but by now his scouts would have seen the monks and priests at Eanulfsbirig’s bridge. I had told Osferth to keep them on our bank, and to make sure they attracted attention. There was a risk, of course, that Sigurd’s Danes would attack the nearly defenceless churchmen, but I thought he would wait until he was certain I was there. And so he did.
We arrived at Eanulfsbirig to find the choir singing. Osferth had ordered them to chant, and they were standing, miserable and singing, beneath their great banners. ‘Sing louder, you bastards!’ I shouted as we cantered up to the bridge. ‘Sing like loud little birdies!’
‘Lord Uhtred!’ Father Willibald came running towards me. ‘What’s happening? What’s happening?’
‘I decided to start a war, father,’ I said cheerfully, ‘it’s so much more interesting than peace.’
He stared at me aghast. I slid from the saddle and saw that Osferth had obeyed me by piling kindling on the bridge’s wooden walkway. ‘It’s thatch,’ he told me, ‘and it’s damp.’
‘So long as it burns,’ I said. The thatch was piled across the bridge, hiding lengths of timber that made a low barricade. Downriver the smoke from the burning ships had thickened to make a great pillar in the sky. The sun was very low now, casting long shadows towards the east where Sigurd must have heard from the two ships’ crews that I was close by.
‘You started a war?’ Willibald caught up with me.
‘Shield wall!’ I shouted. ‘Right here!’ I would make a shield wall on the bridge itself. It did not matter how many men Sigurd brought now because only a few could face us in the narrow space between the heavy timber parapets.
‘We came in peace!’ Willibald protested to me. The twins, Ceolberht and Ceolnoth, were making similar protests as Finan arrayed our warriors. The bridge was wide enough for six men to stand abreast, their shields overlapping. I had four ranks of men there now, men with axes and swords and big round shields.
‘We came,’ I turned on Willibald, ‘because Eohric betrayed you. This was never about peace. This was about making war easier. Ask him,’ I gestured at Ivann. ‘Go on, talk to him and leave me in peace! And tell those monks to stop their damned caterwauling.’
Then, from the far trees, across the damp fields, the Danes appeared. A host of Danes, maybe two hundred of them, and they came on horses led by Sigurd who rode a great white stallion beneath his banner of a flying raven. He saw we were waiting for him and that to attack us he must send his men across the narrow bridge and so he curbed his horse some fifty paces away, dismounted, and walked towards us. A younger man accompanied him, yet it was Sigurd who drew attention. He was a big man, broad-shouldered and with a scarred face half hidden by his beard that was long enough to be plaited into two thick ropes that he wore twisted around his neck. His helmet reflected the reddening sunlight. He was not bothering to carry a shield or draw a sword, but he was still a Danish lord in his war-splendour. His helmet was touched with gold, a chain of gold was buried among the plaits of his beard, his arms were thick with golden rings and the throat of his sword’s scabbard, like the weapon’s hilt, glinted with more gold. The younger man had a chain of silver, and a silver ring surrounding his helmet’s crown. He had an insolent face, petulant and hostile.
I stepped over the piled thatch and went to meet the two men. ‘Lord Uhtred,’ Sigurd greeted me sarcastically.
‘Jarl Sigurd,’ I answered in the same tone.
‘I told them you weren’t a fool,’ he said. The sun was now so low above the south-western horizon that he was forced to half close his eyes to see me properly. He spat onto the grass. ‘Ten of your men against eight of mine,’ he suggested, ‘right here,’ he stamped his foot on the wet grass. He wanted to draw my men off the bridge, and he knew I would not accept.
‘Let me fight him,’ the younger man said.
I gave the young man a dismissive glance. ‘I like my enemies to be old enough to shave before I kill them,’ I said, then looked back to Sigurd. ‘You against me,’ I told him, ‘right here,’ I stamped my foot on the road’s frost-hardened mud.
He half smiled, showing yellowed teeth. ‘I would kill you, Uhtred,’ he said mildly, ‘and so rid the world of a worthless piece of rat shit, but that pleasure must wait.’ He pulled up his right sleeve to show a splint on his forearm. The splint was two slivers of wood bound tight with linen bands. I also saw a curious scar on his palm, a pair of slashes that formed a cross. Sigurd was no coward, but nor was he fool enough to fight me while the broken bone of his sword arm was mending.
‘You were fighting women again?’ I asked, nodding at the strange scar.
He stared at me. I thought my insult had gone deep, but he was evidently thinking.
‘Let me fight him!’ the young man said again.
‘Be quiet,’ Sigurd growled.
I looked at the youngster. He was perhaps eighteen or nineteen, nearly coming into his full strength, and had all the swagger of a confident young man. His mail was fine, probably Frankish, and his arms thick with the rings Danes like to wear, but I suspected the wealth had been given to him, not earned on a battlefield. ‘My son,’ Sigurd introduced him, ‘Sigurd Sigurdson.’ I nodded to him, while Sigurd the Younger just stared at me with hostile eyes. He so wanted to prove himself, but his father would have none of it. ‘My only son,’ he said.
‘It seems he has a death wish,’ I said, ‘and if he wants a fight, I’ll oblige him.’
‘It isn’t his time,’ Sigurd said, ‘I know, because I talked to Ælfadell,’ he said.
‘Ælfadell?’
‘She knows the future, Uhtred,’ he said, and his voice was serious without any trace of mockery, ‘she tells the future.’
I had heard rumours of Ælfadell, rumours as vague as smoke, rumours that drifted across Britain and said a northern sorceress could speak with the gods. Her name, that sounded so like our word for nightmare, made Christians cross themselves.
I shrugged as if I did not care about Ælfadell. ‘And what does the old woman say?’
Sigurd grimaced. ‘She says no son of Alfred will ever rule in Britain.’
‘You believe her?’ I asked even though I could see he did because he spoke simply and plainly, as if telling me the price of oxen.
‘You would believe her too,’ he said, ‘except you won’t live to meet her.’
‘She told you that?’
‘If you and I met, she says, then your leader will die.’
‘My leader?’ I pretended to be amused.
‘You,’ Sigurd said grimly.
I spat onto the grass. ‘I trust Eohric is paying you well for this wasted time.’
‘He will pay,’ Sigurd said harshly, then he turned, plucked his son’s elbow, and walked away.
I had sounded defiant, but in truth my soul was crawling with fear. Suppose Ælfadell the Enchantress had told the truth? The gods do speak to us, though rarely in plain speech. Was I doomed to die here on this river’s bank? Sigurd believed it,
