‘A friend,’ Egil said, stressing the word.
The big man, who I assumed was Thorfinn Skull-Splitter, frowned at me. ‘Come closer,’ he growled, and Egil and I obediently walked down the long hall’s beaten earth floor, skirting the two hearths with their smoky peat fires, until we were in front of the low dais where a dozen men sat at the high table.
Thorfinn had heard the stress on the word friend, a stress that had warned him he might not appreciate my company. He stared at me, seeing a grey-bearded man in a rich dark cloak with gold at my neck and a sword at my side. And I stared at him, seeing a thickly muscled Norseman with a prominent brow, a thick black beard, and very blue eyes. ‘Friends have names, don’t they?’ he demanded. ‘Mine is Thorfinn Hausakljúfr.’
‘And mine,’ I said, ‘is Uhtredærwe.’ That was an insult given me by Christians. It meant Uhtred the Wicked.
‘He is the Lord Uhtred of Bebbanburg,’ Egil added.
The reaction in the hall was flattering. The silence in which men had been listening to Thorfinn and Egil broke into murmuring. Some men stood to look at me. Thorfinn just stared and then, surprisingly, burst into laughter. ‘Uhtred of Bebbanburg,’ he said mockingly, holding up a hand to still the murmurs in the hall. ‘You are old!’
‘Yet many have tried to kill me,’ I answered.
‘And many have tried to kill me too!’ Thorfinn said.
‘Then I pray the gods give you old age too.’
‘And what,’ he demanded, ‘is Uhtred of Bebbanburg doing in my hall?’
‘I came to see Thorfinn Skull-Splitter,’ I answered, ‘and to see for myself whether he was as formidable as folk claim.’
‘And is he?’ Thorfinn spread his huge arms as if to display himself.
‘No more formidable than Ubba the Horrible,’ I said, ‘and I killed him. Certainly no more than Cnut Longsword, and I slew him too. Men feared Svein of the White Horse, but he fought me and died, as did Sköll the úlfheðinn. And all their skulls now decorate the gate of my fortress.’
Thorfinn kept his eyes on me for a few heartbeats, then laughed loudly, and his laughter made the men in the hall beat on the tables and cheer. Norsemen love a warrior, they love the boasts of a warrior, and I had pleased them. All but for one man.
That man sat to Thorfinn’s right, in the place of honour, and his face showed no amusement. He was a young man and I immediately thought he was the ugliest man I had ever seen, but also a man who seemed to exude power and menace. He had a high forehead that he had inked with a snarling dragon, wide-set eyes that were very pale, and a wide down-turned thin-lipped mouth. His hair was brown and woven into a dozen plaits, as was his beard. There was something animal-like in that face, though it was no animal I have ever seen, and no animal I would care to hunt. It was a brutal savage face, unblinking, gazing at me with the relish of a hunter. He was plainly of high rank because he wore an elaborately woven chain of gold around his neck and a simple circlet of gold about his plaited hair. He was holding a long thin-bladed knife, presumably for his food, but he pointed the sharp blade at me then spoke softly to Thorfinn who stooped to hear him, looked at me, then straightened.
‘Lord Uhtred!’ Thorfinn’s face still showed pleasure. ‘Meet your king.’
I was momentarily confused, but managed to find the right words. ‘Which king?’
‘You have more than one?’ Thorfinn asked, amused.
‘Constantine claims my land, as does Æthelstan,’ I hesitated, then looked at the pale-eyed young man as I realised what Thorfinn had meant. Could it be true? Sudden anger drove my next words. ‘And I’m told there’s an impudent youth in Dyflin who claims it too.’
Thorfinn was no longer smiling. The hall was silent. ‘Impudent?’ Thorfinn asked in a dangerous voice.
‘Is it not impudent to claim a throne you have never seen? Let alone tried to sit in? If claiming a throne is enough then why should I not claim the throne of Dyflin? To claim a throne is easy, to take it is hard.’
The young man drove the knife into the table, where it quivered. ‘To take Saxon land,’ he suggested, ‘is easy.’ He had a hard, gravelly voice. He gazed fixedly at me with those strangely pale eyes. Thorfinn might hope to be formidable, but this man truly was. He stood slowly, still looking at me. ‘I am the King,’ he said firmly, ‘of Northumbria.’ Men in the hall murmured their agreement.
‘Guthrum tried to take a Saxon kingdom,’ I said, silencing the murmurs. So this man was Anlaf, King of Dyflin, which meant he was Guthrum’s grandson, ‘and I was in the army that drove him to panicked flight and left a hillside sodden with the blood of his Northmen.’
‘Do you deny that I am your king?’ he asked.
‘Constantine has troops in Cumbria,’ I said, ‘and Æthelstan occupies Jorvik. Where are your troops?’ I paused, but he did not answer. ‘And soon,’ I went on, ‘King Æthelstan’s men will occupy Cumbria too.’
He sneered at that. ‘Æthelstan is a whelp. He yelps like the bitch he is, but he will not dare go to war with Constantine.’
‘Then you should know,’ I said, ‘that the whelp’s army is already north of the River Foirthe, and his fleet is coming up the coast.’
Both Anlaf and Thorfinn just stared at me. The hall was silent. They had not known. How could they? News travels no faster than a horse or a ship can carry it, and I was the first ship to come to Orkneyjar since Æthelstan had invaded Constantine’s land.
‘He speaks the truth,’ Egil put in drily.
‘There is war?’ Thorfinn recovered first.
‘King Æthelstan,’ I said, ‘is tired of Scottish treachery. He is tired of Norsemen claiming kingship over his land, so yes, there is war.’
Anlaf sat. He said nothing. His claim to the throne of Northumbria was based on kinship, but to make that claim true he had depended on chaos reigning in the north, and my news suggested that the chaos was being settled by Æthelstan’s army. Now, if Anlaf was to make good on his claim to Northumbria’s throne, he would have to fight Æthelstan and he knew it. I could see him thinking, and I could see he did not like his own thoughts.
Thorfinn frowned. ‘You say the whelp’s fleet is coming north?’
‘We left it in the Foirthe, yes.’
‘But Constantine’s ships passed these islands three days ago. Going west.’
That, at least, confirmed what I had thought; that Constantine, unaware of Æthelstan’s plans, had sent most of his ships to harry the Cumbrian coast. ‘They had not heard the news,’ I said.
‘A bench,’ Thorfinn said, then sat and slapped the table, ‘for my guests,’ pointing to the end of the high table.
Anlaf watched us as we sat and as ale was brought to us. ‘Did you kill Guthfrith?’ he demanded suddenly.
‘Yes,’ I said carelessly.
‘He was my cousin!’
‘And you didn’t like him,’ I said, ‘and your claim to his throne, such as it is, depended on his death. You can thank me.’
There were chuckles from the hall, quickly stilled by Thorfinn’s fierce gaze. Anlaf plucked the knife from the table. ‘Why should I not kill you?’
‘Because my death will achieve nothing, because I am a guest in Thorfinn’s hall, and because I am not your enemy.’
‘You are not?’
‘All I care about, lord King,’ I gave him that honorific because he was the King of Dyflin, ‘is my home. Bebbanburg. The rest of the world can descend into chaos, but I will protect my home. I don’t care who is king in Northumbria so long as they leave me alone.’ I drank some ale, then took a roasted leg of goose from a platter. ‘Besides,’ I went on cheerfully, ‘I’m old! I’ll be in Valhalla soon, meeting a lot of your other cousins who I put to death. Why would you want to send me there early?’
That provoked more amusement, though not from Anlaf who ignored me and instead talked quietly to Thorfinn, while a harpist played and maidservants brought more ale and food. The messenger who had summoned us to the hall had claimed a shortage of ale
, but there seemed to be plenty and the noise in the hall grew raucous until Egil claimed the harp. That brought cheers till Egil struck the strings to demand quiet.
He gave them a song of his own making, a song full of battle, of blood-soaked ground, of ravens gorged with the flesh of enemies, but nowhere in the song did he say who fought, who won, or who lost. I had heard it before, Egil called it his slaughter-song. ‘It warns them,’ he had told me once, ‘of their fate, and it reminds us that we are all fools. And, of course, the fools love it.’
They cheered him when the last chord of the harp had faded. There were more songs from Thorfinn’s harpist, but already some men were falling asleep and others stumbling into the northern darkness to find their beds. ‘Back to the ship?’ Egil asked me quietly. ‘We learned what we came to find out.’
We had learned that most of Constantine’s ships had gone west and that would be good news for Æthelstan, and I supposed I should deliver it. I sighed. ‘So we leave on the morning tide?’
‘And hope the wind veers,’ Egil said, because it would be a long hard slog if the wind stayed in the south-west.
Egil stood. He was about to thank Thorfinn for his hospitality, but the big man was already asleep, slumped on the table, so the two of us jumped down from the dais and walked to the door. ‘Had you met Anlaf before?’ I asked him as we went into the night’s clear air.
‘Never. He has a reputation though.’
‘So I hear.’
‘Savage, clever and ambitious.’
‘A Norseman, then.’
Egil laughed. ‘My only ambition is to write a song that will be sung till the world ends.’
‘Then you should spend less time chasing women.’
‘Ah, but the song will be about women! What else?’
We left Thorfinn’s settlement, walking slowly between strips of seal meat drying on racks, then out to the barley fields. The moon was being chased by clouds. Behind us a woman screamed, there was men’s laughter and a dog howling. The wind was light. We stopped when we came in sight of the southern water and I gazed at Spearhafoc. ‘I shall miss her,’ I said.
‘You’re selling her?’ Egil sounded surprised.
‘No one talks of ships in Valhalla,’ I said softly.
‘There’ll be ships in Valhalla, my friend,’ he said, ‘and wide seas, strong winds, and islands of beautiful women.’
I smiled, then turned as I heard footsteps behind us. I had instinctively put my hand to Serpent-Breath’s hilt, then saw it was Anlaf who followed us and who, seeing my hand on the sword, spread his own hands to show he meant no harm. He was alone. The moon was shining between clouds and reflected from his pale eyes, from the gold at his neck, and from the dull metal of his sword’s hilt. No fancy decoration on that sword. It was a tool and men said he knew how to use it. ‘Egil Skallagrimmrson,’ he greeted us, ‘you must come to Dyflin.’
‘I must, lord King?’
‘We like poets! Music! And you, Lord Uhtred, should come too.’
‘I’m no poet and you don’t want to hear me sing.’
He smiled thinly at that. ‘I wanted to talk with you.’ He gestured at a lump of rock beside the track. ‘You’ll sit with me?’
We sat. For a moment Anlaf said nothing, but looked towards Spearhafoc. ‘Your ship?’ he broke the silence.
‘Mine, lord King.’
‘She looks useful,’ he said grudgingly. ‘Frisian?’
‘Frisian,’ I confirmed.
‘What is Æthelstan doing?’ he asked abruptly.
‘Punishing the Scots.’
‘For what?’
‘Being Scottish.’
He nodded. ‘How many men?
‘At least two thousand, probably more.’
‘How many men can he raise?’
I shrugged because the question was probably unanswerable. ‘Four thousand? More if he raises the fyrd.’
‘More,’ Egil said. ‘He could lead five thousand warriors without the fyrd.’
‘I agree,’ Anlaf said. ‘He put a thousand men into Ceaster and Mameceaster,’ he said the unfamiliar names carefully, ‘and has a fleet in the Mærse. That, I think, is why Constantine moved his ships. He expected an invasion of Cumbria.’
‘And instead Æthelstan invaded in the east.’
‘What will happen?’ The pale eyes gazed into mine.
‘Who knows, lord King?’
He nodded abruptly. ‘Suppose Constantine survives? What then?’
‘The Scots are a proud people,’ I said, ‘and savage. They’ll want revenge.’
‘Does Æthelstan wish to rule the Scots?’
I thought about that, then shook my head. ‘He claims Northumbria, that’s all, and he wants them to leave Cumbria.’
Anlaf frowned, thinking. ‘Constantine won’t fight now, not unless Æthelstan makes a bad mistake. He’ll retreat into his hills. He’ll take his punishment. There’ll be skirmishes, of course, and men will die, but Constantine will wait. If Æthelstan follows him into the hills he’ll find himself in bad country with too many enemies and not enough food, so he’ll be forced to retreat. Then one day soon Constantine will lead an army into Æthelstan’s lands, and that,’ he paused and looked into my eyes, ‘that will be the end of Englaland.’
‘Maybe,’ I said dubiously, ‘but Æthelstan can always raise more warriors than Constantine.’
‘Can he?’ Anlaf paused, and when I gave no answer he offered his thin smile. ‘Constantine wants something more than Cumbria,’ he spoke quietly, ‘he wants to destroy Saxon power, and to do that he will welcome allies.’
‘The Norse,’ I said flatly.
‘The Norse, the Danes, the pagans. Us. Think about it, lord! Æthelstan hates the pagans, he wants them destroyed and gone from his land. But Constantine is shrewder. He knows our power and he needs power. He needs shields and swords and spears, and he’s ready to pay for them with Saxon land. One king despises us, the other welcomes us, so who will we Northmen fight for?’
‘Constantine,’ I said bleakly, ‘but you think he’d welcome you after he’s won? He’s a Christian too.’
Anlaf ignored my question. ‘Æthelstan has one chance now, just one, and that is to slaughter every man north of Cair Ligualid, to scour the Scots off the face of the earth, but he won’t do that because it can’t be done, and even if it could, his feeble religion would tell him it’s a sin. But he can’t do it. He doesn’t have enough men, so he talks of punishing the Scots, but punishment doesn’t work, only destruction. He’ll burn some villages, kill a few men, claim victory and retreat. And then the north will come down on him like a pack of hungry wolves.’
I thought of the dragon and the falling star and of Father Cuthbert’s dire prophecy that the evil would come from the north. ‘So you’ll fight for Constantine?’
‘He knows I want Northumbria. Eventually he’ll offer it to me.’
‘Why would Constantine want a pagan Norse king on his southern frontier?’ I asked.
‘Because such a king would be better than a Saxon who calls himself Lord of all Britain. And because Constantine recognises my claim to Northumbria. And I do have a claim,’ he looked at me fiercely, ‘an even better claim now that Guthfrith is dead.’
‘Is that a thank you?’ I asked, amused.
Anlaf stood. ‘It is a warning,’ he said coldly. ‘When the northern wolves come, Lord Uhtred, choose your side carefully.’ He nodded to Egil. ‘You too, Egil Skallagrimmrson.’ He looked up at the sky, judging the wind. ‘You say Æthelstan’s fleet is coming north?’
‘They are.’
‘This far?’
‘As far as Æthelstan wants them to go.’
‘Then I’d best sail home tomorrow. We’ll meet again.’ He said no more, but walked back towards Thorfinn’s settlement.
I watched him go. I was thinking of King Hywel’s words that Anlaf had just echoed; to choose my side well. ‘Why is he here?’ I asked.
‘Recruiting,’ Egil said. ‘H
e’s raising an army of the north and he’ll offer it to Constantine.’
‘And he wants you.’
‘He wants you too, my friend. Are you tempted?’
Of course I was tempted. A pagan Northumbria was a beguiling prospect, a country where any man could worship his gods without fear of a Christian sword at his neck, but a pagan Northumbria would still have Christians to the north and to the south, and neither Constantine nor Æthelstan would endure that for long. Nor did I trust Anlaf. Once he had seen Bebbanburg he would want it. ‘All I want,’ I told Egil, ‘is to die in Bebbanburg.’
Anlaf’s grandfather Guthrum had failed to defeat Alfred, and that failure had led to the spread of West Saxon power so that Alfred’s dream of a united Saxon country, of Englaland, had almost come true. Now Alfred’s grandson was trying to finish the dream’s making, while in the north Guthrum’s cold-eyed grandson was sharpening his sword.
The evil would come from the north.
The good weather continued, but an obstinate wind, more southerly than westerly, made us sail far into the North Sea before turning back towards the Scottish coast. It took us three days to discover Æthelstan’s fleet that was further north than I had reckoned. Coenwulf had rescued almost all his ships from the Foirthe and most were now beached on a long wide stretch of sand, beyond which I could see plumes of smoke besmirching the western sky where Æthelstan’s troops put settlements to the torch. Twelve of Coenwulf’s warships patrolled the low coast, protecting the beached ships, and two of them raced towards us, but slowed and turned away when they were close enough to see the wolf’s head on my sail.
‘What do I do?’ Gerbruht shouted from the steering platform.
We were coming from the south and I was standing in the prow, one hand on the carved sparrowhawk as I searched the low land beyond the long beach. There were tents and shelters in the fields, suggesting that much or all of Æthelstan’s army was camped here, and the gaudy tent of rich scarlet and gold, that I had last seen outside Bebbanburg’s Skull Gate, was pitched among them. ‘What’s the tide?’ I called back.
Egil answered. ‘Low! Still ebbing!’
‘Then run her ashore, but gently.’ I saw Apostol, Coenwulf’s ship, and pointed to her. ‘As close to Apostol as you can.’
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