The Lords of the North (22 page)

The red ship was close and was coming fast. Her bows were crowned with a black-toothed
dragon's head and filled with armed men in mail and helmets. She came in a gale of noise; the
splash of oar-blades, the shouts of her warriors and the seethe of white water around the
great red breast of her high prow. I had to stagger to one side to avoid her, for she did not
slow as she neared the beach, but kept coming, and the oars gave one last heave and the bows
grated on the shore and the dragon's head reared up and the great ship's keel crashed up the
beach in a thunder of scattering shingle. The dark hull loomed above me, then an oar-shaft
struck me in the back, throwing me under the waves and when I managed to stagger upright I
saw the ship had shuddered to a halt and a dozen mail-clad men had jumped from the prow with
spears, swords, axes and shields. The first men onto the beach bellowed defiance as the
rowers dropped their oars, plucked up weapons, and followed. This was no trading ship, but a
Viking come to her kill.

Sven fled. He scrambled into his saddle and spurred across the marsh while his six men,
much braver, rode their horses at the invading Vikings, but the beasts were axed down
screaming and the unsaddled riders were butchered on the strand, their blood trickling to
the small waves where I stood, mouth open, hardly believing what I saw. Sverri was on his
knees with his hands spread wide to show he had no weapons.

The red ship's master, glorious in a helmet crested with eagle wings, took his men to
the marsh path and led them towards the monastery buildings. He left a half-dozen warriors on
the beach and one of those was a huge man, tall as a tree and broad as a barrel, who carried a
great war axe that was stained with blood. He dragged off his helmet and grinned at me. He said
something, but I did not hear him. I was just staring in disbelief and he grinned wider. It
was Steapa.

Steapa Snotor. Steapa the Clever, that meant, which was a joke because he was not the
brightest of men, but he was a great warrior who had once been my sworn enemy and had since
become my friend. Now he grinned at me from the water's edge and I did not understand why a
West Saxon warrior was travelling in a Viking ship, and then I began to cry. I cried
because I was free and because Steapa's broad, scarred, baleful face was the most beautiful
thing I had seen since I had last been on this beach.

I waded out of the water and I embraced him, and he patted my back awkwardly and he
could not stop grinning because he was happy. 'They did that to you?'

he said, pointing at my leg shackles.

'I've worn them for more than two years,' I said.

'Put your legs apart, lord.' he said.

'Lord?' Sverri had heard Steapa and he understood that one Saxon word. He got up from his
knees and took a faltering step towards us. 'Is that what he called you?' he asked me,
'lord?'

I just stared at Sverri and he went on his knees again. 'Who are you?' he asked,
frightened.

'You want me to kill him?' Steapa growled.

'Not yet.' I said.

'I kept you alive,' Sverri said, 'I fed you.'

I pointed at him. 'Be silent,' I said and he was.

'Put your legs apart, lord.' Steapa said again. 'Stretch that chain for me.'

I did as he ordered. 'Be careful.' I said.

'Be careful!' he mocked, then he swung the axe and the big blade whistled past my groin and
crashed into the chain and my ankles were twitched inwards by the massive blow so that I

staggered. 'Be still.' Steapa ordered me, and he swung again and this time the chain
snapped. 'You can walk now, lord.' Steapa said, and I could, though the links of broken chain
dragged behind my ankles.

I walked to the dead men and selected two swords. 'Free that man.' I told Steapa, pointing
at Finan, and Steapa chopped through more chains and Finan ran to me, grinning, and we stared
at each other, eyes bright with tears of joy, and then I held a sword to him. He looked at the
blade for a moment as though he did not believe what he was seeing, then he gripped the hilt
and bayed like a wolf at the darkening sky. Then he threw his arms around my neck. He was
weeping. 'You're free.' I told him.

'And I am a warrior again,' he said. 'I am Finan the Agile!'

'And I am Uhtred.' I said, using that name for the first time since I had last been on this
beach. 'My name is Uhtred.' I said again, but louder this time,

'and I am the lord of Bebbanburg.' I turned on Sverri, my anger welling up. 'I am Lord
Uhtred.' I told him, 'the man who killed Ubba Lothbrokson beside the sea and sent Svein of
the White Horse to the corpse-hall. I am Uhtred.' I was in a red rage now. I stalked to Sverri
and tipped his face up with the sword-blade. 'I am Uhtred,' I said, 'and you call me lord.'

'Yes, lord.' he said.

'And he is Finan of Ireland,' I said, 'and you call him lord.'

Sverri looked at Finan, could not meet his gaze and lowered his eyes. 'Lord.'

he said to Finan.

I wanted to kill him, but I had a notion that Sverri's usefulness on this earth was not
quite finished and so I contented myself with taking Steapa's knife and slitting open
Sverri's tunic to bare his arm. He was shaking, expecting his throat to be cut, but instead
I carved the letters into his flesh, then rubbed sand into the wound. 'So tell me, slave,' I
said, 'how you undo these rivets?' I tapped my ankle chains with the knife.

'I need a blacksmith's tools, lord.' Sverri said.

'If you want to live, Sverri, pray that we find them.'

There had to be tools up at the ruined monastery, for that was where Kjartan's men manacled
their slaves, and so Steapa sent two men to search for the means to strike off our chains and
Finan amused himself by butchering Hakka because I would not let him slaughter Sverri. The
Scottish slaves watched in awe as the blood swilled into the sea beside the stranded Trader.
Finan danced with joy afterwards and chanted one of his wild songs, then he killed the rest
of Sverri's crew.

'Why are you here?' I asked Steapa.

'I was sent, lord.' he said proudly.

'Sent? Who sent you?'

'The king, of course.' he said.

'Guthred sent you?'

'Guthred?' Steapa asked, puzzled by the name, then shook his head. 'No, lord. It was King
Alfred, of course.'

'Alfred sent you?' I asked, then gaped at him. 'Alfred?'

'Alfred sent us.' he confirmed.

'But these are Danes.' I gestured at the crewmen who had been left on the beach with
Steapa.

'Some are Danes,' Steapa said, 'but we're mostly West Saxons. Alfred sent us.'

'Alfred sent you?' I asked again, knowing I sounded like an incoherent fool, but I could
scarcely believe what I was hearing. 'Alfred sent Danes?'

'A dozen of them, lord,' Steapa said, 'and they're only here because they follow him.' He
pointed to the shipmaster in his winged helmet who was striding back to the beach. 'He's the
hostage,' Steapa said as though that explained everything, 'and Alfred sent me to keep him
honest. I guard him.'

The hostage? Then I remembered whose badge was the eagle wing and I stumbled towards the
red ship's master, inhibited by the ragged chains dragging from my ankles, and the
approaching warrior took off his winged helmet and I could scarcely see his face because of
my tears. But I still shouted his name.

'Ragnar!' I shouted. 'Ragnar!'

He was laughing when we met. He embraced me, whirled me about, embraced me a second time
and then pushed me away. 'You stink,' he said, 'you're the ugliest, hairiest, smelliest
bastard

I've ever laid eyes on. I should throw you to the crabs, except why would a good crab want
anything as revolting as you?'

I was laughing and I was crying. 'Alfred sent you?'

'He did, but I wouldn't have come if I'd known what a filthy turd you've become,' he said. He
smiled broadly and that smile reminded me of his father, all good humour and strength. He
embraced me again. 'It is good to see you, Uhtred Ragnarson,' he said.

Ragnar's men had driven Sven's remaining troops away. Sven himself had escaped on
horseback, fleeing towards Dunholm. We burned the slave pens, freed the slaves, and that
night, by the light of the burning wattle hurdles, my shackles were struck off and for the
next few days I raised my feet ludicrously high when I walked for I had grown so accustomed
to the weight of the iron bonds.

I washed. The red-haired Scottish slave cut my hair, watched by Finan. 'Her name's Ethne,'
he told me. He spoke her language, or at least they could understand one another, though I
guessed, from the way they looked at each other, that different languages would not have been
a barrier. Ethne had found two of the men who had raped her among Sven's dead and she had
borrowed Finan's sword to mutilate their corpses and Finan had watched her proudly. Now she
used shears to cut my hair and trim my beard, and afterwards I dressed in a leather jerkin and
in clean hose and proper shoes. And then we ate in the ruined monastery church and I sat with
Ragnar, my friend, and heard the tale of my rescue.

'We've been following you all summer.' he said.

'We saw you.'

'Couldn't miss us, could you, not with that hull? Isn't she a horror? I hate pine-built
hulls. She's called Dragon-Fire, but I call her Worm-Breath. It took me a month to get her
ready for sea. She belonged to a man who was killed at Ethandun and she was just rotting away
on the Temes when Alfred gave her to us.'

'Why would Alfred do that?'

'Because he said you won him his throne at Ethandun,' Ragnar said and grinned.

'Alfred was exaggerating,' he went on, 'I'm sure he was. I imagine you just stumbled
about the battlefield and made a bit of noise, but you did enough to fool Alfred.'

'I did enough.' I said softly, remembering the long green hill. 'But I thought Alfred
didn't notice.'

'He noticed,' Ragnar said, 'but he didn't do this just for you. He gained a nunnery as
well.'

'He did what?'

'Got himself a nunnery. God knows why he'd want one. Me, I might have exchanged you for a
whorehouse, but Alfred got a nunnery and he seemed well enough pleased with that
bargain.'

And that was when the story emerged. I did not hear the whole tale that night, but later I
pieced it all together and I shall tell it here. It had all started with Hild.

Guthred kept his last promise to me and treated her honourably. He gave her my sword and my
helmet, he let her keep my mail and my arm rings, and he asked her to be the companion of his
new wife, Queen Osburh, the Saxon niece of the dethroned king in Eoferwic. But Hild blamed
herself for my betrayal. She decided that she had offended her god by resisting her
calling as a nun and so she begged Guthred to give her leave to go back to Wessex and rejoin
her order. He had wanted her to stay in Northumbria, but she pleaded with him to let her go
and she told him that God and Saint Cuthbert demanded it of her, and Guthred was ever open to
Cuthbert's persuasion. And so he allowed her to accompany messengers he was sending to
Alfred and thus Hild returned to Wessex and once there she found Steapa, who had always been
fond of her.

'She took me to Fifhaden.' Steapa told me that night when the hurdles burned beneath the
ruined walls of Gyruum's monastery.

'To Fifhaden?'

'And we dug up your hoard,' Steapa said. 'Hild showed me where it was and I dug it up. Then
we carried it to Alfred. All of it. We poured it on the floor and he just stared at it.'

That hoard was Hild's weapon. She told Alfred the story of Guthred and how he had betrayed
me, and she promised Alfred

that if he sent men to find me then she would use all that gold and silver on his hall's
floor to build a house of God and that she would repent of her sins and live the rest of her
life as a bride of Christ. She would wear the church's manacles so that my iron chains could be
struck off.