I thought about that. ‘Maybe they’re right. What choice do you have if there’s a sword at your throat?’
‘The choice is not to swear, of course! Sign a treaty instead, maybe? But swear on the Lance of Charlemagne? On the very blade that pierced the side of our Lord?’ He shuddered.
‘But you swore?’ I asked, knowing the question might annoy him.
It amused him instead. He chuckled, then touched my elbow again to signal we should walk on. ‘I swore to keep the peace, no more. And as for the tribute? I agreed to it, but I did not swear to it. I said I could not bind my successors, and the boy understood me. He wasn’t happy, Lord Uhtred, but he’s no fool. He doesn’t want trouble with the Welsh while his eyes are on the north country.’
‘And what of Constantine,’ I asked, ‘will he keep his oath?’
‘Not if he wants to keep his throne. His lords won’t be happy to have their king accept this humiliation, and the Scots are a proud nation.’ He walked a few paces in silence. ‘Constantine is a good man, a good Christian and, I believe, a good king, but he can’t afford to be humbled. So he buys himself a little time with this oath. And will he keep the oath? With Æthelstan? With a boy who breaks his promises? You want my thoughts, Lord Uhtred? I don’t believe Constantine will wait for too long, and his kingdom is stronger than mine, much stronger!’
‘You’re saying he’ll come south?’
‘I’m saying that he can’t let himself be bullied. I wish I could do the same, but for now I need peace with the Sais if I’m to make my country whole. But Constantine? He’s made peace with Strath Clota, he’ll do the same with Gibhleachán of the Hebrides, and with the beasts of Orkneyjar, and then he’ll have no enemies in the north and an army fit to challenge Æthelstan’s. If I was young Æthelstan I’d be worried.’
I thought of the dragon and the falling star, both coming from the north and both, if Hywel was right, prophesying war.
‘I pray for peace,’ Hywel went on, as if reading my thoughts, ‘but I fear war is coming.’ He lowered his voice. ‘It will be a great war, and Bebbanburg, though I’m told it is formidable, is a small place to be trapped between two great countries.’ He stopped and put a hand on my shoulder. ‘Choose your side well, Lord Uhtred, choose it well.’ He sighed and looked up into the clouded night. ‘There’ll be rain tomorrow! But I wish you a restful sleep.’
I bowed to him. ‘Thank you, lord King.’
‘You may be a Sais,’ Hywel called as he walked away, ‘but it’s always a pleasure to meet you!’
It was a pleasure to meet him too, or a pleasure of sorts. So Ealdred was an ealdorman, but of what? Of Northumbria? Of Cumbria?
Of Bebbanburg?
I slept badly.
Finan took the first guard duty that night, placing a dozen men around our shelters. I spoke to Egil for a while, then tried to sleep on the bracken bed. It was raining when I woke at dawn, a hard rain blowing from the east to dampen the fires and darken the skies. Egil had insisted that some of his men had stood guard with mine, but only one man had anything to report. ‘I saw a snowy owl, lord,’ a Norseman told me, ‘flying low.’
‘Flying where?’
‘Northwards, lord.’
North towards Guthfrith’s small encampment. It was an omen. An owl meant wisdom, but was it fleeing from me? Or pointing at me? ‘Is Egil still here?’ I asked the man.
‘He left before dawn, lord.’
‘Left where?’ Finan had joined me, swathed against the rain in a sealhide cloak.
‘He went hunting,’ I said.
‘Hunting! In this weather?’
‘Last night he told me he’d seen some boar across the river,’ I pointed south then turned back to the Norseman. ‘How many men did he take?’
‘Sixteen, lord.’
‘Get warm,’ I told the man, ‘and get some rest. Finan and I want to exercise our horses.’
‘We have servants for that,’ Finan grumbled.
‘Just you and me,’ I insisted.
‘What if Æthelstan sends for you?’
‘He can wait,’ I said and ordered Aldwyn, my servant, to saddle the horses. Then, as the wind gusted and the rain still pelted, Finan and I rode north. He, like me, was in battle-mail, the leather liners greasy, cold and damp. I wore my helmet and had Serpent-Breath at my hip. All around us was the wide spread of tents and shelters where the warriors of Britain were gathered uneasily at Æthelstan’s command. ‘Look at them,’ I said as our horses picked their own path through the sodden grass, ‘they’re being told they’re here to make peace, but every last man expects war.’
‘You too?’ Finan asked.
‘It’s coming, and what I should do is raise the ramparts of Bebbanburg and shut out the whole damned world.’
He grunted at that. ‘And you think the world will leave us alone?’
‘No.’
‘Your land will be ravaged, your livestock killed, your steadings burned and your fields turned to waste,’ he said, ‘and what good will your ramparts be then?’
Instead of answering his question I asked one of my own. ‘You think Æthelstan really gave Bebbanburg to Ealdred?’ The question that had kept me awake.
‘If he did,’ Finan said, ‘he’s a fool. He needs you as an enemy?’
‘He has thousands of men,’ I said, ‘and I have hundreds. What’s to fear?’
‘You,’ Finan said, ‘me. Us.’
I smiled, then turned eastwards. We were following the northern bank of the River Lauther which was in spate, fed by the storm, seething and churning over its stony bed. Guthfrith’s encampment, crouched under the flail of wind-driven rain, lay to our left. There were few men visible there, most had to be sheltering from the weather, though a half dozen women were drawing water from the river with wooden
