“You lying turd,” he said. He had a merchant’s instinct for profit and so he ordered me released from the other oarsmen though he made sure my ankles were still shackled and that I still wore the neck chain. Sverri took its end, meaning to lead me back to the monastery, but we got no farther than the shingle bank because Sven had also been having second thoughts. My face haunted his bad dreams and, in the twitching idiot visage of Osbert, he had seen his nightmares and now he was galloping toward us, followed by six horsemen.
“Kneel,” Sverri ordered me.
I knelt.
Sven’s horse skidded to a halt on the shingle bank. “Look at me,” he ordered a second time, and I looked up and spittle hung from my mouth into my beard. I twitched, and Sverri struck me hard. “Who is he?” Sven demanded.
“He told me his name was Osbert, lord,” Sverri said.
“He told you?”
“I was given him here, lord, in this place,” Sverri said, “and he told me he was called Osbert.”
Sven smiled then. He dismounted and walked to me, tipping my chin up so he could stare into my face. “You got him here?” he asked Sverri.
“King Guthred gave him to me, lord.”
Sven knew me then and his one-eyed face was contorted with a strange mix of triumph and hatred. He hit me across the skull, hit me so hard that my mind went dark for an instant and I fell to one side. “Uhtred!” he proclaimed triumphantly, “you’re Uhtred!”
“Lord!” Sverri was standing over me, protecting me. Not because he liked me, but because I represented a windfall profit.
“He’s mine,” Sven said, and his long sword whispered out of its fleece-lined scabbard.
“He’s mine to sell, lord, and yours to buy,” Sverri said humbly, but firmly.
“To take him,” Sven said, “I will kill you, Sverri, and all your men. So the price for this man is your life.”
Sverri knew he was beaten then. He bowed, released my neck chain and stepped back, and I seized the neck chain and whipped its loose end at Sven and it whistled close to him, driving him back, and then I ran. The leg shackles hobbled me and I had no choice but to run into the river. I stumbled through the small waves and turned, ready to use the chain as a weapon and I knew I was dead because Sven’s horsemen were coming for me and I backed deeper into the water. It was better to drown, I thought, than to suffer Sven’s tortures.
Then the horsemen stopped. Sven pushed past them and then he too checked and I was up to my chest in the river and the chain was awkward in my hand and I was readying to throw myself backward to black death in the river when Sven himself stepped away. Then he went back another pace, turned, and ran for his horse. There had been fear on his face and I risked turning to see what had frightened him.
And there, coming from the sea, driven by twin oar-banks and by the swiftly flooding tide, was the red ship.
SIX
The red ship was close and was coming fast. Her bows were crowned with a black- toothed dragon’s head and filled with armed men in mail and helmets. She came in a gale of noise; the splash of oar-blades, the shouts of her warriors and the seethe of white water around the great red breast of her high prow. I had to stagger to one side to avoid her, for she did not slow as she neared the beach, but kept coming, and the oars gave one last heave and the bows grated on the shore and the dragon’s head reared up and the great ship’s keel crashed up the beach in a thunder of scattering shingle. The dark hull loomed above me, then an oar-shaft struck me in the back, throwing me under the waves and when I managed to stagger upright I saw the ship had shuddered to a halt and a dozen mail-clad men had jumped from the prow with spears, swords, axes and shields. The first men onto the beach bellowed defiance as the rowers dropped their oars, plucked up weapons, and followed. This was no trading ship, but a Viking come to her kill.
Sven fled. He scrambled into his saddle and spurred across the marsh while his six men, much braver, rode their horses at the invading Vikings, but the beasts were axed down screaming and the unsaddled riders were butchered on the strand, their blood trickling to the small waves where I stood, mouth open, hardly believing what I saw. Sverri was on his knees with his hands spread wide to show he had no weapons.
The red ship’s master, glorious in a helmet crested with eagle wings, took his men to the marsh path and led them toward the monastery buildings. He left a half-dozen warriors on the beach and one of those was a huge man, tall as a tree and broad as a barrel, who carried a great war ax that was stained with blood. He dragged off his helmet and grinned at me. He said something, but I did not hear him. I was just staring in disbelief and he grinned wider.
It was Steapa.
Steapa Snotor. Steapa the Clever, that meant, which was a joke because he was not the brightest of men, but he was a great warrior who had once been my sworn enemy and had since become my friend. Now he grinned at me from the water’s edge and I did not understand why a West Saxon warrior was traveling in a Viking ship, and then I began to cry. I cried because I was free and because Steapa’s broad, scarred, baleful face was the most beautiful thing I had seen since I had last been on this beach.
I waded out of the water and I embraced him, and he patted my back awkwardly and he could not stop grinning because he was happy. “They did that to you?” he said, pointing at my leg shackles.
“I’ve worn them for more than two years,” I said.
“Put your legs apart, lord,” he said.
“Lord?” Sverri had heard Steapa and he understood that one Saxon word. He got up from his knees and took a faltering step toward us. “Is that what he called you?” he asked me, “lord?”
I just stared at Sverri and he went on his knees again. “Who are you?” he asked, frightened.
“You want me to kill him?” Steapa growled.
“Not yet,” I said.
“I kept you alive,” Sverri said, “I fed you.”
I pointed at him. “Be silent,” I said and he was.
“Put your legs apart, lord,” Steapa said again. “Stretch that chain for me.”
I did as he ordered. “Be careful,” I said.
“Be careful!” he mocked, then he swung the ax and the big blade whistled past my groin and crashed into the chain and my ankles were twitched inward by the massive blow so that I staggered. “Be still,” Steapa ordered me, and he swung again and this time the chain snapped. “You can walk now, lord,” Steapa said, and I could, though the links of broken chain dragged behind my ankles.
I walked to the dead men and selected two swords. “Free that man,” I told Steapa, pointing at Finan, and Steapa chopped through more chains and Finan ran to me, grinning, and we stared at each other, eyes bright with tears of joy, and then I held a sword to him. He looked at the blade for a moment as though he did not believe what he was seeing, then he gripped the hilt and bayed like a wolf at the darkening sky. Then he threw his arms around my neck. He was weeping. “You’re free,” I told him.
“And I am a warrior again,” he said. “I am Finan the Agile!”
“And I am Uhtred,” I said, using that name for the first time since I had last been on this beach. “My name is Uhtred,” I said again, but louder this time, “and I am the lord of Bebbanburg.” I turned on Sverri, my anger welling up. “I am Lord Uhtred,” I told him, “the man who killed Ubba Lothbrokson beside the sea and sent Svein of the White Horse to the corpse-hall. I am Uhtred.” I was in a red rage now. I stalked to Sverri and tipped his face up with the sword-blade. “I am Uhtred,” I said, “and you call me lord.”
“Yes, lord,” he said.
“And he is Finan of Ireland,” I said, “and you call him lord.”
Sverri looked at Finan, could not meet his gaze and lowered his eyes. “Lord,” he said to Finan.
I wanted to kill him, but I had a notion that Sverri’s usefulness on this earth was not quite finished and so I contented myself with taking Steapa’s knife and slitting open Sverri’s tunic to bare his arm. He was shaking, expecting his throat to be cut, but instead I carved the letter S into his flesh, then rubbed sand into the wound. “So tell me, slave,” I said, “how you undo these rivets?” I tapped my ankle chains with the knife.
“I need a blacksmith’s tools, lord,” Sverri said.
“If you want to live, Sverri, pray that we find them.”
