I would have liked three hundred men. I had been told many years before that one day I would lead armies across Britain, but to have an army a man must have land and the land I held was only large enough to keep a single crew of men fed and armed. I collected food-rents and I took customs dues from the merchants who used the Roman road that passed ?thelflaed’s estate, but that was scarcely a sufficient income and I could only lead forty-six men to Ceaster.
That was a bleak place. To the west were the Welsh, while to the east and north were Danish lords who recognised no man as king unless it were themselves. The Romans had built a fort at Ceaster, and it was in the remnants of that stronghold that Haesten had taken refuge. There had been a time when Haesten’s name struck fear into every Saxon, but he was a shadow now, reduced to fewer than two hundred men, and even they were of dubious loyalty. He had begun the winter with over three hundred followers, but men expect their lord to provide more than food and ale. They want silver, they want gold, they want slaves, and so Haesten’s men had trickled away in search of other lords. They went to Sigurd or to Cnut, to the men who were gold-givers.
Ceaster lay on the wild edge of Mercia and I found ?thelred’s troops some three miles to the south of Haesten’s fort. There were just over one hundred and fifty men whose job was to watch Haesten and keep him weak by harassing his foragers. They were commanded by a youngster called Merewalh, who seemed pleased by my arrival. ‘Have you come to kill the sorry bastard, lord?’ he asked me.
‘Only to look at him,’ I said.
In truth I was there to be looked at, though I dared not tell anyone my whole purpose. I wanted the Danes to know I was at Ceaster, and so I paraded my men south of the old Roman fort and flaunted my wolf’s head banner. I rode in my best mail, polished to a high shine by my servant Oswi, and I went close enough to the old walls for one of Haesten’s men to try his luck with a hunting arrow. I saw the feather flickering in the air and watched as the small shaft thumped into the turf a few paces from my horse’s hooves.
‘He can’t defend all those walls,’ Merewalh said wistfully.
He was right. The Roman fort at Ceaster was a vast place, almost a town in itself, and Haesten’s few men could never garrison the whole stretch of its decrepit ramparts. Merewalh and I might have combined our forces and attacked at night and maybe we would have found an undefended stretch of wall and then fought a bitter battle in the streets, but our numbers were too equal with Haesten’s to risk such an assault. We would have lost men in defeating an enemy who was already defeated, and so I contented myself with letting Haesten know I had come to taunt him. He had to hate me. Just a year before he had been the greatest power among all the Northmen, now he was cowering like a beaten fox in his den and I had reduced him to that plight. But he was a cunning fox and I knew he would be thinking how he might regain his power.
The old fort was built inside a great curve of the River Dee. Immediately outside its southern walls were the ruins of an immense stone building that had once been an arena where, so Merewalh’s priest told me, Christians had been fed to wild beasts. Some things are just too good to be true and so I was not sure I believed him. The remnants of the arena would have made a splendid stronghold for a force as small as Haesten’s, but instead he had chosen to concentrate his men at the northern end of the fort where the river lay closest to the walls. He had two small ships there, nothing more than old trading boats, which, because they were obviously leaky, were half pulled onto the bank. If he were attacked and cut off from the bridge then those ships were his escape across the Dee and into the wild lands beyond.
Merewalh was puzzled by my behaviour. ‘Are you trying to tempt him into a fight?’ he asked me the third day that I rode close to the old ramparts.
‘He won’t want a fight,’ I said, ‘but I want him to come out and meet us. And he will, he won’t be able to resist.’ I had paused on the Roman road that ran straight as a spear shaft to the double-arched gate that led into the fort. That gate was now blocked with vast baulks of timber. ‘You know I saved his life once?’
‘I didn’t know.’
‘There are times,’ I said, ‘when I think I’m a fool. I should have killed him the first time I saw him.’
‘Kill him now, lord,’ Merewalh suggested, because Haesten had just appeared from the fort’s western gate and now came slowly towards us. He had three men with him, all mounted. They paused at the fort’s south- western corner, between the walls and the ruined arena, then Haesten held out both hands to show he only wanted to talk. I turned my horse and spurred towards him, but took care to stop well out of bowshot of the ramparts. I took only Merewalh with me, leaving the rest of our troops to watch from a distance.
Haesten came grinning as though this meeting was a rare delight. He had not changed much, except he now had a beard that was grey, though his thick hair was still fair. His face was misleadingly open, full of charm, with amused bright eyes. He wore a dozen arm rings and, though the spring day was warm, a cloak of seal-skin. Haesten always liked to look prosperous. Men will not follow a poor lord, let alone an ungenerous one, and so long as he had hopes of recovering his wealth he had to appear confident. He also appeared overjoyed to meet me. ‘Lord Uhtred!’ he exclaimed.
‘Jarl Haesten,’ I said, making the title as sour as I could, ‘weren’t you supposed to be King of Wessex by now?’
‘The pleasure of that throne is delayed,’ he said, ‘but for now let me welcome you to my present kingdom.’
I laughed at that, as he had meant me to. ‘Your kingdom?’
He swept an arm around the bleak low valley of the Dee. ‘No other man calls himself king here, so why not me?’
‘This is Lord ?thelred’s land,’ I said.
‘And Lord ?thelred is so generous with his possessions,’ Haesten said, ‘even, I hear, with his wife’s favours.’
Merewalh stirred beside me and I held up a cautionary hand. ‘The Jarl Haesten jests,’ I said.
‘Of course I jest,’ Haesten said, not smiling.
‘This is Merewalh,’ I said, introducing my one companion, ‘and he serves the Lord ?thelred. He might find favour with my cousin by killing you.’
‘He’d gain a great deal more favour by killing you,’ Haesten said shrewdly.
‘True,’ I allowed, and looked at Merewalh. ‘You want to kill me?’
‘Lord!’ he said, shocked.
‘My Lord ?thelred,’ I said to Haesten, ‘wishes you to leave his land. He has enough dung without you.’
‘Lord ?thelred,’ Haesten said, ‘is most welcome to come and drive me away.’
This was all as meaningless as it was expected. Haesten had not left the fort to listen to a string of threats, but because he wanted to know what my presence meant. ‘Perhaps,’ I said, ‘the Lord ?thelred has sent me to drive you away?’
‘And when did you last do his bidding?’ Haesten asked.
‘Perhaps his wife wants you driven away,’ I said.
‘She’d rather I were dead, I think.’
‘Also true,’ I said.
Haesten smiled. ‘You came, Lord Uhtred, with one crew of men. We fear you, of course, because who doesn’t fear Uhtred of Bebbanburg?’ He bowed in his saddle as he uttered that piece of flattery. ‘But one crew of men is not sufficient to give the Lady ?thelflaed her wish.’ He waited for my response, but I said nothing. ‘Shall I tell you what mystifies me?’ he asked.
‘Tell me,’ I said.
‘For years now, Lord Uhtred, you have done Alfred’s work. You have killed his enemies, led his armies, made his kingdom safe, yet in return for all that service you have only one crew of warriors. Other men have land, they have great halls, they have treasure piled in strongrooms, their women’s necks are ringed with gold and they can lead hundreds of oath-men into battle, yet the man who made them safe goes unrewarded. Why do you stay loyal to such an ungenerous lord?’
‘I saved your life,’ I said, ‘and you are mystified by ingratitude?’
He laughed delightedly at that. ‘He starves you because he fears you. Have they made a Christian of you yet?’
‘No.’
‘Then join me. You and I, Lord Uhtred. We’ll tip ?thelred out of his hall and divide Mercia between us.’
‘I’ll offer you land in Mercia,’ I said.
