Читать книгу The Last Kingdom Series Books 1–8: The Last Kingdom, The Pale Horseman, The Lords of the North, Sword Song, The Burning Land, Death of Kings, The Pagan Lord, The Empty Throne - Bernard Cornwell - Страница 44

Mildrith was excited by the summons. The Witan gave the king advice and her father had never been wealthy or important enough to receive such a summons, and she was overjoyed that the king wanted my presence. The witanegemot, as the meeting was called, was always held on the Feast of St Stephen, the day after Christmas, but my summons required me to be there on the twelfth day of Christmas and that gave Mildrith time to wash clothes for me. They had to be boiled and scrubbed and dried and brushed, and three women did the work and it took three days before Mildrith was satisfied that I would not disgrace her by appearing at Cippanhamm looking like a vagabond. She was not summoned, nor did she expect to accompany me, but she made a point of telling all our neighbours that I was to give counsel to the king. ‘You mustn’t wear that,’ she told me, pointing to my Thor’s hammer amulet.

‘I always wear it,’ I said.

‘Then hide it,’ she said, ‘and don’t be belligerent!’

‘Belligerent?’

‘Listen to what others say,’ she said. ‘Be humble. And remember to congratulate Odda the Younger.’

‘For what?’

‘He’s to be married. Tell him I pray for them both.’ She was happy again, sure that by paying the church its debt I had regained Alfred’s favour and her good mood was not even spoilt when I announced I would take Iseult with me. She bridled slightly at the news, then said that it was only right that Iseult should be taken to Alfred. ‘If she is a queen,’ Mildrith said, ‘then she belongs in Alfred’s court. This isn’t a fit place for her.’ She insisted on taking silver coins to the church in Exanceaster where she donated the money to the poor and gave thanks that I had been restored to Alfred’s favour. She also thanked God for the good health of our son, Uhtred. I saw little of him, for he was still a baby and I have never had much patience for babies, but the women of Oxton constantly assured me that he was a lusty, strong boy.

We allowed two days for the journey. I took Haesten and six men as an escort for, though the shire-reeve’s men patrolled the roads, there were plenty of wild places where outlaws preyed on travellers. We were in mail coats or leather tunics, with swords, spears, axes and shields. We all rode. Iseult had a small black mare I had bought for her, and I had also given her an otterskin cloak, and when we passed through villages, folk would stare at her for she rode like a man, her black hair bound up with a silver chain. They would kneel to her, as well as to me, and call out for alms. She did not take her maid for I remembered how crowded every tavern and house had been in Exanceaster when the Witan met, and I persuaded Iseult that we would be hard-pressed to find accommodation for ourselves, let alone a maid.

‘What does the king want of you?’ she asked as we rode up the Uisc valley. Rainwater puddled in the long furrows, gleaming in the winter sunshine, while the woods were glossy with holly leaves and bright with the berries of rowan, thorn, elder and yew.

‘Aren’t you supposed to tell me that?’ I asked her.

She smiled. ‘Seeing the future,’ she said, ‘is like travelling a strange road. Usually you cannot see far ahead, and when you can it is only a glimpse. And my brother doesn’t give me dreams about everything.’

‘Mildrith thinks the king has forgiven me,’ I said.

‘Has he?’

I shrugged. ‘Perhaps.’ I hoped so, not because I wanted Alfred’s forgiveness, but because I wanted to be given command of the fleet again. I wanted to be with Leofric. I wanted the wind in my face and the sea rain on my cheek. ‘It’s odd, though,’ I went on, ‘that he didn’t want me there for the whole witanegemot.’

‘Maybe,’ Iseult suggested, ‘they discussed religious things at first?’

‘He wouldn’t want me there for that,’ I said.

‘So that’s it,’ she said. ‘They talk about their god, but at the end they will talk of the Danes, and that is why he summoned you. He knows he needs you.’

‘Or perhaps he just wants me there for the feast,’ I suggested.

‘The feast?’

‘The Twelfth Night feast,’ I explained, and that seemed to me the likeliest explanation; that Alfred had decided to forgive me and, to show he now approved of me, would let me attend the winter feast. I secretly hoped that was true, and it was a strange hope. I had been ready to kill Alfred only a few months before, yet now, though I still hated him, I wanted his approval. Such is ambition. If I could not rise with Ragnar then I would make my reputation with Alfred.

‘Your road, Uhtred,’ Iseult went on, ‘is like a bright blade across a dark moor. I see it clearly.’

‘And the woman of gold?’

She said nothing to that.

‘Is it you?’ I asked.

‘The sun dimmed when I was born,’ she said, ‘so I am a woman of darkness and of silver, not of gold.’

‘So who is she?’

‘Someone far away, Uhtred, far away,’ and she would say no more. Perhaps she knew no more, or perhaps she was guessing.

We reached Cippanhamm late on the eleventh day of Yule. There was still frost on the furrows and the sun was a gross red ball poised low above the tangling black branches as we came to the town’s western gate. The city was full, but I was known in the Corncrake tavern where the red-headed whore called Eanflæd worked and she found us shelter in a half-collapsed cattle byre where a score of hounds had been kennelled. The hounds, she said, belonged to Huppa, Ealdorman of Thornsæta, but she reckoned the animals could survive a night or two in the yard. ‘Huppa may not think so,’ she said, ‘but he can rot in hell.’

‘He doesn’t pay?’ I asked her.

She spat for answer, then looked at me curiously. ‘I hear Leofric’s here?’

‘He is?’ I said, heartened by the news.

‘I haven’t seen him,’ she said, ‘but someone said he was here. In the royal hall. Maybe Burgweard brought him?’ Burgweard was the new fleet commander, the one who wanted his ships to sail two by two in imitation of Christ’s disciples. ‘Leofric had better not be here,’ Eanflæd finished.

‘Why not?’

‘Because he hasn’t come to see me!’ she said indignantly, ‘that’s why.’ She was five or six years older than I with a broad face, a high forehead and springy hair. She was popular, so much so that she had a good deal of freedom in the tavern, that owed its profits more to her abilities than to the quality of the ale. I knew she was friendly with Leofric, but I suspected from her tone that she wanted to be more than friends. ‘Who’s she?’ she asked, jerking her head at Iseult.

‘A queen,’ I said.

‘That’s another name for it, I suppose. How’s your wife?’

‘Back in Defnascir.’

‘You’re like all the rest, aren’t you?’ She shivered. ‘If you’re cold tonight bring the hounds back in to warm you. I’m off to work.’

We were cold, but I slept well enough and, next morning, the twelfth after Christmas, I left my six men at the Corncrake and took Iseult and Haesten to the king’s buildings that lay behind their own palisade to the south of the town where the river curled about the walls. A man expected to attend the witanegemot with retainers, though not usually with a Dane and a Briton, but Iseult wanted to see Alfred and I wanted to please her. Besides, there was the great feast that evening and, though I warned her that Alfred’s feasts were poor things, Iseult still wanted to be there. Haesten, with his mail coat and sword, was there to protect her, for I suspected she might not be allowed into the hall while the witanegemot debated and so might have to wait until evening for her chance to glimpse Alfred.

The gatekeeper demanded that we surrender our weapons, a thing I did with a bad grace, but no man, except the king’s own household troops, could go armed in Alfred’s presence. The day’s talking had already begun, the gatekeeper told us, and so we hurried past the stables and past the big new royal chapel with its twin towers. A group of priests was huddled by the main door of the great hall and I recognised Beocca, my father’s old priest, among them. I smiled in greeting, but his face, as he came towards us, was drawn and pale. ‘You’re late,’ he said sharply.

‘You’re not pleased to see me?’ I asked sarcastically.

He looked up at me. Beocca, despite his squint, red hair and palsied left hand, had grown into a stern authority. He was now a royal chaplain, confessor and a confidant to the king, and the responsibilities had carved deep lines on his face. ‘I prayed,’ he said, ‘never to see this day.’ He made the sign of the cross. ‘Who’s that?’ he stared at Iseult.

‘A queen of the Britons,’ I said.

‘She’s what?’

‘A queen. She’s with me. She wants to see Alfred.’

I don’t know whether he believed me, but he seemed not to care. Instead he was distracted, worried, and, because he lived in a strange world of kingly privilege and obsessive piety, I assumed his misery had been caused by some petty theological dispute. He had been Bebbanburg’s mass priest when I was a child and, after my father’s death, he had fled Northumberland because he could not abide living among the pagan Danes. He had found refuge in Alfred’s court where he had become a friend of the king. He was also a friend to me, a man who had preserved the parchments that proved my claim to the lordship of Bebbanburg, but on that twelfth day of Yule he was anything but pleased to see me. He plucked my arm, drawing me towards the door. ‘We must go in,’ he said, ‘and may God in his mercy protect you.’

‘Protect me?’

‘God is merciful,’ Beocca said, ‘and you must pray for that mercy,’ and then the guards opened the door and we walked into the great hall. No one stopped Iseult and, indeed, there were a score of other women watching the proceedings from the edge of the hall.

There were also more than a hundred men there, though only forty or fifty comprised the witanegemot, and those thegns and senior churchmen were on chairs and benches set in a half circle in front of the dais where Alfred sat with two priests and with Ælswith, his wife, who was pregnant. Behind them, draped with a red cloth, was an altar on which stood thick candles and a heavy silver cross, while all about the walls were platforms where, in normal times, folk slept or ate to be out of the fierce draughts. This day, though, the platforms were crammed with the followers of the thegns and noblemen of the Witan and among them, of course, were a lot of priests and monks, for Alfred’s court was more like a monastery than a royal hall. Beocca gestured that Iseult and Haesten should join those spectators, then he drew me towards the half circle of privileged advisers.

No one noticed my arrival. It was dark in the hall, for little of the wintry sunshine penetrated the small high windows. Braziers tried to give some warmth, but failed, succeeding only in thickening the smoke in the high rafters. There was a large central hearth, but the fire had been taken away to make room for the witanegemot’s circle of stools, chairs and benches. A tall man in a blue cloak was on his feet as I approached. He was talking of the necessity of repairing bridges, and how local thegns were skimping the duty, and he suggested that the king appoint an official to survey the kingdom’s roads. Another man interrupted to complain that such an appointment would encroach on the privileges of the shire ealdormen, and that started a chorus of voices, some for the proposal, most against, and two priests, seated at a small table beside Alfred’s dais, tried to write down all the comments. I recognised Wulfhere, the Ealdorman of Wiltunscir, who yawned prodigiously. Close to him was Alewold, the Bishop of Exanceaster, who was swathed in furs. Still no one noticed me. Beocca had held me back, as if waiting for a lull in the proceedings before finding me a seat. Two servants brought in baskets of logs to feed the braziers, and it was then that Ælswith saw me and she leaned across and whispered in Alfred’s ear. He had been paying close attention to the discussion, but now looked past his council to stare at me.

And a silence fell on that great hall. There had been a murmur of voices when men saw the king being distracted from the argument about bridges and they had all turned to look at me and then there was the silence that was broken by a priest’s sneeze and a sudden odd scramble as the men closest to me, those sitting beside the cold stones of the hearth, moved to one side. They were not making way for me, but avoiding me.

Ælswith was smiling and I knew I was in trouble then. My hand instinctively went to my left side, but of course I had no sword so could not touch her hilt for luck. ‘We shall talk of bridges later,’ Alfred said. He stood. He wore a bronze circlet as a crown and had a fur-trimmed blue robe, matching the gown worn by his wife.

‘What is happening?’ I asked Beocca.

‘You will be silent!’ It was Odda the Younger who spoke. He was dressed in his war-glory, in shining mail covered by a black cloak, in high boots and with a red-leather sword belt from which hung his weapons, for Odda, as commander of the king’s troops, was permitted to go armed in the royal hall. I looked into his eyes and saw triumph there, the same triumph that was on the Lady Ælswith’s pinched face, and I knew I had not been brought to receive the king’s favour, but summoned to face my enemies.

I was right. A priest was called from the dark gaggle beside the door. He was a young man with a pouchy, scowling face. He moved briskly, as if the day did not have enough hours to complete his work. He bowed to the king, then took a parchment from the table where the two clerks sat and came to stand in the centre of the Witan’s circle.

‘There is an urgent matter,’ Alfred said, ‘which, with the Witan’s permission, we shall deal with now.’ No one there was likely to disagree, so a low murmur offered approval of interrupting the more mundane discussions. Alfred nodded. ‘Father Erkenwald will read the charges,’ the king said, and took his throne again.

Charges? I was confused like a boar trapped between hounds and spears, and I seemed incapable of movement so I just stood there as Father Erkenwald unrolled the parchment and cleared his throat. ‘Uhtred of Oxton,’ he said, speaking in a high and precise voice, ‘you are this day charged with the crime of taking a king’s ship without our king’s consent, and with taking that ship to the country of Cornwalum and there making war against the Britons, again without our king’s consent, and this we can prove by oaths.’ There was a small murmur in the hall, a murmur that was stilled when Alfred raised a thin hand. ‘You are further charged,’ Erkenwald went on, ‘with making an alliance with the pagan called Svein, and with his help you murdered Christian folk in Cornwalum, despite those folk living in peace with our king, and this also we can prove by oaths.’ He paused, and now there was complete silence in the hall. ‘And you are charged,’ Erkenwald’s voice was lower now, as though he could scarce believe what he was reading, ‘with joining the pagan Svein in an attack on our blessed king’s realm by committing vile murder and impious church-robbery at Cynuit.’ This time there was no murmur, but a loud outburst of indignation and Alfred made no move to check it, so Erkenwald had to raise his voice to finish the indictment. ‘And this also,’ he was shouting now, and men hushed to listen, ‘we shall prove by oaths.’ He lowered the parchment, gave me a look of pure loathing, then walked back to the edge of the dais.

‘He’s lying,’ I snarled.

‘You will have a chance to speak,’ a fierce-looking churchman sitting beside Alfred said. He was in monk’s robes, but over them he wore a priest’s half cape richly embroidered with crosses. He had a full head of white hair and a deep, stern voice.

‘Who’s that?’ I asked Beocca.

‘The most holy Æthelred,’ Beocca said softly and, seeing I did not recognise the name, ‘Archbishop of Contwaraburg, of course.’

The archbishop leaned over to speak with Erkenwald. Ælswith was staring at me. She had never liked me, and now she was watching my destruction and taking a great pleasure from it. Alfred, meanwhile, was studying the roof beams as though he had never noticed them before, and I realised he intended to take no part in this trial, for trial it was. He would let other men prove my guilt, but doubtless he would pronounce sentence, and not just on me, it seemed, because the archbishop scowled. ‘Is the second prisoner here?’

‘He is held in the stables,’ Odda the Younger said.

‘He should be here,’ the archbishop said indignantly. ‘A man has a right to hear his accusers.’

‘What other man?’ I demanded.

It was Leofric, who was brought into the hall in chains, and there was no outcry against him because men perceived him as my follower. The crime was mine, Leofric had been snared by it, and now he would suffer for it, but he plainly had the sympathy of the men in the hall as he was brought to stand beside me. They knew him, he was of Wessex, while I was a Northumbrian interloper. He gave me a rueful glance as the guards led him to my side. ‘Up to our arses in it,’ he muttered.

‘Quiet!’ Beocca hissed.

‘Trust me,’ I said.

‘Trust you?’ Leofric asked bitterly.

But I had glanced at Iseult and she had given me the smallest shake of her head, an indication, I reckoned, that she had seen the outcome of this day and it was good. ‘Trust me,’ I said again.

‘The prisoners will be silent,’ the archbishop said.

‘Up to our royal arses,’ Leofric said quietly.

The archbishop gestured at Father Erkenwald. ‘You have oath-makers?’ he asked.

‘I do, lord.’

‘Then let us hear the first.’

Erkenwald gestured to another priest who was standing by the door leading to the passage at the back of the hall. The door was opened and a slight figure in a dark cloak entered. I could not see his face for he wore a hood. He hurried to the front of the dais and there bowed low to the king and went on his knees to the archbishop who held out a hand so that his heavy, jewelled ring could be kissed. Only then did the man stand, push back his hood and turn to face me.

It was the Ass. Asser, the Welsh monk. He stared at me as yet another priest brought him a gospel-book on which he laid a thin hand. ‘I make oath,’ he said in accented English, still staring at me, ‘that what I say is truth, and God so help me in that endeavour and condemn me to the eternal fires of hell if I dissemble.’ He bent and kissed the gospel-book with the tenderness of a man caressing a lover.

‘Bastard,’ I muttered.

Asser was a good oath-maker. He spoke clearly, describing how I had come to Cornwalum in a ship that bore a beast-head on its prow and another on its stern. He told how I had agreed to help King Peredur, who was being attacked by a neighbour assisted by the pagan Svein, and how I had betrayed Peredur by allying myself with the Dane. ‘Together,’ Asser said, ‘they made great slaughter, and I myself saw a holy priest put to death.’

‘You ran like a chicken,’ I said to him, ‘you couldn’t see a thing.’

Asser turned to the king and bowed. ‘I did run, lord king. I am a brother monk, not a warrior, and when Uhtred turned that hillside red with Christian blood I did take flight. I am not proud of that, lord king, and I have earnestly sought God’s forgiveness for my cowardice.’

Alfred smiled and the archbishop waved away Asser’s remarks as if they were nothing. ‘And when you left the slaughter,’ Erkenwald asked, ‘what then?’

‘I watched from a hilltop,’ Asser said, ‘and I saw Uhtred of Oxton leave that place in the company of the pagan ship. Two ships sailing westwards.’

‘They sailed westwards?’ Erkenwald asked.

‘To the west,’ Asser confirmed.

Erkenwald glanced at me. There was silence in the hall as men leaned forward to catch each damning word. ‘And what lay to the west?’ Erkenwald asked.

‘I cannot say,’ Asser said. ‘But if they did not go to the end of the world then I assume they turned about Cornwalum to go into the Sæfern Sea.’

‘And you know no more?’ Erkenwald asked.

‘I know I helped bury the dead,’ Asser said, ‘and I said prayers for their souls, and I saw the smouldering embers of the burned church, but what Uhtred did when he left the place of slaughter I do not know. I only know he went westwards.’

Alfred was pointedly taking no part in the proceedings, but he plainly liked Asser for, when the Welshman’s testimony was done, he beckoned him to the dais and rewarded him with a coin and a moment of private conversation. The Witan talked among themselves, sometimes glancing at me with the curiosity we give to doomed men. The Lady Ælswith, suddenly so gracious, smiled on Asser.

‘You have anything to say?’ Erkenwald demanded of me when Asser had been dismissed.

‘I shall wait,’ I said, ‘till all your lies are told.’

The truth, of course, was that Asser had told the truth, and told it plainly, clearly and persuasively. The king’s councillors had been impressed, just as they were impressed by Erkenwald’s second oath-maker.

It was Steapa Snotor, the warrior who was never far from Odda the Younger’s side. His back was straight, his shoulders square and his feral face with its stretched skin was grim. He glanced at me, bowed to the king, then laid a huge hand on the gospel-book and let Erkenwald lead him through the oath, and he swore to tell the truth on pain of hell’s eternal agony, and then he lied. He lied calmly in a flat, toneless voice. He said he had been in charge of the soldiers who guarded the place at Cynuit where the new church was being built, and how two ships had come in the dawn and how warriors streamed from the ships, and how he had fought against them and killed six of them, but there were too many, far too many, and he had been forced to retreat, but he had seen the attackers slaughter the priests and he had heard the pagan leader shout his name as a boast. ‘Svein, he was called.’

‘And Svein brought two ships?’

Steapa paused and frowned, as though he had trouble counting to two, then nodded. ‘He had two ships.’

‘He led both?’

‘Svein led one of the ships,’ Steapa said, then he pointed a finger at me. ‘And he led the other.’

The audience seemed to growl and the noise was so threatening that Alfred slapped the arm of his chair and finally stood to restore quiet. Steapa seemed unmoved. He stood, solid as an oak, and though he had not told his tale as convincingly as Brother Asser, there was something very damning in his testimony. It was so matter-of-fact, so unemotionally told, so straightforward, and none of it was true.

‘Uhtred led the second ship,’ Erkenwald said, ‘but did Uhtred join in the killing?’

‘Join it?’ Steapa asked. ‘He led it.’ He snarled those words and the men in the hall growled their anger.

Erkenwald turned to the king. ‘Lord king,’ he said, ‘he must die.’

‘And his land and property must be forfeited!’ Bishop Alewold shouted in such excitement that a whirl of his spittle landed and hissed in the nearest brazier. ‘Forfeited to the church!’

The men in the hall thumped their feet on the ground to show their approbation. Ælswith nodded vigorously, but the archbishop clapped his hands for silence. ‘He has not spoken,’ he reminded Erkenwald, then nodded at me. ‘Say your piece,’ he ordered curtly.

‘Beg for mercy,’ Beocca advised me quietly.

When you are up to your arse in shit there is only one thing to do. Attack, and so I admitted I had been at Cynuit, and that admission provoked some gasps in the hall. ‘But I was not there last summer,’ I went on. ‘I was there in the spring, at which time I killed Ubba Lothbrokson, and there are men in this hall who saw me do it! Yet Odda the Younger claimed the credit. He took Ubba’s banner, which I laid low, and he took it to his king and he claimed to have killed Ubba. Now, lest I spread the truth, which is that he is a coward and a liar, he would have me murdered by lies.’ I pointed to Steapa. ‘His lies.’

Steapa spat to show his scorn. Odda the Younger was looking furious, but he said nothing and some men noted it. To be called a coward and a liar is to be invited to do battle, but Odda stayed still as a stump.

‘You cannot prove what you say,’ Erkenwald said.

‘I can prove I killed Ubba,’ I said.

‘We are not here to discuss such things,’ Erkenwald said loftily, ‘but to determine whether you broke the king’s peace by an impious attack on Cynuit.’

‘Then summon my crewmen,’ I demanded. ‘Bring them here, put them on oath, and ask what they did in the summer.’ I waited, and Erkenwald said nothing. He glanced at the king as if seeking help, but Alfred’s eyes were momentarily closed. ‘Or are you in so much of a hurry to kill me,’ I went on, ‘that you dare not wait to hear the truth?’

‘I have Steapa’s sworn testimony,’ Erkenwald said, as if that made any other evidence unnecessary. He was flustered.

‘And you can have my oath,’ I said, ‘and Leofric’s oath, and the oath of a crewman who is here.’ I turned and beckoned Haesten who looked frightened at being summoned, but at Iseult’s urging came to stand beside me. ‘Put him on oath,’ I demanded of Erkenwald.

Erkenwald did not know what to do, but some men in the Witan called out that I had the right to summon oath-makers and the newcomer must be heard, and so a priest brought the gospel-book to Haesten. I waved the priest away. ‘He will swear on this,’ I said, and took out Thor’s amulet.

‘He’s not a Christian?’ Erkenwald demanded in astonishment.

‘He is a Dane,’ I said.

‘How can we trust the word of a Dane?’ Erkenwald demanded.

‘But our lord king does,’ I retorted. ‘He trusts the word of Guthrum to keep the peace, so why should this Dane not be trusted?’

That provoked some smiles. Many in the Witan thought Alfred far too trusting of Guthrum and I felt the sympathy in the hall move to my side, but then the archbishop intervened to declare that the oath of a pagan was of no value. ‘None whatsoever,’ he snapped. ‘He must stand down.’

‘Then put Leofric under oath,’ I demanded, ‘and then bring our crew here and listen to their testimony.’

‘And you will all lie with one tongue,’ Erkenwald said, ‘and what happened at Cynuit is not the only matter on which you are accused. Do you deny that you sailed in the king’s ship? That you went to Cornwalum and there betrayed Peredur and killed his Christian people? Do you deny that Brother Asser told the truth?’

‘But what if Peredur’s queen were to tell you that Asser lies?’ I asked. ‘What if she were to tell you that he lies like a hound at the hearth?’ Erkenwald stared at me. They all stared at me and I turned and gestured at Iseult who stepped forward, tall and delicate, the silver glinting at her neck and wrists. ‘Peredur’s queen,’ I announced, ‘whom I demand that you hear under oath, and thus hear how her husband was planning to join the Danes in an assault on Wessex.’

That was rank nonsense, of course, but it was the best I could invent at that moment, and Iseult, I knew, would swear to its truth. Quite why Svein would fight Peredur if the Briton planned to support him was a dangerously loose plank in the argument, but it did not really matter for I had confused the proceedings so much that no one was sure what to do. Erkenwald was speechless. Men stood to look at Iseult, who looked calmly back at them, and the king and the archbishop bent their heads together. Ælswith, one hand clapped to her pregnant belly, hissed advice at them. None of them wanted to summon Iseult for fear of what she would say, and Alfred, I suspect, knew that the trial, which had already become mired in lies, could only get worse.

‘You’re good, earsling,’ Leofric muttered, ‘you’re very good.’

Odda the Younger looked at the king, then at his fellow members of the Witan, and he must have known I was slithering out of his snare for he pulled Steapa to his side. He spoke to him urgently. The king was frowning, the archbishop looked perplexed, Ælswith’s blotched face showed fury while Erkenwald seemed helpless. Then Steapa rescued them. ‘I do not lie!’ he shouted.

He seemed uncertain what to say next, but he had the hall’s attention. The king gestured to him, as if inviting him to continue, and Odda the Younger whispered in the big man’s ear.

‘He says I lie,’ Steapa said, pointing at me, ‘and I say I do not, and my sword says I do not.’ He stopped abruptly, having made what was probably the longest speech of his life, but it was enough. Feet drummed on the floor and men shouted that Steapa was right, which he was not, but he had reduced the whole tangled morass of lies and accusations to a trial by combat and they all liked that. The archbishop still looked troubled, but Alfred gestured for silence.

He looked at me. ‘Well?’ he asked. ‘Steapa says his sword will support his truth. Does yours?’

I could have said no. I could have insisted on letting Iseult speak and then allowing the Witan to advise the king which side had spoken the greater truth, but I was ever rash, ever impetuous, and the invitation to fight cut through the whole entanglement. If I fought and won then Leofric and I were innocent of every charge.

I did not even think about losing. I just looked at Steapa. ‘My sword,’ I told him, ‘says I tell the truth, and that you are a stinking bag of wind, a liar from hell, a cheat and a perjurer who deserves death.’

‘Up to our arses again,’ Leofric said.

Men cheered. They liked a fight to the death, and it was much better entertainment than listening to Alfred’s harpist chant the psalms. Alfred hesitated, and I saw Ælswith look from me to Steapa, and she must have thought him the greater warrior for she leaned forward, touched Alfred’s elbow, and whispered urgently.

And the king nodded. ‘Granted,’ he said. He sounded weary, as if he was dispirited by the lies and the insults. ‘You will fight tomorrow. Swords and shields, nothing else.’ He held up a hand to stop the cheering. ‘My lord Wulfhere?’

‘Sire?’ Wulfhere struggled to his feet.

‘You will arrange the fight. And may God grant victory to the truth.’ Alfred stood, pulled his robe about him and left.

And Steapa, for the first time since I had seen him, smiled.

‘You’re a damned fool,’ Leofric told me. He had been released from his chains and allowed to spend the evening with me. Haesten was there, as was Iseult and my men who had been brought from the town. We were lodged in the king’s compound, in a cattle byre that stank of dung, but I did not notice the smell. It was Twelfth Night so there was the great feast in the king’s hall, but we were left out in the cold, watched there by two of the royal guards. ‘Steapa’s good,’ Leofric warned me.

‘I’m good.’

‘He’s better,’ Leofric said bluntly. ‘He’ll slaughter you.’

‘He won’t,’ Iseult said calmly.

‘Damn it, he’s good!’ Leofric insisted, and I believed him.

‘It’s that God-damned monk’s fault,’ I said bitterly. ‘He went bleating to Alfred, didn’t he?’ In truth, Asser had been sent by the King of Dyfed to assure the West Saxons that Dyfed was not planning war, but Asser had taken the opportunity of his embassy to recount the tale of the Eftwyrd and from that it was a small jump to conclude that we had stayed with Svein while he attacked Cynuit. Alfred had no proof of our guilt, but Odda the Younger had seen a chance to destroy me and so persuaded Steapa to lie.

‘Now Steapa will kill you,’ Leofric grumbled, ‘whatever she says.’ Iseult did not bother to answer him. She was using handfuls of grubby straw to clean my mail coat. The armour had been fetched from the Corncrake tavern and given to me, but I would have to wait till morning to get my weapons, which meant they would not be newly sharpened. Steapa, because he served Odda the Younger, was one of the king’s bodyguard, so he would have all night to put an edge on his sword. The royal kitchens had sent us food, though I had no appetite. ‘Just take it slow in the morning,’ Leofric told me.

‘Slow?’

‘You fight in a rage,’ he said, ‘and Steapa’s always calm.’

‘So better to get in a rage,’ I said.

‘That’s what he wants. He’ll fend you off and fend you off and wait till you’re tired, then he’ll finish you off. It’s how he fights.’

Harald told us the same thing. Harald was the shire-reeve of Defnascir, the widower who had summoned me to the court in Exanceaster, but he had also fought alongside us at Cynuit and that makes a bond, and sometime in the dark he splashed through the rain and mud and came into the light of the small fire that lit the cattle shed without warming it. He stopped in the doorway and gazed at me reproachfully. ‘Were you with Svein at Cynuit?’ he asked.

‘No,’ I said.

‘I didn’t think so.’ Harald came into the byre and sat by the fire. The two royal guards were at the door and he ignored them, and that was interesting. All of them served Odda, and the young ealdorman would not be pleased to hear that Harald had come to us, yet plainly Harald trusted the two guards not to tell, which suggested that there was unhappiness in Odda’s ranks. Harald put a pot of ale on the floor. ‘Steapa’s sitting at the king’s table,’ he said.

‘So he’s eating badly,’ I said.

Harald nodded, but did not smile. ‘It’s not much of a feast,’ he admitted. He stared into the fire for a moment, then looked at me. ‘How’s Mildrith?’

‘Well.’

‘She is a dear girl,’ he said, then glanced at Iseult’s dark beauty before staring into the fire again. ‘There will be a church service at dawn,’ he said, ‘and after that you and Steapa will fight.’

‘Where?’

‘In a field on the other side of the river,’ he said, then pushed the pot of ale towards me. ‘He’s left-handed.’

I could not remember fighting against a man who held his sword in his left hand, but nor could I see a disadvantage in it. We would both have our shields facing the other man’s shield instead of his weapon, but that would be a problem to both of us. I shrugged.

‘He’s used to it,’ Harald explained, ‘and you’re not. And he wears mail down to here,’ he touched his calf, ‘and he has an iron strip on his left boot.’

‘Because that’s his vulnerable foot?’

‘He plants it forward,’ Harald said, ‘inviting attack, then chops at your sword arm.’

‘So he’s a hard man to kill,’ I said mildly.

‘No one’s done it yet,’ Harald said gloomily.

‘You don’t like him?’

He did not answer at first, but drank ale then passed the pot to Leofric. ‘I like the old man,’ he said, meaning Odda the Elder. ‘He’s foul-tempered, but he’s fair enough. But the son?’ he shook his head sadly. ‘I think the son is untested. Steapa? I don’t dislike him, but he’s like a hound. He only knows how to kill.’

I stared into the feeble fire, looking for a sign from the gods in the small flames, but none came, or none that I saw. ‘He must be worried though,’ Leofric said.

‘Steapa?’ Harald asked, ‘why should he be worried?’

‘Uhtred killed Ubba.’

Harald shook his head. ‘Steapa doesn’t think enough to be worried. He just knows he’ll kill Uhtred tomorrow.’

I thought back to the fight with Ubba. He had been a great warrior, with a reputation that glowed wherever Norsemen sailed, and I had killed him, but the truth was that he had put a foot into the spilled guts of a dying man and slipped. His leg had shot sideways, he had lost his balance and I had managed to cut the tendons in his arm. I touched the hammer amulet and thought that the gods had sent me a sign after all. ‘An iron strip in his boot?’ I asked.

Harald nodded. ‘He doesn’t care how much you attack him. He knows you’re coming from his left and he’ll block most of your attacks with his sword. Big sword, heavy thing. But some blows will get by and he won’t care. You’ll waste them on iron. Heavy mail, helmet, boot, doesn’t matter. It’ll be like hitting an oak tree, and after a while you’ll make a mistake. He’ll be bruised and you’ll be dead.’

He was right, I thought. Striking an armoured man with a sword rarely achieved much except to make a bruise because the edge would be stopped by mail or helmet. Mail cannot be chopped open by a sword, which was why so many men carried axes into battle, but the rules of trial by combat said the fight had to be with swords. A sword lunge would pierce mail, but Steapa was not going to make himself an easy target for a lunge. ‘Is he quick?’ I asked.

‘Quick enough,’ Harald said, then shrugged. ‘Not as quick as you,’ he added grudgingly, ‘but he isn’t slow.’

‘What does the money say?’ Leofric asked, though he surely knew the answer.

‘No one’s wagering a penny on Uhtred,’ Harald said.

‘You should,’ I retorted.

He smiled at that, but I knew he would not take the advice. ‘The big money,’ he said, ‘is what Odda will give Steapa when he kills you. A hundred shillings.’

‘Uhtred’s not worth it,’ Leofric said with rough humour.

‘Why does he want me dead so badly?’ I wondered aloud. It could not be Mildrith, I thought, and the argument over who had killed Ubba was long in the past, yet still Odda the Younger conspired against me.

Harald paused a long time before answering. He had his bald head bowed and I thought he was in prayer, but then he looked up. ‘You threaten him,’ he said quietly.

‘I haven’t even seen him for months,’ I protested, ‘so how do I threaten him?’

Harald paused again, choosing his words carefully. ‘The king is frequently ill,’ he said after the pause, ‘and who can say how long he will live? And if, God forbid, he should die soon, then the Witan will not choose his infant son to be king. They’ll choose a nobleman with a reputation made on the battlefield. They’ll choose a man who can stand up to the Danes.’

‘Odda?’ I laughed at the thought of Odda as king.

‘Who else?’ Harald asked. ‘But if you were to stand before the Witan and swear an oath to the truth about the battle where Ubba died, they might not choose him. So you threaten him, and he fears you because of that.’

‘So now he’s paying Steapa to chop you to bits,’ Leofric added gloomily.

Harald left. He was a decent man, honest and hard-working, and he had taken a risk by coming to see me, and I had been poor company for I did not appreciate the gesture he made. It was plain he thought I must die in the morning, and he had done his best to prepare me for the fight, but despite Iseult’s confident prediction that I would live I did not sleep well. I was worried, and it was cold. The rain turned to sleet in the night and the wind whipped into the byre. By dawn the wind and sleet had stopped and instead there was a mist shrouding the buildings and icy water dripping from the mossy thatch. I made a poor breakfast of damp bread and it was while I was eating that Father Beocca came and said Alfred wished to speak with me.

I was sour. ‘You mean he wants to pray with me?’

‘He wants to speak with you,’ Beocca insisted and, when I did not move, he stamped his lamed foot. ‘It is not a request, Uhtred. It is a royal order!’

I put on my mail, not because it was time to arm for the fight, but because its leather lining offered some warmth on a cold morning. The mail was not very clean, despite Iseult’s efforts. Most men wore their hair short, but I liked the Danish way of leaving it long and so I tied it behind with a lace and Iseult plucked the straw scraps from it. ‘We must hurry,’ Beocca said and I followed him through the mud past the great hall and the newly built church to some smaller buildings made of timber that had still not weathered grey. Alfred’s father had used Cippanhamm as a hunting lodge, but Alfred was expanding it. The church had been his first new building, and he had built that even before he repaired and extended the palisade, and that was an indication of his priorities. Even now, when the nobility of Wessex was gathered just a day’s march from the Danes, there seemed to be more churchmen than soldiers in the place, and that was another indication of how Alfred thought to protect his realm. ‘The king is gracious,’ Beocca hissed at me as we went through a door, ‘so be humble.’

Beocca knocked on another door, did not wait for an answer, but pushed it open and indicated I should step inside. He did not follow me, but closed the door, leaving me in a gloomy half darkness.

A pair of beeswax candles flickered on an altar and by their light I saw two men kneeling in front of the plain wooden cross that stood between the candles. The men had their backs to me, but I recognised Alfred by his fur-trimmed blue cloak. The second man was a monk. They were both praying silently and I waited. The room was small, evidently a private chapel, and its only furniture was the draped altar and a kneeling stool on which was a closed book.

‘In the name of the Father,’ Alfred broke the silence.

‘And of the Son,’ the monk said, and he spoke English with an accent and I recognised the voice of the Ass.

‘And of the Holy Ghost,’ Alfred concluded, ‘amen.’

‘Amen,’ Asser echoed, and both men stood, their faces suffused with the joy of devout Christians who have said their prayers well, and Alfred blinked as though he were surprised to see me, though he must have heard Beocca’s knocking and the sound of the door opening and closing.

‘I trust you slept well, Uhtred?’ he said.

‘I trust you did, lord.’

‘The pains kept me awake,’ Alfred said, touching his belly, then he went to one side of the room and hauled open a big pair of wooden shutters, flooding the chapel with a wan, misty light. The window looked onto a courtyard and I was aware of men out there. The king shivered, for it was freezing in the chapel. ‘It is Saint Cedd’s feast day,’ he told me.

I said nothing.

‘You have heard of Saint Cedd?’ he asked me and, when my silence betrayed ignorance, he smiled indulgently. ‘He was an East Anglian, am I not right, brother?’

‘The most blessed Cedd was indeed an East Angle, lord,’ Asser confirmed.

‘And his mission was in Lundene,’ Alfred went on, ‘but he concluded his days at Lindisfarena. You must know that house, Uhtred?’

‘I know it, lord,’ I said. The island was a short ride from Bebbanburg and not so long before I had ridden to its monastery with Earl Ragnar and watched the monks die beneath Danish swords. ‘I know it well,’ I added.

‘So Cedd is famous in your homeland?’

‘I’ve not heard of him, lord.’

‘I think of him as a symbol,’ Alfred said, ‘a man who was born in East Anglia, did his life’s work in Mercia and died in Northumbria.’ He brought his long, pale hands together so that the fingers embraced. ‘The Saxons of England, Uhtred, gathered together before God.’

‘And united in joyful prayer with the Britons,’ Asser added piously.

‘I beseech Almighty God for that happy outcome,’ the king said, smiling at me, and by now I recognised what he was saying. He stood there, looking so humble, with no crown, no great necklace, no arm rings, nothing but a small garnet brooch holding the cloak at his neck, and he spoke of a happy outcome, but what he was really seeing was the Saxon people gathered under one king. A king of Wessex. Alfred’s piety hid a monstrous ambition.

‘We must learn from the saints,’ Alfred told me. ‘Their lives are a guide to the darkness that surrounds us, and Saint Cedd’s holy example teaches that we must be united, so I am loathe to shed Saxon blood on Saint Cedd’s feast day.’

‘There need be no bloodshed, lord,’ I said.

‘I am pleased to hear it,’ Alfred interjected.

‘If the charges against me are retracted.’

The smile went from his face and he walked to the window and stared into the misty courtyard and I looked where he looked and saw that a small display was being mounted for my benefit. Steapa was being armoured. Two men were dropping a massive mail coat over his wide shoulders, while a third stood by with an outsized shield and a monstrous sword.

‘I talked with Steapa last night,’ the king said, turning from the window, ‘and he told me there was a mist when Svein attacked at Cynuit. A morning mist like this one.’ He waved at the whiteness sifting into the chapel.

‘I wouldn’t know, lord,’ I said.

‘So it is possible,’ the king went on, ‘that Steapa was mistaken when he thought he saw you.’ I almost smiled. The king knew Steapa had lied, though he would not say as much. ‘Father Willibald also spoke to the crew of the Eftwyrd,’ the king went on, ‘and not one of them confirmed Steapa’s tale.’

The crew was still in Hamtun, so Willibald’s report must have come from there and that meant the king had known I was innocent of the slaughter at Cynuit even before I was charged. ‘So I was falsely arraigned?’ I said harshly.

‘You were accused,’ the king corrected me, ‘and accusations must be proven or refuted.’

‘Or withdrawn.’

‘I can withdraw the charges,’ Alfred agreed. Steapa, outside the window, was making sure his mail coat was seated comfortably by swinging his great sword. And it was great. It was huge, a hammer of a blade. Then the king half-closed the shutter, hiding Steapa. ‘I can withdraw the accusation about Cynuit,’ he said, ‘but I do not think Brother Asser lied to us.’

‘I have a queen,’ I said, ‘who says he does.’

‘A shadow queen,’ Asser hissed, ‘a pagan! A sorceress!’ He looked at Alfred. ‘She is evil, lord,’ he said, ‘a witch! Maleficos non patieris vivere!’

‘Thou shalt not permit a witch to live,’ Alfred translated for my benefit. ‘That is God’s commandment, Uhtred, from the holy scriptures.’

‘Your answer to the truth,’ I sneered, ‘is to threaten a woman with death?’

Alfred flinched at that. ‘Brother Asser is a good Christian,’ he said vehemently, ‘and he tells the truth. You went to war without my orders. You used my ship, my men, and you behaved treacherously! You are the liar, Uhtred, and you are the cheat!’ He spoke angrily, but managed to control his anger. ‘It is my belief,’ he went on, ‘that you have paid your debt to the church with goods stolen from other good Christians.’

‘Not true,’ I said harshly. I had paid the debt with goods stolen from a Dane.

‘So resume the debt,’ the king said, ‘and we shall have no death on this blessed day of Saint Cedd.’

I was being offered life. Alfred waited for my response, smiling. He was sure I would accept his offer because to him it seemed reasonable. He had no love for warriors, weapons and killing. Fate decreed that he must spend his reign fighting, but it was not to his taste. He wanted to civilise Wessex, to give it piety and order, and two men fighting to the death on a winter’s morning was not his idea of a well-run kingdom.

But I hated Alfred. I hated him for humiliating me at Exanceaster when he had made me wear a penitent’s robe and crawl on my knees. Nor did I think of him as my king. He was a West Saxon and I was a Northumbrian, and I reckoned so long as he was king then Wessex had small chance of surviving. He believed God would protect him from the Danes, while I believed they had to be defeated by swords. I also had an idea how to defeat Steapa, just an idea, and I had no wish to take on a debt I had already paid, and I was young and I was foolish and I was arrogant and I was never able to resist a stupid impulse. ‘Everything I have said is the truth,’ I lied, ‘and I would defend that truth with my sword.’

Alfred flinched from my tone. ‘Are you saying Brother Asser lied?’ he demanded.

‘He twists truth,’ I said, ‘like a woman wrings a hen’s neck.’

The king pulled the shutter open, showing me the mighty Steapa in his gleaming war glory. ‘You really want to die?’ he asked me.

‘I want to fight for the truth, lord king,’ I said stubbornly.

‘Then you are a fool,’ Alfred said, his anger showing again. ‘You are a liar, a fool and a sinner.’ He strode past me, pulled open the door and shouted at a servant to tell Ealdorman Wulfhere that the fight was to take place after all. ‘Go,’ he added to me, ‘and may your soul receive its just reward.’

Wulfhere had been charged with arranging the fight, but there was a delay because the ealdorman had disappeared. The town was searched, the royal buildings were searched, but there was no sign of him until a stable slave nervously reported that Wulfhere and his men had ridden away from Cippanhamm before dawn. No one knew why, though some surmised that Wulfhere wanted no part in a trial by combat, which made little sense to me for the ealdorman had never struck me as a squeamish man. Ealdorman Huppa of Thornsæta was appointed to replace him, and so it was close to midday when my swords were brought to me and we were escorted down to the meadow that lay across the bridge which led from the town’s eastern gate. A huge crowd had gathered on the river’s far bank. There were cripples, beggars, jugglers, women selling pies, dozens of priests, excited children and, of course, the assembled warriors of the West Saxon nobility, all of them in Cippanhamm for the meeting of the Witan, and all eager to see Steapa Snotor show off his renowned skill.

‘You’re a damned fool,’ Leofric said to me.

‘Because I insisted on fighting?’

‘You could have walked away.’

‘And men would have called me a coward,’ I said. And that too was the truth, that a man cannot step back from a fight and stay a man. We make much in this life if we are able. We make children and wealth and amass land and build halls and assemble armies and give great feasts, but only one thing survives us. Reputation. I could not walk away.

Alfred did not come to the fight. Instead, with the pregnant Ælswith and their two children, and escorted by a score of guards and as many priests and courtiers, he had ridden westwards. He was accompanying Brother Asser on the start of the monk’s return journey to Dyfed, and the king was making a point that he preferred the company of the British churchman to watching two of his warriors fight like snarling hounds. But no one else in Wessex wanted to miss the battle. They were eager for it, but Huppa wanted everything to be orderly and so he insisted that the crowd push back from the damp ground beside the river to give us space. Eventually the folk were massed on a green bank overlooking the trampled grass and Huppa went to Steapa to enquire if he was ready.

He was ready. His mail shone in the weak sunlight. His helmet was glistening. His shield was a huge thing, bossed and rimmed with iron, a shield that must have weighed as much as a sack of grain and was a weapon in itself if he managed to hit me with it, but his chief weapon was his great sword that was longer and heavier than any I had seen.

Huppa, trailed by two guards, came to me. His feet squelched in the grass and I thought that the ground would prove treacherous. ‘Uhtred of Oxton,’ he said, ‘are you ready?’

‘My name,’ I said, ‘is Uhtred of Bebbanburg.’

‘Are you ready?’ he demanded, ignoring my correction.

‘No,’ I said.

A murmur went through the folk nearest to me, and the murmur spread, and after a few heartbeats the whole crowd was jeering me. They thought me a coward, and that thought was reinforced when I dropped my shield and sword and made Leofric help as I stripped off the heavy coat of mail. Odda the Younger, standing beside his champion, was laughing. ‘What are you doing?’ Leofric asked me.

‘I hope you put money on me,’ I said.

‘Of course I didn’t.’

‘Are you refusing to fight?’ Huppa asked me.

‘No,’ I said, and when I was stripped of my armour I took Serpent-Breath back from Leofric. Just Serpent-Breath. No helmet, no shield, just my good sword. Now I was unburdened. The ground was heavy, Steapa was armoured, but I was light and I was fast and I was ready.

‘I’m ready,’ I told Huppa.

He went to the meadow’s centre, raised an arm, dropped it, and the crowd cheered.

I kissed the hammer around my neck, trusted my soul to the great god Thor and walked forwards.

Steapa came steadily towards me, shield up, sword held out to his left. There was no trace of concern in his eyes. He was a workman at his trade and I wondered how many men he had killed, and he must have thought my death would be easy for I had no protection, not even a shield. And so we walked towards each other until, a dozen paces from him, I ran. I ran at him, feinted right towards his sword and then broke hard to my left, still running, going past him now and I was aware of the huge blade swinging fast after me as he turned, but then I was behind him, he was still turning and I dropped to my knees, ducked, heard the blade go over my head and I was up again, lunging.

The sword pierced his mail, drew blood from just behind his left shoulder, but he was quicker than I had expected and had already checked that first great swing and was bringing the sword back and his turn pulled Serpent-Breath free. I had scratched him.

I danced back two paces. I went left again and he charged me, hoping to crush me with the weight of his shield, but I ran back to the right, fending off the sword with Serpent-Breath and the crack of the blades was like the bell of doomsday, and I lunged again, this time aiming at his waist, but he stepped back quickly. I kept going to the right, my arm jarred by the clash of the swords. I went fast, making him turn, and I feinted a lunge, brought him forward and went back to the left. The ground was boggy. I feared slipping, but speed was my weapon. I had to keep him turning, keep him swinging into empty air, and snatch what chances I could to use Serpent-Breath’s point. Bleed him enough, I thought, and he would tire, but he guessed my tactics and started making short rushes to frustrate me, and each rush would be accompanied by the hiss of that huge sword. He wanted to make me parry and hoped he could break Serpent-Breath when the blades met. I feared the same. She was well made, but even the best sword can break.

He forced me back, trying to crowd me against the spectators on the bank so he could hack me to pieces in front of them. I let him drive me, then dodged to my right where my left foot slipped and I went down on that knee and the crowd, close behind me now, took in a great breath and a woman screamed because Steapa’s huge sword was swinging like an axe onto my neck, only I had not slipped, merely pretended to, and I pushed off with my right foot, came out from under the blow and around his right flank, and he thrust the shield out, catching my shoulder with the rim and I knew I would have a bruise there, but I also had a heartbeat of opportunity and I darted Serpent-Breath forward and her point punctured his mail again to scrape against the ribs of his back and he roared as he turned, wrenching my blade free of his mail, but I was already going backwards.

I stopped ten paces away. He stopped too and watched me. There was a slight puzzlement on his big face now. There was still no worry there, just puzzlement. He pushed his left foot forward, as Harald had warned me, and he was hoping I would attack it and he would rely on the hidden iron strip in the boot to protect him while he thumped and hacked and bludgeoned me to death. I smiled at him and threw Serpent-Breath from my right hand into my left and held her there, and that was a new puzzle for him. Some men could fight with either hand, and perhaps I was one of them? He drew his foot back. ‘Why do they call you Steapa Snotor?’ I asked, ‘you’re not clever. You’ve got the brains of an addled egg.’

I was trying to enrage him and hoped that anger would make him careless, but my insult bounced off him. Instead of rushing me in fury he came slowly, watching the sword in my left hand, and the men on the hill called for him to kill me and I suddenly ran at him, broke right and he swung at me a little late, thinking I was going to go left at the last moment and I swept Serpent-Breath back and she caught his sword arm and I could feel her blade scraping through the rings of his mail, but she did not slice through them and then I was away from him and put her back into my right hand, turned, charged him and swerved away at the last moment so that his massive swing missed me by a yard.

He was still puzzled. This was like a bull-baiting and he was the bull, and his problem was to get me in a place where he could use his greater strength and weight. I was the dog, and my job was to lure him, tease him and bite him until he weakened. He had thought I would come with mail and shield and we would batter each other for a few moments until my strength faded and he could drive me to the ground with massive blows and chop me to scraps with the big sword, but so far his blade had not touched me. But nor had I weakened him. My two cuts had drawn blood, but they were mere scratches. So now he came forward again, hoping to herd me back to the river. A woman screamed from the top of the bank, and I assumed she was trying to encourage him, and the screaming grew louder and I just went back faster, making Steapa lumber forward, but I had slipped away to his right and was coming back at him, making him turn, and then he suddenly stopped and stared past me and his shield went down and his sword dropped too, and all I had to do was lunge. He was there for the killing. I could thrust Serpent-Breath into his chest or throat, or ram her into his belly, but I did none of those things. Steapa was no fool at fighting and I guessed he was luring me and I did not take the bait. If I lunged, I thought, he would crush me between his shield and sword. He wanted me to think him defenceless so that I could come into range of his weapons, but instead I stopped and spread my arms, inviting him to attack me as he was inviting me to attack him.

But he ignored me. He just stared past my shoulder. And the woman’s screaming was shrill now and there were men shouting, and Leofric was yelling my name, and the spectators were no longer watching us, but running in panic.

So I turned my back on Steapa and looked towards the town on its hill that was cradled by the river’s bend.

And I saw that Cippanhamm was burning. Smoke was darkening the winter sky and the horizon was filled with men, mounted men, men with swords and axes and shields and spears and banners, and more horsemen were coming from the eastern gate to thunder across the bridge.

Because all Alfred’s prayers had failed and the Danes had come to Wessex.