They left in cowed silence and, as they passed beneath the gate where ravens waited, and as they picked their way past the blood and butchered cattle, they must have noticed that the guards were now in clean mail and carrying spears scoured of rust. Still none of them spoke, but mounted their horses in silence, took their swords in silence, and then spurred beneath the Skull Gate which slammed loud behind them.
‘That’s made trouble,’ Finan said cheerfully. He walked towards the steps that led to the gate ramparts. ‘You remember that question Domnall asked you?’
‘Which one?’
‘How many allies do you have?’
I climbed the steps with him, then watched as Ealdred and his men rode away. ‘We have Egil,’ I said bleakly, ‘if he lives.’
‘Of course he lives,’ Finan said cheerfully, ‘it’ll take more than a little turd like Ealdred to kill Egil! So it’s Egil and us against the rest of Britain?’
‘It is,’ I said, and Finan was right. We had no allies and an island of enemies. I had humiliated Ealdred and so made a dangerous enemy because he had the king’s ear, and Æthelstan would see my defiance as both a provocation and an insult. The monarch of all Britain would see me as an enemy now. ‘You think I should grovel?’
I could see Finan thinking about that question. He frowned. ‘If you grovel, lord, they’ll think you’re weak.’
He rarely called me lord, and only when he wanted me to listen. ‘So we defy them?’
‘Wiltunscir doesn’t tempt you?’
‘I don’t belong there,’ I said. ‘It’s too soft, too plump, too easy. You want to live there?’
‘No,’ he admitted. ‘I like Northumbria. It’s almost as good as Ireland.’
I smiled at that. ‘So what would you have me do?’
‘What you always do, of course. What we always do. We fight.’
We watched until Ealdred and his horsemen were out of sight.
We were alone.
PART TWO
The Devil’s Work
Seven
Not quite alone because Egil lived. He had ridden hard to stay ahead of his pursuers, reaching his home a full half day before Ealdred and his horsemen appeared. ‘He came mid-afternoon,’ Egil had told me, ‘took one look at the two hundred warriors on the palisade and disappeared southwards.’
‘Two hundred!’ I said. ‘You don’t have two hundred warriors!’
‘Give a woman a spear, lord, cover her tits with a mail coat, hide her hair with a helmet, and how can you tell? Besides, some of my women are more terrifying than my men.’
So Ealdred had gone from Egil’s home to Bebbanburg, then south to Eoferwic where, we heard, he was living with over a hundred West Saxon warriors in Guthfrith’s palace. More West Saxons had garrisoned Lindcolne, which meant Æthelstan was tightening his grip on Northumbria.
And this meant that he would surely squeeze Bebbanburg, though as the summer drew on we were left alone. It was a time for filling our storerooms, of strengthening ramparts that were already strong, and of relentless patrolling of our southern lands. ‘When will they come?’ Benedetta asked me.
‘After the harvest, of course.’
‘Maybe they won’t come?’
‘They will.’
And my friends in Eoferwic would surely give me warning if they could and I had plenty of friends in the city. There was Olla who owned a tavern and whose daughter Hanna had married Berg. Like all tavern-keepers he heard gossip, and his whores had secrets whispered into their ears. There was one-eyed Boldar Gunnarson who was still one of Guthfrith’s household warriors, and there were priests who served Hrothweard, the archbishop. All those men, and a dozen others, found ways to send me news. Their messages were brought by travellers, by trading ships, and ever since I had humiliated Ealdred the messages said the same thing, that he wanted revenge. A letter arrived from Guthfrith, though the language betrayed it had been written by a West Saxon, demanding my allegiance and swearing that if I refused to kneel to him then he would ravage my lands to take what he claimed I owed him.
I burned that letter, sent a warning to Sihtric who commanded the garrison at Dunholm that secured my southern border, and more warnings to every village and settlement inside my lands, and still nothing happened. No warriors rode from Eoferwic, no steadings were burned, and no cattle or sheep were stolen. ‘He does nothing!’ Benedetta said scornfully. ‘Maybe he is frightened of you?’
‘He’s waiting for Æthelstan’s orders,’ I explained. The king was far to the south in Wintanceaster and doubtless Ealdred was reluctant to move against me without Æthelstan’s approval, and that approval must have been given because as the summer waned we heard that four West Saxon ships had come to Eoferwic with over a hundred more warriors and a great chest of silver. That money paid the smithies of Eoferwic to beat out spear-blades and to persuade priests to preach sermons that denounced Bebbanburg as a nest of pagans. Archbishop Hrothweard might have curbed that nonsense. He was a good man, and his liking for me and his dislike of Guthfrith had made him advise Ealdred against starting a war between Eoferwic and Bebbanburg, but Hrothweard had fallen gravely ill. The monk who brought me the news touched his forehead with a long finger, ‘Poor old man doesn’t know if it’s today or Whitsun, lord.’
‘He’s moon-touched?’ I asked.
The monk nodded. He and his three companions were carrying a gospel book to a monastery in Alba and had sought shelter for the night in Bebbanburg. ‘He forgets to dress sometimes, lord, and he can hardly speak, let alone preach. And his hands shake so that they have to feed him his gruel. There are new priests in the city now, lord, priests from Wessex, and they’re fierce!’
‘You mean they don’t like pagans?’
‘They don’t, lord.’
‘Is Bishop Oswald one of them?’
He shook his tonsured head. ‘No, lord, it’s usually Father Ceolnoth who preaches in the cathedral.’
I laughed sourly. I had known Ceolnoth and his
