Читать книгу The Last Kingdom Series Books 4-6: Sword Song, The Burning Land, Death of Kings - Bernard Cornwell - Страница 16

We reached Coccham that evening and I watched Gisela, who had as little love for Christianity as I did, warm to Father Pyrlig. He flirted with her outrageously, complimented her extravagantly and played with our children. We had two then, and we had been lucky, for both babies had lived, as had their mother. Uhtred was the oldest. My son. He was four years old with hair as golden-coloured as mine and a strong little face with a pug nose, blue eyes and a stubborn chin. I loved him then. My daughter Stiorra was two years old. She had a strange name and at first I had not liked it, but Gisela had pleaded with me and I could refuse her almost nothing, and certainly not the naming of a daughter. Stiorra simply meant ‘star’, and Gisela swore that she and I had met under a lucky star and that our daughter had been born under the same star. I had got used to the name by now and loved it as I loved the child, who had her mother’s dark hair and long face and sudden mischievous smile. ‘Stiorra, Stiorra!’ I would say as I tickled her, or let her play with my arm rings. Stiorra, so beautiful.

I played with her on the night before Gisela and I left for Wintanceaster. It was spring and the Temes had subsided so that the river meadows showed again and the world was hazed with green as the leaves budded. The first lambs wobbled in fields bright with cowslips, and the blackbirds filled the sky with rippling song. Salmon had returned to the river and our woven willow traps provided good eating. The pear trees in Coccham were thick with buds, and just as thick with bullfinches, which had to be scared away by small boys so that we would have fruit in the summertime. It was a good time of year, a time when the world stirred, and a time when we had been summoned to Alfred’s capital for the wedding of his daughter, Æthelflaed, to my cousin, Æthelred. And that night, as I pretended my knee was a horse and that Stiorra was the horse’s rider, I thought about my promise to provide Æthelred with his wedding gift. The gift of a city. Lundene.

Gisela was spinning wool. She had shrugged when I had told her she was not to be Queen of Mercia, and she had nodded gravely when I said I would keep my oath with Alfred. She accepted fate more readily than I did. Fate and that fortunate star, she said, had brought us together despite all that the world had done to keep us apart. ‘If you keep your oath to Alfred,’ she said suddenly, interrupting my play with Stiorra, ‘then you must capture Lundene from Sigefrid?’

‘Yes,’ I said, marvelling as I often did that her thoughts and mine were so often the same.

‘Can you?’ she asked.

‘Yes,’ I said. Sigefrid and Erik were still in the old city, their men guarding the Roman walls that they had repaired with timber. No ship could now come up the Temes without paying the brothers their toll, and that toll was huge, so that the river traffic had stopped, as merchants sought other ways to bring goods to Wessex. King Guthrum of East Anglia had threatened Sigefrid and Erik with war, but his threat had proved empty. Guthrum did not want war, he just wanted to persuade Alfred that he was doing his best to keep the peace treaty, so if Sigefrid was to be removed, then it would be the West Saxons who did the work, and I who would be responsible for leading them.

I had made my plans. I had written to the king and he, in turn, had written to the ealdormen of the shires, and I had been promised four hundred trained warriors along with the fyrd of Berrocscire. The fyrd was an army of farmers, foresters and labourers, and though it would be numerous it would also be untrained. The four hundred trained men would be the ones I relied on, and spies said Sigefrid now had at least six hundred in the old city. Those same spies said that Haesten had gone back to his camp at Beamfleot, but that was not far from Lundene and he would hurry to reinforce his allies, as would those Danes of East Anglia who hated Guthrum’s Christianity and wanted Sigefrid and Erik to begin their war of conquest. The enemy, I thought, would number at least a thousand, and all of them would be skilled with sword, axe or spear. They would be war-Danes. Enemies to fear.

‘The king,’ Gisela said mildly, ‘will want to know how you plan to do it.’

‘Then I shall tell him,’ I said.

She gave me a dubious glance. ‘You will?’

‘Of course,’ I said, ‘he’s the king.’

She laid the distaff on her lap and frowned at me. ‘You will tell him the truth?’

‘Of course not,’ I said. ‘He may be the king, but I’m not a fool.’

She laughed, which made Stiorra echo the laugh. ‘I wish I could come with you to Lundene,’ Gisela said wistfully.

‘You can’t,’ I said forcefully.

‘I know,’ she answered with uncharacteristic meekness, then touched a hand to her belly. ‘I really can’t.’

I stared at her. I stared a long time as her news settled in my mind. I stared, I smiled and then I laughed. I threw Stiorra high into the air so that her dark hair almost touched the smoke-blackened thatch. ‘Your mother’s pregnant,’ I told the happily squealing child.

‘And it’s all your father’s fault,’ Gisela added sternly.

We were so happy.

Æthelred was my cousin, the son of my mother’s brother. He was a Mercian, though for years now he had been loyal to Alfred of Wessex, and that day in Wintanceaster, in the great church Alfred had built, Æthelred of Mercia received his reward for that loyalty.

He was given Æthelflaed, Alfred’s eldest daughter and second child. She was golden haired and had eyes the colour and brightness of a summer’s sky. Æthelflaed was thirteen or fourteen years old then, the proper age for a girl to marry, and she had grown into a tall young woman with an upright stance and a bold look. She was already as tall as the man who was to be her husband.

Æthelred is a hero now. I hear tales of him, tales told by firelight in Saxon halls the length of England. Æthelred the Bold, Æthelred the Warrior, Æthelred the Loyal. I smile when I hear the stories, but I do not say anything, not even when men ask if it is true that I once knew Æthelred. Of course I knew Æthelred, and it is true that he was a warrior before sickness slowed and stilled him, and he was also bold, though his shrewdest stroke was to pay poets to be his courtiers so that they would make up songs about his prowess. A man could become rich in Æthelred’s court by stringing words like beads.

He was never King of Mercia, though he wanted to be. Alfred made sure of that, for Alfred wanted no king in Mercia. He wanted a loyal follower to be the ruler of Mercia, and he made sure that loyal follower was dependent on West Saxon money, and Æthelred was his chosen man. He was given the title Ealdorman of Mercia, and in all but name he was king, though the Danes of northern Mercia never recognised his authority. They did recognise his power, and that power came from being Alfred’s son-in-law, which was why the Saxon thegns of southern Mercia also accepted him. They may not have liked Ealdorman Æthelred, but they knew he could bring West Saxon troops to confront any southward move by the Danes.

And on a spring day in Wintanceaster, a day bright with birdsong and sunlight, Æthelred came into his power. He strutted into Alfred’s big new church with a smile across his red-bearded face. He ever suffered from the delusion that others liked him and perhaps some men did like him, but not me. My cousin was short, pugnacious and boastful. His jaw was broad and belligerent, his eyes challenging. He was twice as old as his bride, and for almost five years he had been commander of Alfred’s household troops, an appointment he owed to birth rather than to ability. His good fortune had been to inherit lands that spread across most of southern Mercia, and that made him Mercia’s foremost nobleman and, I grudgingly supposed, that sad country’s natural leader. He was also, I ungrudgingly supposed, a piece of shit.

Alfred never saw that. He was deceived by Æthelred’s flamboyant piety, and by the fact that Æthelred was always ready to agree with the King of Wessex. Yes, lord, no, lord, let me empty your night soil bucket, lord, and let me lick your royal arse, lord. That was Æthelred, and his reward was Æthelflaed.

She came into the church a few moments after Æthelred and she, like him, was smiling. She was in love with love, transported that day to a height of joy that showed like radiance on her sweet face. She was a lithe young woman who already had a sway in her hips. She was long-legged, slender, and with a snub-nosed face unscarred by disease. She wore a dress of pale blue linen sewn with panels showing saints with haloes and crosses. She had a girdle of gold cloth hung with tassels and small silver bells. Over her shoulders was a cape of white linen that was fastened at her throat with a crystal brooch. The cape swept the rushes on the flagstone floor as she walked. Her hair, gold bright, was coiled about her head and held in place with ivory combs. That spring day was the first on which she wore her hair up, a sign of marriage, and it revealed her long thin neck. She was so graceful that day.

She caught my gaze as she walked towards the white-hung altar and her eyes, already filled with delight, seemed to take on a new dazzle. She smiled at me and I had to smile back, and she laughed for joy before walking on towards her father and the man who was to be her husband. ‘She’s very fond of you,’ Gisela said with a smile.

‘We have been friends since she was a child,’ I said.

‘She is still a child,’ Gisela said softly as the bride reached the flower-strewn, cross-burdened altar.

I remember thinking that Æthelflaed was being sacrificed on that altar, but if that was true then she was a most willing victim. She had always been a mischievous and wilful child, and I did not doubt that she chafed under her sour mother’s eye and her stern father’s rules. She saw marriage as an escape from Alfred’s dour and pious court, and that day Alfred’s new church was filled with her happiness. I saw Steapa, perhaps the greatest warrior of Wessex, crying. Steapa, like me, was fond of Æthelflaed.

There were close to three hundred folk in the church. Envoys had come from the Frankish kingdoms across the sea, and others had come from Northumbria, Mercia, East Anglia and the Welsh kingdoms, and those men, all priests or nobles, were given places of honour close to the altar. The ealdormen and high reeves of Wessex were there too, while nearest to the altar was a dark herd of priests and monks. I heard little of the mass, for Gisela and I were in the back of the church where we talked with friends. Once in a while a sharp command for silence would be issued by a priest, but no one took any notice.

Hild, abbess of a nunnery in Wintanceaster, embraced Gisela. Gisela had two good Christian friends. The first was Hild, who had once fled the church to become my lover, and the other was Thyra, Ragnar’s sister, with whom I had grown up and whom I loved as a sister. Thyra was a Dane, of course, and had been raised in the worship of Thor and Odin, but she had converted and come south to Wessex. She dressed like a nun. She wore a drab grey robe with a hood that hid her astonishing beauty. A black girdle encircled her waist, which was normally as thin as Gisela’s, but now was plump with pregnancy. I laid a gentle hand on the girdle. ‘Another?’ I asked.

‘And soon,’ Thyra said. She had given birth to three children, of whom one, a boy, still lived.

‘Your husband is insatiable,’ I said with mock sternness.

‘It is God’s will,’ Thyra said seriously. The humour I remembered from her childhood had evaporated with her conversion, though in truth it had probably left her when she had been enslaved in Dunholm by her brother’s enemies. She had been raped and abused and driven mad by her captors, and Ragnar and I had fought our way into Dunholm to release her, but it was Christianity that had freed her from the madness and made her into the serene woman who now looked at me so gravely.

‘And how is your husband?’ I asked her.

‘Well, thank you,’ her face brightened as she spoke. Thyra had found love, not just of God, but of a good man, and for that I was thankful.

‘You will, of course, call the child Uhtred if it’s a boy,’ I said sternly.

‘If the king permits it,’ Thyra said, ‘we shall name him Alfred, and if she’s a girl then she will be called Hild.’

That made Hild cry, and Gisela then revealed that she was also pregnant, and the three women went into an interminable discussion of babies. I extricated myself and found Steapa who was standing head and shoulders above the rest of the congregation. ‘You know I’m to throw Sigefrid and Erik out of Lundene?’ I asked him.

‘I was told,’ he said in his slow, deliberate way.

‘You’ll come?’

He gave a quick smile that I took to be consent. He had a frightening face, his skin stretched tight across his big-boned skull so that he seemed to be perpetually grimacing. In battle he was fearsome, a huge warrior with sword skill and savagery. He had been born to slavery, but his size and his fighting ability had raised him to his present eminence. He served in Alfred’s bodyguard, owned slaves himself, and farmed a wide swathe of fine land in Wiltunscir. Men were wary of Steapa because of the anger that was ever-present on his face, but I knew him to be a kind man. He was not clever. Steapa was never a thinker, but he was kind and he was loyal. ‘I’ll ask the king to release you,’ I said.

‘He’ll want me to go with Æthelred,’ Steapa said.

‘You’d rather be with the man who does the fighting, wouldn’t you?’ I asked.

Steapa blinked at me, too slow to understand the insult I had offered my cousin. ‘I shall fight,’ he said, then laid a huge arm on the shoulders of his wife, a tiny creature with an anxious face and small eyes. I could never remember her name, so I greeted her politely and pushed on through the crowd.

Æthelwold found me. Alfred’s nephew had begun drinking again and his eyes were bloodshot. He had been a handsome young man, but his face was thickening now and the veins were red and broken under his skin. He drew me to the edge of the church to stand beneath a banner on which a long exhortation had been embroidered in red wool. ‘All That You Ask of God,’ the banner read, ‘You Will Receive if You Believe. When Good Prayer Asks, Meek Faith Receives.’ I assumed Alfred’s wife and her ladies had done the embroidery, but the sentiments sounded like Alfred’s own. Æthelwold was clutching my elbow so hard that it hurt. ‘I thought you were on my side,’ he hissed reproachfully.

‘I am,’ I said.

He stared at me suspiciously. ‘You met Bjorn?’

‘I met a man pretending to be dead,’ I said.

He ignored that, which surprised me. I remembered how affected he had been by his meeting with Bjorn, so impressed indeed that Æthelwold had become sober for a while, but now he took my dismissal of the risen corpse as a thing of no importance. ‘Don’t you understand,’ he said, still gripping my elbow, ‘that this is our best chance!’

‘Our best chance of what?’ I asked patiently.

‘Of getting rid of him,’ he spoke too vehemently and some folk standing nearby turned to look at us. I said nothing. Of course Æthelwold wanted to be rid of his uncle, but he lacked the courage to strike the blow himself, which is why he was constantly seeking allies like me. He looked up into my face and evidently found no support there, for he let go of my arm. ‘They want to know if you’ve asked Ragnar,’ he said, his voice lower.

So Æthelwold was still in contact with Sigefrid? That was interesting, but perhaps not surprising. ‘No,’ I said, ‘I haven’t.’

‘For God’s sake, why not?’

‘Because Bjorn lied,’ I said, ‘and it is not my fate to be king in Mercia.’

‘If I ever become king in Wessex,’ Æthelwold said bitterly, ‘then you had better run for your life.’ I smiled at that, then just looked at him with unblinking eyes and, after a while he turned away and muttered something inaudible that was probably an apology. He stared across the church, his face dark. ‘That Danish bitch,’ he said vehemently.

‘What Danish bitch?’ I asked, and, for a heartbeat, I thought he meant Gisela.

‘That bitch,’ he jerked his head towards Thyra. ‘The one married to the idiot. The pious bitch. The one with her belly stuffed.’

‘Thyra?’

‘She’s beautiful,’ Æthelwold said vengefully.

‘So she is.’

‘And she’s married to an old fool!’ he said, staring at Thyra with loathing on his face. ‘When she’s whelped that pup inside her I’m going to put her on her back,’ he said, ‘and show her how a real man ploughs a field.’

‘You do know she’s my friend?’ I asked.

He looked alarmed. He had plainly not known of my long affection for Thyra and now tried to recant. ‘I just think she’s beautiful,’ he said sullenly, ‘that’s all.’

I smiled and leaned down to his ear. ‘You touch her,’ I whispered, ‘and I’ll put a sword up your arsehole and I’ll rip you open from the crotch to the throat and then feed your entrails to my pigs. Touch her once, Æthelwold, just once, and you’re dead.’

I walked away. He was a fool and a drunk and a lecher, and I dismissed him as harmless. In which I was wrong, as it turned out. He was, after all, the rightful King of Wessex, but only he and a few other fools truly believed he should be king instead of Alfred. Alfred was everything his nephew was not; he was sober, clever, industrious and serious.

He was also happy that day. He watched as his daughter married a man he loved almost like a son, and he listened to the monks chanting and he stared at the church he had made with its gilded beams and painted statues, and he knew that by this marriage he was taking control of southern Mercia.

Which meant that Wessex, like the infants inside Thyra and Gisela, was growing.

Father Beocca found me outside the church where the wedding guests stood in the sunshine and waited for the summons to the feast inside Alfred’s hall. ‘Too many people were talking in the church!’ Beocca complained. ‘This was a holy day, Uhtred, a sacred day, a celebration of the sacrament, and people were talking as if they were at market!’

‘I was one of them,’ I said.

‘You were?’ he asked, squinting up at me. ‘Well, you shouldn’t have been talking. It’s just plain bad manners! And insulting to God! I’m astonished at you, Uhtred, I really am! I’m astonished and disappointed.’

‘Yes, father,’ I said, smiling. Beocca had been reproving me for years. When I was a child, Beocca was my father’s priest and confessor and, like me, he had fled Northumbria when my uncle had usurped Bebbanburg. Beocca had found a refuge at Alfred’s court where his piety, his learning and his enthusiasm were appreciated by the king. That royal favour went a long way to stop men mocking Beocca, who was, in all truth, as ugly a man as you could have found in all Wessex. He had a club foot, a squint, and a palsied left hand. He was blind in his wandering eye that had gone as white as his hair, for he was now nearly fifty years old. Children jeered at him in the streets and some folk made the sign of the cross, believing that ugliness was a mark of the devil, but he was as good a Christian as any I have ever known. ‘It is good to see you,’ he said in a dismissive tone, as if he feared I might believe him. ‘You do know the king wishes to speak with you? I suggested you meet him after the feast.’

‘I’ll be drunk.’

He sighed, then reached out with his good hand to hide the amulet of Thor’s hammer that was showing at my neck. He tucked it under my tunic. ‘Try to stay sober,’ he said.

‘Tomorrow, perhaps?’

‘The king is busy, Uhtred! He doesn’t wait on your convenience!’

‘Then he’ll have to talk to me drunk,’ I said.

‘And I warn you he wants to know how soon you can take Lundene. That’s why he wishes to speak with you.’ He stopped talking abruptly because Gisela and Thyra were walking towards us, and Beocca’s face was suddenly transformed by happiness. He just stared at Thyra like a man seeing a vision and, when she smiled at him, I thought his heart would burst with pride and devotion. ‘You’re not cold, are you, my dear?’ he asked solicitously. ‘I can fetch you a cloak.’

‘I’m not cold.’

‘Your blue cloak?’

‘I am warm, my dear,’ she said, and put a hand on his arm.

‘It will be no trouble!’ Beocca said.

‘I am not cold, dearest,’ Thyra said, and again Beocca looked as though he would die of happiness.

All his life Beocca had dreamed of women. Of fair women. Of a woman who would marry him and give him children, and for all his life his grotesque appearance had made him an object of scorn until, on a hilltop of blood, he had met Thyra and he had banished the demons from her soul. They had been married four years now. To look at them was to be certain that no two people were ever more ill-suited to each other. An old, ugly, meticulous priest and a young, golden-haired Dane, but to be near them was to feel their joy like the warmth of a great fire on a winter’s night. ‘You shouldn’t be standing, my dear,’ he told her, ‘not in your condition. I shall fetch you a stool.’

‘I shall be sitting soon, dearest.’

‘A stool, I think, or a chair. And are you sure you don’t need a cloak? It would really be no trouble to fetch one!’

Gisela looked at me and smiled, but Beocca and Thyra were oblivious of us as they fussed over each other. Then Gisela gave the smallest jerk of her head and I looked to see that a young monk was standing nearby and staring at me. He had obviously been waiting to catch my eye, and he was just as obviously nervous. He was thin, not very tall, brown haired and had a pale face that looked remarkably like Alfred’s. There was the same drawn and anxious look, the same serious eyes and thin mouth, and evidently the same piety judging by the monk’s robe. He was a novice, because his hair was untonsured, and he dropped to one knee when I looked at him. ‘Lord Uhtred,’ he said humbly.

‘Osferth!’ Beocca said, becoming aware of the young monk’s presence. ‘You should be at your studies! The wedding is over and novices are not invited to the feast.’

Osferth ignored Beocca. Instead, with his head bowed, he spoke to me. ‘You knew my uncle, lord.’

‘I did?’ I asked suspiciously. ‘I have known many men,’ I said, preparing him for the refusal I was sure I would offer to whatever he requested of me.

‘Leofric, lord.’

And my suspicion and hostility vanished at the mention of that name. Leofric. I even smiled. ‘I knew him,’ I said warmly, ‘and I loved him.’ Leofric had been a tough West Saxon warrior who had taught me about war. Earsling, he used to call me, meaning something dropped from an arse, and he toughened me, bullied me, snarled at me, beat me and became my friend and remained my friend until the day he died on the rain-swept battlefield at Ethandun.

‘My mother is his sister, lord,’ Osferth said.

‘To your studies, young man!’ Beocca said sternly.

I put a hand on Beocca’s palsied arm to hold him back. ‘Your mother’s name?’ I asked Osferth.

‘Eadgyth, lord.’

I leaned down and tipped Osferth’s face up. No wonder he looked like Alfred, for this was Alfred’s bastard son who had been whelped on a palace servant-girl. No one ever admitted that Alfred was the boy’s father, though it was an open secret. Before Alfred found God he had discovered the joys of palace maids, and Osferth was the product of that youthful exuberance. ‘Does Eadgyth live?’ I asked him.

‘No, lord. She died of the fever two years ago.’

‘And what are you doing here, in Wintanceaster?’

‘He is studying for the church,’ Beocca snapped, ‘because his calling is to be a monk.’

‘I would serve you, lord,’ Osferth said anxiously, staring up into my face.

‘Go!’ Beocca tried to shoo the young man away. ‘Go! Go away! Back to your studies, or I shall have the novice-master whip you!’

‘Have you ever held a sword?’ I asked Osferth.

‘The one my uncle gave me, lord, I have it.’

‘But you’ve not fought with it?’

‘No, lord,’ he said, and still he looked up at me, so anxious and frightened, and with a face so like his father’s face.

‘We are studying the life of Saint Cedd,’ Beocca said to Osferth, ‘and I expect you to have copied the first ten pages by sundown.’

‘Do you want to be a monk?’ I asked Osferth.

‘No, lord,’ he said.

‘Then what?’ I asked, ignoring Father Beocca who was spluttering protests, but unable to advance past my sword arm that held him back.

‘I would follow my uncle’s steps, lord,’ Osferth said.

I almost laughed. Leofric had been as hard a warrior as ever lived and died, while Osferth was a puny, pale youth, but I managed to keep a straight face. ‘Finan!’ I shouted.

The Irishman appeared at my side. ‘Lord?’

‘This young man is joining my household troops,’ I said, handing Finan some coins.

‘You can’t …’ Beocca began protesting, then went silent when both Finan and I stared at him.

‘Take Osferth away,’ I told Finan, ‘find him clothes fit for a man, and get him weapons.’

Finan looked dubiously at Osferth. ‘Weapons?’ he asked.

‘He has the blood of warriors,’ I said, ‘so now we will teach him to fight.’

‘Yes, lord,’ Finan said, his tone suggesting he thought I was mad, but then he looked at the coins I had given him and saw a chance of profit. He grinned. ‘We’ll make him a warrior yet, lord,’ he said, doubtless believing he lied, then he led Osferth away.

Beocca rounded on me. ‘Do you know what you’ve just done?’ he spluttered.

‘Yes,’ I said.

‘You know who that boy is?’

‘He’s the king’s bastard,’ I said brutally, ‘and I’ve just done Alfred a favour.’

‘You have?’ Beocca asked, still bristling, ‘and what kind of favour, pray?’

‘How long do you think he’ll last,’ I asked, ‘when I put him in the shield wall? How long before a Danish blade slits him like a wet herring? That, father, is the favour. I’ve just rid your pious king of his inconvenient bastard.’

We went to the feast.

The wedding feast was as ghastly as I expected. Alfred’s food was never good, rarely plentiful and his ale was always weak. Speeches were made, though I heard none, and harpists sang, though I could not hear them. I talked with friends, scowled at various priests who disliked my hammer amulet, and climbed the dais to the top table to give Æthelflaed a chaste kiss. She was all happiness. ‘I’m the luckiest girl in all the world,’ she told me.

‘You’re a woman now,’ I said, smiling at her upswept woman’s hair.

She bit her lower lip, looked shy, then grinned mischievously as Gisela approached. They embraced, golden hair against the dark, and Ælswith, Alfred’s sour wife, glowered at me. I bowed low. ‘A happy day, my lady,’ I said.

Ælswith ignored that. She was sitting beside my cousin, who gestured at me with a pork rib. ‘You and I have business to discuss,’ he said.

‘We do,’ I said.

‘We do, lord,’ Ælswith corrected me sharply. ‘Lord Æthelred is the Ealdorman of Mercia.’

‘And I’m the Lord of Bebbanburg,’ I said with an asperity that matched hers. ‘How are you, cousin?’

‘In the morning,’ Æthelred said, ‘I shall tell you our plans.’

‘I was told,’ I said, ignoring the truth that Alfred had asked me to devise the plans for the capture of Lundene, ‘that we were to meet the king tonight?’

‘I have other matters for my attention tonight,’ Æthelred said, looking at his young bride, and for an eyeblink his expression was feral, almost savage, then he offered me a smile. ‘In the morning, after prayers.’ He waved the pork rib again, dismissing me.

Gisela and I lay in the principal chamber of the Two Cranes tavern that night. We lay close, my arm around her, and we said little. Smoke from the tavern hearth sifted up through the loose floorboards and men were singing beneath us. Our children slept across the room with Stiorra’s nurse, while mice rustled in the thatch above. ‘About now, I suppose,’ Gisela said wistfully, breaking our silence.

‘Now?’

‘Poor little Æthelflaed is becoming a woman,’ she said.

‘She can’t wait for that to happen,’ I said.

Gisela shook her head. ‘He’ll rape her like a boar,’ she said, whispering the words. I said nothing. Gisela put her head on my chest so that her hair was across my mouth. ‘Love should be tender,’ she went on.

‘It is tender,’ I said.

‘With you, yes,’ she said, and for a moment I thought she was crying.

I stroked her hair. ‘What is it?’

‘I like her, that is all.’

‘Æthelflaed?’

‘She has spirit and he has none.’ She tilted her face to look at me and in the darkness I could just see the glint of her eyes. ‘You never told me,’ she said reprovingly, ‘that the Two Cranes is a brothel.’

‘There are not many beds in Wintanceaster,’ I said, ‘and not nearly enough for all the invited guests, so we were very lucky to find this room.’

‘And they know you very well here, Uhtred,’ she said accusingly.

‘It’s a tavern as well,’ I said defensively.

She laughed, then reached out a long thin arm and pushed a shutter open to find the heavens were bright with stars.

The sky was still clear next morning when I went to the palace, surrendered my two swords and was ushered by a young and very serious priest to Alfred’s room. I had met him so often in that small, bare chamber that was cluttered with parchments. He was waiting there, dressed in the brown robe that made him look like a monk, and with him was Æthelred who wore his swords because, as Ealdorman of Mercia, he had been granted that privilege within the palace. A third man was in the room, Asser the Welsh monk, who glared at me with undisguised loathing. He was a slight, short man with a very pale face that was scrupulously clean-shaven. He had good cause to hate me. I had met him in Cornwalum where I had led a slaughter of the kingdom where he was an emissary and I had tried to kill Asser too, a failure I have regretted all my life. He scowled at me and I rewarded him with a cheerful grin that I knew would annoy him.

Alfred did not look up from his work, but gestured at me with his quill. The gesture was evidently a welcome. He was standing at the upright desk he used for writing and for a moment all I could hear was the quill spluttering scratchily on the skin. Æthelred smirked, looking pleased with himself, but then he always did.

‘De consolatione philosophiae,’ Alfred said without looking up from his work.

‘Feels as if rain is coming, though,’ I said, ‘there’s a haze in the west, lord, and the wind is brisk.’

He gave me an exasperated look. ‘What is preferable,’ he asked, ‘and sweeter in this life than to serve and to be near to the king?’

‘Nothing!’ Æthelred said enthusiastically.

I made no answer because I was so astonished. Alfred liked the formalities of good manners, but he rarely wanted obsequiousness, yet the question suggested that he wished me to express some doltish adoration of him. Alfred saw my surprise and sighed. ‘It is a question,’ he explained, ‘posed in the work I am copying.’

‘I look forward to reading it,’ Æthelred said. Asser said nothing, just watched me with his dark Welsh eyes. He was a clever man, and about as trustworthy as a spavined weasel.

Alfred laid down the quill. ‘The king, in this context, Lord Uhtred, might be thought of as the representative of Almighty God, and the question suggests, does it not, the comfort to be gained from a nearness to God? Yet I fear you find no consolation in either philosophy or religion.’ He shook his head, then tried to wipe the ink from his hands with a damp cloth.

‘He had better find consolation from God, lord King,’ Asser spoke for the first time, ‘if his soul is not to burn in the eternal fire.’

‘Amen,’ Æthelred said.

Alfred looked ruefully at his hands that were now smeared with ink. ‘Lundene,’ he said, curtly changing the subject.

‘Garrisoned by brigands,’ I said, ‘who are killing trade.’

‘That much I know,’ he said icily. ‘The man Sigefrid.’

‘One-thumbed Sigefrid,’ I said, ‘thanks to Father Pyrlig.’

‘That I also know,’ the king said, ‘but I would dearly like to know what you were doing in Sigefrid’s company?’

‘Spying on them, lord,’ I said brightly, ‘just as you spied on Guthrum so many years ago.’ I referred to a winter night when, like a fool, Alfred had disguised himself as a musician and gone to Cippanhamm when it was occupied by Guthrum in the days when he was an enemy of Wessex. Alfred’s bravery had gone badly wrong, and if I had not been there then I dare say Guthrum would have become King of Wessex. I smiled at Alfred, and he knew I was reminding him that I had saved his life, but instead of showing gratitude he just looked disgusted.

‘It is not what we heard,’ Brother Asser went onto the attack.

‘And what did you hear, brother?’ I asked him.

He held up one long slender finger. ‘That you arrived in Lundene with the pirate Haesten,’ a second finger joined the first, ‘that you were welcomed by Sigefrid and his brother, Erik,’ he paused, his dark eyes malevolent, and raised a third finger, ‘and that the pagans addressed you as King of Mercia.’ He folded the three fingers slowly, as though his accusations were irrefutable.

I shook my head in feigned wonderment. ‘I have known Haesten since I saved his life many years ago,’ I said, ‘and I used the acquaintance to be invited into Lundene. And whose fault is it if Sigefrid gives me a title I neither want nor possess?’ Asser did not answer, Æthelred stirred behind me while Alfred just stared at me. ‘If you don’t believe me,’ I said, ‘ask Father Pyrlig.’

‘He has been sent back to East Anglia,’ Asser said brusquely, ‘to continue his mission. But we will ask him. You may be sure of that.’

‘I already have asked,’ Alfred said, making a calming gesture towards Asser, ‘and Father Pyrlig vouched for you,’ he added those last words cautiously.

‘And why,’ I asked, ‘has Guthrum not taken revenge for the insults to his envoys?’

‘King Æthelstan,’ Alfred said, using Guthrum’s Christian name, ‘has abandoned any claims to Lundene. It belongs to Mercia. His troops will not trespass there. But I have promised to send him Sigefrid and Erik as captives. That is your job.’ I nodded, but said nothing. ‘So tell me how you plan to capture Lundene?’ Alfred demanded.

I paused. ‘You attempted to ransom the city, lord?’ I asked.

Alfred looked irritated at the question, then nodded abruptly. ‘I offered silver,’ he said stiffly.

‘Offer more,’ I suggested.

He gave me a very sour look. ‘More?’

‘The city will be difficult to take, lord,’ I said. ‘Sigefrid and Erik have hundreds of men. Haesten will join them as soon as he hears that we have marched. We would have to assault stone walls, lord, and men die like flies in such attacks.’

Æthelred again stirred behind me. I knew he wanted to dismiss my fears as cowardice, but he had just enough sense to keep silent.

Alfred shook his head. ‘I offered them silver,’ he said bitterly, ‘more silver than a man can dream of. I offered them gold. They said they would take half of what I offered if I added one more thing.’ He looked at me belligerently. I gave a small shrug as if to suggest that he had rejected a bargain. ‘They wanted Æthelflaed,’ he said.

‘They can have my sword instead,’ Æthelred said belligerently.

‘They wanted your daughter?’ I asked, amazed.

‘They asked,’ Alfred said, ‘because they knew I would not grant their request, and because they wished to insult me.’ He shrugged, as if to suggest that the insult was as feeble as it was puerile. ‘So if the Thurgilson brothers are to be thrown out of Lundene, then you must do it. Tell me how.’

I pretended to gather my thoughts. ‘Sigefrid does not have sufficient men to guard the whole circuit of the city walls,’ I said, ‘so we send a large attack against the western gate, and then launch the real assault from the north.’

Alfred frowned and sifted through the parchments piled on the windowsill. He found the page he wanted and peered at the writing. ‘The old city, as I understand it,’ he said, ‘has six gates. To which do you refer?’

‘In the west,’ I said, ‘the gate nearest the river. The local folk call it Ludd’s Gate.’

‘And on the northern side?’

‘There are two gates,’ I said, ‘one leads directly into the old Roman fort, the other goes to the market place.’

‘The forum,’ Alfred corrected me.

‘We take the one that leads to the market,’ I said.

‘Not the fort?’

‘The fort is part of the walls,’ I explained, ‘so capture that gate and we still have to cross the fort’s southern wall. But capture the market place and our men have cut off Sigefrid’s retreat.’

I was talking nonsense for a reason, though it was plausible nonsense. Launching an attack from the new Saxon town across the River Fleot onto the old city’s walls would draw defenders to Ludd’s Gate, and if a smaller, better-trained force could then attack from the north they might find those walls lightly guarded. Once inside the city that second force could assault Sigefrid’s men from the rear and open Ludd’s Gate to let in the rest of the army. It was, in truth, the obvious way to assault the city, indeed it was so obvious that I was sure Sigefrid would be guarding against it.

Alfred pondered the idea.

Æthelred said nothing. He was waiting for his father-in-law’s opinion.

‘The river,’ Alfred said in a hesitant tone, then shook his head as though his thought was leading nowhere.

‘The river, lord?’

‘An approach by ship?’ Alfred suggested, still hesitant.

I let the idea hang, and it was like dangling a piece of gristle in front of an unschooled puppy.

And the puppy duly pounced. ‘An assault by ship is frankly a better idea,’ Æthelred said confidently. ‘Four or five ships? Travelling with the current? We can land on the wharves and attack the walls from behind.’

‘An attack by land will be hazardous,’ Alfred said dubiously, though the question suggested he was supporting his son-in-law’s ideas.

‘And probably doomed,’ Æthelred contributed confidently. He was not trying to hide his scorn of my plan.

‘You considered a shipborne assault?’ Alfred asked me.

‘I did, lord.’

‘It seems a very good idea to me!’ Æthelred said firmly.

So now I gave the puppy the whipping it deserved. ‘There’s a river wall, lord,’ I said. ‘We can land on the wharves, but we still have a wall to cross.’ The wall was built just behind the wharves. It was another piece of Roman work, all masonry, brick and studded with circular bastions.

‘Ah,’ Alfred said.

‘But of course, lord, if my cousin wishes to lead an attack on the river wall?’

Æthelred was silent.

‘The river wall,’ Alfred said, ‘it’s high?’

‘High enough, and newly repaired,’ I said, ‘but of course, I defer to your son-in-law’s experience.’

Alfred knew I did no such thing and gave me an irritable look before deciding to slap me down as I had slapped Æthelred. ‘Father Beocca tells me you took Brother Osferth into your service.’

‘I did, lord,’ I said.

‘It is not what I wish for Brother Osferth,’ Alfred said firmly, ‘so you will send him back.’

‘Of course, lord.’

‘He is called to serve the church,’ Alfred said, suspicious of my ready agreement. He turned and stared out of his small window. ‘I cannot endure Sigefrid’s presence,’ he said. ‘We need to open the river passage to shipping, and we need to do it soon.’ His ink-smeared hands were clasped behind his back and I could see the fingers clenching and unclenching. ‘I want it done before the first cuckoo sounds. Lord Æthelred will command the forces.’

‘Thank you, lord,’ Æthelred said and dropped to one knee.

‘But you will take Lord Uhtred’s advice,’ the king insisted, turning on his son-in-law.

‘Of course, lord,’Æthelred agreed untruthfully.

‘Lord Uhtred is more experienced in war than you,’ the king explained.

‘I shall value his assistance, lord,’ Æthelred lied very convincingly.

‘And I want the city taken before the first cuckoo sounds!’ the king reiterated.

Which meant we had perhaps six weeks. ‘You will summon men now?’ I asked Alfred.

‘I shall,’ he said, ‘and you will each see to your provisions.’

‘And I shall give you Lundene,’ Æthelred said enthusiastically. ‘What good prayers ask, lord, meek faith receives!’

‘I don’t want Lundene,’ Alfred retorted with some asperity, ‘it belongs to Mercia, to you,’ he gave a slight inclination of his head to Æthelred, ‘but perhaps you will allow me to appoint a bishop and a city governor?’

‘Of course, lord,’ Æthelred said.

I was dismissed, leaving father and son-in-law with the sour-faced Asser. I stood in the sunshine outside and thought about how I was to take Lundene, for I knew that I would have to do it, and do it without Æthelred ever suspecting my plans. And it could be done, I thought, but only by stealth and with good fortune. Wyrd bið ful ãræd.

I went to find Gisela. I crossed the outer courtyard to see a knot of women beside one of the doors. Eanflæd was among them and I turned to greet her. She had been a whore once, then she had become Leofric’s lover, and now she was a companion to Alfred’s wife. I doubted that Ælswith knew her companion had once been a whore, though perhaps she did and did not care because the bond between the two women was a shared bitterness. Ælswith resented that Wessex would not call the king’s wife a queen, while Eanflæd knew too much of men to be fond of any one of them. Yet I was fond of her and I veered out of my way to speak with her, but, seeing me coming, she shook her head to warn me away.

I stopped then and saw that Eanflæd had her arm about a younger woman who sat on a chair with her head bowed. She looked up suddenly and saw me. It was Æthelflaed and her pretty face was wan, drawn and scared. She had been crying and her eyes were still bright from the tears. She seemed not to recognise me, then she did and offered me a sad reluctant smile. I smiled back, bowed and walked on.

And thought about Lundene.