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‘I kill some bastards first, yes?’ He spurred away, still grinning. He was a Norse warrior, maybe eighteen or nineteen summers old, but he had already rowed a ship to Horn on the island of fire and ice that lay far off in the Atlantic, and he had fought in Ireland, in Scotland, and in Wales, and he had stories of rowing inland through forests of birch trees, which, he claimed, grew east of the Norsemen’s land. There were frost giants there, he told me, and wolves the size of stallions. ‘I should have died a thousand times, lord,’ he told me, but he was only alive now because I had saved his life. He had become my man, sworn to me, and in my service he took the head from a fugitive with one swing of his sword. ‘Yah!’ he bellowed back to me, ‘I sharpen the blade good!’
Finan was close to the water’s edge, close enough that a man on the approaching ship hurled a spear at him. The weapon stuck in the mud, and Finan contemptuously bent from the saddle to seize the shaft and spurred to where a man lay fallen and bleeding in the mud. He looked back to the ship, making sure he was being watched, then raised the spear ready to plunge the blade into the wounded man’s belly. Then he paused and, to my surprise, tossed the spear away. He dismounted and knelt by the wounded man, talked for a moment and then stood. ‘Prisoners,’ he shouted, ‘we need prisoners!’
A horn sounded from the fort and I turned to see men pouring out of Brunanburh’s gate. They came with shields, spears, and swords, ready to make a wall that would drive the enemy’s shield wall into the river, but those invaders were already leaving and needed no help from us. They were wading past the charred pilings, and edging around the smoking boats to clamber aboard the nearest ships. The approaching ship paused, churning the shallows with its oars, reluctant to face my men, who called insults to them and waited at the river’s edge with drawn swords and bloodied spears. More of the enemy waded out towards the dragon-headed boats. ‘Let them be!’ I shouted. I had wanted blood in the dawn, but there was no advantage in slaughtering a handful of men in the Mærse’s shallows and losing maybe a dozen myself. The enemy’s main fleet, which had to contain hundreds more men, was already rowing upriver. To weaken it I needed to kill those hundreds, not just a few.
The crews of the nearer ships were jeering at us. I watched as men were hauled aboard, and I wondered where this fleet had come from. It had been years since I had seen so many northern ships. I kicked my horse to the water’s edge. A man hurled a spear, but it fell short, and I deliberately sheathed Serpent-Breath to show the enemy I accepted that the fight was over, and I saw a grey-bearded man strike the elbow of a youth who wanted to throw another spear. I nodded to the greybeard, who raised a hand in acknowledgement.
So who were they? The prisoners would tell us soon enough, and we had taken almost a score of men, who were now being stripped of their mail, helmets, and valuables. Finan was kneeling by the wounded man again, talking to him, and I kicked my horse towards him, then stopped, astonished, because Finan had stood and was now pissing on the man, who struck feebly at his tormentor with a gloved hand. ‘Finan?’ I called.
He ignored me. He spoke to his prisoner in his own Irish tongue and the man answered angrily in the same language. Finan laughed, then seemed to curse the man, chanting words brutally and distinctly, and holding his outspread fingers towards the piss-soaked face as though casting a spell. I reckoned that whatever happened was none of my business and I looked back to the ships at the end of the ruined wharf just in time to see the enemy’s standard-bearer climb aboard the last remaining high-prowed vessel. The man was in mail and had a hard time pulling himself over the ship’s side until he handed up his banner and held up both arms so he could be hauled aboard by two other warriors. And I recognised the banner, and I hardly dared believe what I saw.
Haesten?
Haesten.
If this world ever contained one worthless, treacherous slime-coated piece of human dung then it was Haesten. I had known him for a lifetime, indeed I had saved his miserable life and he had sworn loyalty to me, clasping his hands about mine which, in turn, were clasped about Serpent-Breath’s hilt, and he had wept tears of gratitude as he vowed to be my man, to defend me, to serve me, and in return to receive my gold, my loyalty, and within months he had broken the oath and was fighting against me. He had sworn peace with Alfred and had broken that oath too. He had led armies to ravage Wessex and Mercia, until finally, at Beamfleot, I had cornered his men and turned the creeks and marshes dark with their blood. We had filled ditches with his dead, the ravens had gorged themselves that day, but Haesten had escaped. He always escaped. He had lost his army, but not his cunning, and he had come again, this time in the service of Sigurd Thorrson and Cnut Ranulfson, and they had died in another slaughter, but once again Haesten had slipped away.
Now he was back, and his banner was a bleached skull mounted on a pole. It mocked me from the nearest ship, which was now rowing away. The men aboard called insults, and the standard-bearer waved the skull from side to side. Beyond that ship was a larger one, prowed with a great dragon that reared its fanged mouth high, and at the ship’s stern I could see a cloaked man wearing a silver helmet crowned with black ravens’ wings. He took the helmet off and gave me a mocking bow, and I saw that it was Haesten. He was laughing. He had burned my boats and had stolen a few cattle, and for Haesten that was victory enough. It was not revenge for Beamfleot, he would need to kill me and all my men to balance that bloody scale, but he had made us look fools and he had opened the Mærse to a great fleet of Northmen who now rowed upriver. A fleet of enemies who came to take our land, led by Haesten.
‘How can a bastard like Haesten lead so many men?’ I asked aloud.
‘He doesn’t.’ My son had walked his horse into the shallows and reined in beside me.
‘He doesn’t?’
‘Ragnall Ivarson leads them.’
I said nothing, but felt a chill pass through me. Ragnall Ivarson was a name I knew, a name we all knew, a name that had spread fear up and down the Irish Sea. He was a Norseman who called himself the Sea King, for his lands were scattered wherever the wild waves beat on rock or sand. He ruled where the seals swam and the puffins flew, where the winds howled and where ships were wrecked, where the cold bit like a knife and the souls of drowned men moaned in the darkness. His men had captured the wild islands off Scotland, had bitten land from the coast of Ireland, and enslaved folk in Wales and on the Isle of Mann. It was a kingdom without borders, for whenever an enemy became too strong, Ragnall’s men took to their long ships and sailed to another wild coast. They had raided the shores of Wessex, taking away slaves and cattle, and had even rowed up the Sæfern to threaten Gleawecestre, though the walls of that fortress had daunted them. Ragnall Ivarson. I had never met him, but I knew him. I knew his reputation. No man sailed a ship better, no man fought more fiercely, no man was held in more fear. He was a savage, a pirate, a wild king of nowhere, and my daughter Stiorra had married his brother.
‘And Haesten has sworn loyalty to Ragnall,’ my son went on. He watched the ships pull away. ‘Ragnall Ivarson,’ he still gazed at the fleet as he spoke, ‘has given up his Irish land. He’s told his men that fate has granted him Britain instead.’
Haesten was a nothing, I thought. He was a rat allied to a wolf, a ragged sparrow perched on an eagle’s shoulder. ‘Ragnall has abandoned his Irish land?’ I asked.
‘So the man said.’ My son gestured to where the prisoners stood.
I grunted. I knew little of what happened in Ireland, but over the last few years there had come news of Northmen being harried out of that land. Ships had crossed the sea with survivors of grim fights, and men who had thought to take land in Ireland now sought it in Cumbraland or on the Welsh coast, and some went even further, to Neustria or Frankia. ‘Ragnall’s powerful,’ I said, ‘why would he just abandon Ireland?’
‘Because the Irish persuaded him to leave.’
‘Persuaded?’
My son shrugged. ‘They have sorcerers, Christian sorcerers, who see the future. They said Ragnall will be king of all Britain if he leaves Ireland, and they gave him warriors to help.’ He nodded at the fleet. ‘There are one hundred Irish warriors on those ships.’
‘King of all Britain?’
‘That’s what the prisoner said.’
I spat. Ragnall was not the first man to dream of ruling the whole island. ‘How many men does he have?’
‘Twelve hundred.’
‘You’re sure of that?’
My son smiled. ‘You taught me well, Father.’
‘What did I teach you?’
‘That a spear-point in a prisoner’s liver is a very persuasive thing.’
I watched the last boats row eastwards. They would be lost to sight soon. ‘Beadwulf!’ I shouted. He was a small wiry man whose face was decorated with inked lines in Danish fashion, though Beadwulf himself was a Saxon. He was one of my best scouts, a man who could cross open grassland like a ghost. I nodded at the disappearing ships. ‘Take a dozen men,’ I told Beadwulf, ‘and follow the bastards. I want to know where they land.’
‘Lord,’ he said, and started to turn away.
‘And Beadwulf!’ I called, and he looked back. ‘Try to see what banners are on the ships,’ I told him, ‘and look for a red axe! If you see a red axe I want to know, fast!’
‘The red axe, lord,’ he repeated and sped away.
The red axe was the symbol of Sigtryggr Ivarson, my daughter’s husband. Men now called him Sigtryggr One-Eye because I had taken his right eye with the tip of Serpent-Breath. He had attacked Ceaster and been beaten away, but in his defeat he had taken Stiorra with him. She had not gone as a captive, but as a lover, and once in a while I would hear news of her. She and Sigtryggr possessed land in Ireland, and she wrote letters to me because I had made her learn writing and reading. ‘We ride horses on the sand,’ she had written, ‘and across the hills. It is beautiful here. They hate us.’ She had a daughter, my first grandchild, and she had called the daughter Gisela after her own mother. ‘Gisela is beautiful,’ she wrote, ‘and the Irish priests curse us. At night they scream their curses and sound like wild birds dying. I love this place. My husband sends you greetings.’
Men had always reckoned that Sigtryggr was the more dangerous of the two brothers. He was said to be cleverer than Ragnall and his skill with a sword was legendary, but the loss of his eye or perhaps his marriage to Stiorra had calmed him. Rumour said that Sigtryggr was content to farm his fields, fish his seas, and defend his lands, but would he stay content if his older brother was capturing Britain? That was why I had told Beadwulf to look for the red axe. I wanted to know if my daughter’s husband had become my enemy.
Prince Æthelstan found me as the last of the enemy ships vanished from sight. He came with a half-dozen companions, all of them mounted on big stallions. ‘Lord,’ he called, ‘I’m sorry!’
I waved him to silence, my attention with Finan again. He was chanting in fury at the man who lay wounded at his feet, and the wounded man was shouting back, and I did not need to speak any of the strange Irish tongue to know that they exchanged curses. I had rarely seen Finan so angry. He was spitting, ranting, chanting, his rhythmic words heavy as hammer blows. Those words beat down his opponent who, already wounded, seemed to weaken under the assault of insults. Men stared at the two, awed by their anger, then Finan turned and snatched up the spear he had thrown aside. He stalked back to his victim, spoke more words, and touched the crucifix about his neck. Then, as if he were a priest raising the host, he lifted the spear in both hands, the blade pointing downwards, and held it high. He paused, then spoke in English.
‘May God forgive me,’ he said.
Then he rammed the spear down hard, screaming with the effort to thrust the blade through mail and bone to the heart within, and the man leaped under the spear’s blow and blood welled from his mouth, and his arms and legs flailed for a few dying heartbeats, and then there were no more heartbeats and he was dead, open-mouthed, pinned to the shore’s edge with a spear that had gone clean through his heart into the soil beneath.
Finan was weeping.
I urged my horse near him and stooped to touch his shoulder. He was my friend, my oldest friend, my companion of a hundred shield walls. ‘Finan?’ I asked, but he did not look at me. ‘Finan!’ I said again.
And this time he did look up at me and there were tears on his cheeks and misery in his eyes. ‘I think he was my son,’ he said.
‘He was what?’ I asked, aghast.
‘Son or nephew, I don’t know. Christ help me, I don’t know. But I killed him.’
He walked away.
‘I’m sorry,’ Æthelstan said again, sounding as miserable as Finan. He stared at the smoke drifting slow above the river. ‘They came in the night,’ he said, ‘and we didn’t know until we saw the flames. I’m sorry. I failed you.’
‘Don’t be a fool,’ I snarled. ‘You couldn’t stop that fleet!’ I waved towards the bend in the river where the last of the Sea King’s ships had disappeared behind a stand of trees. One of our burning ships gave a lurch, and there was a hiss as steam thickened the smoke.
‘I wanted to fight them,’ Æthelstan said.
‘Then you’re a damned fool,’ I retorted.
He frowned, then gestured towards the burning ships and at the butchered carcass of a bullock. ‘I wanted to stop this!’ he said.
‘You choose your battles,’ I said harshly. ‘You were safe behind your walls, so why lose men? You couldn’t stop the fleet. Besides, they wanted you to come out and fight them, and it isn’t sensible to do what the enemy wants.’
‘That’s what I told him, lord,’ Rædwald put in. Rædwald was an older Mercian, a cautious man who I had posted in Brunanburh to advise Æthelstan. The prince commanded the garrison, but he was young and so I had given him a half-dozen older and wiser men to keep him from making youth’s mistakes.
‘They wanted us to come out?’ Æthelstan asked, puzzled.
‘Where would they rather fight you?’ I asked. ‘With you behind walls? Or out in the open, shield wall to shield wall?’
‘I told him that, lord!’ Rædwald said. I ignored him.
‘Choose your battles,’ I snarled at Æthelstan. ‘That space between your ears was given so that you can think! If you just charge whenever you see an enemy you’ll earn yourself an early grave.’
‘That’s …’ Rædwald began.
‘That’s what you told him, I know! Now be quiet!’ I gazed upstream at the empty river. Ragnall had brought an army to Britain, but what would he do with that army? He needed land to feed his men, he needed fortresses to protect them. He had passed Brunanburh, but was he planning to double back and attack Ceaster? The Roman walls made that city a fine base, but also a formidable obstacle. So where was he going?
‘But that’s what you did!’ Æthelstan interrupted my thoughts.
‘Did what?’
‘You charged the enemy!’ He looked indignant. ‘Just now! You charged down the hill even though they outnumbered you.’
‘I needed prisoners, you miserable excuse for a man.’
I wanted to know how Ragnall had come upriver in the darkness. It had either been an incredible stroke of fortune that his great fleet had negotiated the Mærse’s mudbanks without any ship going aground, or else he was an even greater ship-handler than his reputation suggested. It had been an impressive feat of seamanship, but it had also been unnecessary. His fleet was huge, and we had only a dozen boats. He could have brushed us aside without missing an oar stroke, yet he had decided to attack in the night. Why risk that?
‘He didn’t want us to block the channel,’ my son suggested, and that was probably the truth. If we had been given just a few hours’ warning we could have sunk our ships in the river’s main channel. Ragnall would still have got past eventually, but he would have been forced to wait for a high tide, and his heavier ships would have had a difficult passage, and meanwhile we would have sent messengers upriver to make sure more barricades blocked the Mærse and more men waited to greet his ships. Instead he had slipped past us, he had wounded us, and he was already rowing inland.
‘It was the Frisians,’ Æthelstan said unhappily.
‘Frisians?’
‘Three merchant ships arrived last night, lord. They moored in the river. They were carrying pelts from Dyflin.’
‘You inspected them?’
He shook his head. ‘They said they carried the plague, lord.’
‘So you didn’t board them?’
‘Not with the plague, lord, no.’ The garrison at Brunanburh had the duty of inspecting every ship that entered the river, mainly to levy a tax on whatever cargo the ship carried, but no one would board a ship that had sickness aboard. ‘They said they were carrying pelts, lord,’ Æthelstan explained, ‘and they paid us their fees.’
‘And you left them alone?’
He nodded miserably. The prisoners told me the rest. The three merchant ships had anchored where the Mærse’s channel was narrowest, the place where a fleet faced the greatest danger of running aground, and they had burned lanterns that had guided Ragnall’s ships past the peril. The tide had done the rest. Let a vessel drift and it will usually follow the swiftest current in the deepest channel and, once past the three merchant ships, Ragnall had simply let the flood carry him to our wharf. There he had burned both wharf and ships, so that his own vessels could now use the river safely. Reinforcements could now come from his sea kingdom. He had ripped apart our defence of the Mærse and he was loose in Britain with an army.
I let Æthelstan decide what to do with the prisoners. There were fourteen of them, and Æthelstan chose to have them executed. ‘Wait for low tide,’ he ordered Rædwald, ‘then tie them to the stakes.’ He nodded at the charred pilings that jutted at awkward angles from the swirling river. ‘Let them drown in the rising tide.’
I had already sent Beadwulf eastwards, but would not expect to hear his news for at least a day. I ordered Sihtric to send men south. ‘They’re to ride fast,’ I said, ‘and tell the Lady Æthelflaed what’s happening. Tell her I want men, a lot of men, all her men!’
‘At Ceaster?’ Sihtric asked.
I shook my head, thinking. ‘Tell her to send them to Liccelfeld. And tell her I’m going there.’ I turned and pointed to Æthelstan, ‘and you’re coming with me, lord Prince. And bringing most of Brunanburh’s garrison with you. And you,’ I looked at Rædwald, ‘will stay here. Defend what’s left. You can have fifty men.’
‘Fifty! That’s not enough …’
‘Forty,’ I snarled, ‘and if you lose the fort I’ll cut your kidneys out and eat them.’
We were at war.
Finan was at the water’s edge, sitting on a great driftwood log. I sat beside him. ‘So tell me about that,’ I said, nodding at the corpse that was still fixed by the spear.
‘What do you want to know?’
‘Whatever you choose to tell me.’
We sat in silence. Geese flew above us, their wings beating the morning. A flurry of rain spat past. One of the corpses farted. ‘We’re going to Liccelfeld,’ I said.
Finan nodded. ‘Why Liccelfeld?’ he asked after a moment. The question was dutiful. He was not thinking about Ragnall or the Norsemen or anything except the spear-pierced corpse at the river’s brink.
‘Because I don’t know where Ragnall’s going,’ I said, ‘but from Liccelfeld we can go north or south easily.’
‘North or south,’ he repeated dully.
‘The bastard needs land,’ I said, ‘and he’ll either try to take it in northern Mercia or from southern Northumbria. We have to stop him fast.’
‘He’ll go north,’ Finan said, though he still spoke carelessly. He shrugged, ‘Why would he pick a fight with Mercia?’
I suspected he was right. Mercia had become powerful, its frontiers protected by burhs, fortified towns, while to the north were the troubled lands of Northumbria. That was Danish land, but the Danish lords were squabbling and fighting amongst themselves. A strong man like Ragnall could unite them. I had repeatedly told Æthelflaed that we should march north and take land from the fractious Danes, but she would not invade Northumbria until her brother Edward brought his West Saxon army to help. ‘Whether Ragnall goes north or comes south,’ I said, ‘now’s the time to fight him. He’s just arrived here. He doesn’t know the land. Haesten does, of course, but how far does Ragnall trust that piece of weasel-shit? And from what the prisoners said, Ragnall’s army has never fought together, so we hit him hard now, before he has a chance to find a refuge and before he feels safe. We do to him what the Irish did, we make him feel unwanted.’
Silence again. I watched the geese, looking for an omen in their numbers, but there were too many birds to count. Yet the goose was Æthelflaed’s symbol, so their presence was surely a good sign? I touched the hammer that hung at my neck. Finan saw the gesture and frowned. Then he grasped the crucifix that hung at his neck, and, with a sudden grimace, tugged it hard enough to break the leather cord. He looked at the silver bauble for a moment, then flung it into the water. ‘I’m going to hell,’ he said.
For a moment I did not know what to say. ‘At least we’ll still be together,’ I finally spoke.
‘Aye,’ he said, unsmiling. ‘A man who kills his own blood is doomed.’
‘The Christian priests tell you that?’
‘No.’
‘Then how do you know?’
‘I just know. That was why my brother didn’t kill me so long ago. He sold me to that bastard slaver instead.’
That was how Finan and I had first met, chained as slaves to a bench and pulling on long oars. We still carried the slaver’s brand on our skin, though the slaver himself was long dead, slaughtered by Finan in an orgy of revenge.
‘Why would your brother want to kill you?’ I asked, knowing I trod on dangerous ground. In all the long years of our friendship I had never discovered why Finan was an exile from his native Ireland.
