was like the splintering wet noise of a butcher’s ax striking meat. There was blood pouring from Steapa’s nose now, but he seemed oblivious to it. He traded blows, driving his fists at Weland’s ribs and head, then straightened his fingers and jabbed hard at the Dane’s eyes. Weland managed to avoid the gouging thrust and landed a knuckle- crunching blow on Steapa’s throat so that the Saxon staggered back, suddenly unable to breathe.
“Oh, my God, my God,” Willibald whispered, making the sign of the cross.
Weland followed fast, punching, then using his heavy arm rings to clout Steapa’s skull so that the metal ornaments raked across the Saxon’s scalp. More blood showed. Steapa was reeling, staggering, gasping, choking, and suddenly he dropped to his knees and the watching crowd gave a great jeer at his weakness. Weland drew back a mighty fist, but, before the blow was even launched, Steapa threw himself forward and seized the Dane’s left ankle. He pulled and twisted, and Weland went down like a felled oak. He crashed onto the turf and Steapa, snarling and bleeding, threw himself on top of his enemy and started punching again.
“They’ll kill each other,” Father Willibald said in a frightened voice.
“Sigefrid won’t allow his champion to die,” I said, though having said it I wondered if that was true. I turned to look at Sigefrid and found that he was watching me. He gave me a sly smile, then looked back to the fighters. This was his game, I thought. The outcome of the battle would make no difference to the discussions. Nothing, except perhaps Father Willibald’s life, depended on the savage display. It was just a game.
Weland managed to turn Steapa so they lay side by side on the grass. They exchanged ineffective blows and then, as if by mutual consent, rolled away from each other and stood again. There was a pause as both men drew breath, then they crashed together a second time. Steapa’s face was a pulp of blood, Weland’s bottom lip and left ear were bleeding, one eye was almost closed and his ribs had taken a pounding. For a moment the two men grappled, seeking holds, feet shifting, grunting, then Weland managed to grasp Steapa’s trews and threw him so that the big Saxon turned on the Dane’s left hip and thumped down to the turf. Weland raised his foot to stamp Steapa’s groin, and Steapa seized the foot and twisted.
Weland yelped. It was an odd, small sound from such a big man, and the damage being done to him seemed trivial after the hammering he had already taken, but Steapa had at last remembered that Wayland the Smith had been lamed by Nidung, and his twisting of the Dane’s foot was aggravating an ancient injury. Weland tried to pull away, but lost his balance and fell again, and Steapa, breathing thick and spitting blood, crawled toward him and began hitting again. He was hitting blindly, his hammer fists thumping on arms, chest, and head. Weland responded by trying to gouge out Steapa’s eyes, but the Saxon snapped at the groping hand with his teeth and I distinctly heard the crunch as he bit off Weland’s small finger. Weland twitched away, Steapa spat the finger out and dropped his huge hands onto the Dane’s neck. He started to squeeze and Weland, choking for breath, began to jerk and flap like a banked trout.
“Enough!” Erik called.
No one moved. Weland’s eyes were widening while Steapa, blood blinded and teeth bared, had his hands around the Dane’s neck. Steapa was making mewing noises, then grunting as he tried to drive his fingers into the Dane’s gullet.
“Enough!” Sigefrid roared.
Steapa’s blood dripped onto Weland’s face as the Saxon throttled the Dane. I could hear Steapa growling and knew he would never stop until the huge man was dead and so I pushed past one of the horizontal spears that held the spectators back. “Stop!” I shouted at Steapa, and when he ignored me I drew Wasp-Sting and slapped the flat of her short blade hard across his bloodied skull. “Stop!” I shouted again.
He snarled at me and I thought, for an instant, he was going to attack me, but then sense came to his half- closed eyes and he let go of Weland’s neck and stared up at me. “I won,” he said angrily. “Tell me I won!”
“Oh, you won,” I said.
Steapa got to his feet. He stood unsteadily, then he braced himself on spread legs and punched both arms into the summer air. “I won!” he shouted.
Weland was still gasping for breath. He tried to stand, but fell back again.
I turned to Sigefrid. “The Saxon won,” I said, “and the priest lives.”
“The priest lives,” it was Erik who answered. Haesten was grinning, Sigefrid looked amused, and Weland was making a grating noise as he tried to breathe.
“Then make your offer,” Sigefrid said to me, “for Alfred’s bitch.”
And the haggling could begin.
TEN
“Steapa needs help,” I said.
“A woman will mop his blood,” Haesten said carelessly, then laughed suddenly. “So you discovered Bjorn was an illusion?”
“A good one,” I acknowledged grudgingly.
“He’s dead now,” Haesten said, with as much feeling as if he spoke of a hound that had died. “He caught a fever about two weeks after you saw him. And now he can’t come from his grave anymore, the bastard!” Haesten wore a gold chain now, a rope of thick links that hung heavy on his broad chest. I remembered him as a young man, he had been scarce more than a boy when I had rescued him, but now I saw the adult in Haesten and I did not like what I saw. His eyes were friendly enough, but they had a guarded quality as if, behind them, was a soul ready to strike like a snake. He punched my arm familiarly. “You know this royal Saxon bitch is going to cost you a lot of silver?”
“If Alfred decides he wants her back,” I said airily, “then I suppose he might pay something.”
Haesten laughed at that. “And if he doesn’t want her back? We’ll take her around Britain, around Frankia and back to our homeland, and we’ll strip her naked and strap her to a frame with her legs open, and let everyone come and see the King of Wessex’s daughter. You want that for her, Lord Uhtred?”
“You want me for an enemy, Earl Haesten?” I asked.
“I think we’re enemies already,” Haesten said, for once allowing the truth to show, but he immediately smiled as if to prove he was not serious. “Folk will pay good silver to see the daughter of the King of Wessex, don’t you think? And men will pay gold to enjoy her.” He laughed. “I think your Alfred will want to prevent that humiliation.”
He was right, of course, though I dared not acknowledge it. “Has she been harmed?” I asked.
“Erik won’t let us near her!” Haesten said, evidently amused. “No, she’s unscratched. If you’re selling a sow you don’t beat her with a holly stick, do you?”
“True,” I said. Beating a pig with a stick made from a branch of holly left bruises so deep that the beast’s compacted flesh could never be properly salt-cured. Haesten’s entourage waited nearby and among them I recognized Eilaf the Red, the man whose hall had been used to show me Bjorn, and he gave me a small bow. I ignored the courtesy.
“We’d best go in,” Haesten said, gesturing toward Sigefrid’s hall, “and see how much gold we can squeeze out of Wessex.”
“I must see Steapa first,” I said, though by the time I found Steapa he was surrounded by Saxon women slaves, who were using a lanolin salve on his cuts and bruises. He did not need me and so I followed Haesten into the hall.
A ring of stools and benches had been placed around the hall’s central hearth. Willibald and I were given two of the lowest stools, while Sigefrid glared at us from his chair on the far side of the empty hearth. Haesten and Erik took their places on either side of the cripple, then other men, all of them with lavish arm rings, filled the circle. These, I knew, were the more important Northmen, the ones who had brought two or more ships, and the men who, if Sigefrid succeeded in conquering Wessex, would be rewarded with rich grants of land. Their followers crowded at the hall’s edges where women distributed horns of ale. “Make your offer,” Sigefrid commanded me abruptly.
“She is a daughter, not a son,” I said, “so Alfred is not minded to pay a great sum. Three hundred pounds of
