“Do you think the Swedes might have got them?” he asked.
Ottar waved at the road from the east, from downstream. Riders were visible on it, spurring as fast as they could through the heavy mud. “I think someone is coming to tell us,” he said grimly.
The news was as they had expected. The town lay in ashes, surprised at dawn and burnt to the ground. The raiders had killed every man, woman or child they met, but seized some to herd away with them on spare horses. For capture they had selected those with the pendants of the Way, or youths, or maidens. In the confusion little had been made out as to why the Swedes had attacked the town. But some said they had called out “skogarmenn! skogarmenn!” as they had killed. Wood-men, men of the forest, outlaws. All the same thing. Thorvin the priest had certainly been taken, been seen led away. A gap-toothed man had also been recognized, who must be Cwicca. No-one could remember seeing anyone who might have been Udd. But that was entirely probable, Shef reflected. Even people in the same room as Udd often did not see him. Till it came to iron and steel, to metal and contrivances, the little man was made to be ignored.
“What is the day of the sacrifice?” Shef asked.
Gnawing his beard, Herjolf replied, “The day the Holy Oak, the Kingdom Oak as they call it, the day its buds first show green. In ten days. Maybe twelve.”
“Well,” said Shef, “we shall have to get our men back. Or try at least.”
“I agree with you,” said Herjolf. “And so would every priest of the way, even Valgrim, if he were still alive! What the Swedes have sent us is a challenge. If they hang up our priests in their sacred clothes, with the rowan-berries at their belts and the pendants round their necks, then we will lose every convert we have ever made among the Swedes. And further afield, when the news spreads.”
“Ask Piruusi what he will do,” Shef said to Ottar. All that a man can, came the reply. The Swedes had taken his youngest and favorite wife. Piruusi’s account of her charms was vivid, made it plain that he found her, like Udd, irreplaceable.
“Good. I need Hagbarth too. Tell him, Herjolf. This is Way business now. And another thing. I am going to fly a banner.”
“With what device?”
Shef hesitated. He had seen many banners now, and knew the power they had on the imagination. There was the dreaded Raven Banner of the Ragnarssons, had been the Coiling Worm of Ivar. Alfred flew the Gold Dragon of Wessex, left over from the Rome-folk. Ragnhild’s device had been the Gripping Beast. He himself had marched to Hastings under the Hammer and Cross, to unite Wayfolk and English Christians against the army of the Pope. What should he choose this time? The device of Rig, the ladder he wore round his neck? No-one would recognize it. A hammer and a broken shackle, for freedom? This time he was not coming to free slaves, but to rally border-people and outlaws.
“You will fly the Hammer, surely,” pressed Herjolf. “Not the Hammer and Cross, as you once did. There are no Christians here. Only the Germans and their converts, no friends of ours.”
Shef decided. He still held the lance he had taken from Echegorgun, the lance that the troll-man had taken from Jarl Bolli of the Tronds. “I will have an upright lance as my own device,” he said. “With a hammer across it, for the Way.”
Herjolf pursed his lips. “That will look too much like a cross, for my liking.”
Shef stared at him. “If I am to fight a king,” he said, “I will be a king. You heard the king’s order. Send me all our needlewomen, and do it at once.”
As Herjolf walked away, Shef spoke quietly to Cuthred. “We will not leave till tomorrow morning. Go out tonight. No chance of help from the Huldu-folk at Uppsala, I suppose? Too far from the moors and mountains. Just the same, word can be passed. Maybe there are other half-troll families in the north besides Brand’s. See to it. Make your farewells.”