Guthrum had led his horsemen out of Werham, that much was obvious, and all the Danes who had remained in the town were now crammed onto the ships where they waited for the weather to calm so they could sail away, but to where, I had no idea.
All day that south wind blew, getting harder and bringing a slashing rain, and I became bored of watching the Danish fleet fret at its anchors and so I explored the island’s shore and found the remnants of a small boat half hidden in a thicket and I hauled the wreck down to the water and discovered it floated well enough, and the wind would take me away from the Danes and so I waited for the tide to turn and then, half swamped in the broken craft, I floated free. I used a piece of wood as a crude paddle, but the wind was howling now and it drove me wet and cold across that wide water until, as night fell, I came to the Poole’s northern shore and there I became one of the sceadugengan again, picking my way through reeds and marshes until I found higher ground where bushes gave me shelter for a broken sleep. In the morning I walked eastwards, still buffeted by wind and rain, and so came to Hamtun that evening.
Where I found that Mildrith and my son were gone.
Taken by Odda the Younger.
Father Willibald told me the tale. Odda had come that morning, while Leofric was down at the shore securing the boats against the bruising wind, and Odda had said that the Danes had broken out, that they would have killed their hostages, that they might come to Hamtun at any moment, and that Mildrith should flee. ‘She did not want to go, lord,’ Willibald said, and I could hear the timidity in his voice. My anger was frightening him. ‘They had horses, lord,’ he said, as if that explained it.
‘You didn’t send for Leofric?’
‘They wouldn’t let me, lord.’ He paused. ‘But we were scared, lord. The Danes had broken the truce and we thought you were dead.’
Leofric had set off in pursuit, but by the time he learned Mildrith was gone Odda had at least a half-morning’s start and Leofric did not even know where he would have gone. ‘West,’ I said, ‘back to Defnascir.’
‘And the Danes?’ Leofric asked, ‘where are they going?’
‘Back to Mercia?’ I guessed.
Leofric shrugged. ‘Across Wessex? With Alfred waiting? And you say they went on horseback? How fit were the horses?’
‘They weren’t fit. They were half starved.’
‘Then they haven’t gone to Mercia,’ he said firmly.
‘Perhaps they’ve gone to meet Ubba,’ Willibald suggested.
‘Ubba!’ I had not heard that name in a long time.
‘There were stories, lord,’ Willibald said nervously, ‘that he was among the Britons in Wales. That he had a fleet on the Sæfern.’
That made sense. Ubba was replacing his dead brother, Halfdan, and evidently leading another force of Danes against Wessex, but where? If he crossed the Sæfern’s wide sea then he would be in Defnascir, or perhaps he was marching around the river, heading into Alfred’s heartland from the north, but for the moment I did not care. I only wanted to find my wife and child. There was pride in that desire, of course, but more than pride. Mildrith and I were suited to each other, I had missed her, I wanted to see my child. That ceremony in the rain-dripping cathedral had worked its magic and I wanted her back and I wanted to punish Odda the Younger for taking her away. ‘Defnascir,’ I said again, ‘that’s where the bastard’s gone. And that’s where we go tomorrow.’ Odda, I was certain, would head for the safety of home. Not that he feared my revenge, for he surely assumed I was dead, but he would be worried about the Danes, and I was worried that they might have found him on his westward flight.
‘You and me?’ Leofric asked.
I shook my head. ‘We take Heahengel and a full fighting crew.’
Leofric looked sceptical. ‘In this weather?’
‘The wind’s dropping,’ I said, and it was, though it still tugged at the thatch and rattled the shutters, but it was calmer next morning, but not by much for Hamtun’s water was still flecked white as the small waves ran angrily ashore, suggesting that the seas beyond the Solente would be huge and furious. But there were breaks in the cloud, the wind had gone into the east, and I was in no mood to wait. Two of the crew, both seamen all their lives, tried to dissuade me from the voyage. They had seen this weather before, they said, and the storm would come back, but I refused to believe them and they, to their credit, came willingly as did Father Willibald, which was brave of him for he hated the sea and was facing rougher water than any he had seen before.
We rowed up Hamtun’s water, hoisted the sail in the Solente, brought the oars inboard and ran before that east wind as though the serpent Corpse-Ripper was at our stern. Heahengel hammered through the short seas, threw the white water high, raced, and that was while we were still in sheltered waters. Then we passed the white stacks at Wiht’s end, the rocks that are called the Nædles, and the first tumultuous seas hit us and the Heahengel bent to them. Yet still we flew, and the wind was dropping and the sun shone through rents in the dark clouds to glitter on the churning sea, and Leofric suddenly roared a warning and pointed ahead.
He was pointing to the Danish fleet. Like me they believed the weather was improving, and they must have been in a hurry to join Guthrum, for the whole fleet was coming out of the Poole and was now sailing south to round the rocky headland, which meant, like us, they were going west. Which could mean they were going to Defnascir or perhaps planning to sail clear about Cornwalum to join Ubba in Wales.
‘You want to tangle with them?’ Leofric asked me grimly.
I heaved on the steering oar, driving us south. ‘We’ll go outside them,’ I said, meaning we would head out to sea and I doubted any of their ships would bother with us. They were in a hurry to get wherever they were going and with luck, I thought, Heahengel would outrun them for she was a fast ship and they were still well short of the headland.
We flew downwind and there was joy in it, the joy of steering a boat through angry seas, though I doubt there was much joy for the men who had to bail Heahengel, chucking the water over the side, and it was one of those men who looked astern and called a sudden warning to me. I turned to see a black squall seething across the broken seas. It was an angry patch of darkness and rain, coming fast, so fast that Willibald, who had been clutching the ship’s side as he vomited overboard, fell to his knees, made the sign of the cross and began to pray. ‘Get the sail down!’ I shouted at Leofric, and he staggered forward, but too late, much too late, for the squall struck.
One moment the sun had shone, then we were abruptly thrust into the devil’s playground as the squall hit us like a shield wall. The ship shuddered, water and wind and gloom smashing us in sudden turmoil and Heahengel swung to the blow, going broadside to the sea and nothing I could do would hold her straight, and I saw Leofric stagger across the deck as the stærbord side went under water. ‘Bail!’ I shouted desperately, ‘bail!’ And then, with a noise like thunder, the great sail split into tatters that whipped off the yard, and the ship came slowly upright, but she was low in the water, and I was using all my strength to keep her coming round, creeping round, reversing our course so that I could put her bows into that turmoil of sea and wind, and the men were praying, making the sign of the cross, bailing water, and the remnants of the sail and the broken lines were mad things, ragged demons, and the sudden gale was howling like the furies in the rigging and I thought how futile it would be to die at sea so soon after Ragnar had saved my life.
Somehow we got six oars into the water and then, with two men to an oar, we pulled into that seething chaos. Twelve men pulled six oars, three men tried to cut the rigging’s wreckage away, and the others threw water over the side. No orders were given, for no voice could be heard above that shrieking wind that was flensing the skin from the sea and whipping it in white spindrift. Huge swells rolled, but they were no danger for the Heahengel