‘Why?’
‘If Anlaf’s here …’
‘And he is,’ Finan said grimly.
‘They’ll stay close to the sea. Anlaf’s fleet will have brought food.’
‘There’s plenty of food!’ I said. ‘The harvest was good.’
‘And Anlaf will want a retreat if things go bad,’ Egil said. ‘He won’t want to be too far from his ships.’
That made sense, though if Egil spoke the truth then what would Anlaf do when he reached Ceaster? The coast there swung sharply west into Wales and he would lose touch with his fleet if he went further south. ‘Ceaster,’ I said.
Egil looked at me, puzzled. ‘Ceaster?’
‘That’s where they’re going. Capture Ceaster and they have a fortress as a base, and a pathway into the heart of Mercia. They’re going to Ceaster.’
Sometimes an idea seems to come from nowhere. Is it an instinct that comes from a lifetime of wearing mail and standing in shield walls? Or was it thinking what I would do if I were Anlaf or Constantine? We did not know where they were, we did not know what Æthelstan planned, I only knew that keeping my men behind Mameceaster’s walls would achieve nothing. ‘Send a messenger south,’ I ordered Eadwyn, ‘tell him to find Æthelstan, and to tell the king we’re marching to Ceaster.’
‘What if they’re coming here? Eadwyn asked nervously.
‘They’re not,’ I said, ‘they’re going to Ceaster.’
Because Constantine and Anlaf wanted to humble Æthelstan. They wanted to rip the heart out of his ambitions for Englaland and piss on his corpse.
And they would try to do that, I was certain, at Ceaster.
Twelve
The countryside north of the Mærse was deserted. Farms were abandoned, their granaries emptied and their livestock taken south, though we did encounter five herds of cattle being driven northwards. None of the herds was large, the smallest had seven cows and the largest fifteen. ‘They’re Norsemen,’ Finan reported drily when he went to question the drovers of the first herd.
‘They fear forage parties from Ceaster?’ I suggested.
‘They must do,’ he said, ‘but it’s just as likely they want to sell milk and beef to Anlaf. You want us to take their cattle south?’
‘Let them go.’ I did not want to be slowed by cattle, and I did not care if Anlaf gained some beef because by now the army coming south must have taken plenty of livestock and would be eating well. I turned in my saddle and saw the drifts of smoke that marked Saxon steadings being burned. They were no closer. Undoubtedly there was an invading army to our north, but it seemed to have stopped at least a day’s journey away from the Mærse.
I knew this country well from my time in Ceaster. It was an unruly stretch of hilly land, half settled by Saxons who lived uneasily with their Danish and Norse neighbours who, when I commanded the Ceaster garrison, had liked to cross into Mercia and steal livestock. We had returned the compliment, fighting a score of skirmishes, and I was thinking back on those vicious little fights when I saw trouble ahead.
The last and largest of the herds was coming north. The drovers had refused to clear their cattle from our path, and our vanguard, which was composed of a score of Egil’s warriors, was being screamed at by a tall, stout woman. I spurred Snawgebland to find the woman haranguing and spitting at the Norsemen. She was a Dane and had evidently demanded to know where they were going and, on being told that we headed for Ceaster, had snarled that we were traitors. ‘You should fight for the old gods! You’re Norsemen! You think Thor will let you live? You’re doomed!’
Some of Egil’s men looked troubled and were relieved when Egil, riding beside me, told the woman she understood nothing. ‘The enemy are Christians too, woman. You think Constantine wears the hammer?’
‘Constantine fights alongside our people!’
‘And we fight for our lord,’ Egil retorted.
‘A Christian lord?’ she sneered. She was a raw-boned, heavy, red-faced woman, perhaps forty or fifty years old. I saw that her half-dozen drovers were either old men or young boys, which suggested her husband and his able-bodied men had all gone north to join Anlaf’s forces. ‘I spit on your lord,’ she said, ‘may he choke on his Christian blood.’
‘He’s a pagan lord,’ Egil said, more amused than offended. He gestured at me. ‘And a good man,’ he added.
The woman stared at me and must have seen my hammer. She spat. ‘You go to join the Saxons?’
‘I am a Saxon,’ I spoke Danish, her own tongue.
‘Then I curse you,’ she said, ‘I curse you for being a traitor to the gods. I curse you by the sky, by the sea, by the earth that will be your grave.’ Her voice was rising as she intoned the curse. ‘I curse you by fire, I curse you by water, I curse you by the food you eat, by the ale you drink!’ She was stabbing fingers at me with each phrase. ‘I curse your children, may they die in agony, may the worms of the underworld gnaw their bones, may you scream in Hel for ever, may your guts be twisted in everlasting pain, may you—’
She got no further. Another scream sounded behind me and I saw a rider spurring from among the servants who were leading our packhorses. It was a woman’s scream. The rider, cloaked and hooded in black, galloped to the woman and threw herself from the saddle, driving the much bigger woman down to the ground. The hooded woman was still screaming. I understood none of what she said, but the anger was unmistakable.
It was Benedetta. She had
