The Burning Land

“Reputation,” I answered, and saw Osferth’s puzzlement. “He challenged me,” I explained, “and if I had let him live then he would have boasted that he challenged Uhtred of Bebbanburg and lived.”

“So he had to die, lord?”

“Yes,” I said, and Guthlac did die. We rowed offshore and I watched the reeve struggle in our wake. For a moment or two he managed to keep his head above water, then he vanished. We hoisted the sail, felt the ship lean to the long wind, and headed north.

We had more fog, more days and nights in empty creeks, but then the winds swung to the east and the air cleared and Seolferwulf leaped northward. Winter had touched the air.

The last day of the voyage was bright and cold. We had spent the night offshore, and so reached our destination in the morning. The wolf’s head was on the prow, and the sight of it sent small fishing boats scurrying for shelter among the scatter of rocky islands where seals glistened and stubby puffins whirred into the sky. I had taken down the sail and, in the long gray swells, rowed Seolferwulf closer to the sandy beach. “Hold her here,” I ordered Finan. The oars rested and the ship heaved slow. I stood in the prow with Skade and gazed westward. I was dressed in my war-glory. Mail and helmet and sword and arm rings.

I was remembering a far-off day when I had been on this same beach and had watched, amazed, as three ships came southward to ride the waves as Seolferwulf now rode them. I had been a child, and that had been my first glimpse of the Danes. I had marveled at their ships, so lean and beautiful, and at the symmetry of their oar-banks that had risen and fallen like magic wings. I had watched, astonished, as the Danish leader had run the oars in full armor, stepping from shaft to shaft, risking death with every step, and I had listened to my father and my uncle curse the newcomers. Within hours my brother had been killed, and within weeks my father followed him to the grave, and my uncle had stolen Bebbanburg and I had joined the family of the oar-runner, Ragnar the Fearless. I learned Danish, fought for the Danes, forgot Christ and welcomed Odin, and it had all begun here, at Bebbanburg.

“Your home?” Skade asked.

“My home,” I said, for I am Uhtred of Bebbanburg and I was gazing at that great fortress on its rearing rock above the sea. Men lined the wooden ramparts and stared back. Above them, flying from a staff erected on the seaward gable of the great hall, was the flag of my family, the wolf’s head, and I ordered the same flag hoisted on our mast, though there was hardly enough wind to display it. “I’m letting them know that I live,” I told her, “and that so long as I live they should be frightened.” And then fate put a thought into my head and I knew I would never retake Bebbanburg, would never scale the rock and climb the walls unless I did what Ragnar had done so many years before. The prospect frightened me, but fate is inexorable. The spinners were watching me, waiting, needles poised, and unless I did their bidding then my fate would be failure. I had to run the oars.

“Hold the oars steady!” I ordered the twenty rowers on the landward flank. “Hold them level and hold them hard!”

“Lord,” Skade said warningly, but I saw the excitement in her eyes too.

I had worn my full armor to appear as a warlord to my uncle’s men in Bebbanburg, and now they might watch me die because one slip on the long shafts would send me to the sea’s bed, dragged down by the mail I wore. But the conviction was too strong on me. To gain everything a man must risk everything.

I drew Serpent-Breath. I held her high in the air so that the garrison of the stronghold would see the sun glint on the long steel, then I stepped off the ship’s side.

The trick of walking the oar-bank is to do it fast, but not so fast that it looks like a panicked run. It was twenty steps that had to be taken with a straight back to make it look easy, and I remember the ship rolling and the fear twitching in me, and each oar dipping beneath my tread, yet I made those twenty steps and leaped off the last oar to scramble onto the stern where Sihtric steadied me as my men cheered.

“You damned fool, lord,” Finan said fondly.

“I’m coming!” I shouted at the fortress, but I doubt the words carried. The waves broke white and sucked back from the beach. The rocks above the beach were white with frost. It was a gray-white fortress. It was home. “One day,” I said to my men, “we shall all live there.” Then we turned the ship, hoisted the sail again, and went south. I watched the ramparts till they vanished.

And that same day we slid into the river mouth I knew so well. I had taken the wolf’s head off the prow because this was friendly land, and I saw the beacon on the hill and the ruined monastery and the beach where the red ship had rescued me, and then, on the height of the tide, I ran Seolferwulf onto the shingle where over thirty other ships were already beached, all guarded by a small fort beside the ruined monastery on the hill. I jumped ashore, stamped my feet in the shingle, and watched the horsemen riding from the fort. They came to discover our business and one lowered a spear toward me. “Who are you?” he demanded.

“Uhtred of Bebbanburg.”

The spear-point lowered and the man smiled. “We were told to expect you sooner, lord.”

“There was fog.”

“And you are welcome, lord. Whatever you need is yours. Whatever!”

And there was warmth, food, ale, welcome, and next morning horses for Finan, Skade, and myself, and we rode southwest, not far, and my crew came with me. An ox-drawn cart carried the treasure chest, our armor, and our weapons. Seolferwulf was safe in the river, guarded by the garrison there, but we went to the greater fortress, the place I had known we would be welcomed, and the lord of that greater fortress rode to greet us. He was roaring incoherently, shouting and laughing, and he leaped from his horse, as I did, and we met on the track where we embraced.

Ragnar. Jarl Ragnar, friend and brother. Ragnar of Dunholm, Dane and Viking, lord of the north, and he clasped me, then punched a fist into my shoulder. “You look older,” he said, “older and much uglier.”

“Then I get more like you,” I said.

He laughed at that. He stepped back and I saw how big his belly had grown in the years since we had last met. He was not fat, just bigger, but he seemed as happy as ever. “You’re all welcome,” he bellowed at my crew. “Why didn’t you come sooner?”

“We were slowed by fog,” I explained.

“I thought you might be dead,” he said, “then I thought that the gods don’t want your miserable company yet.” He paused, remembering suddenly, and his face straightened. He frowned, and could not look into my eyes. “I wept when I heard about Gisela.”

“Thank you.”

He nodded abruptly, then put an arm round my shoulder and walked with me. The shield hand draped round my neck was mangled from the battle at Ethandun, where Alfred had destroyed Guthrum’s great army. I had fought for Alfred that day, and Ragnar, my closest friend, had fought for Guthrum.

Ragnar looked so like his father. He had a broad generous face, bright eyes, and the fastest smile of anyone I knew. His hair was fair, like mine, and we had often been taken as brothers. His father had treated me as a son and, if I had a brother, it was Ragnar. “You heard what happened in Mercia?” he asked me. “No.”

“Alfred’s forces assaulted Harald,” he said.

“On Torneie?”

“Wherever he was. What I hear is that Harald was bedridden, his men were starving, they were trapped, they were outnumbered, so the Mercians and West Saxons decided to finish them off.”

“So Harald’s dead?”

“Of course he’s not dead!” Ragnar said happily. “Harald’s a Dane! He fought the bastards off, sent them running away.” He laughed. “Alfred, I hear, is not a happy man.”

“He never was,” I said. “He’s god-haunted.”

Ragnar turned and stole a look at Skade, who was still in her saddle. “Is that Harald’s woman?”

“Yes.”

“She looks like trouble,” he said. “So do we sell her back to Skirnir?”

“No.”

He grinned. “So she isn’t Harald’s woman now?”

“No.”

“Poor woman,” he said, and laughed.

“What do you know about Skirnir?”

“I know he’s offering gold for her return.”