I took Benedetta as well. A guard at the outer door moved to block her, but a scowl from me made him step hurriedly back and I escorted her into the vast hall that the Romans had built and where an enormous fire blazed in the central hearth. There must have been a hundred men in the hall, all of whom watched us sullenly. ‘A woman!’ one of them said indignantly. ‘The warrior’s hall is forbidden to women, except servants!’ He was a tall, thin man with a straggling grey beard and worried eyes. He pointed at Benedetta. ‘She must leave!’
‘Who are you?’ I demanded.
He looked even more indignant, as if I should have known his name. ‘I would ask the same of you!’ he said defiantly, and then heard my name being whispered among the men behind him and his demeanour changed abruptly. ‘Lord,’ he stammered, and looked for a moment as though he would drop to his knees.
‘Leof Edricson?’ I asked. He nodded. ‘Mercian?’ Again he nodded. ‘And since when,’ I demanded, ‘has this hall been denied to women?’
‘It is the warriors’ hall, to be allowed in here is a privilege, lord.’
‘She just beat ten types of shit into a Dane,’ I said, ‘so that makes her a warrior. And I have three hundred other warriors who are wet, hungry and tired.’ I sat Benedetta on a bench close to the fierce fire. The rain beat on the high roof that was leaking in a dozen places, while far off to the west another burst of thunder rolled across the sky.
‘Three hundred!’ Leof Edricson said, then fell silent.
‘You have quarters for them?’
‘The city is full, lord.’
‘Then they’ll sleep in here, with their women.’
‘Women?’ he seemed shaken.
‘Especially the women.’ I turned to my son. ‘Fetch them. The servants can hold the horses.’
He grinned, but just then the door to the hall opened and my eldest son, the bishop, entered, his priestly robe sopping wet. He looked at his brother, started to speak, then instead hurried towards me. ‘Father!’ he exclaimed. I said nothing. ‘You came!’ He sounded relieved. ‘So Father Eadwyn reached you?’
‘Who is Father Eadwyn?’
‘I sent him a week ago!’
‘You sent a Christian priest through Northumbria? Then you sent him to his death. Well done. What’s happening?’
I had directed the last two words to Leof, but he seemed incapable of answering. It was my son the bishop who eventually replied, though neither he nor anyone else seemed to know much of what happened beyond Ceaster’s walls except that Ingilmundr, Æthelstan’s supposed friend, had ravaged all the land near the city. ‘Ingilmundr!’ I said bitterly.
‘I never trusted him,’ my son said.
‘Nor did I.’ But Æthelstan had trusted Ingilmundr, thinking that the handsome Norseman was proof that pagans could be converted into loyal Christians, but Ingilmundr must have been conspiring with Anlaf for months, and now he was stealing livestock and grain, burning farms and, worse, he had captured the small burh on the southern bank of the Mærse. ‘He captured Brunanburh?’ I asked, appalled.
‘I ordered the garrison to leave,’ Leof admitted. ‘It was small, they couldn’t have resisted an attack.’
‘So you just gave him the burh? You didn’t destroy the walls first?’
‘We destroyed the palisade,’ Leof said defensively, ‘but the important thing is to hold Ceaster until the king comes.’
‘And when will he come?’ I asked. No one knew. ‘You’ve heard nothing from Æthelstan?’ Still no one answered. ‘Does he know about Ingilmundr?’ I asked.
‘We sent messengers.’ Leof said. ‘Of course we did!’
‘And have you sent men to confront Ingilmundr?’
‘He has too many warriors,’ Leof answered miserably. I looked at his men and saw some were ashamed, but most just looked as frightened as their commander who was frowning as my bedraggled troops, accompanied by a score of women, crowded into the hall.
‘There was a time,’ I said, ‘when Mercians knew how to fight. Ingilmundr has joined the enemy, your job was to destroy him.’
‘I don’t have enough men,’ Leof answered pathetically.
‘Then you’d better hope I do,’ I said.
‘Maybe …’ my son, the bishop, said tentatively, then faltered.
‘Maybe what?’
‘Leof is surely right, father, that the important task is to make certain Ceaster doesn’t fall.’
‘The important task,’ I snarled, ‘is to make sure your precious Englaland doesn’t fall. Why do you think Ingilmundr rebelled?’
‘He’s a pagan,’ my son said defiantly.
‘And he’s trapped on Wirhealum. Think about it! He has only two ways to escape if Æthelstan comes with an army. He can flee by boat, or he can march past Ceaster and try to retreat northwards.’
‘Not if the king’s army is here,’ Leof insisted.
‘And he knows that. And he doesn’t have enough men to defeat Æthelstan, so why is he fighting? Because he knows he’ll have an army at his back soon. He’s no fool. He’s rebelled because he knows an army is coming to support him, and you’ve let him collect the grain and meat he’ll need to feed them.’
Nothing else made sense to me. An army was coming, an army of angry Scots seeking revenge, and a horde of pagan Norsemen wanting plunder. And in the morning I would ride to discover if I was right.
The storm had passed by daybreak, leaving a chill damp sky that slung short flurries of rain into our faces as we rode into Wirhealum. An old Roman road ran down the centre of the peninsula, going from Ceaster to the marsh-enclosed harbour at the north-western coast. Wirhealum, which I knew well, was a long stretch of land between the River Dee and the River Mærse, its coast edged with banks of mud and sand, its land cut with streams, but blessed with good pastures and low wooded hills. The northern half had been settled by Norsemen who had pretended to convert to Christianity, the southern half, nearer Ceaster, had been Saxon, but in the last few
