‘You’re sure Egil’s here?’
‘Does it matter? There’s only twelve of them and two of us. What are you worried about?’
He laughed. ‘And if Guthfrith is one of them?’
‘We kill the bastard,’ I said, ‘but we question him first.’
And as I spoke so our pursuers drove their spurs back. They lowered their spears and hefted their shields as their big horses pounded the wet turf. We immediately spurred north towards the wood as if we sought the shelter of the trees and, as I urged my stallion into a gallop, I saw the flickers of light from spearheads among the leaves.
And Egil Skallagrimmrson came beneath his banner of the spread-winged eagle, his horses bursting from the wood in two groups, one charging straight at Guthfrith’s men, the other aiming behind to cut off their retreat. Egil was screaming his war cry, standing in his stirrups, his sword Adder held high in the rain, and his brother Thorolf, a big man on a tall horse, rode beside him with his war axe ready to kill. They were Norsemen eager for a fight, and Finan and I slewed around to join their attack.
It took Guthfrith’s men a horrified moment to realise the trap. The rain was driving into their faces, they thought us trapped, then a shout had alerted them. They, like us, turned their horses towards Egil, and one stallion slipped and fell. The rider shouted in pain, his leg crushed under the floundering horse, then Egil’s spearmen slashed into them, throwing three men instantly from their saddles. Blood in the morning rain. Egil beat a spear aside with Adder and swung the blade back to crunch the edge into a man’s face. The rest, trapped by Egil’s second group of horsemen, were already throwing down swords and spears, shouting that they yielded. Only one man was trying to escape, bloodying his stallion’s flanks as he spurred hard towards the Lauther.
‘Mine!’ Finan called, pursuing the fugitive.
‘I want him alive!’ I shouted. The man’s scabbard flapped wildly as his horse pounded the sodden turf. For a moment I thought it might be Guthfrith himself, but the fugitive was too thin and had a long fair plait hanging beneath his helmet. ‘Alive!’ I shouted again, following Finan.
The man forced his horse down the steep bank into the Lauther’s fast water. The stallion baulked, the spurs drew blood again, then one of the fore hooves must have trodden on a rock beneath the white-ravaged water because the horse fell sideways. The rider fell with him, somehow keeping hold of sword and shield. He managed to drag his leg from beneath the struggling horse, then tried to stand, but Finan, dismounted, was already standing over him with Soul-Stealer at his throat. I stopped at the top of the river bank. The fallen man’s horse was trotting out of the water as the fallen man attempted to swing his sword at Finan, but then went very still as Soul-Stealer’s point pricked the skin of his throat. ‘You’ll want to talk to this one,’ Finan said, stooping to take the fallen man’s sword and I saw that it was Kolfinn, the young man who had challenged me when we arrived at Burgham. Finan threw the sword onto the bank, then prodded Kolfinn to his feet. ‘Up the bank, boy,’ he said, ‘and you won’t need a shield.’
Kolfinn, streaming water, struggled up the muddy bank. He made a move towards his horse, but Finan rapped Soul-Stealer across his helmet. ‘You don’t need a horse either, boy. You walk.’ Kolfinn scowled at me, looked as if he was about to say something, and then thought better of it. His long fair plait hung down his back, dripping, and his boots squelched as he was prodded towards the surviving men who were surrounded by Egil’s spears.
‘That was too easy,’ Egil grumbled as I joined him.
We had eight prisoners, all of whom had been stripped of their mail, weapons and helmets. Their leader was a sullen man called Hobern and I took him aside as the others, under Norse spears, threw their dead companions into the Lauther. One of Egil’s men was telling Kolfinn to take off his mail, but I stopped him. ‘Let him be,’ I said.
‘Lord?’
‘Let him be,’ I repeated, then walked Hobern towards the river junction, followed by Thorolf, who carried his massive axe that he seemed eager to bury in Hobern’s back. So what, I asked Hobern, had been agreed between Æthelstan and Guthfrith?
‘Agreed?’ he asked sullenly.
‘When Guthfrith swore his oath to Æthelstan,’ I snarled, ‘what was agreed?’
‘Tribute, troops, and missionaries,’ he said unhappily. He had been reluctant to talk, but Thorolf had thrust him onto his knees. Hobern had already lost his weapons, helmet and mail and he shivered in the chill rain. Now I was encouraging him to speak by holding a small knife close to his face.
‘Missionaries?’ I asked, amused.
‘Guthfrith must be baptised,’ he muttered.
I laughed at that. ‘And the rest of you? You have to become Christians?’
‘So he says, lord.’
I should not have been surprised. Æthelstan wanted to unite the Saxon peoples into one country, Englaland, but he also wanted every inhabitant of Englaland to be Christian, and Northumbria was still far from being a Christian country. It had been ruled by the Danes or the Norse for almost all my life, and more pagans were constantly coming by ship. Æthelstan could convert the country by slaughtering the pagans, but that would start a war that
