The Warrior Chronicles

by Bernard Cornwell

  Maybe here, maybe now, for I had abandoned the idea of destroying Cytringan’s feasting-hall and instead would attempt a foolish thing, but one that would have my name spoken all across Britain. Reputation. We would rather have reputation than gold, and so I left my men in a steading and rode down the river’s southern bank with just Osferth for company, and I said nothing until we came to the edge of a coppiced wood from where we could see the town across the wide river’s swirls. ‘Snotengaham,’ I said. ‘It was here I first met your father.’

  He grunted at that. The town lay on the river’s northern bank and it had grown since I had last seen it. There were buildings outside the ramparts and the air above the roofs was thick with smoke from the kitchen fires. ‘Sigurd’s possession?’ Osferth asked.

  I nodded, remembering what Beornnoth had told me, that Sigurd had laid up his war-fleet in Snotengaham. I also remembered Ragnar the Elder’s words that he had spoken to me when I was a child, that Snotengaham would be Danish for ever, yet most of the folk who lived inside the walls were Saxons. This was a Mercian town, right on the northern edge of that kingdom, yet for nearly all my life it had been ruled by the Danes and now its merchants and churchmen, its whores and its tavern-keepers paid silver to Sigurd. He had built a hall on a great rock outcrop in the town’s centre. It was not his main dwelling, which lay far to the south, but Snotengaham was one of Sigurd’s strongholds, a place he felt safe.

  To reach Snotengaham from the sea a boat went up the great Humbre, then followed the Trente. That was the voyage I had made as a child in Ragnar’s Wind-Viper and, from the coppice on the southern bank, I could see there were forty or fifty boats drawn onto the far bank. Those were the ships Sigurd had taken south to Wessex the previous year, though in the end he had achieved nothing except to lay waste a few farmsteads outside of Exanceaster. Their presence suggested he did not plan another seaborne invasion. His next attack would be overland, a lunge into Mercia and then Wessex to take the Saxon land.

  Yet a man’s pride is not just his land. We measure a lord by the number of crews he leads, and those ships told me Sigurd commanded a horde. I commanded one crew. I dare say I was as famous as Sigurd, yet all my fame had not translated into wealth. I should, I thought, be called Uhtred the Foolish. I had served Alfred all these years, and to show for it I had a borrowed estate, a single crew of men and a reputation. Sigurd owned towns, whole estates and led an army.

  It was time to taunt him.

  I talked with each of my men. I told them they could become rich by betraying me, that if just one of them told some whore in the town that I was Uhtred then I would probably die, and that most of them would die with me. I did not remind them of the oath they had taken to me because not one of them would need reminding, nor did I think any of them would betray me. I had four Danes and three Frisians in that group, yet they were my men, tied to me as much by friendship as by oath. ‘What we’re about to do,’ I told them, ‘will have men talking all over Britain. It will not make us rich, but I promise you reputation.’

  My name, I told them, was Kjartan. It was the name I had used with Ælfadell, a name from my past, a name I did not like, the name of Sihtric’s foul father, but it would suffice for the next few days, and I would only survive those days if none of my men revealed the truth and if no one in Snotengaham recognised me. I had only met Sigurd twice, and both times briefly, but some of the men who had accompanied him to those meetings might be in Snotengaham and that was a risk I had to take. I had let my beard grow, I was wearing old mail, which I had allowed to rust, and I looked, as I wished to look, like a man on the edge of failure.

  I found a tavern outside the town. It had no name. It was a miserable place with sour ale, mouldy bread and worm-riddled cheese, but it had sufficient room for my men to sleep on its filthy straw, and the tavern’s owner, a surly Saxon, was satisfied by the small amount of silver I gave him. ‘Why are you here?’ he wanted to know.

  ‘To buy a ship,’ I said, then told him we had been part of Haesten’s army and that we had become tired of starving in Ceaster and only wanted to go home. ‘We’re going back to Frisia,’ I said, and that was my tale and no one in Snotengaham thought it strange. The Danes follow leaders who bring them riches, and when a leader fails, his crews melt away like frost in the sun. Nor did anyone think it strange that a Frisian would lead Saxons. The crews of the Viking ships are Danish, Norse, Frisian and Saxon. Any masterless man could go Viking, and a shipmaster did not care what language a man spoke if he could wield a sword, thrust a spear and pull an oar.

  So my tale was not questioned and, the day after we reached Snotengaham, a full-bellied Dane called Frithof came to find me. He had no left arm beneath the elbow. ‘Some Saxon bastard cut it off,’ he said cheerfully, ‘but I sliced off his head so it was a fair exchange.’ Frithof was what a Saxon would call the Reeve of Snotengaham, the man responsible for keeping the peace and serving his lord’s interests in the town. ‘I look after Jarl Sigurd,’ Frithof told me, ‘and he looks after me.’

  ‘A good lord?’

  ‘The very best,’ Frithof said enthusiastically, ‘generous and loyal. Why don’t you swear to him?’

  ‘I want to go home,’ I said.

  ‘Frisia?’ he asked, ‘you sound Danish, not Frisian.’

  ‘I served Skirnir Thorson,’ I explained. Skirnir had been a pirate on the Frisian coast and I had served him by luring him to his death.

  ‘He was a bastard,’ Frithof said, ‘but had a pretty wife, I hear. What was his island called?’ The question had no suspicion in it. Frithof was an easy, hospitable man.

  ‘Zegge,’ I said.

  ‘That was it! Nothing but sand and fish shit. So you went from Skirnir to Haesten, eh?’ he laughed, his question implying that I had chosen my lords badly. ‘You could do a lot worse than serve the Jarl Sigurd,’ Frithof assured me. ‘He looks after his men and there’ll be land and silver soon.’

  ‘Soon?’

  ‘When Alfred dies,’ Frithof said, ‘Wessex will fall into pieces. All we have to do is wait and then pick them up.’

  ‘I have land in Frisia,’ I said, ‘and a wife.’

  Frithof grinned. ‘There are plenty of women here,’ he said, ‘but if you really want to go home?’

  ‘I want to go home.’

  ‘Then you need a ship,’ he said, ‘unless you plan to swim. So let’s go for a walk.’

  Forty-seven ships had been pulled from the river and were now propped by oak shafts on a meadow close to a small shelving cove that made launching and recovering easy. Six other ships were floating. Four of those were trading boats, and two were long, sleek war boats with high prows and sterns. ‘Bright-Flyer,’ Frithof pointed to one of the two fighting ships afloat in the river, ‘she’s Jarl Sigurd’s own craft.’

  Bright-Flyer was a beauty with a flat sleek belly and a high prow and stern. A man was squatting on the wharf and painting a white line along her topmost strake, a line that would accentuate her sinuously threatening shape. Frithof led me down to the timber wharf and stepped over the boat’s low midships. I followed him, feeling the small shiver in Bright-Flyer as she responded to our weight. I noted her mast was not on board, there were no oars or tholes, and the presence of two small saws, an adze and a box of chisels showed that men were working on her. She was afloat, but she was not ready for any voyage. ‘I brought her here from Denmark,’ Frithof said wistfully.

  ‘You’re a shipmaster?’ I asked.

  ‘I was, maybe I will be again. I miss the sea.’ He ran his hand along the smooth wood of her top strake. ‘Isn’t she lovely?’

  ‘She’s beautiful,’ I said.

  ‘Jarl Sigurd had her built,’ he said, ‘and only the best for him!’ He rapped the hull. ‘Green oak from Frisia. Too big for you, though.’

  ‘She’s for sale?’

  ‘Never! Jarl Sigurd would rather sell his only son into slavery! Besides, how many oars do you want? Twenty?’

  ‘No more,’ I said.<
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  ‘She needs fifty rowers,’ Frithof said, rapping the Bright-Flyer’s planks again. He sighed, remembering her at sea.

  I looked at the carpenter’s tools. ‘You’re readying her for sea?’ I asked.

  ‘The jarl hasn’t said, but I hate to see ships out of the water for too long. The timbers dry and shrink. I want to float that one next,’ he pointed to the head of the cove where another beauty was propped on thick oak shafts. ‘Sea-Slaughterer,’ Frithof said, ‘Jarl Cnut’s ship.’

  ‘He keeps his ships here?’

  ‘Just the two,’ he said, ‘Sea-Slaughterer and Cloud-Chaser.’ Men were caulking the Sea-Slaughterer, stuffing the plank joints with a mix of wool and pine-tar. Small boys helped, or else played on the river bank. The tar braziers smoked, drifting their pungent smell across the slow river. Frithof stepped back onto the wharf and patted the head of the man who was painting the white line onto the strake. Frithof was obviously popular. Men grinned and called out respectful greetings, and Frithof responded with generous pleasure. He had a pouch at his waist filled with scraps of smoked beef that he handed to the children, all of whose names he knew. ‘This is Kjartan,’ he introduced me to the men caulking the Sea-Slaughterer, ‘and he wants to take a boat off our hands. He’s going back to Frisia because his wife is there.’

  ‘Bring the woman here!’ a man called to me.

  ‘He’s got more sense than letting you scum ogle her,’ Frithof retorted, then led me further down the bank past a huge heap of ballast stones. Frithof had Sigurd’s authority to buy or sell ships, but only a half-dozen were for sale, and of those only two would suit me. One was a trading ship, broad in the beam and well made, but she was short, her length only about four times her beam, and that would make her slow. The other ship was older and much used, but she was at least seven times longer than her beam, and her sleek lines were sweet. ‘She belonged to a Norseman,’ Frithof told me, ‘who got himself killed in Wessex.’

  ‘Made of pine?’ I asked, rapping the hull.

  ‘She’s all spruce,’ Frithof said.

  ‘I’d prefer oak,’ I said grudgingly.

  ‘Give me gold and I’ll have a ship built for you out of the best Frisian oak,’ Frithof said, ‘but if you want to cross the sea this summer you’ll do it in pine. She was well made, and she has a mast, sail and rigging.’

  ‘Oars?’

  ‘We’ve plenty of good ash oars.’ He ran his one hand down the stem-post. ‘She needs a little work,’ he admitted, ‘but she was a sweetheart in her day. Tyr’s Daughter.’

  ‘That’s her name?’

  Frithof smiled. ‘It is.’ He smiled because Tyr is the god of the warriors who fight in single combat and, like Frithof, Tyr is one-handed, having lost his right hand to the sharp fangs of Fenrir, the crazed wolf. ‘Her owner liked Tyr,’ Frithof said, still stroking the stem-post.

  ‘She has a beast-head?’

  ‘I can find you something.’

  We haggled, though good-naturedly. I offered what little silver I had left, along with all our horses, saddles and bridles, and Frithof at first demanded a sum at least double the worth of those things, though in truth he was glad to be rid of Tyr’s Daughter. She might have been a fine ship once, but she was old and she was small. A ship needs fifty or sixty men to be safe, and Tyr’s Daughter would have been crowded by thirty men, but she was perfect for my purpose. If I had not bought her I suspect she would have been broken up for firewood and, in truth, I got her cheap. ‘She’ll get you to Frisia,’ Frithof assured me.

  We spat on our palms, shook hands, and so I became the owner of Tyr’s Daughter. I had to buy pine-tar to caulk her, and we spent two days on the river bank forcing a thick mix of hot tar, horsehair, moss and fleece into the planking. Her mast, sails and hemp rigging were brought from storage to the meadow where the boats were grounded, and I insisted my men leave the filthy tavern and sleep with the ship. We rigged the sail as a tent over her and slept either in or beneath her hull.

  Frithof seemed to like us, or else he just approved of the notion that one of his ships was going back into the water. He would bring ale to the meadow, which lay some four or five hundred paces from the nearest part of Snotengaham’s ramparts, and he would drink with us and tell old stories of long ago fights, and in return I told him of the voyages I had made. ‘I miss the sea,’ he said wistfully.

  ‘Come with us,’ I invited him.

  He shook his head ruefully. ‘Jarl Sigurd’s a good lord, he looks after me.’

  ‘Will I see him before I leave?’ I asked.

  ‘I doubt it,’ Frithof said, ‘he and his son have gone to help your old friend.’

  ‘Haesten?’

  Frithof nodded. ‘You stayed with him through the winter?’

  ‘He kept promising us other men would join him,’ I invented, ‘he said they’d come from Ireland, but no one did.’

  ‘He did well enough last summer,’ Frithof said.

  ‘Until the Saxons took his fleet,’ I commented sourly.

  ‘Uhtred of Bebbanburg,’ Frithof spoke just as sourly, then touched the hammer he wore about his neck. ‘Uhtred is besieging him now. Is that why you left?’

  ‘I don’t want to die in Britain. So, yes, that’s why we left.’

  Frithof smiled. ‘Uhtred will die in Britain, my friend. Jarl Sigurd has gone to kill the bastard.’

  I touched my hammer. ‘May the gods give the jarl victory,’ I said piously.

  ‘Kill Uhtred,’ Frithof said, ‘and Mercia falls, and when Alfred dies, Wessex falls.’ He smiled. ‘Why would a man want to be in Frisia when all that happens?’

  ‘I miss home,’ I said.

  ‘Make your home here!’ Frithof said enthusiastically. ‘Join Jarl Sigurd and you can choose your own estate in Wessex, you can take a dozen Saxon wives and live like a king!’

  ‘But I have to kill Uhtred first?’ I asked lightly.

  Frithof touched his amulet again. ‘He’ll die,’ he said, and his voice was anything but light.

  ‘Many men have tried to kill him,’ I said. ‘Ubba tried!’

  ‘Uhtred has never faced Jarl Sigurd in battle,’ Frithof said, ‘nor the Jarl Cnut, and Jarl Cnut’s sword is swift as the snake’s tongue. Uhtred will die.’

  ‘All men die.’

  ‘His death is foretold,’ Frithof said, and, when he saw my interest, he touched the hammer again. ‘There’s a sorceress,’ he explained, ‘and she has seen his death.’

  ‘Where? When?’

  ‘Who knows?’ he asked. ‘She knows, I suppose, and that’s what she promised the jarl.’

  I felt a sudden, strange pang of jealousy. Had Erce straddled Sigurd in the night as she had straddled me? Then I thought Ælfadell had forecast my death to Sigurd, but had denied it to me, and that meant she either lied to one of us or that Erce, despite her loveliness, was no goddess.

  ‘Jarl Sigurd and Jarl Cnut are doomed to fight Uhtred,’ Frithof went on, ‘and the prophecy says the jarls will win, Uhtred will die and Wessex will fall. And that means you’re missing an opportunity, my friend.’

  ‘Maybe I’ll come back,’ I said, and I thought maybe I would return to Snotengaham one day because if Alfred’s dream of uniting all the lands where the English tongue was spoken were to come true then the Danes must be driven from this and every other town between Wessex and the wild Scottish frontier.

  At night, when the singing had faded from Snotengaham’s taverns and the dogs had gone quiet, the sentries who watched over the ships would come to our fires and accept our food and ale. That happened for three nights, and then, in the next dawn, my men chanted as they rolled Tyr’s Daughter down a ramp of logs and so into the Trente.

  She floated. It took a day to ballast her and another half-day to distribute the stones so that she floated true, just a little down at the stern. I knew she would leak, all ships leak, but by nightfall of the second day there was no evidence of water above the newly placed ballast stones. Frithof had kept his word
and brought us oars, and my men rowed the ship upstream for a few miles, then turned her and brought her back. We stowed the mast on a pair of cradles, lashed the furled sail to the mast, and stacked what meagre possessions we owned beneath the small half-deck at the stern. I spent what few silver coins I had left on a barrel of ale, two of dried fish, some twice-baked bread, a flitch of bacon and a great rock-hard cheese wrapped in canvas. At dusk Frithof brought us a sea eagle’s head, carved from oak, that would fit over the prow. ‘It’s a gift,’ he told me.

  ‘You’re a good man,’ I said, and I meant it.

  He watched as his slaves carried the carved head on board my ship. ‘May Tyr’s Daughter serve you well,’ he said, touching the hammer at his neck, ‘and may the wind never fail you and may the sea carry you safe home.’

  I told the slaves to stow the head in the prow. ‘You’ve been helpful,’ I told Frithof warmly, ‘and I wish I could thank you properly.’ I offered him a silver arm ring, but he shook his head.

  ‘I’ve no need of it,’ he said, ‘and you might need silver in Frisia. You leave in the morning?’

  ‘Before midday,’ I said.

  ‘I’ll come and say farewell,’ he promised.

  ‘How long to the sea?’ I asked.

  ‘You’ll make it in two days,’ he said, ‘and once out of the Humbre, head a little north. Avoid the East Anglian coast.’

  ‘Trouble there?’

  He shrugged. ‘A few ships looking for easy prey. Eohric encourages them. Just head straight out to sea and keep going.’ He cocked his head at the sky that was clear of clouds. ‘If this fine weather lasts you’ll be home in four days. Five, maybe.’