“Fight Vigdjarf the champion tomorrow.”
The head turned back like a wolf's again, on it a look of savage glee. “Ah, Vigdjarf,” Cuthred husked. “He cut me while they held me. He has never come within my reach again. Yet he thinks he is a bold man. Maybe he will stand up to me. Once. Once is all I need.”
“You must let us come close to get your shackle out. Get your collar off.”
Shef waved Udd forward. The little man, a bundle of tools in his hand, stepped forward like a mouse towards a cat, one pace, two. Within range. And Cuthred had him, one great paw round his face, one gripping his neck, ready for the snap.
“A poor exchange for Vigdjarf,” reminded Shef. Slowly Cuthred released Udd, looking at his own hands as if he did not believe them. Karli lowered the point of his sword. Udd, shaking, stepped forward again, peered near- sightedly at the iron, began to try to work it loose. After a few moments he turned back to Cuthred, stared at the collar.
“Best to file the collar off, lord. It might make a noise. Can't help hurting him, too.”
“Keep greasing the file. Do you hear, Cuthred? He may hurt you. Don't lash out. Save it for Vigdjarf.”
The Yorkshireman's face twisted, he sat immobile while Udd slowly filed and greased and filed again. The lamp burned its oil, began to gutter. Finally Udd stood back. “It's through, lord. Needs pulling back.”
Shef stepped forward, with caution, Karli standing just out of reach, sword poised again. Cuthred waved him away, grinned, put his hands up, seized the two ends of the thick collar still twisted round his neck. Pulled. Fascinated, Shef saw the muscles standing out like cables on his arms and chest. The stout, cold iron bent into a bow as if it were peeled greenwood. Cuthred stepped free, dropping collar and chains with a crash. He knelt, seized Shef's hands in both his own, pressed them to his head, pressed his head to Shef's knees. “I am your man,” he said.
The lamp went out finally. In the darkness the four men cautiously eased the door open, went out into the starlit night. Like shadows they crept back through the village, snaked back to their camp-site, keeping the hobbled horses between them and the Norwegians' sentry. The fire was still burning, tended by the watchful Edith.
As he saw the woman, Cuthred made a choking noise in his throat, seemed ready once again to pounce.
“She is English too,” whispered Shef. “Edith, feed him with all we have. Talk to him quietly. Talk to him in English.” As the others started to stir in their blankets, he crept over to Cwicca. “And you talk to him too, Cwicca. Give him a pint of ale, if there's any left. But first, quietly, cock your crossbow. If he lunges for anyone, shoot him. Now I'm going to sleep till dawn.”
Shef stirred, not at first light, but as the sun first started to show over the mountain tops that hemmed in the valley on both sides. It was cold, and dew lay thick on the single blanket. For a few moments Shef was reluctant to stir, to break the little cocoon of warmth his body had created. Then he remembered the mad eyes of Cuthred, and sprang up.
Cuthred was still asleep, his mouth open. He lay with a blanket pulled over him and his head pillowed on the breast of Edtheow, oldest and most motherly of the slave-women. She lay awake but unmoving, one arm crooked round Cuthred's head.
And then he was awake. His eyes flicked open without a transition, took in Shef staring at him, took in the men beginning to light fires, roll blankets, head for the latrine. Fell on Brand, also on his feet, also studying Cuthred.
Shef never saw Cuthred move. He saw the blanket fly one way, behind it Cuthred must have sprung to his feet in one movement from a lying position, before his eyes could focus he heard the crash and grunt of knocked-out breath as Cuthred drove into Brand with his shoulder. Then they were both on the ground, rolling over and over. Shef saw Cuthred's thumbs drive at Brand's eyes, saw Brand's great quart-sized hands grip the Englishman's wrists, try to bend them back. Then the two were locked for an instant, Cuthred on top, neither able to force the other back. Cuthred twisted his hands free, jerked the knife from Brand's belt and leapt to his feet with the same uncanny speed. Brand too was struggling up, but Cuthred had the knife swinging forward for the killer stroke under the chin.
Osmod grabbed his forearm as he struck, pulled the knife aside. Then Osmod was rolling on the ground, knocked sideways by a backhand blow from the pommel. Cwicca had both hands on the knife-wrist. Shef ran in, seized Cuthred's left arm, twisted for a bone-breaker hold. It was like seizing the fetlock of a horse, too thick to manage. As Cwicca on one side and Shef on the other grappled with an arm each, Karli stepped forward, face alive with excitement.
“I'll quieten him,” he yelled. His feet shuffled, his shoulder dropped, he swung with both hands, left-right-left, hooking into Cuthred's unguarded belly, driving upwards to go under the ribs and reach the liver.
Cuthred lifted Shef bodily off the ground one-handed, smashed an elbow into the side of his head, jerked an arm free. A fist like a bludgeon came down on Karli's head, he stamped violently on Cwicca's feet, failed to dislodge the desperate grip on his knife-wrist, reached across to seize the knife left-handed.
Staggering to his feet again, Shef saw Udd sighting deliberately with a crossbow, started to shout “Stop!”, realized that in one instant either Cwicca would be disemboweled or Cuthred shot dead.
Brand stepped forward, between Cuthred and the crossbow. He said nothing, made no attempt to grip the other man. Instead he held out his axe, balanced across both palms.
Cuthred stared at it, ceased to reach for the knife, reached instead for the axe-helve. Paused. Cwicca, gasping, slowly let go, retreated out of range. Half-a-dozen crossbows were leveled now. Cuthred ignored them, staring only at the axe. Slowly he reached out and took it, felt the balance, swung it backwards and forwards.
“I remember now,” he muttered hoarsely in his Northumbrian English. “You want me to kill Vigdjarf. Ha!” He hurled the axe upwards, twirling it so that it span in the air, the light flashing off its brilliant edge, caught it at its balance point as it came down. “Kill Vigdjarf!” He looked round as if expecting to find his enemy in sight already, began to move towards the village like a landslide.
Brand jumped in his way, arms spread, calling out in his primitive English. “Yes, yes, kill Vigdjarf. Not now. Today. Everyone watch. Now eat. Get ready. Choose weapon.”
Cuthred grinned, showing a set of gums with a few sparse front teeth remaining. “Eat,” he agreed. “Tried to kill you before, big man, in York. Try again later. Now, kill Vigdjarf. Eat first.” He buried the axe-head with a chunk deep in a tree-stump stool, looked round, saw Edtheow coming towards him with a hunk of bread, took it from her and began to gnaw at it. She gentled him like an anxious horse, rubbing his arm through the filthy tunic.
“Oh yes,” said Brand, looking at Shef still rubbing a buzzing ear. “Oh yes. I like this one. We've got a berserk here. Very useful people. But you do have to get them pointed the right way.”
Under Brand's direction the entire camp got to work on Cuthred, scurrying round him like men with a champion race-horse. First, food. As he gnawed his way through the crust Edtheow brought him, the ex-slaves heated their staple oat porridge, passed him a bowl of it, began to warm over the stew they had made the night before from unwary chickens pecking too near the campsite, diced onions and garlic into it. Cuthred ate continuously, supervised by Brand and Hund together. They gave him only small amounts at a time, seeing him scrape each bowl down to the wood before passing him the next one. “He needs the food for strength,” muttered Brand. “But his belly's shrunk. Can't handle much at a time. Give him a pint of ale to slow him down. Now, get that tunic off him. I'm going to wash and oil him.”
The catapult-crew prized hot stones out of the bed of the camp-fire, dropped them into a leather water- bucket, watched the steam rise. But when Shef stepped forward, making gestures to take off the tunic, Cuthred scowled, shook his head violently. Looked at the women.
Realizing he did not wish to show the shame of his mutilation, Shef waved the women away, stripped off his own tunic. Turned deliberately so that Cuthred could see the flogging-scars on his own back, scars his stepfather had put there, pulled the tunic back on. Fritha and Cwicca stretched out a blanket on the ground, made signs that Cuthred should lie on it face-down, then cut the tunic from his body with their seax-knives.
When they saw his back the ex-slaves looked at each other again. In places the flesh had been flogged off clear through to the spine, only thin scar-skin covering the vertebrae. With lye and warm water Fritha began to sponge off a winter's accumulation of filth and dead skin. When he had finished, Brand came forward with his own spare pair of breeches, signed to Cuthred to put them on. The men stared elaborately into the far distance while Cuthred donned them. Then they sat him on a tree-stump while Fritha worked on his arms, face and chest. Shef observed him carefully as they did so. Cuthred was, indeed, a big man, far bigger than any of the ex-slaves, bigger
