me and one made a sound like a kitten mewing and then, without another word, they fled.
I stood there as the sun rose. Kjartan and his men stared at me and in that early light I was dark-faced death in shining armor, death in a bright helmet, and then, before they decided to send the dogs to discover I was not a specter, but flesh and blood, I turned back into the shadows and rejoined Sihtric.
I had done my best to terrify Kjartan. Now Guthred had to talk him into surrender, and then, I dared hope, the great fort on its rock would become mine, and Gisela with it, and I dared hope those things because Guthred was my friend. I saw my future as golden as Guthred’s. I saw the bloodfeud won, I saw my men raiding Bebbanburg’s land to weaken my uncle, and I saw Ragnar returning to Northumbria to fight at my side. In short I forgot the gods and spun my own bright fate, while at the root of life the three spinners laughed.
Thirty horsemen rode back to Dunholm in midmorning. Clapa went ahead of us with a leafy branch to show we came in peace. We were all in mail, though I had left my good helmet with Sihtric. I had thought of dressing as the dead swordsman, but he had done his sorcery and now we would discover if it had worked.
We came to the place where I had stood and watched the two men kick the seven heads off the path and there we waited. Clapa waved the branch energetically and Guthred fidgeted as he watched the gate. “How long will it take us to reach Gyruum tomorrow?” he asked.
“Gyruum?” I asked.
“I thought we’d ride there tomorrow,” he said, “and burn the slave pens. We can take hawks. Go hunting.”
“If we leave at dawn,” Ivarr answered, “we’ll be there by noon.”
I looked to the west where there were ominous dark clouds. “There’s bad weather coming,” I said.
Ivarr slapped at a horsefly on his stallion’s neck, then frowned at the high gate. “Bastard doesn’t want to speak to us.”
“I’d like to go tomorrow,” Guthred said mildly.
“There’s nothing there,” I said.
“Kjartan’s slave pens are there,” Guthred said, “and you told me we have to destroy them. Besides, I have a mind to see the old monastery. I hear it was a great building.”
“Then go when the bad weather’s passed,” I suggested.
Guthred said nothing because, in response to Clapa’s waving branch, a horn had suddenly sounded from the high gate. We fell silent as the gates were pushed open and a score of men rode toward us.
Kjartan led them, mounted on a tall, brindled horse. He was a big man, wide-faced, with a huge beard and small suspicious eyes, and he carried a great war ax as though it weighed nothing. He wore a helmet on which a pair of raven wings had been fixed and had a dirty white cloak hanging from his broad shoulders. He stopped a few paces away and for a time he said nothing, but just stared at us, and I tried to find some fear in his eyes, but he just looked belligerent, though when he broke the silence his voice was subdued. “Lord Ivarr,” he said, “I am sorry you did not kill Aed.”
“I lived,” Ivarr said drily.
“I am glad of it,” Kjartan said, then he gave me a long look. I was standing apart from the others, off to one side of the path and slightly above them where the track rose to the tree-covered knob before dropping to the neck. Kjartan must have recognized me, known I was Ragnar’s adopted son who had cost his own son an eye, but he decided to ignore me, looking back to Ivarr. “What you needed to defeat Aed,” he said, “was a sorcerer.”
“A sorcerer?” Ivarr sounded amused.
“Aed fears the old magic,” Kjartan said. “He would never fight against a man who could take heads by sorcery.”
Ivarr said nothing. Instead he just turned and stared at me, and thus he betrayed the dead swordsman and reassured Kjartan that he did not face sorcery, but an old enemy, and I saw the relief on Kjartan’s face. He laughed suddenly, a brief bark of scorn, but he still ignored me. He turned on Guthred instead. “Who are you?” he demanded.
“I am your king,” Guthred said.
Kjartan laughed again. He was relaxed now, certain that he faced no dark magic. “This is Dunholm, pup,” he said, “and we have no king.”
“Yet here I am,” Guthred said, unmoved by the insult, “and here I stay until your bones have bleached in Dunholm’s sun.”
Kjartan was amused at that. “You think you can starve me out? You and your priests? You think I’ll die of hunger because you’re here? Listen, pup. There are fish in the river and birds in the sky and Dunholm will not starve. You can wait here till chaos shrouds the world and I’ll be better fed than you. Why didn’t you tell him that, Lord Ivarr?” Ivarr just shrugged as though Guthred’s ambitions were no concern of his. “So,” Kjartan rested the ax on his shoulder as if to suggest it would not be needed, “what are you here to offer me, pup?”
“You can take your men to Gyruum,” Guthred said, “and we shall provide ships and you can sail away. Your folk can go with you, except those who wish to stay in Northumbria.”
“You play at being a king, boy,” Kjartan said, then looked at Ivarr again. “And you’re allied to him?”
“I am allied to him,” Ivarr said tonelessly.
Kjartan looked back to Guthred. “I like it here, pup. I like Dunholm. I ask for nothing more than to be left in peace. I don’t want your throne, I don’t want your land, though I might want your woman if you have one and if she’s pretty enough. So I shall make you an offer. You leave me in peace and I shall forget that you exist.”
“You disturb my peace,” Guthred said.
“I’ll shit all over your peace, pup, if you don’t leave here,” Kjartan snarled, and there was a force in his voice that startled Guthred.
“So you refuse my offer?” Guthred asked. He had lost this confrontation and knew it.
Kjartan shook his head as if he found the world a sadder place than he had expected. “You call that a king?” he demanded of Ivarr. “If you need a king, find a man.”
“I hear this king was man enough to piss all over your son,” I spoke for the first time, “and I hear Sven crawled away weeping. You bred a coward, Kjartan.”
Kjartan pointed the ax at me. “I have business with you,” he said, “but this is not the day to make you scream like a woman. But that day will come.” He spat at me, then wrenched his horse’s head about and spurred back toward the high gate without another word. His men followed.
Guthred watched him go. I stared at Ivarr, who had deliberately betrayed the sorcery, and I guessed that he had been told I was to hold Dunholm if it fell and so he had made certain it did not fall. He glanced at me, said something to his son, and they both laughed.
“In two days,” Guthred spoke to me, “you start work on the wall. I’ll give you two hundred men to make it.”
“Why not start tomorrow?” I asked.
“Because we’re going to Gyruum, that’s why. We’re going to hunt!”
I shrugged. Kings have whims and this king wanted to hunt.
We rode back to Cuncacester where we discovered that J?nberht and Ida, the two monks, had returned from their search for more of Ivarr’s survivors. “Did you find anyone?” I asked them as we dismounted.
J?nberht just stared at me, as if the question puzzled him, then Ida shook his head hurriedly. “We found no one,” he said.
“So you wasted your time,” I said.
J?nberht smirked at that, or perhaps it was just his twisted mouth that made me think he smirked, then both men were summoned to tell Guthred of their journey and I went to Hild and asked her if Christians pronounced curses, and if they did then she was to make a score of curses against Ivarr. “Put your devil onto him,” I said.
That night Guthred tried to restore our spirits by giving a feast. He had taken a farm in the valley below the hill where Abbot Eadred was laying out his church, and he invited all the men who had confronted Kjartan that morning and served us seethed mutton and fresh trout, ale, and good bread. A harpist played after the meal and then I told the tale of Alfred going into Cippanhamm disguised as a harpist. I made them laugh when I described how a Dane had thumped him because he was such a bad musician.
Abbot Eadred was another of the guests and, when Ivarr left, the abbot offered to say evening prayers. The Christians gathered at one side of the fire, and that left Gisela with me beside the farm’s door. She had a lambskin
