Lords of the North

by Bernard Cornwell

  “You can do that?” Guthred asked.

  “No, lord,” I said, “we can do it.” Though how, I had not the slightest idea. All I knew was that we were few and the enemy numerous, and that so far Guthred had been like a mouse in that enemy’s paws, and it was time that we fought back. And Dunholm, because Kjartan had sent so many men to guard the Bebbanburg approaches, was as weak as it was ever likely to be.

  “We can do it,” Ragnar said. He came to stand beside me.

  “Then we shall,” Guthred said, and that was how it was decided.

  The priests did not like the notion that I would live unpunished, and they liked it even less when Guthred brushed their complaints away and asked me to go with him to the small house that were his quarters. Gisela came too and she sat against the wall and watched the two of us. A small fire burned. It was cold that afternoon, the first cold of the coming winter.

  Guthred was embarrassed to find himself with me. He half smiled. “I am sorry,” he said haltingly.

  “You’re a bastard,” I said.

  “Uhtred,” he began, but could find nothing more to say.

  “You’re a piece of weasel-shit,” I said, “you’re an earsling.”

  “I’m a king,” he said, trying to regain his dignity.

  “So you’re a royal piece of weasel-shit. An earsling on a throne.”

  “I,” he said and still could find nothing more to say, so instead he sat on the only chair in the room and gave a shrug.

  “But you did the right thing,” I told him.

  “I did?” he brightened.

  “But it didn’t work, did it? You were supposed to sacrifice me to get Ælfric’s troops on your side. You were supposed to crush Kjartan like a louse, but he’s still there, and Ælfric calls himself Lord of Bernicia, and you’ve got a Danish rebellion on your hands. And for that I slaved at an oar for over two years?” He said nothing. I unbuckled my sword belt and then tugged the heavy mail coat over my head and let it collapse on the floor. Guthred was puzzled as he watched me pull the tunic off my left shoulder, then I showed him the slave scar that Hakka had carved into my upper arm. “You know what that is?” I asked. He shook his head. “A slave mark, lord King. You don’t have one?”

  “No,” he said.

  “I took it for you,” I said. “I took it so you could be king here, but instead you’re a priest-ridden fugitive. I told you to kill Ivarr long ago.”

  “I should have done,” he admitted.

  “And you let that miserable piece of hairy gristle, Hrothweard, impose a tithe on the Danes?”

  “It was for the shrine,” he said. “Hrothweard had a dream. He said Saint Cuthbert spoke to him.”

  “Cuthbert’s talkative for a dead man, isn’t he? Why don’t you remember that you rule this land, not Saint Cuthbert?”

  He looked miserable. “The Christian magic has always worked for me,” he said.

  “It hasn’t worked,” I said scornfully. “Kjartan lives, Ivarr lives, and you face a revolt of the Danes. Forget your Christian magic. You’ve got me now, and you’ve got Earl Ragnar. He’s the best man in your kingdom. Look after him.”

  “And you,” he said, “I shall look after you. I promise.”

  “I am,” Gisela said.

  “Because you’re going to be my brother-in-law,” I told Guthred.

  He nodded at that, then gave me a wan smile. “She always said you’d come back.”

  “And you thought I was dead?”

  “I hoped you were not,” he said. Then he stood and smiled. “Would you believe me,” he asked, “if I said I missed you?”

  “Yes, lord,” I said, “because I missed you.”

  “You did?” he asked in hope.

  “Yes, lord,” I said, “I did.” And oddly enough, that was true. I had thought I would hate him when I saw him again, but I had forgotten his infectious charm. I liked him still. We embraced. Guthred picked up his helmet and went to the door that was a piece of cloth hooked onto nails. “I shall leave you my house tonight,” he said, smiling. “The two of you,” he added.

  And he did.

  Gisela. These days, when I am old, I sometimes see a girl who reminds me of Gisela and there comes a catch into my throat. I see a girl with a long stride, see the black hair, the slim waist, the grace of her movements and the defiant upward tilt of her head. And when I see such a girl I think I am seeing Gisela again, and often, because I have become a sentimental fool in my dotage, I find myself with tears in my eyes.

  “I already have a wife,” I told her that night.

  “You’re married?” Gisela asked me.

  “Her name is Mildrith,” I said, “and I married her a long time ago because Alfred ordered it, and she hates me, and so she’s gone into a nunnery.”

  “All your women do that,” Gisela said. “Mildrith, Hild, and me.”

  “That’s true,” I said, amused. I had not thought of it before.

  “Hild told me to go into a nunnery if I was threatened,” Gisela told me.

  “Hild did?”

  “She said I’d be safe there. So when Kjartan said he wanted me to marry his son, I went to the nunnery.”

  “Guthred would never have married you to Sven,” I said.

  “My brother thought about it,” she said. “He needed money. He needed help and I was all he had to offer.”

  “The peace cow.”

  “That’s me,” she said.

  “Did you like the nunnery?”

  “I hated it all the time you were away. Are you going to kill Kjartan?”

  “Yes.”

  “How?”

  “I don’t know,” I said. “Or perhaps Ragnar will kill him. Ragnar has more cause than me.”

  “When I refused to marry Sven,” Gisela said, “Kjartan said he’d capture me and let his men rape me. He said he’d stake me on the ground and let his men use me, and when they were done he’d let his dogs have me. Did you and Mildrith have children?”

  “One,” I said, “a son. He died.”

  “Mine won’t die. My sons will be warriors, and my daughter will be the mother of warriors.”

  I smiled, then ran my hand down her long spine so that she shivered on top of me. We were covered by three cloaks and her hair was wet because the thatch was leaking. The floor-rushes were rotted and damp beneath me, but we were happy. “Did you become a Christian in your nunnery?” I asked her.

  “Of course not,” she said scornfully.

  “They didn’t mind?”

  “I gave them silver.”

  “Then they didn’t mind,” I said.

  “I don’t think any Dane is a real Christian,” she told me.

  “Not even your brother?”

  “We have many gods,” she said, “and the Christian god is just another one. I’m sure that’s what Guthred thinks. What’s the Christian god’s name? A nun did tell me, but I’ve forgotten.”

  “Jehovah.”

  “There you are, then. Odin, Thor, and Jehovah. Does he have a wife?”

  “No.”

  “Poor Jehovah,” she said.

  Poor Jehovah, I thought, and was still thinking it when, in a persistent rain that slashed on the stony remnants of the Roman road and turned the fields to mud, we crossed the Swale and rode north to take the fortress that could not be taken. We rode to capture Dunholm.

  NINE

  It seemed simple when I suggested it. We should ride to Dunholm, make a surprise attack, and thus provide Guthred with a safe refuge and Ragnar with revenge, but Hrothweard had been determined to thwart us and, before we rode, there had been another bitter argument. “What happens,” Hrothweard had demanded of Guthred, “to the blessed saint? If you ride away, who guards Cuthbert?”

  Hrothweard had passion. It was fed by anger, I suppose. I have known other men like him, men who could work themselves into a welter of fury over the smallest insult to the one thing they hold most dear. For Hrothweard that one thing was the church, and anyone who was not a
Christian was an enemy to his church. He had become Guthred’s chief counselor, and it was his passion that gained him that position. Guthred still saw Christianity as a superior kind of sorcery, and in Hrothweard he thought he had found a man capable of working the magic. Hrothweard certainly looked like a sorcerer. His hair was wild, his beard jutted, he had vivid eyes, and boasted the loudest voice of any man I have ever met. He was unmarried, devoted only to his beloved religion, and men reckoned he would become the archbishop in Eoferwic when Wulfhere died.

  Guthred had no passion. He was reasonable, gentle mostly, wanting those about him to be happy, and Hrothweard bullied him. In Eoferwic, where most of the citizens were Christians, Hrothweard had the power to summon a mob into the streets, and Guthred, to keep the city from riots, had deferred to Hrothweard. And Hrothweard had also learned to threaten Guthred with Saint Cuthbert’s displeasure, and that was the weapon he used on the eve of our ride to Dunholm. Our only chance of capturing the fortress was surprise, and that meant moving fast, and in turn that required that Cuthbert’s corpse and Oswald’s head and the precious gospel book must be left in Cetreht along with all the priests, monks, and women. Father Hrothweard insisted that our first duty was to protect Saint Cuthbert. “If the saint falls into the hands of the pagans,” he shouted at Guthred, “then he will be desecrated!” He was right, of course. Saint Cuthbert would be stripped of his pectoral cross and his fine ring, then fed to the pigs, while the precious gospel book from Lindisfarena would have its jeweled cover ripped off and its pages used to light fires or wipe Danish arses. “Your first duty is to protect the saint,” Hrothweard bellowed at Guthred.

  “Our first duty,” I retorted, “is to preserve the king.”

  The priests, of course, supported Hrothweard, and once I intervened he turned his passion against me. I was a murderer, a pagan, a heretic, a sinner, a defiler, and all Guthred needed to do to preserve his throne was bring me to justice. Beocca alone among the churchmen tried to calm the wild-haired priest, but Beocca was shouted down. Priests and monks declared that Guthred would be cursed by God if he abandoned Cuthbert, and Guthred looked confused and it was Ragnar who ended the silliness. “Hide the saint,” he suggested. He had to say it three times before anyone heard him.

  “Hide him?” Abbot Eadred asked.

  “Where?” Hrothweard demanded scornfully.

  “There is a graveyard here,” Ragnar said. “Bury him. Who would ever search for a corpse in a graveyard?” The clerics just stared at him. Abbot Eadred opened his mouth to protest, but the suggestion was so sensible that the words died on his lips. “Bury him,” Ragnar went on, “then go west into the hills and wait for us.”

  Hrothweard tried to protest, but Guthred supported Ragnar. He named ten warriors who would stay to protect the priests, and in the morning, as we rode, those men were digging a temporary grave in the cemetery where the saint’s corpse and the other relics would be hidden. The men from Bebbanburg also stayed at Cetreht. That was on my insistence. Aidan wanted to ride with us, but I did not trust him. He could easily cause my death by riding ahead and betraying our approach to Kjartan and so we took all his horses, which forced Aidan and his men to stay with the churchmen. Osburh, Guthred’s pregnant queen, also remained. Abbot Eadred saw her as a hostage against Guthred’s return, and though Guthred made a great fuss of the girl I sensed that he had no great regrets at leaving her. Osburh was an anxious woman, as prone to tears as my wife Mildrith and, also like Mildrith, a great lover of priests. Hrothweard was her confessor and I supposed that she preached the wild man’s message in Guthred’s bed. Guthred assured her that no roving Danes would come near Cetreht once we had left, but he could not be certain of that. There was always a chance that we would return to find them all slaughtered or taken prisoner, but if we stood any hope of taking Dunholm then we had to move fast.

  Was there any hope? Dunholm was a place where a man could grow old and defy his enemies in safety. And we were fewer than two hundred men, along with a score of women who insisted on coming. Gisela was one of those, and she, like the other women, wore breeches and a leather jerkin. Father Beocca also joined us. I told him he could not ride fast enough and that, if he fell behind, we would abandon him, but he would not hear of staying in Cetreht. “As ambassador,” he announced grandly, “my place is with Guthred.”

  “Your place is with the other priests,” I said.

  “I shall come,” he said stubbornly and would not be dissuaded. He made us tie his legs to his saddle-girth so he could not fall off and then he endured the hard pace. He was in agony, but he never complained. I suspect he really wanted to see the excitement. He might have been a squint-eyed cripple and a club-footed priest and an ink-spattered clerk and a pedantic scholar, but Beocca had the heart of a warrior.

  We left Cetreht in a misted late autumn dawn that was laced with rain, and Kjartan’s remaining riders, who had returned to the river’s northern bank, closed in behind us. There were eighteen of them now, and we let them follow us and, to confuse them, we did not stay on the Roman road which led straight across the flatter land toward Dunholm, but after a few miles turned north and west onto a smaller track which climbed into gentle hills. The sun broke through the clouds before midday, but it was low in the sky so that the shadows were long. Redwings flocked beneath the falcon-haunted clouds. This was the time of year that men culled their livestock. Cattle were being pole-axed, and pigs, fattened on the autumn’s plentiful acorns, were being slaughtered so their meat could be salted into barrels or hung to dry over smoky fires. The tanning pits stank of dung and urine. The sheep were coming down from the high pastures to be folded close to steadings, while in the valleys the trees rang with the noise of axes as men lay in their winter supply of firewood.

  The few villages we passed were empty. Folk must have been warned that horsemen were coming and so they fled before we arrived. They hid in woodlands till we were past, and prayed we did not stay to plunder. We rode on, still climbing, and I had no doubt that the men following us would have sent messengers up the Roman road to tell Kjartan that we were slanting to the west in an attempt to circle Dunholm. Kjartan had to believe that Guthred was making a desperate attempt to reach Bebbanburg, and if we deceived him into that belief then I hoped he would send yet more men out of the fortress, men who would bar the crossings of the Wiire in the western hills.

  We spent that night in those hills. It rained again. We had some small shelter from a wood which grew on a south-facing slope and there was a shepherd’s hut where the women could sleep, but the rest of us crouched about fires. I knew Kjartan’s scouts were watching us from across the valley, but I hoped they were now convinced we were going west. The rain hissed in the fire as Ragnar, Guthred, and I talked with Sihtric, making him remember everything about the place where he had been raised. I doubt I learned anything new. Sihtric had told me all he knew long before and I had often thought of it as I rowed Sverri’s boat, but I listened again as he explained that Dunholm’s palisade went clear around the crag’s summit and was broken only at the southern end where the rock was too steep for a man to climb. The water came from a well on the eastern side. “The well is outside the palisade,” he told us, “down the slope a bit.”

  “But the well has its own wall?”

  “Yes, lord.”

  “How steep a slope?” Ragnar asked.

  “Very steep, lord,” Sihtric said. “I remember a boy falling down there and he hit his head on a tree and became stupid. And there’s a second well to the west,” he added, “but that’s not used much. The water’s murky.”

  “So he’s got food and water,” Guthred said bitterly.

  “We can’t besiege him,” I said, “we don’t have the men. The eastern well,” I turned back to Sihtric, “is among trees. How many?”

  “Thick trees, lord,” he said, “hornbeams and sycamore.”

  “And there has to be a gate in the palisade to let men reach the well?”

  “To let women go t
here, lord, yes.”

  “Can the river be crossed?”

  “Not really, lord,” Sihtric was trying to be helpful, but he sounded despondent as he described how the Wiire flowed fast as it circled Dunholm’s crag. The river was shallow enough for a man to wade, he said, but it was treacherous with sudden deep pools, swirling currents and willow-braided fish traps. “A careful man can cross it in daytime, lord,” he said, “but not at night.”

  I tried to recall what I had seen when, dressed as the dead swordsman, I had stood so long outside the fortress. The ground fell steeply to the east, I remembered, and it was ragged ground, full of tree stumps and boulders, but even at night a man should be able to clamber down that slope to the river’s bank. But I also remembered a steep shoulder of rock hiding the view downriver, and I just hoped that shoulder was not so steep as the picture lingering in my head. “What we must do,” I said, “is reach Dunholm tomorrow evening. Just before dark. Then attack in the dawn.”

  “If we arrive before dark,” Ragnar pointed out, “they’ll see us, and be ready for us.”

  “We can’t get there after dark,” I suggested, “because we’ll never find the way. Besides, I want them to be ready for us.”

  “You do?” Guthred sounded surprised.

  “If they see men to their north they’ll pack their ramparts. They’ll have the whole garrison guarding the gate. But that isn’t where we’ll attack.” I looked across the fire at Steapa. “You’re frightened of the dark, aren’t you?”

  The big face stared back at me across the flames. He did not want to admit that he was frightened of anything, but honesty overcame his reluctance. “Yes, lord.”

  “But tomorrow night,” I said, “you’ll trust me to lead you through the darkness?”

  “I’ll trust you, lord,” he said.

  “You and ten other men,” I said, and I thought I knew how we could capture the impregnable Dunholm. Fate would have to be on our side, but I believed, as we sat in that wet cold darkness, that the three spinners had started weaving a new golden thread into my destiny. And I had always believed Guthred’s fate was golden.