in Mercia, for Ragnar’s presence ensured that we were welcome in Danish halls. There was still a Saxon king in northern Mercia, Ceolwulf was his name, but we did not meet him and it was plain that the real power lay with the great Danish lords. We crossed the border into Northumbria under a pelting rainstorm and it was still raining as we rode into Eoferwic.
And there I learned that Gisela was married. Not only married, but gone from Eoferwic with her brother. “I solemnized the marriage,” Wulfhere, the archbishop, told us. He was spooning barley soup into his mouth and long dribbles hung in glutinous loops in his white beard. “The silly girl wept all through the ceremony, and she wouldn’t take the mass, but it makes no difference. She’s still married.”
I was horrified. Five days, that was all. Fate is inexorable. “I thought she’d gone to a nunnery,” I said, as if that made any difference.
“She lived in a nunnery,” Wulfhere said, “but putting a cat into a stable doesn’t make it a horse, does it? She was hiding herself away! It was a waste of a perfectly good womb! She’s been spoiled, that’s her trouble. Allowed to live in a nunnery where she never said a prayer. She needed the strap, that one. A good thrashing, that’s what I’d have given her. Still, she’s not in the nunnery now. Guthred pulled her out and married her off.”
“To whom?” Beocca asked.
“Lord ?lfric, of course.”
“?lfric came to Eoferwic?” I asked, astonished, for my uncle was as reluctant to leave Bebbanburg as Kjartan was to quit the safety of Dunholm.
“He didn’t come,” Wulfhere said. “He sent a score of men and one of those stood in for Lord ?lfric. It was a proxy wedding. Quite legal.”
“It is,” Beocca said.
“So where is she?” I asked.
“Gone north,” Wulfhere waved his horn spoon. “They’ve all gone. Her brother’s taken her to Bebbanburg. Abbot Eadred’s with them, and he’s taken Saint Cuthbert’s corpse, of course. And that awful man Hrothweard went as well. Can’t stand Hrothweard. He was the idiot who persuaded Guthred to impose the tithe on the Danes. I told Guthred it was foolishness, but Hrothweard claimed to have got his orders directly from Saint Cuthbert, so nothing I could say had the slightest effect. Now the Danes are probably gathering their forces, so it’s going to be war.”
“War?” I asked. “Has Guthred declared war on the Danes?” It sounded unlikely.
“Of course not! But they’ve got to stop him.” Wulfhere used the sleeve of his robe to mop up his beard.
“Stop him from doing what?” Ragnar asked.
“Reaching Bebbanburg, of course, what else? The day Guthred delivers his sister and Saint Cuthbert to Bebbanburg is the day ?lfric gives him two hundred spearmen. But the Danes aren’t going to stand for that! They more or less put up with Guthred, but only because he’s too weak to order them about, but if he gets a couple of hundred prime spearmen from ?lfric, the Danes will squash him like a louse. I should think Ivarr is already gathering troops to stop the nonsense.”
“They’ve taken the blessed Saint Cuthbert with them?” Beocca asked.
The archbishop frowned at Beocca. “You’re an odd ambassador,” he said.
“Odd, lord?”
“Can’t look straight, can you? Alfred must be hard up for men if he sends an ugly thing like you. There used to be a priest in Bebbanburg with a squint. That was years ago, back in old Lord Uhtred’s day.”
“That was me,” Beocca said eagerly.
“Don’t be a fool, of course it wasn’t. The fellow I’m talking about was young and red-haired. Take all the chairs, you brainless idiot!” he turned on a servant, “all six of them. And bring me more bread.” Wulfhere was planning to escape before war broke out between Guthred and the Danes and his courtyard was busy with wagons, oxen, and packhorses because the treasures of his big church were being packed up so they could be taken to someplace that offered safety. “King Guthred took Saint Cuthbert,” the archbishop said, “because that’s ?lfric’s price. He wants the corpse as well as the womb. I just hope he remembers which one to poke.”
My uncle, I realized, was making his bid for power. Guthred was weak, but he did possess the great treasure of Cuthbert’s corpse and if ?lfric could gain possession of the saint then he would become the guardian of all Northumbria’s Christians. He would also make a small fortune from the pennies of pilgrims. “What he’s doing,” I said, “is remaking Bernicia. He’ll call himself king before too long.”
Wulfhere looked at me as though I was not a complete fool. “You’re right,” he said, “and his two hundred spearmen will stay with Guthred for a month, that’s all. Then they’ll go home and the Danes will roast Guthred over a fire. I warned him! I told him a dead saint was worth more than two hundred spearmen, but he’s desperate. And if you want to see him, you’d best go north.” Wulfhere had received us because we were Alfred’s ambassadors, but he had offered us neither food nor shelter and he plainly wanted to see the back of us as soon as decently possible. “Go north,” he reiterated, “and you might find the silly man alive.”
We went back to the tavern where Steapa and Brida waited and I cursed the three spinners who had let me come so close, and then denied me. Gisela had been gone four days, which was more than enough time to reach Bebbanburg, and her brother’s desperate bid for ?lfric’s support had probably stirred the Danes to revolt. Not that I cared about the anger of the Danes. I was only thinking of Gisela.
“We have to go north,” Beocca said, “and find the king.”
“You step inside Bebbanburg,” I told him, “and ?lfric will kill you.” Beocca, when he fled Bebbanburg, had taken all the parchments that proved I was the rightful lord, and ?lfric knew and resented that.
“?lfric won’t kill a priest,” Beocca said, “not if he cares for his soul. And I’m an ambassador! He can’t kill an ambassador.”
“So long as he’s safe inside Bebbanburg,” Ragnar put in, “he can do whatever he likes.”
“Maybe Guthred didn’t reach Bebbanburg,” Steapa said, and I was so surprised that he had spoken at all that I did not really pay attention. Nor, it seemed, did anyone else, for none of us responded. “If they don’t want the girl married,” Steapa went on, “they’ll stop him.”
“They?” Ragnar asked.
“The Danes, lord,” Steapa said.
“And Guthred will be traveling slowly,” Brida added.
“He will?” I asked.
“You said he’s taken Cuthbert’s corpse with him.”
Hope stirred in me. Steapa and Brida were right. Guthred might be intent on reaching Bebbanburg, but he could travel no faster than the corpse could be carried, and the Danes would want to stop him. “He could be dead by now,” I said.
“Only one way to find out,” Ragnar said.
We rode next dawn, taking the Roman road north, and we rode as fast we could. So far we had coddled Alfred’s horses, but now we drove them hard, though we were still slowed by Beocca. Then, as the morning wore on, the rains came again. Gentle at first, but soon hard enough to make the ground treacherous. The wind rose, and it was in our faces. Thunder sounded far off and the rain fell with a new intensity and we were all spattered by mud, we were all cold and all soaked. The trees thrashed, shedding their last leaves into the bitter wind. It was a day to be inside a hall, beside a vast fire.
We found the first bodies beside the road. They were two men who lay naked with their wounds washed bloodless by the rain. One of the dead men had a broken sickle beside him. Another three corpses were a half-mile to the north, and two of them had wooden crosses about their necks which meant they were Saxons. Beocca made the sign of the cross over their bodies. Lightning whipped the hills to the west, then Ragnar pointed ahead and I saw, through the hammering rain, a settlement beside the road. There were a few low houses, what might have been a church, and a high-ridged hall within a wooden palisade.
There was a score of horses tied to the hall’s palisade and, as we appeared from the storm, a dozen men ran from the gate with swords and spears. They mounted and galloped down the road toward us, but slowed when they saw the arm rings Ragnar and I wore. “Are you Danes?” Ragnar shouted.
“We’re Danes!” They lowered their swords and turned their horses to escort us. “Have you seen any Saxons?” one of them asked Ragnar.
“Only dead ones.”
We stabled the horses in one of the houses, pulling down part of the roof to enlarge the door so the horses could be taken inside. There was a Saxon family there and they shrank from us. The woman whimpered and held
