The two men gazed up into the trees, plainly looking for us and then waving their branches as if to make sure we had received their message. ‘So much for stealth,’ I said ruefully, ‘but if they’re offering a truce let’s see who they are.’
Finan, Egil, Thorolf and Sihtric accompanied me down the ridge’s slope. It was not steep, but at its foot the stream’s bank was dangerously sheer and slippery with mud, while the stream itself, swollen by the recent rain, swirled high and fast, overflowing into the reed beds that grew thick at the gully’s edge. One of the men with the branches trotted his horse to the opposite bank. ‘The king asks that you do not cross.’
‘Which king?’
‘All of them. You observe our truce?’
‘Till nightfall,’ I called back.
He nodded, threw down the cumbersome branch and spurred his horse towards the larger group of men who had gone some distance towards Ceaster and there curbed their horses beside a wooden bridge that carried the road across the stream. They had turned there and were looking back up the road which here rose gently to a shallow crest where more of the horsemen waited. The crest, which was too low to be called a ridge, lay across the road. ‘What are they doing?’ Sihtric asked.
It was Egil who answered. ‘Marking a battlefield.’
‘A battlefield?’ Finan asked.
‘Those aren’t spears,’ Egil nodded towards the far horsemen carrying the long bundle, ‘they’re hazel rods.’
Finan spat towards the stream. ‘Arrogant bastards. Æthelstan might have something to say about that.’
Egil had to be right. The enemy had chosen a battlefield and would now send a challenge to Æthelstan, wherever he was. It was a Norse tradition. Choose a place to fight, send the challenge and, once it was accepted, all raiding would stop. The enemy would wait here, would fight on their chosen ground, and the loser would cede whatever was demanded. ‘What if Æthelstan doesn’t accept?’ Sihtric asked.
‘Then they besiege Ceaster,’ I said, ‘and march on into central Mercia.’ I glanced eastwards and saw the smoke from the fires that had been set by the raiders we had seen on the coastal track. ‘And then they’ll keep going south. They want to destroy Æthelstan and his kingdom.’
The men who had been waiting on the shallow crest now came towards us. ‘Anlaf,’ Finan said, nodding towards the falcon banner that a horseman carried. There were a dozen horsemen led by Anlaf himself who, though the day was now mild, wore an enormous bearskin cloak over his mail. Gold glinted at his neck and on his stallion’s bridle. He was bare-headed except for a thin golden circlet. He was grinning as he approached the stream’s bank. ‘Lord Uhtred! We’ve been watching you all day. I could have killed you!’
‘Many have tried, lord King,’ I answered.
‘But I am in a merciful mood today,’ Anlaf said cheerfully, ‘I even spared the life of your scout!’ He turned in his saddle and waved to the men on the road. Three spurred towards us and, as they came closer, I saw Eadric, his hands bound behind him, was one. ‘He’s an old man,’ Anlaf said, ‘like you. You know my companions?’
I knew two of them. Cellach, Constantine’s son and prince of Alba, nodded gravely to me, while next to him was Thorfinn Hausakljúfr, ruler of Orkneyjar and better known as Thorfinn Skull-Splitter. He carried his famous long-hafted axe and grinned wolfishly. ‘Prince Cellach,’ I greeted the Scotsman, ‘I trust your father is well?’
‘He is,’ Cellach said stiffly.
‘He’s here?’ I asked, and Cellach simply nodded. ‘Then remember me to him,’ I went on, ‘and give him my hopes that he goes home soon.’
It was interesting, I thought, that Constantine had not come to help choose the battlefield, which suggested that Anlaf, the younger man, commanded the army, And Anlaf, I thought, was probably the more formidable enemy. He smiled at me with his unnaturally wide mouth. ‘Have you come to join us, Lord Uhtred?’ he asked.
‘It seems you have enough men without me, lord King.’
‘You’d fight for the Christians?’
‘Prince Cellach is a Christian,’ I pointed out.
‘As is Owain of Strath Clota,’ Anlaf pointed to a grey-haired man who scowled from the saddle of a tall stallion. ‘But who knows? If the gods give us victory perhaps they’ll convert?’ He looked at the men who had brought Eadric to the stream. ‘Let him stand,’ he ordered, then turned back to me. ‘You know Gibhleachán of Suðreyjar?’
Suðreyjar was the Norse name for the slew of stormy islands on Alba’s wild western coast, and their king, Gibhleachán, was an enormous man, hunched and glowering in his saddle, with a black beard that fell almost to his waist where a massive sword hung. I nodded to him and he spat back.
‘King Gibhleachán terrifies me,’ Anlaf said cheerfully, ‘and he claims his men are the fiercest warriors in Britain. They are úlfhéðnar, all of them! You know what the úlfhéðnar are?’
‘I’ve killed enough of them,’ I retorted, ‘so yes, I know.’
He laughed at that. ‘My men are úlfhéðnar too! And they win battles! We won a battle not long ago, against him.’ Anlaf paused to point to a glum-looking man mounted on a big bay stallion. ‘He is Anlaf Cenncairech. He was King of Hlymrekr until a few weeks ago when I ripped his fleet apart! Isn’t that right, Scabbyhead?’
The glum man simply nodded. ‘Scabbyhead?’ I asked Egil softly.
‘His last great Norse rival in Ireland,’ Egil answered just as softly.
‘Now Scabbyhead and
