“Where is he?”
“Down there, lord,” Rorik said, and I suppose he pointed at the lower town, though much good that did us in the darkness. “He says there are seven men waiting in Saint Ælfthryth’s church, lord.”
“Do they have red cloaks?”
“I didn’t see them, lord.”
“And where’s this church?”
“Right there, lord! The closest church.”
“In the metalworkers’ street?” Finan asked.
“Yes, lord.”
“And Sigtryggr’s where?” I asked.
“He just said to tell you that he’s close by and waiting, lord.”
I remembered passing the church. It had an open door and was lit by rushlights and candles, and it made sense for my enemies to wait there. In this darkness they would never see me, let alone recognize me, but the small light cast through the church door would be enough for them, and once in the street seven men would make short work of us.
“Back to the road,” I said, “and we’re drunk. Rorik? Stay out of trouble’s way.”
We went back to the fort’s approach road and started singing. If Eadgifu could provide Tamweorthin with a dumb show, I could provide another kind of pretense. I bellowed the song of the butcher’s wife, a favorite with drunken men, and staggered to hold Finan’s arm. We came to the crossroads at the foot of the hill, and now the metalworkers’ street with its smithies was to our left. I could see the wash of light from the small church through which the rain made silver streaks. We stopped for a moment and I sang louder, then dashed into a shadow and made the noise of a man vomiting. A dog howled and I howled back as Finan lurched toward me, keening a song in his native Irish. “I want a prisoner,” I told him, then howled again, provoking a half-dozen dogs to bark frantically.
I pushed Rorik into the shadows on the uphill side of the street, told him to stay there, then Finan, Berg, and I staggered along the street’s center. The dogs still barked, but men were shouting at them to be silent. The people who lived there must have been aware of men moving in the night, and sensible folk made sure their doors were barred as they prayed for the noises to move away. We three just sang louder, and I saw a man appear in the church doorway. He drew back, waiting for us to come into the dim wash of light. “I want to be sick,” I said loudly.
“Not on my boots again,” Finan answered just as loudly.
I put my hand on Serpent-Breath’s hilt as Finan loosened Soul-Stealer. “Sing, you Irish bastard,” I slurred at him as we staggered past the church, “sing!”
And they came. The church door darkened as they pushed through, seven men with seven swords, and we turned, and I was aware of other men coming from the shadows behind me. Sigtryggr led them. He was shouting a challenge in his native Norse, but the first of the attackers was closer. He leaped for me, still convinced he faced a drunkard. He lunged, trying to run me through with his blade, but I had drawn Serpent-Breath and she slid his blade aside, I stepped closer and punched my sword’s hilt into his face and felt the crunch of breaking bone or teeth. A Norseman’s spear came past me and buried its blade in the man’s belly. I turned to avoid a second lunge and back-swung Serpent-Breath into a bearded face, dragging her edge back to cut into the man’s eyes. He dropped his sword and screamed. Finan had driven Soul-Stealer into a man’s throat while Berg, with Bone-Ripper, was standing over a fallen man. I saw Bone-Ripper’s bright blade go down and the dark blood spurt, then Sigtryggr’s Norsemen were past us, driving the survivors back toward the crossroads, but still more men appeared from the alley by the big tavern. They were the last of Sigtryggr’s men, led by Svart, and the three surviving attackers were now trapped between their enemies. One hesitated, and Svart bellowed in fury as he drove his heavy sword down through the man’s neck and into his rib cage. The remaining pair fled into the church.
“They didn’t put up much of a fight,” Sigtryggr grumbled.
The man I had blinded was moaning, crawling on his hands and knees, fumbling for his sword. Berg stepped to him, there was the sound of a blade in meat, and the man went still. “I need prisoners,” I said, and went into the church.
Saint Ælfthryth’s was a poor church, little more than a thatched barn with a rush-covered floor. The altar was a plain table on which hung a white cloth. Four candles, thick with wax, burned on the altar, which held a crucifix made of dull iron. The two sidewalls were decorated with leather hangings crudely painted with saints, beneath which rushlights burned in iron stands, while the edges of the small nave were heaped with sacks of charcoal, presumably because the church was the safest and driest place for the smiths to store their fuel. Loose charcoal crunched beneath my feet as I walked toward the simple altar where the priest, a thin pale man, stood facing us. “They have sanctuary!” he called.
“We claim sanctuary!” one of the men shouted desperately.
“What’s sanctuary?” Berg asked. He still held Bone-Ripper, her blood diluted by the rain.
Sigtryggr came up beside me, his men crowding in behind. “Why are we just watching them?” he asked. “Why not kill them?”
“They have sanctuary.”
Svart was holding a severed hand. I assumed he meant to boil the flesh off the bones and add them to his beard. “I’ll kill them,” he growled.
“I need prisoners,” I said, then looked at the two men. “Put your swords down,” I told them, and, when they hesitated, shouted the order. They dropped their swords.
The priest, a brave man considering he faced a group of armed men in his nighttime church, held up a hand. “They have sanctuary,” he said again.
“They have sanctuary, lord,” I corrected him, then walked to the altar and used the edge of the white cloth to clean the blood and rain from Serpent-Breath’s blade. “Sanctuary,” I explained for the benefit of any of Sigtryggr’s Norsemen unfamiliar with the idea, “is offered by the church to criminals. So long as they remain here we can’t touch them without being criminals ourselves.” I kicked the two men’s swords toward Berg. “If we assault them here we’ll be punished.”
“They won’t dare punish me,” Sigtryggr said.
“You haven’t experienced the fury of the priests,” I said. “They preach peace and demand the death of their enemies. Besides, I want to release them.”
“Release them?” Sigtryggr exclaimed.
“Someone has to give Lord Æthelhelm the good news,” I explained, then I pushed Serpent-Breath into her scabbard and turned back to the two men. Both were young. One had a bruise on his cheek and was shaking with fear, the other was surly and had the courage to face me boldly. I had been using Danish to talk to Sigtryggr, but now used the Saxon tongue. “Who are you?” I asked the surly man.
He hesitated, tempted to defiance, then decided sense was the better choice. “Helmstan,” he muttered. I waited and saw the resentment in his eyes. “Lord,” he added.
“Who do you serve?”
Again the hesitation, and it was the second man, younger and more frightened, who stammered the answer. “Grimbald, lord.”
“Grimbald,” I repeated the name, which was unfamiliar to me. “And who does Grimbald serve?” I asked. Helmstan was scowling at his companion and said nothing so I drew Wasp-Sting, my short-sword, and smiled at him. “This one hasn’t drawn blood tonight, and she’s thirsty.”
The priest started a protest, but went silent when I turned Wasp-Sting’s blade toward him. “Who does Grimbald serve?” I asked again.
“Grimbald serves Lord Æthelhelm, lord,” Helmstan said reluctantly.
“Did Grimbald lead you tonight?”
“No, lord.”
“Who did?”
“Torthred, lord.”
It was not a name I knew, and I assumed whoever Torthred was he was now dead in the street. “Did Torthred serve Grimbald?” I asked.
“Yes, lord.”
“And what were your orders tonight?” I asked. Neither man answered, so I took a pace toward them and lifted Wa
sp-Sting. “They call me the priest-killer,” I said. “Do you think I care a rat’s arse about sanctuary?”
“We were ordered to kill you, lord,” the more frightened man whispered the words. He moaned when I placed Wasp-Sting’s blade on his bruised cheek.
I left the blade there for a few heartbeats, then stepped back and sheathed the seax. “Tell Grimbald,” I told both men, “that he has two new enemies. Uhtred of Bebbanburg and Sigtryggr of Northumbria. Now go.”
They went.
Eight
“If we’re to crush Sköll,” Sigtryggr told me the next morning, “we must have peace with Edward. I can fight one or the other, not both.”
“Edward’s ill,” I said, “he won’t fight.”
“You’re certain of that?” Sigtryggr challenged me, and all I could do was shrug. “He might be ill,” Sigtryggr went on, “but his armies aren’t.” He paused as Svart opened the tavern’s shutters to let in sunlight. The rain had stopped. Sigtryggr leaned forward to blow out a rushlight. “If Edward can’t lead his armies,” he said gloomily, “his ealdormen can.”
“They’re fighting like starving dogs over who inherits the throne.”
“And the sure way to unite them,” Sigtryggr said, “is to give them a common enemy, me.” He speared a slab of bacon with his knife and stared at it moodily. “Why does he want peace? Why doesn’t he just invade?”
“Because his kingdom is a mess,” I said. “The Mercians are still grumbling, the East Anglian Danes are restless, he’s got a new wife with tits that smell of lavender, and he fears us.”
“Fears us?”
“Suppose he invades,” I suggested. “Suppose he marches an army north through Lindcolne and we beat his bones to powder?”
“Can we?” he asked gloomily. “They’ll outnumber us.”
“They’re Saxons,” Svart growled, “of course we can beat them.”
“He’ll outnumber us,” I allowed, “but you know as well as I do that numbers aren’t everything. He thinks he can beat us, but he isn’t certain of it.” I tore off a hunk of stale bread, decided I wasn’t hungry, and threw it to one of the tavern’s dogs. “And remember,” I went on, “we’re the dreaded Northmen. When I was a young man we reckoned a Danish warrior was worth three Saxons.”
“Four,” Svart put in.
“That didn’t prove true,” I said, earning a scowl from Svart, “but the fear lingers. The Saxons think we’re pagan savages, and they’d rather talk us into submission than fight us. They will fight us if they have to, but Edward fears defeat, because if we break his armies then East Anglia revolts, the Mercians will demand their own king again, and the Wessex nobles will want a new king.”
Sigtryggr smiled wanly. “Maybe we should just invade Mercia? Beat the bastards.”
“We do that,” I said, knowing he was not serious, “and Constantin of Scotland will stab us in the back.”
Sigtryggr grunted. He was dressed for the Witan, wearing a robe of dark blue wool edged in cloth of gold. A simple crown, nothing more than a ring of gilt bronze, rested on a table beside his jug of ale. “This ale tastes like cow piss,” he grumbled. “You don’t think I should make peace with Edward?”
“It depends on the price.”
“I want Sköll dead,” he said vengefully. “Killing that bastard is worth any price.”
“Worth submission to Edward?”
Sigtryggr looked at me mournfully. “I have little choice.”
“Baptism?”
“I don’t mind getting wet.”
“Tribute?”
He grinned. “I’ll equip a pair of ships and we’ll go viking. We’ll raid a fat Wessex monastery and there’s the tribute.”
“And even if you do submit,” I ignored his idea, “and make a treaty, the Saxons will break it as soon as they think it’s safe to invade you.”
He nodded. “But I’ll still have time to kill Sköll first.”
“Unless I reach him before you.”
He half smiled at that. “What happens if I refuse to submit?”
“The Saxons will get braver and braver. They’ll provoke you with cattle raids, they’ll keep small armies on the border, they’ll tax your trade more heavily, their ships will capture your merchant ships, and in the end they’ll invade.”
“So either way we lose?”
“Not if we build up our strength.”
He offered a mirthless laugh to that. “And how do I do that?”
“We beat Sköll,” I said firmly, “and we bind Cumbraland to Northumbria. We force all those Norse bastards to swear loyalty to you. We make an army of úlfhéðnar. We unite the Northmen and put the fear of the gods into the Saxons.”
“I like that idea,” Sigtryggr said quietly. If I had known the truth of what I had just said I might have kept silent. Or perhaps not. Wyrd bið ful āræd. But at least Sigtryggr saw some hope in those words. He traced a finger around his crown, thinking. “And we can’t subdue Cumbraland unless we’re at peace with Edward.”
I nodded reluctantly. “Yes, lord King, we can’t fight both at once.”
He stood. “Then let’s go and grovel to the sick bastard.”
And so we climbed the hill. We would grovel.
We passed Saint Ælfthryth’s church where we had cornered the two fugitives. The night’s rain had washed the blood from the street, and the town reeve’s men had removed the bodies. A bell was tolling from the hilltop, presumably to summon the Witan, but the steep track leading up to the high church and the palace was being guarded by spearmen who barred us from climbing the hill while a procession of horsemen passed by. There were fifty or sixty riders, all in mail, all with helmets, all carrying spears, and all going toward the palace, and at their center was a small cart drawn by a pair of heavy horses. The cart, little more than a farm wagon, had been draped with dark blue cloth and furnished with cushions on which sat two women and a priest. One woman was old, the other young and long-faced with a close-fitting bonnet that hid most of her dark hair. She was richly dressed in somber gray and black, looked sad, and wore a large silver cross at her breast. The cart lurched alarmingly on the rough road, and the young woman clutched one of the side rails to steady herself. “Who’s that?” Sigtryggr asked me.
“I don’t know,” I said, which was true, yet the long, sad face was somehow familiar. She glanced at me and seemed to recognize me, then quickly looked away as the cart lurched again. She appeared to be holding back tears. The older woman had just put an arm around the younger’s shoulders, while the priest was murmuring to her, presumably trying to comfort her.
“Damn, but she’s ugly,” Sigtryggr said. “She looks like a horse.”
“She’s cold and unhappy,” I said.
“So she looks like a cold and miserable horse.”
We followed the cart and its escort up the hill, through the arch where our swords were taken from us, and so to the great hall where smoke from damp firewood swirled among the high rafters. The tables had been stacked to one side and the benches had been arranged in a half circle around the big hearth to face the platform, where five high-backed chairs were draped with deep scarlet cloths. Close to a hundred men had already arrived and were sitting as near to the fire as they could, though a few were standing and talking quietly. They looked at us as we entered, recognized us, and started whispering. To most of these men we were the strangest of creatures; pagans, the dwellers of their bad dreams come to life.
“Where do we sit?” Sigtryggr asked.
“We don’t,” I said, “not yet.” The nobles of Edward’s three kingdoms would occupy the benches, and to let Sigtryggr sit with the ealdormen, bishops, and abbots would be to diminish his status. I assumed the platform was for royalty and, though Sigtryggr was undoubtedly royal, I did not want him to take one of the chairs and then be publicly ordered to leave it. He had attended a Witan before, at Huntandun, where he had sat on the dais with Edward, but on that occasion he had been a guest of Æthelflaed, and she had pos
sessed a courtesy her brother lacked. If Edward wanted the King of Northumbria in a place of honor he would extend the invitation, and if not, then it was better that we should stand apart at the rear of the hall. “You know what you’re to say?” I asked him.
“Of course I know. You’ve told me ten times. Twenty times.” He was nervous and irritable, and I could not blame him. He was being treated with disdain, humiliated by Saxons. More men were arriving in the hall, and I saw how they looked at Sigtryggr with both curiosity and amusement. They had spent their whole existence in an unending war between the Christians and the pagans, and now the last pagan king was standing like a supplicant at the back of the king’s hall.
I saw Brunulf Torkelson, a West Saxon whose life I had saved, enter through the great doors and, leaving Sigtryggr flanked by Finan and the enormous Svart, I crossed to Brunulf’s side. He was carrying a spear and shield because he was one of the royal guards who would either line the hall’s sides or else stand in front of the platform. He greeted me warmly. “I heard you were here, lord, and hoped to meet you.” He hesitated, then frowned. “And I heard about your daughter, lord. I am sorry.”
“Fate is a bitch,” I said, then fell silent as Æthelhelm the Younger strode through the doors followed by a retinue of a dozen men. He looked at me, seemed startled, and abruptly swerved to avoid passing near me. He wore the red cloak of his household troops, though his cloak had a fine collar of fur and was clasped with gold. He strode to the front of the hall, and men who had taken benches there hurriedly moved to let him sit. “Do you know Grimbald?” I asked Brunulf.
“I know three men with that name,” he said.
“A follower of Æthelhelm,” I added.
He turned and looked into the hall. “There,” he said, nodding toward the benches that Æthelhelm had taken. “The man wearing a fox-fur cap.”
I looked. “The one with the flattened nose?”
“That’s him,” Brunulf said. “You heard his men got into a drunken brawl last night? Five of them died.”
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