LITMIR.BIZ

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for fighting. My crew was now watching the ship, waiting for the first glimpse of her hull above the ragged horizon, but Uhtred was frowning at our sail’s trailing edge, which was fluttering. ‘Should we tighten it?’ he asked.

      ‘Good idea,’ I said. He half smiled, pleased at my approval, but then did nothing. ‘Give the order, you damned fool,’ I said in a tone that took the smile straight off his face. ‘You’re the steersman.’

      He gave the order and two men tightened the sheet till the flutter vanished. Middelniht dipped into a trough, then reared her prow up a green wave and as we reached the top I looked eastwards and saw the prow of the approaching ship. It showed a beast’s head, high and savage. Then the ship vanished behind a screen of wind-blown spray. ‘What’s the first duty of a steersman?’ I asked my son.

      ‘To keep the ship safe,’ he answered promptly.

      ‘And how does he do that?’

      Uhtred frowned. He knew he had done something wrong, but did not know what, and then, at last, he saw the crew staring fixedly towards the east and turned that way. ‘Oh God,’ he said.

      ‘You’re a careless fool,’ I snarled at him. ‘Your job is to keep a lookout.’ I could see he was angry at my public reproof, but he said nothing. ‘She’s a warship,’ I went on, ‘and she saw us a long time ago. She’s curious and she’s coming to smell us. So what do we do?’

      He looked again at the ship. Her prow was constantly visible now, and it would not be long before we saw her hull. ‘She’s bigger than us,’ Uhtred said.

      ‘Probably, yes.’

      ‘So we do nothing,’ he said.

      It was the right decision, one I had made just moments after seeing the far ship. She was curious about us and her course was converging on ours, but once she was close she would see we were dangerous. We were not a merchant ship loaded with pelts, pottery or anything else that could be stolen and sold, we were warriors, and even if her crew outnumbered us by two to one she would take casualties that no ship could afford. ‘We hold our course,’ I said.

      Northwards. North to where the old gods still had power, north to where the world shaded into ice, north towards Bebbanburg. That fortress brooded over the wild sea like the home of a god. The Danes had taken all of Northumbria, their kings ruled in Eoferwic, yet they had never succeeded in capturing Bebbanburg. They wanted it. They lusted after it like a dog smelling a bitch in heat, but the bitch had teeth and claws. And I had one small ship, and dreamed of capturing what even whole armies of Danes could not conquer.

      ‘She’s East Anglian.’ Finan had come to stand beside me. The stranger was closing on us now, aiming her prow well ahead of ours, but angling towards us, and because she was the larger ship she was faster than Middelniht.

      ‘East Anglian?’

      ‘That’s not a dragon,’ Finan jerked his chin towards the ship, ‘it’s that weird thing King Eohric put on all his ships. A lion.’ Eohric was dead and a new king ruled in East Anglia, but perhaps he had kept the old symbol. ‘She’s got a full crew too,’ Finan went on.

      ‘Seventy men?’ I guessed.

      ‘Near enough.’

      The other crew was dressed for battle in mail and helmets, but I shook my head when Finan asked if we should make similar preparations. They could see we were no merchantman. They might be trying to overawe us, but I still doubted they would try to trouble us, and there was small point in dressing for war unless we wanted battle.

      The East Anglian ship was well sailed. She curved in close to us and then shook out her sail to slow the hull so that she kept pace with Middelniht. ‘Who are you?’ a tall man called across in Danish.

      ‘Wulf Ranulfson!’ I called back, inventing a name.

      ‘From where?’

      ‘Haithabu!’ I shouted. Haithabu was a town in southern Daneland, a long way from East Anglia.

      ‘What’s your business here?’

      ‘We escorted a pair of merchantmen to Lundene,’ I called, ‘and we’re going home. Who are you?’

      He seemed surprised I had asked. He hesitated. ‘Aldger!’ he finally called. ‘We serve King Rædwald!’

      ‘May the gods grant him long life!’ I shouted dutifully.

      ‘You’re well to the west if you’re going to Haithabu!’ Aldger bellowed. He was right, of course. Had we been bound for southern Daneland we would have crossed the sea much further south and be feeling our way up the Frisian coast.

      ‘Blame this wind!’

      He was silent. He watched us for a time, then gave the order for his sail to be sheeted home, and the larger ship drew ahead of us. ‘Who is Rædwald?’ Finan asked.

      ‘He rules in East Anglia,’ I said, ‘and from what I hear he’s old, sick and about as much use as a gelding in a whorehouse.’

      ‘And a weak king invites war,’ Finan said. ‘No wonder Æthelred is tempted.’

      ‘King Æthelred of East Anglia,’ I said scornfully, but doubtless my cousin wanted that title, though whether East Anglia would want him was another matter. It was a strange kingdom, both Danish and Christian, which was confusing, because most of the Danes worship my gods and the Saxons worship the nailed one, but the East Anglian Danes had adopted Christianity, which made them neither one thing nor the other. They were allies to both Wessex and to Northumbria, and Wessex and Northumbria were natural enemies, which meant that the East Anglians were trying to lick one arse while they kissed the other. And they were weak. The old King Eohric had tried to please the northern Danes by attacking Wessex, and he and many of his great thegns had died in a slaughter. That had been my slaughter. My battle, and the memory filled me with the rage of the betrayed. I had fought so often for the Christians, I had killed their enemies and defended their lands, and now they had spat me out like a scrap of rancid gristle.

      Aldger crossed our bow. He deliberately swung his bigger ship close to us, perhaps wanting us to baulk at the last moment, but I growled at Uhtred to hold his course, and our bow sliced within a sword’s length of Aldger’s steering oar. We were close enough to smell his boat, even though he was upwind. I waved to him, then watched as he swung his bows northwards again. He kept pace with us, but I reckoned he was merely bored. He stayed with us for an hour or more, then the long ship turned away, the sail filled full from aft, and she sped off towards the distant land.

      We stayed at sea that night. We were out of sight of land, though I knew it lay not far to our west. We shortened the great sail and let Middelniht plunge northwards through short, steep waves that spattered the deck with cold spray. I had the oar for most of the night and Uhtred crouched beside me as I told him tales of Grimnir, the ‘masked one’. ‘He was really Odin,’ I told him, ‘but whenever the god wanted to walk among humans he would wear his mask and take a new name.’

      ‘Jesus did that,’ he said.

      ‘He wore a mask?’

      ‘He walked amongst men.’

      ‘Gods can do whatever they want,’ I said, ‘but from here on we wear a mask too. You don’t mention my name or your name. I’m Wulf Ranulfson and you’re Ranulf Wulfson.’

      ‘Where are we going?’ he asked.

      ‘You know where we’re going,’ I said.

      ‘Bebbanburg.’ He said the name flatly.

      ‘Which belongs to us,’ I said. ‘You remember Beocca?’

      ‘Of course.’

      ‘He gave me the charters,’ I said. Dear Father Beocca, so ugly, so crippled, and so earnest. He had been my childhood tutor, a friend to King Alfred, and a good man. He had died not long before and his twisted bones were buried in Wintanceaster’s church,

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