I had not had that nightmare for years, but I had it that day, and again I woke screaming, only now I was in a farm cart, cushioned on straw and cloaks, my body covered by a dark red cloak. ‘All’s well, lord,’ a woman said. She was riding in the cart with me as it lurched along the rough road to Werlameceaster.
‘Finan,’ I said. The sun was in my eyes, too bright. ‘Finan.’
‘Aye, it’s me,’ Finan answered. He was riding alongside the cart.
The woman bent over me, shadowing my face. ‘Benedetta,’ I said.
‘I’m here, lord, with the children. We’re all here.’
I closed my eyes. ‘No Serpent-Breath,’ I said.
‘I do not understand,’ Benedetta said.
‘My sword!’
‘You’ll have her again, lord,’ Finan called.
‘Waormund?’
‘The big bastard escaped, lord. Rode his horse straight into the river. But I’ll find him.’
‘I’ll find him,’ I croaked.
‘You’ll sleep now, lord,’ Benedetta said and she laid a gentle hand on my forehead. ‘You must sleep, lord, you must sleep.’
I did sleep, and at least that was an escape from the pain that filled me. I remember little of that day after the sight of Finan’s bright sword slashing down to sever the rope that had tied me to Waormund’s stallion.
I was taken to Werlameceaster. I do remember opening my eyes and seeing the Roman arch of the eastern gate above me, but I must have slept again, or else the pain just drove me to unconsciousness. I was put on a bed, I was washed, and my wounds, and they were many, were smeared with honey. I dreamed of the cave again, saw the rock coming to crush me, but instead of screaming I just woke shaking to see I was in a stone-walled room lit by stinking rushlights. I was confused. For a moment I could only think about rushlights and how bad they smelled when the fat used to smear them was rancid, and then I felt the pain, remembered my humiliation, and groaned. I wanted the blessing of sleep, but someone put a damp cloth on my forehead. ‘You’re a hard man to kill,’ a woman said.
‘Benedetta?’
‘It is Benedetta,’ she said. She gave me weak ale to drink. I struggled to sit up and she put two straw-filled bags behind me.
‘I’m ashamed,’ I said.
‘Hush,’ she said and held my hand. It embarrassed me and I took my hand away.
‘I’m ashamed,’ I said again.
‘Of what?’
‘I am Uhtred of Bebbanburg. They humiliated me.’
‘And I am Benedetta of nowhere,’ she said, ‘and I have been humiliated all my life, raped all my life, enslaved all my life, but I am not ashamed.’ I closed my eyes to stop myself crying, and she took my hand again. ‘If you are powerless, lord,’ she went on, ‘then why be ashamed of what the strong inflict on you? It is for them to be ashamed.’
‘Waormund,’ I said the name quietly, as if testing it.
‘You will kill him, lord,’ Benedetta said, ‘as I killed Gunnald Gunnaldson.’
I let her hold my hand, but I turned away from her so she would not see my tears.
I was ashamed.
Next day Finan brought me my mail coat, he brought me Wasp-Sting, with a sword belt to which he had attached Wasp-Sting’s scabbard, and he brought me my boots and my old shabby helmet. All that was missing was my torn mail coat, the hammer amulet, and Serpent-Breath. ‘We took all these off the dead, lord,’ Finan explained, placing Wasp-Sting and the helmet on the bed, and I was glad it was not my fine war-helmet, the helmet that was crested by the silver wolf, because the wolf of Bebbanburg had been humiliated. ‘Six or seven of the bastards got away,’ the Irishman said.
‘With Serpent-Breath.’
‘Aye, with Serpent-Breath, but we’ll fetch her back.’
I said nothing to that. The knowledge of my failure was too harsh, too strong. What had I thought when I sailed from Bebbanburg? That I could pierce the West Saxon kingdom and cut out the rot that lay at its heart? Yet my enemies were strong. Æthelhelm led an army, he had allies, his nephew was King of Wessex, and I was lucky to be alive, but the shame of my failure galled me. ‘How many dead?’ I asked Finan.
‘We killed sixteen of the bastards,’ he said happily, ‘and we have nineteen prisoners. Two of the Mercians died, and a couple have nasty injuries.’
‘Waormund,’ I said, ‘he has Serpent-Breath.’
‘We’ll fetch her back,’ Finan said again.
‘Serpent-Breath,’ I said quietly. ‘Her blade was beaten out on Odin’s anvil, tempered by Thor’s fire, and quenched in the blood of her enemies.’
Finan looked at Benedetta, who shrugged as if to suggest my mind was wandering. Perhaps it was. ‘He must sleep,’ she said.
‘No,’ Finan answered. ‘He must fight. He’s Uhtred of Bebbanburg. He doesn’t lie in a bed feeling sorry for himself. Uhtred of Bebbanburg puts on his mail, straps on a sword, and takes death to his enemies.’ He stood in the room’s doorway, the sun bright behind him. ‘Merewalh has five hundred men here, and they’re doing nothing. They’re sitting around like turds in a bucket. It’s time to fight.’
I said nothing. My body ached. My head hurt. I closed my eyes.
‘We fight,’ Finan said, ‘and then we go home.’
‘Perhaps I should have died,’ I said, ‘maybe it was time.’
‘Don’t be such a pathetic fool,’ he snarled. ‘The gods didn’t want your rotten carcass in Valhalla, not yet. They haven’t done with you. What is it you like to tell us all the time? Wyrd bið ful ãræd?’ His Irish accent mangled the words. ‘Well fate hasn’t finished with you, and the gods didn’t leave you alive for no reason, and you’re a lord, so get on your damned feet, strap on a sword, and take us south.’
‘South?’
‘Because that’s where your enemies are. In Lundene.’
‘Waormund,’ I said, and flinched inwardly as I
