War of the Wolf Read online

  “Six, lord.”

  “And how many with Arnborg?”

  She shrugged. “Many, lord?” She plainly did not know, but I pressed her anyway.

  “Many? A hundred? Two hundred?”

  “Many, lord!”

  “To join Sköll?” I asked.

  She nodded. “Yes, lord. To join Sköll.”

  “Sköll is a great king!” her son called defiantly. “He is a warrior of the wolf! He has a sorcerer who turns men into ice!”

  I ignored him, dismissing his words as a child’s boast. “And Sköll,” I still talked to Fritha, “where did he go?”

  “East, lord,” she said helplessly.

  “And Arnborg’s hall,” I asked, “how far is it?”

  “Close, lord.”

  “And how many men has he left there?”

  She hesitated, then saw me glance at her son. “Maybe twenty, lord?”

  We shut the gates, put the horses in the smaller hall and the barns, fed the great hearth, ate Hallbjorn’s food, and some of us slept, though only after we had questioned every captive and learned that Arnborg’s hall truly was close, built beside the Ribbel where the river widened out to the great estuary. Fritha, scared for her son’s life, was eager to talk now and reckoned it was less than an hour’s walk. “You can see it from our roof, lord,” she said.

  “He’ll have left men there,” Finan said to me in the dawn.

  “But where has he gone? Where has Sköll gone?”

  “East,” Finan said unhelpfully. “Maybe just a cattle raid? A big one?”

  “In winter? There’ll be few cattle outside.” We slaughtered our herds as the autumn faded and winter’s grip chilled the land, keeping alive just enough beasts to breed for the following year, and most of those precious animals would be behind palisades. I had the dread feeling that I had made the wrong decision, that I should not be seeking the treacherous monk, but hurrying back to Bebbanburg. But Fritha had said her menfolk had left two weeks before, which meant that whatever they had left to do had probably been done already. And we had come this far, so we might as well find the monk with the scarred tonsure. If, indeed, he had returned here.

  Which meant we must capture Arnborg’s hall.

  Nothing in war is simple, though fate had been kind to us on the night we took Hallbjorn’s steading. We lost one horse that broke a leg when he stumbled into a ditch, but otherwise the worst we suffered was cold.

  Assaulting Arnborg’s hall would not be so easy. But at least the capture of Hallbjorn’s steading had taken us close to the hall, and better still we had been undiscovered. We were on Arnborg’s land, and none of his men knew we were there. Yet the moment we left the steading we could no longer hide, we must race across the winter ground to reach the palisade before any news of our coming alerted the men left to guard the hall. We had questioned Fritha and her people and had learned that the hall was built beside a creek of the Ribbel, that it was surrounded by barns and huts, that it had a strong palisade, and that Arnborg had left a garrison to protect his home. One servant, who had carried eggs to the hall the day before, agreed with Fritha that there were perhaps twenty men, “Or maybe thirty, lord?”

  “Maybe forty, perhaps fifty,” Finan growled as we spurred the horses on frost-hardened ground.

  “At least he’s not in the Roman fort,” I said. I had feared Arnborg might have occupied the old fort that lay well inland, but it seemed, from what we had heard, that Arnborg liked to be close to the Ribbel’s estuary so that his ships could slip out to sea where rich cargoes could be captured.

  Twenty men did not sound like a fearsome enemy, but their advantage was that they could shelter behind their palisade, and though that wooden fence might not be as formidable as Bebbanburg’s great ramparts, it would still be a daunting obstacle, which is why we rode hard and fast. If the defenders knew we were coming they could prepare, but if we appeared suddenly and unexpectedly then half of them would be in the hall, warming themselves by the hearth. We followed a well-beaten track that curved around the Ribbel’s numerous channels. We crossed salt marshes, threaded reed beds, and all around us the shorebirds called and flew away in great flocks. No one could miss the sight of those thousands of white wings filling the sky, so Arnborg’s men would know someone was moving on the estuary’s bank, but why would they suspect an enemy?

  Our horses’ hooves smashed the cat ice where the track forded a shallow creek. Serpent-Breath was bouncing at my hip, while the shield on my back thumped rhythmically against my spine. We climbed a long shallow slope topped by a thick windbreak of willow and alder, ducked under low branches, and cantered out into the thin sunlight again, and there was Arnborg’s steading, just as Fritha’s people had described it.

  It was a shrewd place to make a hall. One of the many creeks of the Ribbel curved here, and the water protected two sides of the high palisade. Three ships were moored in that creek, tied to a timber wharf that lay on the northern side of Arnborg’s steading, which stretched southward by at least sixty paces. Inside the wall were the roofs of a hall and a cluster of other buildings; barns, stables, and storehouses. The one gate I could see was on the southern side, and it was closed. A flag hung above the gate, but in that morning’s windless air it was impossible to see any badge or symbol on the cloth. There had to be a fighting platform beside the gate because two spearmen stood there, both just gaping at us for the moment. I waved to them, hoping the gesture would convince them we were friends, but I saw one turn and shout back into the steading.

  There were two ways to capture a walled steading. The first and easiest was to show the defenders by how many they were outnumbered and promise that they would live if they surrendered. It usually worked, but I knew I would probably have to fight for this hall. Arnborg was a warrior and a leader of warriors, and we knew he had left a garrison to defend his home, and that suggested they would rather fight than betray their lord’s trust. So fight we would, but if we were to fight, I wanted it to be quick. “Berg!” I called. “You know what to do! So do it!”

  I swerved off the track, going away from the palisade and forcing Tintreg onto a plowed field that slowed him. Finan and most of my men followed, but Berg led eleven of my youngest and most agile warriors straight toward the palisade’s closest corner, which was protected, like the rest of the landward wall, by a flooded ditch. Reeds grew in the ditch and betrayed that it was not deep, indeed I suspected that the ditch dried out quickly on a falling tide. One of the slaves at Hallbjorn’s farm had said the ditch was little more than knee-deep, and I could only hope he was right. The man who had shouted from the fighting platform was calling again, pointing to the corner where I saw Berg’s horse scramble into the ditch and saw Berg steady himself with one hand on the palisade as he stood on the saddle, then I watched as he reached up and grasped the wall’s top. For a heartbeat he was poised against the winter sky, then he scrambled over, and I saw there must be a platform at the corner because Berg was able to stand there, lean over, and help the next man. The other horses crowded into the ditch and it seemed to take a long time, but at last all twelve managed to climb from their horses’ backs, clamber over the high wall, and jump from the fighting platform to the ground beyond.

  “Remember when we could have done that?” Finan asked. He had reined in beside me.

  I laughed. “If we had to, my friend, we still could.”

  “Two shillings says you’d have fallen off the horse,” he said, and he was probably right.

  The fighting platform did not extend along the whole length of the southern wall because the two spearmen at the gate had disappeared from sight rather than run to confront the invaders. I heard a shout, the clang of swords, and I nudged Tintreg toward the gate. The noise from within the steading was louder, the harsh clash and scrape of blade on blade, a bellow of anger. “I should have led them,” I said.

  “You’d still be halfway up the wall,” Finan said. “That’s a job for young fools, not old men like us.” />
  And my young fools, proud warriors, did what we had demanded. I saw Godric appear on the gate’s fighting platform, waving us forward, and then the gate was pushed open and I spurred Tintreg as I drew Serpent-Breath. We had surprised the garrison, and now we would punish them for being surprised. I kicked Tintreg out of the plowland back onto the track, his hooves thundered on the hard-packed earth of the brief causeway that crossed the shallow ditch, I ducked under the crossbar that crowned the gate, and saw a group of men running to my left, intent on attacking Berg’s young warriors who had their backs to the palisade and were fighting off an equal number of sword-Norse. But most of the Norsemen were not in mail and wore no helmets. Then someone screamed a challenge to my right and I slewed Tintreg to face the sound and saw a spear coming toward me. I wrenched Tintreg back to the left, the spear slashed close beside me, so close that the leaf blade sliced my right boot. I spurred toward the warrior who had thrown it, then she screamed again and I saw it was a woman. She was dressed in a thick wool gown covered by a heavy cloak of dark fur and had a silver-chased helmet crammed over black hair. She was shouting for someone to bring her another spear, but it was too late. My horsemen were crowding through the gate, they lowered their spears and rode at Berg’s assailants. I saw a blade slice into a spine, saw the man arch back like a bow under tension, then the Norsemen were dropping their swords and kneeling in surrender. At least two bodies lay in blood, while a wounded man crawled toward the huts with his guts trailing in the mud. A dog howled. The woman still screamed for another spear, so I rode to her and slapped Serpent-Breath across her helmet, and she seized my leg and tried to haul me from the saddle. I hit her again, much harder, still using the flat of the blade, and this time she staggered back, her helmet askew and a tangle of black hair shrouding her angry face.

  “Shut the gates!” I called to Berg.

  “Did you lose anyone?” Finan called.

  “None!” Berg was hauling the gates closed.

  “You did well!” I shouted, and it had been well done. The young men had crossed a palisade and they had fought off defenders who, though they had been surprised, had been more numerous and had reacted faster than we had expected. I touched the hammer at my breast and silently thanked the gods for our success, and it was at that moment that I was struck.

  I was struck by a thought. That when the gods favor you one moment they will punish you the next.

  And in that moment of small victory, beneath a clearing sky, the darkness came. The sudden thought was as sharp as Gungnir, Odin’s dreadful spear, and it told me that I was cursed. I cannot tell how I knew I was cursed, but know it I did. I knew that the gods were laughing at me while the three Norns, those heartless spinners at the foot of Yggdrasil, were amusing themselves with my life threads. The sun was shining, but I felt as though storm-dark clouds were shrouding the world, and I just sat in the saddle, not moving, gazing blindly toward the huts where a crowd of Arnborg’s people were watching us nervously.

  “Lord?” Finan edged his horse close to mine. “Lord!” he said again, louder.

  I looked up for a sign, for any omen that I was not cursed. A bird in flight would reveal the will of the gods, I thought, but no birds showed. In that place of birds, beside an estuary of birds, there was just the burning winter sun, the pale sky, and the high rippled clouds. “There’s a curse on me,” I said.

  “No, lord,” Finan said, touching the cross at his breast.

  “It’s a curse,” I said. “We should have gone to Bebbanburg, not here.”

  “No, lord,” Finan said again.

  “Just find the monk,” I said.

  “If he’s here.”

  “Find him!”

  Though what good would it do to find Brother Beadwulf if I were cursed? I could fight Arnborg, I could fight Sköll, I could fight Æthelhelm, but I could not fight the gods. I was cursed.

  Wyrd bið ful āræd.

  Four

  The gods are not kind to us, any more than children are kind to their toys. We are here to amuse the gods, and at times it amuses them to be unkind. The Christians, of course, claim that any misfortune is caused by our own sin, that ill fate is their nailed god’s way of punishing us, and if you point out that the wicked thrive they simply say that their god is unknowable. Meaning they have no explanation. I had done nothing I could think of to earn the displeasure of the gods, but I did not need to have offended them. They were simply amusing themselves, playing with me like a child plays with a toy, and so I clutched the hammer amulet in my gloved hand and prayed I was wrong. Perhaps my conviction that I was cursed was false, but there were no birds in the winter sky, and that omen told me I was the plaything of cruel gods. Cruel? Yes, of course, just as children are cruel. I remember Father Beocca crowing with delight when I had once said that our gods are like children. “How can a god be like a child?” he had demanded.

  “Don’t you Christians say we must be like Christ?”

  He had frowned, suspecting a trap, then had nodded reluctantly. “We must indeed be Christ-like, yes.”

  “And when I was a child,” I had pressed him, “didn’t you tell me that your nailed god said we must all be like little children?”

  He had just stared at me, spluttered for a moment, then had remarked that the weather was getting colder. I miss Father Beocca. He would have dismissed my fears of being cursed, but I could not dismiss the certainty that my fate was suddenly dire. All I could do now was survive, and the beginning of that survival was to discover whether the monk Beadwulf was still in Arnborg’s fort.

  “Eerika,” Finan said behind me. I turned, puzzled, to see him gripping the arm of the angry woman who had tried to kill me with her thrown spear. “She’s called Eerika,” Finan explained, “and she’s Arnborg’s wife.”

  “Where is Arnborg?” I asked her.

  “Hunting you,” she said.

  “Hunting me where?”

  “Wherever he is.”

  “I can make her talk, lord,” Eadric said. He spoke in English so that Eerika did not understand him, but she understood the vicious look on his face.

  “No,” I said, then swung down from Tintreg’s saddle and called for Rorik to take the stallion. “Lady,” I spoke to Eerika, “last night we took Hallbjorn’s farm. His wife defied me too. Where do you think she is now?” Eerika did not answer. She was a fine-looking woman, maybe thirty years old, with dark eyes and a high-boned face. “Hallbjorn’s wife,” I told her, “lives. As does her son. We hurt neither of them and I left her silver to pay for the food we ate. Do you understand me?” She still just stared at me silently. “I’ve no wish to hurt you,” I went on, “but I do need answers and I promise I will get them one way or the other. It would be easier, I think, if you just talked to me. So, where is Arnborg?”

  “Gone east,” she said curtly.

  “Where?”

  “East,” she said stubbornly.

  “With Sköll?”

  “With Jarl Sköll, yes! And pray you never meet him or his sorcerer!” She spat toward me, but her spittle fell short. The mention of Sköll’s famous sorcerer made me shudder. Had he cursed me?

  I walked toward her, Serpent-Breath still naked in my hand. I saw her eye the blade nervously. “The missionary monk, Beadwulf. Is he here?”

  She sneered at that question. “Is that why you came?”

  “Is the monk here?” I repeated patiently.

  “You can have him,” she said in derision, then jerked her head toward the buildings beyond the great hall. “In his hut, of course.”

  “Which hut?”

  “The dirtiest hut. The smallest one.”

  “We’ll be gone soon enough,” I said as I sheathed Serpent-Breath, sliding her into her scabbard very slowly so that Eerika would take note and, sure enough, she looked at the blade as I pushed it home. “And my sword,” I went on, “is unblooded. But if any of your men lifts a hand against us, her blade will be drenched in their blood. And if you lift your hand against us
, the blood will be yours.” I nodded to Finan. “Let her go.”

  And so Finan, Berg, and I walked past the great hall, past two barns, and past a reeking blacksmith’s forge to where smaller huts were the homes of Arnborg’s warriors. Most of those warriors had ridden with their lord, gone eastward, but their women were still here, and they watched as we walked toward the last hut, a small thatched hovel with smoke trickling from its roof-hole. Newly woven willow fish traps were piled by the doorway. A sullen woman confirmed that it was the monk’s home. “They had a bigger one,” she said, “but when the other monk died . . .” she shrugged.

  “And the monk is here?” I asked her.

  “He’s there,” she said.

  The hut was nothing but reed thatch, wattle, and sunbaked clay. The entrance was so low that we would have had to crawl inside, so instead I drew Serpent-Breath again and rammed her blade into the moss-covered thatch. A woman screamed from inside, then screamed again as I tore the reeds apart, opening up a gaping hole in the roof, then hacked again to widen the hole down to the low doorway. Finan and Berg helped, pulling away timber, withies, and thatch, and then at last we could look down into the hut’s interior.

  Where there were two people sitting on the far side of a hearth where a small fire burned. One, a girl, was clutching a robe to her breasts and staring up at us with wide, frightened eyes, while next to her, looking equally terrified and with an arm around the girl’s thin shoulders, was a man I did not at first recognize. Indeed, I feared I had broken into the wrong hut because the man sheltering the girl had no tonsure, instead he had a full head of dark hair. Then he looked up at me, and I did recognize him. “Brother Beadwulf,” I said.

  “No,” he shook his head wildly, “no!”

  “Or is it Brother Osric?” I asked.

  “No,” he whimpered, “no!”

  “Yes,” I said, then stepped into the ruined hut, bent down, and seized Brother Beadwulf by his black robe. He yelped, the girl gasped, then I dragged him out, pulling his unresisting body across the burning hearth so that he screamed in pain and his woolen robe started to smolder. I threw him down among the wreckage of the thatch and watched him beat out the small flames. “Brother Beadwulf,” I said, “we need to talk.” And so we did.