'I'd have hit him harder,' Penda said as we continued on our way. Later I wished I had hit him harder, because Eafa's mouth began flapping again so that after two days I admit I admired his imagination where Norsemen and animals were concerned.
And then we came to Offa's wall, which marked the western edge of Mercia. The ground before the barricade had been cleared of trees and bushes that might have provided cover for raiders, and a great ditch had been dug before the high earthen bank on which stood a palisade of sharpened oak stakes.
'Are we going to flap our arms and fly over it?' a man named Alric asked as we lay on our bellies on a hillcrest overlooking the barrier.
'Bloody right we are, Alric,' Penda said, 'should be easy seeing as we're all bloody angels!' He scratched the scar across his face. 'Or else, just for the fun of it, we could wait till dark and climb over the damn thing. You hear that, Eafa?' he said, looking at the fletcher. 'Think you can haul your fat arse over that little wall down there?' Eafa grimaced and Penda turned to me. 'Raven, you'll catch Eafa if he falls, there's a good lad.'
'Like a pig on a spit,' I said, holding Eafa's eye and tapping the haft of my spear. 'We're exposed up here,' I said, turning back to Penda. 'We'll take cover now and come back tonight.' The Wessexman nodded and we began to crawl back from the ridge. 'You still think we should cross here, Penda?' I asked as we gathered our shields and prepared to seek cover till nightfall. 'We could move north and cross the river in boats.' For a little further north the wall ended, replaced by the river Wye which formed a natural territory marker coursing eastward before snaking back into the Welsh lands. Only near a place called Magon does Offa's bank and palisade rise again, attesting to Mercian dominance. I had learned all this at Ealdred's feast before the mead had emptied my head of sense.
Penda shook his head. 'Here, we'll have to cross the wall and the river behind it.' He grinned at the Wessexmen. 'Making it the most difficult part.' They grumbled, though they saw the sense in it, for no Welshman would expect raiders to take the most difficult path. 'With any luck, the sheep-shaggers won't be watching this area too closely,' Penda said, and I was glad to have him with me.
That night we became shadows. We used ropes to climb over the oak stakes, which was easy for most of us, and then found a shallow part of the river to cross, which was not easy. Ealdred had given us wine skins and we blew these up and used them to keep our heads, swords, and rolled up brynjas above the water as we crossed. I whispered my thanks to Loki the cunning that there were no Welshmen waiting to greet us as we clambered shivering in our undergarments from the Wye's muddy west bank. Then, throwing my wet hair back, I remembered the men who had attacked us at the shepherd's hut, and I scooped up a handful of mud and smeared it across my face. 'It will make us invisible, like spirits,' I said in answer to questioning looks. Some of the men muttered under their breath and others made the sign of the cross as though my words offended their god, but soon every man had covered his face and hands with thick mud so that by the stars' silvery half-light only the whites of our eyes gleamed to suggest we might be men, not demons.
We knew that if we followed the river we would come across villages and settlements, for folk will always live beside fresh water, but there was no way of knowing where Weohstan had been taken. One of Ealdred's household warriors, a solidly built man named Oswyn, seemed to know the land better than most.
'There's a settlement on the next bend in the river,' he said, his teeth bright against his blackened face. 'It used to be a big place, but we burned it three years ago.'
'I remember,' Eafa said with a grimace, examining the fletchings on one of his arrows. 'They'd taken some little 'uns from Hwicce, seven or eight of 'em, I think. So we burned seven or eight of their villages.' He ran the feather flights across his tongue. 'Bastards rebuild 'em faster than we can raze 'em.'
'Then we hit them tonight,' Penda said, 'and if Weohstan is not there, we move on while it's still dark. Try the next place.'
'No, Penda,' I said, gripping Glum's thick ash spear. 'If we hit the place now, some will get away. Bound to. They'll run to their kinsmen and we'll have Welshmen all over us by sunrise.'
'Aye, we'll be haring back to Wessex,' Oswyn said, 'and we'll be damned lucky to get half the way before they do for us.' He spat at the thought.
'So what do you suggest, Norseman?' Penda challenged. All eyes fixed on me and I took a deep breath, accepting that the Norns might be weaving a pattern that would have me lead these men to their deaths.
'We take one man from this village Oswyn talks about and we make him tell us what he knows. Word will have spread if Ealdorman Ealdred's son is being held round here. They'll need to have something to show for losing so many warriors.' Penda nodded grudgingly and I pushed on. 'We find out where they're holding Weohstan and we get the bastard to take us there.' I said these words remembering my first meeting with Sigurd and Olaf, and the terror that had turned my bowels to liquid when they had made me take them to my village.