Part 19 (1/2)

I have often scorned Christian priests because they are forever telling us that the proof of their religion is the magic that Christ performed, but then they claim that such magic disappeared with him. If a priest could cure a cripple or make the blind see, then I would believe in their G.o.d, but at that moment, in the smoke-filled tavern beneath Dunholm's high fortress walls, a miracle did occur. Offa paid for the ale and even ordered more.

I have always been able to drink more than most men, yet even so I could feel the room swirling like the smoke billowing from the tavern hearth. I kept my wits, though. I dropped Offa some gossip about Skade, admitted my disappointment about Skirnir's h.o.a.rd, and then complained bitterly that I had neither money nor sufficient men. That last drunken complaint opened the door for Offa. ”And why, lord, would you need men?” he asked.

”We all need men,” I said.

”True,” Finan put in.

”More men,” Osferth said.

”Always more men.” Finan was also pretending to be drunker than he was.

”I hear the northern jarls are gathering here?” Offa asked innocently. He was desperate to know what was being planned. All Britain knew that the Northumbrian lords were invited to Dunholm, but no one was certain why, and Offa could become wealthy on that knowledge.

”That's why I want men!” I said to him in a very earnest voice.

Offa poured me more ale. I noticed he was hardly touching his own horn. ”The northern jarls have men enough,” he said, ”and I hear Jarl Ragnar is offering silver for crews.”

I leaned forward confidingly. ”How can I talk to them as an equal if all I lead is one crew?” I paused to belch. ”And a small crew at that?”

”You have reputation, lord,” he said, somehow managing not to recoil from my ale-staled breath.

”I need men,” I said, ”men, men, men.”

”Good men,” Osferth said.

”Spear-Danes, sword-Danes,” Finan added dreamily.

”The jarls will have enough men to crush the Scots,” Offa suggested, dangling the words like a baited hook.

”The Scots!” I said scornfully. ”Why waste a single crew on the Scots?” Finan touched my elbow warningly, but I pretended to be oblivious of his gesture. ”What is Scotland?” I asked belligerently. ”Wild men in a bare country with scarce a sc.r.a.p of cloth to cover their c.o.c.ks. The kingdom of Alba,” I spat the name of Scotland's largest kingdom, ”isn't worth the produce of one decent Saxon estate. They're nothing but hairy b.a.s.t.a.r.ds with frozen c.o.c.ks. Who wants them?”

”Yet Jarl Ragnar would conquer them?” Offa asked.

”He would,” Finan said firmly.

”He would end their nuisance,” Osferth added, but Offa ignored both of them. He gazed at me, and I looked back into his eyes.

”Bebbanburg,” I said confidingly.

”Bebbanburg, lord?” he asked innocently.

”I am Lord of Bebbanburg, am I not?” I demanded.

”You are, lord,” he said.

”The Scots!” I said derisively, then let my head fall onto my arms as if I was sleepy.

Within a month all Britain knew why Jarl Ragnar was asking for men. Alfred, lying on his sickbed, knew, as did aethelred, Lord of Mercia. They probably knew in Frankia, while Offa, I heard, had become wealthy enough to buy a fair house and a pasture in Liccelfeld and was contemplating taking a young girl as a wife. The money for such extravagances, of course, came from my uncle, aelfric, to whom Offa had hurried as soon as the weather allowed. The news he carried was that Jarl Ragnar was helping his friend, the Lord Uhtred, to regain Bebbanburg and there would be a summer war in Northumbria.

And meanwhile Ragnar sent spies to Wess.e.x.

It might not have been a bad idea to a.s.semble an army to invade the Scots. They were trouble back then, they are trouble now, and I daresay they will still be trouble when the world dies. As that winter ended a party of Scots raided Ragnar's northern lands and killed at least fifteen men. They stole cattle, women, and children. Ragnar made a retaliatory raid and I took twenty of my men with his hundred, but it was a frustrating errand. We were not even sure when we crossed into Scottish land because the frontier was an uncertain thing, forever s.h.i.+fting with the power of the lords on either side, but after two days' riding we came across a poor and deserted village. The folk, warned of our approach, had fled, taking their livestock with them. Their low houses had rough stone walls topped by sod roofs that almost touched the ground, while their dunghills were taller than the hovels. We collapsed the roofs by breaking the rafters, and shoveled horse dung into the small rough-stone church, but there was little other damage we could do. We were being watched by four hors.e.m.e.n on a hill to the north. ”b.a.s.t.a.r.ds,” Ragnar shouted, though they were much too far away to hear him.

The Scots, like us, used hors.e.m.e.n as scouts, but their riders never wore heavy mail and usually carried no weapon except a spear. They were mounted on nimble, quick horses, and though we might chase them, we could never catch them. ”I wonder who they serve?” I said.

”Domnal, probably,” Ragnar said, ”King of Alba.” He spat the last word. Domnal ruled the greater part of the land north of Northumbria. All that land is called Scotland because it had been largely conquered by the Scots, a wild tribe of Irish, though, like England, the name Scotland meant little. Domnal ruled the largest kingdom, though there were others like Dalriada and Strathclota, and then there were the stormbound islands of the western coast where savage Norse jarls made their own petty kingdoms. Dealing with the Scots, my father had always said, was like trying to geld wildcats with your teeth, but luckily the wildcats spent much of their time fighting each other.

Once the village was ruined we withdrew to higher ground, fearing that the presence of the four scouts might mean the arrival of a larger force, but none appeared. We went west next day, seeking something alive on which we could take revenge, but four days of riding produced nothing except a sick goat and a lame bullock. The scouts never left us. Even when a thick mist draped the hills and we used its concealment to change direction, they found us as soon as the mist lifted. They never came close, just watched us.

We turned for home, following the spine of the great hills that divide Britain. It was still cold and there was snow in the creases of the high land. We had failed to retaliate for the Scottish raid, but our spirits were high because it felt good to be riding in open country with swords by our sides. ”I'll beat the b.a.s.t.a.r.ds b.l.o.o.d.y when we've finished with Wess.e.x,” Ragnar promised me cheerfully, ”I'll give them a raid they won't forget.”

”You really want to fight Wess.e.x?” I asked him. The two of us were alone, riding a hundred paces ahead of our men.

”Fight Wess.e.x?” He shrugged. ”In truth? No. I'm happy up here.”

”Then why do it?”

”Because Brida's right. If we don't take Wess.e.x then Wess.e.x will take us.”

”Not in your lifetime,” I said.

”But I have sons,” he said. All his sons were b.a.s.t.a.r.ds, but Ragnar did not care about their legitimacy. He loved them all and wanted one of them to hold Dunholm after him. ”I don't want my sons bowing to some West Saxon king,” he said. ”I want them to be free.”

”So you'll become King of Wess.e.x?”

He gave a great neigh of a laugh. ”I don't want that! I want to be Jarl of Dunholm, my friend. Maybe you should be King of Wess.e.x?”

”I want to be Jarl of Bebbanburg.”

”We'll find someone who wants to be king,” he said carelessly. ”Maybe Sigurd or c.n.u.t?” Sigurd Thorrson and c.n.u.t Ranulfson were, after Ragnar himself, the mightiest lords in Northumbria and, unless they joined their men to ours, we would have no chance of conquering Wess.e.x. ”We'll take Wess.e.x,” Ragnar said confidently, ”and divide its treasures. You need men to take Bebbanburg? The silver in the Wess.e.x churches will buy you enough to take a dozen fortresses like Bebbanburg.”

”True.”

”So be happy! Fate is smiling.”

We were following the crest of a hill. Beneath us scrabbling streams glinted white in deep valleys. I could see for miles, and in all that wide view there was neither a house nor a tree. This was bare land where men scratched a living tending sheep, though our presence meant that the flocks had all been driven away. The Scottish outriders with their long spears were on the hill to our east, while to the south the crest ended suddenly in a long hill that dropped steeply into a deep-walled valley where two streams met. And there, where the streams churned about rocks in their shadowed meeting place, were fourteen hors.e.m.e.n. None was moving. They waited where the two streams became one, and it was obvious that they waited for us, and equally obvious that it had to be a trap. The fourteen men were bait, and that meant other men must be nearby. We stared back the way we had come, but there was no enemy in sight on the long crest, nor were any visible on the nearer hills. The four scouts who had shadowed us were kicking their horses down the heather-covered slope to join the larger group.

Ragnar watched the fourteen men. ”What do they want us to do?” he asked.

”Go down there?”

”Which we have to do anyway,” he said slowly, ”and they must have known that, so why bother to entice us down there?” He frowned, then looked quickly about the surrounding hills, but still no enemy showed on the slopes. ”Are they Scots?” he asked.

Finan had joined us and he had eyes like a hunting hawk. ”They're Scots,” he said.

”How can you tell?” I asked.

”There's a fellow wearing the symbol of a dove, lord,” Finan said.

”A dove?” Ragnar asked, sounding disgusted. In his view, indeed in mine, a man's symbol should be warlike; an eagle or a wolf.