I wanted to know how Ragnall had come upriver in the darkness. It had either been an incredible stroke of fortune that his great fleet had negotiated the Mærse’s mudbanks without any ship going aground, or else he was an even greater ship-handler than his reputation suggested. It had been an impressive feat of seamanship, but it had also been unnecessary. His fleet was huge, and we had only a dozen boats. He could have brushed us aside without missing an oar stroke, yet he had decided to attack in the night. Why risk that?
‘He didn’t want us to block the channel,’ my son suggested, and that was probably the truth. If we had been given just a few hours’ warning we could have sunk our ships in the river’s main channel. Ragnall would still have got past eventually, but he would have been forced to wait for a high tide, and his heavier ships would have had a difficult passage, and meanwhile we would have sent messengers upriver to make sure more barricades blocked the Mærse and more men waited to greet his ships. Instead he had slipped past us, he had wounded us, and he was already rowing inland.
‘It was the Frisians,’ Æthelstan said unhappily.
‘Frisians?’
‘Three merchant ships arrived last night, lord. They moored in the river. They were carrying pelts from Dyflin.’
‘You inspected them?’
He shook his head. ‘They said they carried the plague, lord.’
‘So you didn’t board them?’
‘Not with the plague, lord, no.’ The garrison at Brunanburh had the duty of inspecting every ship that entered the river, mainly to levy a tax on whatever cargo the ship carried, but no one would board a ship that had sickness aboard. ‘They said they were carrying pelts, lord,’ Æthelstan explained, ‘and they paid us their fees.’
‘And you left them alone?’
He nodded miserably. The prisoners told me the rest. The three merchant ships had anchored where the Mærse’s channel was narrowest, the place where a fleet faced the greatest danger of running aground, and they had burned lanterns that had guided Ragnall’s ships past the peril. The tide had done the rest. Let a vessel drift and it will usually follow the swiftest current in the deepest channel and, once past the three merchant ships, Ragnall had simply let the flood carry him to our wharf. There he had burned both wharf and ships, so that his own vessels could now use the river safely. Reinforcements could now come from his sea kingdom. He had ripped apart our defence of the Mærse and he was loose in Britain with an army.
I let Æthelstan decide what to do with the prisoners. There were fourteen of them, and Æthelstan chose to have them executed. ‘Wait for low tide,’ he ordered Rædwald, ‘then tie them to the stakes.’ He nodded at the charred pilings that jutted at awkward angles from the swirling river. ‘Let them drown in the rising tide.’
I had already sent Beadwulf eastwards, but would not expect to hear his news for at least a day. I ordered Sihtric to send men south. ‘They’re to ride fast,’ I said, ‘and tell the Lady Æthelflaed what’s happening. Tell her I want men, a lot of men, all her men!’
‘At Ceaster?’ Sihtric asked.
I shook my head, thinking. ‘Tell her to send them to Liccelfeld. And tell her I’m going there.’ I turned and pointed to Æthelstan, ‘and you’re coming with me, lord Prince. And bringing most of Brunanburh’s garrison with you. And you,’ I looked at Rædwald, ‘will stay here. Defend what’s left. You can have fifty men.’
‘Fifty! That’s not enough …’
‘Forty,’ I snarled, ‘and if you lose the fort I’ll cut your kidneys out and eat them.’
We were at war.
Finan was at the water’s edge, sitting on a great driftwood log. I sat beside him. ‘So tell me about that,’ I said, nodding at the corpse that was still fixed by the spear.
‘What do you want to know?’
‘Whatever you choose to tell me.’
We sat in silence. Geese flew above us, their wings beating the morning. A flurry of rain spat past. One of the corpses farted. ‘We’re going to Liccelfeld,’ I said.
Finan nodded. ‘Why Liccelfeld?’ he asked after a moment. The question was dutiful. He was not thinking about Ragnall or the Norsemen or anything except the spear-pierced corpse at the river’s brink.
‘Because I don’t know where Ragnall’s going,’ I said, ‘but from Liccelfeld we can go north or south easily.’
‘North or south,’ he repeated dully.
‘The bastard needs land,’ I said, ‘and he’ll either try to take it in northern Mercia or from southern Northumbria. We have to stop him fast.’
‘He’ll go north,’ Finan said, though he still spoke carelessly. He shrugged, ‘Why would he pick a fight with Mercia?’
I suspected he was right. Mercia had become powerful, its frontiers protected by burhs, fortified towns, while to the north were the troubled lands of Northumbria. That was Danish land, but the Danish lords were squabbling and fighting amongst themselves. A strong man like Ragnall could unite them. I had repeatedly told Æthelflaed that we should march north and take land from the fractious Danes, but she would not invade Northumbria until her brother Edward brought his West Saxon army to help. ‘Whether Ragnall goes north or comes south,’ I said, ‘now’s the time to fight him. He’s just arrived here. He doesn’t know the land. Haesten does, of course, but how far does Ragnall trust that piece of weasel-shit? And from what the prisoners said, Ragnall’s army has never fought together, so we hit him hard now, before he has a chance to find a refuge and before he feels safe. We do to him what the Irish did, we make him feel unwanted.’
Silence again. I watched the geese, looking for an omen in their numbers, but there were too many birds to count. Yet the goose was Æthelflaed’s symbol, so their presence was surely a good sign? I touched the hammer that hung at my neck. Finan saw the gesture and frowned. Then he grasped the crucifix that hung at his neck, and, with a sudden grimace, tugged it hard enough to break the leather cord. He looked at the silver bauble for a moment, then flung it into the water. ‘I’m going to hell,’ he said.
For a moment I did not know what to say. ‘At least we’ll still be together,’ I finally spoke.
‘Aye,’ he said, unsmiling. ‘A man who kills his own blood is doomed.’
‘The Christian priests tell you that?’
‘No.’
‘Then how do you know?’
‘I just know. That was why my brother didn’t kill me so long ago. He sold me to that bastard slaver instead.’
That was how Finan and I had first met, chained as slaves to a bench and pulling on long oars. We still carried the slaver’s brand on our skin, though the slaver himself was long dead, slaughtered by Finan in an orgy of revenge.
‘Why would your brother want to kill you?’ I asked, knowing I trod on dangerous ground. In all the long years of our friendship I had never discovered why Finan was an exile from his native Ireland.
He grimaced. ‘A woman.’
‘Surprise me,’ I said wryly.
‘I was married,’ he went on as though I had not spoken. ‘A good woman, she was, a royal daughter of the Uí Néill, and I was a prince of my people. My brother was too. Prince Conall.’
‘Conall,’ I said after a few heartbeats of silence.
‘They’re small kingdoms in Ireland,’ he said bleakly, staring across the water. ‘Small kingdoms and great kings, and we fight. Christ, how we love to fight! The Uí Néill, of course, are the great ones, at least in the north. We were their clients. We gave them tribute. We fought for them when they demanded