LITMIR.BIZ

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to discuss me. They talked about which Northumbrian lords were to be trusted, which were to be attacked, what lands were to be granted to Ivar and Ubba, what tribute the Northumbrians must pay, how many horses were to be brought to Eoferwic, how much food was to be given to the army, which ealdormen were to yield hostages, and I sat, bored, until my name was mentioned. I perked up then and heard my uncle propose that I should be ransomed. That was the gist of it, but nothing is ever simple when a score of men decide to argue. For a long time they wrangled over my price, the Danes demanding an impossible payment of three hundred pieces of silver, and Ælfric not wanting to budge from a grudging offer of fifty. I said nothing, but just sat on the broken Roman tiles at the edge of the hall and listened. Three hundred became two seventy-five, fifty became sixty, and so it went on, the numbers edging closer, but still wide apart, and then Ravn, who had been silent, spoke for the first time. ‘The Earl Uhtred,’ he said in Danish, and that was the first time I heard myself described as an Earl, which was a Danish rank, ‘has given his allegiance to King Egbert. In that he has an advantage over you, Ælfric.’

      The words were translated and I saw Ælfric’s anger when he was given no title. But nor did he have a title, except the one he had granted to himself, and I learned about that when he spoke softly to Beocca who then spoke up for him. ‘The Ealdorman Ælfric,’ the young priest said, ‘does not believe that a child’s oath is of any significance.’

      Had I made an oath? I could not remember doing so, though I had asked for Egbert’s protection, and I was young enough to confuse the two things. Still, it did not much matter, what mattered was that my uncle had usurped Bebbanburg. He was calling himself Ealdorman. I stared at him, shocked, and he looked back at me with pure loathing in his face.

      ‘It is our belief,’ Ravn said, his blind eyes looking at the roof of the hall that was missing some tiles so that a light rain was spitting through the rafters, ‘that we would be better served by having our own sworn Earl in Bebbanburg, loyal to us, than endure a man whose loyalty we do not know.’

      Ælfric could feel the wind changing and he did the obvious thing. He walked to the dais, knelt to Egbert and kissed the king’s outstretched hand and, as a reward, received a blessing from the Archbishop. ‘I will offer a hundred pieces of silver,’ Ælfric said, his allegiance given.

      ‘Two hundred,’ Ravn said, ‘and a force of thirty Danes to garrison Bebbanburg.’

      ‘With my allegiance given,’ Ælfric said angrily, ‘you will have no need of Danes in Bebbanburg.’

      So Bebbanburg had not fallen and I doubted it could fall. There was no stronger fortress in all Northumbria, and perhaps in all England.

      Egbert had not spoken at all, nor did he, but nor had Ivar and it was plain that the tall, thin, ghost-faced Dane was bored with the whole proceedings for he jerked his head at Ragnar who left my side and went to talk privately with his lord. The rest of us waited awkwardly. Ivar and Ragnar were friends, an unlikely friendship for they were very different men, Ivar all savage silence and grim threat, and Ragnar open and loud, yet Ragnar’s eldest son served Ivar and was even now, at eighteen years old, entrusted with the leadership of some of the Danes left in Ireland who were holding onto Ivar’s lands in that island. It was not unusual for eldest sons to serve another lord, Ragnar had two Earls’ sons in his ships’ crews and both might one day expect to inherit wealth and position if they learned how to fight. So Ragnar and Ivar now talked and Ælfric shuffled his feet and kept looking at me, Beocca prayed and King Egbert, having nothing else to do, just tried to look regal.

      Ivar finally spoke. ‘The boy is not for sale,’ he announced.

      ‘Ransom,’ Ravn corrected him gently.

      Ælfric looked furious. ‘I came here …’ he began, but Ivar interrupted him.

      ‘The boy is not for ransom,’ he snarled, then turned and walked from the big chamber. Egbert looked awkward, half rose from his throne, sat again, and Ragnar came and stood beside me.

      ‘You’re mine,’ he said softly, ‘I just bought you.’

      ‘Bought me?’

      ‘My sword’s weight in silver,’ he said.

      ‘Why?’

      ‘Perhaps I want to sacrifice you to Odin?’ he suggested, then tousled my hair. ‘We like you, boy,’ he said, ‘we like you enough to keep you. And besides, your uncle didn’t offer enough silver. For five hundred pieces? I’d have sold you for that.’ He laughed.

      Beocca hurried across the room. ‘Are you well?’ he asked me.

      ‘I’m well,’ I said.

      ‘That thing you’re wearing,’ he said, meaning Thor’s hammer, and he reached as though to pull it from its thong.

      ‘Touch the boy, priest,’ Ragnar said harshly, ‘and I’ll straighten your crooked eyes before opening you from your gutless belly to your skinny throat.’

      Beocca, of course, could not understand what the Dane had said, but he could not mistake the tone and his hand stopped an inch from the hammer. He looked nervous. He lowered his voice so only I could hear him. ‘Your uncle will kill you,’ he whispered.

      ‘Kill me?’

      ‘He wants to be Ealdorman. That’s why he wished to ransom you. So he could kill you.’

      ‘But,’ I began to protest.

      ‘Shh,’ Beocca said. He was curious about my blue hands, but did not ask what had caused them. ‘I know you are the Ealdorman,’ he said instead, ‘and we will meet again.’ He smiled at me, glanced warily at Ragnar, and backed away.

      Ælfric left. I learned later that he had been given safe passage to and from Eoferwic, which promise had been kept, but after that meeting he retreated to Bebbanburg and stayed there. Ostensibly he was loyal to Egbert, which meant he accepted the overlordship of the Danes, but they had not yet learned to trust him. That, Ragnar explained to me, was why he had kept me alive. ‘I like Bebbanburg,’ he told me, ‘I want it.’

      ‘It’s mine,’ I said stubbornly.

      ‘And you’re mine,’ he said, ‘which means Bebbanburg is mine. You’re mine, Uhtred, because I just bought you, so I can do whatever I like with you. I can cook you, if I want, except there’s not enough meat on you to feed a weasel. Now, take off that whore’s tunic, give me the shoes and helmet, and go back to work.’

      So I was a slave again, and happy. Sometimes, when I tell folk my story, they ask why I did not run away from the pagans, why I did not escape southwards into the lands where the Danes did not yet rule, but it never occurred to me to try. I was happy, I was alive, I was with Ragnar and it was enough.

      More Danes arrived before winter. Thirty-six ships came, each with its contingent of warriors, and the ships were pulled onto the riverbank for the winter while the crews, laden with shields and weapons, marched to wherever they would spend the next few months. The Danes were casting a net over eastern Northumbria, a light one, but still a net of scattered garrisons. Yet they could not have stayed if we had not let them, but those Ealdormen and thegns who had not died at Eoferwic had bent the knee and so we were a Danish kingdom now, despite the leashed Egbert on his pathetic throne. It was only in the west, in the wilder parts of Northumbria, that no Danes ruled, but nor were there any strong forces in those wild parts to challenge them.

      Ragnar took land west of Eoferwic, up in the hills. His wife and family joined him there, and Ravn and Gudrun came, plus all Ragnar’s ships’ crews who took over homesteads in the nearby valleys. Our first job was to make Ragnar’s house larger. It had belonged to an English thegn who had died at Eoferwic, but it was no grand hall, merely a low wooden building thatched with rye straw and bracken on which grass grew so thickly that, from a distance, the house looked like a long hummock. We built a new part, not for us, but for the few cattle, sheep and goats who would survive the winter and give birth in the new year. The rest were slaughtered. Ragnar and the men did most of the killing, but as the last few beasts came to the pen, he handed an axe to

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