Death of Kings Read online

  ‘He kept promising us other men would join him,’ I invented, ‘he said they’d come from Ireland, but no one did.’

  ‘He did well enough last summer,’ Frithof said.

  ‘Until the Saxons took his fleet,’ I commented sourly.

  ‘Uhtred of Bebbanburg,’ Frithof spoke just as sourly, then touched the hammer he wore about his neck. ‘Uhtred is besieging him now. Is that why you left?’

  ‘I don’t want to die in Britain. So, yes, that’s why we left.’

  Frithof smiled. ‘Uhtred will die in Britain, my friend. Jarl Sigurd has gone to kill the bastard.’

  I touched my hammer. ‘May the gods give the jarl victory,’ I said piously.

  ‘Kill Uhtred,’ Frithof said, ‘and Mercia falls, and when Alfred dies, Wessex falls.’ He smiled. ‘Why would a man want to be in Frisia when all that happens?’

  ‘I miss home,’ I said.

  ‘Make your home here!’ Frithof said enthusiastically. ‘Join Jarl Sigurd and you can choose your own estate in Wessex, you can take a dozen Saxon wives and live like a king!’

  ‘But I have to kill Uhtred first?’ I asked lightly.

  Frithof touched his amulet again. ‘He’ll die,’ he said, and his voice was anything but light.

  ‘Many men have tried to kill him,’ I said. ‘Ubba tried!’

  ‘Uhtred has never faced Jarl Sigurd in battle,’ Frithof said, ‘nor the Jarl Cnut, and Jarl Cnut’s sword is swift as the snake’s tongue. Uhtred will die.’

  ‘All men die.’

  ‘His death is foretold,’ Frithof said, and, when he saw my interest, he touched the hammer again. ‘There’s a sorceress,’ he explained, ‘and she has seen his death.’

  ‘Where? When?’

  ‘Who knows?’ he asked. ‘She knows, I suppose, and that’s what she promised the jarl.’

  I felt a sudden, strange pang of jealousy. Had Erce straddled Sigurd in the night as she had straddled me? Then I thought Ælfadell had forecast my death to Sigurd, but had denied it to me, and that meant she either lied to one of us or that Erce, despite her loveliness, was no goddess.

  ‘Jarl Sigurd and Jarl Cnut are doomed to fight Uhtred,’ Frithof went on, ‘and the prophecy says the jarls will win, Uhtred will die and Wessex will fall. And that means you’re missing an opportunity, my friend.’

  ‘Maybe I’ll come back,’ I said, and I thought maybe I would return to Snotengaham one day because if Alfred’s dream of uniting all the lands where the English tongue was spoken were to come true then the Danes must be driven from this and every other town between Wessex and the wild Scottish frontier.

  At night, when the singing had faded from Snotengaham’s taverns and the dogs had gone quiet, the sentries who watched over the ships would come to our fires and accept our food and ale. That happened for three nights, and then, in the next dawn, my men chanted as they rolled Tyr’s Daughter down a ramp of logs and so into the Trente. She floated. It took a day to ballast her and another half-day to distribute the stones so that she floated true, just a little down at the stern. I knew she would leak, all ships leak, but by nightfall of the second day there was no evidence of water above the newly placed ballast stones. Frithof had kept his word and brought us oars, and my men rowed the ship upstream for a few miles, then turned her and brought her back. We stowed the mast on a pair of cradles, lashed the furled sail to the mast, and stacked what meagre possessions we owned beneath the small half-deck at the stern. I spent what few silver coins I had left on a barrel of ale, two of dried fish, some twice-baked bread, a flitch of bacon and a great rock-hard cheese wrapped in canvas. At dusk Frithof brought us a sea eagle’s head, carved from oak, that would fit over the prow. ‘It’s a gift,’ he told me.

  ‘You’re a good man,’ I said, and I meant it.

  He watched as his slaves carried the carved head on board my ship. ‘May Tyr’s Daughter serve you well,’ he said, touching the hammer at his neck, ‘and may the wind never fail you and may the sea carry you safe home.’

  I told the slaves to stow the head in the prow. ‘You’ve been helpful,’ I told Frithof warmly, ‘and I wish I could thank you properly.’ I offered him a silver arm ring, but he shook his head.

  ‘I’ve no need of it,’ he said, ‘and you might need silver in Frisia. You leave in the morning?’

  ‘Before midday,’ I said.

  ‘I’ll come and say farewell,’ he promised.

  ‘How long to the sea?’ I asked.

  ‘You’ll make it in two days,’ he said, ‘and once out of the Humbre, head a little north. Avoid the East Anglian coast.’

  ‘Trouble there?’

  He shrugged. ‘A few ships looking for easy prey. Eohric encourages them. Just head straight out to sea and keep going.’ He cocked his head at the sky that was clear of clouds. ‘If this fine weather lasts you’ll be home in four days. Five, maybe.’

  ‘Any news from Ceaster?’ I asked. I was worried that Sigurd would have learned that he had been deceived and would be returning to his heartland, but Frithof had heard nothing and I assumed that Finan was still leading the jarl a dance through the hills and woods south of the old Roman fort.

  There was a full moon that night, and the watchmen again came to the wharf where Tyr’s Daughter was tethered to Bright-Flyer by hemp ropes. The moon glossed the river’s swirls. We gave the watchmen ale, regaled them with songs and stories, and waited. A barn owl flew low, wings white as smoke, and I took the bird’s swift passage as a good omen.

  When the night’s heart came and the dogs were silent I sent Osferth and a dozen men to a hayrick that lay halfway to the town. ‘Bring back as much hay as you can carry,’ I said.

  ‘Hay?’ one of the watchmen asked me.

  ‘Bedding,’ I explained, and told Ludda to fill the man’s ale-horn. The watchmen did not seem to notice that none of my men was drinking, or sense the apprehension among my crew. They drank, and I climbed aboard Bright-Flyer and crossed to Tyr’s Daughter, where I pulled my mail coat over my head and strapped Serpent-Breath to my waist. One by one my men came to the boat and dressed for war, while Osferth returned with great armfuls of hay, and only then did one of the four watchmen decide that our behaviour was strange.

  ‘What are you doing?’ he asked.

  ‘Burning your ships,’ I said cheerfully.

  He gaped at me. ‘You’re what?’

  I drew Serpent-Breath and held her blade’s tip just beneath his nose. ‘My name is Uhtred of Bebbanburg,’ I said, and watched his eyes widen. ‘Your lord tried to kill me,’ I went on, ‘and I’m reminding him that he failed.’

  I left three men to watch the prisoners on the wharf, while the rest set to work on the beached ships. We used axes to splinter rowers’ benches, then piled hay and tinder in the hulls’ wide bellies. I made the biggest heap in Sea-Slaughterer, Cnut’s prized ship, for she was in the centre of the stranded craft. Osferth and his half-dozen men watched the town, but no one stirred from the gates, which I assumed were barred shut. Even when we used ropes to haul away the props on some of the outer ships so that they crashed over, the noise did not carry to Snotengaham.

  The town lay in the north of Sigurd’s land, protected from the rest of Mercia by his large estates, while to the north was the friendly territory controlled by Cnut. Maybe no town in all Britain felt farther from trouble, which was why the boats had been brought here and why Frithof had only placed four old and half-lame men to watch them. The guards were not there to repel an attack, for no one expected Snotengaham to be assaulted, but to stop petty thieving of timbers or of the charcoal used in the braziers. That charcoal was now spread across the beached ships and I heaved one of the still smoking braziers into Sea Slaughterer’s belly.

  We put fire into the other ships, then went back to the wharf.

  Flames burst bright, faded, then burst again. Smoke thickened quickly. So far it was only the tinder and charcoal burning, the oak of the ships’ timbers took longer to catch, but at last I saw the hea
vier flames grow and spread. The wind was light and fitful, sometimes blowing the smoke down into the fire and swirling it low before releasing it to the night air. The flames bit and spread, the heat was scorching, melting tar dripped, sparks flew high, and the noise of the fire grew.

  Osferth came running, leading his men down the bank between the fire-glossed river and the flames. A boat collapsed, its burning timbers crashing onto the ground and spraying fire beneath the bellies of the neighbouring craft. ‘Men coming!’ Osferth shouted.

  ‘How many?’

  ‘Six? Seven?’

  I took ten men up the bank while Osferth put fire into the ships that were still floating. The noise of the fire was a roar punctured by the cracks of splitting timbers. Sea-Slaughterer was a ship of flames now, her belly a cauldron, and her long keel broke as we passed her and she sagged with a great crash and the sparks flew outwards and the flames leaped higher to show me a ragged group of men running from the town. They were not many, perhaps eight or nine, and they were not dressed, but had just pulled cloaks over their jerkins. None had a weapon and they checked when they saw me, and no wonder, for I was in mail, helmeted, with Serpent-Breath in my hand. The fire reflected from her blade. I did not speak. I had my back to the fire, which roared in the night, so my face was shadowed. The men saw a line of fire-outlined warriors ready for war and they turned back towards the town to fetch help. That help was already coming. More men were crossing the meadow and, in the fire’s bright light, I saw the glint of reflected blades. ‘Back to the wharf,’ I told my men.

  We retreated to the wharf, which was being scorched by the nearby flames. ‘Osferth! Are they all burned?’ I was asking about the ships that floated, all except Tyr’s Daughter and Bright-Flyer.

  ‘They’re burning,’ he called back.

  ‘On board!’ I shouted.

  I counted my men on board Tyr’s Daughter then, as the watchmen scuttled away from the wharf, I used an axe to sever the mooring lines that held Bright-Flyer to the wharf. The men from the town thought I was stealing Sigurd’s boat and those with weapons came to rescue her. I jumped on board Bright-Flyer and chopped the axe to cut the last mooring line that held her bows to the bank. She was swinging outwards, held by that last line, and my blow only half cut the hemp rope. A man took a flying leap and sprawled on the benches. He swung his sword at me and the blade struck my mail and I kicked him in the face as two more men leaped from the wharf. One missed and fell between the ship and the bank, though he managed to get one hand on the topmost strake and clung on, while the other man landed beside me and rammed a short-sword at my belly. Osferth had climbed back onto Bright-Flyer and was coming to help me as I parried the sword with the axe. The first man hacked at me again, slicing his sword at my legs, but the blade was stopped by the strips of iron sewn into the leather of my boots. That man had hurt himself when he jumped, maybe his ankle was broken because he seemed unable to stand. He twisted around to face Osferth who swatted the sword aside, then lunged with his own. The second man panicked, and I pushed him and he fell back into the water. I slashed the axe at the taut mooring line again and it snapped and I almost lost my footing as Bright-Flyer surged away from the bank. The man clinging to the strake let go. Osferth’s man was dying, his blood draining into the ballast stones.

  ‘Thank you,’ I said to Osferth. The river’s current was carrying Bright-Flyer and Tyr’s Daughter downstream away from the fire that was brighter and fiercer than ever, its smoke filling the sky and obscuring the stars. We had put tinder, charcoal and the last brazier into the Bright-Flyer’s hull and I tipped the brazier over, paused long enough to see the smouldering charcoal burst into flame, then climbed onto Tyr’s Daughter. We cut Bright-Flyer free. A dozen of my men already had oars and they pulled the smaller ship away from the larger. I dropped the steering oar into the slot at the stern and leaned on it to guide Tyr’s Daughter into the river’s centre, and just then an axe, its blade flashing reflected firelight, flew from the bank to splash harmlessly behind us.

  ‘Put up the eagle’s head!’ I shouted to my men.

  ‘Kjartan!’ Frithof, mounted on a tall black stallion, was cantering down the bank, keeping pace with us. It was one of his men who had thrown the axe, and now another launched a spear that plunged into the river. ‘Kjartan!’

  ‘My name is Uhtred,’ I called back. ‘Uhtred of Bebbanburg!’

  ‘What?’ he called back.

  ‘Uhtred of Bebbanburg! Give my greeting to Jarl Sigurd!’

  ‘You bastard!’

  ‘Tell that slime-eater you call a lord not to try to kill me again!’

  Frithof and his men had to rein in because a tributary cut across their path. He cursed me, but his voice faded as we rowed on.

  The sky behind us glowed with the fire of Sigurd’s fleet burning. Not every ship had caught fire, and I did not doubt that Frithof’s men would rescue one or two, maybe more, from the inferno that lit the night. They would also want to pursue us, which was why Bright-Flyer burned as she drifted behind us. She turned on the current, the flames cradled in her sleekly beautiful belly. She would sink eventually and the steam would replace the smoke and the wreck, I hoped, would obstruct the channel. I waved to Frithof and then laughed. Sigurd would be furious when he realised that he had been duped. Not just duped, but made into a fool. His precious fleet was ashes.

  The river behind us was shimmering red, while in front of us it was moon-silvered. The current carried us swiftly and I only needed a half-dozen oars to keep us straight. I steered around the outside of the river’s bends where the water was deepest, always alert for the ominous sound of our keel grinding on mud, but the gods were with us and Tyr’s Daughter slid swiftly away from that great glow of fire that marked Snotengaham. We were travelling faster than any horse, which is why I had purchased a boat to make our escape, and we had a huge lead over any ship that might try to follow us. For a time Bright-Flyer drifted close behind, and then after an hour or so she stopped, though the glow of her flames still flickered above the river bends. Then that too faded and I supposed she had sunk and I hoped that her wreckage obstructed the river’s channel. We journeyed on.

  ‘What did we achieve, lord?’ Osferth asked. He had come to stand beside me on the small deck at the stern of Tyr’s Daughter.

  ‘We made Sigurd look like a fool,’ I said.

  ‘But he isn’t a fool.’

  I knew Osferth disapproved. He was no coward, but he thought, like his father, that war would yield to intelligence and that a man could reason his way to victory. Yet war, as often as not, is about emotion. ‘I want the Danes to fear us,’ I said.

  ‘They already did.’

  ‘Now they fear us more,’ I said. ‘No Dane can attack Mercia or Wessex in the knowledge that his home is safe. We’ve shown we can reach deep into their land.’

  ‘Or we’ve stirred them to revenge,’ he suggested.

  ‘Revenge?’ I asked. ‘You think the Danes planned to leave us in peace?’

  ‘I fear attacks on Mercia,’ he said, ‘revenge attacks.’

  ‘Buccingahamm will be burned,’ I said, ‘but I told them all to leave the hall and go to Lundene.’

  ‘You did?’ he sounded surprised, then frowned. ‘Then Beornnoth’s hall will be burned too.’

  I laughed at that, then touched the silver chain Osferth wore about his neck. ‘You want to wager that chain?’ I asked.

  ‘Why wouldn’t Sigurd burn Beornnoth’s hall?’ he asked.

  ‘Because Beornnoth and his son are Sigurd’s men,’ I said.

  ‘Beornnoth and Beortsig?’

  I nodded. I had no proof, only suspicion, but Beornnoth’s lands, so close to Danish Mercia, had been left unmolested and that suggested an agreement. Beornnoth, I suspected, was too old for the troubles of continual war and so had made his peace, while his son was a bitter man and full of hatred for the West Saxons, who, in his view, had taken away Mercia’s independence. ‘I can’t prove that,’ I told Osferth,
‘but I will.’

  ‘Even so, lord,’ he said carefully, ‘what did we achieve?’ He gestured towards the fading glow in the sky.

  ‘Other than annoying Sigurd?’ I asked. I leaned on the steering oar, pushing Tyr’s Daughter to the outside of a long curve in the river. The eastern sky was luminous now, small clouds stretching bright in front of the still hidden sun. Cattle watched us pass. ‘Your father,’ I said, knowing those two words would irritate him, ‘has held the Danes at bay for my whole lifetime. Wessex is a fortress. But you know what your father wants.’

  ‘All the lands of the English.’

  ‘And you don’t get that by building a fortress. You don’t defeat the Danes by defending against them. You must attack. And your father has never attacked.’

  ‘He sent ships to East Anglia,’ Osferth said chidingly.

  Alfred had indeed once sent an expedition to East Anglia to punish Eohric’s Danes who had raided Wessex, but Alfred’s ships had accomplished little. The West Saxons had built large ships and their keels were too deep to penetrate the rivers and Eohric’s men had simply withdrawn into shallow water, and so Alfred’s fleet had threatened and then rowed away, though the threat had been sufficient to convince Eohric to keep to the treaty between Wessex and his kingdom. ‘If we’re to unite the Saxons,’ I said, ‘it won’t be with ships. It will be with shield walls and spears and swords and slaughter.’

  ‘And God’s help,’ Osferth said.

  ‘Even with that,’ I said, ‘and your brother knows that, and your sister knows that, and they will look for someone to lead that shield wall.’

  ‘You.’

  ‘Us. That’s why we burned Sigurd’s fleet, to show Wessex and Mercia who can lead them.’ I slapped Osferth’s shoulder and grinned at him. ‘I’m tired of being called the shield of Mercia. I want to be the sword of the Saxons.’

  Alfred, if he yet lived, was dying. And I had just made his ambition my own.

  We took down the eagle’s head so we would not appear hostile and, under the rising sun, slid on through England.