Since his fighting days Leofgar had become a weapons dealer. And from the look of his fine cloak and jewellery, a decade of war with the Force hadn't done business any harm. Cynewulf wondered cynically if he had any qualms about selling weapons to both sides.
Arngrim said this formidable man was to be their guide for the rest of the journey through Northumbria to Eoforwic. They needed him, for as everybody knew the Northumbrians were a rough lot, and had been even before the Danes came and killed their kings.
They were treated to a heavy night of eating and drinking at Leofgar's home. Then they woke before dawn as usual. With banging heads and growling stomachs, led by Leofgar, they resumed their long journey, progressing into the bleak, hilly country of Northumbria.
The Northumbrians' uncouth accent was all but incomprehensible to Cynewulf. They were a sour bunch who resented their British neighbours to the north, and the English kingdoms to the south, and their new Danish overlords in Eoforwic. They didn't even much like each other, and given half a chance they would be at each other's throats pursuing ancient grievances once again. And they drank prodigiously. In their cups they would sing long mournful songs about the great days of Kings Edwin or Oswald or Oswiu, before they fell to puking, fighting, humping, or all three.
'And that's just the monks,' as Arngrim said dryly.
But even among these dour folk change was apparent. Quite unconsciously, they laced their speech with Danish words.
There was another difference. Markets studded the countryside: small places, not towns, springing up at crossroads or river crossings, anywhere convenient. They were just huddles of stalls and booths where you could buy salted meat and winter vegetables, and bits of clothing, shoes, knives. There were even, strangely, bits of jewellery to buy. Cynewulf had only ever seen kings, thegns and bishops and their ladies sporting jewellery; here even humble peasants wore glittering clasps and shoulder-brooches.
All this was more change brought by the Danes. Before the invasions England had been fragmented into vast estates, with a river or two for transport and for fishing, some good lowland for ploughing, hill country or moorland for the sheep, and so on. The estates were like miniature countries, contained in themselves. And you expected to spend your whole life on your estate, tied by bonds of loyalty and tax duty, and you would barter and spend at the estate's own markets.
Now the Danes were sweeping all this away. The Danish warriors, parcelling up the countryside, were farmers themselves. But their holdings were smaller, and whatever they couldn't supply themselves they traded for: fleeces for timber, perhaps, or horses for hops. Suddenly trade was exploding across England in a network of tiny markets, and vast quantities of money washed across the countryside.
And the English in the new Danish territories, having exchanged one lot of lords for another, were paradoxically discovering a new form of freedom. You didn't have to live off the estate where you happened to work; you could choose what to buy, to wear or to eat. And if you had a surplus, even a small one, you might buy yourself a little luxury: pepper or some other spice, perhaps, or even a bit of jewellery. Suddenly you had choice. And vendors were taking the opportunity to chum out cheap brooches, pots and plates to sell to these new customers.
All these markets were at places that had no need of names before, and a rain of new place names was falling across Dane-controlled England from Lunden to Eoforwic and beyond – and most of those names were Danish.
Arngrim didn't like this. 'Even if Alfred wins,' he growled, 'even if he or his sons push the Danes all the way back into the sea where they came from, it will be hard to scrub all this out of men's minds.'
VIII
At last they reached Eoforwic, which the Romans had called Eburacum, and its new Danish kings called Jorvik. Whatever its name, the stony Roman core of the city still stood square on its high ground over the river. Wharves snaked down to the water, and carts and foot-travellers slogged up rough tracks to the city walls.
To reach the city the travellers had to cross a bridge, Roman-built, decayed, eroded, scarred by fire, but still solid, and busy with travellers. From the bridge Cynewulf peered down at a crowded waterway. Danish ships made their way with oars plashing, sails furled, and masts lowered so they could make it under the bridge. But there were lesser vessels too: log-ships each carved out of a single tree-trunk, and boats that were little more than leather- covered frames, like the currachs that had once carried the Irish monks into the ocean. These smaller craft, piled high with fish, eels and dried bundles of reeds, were manned by English folk whose ancestors had made their living from the river for generations before the Danes.
Once they were over the bridge they followed a good road that ran up from the river bank, through a jumble of slumped wooden buildings, straight to a gatehouse in the solid Roman walls. After centuries of weather and war the walls were much repaired, but they still stood twice as tall as a man. In one corner a tower had been erected, much cruder than the original Roman structures, perhaps planted there by a long-dead Northumbrian king. Leofgar said that for a while the Danes had installed a puppet English king here, but now Danish kings had taken over, and the latest ruler was planning a proper palace, a timber marvel to be built in the south-east corner of the walls.
At the gatehouse they were stopped by tough-looking Danish warriors who demanded a toll. Once Arngrim had paid up Leofgar led them all confidently into the town.
Inside the walls the place felt even more cramped than Cynewulf had expected, full of low wooden buildings crammed in around the feet of the vaster Roman ruins. He was overwhelmed by the crowds, the yells of vendors, and above all by the stink, of human sewage and rotting thatch and animal droppings. It was like walking into a vast compost heap. But this crowded place was full of life, and Cynewulf, unused to cities, felt excitement stir in his soul.
The people dressed brightly, in tunics and leggings dyed yellow, red, black and blue. They wore cloaks against the winter cold, but the men kept them thrown back so one side of their bodies was always exposed, and they all carried at least one weapon, a sword, axe or knife. They were tall, well-muscled, intimidating – and you couldn't tell at a glance who was Danish and who English.
If the people were impressive, their homes were less so. Built on rough timber frames, they were roofed by ragged straw or turf, and their walls were of woven hazel or willow packed with mud or dung. The Danish occupation of Jorvik was only a dozen years old, so none of these huts was older than that – and yet, pounded by northern rains, their misshapen hulls were already slumping into the filthy earth.
The amount of trade going on was astounding. The houses were built long and thin, crowding each other for frontage on the main streets. In the workshops behind these frontages tanners scraped and cobblers hammered, potters turned their wheels, and weavers treadled their looms with threads of wool weighted by pierced discs of fired clay. Leofgar the weapons dealer was on friendly terms with many of the smiths. In the houses open fronts wares of all sorts were displayed, from pottery and wooden tableware and jewellery to broiled rats sold to children for a clip from a silver coin. Outside the carpenters' shops cups and plates were heaped up, wheel-turned from blocks of ash, dozens of them all but identical to each other, remarkable if you were used to hand-made goods. Cynewulf was very struck by one store that sold nothing but shoes, sewn from leather or moleskin, racked up on shelf after shelf like roosting birds.
Ibn Zuhr fingered a pottery jug, deep crimson, symmetrical, well finished. He ignored the Danish jabber of the man who was trying to sell it to him. 'Look at this. I haven't seen anything of this quality since I was taken from Iberia. And I would guess that this is the first genuine city, as a Greek or a Moor would understand it, to be functioning in Britain since the Caesars. All in a decade!' Ibn Zuhr seemed fascinated, in his cold, supercilious way. 'The Danes, you know, have trading links from Ireland to the Baltic, from Greenland to Iberia. Under them, trade is booming, within the country as well as beyond.'
'The Danish trade can boom all it likes,' growled Arngrim, 'until Alfred comes here and lops off its head like a weed. And then we'll get back to the old ways.'
Ibn Zuhr the slave could only agree with his master.
Leofgar led the party to the city's heart, where the shells of many Roman buildings still stood. It was quiet here, away from the bustle of the Danish markets. Cynewulf curiously walked inside the immense walls of what
