The Flame Bearer. Bernard Cornwell
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even said the man who led the Saxons was apologetic.’
‘Strange way to start a war,’ my son remarked, ‘being apologetic.’
‘They want us to draw the first blood,’ I said.
My son kicked a half-burned beam. ‘Then why burn this place?’
‘To persuade us to attack them? To provoke revenge?’ I could think of no better explanation, but why then had Brunulf been so meek when he met me?
Brunulf’s men had burned the hall, barn, and cattle byres. Judging by the size of the blackened remnants the steading had been prosperous, and the folk who lived there must have thought it a safe place because they had built no palisade. The ruins lay just yards from the river, where the ford had been trampled by the hooves of countless cattle, while upstream of the steading an elaborate fish trap had been made clear across the river. The trap had silted up, becoming a crude dam, which, in turn, had flooded the pastures to form a shallow lake. A few cottages remained unharmed, enough to offer us crowded shelter, while lengths of charred timber made good fires on which we roasted mutton ribs. I posted sentries in the woodland to our south, and more in a stand of willows on the ford’s further bank.
My son was apprehensive. More than once he left the fire and walked to the steading’s southern edge to stare at the gaunt stone on the skyline. He was imagining men there, shapes in the darkness, the glint of fire reflected from sword-blades. ‘Don’t fret,’ I told him after moonrise, ‘they won’t be coming.’
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