The Pagan Lord

by Bernard Cornwell

  ‘I’m not surprised,’ I said, ‘the poor bastard probably wanted to get away from this shit village.’ I looked back to the two men. ‘You have a lord? Where does he live?’

  One of them pointed northwards and so we followed the track in that direction. Logs had been placed across the boggiest stretches, though they had long rotted and the damp timber crunched beneath our feet. The mist was obstinate. I could see the sun as a glowing patch of light, but even though the patch climbed higher in the sky the mist did not burn off. We seemed to walk for ever, just us and the marsh birds and the reeds and the long slimy pools. I began to think there would be no end to the desolation, but at last I saw a crude thorn fence and a small pasture where five sodden sheep with dung-clotted tails grazed among thistles. Beyond the sheep were buildings, at first just dark shapes in the mist, then I saw a hall, a barn and a palisade. A dog began to bark, and the sound brought a man to the open palisade gate. He was elderly, dressed in torn mail, and carrying a spear with a rusted blade. ‘Is this Botulfstan?’ I asked him in Danish.

  ‘Botulf died long ago,’ he said in the same language.

  ‘Then who lives here?’

  ‘Me,’ he said helpfully.

  ‘Gorm!’ a woman’s voice called from inside the palisade. ‘Let them in!’

  ‘And her,’ Gorm said sullenly, ‘she lives here too.’ He stood aside.

  The hall was made of timbers blackened by damp and age. The rush-thatched roof was thick with moss. A mangy dog was tied to a doorpost with a rope of plaited leather that strained as he leaped towards us, but the woman snapped at him and the dog lay down. She was an older woman, grey-haired, dressed in a long brown cloak gathered at her neck by a heavy silver brooch that was shaped like a hammer. No Christian then. ‘My husband isn’t here,’ she greeted us brusquely. She spoke Danish. The villagers had been Saxons.

  ‘And who is your husband?’ I asked.

  ‘Who are you?’ she retorted.

  ‘Wulf Ranulfson,’ I said, using the name I had invented at Grimesbi, ‘out of Haithabu.’

  ‘You’re a long way from home.’

  ‘So is your husband it seems.’

  ‘He is Hoskuld Irenson,’ she said in a tone that suggested we should have heard of him.

  ‘And he serves?’ I asked.

  She hesitated, as if reluctant to answer, then relented. ‘Sigurd Thorrson.’

  Sigurd Thorrson was Cnut Ranulfson’s friend and ally, the second great Northumbrian lord, and a man who hated me because I had killed his son. True, the death had been in battle and the boy had died with a sword in his hand, but Sigurd would still hate me till his own death came.

  ‘I have heard of Sigurd Thorrson,’ I said.

  ‘Who has not?’

  ‘I have hopes of serving him,’ I said.

  ‘How did you come here?’ she demanded, sounding indignant, as if no one should ever discover this rotting hall in its wide marsh.

  ‘We crossed the sea, lady,’ I said.

  ‘The wrong sea,’ she said, sounding amused, ‘and you’re a long way from Sigurd Thorrson.’

  ‘And you, my lady, are?’ I asked gently.

  ‘I am Frieda.’

  ‘If you have ale,’ I said, ‘we can pay for it.’

  ‘Not steal it?’

  ‘Pay for it,’ I said, ‘and while we drink it you can tell me why I have crossed the wrong sea.’

  We paid a scrap of silver for ale that tasted of ditch-water, and Frieda explained that her husband had been summoned to serve his lord, that he had taken the six men from the estate who were skilled with weapons, and that they had ridden westwards. ‘Jarl Sigurd said they should take their boat, but we don’t have a ship.’

  ‘Take it where?’

  ‘To the western sea,’ she said, ‘the sea that lies between us and Ireland,’ and she sounded vague as though Ireland was just a name to her, ‘but we have no ship, so my husband went by horse.’

  ‘The Jarl Sigurd is summoning his men?’

  ‘He is,’ she said, ‘and so is the Jarl Cnut. And I pray they all return safely.’

  From the western sea? I thought about that. It meant, surely, that Cnut and Sigurd were gathering ships and the only place on the western coast where they could assemble a fleet was close to Haesten’s fortress at Ceaster. The coast to the south of Ceaster was Welsh, and those savages would not give shelter to a Danish fleet, while the shore to the north was Cumbraland, which is as wild and lawless as Wales, so the Danes must be gathering at Ceaster. So where would the fleet go? To Wessex? Frieda did not know. ‘There will be war,’ she said, ‘and there already is war.’

  ‘Already?’

  She gestured northwards. ‘I hear the Saxons are in Lindcolne!’

  ‘Saxons!’ I pretended surprise.

  ‘The news came yesterday. Hundreds of Saxons!’

  ‘And Lindcolne is where?’ I asked.

  ‘There,’ she said, pointing north again.

  I had heard of Lindcolne, though I had never visited the place. It had been an important town once, built by the Romans and made larger by the Saxons who captured the land when the Romans had left, though rumour said the town had been burned by the Danes who now occupied the fort on Lindcolne’s high ground. ‘How far is Lindcolne?’ I asked her.

  She did not know. ‘But my husband can be there and back in two days,’ she suggested, ‘so it’s not far.’

  ‘And what are the Saxons doing there?’ I asked.

  ‘Dunging the ground with their filth,’ she said, ‘I don’t know. I just hope they don’t come here.’

  Lindcolne lay north, well inside Northumbria. If Frieda was right then a Saxon army had dared invade Sigurd Thorrson’s land, and they would only do that if they were sure of provoking no reprisals, and the only way to prevent such reprisals was if Cnut Longsword’s wife and children were hostages in Saxon hands. ‘Do you have horses, lady?’ I asked.

  ‘You’re hungry?’ she scoffed.

  ‘I would borrow horses, lady, to find out more about these Saxons.’

  She drove a hard bargain, making me rent the two miserable nags left in the stable. Both were mares, both were old, and neither looked as if she had stamina, but they were horses and we needed them. I told Osferth he would accompany me to Lindcolne and sent the other men back to Middelniht. ‘Tell Finan we’ll be back in three days,’ I told them, hoping that was true.

  Osferth was reluctant to leave Middelniht and Ingulfrid. ‘She’ll be safe,’ I snarled at him.

  ‘Yes, lord,’ he said distantly.

  ‘She’ll be safe! Finan will make sure of that.’

  He threw a saddle over the smaller mare. ‘I know, lord.’

  I was taking Osferth because he was useful. All I knew of the Saxons at Lindcolne was that they had come from Æthelred’s army, which meant they were probably sworn to my destruction, but Osferth, even though he was bastard born, was Alfred’s son and men treated him with the respect and deference due to the son of a king. He had a natural authority, and his Christianity was beyond argument, and I needed all the support his presence might give me.

  Osferth and I mounted. The stirrup leathers were too short and the girths too big, and I wondered if we would ever make it to Lindcolne, but the two mares ambled northwards willingly enough, though neither seemed capable of going any faster than an exhausted walk. ‘If we meet Danes,’ Osferth said, ‘we’re in trouble.’

  ‘They’d more likely die from laughing if they see these horses.’

  He grimaced at that. The mist was slowly melting away to reveal a wide, empty land of marsh and reed. That was a bleak, treeless place. Some folk lived in the marshes because we saw their hovels in the distance and passed eel traps in dark ditches, but we saw no one. Osferth seemed to grow more gloomy with every mile we travelled. ‘What will you do with the boy?’ he asked after a while.

  ‘Sell him back to his father, of course,’ I said, ‘unless someone else offers more money.’

  ‘And his
mother will go with him.’

  ‘Will she?’ I asked. ‘You know better than I what she’ll do.’

  He was staring across the wetland. ‘She’ll die,’ he said.

  ‘So she says.’

  ‘You believe her?’ he challenged me.

  I nodded. ‘There’s plainly no affection there. Everyone will assume we raped her, and her husband won’t believe her denials, so yes, he’ll probably kill her.’

  ‘Then she can’t go back!’ Osferth said fiercely.

  ‘That’s her decision,’ I said.

  We rode in silence for a while. ‘The Lady Ingulfrid,’ he broke the silence, ‘was not allowed to leave Bebbanburg for fifteen years. She might as well have been a prisoner.’

  ‘Is that why she came with us? To smell the air outside?’

  ‘A mother wants to be with her son,’ he said.

  ‘Or away from her husband,’ I replied tartly.

  ‘If we keep the boy …’ he began, then faltered.

  ‘He’s no use to me,’ I said, ‘except for what his father will pay. I should have sold him when we were at Bebbanburg, but I wasn’t sure we’d get out of the harbour alive unless we held him hostage. Since then he’s just been a nuisance.’

  ‘He’s a good boy,’ Osferth said defensively.

  ‘And as long as he lives,’ I said, ‘the good boy believes he has a claim to Bebbanburg. I should cut his lousy throat.’

  ‘No!’

  ‘I don’t kill children,’ I said, ‘but in another few years? In another few years I’ll have to kill him.’

  ‘I’ll buy him from you,’ Osferth blurted out.

  ‘You? Where will you get the gold?’

  ‘I’ll buy him!’ he said obstinately. ‘Just give me time.’

  I sighed. ‘We’ll sell the boy back to his father and persuade his mother to stay with us. That’s what you want, isn’t it?’ He nodded, but said nothing. ‘You’re in love,’ I said, and saw I had embarrassed him, but pressed on anyway, ‘and being in love changes everything. A man will fight through the fires of Ragnarok because he’s in love; he’ll forget all the world and do insane things just for the woman he loves.’

  ‘I know,’ he said.

  ‘You do? You’ve never had the madness before.’

  ‘I’ve watched you,’ he said, ‘and you’re not doing this for Wessex or for Mercia, you’re doing this for my sister.’

  ‘Who is a married woman,’ I said harshly.

  ‘We are all sinners,’ he said and made the sign of the cross. ‘God forgive us.’

  We fell silent. The road was climbing now, though only to slightly higher ground where, at last, trees grew. They were alders and willow, all bent westwards from the cold wind of the sea. The higher ground was good pasture land, still flat, but hedged and ditched, and with cows and sheep at grass. There were villages and fine halls. It was afternoon by now and we stopped at one hall and asked for ale, bread and cheese. The servants in the hall were Danish and told us their lord had ridden westwards to join Sigurd Thorrson. ‘When did he go?’ I asked.

  ‘Six days ago, lord.’

  So Cnut and Sigurd had not launched their invasion yet, or else they were sailing even as we spoke. ‘I heard the Saxons are in Lindcolne,’ I said to the steward.

  ‘Not in Lindcolne, lord. In Bearddan Igge.’

  ‘Bearda’s Island?’ I repeated the name. ‘Where’s that?’

  ‘Not far from Lindcolne, lord. A short ride to the east.’

  ‘How many?’

  He shrugged. ‘Two hundred? Three?’ He plainly did not know, but his answer confirmed my suspicion that Æthelred had not brought his whole army into Northumbria, but instead had sent a strong war-band.

  ‘They’re there to attack Lindcolne?’ I asked.

  He laughed. ‘They daren’t! They’d die!’

  ‘Then why are they there?’

  ‘Because they’re fools, lord?’

  ‘So what’s at Bearddan Igge?’ I asked.

  ‘Nothing, lord,’ the steward said, and I saw Osferth open his mouth to speak, then think better of it.

  ‘There’s a monastery at Bearddan Igge,’ Osferth told me as we rode on, ‘or there used to be before the pagans burned it.’

  ‘Good to know they did something useful,’ I said, and was rewarded with a glower.

  ‘It is where Saint Oswald’s body is buried,’ Osferth said.

  I stared at him. ‘Why didn’t you tell me that before?’

  ‘I’d forgotten the name, lord, till the man said it. Bearddan Igge: it’s a strange name, but a holy place.’

  ‘And full of Æthelred’s men,’ I said, ‘digging up a saint.’

  The sun was low in the west as we approached Bearddan Igge. The land was still flat and the ground damp. We forded lazy streams and crossed drainage ditches that ran straight as arrows between soggy pastures. We had joined a larger road and that too ran straight as an arrow. We passed a Roman milestone, fallen over and half hidden by grass, and the carving on the stone said ‘Lindum VIII’ which meant, I assumed, that it was eight miles to the town we call Lindcolne. ‘Did the Romans use miles?’ I asked Osferth.

  ‘They did, lord.’

  It was not far beyond the fallen milestone that the war-band saw us. They were to our west where the sun was low and dazzling in the sky, and they saw us long before we saw them. There were eight of them, mounted on big stallions, the riders armed with spears or swords, and they galloped across the wetland, their hooves hurling up great clods of damp earth. We curbed our miserable nags and waited.

  The eight men surrounded us. Their horses stamped the track as the riders inspected us. I saw their leader’s eyes look at my hammer, then at the cross hanging at Osferth’s neck. ‘You call those things horses?’ he sneered. Then, when neither of us answered, ‘And who in God’s name are you?’

  ‘He’s the priest-killer,’ one of his men supplied the answer. He was the only man with a shield and that shield was painted with Æthelred’s prancing white horse. ‘I recognise him,’ the man went on.

  The questioner looked into my eyes. I could see surprise on his face. ‘You’re Uhtred?’

  ‘He’s Lord Uhtred,’ Osferth said reprovingly.

  ‘You’ll come with us,’ the man said curtly, and turned his horse.

  I nodded at Osferth to indicate we would obey. ‘We should take their swords,’ another of the men suggested.

  ‘Try,’ I said pleasantly.

  They decided not to try, leading us instead across waterlogged pastures, over ditches, and finally to a damp road that led north and east. I could see a mass of horses in the distance. ‘How many men are you?’ I asked. No one answered. ‘And who leads you?’

  ‘Someone who’ll decide whether a priest-killer should live or die,’ the man who was evidently the leader answered.

  But the wheel of fortune was still hoisting me upwards because the decision-maker turned out to be Merewalh, and I saw the relief on his face when he recognised me. I had known him for years. He was one of Æthelred’s men, and a good one. He and I had been together outside Ceaster, and Merewalh had always taken my advice and, so far as Æthelred allowed him, cooperated with me. He had never been close to Æthelred. Merewalh was a man who was chosen for the uncomfortable tasks, like riding the frontier between Saxon and Danish lands while other men basked in the comfort of Æthelred’s approval. Now Merewalh had been given the job of leading three hundred men deep into Northumbria. ‘We’re looking for Saint Oswald,’ he explained.

  ‘What’s left of him.’

  ‘He’s supposed to be buried here,’ he said, and gestured at a field where his men had been digging so that the whole expanse of grass was pocked by opened graves, mounds of earth, and rows of bones. A few rotted posts showed where there had once been a monastery. ‘The Danes burned it years ago,’ Merewalh said.

  ‘And they dug up Saint Oswald too,’ I said, ‘and they probably pounded his bones to dust and scattered them to the winds.’ />
  Merewalh was a good friend, but there were also enemies waiting for me in that drab field called Bearddan Igge. There were three priests led by Ceolberht whom I recognised by his toothless gums, and my arrival spurred him to a new rant. I was to be killed. I was the pagan who had killed the saintly Abbot Wihtred. I had been cursed by God and by man. Men crowded around to hear him, listening as he spat his hatred. ‘I command you,’ Ceolberht spoke to Merewalh, but pointed to me, ‘in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost to put that evil man to death.’

  But though these Mercians were Christians they were also nervous. They had been sent on an idiotic errand deep inside enemy land and they knew they were being watched by Danes patrolling from the high fort at Lindcolne. The longer they stayed at Bearddan Igge the more nervous they became, expecting any moment to be attacked by a larger and more powerful enemy. They wanted to be back with Æthelred’s army, but the priests were insisting that Saint Oswald could be found and must be found. Ceolberht and his priests were insisting that I was an outlaw, fated to be killed, but these men also knew I was a warlord, that I had won battle after battle against the Danes, and at that moment they feared the Danes more then they feared the wrath of their nailed god. Ceolberht ranted, but no one moved to kill me.

  ‘Have you finished?’ I asked Ceolberht when he paused to catch his breath.

  ‘You have been declared an …’ he began again

  ‘How many teeth do you have left?’ I interrupted him. He said nothing, just gawped at me. ‘So keep your mouth closed,’ I said, ‘if you don’t want me to kick the rest of your rotten teeth out of your jaw.’ I turned back to Merewalh. ‘The Danes are just letting you dig?’

  He nodded. ‘They know we’re here.’

  ‘How long have you been here?’

  ‘Three days. The Danes send men from Lindcolne to watch us, but they don’t interfere.’

  ‘They don’t interfere,’ I said, ‘because they want you here.’

  He frowned at that. ‘Why would they want us here?’

  I raised my voice. Most of Merewalh’s men were close by and I wanted them to hear what I had to say. ‘The Danes want you here because they want Æthelred to be bogged down in East Anglia while they attack Mercia.’