Ivarr sneered at that. “You should be glad,” he said, “and only sorry I am not dead. You’re Guthred?”
“I grieve you are wounded, lord,” Guthred said, “and I grieve for the men you have lost and I rejoice in the enemies you have killed. We owe you thanks.” He stepped back and looked past Ivarr to where our army had gathered about the road. “We owe Ivarr Ivarson thanks!” Guthred shouted. “He has removed a threat to our north! King Aed has limped home to weep over his losses and to console the widows of Scotland!”
The truth, of course, was that Ivarr was limping and Aed was victorious, but Guthred’s words prompted cheers, and those cheers astonished Ivarr. He must have expected that Guthred would kill him, which is exactly what Guthred should have done, but instead Ivarr was being treated with honor.
“Kill the bastard,” I muttered to Guthred.
He gave me a look of utter astonishment, as if such a thing had never occurred to him. “Why?” he asked quietly.
“Just kill him now,” I said urgently, “and that rat of a son.”
“You’re obsessed with killing,” Guthred said, amused, and I saw Ivarr watching and he must have known what I had been saying. “You are truly welcome, Lord Ivarr,” Guthred turned away from me and smiled at Ivarr. “Northumbria has need of great warriors,” he went on, “and you, lord, are in need of rest.”
I was watching those serpent eyes and I saw Ivarr’s amazement, but I also saw that he thought Guthred a fool, but it was at that moment I understood Guthred’s fate was golden. Wyrd biful ar?d. When I had rescued Guthred from Sven and he had claimed to be a king I had thought him a joke, and when he was made a king in Cair Ligualid I still thought the jest was rich, and even in Eoferwic I could not see the laughter lasting more than a few weeks for Ivarr was the great brutal overlord of Northumbria, but now Aed had done our work for us. Ivarr had lost most of his men, he had been wounded, and there were now just three great lords in Northumbria. There was ?lfric, clinging to his stolen land at Bebbanburg, Kjartan, who was the dark spider lord in his fastness by the river, and there was King Guthred, lord of the north, and the only Dane in Britain who led willing Saxons as well as Danes.
We stayed at Onhripum. We had not planned to do that, but Guthred insisted that we wait while Ivarr was treated for his wounds. The monks tended him and Guthred waited on the wounded earl, taking him food and ale. Most of Ivarr’s survivors were wounded, and Hild washed wounds and found clean cloths for bandages. “They need food,” she told me, but we had little enough food already and every day I had to lead forage parties farther away to find grain or livestock. I urged Guthred to march again, to take us into country where supplies might be more plentiful, but he was entranced by Ivarr. “I like him!” he told me, “and we can’t leave him here.”
“We can bury him here,” I suggested.
“He’s our ally!” Guthred insisted, and he believed it. Ivarr was heaping praises on him and Guthred trusted every treacherous word.
The monks did their work well, for Ivarr recovered swiftly. I had hoped he would die of his wounds, but within three days he was riding a horse. He still hurt. That was obvious. The pain must have been terrible, but he forced himself to walk and to mount a horse, just as he forced himself to offer fealty to Guthred.
He had little choice in that. Ivarr now led fewer than a hundred men, many of whom were injured, and he was no longer the great warlord he had been, so he and his son knelt to Guthred and clasped his hands and swore their loyalty. The son, sixteen-year old Ivar, looked like his father and grandfather, lean and dangerous. I distrusted them both, but Guthred would not listen to me. It was right, he said, that a king should be generous, and in showing mercy to Ivarr he believed he was binding the man to him for ever. “It’s what Alfred would have done,” he told me.
“Alfred would have taken the son hostage and sent the father away,” I said.
“He has taken an oath,” Guthred insisted.
“He’ll raise new men,” I warned him.
“Good!” He offered me his infectious grin. “We need men who can fight.”
“He’ll want his son to be king.”
“He didn’t want to be king himself, so why should he want it for his son? You see enemies everywhere, Uhtred. Young Ivar’s a good-looking fellow, don’t you think?”
“He looks like a half-starved rat.”
“He’s the right age for Gisela! Horseface and the rat, eh?” he said, grinning at me and I wanted to strike the grin off his face with my fist. “It’s an idea, isn’t it?” he went on. “It’s time she married and it would bind Ivarr to me.”
“Why not bind me to you?” I asked.
“You and I are friends already,” he said, still grinning, “and I thank God for that.”
We marched northward when Ivarr was sufficiently recovered. Ivarr was certain others of his men had survived the Scottish slaughter and so Brothers J?nberht and Ida rode ahead with an escort of fifty men. The two monks, Guthred assured me, knew the country about the River Tuede and could guide the searchers who looked for Ivarr’s missing men.
Guthred rode with Ivarr for much of the journey. He had been flattered by Ivarr’s oath which he ascribed to Christian magic and when Ivarr dropped behind to ride with his own men Guthred summoned Father Hrothweard and questioned the wild-bearded priest about Cuthbert, Oswald, and the Trinity. Guthred wanted to know how to work the magic for himself and was frustrated by Hrothweard’s explanations. “The son is not the father,” Hrothweard tried again, “and the father is not the spirit, and the spirit is not the son, but father, son and spirit are one, indivisible, and eternal.”
“So they’re three gods?” Guthred asked.
“One god!” Hrothweard said angrily.
“Do you understand it, Uhtred?” Guthred called back to me.
“I never have, lord,” I said. “To me it’s all nonsense.”
“It is not nonsense!” Hrothweard hissed at me. “Think of it as the clover leaf, lord,” he said to Guthred, “three leaves, separate, but one plant.”
“It is a mystery, lord,” Hild put in.
“Mystery?”
“God is mysterious, lord,” she said, ignoring Hrothweard’s malevolent glance, “and in his mystery we can discover wonder. You don’t need to understand it, just be astonished by it.”
Guthred twisted in his saddle to look at Hild. “So will you be my wife’s companion?” he asked her cheerfully.
“Marry her first, lord,” Hild said, “and then I’ll decide.”
He grinned and turned away.
“I thought you’d decided to go back to a nunnery,” I said quietly.
“Gisela told you that?”
“She did.”
“I’m looking for a sign from God,” Hild said.
“The fall of Dunholm?”
She frowned. “Maybe. It’s an evil place. If Guthred takes it under the banner of Saint Cuthbert then it will show God’s power. Perhaps that’s the sign I want.”
“It sounds to me,” I said, “as though you have your sign already.”
She moved her mare away from Witnere who was giving it the evil eye. “Father Willibald wanted me to go back to Wessex with him,” she said, “but I said no. I told him that if I retire from the world again then first I want to know what the world is.” She rode in silence for a few paces, then spoke very softly. “I would have liked children.”
“You can have children,” I said.
She shook her head dismissively. “No,” she said, “it is not my fate.” She glanced at me. “You know Guthred wants to marry Gisela to Ivarr’s son?” she asked.
I was startled by her sudden question. “I know he’s thinking about it,” I said cautiously.
“Ivarr said yes. Last night.”
My heart sank, but I tried to show nothing. “How do you know?” I asked.
“Gisela told me. But there is a bride-price.”
“There’s always a bride-price,” I said harshly.
