Sword of Kings: A Novel

Part One

A Fool’s Errand

One

Gydene was missing.

She was not the first of my ships to vanish. The savage sea is vast and ships are small and Gydene, which simply meant goddess, was smaller than most. She had been built at Grimesbi on the Humbre and had been named Haligwæter. She had fished for a year before I bought her and, because I wanted no ship named Holy Water in my fleet, I paid a virgin one shilling to piss in her bilge, renamed her Gydene, and gave her to the fisherfolk of Bebbanburg. They cast their nets far offshore and, when Gydene did not return on a day when the wind was brisk, the sky gray, and the waves were crashing white and high on the rocks of the Farnea Islands, we assumed she had been overwhelmed and had given Bebbanburg’s small village six widows and almost three times as many orphans. Maybe I should have left her name alone, all seamen know that you risk fate by changing a ship’s name, though they know equally well that a virgin’s piss averts that fate. Yet the gods can be as cruel as the sea.

Then Egil Skallagrimmrson came from his land that I had granted to him, land that formed the border of my territory and Constantin of Scotland’s realm, and Egil came by sea as he always did and there was a corpse in the belly of Banamaðr, his serpent-ship. Washed ashore in the Tuede, he told me. He’s yours, isn’t he?

The Tuede? I asked.

Southern shore. Found him on a mudbank. The gulls found him first.

I can see.

He was one of yours, wasn’t he?

He was, I said. The dead man’s name was Haggar Bentson, a fisherman, helmsman of the Gydene, a big man, too fond of ale, scarred from too many brawls, a bully, a wife-beater, and a good sailor.

Wasn’t drowned, was he? Egil remarked.

No.

And the gulls didn’t kill him. Egil sounded amused.

No, I said, the gulls didn’t kill him. Instead Haggar had been hacked to death. His corpse was naked and fish-white, except for the hands and what was left of his face. Great wounds had been slashed across his belly, chest, and thighs, the savage cuts washed clean by the sea.

Egil touched a boot against a gaping wound that had riven Haggar’s chest from the shoulder to the breastbone. I’d say that was the axe blow that killed him, he said, but someone cut off his balls first.

I noticed that.

Egil stooped to the corpse and forced the lower jaw down. Egil Skallagrimmrson was a strong man, but it still took an effort to open Haggar’s mouth. The bone made a cracking sound and Egil straightened. Took his teeth too, he said.

And his eyes.

That might have been the gulls. Partial to an eyeball, they are.

But they left his tongue, I said. Poor bastard.

Miserable way to die, Egil agreed, then turned to look at the harbor entrance. Only two reasons I can think of to torture a man before you kill him.

Two?

To enjoy themselves? Maybe he insulted them. He shrugged. The other is to make him talk. Why else leave his tongue?

Them? I asked. The Scots?

Egil looked back to the mangled corpse. He must have annoyed someone, but the Scots have been quiet lately. Doesn’t seem like them. He shrugged. Could be something personal. Another fisherman he angered?

No other bodies? I asked. There had been six men and two boys in the Gydene’s crew. No wreckage?

Just this poor bastard so far. But the others could be out there, still floating.

There was little more to say or do. If the Scots had not captured Gydene then I assumed it was either a Norse raider or else a Frisian ship using the early summer weather to enrich herself with the Gydene’s catch of herring, cod, and haddock. Whoever it was, the Gydene was gone, and I suspected her surviving crew had been put on their captor’s rowing benches and that suspicion turned to near certainty when, two days after Egil brought me the corpse, the Gydene herself washed ashore north of Lindisfarena. She was a dismasted hulk, barely afloat as the waves heaved her onto the sands. No more bodies appeared, just the wreck, which we left on the sands, certain that the storms of autumn would break her up.

A week after the Gydene lurched brokenly ashore another fishing boat vanished, and this one on a windless day as calm as any the gods ever made. The lost ship had been called the Swealwe and, like Haggar, her master had liked to cast nets far out to sea, and the first I knew of the Swealwe’s disappearance was when three widows came to Bebbanburg, led by their gap-toothed village priest who was named Father Gadd. He bobbed his head. There was . . . he began.

Was what? I asked, resisting the urge to imitate the hissing noise the priest made because of his missing teeth.

Father Gadd was nervous, and no wonder. I had heard that he preached sermons that lamented that his village’s overlord was a pagan, but his courage had fled now that he was face to face with that pagan.

Bolgar Haruldson, lord. He’s the—

I know who Bolgar is, I interrupted. He was another fisherman.

"He saw two ships on the horizon, lord. On the day the Swealwe vanished."

There are many ships, I said, trading ships. It would be strange if he didn’t see ships.

Bolgar says they headed north, then south.

The nervous fool was not making much sense, but in the end I understood what he was trying to say. The Swealwe had rowed out to sea, and Bolgar, an experienced man, saw where she vanished beyond the horizon. He then saw the mastheads of the two ships go toward the Swealwe, pause for some time, then turn back. The Swealwe had been beneath the horizon and the only visible sign of her meeting with the mysterious ships was their masts going north, pausing, then going south, and that did not sound like the movement of any trading ship. You should have brought Bolgar to me, I said, then gave the three widows silver and the priest two pennies for bringing me the news.

What news? Finan asked me that evening.

We were sitting on the bench outside Bebbanburg’s hall, staring across the eastern ramparts to the moon’s wrinkling reflection on the wide sea. From inside the hall came the sounds of men singing, of men laughing. They were my warriors, all but for the score who watched from our high walls. A small east wind brought the smell of the sea. It was a quiet night and Bebbanburg’s lands had been peaceful ever since we had crossed the hills and defeated Sköll in his high fortress a year before. After that grisly fight we had thought the Norsemen were beaten and that the western part of Northumbria was cowed, but travelers brought news across the high passes that still the Northmen came, their dragon-boats landing on our western coasts, their warriors finding land, but no Norseman called himself king as Sköll had done, and none crossed the hills to disturb Bebbanburg’s pastures, and so there was peace of a sort. Constantin of Alba, which some men call Scotland, was at war with the Norse of Strath Clota, led by a king called Owain, and Owain left us alone and Constantin wanted peace with us until he could defeat Owain’s Norsemen. It was what my father had called a Scottish peace, meaning that there were constant and savage cattle raids, but there are always cattle raids, and we always retaliated by striking into the Scottish valleys to bring back livestock. We stole just as many as they stole, and it would have been much simpler to have had no raids, but in times of peace young men must be taught the ways of war.

The news, I told Finan, is that there are raiders out there—I nodded at the sea—and they’ve plucked two of our ships.

There are always raiders.

I don’t like these, I said.

Finan, my closest friend, an Irishman who fought with the passion of his race and the skill of the gods, laughed. Got a stench in your nostril?

I nodded. There are times when knowledge comes from nothing, from a feeling, from a scent that cannot be smelled, from a fear that has no cause. The gods protect us and they send that sudden prickling of the nerves, the certainty that an innocent landscape has hidden killers. Why would they torture Haggar? I asked.

Because he was a sour bastard, of course.

He was, I said, but it feels worse than that.

So what will you do?

Go hunting, of course.

Finan laughed. Are you bored? he asked, but I said nothing, which made him laugh again. You’re bored, he accused me, "and just want an excuse to play with Spearhafoc."

And that was true. I wanted to take Spearhafoc to sea, and so I would go hunting.

Spearhafoc was named for the sparrowhawks that nested in Bebbanburg’s sparse woodlands and, like those sparrowhawks, she was a huntress. She was long with a low freeboard amidships and a defiant prow that held a carving of a sparrowhawk’s head. Her benches held forty rowers. She had been built by a pair of Frisian brothers who had fled their country and started a shipyard on the banks of the Humbre where they had made Spearhafoc from good Mercian oak and ash. They had formed her hull by nailing eleven long planks on either flank of her frame, then stepped a mast of supple Northumbrian pinewood, braced with lines and supporting a yard from which her sail hung proud. Proud because the sail showed my symbol, the symbol of Bebbanburg, the head of a snarling wolf. The wolf and the sparrowhawk, both hunters and both savage. Even Egil Skallagrimmrson who, like most Norsemen, despised Saxon ships and Saxon sailors, grudgingly approved of Spearhafoc. Though of course, he had said to me, she’s not really Saxon, is she? She’s Frisian.

Saxon or not, Spearhafoc slid out through Bebbanburg’s narrow harbor channel in a hazed summer dawn. It had been a week since I had heard the news of Swealwe, a week in which my fisherfolk never went far from land. Up and down the coast, in all Bebbanburg’s harbors, there was fear, and so Spearhafoc went to seek vengeance. The tide was flooding, there was no wind, and my oarsmen stroked hard and well, surging the ship against the current to leave a widening wake. The only noises were the creak of the oars as they pulled against the tholes, the ripple of water along the hull, the slap of feeble waves on the beach, and the forlorn cries of gulls over Bebbanburg’s great fortress.

Forty men hauled on the long oars, another twenty crouched either between the benches or on the bow’s platform. All wore mail and all had their weapons, though the rowers’ spears, axes, and swords were piled amidships with the heaps of shields. Finan and I stood on the steersman’s brief deck. There might be wind later? Finan suggested.

Or might not, I grunted.

Finan was never comfortable at sea and never understood my love of ships, and he only accompanied me that day because there was the prospect of a fight. Though whoever killed Haggar is probably long gone, he grumbled as we left the harbor channel.

Probably, I agreed.

So we’re wasting our time then.

Most likely, I said. Spearhafoc was lifting her prow to the long, sullen swells, making Finan grip the sternpost to keep his balance. Sit, I told him, and drink some ale.

We rowed into the rising sun, and as the day warmed a small wind sprang from the west, enough of a breeze to let my crew haul the yard to the mast’s top and let loose the wolf’s head sail. The oarsmen rested gratefully as Spearhafoc rippled the slow heaving sea. The land was lost in the haze behind us. There had been a pair of small fishing craft beside the Farnea Islands, but once we were further out to sea we saw no masts or hulls and seemed to be alone in a wide world. For the most part I could let the steering-oar trail in the water as the ship took us slowly eastward, the wind barely sufficient to fill the heavy sail. Most of my men slept as the sun climbed higher.

Dream time. This, I thought, was how Ginnungagap must have been, that void between the furnace of heaven and the ice beneath, the void in which the world was made. We sailed in a blue-gray emptiness in which my thoughts wandered slow as the ship. Finan was sleeping. Every now and then the sail would sag as the wind dropped, then belly out again with a dull thud as the small breeze returned. The only real evidence that we were moving was the gentle ripple of Spearhafoc’s wake.

And in the void I thought of kings and of death, because Edward still lived. Edward, who styled himself Anglorum Saxonum Rex, King of the Angles and the Saxons. He was King of Wessex and of Mercia and of East Anglia, and he still lived. He had been ill, he had recovered, he had fallen sick again, then rumor said he was dying, yet still Edward lived. And I had taken an oath to kill two men when Edward died. I had made that promise, and I had no idea how I was to keep it.

Because to keep it I would have to leave Northumbria and go deep into Wessex. And in Wessex I was Uhtred the Pagan, Uhtred the Godless, Uhtred the Treacherous, Uhtred Ealdordeofol, which means Chief of the Devils, and, most commonly, I was called Uhtredærwe, which simply means Uhtred the Wicked. In Wessex I had powerful enemies and few friends. Which gave me three choices. I could invade with a small army, which would inevitably be beaten, I could go with a few men and risk discovery, or I could break the oath. The first two choices would lead to my death, the third would lead to the shame of a man who had failed to keep his word, the shame of being an oathbreaker.

Eadith, my wife, had no doubts about what I should do. Break the oath, she had told me tartly. We had been lying in our chamber behind Bebbanburg’s great hall and I was gazing into the shadowed rafters, blackened by smoke and by night, and I had said nothing. Let them kill each other, she had urged me. It’s a quarrel for the southerners, not us. We’re safe here. And she was right, we were safe in Bebbanburg, but still her demand had angered me. The gods mark our promises, and to break an oath is to risk their wrath. You would die for a stupid oath? Eadith had been angry too. Is that what you want? I wanted to live, but I wanted to live without the stain of dishonor that marked an oathbreaker.

Spearhafoc took my mind from the quandary by quickening to a freshening wind and I grasped the steering-oar again and felt the quiver of the water coming through the long ash shaft. At least this choice was simple. Strangers had slaughtered my men, and we sailed to seek revenge across a wind-rippled sea that reflected a myriad flashes of sunlight. Are we home yet? Finan asked.

I thought you were asleep.

Dozing, Finan grunted, then heaved himself upright and stared around. There’s a ship out there.

Where?

There, he pointed north. Finan had the sharpest eyesight of any man I’ve ever known. He might be getting older, like me, yet his sight was as keen as ever. Just a mast, he said, no sail.

I stared into the haze, seeing nothing. Then I thought I saw a flicker against the pale sky, a line as tremulous as a charcoal scratch. A mast? I lost it, looked, found it again, and turned the ship northward. The sail protested until we hauled in the steerboard sheet and Spearhafoc leaned again to the breeze and the water seethed louder down her flanks. My men stirred, woken by Spearhafoc’s sudden liveliness, and turned to look at the far ship.

No sail on her, Finan said.

She’s going into the wind, I said, so they’re rowing. Probably a trader. No sooner had I spoken than the tiny scratch mark on the hazed horizon disappeared, replaced by a newly dropped sail. I watched her, the blur of the big square sail much easier to distinguish than the mast. She’s turning toward us, I said.

"It’s Banamaðr," Finan said.

I laughed at that. You’re guessing!

No guess, Finan said, she has an eagle on her sail, it’s Egil.

You can see that!

You can’t?

Our two ships were sailing toward each other now, and within moments I could clearly see a distinctive lime-washed upper strake that showed clearly against the lower hull’s darker planks. I could also see the big black outline of a spread-winged eagle on the sail and the eagle’s head on her high prow. Finan was right, it was Banamaðr, a name that meant killer. It was Egil’s ship.

As the Banamaðr drew closer I dropped my sail and let Spearhafoc wallow in the livening waves. It was a sign to Egil that he could come alongside, and I watched as his ship curved toward us. She was smaller than Spearhafoc, but just as sleek, a Frisian-built raider that was Egil’s joy because, like almost all Norsemen, he was happiest when he was at sea. I watched the sea break white at Banamaðr’s cutwater, she kept turning, the great yard dropped, and men hauled the sail inboard, turned the long yard with its furled sail fore and aft, and then, sweet as any seaman could desire, she slewed alongside our steerboard flank. A man in Banamaðr’s bows threw a line, a second line sailed toward me from her stern, and Egil was shouting at his crew to drape sailcloth or cloaks over the pale upper strake so our timbers did not crash and grind together. He grinned at me. Are you doing what I think you’re doing?

Wasting my time, I called back.

Maybe not.

And you?

Looking for the bastards who took your ships, of course. Can I come aboard?

Come!

Egil waited to judge the waves, then leaped across. He was a Norseman, a pagan, a poet, a seaman, and a warrior. He was tall, like me, and wore his fair hair long and wild. He was clean-shaven with a chin as sharp as a dragon-boat’s prow, he had deep eyes, an axe-blade of a nose, and a mouth that smiled often. Men followed him eagerly, women even more eagerly. I had only known him for a year, but in that year I had come to like and trust him. He was young enough to be my son and he had brought seventy Norse warriors who had sworn their allegiance to me in return for the land I had given them along the Tuede’s southern bank.

We should go south, Egil said briskly.

South? I asked.

Egil nodded at Finan. Good morning, lord. He always called Finan lord to their shared amusement. He looked back to me. You’re not wasting your time. We met a Scottish trader sailing northward, and he told us there were four ships down there. He nodded southward. Way out to sea, he said, out of sight of land. Four Saxon ships, just waiting. One of them stopped him, they demanded three shillings duty, and when he couldn’t pay, they stole his whole cargo.

They wanted to charge him duty!

In your name.

In my name, I said softly, angrily.

I was on my way back to tell you. Egil looked into Banamaðr where around forty men waited. I don’t have enough men to take on four ships, but the two of us could do some damage?

How many men in the ships? Finan had scrambled to his feet and was looking eager.

The one that stopped the Scotsman had forty, he said two of the others were about the same size, and the last one smaller.

We could do some damage, I said vengefully.

Finan, while he listened to us, had been watching Egil’s crew. Three men were struggling to take the eagle’s head from the prow. They laid the heavy piece of wood on the brief foredeck, then helped the others who were unlacing the sail. What are they doing? Finan asked.

Egil turned to Banamaðr. If the scum see a ship with an eagle on the sail, he said, they’ll know we’re a fighting ship. If they see my eagle they’ll know it’s me. So I’m turning the sail around. He grinned. We’re a small ship, they’ll think we’re easy prey.

I understood what he was suggesting. So I’m to follow you?

Under oars, he suggested. "If you’re under sail they’ll see you sooner. We’ll suck them in with Banamaðr as the bait, then you can help me finish them."

Help? I repeated scornfully, which made him laugh.

But who are they? Finan asked.

That was the question that nagged at me as we rowed southward. Egil had gone back to his ship and, with his sail showing a drab frontage, was plunging ahead of us. Despite his suggestion, the Spearhafoc was also under sail, but at least a half-mile behind Banamaðr. I did not want my men wearied by hard rowing if they were to fight, and so we had agreed that Egil would turn Banamaðr if he sighted the four ships. He would turn and pretend to flee toward the coast and so lead the enemy, we hoped, into our ambush. I would drop our sail when he turned, so that the enemy would not see the great wolf’s head, but would think us just another trading ship that would prove easy prey. We had taken the sparrowhawk’s head from the prow. The great carved symbols were there to placate the gods, to frighten enemies, and to drive off evil spirits, but custom dictated that they could be removed in safe waters and so, instead of being nailed or scarfed into the prow, they were easily dismounted.

Four ships, Finan said flatly, Saxons.

And being clever, I said.

Clever? You call poking you with a sharp stick clever?

They attack ships from Bebbanburg, but only harass the others. How long before King Constantin hears that Uhtred of Bebbanburg is confiscating Scottish cargoes?

He’s probably heard already.

So how long before the Scots decide to punish us? I asked. Constantin might be fighting Owain of Strath Clota, but he still has ships he can send to our coast. I gazed at Banamaðr, which was heeling gently to the west wind and leaving a white wake. For a small boat she was quick and lively. Somebody, I went on, wants to tangle us in a quarrel with the Scots.

And not just the Scots, Finan said.

Not just the Scots, I agreed. Ships from Scotland, from East Anglia, from Frisia, and from all the Viking homelands sailed past our coast. Even ships from Wessex. And I had never charged duty on those cargoes. I reckoned it was none of my business if a Scotsman sailed past my coast with a ship filled with pelts or pottery. True, if a ship put into one of my harbors then I would charge a fee, but so did everyone else. But now a small fleet had come to my waters and was levying a duty in my name, and I suspected I knew where that fleet had come from. And if I was right, then the four ships had come from the south, from the lands of Edward, Anglorum Saxonum Rex.

Spearhafoc plunged her bows into a green sea to shatter a hard white foam along her decks. Banamaðr was pitching too, driven by a rising west wind, both of us sailing southward to hunt down the ships that had killed my tenants, and if I was right about those ships, then I had a bloodfeud on my hands.

A bloodfeud is a war between two families, both sworn to destroy the other. My first had been against Kjartan the Cruel who had slaughtered the whole household of Ragnar, the Dane who had adopted me as a son. I had welcomed that feud, and ended it too by killing both Kjartan and his son, but this new bloodfeud was against a far more powerful enemy. An enemy who lived far to the south in Edward’s Wessex, where they could raise an army of household warriors. And to kill them I must go there, to where that army waited to kill me. She’s turning! Finan interrupted my thoughts.

Banamaðr was indeed turning. I saw her sail come down, saw the late morning light reflected from oar-blades as they were thrust outboard. Saw the long oars dip and pull, and saw Banamaðr laboring westward as if seeking the safety of a Northumbrian harbor.

So the bloodfeud, it seemed, had come to me.

I had liked Æthelhelm the Elder. He had been Wessex’s richest ealdorman, a lord of many estates, a genial and even a generous man, and yet he had died as my enemy and as my prisoner.

I had not killed him. I had taken him prisoner when he fought against me, then treated him with the honor that his rank deserved. But then he had caught a sweating sickness, and though we had bled him, though we had paid our Christian priests to pray for him, and though we had wrapped him in pelts and given him the herbs that women had said might cure him, he had died. His son, Æthelhelm the Younger, spread the lie that I had killed his father, and he swore to take revenge. He swore a bloodfeud against me.

Yet I had thought of Æthelhelm the Elder as a friend before his eldest daughter married King Edward of Wessex and gave the king a son. That son, Æthelhelm’s grandson, Ælfweard, became the ætheling. Crown Prince Ælfweard! He was a petulant and spoiled child who had grown to be a sour, sullen, and selfish young man, cruel and vain. Yet Ælfweard was not Edward’s eldest son, that was Æthelstan, and Æthelstan was also my friend.

So why was Æthelstan not the ætheling? Because Æthelhelm spread the rumor, a false rumor, that Æthelstan was a bastard, that Edward had never married his mother. So Æthelstan was exiled to Mercia, where I had met him and where I came to admire the boy. He grew into a warrior, a man of justice, and the only fault I could find in him was his passionate adherence to his Christian god.

And now Edward was sick. Men knew he must die soon. And when he died there would be a struggle between the supporters of Æthelhelm the Younger, who wanted Ælfweard on the throne, and those who knew that Æthelstan would make the better king. Wessex and Mercia, joined in an uncertain union, would be torn apart by battle. And so Æthelstan had asked me to swear an oath. That on King Edward’s death I would kill Æthelhelm and so destroy his power over the nobles who must meet in the Witan to confirm the new king.

And that was why I would need go to Wessex, where my enemies were numerous.

Because I had sworn an oath.

And I had no doubt that Æthelhelm had sent the ships north to weaken me, to distract me, and, with any luck, to kill me.

The four ships appeared in the summer haze. They were wallowing in the summer sea, but as we appeared they hoisted their sails and turned to pursue us.

Banamaðr had dropped her sail so that, as she pretended to flee westward, the four ships would not see the black eagle that now faced aft. And we, the moment we saw Banamaðr turn, also dropped our sail so that the enemy would not see the wolf’s head of Bebbanburg.

Now row! Finan called to the benches. Row!

The haze was thinning. I could see the distant sails bellying in the gusting wind and could see they were gaining on Egil, who was only using three oarsmen on each side. To show more oars was to betray that his ship was no merchant’s vessel, but a serpent-ship crammed with men. I wondered for a moment whether I should follow his example, then decided that the four distant ships were unlikely to fear a single warship. They outnumbered us, and I did not doubt that these men had been sent to kill me if they had the chance.

So I would give them the chance.

But would they take it? More urgently, they were gaining on Banamaðr, driven fast by the brisk wind, and I decided to reveal myself, shouting at my crew to hoist the big sail again. The sight of the wolf’s head might give the enemy pause, but surely they must reckon on winning the coming fight, even against Uhtredærwe.

The sail flapped as it rose, boomed in the wind, then was sheeted home, and Spearhafoc leaned into the sea as her speed increased. The oars were brought inboard and the oarsmen pulled on their mail coats and fetched their shields and weapons. Rest while you can! I called to them.

The sea was white-flecked now, the crests of the waves being blown to spume. Spearhafoc was dipping her bow, drenching the deck, then rising, before plunging down into the next roller. The steering-oar was heavy in my hands, needing all my strength to push or pull as it quivered with speed. I was still sailing south to face the four ships, to challenge them, and Egil now did the same. Two ships against four.

You think those are Æthelhelm’s ships? Finan asked.

Who else?

He won’t be on any of them, Finan grunted.

I laughed at that. He’s safe home in Wiltunscir. He hired these bastards.

The bastards were in a line now, spread across our path. Three of the ships looked to be about the size of Spearhafoc, while the fourth, which was farthest east, was smaller, no bigger than Banamaðr. That ship, seeing us race southward, was lagging as if reluctant to join a fight. We were still far away, but it seemed to me that the smaller ship had very few crewmen.

Unlike the three larger ships, which kept coming toward us. They’re well manned, Finan said calmly.

Egil’s Scotsman said there were about forty men in the ship that stopped him.

I’d guess more.

We’ll find out.

And they have archers.

They do?

I can see them.

We have shields, I said, and archers like a steady ship, not a boat pitching like an unbroken colt.

Roric, my servant, brought me my helmet. Not the proud helmet with the silver wolf crouching on its crest, but a serviceable helm that had belonged to my father and was always left on board Spearhafoc. The metal cheek-pieces had rusted and been replaced with boiled leather. I pulled the helmet over my head and Roric laced the cheek-pieces so that an enemy would see nothing but my eyes.

Three of the ships bore no symbols on their sails, though the craft farthest west, closest to the unseen Northumbrian coast, showed a coiled snake, which, like our wolf, was probably woven from wool. The huge slab of cloth was reinforced with rope that made a diamond pattern through which the black snake showed. I could see the water shattering white at her bow.

Egil had turned Banamaðr so, instead of feigning a clumsy flight west toward the harbors of the Northumbrian coast, he was now sailing south next to Spearhafoc. Like me he had hoisted his sail, his crew just sheeting it home as we came abreast of him. I cupped my hands and shouted across the churning water. I’m aiming for the second one! I pointed to the ship nearest the snake-sailed vessel. Egil nodded to show he had heard. But I’m going to attack the snake one! I pointed again. You too!

Me too! he called back. He was grinning, his fair hair streaming from beneath his helmet’s rim.

The enemy had spread into a line so that any two of their ships could close on one of ours. If that notion had worked they could board us from both sides at once and the sword-work would be brief, bitter, and bloody. I let them think that plan would succeed by heading slightly off the wind toward the second ship from the west and saw the other two larger ships slightly change their direction so that they were headed toward the place where they thought we would meet their line. They were still spread out, at least four or five ships’ lengths between each, but their line was shrinking. The smaller ship, slower than the others, lagged further behind.

Egil’s ship, slower than mine because she was shorter, had fallen behind, and I ordered the steerboard sheet to be loosened to slow Spearhafoc, then turned and waved to Egil, pointing to my steerboard side, indicating he should come up on that flank. He understood, and slowly the Banamaðr crept up to my right. We would go into battle together, but not where the enemy hoped.

Christ! Finan swore. That big bastard has a lot of men!

Which big bastard?

The one in the center. Seventy men? Eighty?

How many on the snake bastard?

Maybe forty, fifty?

Enough to frighten a merchantman, I said.

They don’t seem frightened of us, he said drily. The three larger ships were still coursing toward us, confident that they outnumbered us. Be careful of that big bastard, Finan said, pointing to the middle ship, the one with the larger crew.

I gazed at the ship, which had a lime-washed cross mounted high on its prow. Doesn’t matter how many they have, I said, they reckon we only have forty men.

They do? he seemed amused by my confidence.

"They