‘He told me that I needed to go south.’
‘And what,’ Finan asked, ‘are we doing when we get there?’
‘I wish I knew.’
He laughed at that. ‘Forty of us,’ he said, nodding at Spearhafoc’s crowded belly, ‘invading Wessex?’
‘More than forty,’ I said, then fell silent. I stared at the sun-glossed sea as it slid past Spearhafoc’s sleek hull. We could not have wished for a better day. We had a wind to drive us and a sea to carry us, and that sea was rippled by dazzling light, broken only by small frills of foam curling at the wave crests. That weather should have been a good omen, but I was assailed by unease. I had launched this voyage impulsively, seizing what I thought was an opportunity, but now the doubts were nagging me. I touched Thor’s hammer hanging at my neck. ‘The priest,’ I said to Finan, ‘brought me a message from Eadgifu.’
For a moment he looked puzzled, then recognised the name. ‘Lavender tits!’
I half smiled, remembering that I had once told Finan that Eadgifu’s breasts smelled of lavender. Eadith had told me that many women infused lavender into lanolin and smeared it on their cleavage. ‘Eadgifu has tits that smell like lavender,’ I confirmed to Finan, ‘and she asks for our help.’
Finan stared at me. ‘Christ on his cross!’ he finally said. ‘What in God’s name are we doing?’
‘Going to find Eadgifu, of course,’ I said.
He still stared at me. ‘Why us?’
‘Who else can she ask?’
‘Anyone!’
I shook my head. ‘She’ll have a few friends in Wessex, none in Mercia or East Anglia. She’s desperate.’
But why ask for your help?’
‘Because she knows I’m the enemy of her enemy.’
‘Æthelhelm.’
‘Who hates her,’ I said.
That hatred was easy to understand. Edward had met Eadgifu while he was still married to Æfflaed, Æthelhelm’s sister and Ælfweard’s mother. The new, younger and prettier woman had won that rivalry, usurping Æfflaed’s place in the king’s bed and even persuading Edward to name her as Queen of Mercia. To make Æthelhelm’s hatred even more intense she had given Edward two more sons, Edmund and Eadred. Both boys were infants, yet the eldest, Edmund, had a claim on the throne if, so some believed, Æthelstan was illegitimate, and, as many realised, Ælfweard was simply too stupid, cruel and unreliable to be the next king. Æthelhelm understood that danger to his nephew’s future, which was why Eadgifu, in her desperation, had sent the priest to Bebbanburg.
‘She knows what Æthelhelm is planning for her,’ I told Finan.
‘She knows?’
‘She has spies, just as he does, and she was told that as soon as Edward dies Æthelhelm plans to carry her off to Wiltunscir. She’s to be placed in a nunnery and her two boys are to be raised in Æthelhelm’s household.’
Finan gazed across the summer sea. ‘Meaning,’ he said slowly, ‘that both boys will have their throats slit.’
‘Or else die of a convenient illness, yes.’
‘So what are we going to do? Rescue her?’
‘Rescue her,’ I agreed.
‘But, Christ! She’s protected by the king’s household troops! And Æthelhelm will be watching her like a hawk.’
‘She’s already rescued herself,’ I said. ‘She and her children went to Cent. She told her husband she was going to pray for him at the shrine of Saint Bertha, but in truth she wants to raise troops who’ll protect her and the boys.’
‘Dear God,’ Finan looked appalled. ‘And men will follow her?’
‘Why not? Remember that her father was Sigehelm.’ Sigehelm had been the ealdorman of Cent until he was killed fighting the Danes in East Anglia. He had been wealthy, though nothing like as rich as Æthelhelm, and Sigehelm’s son, Sigulf, had inherited that wealth along with his father’s household warriors. ‘Sigulf probably has three hundred men,’ I said.
‘And Æthelhelm has double that, at least! And he’ll have the king’s warriors too!’
‘And those warriors will be watching Æthelstan in Mercia,’ I said. ‘Besides, if Eadgifu and her brother march against Æthelhelm then others will follow them.’ That, I thought, was a slender hope, but not an impossible one.
Finan frowned at me. ‘I thought your oath was to Æthelstan. Now it’s to Lavender Tits?’
‘My oath is to Æthelstan,’ I said.
‘But Eadgifu will expect you to make her son the next king!’
‘Edmund is too young,’ I said firmly. ‘He’s an infant. The Witan will never appoint him king, not till he’s of age.’
‘By which time,’ Finan pointed out, ‘Æthelstan will be on the throne with sons of his own!’
‘I’ll be dead by then,’ I said, and touched the hammer again.
Finan gave a mirthless laugh. ‘So we’re sailing to join a Centish rebellion?’
‘To lead it. It’s my best chance to kill Æthelhelm.’
‘Why not join Æthelstan in Mercia?’
‘Because if the West Saxons hear that Æthelstan is using Northumbrian troops they’ll regard that as a declaration of war by Sigtryggr.’
‘That won’t matter if Æthelstan wins!’
‘But he has fewer men than Æthelhelm, he has less money than Æthelhelm. The best way to help him win is to kill Æthelhelm.’ Far to the east a speck of sail showed. I had been watching it for some time, but saw now that the distant ship was travelling northwards and would come nowhere near us.
‘Damn your oaths,’ Finan said mildly.
‘I agree. But remember, Æthelhelm has tried to kill me. So oath or no oath I owe him a death.’
Finan nodded because that explanation made sense to him even if he did believe we were on a voyage to madness. ‘And his nephew? What of him?’
‘We’ll kill Ælfweard too.’
‘You swore an oath to kill him too?’ Finan asked.
‘No,’ I admitted, but then touched my hammer once more. ‘But I swear one now. I’ll kill that little earsling along with his uncle.’
Finan grinned. ‘One ship’s crew, eh? Forty of us! Forty men to kill the King of Wessex and his most powerful ealdorman?’
‘Forty men,’ I said, ‘and the troops of Cent.’
Finan laughed. ‘I sometimes think you’re moon-crazed, lord,’ he said, ‘but, God knows, you’ve not lost yet.’
We spent the next two nights sheltering in East Anglian rivers. We saw no one, just a landscape of reeds. On the second night the wind freshened in the darkness and the sky, that had been clear all day, clouded over to hide the stars, while far off to the west I saw lightning flicker and heard Thor’s growl in the night. Spearhafoc, even though she was tied securely in a safe haven, shivered under the wind’s assault. Rain spattered on the deck, the wind gusted, and the rain fell harder. Few of us slept.
The dawn brought low clouds, drenching rain, and a hard wind, but I judged it safe enough to turn the ship and let the wind carry us downriver. We half-hoisted the sail, and Spearhafoc leaped ahead like a wolfhound loosed from the leash. The rain drove from astern, heavy and slanting in the wind’s grip. The steering-oar bent and groaned and I called on Gerbruht, the big Frisian, to help me. Spearhafoc was defying the flooding tide, racing past mudbanks and reeds, then at last we were clear of the shoals at the river’s mouth and could turn southwards. The ship bent alarmingly to the wind and I released the larboard sheet and still she drove on, shattering water at the bows. This, I thought, was madness. Impatience had driven me to sea when any sensible seaman would have stayed in shelter. ‘Where are we going, lord?’ Gerbruht shouted.
‘Across the estuary of the Temes!’
The wind rose. Thunder hammered to the west. This coast was shallow, shortening the waves that shattered against our hull and drenched the rain-sodden crew with spray. Men clung to the benches as they bailed water. They were praying. I was praying. They were praying to survive, while I was asking the gods to forgive my stupidity in thinking a ship could survive this wind’s anger. It was dark, the sun utterly hidden by the roiling clouds, and we saw no other ships. Sailors were letting the storm blow over, but we hammered on southwards across the wide mouth of the Temes.
The estuary’s southern shore appeared as a sullen stretch of sand pounded by foam beyond which were dark woods on low hills. The thunder came closer. The sky above distant Lundene was black as night, sometimes split by a jagged stab of lightning. The rain teemed down, and I searched the shore for a landmark, any landmark that I might recognise. The steering-oar, taking all my and Gerbruht’s strength, quivered like a live thing.
‘There!’ I shouted at Gerbruht, pointing. I had seen the island ahead, an island of reeds and mud, and to its left was the wide, wind-whipped entrance to the Swalwan Creek. Spearhafoc pounded on, clawing her way towards the creek’s safety. ‘I had a ship called Middelniht once!’ I bellowed to Gerbruht.
‘Lord?’ he asked, puzzled.
‘She’d been stranded on that island,’ I shouted, ‘on Sceapig! And the Middelniht proved to be a good ship! A Frisian ship! It’s a good omen!’
He grinned. Water was dripping from his beard. ‘I hope so, lord!’ He did not sound confident.
‘It’s a good omen, Gerbruht! Trust me, we’ll be in calmer water soon!’
We plunged on, the ship’s hull shaking with every wave that pounded her, but at last we cleared the island’s western tip where marker withies were being bent flat by the gale, and once in the creek the seas calmed to a vicious chop and we dropped the sodden sail and our oars took us into the wide channel that ran between the Isle of Sceapig and the Centish mainland. I could see farmsteads on Sceapig, the smoke from their roof-holes being whipped eastwards on the wind. The channel narrowed. The wind and rain still beat down on us, but the water was sheltered here and the creek’s banks had tamed the ship-killing waves. We went slowly, the oars rising and falling, and I thought how the dragon-boats must have crept down this waterway bringing savage men to plunder the rich fields and towns of Cent, and how the villagers must have been terrified as the serpent-headed war boats appeared from the river mists. I have never forgotten Father Beocca, my childhood tutor, clasping his hands and praying nightly: ‘From the fury of the Northmen, good Lord, deliver us.’ Now I, a northerner, was bringing swords, spears and shields to Cent.
The priest who had brought me Eadgifu’s message said that though she had announced her pious intention of praying at Saint Bertha’s tomb in Contwaraburg, in truth she had taken refuge in a small town called Fæfresham where she had endowed a convent. ‘The queen will be safe there,’ the priest had told me.
‘Safe! Protected by nuns?’
‘And by God, lord,’ he had reproved me, ‘the queen is protected by God.’
‘But why didn’t she go to Contwaraburg?’ I had asked him. Contwaraburg was a considerable town, had a stout wall, and, I assumed, men to defend it.
‘Contwaraburg is inland, lord.’ The priest had meant that if Eadgifu was threatened by failure, if Æthelhelm discovered her and sent troops, then she wanted to be in a place where she could escape by sea. From where she could cross to Frankia, and Fæfresham was very close to a harbour on the Swalwan Creek. It was, I supposed, a prudent choice.
We rowed west and I saw the masts of a half-dozen ships showing above the sodden thatch of a small village on the creek’s southern bank. The village, I knew, was called Ora and lay a short distance north of Fæfresham. I had sailed this coast with its wide marshes, tide-swamped mudbanks, and hidden creeks often enough, I had fought Danes on its shores and had buried good men in its inland pastures.
‘Into the harbour,’ I told Gerbruht and we turned Spearhafoc, and my weary crew rowed her into Ora’s shallow harbour. It was a bedraggled, poor excuse for a harbour with rotting wharves either side of a tidal creek. On the western bank, where the wharves showed signs of being in repair, there were four tubby merchant ships, big bellied and squat, whose normal duties were to carry food and fodder upriver to Lundene. The water, though sheltered from the gale, was choppy and white-flecked, slapping irritably against the pilings and against three more ships that were moored at the harbour’s southern end. Those ships were long, high-prowed, and sleek. Each had a cross mounted on the bows. Finan saw them and climbed onto the steering platform beside me. ‘Whose are those?’ he asked.
‘You tell me,’ I said, wondering whether they were ships that Eadgifu was keeping in case she had to flee for her life.
‘They’re fighting ships,’ Finan said dourly, ‘but whose?’
‘Saxon, for sure,’ I said. The crosses on the bows told me that.
There were buildings on both banks of the harbour. Most of them were shacks, presumably storing fishermen’s gear or cargo that awaited shipment, but some of the buildings were larger and had smoke streaming eastwards from their roof-holes. One of those, the biggest, stood at the centre of the western wharves and had a barrel hanging as a sign above a wide thatched porch. It was a tavern, I assumed, and then the door beneath the porch opened and two men appeared and stood watching us. I knew then who had brought the three fighting ships into the harbour.
Finan knew too and swore under his breath.
Because the two men wore dull red cloaks, and only one man insisted that his warriors wore matching red cloaks. Æthelhelm the Elder had started the fashion, and his son, my enemy, had continued the tradition.
So Æthelhelm’s men had reached this part of Cent before us. ‘What do we do?’ Gerbruht asked.
‘What do you think we do?’ Finan snarled. ‘We kill the buggers.’
Because when queens call for help, warriors go to war.
Three (#u83d52f60-1848-5b11-b7fd-71ecd3ceb922)
We swung Spearhafoc against one of the western wharves. The two men still watched from the tavern as we secured her lines, and then as Gerbruht, Folcbald and I came ashore. Folcbald, like Gerbruht, was a Frisian and, also like Gerbruht, a huge man, strong as any two others.
‘You know what to say?’ I asked Gerbruht.
‘Of course, lord.’
‘Don’t call me lord.’
‘No, lord.’
The rain was slashing into our faces as we walked towards the tavern. All three of us were wearing mail beneath sodden cloaks, but we had neither helmets nor swords, just rough woollen caps and the knives any seaman wears at his belt. I was limping, half supported by Gerbruht. The ground was mud, the rain pouring off the tavern’s thatch.
‘That’s enough! Stop there!’ The taller of the two red-cloaked men called as we neared the tavern door. We stopped obediently. The two men were standing under a porch and seemed amused that we were forced to wait in the pelting rain. ‘And what’s your business here?’ the taller man demanded.
‘We need shelter, lord,’ Gerbruht said.
