The Burning Land

“Look at the size of you,” I said. I liked teasing him because of his small stature, though that was deceptive because he had a speed with the sword that was astonishing. “I hope their god damns their damn kingdom,” I spat, then went to a chest in the corner of the room. I opened it and felt inside, finding a bundle that I carried to Skade. I felt a pang as I touched the leather wrapping, for these things had belonged to Gisela. “Read those,” I said, tossing her the package.

She unwrapped the alder sticks. There were two dozen, none longer than a man’s forearm, and all polished with beeswax to a fine gleam. Finan made the sign of the cross as he saw this pagan magic, but I had learned to trust the runesticks. Skade held them in one hand, raised them slightly, closed her eyes, and let them fall. The sticks clattered on the floor and she leaned forward to deduce their message.

“She won’t see her own death there,” Finan warned me softly, implying I could not trust her interpretation.

“We all die,” Skade said, “and the sticks don’t talk of me.”

“What do they say?” I asked.

She stared at the pattern. “I see a stronghold,” she finally said, “and I see water. Gray water.”

“Gray?” I asked.

“Gray, lord,” she said, and that was the first time she called me “lord.” “Gray like the frost giants,” she added, and I knew she meant northward toward the ice-world where the frost giants stalk the world.

“And the fortress?” I asked.

“It burns, lord. It burns and it burns and it burns. The sand of the shore is black with its ashes.”

I motioned her to sweep up the runesticks, then walked onto the terrace. It was still the middle of the night and the sky was black with cloud and spiteful with small rain. I listened to the rush of water squeezing through the piles of the old bridge and I thought of Stiorra, my daughter.

“Gray?” Finan asked, joining me.

“It means north,” I said, “and Bebbanburg is in the north and a south wind will carry its ashes to the sands of Lindisfarena.”

“North,” Finan said quietly.

“Tell the men they have a choice,” I said. “They can stay and serve Alfred, or they can come with me. You have the same choice.”

“You know what I’ll do.”

“And I want Seolferwulf ready by dawn.”

Forty-three men came with me, the rest stayed in Lundene. Forty-three warriors, twenty-six wives, five whores, a huddle of children, and sixteen hounds. I wanted to take my horses, especially Smoka, but the boat was not equipped with the wooden frames that hold stallions safe during a voyage, and so I patted his nose and felt sad to abandon him. Skade came aboard, because to stay in Lundene would mean her death. I had put my mail and weapons and helmets and shields and treasure chest into the small space beneath the steering platform, and I saw her place her own small bundle of clothes in the same place.

We did not have a full crew, but sufficient men took their places on the rowing benches. The dawn was breaking as I ordered the wolf’s head mounted on the prow. That carving, with its snarling mouth, was stored beneath the platform in the bows and was only displayed when we were away from our home waters. It risks bad fortune to threaten the spirits of home with a defiant dragon or a snarling wolf or a carved raven, but now I had no home and so I let the wolf defy the spirits of Lundene. Alfred had sent men to guard my house, and though those mailed warriors could see us in the dock beside the terrace, none interfered as we cast off the lines and pushed Seolferwulf into the Temes’s strong current. I turned and watched the city beneath its smear of smoke. “Raise!” Finan called, and twenty oar-blades were poised above the river’s filth.

“And strike!” Finan called and the boat surged toward the dawn. I was without a lord. I was outcast. I was free. I was going Viking.

There is a joy at being afloat. I was still under the thrall of Gisela’s death, but going to sea brought hope again. Not much, but some. To drive a boat into the gray waves, to watch the wolf’s head dip into the crests and rear in an explosion of white water, to feel the wind hard and cold, to see the sail taut as a pregnant woman’s belly, to hear the hiss of the sea against the hull, and to feel the steering oar tremble in the hand like the very heartbeat of the boat, all that brings joy.

For five years I had not taken a ship beyond the wide waters of the Temes estuary, but once we had cleared the treacherous shoals at the point of Fughelness we could turn north and there I had hoisted the sail, shipped the long oars, and let Seolferwulf run free. Now we went northward into the wider ocean, into the angry wind-whipped ship-killing sea, and the coast of East Anglia lay low and dull on our left and the gray sea ran into the gray sky to our right, while ahead of me was the unknown.

Cerdic was with me, and Sihtric, and Rypere, as were most of my best men. What surprised me was that Osferth, Alfred’s bastard, came too. He had stepped silently aboard, almost the last man to make the choice, and I had raised an eyebrow and he had just given a half-smile and taken his place on a rower’s bench. He had been beside me as we lashed the oars to the cradles that usually held the sail on its long yard and I had asked if he was certain about his decision.

“Why should I not be with you, lord?” he asked.

“You’re Alfred’s son,” I said, “a West Saxon.”

“Half these men are West Saxons, lord,” he said, glancing at the crew, “probably more than half.”

“Your father won’t be pleased you’ve stayed with me.”

“And what has he done for me?” Osferth asked bitterly. “Tried to make me a monk or priest so he could forget I existed? And if I stayed in Wessex what could I expect? Favor?” he laughed bitterly.

“You may never see Wessex again,” I said.

“Then I’ll thank God for that,” he said and then, unexpectedly, he smiled. “There’s no stench, lord,” he added.

“Stench?”

“The stink of Lundene,” he explained, “it’s gone.”

And so it had, because we were at sea and the sewage-soured streets were far behind us. We ran under sail all that day and saw no other ships except a handful of small craft that were fishing and those vessels, seeing our rampant wolf’s head, scattered from our path, their men pulling desperately on oars to escape Seolferwulf ’s threat. That evening we ran the ship close inshore, lowered the sail, and felt our way under oars into a shallow channel to make a camp. It was late in the year to be voyaging and so the cold dark came early. We had no horses so it was impossible to explore the country about our landing place, but I had no fears because I could see no settlements except for one reed-thatched hovel a long way north, and whoever lived there would fear us far more than we feared them. This was a place of mud and reed and grass and creeks beneath a vast wind-driven sky. I say camp, but all we did was carry cloaks above the thick tideline of weed and driftwood. I left sentries on the boat, and placed others at the small island’s extremities, and then we lit fires and sang songs beneath the night clouds.

“We need men,” Finan said, sitting next to me.

“We do,” I agreed.

“Where do we find them?”

“In the north,” I said. I was going to Northumbria, going far from Wessex and its priests, going to where my friend had a fortress in the bend of a river and my uncle had a fortress by the sea. I was going home.

“If we’re attacked,” Finan said, and did not finish the thought.

“We won’t be,” I said confidently. Any ship at sea was prey to pirates, but Seolferwulf was a warship, not a trader. She was longer than most merchant ships and, though her belly was wide, she had a sleekness that only fighting ships possessed. And from a distance she would appear fully manned because of the number of women aboard. A pair of ships might dare to attack us, but even that was unlikely while there was easier prey afloat. “But we do need men,” I agreed, “and silver.”

“Silver?” He grinned. “What’s in that big treasure chest?” He jerked his head toward the grounded ship.

“Silver,” I said, “but I need more. Much more.” I saw the quizzical look on his face. “I am Lord of Bebbanburg,” I explained, “and to take that stronghold I need men, Finan. Three crews at least. And even that might not be enough.”

He nodded. “And where do we find silver?”