The Pagan Lord

Haesten. I had rescued him years before, given him his freedom and his life, and he had rewarded me with treachery. There had been a time when Haesten was powerful, when his armies had threatened Wessex itself, but fate had brought him low. I had forgotten how many times I had fought him, and I had beaten him every time, yet he survived like a snake wriggling free of a peasant’s rake. For years now he had occupied the old Roman fort at Ceaster, and we had left him there with his handful of men, and now he was here, in Tameworþig. ‘He swore me loyalty,’ Cnut explained when he saw my surprise.

‘He’s sworn that to me too,’ I said.

‘My Lord Uhtred.’ Haesten hurried to meet me, his hands outstretched in welcome and a smile wide as the Temes on his face. He looked older, he was older; we were all older. His fair hair had turned silver, his face was creased, yet the eyes were still shrewd, lively and amused. He had evidently prospered. He wore gold on his arms, had a gold chain with a gold hammer about his neck, and another gold hammer in his left ear lobe. ‘It is always a pleasure to see you,’ he told me.

‘A one-sided pleasure,’ I said.

‘We must be friends!’ he declared. ‘The wars are over.’

‘They are?’

‘The Saxons hold the south, and we Danes live in the north. It is a neat solution. Better than killing each other, yes?’

‘If you tell me the wars are over,’ I said, ‘then I know the shield walls will be made very soon.’ They would too if I could provoke it. I had wanted to kick Haesten out of his refuge in Ceaster for a decade, but my cousin Æthelred, Lord of Mercia, had always refused to lend me the troops I would need. I had even begged Edward of Wessex, and he had said no, explaining that Ceaster lay inside Mercia, not Wessex, and that it was Æthelred’s responsibility, but Æthelred hated me and would rather have the Danes in Ceaster than my reputation enhanced. Now, it seemed, Haesten had gained Cnut’s protection, which made capturing Ceaster a much more formidable task.

‘My Lord Uhtred doesn’t trust me,’ Haesten spoke to Cnut, ‘but I am a changed man, is that not so, lord?’

‘You’re changed,’ Cnut said, ‘because if you betray me I’ll extract the bones from your body and feed them to my dogs.’

‘Your poor dogs must go hungry then, lord,’ Haesten said.

Cnut brushed past him, leading me to the high table on the dais. ‘He’s useful to me,’ he explained Haesten’s presence.

‘You trust him?’ I asked.

‘I trust no man, but I frighten him, so yes, I trust him to do my bidding.’

‘Why not hold Ceaster yourself?’

‘How many men does it take? A hundred and fifty? So let Haesten feed them and spare my treasury. He’s my dog now. I scratch his belly and he obeys my commands.’ He nevertheless gave Haesten a place at the high table, though far away from the two of us. The hall was large enough to hold all Cnut’s warriors and my men, while at the farther end, a long way from the fire and close to the main door, two tables had been provided for cripples and beggars. ‘They get what’s left over,’ Cnut explained.

The cripples and beggars ate well because Cnut gave us a feast that night. There were haunches of roasted horse, platters of beans and onions, fat trout and perch, newly baked bread, and big helpings of the blood puddings I liked so much, all served with ale that was surprisingly good. He served the first horn to me himself, then stared morosely to where my men mixed with his. ‘I don’t use this hall much,’ he said, ‘it’s too close to you stinking Saxons.’

‘Maybe I should burn it for you?’ I suggested.

‘Because I burned your hall?’ That thought seemed to cheer him. ‘Burning your hall was a revenge for Sea Slaughterer,’ he said, grinning. Sea Slaughterer had been his prized ship, and I had turned her into a scorched wreck. ‘You bastard,’ he said, and touched his ale-horn to mine. ‘So what happened to your other son? Did he die?’

‘He became a Christian priest, so, as far as I’m concerned, yes he died.’

He laughed at that, then pointed to Uhtred, ‘And that one?’

‘Is a warrior,’ I said.

‘He looks like you. Let’s hope he doesn’t fight like you. Who’s the other boy?’

‘Æthelstan,’ I said, ‘King Edward’s son.’

Cnut frowned at me. ‘You bring him here? Why shouldn’t I hold the little bastard as a hostage?’

‘Because he is a bastard,’ I said.

‘Ah,’ he said, understanding, ‘so he won’t be King of Wessex?’

‘Edward has other sons.’

‘I hope my son holds onto my lands,’ Cnut said, ‘and perhaps he will. He’s a good boy. But the strongest should rule, Lord Uhtred, not the one who slides out from between a queen’s legs.’

‘The queen might think differently.’

‘Who cares what wives think?’ He spoke carelessly, but I suspected he lied. He did want his son to inherit his lands and fortune. We all do, and I felt a shiver of rage at the thought of Father Judas. But at least I had a second son, a good son, while Cnut had only one, and the boy was missing. Cnut cut into a haunch of horsemeat and held a generous portion towards me. ‘Why don’t your men eat horse?’ he asked. He had noticed how many had left the meat untouched.

‘Their god won’t allow it,’ I said.

He looked at me as if judging whether I made a joke. ‘Truly?’

‘Truly. They have a supreme wizard in Rome,’ I explained, ‘a man called the pope, and he said Christians aren’t permitted to eat horse.’

‘Why not?’

‘Because we sacrifice horses to Odin and Thor and eat the meat. So they won’t.’

‘All the more for us,’ Cnut said. ‘A pity their god doesn’t teach them to leave women alone.’ He laughed. He had always been fond of jokes and surprised me by telling one now. ‘You know why farts smell?’

‘I don’t.’

‘So the deaf can enjoy them too.’ He laughed again and I wondered why a man who was so bitter about his missing wife and children could be so light-hearted. And perhaps he read my thoughts because he suddenly looked serious. ‘So who took my wife and children?’

‘I don’t know.’

He tapped the table with his fingertips. ‘My enemies,’ he said after a few heartbeats, ‘are all the Saxons, the Norse in Ireland, and the Scots. So it’s one of those.’

‘Why not another Dane?’

‘They wouldn’t dare,’ he said confidently. ‘And I think they were Saxons.’

‘Why?’

‘Someone heard them speaking. She said they spoke your foul tongue.’

‘There are Saxons serving the Norse,’ I said.

‘Not many. So who took them?’

‘Someone who’ll use them as hostages,’ I said.

‘Who?’

‘Not me.’

‘For some reason,’ he said, ‘I believe you. Maybe I’m getting old and gullible, but I’m sorry I burned your hall and blinded your priest.’

‘Cnut Longsword apologises?’ I asked in mock astonishment.

‘I must be getting old,’ he said.

‘You stole my horses too.’

‘I’ll keep those.’ He stabbed a knife into a hunk of cheese, cut off a lump, then gazed down the hall, which was lit by a great central hearth round which a dozen dogs slept. ‘Why haven’t you taken Bebbanburg?’ he asked.

‘Why haven’t you?’

He acknowledged that with a curt nod. Like all the northern Danes he lusted after Bebbanburg, and I knew he must have wondered how it could be captured. He shrugged. ‘I’d need four hundred men,’ he said.

‘You have four hundred. I don’t.’

‘And even then they’ll die crossing that neck of land.’

‘And if I’m to capture it,’ I told him, ‘I’d have to lead four hundred men through your land, through Sigurd Thorrson’s land, and then face my uncle’s men on that neck.’

‘Your uncle is old. I hear he’s sick.’

‘Good.’

‘His son will hold it. Better him than you.’

‘Better?’

‘He’s not the warrior you are,’ Cnut said. He gave the compliment grudgingly, not looking at me as he spoke. ‘If I do you a favour,’ he went on, still gazing at the great fire in the hearth, ‘will you do one for me?’

‘Probably,’ I said cautiously.

He slapped the table, startling four hounds who had been sleeping beneath the board, then beckoned to one of his men. The man stood; Cnut pointed at the hall door and the man obediently went into the night. ‘Find out who took my wife and children,’ Cnut said.

‘If it’s a Saxon,’ I said, ‘I can probably do that.’

‘Do it,’ he said harshly, ‘and perhaps help me get them back.’ He paused, his pale eyes staring down the hall. ‘I hear your daughter’s pretty?’

‘I think so.’

‘Marry her to my son.’

‘Stiorra must be ten years older than Cnut Cnutson.’

‘So? He’s not marrying her for love, you idiot, but for an alliance. You and I, Lord Uhtred, we could take this whole island.’

‘What would I do with this whole island?’

He half smiled. ‘You’re on that bitch’s leash, aren’t you?’

‘Bitch?’

‘Æthelflaed,’ he said curtly.

‘And who holds Cnut Longsword’s leash?’ I asked.

He laughed at that, but did not answer. Instead he jerked his head towards the hall door. ‘And there’s your other bitch. She wasn’t harmed.’

The man dispatched by Cnut had fetched Sigunn, who stopped just inside the door and looked around warily, then saw me on Cnut’s dais. She ran up the hall, round the table’s end and threw her arms around me. Cnut laughed at the display of affection. ‘You can stay here, woman,’ he told Sigunn, ‘among your own people.’ She said nothing, just clung to me. Cnut grinned at me over her shoulder. ‘You’re free to go, Saxon,’ he said, ‘but find out who hates me. Find out who took my woman and children.’

‘If I can,’ I said, but I should have thought harder. Who would dare capture Cnut Longsword’s family? Who would dare? But I did not think clearly. I thought their capture was meant to harm Cnut, and I was wrong. And Haesten was there, sworn man to Cnut, but Haesten was like Loki, the trickster god, and that should have made me think, but instead I drank and talked and listened to Cnut’s jokes and to a harpist singing of victories over the Saxons.

And next morning I took Sigunn and went back south.

Two

My son, Uhtred. It seemed strange calling him that, at least at first. He had been called Osbert for almost twenty years and I had to make an effort to use his new name. Perhaps my father had felt the same when he renamed me. Now, as we rode back from Tameworþig, I called Uhtred to my side. ‘You haven’t fought in a shield wall yet,’ I told him.

‘No, Father.’

‘You’re not a man till you do,’ I said.

‘I want to.’

‘And I want to protect you,’ I said. ‘I’ve lost one son, I don’t want to lose another.’

We rode in silence through a damp, grey land. There was little wind and the trees hung heavy with wet leaves. The crops were poor. It was dusk and the west was suffused with a grey light that glinted off the puddled fields. Two crows flew slowly towards the clouds that shrouded the dying sun. ‘I can’t protect you for ever,’ I said. ‘Sooner or later you’ll have to fight in a shield wall. You have to prove yourself.’

‘I know that, Father.’

Yet it was not my son’s fault that he had never proved himself. The uneasy peace that had settled on Britain like a damp fog had meant that warriors stayed in their halls. There had been many skirmishes, but no battle since we had cut down the spear-Danes in East Anglia. The Christian priests liked to say that their god had granted the peace because that was his will, but it was the will of men that was lacking. King Edward of Wessex was content to defend what he had inherited from his father and showed little ambition to increase those lands, Æthelred of Mercia sulked in Gleawecestre, and Cnut? He was a great warrior, but also a cautious one, and perhaps the new pretty wife had been entertainment enough for him, except now someone had taken that wife and his twin children. ‘I like Cnut,’ I said.

‘He was generous,’ my son said.

I ignored that. Cnut had indeed been a generous host, but that was the duty of a lord, though once again I should have thought more carefully. The feast at Tameworþig had been lavish, and it had been prepared, which meant Cnut knew he would entertain me rather than kill me. ‘One day we’ll have to kill him,’ I said, ‘and his son, if he ever finds his son. They stand in our way. But for the moment we’ll do what he asked. We’ll find out who captured his wife and children.’

‘Why?’ he asked.

‘Why what?’

‘Why help him? He’s a Dane. He’s our enemy.’

‘I didn’t say we’re helping him,’ I growled. ‘But whoever took Cnut’s wife is planning something. I want to know what.’

‘What is Cnut’s wife called?’ he asked.

‘I didn’t ask him,’ I said, ‘but I hear she’s beautiful. Not like that plump little seamstress you plough every night. She’s got a face like the backside of a piglet.’

‘I don’t look at her face,’ he said, then frowned. ‘Did Cnut say his wife was captured at Buchestanes?’ he asked.

‘That’s what he said.’

‘Isn’t that a long way north?’

‘Far enough.’

‘So a Saxon band rides that deep into Cnut’s land without being seen or challenged?’

‘I did it once.’

‘You’re Lord Uhtred, miracle-worker,’ he said, grinning.

‘I went to see the sorceress there,’ I told him, and remembered that strange night and the beautiful creature who had come to me in my vision. Erce, she had been called, yet in the morning there had only been the old hag, Ælfadell. ‘She sees the future,’ I said, but Ælfadell had said nothing to me of Bebbanburg, and that was what I had wanted to hear. I wanted to hear that I would retake that fortress, that I would become its rightful lord, and I thought of my uncle, old and sick, and that made me angry. I did not want him to die until I had hurt him. Bebbanburg. It haunted me. I had spent the last years trying to amass the gold needed to go north and assault those great ramparts, but bad harvests had bitten into my hoard. ‘I’m getting old,’ I said.

‘Father?’ Uhtred asked, surprised.

‘If I don’t capture Bebbanburg,’ I told him, ‘then you will. Take my body there, bury it there. Put Serpent-Breath in my grave.’

‘You’ll do it,’ he said.

‘I’m getting old,’ I said again, and that was true. I had lived more than fifty years and most men were lucky to see forty. Yet all old age was bringing was the death of dreams. There had been a time when all we wanted was one country, free of Danes, a land of the English kin, but still the Northmen ruled in the north and the Saxon south was riddled with priests who preached turning the cheek. I wondered what would happen after my death, whether Cnut’s son would lead the last great invasion, and the halls would burn and the churches would fall and the land Alfred had wanted to call England would be named Daneland.

Osferth, Alfred’s bastard son, spurred to catch us up. ‘That’s odd,’ he said.

‘Odd?’ I asked. I had been daydreaming, noticing nothing, but now, looking ahead, I saw that the southern sky was glowing red, a lurid red, the red of fire.

‘The hall must still be smouldering,’ Osferth said. It was dusk and the sky was dark except in the far west and above the fire to our south. The flames reflected from the clouds and a smear of smoke drifted eastwards. We were close to home and the smoke had to be coming from Fagranforda. ‘But it can’t have burned that long,’ Osferth went on, puzzled. ‘The fire was out when we left.’

‘And it’s rained ever since,’ my son added.

For a moment I thought of stubble burning, but that was a nonsense. We were nowhere near harvest time and so I kicked my heels to hurry Lightning. The big hooves splashed in puddled ruts and I kicked him again to make him gallop. Æthelstan, on his lighter and smaller horse, raced past me. I called to the boy to come back, but he kept riding, pretending not to have heard me. ‘He’s headstrong,’ Osferth said disapprovingly.

‘He needs to be,’ I said. A bastard son must fight his own way in the world. Osferth knew that. Æthelstan, like Osferth, might be the son of a king, but he was not the son of Edward’s wife, and that made him dangerous to her family. He would need to be headstrong.

We were on my land now and I cut across a waterlogged pasture to the stream that watered my fields. ‘No,’ I said in disbelief because the mill was burning. It was a watermill I had built and now it was spewing flames, while close to it, dancing like demons, were men in dark robes. Æthelstan, far ahead of us, had curbed his horse to stare beyond the mill to where the rest of the buildings were aflame. Everything that Cnut Ranulfson’s men had left unburned was now blazing: the barn, the stables, the cow shelters, everything; and all about them, capering black in the flamelight, were men.

There were men and some women. Scores of them. And children too, running excitedly around the roaring flames. A cheer went up as the ridge of the barn collapsed to spew sparks high into the darkening sky, and in the burst of flames I saw bright banners held by dark-robed men. ‘Priests,’ my son said. I could hear singing now and I kicked Lightning and beckoned my men so that we galloped across the waterlogged meadow towards the place that had been my home. And as we approached I saw the dark robes gather together and saw the glint of weapons. There were hundreds of folk there. They were jeering, shouting, and above their heads were spears and hoes, axes and scythes. I saw no shields. This was the fyrd, the gathering of ordinary men to defend their land, the men who would garrison the burhs if the Danes came, but now they had occupied my estate and they had seen me and were screaming insults.

A man in a white cloak and mounted on a white horse pushed through the rabble. He held up his hand for silence and when it did not come he turned his horse and shouted at the angry crowd. I heard his voice, but not his words. He calmed them, stared at them for a few heartbeats, and then wrenched his horse around and spurred towards me. I had stopped. My men made a line on either side of me. I was watching the crowd, looking for faces I knew and saw none. My neighbours, it seemed, had no stomach for this burning.

The horseman stopped a few paces from me. He was a priest. He wore a black robe beneath the white cloak and a silver crucifix was bright against the black weave. He had a long face carved with shadowed lines, a wide mouth, a hook of a nose, and deep-set dark eyes beneath thick black brows. ‘I am Bishop Wulfheard,’ he announced. He met my eyes and I could see nervousness beneath the defiance. ‘Wulfheard of Hereford,’ he added as if the name of his bishopric would give him added dignity.

‘I’ve heard of Hereford,’ I said. It was a town on the border between Mercia and Wales, a smaller town than Gleawecestre yet, for some reason that only the Christians could explain, the small town had a bishop and the larger did not. I had heard of Wulfheard too. He was one of those ambitious priests who whisper into kings’ ears. He might be Bishop of Hereford, but he spent his time in Gleawecestre where he was Æthelred’s puppy.

I looked away from him, staring instead at the line of men who barred my path. Perhaps three hundred? I could see a handful of swords now, but most of the weapons had come from farm steadings. Yet three hundred men armed with timber axes, with hoes and with sickles could do lethal damage to my sixty-eight men.

‘Look at me!’ Wulfheard demanded.

I kept my eyes on the crowd and touched my right hand to Serpent-Breath’s hilt. ‘You do not give me orders, Wulfheard,’ I said, not looking at him.

‘I bring you orders,’ he said grandly, ‘from Almighty God and from the Lord Æthelred.’

‘I’m sworn to neither,’ I said, ‘so their orders mean nothing.’

‘You mock God!’ the bishop shouted loud enough for the crowd to hear.

That crowd murmured and a few even edged forward as if to attack my men.

Bishop Wulfheard also edged forward. He ignored me now and called to my men instead. ‘The Lord Uhtred,’ he shouted, ‘has been declared outcast of God’s church! He has killed a saintly abbot and wounded other men of God! It has been decreed that he is banished from this land, and further decreed that any man who follows him, who swears loyalty to him, is also outcast from God and from man!’

I sat still. Lightning thumped a heavy hoof on the soft turf and the bishop’s horse shifted warily away. There was silence from my men. Some of their wives and children had seen us and they were streaming across the meadow, seeking the protection of our weapons. Their homes had been burned. I could see the smoke sifting up from the street on the small western hill.

‘If you wish to see heaven,’ the bishop called to my men, ‘if you wish your wives and children to enjoy the saving grace of our Lord Jesus, then you must leave this evil man!’ He pointed at me. ‘He is cursed of God, he is cast into an outer darkness! He is condemned! He is reprobate! He is damned! He is an abomination before the Lord! An abomination!’ He evidently liked that word, because he repeated it. ‘An abomination! And if you remain with him, if you fight for him, then you too shall be cursed, both you and your wives and your children also! You and they will be condemned to the everlasting tortures of hell! You are therefore absolved of your loyalty to him! And know that to kill him is no sin! To kill this abomination is to earn the grace of God!’

He was inciting them to my death, but not one of my men moved to attack me, though the rabble found new courage and shuffled forward, growling. They were nerving themselves to swarm at me. I glanced back at my men and saw they were in no mood to fight this crowd of enraged Christians because my men’s wives were not seeking protection, as I had thought, but trying to pull them away from me, and I remembered something Father Pyrlig had once said to me, that women were ever the most avid worshippers, and I saw that these women, all Christians, were undermining my men’s loyalties.

What is an oath? A promise to serve a lord, but to Christians there is always a higher allegiance. My gods demand no oaths, but the nailed god is more jealous than any lover. He tells his followers that they can have no other gods beside himself, and how ridiculous is that? Yet the Christians grovel to him and abandon the older gods. I saw my men waver. They glanced at me, then some spurred away, not towards the ranting mob, but westwards away from the crowd and away from me. ‘It’s your fault.’ Bishop Wulfheard had forced his horse back towards me. ‘You killed Abbot Wihtred, a holy man, and God’s people have had enough of you.’

Not all my men wavered. Some, mostly Danes, spurred towards me, as did Osferth. ‘You’re a Christian,’ I said to him, ‘why don’t you abandon me?’

‘You forget,’ he said, ‘that I was abandoned by God. I’m a bastard, already cursed.’

My son and Æthelstan had also stayed, but I feared for the younger boy. Most of my men were Christians and they had ridden away from me, while the threatening crowd was numbered in the hundreds and they were being encouraged by priests and monks. ‘The pagans must be destroyed!’ I heard a black-bearded priest shout. ‘He and his woman! They defile our land! We are cursed so long as they live!’

‘Your priests threaten a woman?’ I asked Wulfheard. Sigunn was by my side, mounted on a small grey mare. I kicked Lightning towards the bishop, who wrenched his horse away. ‘I’ll give her a sword,’ I told him, ‘and let her gut your gutless guts, you mouse-prick.’

Osferth caught up with me and took hold of Lightning’s bridle. ‘A retreat might be prudent, lord,’ he said.

I drew Serpent-Breath. It was deep dusk now, the western sky was a glowing purple shading to grey and then to a wide blackness in which the first stars glittered through tiny rents in the clouds. The light of the fires reflected from Serpent-Breath’s wide blade. ‘Maybe I’ll kill myself a bishop first,’ I snarled, and turned Lightning back towards Wulfheard, who rammed his heels so that his horse leaped away, almost unsaddling his rider.