The furious storm broke overhead, the crackling of the lightning and the wind rushing by. Inside his hall, his wife and child and all the other people slept dry and warm. When he was done and he sank back down into his body, the roof remained. He could see through it, to the dark sky where the clouds were rapidly clearing, to the first glimpse of the moon, which was good: He liked sleeping where he could see the sky. He slipped his arms around Laissa, their child between them, and shut his eyes.
* * *
With so many people around, he had been loathe to leave his body for very long; if anybody chanced on it and destroyed it, he would be stuck in the light field forever.
He realized that was what death was.
Also he knew Laissa hated his roaming, just as she feared and hated most of what he did. Even so, she would protect him. Therefore, the next night, when they were all sleeping under the new roof, the baby tucked into the crook of her mother’s arm, he went.
In the blue darkness he floated down through Jorvik, over the people sleeping, past the minster, the shambles, the old abandoned Coppergate, and the gang called the Green Stray Boys— the ones whose torches he had blown out, skulking around trying to get the courage up to steal something. Down at the river, he slid into the water, into the cool and the surge of the water.
He loved the river. The tide was going out, and he ran along with it; he spun through the seething water, stroked all over, part of the fluid extension into everything, light thickened, quickened metal. He met the blockage well down the river. Before it turned toward the Humber, there was a long narrows, and the bed was packed with old tree trunks. The water ran through the chinks between the logs, but for long years anything larger had backed up and clogged. For nearly a quarter of a mile, the river was a tangle of sandbanks and rocks and branches, impassable to anything bigger than a rat.
He rose up out of the water into the night air and considered this. The rotted stumps of trees stood up in new fen on either side, where the blocked river had overflowed its banks. Stands of reeds and sedge sprouted from the swamp. Deer grazed along the high ground off to the east. There was a village down the way, on the north bank of the Humber, but it was almost deserted. Like Jorvik, it depended on the river running. The thin old moon was drooping down toward the west. Over the arch of the sky, the stars glistened like a silver mist.
At the same time, along the fringe of his awareness, he felt an intruder in the south, some lump, something otherly, that should not be there. He drifted that way. His river, the Ouse, turned eastward here, ran wide and strong into the Humber, the estuary that ran out to the sea. Where the Ouse coiled between the first sandbars and mudbanks of the estuary another river came in from the south.
He followed that other river upstream. The land was flat on either bank. To the west lay dense forest and fen, but east was farmland, villages, and, up ahead, a fair-sized town. Just above that town, in the long valley that ran toward Jorvik, he came on a camp of a few hundred men, ringed with sentries, with strings of horses, and a banner set on a pole – an army settled for the night. An army on the march.
He had been gone a long while. Laissa would have wakened at least once, feeding the baby. She might have noticed he was gone. Still, he moved closer to the camp, feeling through the tangled web of noises and smells and dreams below him until he came on a name he recognized: Uhtred.
Uhtred of Bamburgh, the overlord of Jorvik. Suddenly the clog in his river mattered much less to him than this army on its way to his city. He thought of Laissa again, who surely knew by now he had roamed away. He missed her, suddenly, and the baby, and the warmth of them together. Before he realized it he opened his eyes in the angle of the hall, to see her crooning over the baby at her breast, and dawn was breaking.
* * *
When he woke again, later in the morning, she would not talk to him. He knew she was angry because he had gone roaming. He sat on his heels by the fire, watching her go around the hall pretending he wasn’t there.
She was slim again, except for her milk-full breasts, and a new round beauty to her rear end; she carried the baby crooked in her arm. When she lifted her hand to brush back her hair, his heart quaked and his lust surged. But she would not even look at him.
He wondered if the time would come when she would turn her back on him forever.
He stared into the fire and thought about Uhtred. The lord of Bamburgh himself didn’t worry him; he thought he could handle Uhtred. He knew who had sent Uhtred.
He went to Leif.
“Do you think we can fix that gate?”
Leif set the jug down. “What’s up?” And now Laissa did look at him.
“There’s trouble, isn’t there?” she said. Her voice shook. “I knew this would happen. They’re after you again.” She turned and carried the baby away out the door. “Good-bye, Raef.”
Leif looked sharply after her and back to Raef. “What is it?”
Raef bent for the jug of ale. It was always cold, no matter how near the fire, and always full. He drank a lot of it. He wondered what Laissa meant to do. She herself did not seem to know what she would do, except to go pray to her wooden god. He had to hold himself fast to keep from running after her.
He said to Leif, “We need to close the wall.”
Leif was eating his bread. He chewed awhile and finally swallowed. He looked after Laissa and then back to Raef. “Something’s coming?”
Raef moved his shoulders. “Nothing we can’t deal with.”
“Oh?”
“Just an army.”
Leif gave a startled grunt. He looked after Laissa again, but she was out of his sight now, running down toward the old church. He faced Raef.
“I guess we should try to fix the gate.”
* * *
They took his two new carls with them, and Peter followed on his pony. The gateway was like a stone box, ten feet deep, its archway rising up twice as high as the wall around it and topped with a stone parapet. The wooden gate itself had been so long broken Raef could see no way to make it swing again without forging new hinges for it. The dry old wood was split down the middle in six places, but the iron crosspieces held its shape still. The old wall, three times his height, was stout as a hillside.
He caught the other men watching him as if he would somehow work magic on this gate. He thought the way to beat Uhtred was that wall, these people, and maybe a little luck.
“Where is the nearest smith?”
One of the carls said, “Harrowgate, I think. There are tinkers. You have to wait until one comes through.” They were still looking at him quizzically.
He said, “Let’s just get it closed, then.”
“Nobody will be able to get in.” But they put their shoulders to the wood and heaved and hauled the great slab up onto the sill of the stone gate frame. The hinges groaned and shrieked, and the top one snapped free at the stone side in a shower of rust. From inside the gate they pulled it as deep as they could into the frame. It fit loosely, but it would keep people out for a while at least.
By then a crowd had gathered on the inside of the gate, watching them. When the gate was solidly into the opening, Raef went to slide the bolt across, and Goda suddenly strode forward out of the crowd and said, “Hey, there, that’s enough. What are you doing now?”
Behind him, a general yell went up, as if Goda made the rest of them brave. “Yes! How is anybody going to get in now?” An old man with white whiskers, who leaned on a stout stick, came out and shook the stick at him. “You’ve gone too far this time!”
Raef said, “Pretty soon you’re going to be glad this gate is shut.” He forced the end of the bolt into the hole in the wall. “Although it isn’t much.”
Goda sneered. “Nobody ever comes in here anyway.”
“Uhtred is coming here,” Raef said. He faced Goda, in the middle of the little crowd of onlookers: his men and Goda’s. “With an army.”
The crowd hushed. The old man called, “What does that mean?”
Somebody hissed, “Tern! Be quiet!” Goda glanced over his shoulder at them and faced Raef again.
“Uhtred is our lord. He can come here if he wants.”
Raef said, “He is bringing an army here. Do you think he means to help you shear sheep?”
Goda looked at the gate, as if he could see through it and find Uhtred, and his red forehead wrinkled. His pale eyes in their colorless lashes looked blind. Then he burst out, “You’re crazy. Miru’s right. She said you were a little crazy.”
Raef said, “He’s coming to finish what Ethelred started on Saint Brice’s Day. Can he do that if he wants? Because he’s your lord?”
Someone called, “We can’t stand against Uhtred.” The crowd was shrinking. Goda’s face was long, drawn, his lips pulled tight over his outthrust teeth. His thin, close-cropped red hair stood on end.
He said, “We can’t refuse Uhtred.” But his eyes went to Raef’s, questioning. “You’re crazy. We owe Uhtred fealty. He’s the King’s man. Defying him is like defying God.”
“Awhile ago you were bragging how you threw out kings. And leave God out of this,” Raef said. “God is peace, and there is no peace in England. Doesn’t Uhtred owe you anything? What did King Ethelred owe Arre Woodwrightsson? How did he repay it? My wife’s here. My child.”
Goda turned and looked at the gate, trying to see out. He said, “Nobody is coming. That will be the proof of how crazy you are. Nothing is happening.” He gave Raef a furious look.
“All right,” Raef said. “I’ll take that bet.”
* * *
Laissa went to Miru’s house, which was a snug fit for three people and a baby, and Goda grumbled to his wife that she could not stay. Miru frowned at him. “She can stay as long as I can, Goda. Besides,” she said, “she’ll go back. She loves him. He’s a strange man, but still, I think he’s good enough. Just let her think it over.”
“Let him come get her,” Goda said. “Take his mind off this ghost army.”
Raef went up on the wall and walked from riverbank to riverbank, going down only at the gate. He found several places where the stones had fallen, and it would be easy for men to come in, but only a few at a time, and they would be easy meat for anybody up there with a bow. He came around outside the gate. From here the rolling land spread away into the south, green and empty.
He stood looking out over the green land, thinking of Laissa. He could seize her and drag her back, but she would only run away again. She would stop loving him, and he could not endure that. He felt blocked and stuffed and hampered, like his river, a singing tension through all his nerves. He could sense Uhtred drawing nearer like a black mold spreading up over the edge of his awareness.
He could not detect the Lady anywhere. He wondered if this was a trap. He caught himself longing for Uhtred to appear, to end the waiting.
When he went back to the big gate, a lot of Jorvikers were collecting on top of the wall, mostly the Green Stray Boys with rakes and withies, peering into the south, but other people too— the carpenter, some shepherds. One had a bow, and Raef sent him down the wall to the biggest gap. He sent another down to where the wall came down to the edge of the river. Nobody really seemed to be worried; they did not believe him yet. They called him King, as if it were a dog name. Leif came up with a long notched pole, lowered one end down outside the wall and tipped the other against the top, and climbed down to help Raef fit another bar across the outside of the gate, so no one could open it from within.
Goda came up above them on the top of the gate. He leaned over the top of the wall, watching them. He said, “When are you coming to take this woman back?”
“If you touch my wife I’ll kick those fangs right out your backside,” Raef said, heaving at the bar, which was too wide for the bracket. Goda snorted at him.
“Working hard for a wizard.”
Raef ignored that. Somebody laughed. He took hold of the iron upright of the bracket in one hand and pulled with his whole weight on it. With Leif shoving, he dragged the bar down solidly inside the bracket.
“I’d get a rent if you had anything I wanted,” Goda said.
Raef kept at the work, jamming the bar down into place.
Somebody yelled, “Stay on that side of the gate!” There was more laughter.
Then Goda called out, in a different voice, “King. Something is coming.”
Raef stepped back. Leif went nimbly up the pole like a bird up a string. Raef looked south, folding his arms over his chest. Closer to the ground than Goda, he could not see Uhtred’s army from here, but he could feel them, trampling on over the green meadows, swinging inland to avoid the low, boggy willow thickets along the river, leaving only mud behind.
He felt no trace of the Lady. He remembered what she had said, in the dream, that he could have Jorvik. He wanted too much to believe that.
“Raef,” Leif said. “Do you want the pole?”
He waved his hand. “Leave it there.” Leaning against the gate, he watched the first of Uhtred’s army ride into sight on the open rolling ground between the tree-wrapped course of the river and the woods of the upland along the road.
He glanced up. On the wall, more and more people were lining the rampart, and a fringe of poles and shovels and pruning hooks stuck out over the edge. They called to one another, their voices shrill with excitement, and sent for others. They spread out along the wall almost to the bend, where there was the remnant of a tower. Somebody went running by, up there, with another bow and more arrows. Raef rubbed his shoulders against the gate, solid behind him. He needed these people; he hoped they were as stout as they seemed. After all that had happened, he thought, they would not still be here otherwise.
By sundown Uhtred’s army had come up to fill the road and the open ground for a hundred feet on either side, all the way back to where the woods began. Most of the men were on foot, but there were about forty riders. A string of wagons was still trundling up over the rocky ground to the south. Two of the horsemen rode forward, one carrying a green banner hanging limp on a pole.
The other was Uhtred.
He was a stocky man on a barrel-chested bay horse, his leather jacket green like the banner on the pole. He wore his beard cropped short, as if he were caught halfway between a Saxon and a Norman. “Who are you? Open this gate.” A helmet hung from his saddlebows, a long sword from his belt. Raef knew his reputation: hard, bad tempered, a terror of the Scots, one of the few men Ethelred actually trusted.
Raef said, “What do you intend to do here? Why are you bringing this army here?”
The Saxon lord flared white with anger, but he kept himself still. His eyes burned.
“That’s my concern entirely. I am lord of Northumberland, my only liege is the King of the English.” His broad face was vivid with indignation. “Who are you to stand up to me? Let me in! Jor’ck is my city.”
“Your city. Then why are you bringing an army in here?” Raef looked quickly toward the army. To the people behind him, on the walls, this mass of men and pikes must look like a stubby little forest. He brought his gaze to Uhtred.
“This is a free city. Ethelred Edgarsson lost his hold here when he murdered half of Jorvik on Saint Brice’s Day. See those people there?” He swung his arm up toward the wall. “They remember Euan Woodwrightsson. They remember the old days. They think you’re bringing Saint Brice’s Day here.”
Uhtred swung his horse around. He had a heavy, sun-leathered face, narrow eyed, and he mastered the horse with a rough hand. He said, “We’ll see about this. I know these people, maybe better than you. Let them think it over for a day. They’ll give you to me like the Martinmas hog.” He lifted his hands beside his mouth.
“You! Up there! I’ll guarantee the life and holding of anybody who lets me into the city!”
Raef said, “What will you guarantee the rest?”
At that the people who could hear them let up a yell, and they repeated everything up and down the wall, so the yell spread. Uhtred mashed his
lips together and gave Raef a hard stare. His cheeks flushed. He swung back toward his army. His mind was clear to Raef as a bowl of water; he was thinking of launching an attack at once, and Raef began to consider the quickest way he could get himself back over the wall. But Uhtred was a cautious man, for all his bad temper, and that slower, steadier thinking overgrew the impulse.
He said, scarcely turning around, “It’s almost dark. I’ll come back tomorrow. The gate had better be open. And you—” He said this to Raef— “had better be gone.”
He cantered away, not waiting for an answer. Raef climbed up the pole and over the top of the wall.
If there was a battle, he thought, that would bring the Lady out. She would not be able to resist a harvest of souls. She could still be here, somehow, hidden. Yet he knew Uhtred had no magic, and there were no women with him.
He remembered how he had seen the filthy cloud boiling up out of the hole in the light field, and he thought again of the dream. Maybe she couldn’t stretch this far yet from her root.
She did not belong to the light field, and he did. That heartened him. He went off across the city toward his hall.
* * *
In the fading daylight Uhtred set his camp up on the green meadows to either side of the road to the gate. He did not expect much trouble here. The white-haired man had stirred up the few people remaining inside the wall, but that would not last. They were peasants, shepherds and earth grubbers, not fighting men. Once the arrows flew and the swords started swinging, they would run or beg for mercy or die. He promised himself the pleasure of spiking that white-haired head on the ruined gate of Jorvik.
He had come north with forty horsemen of his personal army, going north through Mercia; he had his own reasons for avoiding the easier road through Lindsey, east of the Trent. He had the King’s writ, and as he went he collected fyrdmen from Ethelred’s own lands, so well over three hundred men followed him now. He doubted there were many more people in Jorvik than followed him. He thought he would have the city in flames by the next nightfall.
Kings of the North Page 14