Free Sword Song by Bernard Cornwell Page A

I smelled the rank stench of his fur cloak. He hugged me. “Welcome, Lord Uhtred, welcome!” He stepped back and grinned. I liked him at that moment because his smile was truly welcoming. “I have heard much of you!” he declared.
    “And I of you, lord.”
    “And doubtless we were both told many lies! But good lies. I also have a quarrel with you.” He grinned, waiting, but I offered him no response. “Jarrel!” he explained, “you killed him.”
    “I did,” I said. Jarrel had been the man leading the Viking crew I had slaughtered on the Temes.
    “I liked Jarrel,” Sigefrid said.
    “Then you should have advised him to avoid Uhtred of Bebbanburg,” I said.
    “That is true,” Sigefrid said, “and is it also true that you killed Ubba?”
    “I did.”
    “He must have been a hard man to kill! And Ivarr?”
    “I killed Ivarr, too,” I confirmed.
    “But he was old and it was time he went. His son hates you, you know that?”
    “I know that.”
    Sigefrid snorted in derision. “The son is a nothing. A piece of gristle. He hates you, but why should the falcon care about the sparrow’s hate?” He grinned at me, then looked at Smoca, my stallion, who was being walked about the arena so he could cool slowly after his long journey. “That,” Sigefrid said admiringly, “is a horse!”
    “It is,” I agreed.
    “Maybe I should take him from you?”
    “Many have tried,” I said.
    He liked that. He laughed again and put a heavy hand on my shoulder to lead me toward the cross. “You’re a Saxon, they tell me?”
    “I am.”
    “But no Christian?”
    “I worship the true gods,” I said.
    “May they love and reward you for that,” he said, and he squeezed my shoulder and, even through the mail and leather, I could feel his strength. He turned then. “Erik! Are you shy?”
    His brother stepped out of the crowd. He had the same black bushy hair, though Erik’s was tied severely back with a length of cord. His beard was trimmed. He was young, maybe only twenty or twenty-one, and he had a broad face with bright eyes that were at once full of curiosity and welcome. I had been surprised to discover I liked Sigefrid, but it was no surprise to like Erik. His smile was instant, his face open and guileless. He was, like Gisela’s brother, a man you liked from the moment you met him.
    “I am Erik,” he greeted me.
    “He is my adviser,” Sigefrid said, “my conscience and my brother.”
    “Conscience?”
    “Erik would not kill a man for telling a lie, would you, brother?”
    “No,” Erik said.
    “So he is a fool, but a fool I love.” Sigefrid laughed. “But don’t think the fool is a weakling, Lord Uhtred. He fights like a demon from Niflheim.” He slapped his brother on the shoulder, then took my elbow and led me on toward the incongruous cross. “I have prisoners,” he explained as we neared the cross, and I saw that five men were kneeling with their hands tied behind their backs. They had been stripped of cloaks, weapons, and tunics so that they wore only their trews. They shivered in the cold air.
    The cross had been newly made from two beams of wood that had been crudely nailed together and then sunk into a hastily dug hole.The cross leaned slightly. At its foot were some heavy nails and a big hammer. “You see death by the cross on their statues and carvings,” Sigefrid explained to me, “and you see it on the amulets they wear, but I’ve never seen the real thing. Have you?”
    “No,” I admitted.
    “And I can’t understand why it would kill a man,” he said with genuine puzzlement in his voice. “It’s only three nails! I’ve suffered much worse than that in battle.”
    “Me too,” I said.
    “So I thought I’d find out!” he finished cheerfully, then jerked his big beard toward the prisoner nearest to the foot of the cross. “The two bastards at the end there are Christian priests. We’ll nail one of them up and see if he dies. I have ten pieces of silver that say it