The Last Kingdom Series Books 4-6: Sword Song, The Burning Land, Death of Kings

‘I had not forgotten,’ I said. Father Pyrlig was watching me shrewdly, doubtless wondering why I had yielded so easily to my cousin’s bullying. Aldhelm was half smiling, probably in the belief that I had been thoroughly cowed by Æthelred.

‘You will leave before us,’ Æthelred went on.

‘I shall leave very soon,’ I said, ‘I have to.’

‘My household troops,’ Æthelred said, now looking at Steapa, ‘will lead the real attack. You will bring the royal troops immediately behind.’

‘I’m going with Uhtred,’ Steapa said.

Æthelred blinked. ‘You are the commander,’ he said slowly, as though he talked with a small child, ‘of Alfred’s bodyguard! And you will bring them to the wall as soon as my men have laid the ladders.’

‘I’m going with Uhtred,’ Steapa said again. ‘The king ordered it.’

‘The king did no such thing!’ Æthelred said dismissively.

‘In writing,’ Steapa said. He frowned, then felt in a pouch and brought out a small square of parchment. He peered at it, not sure which way up the writing went, then just shrugged and gave the scrap to my cousin.

Æthelred frowned as he read the message in the light of his wife’s lantern. ‘You should have given me this before,’ he said petulantly.

‘I forgot,’ Steapa said, ‘and I’m to take six men of my own choosing.’ Steapa had a way of speaking that discouraged argument. He spoke slowly, harshly and dully, and managed to convey the impression that he was too stupid to understand any objection raised against his words. He also conveyed the thought that he might just slaughter any man who insisted on contradicting him. And Æthelred, faced with Steapa’s stubborn voice, and by the sheer presence of the man who was so tall and broad and skull-faced, surrendered without a fight.

‘If the king orders it,’ he said, offering back the scrap of parchment.

‘He does,’ Steapa insisted. He took the parchment and seemed uncertain what to do with it. For a heartbeat I thought he was going to eat it, but then he tossed it over the ship’s side and then frowned eastwards at the great pall of smoke that hung above the city.

‘Be certain you’re on time tomorrow,’ Æthelred said to me, ‘success depends on it.’

That was evidently our dismissal. Another man would have offered us ale and food, but Æthelred turned away from us and so Steapa and I stripped our legs bare again and waded ashore through the cloying mud. ‘You asked Alfred if you could come with me?’ I asked Steapa as we pushed through the reeds.

‘No,’ he said, ‘it was the king who wanted me to come with you. It was his idea.’

‘Good,’ I said, ‘I’m glad.’ I meant it too. Steapa and I had begun as enemies, but we had become friends, a bond forged by standing shield to shield in the face of an enemy. ‘There’s no one I’d rather have with me,’ I told him warmly as I stooped to pull on my boots.

‘I’m coming with you,’ he said in his slow voice, ‘because I’m to kill you.’

I stopped and stared at him in the darkness. ‘You’re to do what?’

‘I’m to kill you,’ he said, then remembered there was more to Alfred’s orders, ‘if you prove to be on Sigefrid’s side.’

‘But I’m not,’ I said.

‘He just wants to be sure of that,’ Steapa said, ‘and that monk? Asser? He says you can’t be trusted, so if you don’t obey your orders then I’m to kill you.’

‘Why are you telling me this?’ I asked him.

He shrugged. ‘Doesn’t matter whether you’re ready for me or not,’ he said, ‘I’ll still kill you.’

‘No,’ I said, amending his words, ‘you’ll try to kill me.’

He thought about that for quite a long time, then shook his head. ‘No,’ he said, ‘I’ll kill you.’ And so he would.

We left in the black of night under a sky smothered with clouds. The enemy horsemen who had been watching us had withdrawn to the city at dusk, but I was certain Sigefrid would still have scouts in the darkness and so for an hour or more we followed a track that led north through the marshes. It was hard keeping to the path, but after a while the ground became firmer and climbed to a village where small fires burned inside mud-walled huts piled with great heaps of thatch. I pushed a door open to see a family crouched in terror about their hearth. They were frightened because they had heard us, and they knew nothing moves at night except creatures that are dangerous, sinister and deadly. ‘What’s this place called?’ I asked and for a moment no one answered, then a man bowed his head convulsively and said he thought the settlement was named Padintune. ‘Padintune?’ I asked, ‘Padda’s estate? Is Padda here?’

‘He’s dead, lord,’ the man said, ‘he died years ago, lord. No one here knew him, lord.’

‘We’re friends,’ I told him, ‘but if anyone here leaves their house, we won’t be friends.’ I did not want some villager running to Lundene to warn Sigefrid that we had stopped in Padintune. ‘You understand that?’ I asked the man.

‘Yes, lord.’

‘Leave your house,’ I said, ‘and you die.’

I assembled my men in the small street and had Finan place a guard on every hovel. ‘No one’s to leave,’ I told him. ‘They can sleep in their beds, but no one’s to leave the village.’

Steapa loomed from the dark. ‘Aren’t we supposed to be marching north?’ he asked.

‘Yes, and we’re not,’ I retorted. ‘So this is when you’re supposed to kill me. I’m disobeying orders.’

‘Ah,’ he grunted, then crouched. I heard the leather of his armour creak and the chink of his chain mail settling.

‘You could draw your sax now,’ I suggested, ‘and gut me in one move? One cut up into my belly? Just make it fast, Steapa. Open my belly and keep the blade moving till it reaches my heart. But just let me draw my sword first, will you? I promise not to use it on you. I just want to go to Odin’s hall when I’m dead.’

He chuckled. ‘I’ll never understand you, Uhtred,’ he said.

‘I’m a very simple soul,’ I told him. ‘I just want to go home.’

‘Not Odin’s hall?’

‘Eventually,’ I said, ‘yes, but home first.’

‘To Northumbria?’

‘Where I have a fortress by the sea,’ I said wistfully, and I thought of Bebbanburg on its high crag, and of the wild grey sea rolling endlessly to break on the rocks, and of the cold wind blowing from the north and of the white gulls crying in the spindrift. ‘Home,’ I said.

‘The one your uncle stole from you?’ Steapa asked.

‘Ælfric,’ I said vengefully, and I thought of fate again. Ælfric was my father’s younger brother and he had stayed in Bebbanburg while I had accompanied my father to Eoferwic. I was a child. My father had died in Eoferwic, cut down by a Danish blade, and I had been given as a slave to Ragnar the Older, who had raised me like a son, and my uncle had ignored my father’s wishes and kept Bebbanburg for himself. That treachery was ever in my heart, seeping anger, and one day I would revenge it. ‘One day,’ I told Steapa, ‘I shall gut Ælfric from his crotch to his breastbone and watch him die, but I won’t do it quickly. I won’t pierce his heart. I shall watch him die and piss on him while he struggles. Then I’ll kill his sons.’

‘And tonight?’ Steapa asked. ‘Who do you kill tonight?’

‘Tonight we take Lundene,’ I said.

I could not see his face in the dark, but I sensed that he smiled. ‘I told Alfred he could trust you,’ Steapa said.

It was my turn to smile. Somewhere in Padintune a dog howled and was quieted. ‘But I’m not sure Alfred can trust me,’ I said after a long pause.

‘Why?’ Steapa asked, puzzled.

‘Because in one way I’m a very good Christian,’ I said.