I asked sarcastically.
‘So he can read my orders,’ Alfred said coldly, ‘and send me news.’
‘Yes, lord,’ I said again.
They had lit beacons in Hamtun’s waters so we could find our way home, and the night wind stirred the liquid reflections of moon and stars as we slid to our anchorage. There were lights ashore, and fires, and ale, and food and laughter, and best of all the promise of meeting Ragnar next day.
Ragnar took a huge risk, of course, in going back to Heilincigae, though perhaps he reckoned, truthfully as it turned out, that our ships would need a day to recover from the fight. There were injured men to tend, weapons to sharpen, and so none of our fleet put to sea that day.
Brida and I rode horses to Hamanfunta, a village that lived off trapping eels, fishing and making salt, and a sliver of a coin found stabling for our horses and a fisherman willing to take us out to Heilincigae where no one now lived, for the Danes had slaughtered them all. The fisherman would not wait for us, too frightened of the coming night and the ghosts that would be moaning and screeching on the island, but he promised to return in the morning.
Brida, Nihtgenga and I wandered that low place, going past the previous day’s Danish dead that had already been pecked ragged by the gulls, past burned-out huts where folk had made a poor living from the sea and the marsh before the Vikings came and then, as the sun sank, we carried charred timbers to the shore and I used flint and steel to make a fire. The flames flared up in the dusk and Brida touched my arm to show me Wind-Viper, dark against the darkening sky, coming through the sea-lake’s entrance. The last of the daylight touched the sea red and caught the gilding on Wind-Viper’s beast-head.
I watched her, thinking of all the fear that such a sight brought on England. Wherever there was a creek, a harbour or a river mouth, men feared to see the Danish ships. They feared those beasts at the prow, feared the men behind the beasts and prayed to be spared the Northmen’s fury. I loved the sight. Loved Wind-Viper. Her oars rose and fell, I could hear the shafts creaking in their leather-lined holes, and I could see mailed men at her prow, and then the bows scrunched on the sand and the long oars went still.
Ragnar put the ladder against the prow. All Danish ships have a short ladder to let them climb down to a beach, and he came down the rungs slowly and alone. He was in full mail coat, helmeted, with a sword at his side and once ashore he paced to the small flames of our fire like a warrior come for vengeance. He stopped a spear’s length away and then stared at me through the black eyeholes of his helmet. ‘Did you kill my father?’ he asked harshly.
‘On my life,’ I said, ‘on Thor,’ I pulled out the hammer amulet and clutched it, ‘on my soul,’ I went on, ‘I did not.’
He pulled off his helmet, stepped forward and we embraced. ‘I knew you did not,’ he said.
‘Kjartan did it,’ I said, ‘and we watched him.’ We told him the whole story, how we had been in the high woods watching the charcoal cool, and how we had been cut off from the hall, and how it had been fired, and how the folk had been slaughtered.
‘If I could have killed one of them,’ I said, ‘I would, and I would have died doing it, but Ravn always said there should be at least one survivor to tell the tale.’
‘What did Kjartan say?’ Brida asked.
Ragnar was sitting now, and two of his men had brought bread and dried herrings and cheese and ale. ‘Kjartan said,’ Ragnar spoke softly, ‘that the English rose against the hall, encouraged by Uhtred, and that he revenged himself on the killers.’
‘And you believed him?’ I asked.
‘No,’ he admitted. ‘Too many men said he did it, but he is Earl Kjartan now, he leads three times more men than I do.’
‘And Thyra?’ I asked, ‘what does she say?’
‘Thyra?’ He stared at me, puzzled.
‘Thyra lived,’ I told him. ‘She was taken away by Sven.’
He just stared at me. He had not known that his sister lived and I saw the anger come on his face, and then he raised his eyes to the stars and he howled like a wolf.
‘It is true,’ Brida said softly, ‘your sister lived.’
Ragnar drew his sword and laid it on the sand and touched the blade with his right hand. ‘If it is the last thing I do,’ he swore, ‘I shall kill Kjartan, kill his son, and all his followers. All of them!’
‘I would help,’ I said. He looked at me through the flames. ‘I loved your father,’ I said, ‘and he treated me like a son.’
‘I will welcome your help, Uhtred,’ Ragnar said formally. He wiped the sand from the blade and slid it back into its fleece-lined scabbard. ‘You will sail with us now?’
I was tempted. I was even surprised at how strongly I was tempted. I wanted to go with Ragnar, I wanted the life I had lived with his father, but fate rules us. I was sworn to Alfred for a few more weeks, and I had fought alongside Leofric for all these months, and fighting next to a man in the shield wall makes a bond as tight as love. ‘I cannot come,’ I said, and wished I could have said the opposite.
‘I can,’ Brida said, and somehow I was not surprised by that. She had not liked being left ashore in Hamtun as we sailed to fight, she felt trammelled and useless, unwanted, and I think she yearned after the Danish ways. She hated Wessex. She hated its priests, hated their disapproval and hated their denial of all that was joy.
‘You are a witness of my father’s death,’ Ragnar said to her, still formal.
‘I am.’
‘Then I would welcome you,’ he said, and looked at me again.
I shook my head. ‘I am sworn to Alfred for the moment. By winter I shall be free of the oath.’
‘Then come to us in the winter,’ Ragnar said, ‘and we shall go to Dunholm.’
‘Dunholm?’
‘It is Kjartan’s fortress now. Ricsig lets him live there.’
I thought of Dunholm’s stronghold on its soaring crag, wrapped by its river, protected by its sheer rock and its high walls and strong garrison. ‘What if Kjartan marches on Wessex?’ I asked.
Ragnar shook his head. ‘He will not, because he does not go where I go, so I must go to him.’
‘He fears you then?’
Ragnar smiled, and if Kjartan had seen that smile he would have shivered. ‘He fears me,’ Ragnar said. ‘I hear he sent men to kill me in Ireland, but their boat was driven ashore and the skraelings killed the crew. So he lives in fear. He denies my father’s death, but he still fears me.’
‘There is one last thing,’ I said, and nodded at Brida who brought out the leather bag with its gold, jet and silver. ‘It was your father’s,’ I said, ‘and Kjartan never found it, and we did, and we have spent some of it, but what remains is yours.’ I pushed the bag towards him and made myself instantly poor.
Ragnar pushed it back without a thought, making me rich again. ‘My father
