has worn him out?’
Edward would not be grateful, I thought, whatever happened here. Our horses’ hooves were loud on the Roman road. We still rode slowly, showing no threat. We passed the old worn stone pillar that said it was one mile to Deva, the name the Romans had given Ceaster. By now we were among the hovels and campfires of the encampment, and folk watched us pass. They showed no alarm, there were no sentries, and no one challenged us. ‘What’s wrong with them?’ Finan growled at me.
‘They think that if relief comes,’ I said, ‘it’ll come from the east, not the north. So they think we’re on their side.’
‘Then they’re idiots,’ he said. He was right, of course. Cynlæf, if he still commanded here, should have sentries posted on every approach to the besiegers’ camp, but the long cold weeks of the siege had made them lazy and careless. Cynlæf just wanted to capture Ceaster, and had forgotten to watch his back.
Finan, who had the eyes of a hawk, was gazing at the city wall. ‘That monk was full of shit,’ he said scornfully. ‘I can see fifty-eight men on the north wall!’
The monk who had brought me the news of the siege had been certain that the garrison was perilously small. ‘How small?’ I had asked him.
‘No more than a hundred men, lord.’
I had looked at him sceptically. ‘How do you know?’
‘The priest told me, lord,’ he said nervously. The monk, who was called Brother Osric, claimed to be from a monastery in Hwite, a place I had never heard of, but which the monk said was a few hours’ walking south of Ceaster. Brother Osric had told us how a priest had come to his monastery. ‘He was dying, lord! He had gripe in his guts.’
‘And that was Father Swithred?’
‘Yes, lord.’
I knew Swithred. He was an older man, a fierce and sour priest who disliked me. ‘And the garrison sent him to get help?’
‘Yes, lord.’
‘They didn’t send a warrior?’
‘A priest can go where warriors cannot, lord,’ Brother Osric had explained. ‘Father Swithred said he left the city at nightfall and walked through the besiegers’ camp. No one challenged him, lord. Then he walked south to Hwite.’
‘Where he was taken ill?’
‘Where he was dying as I left, lord,’ Brother Osric had made the sign of the cross. ‘It is God’s will.’
‘Your god has a strange will,’ I had snarled.
‘And Father Swithred begged my abbot to send one of us to reach you, lord,’ Brother Osric had continued, ‘and that was me,’ he finished lamely. He had been kneeling in supplication, and I saw a savage red scar crossing his tonsure.
‘Father Swithred doesn’t like me,’ I said, ‘and he hates all pagans. Yet he sent for me?’
The question had made Brother Osric uncomfortable. He had blushed, then stammered, ‘he … he …’
‘He insulted me,’ I suggested.
‘He did, lord, he did.’ He sounded relieved that I had anticipated an answer he had been reluctant to say aloud. ‘But he also said you would answer the garrison’s plea.’
‘And Father Swithred didn’t carry a letter?’ I asked, ‘a plea for help?
‘He did, lord, but he vomited on it.’ He had grimaced. ‘But it was nasty, lord, all blood and bile.’
‘How did you get the scar?’ I had asked him.
‘My sister hit me, lord,’ he had sounded surprised at my question. ‘With a reaping hook, lord.’
‘And how many men in the besieging force?
‘Father Swithred said there were hundreds, lord.’ I remember how nervous Brother Osric had been, but I put that down to his fear at meeting me, a famous pagan. Did he think I had horns and a forked tail? ‘By God’s grace, lord,’ he went on, ‘the garrison fought off one assault, and I pray to God that the city hasn’t fallen by now. They beseech your help, lord.’
‘Why hasn’t Edward helped?’
‘He has other enemies, lord. He’s fighting them in southern Mercia.’ The monk had looked up beseechingly. ‘Please, lord! The garrison can’t last long!’
Yet they had lasted, and we had come. We had left the road by now, and our horses walked slowly through the besiegers’ encampment. The luckiest folk had found shelter in the farm buildings that had been made by the Romans. They were good stone buildings, though the long years had destroyed their roofs, which were now untidy heaps of thatch on beams, but most people were in crude shelters. Women were feeding the fires with newly gathered wood, readying to cook an evening meal. They seemed incurious about us. They saw my mail coat and silver-crested helmet, saw the silver ornaments on Tintreg’s bridle, and so realised I was a lord and dutifully knelt as I passed, but none dared ask who we were.
I halted in an open space to the north-east of the city. I gazed around, puzzled because I could see few horses. The besiegers must have horses. I had planned to drive those horses away to prevent men using them to escape, as well as to capture the beasts to defray the costs of this winter journey, but I could see no more than a dozen. If there were no horses then we had the advantage, and so I turned Tintreg and walked him back through my men until I reached the packhorses. ‘Unbundle the spears,’ I ordered the boys. There were eight heavy bundles tied with leather ropes. Each spear was about seven feet long with an ash shaft and a sharpened steel blade. I waited as the bundles were untied and as each of my men took one of the weapons. Most also carried a shield, but a few preferred to ride without the heavy willow boards. The enemy had let us come into the centre of their encampment and they must have seen my men taking their spears, yet still they did nothing except watch us dully. I waited for the boys to coil the leather ropes, then climb back into their saddles. ‘You boys,’ I called to the servants, ‘ride east, wait out in the fields till we send for you. Not you, Rorik.’
Rorik was my servant, a good boy. He was Norse. I had killed his father, captured the boy and now treated him like a son, just as Ragnar the Dane had treated me as a son after his forces had cut my father down in battle.
‘Not me, lord?’ he asked.
‘You follow me,’ I told him, ‘and have the horn ready. Stay behind me! And you don’t need that spear.’
He pulled the spear out of my reach. ‘It’s a spare one for you, lord,’ he said. He was lying, of course, he could not wait to use the weapon.
‘Don’t get yourself killed, you idiot,’ I growled at him, then waited to see that the boys and the packhorses were safe beyond the encampment’s edge. ‘You know what to do,’ I called to my men, ‘so do it!’
And it began.
We spread into a line, we spurred forward.
Smoke from the campfires was acrid. A dog barked, a child cried. Three ravens flew eastwards, wings dark against grey clouds, and I wondered if they were an omen. I touched spurs
