keep this treaty,’ he promised.
I pretended to believe him. I had told Alfred that Haesten could not be trusted, but Alfred was desperate. He was old, he saw his grave not far ahead, and he wanted Wessex rid of the hated pagans. And so I paid the silver, took the hostages, and, under a darkening sky, rowed back to Lundene.
Lundene is built in a place where the ground rises in giant steps away from the river. There is terrace after terrace, rising to the topmost level where the Romans built their grandest buildings, some of which still stood, though they were sadly decayed, patched with wattle and scabbed by the thatched huts we Saxons made.
In those days Lundene was part of Mercia, though Mercia was like the grand Roman buildings; half fallen, and Mercia was also scabbed with Danish jarls who had settled its fertile lands. My cousin Æthelred was the chief Ealdorman of Mercia, its supposed ruler, but he was kept on a tight lead by Alfred of Wessex, who had made certain his own men controlled Lundene. I commanded that garrison, while Bishop Erkenwald ruled everything else.
These days, of course, he is known as Saint Erkenwald, but I remember him as a sour weasel of a man. He was efficient, I grant him that, and the city was well-governed in his time, but his unadulterated hatred of all pagans made him my enemy. I worshipped Thor, so to him I was evil, but I was also necessary. I was the warrior who protected his city, the pagan who had kept the heathen Danes at bay for over five years now, the man who kept the lands around Lundene safe so that Erkenwald could levy his taxes.
Now I stood on the topmost step of a Roman house built on the topmost of Lundene’s terraces. Bishop Erkenwald was on my right. He was much shorter than I, but most men are, yet my height irked him. A straggle of priests, ink-stained, pale-faced and nervous, were gathered on the steps beneath, while Finan, my Irish fighter, stood on my left. We all stared southwards.
We saw the mix of thatch and tile that roof Lundene, all studded with the stubby towers of the churches Erkenwald had built. Red kites wheeled above them, riding the warm air, though higher still I could see the first geese flying southwards above the wide Temes. The river was slashed by the remnants of the Roman bridge, a marvellous thing which was crudely broken in its centre. I had made a roadway of timbers that spanned the gap, but even I was nervous every time I needed to cross that makeshift repair which led to Suthriganaweorc, the earth and timber fortress that protected the bridge’s southern end. There were wide marshes there and a huddle of huts where a village had grown around the fort. Beyond the marshes the land rose to the hills of Wessex, low and green, and above those hills, far off, like ghostly pillars in the still, late-summer sky, were plumes of smoke. I counted fifteen, but the clouds hazed the horizon and there could have been more.
‘They’re raiding!’ Bishop Erkenwald said, sounding both surprised and outraged. Wessex had been spared any large Viking raid for years now, protected by the burhs, which were the towns Alfred had walled and garrisoned, but Harald’s men were spreading fire, rape and theft in all the eastern parts of Wessex. They avoided the burhs, attacking only the smaller settlements. ‘They’re well beyond Cent!’ the bishop observed.
‘And going deeper into Wessex,’ I said.
‘How many of them?’ Erkenwald demanded.
‘We hear two hundred ships landed,’ I said, ‘so they must have at least five thousand fighting men. Maybe two thousand of those are with Harald.’
‘Only two thousand?’ the bishop asked sharply.
‘It depends how many horses they have,’ I explained. ‘Only mounted warriors will be raiding, the rest will be guarding his ships.’
‘It’s still a pagan horde,’ the bishop said angrily. He touched the cross hanging about his neck. ‘Our lord king,’ he went on, ‘has decided to defeat them at Æscengum.’
‘Æscengum!’
‘And why not?’ the bishop bridled at my tone, then shuddered when I laughed. ‘There is nothing amusing in that,’ he said tartly. But there was. Alfred, or perhaps it had been Æthelred, had advanced the army of Wessex into Cent, placing it on high wooded ground between the forces of Haesten and Harald, and then they had done nothing. Now it seemed that Alfred, or perhaps his son-in-law, had decided to retreat to Æscengum, a burh in the centre of Wessex, presumably hoping that Harald would attack them and be defeated by the burh’s walls. It was a pathetic idea. Harald was a wolf, Wessex was a flock of sheep, and Alfred’s army was the wolfhound that should protect the sheep, but Alfred was tethering the wolfhound in hope that the wolf would come and be bitten. Meanwhile the wolf was running free among the flock. ‘And our lord king,’ Erkenwald continued loftily, ‘has requested that you and some of your troops join him, but only if I am satisfied that Haesten will not attack Lundene in your absence.’
‘He won’t,’ I said, and felt a surge of elation. Alfred, at last, had called for my help, which meant the wolfhound was being given sharp teeth.
‘Haesten fears we’ll kill the hostages?’ the bishop asked.
‘Haesten doesn’t care a cabbage-smelling fart for the hostages,’ I said. ‘The one he calls his son is some peasant boy tricked out in rich clothes.’
‘Then why did you accept him?’ the bishop demanded indignantly.
‘What was I supposed to do? Attack Haesten’s main camp to find his pups?’
‘So Haesten is cheating us?’
‘Of course he’s cheating us, but he won’t attack Lundene unless Harald defeats Alfred.’
‘I wish we could be certain of that.’
‘Haesten is cautious,’ I said. ‘He fights when he’s certain he can win, otherwise he waits.’
Erkenwald nodded. ‘So take men south tomorrow,’ he ordered, then walked away, followed by his scurrying priests.
I look back now across the long years and realise Bishop Erkenwald and I ruled Lundene well. I did not like him, and he hated me, and we begrudged the time we needed to spend in each other’s company, but he never interfered with my garrison and I did not intervene in his governance. Another man might have asked how many men I planned to take south, or how many would be left to guard the city, but Erkenwald trusted me to make the right decisions. I still think he was a weasel.
‘How many men ride with you?’ Gisela asked me that night.
We were in our house, a Roman merchant’s house built on the northern bank of the Temes. The river stank often, but we were used to it and the house was happy. We had slaves, servants and guards, nurses and cooks, and our three children. There was Uhtred, our oldest, who must have been around ten that year, and Stiorra his sister, and Osbert, the youngest, just two and indomitably curious. Uhtred was named after me, as I had been named after my father and he after his, but this newest Uhtred irritated me because he was a pale and nervous child who clung to his mother’s skirts.
‘Three hundred men,’ I answered.
‘Only?’
‘Alfred has sufficient,’ I said, ‘and I must leave a garrison here.’
Gisela flinched. She was pregnant again, and the birth could not be far off. She saw my worried expression and smiled. ‘I spit babies like pips,’ she said reassuringly. ‘How long to kill Harald’s men?’
‘A
