The Last Kingdom Series

Shields clattered on the deck. Spears and swords were dropped. It was over, all except for one defiant warrior, just one. He was young, tall, and had a thick blond beard and fiery eyes. He stood on the prow where he carried a long-sword and a plain shield. ‘God is on our side!’ he shouted, ‘God won’t desert us! God never fails!’ He hammered the blade against his shield. ‘Pick up your weapons and kill them!’

Not one of his companions moved. They knew they were beaten, their only hope now was that we would let them live. The young man, who had a silver chain and crucifix hanging over his mail, hammered the sword a last time, realised he was alone and, to my astonishment, jumped down from the prow’s platform and took two paces towards me. ‘You are Uhtredærwe?’ he demanded.

‘Men call me that,’ I acknowledged mildly.

‘We were sent to kill you.’

‘You’re not the first to be sent on that errand,’ I said. ‘Who are you?’

‘I am God’s chosen one.’

His face was framed by his helmet, which was a fine piece of work, chased with silver and topped by a cross on the ridged crest. He was good-looking, tall and proud. ‘Does God’s chosen one have a name?’ I asked. I tossed Wasp-Sting to Oswi and slid Serpent-Breath from her fleece-lined scabbard. God’s chosen one seemed determined to fight, and he would fight alone, so there would be room for Serpent-Breath to work her savagery.

‘My name,’ the young man said haughtily, ‘is for God to know. Father!’ he turned and shouted.

‘My son?’ a harsh voice answered. It was a priest who had been standing amidst the spearmen on the ship’s prow and, from his grating voice, I recognised him as the man who had been encouraging our slaughter.

‘If I die here I’ll go to heaven?’ The youngster asked the question earnestly.

‘You will be at God’s side this very day, my son. You will be with the blessed saints! Now do God’s work!’

The young man knelt for an instant. He closed his eyes and made a clumsy sign of the cross with the hand holding his sword. Egil’s men, my men, and the surviving enemy watched, and I saw the Christians among my crew also make the sign of the cross. Were they praying for me or were they begging forgiveness because they had captured cross-prowed ships? ‘Don’t be a fool, boy,’ I said.

‘I am no fool,’ he said proudly as he stood. ‘God does not choose fools to do his work.’

‘Which is?’

‘To rid the earth of your wickedness.’

‘In my experience,’ I said, ‘your god almost always chooses fools.’

‘Then I will be God’s fool,’ he said defiantly. There was a clatter behind him and he turned, startled, only to see that another of his companions had thrown down spear and shield. ‘You should have more faith,’ he told the man derisively, then turned to me and charged.

He was brave, of course. Brave and foolish. He knew he would die. Maybe not at my hands, but if he had succeeded in killing me then my men would have hacked him down mercilessly, which meant this fool knew he had only minutes to live, yet he believed he would have another life in the sunlit boredom of the Christian heaven. And did he believe he could kill me? Nothing is certain in battle. He might have killed me if he had both the sword-skill and the shield-craft that make a great warrior, but I suspected his faith was not rooted in hard-won craft, but in the belief that his god would reach down and give him victory, and that foolish belief spurred him towards me.

While he had been praying I had slipped my hand out of my shield’s leather grips and was now holding it by just the outer loop. He must have noticed, but he thought nothing of it. I held both shield and sword low, waited until he was just six or seven paces away, then I drew my left arm back and threw the shield. I threw it low, threw it hard, and threw it at his feet and, sure enough, he tripped on the shield and a heave of the waves tipped him sideways so that he sprawled on a rower’s bench, and I stepped forward, swept Serpent-Breath once, and her blade hit his blade with a dull sound and broke it. Two-thirds of his sword clattered across the deck as he desperately stabbed the remaining stub at my thigh. I reached down and took his wrist and held it firm. ‘Are you really so eager to die?’ I asked him.

He struggled against my grip, then tried to hit me with the iron-rimmed edge of his shield, which banged against my thigh without hurting me. ‘Give me another sword,’ he demanded.

I laughed at that. ‘Answer me, fool. Are you really so eager to die?’

‘God commanded me to kill you!’

‘Or were you told to kill me by a priest who dripped poison in your ear?’ I asked.

He drove the shield against me again so I placed Serpent-Breath in its way. ‘God commanded me,’ he insisted.

‘Then your nailed god is as big a fool as you,’ I said harshly. ‘Where are you from, fool?’

He hesitated, but I squeezed his wrist and bent his arm back painfully. ‘Wessex,’ he muttered.

‘I can tell that from your accent. Whereabouts in Wessex?’

‘Andefera,’ he spoke reluctantly.

‘And Andefera,’ I said, ‘is in Wiltunscir.’ He nodded. ‘Where Æthelhelm is ealdorman,’ I added, and saw him flinch at Æthelhelm’s name. ‘Let go of the sword, boy.’

He resisted, but I bent his wrist again and he let the broken sword fall. Judging by the hilt that was decorated with gold wire it had been an expensive sword, but it had shattered when it was struck by Serpent-Breath. I tossed the hilt to Oswi. ‘Take this holy fool and tie him to Spearhafoc’s mast,’ I said, ‘he can live.’

‘But Spearhafoc might not,’ Finan said drily. ‘She’s foundering.’

I looked across the deck of the intervening ship and saw that Finan was right.

Spearhafoc was sinking.

Spearhafoc had sprung two planks when she struck the first enemy ship, and water was pouring into her bows. By the time I reached her she was already low at the prow. Gerbruht, a big Frisian, had ripped up the deck planking and now had men lifting the ballast stones, which they carried to the stern to balance the ship. ‘We can plug it, lord!’ he shouted when he saw me. ‘The leak’s only on one side.’

‘Do you need men?’ I called.

‘We’ll manage!’

Egil had followed me onto Spearhafoc’s stern. ‘We’ll not catch that last one,’ he said, looking at the enemy’s smallest ship, which was now almost at the southern horizon.

‘I’m hoping to save this one,’ I said grimly. Gerbruht might be optimistic about plugging Spearhafoc’s leaks, but the wind was rising and the seas building. A dozen men were bailing the ship, some using their helmets to scoop the water overboard. ‘Still,’ I went on, ‘we can get home in one of those ships.’ I nodded towards the two we’d captured.

‘They’re lumps of shit,’ Egil said, ‘too heavy!’

‘They might be useful for cargo,’ I suggested.

‘Better as firewood.’

Gerbruht, his hands under the bilge’s water, was stuffing cloth into the gap left by the sprung planks, while other men were hurling water overboard. One of the two enemy ships we had captured was also leaking, the ship with the lime-washed cross, which had been damaged when the last ship joined the fight. Her stern had been hit by the larger boat and her planking had cracked to spring a leak at the waterline. We put most of our prisoners on that ship, after taking their weapons, their mail, their shields, and their helmets. We took their sail, which was new and valuable, and their few supplies, which were meagre; some rock-hard cheese, a sack of damp bread, and two barrels of ale. I left them just six oars and then cut them loose. ‘You’re letting them go?’ Egil asked, surprised.

‘I don’t want to feed the bastards at Bebbanburg,’ I said. ‘And how far can they go? They’ve no food, nothing to drink, and no sail. Half of them are wounded and they’re in a leaking boat. If they’ve any sense they’ll row for shore.’

‘Against the wind,’ Egil was amused at the thought.

‘And when they get ashore,’ I said, ‘they’ll have no weapons. So welcome to Northumbria.’

We had rescued eleven of the fishermen who had crewed the Gydene and the Swealwe, all of them forced to row for their captors. The prisoners we had taken were all either West Saxons or East Anglians and subjects of King Edward, if he still lived. I had kept a dozen to take back to Bebbanburg, including the priest who had so feverishly called on his men to slaughter us. He was brought to me on Spearhafoc, which was still bows down, but Gerbruht’s efforts were stemming the worst of the leak, and moving much of the ballast aft had steadied the hull.

The priest was young and stocky, with a round face, black hair, and a sour expression. There was something familiar about him. ‘Have we met?’ I asked.

‘Thank God, no.’

He was standing just below the steering platform, guarded by a grinning Beornoth. We had raised the sail and were going northwards, going home, driven by the steady west wind. Most of my men were on the large ship we had captured, only a few were still on Spearhafoc, and those few were still bailing water. The young man who had sworn to kill me was still tied to the mast, from where he glowered at me. ‘That young fool,’ I said, talking to the priest and nodding towards the young man, ‘is from Wessex, but you sound Mercian.’

‘Christ’s kingdom has no boundaries,’ he retorted.

‘Unlike my mercy,’ I said, to which he answered nothing. ‘I’m from Northumbria,’ I went on, ignoring his defiance, ‘and in Northumbria I am an ealdorman. You call me lord.’ He still said nothing, just looked up at me with a scowl. Spearhafoc was still sluggish, reluctant to lift her bows, but she was sailing and she was heading home. Banamaðr and the captured ship were keeping us company, ready to take us off if Spearhafoc began to sink, though minute by minute I sensed that she would survive to be dragged ashore and repaired. ‘You call me lord,’ I repeated. ‘Where are you from?’

‘Christ’s kingdom.’

Beornoth drew back a meaty hand to strike the priest, but I shook my head. ‘You see that we’re in danger of sinking?’ I asked the priest, who stayed stubbornly silent. I doubted he could sense that Spearhafoc, far from foundering, was recovering her grace. ‘And if we do sink,’ I went on, ‘I’ll tie you to the mast alongside that idiot child. Unless, of course, you tell me what I want to know. Where are you from?’

‘I was born in Mercia,’ he spoke reluctantly, ‘but God saw fit to send me to Wessex.’

‘If he doesn’t call me lord again,’ I told Beornoth, ‘you can smack him as hard as you like.’ I smiled at the priest. ‘Where in Wessex?’

‘Wintanceaster,’ he said, paused, then sensed Beornoth moving and hastily added, ‘lord.’

‘And what,’ I asked, ‘is a priest from Wintanceaster doing in a ship off the Northumbrian coast?’

‘We were sent to kill you!’ he snarled, then yelped as Beornoth smacked the back of his head.

‘Be strong in the Lord, father!’ the young man shouted from the mast.

‘What is that idiot’s name?’ I asked, amused.

The priest hesitated a heartbeat, giving the young man a sideways glance. ‘Wistan, lord,’ he said.

‘And your name?’ I asked.

‘Father Ceolnoth,’ there was again a slight pause before he added ‘lord.’

And I knew then why he was familiar and why he hated me. And that made me laugh. We limped on home.

TWO

We took Spearhafoc home. It was not easy. Gerbruht had slowed the leak, yet still the sleek hull wallowed in the afternoon seas. I had a dozen men bailing her and feared that worsening weather might doom her, but the gusting wind was kind, settling into a steady westerly, and the fretting sea calmed and Spearhafoc’s wolf-sail carried us slowly north. It was dusk when we reached the Farnea Islands and limped between them and a western sky that was a red-streaked furnace of savage fire against which Bebbanburg’s ramparts were outlined black. It was a weary crew that rowed the stricken ship through the narrow channel into Bebbanburg’s harbour. We beached Spearhafoc, and in the morning I would assemble teams of oxen to drag her above the tideline where her bows could be mended. Banamaðr and the captured ship followed us through the channel.

I had talked with Father Ceolnoth as we laboured home, but he had proved sullen and unhelpful. Wistan, the young man who had believed his god wanted my death, had been miserable and equally unhelpful. I had asked them both who had sent them north to kill me, and neither would answer. I had released Wistan from the mast and showed him a heap of captured swords. ‘You can take one and try to kill me again,’ I told him. He blushed when my men laughed and urged him to accept the offer, but he made no attempt to do his god’s work. Instead he just sat in the scuppers until Gerbruht told him to start bailing. ‘You want to live, boy? Start slinging water!’

‘Your father,’ I spoke to Father Ceolnoth, ‘is Ceolberht?’

He seemed surprised that I knew, though in truth it had been a guess. ‘Yes,’ he said curtly.

‘I knew him as a boy.’

‘He told me,’ the priest said, a pause, then, ‘lord.’

‘He didn’t like me then,’ I said, ‘and I daresay he dislikes me still.’

‘Our God teaches us to forgive,’ he said, though in the bitter tone some Christian priests use when they are forced to admit an uncomfortable truth.

‘So where is your father now?’ I asked.

He stayed silent for a while, then evidently decided his answer revealed no secrets. ‘My father serves God in Wintanceaster’s minster. So does my uncle.’

‘I’m glad they both live!’ I said, though that was not true because I disliked both men. They were twins from Mercia, as alike to each other as two apples. They had been hostages with me, caught by the Danes, and while Ceolnoth and Ceolberht had resented that fate, I had welcomed it. I liked the Danes, but the twins were fervent Christians, sons of a bishop, and they had been taught that all pagans were the devil’s spawn. After their release from captivity they had both studied for the priesthood and grew to become passionate haters of paganism. Fate had decreed that our paths should cross often enough, and they had ever despised me, calling me an enemy of the church and worse, and I had finally repaid an insult by kicking out most of Father Ceolberht’s teeth. Ceolnoth bore a remarkable resemblance to his father, but I had guessed that the toothless Ceolberht would name his son after his brother. And so he had.

‘So what is the son of a toothless father doing in Northumbrian waters?’ I had asked him.

‘God’s work,’ was all he would say.

‘Torturing and killing fishermen?’ I asked, and to that question the priest had no answer.

We had taken prisoner those men who appeared to be the leaders of the defeated ships, and that night they were imprisoned in an empty stable that was guarded by my men, but I had invited Father Ceolnoth and the misery-stricken Wistan to eat in the great hall. It was not a feast, most of the garrison had eaten earlier, so the meal was just for the men who had crewed the ships. The only woman present, besides the serving girls, was Eadith my wife, and I sat Father Ceolnoth to her left. I did not like the priest, but I accorded him the dignity of his office, a gesture I regretted as soon as he took his place at the high table’s bench. He raised his hands to the smoke-darkened rafters and began to pray in a loud and piercing voice. I suppose it was brave of him, but it was the bravery of a fool. He asked his god to rain fire on this ‘pestilential fortress’, to lay it waste, and to defeat the abominations that lurked inside its ramparts. I let him rant for a moment, asked him to be silent, and, when he just raised his voice and begged his god to consign us to the devil’s cesspit, I beckoned to Berg. ‘Take the holy bastard to the pigs,’ I said, ‘and chain him there. He can preach to the sows.’

Berg dragged the priest from the hall, and my men, even the Christians, cheered. Wistan, I noticed, watched silently and sadly. He intrigued me. His helmet and mail, which were now mine, were of quality workmanship and suggested that Wistan was nobly-born. I also sensed that, for all his foolishness, he was a thoughtful young man. I pointed him out to Eadith, my wife. ‘When we’re done,’ I told her, ‘we’ll take him to the chapel.’

‘The chapel!’ she sounded surprised.

‘He probably wants to pray.’

‘Just kill the pup,’ Egil put in cheerfully.

‘I think he’ll talk,’ I said. We had learned much from the other prisoners. The small fleet of four ships had been assembled at Dumnoc in East Anglia and was crewed by a mix of men from that port, other East Anglian harbours, and from Wessex. Mostly from Wessex. The men were paid well and had been offered a reward if they succeeded in killing me. The leaders of the fleet, we learned, had been Father Ceolnoth, the boy Wistan and a West Saxon warrior named Egbert. I had never heard of Egbert, though the prisoners claimed he was a famed warrior. ‘A big man, lord,’ one had told me, ‘even taller than you! A scarred face!’ the prisoner had shuddered in remembered fear.

‘Was he on the ship that sank?’ I had asked. We had not captured anyone resembling Egbert’s description so I assumed he was dead.

‘He was on the Hælubearn, lord, the small ship.’

Hælubearn meant ‘child of healing’, but it was also a term the Christians used for themselves, and I wondered if all four ships had carried pious names. I suspected they did because another prisoner, clutching a wooden cross hanging at his breast, said that Father Ceolnoth had promised every man that they would go straight to heaven with all their sins forgiven if they succeeded in slaughtering me. ‘Why would Egbert be on the smallest ship?’ I had wondered aloud.

‘It was the fastest, lord,’ the first prisoner told me. ‘Those other boats are pigs to sail. Hælubearn might be small, but she’s nimble.’

‘Meaning he could escape if there was trouble,’ I had commented sourly, and the prisoners just nodded.

I reckoned I would learn nothing from Father Ceolnoth, but Wistan, I thought, was vulnerable to kindness and so, when the meal was over, Eadith and I took the boy to Bebbanburg’s chapel, which is built on a lower ledge of rock beside the great hall. It is made of timber like most of the fortress, but the Christians among my men had laid a flagstone floor which they had covered with rugs. The chapel is not large, maybe twenty paces long and half as wide. There are no windows, just a wooden altar at the eastern end, a scattering of milking stools, and a bench against the western wall. Three of the walls are hung with plain woollen cloths that block the draughts, while on the altar is a silver cross, kept well polished, and two large candles which are permanently lit.

Wistan seemed bemused when I led him inside. He glanced nervously at Eadith who, like him, wore a cross. ‘Lord?’ he asked nervously.

I sat on the bench and leaned against the wall. ‘We thought you might want to pray,’ I said.

‘It’s a consecrated space,’ Eadith reassured the boy.

‘We have a priest too,’ I added. ‘Father Cuthbert. He’s a friend and he lives in the fortress here. He’s blind and old and some days he feels unwell and then he asks the priest from the village to take his place.’

‘There’s a church in the village,’ Eadith said. ‘You can go there tomorrow.’

Wistan was now thoroughly confused. He had been taught that I was Uhtred the Wicked, a stubborn pagan, an enemy of his church and a priest-killer, yet now I was showing him a Christian chapel inside my fortress and talking to him of Christian priests. He stared at me, then at Eadith, and had nothing to say.

I rarely carried Serpent-Breath when I was inside Bebbanburg, but I had Wasp-Sting at my hip and now I drew the short-sword, turned her so that the hilt was towards Wistan, then slid the blade across the flagstones. ‘Your god says you must kill me. Why don’t you?’

‘Lord …’ he said, then had nothing more to say.

‘You told me you were sent to rid the world of my wickedness,’ I pointed out. ‘You know they call me Uhtredærwe?’

‘Yes, lord,’ he said, scarce above a whisper.

‘Uhtred the priest-killer?’

He nodded. ‘Yes, lord.’

‘I have killed priests,’ I said, ‘and monks.’

‘Not on purpose,’ Eadith put in.

‘Sometimes on purpose,’ I said, ‘but usually in anger.’ I shrugged. ‘Tell me what else you know about me.’

Wistan hesitated, then found his courage. ‘You are a pagan, lord, and a warlord. You are friends with the heathen, you encourage them!’ He hesitated again.

‘Go on,’ I said.

‘Men say you want Æthelstan to be king in Wessex because you have bewitched him. That you will use him to take the throne for yourself!’

‘Is that all?’ I asked, amused.

He had not been looking at me, but now raised his eyes to gaze into mine. ‘They say you killed Æthelhelm the Elder and that you forced his daughter to marry your son. That she was raped! Here, in your fortress.’ He had anger on his face and tears in his eyes and, for a heartbeat, I thought he would snatch up Wasp-Sting.

Then Eadith laughed. She said nothing, just laughed, and her apparent amusement puzzled Wistan. Eadith was looking quizzically at me, and I nodded. She knew what the nod meant and so went into the windswept night. The candles fluttered wildly as she opened and closed the door, but they stayed lit. They were the only illumination in the small chapel, so Wistan and I spoke in near darkness. ‘It’s a rare day when there’s no wind,’ I said mildly. ‘Wind and rain, rain and wind, Bebbanburg’s weather.’

He said nothing.

‘Tell me,’ I said, still sitting beside the chapel wall, ‘how did I kill Ealdorman Æthelhelm?’

‘How would I know, lord?’

‘How do men in Wessex say that he died?’ He did not answer. ‘You are from Wessex?’

‘Yes, lord,’ he muttered.

‘Then tell me what men in Wessex say about Ealdorman Æthelhelm’s death.’

‘They say he was poisoned, lord.’

I half smiled. ‘By a pagan sorcerer?’

He shrugged. ‘You would know, lord, not me.’

‘Then, Wistan of Wessex,’ I went on, ‘let me tell you what I do know. I did not kill Ealdorman Æthelhelm. He died of the fever despite all the care we gave him. He received the last rites of your church. His daughter was with him when he died, and she was neither raped nor forced into marriage with my son.’

He said nothing. The light of the big candles flickered their reflection from Wasp-Sting’s blade. The night wind rattled the chapel door and sighed about the roof. ‘Tell me what you know of Prince Æthelstan,’ I said.

‘That he is a bastard,’ Wistan said, ‘and would take the throne from Ælfweard.’

‘Ælfweard,’ I said, ‘who is nephew to the present Ealdorman Æthelhelm, and is King Edward’s second oldest son. Does Edward still live?’

‘Praise God, yes.’

‘And Ælfweard is his second son, yet you claim he should be king after his father.’

‘He is the ætheling, lord.’

‘The eldest son is the ætheling,’ I pointed out.

‘And in the eyes of God the king’s eldest son is Ælfweard,’ Wistan insisted, ‘because Æthelstan is a bastard.’

‘A bastard,’ I repeated.

‘Yes, lord,’ he said stubbornly.

‘Tomorrow,’ I said, ‘I’ll introduce you to Father Cuthbert. You’ll like him! I keep him safe in this fortress, do you know why?’ Wistan shook his head. ‘Because many years ago,’ I went on, ‘Father Cuthbert was foolish enough to marry the young Prince Edward to a pretty Centish girl, the daughter of a bishop. That girl died in childbirth, but she left twin children, Eadgyth and Æthelstan. I say Father Cuthbert was foolish because Edward did not have his father’s permission to marry, but nevertheless the marriage was consecrated by a Christian priest in a Christian church. And those who would deny Æthelstan his true inheritance have been trying to silence Father Cuthbert ever since. They would kill him, Wistan, so that the truth is never known, and that is why I keep him safe in this fortress.’

‘But …’ he began, and again he had nothing to say. For his whole life, which I guessed was about twenty years, he had been told by everyone in Wessex that Æthelstan was a bastard, and that Ælfweard was the true heir to Edward’s throne. He had believed that lie, he had believed that Æthelstan was whelped on a whore, and now I was destroying that belief. He believed me, and he did not want to believe me, and so he said nothing.

‘And you believe your god sent you to kill me?’ I asked.

He still said nothing. He just gazed at the sword that lay by his feet.

I laughed. ‘My wife is a Christian, my son is a Christian, my oldest and closest friend is a Christian, and over half my men are Christians. Wouldn’t your god have asked one of them to kill me instead of sending you? Why send you all the way from Wessex when there are a hundred or more Christians here who can strike me down?’ He neither moved nor spoke. ‘The fisherman you tortured and killed was also a Christian,’ I said.

He started at that and shook his head. ‘I tried to stop that, but Edgar …’

His voice tailed away to silence, but I had noted the very slight hesitation before the name Edgar. ‘Edgar isn’t his real name, is it?’ I asked. ‘Who is he?’

But the church door creaked open before he could answer, and Eadith led Ælswyth into the wind-fluttering candlelight. Ælswyth stopped as soon as she entered, she stared at Wistan, and then she smiled with delight.

Ælswyth is my daughter-in-law, the daughter of my enemy, and sister to his son, who hates me as much as his father did. Her father, Æthelhelm the Elder, planned to make her a queen, to exchange her beauty for some throne in Christendom, but my son gained her first and she had lived at Bebbanburg ever since. To look at her was to think that no girl so wan, so pale and thin could survive the harsh winters and brutal winds of Northumbria, let alone the agonies of childbirth, yet Ælswyth had given me two grandsons and she alone in the fortress seemed immune to the aches, sneezes, shivers, and coughs that marked our winter months. She looked frail, but was as strong as steel. Her face, so lovely, lit with joy when she saw Wistan. She had a smile that could melt the heart of a beast, but Wistan did not smile back, instead he just gaped at her as if shocked.

‘Æthelwulf!’ Ælswyth exclaimed and went towards him with open arms.

‘Æthelwulf!’ I repeated, amused. The name meant ‘noble wolf’ and the young man who had called himself Wistan might look noble, yet he looked anything but wolflike.

Æthelwulf blushed. He let Ælswyth embrace him, then looked at me sheepishly. ‘I am Æthelwulf,’ he admitted, and in a tone that suggested I should recognise the name.

‘My brother!’ Ælswyth said happily. ‘My youngest brother!’ It was then she saw Wasp-Sting on the stone floor and frowned, looking to me for an explanation.

‘Your brother,’ I said, ‘was sent to kill me.’

‘Kill you?’ Ælswyth sounded shocked.

‘In revenge for the way we treated you,’ I continued. ‘Weren’t you raped and forced into an unwanted marriage?’

‘No!’ she protested.

‘And all that,’ I said, ‘after I had murdered your father.’

Ælswyth looked up into her brother’s face. ‘Our father died of the fever!’ she said fiercely, ‘I was with him through the whole illness. And no one raped me, no one forced me to marry. I love this place!’

Poor Æthelwulf. He looked as if the foundations of his life had just been ripped away. He believed Ælswyth of course, how could he not? There was joy on her face and enthusiasm in her voice, while Æthelwulf looked as if he was about to cry.

‘Let’s go to bed,’ I said to Eadith, then turned to Ælswyth. ‘And you two can talk.’

‘We shall!’ Ælswyth said.

‘I’ll send a servant to show you where you can sleep,’ I told Æthelwulf, ‘but you do know you’re a prisoner here?’

He nodded. ‘Yes, lord.’

‘An honoured prisoner,’ I said, ‘but if you try to leave the fortress, that will change.’

‘Yes, lord,’ he said again.

I picked up Wasp-Sting, patted my prisoner on the shoulder, and went to bed. It had been a long day.

So Æthelhelm the Younger had sent his youngest brother to kill me. He had equipped a fleet, and offered gold to the crew, and placed a rancid priest on the ships to inspire Æthelwulf with righteous anger. Æthelhelm knew it would be next to impossible to kill me while I stayed inside the fortress and knew too that he could not send sufficient men to ambush me on my lands without those men being discovered and slaughtered by Northumbria’s warriors, so he had been clever. He had sent men to ambush me at sea.

Æthelwulf was the fleet’s leader, but Æthelhelm knew that his brother, though imbued with the family’s hatred for me, was not the most ruthless of men, and so he had sent Father Ceolnoth to fill Æthelwulf with holy stupidity, and he had also sent the man they called Edgar. Except that was not his real name. Æthelhelm had wanted no one to know of the fleet’s true allegiance, or to connect my death to his orders. He had hoped the blame would be placed on piracy, or on some passing Norse ship, and so he had commanded the leaders to use any name except their own. Æthelwulf had become Wistan, and I learned that Edgar was really Waormund.

I knew Waormund. He was a huge West Saxon, a brutal man, with a slab face scarred from his right eyebrow to his lower left jaw. I remembered his eyes, dead as stone. In battle Waormund was a man you would want standing beside you because he was capable of terrible violence, but he was also a man who revelled in that savagery. A strong man, even taller than me, and implacable. He was a warrior, and, though you might want his help in a battle, no one but a fool would want Waormund as an enemy. ‘Why,’ I asked Æthelwulf the next morning, ‘was Waormund in your smallest ship?’