wrath descended on it, and in the Crossed Swords tavern, hard by the city’s northern gate, I found my escape. He was a Dane called Bolti and he had survived the massacre because he was married to a Saxon and his wife’s family had sheltered him. He saw me in the tavern and asked if I was Uhtred of Bebbanburg.
‘I am.’
He sat opposite me, bowed his head respectfully to Hild, then snapped his fingers to summon a girl with ale. He was a plump man, bald, with a pocked face, a broken nose and frightened eyes. His two sons, both half Saxon, loitered behind him. I guessed one was about twenty and the other five years younger, and both wore swords though neither looked comfortable with the weapons. ‘I knew Earl Ragnar the Elder,’ Bolti said.
‘I knew him too,’ I said, ‘and I don’t remember you.’
‘The last time he sailed in Wind-Viper,’ he said, ‘I sold him ropes and oar-looms.’
‘Did you cheat him?’ I asked sarcastically.
‘I liked him,’ he said fiercely.
‘And I loved him,’ I said, ‘because he became my father.’
‘I know he did,’ he said, ‘and I remember you.’ He fell silent and glanced at Hild. ‘You were very young,’ he went on, looking back to me, ‘and you were with a small dark girl.’
‘You do remember me then,’ I said, and fell silent as the ale was brought. I noticed that Bolti, despite being a Dane, wore a cross about his neck and he saw me looking at it.
‘In Eoferwic,’ he said, touching the cross, ‘a man must live.’ He pulled aside his coat and I saw Thor’s hammer amulet had been hidden beneath it. ‘They mostly killed pagans,’ he explained.
I pulled my own hammer amulet out from beneath my jerkin. ‘Are many Danes Christians now?’ I asked.
‘A few,’ he said grudingly, ‘you want food to go with that ale?’
‘I want to know why you’re talking with me,’ I said.
He wanted to leave the city. He wanted to take his Saxon wife, two sons and two daughters a long way from the vengeful massacre he suspected was coming, and he wanted swords to escort him, and he stared at me with pathetic, despairing eyes and did not know that what he wanted was just what I wanted. ‘So where will you go?’ I asked.
‘Not west,’ he said with a shudder. ‘There’s killing in Cumbraland.’
‘There’s always killing in Cumbraland,’ I said. Cumbraland was the part of Northumbria that lay across the hills and next to the Irish Sea, and it was raided by Scots from Strath Clota, by Norsemen from Ireland and by Britons from north Wales. Some Danes had settled in Cumbraland, but not enough to keep the wild raids from ravaging the place.
‘I’d go to Denmark,’ Bolti said, ‘but there are no warships.’ The only ships left at Eoferwic’s quays were Saxon traders, and if any dared sail they would be snapped up by Danish ships that were doubtless gathering in the Humber.
‘So?’ I asked.
‘So I want to go north,’ he said, ‘and meet Ivarr. I can pay you.’
‘And you think I can escort you through Kjartan’s land?’
‘I think I will do better with Ragnar’s son beside me than on my own,’ he admitted, ‘and if men know you travel with me then they will join us.’
So I let him pay me, and my price was sixteen shillings, two mares and a black stallion, and the price of the last made Bolti go pale. A man had been leading the stallion about the streets, offering it for sale, and Bolti bought the animal because his fear of being trapped in Eoferwic was worth forty shillings. The black horse was battle trained, which meant he was not startled at loud noises and he moved obediently to the pressure of a knee, which left a man free to hold shield and sword and still manoeuvre. The stallion had been plundered from one of the Danes massacred in the last few days for no one knew his name. I called him Witnere, which means Tormentor, and it was apt for he took a dislike to the two mares and kept snapping at them.
The mares were for Willibald and Hild. I told Father Willibald he should go south, but he was scared now and insisted on staying with me and so, the day after I had met Bolti, we all rode north along the Roman road. A dozen men came with us. Among them were three Danes and two Norsemen who had managed to hide from Hrothweard’s massacre, and the rest were Saxons who wanted to escape Ivarr’s revenge. All had weapons and Bolti gave me money to pay them. They did not get much in wages, just enough to buy food and ale, but their presence deterred any outlaws on the long road.
I was tempted to ride to Synningthwait which was where Ragnar and his followers had their land, but I knew there would be very few men there, for most had gone south with Ragnar. Some of those warriors had died at Ethandun and the rest were still with Guthrum, whose defeated army had stayed in Mercia. Guthrum and Alfred had made peace, and Guthrum had even been baptised, which Willibald said was a miracle. So there would be few warriors at Synningthwait. No place to find refuge against my uncle’s murderous ambitions or Kjartan’s hate. So, with no real plan for my future and content to let fate work its will, I kept faith with Bolti and escorted him north towards Kjartan’s land which lay athwart our path like a dark cloud. To pass through that land meant paying a toll, and that toll would be steep, and only powerful men like Ivarr, whose warriors outnumbered Kjartan’s followers, could cross the River Wiire without payment. ‘You can afford it,’ I teased Bolti. His two sons each led packhorses that I suspected were loaded with coins wrapped in cloth or fleece to stop them clinking.
‘I can’t afford it if he takes my daughters,’ Bolti said. He had twin daughters who were twelve or thirteen, ripe for marriage. They were short, plump, fair-haired, snub-nosed and impossible to tell apart.
‘Is that what Kjartan does?’ I asked.
‘He takes what he wants,’ Bolti said sourly, ‘and he likes young girls, though I suspect he’d prefer to take you.’
‘And why do you suspect that?’ I asked him tonelessly.
‘I know the tales,’ he said. ‘His son lost his eye because of you.’
‘His son lost his eye,’ I said, ‘because he stripped Earl Ragnar’s daughter half naked.’
‘But he blames you.’
‘He does,’ I agreed. We had all been children then, but childhood injuries can fester and I did not doubt that Sven the One-Eyed would love to take both my eyes as revenge for his one.
So as we neared Dunholm we turned west into the hills to avoid Kjartan’s men. It was summer, but a chill wind brought low clouds and a thin rain so that I was glad of my leather-lined mail coat. Hild had smeared the metal rings with lanolin squeezed out of newly-shorn fleeces, and it protected most of the metal from rust. She had put the grease on my helmet and sword-blades too.
We climbed, following the well-worn track, and a couple of miles behind us another group followed, and there were fresh hoofprints in the damp earth betraying that others had passed this way not long before. Such heavy use of the path should have made me think. Kjartan the Cruel and Sven the One-Eyed lived off the dues that travellers paid them, and if a traveller did not pay then they were robbed, taken as slaves or killed. Kjartan and his son had to be aware that folk were trying to avoid them
