‘You’ll have to walk,’ one of the horsemen said cheerfully, and we followed them north along a track that led past small fields of barley. Some had already been harvested and there were women and children gleaning in the dusk.
‘How’s the harvest?’ Egil asked.
‘Not enough! We’ll need to take some from southern folk.’
‘And even if it was enough,’ Egil said, ‘you’d still take it.’
‘Aye, that’s the truth.’
The journey was not far. We crossed a low spine of land and saw a larger settlement on the shore of a rocky bay where seven dragon-ships were anchored. A long, low hall lay at the centre of the village, and it was there that the horsemen led us. ‘Do I give my sword to anyone?’ I asked the horsemen, conscious that most jarls and all kings insisted that men did not carry weapons in the hall. Swords, axes and ale make for an unhappy night.
‘Keep it!’ the rider said happily. ‘You’re outnumbered!’
We went through the wide doorway into a hall lit by rushlights and two massive fires. There were at least a hundred men on the benches who fell silent as we entered, then a big man at the high table bellowed a greeting. ‘Egil! Why didn’t they tell me it was your ship?’
‘I came in another, lord! How are you?’
‘Bored!’ He peered at me through the smoke. ‘Is that your father?’
‘A friend,’ Egil said, stressing the word.
The big man, who I assumed was Thorfinn Skull-Splitter, frowned at me. ‘Come closer,’ he growled, and Egil and I obediently walked down the long hall’s beaten earth floor, skirting the two hearths with their smoky peat fires, until we were in front of the low dais where a dozen men sat at the high table.
Thorfinn had heard the stress on the word friend, a stress that had warned him he might not appreciate my company. He stared at me, seeing a grey-bearded man in a rich dark cloak with gold at my neck and a sword at my side. And I stared at him, seeing a thickly muscled Norseman with a prominent brow, a thick black beard, and very blue eyes. ‘Friends have names, don’t they?’ he demanded. ‘Mine is Thorfinn Hausakljúfr.’
‘And mine,’ I said, ‘is Uhtredærwe.’ That was an insult given me by Christians. It meant Uhtred the Wicked.
‘He is the Lord Uhtred of Bebbanburg,’ Egil added.
The reaction in the hall was flattering. The silence in which men had been listening to Thorfinn and Egil broke into murmuring. Some men stood to look at me. Thorfinn just stared and then, surprisingly, burst into laughter. ‘Uhtred of Bebbanburg,’ he said mockingly, holding up a hand to still the murmurs in the hall. ‘You are old!’
‘Yet many have tried to kill me,’ I answered.
‘And many have tried to kill me too!’ Thorfinn said.
‘Then I pray the gods give you old age too.’
‘And what,’ he demanded, ‘is Uhtred of Bebbanburg doing in my hall?’
‘I came to see Thorfinn Skull-Splitter,’ I answered, ‘and to see for myself whether he was as formidable as folk claim.’
‘And is he?’ Thorfinn spread his huge arms as if to display himself.
‘No more formidable than Ubba the Horrible,’ I said, ‘and I killed him. Certainly no more than Cnut Longsword, and I slew him too. Men feared Svein of the White Horse, but he fought me and died, as did Sköll the úlfheðinn. And all their skulls now decorate the gate of my fortress.’
Thorfinn kept his eyes on me for a few heartbeats, then laughed loudly, and his laughter made the men in the hall beat on the tables and cheer. Norsemen love a warrior, they love the boasts of a warrior, and I had pleased them. All but for one man.
That man sat to Thorfinn’s right, in the place of honour, and his face showed no amusement. He was a young man and I immediately thought he was the ugliest man I had ever seen, but also a man who seemed to exude power and menace. He had a high forehead that he had inked with a snarling dragon, wide-set eyes that were very pale, and a wide down-turned thin-lipped mouth. His hair was brown and woven into a dozen plaits, as was his beard. There was something animal-like in that face, though it was no animal I have ever seen, and no animal I would care to hunt. It was a brutal savage face, unblinking, gazing at me with the relish of a hunter. He was plainly of high rank because he wore an elaborately woven chain of gold around his neck and a simple circlet of gold about his plaited hair. He was holding a long thin-bladed knife, presumably for his food, but he pointed the sharp blade at me then spoke softly to Thorfinn who stooped to hear him, looked at me, then straightened.
‘Lord Uhtred!’ Thorfinn’s face still showed pleasure. ‘Meet your king.’
I was momentarily confused, but managed to find the right words. ‘Which king?’
‘You have more than one?’ Thorfinn asked, amused.
‘Constantine claims my land, as does Æthelstan,’ I hesitated, then looked at the pale-eyed young man as I realised what Thorfinn had meant. Could it be true? Sudden anger drove my next words. ‘And I’m told there’s an impudent youth in Dyflin who claims it too.’
Thorfinn was no longer smiling. The hall was silent. ‘Impudent?’ Thorfinn asked in a dangerous voice.
‘Is it not impudent to claim a throne you have never seen? Let alone tried to sit in? If claiming a throne is enough then why should I not claim the throne of Dyflin? To claim a throne is easy, to take it is hard.’
The young man drove the knife into the table, where it quivered. ‘To take Saxon land,’ he suggested, ‘is easy.’ He had a hard, gravelly voice. He gazed fixedly at me with those strangely pale eyes. Thorfinn might hope to be formidable, but this man truly was. He stood slowly, still looking at me. ‘I am the
