War of the Wolf Read online

  “Requests or requires?” I asked.

  “It’s the same thing,” Swithred said, and turned his horse, beckoning us to follow him.

  I stayed where I was and held out a hand to check Finan. “Tell me,” I called after Swithred, “you’re a West Saxon?”

  “You know I am,” he said, turning back suspiciously.

  “Do you give orders to West Saxon ealdormen?”

  He looked angry, but had the sense to suppress the fury. “The prince requests your company,” he paused, “lord.”

  “Back in the city?”

  “He’s waiting at the north gate,” Swithred said curtly. “We’re riding to Brunanburh.”

  I spurred my horse alongside the priest’s gray. “I remember the day I first met you, priest,” I said, “and Prince Æthelstan told me he didn’t trust you.”

  He looked shocked at that. “I cannot believe—” he began to protest.

  “Why would I lie?” I interrupted him.

  “I am devoted to the prince,” he said forcefully.

  “You were his father’s choice, not his.”

  “And does that matter?” he asked. I deliberately did not answer, but just waited until, reluctantly, he added, “lord.”

  “The priests,” I said, “write letters and read letters. Prince Æthelstan believed you were imposed on him to report back to his father.”

  “And so I was,” Swithred admitted, “and I will tell you precisely what I report to the king. I tell him his eldest son is no bastard, that he is a good servant of Christ, that he is devoted to his father, and that he prays for his father. Why do you think his father trusts him with the command of Ceaster?” He spoke passionately.

  “Do you know a monk called Brother Osric?” I asked suddenly.

  Swithred gave me a pitying look. He knew I had tried to trap him. “No, lord,” he said, giving the last word a sour taste.

  I tried another question. “So Æthelstan should be the next King of Wessex?”

  “That is not my decision. God appoints kings.”

  “And is your god helped in his choice by wealthy ealdormen?”

  He knew I meant Æthelhelm the Younger. It had occurred to me that Swithred might be sending messages to Æthelhelm. I had no doubt that the ealdorman sought news of Æthelstan and probably had at least one sworn follower somewhere in Ceaster, and I was tempted to think it must be Swithred because the stern, bald priest disliked me so much, but his next words surprised me. “It’s my belief,” he said, “that Lord Æthelhelm persuaded the king to give this command to the prince.”

  “Why?”

  “So he would fail, of course. The prince has three burhs to command, Ceaster, Brunanburh, and Mameceaster, and not sufficient men to garrison even one of them properly. He has rebels to contend with, and thousands of Norse settlers north of here. Dear God! He even has Norsemen settled on this peninsula!”

  I could not hide my astonishment. “Here? On Wirhealum?”

  Swithred shrugged. “You know what’s been happening on this coast? The Irish defeated the Norse settlers, drove many of them out, and so they came here.” He gestured northward. “Out beyond Brunanburh? There might be five hundred Norse settlers there, and even more north of the Mærse! And thousands more north of the Ribbel.”

  “Thousands?” I asked. Of course I had heard stories of the Norse fleeing Ireland, but thought most had found refuge in the islands off the Scottish coast or in the wild valleys of Cumbraland. “The prince is letting his enemies settle on Mercian land? Pagan enemies?”

  “We have small choice,” Swithred said calmly. “King Edward conquered East Anglia, now he’s King of Mercia, and he needs all his troops to put down unrest and to garrison the new burhs he’s making. He doesn’t have the men to fight every enemy, and these Norsemen are too numerous to fight. Besides, they’re beaten men. They were defeated by the Irish, they lost much of their wealth and many of their warriors in those defeats, and they crave peace. That’s why they’ve submitted to us.”

  “For now,” I said sourly. “Did any of them join Cynlæf?”

  “Not one. Ingilmundr could have led his men against us or he could have attacked Brunanburh. He did neither. Instead he kept his men at home.”

  “Ingilmundr?” I asked.

  “A Norseman,” Swithred said dismissively. “He’s the chieftain who holds land beyond Brunanburh.”

  I found it difficult to believe that Norse invaders had been allowed to settle so close to Brunanburh and Ceaster. King Edward’s ambition, which was the same as his father King Alfred’s, was to drive the pagan foreigners out of Saxon territory, yet here they were on Ceaster’s doorstep. I supposed that ever since Æthelflaed’s death there had been no stable government in Mercia, Cynlæf’s rebellion was proof of that, and the Northmen were ever ready to take advantage of Saxon weakness. “Ingilmundr,” I said forcefully, “whoever he is, might not have marched against you, but he could have come to your relief.”

  “The prince sent word that he was to do no such thing. We had no need of help, and we certainly had no need of pagan help.”

  “Even my help?”

  The priest turned to me with a ferocious expression. “If a pagan wins our battles,” he said vehemently, “then it suggests the pagan gods must have power! We must have faith! We must fight in the belief that Christ is sufficient!”

  I had nothing to say to that. The men who fought for me worshipped a dozen gods and goddesses, the Christian god among them, but if a man believes the nonsense that there is only one god then there’s no point in arguing because it would be like discussing a rainbow with a blind man.

  We had ridden to the north of the city where Æthelstan and a score of armed riders waited for us. Æthelstan greeted me cheerfully. “The sun’s shining, the rebels are gone, and God is good!”

  “And the rebels didn’t attack Brunanburh?”

  “So far as we know. That’s what we’re going to find out.”

  For almost as long as I could remember, Ceaster had been the most northerly burh in Mercia, but Æthelflaed had built Brunanburh just a few miles north and west to guard the River Mærse. Brunanburh was a timber-walled fort, close enough to the river to protect a wooden wharf where warships could be kept. The purpose of the fort was to prevent Norsemen rowing up the Mærse, but if Swithred was right then all the land beyond Brunanburh between the Dee and the Mærse was now settled by pagan Norse. “Tell me about Ingilmundr,” I demanded of Æthelstan as we rode.

  I had asked the question in a truculent tone, but Æthelstan answered enthusiastically. “I like him!”

  “A pagan?”

  He laughed at that. “I like you too, lord,” he said, “sometimes.” He spurred his horse off the road and onto a track that skirted the Roman cemetery. He glanced at the weather-worn graves and made the sign of the cross. “Ingilmundr’s father held land in Ireland. He and his men got beaten and driven to the sea. The father died, but Ingilmundr managed to bring off half his army with their families. I sent a message early this morning asking that he should meet us at Brunanburh because I want you to meet him. You’ll like him too!”

  “I probably will,” I said. “He’s a Norseman and a pagan. But that makes him your enemy, and he’s an enemy living on your land.”

  “And he pays us tribute. And tribute weakens the payer and acknowledges his subservience.”

  “Cheaper in the long run,” I said, “just to kill the bastards.”

  “Ingilmundr swore on his gods to live peaceably with us,” Æthelstan continued, ignoring my comment.

  I leaped on his words. “So you trust his gods? You accept they are real?”

  “They’re real to Ingilmundr, I suppose,” Æthelstan said calmly. “Why make him take an oath on a god he doesn’t believe in? That just begs for the oath to be broken.”

  I grunted at that. He was right, of course. “But no doubt part of the agreement,” I said scathingly, “was that Ingilmundr accepts your damned missionaries.”

>   “The damned missionaries are indeed part of the agreement,” he said patiently. “We insist on that with every Norseman who settles south of the Ribbel. That’s why my father put a burh at Mameceaster.”

  “To protect missionaries?” I asked, astonished.

  “To protect anyone who accepts Mercian rule,” he said, still patient, “and punish anyone who breaks our law. The warriors protect our land, and the monks and priests teach folk about God and about God’s law. I’m building a convent there now.”

  “That will terrify the Northmen,” I said sourly.

  “It will help bring Christian charity to a troubled land,” Æthelstan retorted. His aunt, the Lady Æthelflaed, had always claimed the River Ribbel as Mercia’s northern frontier, though in truth the land between the Mærse and the Ribbel was wild and mostly ungoverned, its coast long settled by Danes who had often raided the rich farmlands around Ceaster. I had led plenty of war-bands north in revenge for those raids, once leading my men as far as Mameceaster, an old Roman fort on a sandstone hill beside the River Mædlak. King Edward had strengthened those old walls and put a garrison into Mameceaster’s fort. And thus, I reflected, the frontier of Mercia crept ever northward. Ceaster had been the northernmost burh, then Brunanburh, and now it was Mameceaster, and that new burh on its sandstone hill was perilously close to my homeland, Northumbria. “Have you ever been to Mameceaster?” Æthelstan asked me.

  “I was there less than a week ago,” I said ruefully. “The damned monk who lied to me left us at Mameceaster.”

  “You came that way?”

  “Because I thought the garrison would have news of you, but the bastards wouldn’t talk to me, wouldn’t even let us through the gate. They let the damned monk in, but not us.”

  Æthelstan laughed. “That was Treddian.”

  “Treddian?”

  “A West Saxon. He commands there. Did he know it was you?”

  “Of course he did.”

  Æthelstan shrugged. “You’re a pagan and a Northumbrian and that makes you an enemy. Treddian probably thought you were planning to slaughter his garrison. He’s a cautious man, Treddian. Too cautious, which is why I’m replacing him.”

  “Too cautious?”

  “You don’t defend a burh by staying on the walls. Everything to the north of Mameceaster is pagan country, and they raid constantly. Treddian just watches them! He does nothing! I want a man who’ll punish the pagans.”

  “By invading Northumbria?” I asked sourly.

  “Sigtryggr is king of that land in name only,” Æthelstan replied forcefully. He saw me flinch at the uncomfortable truth, and pressed his argument. “Does he have any burhs west of the hills?”

  “No,” I admitted.

  “Does he send men to punish evildoers?”

  “When he can.”

  “Which is never,” Æthelstan said scornfully. “If the pagans of Northumbria raid Mercia,” he went on, “then we should punish them. Englaland will be a country ruled by law. By Christian law.”

  “Does Ingilmundr accept your law?” I asked dubiously.

  “He does,” Æthelstan said. “He has submitted himself and his folk to my justice.” He ducked beneath the splintered branch of an alder. We were riding through a narrow belt of woodland that had been pillaged by the besiegers for firewood and the trees bore the scars of their axes. Beyond the wood I could see the reed beds that edged the flat gray Mærse. “He has also welcomed our missionaries,” Æthelstan added.

  “Of course he has,” I responded.

  Æthelstan laughed, his good humor restored. “We don’t fight the Norsemen because they’re newcomers,” he said. “We were newcomers ourselves once! We don’t even fight them because they’re pagans.”

  “We were all pagans once.”

  “We were indeed. No, we fight to bring them into our law. One country, one king, one law! If they break the law, we must impose it, but if they keep it? Then we must live with them in peace.”

  “Even if they’re pagans?”

  “By obeying the law they will see the truth of Christ’s commandments.”

  I wondered if this was why Æthelstan had demanded my company; to preach the virtues of Christian justice to me? Or was it to meet Ingilmundr, with whom he was so plainly impressed? For a time, as we rode along the Mærse’s southern bank, he talked of his plans to strengthen Mameceaster, and then, impatient, he spurred his horse into a canter, leaving me behind. Mudflats and reed beds stretched to my right, the water beyond almost still, just occasionally ruffled by a breath of wind. As we drew closer to the burh I saw that Æthelstan’s flag still flew there, and two low lean ships were safely tied at the wharf. It seemed Cynlæf’s men had made no attempt to capture Brunanburh, which, as it turned out, had been garrisoned by a mere thirty men, who opened the gates to welcome us.

  As I rode through the gate I saw that Æthelstan had dismounted and was striding toward a tall young man who went to his knees as Æthelstan came close. Æthelstan raised him up, clasped the man’s right arm with both hands, and turned to me. “You must meet Ingilmundr,” he exclaimed happily.

  So this, I thought, was the Norse chieftain who had been allowed to settle so close to Ceaster. He was young, startlingly young, and strikingly handsome, with a straight blade of a nose and long hair that he wore tied in a leather lace so that it hung almost to his waist. “I asked Ingilmundr to meet us here,” Æthelstan told me, “so we could thank him.”

  “Thank him for what?” I asked once I had dismounted.

  “For not joining the rebellion, of course!” Æthelstan said.

  Ingilmundr waited as one of Æthelstan’s men translated the words, then took a simple wooden box from one of his companions. “It is a gift,” he said, “to celebrate your victory. It is not much, lord Prince, but it is much of all that we possess.” He knelt again and laid the box at Æthelstan’s feet. “We are glad, lord Prince,” he went on, “that your enemies are defeated.”

  “Without your help,” I could not resist saying as Æthelstan listened to the translation.

  “The strong do not need the help of the weak,” Ingilmundr retorted. He looked up at me as he spoke, and I was struck by the intensity of his blue eyes. He was smiling, he was humble, but his eyes were guarded. He had come with just four companions, and, like them, he wore plain breeches, a woolen shirt, and a coat of sheepskin. No armor, no weapons. His only decorations were two amulets hanging at his neck. One, carved from bone, was Thor’s hammer, while the other was a silver cross studded with jet. I had never seen any man display both tokens at once.

  Æthelstan raised the Norseman again. “You must forgive the Lord Uhtred,” he said. “He sees enemies everywhere.”

  “You are Lord Uhtred!” Ingilmundr said, and there was a flattering surprise and even awe in his voice. He bowed to me. “I am honored, lord.”

  Æthelstan gestured, and a servant came forward and opened the wooden box, which, I saw, was filled with hacksilver. The glittering scraps had been cut from torques and brooches, buckles and rings, most of them ax-hacked into shards that were used instead of coins. A merchant would weigh hacksilver to find its value, and Ingilmundr’s gift, I thought grudgingly, was not paltry. “You are generous,” Æthelstan said.

  “We are poor, lord Prince,” Ingilmundr said, “but our gratitude demands we offer you a gift, however small.”

  And in his steadings, I thought, he was doubtless hoarding gold and silver. Why did Æthelstan not see that? Perhaps he did, but his pious hopes of converting the pagans exceeded his suspicions. “In an hour,” he said to Ingilmundr, “we will have a service of thanksgiving in the hall. I hope you can attend and I hope you will listen to the words Father Swithred will preach. In those words is eternal life!”

  “We shall listen closely, lord Prince,” Ingilmundr said earnestly, and I wanted to laugh aloud. He was saying everything Æthelstan wanted to hear, and though it was plain Æthelstan liked the young Norseman, it was equally plain he did not see the slyne
ss behind Ingilmundr’s handsome face. He saw meekness, which the Christians ridiculously count as a virtue.

  The meek Ingilmundr sought me out after Swithred’s interminable sermon, which I had not attended. I was on Brunanburh’s wharf, idly gazing into the belly of a ship and dreaming of being at sea with the wind in my sail and a sword at my side when I heard footsteps on the wooden planks and turned to see the Norseman. He was alone. He stood beside me and for a moment said nothing. He was as tall as I was. We both gazed into the moored ship and, after a long moment, Ingilmundr broke our silence. “Saxon ships are too heavy.”

  “Too heavy and too slow.”

  “My father had a Frisian ship once,” he said, “and it was a beauty.”

  “You should persuade your friend Æthelstan to give you ships,” I said, “then you can sail home.”

  He smiled, despite my harsh tone. “I have ships, lord, but where is home? I thought Ireland was my home.”

  “Then go back there.”

  He gave me a long look, as if weighing the depth of my hostility. “You think I don’t want to go back?” he asked. “I would, lord, tomorrow, but Ireland is cursed. They’re not men, they’re fiends.”

  “They killed your father?”

  He nodded. “They broke his shield wall.”

  “But you brought men away from the battle?”

  “One hundred and sixty-three men and their families. Nine ships.” He sounded proud of that, and so he should have been. Retreating from a defeat is one of the hardest things to do in war, yet Ingilmundr, if he spoke truth, had fought his way back to the Irish shore. I could imagine the horror of that day; a broken shield wall, the shrieks of maddened warriors slaughtering their enemies, and the horsemen with their sharp spears racing in pursuit.

  “You did well,” I said, and looked down at his two amulets. “Which god did you pray to?”

  He laughed at that. “To Thor, of course.”

  “Yet you wear a cross.”

  He fingered the heavy silver ornament. “It was a gift from my friend Æthelstan. It would be churlish to hide it away.”

  “Your friend Æthelstan,” I said, mocking the word “friend” with my tone, “would like you to be baptized.”