LITMIR.BIZ

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after a while, I dropped back to ride beside Finan. ‘Trust him?’ Finan asked, nodding at Huda.

      I shrugged. ‘His master does Sigefrid and Haesten’s bidding,’ I said, ‘and I know Haesten. I saved his life and that means something.’

      Finan thought about it. ‘You saved his life? How?’

      ‘I rescued him from some Frisians. He became my oath-man.’

      ‘And broke his oath?’

      ‘He did.’

      ‘So Haesten can’t be trusted,’ Finan said firmly. I said nothing. Three deer stood poised for flight at the far side of a bare pasture. We rode on an overgrown track beside a hedgerow where crocuses grew. ‘What they want,’ Finan went on, ‘is Wessex. And to take Wessex they must fight. And they know you are Alfred’s greatest warrior.’

      ‘What they want,’ I said, ‘is the burh at Coccham.’ And to get it they would offer me the crown of Mercia, though I had not revealed that offer to Finan or to any other man. I had only told Gisela.

      Of course they wanted much more. They wanted Lundene because it gave them a walled town on the Temes, but Lundene was on the Mercian bank and would not help them invade Wessex. But if I gave them Coccham then they were on the river’s south bank and they could use Coccham as a base to raid deep into Wessex. At the very least Alfred would pay them to leave Coccham and so they would make much silver even if they failed to dislodge him from the throne.

      But Sigefrid, Erik and Haesten, I reckoned, were not after mere silver. Wessex was the prize, and to gain Wessex they needed men. Guthrum would not help them, Mercia was riven between Dane and Saxon and could supply few men willing to leave their homes unguarded, but beyond Mercia was Northumbria, and Northumbria had a Danish king who commanded the loyalty of a great Danish warrior. The king was Gisela’s brother and the warrior, Ragnar, was my friend. By buying me they believed they could bring Northumbria into their war. The Danish north would conquer the Saxon south. That was what they wanted. That was what the Danes had wanted all my life. And all I needed to do was break my oath to Alfred and become king in Mercia, and the land that some called England would become Daneland. That, I reckoned, was why the dead man had summoned me.

      We came to Wæclingastræt at sunset. The Romans had strengthened the road with a gravel bed and stone edges, and some of their masonry still showed through the pale winter grass beside which a moss-grown milestone read Durocobrivis V. ‘What’s Durocobrivis?’ I asked Huda.

      ‘We call it Dunastopol,’ he said with a shrug to indicate that the place was negligible.

      We crossed the street. In a well-governed country I might have expected to see guards patrolling the road to protect travellers, but there were none in sight here. There were just crows flying to a nearby wood and silvered clouds stretching across the western sky while ahead of us the darkness lay swollen and heavy above East Anglia. Low hills lay to the north, towards Dunastopol, and Huda led us towards those hills and up a long shallow valley where bare apple trees stood stark in the gloom. Night had fallen by the time we reached Eilaf’s hall.

      Eilaf’s men greeted me as though I were already a king. Servants waited at the gate of his palisade to take our horses, and another knelt at the doorway of the hall to offer me a bowl of washing water and a cloth to dry my hands. A steward took my two swords, the long-bladed Serpent-Breath and the gut-ripper called Wasp-Sting. He took them respectfully, as if he regretted the custom that no man could carry a blade inside a hall, but that was a good custom. Blades and ale do not mix well.

      The hall was crowded. There were at least forty men there, most in mail or leather, standing either side of the central hearth where a great fire blazed to fill the beamed roof with smoke. Some of the men bowed as I entered, others just stared at me as I walked to greet my host, who stood with his wife and two sons beside the hearth. Haesten was beside them, grinning. A servant brought me a horn of ale.

      ‘Lord Uhtred!’ Haesten greeted me loudly so that every man and woman in the hall would know who I was. Haesten’s grin was somehow mischievous, as if he and I shared a secret joke in this hall. He had hair the colour of gold, a square face, bright eyes and was wearing a tunic of fine wool dyed green, above which hung a thick chain of silver. His arms were heavy with rings of silver and gold, while silver brooches were pinned to his long boots. ‘It is good to see you, lord,’ he said, and gave me a hint of a bow.

      ‘Still alive, Haesten?’ I asked, ignoring my host.

      ‘Still alive, lord,’ he said.

      ‘And no wonder,’ I said, ‘the last time I saw you was at Ethandun.’

      ‘A rainy day, lord, as I remember,’ he said.

      ‘And you were running like a hare, Haesten,’ I said.

      I saw the shadow cross his face. I had accused him of cowardice, but he deserved an attack from me for he had sworn to be my man and had betrayed his oath by deserting me.

      Eilaf, sensing trouble, cleared his throat. He was a heavy man, tall, with hair the brightest red I have ever seen. It was curly, and his beard was curly, and both were flame-coloured. Eilaf the Red, he was called, and though he was tall and heavy-set, he somehow seemed smaller than Haesten, who had a sublime confidence in his own abilities. ‘You are welcome, Lord Uhtred,’ Eilaf said.

      I ignored him. Haesten was watching me, his face still clouded, but then I grinned. ‘Yet all Guthrum’s army ran that day,’ I said, ‘and the ones who didn’t are all dead. So I am glad that I saw you run.’

      He smiled then. ‘I killed eight men at Ethandun,’ he said, eager for his men to know that he was no coward.

      ‘Then I am relieved I did not face your sword,’ I said, recovering my earlier insult with insincere flattery. Then I turned to the red-headed Eilaf. ‘And you,’ I asked, ‘were you at Ethandun?’

      ‘No, lord,’ he said.

      ‘Then you missed a rare fight,’ I said. ‘Isn’t that so, Haesten? A fight to remember!’

      ‘A massacre in the rain, lord,’ Haesten said.

      ‘And I still limp from it,’ I said, which was true, though the limp was small and hardly inconvenient.

      I was named to three other men, three Danes. All of them were dressed well and had arm rings to show their prowess. I forget their names now, but they were there to see me, and they had brought their followers with them. I understood as Haesten made the introductions that he was showing me off. He was proving that I had joined him, and that it was therefore safe for them to join him. Haesten was brewing rebellion in that hall. I drew him to one side. ‘Who are they?’ I demanded.

      ‘They have lands and men in this part of Guthrum’s kingdom.’

      ‘And you want their men?’

      ‘We must make an army,’ Haesten said simply.

      I gazed down at him. This rebellion, I thought, was not just against Guthrum of East Anglia, but against Alfred of Wessex, and if it was to succeed then all Britain would need be roused by sword, spear and axe. ‘And if I refuse to join you?’ I asked him

      ‘You will, lord,’ he said confidently.

      ‘I will?’ I asked.

      ‘Because tonight, lord, the dead will speak to you.’ Haesten smiled, and just then Eilaf intervened to say that all was ready. ‘We shall raise the dead,’ Haesten said dramatically, touching the hammer amulet about his neck, ‘and then we shall feast.’ He gestured towards the door at the back of the hall. ‘This way, if you will, lord. This way.’

      And so I went to meet the dead.

      Haesten led us into the darkness and I remember thinking how easy it was to say the dead rose and spoke if the thing was done in such darkness. How would we know? We could hear the corpse perhaps, but not see him, and I was about to protest when two of Eilaf’s men came from the hall with burning brands that flared bright in the damp

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