‘Pity?’
‘I wanted to slaughter that bastard for calling me grandpa. Now he’s gone.’ The men had indeed been ordered away from the barricade. The horsemen accompanied them westwards and we watched till they disappeared up a side street. ‘Nothing to stop us now,’ Finan said, and I knew he sensed my reluctance. My ribs hurt, my shoulders hurt. I gazed at the smoke-smeared sky, but saw no omen, good or bad. ‘If we meet Waormund,’ Finan said quietly, ‘I’ll fight him.’ And I knew from those words that he did not just sense my reluctance, he sensed my fear.
‘We must go,’ I said harshly.
Most of Rumwald’s troops carried shields that bore Æthelstan’s badge of the dragon with its lightning bolt. It was horribly dangerous to show that shield inside the city, but I could not ask men to fight without shields. It was a risk we must take, though I also took care to make sure some men wore the red cloaks we had captured, and for others to carry the shields we had taken from Hyglac’s garrison, which showed a fish and a cross, evidently the badge of the Abbot of Basengas. I was fearful that when men in the city saw us crossing the bridge they would realise we were the enemy and would send a force to oppose us, but perhaps the red cloaks and the sight of Æthelhelm’s banner still flying above Suðgeweork’s fort would deceive them. I had known when I first decided to cross to the southern bank that returning over the river would be a dangerous moment, but I had wanted the men besieging the fort to join us. The easy capture of the fort had swollen our numbers, but we were still a pitifully small force. We needed to reach a gate, and if Æthelhelm’s men suspected that the three hundred soldiers crossing the bridge were a threat then we would end up being slaughtered in Lundene’s streets. I told the men to straggle, to take their time. Attackers would have hurried, but we walked slowly, and all the while I watched the street beyond the abandoned barricade and watched the men on the wharves. They saw us, but none showed alarm. Rumwald’s men had vanished from between the houses across the river, so did those red-cloaked troops think the Mercians had withdrawn? And that we were coming to reinforce Æthelhelm?
And so three hundred men, at least a third of whom displayed Æthelstan’s badge, filed through the barricade, which I had ordered left intact in case we needed to retreat. The sun was high and hot, and the city still and silent. Æthelhelm’s men, I knew, would be on the northern walls, watching Æthelstan’s army, while the citizens of London, if they had any sense, would be behind barred doors.
It was time to leave the bridge and to climb up into the city. ‘Keep your men closed up now!’ I told Brihtwulf and Rumwald.
‘Should we tear up the bridge roadway, lord?’ Rumwald asked eagerly.
‘And trap ourselves on this side of it? Leave it alone.’ I started climbing the hill, Rumwald keeping pace with me. ‘Besides,’ I went on, ‘if any of Æthelhelm’s men try to escape across the bridge they’ll have to fight through that closed gate.’
‘We only left ten men there, lord,’ Rumwald, for the first time, sounded anxious.
‘Six men could hold that gate for ever,’ I said dismissively. And how likely was it that we would have a victory that forced Æthelhelm’s great force to flee in panic? I said nothing of that.
‘You think six men are enough, lord?’ Rumwald asked.
‘I know so.’
‘Then he’ll be king!’ Rumwald had regained his optimism. ‘By sundown, lord, Æthelstan will be King of Englaland!’
‘Not of Northumbria,’ I growled.
‘No, not Northumbria,’ Rumwald agreed, then looked up at me. ‘I’ve always wanted to fight alongside you, lord! It’ll be something to tell my grandchildren! That I fought with the great Lord Uhtred!’
The great Lord Uhtred! I felt a vast weight on my heart when I heard those words. Reputation! We seek it, we prize it, and then it turns on us like a cornered wolf. What did Rumwald expect? A miracle? We were three hundred in a city of three thousand, and the great Lord Uhtred had a battered body and a fearful heart. Yes, we might open a gate, and we might even hold it long enough to let Æthelstan’s men into the city, but what then? We would still be outnumbered. ‘It’s an honour to fight beside you,’ I told Rumwald, merely saying what he would like to hear, ‘and we need a horse.’
‘A horse?’
‘If we capture a gate,’ I said, ‘we have to send word to King Æthelstan.’
‘Of course!’
And at that moment a horseman appeared. He came from the top of the hill, his grey stallion stepping carefully on the old paving slabs. He turned towards us and I held up a hand to check our progress close beside the empty benches outside the Red Pig. ‘Who are you?’ the horseman called as he approached.
‘Lord Ealhstan!’ Brihtwulf came to stand on my right. Finan, who had been walking behind me, stood on my left.
The horseman could see red cloaks, he could see the fish symbol on Rumwald’s borrowed shield, but he could not see Æthelstan’s dragon shields because we had placed those men at the back.
‘East Anglians?’ The horseman curbed the stallion just in front of us. He was young, his mail was finely made, his horse’s trappings were polished leather studded with silver, and his sword was in a silver-coated scabbard. A thin gold chain circled his neck. His horse, a fine stallion, was nervous and stepped sideways, and the
