He nodded miserably. The prisoners told me the rest. The three merchant ships had anchored where the Mærse’s channel was narrowest, the place where a fleet faced the greatest danger of running aground, and they had burned lanterns that had guided Ragnall’s ships past the peril. The tide had done the rest. Let a vessel drift and it will usually follow the swiftest current in the deepest channel and, once past the three merchant ships, Ragnall had simply let the flood carry him to our wharf. There he had burned both wharf and ships, so that his own vessels could now use the river safely. Reinforcements could now come from his sea kingdom. He had ripped apart our defence of the Mærse and he was loose in Britain with an army.
I let Æthelstan decide what to do with the prisoners. There were fourteen of them, and Æthelstan chose to have them executed. ‘Wait for low tide,’ he ordered Rædwald, ‘then tie them to the stakes.’ He nodded at the charred pilings that jutted at awkward angles from the swirling river. ‘Let them drown in the rising tide.’
I had already sent Beadwulf eastwards, but would not expect to hear his news for at least a day. I ordered Sihtric to send men south. ‘They’re to ride fast,’ I said, ‘and tell the Lady Æthelflaed what’s happening. Tell her I want men, a lot of men, all her men!’
‘At Ceaster?’ Sihtric asked.
I shook my head, thinking. ‘Tell her to send them to Liccelfeld. And tell her I’m going there.’ I turned and pointed to Æthelstan, ‘and you’re coming with me, lord Prince. And bringing most of Brunanburh’s garrison with you. And you,’ I looked at Rædwald, ‘will stay here. Defend what’s left. You can have fifty men.’
‘Fifty! That’s not enough …’
‘Forty,’ I snarled, ‘and if you lose the fort I’ll cut your kidneys out and eat them.’
We were at war.
Finan was at the water’s edge, sitting on a great driftwood log. I sat beside him. ‘So tell me about that,’ I said, nodding at the corpse that was still fixed by the spear.
‘What do you want to know?’
‘Whatever you choose to tell me.’
We sat in silence. Geese flew above us, their wings beating the morning. A flurry of rain spat past. One of the corpses farted. ‘We’re going to Liccelfeld,’ I said.
Finan nodded. ‘Why Liccelfeld?’ he asked after a moment. The question was dutiful. He was not thinking about Ragnall or the Norsemen or anything except the spear-pierced corpse at the river’s brink.
‘Because I don’t know where Ragnall’s going,’ I said, ‘but from Liccelfeld we can go north or south easily.’
‘North or south,’ he repeated dully.
‘The bastard needs land,’ I said, ‘and he’ll either try to take it in northern Mercia or from southern Northumbria. We have to stop him fast.’
‘He’ll go north,’ Finan said, though he still spoke carelessly. He shrugged, ‘Why would he pick a fight with Mercia?’
I suspected he was right. Mercia had become powerful, its frontiers protected by burhs, fortified towns, while to the north were the troubled lands of Northumbria. That was Danish land, but the Danish lords were squabbling and fighting amongst themselves. A strong man like Ragnall could unite them. I had repeatedly told Æthelflaed that we should march north and take land from the fractious Danes, but she would not invade Northumbria until her brother Edward brought his West Saxon army to help. ‘Whether Ragnall goes north or comes south,’ I said, ‘now’s the time to fight him. He’s just arrived here. He doesn’t know the land. Haesten does, of course, but how far does Ragnall trust that piece of weasel-shit? And from what the prisoners said, Ragnall’s army has never fought together, so we hit him hard now, before he has a chance to find a refuge and before he feels safe. We do to him what the Irish did, we make him feel unwanted.’
Silence again. I watched the geese, looking for an omen in their numbers, but there were too many birds to count. Yet the goose was Æthelflaed’s symbol, so their presence was surely a good sign? I touched the hammer that hung at my neck. Finan saw the gesture and frowned. Then he grasped the crucifix that hung at his neck, and, with a sudden grimace, tugged it hard enough to break the leather cord. He looked at the silver bauble for a moment, then flung it into the water. ‘I’m going to hell,’ he said.
For a moment I did not know what to say. ‘At least we’ll still be together,’ I finally spoke.
‘Aye,’ he said, unsmiling. ‘A man who kills his own blood is doomed.’
‘The Christian priests tell you that?’
‘No.’
‘Then how do you know?’
‘I just know. That was why my brother didn’t kill me so long ago. He sold me to that bastard slaver instead.’
That was how Finan and I had first met, chained as slaves to a bench and pulling on long oars. We still carried the slaver’s brand on our skin, though the slaver himself was long dead, slaughtered by Finan in an orgy of revenge.
‘Why would your brother want to kill you?’ I asked, knowing I trod on dangerous ground. In all the long years of our friendship I had never discovered why Finan was an exile from his native Ireland.
He grimaced. ‘A woman.’
‘Surprise me,’ I said wryly.
‘I was married,’ he went on as though I had not spoken. ‘A good woman, she was, a royal daughter of the Uí Néill, and I was a prince of my people. My brother was too. Prince Conall.’
‘Conall,’ I said after a few heartbeats of silence.
‘They’re small kingdoms in Ireland,’ he said bleakly, staring across the water. ‘Small kingdoms and great kings, and we fight. Christ, how we love to fight! The Uí Néill, of course, are the great ones, at least in the north. We were their clients. We gave them tribute. We fought for them when they demanded it, we drank with them and we married their good women.’
‘And you married a Uí Néill woman?’ I prompted him.
‘Conall is younger than me,’ he said, ignoring my question. ‘I should have been the next king, but Conall met a maid from the Ó Domhnaill. God, lord, but she was beautiful! She was nothing by birth! She was no chieftain’s daughter, but a dairy girl. And she was lovely,’ he spoke wistfully, his eyes gleaming wet. ‘She had hair dark as night and eyes like stars and a body as graceful as an angel in flight.’
‘And she was called?’ I asked.
He shook his head abruptly, rejecting the question. ‘And God help us we fell in love. We ran away. We took horses and we rode south. Just Conall’s wife and me. We thought we’d ride, we’d hide, and we’d never be found.’
‘And Conall pursued you?’ I guessed.
‘The Uí Néill pursued us. God knows it was a hunt. Every Christian in Ireland knew of us, knew of the gold they would make if they found us, and yes, Conall rode with the men of the Uí Néill.’
I said nothing. I waited.
‘Nothing is hidden in Ireland,’ Finan went on. ‘You can’t hide. The little people see you. Folk see you. Find an island in a lake and they know you’re there. Go to a mountain top and they’ll find you, hide in a cave and they’ll hunt you down. We should have taken ship, but we were young. We didn’t know.’
‘They found you.’
‘They found us, and Conall promised he would make my life worse than death.’
‘By selling you to Sverri?’ Sverri was the slaver who had branded us.
He nodded. ‘I was stripped of my gold, whipped, made to crawl through Uí Néill shit, and then sold to Sverri. I am the king that never was.’
‘And the girl?’
‘And Conall took my Uí Néill wife as his own. The priests allowed it, they encouraged it, and he raised my sons as his own. They cursed me, lord. My own sons cursed me. That one,’ he nodded at the corpse, ‘cursed me just now. I am the betrayer, the cursed.’
‘And he’s your son?’ I asked gently.
‘He wouldn’t say. He could be. Or Conall’s boy. He’s my blood, anyway.’
I walked to the dead man, put my right foot on his belly, and tugged the spea
r free. It was a struggle and the corpse made an obscene sucking noise as I wrenched the wide blade out. A bloody cross lay on the dead man’s chest. ‘The priests will bury him,’ I said, ‘they’ll say prayers over him.’ I hurled the spear into the shallows and turned back to Finan. ‘What happened to the girl?’
He stared empty-eyed across the river that was smeared dark with the ash of our ships. ‘For one day,’ he said, ‘they let the warriors of the Uí Néill do as they wished with her. They made me watch. And then they were merciful, lord. They killed her.’
‘And your brother,’ I said, ‘has sent men to help Ragnall?’
‘The Uí Néill sent men to help Ragnall. And yes, my brother leads them.’
‘And why would they do that?’ I asked.
‘Because the Uí Néill would be kings of all the north. Of Ireland and of Scotland too, of all the north. Ragnall can have the Saxon lands. That’s the agreement. He helps them, they help him.’
‘And he begins with Northumbria?’
‘Or Mercia,’ Finan suggested with a shrug. ‘But they won’t rest there,’ he went on, ‘because they want everything.’
It was the ancient dream, the dream that had haunted my whole life, the dream of the Northmen to conquer all Britain. They had tried so often and they had come so close to success, yet still we Saxons lived and still we fought back so that now half the island was ours again. Yet we should have lost! The Northmen were savage, they came with fury and anger, and their armies darkened the land, but they had one fatal weakness. They were like dogs that fought each other, and only when one dog was strongest and could snarl and bite and force the others to his bidding were the invasions dangerous. But one defeat shattered their armies. They followed a man so long as he was successful, but if that man showed weakness they deserted in droves to find other, easier prey.
And Ragnall had led an army here. An army of Norsemen and Danes and Irish, and that meant Ragnall had united our enemies. That made him dangerous.
Except he had not whipped all the dogs to his bidding.
I learned one other thing from our prisoners. Sigtryggr, my daughter’s husband, had refused to sail with his brother. He was still in Ireland. Beadwulf would think otherwise because he would see the flag of the red axe and he would think it belonged to Sigtryggr, but two of the prisoners told me that the brothers shared the symbol. It was their dead father’s flag, the bloody red axe of Ivar, but Sigtryggr’s axe, at least for the moment, was resting. Ragnall’s axe had chopped a bloody hole in our defences, but my son-in-law was still in Ireland. I touched my hammer and prayed he stayed there.
‘We must go,’ I told Finan.
Because we had to whip Ragnall into defeat.
And I thought we would ride east.
Two
The priests came to me early next morning. There were four of them, led by the Mercian twins Ceolnoth and Ceolberht who hated me. I had known them since boyhood and had no more love for them than they had for me, but at least I could now tell them apart. For years I had never known which twin I spoke to, they were as alike as two eggs, but one of our arguments had ended with me kicking out Ceolberht’s teeth, so now I knew that he was the one who hissed when he spoke. He dribbled too. ‘Will you be back by Easter, lord?’ he asked me. He was being very respectful, perhaps because he still had one or two teeth left and wanted to keep them.
‘No,’ I said, then urged my horse forward a pace. ‘Godwin! Put the fish in sacks!’
‘Yes, lord!’ Godwin called back. Godwin was my servant, and he and three other men had been rolling barrels from one of Ceaster’s storehouses. The barrels were filled with smoked fish, and the men were trying to make rope slings that would let each packhorse carry two barrels. Godwin frowned. ‘Do we have sacks, lord?’
‘There are twenty-two sacks of fleeces in my storeroom,’ I told him. ‘Tell my steward to empty them!’ I looked back to Father Ceolberht. ‘We won’t get all the wool out of the sacks,’ I told him, ‘and some of the wool will stick to the fish and then get caught in our teeth.’ I smiled at him. ‘If we have teeth.’
‘How many men will be left to defend Ceaster?’ his brother asked sternly.
‘Eighty,’ I said.
‘Eighty!’
‘And half of those are sick,’ I added. ‘So you’ll have forty fit men and the rest will be cripples.’
‘It isn’t enough!’ he protested.
‘Of course it isn’t enough,’ I snarled, ‘but I need an army to finish off Ragnall. Ceaster will have to take its chances.’
‘But if the heathens come …’ Father Wissian suggested nervously.
‘The heathens won’t know how big the garrison is,’ I said, ‘but they will know how strong the walls are. Leaving so few men here is a risk, but it’s a risk I’m taking. And you’ll have men from the fyrd. Godwin! Use the sacks for the bread too!’
I was taking just over three hundred men, leaving behind barely enough troops to defend the ramparts of Ceaster and Brunanburh. It might sound simple to say I was leading three hundred men, as if all we had to do was mount our horses, leave Ceaster and ride eastwards, but it takes time to organise the army. We had to carry our own food. We would be riding into country where food could be bought, but never enough for all of us. The Northmen would steal what they wanted, but we paid because we rode in our own country, and so I had a packhorse laden with silver coins and guarded by two of my warriors. And we would number well over three hundred because many men would take servants, some would take the women they could not bear to leave behind, and then there were the boys to lead the spare horses and the herd of packhorses laden with armour, weapons, and the sacks of salted meat, smoked fish, hard-baked bread, and thick-rinded cheese.
‘You do know what happens at Easter!’ Ceolnoth demanded sternly.
‘Of course I know,’ I said, ‘we make babies.’
‘That is the most ridiculous …’ Ceolberht began to protest, then went silent when his brother glared at him.
‘It’s my favourite feast,’ I continued happily. ‘Easter is baby-making day!’
‘It is the most solemn and joyous feast of the Christian year,’ Ceolnoth lectured me, ‘solemn because we remember the agony of our Saviour’s death, and joyous because of His resurrection.’
‘Amen,’ Father Wissian said.
Wissian was another Mercian, a young man with a shock of prematurely white hair. I rather liked Wissian, but he was cowed by the twins. Father Cuthbert stood beside him, blind and smiling. He had heard this argument before and was enjoying it. I glowered at the priests. ‘Why is it called Easter?’ I demanded.
‘Because our Lord died and was resurrected in the east, of course,’ Ceolnoth answered.
‘Horse shit,’ I said, ‘it’s called Easter because it’s Eostre’s feast, and you know it.’
‘It is not …’ Ceolberht began indignantly.
‘Eostre!’ I overrode him. ‘Goddess of the spring! Goddess of baby-making! You Christians stole both her name and her feast!’
‘Ignore him,’ Ceolnoth said, but he knew I was right. Eostre is the goddess of the spring, and a merry goddess she is too, which means many babies are born in January. The Christians, of course, try to stop the merriment, claiming that the name Easter is all about the east, but as usual the Christians are spouting nonsense. Easter is Eostre’s feast and despite all the sermons that insisted feast was solemn and sacred, most folk had a half memory of their duties towards Eostre and so the babies duly arrived every winter. In the three years I had lived at Ceaster I had always insisted on a fair to celebrate Eostre’s feast. There were fire-walkers and jugglers, musicians and acrobats, wrestling matches and horse races. There were booths selling everything from pottery to jewellery, and there was dancing. The priests disapproved of the dancing, but folk danced anyway, and the dances ensured that the babies came on time.
But this year was going to be different. The Christians had decided to create a Bishop of Ceaster and had set Easter
as the date of his enthronement. The new bishop was called Leofstan, and I had never met the man and knew little of him except that he came from Wessex and had an exaggerated reputation for piety. He was a scholar, I had been told, and was married, but on being named as the new bishop he had famously sworn to fast three days in every week and to stay celibate. Blind Father Cuthbert, who revelled in nonsense, had told me of the new bishop’s oath, knowing it would amuse me. ‘He did what?’ I asked.
‘He vowed to give up pleasuring his wife, lord.’
‘Maybe she’s old and ugly?’
‘Men say she’s comely,’ Father Cuthbert said dubiously, ‘but our bishop-to-be says that our Lord gave up His life for us and the very least we can do is to give up our carnal pleasures for Him.’
‘The man’s an idiot,’ I had said.
‘I can’t agree with you,’ Cuthbert said slyly, ‘but yes, lord, Leofstan’s an idiot.’
The idiot’s consecration was what had brought Ceolnoth and Ceolberht to Ceaster. They were planning the ceremonies and had invited abbots, bishops, and priests from all across Mercia, from Wessex, and from even further afield in Frankia. ‘We need to ensure their safety,’ Ceolnoth insisted now. ‘We have promised them the city will be defended against any attack. Eighty men isn’t enough!’ he said scornfully.
I pretended to be worried. ‘You mean your churchmen might all be slaughtered if the Danes come?’
‘Of course!’ Then he saw my smile and that only increased his fury. ‘We need five hundred men! King Edward might come! The Lady Æthelflaed will certainly be here!’
‘She won’t,’ I said. ‘She’ll be with me, fighting Ragnall. If the Northmen come you’d better just pray. Your god is supposed to work miracles, isn’t he?’
Æthelflaed, I knew, would come north as soon as my messengers reached Gleawecestre. Those same messengers would then order new ships from the boatbuilders along the Sæfern. I would have preferred to buy ships from Lundene where the yards employed skilled Frisian boatbuilders, but for now we would buy three vessels from the shipwrights on the Sæfern. ‘Tell them I want their smaller ships,’ I told the messengers, ‘no more than thirty oars on each side!’ The Sæfern men built heavy ships, wide and deep, which could ride the rough seas to Ireland, but such vessels would be cumbersome in a shallow river. There was no hurry. The men who would man those ships were riding east with me, and in our absence I ordered Rædwald to start rebuilding the wharf. He would do the job well, though slowly.