LITMIR.BIZ

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a table just outside the door. ‘Nice to see the sun again,’ Olla, the tavern’s owner, greeted me.

      ‘Be nicer still to see some ale,’ I said.

      Olla grinned, ‘And it’s good to see you, lord. Just ale? I’ve a pretty little thing just arrived from Frisia?’

      ‘Just ale.’

      ‘She won’t know what she’s missing,’ he said, then went to fetch the ale while we leaned against the tavern’s outside wall. The sun was warm, its reflections sparkling on the river where swans paddled slowly upstream. A big trading ship was tied up nearby and three naked slaves were cleaning her. ‘She’s for sale,’ Olla said when he brought the ale.

      ‘Looks heavy.’

      ‘She’s a pig of a boat. You wanting to buy, lord?’

      ‘Not her, maybe something leaner?’

      ‘Prices have gone up,’ Olla said, ‘better to wait till there’s snow on the ground.’ He sat on a stool at the table’s end. ‘You want food? The wife’s made a nice fish stew and the bread’s fresh baked.’

      ‘I’m hungry,’ my son said.

      ‘For fish or Frisians?’ I asked.

      ‘Both, but fish first.’

      Olla rapped the table and waited until a pretty young girl came from the tavern. ‘Three bowls of the stew, darling,’ he said, ‘and two of the new loaves. And a jug of ale, some butter, and wipe your nose.’ He waited till she had darted back indoors. ‘You got any lively young warriors that need a wife, lord?’ he asked.

      ‘Plenty,’ I said, ‘including this lump,’ I gestured at my son.

      ‘She’s my daughter,’ he said, nodding at the door where the girl had vanished, ‘and a handful. I found her trying to sell her younger brother to Haruld yesterday.’ Haruld was the slave-dealer three buildings upriver.

      ‘I hope she got a good price,’ I said.

      ‘Oh, she’d have driven a hard bargain, that one. Fleas don’t grow old on her. Hanna!’ he shouted, ‘Hanna!’

      ‘Father?’ The girl peered around the door.

      ‘How old are you?’

      ‘Twelve, father.’

      ‘See?’ he looked at me, ‘ready for marriage.’ He reached down and scratched a sleeping dog between the ears. ‘And you, lord?’

      ‘I’m already married.’

      Olla grinned. ‘Been a while since you drank my ale. So what brings you here?’

      ‘I was hoping you’d tell me.’

      He nodded. ‘Hornecastre.’

      ‘Hornecastre,’ I confirmed. ‘I don’t know the place.’

      ‘Nothing much there,’ he said, ‘except an old fort.’

      ‘Roman?’ I guessed.

      ‘What else? The West Saxons rule up to the Gewasc now,’ he sounded gloomy, ‘and for some reason they’ve sent men further north to Hornecastre. They planted themselves in the old fort and as far as I know they’re still there.’

      ‘How many?’

      ‘Enough. Maybe three hundred? Four?’ That sounded like a formidable war-band, but even four hundred men would have a hard time assaulting Lindcolne’s stone walls.

      ‘I was told we were at war,’ I said bitterly. ‘Four hundred men sitting in a fort might be a nuisance, but it’s hardly the end of Northumbria.’

      ‘I doubt they’re there to pick daisies,’ Olla said. ‘They’re West Saxons and they’re on our land. King Sigtryggr can’t just leave them there.’

      ‘True.’ I poured myself more ale. ‘Do you know who leads them?’

      ‘Brunulf.’

      ‘Never heard of him.’

      ‘He’s a West Saxon,’ Olla said. He got his news from folk who drank in his tavern, many of them sailors whose ships traded up and down the coast, but he knew of Brunulf because of a Danish family who had been ejected from their steading just north of the old fort and who had sheltered in the Duck for a night on their way north to lodge with relatives. ‘He didn’t kill any of them, lord.’

      ‘Brunulf didn’t?’

      ‘They said he was courteous! But the whole village had to leave. Of course they lost their livestock.’

      ‘And their homes.’

      ‘And their homes, lord, but not one of them was so much as scratched! Not a child taken as a slave, not a woman raped, nothing.’

      ‘Gentle invaders,’ I said.

      ‘So your son-in-law,’ Olla went on, ‘took over four hundred men south, but I hear he wants to be gentle too. He’d rather talk the bastards out of Hornecastre than start a war.’

      ‘So he’s become sensible?’

      ‘Your daughter is, lord. She’s the one who insists we don’t prod the wasps’ nest.’

      ‘And here’s your daughter,’ I said, as Hanna brought a tray laden with bowls and jugs.

      ‘Put it there, darling,’ Olla said, tapping the table top.

      ‘So how much did Haruld offer you for your brother?’ I asked her.

      ‘Three shillings, lord.’ She was bright-eyed, brown-haired, with an infectiously cheeky grin.

      ‘Why did you want to sell him?’

      ‘Because he’s a turd, lord.’

      I laughed. ‘You should have taken the money then. Three shillings is a good price for a turd.’

      ‘Father wouldn’t let me.’ She pouted, then pretended to have a bright idea. ‘Maybe my brother could serve you, lord?’ She made a ghastly grimace. ‘Then he’d die in a battle?’

      ‘Go away, you horrible thing,’ her father said.

      ‘Hanna!’ I called her back. ‘Your father says you’re ready to be married.’

      ‘Another year, maybe,’ Olla put in quickly.

      ‘You want to marry this one?’ I asked, pointing to my son.

      ‘No, lord!’

      ‘Why not?’

      ‘He looks like you, lord,’ she said, grinned, and vanished.

      I laughed, but my son looked offended. ‘I do not look like you,’ he said.

      ‘You do,’ Olla said.

      ‘God help me then.’

      And god help Northumbria, I thought. Brunulf? I knew nothing of him, but assumed he was competent enough to be given command of several hundred men, but why had he been sent to Hornecastre? Was King Edward trying to provoke a war? His sister Æthelflaed might have made peace with Sigtryggr, but Wessex had not signed the treaty, and the eagerness of some West Saxons to invade Northumbria was no secret. But sending a few hundred men a small distance into Northumbria, ejecting the nearby Danes without slaughter, and then settling into an old fort did not sound like a savage invasion. Brunulf and his men, I decided, were in Hornecastre as a provocation, designed to make us attack them and so start a war we would lose. ‘Sigtryggr wants me to join him,’ I told Olla.

      ‘If he can’t talk them out of the fort then he’s hoping you’ll scare them out,’ he said flatteringly.

      I tasted the fish stew and discovered I was ravenous. ‘So why is the price of ships going up?’ I asked.

      ‘You

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