‘All of Northumbria!’
Hyglac shrugged. ‘Not sure I want to be part of that war. They’re god-damned savages in Northumbria.’
‘They are,’ Finan said fervently.
‘I still need a place to keep prisoners,’ I said.
‘Lord Æthelhelm won’t like that,’ Hyglac warned me again.
‘You’re right,’ I said, ‘he won’t, because you’re the prisoners.’
‘Me?’ He was certain he had misheard or, at the least, misunderstood.
‘You,’ I said mildly. ‘I’m giving you a choice, Hyglac.’ I spoke softly, reasonably. ‘You can die here, or you can give me your sword. You and your men will be stripped of your mail, your weapons and boots, then put into that building. It’s that or death.’ I smiled. ‘Which is it to be?’
He stared at me, still trying to understand what I had said. He opened his mouth, revealing three crooked yellow teeth, said nothing and so closed it.
I held out my hand. ‘Your sword, Hyglac.’
He still seemed dazed. ‘Who are you?’
‘Uhtred of Bebbanburg,’ I said, ‘lord of the Northumbrian savages.’ For a moment I thought he was going to piss himself with terror. ‘Your sword,’ I said politely, and he just gave it to me.
It was that easy.
A warrior called Rumwald led the Mercians who had threatened Suðgeweork’s fort. He was a short man with a round cheerful face, a straggling grey beard, and a brisk manner. He had led one hundred and thirty-five men into the fort. ‘You had us worried, lord,’ he confessed.
‘Worried?’
‘We were about to assault the fort, then your men showed up. I thought we’d never capture the place after that!’
Yet captured it was, and we now had a little more than three hundred men, ten of whom I would leave to guard Hyglac’s garrison, who were safely imprisoned inside the larger of the two buildings. The West Saxons had been surly, resentful, and outnumbered, but they had little choice except to surrender, and once they had been disarmed and shut away we had opened the fort’s southern gates and shouted at the Mercians to join us. Rumwald had been reluctant to let his men approach the fort, fearing a trap, and in the end Brihtwulf had walked without shield or sword to persuade his fellow Mercians that we were allies.
‘What were you supposed to do after capturing the fort?’ I asked Rumwald. I had learned that he and his men had crossed the Temes at Westmynster, then walked along the river’s southern bank.
‘Tear up the bridge, lord.’
‘Tear up the bridge?’ I asked. ‘You mean destroy it?’
‘Rip up the planks, make sure the bastards couldn’t escape.’ He grinned.
‘So,’ I said, ‘Æthelstan really means to assault the city?’ I had half convinced myself that the Mercian army had come merely to scout the city, to unsettle Æthelhelm, and then withdraw.
‘God love you, lord!’ Rumwald said happily. ‘He plans to assault once you open a gate for him.’
‘Once I open …’ I began, then ran out of words.
‘He got a message, lord, from Merewalh,’ Rumwald explained. ‘It said you would open one of the northern gates, and that’s why he’s come! He reckons he can take the city if there’s an open gate, and he doesn’t want half Æthelhelm’s army to escape, does he? Of course he didn’t mean this gate!’ Rumwald saw my confusion. ‘You did mean to open a gate, lord?’
‘Yes,’ I said, remembering my wish, not two hours before, to flee Lundene. So Æthelstan now expected me to unlock the city for him? ‘Yes,’ I said again, ‘I do mean to open a gate. Do you have a banner?’
‘A banner?’ Rumwald asked, then nodded. ‘Of course, lord. We have King Æthelstan’s banner. You want me to tear that rag down?’ He nodded at Æthelhelm’s banner of the leaping stag that still flew above the fort’s northern arch.
‘No!’ I said. ‘I just want you to bring the flag with us. And keep it hidden till I tell you.’
‘So we’re going into the city, lord?’ Rumwald asked. He sounded excited.
‘We’re going into the city,’ I said. I did not want to, the night’s dread was still lurking inside me, making me fear that this was the day when the vast boulder of Saint Cuthbert’s cave would finally fall on me.
I left Rumwald and climbed the ladder that led to the fighting platform above the bridge’s entrance, and from there I stared across the river. The city smoke was being blown eastwards and there was little sign that anything happened beneath that perpetual pall of smoke. There was still a squad of soldiers guarding the barricade at the bridge’s northern end, while another score of soldiers guarded the downstream wharves, presumably to stop men from deserting. I could see into Gunnald’s slave-yard where the only ship was the wreck and where no men moved. More usefully I could see up the hill that climbed from the bridge and could even see men slumping on benches outside the Red Pig tavern. If, as Father Oda had said, this was the day that would decide the fate of Englaland, then it all looked peaceful, strangely so. Finan joined me. He was hot and had taken off his helmet and was wearing his ragged rye-straw hat again. ‘Three hundred of us now,’ he said.
‘Yes,’ I answered. Finan leaned on the wooden parapet. I was searching the sky for an omen, any omen.
‘Rumwald reckons Æthelstan has twelve hundred men,’ Finan remarked.
‘Fourteen hundred if Merewalh has joined him.’
‘Should be enough,’ Finan said, ‘so long as the East Anglians don’t fight too hard.’
‘Maybe.’
‘Maybe,’ Finan repeated, and then, after a pause, ‘horsemen.’ He pointed and I saw two horsemen riding down the hill towards the far end of the bridge. They paused by the Red Pig and after a moment the men lounging on the benches stood, picked up their shields, crossed the street, and vanished into the western alleys. The horsemen came on down to the bridge, reining in at the barricade. ‘Those earslings at the barricade aren’t doing any good,’ Finan said. I supposed they were there to stop
