Æthelstan, I thought, had let the emerald-studded crown change him. He was not a bad man, not vile like Guthfrith, but his desire to rule all Britain did not come from a care for Britain’s people, but from his own ambition. And Bebbanburg appealed to that ambition. It was the greatest fortress of the north, a bastion against the Scots, and to own it would show all Britain that Æthelstan was indeed High King. There was no room for sentiment, not with glory and power and reputation at stake. He would be High King Æthelstan, and I would be a memory.
We stopped many times during the day to rest the horses, and all day we were shrouded in the low clouds. At dusk, as the road climbed a high valley, I was startled from my thoughts by a strange hollow knocking. I must have been half dozing, slumped in the high-backed saddle, because at first I thought the sound was a dream. Then I heard it again, the same hollow crack. ‘What was that?’
‘Dead enemies,’ Finan said drily.
‘What?’
‘Skulls, lord!’ he pointed down. We were riding beside the road where the turf was easier for the horses and I saw my stallion had kicked a skull that now rolled to the road’s edge. I looked behind and saw a scatter of long bones, ribs, and still more skulls, some of them with deep clefts where an axe or sword had shattered the bone. ‘They weren’t buried deep enough,’ Finan said.
‘They?’
‘We’re beneath Heahburh, I think. So these must be Sköll’s men. We buried ours up on the hill, remember? And my horse is lame.’ His stallion was still jerking its head up every time it put its weight onto the right forefoot. The movement had become far more noticeable over the last mile or so.
‘He’ll not make it to Bebbanburg,’ I said.
‘Maybe a night’s rest? It’ll be dark soon enough, lord, we should stop.’
So we stopped beneath that place of death, Heahburh, and I was glad the mist still clung to the hills so I could not see the broken walls where so many had died. We watered the horses, made fires from what little wood we could scavenge, ate hard bread and cheese, wrapped ourselves in our cloaks, then tried to sleep.
I was fleeing from the boy I had raised to be king.
We took four days to reach Bebbanburg. Finan’s horse had to be left behind with two men who had orders to bring it home when the lameness was cured. We lost two horseshoes, but we always carried old-fashioned iron-soled hoof-boots made of boiled leather and, once laced into place, they let the horses keep moving. We hurried slowly, meaning we could rarely travel above a walk, but pressed on into the evenings and started again as soon as dawn’s grey light showed us the way. The weather had turned nasty, bringing slashing rain driven by cold east winds, and my only consolation was that if Æthelstan’s men were pursuing Egil and Thorolf then they too would be struggling into the downpours.
Then, on the last day, as if to mock us, the sun came out, the wind turned south-west, and the wet fields around Bebbanburg seemed to steam in the rising heat. We rode the sandy neck leading to the Skull Gate and the sea roared to my right sending the endless waves seething onto the sand, their sound a longed-for welcome home.
And there was no enemy, or rather none of Æthelstan’s men waiting for us. We had won the race. If it was a race? I wondered if I had panicked, if I was seeing enemies where there were none. Perhaps Æthelstan had been speaking the truth when he said I would remain Lord of Bebbanburg even if I lived in far-off Wiltunscir? Or perhaps the bishop I had whelped had lied to me? He had no love for me. Had he panicked me into flight to make it look as though I was truly allied with Constantine? I worried that I had made the wrong choice, but then Benedetta came running through the inner gate, and my son behind her, and panic or no panic, I felt safe. I only had two of the most powerful kings in Britain wanting my fortress, and Guthfrith was being encouraged to harass me, but there was a solace in Bebbanburg’s mighty defences. I slid from the tired stallion, patted his neck, then embraced Benedetta in sheer relief. The great gates of the Skull Gate slammed shut behind me and the locking bar thumped into its brackets. I was home.
‘Æthelstan is really not your friend?’ Benedetta asked me that night.
‘The only friends we have are Egil and Thorolf,’ I answered, ‘and where they are I don’t know.’
We were sitting on the bench just outside the hall. The first stars were showing above the sea that had calmed after the wind. There was enough light to show the sentries on the ramparts, while firelight spilt from the smithy and the dairy. Alaina was sitting with us, a distaff in her hands. She was
