The Burning Land Part 27

I just nodded and kicked the horse again. The track to the old hall was wide enough for four or five men to ride abreast. Finan probably expected me to halt our hors.e.m.e.n short of the s.p.a.ce we had cleared about the old hall and line the men in the trees, but the carelessness was on me.

Light flared ahead. The daylight was still gray, night shrouding the western horizon, but the sudden new light was red and bright. Fire. The Danes, I guessed, had lit the hall's thatch, so now let it light their deaths. I could see the edge of the trees, see the fallen trunks we had felled the day before, see the dull glow of dying campfires and the dark shapes of men and horses and the glimmer of reflected fire from helmets, mail, and weapons, and I kicked the stallion again and roared a challenge. "Kill them!"

We came in a ragged order, bursting from the trees with swords and spears, with hatred and fury, and almost as soon as I entered the clearing I realized we were outnumbered. The Danes had come in force, at least four hundred, and most were still mounted, but they were scattered throughout the encampment and few realized we were approaching until our horses and blades appeared in the dawn. The largest body of the enemy was at the clearing's western edge, staring across the dark land toward the faint glow of light betraying the fires of Lundene. Maybe they suspected we had given up any hope of capturing the forts and, under the cover of night, had slunk back toward the distant city. Instead we were coming from the east with the growing light behind us, and they turned as they heard the first screams and shouts.

We were lit red by the growing fire of the old hall's burning thatch. Red fire was flas.h.i.+ng from the horses' bared teeth, from our mail, from our blades, and I was still shouting as I swung my sword at the first man. He was on foot and holding a broad-bladed spear that he tried to level at my horse, but Serpent-Breath caught him on the side of the head and I lifted the sword and lunged it at another man, not bothering to see what damage I did, just spurring on to provoke more fear. We had surprised them, and for a moment we were the lords of slaughter as we spread from the track and cut down dismounted men who searched for plunder around the dying campfires. I saw Osferth hammer a man's head with the flat of an ax blade, knocking off the man's helmet and hurling him back into one of the fires. The man must have been in the habit of cleaning his hands after eating by running them through his hair because the grease caught the flames and flared sudden and bright. He screamed and writhed, head like a beacon as he staggered to his feet, then a rush of hors.e.m.e.n overrode him. A hoof threw up a spew of sparks and riderless horses fled in panic.

Finan was with me. Finan and Cerdic and Sihtric, and together we rode for the large group of mounted warriors who had been staring west across the night-shadowed land. I was still shouting as I charged into them, sword swinging at a yellow-bearded man who deflected the blow with his raised s.h.i.+eld, then he was struck by a spear below the s.h.i.+eld, the blade ripping through mail and into his belly. I felt something strike my s.h.i.+eld, but could not look to my left because a gap-toothed man was trying to lunge his sword through my stallion's neck. I knocked his blade down with Serpent-Breath and cut at his arm, but his mail stopped the blow. We were deep among the enemy now, unable to ride farther, but more of my men were coming to help. I lunged at the gap-toothed man, but he was quick and his s.h.i.+eld intercepted the sword, then his horse stumbled. Sihtric slashed with an ax and I had a glimpse of splitting metal and sudden blood.

I was trying to keep my horse moving. There were dismounted Danes among the riders, and a slash across my stallion's legs could bring me down and a man was never so vulnerable as when he topples from a saddle. A spear slid from my right, sliding across my belly to lodge in the underside of my s.h.i.+eld and I just back-swung Serpent-Breath into a bearded face. I felt her shatter teeth and ripped her back to saw her edge deeper. A horse screamed. aelfwold's men were deep in the fight now and our charge had split the Danes. Some had retreated down the hill, but most had gone either north or south along the crest and now they reformed and came at us from both directions, bellowing their own war cries. The sun had risen, dazzling and blinding, the hall was an inferno and the air a whirl of sparks in the new brightness.

Chaos. For a moment we had held the advantage of surprise, but the Danes recovered quickly and closed on us. The hill's edge was a confusion of trampling horses, shouting men, and the raw sound of steel on steel. I had turned northward and was trying to drive those Danes off the hill, but they were just as determined to slaughter us. I parried a sword blow, watching the man's gritted teeth as he tried to cut my head off. The clash of swords jarred up my arm, but I had stopped his swing and I punched him in the face with Serpent-Breath's hilt. He swung again, striking my helmet, filling my head with noise as I punched a second time. I was too close to him to use the sword's edge, and he hit my sword arm hard with the rim of his s.h.i.+eld. "t.u.r.d," he grunted at me. His helmet was decorated with twists of wool dyed yellow. He wore arm rings over his mail, denoting a man who had won treasure in battle. There was fury in his fire-reflecting eyes. He wanted my death so badly. I wore the silver-decorated helmet, had more arm rings than he did and he knew I was a warrior of renown. Perhaps he knew who I was, and he wanted to boast that he had killed Uhtred of Bebbanburg and I saw him grit his teeth again as he tried to slice the sword at my face and then the grimace turned into surprise, and his eyes widened and the red went from them as he made a gurgling sound. He shook his head, desperate to keep hold of his faltering sword as the ax blade cut his spine. Sihtric had swung the ax and the man made a mewing noise and fell from the saddle, and just then my horse screamed and staggered sideways and I saw a dismounted Dane thrusting a spear up into the stallion's belly. Finan drove the man over with his horse as I kicked my feet out of the stirrups.

The stallion collapsed, twisting and kicking, still screaming, and my right leg was trapped beneath him. Another horse stepped a hair's breadth from my face. I covered my body with the s.h.i.+eld and tried to drag myself free. A blade crashed into the s.h.i.+eld. A horse stepped on Serpent-Breath and I almost lost the blade. My world was a thunder of hooves, screams, and confusion. I tried to pull free again then something, blade or hoof, struck the back of my helmet and the confused world turned black. I was dazed, and in the darkness I heard someone making pathetic moaning noises. It was me. A man was trying to drag my helmet off and, when he realized I was alive he put a knife at my mouth and I remember thinking of Gisela and desperately checking that Serpent-Breath's hilt was in my hand, and it was not, and I screamed, knowing I was denied the joys of Valhalla, and then my vision turned red. There was warmth on my face and red before my eyes, and I recovered my senses to realize that the man who would have killed me was dying himself and his blood was pouring onto my face, then Cerdic heaved the dying man away and pulled me from beneath the dead horse. "Here!" Sihtric thrust Serpent-Breath into my hand. Both he and Cerdic were dismounted. A Dane shouted victory and lunged with a thick-hafted spear from his saddle and Cerdic deflected the thrust with a blade-scored s.h.i.+eld. I stabbed the horseman's thigh with Serpent-Breath, but the blow had no force and his spear sliced at me, thumping hard into my s.h.i.+eld. The Danes were scenting triumph and they pressed forward and we felt their blows chopping on the linden wood. "Kill their horses," I shouted, though it came out as a croak, and some of Weohstan's men arrived on our right and drove their horses at the Danes and I saw a Saxon twist in his saddle, his spear hand hanging from his b.l.o.o.d.y arm by a sc.r.a.p of bone or tendon.

"Jesus! Jesus!" a man shouted and it was Father Pyrlig who joined us. The Welsh priest was on foot, belly stretching his mail, a spear like a small tree trunk in his hands. He carried no s.h.i.+eld and so used the spear two-handed, driving the blade at the enemy's horses to keep them at a distance.

"Thank you," I said to Cerdic and Sihtric.

"We should go back, lord," Cerdic said.

"Where's Finan?"

"Back!" Cerdic shouted, and he unceremoniously grabbed my left shoulder and pulled me away from the Danes.

Finan was fighting behind us, hammering an ax at the Danes on the southern part of the crest where he was supported by most of my men and by aelfwold's Mercians. "I need a horse," I snarled.

"This is a muddle," Pyrlig said, and I almost laughed because his tone and his words were so mild. It was more than a muddle, it was a disaster. I had led my men onto the hill's edge and the Danes had recovered from the attack and now they surrounded us. There were Danes to the east, to the north and to the south, and they were trying to drive us over the crest and pursue us down the steep slope where our bodies would be a smear of blood beneath the rising sun. At least a hundred of my Saxons were dismounted now and we formed a circle inside a desperate s.h.i.+eld wall. Too many were dead, some killed by their own side for, in the maelstrom, it was hard to know friend from foe. Many Saxons had a cross on their s.h.i.+eld, but not all. There were plenty of Danish corpses too, but their living outnumbered us. They had my small s.h.i.+eld wall surrounded, while their hors.e.m.e.n were harrying the still mounted Saxons back into the woods.

aelfwold had lost his stallion and the Mercian forced his way to my side. "You b.a.s.t.a.r.d," he said, "you treacherous b.a.s.t.a.r.d." He must have thought I had deliberately led his men into a trap, but it was only my stupid carelessness, not treachery, that had led to this disaster. aelfwold raised his s.h.i.+eld as the Danes came and the blows hammered down. I thrust Serpent-Breath into a horse's chest, twisted and thrust again, and Pyrlig half hoisted a man from the saddle with a tremendous lunge of his heavy spear. But aelfwold was down, his helmet ripped open, his blood and brains spilling onto his face, but he retained enough consciousness to look at me reproachfully before he started to quiver and spasm and I had to look away to ram the sword at another Dane whose horse tripped on a corpse, and then the enemy pulled back from our s.h.i.+eld wall to ready themselves for another attack.

"Jesu, Jesu," aelfwold said, and then the breath stuttered in his throat and he said no more. Our s.h.i.+eld wall was shrunken, our s.h.i.+elds splintered and bloodied. The Danes mocked us, snarled at us, and promised us agonizing deaths. Men moved closer together and I should have encouraged them, but I did not know what to say because this was my fault, my recklessness. I had attacked without first discovering the enemy's strength. My death, I thought, would be just, but I would go to the afterlife knowing I had taken too many good men with me.

So the only course was to die well, and I pushed past Sihtric's s.h.i.+eld and went toward the enemy. A man accepted the challenge and rode at me. I could not see his face because the rising sun was behind him, blinding me, but I slashed Serpent-Breath across his stallion's mouth and thrust my s.h.i.+eld up to take his sword's blow. The horse reared, I thrust at its belly and missed as another man swung an ax from my left, and I stepped away and my foot slid in a slippery tangle of guts spilled from a corpse eviscerated by an ax. I went onto one knee, but again my men came to rescue me. The stallion thumped down and I stood, lunging at the rider, sword striking him somewhere, but I was sun-dazzled and could not see where. To my right a stallion, a spear impaled in its chest, was coughing blood. I was shouting, though I do not remember what I shouted, and from my left came a new charge of hors.e.m.e.n. The newcomers were screaming war cries.

Die well. Die well. What else can a man do? His enemies must say of him that he died like a man. I lunged again, driving the horse away and a sword smacked into the top of my s.h.i.+eld, splitting the iron rim and driving a splinter of wood into my eye. I rammed the blade again and felt Serpent-Breath sc.r.a.pe on bone as she tore the rider's thigh. He hacked down. I blinked the splinter away as his sword cracked on my helmet, glanced off and thumped my shoulder. The mail stopped the blow that had been suddenly weakened because Father Pyrlig had speared the rider in his side. The Welshman dragged me back toward the s.h.i.+eld wall. "G.o.d be thanked!" he was saying over and over.

The newcomers were Saxons. They rode under the banner of Wess.e.x's dragon, and at their head was Steapa, and he was worth ten other men, and they had come from the north and were slicing into the Danes.

"A horse!" I shouted, and someone brought me a stallion. Pyrlig held the nervous beast as I mounted. I pushed my boots into the unfamiliar stirrups and shouted at my dismounted men to find themselves horses. There were too many dead beasts, but enough riderless stallions still lived white-eyed amidst the slaughter.

A huge crash announced the collapse of the burning hall's roof. The flaming beams fell one by one, each spewing a new thrust of sparks into the smoke-darkened sky. I spurred to the ancient votive stone, leaned from the saddle, and touched the stone's top as I said a prayer to Thor. A spear had lodged itself through the hole in the pillar and I sheathed Serpent-Breath and took the long-hafted weapon. The blade was bloodied. The spearman, a Dane, lay dead beside the stone. A horse had stepped on his face, mangling it and leaving an eyeball dangling over his helmet's edge. I gripped the ash shaft and spurred the horse toward the remnants of the fight. Steapa and his men had utterly surprised the Danes who were turn ing to flee back to the safety of the fort, and Steapa was following. I tried to catch him, but he vanished among the trees. All the Saxons were in pursuit now, the thick woods filled with horses and fugitives. Finan somehow discovered me and rode alongside, ducking beneath branches. A wounded and dismounted Dane flinched from us, then fell to his knees, but we ignored him.

"Sweet Jesus," Finan shouted to me, "but I thought we were doomed!"

"Me too!"

"How did you know Steapa's men were coming?" he asked, then spurred after a fleeing Dane who kicked his horse frantically.

"I didn't!" I shouted, though Finan was too intent on his prey to hear me. I caught up and aimed the spear at the small of the Dane's back. Leaf mold flew up into my face from the hooves of the enemy's horse, then I lunged and Finan sliced back with his sword and the Dane dropped from the saddle as we galloped past.

"aelfwold's dead!" Finan called.

"I saw it! He thought I betrayed him!"

"He kept his brains in his a.r.s.e then. Where have the b.a.s.t.a.r.ds gone?"

The Danes were riding for the fort and our pursuit had taken us slightly eastward. I remember the green sunlight bright in the leaves, remember thumping past a badger's earth, remember the sound of all those hooves in the greenwood, the relief of living after what seemed certain death, and then we were at the edge of the trees.

And still there was chaos.

In front of us was a great stretch of gra.s.s where sheep and goats normally grazed. The land sloped down to a saddle, then rose more steeply to the gate of the old fort high on its domed hill. The Danes were galloping for the fort, eager to gain the protection of its ditch and ramparts, but Steapa's men were among the fugitives, slas.h.i.+ng and hacking from their saddles.

"Come on!" Finan shouted at me, and kicked back with his spurs.

He saw the opportunity before I did. My immediate thought was to stop him and to stop Steapa's undisciplined charge, but then the recklessness took hold again. I shouted some wordless challenge and spurred after Finan.

I had lost all sense of time. I could not tell how long that fight on the hill's edge had taken, but the sun was risen now and its light s.h.i.+mmered off the Temes and lit the high gra.s.s saddle a glowing green. The stream of hors.e.m.e.n stretched from the woods to the fort. My laboring horse was breathing hard, sweat white on its flanks, but I kicked it on as we converged on that turf-churning horde of pursuers and pursued. And what Finan had understood before me was that the Danes might close the gate too late. He understood that they might be in such panic that they did not even think to close the gate. So long as their own men pounded across the ditch's causeway and beneath the wooden arch they would leave the gate open, but Steapa's men were so mixed with the Danes that some might get through, and if enough of us could get inside that wall then we could take the fort.

Later, much later, when the poets told of that day's fight, they said Steapa and I attacked Thunresleam's old hall together, and that we drove the Danes in panic and that we a.s.saulted the fort while the enemy was still reeling from that defeat. They got the story wrong, of course, but then, they were poets, not warriors. The truth was that Steapa rescued me from certain defeat, and neither of us a.s.saulted the fort because we did not need to. The first of Steapa's men were allowed through the gate and it was only when they were inside that the Danes realized the enemy had entered with their own men. Another desperate fight started. Steapa ordered his men to dismount and they made a s.h.i.+eld wall at the gate, a wall that faced both into the fort and out toward the sunlit slope, and the Danes trapped outside could not break that s.h.i.+eld wall and fled instead. They spurred down the steep westward-facing slope, riding desperately toward the new fort. And we simply dismounted and walked through the gate to join Steapa's spreading s.h.i.+eld wall inside the old fort.

I saw Skade then. I never discovered whether she had led the hors.e.m.e.n to Thunresleam's burning hall, but she commanded the men in the old fort and she was screaming at them to attack us. But we were now in overwhelming numbers. There were at least four hundred Saxons in Steapa's wall, and more kept arriving on horseback. The proud banner of Wess.e.x flew above us, the embroidered dragon spattered with blood, and Skade screamed at us. She was on horseback, in mail, bareheaded, her long black hair lifting in the wind as she brandished a sword. She kicked her horse toward the s.h.i.+eld wall, but had enough sense to check as the round s.h.i.+elds lifted in unison and the long spears reached toward her.

Weohstan came with more hors.e.m.e.n, and he led them about the right flank of Steapa's wall and ordered a charge. Steapa shouted at the wall to advance and we marched up the slight slope toward the great halls that crowned the hill. Weohstan's men swept ahead of us and the Danes, understanding their fate, fled.

And so we took the old fort. The enemy fled downhill, a man dragging Skade's horse by its bridle. She sat twisted in her saddle, staring at us. We did not follow. We were weary, bloodied, bruised, wounded, and amazed. Besides, there was a s.h.i.+eld wall of Danes guarding the bridge which led to the new fort. Not all the fugitives were going to that bridge, some were swimming their horses across the deep narrow creek to reach Caninga.

The dragon was flown from the old fort's walls and, next to it, aelfwold's cross. The flags announced a victory, but that victory would mean nothing unless we could capture the new fort, which, for the first time, I saw clearly.

And cursed.

FIVE.

aethelflaed joined me on the rampart. She said nothing at first, but, careless of who watched, just put her arms round me. I could feel her body trembling. My battered s.h.i.+eld was still looped on my left arm and it covered her when I drew her close. "I thought you were dead," she said after a while.

"Who told you that?"

"No one," she said. "I was watching."

"Watching? Where?"

"From the edge of the encampment," she said calmly.

"Are you mad?" I asked angrily, and pushed her away so I could look down at her. "You wanted the Danes to capture you?"

"There's blood all over your face," she said, touching my cheek with a finger. "It's dried. Was it bad?"

"Yes, but that will be far worse." I nodded down at the new fort.

The fort was built at the foot of the hill, where the steep gra.s.sy drop leveled into a gentler slope that ended as a low ridge snaking into the marsh beside the creek. It was near low tide and I could see the intricate mudbanks where the creek melded into marsh, and I saw how Haesten had built his new fort on that last tongue of firmer ground, but then had dug a broad moat to protect the eastern wall from a frontal a.s.sault. He had made the fort into an island, three times as long as it was wide. The southern rampart stretched along the creek and was protected by the deep-water channel, the western and northern walls looked over wide flooded inlets and endless tide-haunted marshes, while the short eastern palisade, which held the main gate and was facing us, was protected by its newly dug moat. A wooden bridge crossed the moat, but now that the last fugitives were safely across, men were dismantling it and carrying the roadway's wide planks back into the fort. Some of the men were working in the water, which, at the center of the moat, only came to their waists. So the moat could be crossed at low tide, though that was small consolation because the difference between high and low tide here was at least twice the height of a well-grown man, which meant that when the moat was fordable the farther bank would be a steep slope of glutinous and slick mud.

The interior of the fort was crammed with buildings, some roofed with planks and others with sailcloth, but no thatch, meaning Haesten was guarding against the possibility of fire-arrows setting his stronghold alight. I guessed many of the beams and posts to make the houses had been taken from the village which had been dismantled and burned, its ruins lying to the east of the new fort where the hill's lower slope was widest. There were scores of Danes inside the long fort, but even more were evidently living aboard their s.h.i.+ps. Over two hundred of the high-prowed war vessels were beached high on the creek's farther bank. Most had been dismasted and some had awnings stretched across their crutch-supported masts. Washed clothes were drying on the awnings, while in the hulls' shadows children played in the mud or else gaped up at us. I also counted twenty-three moored s.h.i.+ps, all of them with their masts in place and with sails furled on their yards. Every one of those moored s.h.i.+ps had men aboard, suggesting they could be made ready for sea at a moment's notice. I had been thinking of bringing vessels downstream from Lundene, but the evident preparedness of the moored s.h.i.+ps suggested that any small fleet we deployed would quickly be overwhelmed.

Steapa shambled toward us. His face, so fearsome because of the taut skin and feral eyes, looked suddenly nervous as he knelt to aethelflaed and pulled off his helmet, leaving his hair tangled. "My lady," he said, blinking.

"Get up, Steapa," she said.

This was a man who would take on a dozen Danes and whose sword was feared in three kingdoms, but he was in awe of aethelflaed. She was royalty and he was a slave's son. "The Lady aethelflaed," I said imperiously, "wants you to go down the hill, cross the moat, beat down the gates, and bring the Danes out."

For a moment he believed me. He looked alarmed, then he frowned at me, but did not know what to say.

"Thank you, Steapa," aethelflaed said warmly, saving Steapa from his confusion. "You won a magnificent victory! I shall make sure my father knows of your triumph."

He brightened at that, but still stammered. "We were lucky, my lady."

"We always seem to be lucky when you fight. How is Hedda?"

"She's well, lady!" He beamed at her, astonished she should condescend to ask such a question. I could never remember the name of Steapa's wife, a tiny creature, but aethelflaed knew, and even knew the name of his son.

"Is my brother near?" aethelflaed asked.

"He was with us in the fight," Steapa said, "so he must be close, my lady."

"I shall find him," she announced.

"Not without a bodyguard," I growled. I suspected some fugitive Danes were still in the woods.

"The Lord Uhtred thinks I'm a baby who needs protecting," aethelflaed told Steapa.

"He knows best, lady," Steapa said loyally.

aethelflaed's horse was brought and I cupped my hands to let her mount. I ordered Weohstan and his hors.e.m.e.n to escort her as she rode back toward the smoke of the burning old hall, then I gave Steapa a thump on his back. It was like punching an oak tree. "Thank you," I said.

"For what?"

"For keeping me alive."

"You seemed to be doing well enough," he muttered.

"I was just dying slowly," I said, "till you came along."

He grunted and turned to stare down at the fort. "That be a b.a.s.t.a.r.d," he said. "How do we take it?"

"I wish I knew."

"Has to be done though," he said, almost as a question.

"And quickly," I stressed. It had to be quick because we had our hand on the enemy's throat, but he still had both arms free. Those arms were the savage troops harrying Mercia who had left their families and s.h.i.+ps in Beamfleot, and many of those men valued their s.h.i.+ps more than their families. The Danes were opportunists. They attacked where they sensed weakness, but as soon as the fighting became too hard they boarded their s.h.i.+ps and sailed away to find feebler prey. If I destroyed this huge fleet then the crews would be stranded in Britain and, if Wess.e.x survived, they could be hunted down and slaughtered. Haesten might be confident that Beamfleot's new fort was impregnable, but his followers would soon be pressing him to raise our siege. In short, once the Danes ravaging Mercia knew we were a real threat and were present in real numbers, they would want to return to protect their s.h.i.+ps and families. "Very quickly," I added.

"So we have to cross that ditch," Steapa said, nodding down at the moat, "and put ladders against the wall." He made it sound simple.

"That's my idea too," I said.

"Jesus," he muttered and made the sign of the cross.

Horns sounded to the north and I turned to stare across the saddle of land where the scattered corpses of men and horses still lay and where still more hors.e.m.e.n were appearing from the far woods. One rider was carrying a vast dragon banner, which told me the aetheling Edward had arrived.

Alfred's son paused outside the fort, sitting on his horse in the sunlight while servants and packhorses hurried through the gate and up to the larger of the two halls. Both halls were in disrepair. Finan, who had searched them both, joined us on the rampart and said that the halls had been used as stables. "It'll be like living in a cesspit," he said.

Edward still waited beyond the gate with aethelflaed beside him. "Why isn't he coming into the fort?" I asked.

"He has to have a throne," Finan said, and laughed at the ex pression on my face. "It's true! They've brought him a rug, a throne, and G.o.d knows what else. An altar too."

"He will be the next king," Steapa said loyally.

"Unless I manage to kill the b.a.s.t.a.r.d while we're crossing that wall," I said, pointing to the Danish fort. Steapa looked shocked, then cheered up when I asked him how Alfred was faring.

"He's as good as ever!" Steapa said. "We thought he was dying! He's much better now. He can ride again, even walk!"

"I heard he'd died."

"He nearly did. They gave him the last rites, but he recovered. He's gone to Exanceaster."

"What's happening down there?"

Steapa shrugged. "Danes made a camp and are sitting inside it."

"They want Alfred to pay them to leave," I suggested. I thought of Ragnar, and imagined his unhappiness because Brida would undoubtedly be urging him to a.s.sault Exanceaster, but that burh was a hard one to attack. It lay on a hill, the approaches were steep, and Alfred's trained army was protecting its stout ramparts, which was why, at least by the time Steapa left, the Danes had made no attempt to attack it. "Haesten was clever," I said.

"Clever?" Steapa asked.

"He persuaded the Northumbrians to attack by saying he'd distract Alfred's army," I explained, "and then he warned Alfred of the Northumbrian attack to make sure he didn't have to fight the West Saxons."

"He has to fight us," Steapa growled.

"Because Alfred is just as clever," I said. Alfred knew Haesten was the greater threat. If Haesten could be defeated then the Northumbrians would lose heart and, in all likelihood, sail away. Ragnar's Northumbrians had to be held at bay, which is why so much of the West Saxon army was in Defnascir, but Alfred had sent his son and twelve hundred of his best men to Beamfleot. He wanted me to weaken Haesten, but he wanted much more than that.

He wanted the aetheling Edward's reputation to be burnished by the victory. Alfred had not needed to sent the aetheling. Steapa and his men were indispensable to me, while Edward was a liability, but Alfred knew his own death could not be too distant and he wanted to be certain that his son succeeded him, and for that he needed to give Edward a warrior's renown. Which is why he had asked me to give Edward my oath and I reflected bitterly that my refusal had not prevented Alfred from manipulating me so that I was here, fighting for the Christians and fighting for Edward.

The aetheling at last entered the fort, his arrival announced by horn blasts. Men knelt as he rode to the hall and I watched him acknowledge the homage with graceful waves of his right hand. He looked young and slight, and I remembered Ragnar asking if I wanted to be King of Wess.e.x and I could not resist a sudden, bitter laugh. Finan glanced at me curiously. "He'll want us in the hall," Steapa said.

The big hall stank. The servants had shoveled the horse dung to one side, and raked out most of the stale floor-rushes, but the hall still reeked like a latrine and buzzed with fat flies. I had feasted here once, back when the hall was lit by fire and loud with laughter and the memory made me wonder if all the great high-beamed feasting halls were doomed to decay.