Warriors of the Storm (2015)

by Bernard Cornwell

  He put his hands around mine and swore to be my man, to be loyal to me, to serve me, to die for me. ‘Find him a sword,’ I commanded Gerbruht, ‘and a coat of mail, a shield, and his wife.’

  Then I went to find my son. My eldest son.

  Wyrd bið ful āræd.

  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 ca
n 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.’