The Lords of the North (41 page)

Guthred, Steapa, Ragnar and I rode a few paces towards Ivarr and then waited. Ten men were
in the approaching party, but it was Ivarr I watched. He was mounted on Witnere, which I had
hoped he would be, for that gave me cause to quarrel with him, but I hung back, letting Guthred
take his horse a few steps forward. Ivarr was staring at us one by one. He looked
momentarily surprised to see me, but said nothing, and he seemed irritated when he saw
Ragnar and he was duly impressed by Steapa's huge size, but he ignored the three of us,
nodding instead at Guthred. 'Worm-shit!' he greeted the king.

'Lord Ivarr.' Guthred replied.

'I am in a strangely merciful mood,' Ivarr said. 'If you ride away, then I shall spare your
men's lives.'

'We have no quarrel,' Guthred said, 'that cannot be settled by words.'

'Words!' Ivarr spat, then shook his head. 'Go beyond Northumbria,' he said,

'go far away, worm-shit. Run to your friend in Wessex, but leave your sister here as a
hostage. If you do that I shall be merciful.' He was not being merciful, but practical.
The Danes were ferocious warriors, but far more cautious than their reputation suggested.
Ivarr was willing to fight, but he was more willing to arrange a surrender, for then he
would lose no men. He would win this fight, he knew that, but in gaining the victory he would
lose sixty or seventy warriors and that was a whole ship's crew and a high price to pay. It
was better to let Guthred live and pay nothing. Ivarr moved Witnere sideways so he could look
past Guthred at Ragnar. 'You keep strange company, Lord Ragnar.'

'Two days ago,' Ragnar said, 'I killed Kjartan the Cruel. Dunholm is mine now. I think,
perhaps, I should kill you, Lord Ivarr, so that you cannot try to take it from me.' Ivarr
looked startled, as well he might. He glanced at Guthred, then at me, as if seeking
confirmation of Kjartan's death, but our faces betrayed nothing. Ivarr shrugged. 'You had a
quarrel with Kjartan,' he told Ragnar, 'and that was your affair, not mine. I would welcome
you as a friend. Our fathers were friends, were they not?'

'They were,' Ragnar said.

'Then we should remake their friendship,' Ivarr said.

'Why should he befriend a thief?' I asked.

Ivarr looked at me, his serpent eyes unreadable. 'I watched a goat vomit yesterday,' he
said, 'and what it threw up reminded me of you.'

'I watched a goat shit yesterday,' I retorted, 'and what it dropped reminded me of
you.'

Ivarr sneered at that, but decided not to go on trading insults. His son, though, drew his
sword and Ivarr held out a warning hand to tell the youngster that the killing time had not yet
come. 'Go away,' he said to Guthred, 'go far away and I will forget I ever knew you.'

'The goat-turd reminded me of you,' I said, 'but its smell reminded me of your mother.
It was a rancid smell, but what would you expect of a whore who gives birth to a thief?'

One of the warriors held Ivarr's son back. Ivarr himself just looked at me in silence for a
while. 'I can make your death stretch through three sunsets,' he said at last.

'But if you return the stolen goods, thief,' I said, 'and then accept good King Guthred's
judgement on your crime, then perhaps we will show mercy.'

Ivarr looked amused rather than offended. 'What have I stolen?' he asked.

'You're riding my horse,' I said, 'and I want it back now.'

He patted Witnere's neck. 'When you are dead,' he said to me,

'I shall have your skin tanned and made into a saddle so I can spend the rest of my life
farting on you.' He looked at Guthred.

'Go away.' he said, 'go far away. Leave your sister as hostage. I shall give you a few
moments to find your senses, and if you don't, then we shall kill you.' He turned his horse
away.

'Coward,' I called to him. He ignored me, pushing Witnere through his men to lead them
back to their shield wall. 'All the Lothbroks are cowards,' I said.

'They run away. What have you done, Ivarr? Pissed your breeches for fear of my sword? You ran
away from the Scots and now you run away from me!'

I think it was the mention of the Scots that did it. That huge defeat was still raw in
Ivarr's memory, and I had scraped scorn on the rawness and suddenly the Lothbrok temper,
that so far he had managed to control, took over. He hurt Witnere with the savage pull he
gave on the bit, but Witnere turned obediently as Ivarr drew his long sword. He spurred
towards me, but I angled past him, going towards the wide space in front of his army. That
was where I wanted Ivarr to die, in sight of all his men, and there I turned my stallion back.
Ivarr had followed me, but had checked Witnere, who was thumping the soft turf with his front
right hoof.

I think Ivarr wished he had not lost his temper, but it was too late. Every man in both
shield walls could see that he had drawn his sword and pursued me into the open meadow and he
could not just ride away from that challenge. He had to kill me now, and he was not sure he
could do it. He was good, but he had suffered injury, his joints were aching, and he knew my
reputation. His advantage was Witnere. I knew that horse, and knew it fought as well as most
warriors. Witnere would savage my horse if he could, and he would savage me too, and my first
aim was to get Ivarr out of the saddle. Ivarr watched me. I think he had decided to let me
attack, for he did not release Witnere to the charge, but instead of riding at him, I turned
my stallion towards Ivarr's shield wall. 'Ivarr is a thief!' I shouted at his army. I let
Serpent-Breath hang by my side. 'He is a common thief,' I shouted, 'who ran from the
Scots!

He ran like a whipped puppy! He was weeping like a child when we found him!' I laughed and
kept my eyes on Ivarr's shield wall. 'He was crying because he was hurt,' I said, 'and in
Scotland they call him Ivarr the Feeble.' I saw, at the edge of my vision, that the goading
had worked and that Ivarr was wheeling Witnere towards me. 'He is a thief,' I shouted, 'and a
coward!' And as I screamed the last derisive insult I touched my knee to my horse so he
turned and I raised my shield. Witnere was all white eyes and white teeth, big hooves flailing
up sodden turf, and as he closed I shouted his name. 'Witnere!

Witnere!' I knew that was probably not the name Ivarr had given the stallion, but perhaps
Witnere remembered the name, or remembered me, for his ears pricked and his head came up and
his pace faltered as I spurred my own horse straight at him.

I used the shield as a weapon. I just thrust it hard at Ivarr and, at the same moment, pushed
up on my right stirrup, and Ivarr was trying to turn Witnere away, but the big stallion was
confused and off balance. My shield slammed into Ivarr's and I threw myself at him, using my
weight to force him backwards. The risk was that I would fall and he would stay saddled, but I
dared not let go of shield or sword to grip him. I just had to hope that my weight would drive
him to the ground. 'Witnere!' I shouted again, and the stallion half turned towards me and
that small motion, along with my weight, was enough to topple Ivarr. He fell to his right and I
collapsed between the two horses. I fell hard, and my own stallion gave me an inadvertent
kick that pushed me against Witnere's hind legs. I scrambled up, slapped Witnere's rump with
Serpent-Breath to drive him away and immediately ducked beneath my shield as Ivarr
attacked. He had recovered faster than me, and his sword slammed against my shield, and he
must have expected me to recoil from that blow, but I stopped it dead. My left arm, wounded
by the thrown spear at Dunholm, throbbed from the force of his sword, but I was taller, heavier
and stronger than Ivarr and I shoved the shield hard to push him back. He knew he was going to
lose. He was old enough to be my father and he was slowed by old wounds, but he was still a
Lothbrok and they learn fighting from the moment they are whelped. He came at me snarling,
sword feinting high then thrusting low, and I kept moving, parrying him, taking his blows
on my shield, and not even trying to fight back. I mocked him instead. I told him he was a
pathetic old man. 'I killed your uncle,'

I taunted him, 'and he was not much better than you. And when you're dead, old man, I'll gut
the rat you call a son. I'll feed his corpse to the ravens. Is that the best you can do?'

He had tried to turn me, but tried too hard and his foot had slipped on the wet grass and he
had gone down onto one knee. He was open to death then, off balance and with his sword hand in
the grass, but I walked away from him, letting him rise, and every Dane saw that I did that,
and then they saw me throw away my shield. 'I'll give him a chance,' I called to them. 'He's a
miserable little thief, but I'll give him a chance!'

'You whore-born Saxon bastard,' Ivarr snarled, and rushed me again. That was how he liked
to fight. Attack, attack, attack, and he tried to use his shield to hurl me back, but I
stepped away and clouted him over the back of his helmet with the flat of Serpent-Breath's
blade. The blow made him stumble a second time, and again I walked away. I wanted to
humiliate him. That second stumble gave him caution, so that he circled me warily. 'You
made me a slave,' I said, 'and you couldn't even do that properly. You want to give me your
sword?'

'Goat-turd,' he said. He came in fast, lunging at my throat, dropping the sword to rake my
left leg at the last moment, and I just moved aside and slapped Serpent-Breath across his rump
to drive him away.

'Give me your sword,' I said, 'and I'll let you live. We'll put you in a cage and I'll take
you around Wessex. Here is Ivarr Ivarson, a Lothbrok, I'll tell folk. A thief who ran away
from the Scots.'

'Bastard,' he rushed again, this time trying to disembowel me with a savage sweep of the
sword, but I stepped back and his long blade hissed past me and he grunted as he brought the
blade back, all fury and desperation now, and I rammed Serpent-Breath forward so that she
went past his shield and struck his breast and the force of the lunge drove him back. He
staggered as my next stroke came, a fast one that rang on the side of his helmet and again he
staggered, dizzied by the blow, and my third blow cracked into his blade with such force that
his sword arm flew back and Serpent-Breath's tip was at his throat.

'Coward,' I said, 'thief.'

He screamed in fury and brought his sword around in a savage stroke, but I stepped backwards
and let it pass. Then I slashed Serpent-Breath down hard to strike his right wrist. He gasped
then, for the wrist bones were broken.

'It's hard to fight without a sword,' I told him, and I struck again, this time hitting the
sword so that the blade flew from his hand. There was terror in his eyes now. Not the terror of
a man facing death, but of a warrior dying without a blade in his hand.

'You made me a slave,' I said, and I rammed Serpent-Breath forward, striking him on one
knee and he tried to back away, tried to reach his sword, and I slashed the knee again, much
harder, sawing through leather to cut to the bone and he went down on one knee. I slapped his
helmet with Serpent-Breath, then stood behind him. 'He made me a slave,' I shouted at his
men, 'and he stole my horse. But he is still a Lothbrok.' I bent, picked up his sword by the
blade and held it to him. He took it.

'Thank you,' he said.

Then I killed him. I took his head half off his shoulders. He made a gurgling noise,
shuddered and went down onto the grass, but he had kept hold of the sword. If I had let him die
without the sword then many of the watching Danes would have thought me wantonly cruel. They
understood he was my enemy, and understood I had cause to kill him, but none would think he
deserved to be denied the corpse-hall. And one day, I thought, Ivarr and his uncle would
welcome me there, for in the corpse-hall we feast with our enemies and remember our fights
and fight them all over again.

Then there was a scream and I turned to see Ivar, his son, galloping towards me. He came as
his father had come, all fury and mindless violence, and he leaned from the saddle to cut me
in half with his blade and I met the blade with Serpent-Breath and she was by far the better
sword. The blow jarred up my arm, but Ivar's blade broke. He galloped past me, holding a hand's
breadth of sword, and two of his father's men caught up with him and forced him away before he
could be killed. I called to Witnere.

He came to me. I patted his nose, took hold of the saddle and hauled myself onto his back.
Then I turned him towards Ivarr's leaderless shield wall and gestured that Guthred and
Ragnar should join me. We stopped twenty paces from the painted Danish shields. 'Ivarr
Ivarson has gone to Valhalla,' I shouted, 'and there was no disgrace in his death! I am
Uhtred Ragnarson! I am the man who killed Ubba Lothbrokson and this is my friend, Earl
Ragnar, who killed Kjartan the Cruel! We serve King Guthred.'

'Are you a Christian?' a man shouted.

I showed him my hammer amulet. Men were passing the news of Kjartan's death down the long
line of shields, axes and swords. 'I am no Christian!' I shouted when they were quiet again.
'But I have seen Christian sorcery! And the Christians worked their magic on King Guthred!
Have none of you been victims of sorcerers? Have none of you known your cattle to die or your
wives to be sick? You all know sorcery, and the Christian sorcerers can work great
magic!

They have corpses and severed heads, and they use them to make magic, and they wove their
spells about our king! But the sorcerer made a mistake. He became greedy, and last night he
stole a treasure from King Guthred! But Odin has swept the spells away!' I twisted in the
saddle and saw that Finan was at last coming from the fort.

He had been delayed by a scuffle at the fort's entrance. Some churchmen had tried to
prevent Finan and Sihtric from leaving, but a score of Ragnar's Danes intervened and now
the Irishman came riding across the pastureland. He was leading Father Hrothweard. Or
rather Finan had a handful of Hrothweard's hair and so the priest had no choice but to
stumble along beside the Irishman's horse.