The Burning Land Part 20

There was feasting and gift-giving and, during the day, talking. The jarls had arrived believing the tale that we gathered men for an a.s.sault on Bebbanburg, but Ragnar disabused them on the first day. "And Alfred will hear we plan to attack Wess.e.x," he warned them, "because some of you will tell your men, and they will tell others, and this news will reach Alfred within days."

"So keep silent," Sigurd Thorrson growled.

Jarl Sigurd was a tall, hard-looking man with a beard plaited into two great ropes which he twisted about his thick neck. He owned land that stretched from southern Northumbria into northern Mercia and had learned his trade by fighting aethelred's warriors. His friend, c.n.u.t Ranulfson, was slighter, but had the same wiry strength that Finan possessed. c.n.u.t was reputed to be the finest swordsman in all Britain, and his blade, together with the horde of household warriors his wealth commanded, had given him lands bordering Sigurd's estates. His hair was bone white, though he was only thirty years old, and he had the palest eyes I have ever seen, which, with his hair, gave him a spectral appearance. He had a quick smile, though, and an infinite store of jests. "I had a Saxon slave girl just as pretty as that one," he had told me when we first met. He was gazing at one of Ragnar's slaves who was carrying wooden platters to the great hall. "But she died," he went on gloomily, "died from drinking milk."

"The milk was bad?"

"The cow collapsed on top of her," c.n.u.t said and burst into laughter.

c.n.u.t was in a serious mood when Ragnar announced that he wanted to lead an a.s.sault on Wess.e.x. Ragnar gave a good speech, explaining that West Saxon power was growing and that West Saxon ambitions were to capture Mercia, then East Anglia and finally to invade Northumbria. "King Alfred," Ragnar said, "calls himself King of the Angelcynn, and English is spoken in my land as it is in all your lands. If we do nothing then the English will take us one by one."

"Alfred is dying," c.n.u.t objected.

"But his ambitions will live on," Ragnar said. "And Wess.e.x knows its best defense is attack, and Wess.e.x has a dream of pushing its boundary to touch the land of the Scots."

"Wish the b.a.s.t.a.r.ds would conquer the Scots," a man interjected glumly.

"If we do nothing," Ragnar said, "then one day Northumbria will be ruled by Wess.e.x."

There was an argument about the real power of Wess.e.x. I kept silent, though I knew more than any man there. I let them talk their way to sense and, under Ragnar's guidance, they at last understood that Wess.e.x was a country that had organized itself for war. Its defense was the burhs, garrisoned by the fyrd, but its offense was the growing number of household warriors who could gather under the king's banner. The Danes were more feared, man for man, but they had never organized themselves as Alfred had organized Wess.e.x. Every Danish jarl protected his own land, and was reluctant to follow the orders of another jarl. It was possible to unite them, as Harald had done, but at the first setback the crews would scatter to find easier plunder.

"So," Sigurd growled dubiously, "we have to capture the burhs?"

"Harald captured one," Ragnar pointed out.

"I hear it was only half built," Sigurd said, looking at me for confirmation. I nodded.

"If you want Wess.e.x," Ragnar said, "we must take the burhs." He forced a confident smile. "We sail to his south coast," he went on, "in a great fleet! We'll capture Exanceaster and then march on Wintanceaster. Alfred will be expecting an attack from the north, so we'll a.s.sault from the south."

"And his ships will see our fleet," c.n.u.t objected, "and his warriors will be waiting for us."

"His warriors," a new voice intervened from the back of the hall, "will be fighting against my crews. So you will only have Alfred's fyrd to fight." The speaker stood in the open hall doorway and the sun was so bright that none of us could see him properly. "I shall a.s.sault Mercia," the man said in a loud and confident voice, "and Alfred's forces will march to defend it, and with them gone, Wess.e.x will be ripe for your plucking." The man came a few paces forward, followed by a dozen mailed warriors. "Greetings, Jarl Ragnar," he said, "and to you all," he swept an expansive hand around the company, "greetings!"

It was Haesten. He had not been invited to this council, yet there he was, smiling and glittering with gold chains. It was a mild day, yet he had chosen to wear an otterskin cloak lined with rare yellow silk to show his wealth. There was a moment's embarra.s.sment fol lowing his arrival as though no one was certain whether to treat him as a friend or an interloper, but then Ragnar leaped to his feet and embraced the newcomer.

I will not describe the tedium that followed over the next two days. The men a.s.sembled in Dunholm were capable of raising the greatest Danish army ever seen in Britain, yet they were still apprehensive because all knew that Wess.e.x had defeated every a.s.sault. Ragnar now had to persuade them that the circ.u.mstances were changed. Alfred was sick and could not be expected to behave as a young and energetic leader, his son was inexperienced and, he flattered me, Uhtred of Bebbanburg had deserted Wess.e.x. So it was at last agreed that Wess.e.x was vulnerable, but who would be king? I had expected that argument to last forever, but Sigurd and c.n.u.t had discussed it privately and agreed that Sigurd would rule Wess.e.x while c.n.u.t would take the throne of Northumbria when the sick, mad, and sad Guthred died. Ragnar had no ambition to live in the south, nor did I, and though Haesten doubtless hoped to be offered Wess.e.x's crown, he accepted that he would be named King of Mercia.

Haesten's arrival made the whole idea of attacking Wess.e.x appear more feasible. No one really trusted him, but few doubted that he planned an a.s.sault on Mercia. He really wanted our troops to join his, and in truth that would have made sense because, united, we would have made a mighty army, but no one could ever have agreed on who commanded that army. And so it was decided that Haesten would lead at least two thousand men westward from his stronghold at Beamfleot and, once the West Saxon troops marched to oppose him, the Northumbrian fleet would a.s.sault the south coast. Every man present swore to keep the plans secret, though I doubted that solemn oath was worth a whisker. Alfred would hear soon enough.

"So I'll be King of Mercia," Haesten told me on the last night, when again the great hall was lit by fire and filled with feasting.

"Only if you hold off the West Saxons long enough," I warned him. He waved a hand as though that task were trivial. "Capture a Mercian burh," I advised him, "and force them to besiege you."

He bit into a goose leg and the fat ran down into his beard. "Who'll command them?"

"Edward, probably, but he'll be advised by aethelred and Steapa."

"They're not you, my friend," he said, jabbing my forearm with the goose bone.

"My children are in Mercia," I told him. "Make sure they live."

Haesten heard the grimness in my voice. "I promise you," he said earnestly, "I swear it on my life. Your children will be safe." He touched my arm as if to a.s.sure me, then pointed the goose bone at Cellach. "Who's that child?"

"A hostage from Scotland," I said. Cellach had arrived a week before with a small entourage. He had two warriors to guard him, two servants to dress and feed him, and a hunchbacked priest to educate him. I liked him. He was a st.u.r.dy little boy who had accepted his exile bravely. He had already made friends among the fortress's children and was forever escaping the hunchback's lessons to scamper wildly along the ramparts or scramble down the steep slope of Dunholm's rocks.

"So no trouble from the Scots?" Haesten asked.

"The boy dies if they so much as p.i.s.s across the border," I said.

Haesten grinned. "So I'll be King of Mercia, Sigurd of Wess.e.x, c.n.u.t of Northumbria, but what of you?"

I poured him mead and paused a moment to watch a man juggle with flaming sticks. "I shall take West Saxon silver," I said, "and reclaim Bebbanburg."

"You don't want to be king of somewhere?" he asked disbelievingly.

"I want Bebbanburg," I said, "it's all I've ever wanted. I'll take my children there, raise them, and never leave."

Haesten said nothing. I did not think he had even heard me. He was staring in awe, and he stared at Skade. She was in drab servant's dress, yet even so her beauty shone like a beacon in the dark. I think, at that moment, I could have stolen the chains of gold from around Haesten's neck and he would have been unaware. He just stared and Skade, sensing his gaze, turned to face him. They locked eyes.

"Bebbanburg," I said again, "it's all I've ever wanted."

"Yes," he said distractedly, "I heard you." He still stared at Skade. No other folk existed for them in that roaring hall. Brida, sitting further along the high table, had seen their locked gazes and she turned to me and raised an eyebrow. I shrugged.

Brida was happy that night. She had arranged Britain's future, though her influence had been wielded through Ragnar. Yet it was her ambition that had spurred him, and that ambition was to destroy Wess.e.x and, eventually, the power of the priests who spread their gospel so insidiously. In a year, we all believed, the only Christian king in England would be Eohric of East Anglia, and he would change allegiance when he saw how the wind had turned. Indeed, there would be no England at all, just Daneland. It all seemed so simple, so easy, so straightforward and, on that night of harp music and laughter, of ale and comradeship, none of us could antic.i.p.ate failure. Mercia was weak, Wess.e.x was vulnerable, and we were the Danes, the feared spear-warriors of the north.

Then, next day, Father Pyrlig came to Dunholm.

TWO.

A storm came that night. It hurtled sudden from the north, its first signs a violent gust of wind that shuddered across the fortress. Within moments clouds drowned the stars and lightning shivered the sky. The storm woke me in the house where I had sweated and frozen through the sickness, and I heard the first few heavy drops of rain fall plump and hard on the thatch, then it seemed as though a river was emptying itself on Dunholm's fort. The sky seethed and the rain's noise was louder than any thunder. I got out of bed and wrapped a blanket of sheepskins around my naked shoulders and went to stand in the doorway where I pulled aside the leather curtain. The girl in my bed whimpered and I told her to join me. She was a Saxon slave, and I lifted the blanket to enfold her and she stood pressed against me, wide-eyed in the lightning flashes as she watched the roaring darkness. She said something, but what it was I could not tell because the wind and the rain drowned her words.

The storm came fast and it went fast. I watched the lightning travel southward and heard the rain diminish, and then it seemed as though the night held its breath in the silence that followed the thunder. The rain stopped, though water still dripped from the eaves, and some trickled through the thatch to hiss on the remnants of the fire. I threw new wood onto the smoldering embers, added kindling, and let the flames leap upward. The leather curtain was still hooked open and I saw the firelight brighten in other houses and in the two big halls. It was a restless night at Dunholm. The girl lay on the bed again, swathing herself in fleeces and furs, and her fire-bright eyes watched as I drew Serpent-Breath from her scabbard and slid the blade slowly through the newly revived flames. I did it twice, slowly bathing each side of her long blade, then wiping the steel with the sheepskin. "Why do you do that, lord?" she asked.

"I don't know," I said, nor did I, except that Serpent-Breath, like all swords, had been born in flames and sometimes I liked to bathe her in fire to preserve whatever sorcery had been enchanted into her at the moment of her creation. I kissed the warm steel reverently and slid it back into her scabbard. "We can be certain of nothing," I said, "except our weapons and death."

"We can be certain of G.o.d, lord," she insisted in a small voice.

I smiled, but said nothing. I wondered if my G.o.ds cared about us. Perhaps that was the advantage of the Christian G.o.d, that he had somehow convinced his followers that he did care, that he watched over them and protected them, yet I did not see that Christian children died any less often than pagan children, or that Christians were spared disease and floods and fire. Yet Christians forever declared their G.o.d's love.

Footsteps sounded wet outside. Someone was running toward my hut and, though I was safe inside Ragnar's fortress, I instinctively reached for Serpent-Breath, and was still holding the hilt as a burly man ducked inside the open doorway. "Dear sweet Jesus," he said, "but it's cold out there."

I let go of the sword as Father Pyrlig crouched on the fire's far side. "You couldn't sleep?" I asked.

"Now who in G.o.d's name could sleep through that storm?" he demanded. "You'd have to be deaf, blind, drunk, and stupid to sleep through that. Good morning, lord," he grinned at me, "naked like a newborn as you are." He twisted his head and smiled at the slave. "Blessings on you, child," he said.

She was nervous of the newcomer and glanced anxiously at me. "He's a kind man," I rea.s.sured her, "and a priest." Father Pyrlig was dressed in breeches and jerkin with no sign of any priestly robes. He had arrived the previous evening, earning a chill reception from Brida, but enchanting Ragnar with his exaggerated tales of battle. He had been drunk by the time Ragnar went to bed, so I had found very little chance to talk with my old friend.

I took a cloak from a peg and clasped it around my throat. The wool was damp. "Does your G.o.d love you?" I asked Pyrlig.

He laughed at that. "My G.o.d, what a question, lord! Well, he keeps me miles away from my wife, so he does, and what greater blessing can a man ask? And he fills my belly and he keeps me amused! Did I tell you about the slave girl that died of drinking milk?"

"The cow collapsed on her," I said flatly.

"He's a funny man, that c.n.u.t," Pyrlig said, "I'll regret it when you kill him."

"I kill him?" I asked. The girl stared at me.

"You'll probably have to," Pyrlig said.

"Don't listen to him," I told the girl, "he's raving."

"I'm Welsh, my darling," he explained to her, then turned back to me, "and can you tell me, lord, why a good Welshman should be doing Saxon business?"

"Because you're an interfering earsling," I said, "and G.o.d knows what a.r.s.e you dropped out of, but here you are."

"G.o.d uses strange instruments for his wondrous purposes," Pyrlig said. "Why don't you dress and watch the dawn with me?"

Father Pyrlig, like Bishop a.s.ser, was a Welshman who had found employment in Alfred's service, though he told me he had not come to Dunholm from Wess.e.x, but rather from Mercia. "I was last in Wintanceaster at Christmas," he told me, "and my G.o.d, poor Alfred is sick! He looks like a warmed-up corpse, he does, and not very well warmed-up either."

"What were you doing in Mercia?"

"Smelling the place," he said mysteriously, then, just as mysteriously, added, "it's that wife of his."

"Whose wife?"

"aelswith. Why did Alfred marry her? She should feed the poor man some b.u.t.ter and cream, make him eat some good beef."

Father Pyrlig had eaten his share of b.u.t.ter and cream. He was big-bellied, broad-shouldered, and eternally cheerful. His hair was a tangled mess, his grin was infectious, and his religion was carried lightly, though never shallowly. He stood beside me above Dunholm's south gate and I told him how Ragnar and I had captured the fortress. Pyrlig, before he became a priest, had been a warrior and he appreciated the tale of how I had sneaked inside Dunholm by a water-gate on the west side, and how we had survived long enough to open the gate above which we now stood, and how Ragnar had led his flame-bearing sword-Danes through the gate and into the fortress where we had fought Kjartan's men to defeat and death. "Ah," he said when the tale was finished, "I should have been here. It sounds like a rare fight!"

"So what brings you here now?"

He grinned at me. "A man can't just visit an old friend?"

"Alfred sent you," I said sourly.

"I told you, I came here from Mercia, not Wess.e.x." He leaned on the palisade's top. "Do you remember," he asked me, "the night before you captured Lundene?"

"I do remember," I said, "that you told me you were dressed for prayer that night. You were in mail and carried two swords."

"What better time to pray than before a battle?" he asked. "And that was another rare fight, my friend."

"It was."

"And before it, lord," he said, "you made an oath."

My anger rose as swiftly as the river had been swollen by the storm's sudden rain. "d.a.m.n Alfred and his oaths," I said, "d.a.m.n him to his h.e.l.l. I gave that b.a.s.t.a.r.d the best years of my life! He wouldn't even sit on the throne of Wess.e.x if I hadn't fought for him! Harald Bloodhair would be king now, and Alfred would be rotting in his tomb, and does he thank me? Once in a while he'd pat me on the head like a d.a.m.ned dog, but then he lets that t.u.r.d-brained monk insult Gisela and he expects me to crawl to him for forgiveness after I kill the b.a.s.t.a.r.d. Yes," I said, turning to look into Pyrlig's broad face, "I took an oath. Then let me tell you I am breaking it. It is broken. The G.o.ds can punish me for that and Alfred can rot in h.e.l.l's depth for all I care."

"I doubt it will be him in h.e.l.l," Pyrlig said mildly.

"You think I'd want to be in your heaven?" I demanded. "All those priests and monks and dried-up nuns? I'd rather risk h.e.l.l. No, father, I am not keeping my oath to Alfred. You can ride back and you can tell him that I have no oath to him, no allegiance, no duty, no loyalty, nothing! He's a scabby, ungrateful, cabbage-farting, squint-eyed b.a.s.t.a.r.d!"

"You know him better than I do," Pyrlig said lightly.

"He can take his oath and s.h.i.t on it," I snarled. "Go back to Wess.e.x and give him that answer." A shout made me turn, but it was only a servant bellowing at a protesting horse. One of the lords was leaving and evidently making an early start. A group of warriors, helmeted and in mail, were already mounted, while two horses waited with empty saddles. A pair of Ragnar's men ran to the gate beneath us and I heard the bar being lifted.

"Alfred didn't send me," Pyrlig said.

"You mean this is all your idea? To come and remind me of my oath? I don't need reminding."

"To break an oath is a..."

"I know!" I shouted.

"Yet men break oaths all the time," Pyrlig went on calmly, gazing south to where the first gray light of dawn was touching the crests of the hills. "Maybe that's why we hedge oaths with harsh law and strict custom, because we know they will be broken. I think Alfred knows you will not return. He is sad about that. If Wess.e.x is attacked then he will lack his sharpest sword, but even so he didn't send me. He thinks Wess.e.x is better without you. He wants a G.o.dly country and you were a thorn in that ambition."

"He might need some thorns if the Danes return to Wess.e.x," I snarled.

"He trusts in G.o.d, Lord Uhtred, he trusts in G.o.d."

I laughed at that. Let the Christian G.o.d defend Wess.e.x against the Northumbrian Danes when they stormed ash.o.r.e in the summer. "If Alfred doesn't want me back," I said, "then why are you wasting my time?"

"Because of the oath you made on the eve of the battle for Lundene," Pyrlig said, "and it was the person to whom you made that promise who asked me to come here."

I stared at him and fancied I heard the laughter of the Norns. The three spinners. The busy-fingered Norns who weave our fate. "No," I said, but without anger or force.

"She sent me."

"No," I said again.

"She wants your help."

"No!" I protested.

"And she asked me to remind you that you once swore to serve her."

I closed my eyes. It was true, all true. Had I forgotten that oath I made in the night before we attacked Lundene? I had not forgotten it, but nor had I ever thought that oath would harness me. "No," I said again, this time a mere whisper of denial.

"We are all sinners, lord," Pyrlig said gently, "but even the church recognizes that some sins are worse than others. The oath you made to Alfred was duty and it should have been rewarded with grat.i.tude, land, and silver. It is wrong of you to break that oath and I cannot approve, but I understand that Alfred was careless in his duty toward you. But the oath you made to the lady was sworn in love, and that oath you cannot break without destroying your soul."

"Love?" I made the query sound like a challenge.

"You loved Gisela, I know, and you did not break the oaths you gave to her, but you love the lady who sent me. You always have. I see it in your face, and I see it in hers. You are blind to it, but it dazzles the rest of us."