‘Lord Uhtred!’ Æthelflaed called in alarm. ‘No!’
‘I was about to do your god’s work,’ I said, ‘and strike him dead. You’d stop me?’
‘God can do his own work,’ Æthelflaed said tartly, then looked back to the Danish priest. ‘Father Haruld, are you convinced of Jarl Haesten’s conversion?’
‘I am, my lady. He shed tears of contrition and tears of joy at his baptism.’
‘Praise God,’ Father Ceolnoth whispered.
‘Enough!’ I said. I still held Serpent-Breath. ‘Why aren’t our men inside the fort?’
‘They will be!’ Ceolnoth said waspishly. ‘It is agreed!’
‘Agreed?’ Æthelflaed’s voice was very guarded, and it was clear she suspected the priests had overstepped their authority in making any agreement without her approval. ‘What has been agreed?’ she asked.
‘The Jarl Haesten,’ Ceolnoth spoke very carefully, ‘begged that he might swear his loyalty to you, my lady, at the Easter mass. He desires this so that the joy of our Lord’s resurrection will consecrate this act of reconciliation.’
‘I don’t give a rat’s turd if he waits till Eostre’s feast,’ I said, ‘so long as we occupy the fort now!’
‘It will be handed over on Easter Sunday,’ Ceolnoth said. ‘That was agreed!’
‘Easter day?’ Æthelflaed asked, and any man who knew her well could have detected the unhappiness in her voice. She was no fool, but nor was she ready to discard the hope that Haesten truly was a Christian.
‘It will be a cause for rejoicing,’ Ceolnoth urged her.
‘And who are you to make that agreement?’ I demanded.
‘It is a matter for Christians to decide,’ Ceolnoth insisted, looking at Æthelflaed in hope of her support.
Æthelflaed, in turn, looked at me, then to Haesten. ‘Why,’ she asked, ‘should we not occupy the fort now?’
‘I agreed—’ Ceolnoth began weakly.
‘My lady,’ Haesten intervened, shuffling forward on his knees, ‘it is my sincerest wish that all my men be baptised at Easter. But some, a few, are reluctant. I need time, Father Haruld needs time! We need time to convince those reluctant few of the saving grace of our Lord Jesus Christ.’
‘Twisted bastard,’ I said.
No one spoke for a moment. ‘I swear this is true,’ Haesten said humbly.
‘Whenever he says that,’ I looked at Æthelflaed, ‘you can tell that he’s lying.’
‘And if Father Ceolnoth were to visit us,’ Haesten went on, ‘or better still, Father Leofstan, and if they were to preach to us, that would be a help and a blessing, my lady.’
‘I would be happy to …’ Ceolnoth began, but stopped when Æthelflaed raised a hand. She said nothing for a while, but just gazed down at Haesten. ‘You propose a mass baptism?’ she asked.
‘All my men, my lady!’ Haesten said eagerly, ‘all of them coming to Christ’s mercy and to your service.’
‘How many men, you turd?’ I asked Haesten.
‘There’s just a few, Lord Uhtred, who persist in their paganism. Twenty men, perhaps, or thirty? But with God’s help we shall convert them!’
‘How many men in the fort, you miserable bastard?’
He hesitated, then realised that hesitation was a mistake, and smiled. ‘Five hundred and eighty, Lord Uhtred.’
‘That many!’ Father Ceolnoth exulted. ‘It will be a light to lighten the gentiles!’ he pleaded with Æthelflaed. ‘Imagine it, my lady, a mass conversion of pagans! We can baptise them in the river!’
‘You can drown the bastards,’ I muttered.
‘And my lady,’ Haesten, still on his knees, clasped his hands as he gazed up at Æthelflaed. His face was so trustworthy and his voice so earnest. He was the best liar I had ever met in all my life. ‘I would invite you into the fort now! I would pray with you there, my lady, I would sing God’s praises alongside you! But those few of my men are still bitter. They might resist. A little time is all I beg, a little time for God’s grace to work on those bitter souls.’
‘You treacherous piece of arse slime,’ I snarled at him.
‘And if it will convince you,’ Haesten said humbly, ignoring me, ‘I will swear loyalty to you now, my lady, this very minute!’
‘God be praised,’ Father Ceolberht lisped.
‘There’s one small problem,’ I said, and everyone looked at me. ‘He can’t swear an oath to you, my lady.’
Æthelflaed gave me a sharp look. ‘Why not?’
‘Because he swore loyalty to another lord, my lady, and that lord has not yet released him from his oath.’
‘I was released from my oath to Jarl Ragnall when I gave my allegiance to Almighty God,’ Haesten said.
‘But not from the oath you swore to me,’ I said.
‘But you are also a pagan, Lord Uhtred,’ Haesten said slyly, ‘and Jesus Christ absolves me of all allegiance to pagans.’
‘This is true!’ Father Ceolnoth said excitedly. ‘He has cast off the devil, my lady! He has spurned the devil and all his works! A newly converted Christian is absolved of all oaths made to pagans, the church insists on it.’
Æthelflaed still pondered. Finally she looked at Leofstan. ‘You haven’t spoken, father.’
Leofstan half smiled. ‘I promised the Lord Uhtred I would not interfere with his work if he did not interfere with mine.’ He offered Father Ceolnoth an apologetic smile. ‘I rejoice in the conversion of pagans, my lady, but the fate of a fortress? Alas, that is beyond my competence. Render unto Caesar that which is Caesar’s, my lady, and the fate of Eads Byrig is Caesar’s affair or, more strictly, yours.’
Æthelflaed nodded abruptly and gestured at Haesten. ‘But do you believe this man?’
‘Believe him?’ Leofstan frowned. ‘May I question him?’
‘Do,’ Æthelflaed commanded.
Leofstan limped to Haesten and knelt in front of him. ‘Give me your hands,’ Leofstan said quietly and waited as Haesten dutifully obeyed. ‘Now tell me,’ the bishop-elect still spoke softly, ‘what you believe.’
Haesten blinked back his tears. ‘I believe in one God, the Father Almighty, Maker of heaven and earth,’ he spoke scarcely above a whisper, ‘and in one Lord Jesus Christ, the only-begotten Son of God, begotten of the Father; God of God, Light of Light!’ His voice had risen as he said the last few words, and then he seemed to choke. ‘I believe, father!’ he pleaded, and the tears ran down his face again. He shook his head. ‘The Lord Uhtred is right, he is right! I have been a sinner. I have broken oaths. I have offended heaven! Yet Father Haruld prayed with me, he prayed for me, and my wife prayed, and, praise God, I believe!’
‘Praise God indeed,’ Leofstan said.
‘Does Ragnall know you’re a Christian?’ I asked harshly.
‘It was necessary to deceive him,’ Haesten said humbly.
‘Why?’
Haesten still had his hands in Leofstan’s grip. ‘I was driven to take refuge on Mann,’ he was answering my question, but looking up at Æthelflaed as he spoke, ‘and it was on that island that Father Haruld converted me. Yet we were surrounded by pagans who would kill us if they knew. I prayed!’ He looked back to Leofstan. ‘I prayed for guidance! Should I stay and convert the heathen? Yet God’s answer was to bring my followers here and offer our swords to the service of Christ.’
‘To the service of Ragnall,’ I said harshly.
‘The Jarl Ragnall did demand my service,’ Haesten was speaking to Æthelflaed again, ‘but I saw God’s will in that demand! God had offered us a way off the island! I had no ships, I only had faith in Christ Jesus and in Saint Werburgh.’
‘Saint Werburgh!’ Æthelflaed exclaimed.
‘My dear wife prays to her, my lady,’ Haesten said, sounding so innocent. Somehow the slimy bastard had learned of Æthelflaed’s veneration of the goose-frightener.
‘You lying bastard,’ I said.
‘His repentance is sincere,’ Ceolnoth insisted.
‘Father Le
ofstan?’ Æthelflaed asked.
‘I want to believe him, my lady!’ Leofstan said earnestly. ‘I want to believe that this is a miracle to accompany my enthronement! That on Easter day we will have the joy of bringing a pagan horde into the service of Jesus Christ!’
‘This is Christ’s doing!’ Father Ceolberht said through his toothless gums.
Æthelflaed still pondered, staring down at the two kneeling men. One part of her surely knew I was right, but she was also swayed by the piety she had inherited from her father. And by Leofstan’s eagerness to believe. Leofstan was her choice. She had persuaded the Archbishop of Contwaraburg to appoint him, she had written letters to bishops and abbots praising Leofstan’s sincerity and glowing faith, and she had sent money to shrines and churches, all to sway opinion in Leofstan’s favour. The church might have preferred a more worldly man who could expand the see’s land-holdings and extort more cash from northern Mercia’s nobles, but Æthelflaed had wanted a saint. And that saint was now depicting Haesten’s conversion as a sign of heavenly approval of her choice. ‘Think, my lady,’ Leofstan at last let go of Haesten’s hands, and, still on his knees, turned to Æthelflaed, ‘think what rejoicing there will be when a pagan leads his men to Christ’s throne!’ And that idea seduced her too. Her father had always forgiven Danes who converted, even allowing some to settle in Wessex, and Alfred had often claimed that the fight was not to establish Englaland but to convert the heathen to Christ, and Æthelflaed saw this mass conversion of heathen Danes as a sign of God’s power.
She urged Gast forward a pace. ‘You will swear loyalty to me now?’
‘With joy, my lady,’ Haesten said, ‘with joy!’
I spat towards the treacherous bastard, walked away, slammed Serpent-Breath back into her scabbard and hauled myself into Tintreg’s saddle. ‘Lord Uhtred!’ Lady Æthelflaed called sharply. ‘Where are you going?’
‘Back to the river,’ I said curtly. ‘Finan! Sihtric! All of you! With me!’
We rode away from whatever farce was about to happen outside Eads Byrig.
One hundred and twenty-three of us rode. We rode our horses through the ranks of Æthelflaed’s followers, then turned north and rode towards the river.
But once among the trees and well hidden from the fools who surrounded Æthelflaed I turned my men eastwards.
Because I was determined to do the Christian god’s work.
And strike Haesten dead.
We rode fast, our horses twisting through trees. Finan spurred alongside me. ‘What are we doing?’
‘Taking Eads Byrig,’ I said, ‘of course.’
‘Sweet Jesus.’
I said nothing as Tintreg dropped into a gully of thick ferns, then pounded up the short slope beyond. How many men did Haesten lead? He had claimed five hundred and eighty, but I did not believe him. He had lost his army along with his reputation at Beamfleot. He had not been present at that battle, but if he had as many as one hundred followers I would be surprised, though doubtless Ragnall would have left some men inside the fortress too. ‘How big is the fortress?’ I asked Finan.
‘Eads Byrig? It’s big.’
‘If you walked around the walls, how many paces?’
He thought about his answer. I had turned slightly northwards, setting Tintreg to a long slope that climbed through the oaks and sycamores. ‘Nine hundred?’ Finan guessed. ‘Maybe a thousand?’
‘That’s what I reckon.’
‘It’s a big place, sure enough.’
King Alfred had tried to reduce life to rules. Most of those rules, of course, came from his Christian scriptures, but there had been others. The towns he built were measured, and each plot of land carefully surveyed. The walls of the town were also measured to discover their height, depth, and extent, and it had been that last figure, the length of the wall, which determined how many men were needed to defend the town. That number had been worked out by clever priests rattling wooden balls along wire strings, and their conclusion was that each burh needed four defenders for every five paces of wall. Wessex had become a garrison under Alfred, its borders studded with the newly built burhs and the walls manned by the fyrd. Every large town had been walled so that the Danes, piercing deep into Wessex, would be frustrated by ramparts, and those ramparts would be defended by an exact number of men corresponding to the wall’s total length. It had worked, and Mercia was now the same. As Æthelflaed reconquered Mercia’s ancestral lands she secured them with burhs like Ceaster and Brunanburh, and ensured that the garrison could supply four men for every five paces of rampart. At the first sign of trouble, folk could retreat into the nearest burh, taking their livestock with them. A whole army was needed to capture a burh, and the Danes had never succeeded. Their way of war was to raid deep, to capture slaves and cattle, and an army that stayed still, that remained camped outside the walls of a burh, was soon struck by disease. Besides, no enemy army had ever proved big enough to surround a burh and starve it into submission. The strategy of the burhs had worked.
But it worked because there were men to defend them. Every man over the age of twelve was expected to fight. They might not be trained warriors like the men I now led through the rising woodland, but they could hold a spear or throw a rock or swing an axe. That was the fyrd, the army of farmers and butchers and craftsmen. The fyrd might not be armoured with mail or carry linden-wood shields, but its men could line the walls of a burh and hack enemies to death if they tried to climb the ramparts. A woodsman’s axe in the hands of a strong farmer is a fearsome weapon, as is a sharpened hoe if swung fiercely enough. Four men to every five paces, and Eads Byrig was a thousand paces, and that meant Haesten would need at least seven hundred men to defend the whole length of its ramparts. ‘I’d be surprised,’ I told Finan, ‘if he had two hundred men.’
‘Then why is he staying there?’
And that was a good question. Why had Ragnall left a garrison in Eads Byrig? I did not believe for a moment that Haesten had decided to stay south of the Mærse in order to seek Æthelflaed’s protection, he was only there because Ragnall wanted him there. We had slowed now, the horses walking uphill, their hooves loud in the leaf mould. So why had Ragnall left Haesten behind? Haesten was not the best fighter in Ragnall’s army, he might well have been the worst, but he was certainly the best liar, and suddenly I understood. I had thought Eads Byrig was a deception aimed at the weak king in Eoferwic, but it was not. It was aimed at us. At me. ‘He’s staying,’ I told Finan, ‘because Ragnall’s coming back.’
‘He has to take Eoferwic first,’ Finan said drily.
I curbed Tintreg and held up my hand to stop my men. ‘Stay mounted,’ I told them, then slid out of the saddle and threw the reins to Godric. ‘Keep Tintreg here,’ I told him.
Finan and I walked slowly uphill. ‘Ingver’s support will crumble,’ I told Finan. ‘He’s a weakling. Ragnall will find himself King of Eoferwic without a struggle. Jarls will already be flocking to him, bringing men, swearing allegiance. He doesn’t even need to go to Eoferwic! He can send three hundred men to take the city from Ingver, turn around and come back here. He just wants us to think that he’s going there.’
The trees were thinning and I caught a glimpse of the raw new timbers of Eads Byrig’s eastern wall. We stooped and crept forward, wary of any sentry on the high timber ramparts.
‘And Ragnall has to reward his followers,’ I went on, ‘what better than land in northern Mercia?’
‘But Eads Byrig?’ Finan sounded dubious.
‘It’s a foothold in Mercia,’ I said, ‘and a base to attack Ceaster. He needs a big victory, something to send the signal that he’s a winner. He wants even more men to come across the sea, and to bring them he has to strike a heavy blow. Capturing Eoferwic doesn’t count. It’s had half a dozen kings in as many years, but if he takes Ceaster?’
‘If,’ Finan said, still dubious.
‘If he captures Ceaster,’ I went on, ‘he destroys Æthelflaed’s reputation. He gains territory. He
controls the Mærse and the Dee, he has burhs to frustrate us. He’ll lose men in the assault, but he has men to lose. But to do that he needs Eads Byrig. That’s his base. Once inside Eads Byrig we’ll never get him out. But if we hold Eads Byrig then he’ll find it damned hard to besiege Ceaster.’
By now we were at the edge of the trees where we crouched in the undergrowth and stared at the newly-made walls above us. They were taller than a man and protected by the outer ditch. ‘How many men do you see there?’ I asked.
‘Not one.’
It was true. There was not a single man or spear-point visible above Eads Byrig’s eastern wall. ‘There’s no fighting platform,’ I said.
Finan frowned. He was thinking. There, just a hundred paces from us, was a wall, but no visible defenders. There had to be sentries there, but if there was no fighting platform then those men were looking through the chinks between the newly-felled logs, and those logs were uneven, their tops not yet aligned. The wall had been built in a hurry. ‘It’s a bluff,’ he said.
‘It’s all a bluff! Haesten’s conversion is a bluff. He’s just buying time until Ragnall can get back here. Four days? Five?’
‘That quickly?’
‘He’s probably already on his way back,’ I said. It seemed obvious now. He had burned his bridge of boats to make us think he had abandoned Mercia, but to return, all he needed to do was march a few miles eastwards and follow the Roman road south to where it bridged the Mærse. He was coming, I was sure of it.
‘But how many bastards are inside those walls?’ Finan asked.
‘Only one way to find out.’
He chuckled. ‘And you are always telling young Æthelstan to be cautious before starting a fight?’
‘There’s a time for caution,’ I said, ‘and a time to just kill the bastards.’
He nodded. ‘But how do we cross that wall? We don’t have ladders.’
So I told him.
Twelve of my youngest men led the assault. My son was among them.