The Pagan Lord (30 page)

‘Lord?’ Geitnir asked, puzzled.

I turned to the two boys. ‘Who are you?’ I asked them. They were Geitnir’s grandsons, brought along to learn how to deal with Saxons. ‘I’m not going to kill either of you,’ I told the boys, ‘so now you’ll ride home and tell your mother that Uhtred of Bebbanburg is here. Say that name to me.’ They dutifully repeated my name. ‘And tell your mother I’m riding to Snotengaham to burn down Jarl Cnut’s hall. Where am I going?’

‘Snotengaham,’ one of them muttered. I doubted they had heard of the place, and I had no intention of going anywhere near the town, but I wanted to spread rumours to keep Cnut off balance.

‘Good boys,’ I said. ‘Now go.’ They hesitated, uncertain about the fate of their grandfather and his men. ‘Go!’ I shouted. ‘Before I decide to kill you too.’

They went, and then we killed the nine men. We took all their horses, except the two the boys had ridden in their panicked flight. I wanted rumours to start spreading in Danish Mercia, rumours that Uhtred had returned and was in a killing mood. Cnut believed that he had a free hand to do as he wished in Saxon Mercia, but within a day or two, once Brunna reached him and the rumours became louder, he would begin looking over his shoulder. He might even send men to Snotengaham where he kept one of his richer halls.

We left the Saxon women and children to fend for themselves and rode on south. We saw no more Danish bands and no Welsh warriors, and two days later we were in Saxon Mercia and the sky to the east and to the south was smirched with smoke, which meant that the Jarl Cnut was burning and plundering and killing.

And we rode on to Gleawecestre.

Gleawecestre was Æthelred’s stronghold. It was a burh and it lay in the western part of Mercia on the River Sæfern where it defended Æthelred’s territory from the marauding Welsh. That had been the burh’s original purpose, but it was large enough to provide a refuge for folk in the surrounding country whatever enemy came. Like Ceaster and like so many other places in Mercia and Wessex, its defences had been made by the Romans. And the Romans had built well.

The city lay on flat land, which is not the easiest to defend, but like Ceaster the wall at Gleawecestre was surrounded by a ditch fed by the nearby river, only this ditch was much deeper and wider. Inside the ditch was an earthen bank studded with pointed stakes on top of which was the Roman wall, built with stone, and twice the height of a man. That wall was strengthened by over thirty fighting towers. Æthelred had kept those defences in good repair, spending money on masons to rebuild the walls wherever time had crumbled them. Gleawecestre was his capital and home, and when he left to invade East Anglia, he had made sure that his possessions were well guarded.

It was the fyrd who had the task of defending Gleawecestre. The fyrd was the citizen army, men who normally worked the land or beat iron in smithies or sawed timber. They were not the professional warriors, but place the fyrd behind a flooded ditch and on top of a stout stone wall and they became a formidable foe. I had been fearful when I first heard that Cnut had sailed to the Sæfern, but as I rode south I decided that Gleawecestre and its inhabitants were probably safe. Æthelred had too much treasure in the city to leave it lightly defended, and he might have left as many as two thousand men inside the city’s walls. True, most of those men were the fyrd, but if they stayed behind the ramparts they would be hard to conquer.

Cnut must have been tempted to assault the city, but the Danes have never loved sieges. Men die on stone walls and drown in city ditches, and Cnut would want to keep his army strong for the battle he anticipated against Æthelred’s forces as they returned from East Anglia. Win that battle and only then might he set his men to attack a Roman city-fort. Yet by leaving Gleawecestre alone he ran the risk that the garrison might sally from the city to attack his rear, but Cnut knew the Saxon fyrd. They could defend, but were fragile in attack. I suspected he would have left two or three hundred men to watch the walls and keep the garrison quiet. Three hundred would be more than enough because one trained warrior was worth six or seven men of the fyrd, and besides, to preserve their supplies the men inside the city would have few horses and, if they were to attack Cnut, they would need horses. They were not there to attack Cnut, but to defend Æthelred’s lavish palace and treasury. Cnut’s bigger fear, I was sure, was that Edward of Wessex would march to relieve the city, but by now I suspected Cnut’s men were watching the Temes and ready to confront any West Saxon army that did appear. And that would not happen quickly. It would take days for Edward to summon his own fyrd to defend the West Saxon burhs and then assemble his army and decide what to do about the chaos to his north.

Or so I reckoned.

We rode through a waste land.

This was a rich land of good soil and fat sheep and heavy orchards, a land of plenty. Just days before there had been plump villages and noble halls and capacious granaries, but now there was smoke, ash and death. Cattle lay dead in the fields, their rotting flesh ripped by wolves, wild dogs and ravens. There were no people, except for the dead. The Danes who had caused this misery had ridden on to find more steadings to plunder, and the survivors, if there were any, would have fled to a burh. We rode in silence.

We followed a Roman road that ran straight across the desolation, the surviving marker stones counting down the miles to Gleawecestre. It was near a stone cut with the letters VII that the first Danes saw us. There were thirty of forty of them and they must have assumed we were also Danes because they rode towards us without fear. ‘Who are you?’ one of them called as they came nearer.

‘Your enemy,’ I said.

They curbed their horses. They were too close to turn and run safely, and perhaps they were puzzled by my answer. I checked my men and went forward alone. ‘Who are you?’ the man asked again. He was in mail, had a close-fitting helmet that framed a lean, dark face, and his arms were heavy with silver.

‘I have more men than you,’ I said, ‘so you give me your name first.’

He thought about that for a few heartbeats. My men were spreading out, making a line of heavily armed horsemen who were plainly ready to attack. The man shrugged. ‘I am Torfi Ottarson.’

‘You serve Cnut?’

‘Who doesn’t?’

‘I don’t.’

He glanced at the hammer at my neck. ‘Who are you?’ he demanded a third time.

‘I am called Uhtred of Bebbanburg,’ I said, and was rewarded with a look of sudden alarm. ‘You thought I was dead, Torfi Ottarson?’ I asked. ‘Perhaps I am. Who says the dead can’t return to take revenge on the living?’

He touched his own hammer, opened his mouth to speak, then said nothing. His men watched me.

‘So tell me, Torfi Ottarson,’ I said, ‘have you and your men come from Gleawecestre?’

‘Where there are many more men,’ he said defiantly.

‘You’re here to keep a watch on the city?’ I asked.

‘We do what we are told to do.’

‘Then I shall tell you what to do, Torfi Ottarson. Who commands your forces at Gleawecestre?’

He hesitated, then decided there was no harm in answering. ‘The Jarl Bjorgulf.’

It was not a name I knew, but presumably he was one of Cnut’s trusted men. ‘Then you will ride to the Jarl Bjorgulf now,’ I said, ‘and tell him that Uhtred of Bebbanburg is riding to Gleawecestre and that I will be allowed passage. He will let me pass.’

Torfi smiled grimly. ‘You have reputation, lord, but even you can’t defeat the men we have at Gleawecestre.’

‘We’re not going to fight,’ I said.

‘The Jarl Bjorgulf might wish otherwise?’

‘He probably will wish otherwise,’ I said, ‘but you will tell him more.’ I raised my hand and beckoned, and watched Torfi’s face as he saw Finan and three of my men bring Frigg and the twins into sight. ‘Do you know who they are?’ I asked Torfi. He just nodded. ‘So tell Jarl Bjorgulf that if he opposes me I shall kill the little girl first, then her mother, and the boy last.’ I smiled. ‘Jarl Cnut won’t be happy, will he? His wife and children slaughtered and all because the Jarl Bjorgulf wanted a fight?’

Torfi was staring at Frigg and the twins. I think he was finding it difficult to believe his eyes, but at last he found his tongue. ‘I shall tell the Jarl Bjorgulf,’ he said in a voice suffused with amazement, ‘and bring you his answer.’

‘Don’t trouble yourself,’ I said, ‘I know his answer. You ride and tell him that Uhtred of Bebbanburg is travelling to Gleawecestre and that he will not try to stop us. And think yourself lucky, Torfi.’

‘Lucky?’

‘You met me and lived. Now go.’

They turned and went. Their horses were much fresher than ours and they were soon so far ahead that we lost sight of them. I grinned at Finan. ‘We should enjoy this,’ I said.

‘Unless they want to be heroes and rescue them?’

‘They won’t,’ I said. I put the girl Sigril on Rolla’s horse and he rode with a drawn sword, while the boy, Cnut Cnutson, was on Swithun’s saddle, and Swithun, like Rolla, carried a naked blade. Frigg rode between Eldgrim and Kettil and seemed oblivious of what happened. She just smiled. In front of Frigg and her children, and leading our column, were two standard-bearers because, for the first time since leaving Bearddan Igge, we flew our flags, the prancing horse of Mercia and the wolf’s head of Bebbanburg.

And the Danes just watched us pass.

We came in sight of Gleawecestre and I saw how the buildings outside the high walls had been burned and cleared away so the defenders could see any enemy approach. The walls bristled with spear-points that caught the late afternoon sun. To my left were shelters put up by the Bjorgulf’s Danes, the men who guarded the city to make sure the fyrd did not attempt to sally out. There were maybe four hundred Danes, it was hard to count them because once we were in sight they rode either side of us, but always keeping a respectful distance. They did not even shout insults, but just watched us.

A mile or so from the city’s northern gate a heavy-set man with a red moustache turning grey spurred his horse towards us. He was accompanied by two younger men, and none carried a shield, just scabbarded swords. ‘You must be Jarl Bjorgulf,’ I greeted him.

‘I am.’

‘It’s good to see the sun, isn’t it?’ I said. ‘I can’t remember such a wet summer. I was beginning to think it would never stop raining.’

‘You would be wise,’ he said, ‘to give me the Jarl Cnut’s family.’

‘And whole fields of rye rotted by rain,’ I said. ‘I’ve never seen so many ruined crops.’

‘The Jarl Cnut will be merciful,’ Bjorgulf said.

‘You should be worried about my mercy, not his.’

‘If they’re hurt …’ he began.

‘Don’t be a fool,’ I said harshly, ‘of course they’ll be hurt. Unless you do exactly what I tell you to do.’

‘I …’ he began again.

‘Tomorrow morning, Bjorgulf,’ I said as if he had not tried to speak, ‘you will take your men away from here. You’ll ride east, up into the hills, and by midday you’ll all be gone.’

‘We …’

‘All of you, and your horses, up into the hills. And you’ll stay there, out of sight of the city, and if I see one single Dane anywhere close to Gleawecestre after midday I’ll rip the guts out of Cnut’s daughter and send them to you as a present.’ I smiled at him. ‘It was a pleasure talking to you, Bjorgulf. When you send a messenger to the jarl give him my greetings and tell him I have done the favour he asked of me.’

Bjorgulf frowned. ‘The jarl asked a favour of you?’

‘He did. He asked me to discover who hates him, and to find out who took his woman and children. The answer to both questions, Bjorgulf, is Uhtred of Bebbanburg. You can tell him that. Now go: you smell like a goat’s turd soaked in cat’s piss.’

And so we came to Gleawecestre, and the great northern gates were dragged open and the barricades inside were pulled away, and men cheered from the ramparts as my twin flags dipped to pass beneath the Roman arch. Horses’ hooves clattered loud on ancient stone and in the street beyond, waiting for us, was Osferth, who looked happier than I had ever seen him, and, next to him, was Bishop Wulfheard who had burned my home, and, towering above both men on a horse caparisoned in silver, was my woman of gold. Æthelflaed of Mercia.

‘I said I’d find you,’ I told her happily.

And so I had.

Whenever I had visited my cousin Æthelred, which I did rarely and reluctantly, it had been at his hall outside Gleawecestre, a hall I presumed was now turned to ash. I had rarely been inside the city, which was even more impressive than Ceaster. The palace was a towering building made of thin Roman bricks that had once been clad in marble sheets, though almost all of those had been burned for lime, leaving only a few rusted iron brackets that had once held the marble in place. The bricks were now hung with leather panels depicting various saints, among them Saint Oswald being hacked down by a vicious-looking brute who snarled with bloodstained teeth while Oswald displayed a vacuous smile as if he welcomed death. What was ironic about the picture was that the vicious-looking brute was Penda, a Mercian, and the stupid-looking victim was a Northumbrian who had been an enemy of Mercia, but there is no point in looking for sense among Christians. Oswald was now venerated by his enemies and a Mercian army had crossed Britain to find his bones.

The floor of the hall was one of the intricate Roman tiled floors, this one depicting warriors hailing a chieftain who stood in a chariot being pulled by two swans and a fish. Maybe life was different in those days. Great pillars held up an arched roof on which the remnants of plaster still showed, those remnants covered with paintings that could just be discerned among the water-stains, while the far end of the hall had a timber dais on which my cousin had placed a throne draped in scarlet cloth. A second lower throne was presumably for his new woman who so desperately wanted to be a queen. I kicked that seat off the dais and sat in the scarlet chair and looked down on the city’s leaders. Those men, both church and laymen, stood on the picture of the chariot and looked sheepish. ‘You’re fools,’ I snarled. ‘You are all arse-licking, piss-dribbling, nose-picking fools.’