her hands toward us in mute prayer. “My daughter’s ill,” she said.
The girl lay in a dark corner, shivering. She did not look ill so much as terrified. “How old is she?” I asked.
“Eleven years, lord, I think,” the girl’s mother answered.
“She was raped?” I asked.
“By four men, lord,” she said.
“She’s safe now,” I said, and I gave them coins to pay for the damage to the roof and we left Alfred’s servants and Ragnar’s two men to guard the horses, then joined the Danes in the big hall where a fire burned fierce in the central hearth. The men about the flames made room for us, though they were confused that we traveled with a Christian priest. They looked at the bedraggled Beocca suspiciously, but Ragnar was so obviously a Dane that they said nothing, and his arm rings, like mine, indicated that he was a Dane of the highest rank. The men’s leader must have been impressed by Ragnar for he half bowed. “I am Hakon,” he said, “of Onhripum.”
“Ragnar Ragnarson,” Ragnar introduced himself. He introduced neither Steapa nor myself, though he did nod toward Brida. “And this is my woman.”
Hakon knew of Ragnar, which was not surprising for Ragnar’s name was famous in the hills to the west of Onhripum. “You were a hostage in Wessex, lord?” he asked.
“No longer,” Ragnar said shortly.
“Welcome home, lord,” Hakon said.
Ale was brought to us, and bread and cheese and apples. “The dead we saw on the road,” Ragnar asked, “that was your work?”
“Saxons, lord. We’re to stop them gathering.”
“You certainly stopped those men gathering,” Ragnar said, provoking a smile from Hakon. “Whose orders?” Ragnar asked.
“The Earl Ivarr, lord. He’s summoned us. And if we find Saxons with weapons we’re to kill them.”
Ragnar mischievously jerked his head at Steapa. “He’s a Saxon, he’s armed.”
Hakon and his men looked at the huge, baleful Steapa. “He’s with you, lord.”
“So why has Ivarr summoned you?” Ragnar demanded.
And so the story emerged, or as much as Hakon knew. Guthred had traveled this same road north, but Kjartan had sent men to block his path. “Guthred has no more than a hundred and fifty spearmen,” Hakon told us, “and Kjartan opposed him with two hundred or more. Guthred did not try to fight.”
“So where is Guthred?”
“He ran away, lord.”
“Where?” Ragnar asked sharply.
“We think west, lord, toward Cumbraland.”
“Kjartan didn’t follow?”
“Kjartan, lord, doesn’t go far from Dunholm. He fears ?lfric of Bebbanburg will attack Dunholm if he goes far away, so he stays close.”
“And you’re summoned where?” Ragnar demanded.
“We’re to meet the Lord Ivarr at Thresk,” Hakon said.
“Thresk?” Ragnar was puzzled. Thresk was a settlement beside a lake some miles to the east. Guthred, it appeared, had gone west, but Ivarr was raising his banner to the east. Then Ragnar understood. “Ivarr will attack Eoferwic?”
Hakon nodded. “Take Guthred’s home, lord,” he said, “and where can he go?”
“Bebbanburg?” I suggested.
“There are horsemen shadowing Guthred,” Hakon said, “and if he tries to go north Kjartan will march again.” He touched his sword’s hilt. “We shall finish the Saxons forever, lord. The Lord Ivarr will be glad of your return.”
“My family,” Ragnar said harshly, “does not fight alongside Kjartan.”
“Not even for plunder?” Hakon asked. “I hear Eoferwic is full of plunder.”
“It’s been plundered before,” I said, “how much can be left?”
“Enough,” Hakon said flatly.
Ivarr, I thought, had devised a clever strategy. Guthred, accompanied by too few spearmen and cumbered with priests, monks, and a dead saint, was wandering in the wild Northumbrian weather, and meanwhile his enemies would capture his palace and his city, and with them the city’s garrison that formed the heart of Guthred’s forces. Kjartan, meanwhile, was keeping Guthred from reaching the safety of Bebbanburg.
“Whose hall is this?” Ragnar asked.
“It belonged to a Saxon, lord,” Hakon said.
“Belonged?”
“He drew his sword,” Hakon explained, “so he and all his folk are dead. Except two daughters.” He jerked his head toward the back of the hall. “They’re in a cattle byre if you want them.”
More Danes arrived as evening fell. They were all going to Thresk and the hall was a good place to shelter from the weather that was now blowing a full storm. There was ale in the hall and inevitably men got drunk, but they were happily drunk because Guthred had made a terrible mistake. He had marched north with too few men in the belief that the Danes would not interfere with him, and now these Danes had the promise of an easy war and much plunder.
We took one of the sleeping platforms at the side of the hall for our own use. “What we have to do,” Ragnar said, “is go to Synningthwait.”
“At dawn,” I agreed.
“Why Synningthwait?” Beocca wanted to know.
“Because that’s where my men are,” Ragnar said, “and that’s what we need now. Men.”
“We need to find Guthred!” Beocca insisted.
“We need men to find him,” I said, “and we need swords.” Northumbria was falling into chaos and the best way to endure chaos was to be surrounded by swords and spears.
Three drunken Danes had watched us talking and they were intrigued, perhaps offended, that we included a Christian priest in our conversation. They crossed to the platform and demanded to know who Beocca was and why we were keeping him company.
“We’re keeping him,” I said, “in case we get hungry.” That satisfied them, and the joke was passed about the hall to more laughter.
The storm passed in the night. Thunder growled ever more faintly, and the intensity of the rain on the wind- tossed thatch slowly diminished so that by dawn there was only a light drizzle and water dripping from the moss- covered roof. We dressed in mail and helmets and, as Hakon and the other Danes went east toward Thresk, we rode west into the hills.
I was thinking of Gisela, lost somewhere in the hills and a victim of her brother’s desperation. Guthred must have thought that it was too late in the year for armies to assemble, and that he could slip past Dunholm to Bebbanburg without the Danes trying to oppose him. Now he was on the edge of losing everything. “If we find him,” Beocca asked me as we rode, “can we take him south to Alfred?”
“Take him south to Alfred?” I asked. “Why would we do that?”
“To keep him alive. If he’s a Christian then he’ll be welcome in Wessex.”
“Alfred wants him to be king here,” I said.
“It’s too late,” Beocca said gloomily.
“No,” I said, “it’s not too late.” Beocca stared at me as though I were mad, and perhaps I was, but in the chaos that darkened Northumbria there was one thing Ivarr had not thought of. He must have believed he had already won. His forces were assembling and Kjartan was driving Guthred into the wild center of the country where no army could survive for long in cold and wind and rain. But Ivarr had forgotten Ragnar. Ragnar had been away so long, yet he held a stretch of land in the hills and that land supported men, and those men were sworn to Ragnar’s service.
And so we rode to Synningthwait and I had a lump in my throat as we cantered into the valley for it had been near Synningthwait that I had lived as a child, where I had been raised by Ragnar’s father, where I had learned to fight, where I had been loved, where I had been happy, and where I had watched Kjartan burn Ragnar’s hall and
