‘What’s the matter, Uhtred?’ he asked, ‘frightened of frogs?’
‘What do you want?’ I asked.
‘Not so cocky now, eh? Ealdorman?’ He stalked towards me, sword flashing from side to side. ‘Your uncle sends his regards and trusts you will burn in hell while he lives in Bebbanburg.’
‘You come from …’ I began, but it was obvious Weland was serving Ælfric so I did not bother to finish the question, but instead edged backwards.
‘The reward for your death will be the weight of his newborn child in silver,’ Weland said, ‘and the child should be born by now. And he’s impatient for your death, your uncle is. I almost managed to track you down that night outside Snotengaham, and almost hit you with an arrow last winter, but you ducked. Not this time, but it will be quick, boy. Your uncle said to make it quick, so kneel down, boy, just kneel.’ He swept the blade left and right, his wrist whippy so the sword hissed. ‘I haven’t given her a name yet,’ he said. ‘Perhaps after this she’ll be known as Orphan-Killer.’
I feinted right, went left, but he was quick as a stoat and he blocked me, and I knew I was cornered, and he knew it too and smiled. ‘I’ll make it quick,’ he said, ‘I promise.’
Then the first roof tile hit his helmet. It could not have hurt much, but the unexpected blow jarred him backwards and confused him, and the second tile hit his waist and the third smacked him on the shoulder, and Brida shouted from the roof. ‘Back through the house!’ I ran, the lunging sword missing me by inches, and I twisted through the door, ran over the fish-drawn chariot, through a second door, another door, saw an open window and dove through, and Brida jumped down from the roof and together we ran for the nearby woods.
Weland followed me, but he abandoned the pursuit when we vanished in the trees. Instead he went south, on his own, fleeing what he knew Ragnar would do to him, and for some reason I was in tears by the time I found Ragnar again. Why did I cry? I do not know, unless it was the confirmation that Bebbanburg was gone, that my beloved refuge was occupied by an enemy, and an enemy who, by now, might have a son.
Brida received an arm ring, and Ragnar let it be known that if any man touched her he, Ragnar, would personally geld that man with a mallet and a plank-splitter. She rode home on Weland’s horse.
And next day the enemy came.
Ravn had sailed with us, blind though he was, and I was required to be his eyes so I described how the East Anglian army was forming on a low ridge of dry land to the south of our camp. ‘How many banners?’ he asked me.
‘Twenty-three,’ I said, after a pause to count them.
‘Showing?’
‘Mostly crosses,’ I said, ‘and some saints.’
‘He’s a very pious man, King Edmund,’ Ravn said, ‘he even tried to persuade me to become a Christian.’ He chuckled at the memory. We were sitting on the prow of one of the beached ships, Ravn in a chair, Brida and I at his feet, and the Mercian twins, Ceolnoth and Ceolberht on his far side. They were the sons of Bishop Æthelbrid of Snotengaham and they were hostages even though their father had welcomed the Danish army, but, as Ravn said, taking the bishop’s sons hostage would keep the man honest. There were dozens of other such hostages from Mercia and Northumbria, all sons of prominent men, and all under sentence of death if their fathers caused trouble. There were other Englishmen in the army, serving as soldiers and, if it were not for the language they spoke, they would have been indistinguishable from the Danes. Most of them were either outlaws or masterless men, but all were savage fighters, exactly the kind of men the English needed to face their enemy, but now those men were fighting for the Danes against King Edmund. ‘And he’s a fool,’ Ravn said scornfully.
‘A fool?’ I asked.
‘He gave us shelter during the winter before we attacked Eoferwic,’ Ravn explained, ‘and we had to promise not to kill any of his churchmen.’ He laughed softly. ‘What a very silly condition. If their god was any use then we couldn’t have killed them anyway.’
‘Why did he give you shelter?’
‘Because it was easier than fighting us,’ Ravn said. He was using English because the other three children did not understand Danish, though Brida was learning quickly. She had a mind like a fox, quick and sly. Ravn smiled. ‘The silly King Edmund believed we would go away in the springtime and not come back, yet here we are.’
‘He shouldn’t have done it,’ one of the twins put in. I could not tell them apart, but was annoyed by them for they were fierce Mercian patriots, despite their father’s change of allegiance. They were ten years old and forever upbraiding me for loving the Danes.
‘Of course he shouldn’t have done it,’ Ravn agreed mildly.
‘He should have attacked you!’ Ceolnoth or Ceolberht said.
‘He would have lost if he had,’ Ravn said, ‘we made a camp, protected it with walls, and stayed there. And he paid us money to make no trouble.’
‘I saw King Edmund once,’ Brida put in.
‘Where was that, child?’ Ravn asked.
‘He came to the monastery to pray,’ she said, ‘and he farted when he knelt down.’
‘No doubt their god appreciated the tribute,’ Ravn said loftily, frowning because the twins were now making farting noises.
‘Were the Romans Christians?’ I asked him, remembering my curiosity at the Roman farm.
‘Not always,’ Ravn said. ‘They had their own gods once, but they gave them up to become Christians and after that they knew nothing but defeat. Where are our men?’
‘Still in the marsh,’ I said.
Ubba had hoped to stay in the camp and so force Edmund’s army to attack along the narrow neck of land and die on our short earthen wall, but instead the English had remained south of the treacherous lowland and were inviting us to attack them. Ubba was tempted. He had made Storri cast the runesticks and rumour said that the result was uncertain, and that fed Ubba’s caution. He was a fearsome fighter, but always wary when it came to picking a fight, but the runesticks had not predicted disaster and so he had taken the army out into the marsh where it now stood on whatever patches of drier land it could find, and from where two tracks led up to the low ridge. Ubba’s banner, the famous raven on its three-sided cloth, was midway between the two paths, both of which were strongly guarded by East Anglian shield walls, and any attack up either path would mean that a few of our men would have to attack a lot of theirs, and Ubba must have been having second thoughts for he was hesitating. I described all that to Ravn.
‘It doesn’t do,’ he told me, ‘to lose men, even if we win.’
‘But if we kill lots of theirs?’ I asked.
‘They have more men, we have few. If we kill a thousand of theirs then they will have another thousand tomorrow, but if we lose a hundred men then we must wait for more ships to replace them.’
‘More ships are coming,’ Brida said.
‘I doubt there will be any more this year,’ Ravn said.
‘No,’ she insisted, ‘now,’ and she pointed and I saw four ships nosing their way through the tangle of low islands and shallow creeks.
‘Tell me,’ Ravn said urgently.
‘Four