LITMIR.BIZ

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up as the ridge of the barn collapsed to spew sparks high into the darkening sky, and in the burst of flames I saw bright banners held by dark-robed men. ‘Priests,’ my son said. I could hear singing now and I kicked Lightning and beckoned my men so that we galloped across the waterlogged meadow towards the place that had been my home. And as we approached I saw the dark robes gather together and saw the glint of weapons. There were hundreds of folk there. They were jeering, shouting, and above their heads were spears and hoes, axes and scythes. I saw no shields. This was the fyrd, the gathering of ordinary men to defend their land, the men who would garrison the burhs if the Danes came, but now they had occupied my estate and they had seen me and were screaming insults.

      A man in a white cloak and mounted on a white horse pushed through the rabble. He held up his hand for silence and when it did not come he turned his horse and shouted at the angry crowd. I heard his voice, but not his words. He calmed them, stared at them for a few heartbeats, and then wrenched his horse around and spurred towards me. I had stopped. My men made a line on either side of me. I was watching the crowd, looking for faces I knew and saw none. My neighbours, it seemed, had no stomach for this burning.

      The horseman stopped a few paces from me. He was a priest. He wore a black robe beneath the white cloak and a silver crucifix was bright against the black weave. He had a long face carved with shadowed lines, a wide mouth, a hook of a nose, and deep-set dark eyes beneath thick black brows. ‘I am Bishop Wulfheard,’ he announced. He met my eyes and I could see nervousness beneath the defiance. ‘Wulfheard of Hereford,’ he added as if the name of his bishopric would give him added dignity.

      ‘I’ve heard of Hereford,’ I said. It was a town on the border between Mercia and Wales, a smaller town than Gleawecestre yet, for some reason that only the Christians could explain, the small town had a bishop and the larger did not. I had heard of Wulfheard too. He was one of those ambitious priests who whisper into kings’ ears. He might be Bishop of Hereford, but he spent his time in Gleawecestre where he was Æthelred’s puppy.

      I looked away from him, staring instead at the line of men who barred my path. Perhaps three hundred? I could see a handful of swords now, but most of the weapons had come from farm steadings. Yet three hundred men armed with timber axes, with hoes and with sickles could do lethal damage to my sixty-eight men.

      ‘Look at me!’ Wulfheard demanded.

      I kept my eyes on the crowd and touched my right hand to Serpent-Breath’s hilt. ‘You do not give me orders, Wulfheard,’ I said, not looking at him.

      ‘I bring you orders,’ he said grandly, ‘from Almighty God and from the Lord Æthelred.’

      ‘I’m sworn to neither,’ I said, ‘so their orders mean nothing.’

      ‘You mock God!’ the bishop shouted loud enough for the crowd to hear.

      That crowd murmured and a few even edged forward as if to attack my men.

      Bishop Wulfheard also edged forward. He ignored me now and called to my men instead. ‘The Lord Uhtred,’ he shouted, ‘has been declared outcast of God’s church! He has killed a saintly abbot and wounded other men of God! It has been decreed that he is banished from this land, and further decreed that any man who follows him, who swears loyalty to him, is also outcast from God and from man!’

      I sat still. Lightning thumped a heavy hoof on the soft turf and the bishop’s horse shifted warily away. There was silence from my men. Some of their wives and children had seen us and they were streaming across the meadow, seeking the protection of our weapons. Their homes had been burned. I could see the smoke sifting up from the street on the small western hill.

      ‘If you wish to see heaven,’ the bishop called to my men, ‘if you wish your wives and children to enjoy the saving grace of our Lord Jesus, then you must leave this evil man!’ He pointed at me. ‘He is cursed of God, he is cast into an outer darkness! He is condemned! He is reprobate! He is damned! He is an abomination before the Lord! An abomination!’ He evidently liked that word, because he repeated it. ‘An abomination! And if you remain with him, if you fight for him, then you too shall be cursed, both you and your wives and your children also! You and they will be condemned to the everlasting tortures of hell! You are therefore absolved of your loyalty to him! And know that to kill him is no sin! To kill this abomination is to earn the grace of God!’

      He was inciting them to my death, but not one of my men moved to attack me, though the rabble found new courage and shuffled forward, growling. They were nerving themselves to swarm at me. I glanced back at my men and saw they were in no mood to fight this crowd of enraged Christians because my men’s wives were not seeking protection, as I had thought, but trying to pull them away from me, and I remembered something Father Pyrlig had once said to me, that women were ever the most avid worshippers, and I saw that these women, all Christians, were undermining my men’s loyalties.

      What is an oath? A promise to serve a lord, but to Christians there is always a higher allegiance. My gods demand no oaths, but the nailed god is more jealous than any lover. He tells his followers that they can have no other gods beside himself, and how ridiculous is that? Yet the Christians grovel to him and abandon the older gods. I saw my men waver. They glanced at me, then some spurred away, not towards the ranting mob, but westwards away from the crowd and away from me. ‘It’s your fault.’ Bishop Wulfheard had forced his horse back towards me. ‘You killed Abbot Wihtred, a holy man, and God’s people have had enough of you.’

      Not all my men wavered. Some, mostly Danes, spurred towards me, as did Osferth. ‘You’re a Christian,’ I said to him, ‘why don’t you abandon me?’

      ‘You forget,’ he said, ‘that I was abandoned by God. I’m a bastard, already cursed.’

      My son and Æthelstan had also stayed, but I feared for the younger boy. Most of my men were Christians and they had ridden away from me, while the threatening crowd was numbered in the hundreds and they were being encouraged by priests and monks. ‘The pagans must be destroyed!’ I heard a black-bearded priest shout. ‘He and his woman! They defile our land! We are cursed so long as they live!’

      ‘Your priests threaten a woman?’ I asked Wulfheard. Sigunn was by my side, mounted on a small grey mare. I kicked Lightning towards the bishop, who wrenched his horse away. ‘I’ll give her a sword,’ I told him, ‘and let her gut your gutless guts, you mouse-prick.’

      Osferth caught up with me and took hold of Lightning’s bridle. ‘A retreat might be prudent, lord,’ he said.

      I drew Serpent-Breath. It was deep dusk now, the western sky was a glowing purple shading to grey and then to a wide blackness in which the first stars glittered through tiny rents in the clouds. The light of the fires reflected from Serpent-Breath’s wide blade. ‘Maybe I’ll kill myself a bishop first,’ I snarled, and turned Lightning back towards Wulfheard, who rammed his heels so that his horse leaped away, almost unsaddling his rider.

      ‘Lord!’ Osferth shouted in protest and kicked his own horse forward to intercept me. The crowd thought the two of us were pursuing the bishop and they surged forward. They were screaming and shouting, brandishing their crude weapons and lost in the fervour of their God-given duty, and I knew we would be overwhelmed, but I was angry too and I thought I would rather carve a path through that rabble than be seen to run away.

      And so I forgot the fleeing bishop, but instead just turned my horse towards the crowd. And that was when the horn sounded.

      It blared, and from my right, from where the sun glowed beneath the western horizon, a stream of horsemen galloped to place themselves between me and the crowd. They were in mail, they carried swords or spears, and their faces were hidden by the cheek-pieces of their helmets. The flamelight glinted from those helmets, turning them into blood-touched spear-warriors whose stallions threw up gouts of damp earth as the horses slewed around so that the newcomers faced the crowd.

      One man faced me. His sword was lowered as he trotted his stallion towards Lightning, then the blade flicked up in a salute. I could see he was grinning. ‘What have you done, lord?’ he asked.

      ‘I killed an abbot.’

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