Bit by bit Tosti began selling his strength too. Outlaw he was at home. No king anywhere wanted beasts like this in his guard. Yet when the war-arrow went around, the robbers could be useful hirelings—or better than useful, raging ahead to rip the throat out of the foe.
Afterward they would go back to the stronghold they now had. It stood alone on a high heath, looking widely over ling, gorse, tussocks, scattered thickets, and murky meres. The frame of its stockade was a ring of standing stones left by the giants of old. Tosti gibed at their ghosts. Thralls died hauling the timbers, digging the turf, breaking the rocks that went to build it. When they were done it crouched as a thorp, bulky, filthy, unruly, but his. Kine lowed around it, grazing in summer, fed in winter on hay cut wherever grass grew. This and all other work fell to the thralls, some reaved from their homes, some bought in marts where nobody kenned the buyers. More than half of them were women, who trudged about their tasks, spread their legs when a warrior bade, and seldom lived long. Nor did any children they bore.
Other needs, such as grain, cloth, and iron, came from outside. Tosti’s gang had won the means to pay for it when paying was easier than snatching. He had, in truth, become a kind of chieftain in his own right. Any one or two of the little Jutish kings could have raised a host too-big for him, and taken the time to hound him down. But he shrewdly furthered wariness among them. Thus he said once to Orm of Donlund, “If ever you go up against me, that will leave your own land open to Svengir of Hrossmark. You know well what grudges he nurses. Would you not both do better to stay on the good side of me? Make me a yearly payment and we brothers will leave you alone. Well, maybe once in a while there’ll be some small raid, but nothing much. Besides, all Jutes should remember that the Anglians are always watchful. Tempt them not.”
So it was that Tosti waxed in might. Maybe he would have grown greater than he did, were it not that his faithlessness and cruelty shocked too many hardened men. They came to call him Tosti the Wicked. That delighted him.
He was not tall, but very broad and thick, bandy-legged, strong as a bear. His face was ill to behold, with eyes sunken deep under a narrow forehead, snoutlike nose, buck teeth in a gash of a mouth, unkempt black hair and beard. His garb was greasy, he seldom bathed, and more fleas hopped on him than did on most folk. He liked using his fists and boots on the women he took.
Withal, he had the somewhat fearful worship of his men. It was not only that they had nowhere else to go. Without him to lead them, they would soon be scattered and slain, and they knew it. He had brought them to what they thought was a better life than a poor yeoman’s or a homeless landlouper’s. He could be merry when he chose, in his rough way, livening drinking bouts that would otherwise have been cheerless. He held dreams up before them.
The day would come, he said, when they were no longer outlaws, hunting meager prey. No, they would be at the front of a wave that swept over all Jutland, drowned every foe, brought down haughty Hadding, and raised a mighty kingdom.
It was not all boasting. After years Tosti felt ready to move.
Besides his own henchmen, he gathered Jutes from the Saxon marches. Warface back and forth had left abiding hatreds, and there was moreover the hope of loot. The host was not very big, but its men were bold and war-wonted. They gave no warning as they went swiftly south. Soon the red cock crowed on roofs as far as eye could see.
The king’s reeve in those parts, Syfrid, mustered what strength he quickly could and met them. That was a bloody affray. The Saxons held their ground, but barely, and behind windrows of their dead. Near sunset, the Jutes drew back and sat down to rest. Tosti sent a man with a white shield to ask if the Saxon leader would like to talk.
Syfrid would, however bad it tasted. The two of them stalked toward one another across the ling between their men. Ravens flapped heavily up and sought their food farther off. Their croaking was almost the only sound. The west went red.
“Will you have peace?” Tosti greeted.
Syfrid folded his arms and glowered. “You should be he who begs for it,” he answered.
“Why? We drubbed you today. Tomorrow we’ll wipe out the last of you.”
“That will be as the Father of Victories chooses. But surely your pack will never get home alive. Already the king must be calling up a levy to stamp you flat underfoot.”
“We can be gone faster than you think, laying waste along our way. Why should your landsmen suffer needlessly/ You can have great gain instead, that may in time bring you higher than your king.”
Syfrid stood long silent before he asked, “How can that be?”
“You must join us in making war on Denmark. Hold!” Tosti lifted a hand. “What I mean is to lure King Hadding to his death. Without him, his lands will lie open to those who go in at once, before his jarls or his young son can rally the Danes anew. There’ll be no dearth of chieftains who’ll join us, eager to share the spoils. But first we must be rid of Hadding.”
“No, you’re mad!”
Tosti fleered. “If I am, you needn’t share the madness. Only tell me no, and die tomorrow. But if you have any wisdom, you’ll at least hear me out first.”
They talked long into the night. Stars wheeled, owls hooted, wolf-song wailed. Tosti wheedled, browbeat, uttered terrible threats,
