Читать книгу The Last Kingdom Series Books 4-6: Sword Song, The Burning Land, Death of Kings - Bernard Cornwell - Страница 20

‘My brother says I should kill you,’ Erik greeted me. The younger of the Thurgilson brothers had been waiting for me on the bridge and, though his words held menace, there was none in his face. He was placid, calm and apparently unworried by his predicament. His black hair was crammed beneath a plain helmet and his fine mail was spattered with blood. There was a rent at the mail’s hem, and I guessed that marked where a spear had come beneath his shield, but he was evidently unwounded. Sigefrid, though, was horribly injured. I could see him on the roadway, lying on his bear-fur cloak, twisting and jerking in pain, and being tended by two men.

‘Your brother,’ I said, still watching Sigefrid, ‘thinks that death is the answer to everything.’

‘Then he’s like you in that regard,’ Erik said with a wan smile, ‘if you are what men say you are.’

‘What do men say of me?’ I asked, curious.

‘That you kill like a Northman,’ Erik said. He turned to stare downriver. A small fleet of Danish and Norse ships had managed to escape the wharves, but some now rowed back upstream in an attempt to save the fugitives who crowded the river’s edge, but the Saxons were already among that doomed crowd. A furious fight was raging on the wharves where men hacked at each other. Some, to escape the fury, were leaping into the river. ‘I sometimes think,’ Erik said sadly, ‘that death is the real meaning of life. We worship death, we give it, we believe it leads to joy.’

‘I don’t worship death,’ I said.

‘Christians do,’ Erik remarked, glancing at Pyrlig, whose mailed chest displayed his wooden cross.

‘No,’ Pyrlig said.

‘Then why the image of a dead man?’ Erik asked.

‘Our Lord Jesus Christ rose from the dead,’ Pyrlig said energetically, ‘he conquered death! He died to give us life and regained his own life in his dying. Death, lord, is just a gate to more life.’

‘Then why do we fear death?’ Erik asked in a voice that suggested he expected no answer. He turned to look at the downstream chaos. The two ships we had used to shoot the bridge’s gap had been commandeered by fleeing men, and one of those ships had foundered just yards from the wharf where it now lay on its side, half sunken. Men had been spilled into the water where many must have drowned, but others had managed to reach the muddy foreshore where they were being hacked to death by gleeful men with spears, swords, axes and hoes. The survivors clung to the wreck, trying to shelter from a handful of Saxon bowmen whose long hunting arrows thudded into the ship’s timbers. There was so much death that morning. The streets of the broken city reeked of blood and were filled with the wailing of women beneath the smoke-smeared yellow sky. ‘We trusted you, Lord Uhtred,’ Erik said bleakly, still staring downriver. ‘You were going to bring us Ragnar, you were to be king in Mercia and you were to give us the whole island of Britain.’

‘The dead man lied,’ I said, ‘Bjorn lied.’

Erik turned back to me, his face grave. ‘I said we should not try and trick you,’ he said, ‘but Earl Haesten insisted.’ Erik shrugged, then looked at Father Pyrlig, noting his mail coat and the well-worn hilts of his swords. ‘But you also tricked us, Lord Uhtred,’ Erik went on, ‘because I think you knew this man was no priest, but a warrior.’

‘He is both,’ I said.

Erik grimaced, perhaps remembering the skill with which Pyrlig had defeated his brother in the arena. ‘You lied,’ he said sadly, ‘and we lied, but we still could have taken Wessex together. And now?’ he turned and looked along the bridge’s roadway, ‘now I don’t know whether my brother will live or die.’ He grimaced. Sigefrid was motionless now and for a moment I thought he might have gone to the corpse-hall already, but then he slowly turned his head to give me a baleful stare.

‘I shall pray for him,’ Pyrlig said.

‘Yes,’ Erik said simply, ‘please.’

‘And what shall I do?’ I asked.

‘You?’ Erik frowned, puzzled by my question.

‘Do I let you live, Erik Thurgilson?’ I asked. ‘Or kill you?’

‘You will find us difficult to kill,’ he said.

‘But kill you I will,’ I responded, ‘if I must.’ That was the real negotiation in those two sentences. The truth was that Erik and his men were trapped and doomed, but to kill them we would need to hack our way through a fearsome shield wall, and then batter down desperate men whose only thought would be to take many of us with them to the next world. I would lose twenty or more men here, and others of my household troops would be crippled for life. That was a price I did not want to pay, and Erik knew it, but he also knew that the price would be paid if he was not reasonable. ‘Is Haesten here?’ I asked him, looking down the broken bridge.

Erik shook his head. ‘I saw him leave,’ he said, nodding downriver.

‘A pity,’ I said, ‘because he broke an oath to me. If he had been here I would have let you all go in exchange for his life.’

Erik stared at me for a few heartbeats, judging whether I had spoken the truth. ‘Then kill me instead of Haesten,’ he said at last, ‘and let all these others leave.’

‘You broke no oath to me,’ I said, ‘so you owe me no life.’

‘I want these men to live,’ Erik said with a sudden passion, ‘and my life is a small price for theirs. I will pay it, Lord Uhtred, and in return you give my men their lives, and give them Wave-Tamer,’ he pointed to his brother’s ship that was still tied in the small dock where we had landed.

‘Is it a fair price, father?’ I asked Pyrlig.

‘Who can set a value on life?’ Pyrlig asked in return.

‘I can,’ I said harshly, and turned back to Erik. ‘The price is this,’ I told him. ‘You will leave every weapon you carry on this bridge. You will leave your shields. You will leave your mail coats, and you will leave your helmets. You will leave your arm rings, your chains, your brooches, your coins and your belt buckles. You will leave everything of value, Erik Thurgilson, and then you may take a ship that I choose to give you, and you may go.’

‘A ship that you choose,’ Erik said.

‘Yes.’

He smiled wanly. ‘I made Wave-Tamer for my brother,’ he said. ‘I first found her keel in the forest. It was an oak with a trunk straight as an oar shaft and I cut that myself. We used eleven other oaks, Lord Uhtred, for her ribs and her cross-pieces, for her stem and her planking. Her caulking was hair from seven bears I killed with my own spear, and I made her nails on my own forge. My mother made her sail, I wove her lines, and I gave her to Thor by killing a horse I loved and sprinkling his blood on her stem. She has carried my brother and me through storms and fog and ice. She is,’ he turned to look at Wave-Tamer, ‘she is beautiful. I love that ship.’

‘You love her more than your life?’

He thought for an instant, then shook his head. ‘No.’

‘Then it will be a ship of my choice,’ I said stubbornly, and that might have ended the negotiation except there was a commotion under the archway where the Northmen’s shield wall still faced my troops.

Æthelred had come to the bridge, and was demanding to be allowed through the gate. Erik offered me a quizzical look when the news was brought to us and I shrugged. ‘He commands here,’ I said.

‘So I will need his permission to leave?’

‘You will,’ I said.

Erik sent word that the shield wall was to let Æthelred onto the roadway and my cousin strutted onto the bridge with his customary cockiness. Aldhelm, the commander of his guard, was his only companion. Æthelred ignored Erik, instead facing me with a belligerent expression. ‘You presume to negotiate on my behalf?’ he accused me.

‘No,’ I said.

‘Then what are you doing here?’

‘Negotiating on my own behalf,’ I said. ‘This is the Earl Erik Thurgilson,’ I introduced the Norseman in English, but now changed to Danish. ‘And this,’ I said to Erik, ‘is the Ealdorman of Mercia, the Lord Æthelred.’

Erik responded to the introduction by offering Æthelred a small bow, but the courtesy was wasted. Æthelred looked around the bridge, counting the men who had taken refuge there. ‘Not so many,’ he said brusquely. ‘They must all die.’

‘I have already offered them their lives,’ I said.

Æthelred rounded on me. ‘We had orders,’ he said bitingly, ‘to capture Sigefrid, Erik and Haesten, and deliver them as captives to King Æthelstan.’ I saw Erik’s eyes widen slightly. I had assumed he spoke no English, but now realised he must have learned enough of the language to understand Æthelred’s words. ‘Are you disobeying my father-in-law?’ Æthelred challenged me when I made no response.

I kept my temper. ‘You can fight them here,’ I explained patiently, ‘and you’ll lose many good men. Too many. You can trap them here, but at slack water a ship will row to the bridge and rescue them.’ That would be a hard thing to do, but I had learned never to underestimate the seamanship of the Northmen. ‘Or you can rid Lundene of their presence,’ I said, ‘and that is what I chose to do.’ Aldhelm sniggered at that, implying that I had chosen the coward’s option. I looked at him and he challenged my gaze, refusing to look away.

‘Kill them, lord,’ Aldhelm said to Æthelred, though he continued staring at me.

‘If you wish to fight them,’ I said, ‘then that is your privilege, but I’ll have none of it.’

For a moment both Æthelred and Aldhelm were tempted to accuse me of cowardice. I could see the thought on their faces, but they could also see something in my face and they let the thought go unsaid. ‘You always loved pagans,’ Æthelred sneered instead.

‘I loved them so well,’ I said angrily, ‘that I took two ships through that gap in the black of night,’ I pointed to where the jagged stumps of the bridge’s planking ended. ‘I brought men into the city, cousin, and I captured Ludd’s Gate, and I fought a battle in that gate such as I would never wish to fight again, and in that fight I killed pagans for you. And yes, I love them.’

Æthelred looked at the gap. Spray showed continually there, thrown up by the seethe of water falling through the break with such force that the ancient wooden roadway quivered and the air was filled with the river’s noise. ‘You had no orders to come by ship,’ Æthelred said indignantly, and I knew he resented my actions because they might detract from the glory he expected to garner from his capture of Lundene.

‘I had orders to give you the city,’ I retorted, ‘so here it is!’ I gestured at the smoke drifting over the scream-filled hill. ‘Your wedding present,’ I said, mocking him with a bow.

‘And not just the city, lord,’ Aldhelm said to Æthelred, ‘but everything in it.’

‘Everything?’ Æthelred asked, as if he could not believe his good fortune.

‘Everything,’ Aldhelm said wolfishly.

‘And if you’re grateful for that,’ I interjected sourly, ‘then thank your wife.’

Æthelred jerked around to stare wide-eyed at me. Something in my words had astonished him for he looked as though I had struck him. There was disbelief on his broad face, and anger, and for a moment he was incapable of speaking. ‘My wife?’ he finally asked.

‘If it had not been for Æthelflaed,’ I explained, ‘we could not have taken the city. Last night she gave me men.’

‘You saw her last night?’ he asked incredulously.

I looked at him, wondering if he was mad. ‘Of course I saw her last night!’ I said. ‘We went back to the island to board the ships! She was there! She shamed your men into coming with me.’

‘And she made Lord Uhtred give her an oath,’ Pyrlig added, ‘an oath to defend your Mercia, Lord Æthelred.’

Æthelred ignored the Welshman. He was still staring at me, but now with an expression of hatred. ‘You boarded my ship?’ he could barely speak for loathing and anger, ‘and saw my wife?’

‘She came ashore,’ I said, ‘with Father Pyrlig.’

I meant nothing by saying that. I had merely reported what had happened and hoped that Æthelred would admire his wife for her initiative, but the moment I spoke I saw I had made a mistake. I thought for a heartbeat that Æthelred was going to hit me, so fierce was the sudden fury on his broad face, but then he controlled himself and turned and walked away. Aldhelm hurried after him and managed to check my cousin’s haste long enough to speak with him. I saw Æthelred make a furious, careless gesture, then Aldhelm turned back to me. ‘You must do what you think best,’ he called, then followed his master through the arch where the Northmen’s shield wall made a passage for them.

‘I always do,’ I said to no one in particular.

‘Do what?’ Father Pyrlig asked, staring at the arch where my cousin had so abruptly vanished.

‘What I think is best,’ I said, then frowned. ‘What happened there?’ I asked Pyrlig.

‘He doesn’t like other men speaking to his wife,’ The Welshman said. ‘I noticed that when I was on the ship with them, coming down the Temes. He’s jealous.’

‘But I’ve known Æthelflaed for ever!’ I exclaimed.

‘He fears you know her only too well,’ Pyrlig said, ‘and it drives him to madness.’

‘But that’s stupid!’ I spoke angrily.

‘It’s jealousy,’ Pyrlig said, ‘and all jealousy is stupid.’

Erik had also watched Æthelred walk away and was as confused as I was. ‘He is your commander?’ the Norseman asked.

‘He’s my cousin,’ I said bitterly.

‘And he’s your commander?’ Erik asked again.

‘The Lord Æthelred commands,’ Pyrlig explained, ‘and the Lord Uhtred disobeys.’

Erik smiled at that. ‘So, Lord Uhtred, do we have an agreement?’ He asked that question in English, hesitating slightly over the words.

‘Your English is good,’ I said, sounding surprised.

He smiled. ‘A Saxon slave taught me.’

‘I hope she was beautiful,’ I said, ‘and yes, we do have an agreement, but with one change.’

Erik bridled, but stayed courteous. ‘One change?’ he asked cautiously.

‘You may take Wave-Tamer,’ I said.

I thought Erik would kiss me. For a heartbeat he did not believe my words, then he saw that I was sincere and he smiled broadly. ‘Lord Uhtred,’ he began.

‘Take her,’ I interrupted him, not wanting his gratitude, ‘just take her and go!’

It had been Aldhelm’s words that had changed my mind. He had been right; everything in the city now belonged to Mercia, and Æthelred was Mercia’s ruler, and my cousin had a lust for anything beautiful and, if he discovered I wanted Wave-Tamer for myself, which I did, he would be sure to take it from me, and so I kept the ship from his grasp by giving it back to the Thurgilson brothers.

Sigefrid was carried to his own ship. The Northmen, stripped of their weapons and valuables, were guarded by my men as they walked to the Wave-Tamer. It took a long time, but at last they were all on board and they shoved away from the quay, and I watched as they rowed downstream towards the small mists that still hovered above the lower reaches of the river.

And somewhere in Wessex the first cuckoo called.

I wrote Alfred a letter. I have always hated writing, and it has been years since I last used a quill. My wife’s priests now scratch letters for me, but they know I can read what they write so they take care to write what I tell them. But on the night of Lundene’s fall, I wrote in my own hand to Alfred. ‘Lundene is yours, lord King,’ I told him, ‘and I am staying here to rebuild its walls.’

Writing even that much exhausted my patience. The quill spluttered, the parchment was uneven and the ink, which I had found in a wooden chest containing plunder evidently stolen from a monastery, spat droplets over the parchment. ‘Now fetch Father Pyrlig,’ I told Sihtric, ‘and Osferth.’

‘Lord,’ Sihtric said nervously.

‘I know,’ I said impatiently, ‘you want to marry your whore. But fetch Father Pyrlig and Osferth first. The whore can wait.’

Pyrlig arrived a moment later and I pushed the letter across the table to him. ‘I want you to go to Alfred,’ I told him, ‘give him that, and tell him what happened here.’

Pyrlig read my message and I saw a small smile flicker on his ugly face, a smile that vanished swiftly so that I would not be offended by his opinion of my handwriting. He said nothing of my short message, but glanced around with surprise as Sihtric brought Osferth into the room.

‘I’m sending Brother Osferth with you,’ I explained to the Welshman.

Osferth stiffened. He hated being called brother. ‘I want to stay here,’ he said, ‘lord.’

‘The king wants you in Wintanceaster,’ I said dismissively, ‘and we obey the king.’ I took the letter back from Pyrlig, dipped the quill in the ink that had faded to a rusty brown, and added more words. ‘Sigefrid,’ I wrote laboriously, ‘was defeated by Osferth, who I would like to keep in my household guard.’

Why did I write that? I did not like Osferth any more than I liked his father, yet he had leaped from the bastion and that had shown courage. Foolish courage, perhaps, but still courage, and if Osferth had not leaped then Lundene might be in Norse or Danish hands to this day. Osferth had earned his place in the shield wall, even if his prospects of surviving there were still desperately low. ‘Father Pyrlig,’ I said to Osferth as I blew on the ink, ‘will tell the king of your actions today, and this letter requests that you be returned to me. But you must leave that decision to Alfred.’

‘He’ll say no,’ Osferth said sullenly.

‘Father Pyrlig will persuade him,’ I said. The Welshman raised an eyebrow in silent question and I gave him the smallest nod to show I spoke the truth. I gave the letter to Sihtric and watched as he folded the parchment, then sealed it with wax. I pressed my badge of the wolf’s head into the seal, then handed the letter to Pyrlig. ‘Tell Alfred the truth about what happened here,’ I said, ‘because he’s going to hear a different version from my cousin. And travel fast!’

Pyrlig smiled. ‘You want us to reach the king before your cousin’s messenger?’

‘Yes,’ I said. That was a lesson I had learned; that the first news is generally the version that is believed. I had no doubt Æthelred would be sending a triumphant message to his father-in-law, and I had no doubt either that in his telling, our part in the victory would be diminished to nothing. Father Pyrlig would ensure that Alfred heard the truth, though whether the king would believe what he heard was another matter.

Pyrlig and Osferth left before dawn, using two horses out of the many we had captured in Lundene. I walked around the circuit of the walls as the sun rose, noting those places that still needed repair. My men were standing guard. Most were from the Berrocscire fyrd, which had fought under Æthelred the previous day, and their excitement at their apparently easy victory had still not subsided.

A few of Æthelred’s men were also posted on the walls, though most were recovering from the ale and mead they had drunk through the night. At one of the northern gates, which looked towards misted green hills, I met Egbert, the elderly man who had yielded to Æthelflaed’s demands and had given me his best men. I rewarded him with the gift of a silver arm ring I had taken from one of the many corpses. Those dead were still unburied and, in the dawn, ravens and kites were feasting. ‘Thank you,’ I said.

‘I should have trusted you,’ he said awkwardly.

‘You did trust me.’

He shrugged. ‘Because of her, yes.’

‘Is Æthelflaed here?’ I asked.

‘Still at the island,’ Egbert said.

‘I thought you were guarding her?’

‘I was,’ Egbert said dully, ‘but Lord Æthelred had me replaced last night.’

‘Had you replaced?’ I asked, then saw that his silver chain, the symbol that he commanded men, had been taken from him.

He shrugged as if to tell me he did not understand the decision. ‘Ordered me to come here,’ he said, ‘but when I arrived he wouldn’t see me. He was sick.’

‘Something serious, I hope?’

A half-smile flickered and died on Egbert’s face. ‘He was vomiting, I’m told. Probably nothing.’

My cousin had taken the palace at the top of Lundene’s hill as his quarters, while I stayed in the Roman house by the river. I liked it. I have always liked Roman buildings because their walls possess the great virtue of keeping out wind, rain and snow. That house was large. You entered through an arch leading from the street into a courtyard surrounded by a pillared arcade. On three sides of the courtyard were small rooms that must have been used by servants or for storage. One was a kitchen and had a brick bread oven so large that you could bake enough loaves to feed three crews at one time. The courtyard’s fourth side led into six rooms, two of them big enough to assemble my whole bodyguard. Beyond those two big rooms was a paved terrace that overlooked the river and at evening time that was a pleasant place, though at low tide the stench of the Temes could be overwhelming.

I could have gone back to Coccham, but I stayed anyway and the men of Berrocscire’s fyrd also stayed, though they were unhappy because it was springtime and there was work to do on their farms. I kept them in Lundene to strengthen the city’s walls. I would have gone home if I thought Æthelred would have done that work, but he seemed blithely unaware of the sad state of the city’s defences. Sigefrid had patched a few places and he had strengthened the gates, but there was still much to do. The old masonry was crumbling and had even fallen into the outer ditch in places, and my men cut and trimmed trees to make new palisades wherever the wall was weak. Then we cleared the ditch outside the wall, scraping out matted filth and planting sharpened stakes to welcome any attacker.

Alfred sent orders that the whole of the old city was to be rebuilt. Any Roman building in good repair was to be kept, while dilapidated ruins were to be pulled down and replaced with sturdy timber and thatch, but there were neither the men nor the funds to attempt such work. Alfred’s idea was that the Saxons of the undefended new town would move into old Lundene and be safe behind its ramparts, but those Saxons still feared the ghosts of the Roman builders and they stubbornly resisted every invitation to take over the deserted properties. My men of the Berrocscire fyrd were just as frightened of the ghosts, but they were still more frightened of me and so they stayed and worked.

Æthelred took no notice of what I did. His sickness must have passed for he busied himself hunting. Every day he rode to the wooded hills north of the city where he pursued deer. He never took fewer than forty men, for there was always a chance that some marauding Danish band might come close to Lundene. There were many of those bands, but fate decreed that none went near Æthelred. Every day I would see horsemen to the east, picking their way through the desolate dark marshes that lay seawards of the city. They were Danes, watching us, and doubtless reporting back to Sigefrid.

I got news of Sigefrid. He lived, the reports said, though he was so crippled by his wound that he could neither walk nor stand. He had taken refuge at Beamfleot with his brother and with Haesten, and from there they sent raiders into the mouth of the Temes. Saxon ships dared not sail to Frankia, for the Northmen were in a vengeful mood after their defeat in Lundene. One Danish ship, dragon-prowed, even rowed up the Temes to taunt us from the churning water just below the gap in the broken bridge. They had Saxon prisoners aboard and the Danes killed them, one by one, making sure we could see the bloody executions. There were also women captives aboard and we could hear them screaming. I sent Finan and a dozen men to the bridge and they carried a clay pot of fire, and once on the bridge they used hunting bows to shoot fire-arrows at the intruder. All shipmasters fear fire, and the arrows, most of which missed altogether, persuaded them to drop downriver until the arrows could no longer reach them, but they did not go far and their oarsmen held the ship against the current as more prisoners were killed. They did not leave until I had assembled a crew to man one of the captured boats tied at the wharves, and only then did they turn and row downriver into the darkening evening.

Other ships from Beamfleot crossed the wide estuary of the Temes and landed men in Wessex. That part of Wessex was an alien place. It had once been the kingdom of Cent until it was conquered by the West Saxons and, though the men of Cent were Saxons, they spoke in a strange accent. It had always been a wild place, close to the other lands across the sea, and ever liable to be raided by Vikings. Now Sigefrid’s men launched ship after ship across the estuary and pillaged deep into Cent. They took slaves and burned villages. A messenger came from Swithwulf, Bishop of Hrofeceastre, to beg for my help. ‘The heathen were at Contwaraburg,’ the messenger, a young priest, told me gloomily.

‘Did they kill the archbishop?’ I asked cheerfully.

‘He was not there, lord, thank God.’ The priest made the sign of the cross. ‘The pagans are everywhere, lord, and no one is safe. Bishop Swithwulf begs your help.’

But I could not help the bishop. I needed men to guard Lundene, not Cent, and I needed men to guard my family too for, a week after the city’s fall, Gisela, Stiorra and a half-dozen maids arrived. I had sent Finan and thirty men to escort them safely down the river and the house by the Temes seemed to grow warmer with the echoes of women’s laughter. ‘You might have swept the house,’ Gisela chided me.

‘I did!’

‘Ha!’ she pointed to a ceiling, ‘what are those?’

‘Cobwebs,’ I said, ‘they’re holding the beams in place.’

The cobwebs were swept away and the kitchen fires were lit. In the courtyard, under a corner where the tiled arcade roofs met, there was an old stone urn that was choked with rubbish. Gisela cleaned the filth out, then she and two maids scrubbed the outside of the urn to reveal white marble carved with delicate women who appeared to be chasing each other and waving harps. Gisela loved those carvings. She crouched beside them, tracing a finger over the hair of the Roman women, and then she and the maids tried to copy the hairstyle. She loved the house too, and even endured the river’s stench to sit on the terrace in the evening and watch the water slide by. ‘He beats her,’ she told me one evening.

I knew of whom she spoke and said nothing.

‘She’s bruised,’ Gisela said, ‘and she’s pregnant, and he beats her.’

‘She’s what?’ I asked in surprise.

‘Æthelflaed,’ Gisela said patiently, ‘is pregnant.’ Almost every day Gisela went to the palace and spent time with Æthelflaed, though Æthelflaed was never allowed to visit our house.

I was surprised by Gisela’s news of Æthelflaed’s pregnancy. I do not know why I should have been surprised, but I was. I suppose I still thought of Æthelflaed as a child. ‘And he hits her?’ I asked.

‘Because he thinks she loves other men,’ Gisela said.

‘Does she?’

‘No, of course she doesn’t, but he fears she does.’ Gisela paused to gather more wool that she was spinning onto a distaff. ‘He thinks she loves you.’

I thought of Æthelred’s sudden anger on Lundene’s bridge. ‘He’s mad!’ I said.

‘No, he’s jealous,’ Gisela said, laying a hand on my arm. ‘And I know he has nothing to be jealous about.’ She smiled at me, then went back to gathering her wool. ‘It’s a strange way to show love, isn’t it?’

Æthelflaed had come to the city the day after it fell. She travelled by boat to the Saxon town, and from there an ox cart had carried her across the Fleot and so up to her husband’s new palace. Men lined the route waving leafy green boughs, a priest walked ahead of the oxen scattering holy water while a choir of women followed the cart, which, like the oxen’s horns, was hung with spring flowers. Æthelflaed, clutching the cart’s side to steady herself, had looked uncomfortable, but she had given me a wan smile as the oxen dragged her over the uneven stones inside the gate.

Æthelflaed’s arrival was celebrated by a feast in the palace. I am certain Æthelred had not wanted to invite me, but my rank had given him little choice and a grudging message had arrived on the afternoon before the celebration. The feast had been nothing special, though the ale was plentiful enough. A dozen priests shared the top table with Æthelred and Æthelflaed, and I was given a stool at the end of that long board. Æthelred glowered at me, the priests ignored me, and I left early, pleading that I had to walk the walls and make certain the sentries were awake. I remember my cousin had looked pale that night, but it was soon after his vomiting fit. I had asked after his health and he had waved the question away as though it were irrelevant.

Gisela and Æthelflaed became friends in Lundene. I repaired the wall and Æthelred hunted while his men plundered the city for his palace’s furnishings. I went home one day to find six of his followers in the courtyard of my house. Egbert, the man who had given me the troops on the eve of the attack, was one of the six and his face showed no expression as I came into the courtyard. He just watched me. ‘What do you want?’ I asked the six men. Five were in mail and had swords, the sixth wore a finely embroidered jerkin that showed hounds chasing deer. That sixth man also wore a silver chain, a sign of noble rank. It was Aldhelm, my cousin’s friend and the commander of his household troops.

‘This,’ Aldhelm answered. He was standing by the urn that Gisela had cleaned. It served now to catch rainwater that fell from the roof, and that water was sweet and clean-tasting, a rarity in any city.

‘Two hundred silver shillings,’ I told Aldhelm, ‘and it’s yours.’

He sneered at that. The price was outrageous. The four younger men had succeeded in tipping the urn so that its water had flowed out and now they were struggling to right it again, though they had stopped their efforts when I appeared.

Gisela came from the main house and smiled at me. ‘I told them they couldn’t have it,’ she said.

‘Lord Æthelred wants it,’ Aldhelm insisted.

‘You’re called Aldhelm,’ I said, ‘just Aldhelm, and I am Uhtred, Lord of Bebbanburg, and you call me “Lord”.’

‘Not this one,’ Gisela spoke silkily. ‘He called me an interfering bitch.’

My men, there were four of them, moved to my side and put hands on sword hilts. I gestured for them to step back and unbuckled my own sword belt. ‘Did you call my wife a bitch?’ I asked Aldhelm.

‘My lord requires this statue,’ he said, ignoring my question.

‘You will apologise to my wife,’ I told him, ‘and then to me.’ I laid the belt with its two heavy swords on the flagstones.

He pointedly turned away from me. ‘Leave it on its side,’ he told the four men, ‘and roll it out to the street.’

‘I want two apologies,’ I said.

He heard the menace in my voice and turned back to me, alarmed now. ‘This house,’ Aldhelm explained, ‘belongs to the Lord Æthelred. If you live here it is by his gracious permission.’ He became even more alarmed as I drew closer. ‘Egbert!’ he said loudly, but Egbert’s only response was a calming motion with his right hand, a signal that his men should keep their swords scabbarded. Egbert knew that if a single blade left its long scabbard there would be a fight between his men and mine, and he had the sense to avoid that slaughter, but Aldhelm had no such sense. ‘You impertinent bastard,’ he said, and snatched a knife from a sheath at his waist and lunged it at my belly.

I broke Aldhelm’s jaw, his nose, both his hands and maybe a couple of his ribs before Egbert hauled me away. When Aldhelm apologised to Gisela he did so while spitting teeth through bubbling blood, and the urn stayed in our courtyard. I gave his knife to the girls who worked in the kitchen, where it proved useful for cutting onions.

And the next day, Alfred came.

The king came silently, his ship arriving at a wharf upstream of the broken bridge. The Haligast waited for a river trader to pull away, then ghosted in on short, efficient oar strokes. Alfred, accompanied by a score of priests and monks, and guarded by six mailed men, came ashore unheralded and unannounced. He threaded the goods stacked on the wharf, stepped over a drunken man sleeping in the shade and ducked through the small gate in the wall leading to a merchant’s courtyard.

I heard he went to the palace. Æthelred was not there, he was hunting again, but the king went to his daughter’s chamber and stayed there a long time. Afterwards he walked back down the hill and, still with his priestly entourage, came to our house. I was with one of the groups making repairs to the walls, but Gisela had been warned of Alfred’s presence in Lundene and, suspecting he might come to our house, had prepared a meal of bread, ale, cheese and boiled lentils. She offered no meat, for Alfred would not touch flesh. His stomach was tender and his bowels in perpetual torment and he had somehow persuaded himself that meat was an abomination.

Gisela had sent a servant to warn me of the king’s arrival, yet even so I arrived at the house long after Alfred to find my elegant courtyard black with priests, among whom was Father Pyrlig and, next to him, Osferth, who was once again dressed in monkish robes. Osferth gave me a sour look, as if blaming me for his return to the church, while Pyrlig embraced me. ‘Æthelred said nothing of you in his report to the king,’ he murmured those words, gusting ale-smelling breath over my face.

‘We weren’t here when the city fell?’ I asked.

‘Not according to your cousin,’ Pyrlig said, then chuckled. ‘But I told Alfred the truth. Go on, he’s waiting for you.’

Alfred was on the river terrace. His guards stood behind him, lined against the house, while the king was seated on a wooden chair. I paused in the doorway, surprised because Alfred’s face, usually so pallid and solemn, had an animated look. He was even smiling. Gisela was seated next to him and the king was leaning forward, talking, and Gisela, whose back was to me, was listening. I stayed where I was, watching that rarest of sights, Alfred happy. He tapped a long white finger on her knee once to stress some point. There was nothing untoward in the gesture, except it was so unlike him.

But then, of course, maybe it was very like him. Alfred had been a famous womaniser before he was caught in the snare of Christianity, and Osferth was a product of that early princely lust. Alfred liked pretty women, and it was obvious he liked Gisela. I heard her laugh suddenly and Alfred, flattered by her amusement, smiled shyly. He seemed not to mind that she was no Christian and that she wore a pagan amulet about her neck, he was simply happy to be in her company and I was tempted to leave them alone. I had never seen him happy in the company of Ælswith, his weasel-tongued, stoat-faced, shrike-voiced wife. Then he happened to glance over Gisela’s shoulder and saw me.

His face changed immediately. He stiffened, sat upright and reluctantly beckoned me forward.

I picked up a stool that our daughter used and heard a hiss as Alfred’s guards drew swords. Alfred waved the blades down, sensible enough to know that if I had wanted to attack him then I would hardly use a three-legged milking stool. He watched as I gave my swords to one of the guards, a mark of respect, then as I carried the stool across the terrace flagstones. ‘Lord Uhtred,’ he greeted me coldly.

‘Welcome to our house, lord King.’ I gave him a bow, then sat with my back to the river.

He was silent for a moment. He was wearing a brown cloak that was drawn tight around his thin body. A silver cross hung at his neck, while on his thinning hair was a circlet of bronze, which surprised me, for he rarely wore symbols of kingship, thinking them vain baubles, but he must have decided that Lundene needed to see a king. He sensed my surprise for he clawed the circlet off his head. ‘I had hoped,’ he said coldly, ‘that the Saxons of the new town would have abandoned their houses. That they would live here instead. They could be protected here by the walls! Why won’t they move?’

‘They fear the ghosts, lord,’ I said.

‘And you do not?’

I thought for a while. ‘Yes,’ I said after thinking about my answer.

‘Yet you live here?’ he waved at the house.

‘We propitiate the spirits, lord,’ Gisela explained softly and, when the king raised an eyebrow, she told how we placed food and drink in the courtyard to greet any ghosts who came to our house.

Alfred rubbed his eyes. ‘It might be better,’ he said, ‘if our priests exorcise the streets. Prayer and holy water! We shall drive the ghosts away.’

‘Or let me take three hundred men to sack the new town,’ I suggested. ‘Burn their houses, lord, and they’ll have to live in the old city.’

A half-smile flickered on his face, gone as quickly as it had showed. ‘It is hard to force obedience,’ he said, ‘without encouraging resentment. I sometimes think the only true authority I have is over my family, and even then I wonder! If I release you with sword and spear onto the new town, Lord Uhtred, then they will learn to hate you. Lundene must be obedient, but it must also be a bastion of Christian Saxons, and if they hate us then they will welcome a return of the Danes, who left them in peace.’ He shook his head abruptly. ‘We shall leave them in peace, but don’t build them a palisade. Let them come into the old city of their own accord. Now, forgive me,’ those last two words were to Gisela, ‘but we must speak of still darker things.’

Alfred gestured to a guard who pushed open the door from the terrace. Father Beocca appeared and with him a second priest; a black-haired, pouchy-faced, scowling creature called Father Erkenwald. He hated me. He had once tried to have me killed by accusing me of piracy and, though his accusations had been entirely true, I had slipped away from his bad-tempered clutches. He gave me a sour look while Beocca offered a solemn nod, then both men stared attentively at Alfred.

‘Tell me,’ Alfred said, looking at me, ‘what Sigefrid, Haesten and Erik do now?’

‘They’re at Beamfleot, lord,’ I said, ‘strengthening their camp. They have thirty-two ships, and men enough to crew them.’

‘You’ve seen this place?’ Father Erkenwald demanded. The two priests, I knew, had been fetched onto the terrace to serve as witnesses to this conversation. Alfred, ever careful, liked to have a record, either written or memorised, of all such discussions.

‘I’ve not seen it,’ I said coldly.

‘Your spies, then?’ Alfred resumed the questions.

‘Yes, lord.’

He thought for a moment. ‘The ships can be burned?’ he asked.

I shook my head. ‘They’re in a creek, lord.’

‘They must be destroyed,’ he said vengefully, and I saw his long thin hands clench on his lap. ‘They raided Contwaraburg!’ he said, sounding distraught.

‘I heard of it, lord.’

‘They burned the church!’ he said indignantly, ‘and stole everything! Gospel books, crosses, even the relics!’ he shuddered. ‘The church possessed a leaf of the fig tree that our Lord Jesus withered! I touched it once, and felt its power.’ He shuddered again. ‘It is all gone to pagan hands.’ He sounded as if he might weep.

I said nothing. Beocca had started writing, his pen scratching on a parchment held awkwardly in his lamed hand. Father Erkenwald was holding a pot of ink and had a look of disdain as if such a chore was belittling him. ‘Thirty-two ships, did you say?’ Beocca asked me.

‘That was the last I heard.’

‘Creeks can be entered,’ Alfred said acidly, his distress suddenly gone.

‘The creek at Beamfleot dries at low tide, lord,’ I explained, ‘and to reach the enemy ships we must pass their camp, which is on a hill above the mooring. And the last report I received, lord, said a ship was permanently moored across the channel. We could destroy that ship and fight our way through, but you’ll need a thousand men to do it and you’ll lose at least two hundred of them.’

‘A thousand?’ he asked sceptically.

‘The last I heard, lord, said Sigefrid had close to two thousand men.’

He closed his eyes briefly. ‘Sigefrid lives?’

‘Barely,’ I said. I had received most of this news from Ulf, my Danish trader, who loved the silver I paid him. I had no doubt Ulf was receiving silver from Haesten or Erik for telling them what I did in Lundene, but that was a price worth paying. ‘Brother Osferth wounded him badly,’ I said.

The king’s shrewd eyes rested on me. ‘Osferth,’ he said tonelessly.

‘Won the battle, lord,’ I said just as tonelessly. Alfred just watched me, still expressionless. ‘You heard from Father Pyrlig?’ I asked, and received a curt nod. ‘What Osferth did, lord, was brave,’ I said, ‘and I am not certain I would have had the courage to do it. He jumped from a great height and attacked a fearsome warrior, and he lived to remember the achievement. If it was not for Osferth, lord, Sigefrid would be in Lundene today and I would be in my grave.’

‘You want him back?’ Alfred asked.

The answer, of course, was no, but Beocca gave an almost imperceptible nod of his grey head and I understood Osferth was not wanted in Wintanceaster. I did not like the youth and, judging from Beocca’s silent message, no one liked him in Wintanceaster either, yet his courage had been exemplary. Osferth was, I thought, a warrior at heart. ‘Yes, lord,’ I said, and saw Gisela’s secret smile.

‘He’s yours,’ Alfred said shortly. Beocca rolled his good eye to heaven in gratitude. ‘And I want the Northmen out of the Temes estuary,’ Alfred went on.

I shrugged. ‘Isn’t that Guthrum’s business?’ I asked. Beamfleot lay in the kingdom of East Anglia with which, officially, we were at peace.

Alfred looked irritated, probably because I had used Guthrum’s Danish name. ‘King Æthelstan has been informed of the problem,’ he said.

‘And does nothing?’

‘He makes promises.’

‘And Vikings use his land with impunity,’ I observed.

Alfred bridled. ‘Are you suggesting I declare war on King Æthelstan?’

‘He allows raiders to come to Wessex, lord,’ I said, ‘so why don’t we return the favour? Why don’t we send ships to East Anglia to hurt King Æthelstan’s holdings?’

Alfred stood, ignoring my suggestion. ‘What is most important,’ he said, ‘is that we do not lose Lundene.’ He held a hand towards Father Erkenwald who opened a leather satchel and took out a scroll of parchment sealed with brown wax. Alfred held the parchment to me. ‘I have appointed you as Military Governor of this city. Do not let the enemy retake it.’

I took the parchment. ‘Military Governor?’ I asked pointedly.

‘All troops and fyrd members will be under your command.’

‘And the city, lord?’ I asked.

‘Will be a godly place,’ Alfred said.

‘We shall cleanse it of its iniquity,’ Father Erkenwald interjected, ‘and wash it whiter than snow.’

‘Amen,’ Beocca said fervently.

‘I am naming Father Erkenwald as Bishop of Lundene,’ Alfred said, ‘and the civil governance will reside with him.’

I felt a lurch in my heart. Erkenwald? Who hated me? ‘And what about the Ealdorman of Mercia?’ I asked, ‘does he not have civil governance here?’

‘My son-in-law,’ Alfred said distantly, ‘will not countermand my appointments.’

‘And how much authority does he have here?’ I asked.

‘This is Mercia!’ Alfred said, tapping the terrace with a foot, ‘and he rules Mercia.’

‘So he can appoint a new military governor?’ I asked.

‘He will do as I tell him,’ Alfred said, and there was a sudden anger in his voice. ‘And in four days’ time we shall all gather,’ he had recovered his poise quickly, ‘and discuss what needs to be done to make this city safe and full of grace.’ He nodded brusquely to me, inclined his head to Gisela and turned away.

‘Lord King,’ Gisela spoke softly, checking Alfred’s departure, ‘how is your daughter? I saw her yesterday and she was bruised.’

Alfred’s gaze flickered to the river where six swans rode the water beneath the tumult of the broken bridge. ‘She’s well,’ he said distantly.

‘The bruising …’ Gisela began.

‘She was always a mischievous child,’ Alfred interrupted her.

‘Mischievous?’ Gisela’s response was tentative.

‘I love her,’ Alfred said, and there could have been no doubt of that from the unexpected passion in his voice, ‘but while mischief in a child is amusing, in an adult it is sinful. My dear Æthelflaed must learn obedience.’

‘So she learns to hate?’ I asked, echoing the king’s earlier words.

‘She’s married now,’ Alfred said, ‘and her duty before God is to be obedient to her husband. She will learn that, I am sure, and be grateful for the lesson. It is hard to inflict punishment on a child you love, but it is a sin to withhold such punishment. I pray God she comes to a state of good grace.’

‘Amen,’ Father Erkenwald said.

‘Praise God,’ Beocca said.

Gisela said nothing and the king left.

I should have known that the summons to the palace on top of Lundene’s low hill would involve priests. I had expected a council of war and a hard-headed discussion on how best to scour the Temes of the brigands who infested the estuary, but instead, once I had been relieved of my swords, I was shown into the pillared hall where an altar had been erected. Finan and Sihtric were with me. Finan, a good Christian, made the sign of the cross, but Sihtric, like me, was a pagan and he looked at me with alarm as though he feared some religious magic.

I endured the service. Monks chanted, priests prayed, bells were rung and men genuflected. There were some forty men in the room, most of them priests, but only one woman. Æthelflaed was seated beside her husband. She was dressed in a white robe, gathered at her waist by a blue sash, and her corn-gold hair had speedwell woven into its bun. I was behind her, but once, when she turned to look at her father, I saw the purplish bruise around her right eye. Alfred did not look at her, but stayed on his knees. I watched him, watched Æthelflaed’s slumped shoulders, and thought about Beamfleot, and how that wasps’ nest could be burned out. First, I thought, I needed to take a ship downriver and see Beamfleot for myself.

Alfred suddenly stood up and I assumed the service was at last over, but instead the king turned to us and delivered a mercifully brief homily. He encouraged us to ponder the words of the prophet Ezekiel, whoever he was. ‘“Then the heathen that are left round about you,”’ the king read to us, ‘“shall know that I the Lord build the ruined places, and plant that which was desolate”. Lundene,’ the king put down the parchment with Ezekiel’s words, ‘is again a Saxon city, and though it is in ruins, with God’s help we shall rebuild it. We shall make it a place of God, a light to the pagans.’ He paused, smiled gravely and beckoned to Bishop Erkenwald who, draped in a white cape hung with red strips on which silver crosses had been embroidered, stood to deliver a sermon. I groaned. We were supposed to be discussing how to rid the Temes of our enemies, and instead were being tortured with dull piety.

I had long learned to ignore sermons. It has been my unhappy fate to hear many, and the words of most have passed over me like rain running down newly laid thatch, but some minutes into Erkenwald’s hoarse harangue I began to take notice.

Because he was not preaching about remaking ruined cities, nor even about the heathen who threatened Lundene, instead he was preaching to Æthelflaed.

He stood by the altar and he shouted. He was ever an angry man, but on that spring day in the old Roman hall, he was filled with a passionate fury. God, he said, was speaking through him. God had a message, and God’s word could not be ignored or else the brimstone fires of hell would consume all mankind. He never used Æthelflaed’s name, but he stared at her, and no man in the room could doubt the message that the Christian’s god was sending to the poor girl. God, it seemed, had even written the message down in a gospel book, and Erkenwald snatched a copy from the altar, held it up so that the light from the smoke-hole in the roof caught the page, and read aloud.

‘“To be discreet,”’ he looked up to glare at Æthelflaed, ‘“chaste! Keepers of the home! Good! Obedient to their husbands!” Those are God’s own words! That is what God demands of a woman! To be discreet, to be chaste, to be home-keepers, to be obedient! God spoke to us!’ He almost writhed in ecstasy as he said those last four words. ‘God still speaks to us!’ he gazed up at the roof as if he could glimpse his god peering through the ceiling. ‘God speaks to us!’

He preached for over an hour. His spittle spun through the ray of sunlight cast through the smoke-hole. He cringed, he shouted, he shuddered. And time and again he went back to the words in the gospel book that wives must be obedient to their husbands.

‘Obedient!’ he shouted, and paused.

I heard a thump from the outer hall as a guard rested his shield.

‘Obedient!’ Erkenwald shrieked again.

Æthelflaed’s head was held high. From my view behind her it seemed as if she were staring straight at that mad, vicious priest who was now the bishop and ruler of Lundene. Æthelred, beside her, fidgeted, but the few glimpses I got of his face showed a smug, self-satisfied look. Most of the men there looked bored and only one, Father Beocca, seemed to disapprove of the bishop’s sermon. He caught my eye once and made me smile by raising an indignant eyebrow. I am certain Beocca did not dislike the message, but he doubtless believed it should not have been preached in so public a manner. As for Alfred, he just gazed serenely at the altar as the bishop ranted, yet his passivity disguised involvement because that bitter sermon could never have been preached without the king’s knowledge and permission.

‘Obedient!’ Erkenwald cried again, and stared up at heaven as though that one word was the solution to all mankind’s troubles. The king nodded approval, and it occurred to me that Alfred had not only approved Erkenwald’s rant, but must have requested it. Perhaps he thought that a public admonition would save Æthelflaed from private beatings? The message certainly matched Alfred’s philosophy, for he believed that a kingdom could only thrive if it was ruled by law, was ordered by government and was obedient to the will of God and the king. Yet he could look at his daughter, see her bruises and approve? He had always loved his children. I had watched them grow, and I had seen Alfred play with them, yet his religion could allow him to humiliate a daughter he loved? Sometimes, when I pray to my gods, I thank them fervently that they let me escape Alfred’s god.

Erkenwald at last ran out of words. There was a pause, then Alfred stood and turned to face us. ‘The word of God,’ he said, smiling. The priests murmured brief prayers, then Alfred shook his head as though clearing it of pious matters. ‘The city of Lundene is now a proper part of Mercia,’ he said, and a louder murmur of approval echoed through the room. ‘I have entrusted its civil government to Bishop Erkenwald,’ he turned and smiled at the bishop, who smirked and bowed, ‘while Lord Uhtred will be responsible for the defence of the city,’ Alfred said, looking at me. I did not bow.

Æthelflaed turned then. I think she had not known I was in the room, but she turned when my name was spoken and stared at me. I winked at her, and her bruised face smiled. Æthelred did not see the wink. He was pointedly ignoring me.

‘The city, of course,’ Alfred went on, his voice suddenly ice cold because he had seen my wink, ‘falls under the authority and rule of my beloved son-in-law. In time it will become a valuable part of his possessions, yet for the moment he has graciously agreed that Lundene must be administered by men experienced in government.’ In other words Lundene might be part of Mercia, but Alfred had no intention of allowing it out of West Saxon hands. ‘Bishop Erkenwald has the authority to set dues and raise taxes,’ Alfred explained, ‘and one third of the money will be spent on civil government, one third on the church, and one third on defending the city. And I know that under the bishop’s guidance and with the help of Almighty God we can raise a city that glorifies Christ and His church.’

I did not know most of the men in the room because they were almost all Mercian thegns who had been summoned to Lundene to meet Alfred. Aldhelm was among them, his face still black and bloodied from my hands. He had glanced at me once and twisted fast away. The summons had been unexpected and only a few thegns had made the journey to Lundene, and those men now listened politely enough to Alfred, but almost all were torn between two masters. Northern Mercia was under Danish rule, and only the southern part, which bordered Wessex, could be called free Saxon land and even that land was under constant harassment. A Mercian thegn who wished to stay alive, who wished his daughters safe from slavers and his livestock free of cattle-raiders, did well to pay tribute to the Danes as well as pay taxes to Æthelred who, because of his inherited landholdings, marriage and lineage, was acknowledged as the most noble of the Mercian thegns. He might call himself king if he wished, and I had no doubt he did so wish, but Alfred did not, and Æthelred without Alfred was nothing.

‘It is our intention,’ Alfred said, ‘to rid Mercia of its pagan invaders. To do that we needed to secure Lundene and so put a stop to the Northmen’s ships raiding up the Temes. Now we must hold Lundene. How is that to be done?’

The answer to that was obvious, though it did not stop a general discussion that meandered aimlessly as men argued about how many troops would be needed to defend the walls. I took no part. I leaned against the back wall and noted which of the thegns were enthusiastic and which were guarded. Bishop Erkenwald glanced at me occasionally, plainly wondering why I did not contribute my grain of wheat to the threshing floor, but I kept silent. Æthelred listened intently and finally summed up the discussion. ‘The city, lord King,’ he said brightly, ‘needs a garrison of two thousand men.’

‘Mercians,’ Alfred said. ‘Those men must come from Mercia.’

‘Of course,’ Æthelred agreed quickly. I noted that many of the thegns looked dubious.

Alfred saw it too and glanced at me. ‘This is your responsibility, Lord Uhtred. Have you no opinion?’

I almost yawned, but managed to resist the impulse. ‘I have better than an opinion, lord King,’ I said, ‘I can give you fact.’

Alfred raised an eyebrow and managed to look disapproving at the same time. ‘Well?’ he asked irritably when I paused too long.

‘Four men for every pole,’ I said. A pole was six paces, or thereabouts, and the allocation of four men to a pole was not mine, but Alfred’s. When he ordered the burhs built he had worked out in his meticulous way how many men would be needed to defend each, and the distance about the walls determined the final figure. Coccham’s walls were one thousand four hundred paces in length and so my household guards and the fyrd had to supply a thousand men for its defence. But Coccham was a small burh, Lundene a city.

‘And the distance about Lundene’s walls?’ Alfred demanded.

I looked at Æthelred, as though expecting him to answer and Alfred, seeing where I looked, also gazed at his son-in-law. Æthelred thought for a heartbeat and, instead of telling the truth which was that he did not know, made a guess. ‘Eight hundred poles, lord King?’

‘The landward wall,’ I broke in harshly, ‘is six hundred and ninety-two poles. The river wall adds a further three hundred and fifty-eight. The defences, lord King, stretch for one thousand and fifty poles.’

‘Four thousand, two hundred men,’ Bishop Erkenwald said immediately, and I confess I was impressed. It had taken me a long time to discover that number, and I had not been certain my computation had been correct until Gisela also worked the problem out.

‘No enemy, lord King,’ I said, ‘can attack everywhere at once, so I reckon the city can be defended by a garrison of three thousand, four hundred men.’

One of the Mercian thegns made a hissing noise, as though such a figure was an impossibility. ‘Only one thousand men more than your garrison in Wintanceaster, lord King,’ I pointed out. The difference, of course, was that Wintanceaster lay in a loyal West Saxon shire that was accustomed to its men serving their turn in the fyrd.

‘And where do you find those men?’ a Mercian demanded.

‘From you,’ I said harshly.

‘But …’ the man began, then faltered. He was going to point out that the Mercian fyrd was a useless thing, grown weak by disuse, and that any attempt to raise the fyrd might draw the malevolent attention of the Danish earls who ruled in northern Mercia, and so these men had learned to lie low and keep silent. They were like deerhounds who shiver in the undergrowth for fear of attracting the wolves.

‘But nothing,’ I said, louder and harsher still. ‘For if a man does not contribute to his country’s defence then that man is a traitor. He should be dispossessed of his land, put to death, and his family reduced to slavery.’

I thought Alfred might object to those words, but he kept silent. Indeed, he nodded agreement. I was the blade inside his scabbard and he was evidently pleased that I had shown the steel for an instant. The Mercians said nothing.

‘We also need men for ships, lord King,’ I went on.

‘Ships?’ Alfred asked.

‘Ships?’ Erkenwald echoed.

‘We need crewmen,’ I explained. We had captured twenty-one ships when we took Lundene, of which seventeen were fighting boats. The others were wider beamed, built for trading, but they could be useful too. ‘I have the ships,’ I went on, ‘but they need crews, and those crews have to be good fighters.’

‘You defend the city with ships?’ Erkenwald asked defiantly.

‘And where will your money come from?’ I asked him. ‘From customs dues. But no trader dare sail here, so I have to clear the estuary of enemy ships. That means killing the pirates, and for that I need crews of fighting men. I can use my household troops, but they have to be replaced in the city’s garrison by other men.’

‘I need ships,’ Æthelred suddenly intervened.

Æthelred needed ships? I was so astonished that I said nothing. My cousin’s job was to defend southern Mercia and push the Danes northwards from the rest of his country, and that would mean fighting on land. Now, suddenly, he needed ships? What did he plan? To row across pastureland?

‘I would suggest, lord King,’ Æthelred was smiling as he spoke, his voice smooth and respectful, ‘that all the ships west of the bridge be given to me, for use in your service,’ and he bowed to Alfred when he said that, ‘and my cousin be given the ships east of the bridge.’

‘That …’ I began, but was cut off by Alfred.

‘That is fair,’ the king said firmly. It was not fair, it was ridiculous. There were only two fighting ships in the stretch of river east of the bridge, and fifteen upstream of the obstruction. The presence of those fifteen ships suggested that Sigefrid had been planning a major raid on Alfred’s territory before we struck him, and I needed those ships to scour the estuary clear of enemies. But Alfred, eager to be seen supporting his son-in-law, swept my objections aside. ‘You will use what ships you have, Lord Uhtred,’ he insisted, ‘and I will put seventy of my household guard under your command to crew one ship.’

So I was to drive the Danes from the estuary with two ships? I gave up, and leaned against the wall as the discussion droned on, mostly about the level of customs to be charged, and how much the neighbouring shires were to be taxed, and I wondered yet again why I was not in the north where a man’s sword was free and there was small law and much laughter.

Bishop Erkenwald cornered me when the meeting was over. I was strapping on my sword belt when he peered up at me with his beady eyes. ‘You should know,’ he greeted me, ‘that I opposed your appointment.’

‘As I would have opposed yours,’ I said bitterly, still angry at Æthelred’s theft of the fifteen warships.

‘God may not look with blessing on a pagan warrior,’ the newly appointed bishop explained himself, ‘but the king, in his wisdom, considers you a soldier of ability.’

‘And Alfred’s wisdom is famous,’ I said blandly.

‘I have spoken with the Lord Æthelred,’ he went on, ignoring my words, ‘and he has agreed that I can issue writs of assembly for Lundene’s adjacent counties. You have no objection?’

Erkenwald meant that he now had the power to raise the fyrd. It was a power that might better have been given me, but I doubted Æthelred would have agreed to that. Nor did I think that Erkenwald, nasty man though he was, would be anything but loyal to Alfred. ‘I have no objection,’ I said.

‘Then I shall inform Lord Æthelred of your agreement,’ he said formally.

‘And when you speak with him,’ I said, ‘tell him to stop hitting his wife.’

Erkenwald jerked as though I had just struck him in the face. ‘It is his Christian duty,’ he said stiffly, ‘to discipline his wife, and it is her duty to submit. Did you not listen to what I preached?’

‘To every word,’ I said.

‘She brought it on herself,’ Erkenwald snarled. ‘She has a fiery spirit, she defies him!’

‘She’s little more than a child,’ I said, ‘and a pregnant child at that.’

‘And foolishness is deep in the heart of a child,’ Erkenwald responded, ‘and those are the words of God! And what does God say should be done about the foolishness of a child? That the rod of correction shall beat it far away!’ He shuddered suddenly. ‘That is what you do, Lord Uhtred! You beat a child into obedience! A child learns by suffering pain, by being beaten, and that pregnant child must learn her duty. God wills it! Praise God!’

I heard only last week that they want to make Erkenwald into a saint. Priests come to my home beside the northern sea where they find an old man, and they tell me I am just a few paces from the fires of hell. I only need repent, they say, and I will go to heaven and live for evermore in the blessed company of the saints.

And I would rather burn till time itself burns out.