finished with Wessex,” Ragnar promised me cheerfully, “I’ll give them a raid they won’t forget.”
“You really want to fight Wessex?” I asked him. The two of us were alone, riding a hundred paces ahead of our men.
“Fight Wessex?” He shrugged. “In truth? No. I’m happy up here.”
“Then why do it?”
“Because Brida’s right. If we don’t take Wessex then Wessex will take us.”
“Not in your lifetime,” I said.
“But I have sons,” he said. All his sons were bastards, but Ragnar did not care about their legitimacy. He loved them all and wanted one of them to hold Dunholm after him. “I don’t want my sons bowing to some West Saxon king,” he said. “I want them to be free.”
“So you’ll become King of Wessex?”
He gave a great neigh of a laugh. “I don’t want that! I want to be Jarl of Dunholm, my friend. Maybe you should be King of Wessex?”
“I want to be Jarl of Bebbanburg.”
“We’ll find someone who wants to be king,” he said carelessly. “Maybe Sigurd or Cnut?” Sigurd Thorrson and Cnut Ranulfson were, after Ragnar himself, the mightiest lords in Northumbria and, unless they joined their men to ours, we would have no chance of conquering Wessex. “We’ll take Wessex,” Ragnar said confidently, “and divide its treasures. You need men to take Bebbanburg? The silver in the Wessex churches will buy you enough to take a dozen fortresses like Bebbanburg.”
“True.”
“So be happy! Fate is smiling.”
We were following the crest of a hill. Beneath us scrabbling streams glinted white in deep valleys. I could see for miles, and in all that wide view there was neither a house nor a tree. This was bare land where men scratched a living tending sheep, though our presence meant that the flocks had all been driven away. The Scottish outriders with their long spears were on the hill to our east, while to the south the crest ended suddenly in a long hill that dropped steeply into a deep-walled valley where two streams met. And there, where the streams churned about rocks in their shadowed meeting place, were fourteen horsemen. None was moving. They waited where the two streams became one, and it was obvious that they waited for us, and equally obvious that it had to be a trap. The fourteen men were bait, and that meant other men must be nearby. We stared back the way we had come, but there was no enemy in sight on the long crest, nor were any visible on the nearer hills. The four scouts who had shadowed us were kicking their horses down the heather-covered slope to join the larger group.
Ragnar watched the fourteen men. “What do they want us to do?” he asked.
“Go down there?”
“Which we have to do anyway,” he said slowly, “and they must have known that, so why bother to entice us down there?” He frowned, then looked quickly about the surrounding hills, but still no enemy showed on the slopes. “Are they Scots?” he asked.
Finan had joined us and he had eyes like a hunting hawk. “They’re Scots,” he said.
“How can you tell?” I asked.
“There’s a fellow wearing the symbol of a dove, lord,” Finan said.
“A dove?” Ragnar asked, sounding disgusted. In his view, indeed in mine, a man’s symbol should be warlike; an eagle or a wolf.
“It’s the sign of Colum Cille, lord,” Finan explained.
“Who is he?”
“Saint Columba, lord. An Irish saint. He came to the land of the Picts and drove away a great monster that lives in a lake here. The Scots revere him, lord.”
“Useful people, saints,” Ragnar said distractedly. He looked behind again, still expecting to see an enemy appear on the crest, but the skyline stayed empty.
“Two of them are prisoners,” Finan said, gazing down at the men in the valley, “and one’s just a wee boy.”
“Is it a trap?” Ragnar asked of no one, then decided that only a fool would cede the high ground, and that therefore the fourteen men, who were now eighteen because the scouts had joined them, were not seeking a fight. “We’ll go down,” he decided.
Eighteen of us rode down the steep slope. When we reached the flatter land of the valley’s bed two of the Scots rode to meet us, and Ragnar, copying their example, held up a hand to check his men so that only he and I rode to meet the pair. They were a man and a boy. The man, who was wearing the dove-embroidered jerkin beneath a long blue cloak, was a few years younger than I. He rode straight-backed and had a fine gold chain with a thick gold cross hanging about his neck. He had a handsome, clean-shaven face with bright blue eyes. He was hatless and his brown hair was cut short in Saxon style. The boy, riding a small colt, was only five or six years old and wore the same clothes as the man I assumed was his father. The pair curbed their horses a few paces from us and the man, who wore a jewel-hilted sword, looked from me to Ragnar and then back to me. “I am Constantin,” he said, “son of Aed, Prince of Alba, and this is my son, Cellach mac Constantin, and also, despite his size, a Prince of Alba.” He spoke in Danish, though it was obvious he was not comfortable with the language. He smiled at his son. It is strange how we know immediately whether we like people or not, and though he was a Scot, I liked Constantin at once. “I assume one of you is Jarl Ragnar,” he said, “and the other is Jarl Uhtred, but forgive me for not knowing which is which.”
“I am Ragnar Ragnarson,” Ragnar said.
“Greetings,” Constantin said pleasantly. “I hope you’ve enjoyed your travels in our country?”
“So much,” Ragnar said, “that I intend to come again, only next time I shall bring more men to share the pleasures.”
Constantin laughed at that, then spoke to his son in their own language, making the boy stare at us wide- eyed. “I was telling him that you are both great warriors,” Constantin said, “and that one day he must learn how to beat such warriors.”
“Constantin,” I said. “That isn’t a Scottish name.”
“It is mine, though,” he said, “and a reminder that I must emulate the great Roman emperor who converted his people to Christianity.”
“He did them a disservice, then,” I said.
“He did it by defeating the pagans,” Constantin said smiling, though beneath that pleasant expression was a hint of steel.
“You’re nephew to the King of Alba?” Ragnar asked.
“Domnal, yes. He’s old, he won’t live long.”
“And you will be king?” Ragnar asked.
“If God wills it, yes.” He spoke mildly, but I got the impression that his god’s will would coincide with Constantin’s own wishes.
My borrowed horse snorted and took some nervous sideways steps. I calmed him. Our sixteen men were not far behind, all of them with hands on sword hilts, but the Scots were showing no sign of hostility. I looked up at the hills and saw no enemy.
“This isn’t a trap, Lord Uhtred,” Constantin said, “but I could not resist this chance to meet you. Your uncle sent envoys to us.”
“Looking for help?” I asked scornfully.
“He will pay us one thousand silver shillings,” Constantin said, “if this summer we bring men to attack you.”
“And why would you attack me?”
“Because you will be besieging Bebbanburg,” he said.
I nodded. “So I must kill you as well as ?lfric?”
“That will certainly add to your renown,” he said, “but I would propose a different arrangement.”
“Which is?” Ragnar asked.
“Your uncle,” Constantin still spoke to me, “is not the most generous of men. A thousand silver shillings would be welcome, of course, but it still seems to me a small payment for a large war.”
I understood then why Constantin had taken such trouble to make this meeting a secret, for if he had sent
