LITMIR.BIZ

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Romans, that it had been old when the world was young, and the fort had been made by throwing up earth walls on a hilltop and digging a ditch outside the walls. Time had worked on those walls, wearing them down and making the ditch shallower, and grass had overgrown the ramparts, and on one side the wall had been ploughed almost to nothing, ploughed until it was a mere shadow on the turf, but it was a fortress and the place where Ealdorman Odda had taken his forces and where he would die if he could not defeat Ubba, whose ships were already showing in the river’s mouth.

      I did not go straight to the fort, but stopped in the shelter of some trees and dressed for war. I became Ealdorman Uhtred in his battle glory. The slaves at Oxton had polished my mail coat with sand and I pulled it on, and over it I buckled a leather sword belt for Serpent-Breath and Wasp-Sting. I pulled on tall boots, put on the shining helmet and picked up my iron-bossed shield and, when all the straps were tight and the buckles firm, I felt like a god dressed for war, dressed to kill. My men buckled their own straps, laced their boots, tested their weapons’ edges and even Father Willibald cut himself a stave, a great piece of ash that could break a man’s skull. ‘You won’t need to fight, father,’ I told him.

      ‘We all have to fight now, lord,’ he said. He took a step back and looked me up and down, and a small smile came to his face. ‘You’ve grown up,’ he said.

      ‘It’s what we do, father,’ I said.

      ‘I remember when I first saw you. A child. Now I fear you.’

      ‘Let’s hope the enemy does,’ I said, not quite sure what enemy I meant, whether Odda or Ubba, and I wished I had Bebbanburg’s standard, the snarling wolf’s head, but I had my swords and my shield and I led my men out of the wood and across the fields to where the fyrd of Defnascir would make its stand.

      The Danes were a mile or so to our left, spilling from the coast road and hurrying to surround the hill called Cynuit, though they would be too late to bar our path. To my right were more Danes, ship-Danes, bringing their dragon-headed boats up the Pedredan.

      ‘They outnumber us,’ Willibald said.

      ‘They do,’ I agreed. There were swans on the river, corncrakes in the uncut hay and crimson orchids in the meadows. This was the time of year when men should be haymaking or shearing their sheep. I need not be here, I thought to myself. I need not go to this hilltop where the Danes will come to kill us. I looked at my men and wondered if they thought the same, but when they caught my eye they only grinned, or nodded, and I suddenly realised that they trusted me. I was leading them and they were not questioning me, though Leofric understood the danger. He caught up with me.

      ‘There’s only one way off that hilltop,’ he said softly.

      ‘I know.’

      ‘And if we can’t fight our way out,’ he said, ‘then we’ll stay there. Buried.’

      ‘I know,’ I said again, and I thought of the spinners and knew they were tightening the threads, and I looked up Cynuit’s slope and saw there were some women at the very top, women being sheltered by their men, and I thought Mildrith might be among them, and that was why I climbed the hill because I did not know where else to seek her.

      But the spinners were sending me to that old earth fort for another reason. I had yet to stand in the big shield wall, in the line of warriors, in the heave and horror of a proper battle where to kill once is merely to invite another enemy to come. The hill of Cynuit was the road to full manhood and I climbed it because I had no choice, the spinners sent me.

      Then a roar sounded to our right, down in the Pedredan’s valley, and I saw a banner being raised beside a beached ship. It was the banner of the raven. Ubba’s banner. Ubba, last and strongest and most frightening of the sons of Lothbrok, had brought his blades to Cynuit. ‘You see that boat?’ I said to Willibald, pointing to where the banner flew. ‘Ten years ago,’ I said, ‘I cleaned that ship. I scoured it, scrubbed it, cleaned it.’ Danes were taking their shields from the shield-strake and the sun glinted on their myriad spear blades. ‘I was ten years old,’ I told Willibald.

      ‘The same boat?’ he asked.

      ‘Maybe. Maybe not.’ Perhaps it was a new ship. It did not matter, really, all that mattered was that it had brought Ubba.

      To Cynuit.

      The men of Defnascir had made a line where the old fort’s wall had eroded away. Some, a few, had spades and were trying to remake the earth barrier, but they would not be given time to finish, not if Ubba assaulted the hill, and I pushed through them, using my shield to thrust men out of my way, ignoring all those who questioned who we were, and so we made our way to the hill’s summit where Odda’s banner of a black stag flew.

      I pulled off my helmet as I neared him. I tossed the helmet to Father Willibald, then drew Serpent-Breath for I had seen Odda the Younger standing beside his father, and he was staring at me as though I were a ghost, and to him I must have appeared just that. ‘Where is she?’ I shouted, and I pointed Serpent-Breath at him. ‘Where is she?’

      Odda’s retainers drew swords or levelled spears, and Leofric drew his battle-thinned blade, Dane-Killer.

      ‘No!’ Father Willibald shouted and he ran forward, his staff raised in one hand and my helmet in the other. ‘No!’ He tried to head me off, but I pushed him aside, only to find three of Odda’s priests barring my way. That was one thing about Wessex, there were always priests. They appeared like mice out of a burning thatch, but I thrust the priests aside and confronted Odda the Younger. ‘Where is she?’ I demanded.

      Odda the Younger was in mail. Mail so brightly polished that it hurt the eye. He had a helmet inlaid with silver, boots to which iron plates were strapped and a blue cloak held about his neck by a great brooch of gold and amber.

      ‘Where is she?’ I asked a fourth time, and this time Serpent-Breath was a hand’s length from his throat.

      ‘Your wife is at Cridianton,’ Ealdorman Odda answered. His son was too scared to open his mouth.

      I had no idea where Cridianton was. ‘And my son?’ I stared into Odda the Younger’s frightened eyes. ‘Where is my son?’

      ‘They are both with my wife at Cridianton!’ Ealdorman Odda answered, ‘and they are safe.’

      ‘You swear to that?’ I asked.

      ‘Swear?’ The Ealdorman was angry now, his ugly, bulbous face red. ‘You dare ask me to swear?’ He drew his own sword. ‘We can cut you down like a dog,’ he said and his men’s swords twitched.

      I swept my own sword around till it pointed down to the river. ‘You know whose banner that is?’ I asked, raising my voice so that a good portion of the men on Cynuit’s hill could hear me. ‘That is the raven banner of Ubba Lothbrokson. I have watched Ubba Lothbrokson kill. I have seen him trample men into the sea, cut their bellies open, take off their heads, wade in their blood and make his sword screech with their death-song, and you would kill me who is ready to fight him alongside you? Then do it.’ I spread my arms, baring my body to the Ealdorman’s sword. ‘Do it,’ I spat at him, ‘but first swear my wife and child are safe.’

      He paused a long time, then lowered his blade. ‘They are safe,’ he said, ‘I swear it.’

      ‘And that thing,’ I pointed Serpent-Breath at his son, ‘did not touch her?’

      The Ealdorman looked at his son who shook his head. ‘I swear I did not,’ Odda the Younger said, finding his voice. ‘I only wanted her to be safe. We thought you were dead and I wanted her to be safe. That is all, I swear it.’

      I sheathed Serpent-Breath. ‘You owe my wife eighteen shillings,’ I said to the Ealdorman, then turned away.

      I had come to Cynuit. I had no need to be on that hilltop. But I was there. Because destiny is everything.

       Eleven

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