‘So the bridge would be behind us?’
‘Yes.’
He spurred to the bridge, which was little more than trimmed oak trunks laid between the high banks and only wide enough to take a small farm cart. He curbed his horse on the bridge and looked along the larger stream, seeing its deep gully and the reeds on either bank. He grunted, but said nothing, just turned to stare at the first hazel rods that were planted a hundred paces north, beyond which the heathland gradually rose towards the low crest. At first sight it was an unpromising battlefield that yielded the higher ground to the enemy and suggested we would be trapped on the boggy ground at the edge of the streams’ gullies.
Steapa urged his horse on, reaching the hazel rods. We were accompanied by Finan, Egil, Thorold, Sihtric and a dozen warriors, two of whom held damp branches with their dripping autumn leaves. ‘I suppose the earslings are watching us?’ Steapa nodded towards the trees on the western ridge.
‘They will be.’
‘What’s that?’ He pointed west to where we could see a broken palisade on the ridge’s summit.
‘Brynstæþ, a farmstead.’
‘Anlaf’s men are there?’
‘They were,’ Egil answered, ‘but they left two days ago.’
‘Probably there now,’ Steapa said unhappily. He rode on, leading us to the low crest marked by the hazel rods where Anlaf hoped to make his shield wall. ‘He’ll think we’re fools if we agree to this place,’ he said.
‘He already thinks Æthelstan is a frivolous idiot.’
He snorted at that, then walked his horse west to the highest point of the crest. ‘So you think he’ll attack down this slope?’ he asked, looking back towards the bridge.
‘I would.’
‘Me too,’ he said after a moment’s thought.
‘But he’ll attack all along the line as well.’
Steapa nodded. ‘But this will be his heaviest attack, right here.’
‘Straight down the slope,’ I said.
Steapa gazed down the gentle slope. ‘That’s what I’d do,’ he said. He frowned, and I knew he was thinking of what else Anlaf might do, but ever since I had first seen this place I could not imagine another plan. Attacking from his right would pin Æthelstan’s army against the deeper stream. Some men would escape across the gully, but in the panic many would drown, most would be slaughtered, and the fugitives could be pursued and killed by Anlaf’s horsemen, most of whom would be Ingilmundr’s men, the same ones we had seen setting off eastwards to ravage Mercia beyond Ceaster. I doubted that either Anlaf or Constantine had brought many horses, they were difficult and awkward to ship, which meant only those horses already on Wirhealum would make the pursuit. But if my charcoal-sketched plans came true then the pursuit would be the other way, with Anlaf fleeing and our men following.
‘Suppose his main attack is from his left?’ Steapa suggested.
‘He’ll force us back onto the smaller stream and it’s easier to cross.’
‘And he loses the advantage of the slope,’ Finan put in.
Steapa frowned. He knew what I had suggested to Æthelstan, but he also knew that the enemy had ideas of their own. ‘How clever is Anlaf?’
‘He’s no fool.’
‘He’ll think we’re fools to accept.’
‘Let’s hope he does think that. Let him think we’re arrogant, that we’re confident we can shatter his shield wall. We treat him with derision.’
‘You’ll have a chance to do that right now,’ Thorolf growled and we turned to see a score of horsemen coming from the north. Like us they displayed the branches of truce.
‘I need a moment,’ Steapa said, then spurred his horse down the slope where we believed Anlaf would launch his most brutal attack. He galloped to the lower land where Æthelstan’s left flank would make its shield wall, then curved around so he could follow the stream’s bank. I could see him looking into the smaller stream, then he spurred again and came back to join us. By then I could see that Anlaf was among the approaching horsemen and with him were Constantine and Ingilmundr. We waited.
‘The bastard,’ Steapa growled as he saw the approaching horsemen.
‘Ingilmundr?’
‘Treacherous bastard,’ Steapa spat.
‘He knows Æthelstan is no fool.’
‘Except he fooled the king for long enough, didn’t he?’
We fell silent as the horsemen came closer. They reined in a dozen paces away and Anlaf grinned. ‘Lord Uhtred! You return. You bring your king’s answer?’
‘I was exercising my horse,’ I said, ‘and showing Lord Steapa the countryside.’
‘Lord Steapa,’ Anlaf said the name. He would have heard of Steapa, but only as a man from his grandfather’s time. ‘Another old man?’
‘He says you’re an old man,’ I told Steapa.
‘Tell him he’s an earsling, and that I’ll gut him from his balls to his gullet.’
I had no need to translate, Ingilmundr did that and Anlaf laughed. I ignored him, looking at Constantine instead. I had met him often enough and I respected him. I bowed my head briefly. ‘Lord King, I am sorry to see you here.’
‘I had no wish to be here,’ he said, ‘but your king is insufferable. Monarch of all Britain!’
‘He’s the most powerful monarch in Britain,’ I suggested.
‘That, Lord Uhtred, is what we are here to decide.’ He spoke stiffly, but I sensed some regret in his voice. He was old too, maybe a handful of years younger than me, and his stern, handsome face was lined and his beard white. He wore, as he always did, a cloak of rich blue.
‘If you abandon your claim in Cumbria,’ I told him, ‘and march your men back to Alba, then we have nothing to decide.’
‘Except who rules Northumbria,’ Constantine said.
‘You would let a pagan rule there?’ I asked, nodding at Anlaf, who was listening to Ingilmundr’s translation as we spoke.
‘Better a pagan ally than an arrogant whelp who treats us like dogs.’
‘He believes you are a good Christian, lord King,’ I said, ‘and that all the Christians of Britain should live in peace.’
‘Under his rule?’ Constantine snarled.
‘Under his protection.’
‘I don’t need Saxons to protect me. I want to teach them
