The Lords of the North (3 page)

He looked scared when he came onto the dais at the hall's end, and no wonder, for the mad
Hrothweard had summoned up a whirlwind and Egbert must have known that Ivarr's Danes would be
coming for revenge. Yet Egbert's followers were caught up in the excitement, sure that
Alfred's victory foretold the final defeat of the Northmen, and my arrival was taken as
another sign from heaven. I was pushed forward and the news of my coming was shouted at the
king who looked confused, and was even more confused when another voice, a familiar voice,
called out my name. 'Uhtred! Uhtred!'

I looked for the speaker and saw it was Father Willibald.

'Uhtred!' he shouted again and looked delighted to see me. Egbert frowned at me, then
looked at Willibald. 'Uhtred!' the priest said, ignoring the king, and came forward to
embrace me.

Father Willibald was a good friend and a good man. He was a West Saxon who had once been
chaplain to Alfred's fleet, and fate had decreed that he would be the man sent north to carry
the good news of Ethandun to the Northumbrian Saxons.

The clamour in the hall subsided. Egbert tried to take command. 'Your name is,' he said,
then decided he did not know what my name was.

'Steapa!' one of the men who had escorted us into the city called out.

'Uhtred!' Willibald announced, his eyes bright with excitement.

'I am Uhtred of Bebbanburg.' I confessed, unable to prolong my deception. The man who
killed Ubba Lothbrokson!' Willibald announced and tried to hold up my right hand to show I
was a champion. 'And the man,' he went on, 'who toppled Svein of the White Horse at
Ethandun!'

In two days, I thought, Kjartan the Cruel would know that I was in Northumbria, and in
three my uncle Ælfric would have learned of my coming, and if I had possessed an ounce of
sense I would have forced my way out of that hall, taken Hild with me, and headed south as fast
as Archbishop Wulfhere had vanished from Eoferwic.

'You were at Ethandun?' Egbert asked me.

'I was, lord.'

'What happened?'

They had already heard the tale of the battle from Willibald, but his was a priest's
version, heavy with prayers and miracles. I gave them what they wanted which was a warrior's
story of dead Danes and sword-slaughter, and all the while a fierce-eyed priest with bristly
hair and an unruly beard interrupted me with shouts of hallelujah. I gathered this was
Father Hrothweard, the priest who had roused Eoferwic to slaughter. He was young, scarce
older than I was, but he had a powerful voice and a natural authority that was given
extra force by his passion. Every hallelujah was accompanied by a shower of spittle,
and no sooner had I described the defeated Danes spilling down the great slope from
Ethandun's summit than Hrothweard leaped forward and harangued the crowd. This is Uhtred!' he
shouted, poking me in my mail-clad ribs, 'Uhtred of Northumbria, Uhtred of Bebbanburg, a
killer of Danes, a warrior of God, a sword of the Lord! And he has come to us, just as the
blessed Saint Cuthbert visited Alfred in his time of tribulation! These are signs from the
Almighty!' The crowd cheered, the king looked scared, and Hrothweard, ever ready to launch
into a fiery sermon, began frothing at the mouth as he described the coming slaughter of
every Dane in Northumbria. I managed to sidle away from Hrothweard, making my way to the
back of the dais where I took Willibald by the scruff of his skinny neck and forced him into a
passage which led to the king's private chambers. 'You're an idiot,' I growled at him,
'you're an earsling. You're a witless dribbling turd, that's what you are. I should slit your
useless guts here and now and feed them to the pigs.'

Willibald opened his mouth, closed it and looked helpless. The Danes will be back here,' I
promised him, 'and there's going to be a massacre.'

His mouth opened and closed again, and still no sound came.

'So what you're going to do,' I said, 'is cross the Ouse and go south as fast as your legs
will carry you.'

'But it's all true.' he pleaded.

'What's all true?'

'That Saint Cuthbert gave us victory!'

'Of course it isn't true!' I snarled. 'Alfred made it up. You think Cuthbert came to him in
Æthelingaeg? Then why didn't he tell us about the dream when it happened? Why does he wait till
after the battle to tell us?' I paused and Willibald made a strangled noise. 'He waited,' I
answered myself, 'because it didn't happen.'

'But . . .'

'He made it up!' I growled, 'because he wants Northumbrians to look to Wessex for
leadership against the Danes. He wants to be king of Northumbria, don't you understand that?
And not just Northumbria. I've no doubt he's got fools like you telling the Mercians that one
of their damned saints appeared to him in a dream.'

'But he did.' he interrupted me, and when I looked bemused, he explained further.
'You're right! Saint Kenelm spoke to Alfred in Æthelingaeg. He came to him in a dream and he
told Alfred that he would win.'

'No he did not.' I said as patiently as I could.

'But it's true!' he insisted, 'Alfred told me himself! It's God's doing, Uhtred, and
wonderful to behold.'

I took him by the shoulders, pressing him against the passage wall. 'You've got a choice,
father.' I said. 'You can get out of Eoferwic before the Danes come back, or you can tip your
head to one side.'

'I can do what?' he asked, puzzled.

'Tip your head,' I said, 'and I'll thump you on one ear so all the nonsense falls out of the
other.'

He would not be persuaded. God's glory, ignited by the bloodshed at Ethandun and fanned
by the lie about Saint Cuthbert, was glowing on Northumbria and poor Willibald was convinced
he was present at the beginning of great things. There was a feast that night, a sorry
business of salted herrings, cheese, hard bread and stale ale, and Father Hrothweard made
another impassioned speech in which he claimed that Alfred of Wessex had sent me, his
greatest warrior, to lead the city's defence, and that the fyrd of heaven would come to
Eoferwic's protection. Willibald kept shouting hallelujah, believing all the rubbish,
and it was only the next day when a grey rain and a sullen mist enveloped the city that he
began to doubt the imminent arrival of sword-angels.

Folk were leaving the city. There were rumours of Danish war-bands gathering to the
north. Hrothweard was still shrieking his nonsense, and he led a procession of priests and
monks about the city streets, holding aloft relics and banners, but anyone with sense now
understood that Ivarr was likely to return long before Saint Cuthbert turned up with a
heavenly host. King Egbert sent a messenger to find me, and the man said the king would talk
with me, but I reckoned Egbert was doomed so I ignored the summons. Egbert would have to
shift for himself.

Just as I had to shift for myself, and what I wanted was to get far from the city before
Ivarr's wrath descended on it, and in the Crossed Swords tavern, hard by the city's northern
gate, I found my escape. He was a Dane called Bolti and he had survived the massacre because
he was married to a Saxon and his wife's family had sheltered him. He saw me in the tavern
and asked if I was Uhtred of Bebbanburg.

'I am.'

He sat opposite me, bowed his head respectfully to Hild, then snapped his fingers to
summon a girl with ale. He was a plump man, bald, with a pocked face, a broken nose and
frightened eyes. His two sons, both half Saxon, loitered behind him. I guessed one was about
twenty and the other five years younger, and both wore swords though neither looked
comfortable with the weapons. 'I knew Earl Ragnar the Elder.' Bolti said.

'I knew him too,' I said, 'and I don't remember you,'

The last time he sailed in Wind-Viper,' he said, 'I sold him ropes and oar-looms.'

'Did you cheat him?' I asked sarcastically.

'I liked him.' he said fiercely.

'And I loved him,' I said, 'because he became my father.'

'I know he did,' he said, 'and I remember you.' He fell silent and glanced at Hild. 'You
were very young,' he went on, looking back to me, 'and you were with a small dark girl.'

'You do remember me then.' I said, and fell silent as the ale was brought. I noticed that
Bolti, despite being a Dane, wore a cross about his neck and he saw me looking at it.

'In Eoferwic,' he said, touching the cross, 'a man must live.' He pulled aside his coat and
I saw Thor's hammer amulet had been hidden beneath it. 'They mostly killed pagans,' he
explained.

I pulled my own hammer amulet out from beneath my jerkin. 'Are many Danes Christians now?'
I asked.

'A few,' he said grudingly, 'you want food to go with that ale?'

'I want to know why you're talking with me,' I said. He wanted to leave the city. He wanted
to take his Saxon wife, two sons and two daughters a long way from the vengeful massacre he
suspected was coming, and he wanted swords to escort him, and he stared at me with
pathetic, despairing eyes and did not know that what he wanted was just what I wanted.

'So where will you go?' I asked.

'Not west,' he said with a shudder. 'There's killing in Cumbraland.'

'There's always killing in Cumbraland,' I said. Cumbraland was the part of Northumbria
that lay across the hills and next to the Irish Sea, and it was raided by Scots from Strath
Clota, by Norsemen from Ireland and by Britons from north Wales. Some Danes had settled in
Cumbraland, but not enough to keep the wild raids from ravaging the place.

'I'd go to Denmark,' Bolti said, 'but there are no warships.' The only ships left at
Eoferwic's quays were Saxon traders, and if any dared sail they would be snapped up by Danish
ships that were doubtless gathering in the Humber.

'So?' I asked.

'So I want to go north,' he said, 'and meet Ivarr. I can pay you.'

'And you think I can escort you through Kjartan's land?'

'I think I will do better with Ragnar's son beside me than on my own,' he admitted, 'and
if men know you travel with me then they will join us.'

So I let him pay me, and my price was sixteen shillings, two mares and a black stallion, and
the price of the last made Bolti go pale. A man had been leading the stallion about the
streets, offering it for sale, and Bolti bought the animal because his fear of being trapped
in Eoferwic was worth forty shillings. The black horse was battle trained, which meant he was
not startled at loud noises and he moved obediently to the pressure of a knee, which left a
man free to hold shield and sword and still manoeuvre. The stallion had been plundered from
one of the Danes massacred in the last few days for no one knew his name. I called him
Witnere, which means Tormentor, and it was apt for he took a dislike to the two mares and
kept snapping at them. The mares were for Willibald and Hild. I told Father Willibald he should
go south, but he was scared now and insisted on staying with me and so, the day after I had
met Bolti, we all rode north along the Roman road. A dozen men came with us. Among them were
three Danes and two Norsemen who had managed to hide from Hrothweard's massacre, and the rest
were Saxons who wanted to escape Ivarr's revenge. All had weapons and Bolti gave me money to
pay them. They did not get much in wages, just enough to buy food and ale, but their presence
deterred any outlaws on the long road.

I was tempted to ride to Synningthwait which was where Ragnar and his followers had
their land, but I knew there would be very few men there, for most had gone south with Ragnar.
Some of those warriors had died at Ethandun and the rest were still with Guthrum, whose
defeated army had stayed in Mercia. Guthrum and Alfred had made peace, and Guthrum had even
been baptised, which Willibald said was a miracle. So there would be few warriors at
Synningthwait. No place to find refuge against my uncle's murderous ambitions or
Kjartan's hate. So, with no real plan for my future and content to let fate work its will, I
kept faith with Bolti and escorted him north towards Kjartan's land which lay athwart our
path like a dark cloud. To pass through that land meant paying a toll, and that toll would be
steep, and only powerful men like Ivarr, whose warriors outnumbered Kjartan's followers,
could cross the River Wiire without payment. 'You can afford it.' I teased Bolti. His two
sons each led packhorses that I suspected were loaded with coins wrapped in cloth or fleece
to stop them clinking.

'I can't afford it if he takes my daughters.' Bolti said. He had twin daughters who were
twelve or thirteen, ripe for marriage. They were short, plump, fair-haired, snub-nosed and
impossible to tell apart.

'Is that what Kjartan does?' I asked.

'He takes what he wants,' Bolti said sourly, 'and he likes young girls, though I suspect he'd
prefer to take you.'

'And why do you suspect that?' I asked him tonelessly.

'I know the tales,' he said. 'His son lost his eye because of you.'

'His son lost his eye,' I said, 'because he stripped Earl Ragnar's daughter half
naked.'

'But he blames you.'

'He does.' I agreed. We had all been children then, but childhood injuries can fester and
I did not doubt that Sven the One-Eyed would love to take both my eyes as revenge for his
one.

So as we neared Dunholm we turned west into the hills to avoid Kjartan's men. It was
summer, but a chill wind brought low clouds and a thin rain so that I was glad of my
leather-lined mail coat. Hild had smeared the metal rings with lanolin squeezed out of
newly-shorn fleeces, and it protected most of the metal from rust. She had put the grease on
my helmet and sword-blades too. We climbed, following the well-worn track, and a couple of
miles behind us another group followed, and there were fresh hoofprints in the damp earth
betraying that others had passed this way not long before. Such heavy use of the path should
have made me think. Kjartan the Cruel and Sven the One-Eyed lived off the dues that
travellers paid them, and if a traveller did not pay then they were robbed, taken as slaves or
killed. Kjartan and his son had to be aware that folk were trying to avoid them by using the
hill paths, and I should have been more wary. Bolti was unafraid, for he simply trusted me. He
told me tales of how Kjartan and Sven had become rich from slaves. They take anyone, Dane or
Saxon,' he said, 'and sell them over the water. If you're lucky you can sometimes ransom a
slave back, but the price will be high.' He glanced at Father Willibald. 'He kills all
priests.'