I would sit there, wait, and worry. Better to go north and find Ubba. So the next morning, under a spring sun, theHeahengel ’s crew marched north.
The war was between the Danes and Wessex. My war was with Odda the Younger, and I knew I was driven by pride. The preachers tell us that pride is a great sin, but the preachers are wrong. Pride makes a man, it drives him, it is the shield wall around his reputation and the Danes understood that. Men die, they said, but reputation does not die.
What do we look for in a lord? Strength, generosity, hardness, and success, and why should a man not be proud of those things? Show me a humble warrior and I will see a corpse. Alfred preached humility, he even pretended to it, loving to appear in church with bare feet and prostrating himself before the altar, but he never possessed true humility. He was proud, and men feared him because of it, and men should fear a lord. They should fear his displeasure and fear that his generosity will cease. Reputation makes fear, and pride protects reputation, and I marched north because my pride was endangered. My woman and child had been taken from me, and I would take them back, and if they had been harmed then I would take my revenge and the stink of that man’s blood would make other men fear me. Wessex could fall for all I cared, my reputation was more important and so we marched, skirting Exanceaster, following a twisting cattle track into the hills until we reached Twyfyrde, a small place crammed with refugees from Exanceaster, and none of them had seen or heard news of Odda the Younger, nor had they heard of any battle to the north, though a priest claimed that lightning had struck thrice in the previous night, which he swore was a sign that God had struck down the pagans.
From Twyfyrde we took paths that edged the great moor, walking through country that was deepwooded, hilly, and lovely. We would have made better time if we had possessed horses, but we had none, and the few we saw were old and sick and there were never enough for all our men, so we walked, sleeping that night in a deep combe bright with blossom and sifted with bluebells, and a nightingale sang us to sleep and the dawn chorus woke us and we walked on beneath the white mayflower, and that afternoon we came to the hills above the northern shore and we met folk who had fled the coastal lands, bringing with them their families and livestock, and their presence told us we must soon see the Danes.
I did not know it but the three spinners were making my fate. They were thickening the threads, twisting them tighter, making me into what I am, but staring down from that high hill I only felt a flicker of fear, for there was Ubba’s fleet, rowing east, keeping pace with the horsemen and infantry who marched along the shore.
The folk who had fled their homes told us that the Danes had come from the Welsh lands across the wide S?fern sea, and that they had landed at a place called Beardastopol, which lies far in Defnascir’s west, and there they had collected horses and supplies, but then their attack eastward into the West Saxon heartland had been delayed by the great storm that had wrecked Guthrum’s fleet. Ubba’s ships had stayed in Beardastopol’s harbor until the storm passed and then, inexplicably, they had still waited even when the weather improved and I guessed that Ubba, who would do nothing without the consent of the gods, had cast the runesticks, found them unfavorable, and so waited until the auguries were better. Now the runes must have been good for Ubba’s army was on the move. I counted thirtysix ships, which suggested an army of at least twelve or thirteen hundred men.
“Where are they going?” One of my men asked.
“East,” I grunted. What else could I say? East into Wessex. East into the rich heartland of England’s last kingdom. East to Wintanceaster or to any of the other plump towns where the churches, monasteries, and nunneries were brimming with treasure, east to where the plunder waited, east to where there was food and more horses, east to invite more Danes to come south across Mercia’s frontier, and Alfred would be forced to turn around and face them, and then Guthrum’s army would come from Exanceaster and the army of Wessex would be caught between two hosts of Danes, except that the fyrd of Defnascir was somewhere on this coast and it was their duty to stop Ubba’s men. We walked east, passing from Defnascir into Sumors?te, and shadowing the Danes by staying on the higher ground, and that night I watched as Ubba’s ships came inshore and the fires were lit in the Danish camp, and we lit our own fires deep in a wood and were marching again before dawn and thus got ahead of our enemies and by midday we could see the first West Saxon forces. They were horsemen, presumably sent to scout the enemy, and they were now retreating from the Danish threat, and we walked until the hills dropped away to where a river flowed into the S?fern sea, and it was there that we discovered that Ealdorman Odda had decided to make his stand, in a fort built by the old people on a hill near the river.
The river was called the Pedredan and close to its mouth was a small place called Cantucton, and near Cantucton was the ancient earthwalled fort that the locals said was named Cynuit. It was old, that fort; Father Willibald said it was older than the 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 plowed almost to nothing, plowed 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 SerpentBreath and WaspSting. I pulled on tall boots, put on the shining helmet, and picked up my ironbossed 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 dragonheaded 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 realized 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.
