I had reckoned it would take me a year to capture Bebbanburg. First, through the summer, autumn, and winter, I would destroy the fortress’s food supply by killing or capturing the cattle and sheep that lived on the wide lands and green hills. I would break the granaries, burn the haystacks, and send ships to destroy my cousin’s fishing boats. I would drive his frightened tenants to seek shelter behind his high walls so that he would have many mouths and little food. By spring they would be starving, and starving men are weak, and by the time they were eating rats we would attack.
Or so I hoped.
We make plans, but the gods and the three Norns at the foot of Yggdrasil decide our fate. My plan was to weaken, starve, and eventually kill my cousin and his men, but wyrd bið ful ãræd.
I should have known.
Fate is inexorable. I had hoped to tempt my cousin into the valley east of Ætgefrin where we could make the two streams run red with their blood. There was little shelter at Ætgefrin. It was a hilltop fort, one built by the ancient people who lived in Britain before even the Romans came. The old fort’s earthen walls had long decayed, but the shallow remnant of the ditch still ringed the high summit. There was no settlement there, no buildings, no trees, just the great hump of the high hill under the incessant wind. It was an uncomfortable place to camp. There was no firewood, and the nearest water was a half-mile away, but it did have a view. No one could approach unseen, and if my cousin did dare send men then we would see them approaching and we would have the high ground.
He did not come. Instead, three days after I had confronted Waldhere, we saw a single rider approach from the south. He was a small man riding a small horse, and he was wearing a black robe that flapped in the wind, which still blew strong and cold from the distant sea. The man gazed up at us, then kicked his diminutive beast towards the steep slope. ‘It’s a priest,’ Finan said sourly, ‘which means they want to talk instead of fight.’
‘You think my cousin sent him?’ I asked.
‘Who else?’
‘Then why’s he coming from the south?’
‘He’s a priest. He couldn’t find his own arse if you turned him around and kicked it for him.’
I looked for any sight of a scout watching us, but saw none. We had seen none for two days. That absence of scouts persuaded me that my cousin was brewing mischief, and so we had ridden to Bebbanburg that day and gazed at the fortress where we saw the mischief for ourselves. Einar’s men were making a new palisade across the isthmus of sand that led to Bebbanburg’s rock. That, it seemed, was the Norsemen’s defence, a new outer wall. My cousin did not trust them inside his stronghold, so they were making a new refuge that would have to be overcome before we could assault first the Low Gate and then the High. ‘The bastard’s gone to ground,’ Finan had growled at me, ‘he’s not going to fight us in the country. He wants us to die on his walls.’
‘His three walls now,’ I said. We would have to cross the new palisade, then the formidable ramparts of the Low Gate, and there would still be the big wall pierced by the High Gate.
But that new wall was not the worst news. The two new ships in Bebbanburg’s harbour were what made my heart sink. One was a fighting ship, smaller than the four we had watched arrive but, like them, flying Einar’s banner of the dragon’s head, and alongside her was a fat-bellied trading ship. Men were carrying barrels ashore, wading through the shallow water to dump the supplies on the beach just outside the Low Gate.
‘Einar’s bringing him food,’ I said bleakly. Finan said nothing. He knew what I was feeling; despair. My cousin now had more men, and a fleet to bring his garrison food. ‘I can’t starve them now,’ I said, ‘not while those bastards are there.’
Now, late in the afternoon and under a glowering sky, a priest came to Ætgefrin, and I assumed he had been sent by my cousin with a gloating message. He was close enough now for me to see that he had long black hair that hung greasily either side of a pale, anxious face that stared up at our earthen wall. He waved, probably wanting a return wave that would reassure him that he would be welcome, but none of my men responded. We just watched as his weary gelding finished the climb and carried him over the turf rampart. The priest staggered slightly when he dismounted. He looked around him and shuddered at what he saw. My men. Men in mail and leather, hard men, men with swords. None spoke to him, we all just waited for him to explain his arrival. He finally caught sight of me, saw the gold at my throat and on my forearms, and he walked to me and dropped to his knees. ‘You’re Lord Uhtred?’
‘I’m Lord Uhtred.’
‘My name is Eadig, Father Eadig. I’ve been looking for you, lord.’
‘I told Waldhere where he could find me,’ I said harshly.
Eadig looked up at me, puzzled. ‘Waldhere, lord?’
‘You’re from Bebbanburg?’
‘Bebbanburg?’ He shook his head. ‘No, lord, we come from Eoferwic.’
‘Eoferwic!’ I could not hide my surprise. ‘And “we”? How many of you are there?’ I looked southwards but saw no more riders.
‘Five of us left Eoferwic, lord, but we were attacked.’
‘And you alone lived?’ Finan said accusingly.
‘The others drew the attackers away, lord.’ Father Eadig spoke to me rather than to Finan, ‘they wanted me to reach you. They knew it was important.’
‘Who sent you?’ I demanded.
‘King Sigtryggr, lord.’
I felt a cold pulse shiver around my heart. For a moment I dared not speak, frightened of what this young priest would say. ‘Sigtryggr,’ I finally said, and wondered what crisis would provoke my son-in-law to send a messenger. I feared for my daughter. ‘Is Stiorra ill?’ I asked urgently. ‘The children?’
‘No, lord, the queen and her children are well.’
‘Then …’
‘The king requests your return, lord,’ Eadig blurted out, and took a rolled parchment from inside his robe. He held it out to me.
I took the crushed parchment, but did not unroll it. ‘Why?’
‘The Saxons have attacked, lord. Northumbria is at war.’ He was still on his knees, gazing up at me. ‘The king wants your troops, lord. And he wants you.’
I cursed. So Bebbanburg must wait. We would ride south.
We rode next morning. I led one hundred and ninety-four men, together with a score of boys who were servants, and we rode south through rain and wind and beneath clouds as dark as Father Eadig’s robe. ‘Why did my son-in-law send a priest?’ I asked him. Sigtryggr, like me, worshipped the old gods, the real gods of Asgard.
‘We do his clerical work, lord.’
‘We?’
‘We priests, lord. There are six of us who serve King Sigtryggr by writing his laws and charters. Most …’ he hesitated, ‘it’s because we can read and write.’
‘And most pagans can’t?’ I asked.
‘Yes, lord.’ He blushed. He knew that those of us who worshipped the old gods disliked being called pagans, which is why he had hesitated.
‘You can call me a pagan,’ I said, ‘I’m proud of it.’
‘Yes, lord,’ he said uneasily.
‘And this pagan can read and write,’ I told him. I had the skills because I had been raised as