Sword Song by Bernard Cornwell Read Free Book Online

were on the river’s south bank and they could use Coccham as a base to raid deep into Wessex. At the very least Alfred would pay them to leave Coccham and so theywould make much silver even if they failed to dislodge him from the throne.
    But Sigefrid, Erik, and Haesten, I reckoned, were not after mere silver. Wessex was the prize, and to gain Wessex they needed men. Guthrum would not help them, Mercia was riven between Dane and Saxon and could supply few men willing to leave their homes unguarded, but beyond Mercia was Northumbria, and Northumbria had a Danish king who commanded the loyalty of a great Danish warrior. The king was Gisela’s brother and the warrior, Ragnar, was my friend. By buying me they believed they could bring Northumbria into their war. The Danish north would conquer the Saxon south. That was what they wanted. That was what the Danes had wanted all my life. And all I needed to do was break my oath to Alfred and become king in Mercia, and the land that some called England would become Daneland. That, I reckoned, was why the dead man had summoned me.
    We came to Wæclingastræt at sunset. The Romans had strengthened the road with a gravel bed and stone edges, and some of their masonry still showed through the pale winter grass beside which a moss-grown milestone read Durocobrivis V. “What’s Durocobrivis?” I asked Huda.
    “We call it Dunastopol,” he said with a shrug to indicate that the place was negligible.
    We crossed the street. In a well-governed country I might have expected to see guards patrolling the road to protect travelers, but there were none in sight here. There were just crows flying to a nearby wood and silvered clouds stretching across the western sky while ahead of us the darkness lay swollen and heavy above East Anglia. Low hills lay to the north, toward Dunastopol, and Huda led us toward those hills and up a long shallow valley where bare apple trees stood stark in the gloom. Night had fallen by the time we reached Eilaf’s hall.
    Eilaf’s men greeted me as though I were already a king. Servants waited at the gate of his palisade to take our horses, and another knelt at the doorway of the hall to offer me a bowl of washing water and acloth to dry my hands. A steward took my two swords, the long-bladed Serpent-Breath and the gut-ripper called Wasp-Sting. He took them respectfully, as if he regretted the custom that no man could carry a blade inside a hall, but that was a good custom. Blades and ale do not mix well.
    The hall was crowded. There were at least forty men there, most in mail or leather, standing either side of the central hearth where a great fire blazed to fill the beamed roof with smoke. Some of the men bowed as I entered, others just stared at me as I walked to greet my host, who stood with his wife and two sons beside the hearth. Haesten was beside them, grinning. A servant brought me a horn of ale.
    “Lord Uhtred!” Haesten greeted me loudly so that every man and woman in the hall would know who I was. Haesten’s grin was somehow mischievous, as if he and I shared a secret joke in this hall. He had hair the color of gold, a square face, bright eyes and was wearing a tunic of fine wool dyed green, above which hung a thick chain of silver. His arms were heavy with rings of silver and gold, while silver brooches were pinned to his long boots. “It is good to see you, lord,” he said, and gave me a hint of a bow.
    “Still alive, Haesten?” I asked, ignoring my host.
    “Still alive, lord,” he said.
    “And no wonder,” I said, “the last time I saw you was at Ethandun.”
    “A rainy day, lord, as I remember,” he said.
    “And you were running like a hare, Haesten,” I said.
    I saw the shadow cross his face. I had accused him of cowardice, but he deserved an attack from me for he had sworn to be my man and had betrayed his oath by deserting me.
    Eilaf, sensing trouble, cleared his throat. He was a heavy man, tall, with hair the brightest red I have