“Ivarr wants Dunholm,” she said.
It took me a moment to understand, then I saw the whole monstrous bargain. Ivarr had lost most of his power when his army was massacred by Aed, but if he were to be given Dunholm and Dunholm’s lands, then he would be strong again. The men who now fol lowed Kjartan would become his men and in a stroke Ivarr would regain his strength. “And has Guthred accepted?” I asked.
“Not yet.”
“He can’t be that stupid,” I said angrily.
“Of the stupidity of men,” Hild said tartly, “there seems no end. But do you remember, before we left Wessex, how you told me Northumbria was full of enemies?”
“I remember.”
“More full, I think, than you realize,” she said, “so I will stay till I know that you will survive.” She reached out and touched my arm. “I think, sometimes, I am the only friend you have here. So let me stay till I know you’re safe.”
I smiled at her and touched Serpent-Breath’s hilt. “I’m safe,” I said.
“Your arrogance,” she said, “blinds folk to your kindness.” She said it reprovingly, then looked at the road ahead. “So what will you do?” she asked.
“Finish my bloodfeud,” I said. “That’s why I’m here.” And that was true. That was why I rode north, to kill Kjartan and to free Thyra, but if I achieved those things then Dunholm would belong to Ivarr, and Gisela would belong to Ivarr’s son. I felt betrayed, though in truth there was no betrayal, for Gisela had never been promised to me. Guthred was free to marry her to whoever he wished. “Or maybe we should just ride away,” I said bitterly.
“Ride where?”
“Anywhere.”
Hild smiled. “Back to Wessex?”
“No!”
“Then where?”
Nowhere. I had ridden away from Wessex and would not ride back except to fetch my hoard when I had a safe place to bring it. Fate had me in its grip and fate had given me enemies. Everywhere.
We forded the River Wiire well west of Dunholm and then marched the army to a place the locals called Cuncacester which lay athwart the Roman road five miles north of Dunholm. The Romans had built a fort at Cuncacester, and the walls were still there, though by now they were little more than worn-down banks in green fields. Guthred announced the army would stay close to the decrepit fort, and I said the army should keep marching south until it reached Dunholm, and we had our first argument, because he would not change his mind. “What is the purpose, lord,” I asked, “of keeping an army two hours’ march from its enemy?”
“Eadred says we must stop here.”
“Abbot Eadred? He knows how to take fortresses?”
“He had a dream,” Guthred said.
“A dream?”
“Saint Cuthbert wants his shrine here,” Guthred said. “Right there,” he pointed to a small hill where the coffined saint was surrounded by praying monks.
It made no sense to me. The place was undistinguished, except for the remnants of the fort. There were hills, fields, a couple of farms, and a small river, altogether a pleasant enough spot, though why it was the right place for the saint’s shrine was quite beyond my understanding. “Our job, lord,” I said, “is to capture Dunholm. We don’t do that by building a church here.”
“But Eadred’s dreams have always been right,” Guthred said earnestly, “and Saint Cuthbert has never failed me.”
I argued and I lost. Even Ivarr supported me, telling Guthred that we had to take the army closer to Dunholm, but Abbot Eadred’s dream meant that we camped at Cuncacester and the monks immediately began working on their church. The hilltop was leveled, trees were felled, and Abbot Eadred planted stakes to show where the walls should go. He wanted stone for its foundations, and that meant searching for a quarry, or better still an old Roman building that could be pulled down, but it would have to be a large building because the church he planned was bigger than the halls of most kings.
And next day, a late summer’s day, under high scattered clouds, we rode south to Dunholm. We rode to confront Kjartan and to explore the fortress’s strength.
One hundred and fifty men made the short journey. Ivarr and his son flanked Guthred, Ulf and I followed, and only the churchmen stayed at Cuncacester. We were Danes and Saxons, sword-warriors and spearmen, and we rode under Guthred’s new banner that showed Saint Cuthbert with one hand raised in blessing and the other hand holding the jeweled gospel book of Lindisfarena. It was not an inspiring banner, at least not to me, and I wished I had thought to ask Hild to make me a banner, one showing the wolf’s head of Bebbanburg. Earl Ulf had his banner of the eagle’s head, Guthred had his flag, and Ivarr rode under a ragged banner showing two ravens that he had somehow rescued from his defeat in Scotland, but I rode without any standard.
Earl Ulf cursed when we came in sight of Dunholm for it was the first time he had ever seen the strength of that high rock girdled by a loop of the River Wiire. The rock was not sheer, for hornbeams and sycamore grew thick on its steep slopes, but the summit had been cleared and we could see a stout wooden palisade protecting the height where three or four halls had been built. The entrance to the fort was a high gatehouse, surmounted by a rampart where a triangular banner flew. The flag showed a serpent-headed ship, a reminder that Kjartan had once been a shipmaster, and beneath the banner were men with spears, and hanging on the palisade were rows of shields.
Ulf stared at the fortress. Guthred and Ivarr joined him and none of us spoke, for there was nothing to say. It looked impregnable. It looked terrible. There was a path up to the fortress, but it was steep and it was narrow, and very few men would be needed to hold that track as it twisted up through tree stumps and past boulders to the high gate. We could throw all our army up that path, but in places the way was so constricted that twenty men could hold off that army, and all the while spears and rocks would rain down on our heads. Guthred, who plainly believed Dunholm could not be taken, threw me a mute look of pleading.
“Sihtric!” I called, and the boy hurried to my side. “That wall,” I said, “does it go all the way around the summit?”
“Yes, lord,” he said, then hesitated, “except…”
“Except where?”
“There’s a small place on the southern side, lord, where there’s a crag. No wall there. It’s where they throw the shit.”
“A crag?” I asked, and he made a gesture with his right hand to show that it was a sheer slab of rock. “Can the crag be climbed?” I asked him.
“No, lord.”
“What about water?” I asked him. “Is there a well?”
“Two wells, lord, both outside the palisade. There’s one to the west which they don’t often use, and the other’s on the eastern side. But that one’s high up the slope where the trees grow.”
“It’s outside the wall?”
“It’s outside, lord, but it has its own wall.”
I tossed him a coin as reward, though his answers had not cheered me. I had thought that if Kjartan’s men took their water from the river then we might post archers to stop them, but no archer could pierce trees and a wall to stop them reaching the well.
“So what do we do?” Guthred asked me, and a flicker of annoyance tempted me to ask him why he didn’t consult his priests who had insisted on making the army’s camp so inconveniently far away. I managed to stifle that response. “You can offer him terms, lord,” I said, “and when he refuses you’ll have to starve him out.”
“The harvest is in,” Guthred pointed out.
“So it will take a year,” I retorted. “Build a wall across the neck of land. Trap him. Let him see we won’t go away. Let him see starvation coming for him. If you build the wall,” I said, warming to the idea, “you won’t have to leave an army here. Even sixty men should be enough.”
