The Flame Bearer

‘And some women and children,’ my son said.

‘Which means they’ve come to stay,’ I said, ‘whoever they are.’

We skirted the harbour’s northern edge where the beach was hazy from the fires on which my cousin’s tenants smoked herrings or made salt by boiling sea-water. Those tenants now cowered in their small houses that edged the harbour’s inland shore. They were frightened of us, and of the newly arrived ships, which were dropping anchor stones amidst the smaller fishing craft that rode out the vicious wind in Bebbanburg’s safe water. A dog barked in one of the turf-roofed cottages and was immediately silenced. I spurred my horse between two of the houses and up onto the slope beyond. Goats fled our approach, and the goatherd, a small girl perhaps five or six years old, whimpered and hid her head in her hands. I turned at the low crest to see the crews of the four ships were wading ashore with heavy bundles on their shoulders. ‘We could slaughter them as they come ashore,’ my son suggested.

‘We can’t now,’ I said, and pointed to the Low Gate, which barred the narrow isthmus leading to the fort. Horsemen were appearing there, emerging from the skull-decorated arch and galloping towards the harbour.

Berg chuckled and pointed to the nearest ship. ‘Your spear is still there, lord!’

‘That was a lucky throw,’ my son said.

‘It was not luck,’ Berg said reprovingly, ‘Odin guided the weapon.’ He was a pious young man.

The horsemen were directing the newly arrived sea-warriors towards the hovels of the village rather than towards the great stronghold on its high rock. The crews of the ships dumped their bundles on the shore and added sheaves of spears, piles of shields, and heaps of axes and swords. Women carried small children ashore. The wind brought snatches of voices and of laughter. The newcomers had plainly come to stay, and, as if to show that they now possessed the land, a man planted a flag on the foreshore, grinding its staff into the shingle. It was a grey flag, snapping in the cold wind. ‘Can you see what’s on it?’ I asked.

‘A dragon’s head,’ Berg answered.

‘Who flies a dragon’s head?’ my son asked.

I shrugged. ‘No one I know.’

‘I would like to see a dragon,’ Berg said wistfully.

‘It might be the last thing you ever see,’ my son remarked.

I do not know if there are dragons. I have never seen one. My father told me they lived in the high hills and fed on cattle and sheep, but Beocca, who had been one of my father’s mass priests and my childhood tutor, was certain that all the dragons are sleeping deep in the earth. ‘They are Satan’s creatures,’ he had told me, ‘and they hide deep underground waiting for the last days. And when the horn of heaven sounds to announce Christ’s return they will burst from the ground like demons! They will fight! Their wings will shadow the sun, their breath will scorch the earth, and their fire will consume the righteous!’

‘So we all die?’

‘No, no, no! We fight them!’

‘How do you fight a dragon?’ I had asked him.

‘With prayer, boy, with prayer.’

‘So we do all die,’ I had said, and he had hit me around the head.

Now four ships had brought the dragon’s spawn to Bebbanburg. My cousin knew he was under attack. He had been safe for years, protected by his impregnable fortress and by Northumbria’s kings. Those kings had been my enemies. To attack Bebbanburg I would have had to fight through Northumbria and defeat the armies of Danes and Norsemen who would gather to protect their land, but now the king in Eoferwic was my son-in-law, my daughter was his queen, the pagans of Northumbria were my friends, and I could ride unmolested from the Mercian frontier to the walls of Bebbanburg. And for a whole month I had been using that new freedom to ride my cousin’s pastures, to harry his steadings, to kill his sworn men, to steal his cattle, and to flaunt myself in sight of his walls. My cousin had not ridden to confront me, preferring to stay safe behind his formidable ramparts, but now he was adding to his forces. The men who carried their shields and weapons ashore must have been hired to defend Bebbanburg. I had heard rumours that my cousin was prepared to pay gold for such men, and we had been watching for their arrival. Now they were here.

‘We outnumber them,’ my son said. I had close to two hundred men camped in the hills to the west, so yes, if it came to a fight, we would outnumber the newcomers, but not if my cousin added his garrison troops to their ranks. He now commanded over four hundred spears, and life had indeed become more difficult.

‘We’re going down to meet them,’ I said.

‘Down?’ Berg asked, surprised. There were only sixty of us that day, fewer than half the enemy’s number.

‘We should know who they are,’ I said, ‘before we kill them. That’s just being polite.’ I pointed towards a wind-bent tree. ‘Rorik!’ I called to my servant, ‘cut a branch off that hornbeam and hold it like a banner.’ I raised my voice so all my men could hear, ‘turn your shields upside down!’

I waited till Rorik was brandishing a ragged branch as a symbol of truce, and until my men had clumsily turned their shields so that their symbols of the wolf’s head were upside down, and then I walked Tintreg, my dark stallion, down the slope. We did not go fast. I wanted the newcomers to feel sure that we came in peace.

Those newcomers came to meet us. A dozen men escorted by a score of my cousin’s horsemen straggled onto the patch of pastureland where the villagers’ goats grazed on thistles. The horsemen were led by Waldhere, who commanded Bebbanburg’s household troops and whom I had met just two weeks before. He had come to my encampment in the western hills with a handful of troops, a branch of truce, and an impudent demand that we left my cousin’s land before we were killed. I had scorned the offer and belittled Waldhere, but I knew him to be a dangerous and experienced warrior, blooded many times in fights against marauding Scots. Like me he wore a bearskin cloak and had a heavy sword hanging at his left side. His flat face was framed by an iron helmet that was crested by an eagle’s claw. His short beard was grey, his grey eyes grim, and his mouth a wide slash that looked as if it had never smiled. The symbol painted on his shield was the same as mine, the grey wolf’s head. That was the badge of Bebbanburg and I had never abandoned it. Waldhere held up a gloved hand to halt the men who followed him and spurred his horse a few paces closer to me. ‘You’ve come to surrender?’ he demanded.

‘I forget your name,’ I said.

‘Most people spew shit from their arse,’ he retorted, ‘you manage it with your mouth.’

‘Your mother gave birth through her arse,’ I said, ‘and you still reek of her shit.’

The insults were routine. One cannot meet an enemy without reviling him. We insult each other, then we fight, though I doubted we would need to draw swords today. Still, we had to pretend. ‘Two minutes,’ Waldhere threatened, ‘then we attack you.’

‘But I come in peace,’ I indicated the branch.

‘I will count to two hundred,’ Waldhere said.

‘But you only have ten fingers,’ my son put in, making my men laugh.

‘Two hundred,’ Waldhere snarled, ‘and then I’ll ram your branch of truce up your arsehole.’

‘And who are you,’ I directed that question to a man who had walked up the slope to join Waldhere. I assumed he was the leader of the newcomers. He was a tall, pale man with a shock of yellow hair that swept back from a high forehead and fell down his back. He was dressed richly with a golden collar about his neck and golden arm rings. The buckle of his belt was gold, and the crosspiece of his sword’s hilt shone with more gold. I guessed he was about thirty years old. He was broad-shouldered, with a long face, very pale eyes, and ink-marks of dragon heads on his cheeks. ‘Tell me your name,’ I demanded.

‘Don’t answer!’ Waldhere snarled. He spoke English, even though my question had been in Danish.

‘Berg,’ I said, still looking at the newcomer, ‘if that shit-mouthed bastard interrupts me one more time I will assume he has broken the truce and you may kill him.’

‘Yes, lord.’

Waldhere scowled, but did not speak. He was outnumbered, but every moment we lingered on the pasture brought more of the newcomers, and they came with shields and weapons. It would not be long before they outnumbered us.

‘So who are you?’ I asked again.

‘I am named Einar Egilson,’ he answered proudly, ‘men call me Einar the White.’

‘You are Norse?’

‘I am.’

‘And I am Uhtred of Bebbanburg,’ I told him, ‘and men call me by many names. The one I am most proud of is Uhtredærwe. It means Uhtred the Wicked.’

‘I have heard men tell of you,’ he said.

‘You have heard of me,’ I said, ‘but I have not heard of you! Is that why you have come? Do you suppose your name will become famous if you kill me?’

‘It will,’ he said.

‘And if I kill you, Einar Egilson, will it add to my renown?’ I shook my head as an answer to my own question. ‘Who will mourn you? Who will remember you?’ I spat towards Waldhere. ‘These men have paid you gold to kill me. You know why?’

‘Tell me,’ Einar said.

‘Because since I was a little child they have tried to kill me and they have failed. Always failed. Do you know why they failed?’