‘Better that than dead children,’ I told him.
‘You’re the hlaford,’ he said.
I turned in my saddle. ‘Æthelstan!’
‘Lord Uhtred?’ The boy quickened his stallion’s pace.
‘Why am I called a hlaford?’
‘Because you guard the loaf, lord,’ he said, ‘and a hlaford’s duty is to feed his people.’
I grunted approval of his answer. Hlaford is a lord, the man who guards the hlaf, the loaf. My duty was to keep my people alive through winter’s harshness and if that took gold, then gold must be spent. I had gold, but never enough. I dreamed of Bebbanburg, of the fortress in the north that had been stolen from me by Ælfric, my uncle. It was the impregnable fort, the last refuge on Northumbria’s coast, so grim and formidable that the Danes had never captured it. They had taken all of northern Britain, from the rich pastures of Mercia to the wild Scottish frontier, but they had never taken Bebbanburg, and if I was to take it back I needed more gold for men, more gold for spears, more gold for axes, more gold for swords, more gold so that we could beat down the kinsmen who had stolen my fortress. But to do that we would have to fight through all the Danish lands, and I had begun to fear I would die before I ever reached Bebbanburg again.
We reached Tameworþig on the second day of our journey. Somewhere we crossed the frontier between the Saxon and the Danish lands, a frontier that was no fixed line, but was a broad stretch of country where the steadings had been burned, the orchards cut down, and where few animals except the wild beasts grazed. Yet some of those old farms had been rebuilt; I saw a new barn, its timber bright, and there were cattle in some of the meadows. Peace was bringing men to the frontier lands. That peace had lasted since the battle in East Anglia that had followed Alfred’s death, though it had ever been an uncomfortable peace. There had been cattle raids, and slave raids, and squabbles over land boundaries, but no armies had been raised. The Danes still wanted to conquer the south, and the Saxons dreamed of taking back the north, but for ten years we had lived in morose quiet. I had wanted to disturb the peace, to lead an army north towards Bebbanburg, but neither Mercia nor Wessex would give me men and so I too had kept the peace.
And now Cnut had disturbed it.
He knew we were coming. He would have posted scouts to watch all the tracks from the south and so we took no precautions. Usually, when we rode the wild border, we had our own scouts far ahead, but instead we rode boldly, keeping to a Roman road, knowing that Cnut was waiting. And so he was.
Tameworþig was built just north of the River Tame. Cnut met us south of the river, and he wanted to overawe us because he had more than two hundred men standing in a shield wall athwart the road. His banner, which showed a war axe shattering a Christian cross, flew at the line’s centre, and Cnut himself, resplendent in mail, cloaked in dark brown with fur shrouding his shoulders, and with his arms bright with gold, waited on horseback a few paces ahead of his men.
I stopped my men and rode forward alone.
Cnut rode towards me.
We curbed our horses a spear’s length from each other. We looked at one another.
His thin face was framed by a helmet. His pale skin looked drawn, and his mouth, which usually smiled so easily, was a grim slash. He looked older than I remembered and it struck me at that moment, watching his grey eyes, that if Cnut Ranulfson were to achieve his life’s dreams then he must do it soon.
We watched each other and the rain fell. A raven flew from some ash trees and I wondered what kind of omen that was. ‘Jarl Cnut,’ I broke the silence.
‘Lord Uhtred,’ he said. His horse, a grey stallion, skittered sideways and he slapped its neck with a gloved hand to still it. ‘I summon you,’ he said, ‘and you come running like a scared child.’
‘You want to trade insults?’ I asked him. ‘You, who were born of a woman who lay with any man who snapped his fingers?’
He was silent for a while. Off to my left, half hidden by trees, a river ran cold in that bleak summer’s rain. Two swans beat up the river, their wings slow in the chill air. A raven and two swans? I touched the hammer about my neck, hoping those omens were good.
‘Where is she?’ Cnut spoke at last.
‘If I knew who she was,’ I said, ‘I might answer you.’
He looked past me to where my men waited on horseback. ‘You didn’t bring her,’ he said flatly.
‘You’re going to talk in riddles?’ I asked him. ‘Then answer me this one. Four dilly-dandies, four long standies, two crooked pandies and a wagger.’
‘Be careful,’ he said.
‘The answer is a goat,’ I said, ‘four teats, four legs, two horns and a tail. An easy riddle, but yours is difficult.’
He stared at me. ‘Two weeks ago,’ he said, ‘that banner was on my land.’ He pointed to my flag.
‘I did not send it, I did not bring it,’ I said.
‘Seventy men, I’m told,’ he ignored my words, ‘and they rode to Buchestanes.’
‘I’ve been there, but not in many years.’
‘They took my wife and they took my son and daughter.’
I gazed at him. He had spoken flatly, but the expression on his face was bitter and defiant. ‘I had heard you have a son,’ I said.
‘He is called Cnut Cnutson and you captured him, with his mother and sister.’
‘I did not,’ I said firmly. Cnut’s first wife had died years before, as had his children, but I had heard of his new marriage. It was a surprising marriage. Men would have expected Cnut to marry for advantage, for land, for a rich dowry, or for an alliance, but rumour said his new wife was some peasant girl. She was reputed to be a woman of extraordinary beauty, and she had given him twin children, a boy and a girl. He had other children, of course, bastards all, but the new wife had given him what he most wanted, an heir. ‘How old is your son?’ I asked.
‘Six years and seven months.’
‘And why was he at Buchestanes?’ I asked. ‘To hear his future?’
‘My wife took him to see the sorceress,’ Cnut answered.
‘She lives?’ I asked, astonished. The sorceress had been ancient when I saw her and I had assumed she was long dead.
‘Pray that my wife and children live,’ Cnut said harshly, ‘and that they are unharmed.’
‘I know nothing of your wife and children,’ I said.
‘Your men took them!’ he snarled. ‘It was your banner!’ He touched a gloved hand to the hilt of his famed sword, Ice-Spite. ‘Return them to me,’ he said, ‘or your woman will be given to my men, and when they have done with her I’ll flay her alive, slowly, and send you her skin for a saddlecloth.’
I turned in the saddle. ‘Uhtred! Come here!’ My son spurred his horse. He stopped beside me, looked at Cnut, then
