“And keep your mouth shut,” a voice hissed from inside the stable. “Or he will have your tongue torn out. And remember: Ella is king in Northumbria now. And you are no kin to my father.”
Chapter Two
“We think he’s Ragnar Lothbrok,” King Ella asked his council. “How do we know?” He looked down a long table with a dozen men seated round it, all of them on low stools except for the king himself, who was on a great carven high seat. Most of them were dressed like the king, or like Wulfgar, who sat at Ella’s left hand: in brightly colored cloaks, still pulled round them against the drafts that swirled in from every corner and closed shutter, making the tallow-dipped torches flare and eddy; gold and silver round wrists and brawny necks; clasps and buckles and heavy sword-belts. They were the military aristocracy of Northumbria, the petty rulers of great blocks of land in the south and east of the kingdom, the men who had put Ella on the throne and driven out his rival Osbert. They sat on their stools awkwardly, like men who spent their lives on foot or in the saddle.
Four other men stood out against them, grouped at the foot of the table as if in conscious isolation. Three wore the black gowns and cowls of the monks of St. Benedict, the fourth the purple and white of a bishop. They sat easily, bending forward over the table, wax tablets and styli ready to record what was said, or to pass their thoughts to one another in secret.
One man made ready to answer his king’s question: Cuthred, captain of the bodyguard.
“We can’t find anyone to recognize him,” he admitted. “Everyone who ever stood face-to-face with Ragnar in battle is dead—except,” he remarked courteously, “the gallant thane of King Edmund who has joined us. However, that doesn’t prove this one is Ragnar Lothbrok.
“But I think he is. One, he won’t talk. I reckon I’m good at getting people to talk, and anyone who won’t is not a common pirate. This one for sure thinks he’s somebody.
“Another, it fits. What were those ships doing? They were coming back from the south, they’d been blown off course, they hadn’t seen sun nor stars for days. Otherwise skippers like that—and the Bridlington reeve says they were good—wouldn’t have got into that state. And they were cargo ships. What cargo do you take south? Slaves. They don’t want wool, they don’t want furs, they don’t want ale. Those were slavers on their way back from the countries down south. The man’s a slaver who’s a somebody, and that fits Ragnar. Doesn’t prove it, though.”
Cuthred took a heavy pull at his ale-mug, exhausted by eloquence.
“But there’s one thing that makes me sure. What do we know about Ragnar?” He looked round the table. “Right, he’s a bastard.”
“Church-despoiler,” agreed Archbishop Wulfhere from the end of the table. “Ravisher of nuns. Thief of the brides of Christ. Assuredly his sins shall find him out.”
“I dare say,” agreed Cuthred. “One thing I have heard about him is this, and I’ve only heard it about him, not all the other Church-despoilers and ravishers there are in the world. Ragnar is very big on information. He’s like me. He’s good at getting people to talk. The way he does it, I hear, is this”—A note of professional interest crept into the captain’s voice.—”If he catches someone, first thing he does—no talk, no argument—is gouge one eye out. Then he still doesn’t talk, he reaches round and gets the man’s head ready for the next one. If the man thinks of something Ragnar really wants to know while he’s getting ready, all right, he’s in business. If he doesn’t, well, too bad. They say Ragnar wastes a lot of people, but then churls aren’t worth a lot on the block. They say he reckons it saves him a lot of time and breath.”
“And our prisoner has told you this is his view too?” It was one of the black monks who spoke, his voice dripping condescension. “In the course of a friendly discussion on professional matters?”