“We need crewmen,” I explained. We had captured twenty-one ships when we took Lundene, of which seventeen were fighting boats. The others were wider beamed, built for trading, but they could be useful too. “I have the ships,” I went on, “but they need crews, and those crews have to be good fighters.”
“You defend the city with ships?” Erkenwald asked defiantly.
“And where will your money come from?” I asked him. “From customs dues. But no trader dare sail here, so I have to clear the estuary of enemy ships. That means killing the pirates, and for that I need crews of fighting men. I can use my household troops, but they have to be replaced in the city’s garrison by other men.”
“I need ships,” ?thelred suddenly intervened.
?thelred needed ships? I was so astonished that I said nothing. My cousin’s job was to defend southern Mercia and push the Danes northward from the rest of his country, and that would mean fighting on land. Now, suddenly, he needed ships? What did he plan? To row across pastureland?
“I would suggest, lord King,” ?thelred was smiling as he spoke, his voice smooth and respectful, “that all the ships west of the bridge be given to me, for use in your service,” and he bowed to Alfred when he said that, “and my cousin be given the ships east of the bridge.”
“That…” I began, but was cut off by Alfred.
“That is fair,” the king said firmly. It was not fair, it was ridiculous. There were only two fighting ships in the stretch of river east of the bridge, and fifteen upstream of the obstruction. The presence of those fifteen ships suggested that Sigefrid had been planning a major raid on Alfred’s territory before we struck him, and I needed those ships to scour the estuary clear of enemies. But Alfred, eager to be seen supporting his son-in-law, swept my objections aside. “You will use what ships you have, Lord Uhtred,” he insisted, “and I will put seventy of my household guard under your command to crew one ship.”
So I was to drive the Danes from the estuary with two ships? I gave up, and leaned against the wall as the discussion droned on, mostly about the level of customs to be charged, and how much the neighboring shires were to be taxed, and I wondered yet again why I was not in the north where a man’s sword was free and there was small law and much laughter.
Bishop Erkenwald cornered me when the meeting was over. I was strapping on my sword belt when he peered up at me with his beady eyes. “You should know,” he greeted me, “that I opposed your appointment.”
“As I would have opposed yours,” I said bitterly, still angry at ?thelred’s theft of the fifteen warships.
“God may not look with blessing on a pagan warrior,” the newly appointed bishop explained himself, “but the king, in his wisdom, considers you a soldier of ability.”
“And Alfred’s wisdom is famous,” I said blandly.
“I have spoken with the Lord ?thelred,” he went on, ignoring my words, “and he has agreed that I can issue writs of assembly for Lundene’s adjacent counties. You have no objection?”
Erkenwald meant that he now had the power to raise the fyrd. It was a power that might better have been given me, but I doubted ?thelred would have agreed to that. Nor did I think that Erkenwald, nasty man though he was, would be anything but loyal to Alfred. “I have no objection,” I said.
“Then I shall inform Lord ?thelred of your agreement,” he said formally.
“And when you speak with him,” I said, “tell him to stop hitting his wife.”
Erkenwald jerked as though I had just struck him in the face. “It is his Christian duty,” he said stiffly, “to discipline his wife, and it is her duty to submit. Did you not listen to what I preached?”
“To every word,” I said.
“She brought it on herself,” Erkenwald snarled. “She has a fiery spirit, she defies him!”
“She’s little more than a child,” I said, “and a pregnant child at that.”
“And foolishness is deep in the heart of a child,” Erkenwald responded, “and those are the words of God! And what does God say should be done about the foolishness of a child? That the rod of correction shall beat it far away!” He shuddered suddenly. “That is what you do, Lord Uhtred! You beat a child into obedience! A child learns by suffering pain, by being beaten, and that pregnant child must learn her duty. God wills it! Praise God!”
I heard only last week that they want to make Erkenwald into a saint. Priests come to my home beside the northern sea where they find an old man, and they tell me I am just a few paces from the fires of hell. I only need repent, they say, and I will go to heaven and live for evermore in the blessed company of the saints.
And I would rather burn till time itself burns out.
SEVEN
Water dripped from oar-blades, the drips spreading ripples in a sea that was shining slabs of light that slowly shifted and parted, joined and slid.
Our ship was poised on that shifting light, silent.
The sky to the east was molten gold pouring around a bank of sun-drenched cloud, while the rest was blue. Pale blue to the east and dark blue to the west where night fled toward the unknown lands beyond the distant ocean.
To the south I could see the low shore of Wessex. It was green and brown, treeless and not that far away, though I would go no closer for the light-sliding sea concealed mudbanks and shoals. Our oars were resting and the wind was dead, but we moved relentlessly eastward, carried by the tide and by the river’s strong flow. This was the estuary of the Temes; a wide place of water, mud, sand, and terror.
Our ship had no name and she carried no beast-heads on her prow or stern. She was a trading ship, one of the two I had captured in Lundene, and she was wide-beamed, sluggish, big-bellied, and clumsy. She carried a sail, but the sail was furled on the yard, and the yard was in its crutches. We drifted on the tide toward the golden dawn.
I stood with the steering-oar in my right hand. I wore mail, but no helmet. My two swords were strapped to my waist, but they, like my mail coat, were hidden beneath a dirty brown woolen cloak. There were twelve rowers on the benches, Sihtric was beside me, one man was on the bow platform and all those men, like me, showed neither armor nor weapons.
We looked like a trading ship drifting along the Wessex shore in hope that no one on the northern side of the estuary would see us.
But they had seen us.
And a sea-wolf was stalking us.
She was rowing to our north, slanting south and eastward, waiting for us to turn and try to escape upriver against the tide. She was perhaps a mile away and I could see the short black upright line of her stemhead, which ended in a beast’s head. She was in no hurry. Her shipmaster could see we were not rowing and he would take that inactivity as a sign of panic. He would think we were discussing what to do. His own oar banks were dipping slow, but every stroke surged that distant boat forward to cut off our seaward escape.
Finan, who was manning one of the stern oars of our ship, glanced over his shoulder. “Crew of fifty?” he suggested.
“Maybe more,” I said.
He grinned. “How many more?”
“Could be seventy?” I guessed.
We numbered forty-three, and all but fifteen of us were hidden in the place where the ship would normally have carried goods. Those hidden men were covered by an old sail, making it look as though we carried salt or grain, some cargo that needed to be protected from any rain or spray. “Be a rare fight if it’s seventy,” Finan said with relish.
“Won’t be any fight at all,” I said, “because they won’t be ready for us,” and that was true. We looked like an easy victim, a handful of men on a tubby ship, and the sea-wolf would come alongside and a dozen men would leap aboard while the rest of the crew just watched the slaughter. That, at least, was what I hoped. The watching crew would be armed, of course, but they would not be expecting battle, and my men were more than ready.
“Remember,” I called loudly so the men beneath the sail would hear me, “we kill them all!”
“Even women?” Finan asked.
“Not women,” I said. I doubted there would be women aboard the far ship.
Sihtric was crouching beside me and now squinted up. “Why kill them all, lord?”
“So they learn to fear us,” I said.
The gold in the sky was brightening and fading. The sun was above the cloud bank and the sea shimmered
