We still did not know what happened on Britain’s western coast. Eoferwic was nervous, its garrison alert, but no men had marched eastwards. The city’s leader, now that Guthfrith and Ealdred were dead, was the new archbishop, Wulfstan. He was a thin, irascible man who greeted me suspiciously. ‘Why are you going?’ he demanded.
‘Why isn’t the garrison sending men?’ I retorted.
‘Their task is to protect the city, not wander across Britain because of rumour.’
‘And if Æthelstan is defeated?’
‘I have good relations with the Northmen! The church will survive. Christ cannot be defeated, Lord Uhtred.’
I looked about the room where we met, a lavish chamber that had been built by the Romans and was warmed by a great fire and hung with woollen tapestries depicting Christ and his disciples. Beneath them, on long wooden tables, was a treasure trove of gold vessels, silver plates, and jewel-encrusted reliquaries. The room had never gleamed with so much wealth when Hrothweard had been archbishop, so was Wulfstan taking money? The Scots would bribe him, I was sure, and so would Anlaf. ‘You have news?’ I asked him.
‘The Scots are said to be moving south,’ he said dismissively, ‘but Alfgar and Godric will fight them before they reach Mameceaster.’
‘Alfgar and Godric,’ I said, ‘can’t have more than seven hundred men. If that. The Scots will have three times their number. And maybe the help of the Irish Norse?’
‘They won’t come!’ he said too quickly, then looked at me indignantly. ‘Anlaf is a minor chieftain, no more. He’ll stay in his Irish bog.’
‘Rumour says—’ I began.
‘A man of your experience should know better than to listen to rumour,’ Wulfstan interrupted petulantly. ‘You want my advice, lord? Leave this Scottish adventure to King Æthelstan.’
‘You have news of him?’
‘I assume he is gathering forces! He has no need of yours.’
‘He might not agree,’ I said calmly.
‘Then the boy is a fool!’ His anger broke through. ‘A pathetic fool! Have you seen his hair? Golden ringlets! No wonder men call him “pretty boy”!’
‘Have you seen the pretty boy fight?’ I asked. He gave me no answer. ‘I have,’ I went on, ‘and he’s formidable.’
‘Then he has no need of your forces nor of mine. I am not so irresponsible as to leave this city defenceless. And if I might advise you, lord, I would recommend you look to your own fortress. Our task is to keep the eastern parts of Northumbria peaceful.’
‘So if Constantine wins,’ I asked, ‘we just wait to be attacked?’
He stared at me scornfully. ‘And even if you do march,’ he ignored my question, ‘you’ll be too late! The battle will be over. Stay home, lord, stay home.’
He was a fool, I thought. There would be no peace in Britain if Constantine won, and if Æthelstan gained a victory then he would note who had helped him and who had shrunk from the fight. I left Wulfstan in his rich home, spent a fitful night in Eoferwic’s old Roman barracks, and led my men west in the morning. We travelled through the rich farmlands about the city, then slowly climbed into the hills. This was sheep country, and on the second day, as we neared Scipton, we met flock after flock being driven eastwards. They scattered off the Roman road as we approached, not just sheep and a few goats, but whole families. A shepherd was brought to me who spoke of Scottish raiders. ‘You saw them?’ I asked.
‘Saw the smoke, lord.’
‘Get off your knees, man,’ I said irritably. Far ahead I could only see piled grey clouds on the western horizon. Was there smoke there? It was impossible to say. ‘You say you saw smoke, what else?’
‘Folk running, lord. They say there’s a horde.’
But a horde of what? Other fugitives told the same confused story. A panic had spread on the western side of the hills and the only fact I could draw from the frightened folk was that they had come south to find the road that would lead them to the dubious safety of Eoferwic’s walls. That suggested Constantine’s forces were still ravaging Cumbria well north of the Mercian border.
Finan agreed. ‘Bastard should move faster. Can’t be much opposing him?’
‘Godric and Alfgar,’ I pointed out.
‘Who can’t have enough men! Silly bastards should retreat.’
‘Maybe Æthelstan has reinforced them?’
‘The archbishop would have known, wouldn’t he?’
‘Wulfstan can’t decide which side he’s on,’ I said.
‘He won’t be happy if Anlaf comes.’
‘Constantine will protect him.’
‘And maybe Constantine’s retreating? He’s smacked Æthelstan and reckons it’s enough?’
‘It doesn’t smell that way,’ I said. ‘Constantine’s no fool. He knows you don’t smack an enemy, you tear his damned guts out and piss on them.’
We camped near Scipton, a small town with two churches, both of which were dilapidated. There were Danish steadings nearby and local folk said that most of those men had left, gone west. But to fight who? I suspected they were joining Constantine’s forces, and many folk, hearing how many of my men spoke Norse or Danish, thought we were doing the same.
Next day we travelled on, heading south and west and still meeting fugitives who hurried out of our way. We talked to some and they told the same tale, that they had seen smoke and heard stories of a vast Scottish army that seemed to get larger with every report. One woman, who had two small children clinging to her skirts, claimed to have seen the foreign horsemen. ‘Hundreds of them, lord! Hundreds.’ There were still thick grey clouds to the north and west and I persuaded myself that some of the darker streaks were plumes of smoke. I hurried, haunted by Archbishop Wulfstan’s prediction that the battle would be fought by now. More and more of the fugitives were now travelling in the same direction as us, no longer trying to cross the hills, but heading south towards the stone ramparts of Mameceaster. I sent scouts ahead to clear the road that was left thick with sheep and cattle droppings.
We reached Mameceaster the next day. The garrison slammed the gates shut as we approached, doubtless fearing we were Constantine’s men and it took a tedious argument to persuade them that I was Uhtred of Bebbanburg and no enemy. The commander of the garrison, a man named Eadwyn, had the first real news since Cenwalh had ridden to Bebbanburg. ‘There’s been a battle, lord,’ he said gloomily.
‘Where? What happened?’
‘To the north, lord. Ealdorman Godric was killed. And Ealdorman Alfgar fled.’
‘Where in the north?’
He waved a hand. ‘North somewhere, lord.’
Fugitives from the defeated Saxon army had reached Mameceaster and Eadwyn summoned three of them. They told how Alfgar and Godric, the two men Æthelstan had appointed as ealdormen of Cumbria, had gathered their forces and marched north to face the Scots. ‘It was on a stream, lord. We thought it would stop them.’
‘And it didn’t?’
‘The Irish came round our left, lord. Howling savages!’
‘The Irish!’
‘Norsemen, lord. They had falcons on their shields.’
‘Anlaf,’ Egil said bluntly.
That was the first confirmation we had that Anlaf had crossed the sea and that we did not just face a Scottish army, but an alliance of Constantine’s men and the Norse of Ireland, and if Anlaf had persuaded the lords of the islands then we would also face the úlfhéðnar of the Suðreyjar and the Orkneyjar islands. The kings of the north had come to destroy us.
‘There were hundreds of Norsemen!’ one of the men said. ‘Crazy like devils!’ The three men were still shaken by their defeat. One of them had seen Godric cut down, then seen his body hacked into bloody ruin by Norse axes. Alfgar, they said, had fled the field before the battle ended, escaping on horseback as his surviving men were surrounded by Scots and Irish-Norse warriors. ‘We ran too, lord,’ one of the men confessed. ‘I can still hear the screaming. Those poor men had no escape.’
‘Where was the battle?’
They did not know, they only knew that Godric had marched them north for two days, had found the stream he thought would prove an obstacle to the invaders, and there had died. ‘He left a widow,’ Eadwyn said gloomily, ‘poor lass.’
Eadwyn had heard no news of Æthelstan. He urged me to stay in Mameceaster and add my men to his garrison, because he had received an order to hold Mameceaster firm. Doubtless the same order had been sent to every burh on the northern Mercian border, but that told me nothing. We needed to know where Æthelstan was, and where Constantine and Anlaf were marching. Did they plan to strike east into the heartland of Mercia? Or keep marching south? ‘South,’ Egil said.
‘Why?’
‘If Anlaf’s here …’
‘And he is,’ Finan said grimly.
‘They’ll stay close to the sea. Anlaf’s fleet will have brought food.’
‘There’s plenty of food!’ I said. ‘The harvest was good.’
‘And Anlaf will want a retreat if things go bad,’ Egil said. ‘He won’t want to be too far from his ships.’
That made sense, though if Egil spoke the truth then what would Anlaf do when he reached Ceaster? The coast there swung sharply west into Wales and he would lose touch with his fleet if he went further south. ‘Ceaster,’ I said.
Egil looked at me, puzzled. ‘Ceaster?’
‘That’s where they’re going. Capture Ceaster and they have a fortress as a base, and a pathway into the heart of Mercia. They’re going to Ceaster.’
Sometimes an idea seems to come from nowhere. Is it an instinct that comes from a lifetime of wearing mail and standing in shield walls? Or was it thinking what I would do if I were Anlaf or Constantine? We did not know where they were, we did not know what Æthelstan planned, I only knew that keeping my men behind Mameceaster’s walls would achieve nothing. ‘Send a messenger south,’ I ordered Eadwyn, ‘tell him to find Æthelstan, and to tell the king we’re marching to Ceaster.’
‘What if they’re coming here? Eadwyn asked nervously.
‘They’re not,’ I said, ‘they’re going to Ceaster.’
Because Constantine and Anlaf wanted to humble Æthelstan. They wanted to rip the heart out of his ambitions for Englaland and piss on his corpse.
And they would try to do that, I was certain, at Ceaster.
Twelve
The countryside north of the Mærse was deserted. Farms were abandoned, their granaries emptied and their livestock taken south, though we did encounter five herds of cattle being driven northwards. None of the herds was large, the smallest had seven cows and the largest fifteen. ‘They’re Norsemen,’ Finan reported drily when he went to question the drovers of the first herd.
‘They fear forage parties from Ceaster?’ I suggested.
‘They must do,’ he said, ‘but it’s just as likely they want to sell milk and beef to Anlaf. You want us to take their cattle south?’
‘Let them go.’ I did not want to be slowed by cattle, and I did not care if Anlaf gained some beef because by now the army coming south must have taken plenty of livestock and would be eating well. I turned in my saddle and saw the drifts of smoke that marked Saxon steadings being burned. They were no closer. Undoubtedly there was an invading army to our north, but it seemed to have stopped at least a day’s journey away from the Mærse.
I knew this country well from my time in Ceaster. It was an unruly stretch of hilly land, half settled by Saxons who lived uneasily with their Danish and Norse neighbours who, when I commanded the Ceaster garrison, had liked to cross into Mercia and steal livestock. We had returned the compliment, fighting a score of skirmishes, and I was thinking back on those vicious little fights when I saw trouble ahead.
The last and largest of the herds was coming north. The drovers had refused to clear their cattle from our path, and our vanguard, which was composed of a score of Egil’s warriors, was being screamed at by a tall, stout woman. I spurred Snawgebland to find the woman haranguing and spitting at the Norsemen. She was a Dane and had evidently demanded to know where they were going and, on being told that we headed for Ceaster, had snarled that we were traitors. ‘You should fight for the old gods! You’re Norsemen! You think Thor will let you live? You’re doomed!’
Some of Egil’s men looked troubled and were relieved when Egil, riding beside me, told the woman she understood nothing. ‘The enemy are Christians too, woman. You think Constantine wears the hammer?’
‘Constantine fights alongside our people!’
‘And we fight for our lord,’ Egil retorted.
‘A Christian lord?’ she sneered. She was a raw-boned, heavy, red-faced woman, perhaps forty or fifty years old. I saw that her half-dozen drovers were either old men or young boys, which suggested her husband and his able-bodied men had all gone north to join Anlaf’s forces. ‘I spit on your lord,’ she said, ‘may he choke on his Christian blood.’
‘He’s a pagan lord,’ Egil said, more amused than offended. He gestured at me. ‘And a good man,’ he added.
The woman stared at me and must have seen my hammer. She spat. ‘You go to join the Saxons?’
‘I am a Saxon,’ I spoke Danish, her own tongue.
‘Then I curse you,’ she said, ‘I curse you for being a traitor to the gods. I curse you by the sky, by the sea, by the earth that will be your grave.’ Her voice was rising as she intoned the curse. ‘I curse you by fire, I curse you by water, I curse you by the food you eat, by the ale you drink!’ She was stabbing fingers at me with each phrase. ‘I curse your children, may they die in agony, may the worms of the underworld gnaw their bones, may you scream in Hel for ever, may your guts be twisted in everlasting pain, may you—’
She got no further. Another scream sounded behind me and I saw a rider spurring from among the servants who were leading our packhorses. It was a woman’s scream. The rider, cloaked and hooded in black, galloped to the woman and threw herself from the saddle, driving the much bigger woman down to the ground. The hooded woman was still screaming. I understood none of what she said, but the anger was unmistakable.
It was Benedetta. She had landed on top of the big woman and was now beating at her face with both fists and still screaming her anger. My men were cheering her. I touched Snawgebland with my heels, but Egil, who was laughing, reached out and checked me. ‘Let her be,’ he said.
The large woman had been winded and taken by surprise, but she was recovering. She was also much bigger than Benedetta. She heaved up, trying to throw the smaller woman off, but Benedetta managed to stay straddling her, still screaming and hammering her fists at the red face that was now spattered with blood from the woman’s nose. The woman threw a punch at Benedetta that she fortuitously blocked with a forearm, but the strength of the blow silenced Benedetta who suddenly realised her danger. Again I started forward and again Egil stopped me. ‘She’ll win,’ he said, though I could not see how.
But Benedetta was quicker than I was. She reached out, found a stone from the crumbling edge of the Roman road, and smashed it into the side of the woman’s head.
‘Ouch,’ Finan said, grinning. My men, both Norse and Saxon, were laughing and cheering, and that cheering grew louder as the big woman sank back, evidently dazed, her mouth open as blood showed in her scrawny hair.
Benedetta snarled in Italian. I had learned a little of her language and thought I recognised the words for wash and mouth, then she stretched out her right arm and scooped a wet, messy handful of cow shit.
‘Oh no,’ Finan said, grinning.
‘Oh yes!’ Egil said happily.
‘Ti pulisco la bocca!’ Benedetta shrieked and slapped the handful of shit into the woman’s open mouth. The woman spluttered, and Benedetta, not wanting to be spattered with the dung, stood. She bent and cleaned her hands on the woman’s skirts, then turned to me. ‘Her curses do not work,’ she said. ‘She speak shit? She eat shit. I have pushed the evil she spoke back into her mouth. It is done!’ She turned, spat on the woma
n, and retrieved her horse. My men were still cheering her. Whatever damage the raw-boned woman might have caused to Egil’s men had been undone by Benedetta. Warriors love a fight, admire a winner, and Benedetta had turned an evil omen into a good one. She rode her horse to me. ‘See?’ she said. ‘You needed me. Who else can avert evil?’
‘You shouldn’t be here,’ I said.
‘I was a slave!’ she said truculently. ‘And all my life men tell me what to do. Now no man commands me, not even you! But I protect you!’
‘I told my men they couldn’t bring their women,’ I said.
‘Ha! There are many women with the servants! You men know nothing.’
Which was probably true and, if I was honest, I was comforted by her presence. ‘But if there’s a battle,’ I insisted, ‘you stay away!’
‘And if I had stayed in Bebbanburg? Who would have protected you from that woman’s curses? Tell me that!’
‘You’ll not win!’ Egil called cheerfully.
I reached out and touched her cheek. ‘Thank you.’
‘Now we go,’ she announced proudly.
We went.
If Benedetta’s victory over the Danish woman was the first omen, the second was more ominous. We had ridden inland to the first ford where we could cross the Mærse and it was growing dark as, with the river behind us, we turned our horses westwards again and travelled the familiar road to Ceaster. The eastern sky was already black, while the west was a turmoil of dark cloud streaked with the dying fire of the disappearing sun. A chill wind blew from that sky of dark fire, lifting cloaks and horses’ manes. ‘There’ll be rain,’ Egil said.
War Lord Page 25
