Warriors of the Storm

by Bernard Cornwell

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

  ‘No!’ Brida screeched.

  ‘Keep her quiet,’ I told Sihtric. I waited as he shifted the tip of his sword, and Brida went utterly still. I looked at the men in the hall, those I did not know, and I saw no defiance among them. ‘I present to you,’ I said, ‘your new king, Sigtryggr Ivarson.’

  There was silence. I sensed that many of Brida’s supporters were relieved, but naming Sigtryggr as king did not make him the ruler, not while his brother lived. Every one of Brida’s followers was thinking the same thing, wondering which brother they should support.

  ‘I present to you,’ I said again, making my voice threatening, ‘your new king, Sigtryggr Ivarson.’

  My men cheered, and, slowly, hesitantly, the others joined the clamour. Sigtryggr had taken off his helmet and was smiling. He listened to the acclaim for a moment, then held up his hand for silence. When the hall was quiet he said something to one of the blind girls, but spoke too low for me to catch his words. He stooped to hear the child’s answer and I looked back to the nervous hall. ‘Oaths will be sworn,’ I said.

  ‘But first!’ Sigtryggr stood. ‘That thing,’ he pointed to the wounded Fritjof, ‘blinded these girls and would have blinded my daughter.’ He strode to the edge of the dais and drew his long-sword. He still smiled. He was tall, striking, confident, a man who looked as if he should be king. ‘A man who blinds children,’ he said as he descended the stone steps, ‘is not a man.’ He walked to Fritjof, who gazed up in terror. ‘Did the girls scream?’ Sigtryggr asked him. Fritjof, who was in pain rather than grievously wounded, did not answer. ‘I asked you a question,’ Sigtryggr said, ‘did the girls scream when you blinded them?’

  ‘Yes,’ Fritjof’s answer was a whisper.

  ‘Then listen, girls!’ Sigtryggr called. ‘Listen well! Because this is your revenge.’ He placed the tip of his sword on Fritjof’s face, and the man did scream in pure terror.

  Sigtryggr paused, letting the scream echo in the hall, then his sword struck three times. One piercing stab for each eye, a third for the throat, and Fritjof’s blood pooled on the floor to be diluted by his piss. Sigtryggr watched the man die. ‘Quicker than he deserved,’ he said bitterly. He stooped and cleaned the tip of his sword on Fritjof’s cloak, then sheathed the long blade. He drew his seax instead and nodded to Sihtric who still guarded Brida. ‘Let her stand.’

  Sihtric stepped away. Brida hesitated, then suddenly scrambled to her feet and lunged at Sigtryggr as if trying to snatch the seax from his hand, but he held her at arm’s length with contemptuous ease. ‘You would have blinded my daughter,’ he said bitterly.

  ‘I would have given her wisdom!’

  Sigtryggr held her with his left hand and raised the seax with his right, but Stiorra intervened. She touched his right arm. ‘She’s mine,’ she said.

  Sigtryggr hesitated, then nodded. ‘She’s yours,’ he agreed.

  ‘Give her the sword,’ Stiorra said. She still held Wasp-Sting.

  ‘Give her the sword?’ Sigtryggr asked, frowning.

  ‘Give it to her,’ Stiorra commanded. ‘Let’s discover who the gods love. Uhtredsdottir or her.’

  Sigtryggr held the seax hilt first to Brida. ‘Let’s see who the gods love,’ he agreed.

  Brida was darting her eyes around the hall, looking for support that was not there. For a heartbeat she ignored the proffered seax, then suddenly snatched it from Sigtryggr’s hand and immediately lunged it at his belly, but he just knocked it contemptuously aside with his right hand. A seax rarely has a sharpened edge, it is a weapon made to pierce, not to slash, and the blade left no mark on Sigtryggr’s wrist. ‘She’s yours,’ he said to Stiorra again.

  And so died my first lover. She did not die well because there was an anger in my daughter. Stiorra had inherited her mother’s beauty, she looked so calm, so graceful, but under that loveliness was a soul of steel. I had watched her kill a priest once and seen the joy on her face, and now I saw the joy again as she hacked Brida to death. She could have killed the old woman quickly, but she chose to kill her slowly, reducing her to a whimpering, piss-soaked, blood-spattered mess, before finishing her with a hard lunge to the gullet.

  And thus did Sigtryggr Ivarson, Sigtryggr One-Eye, become King of Jorvik.

  Most of the men in Eoferwic had sworn oaths to Ragnall, but almost all now knelt to his brother, clasped his hands, and once again I felt their relief. The Christians who had been captured and held ready for Brida’s next mass slaughter were released. ‘There will be no rape,’ I told Onarr Gormson. He, like almost all the men in the city, had knelt to Sigtryggr, though a handful of warriors refused to abandon their oath to his brother. Skopti Alsvartson, the man who had found three priests and brought them to Eoferwic for Brida’s amusement, was one. He was a stubborn Norseman, wolf-faced, experienced in battle, his long hair plaited to his waist. He led thirty-eight men, his crew, and Ragnall had given him land south of the city. ‘I made an oath,’ he told me defiantly.

  ‘To Ragnall’s father, Olaf.’

  ‘And to his son.’

  ‘You were commanded to make that oath,’ I said, ‘by Olaf.’

  ‘I gave it willingly,’ he insisted.

  I would not kill a man for refusing to abandon an oath. Brida’s followers had been freed of their obligation by her death, and most of those followers were confused by the fate that had changed their lives so suddenly. Some had fled, doubtless going to the grim fort at Dunholm where one day they would need to be scoured out by steel, but most knelt to Sigtryggr. A few, no more than a dozen, cursed us for killing her and those few died. Brynkætil, who had tried to strike my daughter and then insulted me, was among those few. He offered his oath, but he had made an enemy of me and so he died. Skopti Alsvartson did not curse us, he did not challenge us, but simply said he would keep his oath to Ragnall. ‘So do what you wish with me,’ he growled, ‘just let me die like a man.’

  ‘Have I taken your sword away?’ I asked him, and he shook his head. ‘So keep your sword,’ I told him, ‘but make me one promise.’

  He looked at me cautiously. ‘A promise?’

  ‘That you will not leave the city till I give you permission.’

  ‘And when will that be?’

  ‘Soon,’ I said, ‘very soon.’

  He nodded. ‘And I can join Jarl Ragnall?’

  ‘You can do whatever you like,’ I said, ‘but not till I give you leave.’

  He thought for a heartbeat, then nodded again. ‘I promise.’

  I spat on my hand and held it to him. He spat on his and we shook.

  Orvar had found his wife. We found all the hostages kept prisoner in what had been a convent, and all said they had been well-treated, though that did not stop some of them sighing with obvious relief when Sigtryggr told them of Brida’s death. ‘How many of you,’ he asked, ‘have husbands serving with my brother?’ Eight women raised their hands. Their men were far to the south, riding in Ragnall’s service, raiding and raping, stealing and burning. ‘We shall be going south,’ Sigtryggr told those women, ‘and you will come with us.’

  ‘But your children must stay here,’ I insisted. ‘They will be safe.’

  ‘They will be safe,’ Sigtryggr echoed. The eight women protested, but Sigtryggr cut their indignation short. ‘You will come with us,’ he decreed, ‘and your children will not.’

  We now had over seven hundred men, though despite their oaths we could not be certain that all would prove loyal. Many, I knew, had sworn to follow Sigtryggr simply to avoid trouble, and maybe those men would return to their steadings at the first opportunity. The city was still frightened, scared of Ragnall’s revenge or perhaps fearful that Brida, an enchantress, was not really dead, which was why we paraded her corpse through the streets. We laid her body on a handcart with her black banner dragging behind, and we took it to the river bank south of the city where we burned her corpse. We gave a feast that
night, roasting three whole oxen on great fires made from Brida’s crosses. Four men died in fighting started by the ale, but that was a small price. Most were content to listen to the songs, drink, and look for Eoferwic’s whores.

  And while they sang, drank, and whored, I wrote a letter.

  Alfred had insisted that I learn to read and write. I had never wanted to. As a boy I had wanted to learn horsemanship, sword-craft and shield-skill, but my tutors had beaten me until I could read their tedious tales of dull men who preached sermons to seals, puffins, and salmon. I could write too, though my letters were crabbed. I did not have the patience to make them neat that night, instead I scratched them across the page with a blunt quill, but reckoned the words were readable.

  I wrote to Æthelflaed. I told her I was in Eoferwic, which had a new king who had forsworn Northumbria’s ambitions against Mercia and was ready to sign a truce with her. First, though, Ragnall must be destroyed, to which end we would be marching south within a week. ‘I will bring five hundred warriors,’ I wrote, though I hoped it would be more. Ragnall, I insisted, would outnumber us, which he would, though I did not tell her that I doubted the loyalty of many of his men. He commanded jarls whose wives had been held hostage in Eoferwic and those women would travel with us. Ragnall ruled by terror and I would turn the terror against him by showing his men that we now held their families, but I told Æthelflaed none of that. ‘What I would wish,’ I wrote laboriously, ‘is that you follow Ragnall’s horde as they march towards us, which they most surely will, and that you help us to destroy him even if that destruction takes place in Northumbria.’ I knew she would be reluctant to lead an army across the Northumbrian border because of her brother’s insistence that she not invade the northern kingdom without him, so I suggested she would simply be leading a large raid in retaliation for the damage being done to Mercia by Ragnall’s army.

  I sent my son to carry the letter, telling him that we would follow him south in three or four days. ‘We’ll march to Lindcolne,’ I told him. From that city there was a choice of roads, one going on south towards Lundene, the other slanting south-west into Mercia’s centre. ‘We’ll probably take the road to Ledecestre,’ I told him, meaning the route that headed into the heart of Mercia.

  ‘And Ragnall will march to meet you,’ my son said.

  ‘So tell Æthelflaed that! Or tell whoever commands her army. Tell them they’re to follow hard on his heels!’

  ‘If they’ve even left Ceaster,’ my son said dubiously.

  ‘We’re all in trouble if they haven’t,’ I said, touching the hammer.

  I gave my son an escort of thirty men and one of the priests we had saved from Brida’s mad challenge to the Christian god. The priest was called Father Wilfa, an earnest young man whose sincerity and apparent piety I thought would impress Æthelflaed. ‘Tell her your story,’ I ordered him, ‘and tell her what happened here!’ I had shown him the bodies we had taken down from Brida’s crosses and I had seen the horror on his face and made sure he knew that it was a pagan army of Norse and Danes that had stopped the massacres. ‘And tell her,’ I said, ‘that Uhtred of Bebbanburg has done all this in her service.’

  ‘I will tell her, lord,’ Father Wilfa said. I liked him. He was respectful, but not subservient. ‘Do you know, lord, what happened to Archbishop Æthelbald?’

  ‘He was burned alive,’ I told Wilfa.

  ‘God help us,’ he said, wincing. ‘And the cathedral was desecrated?’

  ‘Tell the Lady Æthelflaed that his death is revenged, that the churches are open again, and the cathedral is being cleansed.’ Brida had stabled horses in the cavernous church. She had hacked the altars apart, torn down the sacred banners, and pulled the dead from their graves. ‘And tell her that King Sigtryggr has promised his protection to Christians.’

  It seemed strange to call him King Sigtryggr. A circlet of gilt bronze had been discovered in the palace treasury, and I made him wear it as a crown. On the morning after the feast, the Great Hall was filled with petitioners, many of them men whose land had been taken away by Ragnall to be given to his supporters. They brought charters to prove their ownership, and Stiorra, because she could read, sat at a table by her husband’s throne and deciphered the ancient documents. One had even been signed by my father, ceding land I never knew he owned. Many men had no charter, just the indignant claim that their fields had been owned by their father, grandfather and great-grandfather back to the dawn of time. ‘What do I do?’ Sigtryggr asked me, ‘I don’t know who’s telling the truth!’

  ‘Tell them nothing will be done till Ragnall is dead. Then find a priest who can read and have him make a list of all the claims.’

  ‘What good will that do?’

  ‘It delays,’ I said. ‘It gives you time. And when your brother’s dead you can assemble a Witan.’

  ‘Witan?’

  ‘A council. Have all the men who claim land gather in the hall, have them present their claims one by one, and let the council vote. They know who really owns the land. They know their neighbours. They’ll also know what land belongs to the men who support your brother, and that land is now yours to give away. But wait till your brother’s dead.’

  To kill him we needed horses. Finan had searched the city and sent men into the wide valley of the Use and had collected four hundred and sixty-two horses. Many had belonged to Brida’s men, but others we purchased using coin and hacksilver from Brida’s treasury. They were not good horses, there was not one I would want to ride into battle, but they would carry us south faster than our own legs, and that was all we needed. I took a dozen of the poorest animals and gave them to Skopti Alsvartson who had kept his promise to stay in the city till I gave him permission to leave. ‘You can go,’ I told him two days after my son had ridden south.

  Skopti was no fool. He knew I was using him. He would ride into Mercia and give Ragnall news of what had happened to Brida and to Ragnall’s own supporters in Eoferwic, and he would warn Ragnall that we were coming. That was what I wanted. I deliberately let Skopti see the horses we had collected and even gave him time to count them so he could tell Ragnall that our army was small, fewer than five hundred men. I had told Æthelflaed I would march with more than five hundred, but that hope was fading and I knew our army would be perilously small, but the army of Mercia would make up the numbers. ‘Tell him,’ I said, ‘that we will meet him and kill him. And we’ll kill you too if you stay loyal to him.’

  ‘He has my oath,’ Skopti said stubbornly.

  He rode south. Most of his crew had to walk, and they would follow Skopti, who, I reckoned, should reach Ragnall within three or four days. It was possible Ragnall already knew what had happened in Eoferwic, already knew of his brother’s return and the death of Brida. A steady trickle of slaves had made their way northwards, always escorted by Ragnall’s warriors, and it was more than possible that fugitives from the city had met one such group, who would then have turned to carry word back to Ragnall. One way or another he either knew or would know soon, and what would he do about Sigtryggr’s return? He knew Æthelflaed’s army was seeking him, or at least I hoped it was, and now he had a new enemy coming from the north. ‘If he has any sense,’ Finan told me, ‘he’ll go east. Find ships and sail away.’

  ‘If he has any sense,’ I said, ‘he’d turn on Æthelflaed and destroy her, then come to defeat us. But he won’t.’

  ‘No?’

  I shook my head. ‘He hates his brother too much. He’ll look for us first.’

  And two days after Skopti left to warn Ragnall, we also rode south.

  We were a small army. In the end only three hundred and eighty-four men rode, the rest we left in Eoferwic under Orvar’s command. I had wanted to take more, far more, but we had too few horses and some of those horses were needed to carry supplies. Sigtryggr was also concerned that Brida’s followers, too many of whom had escaped north immediately after their mistress’s death, could summon enough help to assault Eoferwic. I thought it more
likely that those fugitives would barricade themselves behind Dunholm’s high walls, but I yielded to Sigtryggr’s wishes to leave a substantial garrison in Eoferwic. He was, after all, the king.

  Three hundred and eighty-four men rode, but also nine women. Stiorra was one. Like Æthelflaed, she would not be denied, and I think she was also wary of being left behind with Orvar who, so recently, had been Ragnall’s man. I trusted Orvar, as did Sigtryggr who had insisted that his daughter, my granddaughter, stay in the city under Orvar’s protection. Stiorra was unhappy, but agreed. The remaining eight women had all been Ragnall’s hostages, the wives of men who were the Sea King’s jarls, and they were now my weapon.

  We followed the Roman road south. Ragnall, if he had learned anything of the Roman network of roads that laced Britain, would guess we were riding from Eoferwic to Lindcolne, because that route offered us the quickest journey, but I doubted he would have had the time to move his army to block our path. The last I had seen of him, admittedly many days before, he had been moving further south into Mercia, and so I did not expect to see the smoke of his fires until we had passed Lindcolne and were well on the road to Ledecestre, a Mercian town that had been in Danish hands for all my lifetime. Ledecestre lay in that great swathe of northern Mercia that remained unconquered by the Saxons, land that Æthelflaed had sworn to retake. Once south of Ledecestre we would approach country that neither Dane nor Saxon ruled, a place of raids and ruin, the land that lay between two tribes and two religions.