“He’d welcome me?” He sounded wary.
“He would.”
“Though I’m a Dane?”
“Because you’re a Christian,” I said.
He thought about that, then rode on to where the path twisted through a marsh and crossed a small shallow stream where two ceorls were setting eel traps. They knelt as we passed and Guthred acknowledged them with a smile which neither of them saw because their heads were bowed so low. Four men were wading ashore from the moored ship and none of them had weapons and I supposed they were merely coming to greet us and assure us that they meant no harm. “Tell me,” Guthred said suddenly, “is Alfred different because he’s a Christian?”
“Yes,” I said.
“In what way?”
“He’s determined to be good, lord,” I said.
“Our religion,” he said, momentarily forgetting that he had been baptized, “doesn’t do that, does it?”
“It doesn’t?”
“Odin and Thor want us to be brave,” he said, “and they want us to respect them, but they don’t make us good.”
“No,” I agreed.
“So Christianity is different,” he insisted, then curbed his horse where the path ended in a low ridge of sand and shingle. The four men waited a hundred paces away at the shingle’s far end. “Give me your sword,” Guthred said suddenly.
“My sword?”
He smiled patiently. “Those sailors are not armed, Uhtred, and I want you to go and talk to them, so give me your sword.”
I was only armed with Serpent-Breath. “I hate being unarmed, lord,” I said in mild protest.
“It is a courtesy, Uhtred,” Guthred insisted, and held out his hand.
I did not move. No courtesy I had ever heard of suggested that a lord should take off his sword before talking to common seamen. I stared at Guthred and behind me I heard blades hissing from scabbards.
“Give me the sword,” Guthred said, “then walk to the men. I’ll hold your horse.”
I remember looking around me and seeing the marsh behind and the shingle ridge in front and I was thinking that I only had to dig my spurs in and I could gallop away, but Guthred reached over and gripped my reins. “Greet them for me,” he said in a forced voice.
I could still have galloped away, tearing the reins from his hand, but then Ivarr and his son crowded me. Both men had drawn swords and Ivarr’s stallion blocked Witnere who snapped in irritation. I calmed the horse. “What have you done, lord?” I asked Guthred.
For a heartbeat he did not speak. Indeed he seemed incapable of looking at me, but then he made himself answer. “You told me,” he said, “that Alfred would do whatever is necessary to preserve his kingdom. That is what I’m doing.”
“And what is that?”
He had the grace to look embarrassed. “?lfric of Bebbanburg is bringing troops to help capture Dunholm,” he said. I just stared at him. “He is coming,” Guthred went on, “to give me an oath of loyalty.”
“I gave you that oath,” I said bitterly.
“And I promised I would free you from it,” he said, “which now I do.”
“So you’re giving me to my uncle?” I asked.
He shook his head. “Your uncle’s price was your life, but I refused it. You are to go away, Uhtred. That is all. You are to go far away. And in exchange for your exile I gain an ally with many warriors. You were right. I need warriors. ?lfric of Bebbanburg can provide them.”
“And why must an exile go unarmed?” I asked, touching Serpent-Breath’s hilt.
“Give me the sword,” Guthred said. Two of Ivarr’s men were behind me, also with drawn swords.
“Why must I go unarmed?” I asked again.
Guthred glanced at the ship, then back to me. He forced himself to say what needed to be said. “You will go unarmed,” he told me, “because what I was, you must be. That is the price of Dunholm.”
For a heartbeat I could neither breathe nor speak and it took me a moment to convince myself that he meant what I knew he meant. “You’re selling me into slavery?” I asked.
“On the contrary,” he said, “I paid to have you enslaved. So go with God, Uhtred.”
I hated Guthred then, though a small part of me recognized that he was being ruthless and that is part of kingship. I could provide him with two swords, nothing more, but my uncle ?lfric could bring him three hundred swords and spears, and Guthred had made his choice. It was, I suppose, the right choice and I was stupid not to have seen it coming.
“Go,” Guthred said more harshly and I vowed revenge and rammed my heels back and Witnere lunged forward, but was immediately knocked off balance by Ivarr’s horse so that he stumbled onto his foreknees and I was pitched onto his neck. “Don’t kill him!” Guthred shouted, and Ivarr’s son slapped the flat of his sword-blade against my head so that I fell off and, by the time I had regained my feet, Witnere was safe in Ivarr’s grasp and Ivarr’s men were above me with their sword-blades at my neck.
Guthred had not moved. He just watched me, but behind him with a smile on his crooked face, was J?nberht and I understood then. “Did that bastard arrange this?” I asked Guthred.
“Brother J?nberht and Brother Ida are from your uncle’s household,” Guthred admitted.
I knew then what a fool I had been. The two monks had come to Cair Ligualid and ever since they had been negotiating my fate and I had been oblivious of it.
I dusted off my leather jerkin. “Grant me a favor, lord?” I said.
“If I can.”
“Give my sword and my horse to Hild. Give her everything of mine and tell her to keep them for me.”
He paused. “You will not be coming back, Uhtred,” he said gently.
“Grant me that favor, lord,” I insisted.
“I shall do all that,” Guthred promised, “but give me the sword first.”
I unbuckled Serpent-Breath. I thought of drawing her and laying about me with her good blade, but I would have died in an eyeblink and so I kissed her hilt and then handed her up to Guthred. Then I slid off my arm rings, those marks of a warrior, and I held those to him. “Give these to Hild,” I asked him.
“I will,” he said, taking the rings, then he looked at the four men who waited for me. “Earl Ulf found these men,” Guthred said, nodding at the waiting slavers, “and they do not know who you are, only that they are to take you away.” That anonymity was a gift, of sorts. If the slavers had known how badly ?lfric wanted me, or how much Kjartan the Cruel would pay for my eyes, then I would not have lived a week. “Now go,” Guthred commanded me.
“You could have just sent me away,” I told him bitterly.
“Your uncle has a price,” Guthred said, “and this is it. He wanted your death, but accepted this instead.”
I looked beyond him to where the black clouds heaped in the west like mountains. They were much closer and darker, and a freshening wind was chilling the air. “You must go too, lord,” I said, “for a storm is coming.”
He said nothing and I walked away. Fate is inexorable. At the root of life’s tree the three spinners had decided that the thread of gold that made my life fortunate had come to its end. I remember my boots crunching on the shingle and remember the white gulls flying free.
I had been wrong about the four men. They were armed, not with swords or spears, but with short cudgels. They watched me approach as Guthred and Ivarr watched me walk away, and I knew what was to happen and I did not try to resist. I walked to the four men and one of them stepped forward and struck me in the belly to drive all the breath from my body, and another hit me on the side of the head so that I fell onto the shingle and then I was hit again and knew nothing more. I was a lord of Northumbria, a sword-warrior, the man who had killed Ubba Lothbrokson beside the sea and who had brought down Svein of the White Horse, and now I was a slave.
PART TWO
THE RED SHIP
