‘King of Northumbria?’ I asked, then laughed. ‘An easy claim to make, hard to prove.’
‘But we shall prove it here,’ Anlaf said. ‘You see the hazel rods? You will take a message to the pretty boy who calls himself King of all Britain. He can meet me here in a week’s time. If we win, which we shall, there will be no more tribute paid from Alba. Northumbria will be mine. Wessex will pay me tribute of gold, much gold, and perhaps I’ll take its throne too. I will be King of all Britain.’
‘And if Æthelstan declines your invitation?’ I asked.
‘Then I will put the Saxons to the sword, I will burn your towns, destroy your cities, take your women as my playthings, and your children as slaves. You will send him that message?’
‘I will, lord King.’
‘You can cross the stream when we’re gone,’ Anlaf said carelessly, ‘but remember we are in a truce.’ He glanced down at Eadric. ‘Throw him in,’ he ordered.
‘Untie him first,’ I said.
‘Are you a Christian, old man?’ Anlaf demanded of Eadric, who looked thoroughly miserable. He did not understand the question, so looked at me.
‘He wants to know if you’re a Christian,’ I translated for him.
‘Yes, lord.’
‘He is,’ I told Anlaf.
‘Then let his god prove his power. Throw the old man in.’
One of the horsemen who had brought Eadric dismounted. He was a big man, Eadric was small. The big man grinned, picked Eadric up and hurled him down into the turbulent stream. Eadric yelped as he fell, splashed into the brown water and vanished. Egil, the youngest of us, dismounted, but Eadric surfaced before he could jump in. Eadric spat water. ‘It’s not too deep, lord!’
‘Seems his god does have power,’ I said to Anlaf, who looked unhappy. This was a bad omen for him.
But though Eadric could hobble across the stream with his ankles bound and with the water up to his neck at one point, he had trouble keeping his footing and I knew he would never manage to scramble up the steep and slippery bank. I turned and shouted up at the ridge. ‘Throw me a spear. Try not to hit me!’
A spear arched out of the leaves, fell and smacked into the turf a few paces away. Thorolf must have guessed what I planned because he dismounted before I could, took the spear and held its butt end to his brother. ‘Down you go,’ he said.
Egil slipped and slid down the bank, steadied by the spear his brother held, then pushed through the reeds, reached out and seized Eadric’s collar. ‘Come on!’
Both men slipped in the mud, but Eadric was hauled to safety where the hide-ropes binding his hands and feet were cut off. ‘I’m sorry, lord,’ he said when he reached me, ‘I went too far and a bloody child saw me.’
‘It’s no matter, you’re alive.’
‘He has a tale to tell you!’ Anlaf called, then turned his horse and spurred it savagely.
We stayed to watch as men thrust hazel rods into the earth. Anlaf directed them and finally left after giving us a derisive wave. ‘You have a tale to tell?’ I asked Eadric, who was now swathed in Sihtric’s cloak.
‘Hundreds of the bastards, lord! Couldn’t count them! Swarming like bees. And the pool is full of ships, must be two hundred at least.’
‘Which is why he didn’t kill you,’ I said, ‘because he wants us to know.’
‘And they’re still arriving,’ Egil said.
I sent Eadric to the ridge’s top, then led my companions upstream till we found a place we could cross safely. The horses lurched down the bank, pushed through a boggy reed bed and splashed through the stream before clambering up onto Anlaf’s chosen battlefield.
I went straight to where the bridge crossed the stream and looked north. If Æthelstan accepted the challenge then I reckoned we were about two hundred paces from where his forces would make their shield wall. From the wooded ridge the heathland had looked mostly flat with a gentle slope rising to where Anlaf would assemble his men, but from the road the slope looked steeper, especially to my left where the rough ground climbed towards the western ridge. A mass of men charging down that slope would hit Æthelstan’s left wing like a blow from Thor’s hammer. ‘I’ve been praying never to stand in a shield wall again,’ I said gloomily.
‘Nor will you,’ Finan said, ‘you’ll sit on your damned horse and tell us what to do.’
‘Because I’m old?’
‘Did I say that, lord?’
‘Then you’re too old too,’ I said.
‘I’m Irish. We die fighting.’
‘And live talking too much,’ I retorted.
We rode our horses up the road till we were on the low crest, then turned to look back at the field. This was the view Anlaf’s forces would have and I tried to imagine the wide valley filled with a Saxon shield wall. ‘It’s obvious what he plans,’ I said.
‘A charge on his right?’ Egil suggested.
‘Down the steepest slope,’ Thorolf added. ‘Break Æthelstan’s left wing then turn on the centre.’
‘And it will be slaughter,’ Sihtric added, ‘because we’ll be trapped by the streams.’ He pointed to more reed beds that betrayed a smaller stream which would lie on Æthelstan’s left flank. That smaller stream joined the larger, the gullies of the two streams easily distinguished by the tall reeds that grew at their edges. The streams slowly converged, their meeting place just to the west of the narrow bridge that carried the road towards Ceaster.
‘Boggy ground,’ Finan grunted.
‘And if Æthelstan’s army breaks,’ Egil said, ‘we’ll be trapped by the streams. It will be a slaughter.’
‘Which is why Anlaf chose this ground,’ I said. I guessed that Æthelstan would have a shield wall some six hundred paces wide between the two streams. That was a long shield wall, needing about a thousand men in each rank, but the further back he went so that distance would diminish
