‘Was Odda there?’ I asked.
‘Ealdorman Odda?’ Withgil asked. ‘Of course not.’
‘Where was he?’
Withgil frowned at me as if I had just come from the moon. ‘In the north, of course.’
‘The north of Defnascir?’
‘He marched a week ago. He led the fyrd.’
‘Against Ubba?’
‘That’s what the king ordered,’ Withgil said.
‘So where’s Ubba?’ I demanded.
It seemed that Ubba had brought his ships across the wide Sæfern sea and had landed far to the west in Defnascir. He had travelled before the storm struck, which suggested his army was intact, and Odda had been ordered north to block Ubba’s advance into the rest of Wessex, and if Odda had marched a week ago then surely Odda the Younger would know that and would have ridden to join his father? Which suggested that Mildrith was there, wherever there was. I asked Withgil if he had seen Odda the Younger, but he said he had neither seen nor heard of him since Christmas.
‘How many men does Ubba have?’ I asked.
‘Many,’ Withgil said, which was not helpful, but all he knew.
‘Lord,’ Cenwulf touched my arm and pointed east and I saw horsemen appearing on the low fields which stretched from the river towards the hill on which Exanceaster is built. A lot of horsemen, and behind them came a standard-bearer and, though we were too far away to see the badge on the flag, the green and white proclaimed that it was the West Saxon banner. So Alfred had come here? It seemed likely, but I was in no mind to cross the river and find out. I was only interested in searching for Mildrith.
War is fought in mystery. The truth can take days to travel, and ahead of truth flies rumour, and it is ever hard to know what is really happening, and the art of it is to pluck the clean bone of fact from the rotting flesh of fear and lies.
So what did I know? That Guthrum had broken the truce and had taken Exanceaster, and that Ubba was in the north of Defnascir. Which suggested that the Danes were trying to do what they had failed to do the previous year, split the West Saxon forces, and while Alfred faced one army the other would ravage the land or, perhaps, descend on Alfred’s rear, and to prevent that the fyrd of Defnascir had been ordered to block Ubba. Had that battle been fought? Was Odda alive? Was his son alive? Were Mildrith and my son alive? In any clash between Ubba and Odda I would have reckoned on Ubba. He was a great warrior, a man of legend among the Danes, and Odda was a fussy, worried, greying and ageing man.
‘We go north,’ I told Leofric when we were back at Oxton. I had no wish to see Alfred. He would be besieging Guthrum, and if I walked into his camp he would doubtless order me to join the troops ringing the city and I would sit there, wait, and worry. Better to go north and find Ubba.
So next morning, under a spring sun, the Heahengel’s crew marched north.
The war was between the Danes and Wessex. My war was with Odda the Younger, and I knew I was driven by pride. The preachers tell us that pride is a great sin, but the preachers are wrong. Pride makes a man, it drives him, it is the shield wall around his reputation and the Danes understood that. Men die, they said, but reputation does not die.
What do we look for in a lord? Strength, generosity, hardness and success, and why should a man not be proud of those things? Show me a humble warrior and I will see a corpse. Alfred preached humility, he even pretended to it, loving to appear in church with bare feet and prostrating himself before the altar, but he never possessed true humility. He was proud, and men feared him because of it, and men should fear a lord. They should fear his displeasure and fear that his generosity will cease. Reputation makes fear, and pride protects reputation, and I marched north because my pride was endangered. My woman and child had been taken from me, and I would take them back, and if they had been harmed then I would take my revenge and the stink of that man’s blood would make other men fear me. Wessex could fall for all I cared, my reputation was more important and so we marched, skirting Exanceaster, following a twisting cattle track into the hills until we reached Twyfyrde, a small place crammed with refugees from Exanceaster, and none of them had seen or heard news of Odda the Younger, nor had they heard of any battle to the north, though a priest claimed that lightning had struck thrice in the previous night which he swore was a sign that God had struck down the pagans.
From Twyfyrde we took paths that edged the great moor, walking through country that was deep-wooded, hilly and lovely. We would have made better time if we had possessed horses, but we had none, and the few we saw were old, sick and there were never enough for all our men and so we walked, sleeping that night in a deep combe bright with blossom and sifted with bluebells, and a nightingale sang us to sleep and the dawn chorus woke us and we walked on beneath the white mayflower, and that afternoon we came to the hills above the northern shore and we met folk who had fled the coastal lands, bringing with them their families and livestock, and their presence told us we must soon see the Danes.
I did not know it but the three spinners were making my fate. They were thickening the threads, twisting them tighter, making me into what I am, but staring down from that high hill I only felt a flicker of fear, for there was Ubba’s fleet, rowing east, keeping pace with the horsemen and infantry who marched along the shore.
The folk who had fled their homes told us that the Danes had come from the Welsh lands across the wide Sæfern sea, and that they had landed at a place called Beardastopol which lies far in Defnascir’s west, and there they had collected horses and supplies, but then their attack eastwards into the West Saxon heartland had been delayed by the great storm which had wrecked Guthrum’s fleet. Ubba’s ships had stayed in Beardastopol’s harbour until the storm passed and then, inexplicably, they had still waited even when the weather improved and I guessed that Ubba, who would do nothing without the consent of the gods, had cast the runesticks, found them unfavourable, and so waited until the auguries were better. Now the runes must have been good for Ubba’s army was on the move. I counted thirty-six ships which suggested an army of at least twelve or thirteen hundred men.
‘Where are they going?’ one of my men asked.
‘East,’ I grunted, what else could I say? East into Wessex. East into the rich heartland of England’s last kingdom. East to Wintanceaster or to any of the other plump towns where the churches, monasteries and nunneries were brimming with treasure, east to where the plunder waited, east to where there was food and more horses, east to invite more Danes to come south across Mercia’s frontier, and Alfred would be forced to turn around and face them, and then Guthrum’s army would come from Exanceaster and the army of Wessex would be caught between two hosts of Danes, except that the fyrd of Defnascir was somewhere on this coast and it was their duty to stop Ubba’s men.
We walked east, passing from Defnascir into Sumorsæte, and shadowing the Danes by staying on the higher ground, and that night I watched as Ubba’s ships came inshore and the fires were lit in the Danish camp, and we lit our own fires deep in a wood and were marching again before dawn and thus got ahead of our enemies and by midday we could see the first West Saxon forces. They were horsemen, presumably sent to scout the enemy, and they were now retreating from the Danish threat, and we walked until the hills dropped away to where a river flowed into the Sæfern sea, and it was there that we discovered that Ealdorman Odda had decided to make his stand, in a fort built by the old people on a hill near the river.
The river was called