The Last Kingdom Series Books 1 and 2: The Last Kingdom, The Pale Horseman

I threw thirty coins. The Judas price. I remembered that church tale. It was one of the few that I had liked.

There were archers on the wall, but none drew. They just watched. I gave my uncle the evil sign, the devil’s horns made with the two outer fingers, and then I spat at him, turned and trotted away. He knew I was alive now, knew I was his enemy, and knew I would kill him like a dog if ever I had the chance.

‘Uhtred!’ Brida called. She had been looking behind and I twisted in the saddle to see that one warrior had jumped over the wall, had fallen heavily, but was now running towards us. He was a big man, heavily bearded, and I thought I could never fight such a man, and then I saw the archers loose their arrows and they flecked the ground about the man who I now saw was Ealdwulf, the smith.

‘Lord Uhtred!’ Ealdwulf called, ‘Lord Uhtred!’ I turned the horse and went to him, shielding him from the arrows with my horse’s bulk, but none of the arrows came close and I suspect, looking back on that distant day, that the bowmen were deliberately missing. ‘You live, lord!’ Ealdwulf beamed up at me.

‘I live.’

‘Then I come with you,’ he said firmly.

‘But your wife, your son?’ I asked.

‘My wife died, lord, last year, and my son was drowned while fishing.’

‘I am sorry,’ I said. An arrow skidded through the dune grass, but it was yards away.

‘Woden gives, and Woden takes away,’ Ealdwulf said, ‘and he has given me back my lord.’ He saw Thor’s hammer about my neck and, because he was a pagan, he smiled.

And I had my first follower. Ealdwulf the smith.

‘He’s a gloomy man, your uncle,’ Ealdwulf told me as we journeyed south, ‘miserable as shit, he is. Even his new son don’t cheer him up.’

‘He has a son?’

‘Ælfric the Younger, he’s called, and he’s a bonny wee thing. Healthy as you like. Gytha’s sick though. She won’t last long. And you, lord? You look well.’

‘I am well.’

‘You’d be twelve now?’

‘Thirteen.’

‘A man, then. Is that your woman?’ He nodded at Brida.

‘My friend.’

‘No meat on her,’ Ealdwulf said, ‘so better as a friend.’ The smith was a big man, almost forty years old, with hands, forearms and face black-scarred from countless small burns from his forge. He walked beside my horse, his pace apparently effortless despite his advanced years. ‘So tell me about these Danes,’ he said, casting a dubious look at Ragnar’s warriors.

‘They’re led by Earl Ragnar,’ I said, ‘who is the man who killed my brother. He’s a good man.’

‘He’s the one who killed your brother?’ Ealdwulf seemed shocked.

‘Destiny is everything,’ I said, which might have been true but also avoided having to make a longer answer.

‘You like him?’

‘He’s like a father to me. You’ll like him.’

‘He’s still a Dane, though, isn’t he, lord? They might worship the right gods,’ Ealdwulf said grudgingly, ‘but I’d still like to see them gone.’

‘Why?’

‘Why?’ Ealdwulf seemed shocked that I had asked. ‘Because this isn’t their land, lord, that’s why. I want to walk without being afraid. I don’t want to touch my forelock to a man just because he has a sword. There’s one law for them and another for us.’

‘There’s no law for them,’ I said.

‘If a Dane kills a Northumbrian,’ Ealdwulf said indignantly, ‘what can a man do? There’s no wergild, no reeve to see, no lord to seek justice.’

That was true. Wergild was the blood price of a man’s life, and every person had a wergild. A man’s was more than a woman’s, unless she was a great woman, and a warrior’s was greater than a farmer’s, but the price was always there, and a murderer could escape being put to death if the family of the murdered man would accept the wergild. The reeve was the man who enforced the law, reporting to his Ealdorman, but that whole careful system of justice had vanished since the Danes had come. There was no law now except what the Danes said it was, and that was what they wanted it to be, and I knew that I revelled in that chaos, but then I was privileged. I was Ragnar’s man, and Ragnar protected me, but without Ragnar I would be no better than an outlaw or a slave.

‘Your uncle doesn’t protest,’ Ealdwulf went on, ‘but Beocca did. You remember him? Red-haired priest with a shrivelled hand and crossed eyes?’

‘I met him last year,’ I said.

‘You did? Where?’

‘He was with Alfred of Wessex.’

‘Wessex!’ Ealdwulf said, surprised. ‘Long way to go. But he was a good man, Beocca, despite being a priest. He ran off because he couldn’t stand the Danes. Your uncle was furious. Said Beocca deserved to be killed.’

Doubtless, I thought, because Beocca had taken the parchments that proved me to be the rightful Ealdorman. ‘My uncle wanted me killed too,’ I said, ‘and I never thanked you for attacking Weland.’

‘Your uncle was going to give me to the Danes for that,’ he said, ‘only no Dane complained, so he did nothing.’

‘You’re with the Danes now,’ I said, ‘and you’d better get used to it.’

Ealdwulf thought about that for a moment. ‘Why not go to Wessex?’ he asked.

‘Because the West Saxons want to turn me into a priest,’ I said, ‘and I want to be a warrior.’

‘Go to Mercia then,’ Ealdwulf suggested.

‘That’s ruled by the Danes.’

‘But your uncle lives there.’

‘My uncle?’

‘Your mother’s brother!’ He was astonished that I did not know my own family. ‘He’s Ealdorman Æthelwulf, if he still lives.’

‘My father never talked about my mother,’ I said.

‘Because he loved her. She was a beauty, your mother, a piece of gold, and she died giving birth to you.’

‘Æthelwulf,’ I said.

‘If he lives.’