and I heaved one of the still smoking braziers into Sea Slaughterer’s belly.
We put fire into the other ships, then went back to the wharf.
Flames burst bright, faded, then burst again. Smoke thickened quickly. So far it was only the tinder and charcoal burning, the oak of the ships’ timbers took longer to catch, but at last I saw the heavier flames grow and spread. The wind was light and fitful, sometimes blowing the smoke down into the fire and swirling it low before releasing it to the night air. The flames bit and spread, the heat was scorching, melting tar dripped, sparks flew high, and the noise of the fire grew.
Osferth came running, leading his men down the bank between the fire-glossed river and the flames. A boat collapsed, its burning timbers crashing onto the ground and spraying fire beneath the bellies of the neighbouring craft. ‘Men coming!’ Osferth shouted.
‘How many?’
‘Six? Seven?’
I took ten men up the bank while Osferth put fire into the ships that were still floating. The noise of the fire was a roar punctured by the cracks of splitting timbers. Sea-Slaughterer was a ship of flames now, her belly a cauldron, and her long keel broke as we passed her and she sagged with a great crash and the sparks flew outwards and the flames leaped higher to show me a ragged group of men running from the town. They were not many, perhaps eight or nine, and they were not dressed, but had just pulled cloaks over their jerkins. None had a weapon and they checked when they saw me, and no wonder, for I was in mail, helmeted, with Serpent-Breath in my hand. The fire reflected from her blade. I did not speak. I had my back to the fire, which roared in the night, so my face was shadowed. The men saw a line of fire-outlined warriors ready for war and they turned back towards the town to fetch help. That help was already coming. More men were crossing the meadow and, in the fire’s bright light, I saw the glint of reflected blades. ‘Back to the wharf,’ I told my men.
We retreated to the wharf, which was being scorched by the nearby flames. ‘Osferth! Are they all burned?’ I was asking about the ships that floated, all except Tyr’s Daughter and Bright-Flyer.
‘They’re burning,’ he called back.
‘On board!’ I shouted.
I counted my men on board Tyr’s Daughter then, as the watchmen scuttled away from the wharf, I used an axe to sever the mooring lines that held Bright-Flyer to the wharf. The men from the town thought I was stealing Sigurd’s boat and those with weapons came to rescue her. I jumped on board Bright-Flyer and chopped the axe to cut the last mooring line that held her bows to the bank. She was swinging outwards, held by that last line, and my blow only half cut the hemp rope. A man took a flying leap and sprawled on the benches. He swung his sword at me and the blade struck my mail and I kicked him in the face as two more men leaped from the wharf. One missed and fell between the ship and the bank, though he managed to get one hand on the topmost strake and clung on, while the other man landed beside me and rammed a short-sword at my belly. Osferth had climbed back onto Bright-Flyer and was coming to help me as I parried the sword with the axe. The first man hacked at me again, slicing his sword at my legs, but the blade was stopped by the strips of iron sewn into the leather of my boots. That man had hurt himself when he jumped, maybe his ankle was broken because he seemed unable to stand. He twisted around to face Osferth who swatted the sword aside, then lunged with his own. The second man panicked, and I pushed him and he fell back into the water. I slashed the axe at the taut mooring line again and it snapped and I almost lost my footing as Bright-Flyer surged away from the bank. The man clinging to the strake let go. Osferth’s man was dying, his blood draining into the ballast stones.
‘Thank you,’ I said to Osferth. The river’s current was carrying Bright-Flyer and Tyr’s Daughter downstream away from the fire that was brighter and fiercer than ever, its smoke filling the sky and obscuring the stars. We had put tinder, charcoal and the last brazier into the Bright-Flyer’s hull and I tipped the brazier over, paused long enough to see the smouldering charcoal burst into flame, then climbed onto Tyr’s Daughter. We cut Bright-Flyer free. A dozen of my men already had oars and they pulled the smaller ship away from the larger. I dropped the steering oar into the slot at the stern and leaned on it to guide Tyr’s Daughter into the river’s centre, and just then an axe, its blade flashing reflected firelight, flew from the bank to splash harmlessly behind us.
‘Put up the eagle’s head!’ I shouted to my men.
‘Kjartan!’ Frithof, mounted on a tall black stallion, was cantering down the bank, keeping pace with us. It was one of his men who had thrown the axe, and now another launched a spear that plunged into the river. ‘Kjartan!’
‘My name is Uhtred,’ I called back. ‘Uhtred of Bebbanburg!’
‘What?’ he called back.
‘Uhtred of Bebbanburg! Give my greeting to Jarl Sigurd!’
‘You bastard!’
‘Tell that slime-eater you call a lord not to try to kill me again!’
Frithof and his men had to rein in because a tributary cut across their path. He cursed me, but his voice faded as we rowed on.
The sky behind us glowed with the fire of Sigurd’s fleet burning. Not every ship had caught fire, and I did not doubt that Frithof’s men would rescue one or two, maybe more, from the inferno that lit the night. They would also want to pursue us, which was why Bright-Flyer burned as she drifted behind us. She turned on the current, the flames cradled in her sleekly beautiful belly. She would sink eventually and the steam would replace the smoke and the wreck, I hoped, would obstruct the channel. I waved to Frithof and then laughed. Sigurd would be furious when he realised that he had been duped. Not just duped, but made into a fool. His precious fleet was ashes.
The river behind us was shimmering red, while in front of us it was moon-silvered. The current carried us swiftly and I only needed a half-dozen oars to keep us straight. I steered around the outside of the river’s bends where the water was deepest, always alert for the ominous sound of our keel grinding on mud, but the gods were with us and Tyr’s Daughter slid swiftly away from that great glow of fire that marked Snotengaham. We were travelling faster than any horse, which is why I had purchased a boat to make our escape, and we had a huge lead over any ship that might try to follow us. For a time Bright-Flyer drifted close behind, and then after an hour or so she stopped, though the glow of her flames still flickered above the river bends. Then that too faded and I supposed she had sunk and I hoped that her wreckage obstructed the river’s channel. We journeyed on.
‘What did we achieve, lord?’ Osferth asked. He had come to stand beside me on the small deck at the stern of Tyr’s Daughter.
‘We made Sigurd look like a fool,’ I said.
‘But he isn’t a fool.’
I knew Osferth disapproved. He was no coward, but he thought, like his father, that war would yield to intelligence and that a man could reason his way to victory. Yet war, as often as not, is about emotion. ‘I want the Danes to fear us,’ I said.
‘They already did.’
‘Now they fear us more,’ I said. ‘No Dane can attack Mercia or Wessex in the knowledge that his home is safe. We’ve shown we can reach deep into their land.’
‘Or we’ve stirred them to revenge,’ he suggested.
‘Revenge?’ I asked. ‘You think the Danes planned to leave us in peace?’
‘I fear attacks on Mercia,’ he said, ‘revenge attacks.’
‘Buccingahamm will be burned,’ I said, ‘but I told them all to leave the hall and go to Lundene.’
‘You did?’ he sounded surprised, then frowned. ‘Then Beornnoth’s hall will be burned too.’
I laughed at that, then touched the silver chain Osferth wore about his neck. ‘You want to wager that chain?’ I asked.
‘Why wouldn’t Sigurd burn Beornnoth’s hall?’ he asked.
‘Because Beornnoth and his son are Sigurd’s men,’ I said.
‘Beornnoth and Beortsig?’
