‘Go to Mercia then,’ Ealdwulf suggested.
‘That’s ruled by the Danes.’
‘But your uncle lives there.’
‘My uncle?’
‘Your mother’s brother!’ He was astonished that I did not know my own family. ‘He’s Ealdorman Æthelwulf, if he still lives.’
‘My father never talked about my mother,’ I said.
‘Because he loved her. She was a beauty, your mother, a piece of gold, and she died giving birth to you.’
‘Æthelwulf,’ I said.
‘If he lives.’
But why go to Æthelwulf when I had Ragnar? Æthelwulf was family, of course, but I had never met him and I doubted he even remembered my existence, and I had no desire to find him, and even less desire to learn my letters in Wessex, so I would stay with Ragnar. I said as much to Ealdwulf. ‘He’s teaching me to fight,’ I said.
‘Learn from the best, eh?’ Ealdwulf said grudgingly. ‘That’s how you become a good smith. Learn from the best.’
Ealdwulf was a good smith and, despite himself, he came to like Ragnar for Ragnar was generous and he appreciated good workmanship. A smithy was added onto our home near Synningthwait and Ragnar paid good silver for a forge, an anvil, and for the great hammers, tongs and files that Ealdwulf needed. It was late winter before all was ready, and then ore was purchased from Eoferwic and our valley echoed to the clang of iron on iron, and even on the coldest days the smithy was warm and men gathered there to exchange stories or to tell riddles. Ealdwulf was a great man for riddles and I would translate for him as he baffled Ragnar’s Danes. Most of his riddles were about men and women and what they did together and those were easy enough to guess, but I liked the complicated ones. My father and mother gave me up for dead, one riddle began, then a loyal kinswoman wrapped and protected me, and I killed all her children, but she still loved me and fed me until I rose above the dwelling houses of men and so left her. I could not guess that one, nor could any of the Danes, and Ealdwulf refused to give me the answer even when I begged him and it was only when I told the riddle to Brida that I learned the solution. ‘A cuckoo, of course,’ she said instantly. She was right, of course.
By spring the forge needed to be larger, and all that summer Ealdwulf made metal for swords, spears, axes and spades. I asked him once if he minded working for the Danes and he just shrugged. ‘I worked for them in Bebbanburg,’ he said, ‘because your uncle does their bidding.’
‘But there are no Danes in Bebbanburg?’
‘None,’ he admitted, ‘but they visit and are made welcome. Your uncle pays them tribute.’ He stopped suddenly, interrupted by a shout of what I thought was pure rage.
I ran out of the smithy to see Ragnar standing in front of the house while, approaching up the track, was a crowd of men led by a mounted warrior. And such a warrior. He had a mail coat, a fine helmet hanging from the saddle, a bright-painted shield, a long sword and arms thick with rings. He was a young man with long fair hair and a thick gold beard, and he roared back at Ragnar like a rutting stag, then Ragnar ran towards him and I half thought the young man would draw the sword and kick at his horse, but instead he dismounted and ran uphill and, when the two met, they embraced and thumped each other’s backs and Ragnar, when he turned towards us, had a smile that would have lit the darkest crypt of hell. ‘My son!’ he shouted up at me, ‘my son!’
It was Ragnar the Younger, come from Ireland with a ship’s crew and, though he did not know me, he embraced me, lifting me off the ground, whirled his sister around, thumped Rorik, kissed his mother, shouted at the servants, scattered gifts of silver chain links, and petted the hounds. A feast was ordered, and that night he gave us his news, saying he now commanded his own ship, that he had come for a few months only and that Ivar wanted him back in Ireland by the spring. He was so like his father, and I liked him immediately, and the house was always happy when Ragnar the Younger was there. Some of his men lodged with us, and that autumn they cut trees and added a proper hall to the house, a hall fit for an earl with big beams and a high gable on which a boar’s skull was nailed.
‘You were lucky,’ he told me one day. We were thatching the new roof, laying down the thick rye straw and combing it flat.
‘Lucky?’
‘That my father didn’t kill you at Eoferwic.’
‘I was lucky,’ I agreed.
‘But he was always a good judge of men,’ he said, passing me a pot of ale. He perched on the roof ridge and gazed across the valley. ‘He likes it here.’
‘It’s a good place. What about Ireland?’
He grinned. ‘Bog and rock, Uhtred, and the skraelings are vicious.’ The skraelings were the natives. ‘But they fight well! And there’s silver there, and the more they fight the more silver we get. Are you going to drink all that ale, or do I get some?’
I handed him back the pot and watched as the ale ran down his beard as he drained it. ‘I like Ireland well enough,’ he said when he had finished, ‘but I won’t stay there. I’ll come back here. Find land in Wessex. Raise a family. Get fat.’
‘Why don’t you come back now?’
‘Because Ivar wants me there, and Ivar’s a good lord.’
‘He frightens me.’
‘A good lord should be frightening.’
‘Your father isn’t.’
‘Not to you, but what about the men he kills? Would you want to face Earl Ragnar the Fearless in a shield wall?’
‘No.’
‘So he is frightening,’ he said, grinning. ‘Go and take Wessex,’ he said, ‘and find the land that will make me fat.’
We finished the thatch, and then I had to go up into the woods because Ealdwulf had an insatiable appetite for charcoal which is the only substance that burns hot enough to melt iron. He had shown a dozen of Ragnar’s men how to produce it, but Brida and I were his best workers and we spent much time among the trees. The charcoal heaps needed constant attention and, as each would burn for at least three days, Brida and I would often spend all night beside such a pile, watching for a tell-tale wisp of smoke coming from the bracken and turf covering the burn. Such smoke betrayed that the fire inside was too hot and we would have to scramble over the warm heap to stuff the crack with earth and so cool the fire deep inside the pile.
We burned alder when we could get it, for that was the wood Ealdwulf preferred, and the art of it was to char the alder logs, but not let them burst into flame. For every four logs we put into a pile we would get one back, while the rest vanished to leave the lightweight, deep black, dirty charcoal. It could take a week to make the pile. The alder was carefully stacked in a shallow pit, and a hole was left in the stack’s centre which we filled with charcoal from the previous burn. Then we would put a layer of bracken over the whole thing, cover that with thick turves and, when all was done, put fire down the central hole and, when we were sure the charcoal was alight, stuff the hole tight. Now the silent, dark fire had to be controlled. We would open gaps at the base of the pit to let a little air in, but if the wind changed then the air holes had to be stuffed and others made. It was tedious work, and Ealdwulf’s appetite for charcoal seemed unlimited, but I enjoyed it. To be all night in the dark, beside the warm burn, was to be a sceadugengan, and besides, I was with Brida and we had become more than friends.
She lost her first baby up beside the charcoal burn. She had not even known she was pregnant, but one night she was assailed with cramps and spear-like pains, and I wanted to go and fetch Sigrid, but Brida would not let me. She told me she knew what was happening, but I was scared helpless by her agony and I shuddered in fear throughout the dark until, just before dawn, she gave birth to a tiny dead baby boy. We buried it with its afterbirth, and Brida stumbled back to the homestead where Sigrid was alarmed by her appearance