The Pagan Lord (4 page)

We watched each other and the rain fell. A raven flew from some ash trees and I wondered what kind of omen that was. ‘Jarl Cnut,’ I broke the silence.

‘Lord Uhtred,’ he said. His horse, a grey stallion, skittered sideways and he slapped its neck with a gloved hand to still it. ‘I summon you,’ he said, ‘and you come running like a scared child.’

‘You want to trade insults?’ I asked him. ‘You, who were born of a woman who lay with any man who snapped his fingers?’

He was silent for a while. Off to my left, half hidden by trees, a river ran cold in that bleak summer’s rain. Two swans beat up the river, their wings slow in the chill air. A raven and two swans? I touched the hammer about my neck, hoping those omens were good.

‘Where is she?’ Cnut spoke at last.

‘If I knew who she was,’ I said, ‘I might answer you.’

He looked past me to where my men waited on horseback. ‘You didn’t bring her,’ he said flatly.

‘You’re going to talk in riddles?’ I asked him. ‘Then answer me this one. Four dilly-dandies, four long standies, two crooked pandies and a wagger.’

‘Be careful,’ he said.

‘The answer is a goat,’ I said, ‘four teats, four legs, two horns and a tail. An easy riddle, but yours is difficult.’

He stared at me. ‘Two weeks ago,’ he said, ‘that banner was on my land.’ He pointed to my flag.

‘I did not send it, I did not bring it,’ I said.

‘Seventy men, I’m told,’ he ignored my words, ‘and they rode to Buchestanes.’

‘I’ve been there, but not in many years.’

‘They took my wife and they took my son and daughter.’

I gazed at him. He had spoken flatly, but the expression on his face was bitter and defiant. ‘I had heard you have a son,’ I said.

‘He is called Cnut Cnutson and you captured him, with his mother and sister.’

‘I did not,’ I said firmly. Cnut’s first wife had died years before, as had his children, but I had heard of his new marriage. It was a surprising marriage. Men would have expected Cnut to marry for advantage, for land, for a rich dowry, or for an alliance, but rumour said his new wife was some peasant girl. She was reputed to be a woman of extraordinary beauty, and she had given him twin children, a boy and a girl. He had other children, of course, bastards all, but the new wife had given him what he most wanted, an heir. ‘How old is your son?’ I asked.

‘Six years and seven months.’

‘And why was he at Buchestanes?’ I asked. ‘To hear his future?’

‘My wife took him to see the sorceress,’ Cnut answered.

‘She lives?’ I asked, astonished. The sorceress had been ancient when I saw her and I had assumed she was long dead.

‘Pray that my wife and children live,’ Cnut said harshly, ‘and that they are unharmed.’

‘I know nothing of your wife and children,’ I said.

‘Your men took them!’ he snarled. ‘It was your banner!’ He touched a gloved hand to the hilt of his famed sword, Ice-Spite. ‘Return them to me,’ he said, ‘or your woman will be given to my men, and when they have done with her I’ll flay her alive, slowly, and send you her skin for a saddlecloth.’

I turned in the saddle. ‘Uhtred! Come here!’ My son spurred his horse. He stopped beside me, looked at Cnut, then back to me. ‘Dismount,’ I ordered him, ‘and walk to Jarl Cnut’s stirrup.’ Uhtred hesitated a heartbeat, then swung out of the saddle. I leaned over to take his stallion’s bridle. Cnut frowned, not understanding what was happening, then glanced down at Uhtred, who was standing obediently beside the big grey horse. ‘That is my only son,’ I said.

‘I thought …’ Cnut began.

‘That is my only son,’ I said angrily. ‘If I lie to you now then you may take him and do as you wish with him. I swear on my only son’s life that I did not take your wife and children away. I sent no men into your land. I know nothing of any raid on Buchestanes.’

‘They carried your banner.’

‘Banners are easy to make,’ I said.

The rain hardened, driven by gusts of wind that shivered the puddles in the ruts of the nearby fields. Cnut looked down at Uhtred. ‘He looks like you,’ he said, ‘ugly as a toad.’

‘I did not ride to Buchestanes,’ I told him harshly, ‘and I sent no men into your land.’

‘Get on your horse,’ Cnut told my son, then looked at me. ‘You’re an enemy, Lord Uhtred.’

‘I am.’

‘But I suppose you’re thirsty?’

‘That too,’ I said.

‘Then tell your men to keep their blades sheathed, tell them that this is my land and that it will be my pleasure to kill any man who irritates me. Then bring them to the hall. We have ale. It isn’t good ale, but probably good enough for Saxon swine.’

He turned and spurred away. We followed.

The hall was built atop a small hill, and the hill was ringed with an ancient earth wall that I supposed had been made on the orders of King Offa. A palisade topped the wall, and inside that wooden rampart was a high-gabled hall, its timbers dark with age. Some of those timbers had been carved with intricate patterns, but lichen now hid the carvings. The great door was crowned with antlers and wolf skulls, while inside the ancient building the high roof was supported by massive oak beams from which more skulls hung. The hall was lit by a fierce fire spitting in the central hearth. If I had been surprised by Cnut’s offer of hospitality I was even more surprised when I walked into that high hall, for there, waiting on the dais and grinning like a demented weasel, was Haesten.

Haesten. I had rescued him years before, given him his freedom and his life, and he had rewarded me with treachery. There had been a time when Haesten was powerful, when his armies had threatened Wessex itself, but fate had brought him low. I had forgotten how many times I had fought him, and I had beaten him every time, yet he survived like a snake wriggling free of a peasant’s rake. For years now he had occupied the old Roman fort at Ceaster, and we had left him there with his handful of men, and now he was here, in Tameworþig. ‘He swore me loyalty,’ Cnut explained when he saw my surprise.

‘He’s sworn that to me too,’ I said.

‘My Lord Uhtred.’ Haesten hurried to meet me, his hands outstretched in welcome and a smile wide as the Temes on his face. He looked older, he was older; we were all older. His fair hair had turned silver, his face was creased, yet the eyes were still shrewd, lively and amused. He had evidently prospered. He wore gold on his arms, had a gold chain with a gold hammer about his neck, and another gold hammer in his left ear lobe. ‘It is always a pleasure to see you,’ he told me.

‘A one-sided pleasure,’ I said.

‘We must be friends!’ he declared. ‘The wars are over.’

‘They are?’

‘The Saxons hold the south, and we Danes live in the north. It is a neat solution. Better than killing each other, yes?’

‘If you tell me the wars are over,’ I said, ‘then I know the shield walls will be made very soon.’ They would too if I could provoke it. I had wanted to kick Haesten out of his refuge in Ceaster for a decade, but my cousin Æthelred, Lord of Mercia, had always refused to lend me the troops I would need. I had even begged Edward of Wessex, and he had said no, explaining that Ceaster lay inside Mercia, not Wessex, and that it was Æthelred’s responsibility, but Æthelred hated me and would rather have the Danes in Ceaster than my reputation enhanced. Now, it seemed, Haesten had gained Cnut’s protection, which made capturing Ceaster a much more formidable task.

‘My Lord Uhtred doesn’t trust me,’ Haesten spoke to Cnut, ‘but I am a changed man, is that not so, lord?’

‘You’re changed,’ Cnut said, ‘because if you betray me I’ll extract the bones from your body and feed them to my dogs.’

‘Your poor dogs must go hungry then, lord,’ Haesten said.

Cnut brushed past him, leading me to the high table on the dais. ‘He’s useful to me,’ he explained Haesten’s presence.

‘You trust him?’ I asked.

‘I trust no man, but I frighten him, so yes, I trust him to do my bidding.’

‘Why not hold Ceaster yourself?’

‘How many men does it take? A hundred and fifty? So let Haesten feed them and spare my treasury. He’s my dog now. I scratch his belly and he obeys my commands.’ He nevertheless gave Haesten a place at the high table, though far away from the two of us. The hall was large enough to hold all Cnut’s warriors and my men, while at the farther end, a long way from the fire and close to the main door, two tables had been provided for cripples and beggars. ‘They get what’s left over,’ Cnut explained.

The cripples and beggars ate well because Cnut gave us a feast that night. There were haunches of roasted horse, platters of beans and onions, fat trout and perch, newly baked bread, and big helpings of the blood puddings I liked so much, all served with ale that was surprisingly good. He served the first horn to me himself, then stared morosely to where my men mixed with his. ‘I don’t use this hall much,’ he said, ‘it’s too close to you stinking Saxons.’

‘Maybe I should burn it for you?’ I suggested.

‘Because I burned your hall?’ That thought seemed to cheer him. ‘Burning your hall was a revenge for
Sea Slaughterer
,’ he said, grinning.
Sea Slaughterer
had been his prized ship, and I had turned her into a scorched wreck. ‘You bastard,’ he said, and touched his ale-horn to mine. ‘So what happened to your other son? Did he die?’

‘He became a Christian priest, so, as far as I’m concerned, yes he died.’

He laughed at that, then pointed to Uhtred, ‘And that one?’

‘Is a warrior,’ I said.

‘He looks like you. Let’s hope he doesn’t fight like you. Who’s the other boy?’

‘Æthelstan,’ I said, ‘King Edward’s son.’

Cnut frowned at me. ‘You bring him here? Why shouldn’t I hold the little bastard as a hostage?’

‘Because he is a bastard,’ I said.

‘Ah,’ he said, understanding, ‘so he won’t be King of Wessex?’

‘Edward has other sons.’

‘I hope my son holds onto my lands,’ Cnut said, ‘and perhaps he will. He’s a good boy. But the strongest should rule, Lord Uhtred, not the one who slides out from between a queen’s legs.’

‘The queen might think differently.’

‘Who cares what wives think?’ He spoke carelessly, but I suspected he lied. He did want his son to inherit his lands and fortune. We all do, and I felt a shiver of rage at the thought of Father Judas. But at least I had a second son, a good son, while Cnut had only one, and the boy was missing. Cnut cut into a haunch of horsemeat and held a generous portion towards me. ‘Why don’t your men eat horse?’ he asked. He had noticed how many had left the meat untouched.

‘Their god won’t allow it,’ I said.

He looked at me as if judging whether I made a joke. ‘Truly?’

‘Truly. They have a supreme wizard in Rome,’ I explained, ‘a man called the pope, and he said Christians aren’t permitted to eat horse.’

‘Why not?’

‘Because we sacrifice horses to Odin and Thor and eat the meat. So they won’t.’

‘All the more for us,’ Cnut said. ‘A pity their god doesn’t teach them to leave women alone.’ He laughed. He had always been fond of jokes and surprised me by telling one now. ‘You know why farts smell?’

‘I don’t.’

‘So the deaf can enjoy them too.’ He laughed again and I wondered why a man who was so bitter about his missing wife and children could be so light-hearted. And perhaps he read my thoughts because he suddenly looked serious. ‘So who took my wife and children?’

‘I don’t know.’

He tapped the table with his fingertips. ‘My enemies,’ he said after a few heartbeats, ‘are all the Saxons, the Norse in Ireland, and the Scots. So it’s one of those.’

‘Why not another Dane?’

‘They wouldn’t dare,’ he said confidently. ‘And I think they were Saxons.’

‘Why?’

‘Someone heard them speaking. She said they spoke your foul tongue.’

‘There are Saxons serving the Norse,’ I said.

‘Not many. So who took them?’

‘Someone who’ll use them as hostages,’ I said.

‘Who?’

‘Not me.’

‘For some reason,’ he said, ‘I believe you. Maybe I’m getting old and gullible, but I’m sorry I burned your hall and blinded your priest.’

‘Cnut Longsword apologises?’ I asked in mock astonishment.

‘I must be getting old,’ he said.

‘You stole my horses too.’

‘I’ll keep those.’ He stabbed a knife into a hunk of cheese, cut off a lump, then gazed down the hall, which was lit by a great central hearth round which a dozen dogs slept. ‘Why haven’t you taken Bebbanburg?’ he asked.

‘Why haven’t you?’

He acknowledged that with a curt nod. Like all the northern Danes he lusted after Bebbanburg, and I knew he must have wondered how it could be captured. He shrugged. ‘I’d need four hundred men,’ he said.

‘You have four hundred. I don’t.’

‘And even then they’ll die crossing that neck of land.’

‘And if I’m to capture it,’ I told him, ‘I’d have to lead four hundred men through your land, through Sigurd Thorrson’s land, and then face my uncle’s men on that neck.’

‘Your uncle is old. I hear he’s sick.’

‘Good.’

‘His son will hold it. Better him than you.’

‘Better?’

‘He’s not the warrior you are,’ Cnut said. He gave the compliment grudgingly, not looking at me as he spoke. ‘If I do you a favour,’ he went on, still gazing at the great fire in the hearth, ‘will you do one for me?’

‘Probably,’ I said cautiously.

He slapped the table, startling four hounds who had been sleeping beneath the board, then beckoned to one of his men. The man stood; Cnut pointed at the hall door and the man obediently went into the night. ‘Find out who took my wife and children,’ Cnut said.

‘If it’s a Saxon,’ I said, ‘I can probably do that.’

‘Do it,’ he said harshly, ‘and perhaps help me get them back.’ He paused, his pale eyes staring down the hall. ‘I hear your daughter’s pretty?’

‘I think so.’

‘Marry her to my son.’

‘Stiorra must be ten years older than Cnut Cnutson.’

‘So? He’s not marrying her for love, you idiot, but for an alliance. You and I, Lord Uhtred, we could take this whole island.’

‘What would I do with this whole island?’

He half smiled. ‘You’re on that bitch’s leash, aren’t you?’