The Lords of the North (40 page)

'If you're Alfred's sworn man,' Gisela asked carefully, and her question revealed that
she must have been thinking the same thoughts, 'why did he let you come here?'

'Because he wants your brother to rule in Northumbria.'

She thought about that. 'Because Guthred is a Christian of sorts?'

That's important to Alfred.' I said.

'Or because Guthred's weak?' she suggested.

'Is he weak?'

'You know he is.' she said scornfully. 'He's a kind man, and folk have always liked him,
but he doesn't know how to be ruthless. He should have killed Ivarr when he first met him, and
he should have banished Hrothweard a long time ago, but he didn't dare. He's too frightened of
Saint Cuthbert.'

'And why would Alfred want a weak king on Northumbria's throne?' I asked blandly.

'So Northumbria will be weak,' she said, 'when the Saxons try to take back their land.'

'Is that what your runesticks say will happen?' I asked. They say,' she said, 'that we will
have two sons and a daughter, and that one son will break your heart, the other will make you
proud, and that your daughter will be the mother of kings.'

I laughed at that prophecy, not with scorn, but because of the certainty in Gisela's
voice. 'And does that mean,' I asked, 'that you will come to Wessex, even though I fight the
Danes?'

'It means,' she said, 'that I'm not leaving your side. That's my oath.'

Ragnar had sent scouts ahead and as the long day passed some of those men came back on tired
horses. Ivarr, they had heard, had taken Eoferwic. It had been easy for him. Guthred's
diminished garrison had surrendered the city rather than be slaughtered in its streets.
Ivan-had taken what plunder he could find, placed a new garrison on the walls and was
already marching back north. He would not have heard of the fall of Dunholm yet, so he was
plainly hoping to catch Guthred who, he must assume, either lingered at Cetreht or was
wandering disconsolately towards the wastes of Cumbraland. Ivarr's army, the scouts had
heard, was a horde. Some men said Ivarr led two thousand spears, a figure that Ragnar and I
dismissed. It was certain, though, that Ivarr's men far outnumbered ours and probable that
he was marching north on the same Roman road down which we travelled south. 'Can we fight
him?' Guthred asked me.

'We can fight him,' Ragnar answered for me, 'but we can't beat his army.'

'So why are we marching south?'

'To rescue Cuthbert,' I said, 'and to kill Ivarr.'

'But if we can't beat him?' Guthred was puzzled.

'We fight him,' I said, adding to his confusion, 'and if we can't beat him then we retreat
to Dunholm. That's why we captured it, as a refuge.'

'We're letting the gods decide what happens.' Ragnar explained and, because we were
confident, Guthred pressed us no further.

We reached Cetreht that evening. Our journey had been fast because we had no need to leave
the Roman road, and we splashed through the Swale's ford as the sun reddened the western
hills. The churchmen, rather than take refuge in those hills, had preferred to stay with
Cetreht's meagre comforts and no one had disturbed them while we had gone to Dunholm. They
had seen mounted Danes on the southern hills, but none of those riders had approached the
fort. The horsemen had watched, counted heads and ridden away, and I assumed those men were
Ivarr's scouts.

Father Hrothweard and Abbot Eadred seemed unimpressed that we had captured Dunholm. All
they cared about was the corpse of the saint and the other precious relics which they dug up
from the graveyard that same evening and carried in solemn procession to the church. It was
there that I confronted Aidan, the steward of Bebbanburg, and his score of men who had
stayed in the village. 'It's safe for you to ride home now,' I told them, 'because Kjartan is
dead.'

I do not think Aidan believed me at first. Then he understood what we had achieved and he
must have feared that the men who had captured Dunholm would march on Bebbanburg next. I
wanted to do that, but I was sworn to return to Alfred before Christmas and that left me no
time to confront my uncle.

'We shall leave in the morning.' Aidan said.

'You will,' I agreed, 'and when you reach Bebbanburg you will tell my uncle that he is
never far from my thoughts. You will tell him I have taken his bride. You will promise him that
one day I shall slit his belly, and if he dies before I can fulfil that oath then promise him
I shall slice the guts out of his sons instead, and if his sons have sons I shall kill them too.
Tell him those things, and tell him that folk thought Dunholm was like Bebbanburg,
impregnable, and that Dunholm fell to my sword.'

'Ivarr will kill you!' Aidan said defiantly.

'You had better pray as much.' I said.

All the Christians prayed that night. They gathered in the church and I thought they might
be asking their god to give us victory over the approaching forces of Ivarr, but instead
they were giving thanks that the precious relics had survived. They placed Saint Cuthbert's
body before the altar on which they put Saint Oswald's head, the gospel book and the
reliquary with the hairs of Saint Augustine's beard and they chanted, they prayed, they
chanted again, and I thought they would never stop praying, but at last, in the night's dark
heart, they fell silent.

I walked the fort's low wall, watching the Roman road stretch south through the fields
beneath the waning moon. It was from there that Ivarr would come and I could not be sure he
would not send a band of picked horsemen to attack in the night and so I had a hundred men
waiting in the village street. But no attack came, and in the darkness a small mist rose to
blur the fields as Ragnar came to relieve me. 'There'll be a frost by morning.' he greeted
me.

'There will.' I agreed.

He stamped his feet to make them warm. 'My sister,' he said, 'Tells me she's going to
Wessex. She says she'll be baptised.'

'Are you surprised?'

'No.' he said. He gazed down the long straight road. 'It's for the best,' he spoke bleakly,
'and she likes your Father Beocca So what will happen to her?'

'I suppose she'll become a nun.' I said, for I could not think what other fate would wait
for her in Alfred's Wessex.

'I let her down.' he said, and I said nothing because it was true. 'Must you go back to
Wessex?' he asked.

'Yes. I'm sworn.'

'Oaths can be broken.' he said quietly, and that was true, but in a world where different
gods ruled and fate is known only to the three spinners, oaths are our one certainty. If I
broke an oath then I could not expect men to keep their oaths to me. That I had learned.

'I won't break my oath to Alfred,' I said, 'but I will make another oath to you. That I
will never fight you, that what I have is yours to share, and that if you need help I will do
all I can to bring it.'

Ragnar said nothing for a while. He kicked at the turf on the wall's top and looked into
the mist. 'I swear the same.' he said quietly and he, like me, was embarrassed and so he
kicked at the turf again. 'How many men will Ivarr bring?'

'Eight hundred?'

He nodded. 'And we have fewer than three hundred.'

'There won't be a fight.' I said.

'No?'

'Ivarr will die,' I said, 'and that will be the end of it.' I touched Serpent-Breath's hilt
for luck and felt the slightly raised edges of Hild's cross. 'He will die,' I said, still
touching the cross, 'and Guthred will rule, and he will do what you tell him to do.'

'You want me to tell him to attack Ælfric?' he asked. I thought about it. 'No.' I said.

'No?'

'Bebbanburg's too strong,' I said, 'and there's no back gate as there was at Dunholm.
Besides, I want to kill Ælfric myself.'

'Will Alfred let you do that?'

'He will.' I said, though in truth I doubted Alfred ever would allow me such a luxury,
but I was certain that my fate was to go back to Bebbanburg and I had faith in that destiny.
I turned and stared at the village. 'All quiet there?'

'All quiet.' he said. 'They've given up praying and are sleeping instead. You should
sleep too.'

I walked back up the street, but before joining Gisela I quietly opened the church door
and saw priests and monks sleeping in the small light of the few candles guttering on the
altar. One of them snored and I closed the door as silently as I had opened it.

I was woken in the dawn by Sihtric who banged on the door lintel. They're here, lord!' he
shouted. They're here!'

'Who's here?'

'Ivarr's men, lord.'

'Where?'

'Horsemen, lord, across the river!'

There were only a hundred or so riders, and they made no attempt to cross the ford and I
guessed they had only been sent to the Swale's northern bank to cut off our escape. Ivarr's
main force would appear to the south, though that prospect was not the chief excitement in
that misted dawn. Men were shouting in the village. 'What is it?' I asked Sihtric.

'Christians are upset, lord.' he said.

I walked to the church to discover that the golden reliquary of Saint Augustine's beard,
the precious gift from Alfred to Guthred, had been stolen. It had been on the altar with the
other relics, but during the night it had vanished, and Father Hrothweard was wailing
beside a hole scratched and torn into the wall of wattle and daub behind the altar. Guthred
was there, listening to Abbot Eadred who was declaring the theft a sign of God's
disapproval.

'Disapproval of what?' Guthred asked.

The pagans, of course.' Eadred spat.

Father Hrothweard was rocking back and forth, wringing his hands and shouting at his god
to bring vengeance on the heathens who had desecrated the church and stolen the holy
treasure. 'Reveal the culprits, lord!' he shouted, then he saw me and evidently decided
the revelation had come, for he pointed at me.

'It was him!' he spat.

'Was it you?' Guthred asked.

'No, lord.' I said.

'It was him!' Hrothweard said again.

'You must search all the pagans,' Eadred told Guthred, 'for if the relic isn't found, lord,
then our defeat is certain. Ivarr will crush us for this sin. It will be God's chastisement
on us.'

It seemed a strange punishment, to allow a pagan Dane to defeat a Christian king
because a relic had been stolen, but as a prophecy it seemed safe enough, for in the
mid-morning, while the church was still being searched in a vain attempt to find the
reliquary, one of Ragnar's men brought word that Ivarr's army had appeared. They were
marching from the south and already forming their shield wall a half-mile from Ragnar's
small force.

It was time, then, for us to go. Guthred and I were already in mail, our horses were
saddled, and all we needed to do was ride south to join Ragnar's shield wall, but Guthred had
been unnerved by the loss of the relic. As we left the church he took me aside. 'Will you ask
Ragnar if he took it?' he begged me. 'Or ask if perhaps one of his men did?'

'Ragnar didn't take it,' I said scornfully. 'If you want to find the culprit,'

I went on, 'search them.' I pointed to Aidan and his horsemen who, now that Ivarr was close,
were eager to start on their journey north, though they dared not leave so long as Ivarr's men
barred the ford across the Swale. Guthred had asked them to join our shield wall, but they had
refused, and now they waited for a chance to escape.

'No Christian would steal the relic!' Hrothweard shouted. 'It's a pagan crime!'

Guthred was terrified. He still believed in Christian magic and he saw the theft as an
omen of disaster. He plainly did not suspect Aidan, but then he did not know who to suspect
and so I made it easy for him. I summoned Finan and Sihtric who were waiting to accompany
me to the shield wall. 'This man,' I told Guthred, pointing at Finan, 'is a Christian. Aren't
you a Christian, Finan?'

'I am, lord.'

'And he's Irish,' I said, 'and everyone knows the Irish have the power of scrying.'
Finan, who had no more powers of scrying than I did, tried to look mysterious. 'He will
find your relic.' I promised.

'You will?' Guthred asked Finan eagerly.

'Yes, lord.' Finan said confidently.

'Do it, Finan.' I said, 'while I kill Ivarr. And bring the culprit to us as soon as you find
him.'

'I will, lord.' he said.

A servant brought my horse. 'Can your Irishman really find it?' Guthred asked me.

'I will give the church all my silver, lord,' I said loudly enough for a dozen men to hear,
'and I will give it my mail, my helmet, my arm rings and my swords, if Finan does not bring you
both the relic and the thief. He's Irish and the Irish have strange powers.' I looked at
Hrothweard. 'You hear that, priest? I promise all my wealth to your church if Finan does not
find the thief!'

Hrothweard had nothing to say to that. He glared at me, but my promise had been made
publicly and it was testimony to my innocence, so he contented himself by spitting at
my horse's feet. Gisela, who had come to take the stallion's reins, had to skip aside to avoid
the spittle. She touched my arm as I straightened the stirrup. 'Can Finan find it?' she asked
in a low voice.

'He can find it.' I promised her.

'Because he has strange powers?'

'Because he stole it, my love,' I said quietly, 'on my orders. It's probably hidden in a
dung-heap.' I grinned at her, and she laughed softly. I put my foot in the stirrup and
readied to heave myself up, but again Gisela checked me. 'Be careful,' she said. Then fear to
fight Ivarr,' she warned me.

'He's a Lothbrok,' I said, 'and all Lothbroks fight well. They love it. But they fight like
mad dogs, all fury and savagery, and in the end they die like mad dogs.' I mounted the
stallion, settled my right foot in its stirrup, then took my helmet and shield from Gisela. I
touched her hand for farewell, then pulled the reins and followed Guthred south.

We rode to join the shield wall. It was a short wall, easily outflanked by the much larger
wall that Ivarr was forming to the south. His wall was over twice as long as ours which meant
his men could wrap themselves about our line and kill us from the edges inwards. If it
came to battle we would be slaughtered, and Ivarr's men knew it. Their shield wall was bright
with spears and axe-heads, and noisy with anticipation of victory. They were beating their
weapons against their shields, making a dull drumbeat that filled the Swale's wide valley, and
the drumbeat rose to a great clattering thunder when Ivarr's standard of the two ravens was
lifted in the centre of their line. Beneath the banner was a knot of horsemen who now broke
free of the shield wall to ride towards us. Ivarr was among them, as was his rat-like son.