The Burning Land

He grinned, pleased that he knew something I did not. ‘Skade,’ he said flatly.

‘Harald’s wife?’

‘His woman, his bitch, his lover, his sorceress.’

‘Never heard of her,’ I said.

‘You will,’ he promised, ‘and if you see her, my friend, you’ll want her. But she’ll nail your skull to her hall gable if she can.’

‘You’ve seen her?’ I asked, and he nodded. ‘You wanted her?’

‘Harald’s impulsive,’ he said, ignoring my question. ‘And Skade will goad him to stupidity. And when that happens a lot of his men will look for another lord.’ He smiled slyly. ‘Give me another hundred ships, and I could be King of Wessex inside a year.’

‘I’ll tell Alfred,’ I said, ‘and maybe that will persuade him to attack you first.’

‘He won’t,’ Haesten said confidently. ‘If he turns on me then he releases Harald’s men to spread across all Wessex.’

That was true. ‘So why doesn’t he attack Harald?’ I asked.

‘You know why.’

‘Tell me.’

He paused, wondering whether to reveal all he knew, but he could not resist showing off his knowledge. He used the thorn to scratch a line in the wood of the table, then made a circle that was bisected by the line. ‘The Temes,’ he said, tapping the line, ‘Lundene,’ he indicated the circle. ‘You’re in Lundene with a thousand men, and behind you,’ he tapped higher up the Temes, ‘Lord Aldhelm has five hundred Mercians. If Alfred attacks Harald, he’s going to want Aldhelm’s men and your men to go south, and that will leave Mercia wide open to attack.’

‘Who would attack Mercia?’ I asked innocently.

‘The Danes of East Anglia?’ Haesten suggested just as innocently. ‘All they need is a leader with courage.’

‘And our agreement,’ I said, ‘insists you will not invade Mercia.’

‘So it does,’ Haesten said with a smile,’ ‘except we have no agreement yet.’

But we did. I had to yield the Dragon-Voyager to Haesten, and in her belly lay four iron-bound chests filled with silver. That was the price. In return for the ship and the silver, Haesten promised to leave Wessex and ignore Mercia. He also agreed to accept missionaries and gave me two boys as hostages. He claimed one was his nephew, and that might have been true. The other boy was younger and dressed in fine linen with a lavish gold brooch. He was a good-looking lad with bright blond hair and anxious blue eyes. Haesten stood behind the boy and placed his hands on the small shoulders. ‘This, lord,’ he said reverently, ‘is my eldest son, Horic. I yield him as a hostage,’ Haesten paused, and seemed to sniff away a tear, ‘I yield him as a hostage, lord, to show goodwill, but I beg you to look after the boy. I love him dearly.’

I looked at Horic. ‘How old are you?’ I asked.

‘He is seven,’ Haesten said, patting Horic’s shoulder.

‘Let him answer for himself,’ I insisted. ‘How old are you?’

The boy made a guttural sound and Haesten crouched to embrace him. ‘He is a deaf-mute, Lord Uhtred,’ Haesten said. ‘The gods decreed my son should be deaf and mute.’

‘The gods decreed that you should be a lying bastard,’ I said to Haesten, but too softly for his followers to hear and take offence.

‘And if I am?’ he asked, amused. ‘What of it? And if I say this boy is my son, who is to prove otherwise?’

‘You’ll leave Wessex?’ I asked.

‘I’ll keep this treaty,’ he promised.

I pretended to believe him. I had told Alfred that Haesten could not be trusted, but Alfred was desperate. He was old, he saw his grave not far ahead, and he wanted Wessex rid of the hated pagans. And so I paid the silver, took the hostages, and, under a darkening sky, rowed back to Lundene.

Lundene is built in a place where the ground rises in giant steps away from the river. There is terrace after terrace, rising to the topmost level where the Romans built their grandest buildings, some of which still stood, though they were sadly decayed, patched with wattle and scabbed by the thatched huts we Saxons made.

In those days Lundene was part of Mercia, though Mercia was like the grand Roman buildings; half fallen, and Mercia was also scabbed with Danish jarls who had settled its fertile lands. My cousin Æthelred was the chief Ealdorman of Mercia, its supposed ruler, but he was kept on a tight lead by Alfred of Wessex, who had made certain his own men controlled Lundene. I commanded that garrison, while Bishop Erkenwald ruled everything else.

These days, of course, he is known as Saint Erkenwald, but I remember him as a sour weasel of a man. He was efficient, I grant him that, and the city was well-governed in his time, but his unadulterated hatred of all pagans made him my enemy. I worshipped Thor, so to him I was evil, but I was also necessary. I was the warrior who protected his city, the pagan who had kept the heathen Danes at bay for over five years now, the man who kept the lands around Lundene safe so that Erkenwald could levy his taxes.

Now I stood on the topmost step of a Roman house built on the topmost of Lundene’s terraces. Bishop Erkenwald was on my right. He was much shorter than I, but most men are, yet my height irked him. A straggle of priests, ink-stained, pale-faced and nervous, were gathered on the steps beneath, while Finan, my Irish fighter, stood on my left. We all stared southwards.

We saw the mix of thatch and tile that roof Lundene, all studded with the stubby towers of the churches Erkenwald had built. Red kites wheeled above them, riding the warm air, though higher still I could see the first geese flying southwards above the wide Temes. The river was slashed by the remnants of the Roman bridge, a marvellous thing which was crudely broken in its centre. I had made a roadway of timbers that spanned the gap, but even I was nervous every time I needed to cross that makeshift repair which led to Suthriganaweorc, the earth and timber fortress that protected the bridge’s southern end. There were wide marshes there and a huddle of huts where a village had grown around the fort. Beyond the marshes the land rose to the hills of Wessex, low and green, and above those hills, far off, like ghostly pillars in the still, late-summer sky, were plumes of smoke. I counted fifteen, but the clouds hazed the horizon and there could have been more.

‘They’re raiding!’ Bishop Erkenwald said, sounding both surprised and outraged. Wessex had been spared any large Viking raid for years now, protected by the burhs, which were the towns Alfred had walled and garrisoned, but Harald’s men were spreading fire, rape and theft in all the eastern parts of Wessex. They avoided the burhs, attacking only the smaller settlements. ‘They’re well beyond Cent!’ the bishop observed.

‘And going deeper into Wessex,’ I said.

‘How many of them?’ Erkenwald demanded.

‘We hear two hundred ships landed,’ I said, ‘so they must have at least five thousand fighting men. Maybe two thousand of those are with Harald.’

‘Only two thousand?’ the bishop asked sharply.

‘It depends how many horses they have,’ I explained. ‘Only mounted warriors will be raiding, the rest will be guarding his ships.’

‘It’s still a pagan horde,’ the bishop said angrily. He touched the cross hanging about his neck. ‘Our lord king,’ he went on, ‘has decided to defeat them at Æscengum.’

‘Æscengum!’

‘And why not?’ the bishop bridled at my tone, then shuddered when I laughed. ‘There is nothing amusing in that,’ he said tartly. But there was. Alfred, or perhaps it had been Æthelred, had advanced the army of Wessex into Cent, placing it on high wooded ground between the forces of Haesten and Harald, and then they had done nothing. Now it seemed that Alfred, or perhaps his son-in-law, had decided to retreat to Æscengum, a burh in the centre of Wessex, presumably hoping that Harald would attack them and be defeated by the burh’s walls. It was a pathetic idea. Harald was a wolf, Wessex was a flock of sheep, and Alfred’s army was the wolfhound that should protect the sheep, but Alfred was tethering the wolfhound in hope that the wolf would come and be bitten. Meanwhile the wolf was running free among the flock. ‘And our lord king,’ Erkenwald continued loftily, ‘has requested that you and some of your troops join him, but only if I am satisfied that Haesten will not attack Lundene in your absence.’

‘He won’t,’ I said, and felt a surge of elation. Alfred, at last, had called for my help, which meant the wolfhound was being given sharp teeth.

‘Haesten fears we’ll kill the hostages?’ the bishop asked.

‘Haesten doesn’t care a cabbage-smelling fart for the hostages,’ I said. ‘The one he calls his son is some peasant boy tricked out in rich clothes.’

‘Then why did you accept him?’ the bishop demanded indignantly.

‘What was I supposed to do? Attack Haesten’s main camp to find his pups?’

‘So Haesten is cheating us?’

‘Of course he’s cheating us, but he won’t attack Lundene unless Harald defeats Alfred.’

‘I wish we could be certain of that.’

‘Haesten is cautious,’ I said. ‘He fights when he’s certain he can win, otherwise he waits.’