I looked up, seeing small white clouds sailing serene in a perfect blue. The sun lit the land almost a luminous green. I could see why men lusted after this land, but I had known Finan long enough to learn that it was no easy place to settle. ‘I don’t understand,’ I told Orvar. ‘You like Sigtryggr, you mistrust your allies, so why didn’t you just make a truce with him? Why not join Sigtryggr?’
Orvar had been gazing at the water, but now raised his eyes to look into mine. ‘Because Ragnall has my wife as a hostage.’
I winced at that.
‘My children too,’ Orvar went on. ‘He took my wife and he took Bjarke’s woman too.’
‘Bjarke?’
‘Bjarke Neilson,’ he said, ‘shipmaster on the Nidhogg,’ he jerked his head northwards and I realised the Nidhogg must be the second ship that was blockading Sigtryggr’s fastness, and the jerk of Orvar’s head told me she was somewhere to the north of the loch. If Hræsvelgr was the eagle perched at the top of the life tree then Nidhogg was the serpent coiled at its roots, a vile creature that gnawed at the corpses of dishonoured men. It was a strange name for a ship, but one, I supposed, that would strike fear into enemies. Orvar frowned. ‘I suppose you’ll want to capture her too?’
‘Of course.’
‘And you can’t risk any of us warning Nidhogg by shouting,’ he said, ‘but at least let us die with swords in our hands?’ He looked at me pleadingly. ‘I beg you, lord, let us die like warriors.’
I found the best sword from among the captured weapons. It was long-bladed with a fine hilt of carved ivory and crosspieces shaped like hammers. I weighed it in my hand, liking its heft. ‘Was this yours?’
‘And my father’s before me,’ he said, staring at the blade.
‘So tell me,’ I said, ‘what must you do to get your family back?’
‘Give Ragnall your daughter, of course. What else?’
I turned the sword around, holding it by the blade to offer him the hilt. ‘Then why don’t we do just that?’ I asked.
He stared at me.
So I explained.
I needed men. I needed an army. For years Æthelflaed had refused to cross the frontier into Northumbria except to punish the Norse or Danes who had stolen cattle or slaves from Mercia. Such revenge raids could be brutal, but they were just raids, never an invasion. She wanted to secure Mercia first, to build a chain of burhs along its northern border, but by refusing to capture Northumbrian land she was also doing her brother’s bidding.
Edward of Wessex had proved to be a good enough king. He was not the equal of his father, of course. He lacked Alfred’s intense cleverness and Alfred’s single-minded determination to rescue the Saxons and Christianity from the pagan Northmen, but Edward had continued his father’s work. He had led the West Saxon army into East Anglia where he was winning back land and building burhs. The land ruled by Wessex was being pushed slowly northwards, and Saxons were settling estates that had belonged to Danish jarls. Alfred had dreamed of one kingdom, a kingdom of Saxon Christians, ruled by a Saxon Christian king and speaking the language of the Saxons. Alfred had called himself the King of the English-Speaking people, which was not quite the same thing as being King of Englaland, but that dream, the dream of a united country, was slowly coming true.
But to make it wholly true meant subduing the Norse and the Danes in Northumbria, and that Æthelflaed was reluctant to do. She did not fear the risks, but rather feared the displeasure of her brother and of the church. Wessex was far richer than war-torn Mercia. West Saxon silver supported Æthelflaed’s troops and West Saxon gold was poured into Mercian churches, and Edward did not want his sister to be reckoned a greater ruler than himself. If Northumbria was to be invaded, then Edward would lead the army and Edward would gain the reputation, and so he forbade his sister from invading Northumbria without him, and Æthelflaed, knowing how reliant she was on her brother’s gold and, besides, reluctant to offend him, was content to reclaim Mercia’s northern lands. The time would come, she liked to tell me, when the combined armies of Mercia and Wessex would march triumphantly to the Scottish border and when that happened there would be a new country, not Wessex, not Mercia, not East Anglia, not Northumbria, but Englaland.
All of which might have been true, but it was too slow for me. I was growing old. There were aches in my bones, grey hairs in my beard, and an old dream in my heart. I wanted Bebbanburg. Bebbanburg was mine. I was and am the Lord of Bebbanburg. Bebbanburg belonged to my father and to his father, and it will belong to my son and to his son. And Bebbanburg lay deep inside Northumbria. To besiege it, to capture it from my cousin whose father had stolen it from me, I needed to be in Northumbria. I needed to lay siege and I could not hope to do that with a horde of bitter Norsemen and vengeful Danes surrounding me. I had already tried to capture Bebbanburg once by approaching the fortress from the sea, and that attempt had failed. Next time, I vowed, I would take an army to Bebbanburg, and to do that I first had to capture the land around the fortress, and that meant defeating the Northmen who ruled that territory. I needed to invade Northumbria.
Which meant I needed an army.
The idea had come to me when I had light-heartedly told Finan that my forgiveness gift to Æthelflaed would be Eoferwic, by which I had meant that one way or the other I would rid that city of Ragnall’s forces.
But now, suddenly, I saw the idea clearly.
I needed Bebbanburg. To gain Bebbanburg I needed to defeat the Northmen of Northumbria, and to defeat the Northmen of Northumbria I needed an army.
And if Æthelflaed would not let me use the Mercian army then I would use Ragnall’s.
Sigtryggr’s fortress was almost an island. It was a steep hump of rock-strewn land rearing from the lough’s water and protected from a sea approach by ledges, islets, and rocks. The land approach was even worse. The only path to the hump of rock was a low and narrow neck, scarce wide enough for six men to walk abreast. Even if men could cross the neck they faced a steep climb to the summit of Sigtryggr’s fort, the same climb that any attackers from the sea would find beyond the thin beach. To reach that beach a ship first had to negotiate a twisting channel that dog-legged from the south, but once the troops had leaped off the boat’s prow they would be confronted by high bluffs and precipitous slopes above which the defenders waited. The headland was like Bebbanburg, a place made to frustrate an attacker, though, unlike Bebbanburg, there was no palisade because none was needed, just the rocky heights above which cooking fires smoked on the hill’s wide green summit.
Sæbroga approached the fort from the south, picking a delicate path between the hidden ledges and rocks. Gerbruht stood in the prow, probing the water with an oar and shouting when its blade struck rock. I had just twelve men rowing, there was no need for more because we dared not travel fast. We could only creep through the dangers.
Sigtryggr’s garrison saw a boat crammed with men, glinting with weapons and displaying Ragnall’s big red axe at its prow. They would recognise Sæbroga and think that either Ragnall himself had come to finish them or else sent one of his more trusted war chiefs. I watched as the garrison formed a shield wall on the slope and I listened to the harsh clash of war-blades striking willow-boards. Sigtryggr’s banner, a red axe just like his brother’s symbol, was unfurled higher on the hill and I thought I saw Stiorra standing beside the banner. Her husband, blond hair bright in the sunlight, pushed through his shield wall and strode halfway down to the beach. ‘Come and die!’ he bellowed from the summit of one of the headland’s many rock bluffs. ‘Come join your friends!’ He gestured with his drawn sword and I saw human heads had been placed on rocks along the shore. Just as I had welcomed Ragnall with the severed heads at Eads Byrig, so Sigtryggr was welcoming visitors to his refuge.
‘It’s a corpse fence,’ Finan said.
‘A what?’
‘The heads! You think twice before crossing a corpse fence.’ He made the sign of the cross.
‘I need more heads!’ Sigtryggr shouted.
‘So bring me yours! I beg you!’ Behind him the swords clattered on shields. No attacker could hope to survive an assault on that rock, not unless he could bring an army to the shore and so overwhelm the few defenders, and that would be impossible. There was only room for three or perhaps four ships on the beach, and those ships would be forced to approach single file between the hazards. We inched our way, and more than once the Sæbroga’s bows touched rock and we had to back water and try again as Gerbruht bellowed instructions.
‘To make it easy for you,’ Sigtryggr shouted, ‘we’ll let you land!’ He stood on the bluff beside one of the heads. His long golden hair hung below his shoulders around which a chain of gold was looped three times. He was in mail, but wore no helmet nor carried a shield. He had his long-sword in his right hand, the blade naked. He was grinning, looking forward to a battle he knew he would win. I remembered young Berg describing him as a lord of war, and even though he was trapped and besieged, he looked magnificent.
I went forward and told Gerbruht to make way for me, then climbed onto the small platform just beneath the axe-head prow. I wore a plain helmet with closed cheek-pieces and Sigtryggr mistook me for Orvar. ‘Welcome back, Orvar! You brought me more men to be killed? You didn’t lose enough last time?’
‘Do I look like Orvar?’ I bellowed back. ‘You half-blind idiot! You spawn of a goat! Do you want me to take your other eye?’
He stared.
‘Can’t a father visit his daughter without being insulted by some shit-brained, one-eyed arse-dropping Norseman?’ I called.
He held up his free hand, indicating that his men should stop beating their shields. And still he stared. Behind him the clatter of blades on willow slowly faded.
I took the helmet off and tossed it back to Gerbruht. ‘Is this the welcome a loving father-in-law gets?’ I demanded. ‘I come all this way to rescue your worthless arse and you threaten me with your feeble insults? Why aren’t you showering me with gold and gifts, you wall-eyed piece of ungrateful toad shit?’
He began to laugh, then he danced. He capered for a few heartbeats, then stopped and spread his arms wide. ‘It’s amazing!’ he shouted.
‘What’s amazing, you goat dropping?’
‘That a mere Saxon should bring a boat safe from Britain! Was the voyage very frightening?’
‘About as scary as facing you in battle,’ I said.
‘So you pissed yourself then?’ he asked, grinning.
I laughed. ‘We borrowed your brother’s boat!’
‘So I see!’ He sheathed his sword. ‘You’re safe now! You’ve got deep water all the way to the beach!’
‘Pull!’ I called to the rowers, and they tugged on the looms and Sæbroga surged across the last few yards to grind her bow on the shingle. I stepped back off the platform and clambered over the steerboard bow strake. I dropped into water that came up to my thighs and almost lost my balance, but Sigtryggr had come down from his boulder, stretched out a hand, and pulled me ashore. He embraced me.
Even without an eye he was still a handsome man, hawk-faced and fair-haired, quick to smile, and I understood so well why Stiorra had sailed with him from Britain. I had been seeking a husband for her, looking among the warriors of Mercia and Wessex for a man who could match her intelligence and fierce passion, but she had taken the choice from me. She had married my enemy and now he was my ally. I was pleased to see him, even surprised by the surge of pleasure I felt.
‘You took your time coming, lord,’ he said happily.
‘I knew you weren’t in real trouble,’ I said, ‘so why should I hurry?’
‘Because we were running out of ale, of course.’ He turned and shouted up the rocky slope. ‘You can put your swords away! These ugly bastards are friends!’ He plucked my elbow. ‘Come and meet your granddaughter, lord.’
Stiorra came to me instead, leading a small child by the hand, and I confess the breath caught in my throat. It was not the child that misted my eyes. I have never liked small children, not even my own, but I loved my daughter and I could see why Ragnall would go to war for her. Stiorra had become a woman, graceful and confident, and so like her mother that it hurt just to look at her. She smiled as she approached, then offered me a dutiful curtsey. ‘Father,’ she said.
‘I’m not crying,’ I said, ‘dust got in my eye.’
‘Yes, father,’ she said.
I embraced her, then held her at arm’s length. She wore a dark dress of finely woven linen beneath a woollen cloak dyed black. An ivory hammer hung at her neck and a golden torque circled it. She wore her hair high, pinned by combs of gold and ivory. She took a step back, but only so she could draw her daughter forward. ‘This is your granddaughter,’ she said, ‘Gisela Sigtryggdottir.’
‘That’s a mouthful.’
‘She’s a handful.’
I glanced at the girl who looked like her mother and grandmother. She was dark, with large eyes and long black hair. She looked back at me very solemnly, but neither of us had anything to say and so said nothing. Stiorra laughed at our tongue-tied silence, then turned away to greet Finan. My men were securing the Sæbroga to the shore, using long lines that they lashed around boulders.
‘You might want to leave men aboard,’ Sigtryggr warned me, ‘because two of my brother’s ships are patrolling the loch. Hræsvelgr and Nidhogg.’
‘Hræsvelgr is already ours,’ I told him, ‘and Nidhogg soon will be. We’ll capture the other two as well.’
‘You captured Hræsvelgr?’ he asked, evidently astonished at the news.
‘You didn’t see it?’ I asked, and looked south and saw that islands would have hidden the Sæbroga’s meeting with the Hræsvelgr. ‘We should have five ships by tomorrow,’ I said brusquely, ‘but with their crews, my crew, and your people? They’ll be crowded! But if the weather stays calm like this, we should be safe enough. Unless you want to stay here?’
He was still trying to comprehend what I was saying. ‘Their crews?’
‘Your crews, really,’ I said, deliberately confusing him with a flood of good news. He looked over my shoulder and I turned to see that the Hræsvelgr had just appeared around the headland. Orvar was back in command of her. I watched and, sure enough, a second ship was following in her wake, ‘That must be the Nidhogg,’ I said to Sigtryggr.
‘It is.’
‘Orvar Freyrson,’ I told him, ‘is going to swear loyalty to you. I assume Bjarke is too, and every man of their crews as well. If any of them refuse, I suggest we strand them on an island here, unless you’d rather kill them.’
‘Orvar will swear loyalty?’ he asked.
‘And Bjarke too, I suspect.’
‘If Orvar and Bjarke swear,’ he said, frowning as he tried to comprehend the significance of all I was telling him, ‘their crews will too. All of them.’
‘And Orvar is confident he can persuade the other two ships to do the same,’ I said.
‘How did you persuade …’ he began, then just stopped, still trying to understand how fate had turned that morning. He had woken trapped and besieged, now he was commanding a small fleet.
‘How?’ I asked. ‘Because I offered him land, a lot of land. Your land, as it happens, but I didn’t think you’d mind.’
‘My land?’ he asked, now totally confused.
‘I’m making you King of Eoferwic,’ I explained, as if that was something I did every day, ‘and of Northumbria too. Don’t thank me!’ He had made no sign of thanking me, he was just staring at me in astonishment. ‘Because there will be conditions! But for now we should get the ships ready for a voyage. I’m reckoning we must empty some of their ballast because they’re going to be loaded to the upper strake. I’m told the weather on this coast can change in an eyeblink, but this looks settled enough and we should leave as soon as we can. And Dudda tells me we should leave the lough at slack water, so perhaps tomorrow morning?’
‘Dudda?’
‘My shipmaster,’ I explained, ‘and usually drunk, but it doesn’t se
em to make much difference to him. So tomorrow morning?’
‘Where are we going?’ Sigtryggr asked.
‘To Cair Ligualid.’
He stared at me vacantly. It was plain he had never heard of the place. ‘And Cair whatever it is,’ he asked, ‘is where?’
‘Over there,’ I said, pointing east, ‘a day’s voyage.’
‘King of Northumbria?’ he asked, still trying to understand what I was telling him.
‘If you agree,’ I said, ‘then I’m making you King of Northumbria. King of Jorvik, really, but whoever holds that throne usually calls himself King of Northumbria too. Your brother reckons he’s the king there now, but you and I should be able to give him a grave instead.’ Hræsvelgr had just beached, and Orvar leaped off the prow to stumble awkwardly on the rocky shore. ‘He’s either going to kill you,’ I said, watching Orvar, ‘or else kneel to you.’
Orvar, his golden chain restored, just as all his men had been given back their weapons, coins, hacksilver, and talismans, crossed the short stretch of beach. He gave Stiorra a respectful and embarrassed nod, then looked Sigtryggr in the eye. ‘Lord?’ he said.
‘You gave my brother your oath,’ Sigtryggr said harshly.
‘And your brother took my family hostage,’ Orvar said, ‘which no oath-lord should ever do.’
‘True,’ Sigtryggr said. He looked away as the Nidhogg grounded, her prow scraping on the shingle. Her master, Bjarke, leaped off the bow and stood watching Sigtryggr, who drew his long-sword. The blade hissed as it scraped through the scabbard’s throat. For a heartbeat Sigtryggr seemed to threaten Orvar with the long blade, then he let the sword fall so that its tip was planted in the shingle. ‘You know what to do,’ he told Orvar.
The crews of Hræsvelgr and Nidhogg watched as Orvar knelt and clasped his hands around Sigtryggr’s hands, which, in turn, held the sword. Orvar took a breath, but before speaking the oath he looked up at me. ‘You promise my family will live, lord?’