her away,’ I ordered, tired of her.
Harald came at midday. One of Steapa’s men brought me the news and I climbed again to the ramparts to discover that Harald Bloodhair was on the river’s farther bank with fifty companions, all in mail. His banner showed an axe blade and its pole was surmounted by a wolf-skull that had been painted red.
He was a big man. His horse was big too, but even so Harald Bloodhair seemed to dwarf the stallion. He was too distant for me to see him clearly, but his yellow hair, long, thick and unstained with any blood, was plainly visible, as was his broad beard. For a time he just stared at Æscengum’s wall, then he unbuckled his sword belt, threw the weapon to one of his men and spurred his horse into the river. It was a warm day, but his mail was still covered by a great cloak of black bear fur that made him appear monstrously huge. He wore gold on his wrists and about his neck, and more gold decorated his horse’s bridle. He urged the stallion to the river’s centre where the water surged over his boot tops. Any of the archers on Æscengum’s wall could have shot an arrow, but he had ostentatiously disarmed himself, which meant he wanted to talk and I gave orders that no one was to loose a bow at him. He took off his helmet and searched the men crowding the rampart until he saw Osferth in his circlet. Harald had never seen Alfred and mistook the bastard for the father. ‘Alfred!’ he shouted.
‘The king doesn’t talk with brigands,’ I called back.
Harald grinned. His face was broad as a barley-shovel, his nose hooked and crooked, his mouth wide, his eyes as feral as any wolf. ‘Are you Uhtred Turdson?’ he greeted me.
‘I know you’re Harald the Gutless,’ I responded with a dutiful insult.
He gazed at me. Now that he was closer I could see that his yellow hair and beard were dirt-flecked, ropy and greasy, like the hair from a corpse buried in dung. The river surged by his stallion. ‘Tell your king,’ Harald called to me, ‘that he can save himself much trouble by giving me his throne.’
‘He invites you to come and take it,’ I said.
‘But first,’ he leaned forward and patted his horse’s neck, ‘you will return my property.’
‘We have nothing of yours,’ I said.
‘Skade,’ he said flatly.
‘She’s yours?’ I asked, pretending surprise. ‘But surely a whore belongs to whoever can pay her?’
He gave me a look of instant hatred. ‘If you have touched her,’ he said, pointing a leather-gloved finger at me, ‘or if any of your men have touched her, then I swear on Thor’s prick I’ll make your deaths so slow that your screams will stir the dead in their caves of ice.’ He was a fool, I thought. A clever man would have pretended the woman meant little or nothing to him, but Harald was already revealing his price. ‘Show her to me!’ he demanded.
I hesitated, as if making up my mind, but I wanted Harald to see the bait and so I ordered two of Steapa’s men to fetch Skade. She arrived with the rope still around her neck, yet such was her beauty and her calm dignity that she dominated the rampart. I thought, at that moment, that she was the most queenlike of any woman I had ever seen. She moved to the palisade and smiled at Harald, who kicked his horse a few paces forward. ‘Have they touched you?’ he shouted up to her.
She gave me a mocking look before answering. ‘They’re not men enough, my lord,’ she called.
‘Promise me!’ he shouted, and the desperation was plain in his voice.
‘I promise you,’ she answered, and her voice was a caress.
Harald wheeled his horse so it was sideways to me, then raised his gloved hand to point at me. ‘You showed her naked, Uhtred Turdson.’
‘Would you like me to show her that way again?’
‘For that you will lose your eyes,’ he said, prompting Skade to laugh. ‘Let her go now,’ Harald went on, ‘and I won’t kill you! Instead I’ll keep you blind and naked, on a rope’s end, and display you to all the world.’
‘You yelp like a puppy,’ I called.
‘Take the rope from her neck,’ Harald ordered me, ‘and send her to me now!’
‘Come and take her, puppy!’ I shouted back. I was feeling elated. Harald, I thought, was proving to be a headstrong fool. He wanted Skade more than he wanted Wessex, indeed more than he wanted all the treasures of Alfred’s kingdom. I remember thinking that I had him exactly where I wished him to be, on the end of my lead, but then he turned his horse and gestured towards the growing crowd of warriors on the river bank.
And from the trees that grew thick on that far bank emerged a line of women and children. They were our people, Saxons, and they were roped together because they had been taken for slavery. Harald’s men, as they ravaged through eastern Wessex, had doubtless captured every child and young woman they could find, and, when they had finished amusing themselves, would ship them to the slave markets of Frankia. But these women and infants were brought to the river’s edge where, on an order from Harald, they were made to kneel. The youngest child was about the age of my own Stiorra, and I can still see that child’s eyes as she stared up at me. She saw a warlord in shining glory and I saw nothing but pitiable despair.
‘Start,’ Harald called to his men.
One of his warriors, a grinning brute who looked as if he could out-wrestle an ox, stepped behind the woman at the southern end of the line. He was carrying a battle-axe that he swung high, then brought down so that the blade split her skull and buried itself in her trunk. I heard the crunch of the blade in bone over the noise of the river, and saw blood jetting higher than Harald on his horse. ‘One,’ Harald called, and gestured to the blood-spattered axeman who stepped briskly to his left to stand behind a child who was screaming because she had just seen her mother murdered. The red-bladed axe rose.
‘Wait,’ I called.
Harald held up his hand to check the axe, then gave me a mocking smile. ‘You said something, Lord Uhtred?’ he asked. I did not answer. I was watching a swirl of blood vanish and fade downstream. A man severed the rope tying the dead woman to her child, then kicked the corpse into the river. ‘Speak, Lord Uhtred, please do speak,’ Harald said with exaggerated courtesy.
There were thirty-three women and children left. If I did nothing then all would die. ‘Cut her free,’ I said softly.
The rope round Skade’s neck was cut. ‘Go,’ I told her.
I hoped she would break her legs as she jumped from the palisade, but she landed lithely, climbed the ditch’s far slope, then walked to the river’s edge. Harald spurred his horse to her, held out a hand and she swung up behind his saddle. She looked at me, touched a finger to her mouth and held the hand towards me. ‘You’re cursed, Lord Uhtred,’ she said, smiling, then Harald kicked his horse back to the far bank where the women and children had been led back into the thick-leaved trees.
So Harald had what he wanted.
But Skade wanted to be queen, and Harald wanted me blind.
‘What now?’ Steapa asked in his deep growling voice.
‘We kill the bastard,’ I said. And, like a faint shadow on a dull day, I sensed her curse.
That
