‘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 sevent
y 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 riv
er’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.
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