Ballista had to think. ‘Isangrim has twelve winters, Dernhelm five.’
‘Do they look like your Roman wife?’
‘No, they are fair.’ Ballista felt like crying.
‘They are well?’
‘Yes, the last time I saw them.’
‘When was that?’
‘Two years ago, in Ephesus.’
His mother had to swallow, marshal herself before she could speak again. ‘It is hard to be far away from your children. You left your family safe?’
‘In Sicily — safe, the gods willing.’
‘The old Caledonian slave Calgacus?’
Ballista had to fight not to break down. ‘Dead. Killed last year.’
‘You avenged him?’
‘Not yet.’
The woman returned with a bowl and towel. Ballista washed his face and hands, and dried himself on the middle of the towel. His mother took it from him. ‘How uncouth you have become. Others will have to use this towel. You are not among the Romans now.’
Ballista acknowledged the mild rebuke with a dip of his head. He knew then how much he had changed.
‘You will be hungry,’ his mother said. ‘You always were. When you have eaten, we will talk.’
They ate in the great hall. Ivar Horse-Prick consumed an immoderate amount, even for a northerner. Ballista told his mother how her brother Heoden did, how things went among her people, the Harii. She admired Battle-Sun, her brother’s gift to his foster-son. Afterwards, Ballista and his mother retired to the privacy of his father’s chamber at the rear of the hall, upstairs under the eaves. There were different wall hangings, a couple of new chests. The rest was the same: the huge, dark-wood carved bed, some of his father’s favoured weapons. Ballista threw open the shutters, letting sunlight flood the room.
Suddenly, his mother hugged him fiercely. Stroking his hair, she sobbed. Ballista held her, his own tears hot on his cheeks.
She stepped away, drying her eyes. ‘It has been a cruel parting. Twenty-six winters. I prayed, but often doubted I would see you again. You are bigger, your teeth and nose have been broken, but you are much the same.’
Ballista went to speak, but his mother silenced him.
‘Pull the chairs to the window.’
He did as he was told. Side by side, they sat and looked out over the palisade at the trees stirring in the wind.
‘You have come back at a bad time,’ she said. ‘You will know about this Unferth and his son, Widsith. No one knows where they came from: some say they are from the south, others that they are not human. The father always goes masked. They gave their oath to the king of the Brondings, ate at his hearth, then — two years ago — murdered him, and took his throne. The Wylfings, Geats and Dauciones have cast off the rule of the Himlings and acclaimed Unferth the Amber Lord.’
Ballista carried on looking at the moving branches. ‘Your brother told me all this. The kings of the Rugii and Heathobards said the same.’
His mother made a slight gesture of impatience that he remembered well. ‘You will not know how things are here. Your father has become old beyond his years. Sometimes he comes here; mainly he stays in the hall at Gudme. In most things, he lets Morcar rule. With you a hostage among the Romans, Arkil the same with the Romans in Gaul, and Eadwulf long in exile among his mother’s people in Frisia, there is no one else.’
‘Oslac?’
‘He does nothing except read Latin poetry and brood over his wife.’ She paused. ‘Kadlin’s eldest son, Starkad, is with Arkil in Gaul.’
‘Kadlin is …’
‘She is mourning her brother.’ Again, the little movement indicating impatience. ‘Your father is surrounded by Morcar’s creatures: Swerting Snake-Tongue; Glaum, son of Wulfmaer. Either Morcar or one of them is always there. Unferth and his men have burnt outlying farmsteads on Latris, even here on Hedinsey. They kill our people, raid our allies, and the Himlings do nothing. Morcar is a great warrior, but it is as if he is reluctant to fight Unferth.’
‘Everyone is afraid of someone,’ Ballista said.
His mother laughed. ‘Whatever Morcar is, he is not a coward.’ The laughter went from her. ‘Nor is Oslac. Neither will welcome your return.’
The Island Of Varinsey
Morcar looked up towards the severed horse’s head on the pole. It was too much. It could not be ignored.
The village of Cold Crendon through which he walked had been a quiet place, its inhabitants farmers and fishermen. Now it was a reeking shambles. Two of the cottages must have been well alight before the rain came. Only their beams remained, shimmering with the fire still in their core. The thatch of others smoked wetly. It would have to be raked off. If there was anyone left to do it, and they had the heart to start again.
Bodies lay in the mud. Men, women and children, old and young cut down indiscriminately. Some were naked; their heads had been hacked off and placed by their buttocks. Morcar felt their shame. These were his people. This was too much.
Morcar walked up to the headland. The rain had blown away to the west. Just a few thin clouds raced after it. The north coast of Varinsey was spread out, its low islands and lakes deceptively peaceful in the gusting wind and returned sunshine.
Rock thrust through the soil up here. The hazel pole had been wedged into a cleft. The horse’s head had been turned to face inland. There was writing cut into the pole. Morcar read the runes.
Here I, Widsith Travel-Quick, son of Unferth, set up this Sorn-Pole and turn its scorn on the cyning Isangrim and the Himlings, and I turn its scorn upon the spirits that inhabit this land, its groves, springs and marshes, sending them all astray so that none of them will find a resting place by chance or design until they have driven the cyning Isangrim and the Himlings from this land.
‘The fuckers are taunting us,’ said Swerting. ‘They mean to drive us out, kill us all. No matter what Postumus the Roman says, we have to fight.’
Snake-Tongue was right, Morcar knew. It had been bad enough before. Now Unferth’s son had burnt a whole village, and on Varinsey, deep in the heart of the empire of the Angles. The mutilations, the Scorn-Pole; it was all a direct challenge to the rule of the cyning. The Himlings needed strong leadership now. They needed it as they had not since the coming of the Heruli then the Goths in the days of the cyning Starkad. Morcar knew it fell to him. His father had fought in every battle at Starkad’s side driving out the Goths, but Isangrim was old now, his fighting days were done. Morcar’s brother Oslac would not answer. Oslac was brave, skilled at arms, but always he had thought too much and done too little. Oslac did nothing but dwell on Latin poetry — how would Virgil’s Pius Aeneas have acted? — and worry about his wife. Since Arkil had gone into Gaul, there was no one to lead the Himlings but Morcar himself.
Yes, Snake-Tongue was right: if this went unavenged the Himlings would not have an ally left. The Rugii, Farodini, Hilleviones — even the Aviones, Varini and Reudigni, all the tribes of the Cimbric peninsula — would follow the islanders in deserting to Unferth. With them gone, it could only be a matter of time before the Himlings fought their final defeats on Hedinsey and Varinsey, before their great halls burned like this village of Cold Crendon.
Morcar knew well in his heart that he must take the fight to Unferth. But the problem remained. Postumus was their ally, and the emperor in the west had been unequivocal in his orders: he would not countenance the Angles attacking the new Lord of the Brondings.
Morcar turned his face to the sea, let the wind lift his long hair, play on his face. The thing was out of his hands. His father was still cyning, and Isangrim had decided to consult the gods about war. One of the Brondings taken after the Nerthus ceremony had been uninjured. Isangrim had announced that the Bronding would fight a champion’s duel against an Angle warrior. The gods would show the outcome of the coming war in the result. As the duel was inevitable, Morcar had demanded he fight for the Angles. He was not much afraid. When the Hilleviones had rebelled, he had defeated their champion
before both armies and returned them to their allegiance with no further blood spilt. He had won four judicial duels among his own people. He did not know how many men he had killed in battle. It was not arrogance; he knew he was as good with weapons as any in the north.
‘Swerting, take the boat from Hronesness. Go to Postumus’s governor of Gallia Belgica, explain why we have to fight Unferth.’
Snake-Tongue nodded.
‘If you think it necessary, go inland to Postumus himself. Leave now.’
After the tall figure of Snake-Tongue had gone, Morcar turned back to the sea. He closed his eyes, let the wind buffet him. It did not clear his mind. Like a dog with a bone, his thoughts returned to worrying at his problems. From the first, he had known the Angles must ally themselves with the breakaway Roman regime in Gaul. It was not the trade, and not just the clandestine money he received. It was simple geography. The mouths of the Rhine were but a short sea journey. The Angles were separated from the lands still ruled by Gallienus by innumerable miles of forest and plain, by many other peoples, many of them hostile. Postumus held Arkil and some thousand Angles. When Postumus heard the Himlings had gone to war with his other ally, Unferth, he might execute his hostages. The deaths of the others would be a pity, but that of Arkil would be far from a concern to Morcar.
There was a much worse aspect. Postumus, of course, knew fine well how Arkil and the others had come into his power. Apart from Morcar himself and Swerting Snake-Tongue, among the Angles no one else knew; not even Glaum, son of Wulfmaer, or Morcar’s own son, Mord. There was no worry about Snake-Tongue. He had been part of a yet worse thing, and held it close in his heart for twenty-eight years. Swerting was trustworthy. Which was more than could be said of any Roman. How many Romans knew? Obviously, Postumus himself; Lepidus, his governor of Gallia Belgica; Celer, the frumentarius who had arranged the thing — any one of them could have told any number of others. Morcar felt like a man standing on a bastion already undermined by his enemies. At any moment, they might light the wood and pork fat. Would there be any sign — telltale wisps of smoke, a slight tremor; something which would give him time to get clear — or would the whole edifice crash down without warning?
And now Dernhelm was coming home, with money and false promises from Gallienus. Morcar opened his eyes, looked at the wide sea, and smiled. Oslac thought no one knew he had paid the witch to curse Dernhelm. Perhaps when that failed, Oslac would turn to more practical measures. Oslac was mad with love for that slut Kadlin. What lengths would he go to if he happened to find her with Dernhelm? … Morcar had arranged more difficult things.
XXV
The Island of Varinsey
Ballista reined in on the last rise, and looked at the home of the gods. The young tended to accept their surroundings as natural and immutable. Ballista had never dwelt on the meaning of Gudme. Now, seeing the place again, somehow, it was evident. The settlement was set in a sacred landscape. The lake of the gods and their springs marked its western border. From up here, he could see the Hill of Sacrifice a mile or two to the north, the Hill of the Gods beyond the lake, and the Hill of the Shrine off to the south. When his great-grandfather Hjar had taken control of the island of Varinsey — over a century before — he had realized that he needed more than his marriage into the ruling Waymunding dynasty, more than his success in war. He had needed the authority of the gods. Hjar had built his hall here at Gudme, the home of the gods, overlooked by those he had claimed as his divine supporters.
Hjar had been no fool. For three generations, the gods had been kind. Gudme had flourished. Now it seemed to stretch for miles. There must have been sixty — a hundred — individually fenced farms. They were gathered in groups on the low hills, fields and meadows in the lowland in between. To Ballista’s eyes, long accustomed to the towns of the imperium, it was strange. It had a centre in the great hall of the Himlings, but no other civic buildings; no central agora with council house and temples. Some of its paths were paved, but they followed no pattern, were flanked by no porticos, no statues. There was not a stone building to be seen, not a tiled roof. No wall encircled Gudme. Apart from the lake, it possessed no real boundaries, nothing to mark the urban from the rural.
The lack of an enclosing wall did not mean it was indefensible. Each farm had its own palisade. They were sited on the higher ground. An attacking force would get split up in the meadows. There were dead ends, natural killing places among the interlocking fences and buildings. In such an environment it would be difficult to keep control of the men. Best to start at the east, take one hillock at a time, move methodically through to the great hall. If you had artillery, site it on the neighbouring rise, use it to keep the defenders’ heads down until just before each assault. If time was short and you were unconcerned about plunder or what happened after, you could attack with the wind behind you and use fire; the thatched, wooden buildings would burn unless the weather was very wet.
‘Big, is it not?’ Maximus said. ‘Has it changed?’
‘Not really.’ Ballista was glad of the interruption to his line of thinking. After all these years, he had returned to the seat of his family’s power, was looking at Gudme, the home of the gods, and in his mind he was weighing up ways to destroy the place.
‘It has no wall,’ Zeno said. ‘Like ancient Lacedaemon, its safety must lie in the courage of its men.’
Ballista inclined his head at the implied compliment. ‘Yet when the Spartans took chains to enslave the men of Arcadia, they were the ones who wore them.’
Now Zeno gracefully accepted the flattering reference from Herodotus to the courage of his ancestors.
Ever since they had been among the Heathobards, the demeanour of the imperial envoy had changed. Perhaps, Ballista thought, Zeno had come to realize how things really lay in this embassy. With luck, Ballista would be able to spare the feelings of the Greek, and not be forced to produce the secret imperial mandata from his baggage.
Ballista checked over the column. The five slaves were with the beasts of burden and baggage at the rear. In front of them were twenty-eight armed men on foot, Romans and Olbians mixed together. The Rugian pilot was with them, having chosen to give his oath to Ballista, rather than be left among the Heathobards. The other ten were mounted with Ballista at the front. Discounting Zeno, the eunuch Amantius and the slaves, there were thirty-seven fighting men. Drawn from different peoples, it was a respectable hearth-troop for the return of an atheling to Gudme of the Himlings.
Things had gone better the day before, when the Warig had beached at the port of Gudme, than they had back on Hedinsey. The defence of Gudmestrand was in the hands of an older eorl called Eadwine. Ballista had half remembered him from boyhood. Eadwine had provided lodgings and a feast. They had drunk with his warriors. There had been no fights. Ballista had given an arm ring to Eadric, the son of the eorl. In the coming days, it would be important to have men well disposed to him among the leaders of the Angles. A tangible expression of Eadwine’s goodwill were their mounts and the baggage animals.
Ballista gave the signal, and, with Zeno at his side, led them into Gudme. As they crossed the final bridge, its guard blew a long blast on his horn. An answering note came from the great hall far ahead. They went between the farms and workshops. Women and children came out to point and stare. Skilled craftsmen — workers in gold, silver and steel, bone and wood — put down their tools to watch. They climbed north up the hill to where the hall of the cyning stood, the smaller halls of his chosen warriors beyond. Like the Allfather’s Gladsheim with Valhalla beyond, Ballista thought; Gudme, where Hjar of the Himlings had re-created Asgard on Middle Earth.
Even to one who had seen the Forum of Trajan, the scale of the hall was still not unimpressive. More than fifty paces long, the ridge of its thatch roof dominated the skyline. To those who had never left the north, it was simply the biggest building in the world.
Ballista and the others dismounted in its lee. A large black bird regarded them from the roof. When th
e ravens leave Gudme, the Himlings will fall. The horses, baggage animals and slaves were taken away. The doorway was at the midpoint of the long wall. It was surmounted by the gilded prow-beast of a longship which the theoden Starkad had taken from the Heruli.
Throwing his travel-stained black cloak back over his shoulder, Ballista adjusted the roseate brooch which held it in place. The brooch of gold and garnets had been a parting gift from his father. The cynings of the Himlings gave out few of the distinctive ornaments. Wearing one declared a man either one of the dynasty, or an important, highly favoured ally, lord of his own people. Ballista checked the gilded things on his belt: the battered bird of prey which his mother had given to him when he left the north, and the Mural Crown, the original of which he had been awarded by the emperor Philip the Arab. He took off his helmet, tucked it under his left arm, pushed back his hair.
Zeno came and stood to one side, and a little behind. His white toga with the thin purple stripe was badly creased. It was an impractical garment in which to ride. Futilely, the envoy attempted to smooth its folds.
‘It looks fine,’ Ballista said. ‘Time to go.’
Battle-Sun hanging with the dagger on his right hip, and the old, unnamed sword he had carried all the years on his left, Ballista walked into the hall of his ancestors.
In the cavernous interior, the massively thick pairs of oak posts marched away on either side. Shields and spears hung from the roof. Isangrim, son of Starkad, cyning of the Angles, was enthroned opposite. On either side of him sat Oslac and Morcar. Many eorls and many of the duguth stood around. Off to the left were leaders of many of his allies.
Ballista walked forward and knelt before the throne. He placed his helmet on the floor, then his hands on Isangrim’s knees. The hands that covered his were spotted with age. There was a slight tremor in one.
Ballista looked up. His father wore a jewelled diadem around his brow. His long hair was plaited back. It was silver. His face was clean-shaven as before, but the cheeks were sunken. His father looked old, tired and careworn. The very pale-blue eyes were rheumy. Yet there was still some light in them.
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