up, threatening, the broken crest curling, and then the stern lifts to the surge and the hull lunges forward and the sea seethes along the strakes as the wave roars past. I love the birds skimming the grey water, the wind as friend and as enemy, the oars lifting and falling. I love the sea. I have lived long and I know the turbulence of life, the cares that weigh a man’s soul and the sorrows that turn the hair white and the heart heavy, but all those are lifted along the whale’s path. Only at sea is a man truly free.
It had taken six days to settle matters in Lundene, the chief of which was to find a place where my men’s families could live in safety. I had friends in Lundene and, though the Christians had sworn to break and kill me, Lundene is a forgiving city. Its alleys are places where foreigners can find refuge, and though there are riots and though the priests condemn other gods, most of the time the folk know to leave each other alone. I had spent many years in the city, I had commanded its garrison and rebuilt the Roman walls of the old town, and I had friends there who promised to look after our families. Sigunn wanted to come with me, but we were going to where the blades would draw blood and that was no place for a woman. Besides, I could not let her come if I forbade my men to bring their women, and so she stayed with a purse of my gold and a promise that we would return. We bought salt fish and salt meat, we filled the casks with ale and stowed them aboard Middelniht, and only then could we row downriver. I had left two of the older men to guard our families, but the four enslaved Frisians who had been part of Middelniht’s wrecked crew all joined me, and so I led thirty-five men downriver. We used the tide to carry us round the wide bends I knew so well, past the mudbanks where the reeds stirred and the birds cried, past Beamfleot where I had won a great victory that had inspired the poets and left the ditches red with blood, and then out to the wild wind and the endless sea.
We stranded Middelniht in a creek somewhere on the East Anglian coast and spent three days scraping her hull clean of weeds and scum. We did the work during the low tides, first scraping one side and recaulking the seams, then using a high tide to float her, spill her over and so expose her other flank. Then it was back to sea, rowing out of the creek to raise the sail and head her dragon prow northwards. We shipped the oars, letting an east wind drive us, and I felt the happiness I always felt when I had a good ship and a fast wind.
I made my son take the steering oar, letting him get used to the feel of a ship. At first, of course, he pushed or pulled the oar too far, or else he corrected too late and Middelniht lurched or yawed, losing speed, but by the second day I saw Uhtred smiling to himself and I knew that he could feel that long hull trembling through the oar’s loom. He had learned and knew the joy of it.
We spent the nights on land, nosing into a creek on some empty shore and pulling back to sea in the first light. We saw few ships other than fishing craft who, seeing our high prow, hauled their nets and rowed frantically towards the land. We slid past, ignoring them. On the third day I glimpsed a mast far to the east, and Finan, whose eyes were like a hawk’s, saw it at the same time and he opened his mouth to tell me, but I cautioned him to silence, jerking my head towards Uhtred in explanation. Finan grinned. Most of my men had also seen the distant ship, but they saw what I intended and kept quiet. Middelniht forged on and my son, the wind blowing his long hair about his face, gazed enraptured at the oncoming waves.
The distant ship drew nearer. She had a sail grey as the low clouds. It was a big sail, wide and deep, crossed with hemp lines to reinforce the weave. No trader, probably, but almost certainly another lean, fast ship made for fighting. My crew was now watching the ship, waiting for the first glimpse of her hull above the ragged horizon, but Uhtred was frowning at our sail’s trailing edge, which was fluttering. ‘Should we tighten it?’ he asked.
‘Good idea,’ I said. He half smiled, pleased at my approval, but then did nothing. ‘Give the order, you damned fool,’ I said in a tone that took the smile straight off his face. ‘You’re the steersman.’
He gave the order and two men tightened the sheet till the flutter vanished. Middelniht dipped into a trough, then reared her prow up a green wave and as we reached the top I looked eastwards and saw the prow of the approaching ship. It showed a beast’s head, high and savage. Then the ship vanished behind a screen of wind-blown spray. ‘What’s the first duty of a steersman?’ I asked my son.
‘To keep the ship safe,’ he answered promptly.
‘And how does he do that?’
Uhtred frowned. He knew he had done something wrong, but did not know what, and then, at last, he saw the crew staring fixedly towards the east and turned that way. ‘Oh God,’ he said.
‘You’re a careless fool,’ I snarled at him. ‘Your job is to keep a lookout.’ I could see he was angry at my public reproof, but he said nothing. ‘She’s a warship,’ I went on, ‘and she saw us a long time ago. She’s curious and she’s coming to smell us. So what do we do?’
He looked again at the ship. Her prow was constantly visible now, and it would not be long before we saw her hull. ‘She’s bigger than us,’ Uhtred said.
‘Probably, yes.’
‘So we do nothing,’ he said.
It was the right decision, one I had made just moments after seeing the far ship. She was curious about us and her course was converging on ours, but once she was close she would see we were dangerous. We were not a merchant ship loaded with pelts, pottery or anything else that could be stolen and sold, we were warriors, and even if her crew outnumbered us by two to one she would take casualties that no ship could afford. ‘We hold our course,’ I said.
Northwards. North to where the old gods still had power, north to where the world shaded into ice, north towards Bebbanburg. That fortress brooded over the wild sea like the home of a god. The Danes had taken all of Northumbria, their kings ruled in Eoferwic, yet they had never succeeded in capturing Bebbanburg. They wanted it. They lusted after it like a dog smelling a bitch in heat, but the bitch had teeth and claws. And I had one small ship, and dreamed of capturing what even whole armies of Danes could not conquer.
‘She’s East Anglian.’ Finan had come to stand beside me. The stranger was closing on us now, aiming her prow well ahead of ours, but angling towards us, and because she was the larger ship she was faster than Middelniht.
‘East Anglian?’
‘That’s not a dragon,’ Finan jerked his chin towards the ship, ‘it’s that weird thing King Eohric put on all his ships. A lion.’ Eohric was dead and a new king ruled in East Anglia, but perhaps he had kept the old symbol. ‘She’s got a full crew too,’ Finan went on.
‘Seventy men?’ I guessed.
‘Near enough.’
The other crew was dressed for battle in mail and helmets, but I shook my head when Finan asked if we should make similar preparations. They could see we were no merchantman. They might be trying to overawe us, but I still doubted they would try to trouble us, and there was small point in dressing for war unless we wanted battle.
The East Anglian ship was well sailed. She curved in close to us and then shook out her sail to slow the hull so that she kept pace with Middelniht. ‘Who are you?’ a tall man called across in Danish.
‘Wulf Ranulfson!’ I called back, inventing a name.
‘From where?’
‘Haithabu!’ I shouted. Haithabu was a town in southern Daneland, a long way from East Anglia.
‘What’s your business here?’
‘We
