The Lords of the North (9 page)

I am no Christian. These days it does no good to confess that, for the bishops and abbots
have too much influence and it is easier to pretend to a faith than to fight angry ideas. I
was raised a Christian, but at ten years old, when I was taken into Ragnar's family, I
discovered the old Saxon gods who were also the gods of the Danes and of the Norsemen, and
their worship has always made more sense to me than bowing down to a god who belongs to a
country so far away that I have met no one who has ever been there. Thor and Odin walked our
hills, slept in our valleys, loved our women and drank from our streams, and that makes them
seem like neighbours. The other thing I like about our gods is that they are not obsessed with
us. They have their own squabbles and love affairs and seem to ignore us much of the time, but
the Christian god has nothing better to do than to make rules for He makes rules, more rules,
prohibitions and commandments, and he needs hundreds of black-robed priests and monks to
make sure we obey those laws. He strikes me as a very grumpy god, that one, even though his
priests are forever claiming that he loves us I have never been so stupid as to think that
Thor or Odin or Hoder loved me, though I hope at times they have thought me worthy of them.

But Guthred wanted the power of the Christian holy relics to work for him and so, to
Eadred's delight, he asked to be baptised. The ceremony was done in the open air, just
outside the big church, where Guthred was immersed in a great barrel of river-water and all
the monks waved their hands to heaven and said God's work was marvellous to behold. Guthred
was then draped in a robe and Eadred crowned him a second time by placing the dead King
Oswald's circlet of gilt bronze on his wet hair. Guthred's forehead was then smeared with cod
oil, he was given a sword and shield, and asked to kiss both the Lindisfarena gospel book and
the lips of Cuthbert's corpse that had been brought into the sunlight so that the whole crowd
could see the saint. Guthred looked as though he enjoyed the whole ceremony, and Abbot Eadred
was so moved that he took Saint Cuthbert's garnet-studded cross from the dead man's hands and
hung it about the new king's neck. He did not leave it there for long, but returned it to the
corpse after Guthred had been presented to his ragged people in Cair Ligualid's ruins.

That night there was a feast. There was little to eat, just smoked fish, stewed mutton and
hard bread, but there was plenty of ale, and next morning, with a throbbing head, I went to
Guthred's first witanegemot. Being a Dane, of course, he was not accustomed to such
council meetings where every thegn and senior churchman

was invited to offer advice, but Eadred insisted the Witan met, and Guthred
presided.

The meeting took place in the big church. It had started to rain overnight and water
dripped through the crude thatch so that men were forever trying to shift out of the way of
the drops. There were not enough chairs or stools, so we sat on the rush-strewn floor in a big
circle around Eadred and Guthred who were enthroned beside Saint Cuthbert's open coffin.
There were forty-six men there, half of them clergy and the other half the biggest landowners
of Cumbraland, both Danes and Saxons, but compared to a West Saxon witanegemot it was a
paltry affair. There was no great wealth on display. Some of the Danes wore arm rings and a
few of the Saxons had elaborate brooches, but in truth it looked more like a meeting of
farmers than a council of state. Eadred, though, had visions of greatness. He began by
telling us news from the rest of Northumbria. He knew what happened because he received
reports from churchmen all across the land, and those reports said that Ivarr was still in the
valley of the River Tuede, where he was fighting a bitter war of small skirmishes against
King Aed of Scotland. 'Kjartan the Cruel lurks in his stronghold,' Eadred said, 'and won't
emerge to fight. Which leaves Egbert of Eoferwic, and he is weak.'

'What about Ælfric?' I intervened.

'Ælfric of Bebbanburg is sworn to protect Saint Cuthbert,' Eadred said, 'and he will do
nothing to offend the saint.'

Maybe that was true, but my uncle would doubtless demand my skull as a reward for keeping
the corpse undefiled. I said nothing more, but just listened as Eadred proposed that we
formed an army and marched it across the hills to capture Eoferwic. That caused some
astonishment. Men glanced at each other, but such was Eadred's forceful confidence that at
first no one dared question him. They had expected to be told that they should have their men
ready to fight against the Norse Vikings from Ireland or to fend off another assault by
Eochaid of Strath Clota, but instead they were being asked to go far afield to depose King
Egbert.

Ulf, the wealthiest Dane of Cumbraland, finally intervened. He as elderly, perhaps
forty years old, and he had been lamed and scarred in Cumbraland's frequent quarrels, but he
could still bring forty or fifty trained warriors to Guthred. That was not many by the
standards of most parts of Britain, but it was a substantial force in Cumbraland. Now he
demanded to know why he should lead those men across the hills. 'We have no enemies in
Eoferwic,' he declared, 'but there are many foes who will attack our lands when we're
gone.'

Most of the other Danes murmured their agreement.

But Eadred knew his audience. 'There is great wealth in Eoferwic,' he said.

Ulf liked that idea, but was still cautious. 'Wealth?' he asked.

'Silver,' Eadred said, 'and gold, and jewels.'

'Women?' a man asked.

'Eoferwic is a sink of corruption,' Eadred announced, 'it is a haunt of devils and a
place of lascivious women. It is a city of evil that needs to be scoured by a holy army.' Most
of the Danes cheered up at the prospect of lascivious women, and none made any more protest at
the thought of attacking Eoferwic. Once the city was captured, a feat Eadred took for
granted, we were to march north and the men of Eoferwic, he claimed, would swell our ranks.
'Kjartan the Cruel will not face us,' Eadred declared, 'because he is a coward. He will go
to his fastness like a spider scuttling to his web and he will stay there and we shall let him
rot until the time comes to strike him down. Ælfric of Bebbanburg will not fight us, for he
is a Christian.'

'He's an untrustworthy bastard,' I growled, and was ignored.

'And we shall defeat Ivarr,' Eadred said, and I wondered how our rabble was supposed to
beat Ivarr's shield wall, but Eadred had no doubts. 'God and Saint Cuthbert will fight for us,'
he said, 'and then we shall be masters of Northumbria and almighty God will have established
Haliwerfolkland and we shall build a shrine to Saint Cuthbert that will astonish all the
world.'

That was what Eadred really wanted, a shrine. That was what the whole madness was about, a
shrine to a dead saint, and to that

end Eadred had made Guthred king and would now go to war with all Northumbria. And next day
the eight dark horsemen came.

We had three hundred and fifty-four men of fighting age, and of those fewer than twenty
possessed mail, and only about a hundred had decent leather armour. The men with leather or
mail mostly possessed helmets and had proper weapons, swords or spears, while the rest were
armed with axes, adzes, sickles or sharpened hoes. Eadred grandly called it the Army of the
Holy Man, but if I had been the holy man I would have bolted back to heaven and waited for
something better to come along.

A third of our army was Danish, the rest was mostly Saxon though there were a few Britons
armed with long hunting bows, and those can be fearful weapons, so I called the Britons the
Guard of the Holy Man and said they were to stay with the corpse of Saint Cuthbert who would
evidently accompany us on our march of conquest. Not that we could start our conquering
just yet because we had to amass food for the men and fodder for the horses, of which we had
only eighty-seven.

Which made the arrival of the dark horsemen welcome. There were eight of them, all on black
or brown horses and leading four spare mounts, and four of them wore mail and the rest had good
leather armour and all had black cloaks and black painted shields, and they rode into Cair
Ligualid from the east, following the Roman wall that led to the far bank of the river and
there they crossed by the ford because the old bridge had been pulled down by the Norsemen.

The eight horsemen were not the only newcomers. Men trickled in every hour. Many of them
were monks, but some were fighters coming from the hills and they usually came with an axe or
a quarterstaff. Few came with armour or a horse, but the eight dark riders arrived with full
war-gear. They were Danes and told Guthred they were from the steading of Hergist who had land
at a place called Heagostealdes. Hergist was old, they told Guthred, and could not come
himself, but he had sent the best men he had. Their leader was named Tekil and he looked to be
a useful warrior for he boasted four arm rings, had a long sword and a hard, confident face.
He appeared to be around thirty years old, as were most of his men, though one was much
younger, just a boy, and he was the only one without arm rings. 'Why,' Guthred demanded of
Tekil, 'would Hergist send men from Heagostealdes?'

'We're too close to Dunholm, lord,' Tekil answered, 'and Hergist wishes you to destroy
that nest of wasps.'

'Then you are welcome,' Guthred said, and he allowed the eight men to kneel to him and swear
him fealty. 'You should bring Tekil's men into my household troops.' he said to me later. We
were in a field to the south of Cair Ligualid where I was practising those household troops. I
had picked thirty young men, more or less at random, and made sure that half were Danes and
half were Saxons, and I insisted they made a shield wall in which every Dane had a Saxon
neighbour, and now I was teaching them how to fight and praying to my gods that they never
had to, for they knew next to nothing. The Danes were better, because the Danes are raised to
sword and shield, but none had yet been taught the discipline of the shield wall.

'Your shields have to touch!' I shouted at them, 'otherwise you're dead. You want to be
dead? You want your guts spooling around your feet? Touch the shields. Not that way, you
earsling! The right side of your shield goes in front of the left side of his shield.
Understand?' I said it again in Danish then glanced at Guthred. 'I don't want Tekil's men in
the bodyguard.'

'Why not?'

'Because I don't know them.'

'You don't know these men.' Guthred said, gesturing at his household troops.

'I know they're idiots.' I said, 'and I know their mothers should have kept their knees
together. What are you doing, Clapa?' I shouted at a hulking young Dane. I had forgotten
his real name, but everyone called him Clapa, which meant clumsy. He was a

huge farm boy, as strong as two other men, but not the cleverest of mortals. He stared at
me with dumb eyes as I stalked towards the line. 'What are you supposed to do, Clapa?'

'Stay close to the king, lord,' he said with a puzzled look.

'Good!' I said, because that was the first and most important lesson that had to be
thumped into the thirty young men. They were the king's household troops so they must always
stay with the king, but that was not the answer I wanted from Clapa. 'In the shield wall,
idiot,' I said, thumping his muscled chest,

'what are you supposed to do in the shield wall?'

He thought for a while, then brightened. 'Keep the shield up, lord.'

'That's right,' I said, dragging his shield up from his ankles. 'You don't dangle it around
your toes! What are you grinning at, Rypere?' Rypere was a Saxon, skinny where Clapa was
solid, and clever as a weasel. Rypere was a nickname which meant thief, for that was what
Rypere was and if there had been any justice he would have been branded and whipped, but I
liked the cunning in his young eyes and reckoned he would prove a killer. 'You know what you
are, Rypere?' I said, thumping his shield back into his chest, 'you're an earsling. What's an
earsling, Clapa?'

'A turd, lord.'

'Right, turds! Shields up! Up!' I screamed the last word. 'You want folk to laugh at you?' I
pointed at other groups of men fighting mock battles in the big meadow. Tekil's warriors
were also present, but they were sitting in the shade, just watching, implying that they did
not need to practise. I went back to Guthred. 'You can't have all the best men in your
household troops.' I told him.

'Why not?'

'Because you'll end up surrounded when everyone else has run away. Then you die. It isn't
pretty.'

That's what happened when my father fought Eochaid.' he admitted.

'So that's why you don't have all your best men in the household guard,' I said. 'We'll put
Tekil on one flank and Ulf and his men on the other.' Ulf, inspired by a dream of unlimited
silver and lasciviously evil women, was now eager to march on Eoferwic. He was not at Cair
Ligualid when the dark horsemen arrived, but had taken his men to collect forage and food. I
divided the household troops into two groups and made them fight, though first I ordered
them to wrap their swords in cloth so they wouldn't end up slaughtering each other. They were
eager but hopeless. I broke through both shield walls in the time it took to blink, but they
would learn how to fight eventually unless they met Ivarr's troops first, in which case they
would die. After a while, when they were weary and the sweat was streaming down their faces, I
told them to rest. I noticed that the Danes sat with the other Danes, and the Saxons with the
Saxons, but that was only to be expected and in time, I thought, they would learn trust. They
could more or less speak to each other because I had noticed that in Northumbria the Danish
and Saxon tongues were becoming muddled. The two languages were similar anyway, and most
Danes could be understood by Saxons if they shouted loud enough, but now the two tongues grew
ever more alike. Instead of talking about their swordcraft the Saxon earslings in Guthred's
household troops boasted of their 'skill' with a sword, though they had none, and they ate eggs
instead of eating eyren. The Danes, meanwhile, called a horse a horse instead of a hros and
sometimes it was hard to know whether a man was a Dane or a Saxon. Often they were both, the
son of a Danish father and Saxon mother, though never the other way around. 'I should
marry a Saxon,' Guthred told me. We had wandered to the edge of the field where a group of
women were chopping straw and mixing the scraps with oats. We would carry the mixture to
feed our horses as we crossed the hills.