The Burning Land

It is hard to bring thoughts into order, but I sense, I have always sensed, that we slide from light to darkness, from glory to chaos, and perhaps that is good. My gods tell us that the world will end in chaos, so perhaps we are living the last days and even I might survive long enough to see the hills crack and the sea boil and the heavens burn as the great gods fight. And in the face of that great doom, Alfred built schools. His priests scurried like mice in rotting thatch, imposing their rules as if mere obedience could stop the doom. Thou shalt not kill, they preached, then screamed at us warriors to slaughter the pagans. Thou shalt not steal, they preached, and forged charters to take men’s lands. Thou shalt not commit adultery, they preached, and rutted other men’s wives like besotted hares in springtime.

There is no sense. The past is a ship’s wake etched on a gray sea, but the future has no mark. “What are you thinking?” Ragnar asked, amused.

“That Brida is right.”

“I must go to Wessex?”

I nodded, yet I knew he did not want to go where so many had failed. All my life till that moment had been spent, one way or another, in attacking or defending Wessex. Why Wessex? What was Wessex to me? It was the bastion of a dark religion in Britain, it was a place of rules, a Saxon place, and I worshiped the older gods, the gods the Saxons themselves had worshiped before the missionaries came from Rome and gave them their new nonsense. Yet I had fought for Wessex. Time and again the Danes tried to capture Wessex, and time and again Uhtred of Bebbanburg had helped the West Saxons. I had killed Ubba Lothbrokson beside the sea, I had screamed in the shield wall that broke Guthrum’s great army, and I had destroyed Harald. So many Danes had tried, and so many had failed, and I had helped them fail because fate had made me fight for the side with the priests. “Do you want to be King of Wessex?” I asked Ragnar.

He laughed. “No! Do you?”

“I want to be Lord of Bebbanburg.”

“And I want to be Lord of Dunholm.” He paused. “But.”

“But if we don’t stop them,” I finished for him, “they’ll come here.”

“That’s worth fighting for,” Ragnar said reluctantly, “or else our children will be Christians.”

I grimaced, thinking of my own children in ?thelfl?d’s household. They would be learning about Christianity. Maybe, by now, they had already been baptized, and that thought gave me a surge of anger and guilt. Should I have stayed in Lundene and meekly accepted the fate Alfred wanted for me? But Alfred had humiliated me once before, forcing me to crawl on my knees to one of his damned altars, and I would not do it again. “We’ll go to Wessex,” I said, “and make you king, and I’ll defend you like I defended Alfred.”

“Next year,” Ragnar said.

“But I won’t go naked,” I said harshly. “I need gold, I need men.”

“You can lead my men,” Ragnar suggested.

“They’re sworn to you. I want my own. I need gold.”

He nodded. He understood what I was saying. A man is judged by his deeds, by his reputation, by the number of his oath-men. I was reckoned a warlord, but so long as I only led a handful of men, so long could people like my uncle afford to insult me. I needed men. I needed gold. “So you really will make a winter voyage to Frisia?” Ragnar asked.

“Why else did the gods send me Skade?” I retorted, and at that moment it was as if the fog had cleared and I could at last see the way ahead. Fate had sent me Skade, and Skade would lead me to Skirnir, and Skirnir’s gold would let me raise the men who would fight with me through the burhs of Wessex, then I would take the silver of the Christian god and employ it to forge the army that would capture Bebbanburg.

It was all so clear. It even seemed easy.

We turned our horses and rode toward Dunholm.

Seolferwulf’s prow slammed into a wave and the water exploded into white shards that whipped down the deck like ice missiles. Green sea surged over the bows and swilled cold into the bilge. “Bail!” I shouted, and the men not working the oars frantically scooped water over the side as our wolf’s-head prow reared into the sky. “Row!” I bellowed, and the oars bit the water and Seolferwulf fell into a trough of the ocean with a crash that made her timbers tremble. I love the sea.

My forty-three men were on board, though I had allowed none of their women or children to accompany us, and Skade was only on board because she knew Zegge, the sandy island where Skirnir had his treasure hoard. I also had thirty-four of Ragnar’s men, all of them volunteers, and together we sailed eastward into the teeth of a winter wind. This was no time to be at sea. Winter was when ships were laid up and men stayed in fire-bright halls, but Skirnir would expect me in the spring so I had risked this winter voyage.

“Wind’s rising!” Finan shouted at me.

“It does that!” I shouted back, and was rewarded with a skeptical look. Finan was never as happy as I was at sea. For months we had shared a rowing bench, and he had endured the discomfort, but he had never reveled in the sea’s threat.

“Shouldn’t we turn and run?” he asked.

“In this little blow? Never!” I yelled at him over the wind’s howl, then flinched as a slap of cold water hit my face. “Row, you bastards,” I shouted, “if you want to live, row!”

We rowed and we lived, reaching the Frisian coast on a morning of cold air, dying winds, and sullen seas. The improving weather had released ships from the local harbors and I followed one into the intricate channels that led to the inner sea, a stretch of shallow water that lies between the islands and the mainland. The ship we followed had eight oarsmen and a cargo hidden beneath a great leather cloth, which suggested she carried salt, flour, or some other commodity that needed to be protected from the rain. The steersman was terrified by our close approach. He saw a wolf-headed ship crammed with fighting men and he feared he was about to be attacked, but I shouted that we merely needed guidance through the channels. The tide was rising, so even if we had gone aground, we would be safe enough, but the cargo ship led us safely into the deeper water, and it was there we first encountered Skirnir’s reach.

A ship, much smaller than Seolferwulf, lay waiting a half-mile beyond the place where the channel emptied into the inner sea. I reckoned she had a crew of around twenty men and she was plainly watching the channels, ready to pounce on any shipping, though the sight of Seolferwulf made her cautious. I guessed she would normally have intercepted the incoming cargo ship, but instead she stayed motionless, watching us. The cargo ship’s steersman pointed at the waiting boat. “I have to pay him, lord.”

“Skirnir?” I asked.

“That’s one of his ships, lord.”

“So pay him!” I said. I spoke in English because the language of the Frisian people is so close to our own.

“He’ll ask me about you, lord,” he called back, and I understood his terror. The waiting ship would be curious about us, and they would demand answers from the trading ship’s master, and if he had no satisfactory explanation they might well attempt to beat it out of him.

“Tell him we’re Danes on our way home,” I said. “My name is Lief Thorrson and if he wants money he must come and ask me.”

“He won’t ask you, lord,” the man said. “A rat doesn’t demand supper from a wolf.”

I smiled at that. “You can tell the rat we mean no harm, we’re just going home, and we merely followed you through the channel, nothing more.” I tossed him a coin, making sure it bore the legend Christiano Religio, which meant it came from Frankia. I did not want to betray that we had come from Britain.

I watched the cargo ship row to Skirnir’s vessel. Skade had been in the small space beneath the steering platform, but now joined me. “That’s the Sea-Raven,” she said, nodding at Skirnir’s ship. “Her master is called Haakon. He’s a cousin to my husband.”

“So he’ll recognize you?”

“Of course.”

“Then don’t let him see you,” I said.

She bridled at that direct order, but did not argue. “He won’t come near us,” she said.

“No?”

“Skirnir leaves fighting ships alone, unless he outnumbers them by four or five to one.”