The Lords of the North (30 page)

We were seventy-six warriors, including Steapa and myself. All of us were on
horseback and all had weapons, mail or good leather, and helmets. Two score of servants on
smaller horses carried the shields and led our spare stallions, but those servants were
not fighting men and were not counted among the seventy-six. There had been a time when
Ragnar could raise over two hundred warriors, but many had died at Ethandun and others had
found new lords in the long months while Ragnar was a hostage, but seventy-six was still a
good number. 'And they're formidable men,' he told me proudly. He rode under his banner of
an eagle's wing. It was a real eagle's wing nailed to the top of a high pole, and his
helmet was decorated with two more such wings. 'I dreamed of this,' he told me as we rode
eastwards, 'I dreamed of riding to war. All that time I was a hostage I wanted to be riding
to war. There's nothing in life like it, Uhtred, nothing!'

'Women?' I asked.

'Women and war!' he said, 'women and war!' He whooped for joy and his stallion pricked
back its ears and took a few short, high steps as if it shared its master's happiness. We
rode at the front of the column, though Ragnar had a dozen men mounted on light ponies
ranging far ahead of us. The dozen men signalled to each other and back to Ragnar, and they
spoke to shepherds and listened to rumour and smelt the wind. They were like hounds seeking
scent, and they looked for Guthred's trail, which we

expected to find leading west towards Cumbraland, but as the morning wore on the
scouts kept tending eastwards. Our progress was slow, which frustrated Father Beocca, but
before we could ride fast we had to know where we were going. Then, at last, the scouts
seemed confident that the trail led east and spurred their ponies across the hills and we
followed. 'Guthred's trying to go back to Eoferwic,' Ragnar guessed. 'He's too late for
that,' I said.

'Or else he's panicking,' Ragnar suggested cheerfully, 'and doesn't know what he's
doing.'

'That sounds more likely,' I said.

Brida and some twenty other women rode with us. Brida was in leather armour and had a
black cloak held at her neck with a fine brooch of silver and jet. Her hair was twisted high
and held in place with a black ribbon, and at her side was a long sword. She had grown into
an elegant woman who possessed an air of authority and that, I think, offended Father
Beocca who had known her since she was a child. She had been raised a Christian, but had
escaped the faith and Beocca was upset by that, though I think he found her beauty more
disturbing. 'She's a sorceress,' Beocca hissed at me. 'If she's a sorceress,'

I said, 'then she's a good person to have on your side.'

'God will punish us,' he warned.

'This isn't your god's country,' I told him. 'This is Thor's land.' He made the sign of the
cross to protect himself from the evil of my words. 'And what were you doing last night?' he
asked indignantly. 'How could you even think of being king here?'

'Easily,' I said. 'I am descended from kings. Unlike you, father. You're descended
from swineherds, aren't you?'

He ignored that. 'The king is the Lord's anointed,' he insisted. 'The king is chosen by
God and by all the throng of holy saints. Saint Cuthbert led Northumbria to Guthred, so how
could you even think of replacing him? How could you?' 'We can turn around and go home then,'
I said. 'Turn around and go home?' Beocca was appalled. 'Why?' 'Because if Cuthbert chose
him,' I said,

'then Cuthbert can defend him. Guthred doesn't need us. He can go into battle with his
dead saint. Or maybe he already has,' I said, 'have you thought of that?'

Thought of what?'

'That Guthred might already be defeated. He could be dead. Or he could be wearing
Kjartan's chains.'

'God preserve us,' Beocca said, making the sign of the cross again.

'It hasn't happened,' I assured him.

'How do you know?'

'Because we'd have met his fugitives by now,' I said, though I could not be certain of
that. Perhaps Guthred was fighting even as we spoke, but I had a feeling he was alive and
not too far away. It is hard to describe that feeling. It is an instinct, as hard to read as
a god's message in the fall of a wren's feather, but I had learned to trust the feeling. And
my instinct was right, for late in the morning one of the scouts came racing back across the
moorland with his pony's mane tossing in the wind. He slewed around in a burst of turf and
bracken to tell Ragnar that there was a large band of men and horses in the valley of the
River Swale. 'They're at Cetreht, lord,' he said.

'On our side of the river?' Ragnar asked.

'On our side, lord,' the scout said, 'in the old fort. Trapped there.'

'Trapped?'

There's another war-band outside the fort, lord,' the scout said. He had not ridden
close enough to see any banners, but two other scouts had ridden down into the valley
while this first galloped back to bring us the news that Guthred was probably very near.

We quickened our pace. Clouds raced in the wind and at midday a sharp rain fell briefly,
and just after it ended we met the two scouts who had ridden down to the fields outside the
fort and spoken to the war-band. 'Guthred's in the fort,' one of them reported.

'So who's outside?'

'Kjartan's men, lord.' the man said. He grinned, knowing that if any of Kjartan's men
were close then there would be a fight. There are sixty of them, lord. Only sixty.'

'Is Kjartan there? Or Sven?'

'No, lord. They're led by a man called Rolf.'

'You spoke to him?'

'Spoke to him and drank his ale, lord. They're watching Guthred. Making sure he doesn't
run away. They're keeping him there until Ivarr comes north.'

'Till Ivarr comes?' Ragnar asked. 'Not Kjartan?'

'Kjartan stays at Dunholm, lord,' the man said, 'that's what they said, and that Ivarr
will come north once he's garrisoned Eoferwic.'

'There are sixty of Kjartan's men in the valley.' Ragnar shouted back to his warriors,
and his hand instinctively went to the hilt of Heart-Breaker. That was his sword, given
the same name as his father's blade as a reminder of his duty to revenge Ragnar the
Elder's death. 'There are sixty men to kill!' he added, then called for a servant to bring
his shield. He looked back to the scouts. 'Who did they think you were?'

'We claimed to serve Hakon, lord. We said we were looking for him.'

Ragnar gave the men silver coins. 'You did well,' he said. 'So how many men does Guthred
have in the fort?'

'Rolf says he's got at least a hundred, lord.'

'A hundred? And he hasn't tried to drive off sixty men?'

'No, lord.'

'Some king,' Ragnar said scornfully.

'If he fights them,' I said, 'then at the end of the day he'll have fewer than fifty
men.'

'So what's he doing instead?' Ragnar wanted to know.

'Praying, probably.'

Guthred, as we later learned, had panicked. Thwarted in his efforts to reach
Bebbanburg he had turned west towards Cumbraland, thinking that in that familiar
country he would find friends, but the weather had slowed him, and there were enemy
horsemen always in sight and he feared ambush in the steep hills ahead. So he had changed
his mind and decided to return to Eoferwic, but had got no father than the Roman fort
that had once guarded the crossings of the Swale at Cetreht. He was desperate by then.
Some of his spearmen had deserted, reckoning that only death waited for them if they
stayed with the king, so Guthred had sent messengers to summon help from Northumbria's
Christian thegns, but we had already seen the corpses and knew no help would come. Now he
was trapped. The sixty men would hold him in Cetreht until Ivarr came to kill him.

'If Guthred is praying,' Beocca said sternly, 'then those prayers are being
answered.'

'You mean the Christian god sent us?' I asked.

'Who else?' he responded indignantly as he brushed down his black robe. 'When we meet
Guthred.' he told me, 'you will let me speak first.'

'You think this is a time for ceremony?'

'I'm an ambassador!' he protested, 'you forget that.' His indignation suddenly
burst like a rain-sodden stream overflowing its banks. 'You have no conception of
dignity! I am an ambassador! Last night, Uhtred, when you told that Irish savage to cut my
throat, what were you thinking of?'

'I was thinking of keeping you quiet, father.'

'I shall tell Alfred of your insolence. You can be sure of that. I shall tell him!'

He went on complaining, but I was not listening for we had ridden across the skyline
and there was Cetreht and the curving River Swale beneath us. The Roman fort was a short
distance from the Swale's southern bank and the old earth walls made a wide square which
enclosed a village which had a church at its centre. Beyond the fort was the stone bridge
the Romans had made to carry their great road which led from Eoferwic to the wild north, and
half of the old arch still stood.

As we rode closer I could see that the fort was full of horses and people. A standard
flew from the church's gable and I assumed that must be Guthred's flag showing Saint
Cuthbert. A few horsemen were north of the river, blocking Guthred's escape across

the ford, while Rolf's sixty riders were in the fields south of the fort. They were like
hounds stopping up a fox's earth.

Ragnar had checked his horse. His men were readying for a fight. They were pushing their
arms into shield loops, loosening swords in scabbards and waiting for Ragnar's orders. I
gazed into the valley. The fort was a hopeless refuge. Its walls had long eroded into the
ditch and there was no palisade, so that a man could stroll over the ramparts without even
breaking stride. The sixty horsemen, if they had wished, could have ridden into the
village, but they preferred to ride close to the old wall and shout insults. Guthred's men
watched from the fort's edge. More men were clustered about the church. They had seen us on
the hill and must have thought we were new enemies, for they were hurrying towards the
remnants of the southern rampart. I stared at the village. Was Gisela there? I remembered
the flick of her head and how her eyes had been shadowed by her black hair, and I
unconsciously spurred my horse a few paces forward. I had spent over two years of hell at
Sverri's oar, but this was the moment I had dreamed of through all that time, and so I did
not wait for Ragnar. I touched spurs to my horse again and rode alone into the valley of the
Swale.

Beocca, of course, followed me, squawking that as Alfred's ambassador he must lead the
way into Guthred's presence, but I ignored him and, halfway down the hill he tumbled from
his horse. He gave a despairing cry and I left him limping in the grass as he tried to
retrieve his mare. The late autumn sun was bright on the land that was still wet from rain. I
carried a shield with a polished boss, I was in mail and helmet, my arm rings shone, I
glittered like a lord of war. I twisted in my saddle to see that Ragnar had started down
the hill, but he was slanting eastwards, plainly intent on cutting off the retreat of
Kjartan's men, whose best escape would lie in the eastern river meadows.

I reached the hill's foot and spurred across the flat river plain to join the Roman road.
I passed a Christian cemetery, the ground lumpy and scattered with small wooden crosses
looking towards the one larger cross which would show the resurrected dead the
direction of Jerusalem on the day the Christians believed their corpses would rise from the
earth. The road led straight past the graves to the fort's southern entrance, where a crowd
of Guthred's men watched me. Kjartan's men spurred to intercept me, barring the road, but
they showed no apprehension. Why should they? I appeared to be a Dane, I was one man and
they were many, and my sword was still in its scabbard. 'Which of you is Rolf?' I shouted as
I drew near them.

'I am,' a black-bearded man urged his horse towards me. 'Who are you?'

'Your death, Rolf,' I said, and I drew Serpent-Breath and touched my heels to the
stallion's flanks and he went into the full gallop and Rolf was still drawing his sword
when I pounded past him and swung Serpent-Breath and the blade sliced through his neck so
that his head and helmet flew back, bounced on the road and rolled under my horse's hooves. I
was laughing because the battle-joy had come. Three men were ahead of me and none had yet
drawn a sword. They just stared at me, aghast, and at Rolf's headless trunk that swayed in the
saddle. I charged the centre man, letting my horse barge into his and striking him hard
with Serpent-Breath, and then I was through Kjartan's horsemen and the fort was in front of
me. Fifty or sixty men were standing at the fort's entrance. Only a handful were mounted,
but nearly all had swords or spears. And I could see Guthred there, his fair curly hair bright
in the sun, and next to him was Gisela. I had tried so often to summon her face in those long
months at Sverri's oar, and I had always failed, yet suddenly the wide mouth and the
defiant eyes seemed so familiar. She was dressed in a white linen robe, belted at her
waist with a silver chain, and she had a linen bonnet on her hair which, because she was
married, was bound into a knot. She was holding her brother's arm, and Guthred was just
staring at the strange events unfolding outside his refuge. Two of Kjartan's men had
followed me while the rest were milling around, torn between the shock of Rolf's death and
the sudden appearance of Ragnar's war-band. I turned on the two men following me,
wrenching the stallion about so sharply that his hooves scrabbled in the wet mud, but my
sudden turn drove my pursuers back. I spurred after them. One was too fast, the second was
on a lumbering horse and he heard my hoofbeats and swung his sword back in a desperate
attempt to drive me off. I took the blade on my shield, then lunged Serpent-Breath into the
man's spine so that his back arched and he screamed. I tugged Serpent-Breath free and
back-swung her into the man's face. He fell from the saddle and I rode around him, sword
red, and took off my helmet as I spurred again towards the fort.