Warriors of the Storm (28 page)

He stared ahead, noting the church towers topped by crosses. ‘But if it’s been Danish for so long why is it still Christian?’

‘Some of the Danes converted,’ I said. ‘Your uncle for one.’

‘My uncle?’

‘Your mother’s brother.’

‘Why?’

I shrugged. ‘He ruled here. Most of his people were Saxons, Christian Saxons. He wanted them to fight for him, so he changed his religion. I don’t think he was a very good Christian, but it was convenient.’

‘There are a lot of Danish Christians here,’ Sigtryggr put in. He sounded gloomy. ‘They marry Saxon girls and convert.’

‘Why?’ my son asked again.

‘Peace and quiet,’ Sigtryggr said. ‘And a good pair of tits will persuade most men to change their religion.’

‘Missionaries,’ Finan said happily. ‘Show us your missionaries!’

The city gate opened. Our leading horsemen were still two hundred paces away, but the sight of Sigtryggr’s great banner had reassured the guards. Just two horsemen galloped to meet us, and Orvar, who was pretending to be the leader of our small army, held up his hand to halt us as they approached. I edged forward to listen.

‘Orvar!’ One of the approaching horsemen recognised him.

‘I’ve brought the Jarl his girl,’ Orvar said, jerking a thumb towards Stiorra. She sat straight-backed in her saddle, her hands clasped protectively about Gisela.

‘You did well!’ One of the horsemen pushed through Orvar’s men to look at Stiorra. ‘And what of her husband?’

‘Feeding the fish in Ireland.’

‘Dead?’

‘Cut to pieces,’ Orvar said.

‘Leaving a pretty widow.’ The man chuckled and reached out a gloved hand to lift Stiorra’s chin. Sigtryggr growled beside me and I put a cautionary hand on his arm. I had made him wear a helmet with closed cheek-pieces that hid his face. He also wore old mail, no arm rings and no gold, appearing to be a man not worth a second glance. The horseman who had come from the city smiled nastily at Stiorra. ‘Oh, very pretty,’ he said. ‘When the Jarl has finished with you, darling, I’ll give you a treat you won’t forget.’

Stiorra spat in his face. The man immediately brought back his hand to hit her, but Finan, who was mounted on one of our few horses, caught the man’s wrist. ‘What’s your name?’ he asked, sounding friendly.

‘Brynkætil,’ the man said sullenly.

‘Touch her, Brynkætil,’ Finan said pleasantly, ‘and I’ll feed her your balls,’ he smiled, ‘fried, as a treat.’

‘Enough!’ Orvar kicked his horse to come between the two men. ‘Is the Jarl here?’

‘The Jarl is raping Mercia,’ Brynkætil said, still glowering, ‘but the old bitch is here.’ He gave the rest of us a cursory glance and was evidently not impressed by what he saw.

‘The old bitch?’ Orvar asked.

‘She’s called Brida of Dunholm,’ he growled. ‘You’ll meet her. Just follow me.’ He jerked his head towards the gate.

And so, after many years, I came to Eoferwic again. I had known the city as a child, I had visited it often when I was young, but fate had taken me to Wessex, and Eoferwic lay far to the north. It was the second most important city in Britain, at least if you judge a city by size and wealth, though in truth Eoferwic was a poor place compared to Lundene, which grew fatter and richer and dirtier with every passing year. Yet Eoferwic had its wealth, brought to it by the rich farmlands that surrounded it, and by the ships that could sail all the way up the rivers to where a bridge stopped them. A Roman bridge, of course. Most of Eoferwic had been built by the Romans, including the great walls that surrounded the city.

I walked through the gate tunnel and came into a street with houses that had stairways! Lundene had such houses too, and they always amaze me. Houses that have one floor piled on another! I remembered that Ragnar had a house in Eoferwic with two stairways, and his son Rorik and I used to race around and around, up one stair and down the other, whooping and shouting, leading a pack of barking dogs in a mad chase to nowhere until Ragnar would corner us, thump us about the ears, and tell us to go and annoy someone else.

Most of the houses had shops opening onto the street, and, as we followed Orvar and his horsemen, I saw that the shops were full of goods. I saw leatherware, pottery, cloth, knives, and a goldsmith with two mailed warriors guarding his stock, but though the goods were plentiful the streets were strangely empty. The city had a sullen air. A beggar scuttled away from us, hiding in an alley, a woman peered at us from an upper floor, then closed the shutters. We passed two churches though neither had an open door, which suggested that the Christians of the city were fearful. And no wonder if Brida was ruling the place. She who hated Christians had come to one of the only two places in Britain that had an archbishop. Contwaraburg was the other. An archbishop is important to the Christians, he knows more sorcery than ordinary priests, even more than the bishops, and he has more authority. I have met several archbishops over the years and there was not one of them I would trust to run a market stall selling carrots. They are all sly, two-faced, and vindictive. Æthelflaed, of course, thought them the holiest of men. If Plegmund, Archbishop of Contwaraburg, so much as farted she chanted amen.

Finan must have been thinking much the same thoughts as me because he turned in his saddle. ‘What happened to the archbishop here?’ he asked Brynkætil.

‘The old man?’ Brynkætil laughed. ‘We burned him alive. Never heard a man squeal so much!’

The palace at Eoferwic’s centre must have been the place from which a Roman lord ruled the north. It had decayed over the years, but what great buildings left by the Romans had not crumbled to ruin? It had become the palace of the kings of Northumbria, and I remembered seeing King Osbert, the last Saxon to rule without Danish support, being slaughtered by drunken Danes in the great hall. His belly had been sliced open and his guts had spilled out. They had let the dogs eat his intestines while he lived, though the dogs had taken one bite and then been repelled by the taste. ‘It must have been something he ate,’ blind Ravn had told me when I described the scene to him, ‘or else our dogs just don’t like the taste of Saxons.’ King Osbert had died weeping and screaming.

There was an open space in front of the palace. Six huge Roman pillars had stood there when I was a child, though to what purpose I never did discover, and as we came out of the street’s dark shadow I saw that just four of them remained like great markers at the edge of the wide space. And I heard my son gasp.

It was not the high carved pillars that prompted the gasp, nor the pale stone facade of the palace with its Roman statues, not even the size of the church that had been built to one side of the open space. Instead it was what filled the great square that shocked him. Crosses. And on each cross a naked body. ‘Christians!’ Brynkætil said in curt explanation.

‘Does Brida rule here?’ I asked him.

‘Who’s asking?’

‘A man who deserves an answer,’ Orvar growled.

‘She rules for Ragnall,’ Brynkætil said sullenly.

‘It will be a pleasure to meet her,’ I said. He just sneered at that. ‘Is she pretty?’ I asked.

‘Depends how desperate you are,’ he answered, amused. ‘She’s old, dried up, and as vicious as a wildcat.’ He looked down at me. ‘Ideal for an old man like you. I’d better tell her you’re coming so she can get herself ready.’ He spurred his horse towards the palace.

‘Jesus,’ Finan said, crossing himself and looking at the crucifixions. There were thirty-four crosses and thirty-four naked bodies, both men and women. Some had torn hands, the dried blood black on their wrists, and I realised that Brida, it had to be Brida, had tried to nail them by the hands to the crossbars, but the hands could not take the weight and the bodies must have fallen. Now the thirty-four were lashed to the crosses with leather ropes, though all had nailed hands and feet as well. One, a young woman, was still alive, though barely. She stirred and groaned. So this was how Brida sent a message to the Christian god? What a fool, I thought. I might share her distaste for the Christian god, lonely and vengeful as he was, but I had never denied his power, and what man or woman spits in a god’s face?

I pushed alongside Stiorra’s horse. ‘Are you ready for this?’

‘Yes, father.’

‘I’ll stay close,’ I said, ‘so will Sigtryggr.’

‘Don’t be recognised!’ she said.

I had a helmet like the one which Sigtryggr wore and I now closed the face-pieces, hiding my face. Like him I wore none of my finery. To a casual glance we both looked like lowly warriors, men who could fill a shield wall, but had never filled our own purses with plunder. Orvar was the best-dressed of us and, for the moment, Orvar pretended to be our leader.

‘No weapons in the hall!’ a man shouted as we approached the palace. ‘No weapons!’

That was customary. No ruler let men carry weapons in a hall, except for his own housecarls who could be trusted with blades, and so we ostentatiously threw down our spears and swords, clattering them into a pile that we would leave our own warriors to guard. I laid Serpent-Breath down, but that did not leave me weaponless. I wore a homespun brown cloak that was long enough to hide Wasp-Sting, my seax.

Every shield wall warrior carries two swords. The long one, the sword that is scabbarded in silver or gold and that carries a noble name, is the sword we treasure. Mine was Serpent-Breath, and to this day I keep her close so that by the help of her hilt I will be carried to Valhalla when death comes for me. But we carry a second sword too, a seax, and a seax is a short, stubby blade, less flexible than the long-sword and less beautiful, but in the shield wall, when you can smell the stink of your enemy’s breath and see the lice in his beard, a seax is the weapon to use. A man stabs with a seax. He puts it between the shields and thrusts it into an enemy’s guts. Serpent-Breath was too long for a shield wall, her reach too distant, and in that lover’s embrace of death a man needs a short-sword that can stab in the press of sweating men struggling to kill each other. Wasp-Sting was just such a sword, her stout blade no longer than my hand and forearm, but in the crushed space of a shield wall she was lethal.

I hid her sheathed at my spine beneath the cloak because, once in the hall, Wasp-Sting would be needed.

Sigtryggr and I hung back with our men, letting Orvar and his crews go first because they would be recognised by any of Ragnall’s men who might be waiting inside the palace. Those men would not look to see who came in last and, even if they did, Sigtryggr’s face, like mine, was hidden by a helmet. I left Sihtric and six men to guard our weapons. ‘You know what to do?’ I muttered to Sihtric.

‘I know, lord,’ he said wolfishly.

‘Do it well,’ I said, and then, when the last of Orvar’s men had filed into the building, Sigtryggr and I followed.

I remembered the hall so well. It was larger than the Great Hall of Ceaster and far more elegant, though its beauty had faded as water leached into the walls, collapsing most of the marble sheets that had once sheathed the thin red bricks. In other places the water had peeled away the plaster, though patches remained with faint pictures showing men and women draped in what appeared to be shrouds. Great columns supported a high roof. Sparrows flew between the beams, some darting out through holes in the roof tiles. Some of the holes were patched with straw thatch, but most were open to the sky and let in shafts of sunlight. The floor had once been covered in small tiles, none bigger than a fingernail, which had shown Roman gods, but most of the tiles had long disappeared, leaving dull grey stones covered in dried rushes. At the hall’s far end was a wooden dais some three feet high, approached by steps, and on the dais was a throne draped in a black cloth. Warriors flanked the throne. They must have been Brida’s men because they were allowed weapons in the hall, each of them carrying a long-hafted broad-bladed spear. There were eight guards on the dais, and more standing down the shadowed sides of the hall. The throne was empty.

Courtesy said we should have been greeted with ale and with basins of water to wash our hands, though there were so many of us that I hardly expected we would all be so treated. Even so a steward should have sought our leaders to offer a welcome, but instead a thin man dressed all in black came from a door that led onto the dais and rapped a staff on the wooden floor. He rapped again, frowning at us. He had black hair oiled tight to his scalp, a haughty face, and a short beard that had been carefully trimmed. ‘The Lady of Dunholm,’ he announced when the hall was silent, ‘will be here soon. You will wait!’

Orvar took a step forward. ‘My men need food,’ he said, ‘and shelter.’

The thin man stared at Orvar. ‘Are you,’ he asked after a long pause, ‘the one they call Orvar?’

‘I am Orvar Freyrson, and my men …’

‘Need food, you said so.’ He looked at the rest of us, distaste on his face. ‘When the Lady of Dunholm arrives, you will kneel.’ He shuddered. ‘So many of you! And you smell!’ He stalked back the way he had come, and the guards on the dais exchanged smirks.

More men were coming to the hall, some pushing in behind us, others using doors in the side walls until there must have been close to four hundred men under the high roof. Sigtryggr looked at me quizzically, but I just shrugged. I did not know what was happening, only that Brynkætil must have announced our arrival and that Brida was coming. I edged through the men in front, making my way to Stiorra, who stood beside Orvar, her hand holding her daughter’s hand.

And just as I reached her the drum sounded.

One beat, loud and sudden, and the newcomers, those who had followed us into the hall and knew what was expected of them, dropped to their knees.

And the drum sounded again. One slow beat after another. Ominous, regular and remorseless, a heartbeat of doom.

We knelt.

Only the guards remained standing.

The drumbeat went on. The drum itself was in a room beyond the hall, but from its sound I knew it to be one of the great goatskin-covered tubs that were so massive that they needed to be carried to war on carts, which was why they were so rarely heard on a battlefield, though if they were present then their deep, heart-pounding sound could strike fear into an enemy. The beat was slow, each ominous blow fading to silence before another sounded, and the beat became slower so that I continually thought the drummer had stopped altogether, then there would be another pounding and we all watched the dais, waiting for Brida to appear.

Then the drumbeat did stop and the silence that followed was even more ominous. No one spoke. We were kneeling, and I sensed the terror in the room. No one even moved, but just waited.

Then there was a suppressed gasp as an ungreased hinge squealed. The door that led onto the dais was pushed open and I watched, expecting to see Brida, but instead two small children came into the hall, both girls and both in black dresses with long skirts that brushed the floor. They were perhaps five or six years old, each with black hair that fell to their waists. They could have been twins, maybe they were, and their appearance made Stiorra gasp.

Because both girls had been blinded.

It took me a moment to see that their eyes were nothing but scarred, gouged pits; wrinkled holes of dark horror in faces that had once been lovely. The two girls walked onto the dais and then hesitated, unsure which way to turn, but the thin man hurried behind them and used his black staff to guide them. He placed one on each side of the throne, then stood behind it, his dark eyes watching us, despising us.

Then Brida entered.

She shuffled in, muttering under her breath and hurrying as though she were late. She wore a great swathing black cloak pinned at her neck with a golden brooch. She stopped beside the black-draped throne and darted glances into the hall where we knelt. She looked indignant, as if our presence was a nuisance.

I stared at her under the rim of my helmet and I could not see the girl I had loved in the crone who had entered the hall. She had saved my life once, she had conspired with me and laughed with me and she had watched Ragnar die with me, and I had thought her beautiful, fascinating and so full of life, but her beauty had soured into rancor, and her love into hatred. Now she gazed at us and I sensed a shiver of apprehension in the hall. The guards stood straighter and avoided looking at her. I ducked down, fearing she would recognise me even with the helmet’s cheek-pieces closed.

She sat on the throne, which dwarfed her. Her face was malignant, her eyes bright, and her sparse hair white. The thin man moved a footstool, the scrape of its wooden legs unexpectedly loud in the hall. She rested her feet on the stool and placed a black bag on her lap. The two blind girls did not move. The thin man bent to the throne and whispered in Brida’s ear and she nodded impatiently. ‘Onarr Gormson,’ she called in a husky voice, ‘is Onarr Gormson here?’

‘My lady,’ a man answered from the body of the hall.

‘Approach, Onarr Gormson,’ she said.

The man stood and walked to the dais. He climbed the steps and knelt in front of Brida. He was a big man with a brutally scarred face on which ravens had been inked. He looked like a warrior who had carved his way through shield walls, yet his nervousness was apparent as he bowed his head in front of Brida.

The thin man had been whispering again and Brida nodded. ‘Onarr Gormson brought us twenty-nine Christians yesterday,’ she announced, ‘twenty-nine! Where did you find them, Onarr?’

‘A convent, my lady, in the hills to the north.’

‘They were hiding?’ Her voice was a croak, harsh as a raven’s call.

‘They were hiding, my lady.’

‘You have done well, Onarr Gormson,’ she said. ‘You have served the gods and they will reward you. As will I.’ She fumbled in the bag and brought out a pouch clinking with coins that she handed to the kneeling man. ‘We will cleanse this country,’ she said, ‘cleanse it of the false god!’ She waved Onarr away, then suddenly stopped him by holding up a claw-like hand. ‘A convent?’

‘Yes, my lady.’

‘Are they all women?’

‘All of them, my lady,’ he said. I saw he had not raised his face once to meet Brida’s gaze, but had kept his eyes on her small feet.

‘If your men want the young ones,’ she said, ‘they are yours. The rest will die.’ She waved him away again. ‘Is Skopti Alsvartson here?’

‘My lady!’ another man answered, and he too had found Christians, three priests who he had brought to Eoferwic. He too received a purse and he too did not raise his eyes as he knelt at Brida’s feet. It seemed that this gathering in the hall was a daily occurrence, a chance for Brida to reward the men who were doing her bidding and to encourage the ones who were laggards.

One of the two blind girls suddenly gasped, then made a pathetic mewing noise. I thought Brida would be angry with the child’s interruption, but instead she leaned down and the girl whispered into Brida’s ear. Brida, straightening, offered us a grimace that was intended to be a smile. ‘The gods have spoken!’ she announced, ‘and tell us that the Jarl Ragnall has burned three more towns in Mercia!’ The second child now whispered, and again Brida listened. ‘He has taken captives by the score,’ she seemed to be repeating what the child had told her, ‘and he is sending the treasure of ten churches north to our keeping.’ A murmur of appreciation sounded in the hall, but I was puzzled. What towns? Any town of size in Mercia was a burh and it defied the imagination to believe that Ragnall had captured three. ‘The foul Æthelflaed still cowers in Ceaster,’ Brida went on, ‘protected by the traitor Uhtred! They will not last long.’ I almost smiled when she mentioned my name. So she was inventing the stories and pretending they came from the two blinded children. ‘The man who calls himself king in Wessex has retreated to Lundene,’ Brida declared, ‘and soon Jarl Ragnall will scour him from that city. Soon all Britain will be ours!’

The thin man welcomed that claim by thumping his staff on the wooden dais, and the men in the hall, those who were accustomed to this ritual, responded by slapping the floor. Brida smiled, or at least she bared her yellow teeth in another grimace. ‘And I am told that Orvar Freyrson has returned from Ireland!’

‘I have!’ Orvar said. He sounded nervous.

‘Come here, Orvar Freyrson,’ Brida ordered.

Orvar stood and went to the dais. The two men who had received purses had gone back to the crowd, and Orvar knelt alone in front of the black-draped throne with its malevolent occupant.

‘You bring the girl from Ireland?’ Brida asked, knowing the answer because she was staring at Stiorra.

‘Yes, lady,’ Orvar spoke in a whisper.

‘And her husband?’

‘Is dead, lady.’

‘Dead?’

‘Cut down by our swords, lady.’

‘Did you bring me his head?’ Brida asked.

‘I didn’t think, lady. No.’

‘A pity,’ she said, still gazing at Stiorra. ‘But you have done well, Orvar Freyrson. You have brought us Stiorra Uhtredsdottir and her spawn. You have fulfilled the Jarl’s bidding, your name will be told in Asgard, you will be beloved of the gods! You are blessed!’ She gave him a purse, much heavier than the two she had already presented, then peered into the body of the hall again. For a moment I thought her old eyes looked straight into mine and I felt a shiver of fear, but her gaze moved on. ‘You bring men, Orvar!’ she said. ‘Many men!’

‘Five crews,’ he muttered. He, like the men who had knelt to her before, stared down at her footstool.

‘You will take them to Jarl Ragnall,’ Brida ordered. ‘You will leave tomorrow and march to help his conquest. Go now,’ she waved him away, ‘back to your place.’ Orvar seemed relieved to be off the dais. He came back to the stone floor and knelt beside Stiorra.

Brida turned in the throne. ‘Fritjof!’ The thin man hurried to offer his mistress an arm to help her out of the throne. ‘Take me to the girl,’ she ordered.

There was not a sound in the Great Hall as she shuffled down from the dais and across the rush-covered stones. Fritjof, smiling, held her arm until she shook him off when she was five paces from Stiorra. ‘Stand, girl,’ she ordered.

Stiorra stood.

‘And your whelp,’ Brida snarled, and Stiorra tugged Gisela to her feet. ‘You will go south with Orvar,’ Brida told Stiorra, ‘to your new life as a wife to Jarl Ragnall. You are fortunate, girl, that he chose you. If your fate was mine?’ She paused and shuddered. ‘Fritjof!’

‘My lady,’ the thin man murmured.

‘She must go arrayed as a bride. That grubby smock won’t do. You will find suitable clothes.’

‘Something beautiful, my lady,’ Fritjof said. He looked Stiorra up and down. ‘As beautiful as the lady herself.’

‘How would you know?’ Brida asked nastily. ‘But find her something fit for a queen of all Britain,’ Brida almost spat the last four words. ‘Something fit for the Jarl. But if you disappoint the Jarl,’ she was talking to Stiorra again, ‘you will be mine, girl, do you understand?’

‘No,’ Stiorra said, not because that was true, but because she wanted to annoy Brida.

She succeeded. ‘You’re not queen yet!’ Brida screeched. ‘Not yet, girl! And if Jarl Ragnall tires of you then you’ll wish you were a slave girl in the lowest brothel of Britain.’ She shuddered. ‘And that will happen, girl, it will happen! You are your father’s daughter and his rotten blood will show in you.’ She cackled suddenly. ‘Go to your queendom, girl, but know you will end as my slave and then you will wish your mother had never opened her thighs. Now give me your daughter.’

Stiorra did not move. She just clutched Gisela’s hand tighter. There was not a sound in the Great Hall. It seemed to me that every man there held his breath.

‘Give me your daughter!’ Brida hissed each word separately, distinctly.

‘No,’ Stiorra said.

I was slowly, carefully, moving Wasp-Sting’s scabbard so my right hand could reach her hilt. I grasped it and went still again.

‘Your daughter is fortunate,’ Brida said, crooning now as if she wanted to seduce Stiorra into obedience. ‘Your new husband doesn’t want your spawn! And you can’t keep her! But I will give her a new life of great wisdom, I will make her an enchantress! She will be given the power of the gods!’ She held out her hand, but Stiorra stubbornly held onto her daughter. ‘Odin,’ Brida said, ‘sacrificed an eye so he could learn wisdom. Your child will have the same wisdom! She will see the future!’

‘You’d blind her?’ Stiorra asked, horrified.

I slowly, so slowly, eased the short blade from its scabbard. Stiorra’s dark cloak hid me from Brida.

‘I won’t blind her, fool,’ Brida snarled, ‘but open her eyes to the gods. Give her to me!’

‘No!’ Stiorra said. I held Wasp-Sting by the blade.

‘Fritjof,’ Brida said, ‘take the child.’

‘Blind her now?’ Fritjof asked.

‘Blind her now,’ Brida said.

Fritjof laid down his staff and took an awl from a pouch at his belt. The awl had a bulbous wooden handle that held a short and stout metal spike, the kind used by leather-workers to punch holes. ‘Come child,’ he said, and stepped forward, reaching, and Stiorra took a pace backwards. She thrust Gisela behind her and I took the child’s hand and, at the same moment, pushed Wasp-Sting’s hilt into Stiorra’s grasp. Fritjof, not yet understanding what was happening, leaned forward to snatch the child from behind Stiorra’s back, and she stabbed Wasp-Sting up and forward.

The first Brida knew of any trouble was when Fritjof gave a shriek. He recoiled, the awl clattering on the stones, and then he clutched at his groin and moaned as blood spilled down his legs. I thrust Gisela back into the crowd and stood myself. All around me men were producing seaxes or knives, Sigtryggr was pushing through the throng, and Sihtric came with him, carrying Serpent-Breath. ‘We killed the two outside, lord,’ he said, giving me the sword.

Fritjof collapsed. Stiorra’s thrust had glanced off his ribs, scored down his belly and cut him to the groin, and he was now mewing pathetically, his legs kicking beneath his long robe. My men were all standing now, swords or seaxes in hand. One guard was foolish enough to level his spear and he went down under a welter of sword-blows. I thrust Sigtryggr forward. ‘Get to the dais,’ I told him, ‘the throne is yours!’

‘No!’ the shriek was Brida’s. It had taken her a shocked moment to understand what was happening, to understand that her Great Hall had been invaded by an outnumbering enemy. She stared at Fritjof for a heartbeat then launched herself at Stiorra, only to be caught by Sigtryggr, who thrust her backwards so violently that she tripped on the stones and sprawled on her back.

‘The dais!’ I called to Sigtryggr. ‘Leave her!’

My men, I counted Orvar’s crews among my men now, far outnumbered the rest. I saw my son striding down one side of the hall, using his sword to knock the guards’ spears to the floor. Sihtric had his sword at Brida’s throat, keeping her down. He looked at me quizzically, but I shook my head. It would not be his privilege to kill her. Sigtryggr had reached the dais where the two blind girls were crying hysterically, and the guards, still with spears in their hands, stared in shock at the chaos beneath them. Sigtryggr stood beside the throne and looked at the guards one by one, and one by one their spears were lowered. He plucked the black cloth from the throne, tossed it aside, then kicked the footstool away and sat. He reached out and gathered the two girls, holding them close to his knees and soothing them. ‘Keep the bitch there,’ I told Sihtric, then joined Sigtryggr on the dais. ‘You,’ I snarled at the eight spearmen who had guarded the throne, ‘leave your spears here and join the others,’ I pointed to the body of the hall, then waited as they obeyed me. Only one of Brida’s men had put up any kind of fight and even he, I reckoned, had raised his weapon from panic rather than out of loyalty. Brida, like Ragnall, ruled by terror, and her support had vanished like mist under a burning sun.

‘My name,’ I stood at the front of the dais, ‘is Uhtred of Bebbanburg.’