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 45

Steapa recovered his wits before I did. He stared open-mouthed at the Danes crossing the bridge and then just ran towards his master, Odda the Younger, who was shouting for his horses. The Danes were spreading out from the bridge, galloping across the meadow with drawn swords and levelled spears. Smoke poured into the low wintry clouds from the burning town. Some of the king’s buildings were alight. A riderless horse, stirrups flapping, galloped across the grass, then Leofric grabbed my elbow and pulled me northwards beside the river. Most of the folk had gone south and the Danes had followed them, so north seemed to offer more safety. Iseult had my mail coat and I took it from her, leaving her to carry Wasp-Sting, and behind us the screaming rose as the Danes chopped into the panicked mass. Folk scattered. Escaping horsemen thumped past us, the hooves throwing up spadefuls of damp earth and grass with every step. I saw Odda the Younger swerve away with three other horsemen. Harald, the shire-reeve, was one of them, but I could not see Steapa and for a moment I feared the big man was looking for me. Then I forgot him as a band of Danes turned north in pursuit of Odda. ‘Where are our horses?’ I shouted at Leofric, who looked bemused and I remembered he had not travelled to Cippanhamm with me. The beasts were probably still in the yard behind the Corncrake tavern, which meant they were lost.

There was a fallen willow in a stand of leafless alders by the river and we paused there for breath, hidden by the willow’s trunk. I pulled on the mail coat, buckled on my swords and took my helmet and shield from Leofric. ‘Where’s Haesten?’ I asked.

‘He ran,’ Leofric said curtly. So had the rest of my men. They had joined the panic and were gone southwards. Leofric pointed northwards. ‘Trouble,’ he said curtly. There was a score of Danes riding down our bank of the river, blocking our escape, but they were still some distance away, while the men pursuing Odda had vanished, so Leofric led us across the water meadow to a tangle of thorns, alders, nettles and ivy. At its centre was an old wattle hut, perhaps a herdsman’s shelter, and though the hut had half collapsed it offered a better hiding place than the willow and so the three of us plunged into the nettles and crouched behind the rotting timbers.

A bell was ringing in the town. It sounded like the slow tolling which announced a funeral. It stopped abruptly, started again and then finally ended. A horn sounded. A dozen horsemen galloped close to our hiding place and all had black cloaks and black painted shields, the marks of Guthrum’s warriors.

Guthrum. Guthrum the Unlucky. He called himself King of East Anglia, but he wanted to be King of Wessex and this was his third attempt to take the country and this time, I thought, his luck had turned. While Alfred had been celebrating the twelfth night of Yule, and while the Witan met to discuss the maintenance of bridges and the punishment of malefactors, Guthrum had marched. The army of the Danes was in Wessex, Cippanhamm had fallen, and the great men of Alfred’s kingdom had been surprised, scattered or slaughtered. The horn sounded again and the dozen black-cloaked horsemen turned and rode towards the sound.

‘We should have known the Danes were coming,’ I said angrily.

‘You always said they would,’ Leofric said.

‘Didn’t Alfred have spies at Gleawecestre?’

‘He had priests praying here instead,’ Leofric said bitterly, ‘and he trusted Guthrum’s truce.’

I touched my hammer amulet. I had taken it from a boy in Eoferwic. I had been a boy myself then, newly captured by the Danes, and my opponent had fought me in a whirl of fists and feet and I had hammered him down into the riverbank and taken his amulet. I still have it. I touch it often, reminding Thor that I live, but that day I touched it because I thought of Ragnar. The hostages would be dead, and was that why Wulfhere had ridden away at dawn? But how could he have known the Danes were coming? If Wulfhere had known then Alfred would have known and the West Saxon forces would have been ready. None of it made sense, except that Guthrum had again attacked during a truce and the last time he had broken a truce he had showed that he was willing to sacrifice the hostages held to prevent just such an attack. It seemed certain he had done it again and so Ragnar would be dead and my world was diminished.

So many dead. There were corpses in the meadow between our hiding place and the river, and still the slaughter went on. Some of the Saxons had run back towards the town, discovered the bridge was guarded and tried to escape northwards and we watched them being ridden down by the Danes. Three men tried to resist, standing in a tight group with swords ready, but a Dane gave a great whoop and charged them with his horse, and his spear went through one man’s mail, crushing his chest and the other two were thrown aside by the horse’s weight and immediately more Danes closed on them, swords and axes rose, and the horsemen spurred on. A girl screamed and ran in terrified circles until a Dane, long hair flying, leaned from his saddle and pulled her dress up over her head so she was blind and half naked. She staggered in the damp grass and a half-dozen Danes laughed at her, then one slapped her bare rump with his sword and another dragged her southwards, her screams muffled by the entangling dress. Iseult was shivering and I put a mail-clad arm around her shoulders.

I could have joined the Danes in the meadow. I spoke their language and, with my long hair and my arm rings, I looked like a Dane. But Haesten was somewhere in Cippanhamm and he might betray me, and Guthrum had no great love for me, and even if I survived then it would go hard with Leofric and Iseult. These Danes were in a rampant mood, flushed by their easy success and if a dozen decided they wanted Iseult then they would take her whether they thought I was a Dane or not. They were hunting in packs and so it was best to stay hidden until the frenzy had passed. Across the river, at the top of the low hill on which Cippanhamm was built, I could see the town’s largest church burning. The thatched roof was whirling into the sky in great ribbons of flame and plumes of spark-riddled smoke.

‘What in God’s name were you doing back there?’ Leofric asked me.

‘Back there?’ his question confused me.

‘Dancing around Steapa like a gnat! He could have endured that all day!’

‘I wounded him,’ I said, ‘twice.’

‘Wounded him? Sweet Christ, he’s hurt himself worse when he was shaving!’

‘Doesn’t matter now, does it?’ I said. I guessed Steapa was dead by now. Or perhaps he had escaped. I did not know. None of us knew what was happening except that the Danes had come. And Mildrith? My son? They were far away, and presumably they would receive warning of the Danish attack, but I had no doubt that the Danes would keep going deep into Wessex and there was nothing I could do to protect Oxton. I had no horse, no men, and no chance of reaching the south coast before Guthrum’s mounted soldiers.

I watched a Dane ride past with a girl across his saddle. ‘What happened to that Danish girl you took home?’ I asked Leofric, ‘the one we captured off Wales?’

‘She’s still in Hamtun,’ he said, ‘and now that I’m not there she’s probably in someone else’s bed.’

‘Probably? Certainly.’

‘Then the bastard’s welcome to her,’ he said. ‘She cries a lot.’

‘Mildrith does that,’ I said and then, after a pause, ‘Eanflæd was angry with you.’

‘Eanflæd? Angry with me! Why?’

‘Because you didn’t go to see her.’

‘How could I? I was in chains.’ He looked satisfied that the whore had asked after him. ‘Eanflæd doesn’t cry, does she?’

‘Not that I’ve seen.’

‘Good girl that. I reckon she’d like Hamtun.’

If Hamtun still existed. Had a Danish fleet come from Lundene? Was Svein attacking across the Sæfern Sea? I knew nothing except that Wessex was suffering chaos and defeat. It began to rain again, a thin winter’s rain, cold and stinging. Iseult crouched lower and I sheltered her with my shield. Most of the folk who had gathered to watch the fight by the river had fled south and only a handful had come our way, which meant there were fewer Danes near our hiding place, and those that were in the northern river meadows were now gathering their spoils. They stripped corpses of weapons, belts, mail, clothes, anything of value. A few Saxon men had survived, but they were being led away with the children and younger women to be sold as slaves. The old were killed. A wounded man was crawling on hands and knees and a dozen Danes tormented him like cats playing with an injured sparrow, nicking him with swords and spears, bleeding him to a slow death. Haesten was one of the tormentors. ‘I always liked Haesten,’ I said sadly.

‘He’s a Dane,’ Leofric said scornfully.

‘I still liked him.’

‘You kept him alive,’ Leofric said, ‘and now he’s gone back to his own. You should have killed him.’ I watched as Haesten kicked the wounded man who called out in agony, begging to be killed, but the group of young men went on jabbing him, laughing, and the first ravens came. I have often wondered if ravens smell blood, for the sky can be clear of them all day, but when a man dies they come from nowhere on their shining black wings. Perhaps Odin sends them, for the ravens are his birds, and now they flapped down to start feasting on eyes and lips, the first course of every raven feast. The dogs and foxes would soon follow.

‘The end of Wessex,’ Leofric said sadly.

‘The end of England,’ I said.

‘What do we do?’ Iseult asked.

There was no answer from me. Ragnar must be dead, which meant I had no refuge among the Danes, and Alfred was probably dead or else a fugitive, and my duty now was to my son. He was only a baby, but he was my son and he carried my name. Bebbanburg would be his if I could take it back, and if I could not take it back then it would be his duty to recapture the stronghold, and so the name Uhtred of Bebbanburg would go on till the last weltering chaos of the dying world.

‘We must get to Hamtun,’ Leofric said, ‘find the crew.’

Except the Danes would surely be there already? Or else on their way. They knew where the power of Wessex lay, where the great lords had their halls, where the soldiers gathered, and Guthrum would be sending men to burn and kill and so disarm the Saxons’ last kingdom.

‘We need food,’ I said, ‘food and warmth.’

‘Light a fire here,’ Leofric grumbled, ‘and we’re dead.’

So we waited. The small rain turned to sleet. Haesten and his new companions, now that their victim was dead, wandered away, leaving the meadow empty but for the corpses and their attendant ravens. And still we waited, but Iseult, who was as thin as Alfred, was shivering uncontrollably and so, in the late afternoon, I took off my helmet and unbound my hair so it hung loose.

‘What are you doing?’ Leofric asked.

‘For the moment,’ I said, ‘we’re Danes. Just keep your mouth shut.’

I led them towards the town. I would have preferred to wait until dark, but Iseult was too cold to wait longer, and I just hoped the Danes had calmed down. I might look like a Dane, but it was still dangerous. Haesten might see me, and if he told others how I had ambushed the Danish ship off Dyfed then I could expect nothing but a slow death. So we went nervously, stepping past bloodied bodies along the riverside path. The ravens protested as we approached, flapped indignantly into the winter willows, and returned to their feast when we had passed. There were more corpses piled by the bridge where the young folk captured for slavery were being made to dig a grave. The Danes guarding them were drunk and none challenged us as we went across the wooden span and under the gate arch that was still hung with holly and ivy in celebration of Christmas.

The fires were dying now, damped by rain or else extinguished by the Danes who were ransacking houses and churches. I stayed in the narrowest alleys, edging past a smithy, a hide-dealer’s shop and a place where pots had been sold. Our boots crunched through the pottery shards. A young Dane was vomiting in the alley’s entrance and he told me that Guthrum was in the royal compound where there would be a feast that night. He straightened up, gasping for breath, but was sober enough to offer me a bag of coins for Iseult. There were women screaming or sobbing in houses and their noise was making Leofric angry, but I told him to stay quiet. Two of us could not free Cippanhamm, and if the world had been turned upside down and it had been a West Saxon army capturing a Danish town it would have sounded no different. ‘Alfred wouldn’t allow it,’ Leofric said sullenly.

‘You’d do it anyway,’ I said. ‘You’ve done it.’

I wanted news, but none of the Danes in the street made any sense. They had come from Gleawecestre, leaving long before dawn, they had captured Cippanhamm and now they wanted to enjoy whatever the town offered. The big church had burned, but men were raking through the smoking embers looking for silver. For lack of anywhere else to go we climbed the hill to the Corncrake tavern where we always drank and found Eanflæd, the red-headed whore, being held on a table by two young Danes while three others, none of them more than seventeen or eighteen, took turns to rape her. Another dozen Danes were drinking peaceably enough, taking scant notice of the rape.

‘You want her,’ one of the young men said, ‘you’ll have to wait.’

‘I want her now,’ I said.

‘Then you can jump in the shit-pit,’ he said. He was drunk. He had a wispy beard and insolent eyes. ‘You can jump in the shit-pit,’ he said again, evidently liking the insult, then pointed to Iseult, ‘and I’ll have her while you drown.’ I hit him, breaking his nose and spattering his face with blood, and while he gasped I kicked him hard between the legs. He went down, whimpering, and I hit a second man in the belly while Leofric loosed all his day’s frustration in a savage attack on another. The two who had been holding Eanflæd turned on us and one of them squealed when Eanflæd grabbed his hair and hooked sharp fingernails into his eyes. Leofric’s opponent was on the floor and he stamped on the boy’s throat and I head-slapped my boy until I had him by the door, then I thumped another in the ribs, rescued Eanflæd’s victim and broke his jaw, then went back to the lad who had threatened to rape Iseult. I ripped a silver loop from his ear, took off his one arm ring and stole his pouch that clinked with coins. I dropped the silver into Eanflæd’s lap, then kicked the groaning man between the legs, did it again, and hauled him out into the street.

‘Go jump in a shit-pit,’ I told him, then slammed the door. The other Danes, still drinking on the tavern’s far side, had watched the fight with amusement, and now gave us ironic applause.

‘Bastards,’ Eanflæd said, evidently talking of the men we had driven away. ‘I’m sore as hell. What are you two doing here?’

‘They think we’re Danes,’ I said.

‘We need food,’ Leofric said.

‘They’ve had most of it,’ Eanflæd said, jerking her head at the seated Danes, ‘but there might be something left in the back.’ She tied her girdle. ‘Edwulf’s dead.’ Edwulf had owned the tavern. ‘And thanks for helping me, you spavined bastards!’ She shouted this at the Danes, who did not understand her and just laughed at her, then she went towards the back room to find us food, but one of the men held out a hand to stop her.

‘Where are you going?’ he asked her in Danish.

‘She’s going past you,’ I called.

‘I want ale,’ he said, ‘and you? Who are you?’

‘I’m the man who’s going to cut your throat if you stop her fetching food,’ I said.

‘Quiet, quiet!’ an older man said, then frowned at me. ‘Don’t I know you?’

‘I was with Guthrum at Readingum,’ I said, ‘and at Werham.’

‘That must be it. He’s done better this time, eh?’

‘He’s done better,’ I agreed.

The man pointed at Iseult. ‘Yours?’

‘Not for sale.’

‘Just asking, friend, just asking.’

Eanflæd brought us stale bread, cold pork, wrinkled apples and a rock-hard cheese in which red worms writhed. The older man carried a pot of ale to our table, evidently as a peace offering, and he sat and talked with me and I learned a little more of what was happening. Guthrum had brought close to three thousand men to attack Cippanhamm. Guthrum himself was now in Alfred’s hall and half his men would stay in Cippanhamm as a garrison while the rest planned to ride either south or west in the morning. ‘Keep the bastards on the run, eh?’ the man said, then frowned at Leofric. ‘He doesn’t say much.’

‘He’s dumb,’ I said.

‘I knew a man who had a dumb wife. He was ever so happy.’ He looked jealously at my arm rings. ‘So who do you serve?’

‘Svein of the White Horse.’

‘Svein? He wasn’t at Readingum. Or at Werham.’

‘He was in Dyflin,’ I said, ‘but I was with Ragnar the Older then.’

‘Ah, Ragnar! Poor bastard.’

‘I suppose his son’s dead now?’ I asked.

‘What else?’ the man said. ‘Hostages, poor bastards.’ He thought for a heartbeat then frowned again. ‘What’s Svein doing here? I thought he was coming by ship?’

‘He is,’ I said. ‘We’re just here to talk to Guthrum.’

‘Svein sends a dumb man to talk to Guthrum?’

‘He sent me to talk,’ I said, ‘and sent him,’ I jerked a thumb at the glowering Leofric, ‘to kill people who ask too many questions.’

‘All right, all right!’ The man held up a hand to ward off my belligerence.

We slept in the stable loft, warmed by straw, and we left before dawn, and at that moment fifty West Saxons could have retaken Cippanhamm for the Danes were drunk, sleeping, and oblivious to the world. Leofric stole a sword, axe and shield from a man snoring in the tavern, then we walked unchallenged out of the western gate. In a field outside we found over a hundred horses, guarded by two men sleeping in a thatched hut, and we could have taken all the beasts, but we had no saddles or bridles and so, reluctantly, I knew we must walk. There were four of us now, because Eanflæd had decided to come with us. She had swathed Iseult in two big cloaks, but the British girl was still shivering.

We walked west and south along a road that twisted through small hills. We were heading for Baðum, and from there I could strike south towards Defnascir and my son, but it was clear the Danes were already ahead of us. Some must have ridden this way the previous day for in the first village we reached there were no cocks crowing, no sound at all, and what I had taken for a morning mist was smoke from burned cottages. Heavier smoke showed ahead, suggesting the Danes might already have reached Baðum, a town they knew well for they had negotiated one of their truces there. Then, that afternoon, a horde of mounted Danes appeared on the road behind us and we were driven west into the hills to find a hiding place.

We wandered for a week. We found shelter in hovels. Some were deserted while others still had frightened folk, but every short winter’s day was smeared with smoke as the Danes ravaged Wessex. One day we discovered a cow, trapped in its byre in an otherwise deserted homestead. The cow was with calf and bellowing with hunger, and that night we feasted on fresh meat. Next day we could not move for it was bitterly cold and a slanting rain slashed on an east wind and the trees thrashed as if in agony and the building that gave us shelter leaked and the fire choked us and Iseult just sat, eyes wide and empty, staring into the small flames.

‘You want to go back to Cornwalum?’ I asked her.

She seemed surprised I had spoken. It took her a few heartbeats to gather her thoughts, then she shrugged. ‘What is there for me?’

‘Home,’ Eanflæd said.

‘Uhtred is home for me.’

‘Uhtred is married,’ Eanflæd said harshly.

Iseult ignored that. ‘Uhtred will lead men,’ she said, rocking back and forth, ‘hundreds of men. A bright horde. I want to see that.’

‘He’ll lead you into temptation, that’s all he’ll do,’ Eanflæd said. ‘Go home, girl, say your prayers and hope the Danes don’t come.’

We kept trying to go southwards and we made some small progress every day, but the bitter days were short and the Danes seemed to be everywhere. Even when we travelled across countryside far from any track or path, there would be a patrol of Danes in the distance, and to avoid them we were constantly driven west. To our east was the Roman road that ran from Baðum and eventually to Exanceaster, the main thoroughfare in this part of Wessex, and I supposed the Danes were using it and sending patrols out to either side of the road, and it was those patrols that drove us ever nearer the Sæfern Sea, but there could be no safety there, for Svein would surely have come from Wales.

I also supposed that Wessex had finally fallen. We met a few folk, fugitives from their villages and hiding in the woods, but none had any news, only rumour. No one had seen any West Saxon soldiers, no one had heard about Alfred, they only saw Danes and the ever-present smoke. From time to time we would come across a ravaged village or a burned church. We would see ragged ravens flapping black and follow them to find rotting bodies. We were lost and any hope I had of reaching Oxton was long gone, and I assumed Mildrith had fled west into the hills as the folk around the Uisc always did when the Danes came. I hoped she was alive, I hoped my son lived, but what future he had was as dark as the long winter nights.

‘Maybe we should make our peace,’ I suggested to Leofric one night. We were in a shepherd’s hut, crouched around a small fire that filled the low turf-roofed building with smoke. We had roasted a dozen mutton ribs cut from a sheep’s half-eaten corpse. We were all filthy, damp and cold. ‘Maybe we should find the Danes,’ I said, ‘and swear allegiance.’

‘And be made slaves?’ Leofric answered bitterly.

‘We’ll be warriors,’ I said.

‘Fighting for a Dane?’ He poked the fire, throwing up a new burst of smoke. ‘They can’t have taken all Wessex,’ he protested.

‘Why not?’

‘It’s too big. There have to be some men fighting back. We just have to find them.’

I thought back to the long ago arguments in Lundene. Back then I had been a child with the Danes, and their leaders had argued that the best way to take Wessex was to attack its western heartland and there break its power. Others had wanted to start the assault by taking the old kingdom of Kent, the weakest part of Wessex and the part which contained the great shrine of Contwaraburg, but the boldest argument had won. They had attacked in the west and that first assault had failed, but now Guthrum had succeeded. Yet how far had he succeeded? Was Kent still Saxon? Defnascir?

‘And what happens to Mildrith if you join the Danes?’ Leofric asked.

‘She’ll have hidden,’ I spoke dully and there was a silence, but I saw Eanflæd was offended and I hoped she would hold her tongue.

She did not. ‘Do you care?’ she challenged me.

‘I care,’ I said.

Eanflæd scorned that answer. ‘Grown dull, has she?’

‘Of course he cares,’ Leofric tried to be a peacemaker.

‘She’s a wife,’ Eanflæd retorted, still looking at me. ‘Men tire of wives,’ she went on and Iseult listened, her big dark eyes going from me to Eanflæd.

‘What do you know of wives?’ I asked.

‘I was married,’ Eanflæd said.

‘You were?’ Leofric asked, surprised.

‘I was married for three years,’ Eanflæd said, ‘to a man who was in Wulfhere’s guard. He gave me two children, then died in the battle that killed King Æthelred.’

‘Two children?’ Iseult asked.

‘They died,’ Eanflæd said harshly. ‘That’s what children do. They die.’

‘You were happy with him?’ Leofric asked, ‘your husband?’

‘For about three days,’ she said, ‘and in the next three years I learned that men are bastards.’

‘All of them?’ Leofric asked.

‘Most.’ She smiled at Leofric, then touched his knee. ‘Not you.’

‘And me?’ I asked.

‘You?’ She looked at me for a heartbeat. ‘I wouldn’t trust you as far as I could spit,’ she said, and there was real venom in her voice, leaving Leofric embarrassed and me surprised. There comes a moment in life when we see ourselves as others see us. I suppose that is part of growing up, and it is not always comfortable. Eanflæd, at that moment, regretted speaking so harshly for she tried to soften it. ‘I don’t know you,’ she said, ‘except you’re Leofric’s friend.’

‘Uhtred is generous,’ Iseult said loyally.

‘Men are usually generous when they want something,’ Eanflæd retorted.

‘I want Bebbanburg,’ I said.

‘Whatever that is,’ Eanflæd said, ‘and to get it you’d do anything. Anything.’

There was silence. I saw a snowflake show at the half-covered door. It fluttered into the firelight and melted. ‘Alfred’s a good man,’ Leofric broke the awkward silence.

‘He tries to be good,’ Eanflæd said.

‘Only tries?’ I asked sarcastically.

‘He’s like you,’ she said. ‘He’d kill to get what he wants, but there is a difference. He has a conscience.’

‘He’s frightened of the priests, you mean.’

‘He’s frightened of God. And we should all be that. Because one day we’ll answer to God.’

‘Not me,’ I said.

Eanflæd sneered at that, but Leofric changed the conversation by saying it was snowing, and after a while we slept. Iseult clung to me in her sleep and she whimpered and twitched as I lay awake, half dreaming, thinking of her words that I would lead a bright horde. It seemed an unlikely prophecy, indeed I reckoned her powers must have gone with her virginity, and then I slept too, waking to a world made white. The twigs and branches were edged with snow, but it was already melting, dripping into a misty dawn. When I went outside I found a tiny dead wren just beyond the door and I feared it was a grim omen.

Leofric emerged from the hut, blinking at the dawn’s brilliance. ‘Don’t mind Eanflæd,’ he said.

‘I don’t.’

‘Her world’s come to an end.’

‘Then we must remake it,’ I said.

‘Does that mean you won’t join the Danes?’

‘I’m a Saxon,’ I said.

Leofric half smiled at that. He undid his breeches and had a piss. ‘If your friend Ragnar was alive,’ he asked, watching the steam rise from his urine, ‘would you still be a Saxon?’

‘He’s dead, isn’t he?’ I said bleakly, ‘sacrificed to Guthrum’s ambition.’

‘So now you’re a Saxon?’

‘I’m a Saxon,’ I said again, sounding more certain than I felt, for I did not know what the future held. How can we? Perhaps Iseult had told the truth and Alfred would give me power and I would lead a shining horde and have a woman of gold, but I was beginning to doubt Iseult’s powers. Alfred might already be dead and his kingdom was doomed, and all I knew at that moment was that the land stretched away south to a snow-covered ridge line, and there it ended in a strange empty brightness. The skyline looked like the world’s rim, poised above an abyss of pearly light. ‘We’ll keep going south,’ I said. There was nothing else to do except walk towards the brightness.

We did. We followed a sheep track to the ridge top and there I saw that the hills fell steeply away, dropping to the vast marshes of the sea. We had come to the great swamp, and the brightness I had seen was the winter light reflecting from the long meres and winding creeks.

‘What now?’ Leofric asked, and I had no answer and so we sat under the berries of a wind-bent yew and stared at the immensity of bog, water, grass and reeds. This was the vast swamp that stretched inland from the Sæfern, and if I was to reach Defnascir I either had to go around it or try to cross it. If we went around it then we would have to go to the Roman road, and that was where the Danes were, but if we tried to cross the swamp we would face other dangers. I had heard a thousand stories of men being lost in its wet tangles. It was said there were spirits there, spirits that showed at night as flickering lights, and there were paths that led only to quicksands or to drowning pools, but there were also villages in the swamp, places where folk trapped fish and eels. The people of the swamp were protected by the spirits and by the sudden surges in the tide that could drown a road in an eyeblink. Now, as the last snows melted from the reed-banks, the swamp looked like a great stretch of waterlogged land, its streams and meres swollen by the winter rains, but when the tide rose it would resemble an inland sea dotted with islands. We could see one of those islands not so far off and there was a cluster of huts on that speck of higher ground, and that would be a place to find food and warmth if we could ever reach it. Eventually we might cross the whole swamp, finding a way from island to island, but it would take far longer than a day, and we would have to find refuge at every high tide. I gazed at the long, cold stretches of water, almost black beneath the leaden clouds that came from the sea and my spirits sank for I did not know where we were going, or why, or what the future held.

It seemed to get colder as we sat, and then a light snow began drifting from the dark clouds. Just a few flakes, but enough to convince me that we had to find shelter soon. Smoke was rising from the nearest swamp village, evidence that some folk still lived there. There would be food in their hovels and a meagre warmth. ‘We have to get to that island,’ I said, pointing.

But the others were staring westwards to where a flock of pigeons had burst from the trees at the foot of the slope. The birds rose and flew in circles. ‘Someone’s there,’ Leofric said.

We waited. The pigeons settled in the trees higher up the hill. ‘Maybe it’s a boar?’ I suggested.

‘Pigeons won’t fly from a boar,’ Leofric said. ‘Boars don’t startle pigeons, any more than stags do. There are folk there.’

The thought of boars and stags made me wonder what had happened to my hounds. Had Mildrith abandoned them? I had not even told her where I had hidden the remains of the plunder we had taken off the coast of Wales. I had dug a hole in a corner of my new hall and buried the gold and silver down by the post-stone, but it was not the cleverest hiding place and if there were Danes in Oxton then they were bound to delve into the edges of the hall floor, especially if a probing spear found a place where the earth had been disturbed. A flight of ducks flew overhead. The snow was falling harder, blurring the long view across the swamp.

‘Priests,’ Leofric said.

There were a half-dozen men off to the west. They were robed in black and had come from the trees to walk along the swamp’s margin, plainly seeking a path into its tangled vastness, but there was no obvious track to the small village on its tiny island and so the priests came nearer to us, skirting the ridge’s foot. One of them was carrying a long staff and, even at a distance, I could see a glint at its head and I suspected it was a bishop’s staff, the kind with a heavy silver cross. Another three carried heavy sacks. ‘You think there’s food in those bundles?’ Leofric asked wistfully.

‘They’re priests,’ I said savagely. ‘They’ll be carrying silver.’

‘Or books,’ Eanflæd suggested. ‘Priests like books.’

‘It could be food,’ Leofric said, though not very convincingly.

A group of three women and two children now appeared. One of the women was wearing a swathing cloak of silver fur, while another carried the smaller child. The women and children were not far behind the priests, who waited for them and then they all walked eastwards until they were beneath us and there they discovered some kind of path twisting into the marshes. Five of the priests led the women into the swamp while the sixth man, evidently younger than the others, hurried back westwards. ‘Where’s he going?’ Leofric asked.

Another skein of ducks flighted low overhead, skimming down the slope to the long meres of the swamp. Nets, I thought. There must be nets in the swamp villages and we could trap fish and wildfowl. We could eat well for a few days. Eels, duck, fish, geese. If there were enough nets we could even trap deer by driving them into the tangling meshes.

‘They’re not going anywhere,’ Leofric said scornfully, nodding at the priests who had stranded themselves a hundred paces out in the swamp. The path was deceptive. It had offered an apparent route to the village, but then petered out amidst a patch of reeds where the priests huddled. They did not want to come back and did not want to go forward, and so they stayed where they were, lost and cold and despairing. They looked as though they were arguing.

‘We must help them,’ Eanflæd said and, when I said nothing, she protested that one of the women was holding a baby. ‘We have to help them!’ she insisted.

I was about to retort that the last thing we needed was more hungry mouths to feed, but her harsh words in the night had persuaded me that I had to do something to show her I was not as treacherous as she evidently believed, so I stood, hefted my shield and started down the hill. The others followed, but before we were even halfway down I heard shouts from the west. The lone priest who had gone that way was now with four soldiers and they turned as horsemen came from the trees. There were six horsemen, then eight more appeared, then another ten and I realised a whole column of mounted soldiers was streaming from the dead winter trees. They had black shields and black cloaks, so they had to be Guthrum’s men. One of the priests stranded in the swamp ran back along the path and I saw he had a sword and was going to help his companions.

It was a brave thing for the lone priest to do, but quite useless. The four soldiers and the single priest were surrounded now. They were standing back to back and the Danish horsemen were all around them, hacking down, and then two of the horsemen saw the priest with his sword and spurred towards him. ‘Those two are ours,’ I said to Leofric.

That was stupid. The four men were doomed, as was the priest if we did not intervene, but there were only two of us and, even if we killed the two horsemen, we would still face overwhelming odds, but I was driven by Eanflæd’s scorn and I was tired of skulking through the winter countryside and I was angry and so I ran down the hill, careless of the noise I made as I crashed through brittle undergrowth. The lone priest had his back to the swamp now and the horsemen were charging at him as Leofric and I burst from the trees and came at them from their left side.

I hit the nearest horse’s flank with my heavy shield. There was a scream from the horse and an explosion of wet soil, grass, snow and hooves as man and beast went down sideways. I was also on the ground, knocked there by the impact, but I recovered first and found the rider tangled with his stirrups, one leg trapped under the struggling horse and I chopped Serpent-Breath down hard. I cut into his throat, stamped on his face, chopped again, slipped in his blood, then left him and went to help Leofric who was fending off the second man who was still on horseback. The Dane’s sword thumped on Leofric’s shield, then he had to turn his horse to face me and Leofric’s axe took the horse in the face and the beast reared, the rider slid backwards and I met his spine with Serpent-Breath’s tip. Two down. The priest with the sword, not a half-dozen paces away, had not moved. He was just staring at us. ‘Get back into the marsh!’ I shouted at him. ‘Go! Go!’ Iseult and Eanflæd were with us now and they seized the priest and hurried him towards the path. It might lead nowhere, but it was better to face the remaining Danes there than on the firm ground at the hill’s foot.

And those black-cloaked Danes were coming. They had slaughtered the handful of soldiers, seen their two men killed and now came for vengeance. ‘Come on!’ I snarled at Leofric and, taking the wounded horse by the reins, I ran onto the small twisting path.

‘A horse won’t help you here,’ Leofric said.

The horse was nervous. Its face was wounded and the path was slippery, but I dragged it along the track until we were close to the small patch of land where the refugees huddled, and by now the Danes were also on the path, following us. They had dismounted. They could only come two abreast and, in places, only one man could use the track and in one of those places I stopped the horse and exchanged Serpent-Breath for Leofric’s axe. The horse looked at me with a big brown eye. ‘This is for Odin,’ I said, and I swung the axe into its neck, chopping down through mane and hide, and a woman screamed behind me as the blood spurted bright and high in the dull day. The horse whinnied, tried to rear and I swung again and this time the beast went down, thrashing hooves, blood and water splashing. Snow turned red as I axed it a third time, finally stilling it, and now the dying beast was an obstacle athwart the track and the Danes would have to fight across its corpse. I took Serpent-Breath back.

‘We’ll kill them one by one,’ I told Leofric.

‘For how long?’ He nodded westwards and I saw more Danes coming, a whole ship’s crew of mounted Danes streaming along the swamp’s edge. Fifty men? Maybe more, but even so they could only use the path in ones or twos and they would have to fight over the dead horse into Serpent-Breath and Leofric’s axe. He had lost his own axe, taken from him when he was brought to Cippanhamm, but he seemed to like his stolen weapon. He made the sign of the cross, touched the blade, then hefted his shield as the Danes came.

Two young men came first. They were wild and savage, wanting to make a reputation, but the first to come was stopped by Leofric’s axe banging into his shield and I swept Serpent-Breath beneath the shield to slice his ankle and he fell, cursing, to tangle his companion and Leofric wrenched the wide-bladed axe free and slashed it down again. The second man stumbled on the horse, and Serpent-Breath took him under the chin, above his leather coat, and the blood ran down her blade in a sudden flood and now there were two Danish corpses added to the horseflesh barricade. I was taunting the other Danes, calling them corpse-worms, telling them I had known children who could fight better. Another man came, screaming in rage as he leaped over the horse and he was checked by Leofric’s shield and Serpent-Breath met his sword with a dull crack and his blade broke, and two more men were trying to get past the horse, struggling in water up to their knees and I rammed Serpent-Breath into the belly of the first, pushing her through his leather armour, left him to die, and swung right at the man trying to get through the water. Serpent-Breath’s tip flicked across his face to spray blood into the thickening snowfall. I went forward, feet sinking, lunged again and he could not move in the mire and Serpent-Breath took his gullet. I was screaming with joy because the battle calm had come, the same blessed stillness I had felt at Cynuit. It is a joy, that feeling, and the only other joy to compare is that of being with a woman.

It is as though life slows. The enemy moves as if he is wading in mud, but I was kingfisher fast. There is rage, but it is a controlled rage, and there is joy, the joy that the poets celebrate when they speak of battle, and a certainty that death is not in that day’s fate. My head was full of singing, a keening note, high and shrill, death’s anthem. All I wanted was for more Danes to come to Serpent-Breath and it seemed to me that she took on her own life in those moments. To think was to act. A man came across the horse’s flank, I thought to slice at his ankle, knew he would drop his shield and so open his upper body to an attack, and before the thought was even coherent it was done and Serpent-Breath had taken one of his eyes. She had gone down and up, was already moving to the right to counter another man trying to get around the horse, and I let him get past the stallion’s bloodied head then scornfully drove him down into the water and there I stood on him, holding his head under my boot as he drowned. I screamed at the Danes, told them I was Valhalla’s gatekeeper, that they had been weaned on coward’s milk and that I wanted them to come to my blade. I begged them to come, but six men were dead around the horse and the others were now wary.

I stood on the dead horse and spread my arms. I held the shield high to my left and the sword to my right, and my mail coat was spattered with blood and the snow fell about my wolf-crested helmet and all I knew was the young man’s joy of slaughter. ‘I killed Ubba Lothbrokson!’ I shouted at them. ‘I killed him! So come and join him! Taste his death! My sword wants you!’

‘Boats,’ Leofric said. I did not hear him. The man I thought I had drowned was still alive and he suddenly reared from the marsh, choking and vomiting water, and I jumped down off the horse and put my foot on his head again.

‘Let him live!’ A voice shouted behind me. ‘I want a prisoner!’

The man tried to fight my foot, but Serpent-Breath put him down. He struggled again and I broke his spine with Serpent-Breath and he was still.

‘I said I wanted a prisoner,’ the voice behind protested.

‘Come and die!’ I shouted at the Danes.

‘Boats,’ Leofric said again and I glanced behind and saw three punts coming through the marsh. They were long flat boats, propelled by men with poles, and they grounded on the other side of the huddled refugees who hurried aboard. The Danes, knowing Leofric and I had to retreat if we were to gain the safety of the boats, readied for a charge and I smiled at them, inviting them.

‘One boat left,’ Leofric said. ‘Room for us. You’ll have to run like hell.’

‘I’ll stay here,’ I shouted, but in Danish. ‘I’m enjoying myself.’

Then there was a stir on the path as a man came to the front rank of the Danes and the others edged aside to give him room. He was in chain mail and had a silvered helmet with a raven’s wing at its crown, but as he came closer he took the helmet off and I saw the gold-tipped bone in his hair. It was Guthrum himself. The bone was one of his mother’s ribs and he wore it out of love for her memory. He stared at me, his gaunt face sad, and then looked down at the men we had killed. ‘I shall hunt you like a dog, Uhtred Ragnarson,’ he said, ‘and I shall kill you like a dog.’

‘My name,’ I said, ‘is Uhtred Uhtredson.’

‘We have to run,’ Leofric hissed at me.

The snow whirled above the swamp, thick enough now so that I could hardly see the ridge top from where we had glimpsed the pigeons circling. ‘You are a dead man, Uhtred,’ Guthrum said.

‘I never met your mother,’ I called to him, ‘but I would have liked to meet her.’

His face took on the reverent look that any mention of his mother always provoked. He seemed to regret that he had spoken so harshly to me for he made a conciliatory gesture. ‘She was a great woman,’ he said.

I smiled at him. At that moment, looking back, I could have changed sides so easily and Guthrum would have welcomed me if I had just given his mother a compliment, but I was a belligerent young man and the battle joy was on me. ‘I would have spat in her ugly face,’ I told Guthrum, ‘and now I piss on your mother’s soul, and tell you that the beasts of Niflheim are humping her rancid bones.’

He screamed with rage and they all charged, some splashing through the shallows, all desperate to reach me and avenge the terrible insult, but Leofric and I were running like hunted boars, and we charged through the reeds and into the water and hurled ourselves onto the last punt. The first two were gone, but the third had waited for us and, as we sprawled on its damp boards, the man with the pole pushed hard and the craft slid away into the black water. The Danes tried to follow, but we were going surprisingly fast, gliding through the snowfall, and Guthrum was shouting at me and a spear was thrown, but the marshman poled again and the spear plunged harmlessly into the mud.

‘I shall find you!’ Guthrum shouted.

‘Why should I care?’ I called back. ‘Your men only know how to die!’ I raised Serpent-Breath and kissed her sticky blade, ‘and your mother was a whore to dwarves!’

‘You should have let that one man live,’ a voice said behind me, ‘because I wanted to question him.’ The punt only contained the one passenger besides Leofric and myself, and that one man was the priest who had carried a sword and now he was sitting in the punt’s flat bow, frowning at me. ‘There was no need to kill that man,’ he said sternly and I looked at him with such fury that he recoiled. Damn all priests, I thought. I had saved the bastard’s life and all he did was reprove me, and then I saw that he was no priest at all.

It was Alfred.

The punt slid over the swamp, sometimes gliding across black water, sometimes rustling through grass or reeds. The man poling it was a bent, dark-skinned creature with a massive beard, otterskin clothes and a toothless mouth. Guthrum’s Danes were far behind now, carrying their dead back to firmer ground. ‘I need to know what they plan to do,’ Alfred complained to me. ‘The prisoner could have told us.’

He spoke more respectfully. Looking back I realised I had frightened him for the front of my mail coat was sheeted in blood and there was more blood on my face and helmet.

‘They plan to finish Wessex,’ I said curtly. ‘You don’t need a prisoner to tell you that.’

‘Lord,’ he said.

I stared at him.

‘I am a king!’ he insisted. ‘You address a king with respect.’

‘A king of what?’ I asked.

‘You’re not hurt, lord?’ Leofric asked Alfred.

‘No, thank God. No.’ He looked at the sword he carried. ‘Thank God.’ I saw he was not wearing priest’s robes, but a swathing black cloak. His long face was very pale. ‘Thank you, Leofric,’ he said, then looked up at me and seemed to shudder. We were catching up with the other two punts and I saw that Ælswith, pregnant and swathed in a silver fox-fur cloak, was in one. Iseult and Eanflæd were also in that punt while the priests were crowded onto the other and I saw that Bishop Alewold of Exanceaster was one of them.

‘What happened, lord?’ Leofric asked.

Alfred sighed. He was shivering now, but he told his story. He had ridden from Cippanhamm with his family, his bodyguard and a score of churchmen to accompany the monk Asser on the first part of his journey. ‘We had a service of thanksgiving,’ he said, ‘in the church at Soppan Byrg. It’s a new church,’ he added earnestly to Leofric, ‘and very fine. We sang psalms, said prayers, and Brother Asser went on his way rejoicing.’ He made the sign of the cross. ‘I pray he’s safe.’

‘I hope the lying bastard’s dead,’ I snarled.

Alfred ignored that. After the church service they had all gone to a nearby monastery for a meal, and it was while they were there that the Danes had come. The royal group had fled, finding shelter in nearby woods while the monastery burned. After that they had tried to ride east into the heart of Wessex but, like us, they had constantly been headed off by patrolling Danes. One night, sheltering in a farm, they had been surprised by Danish troops who had killed some of Alfred’s guards and captured all his horses and ever since they had been wandering, as lost as us, until they came to the swamp. ‘God knows what will happen now,’ Alfred said.

‘We fight,’ I said. He just looked at me and I shrugged. ‘We fight,’ I said again.

Alfred stared across the swamp. ‘Find a ship,’ he said, but so softly that I hardly heard him. ‘Find a ship and go to Frankia.’ He pulled the cloak tighter around his thin body. The snow was thickening as it fell, though it melted as soon as it met the dark water. The Danes had vanished, lost in the snow behind. ‘That was Guthrum?’ Alfred asked me.

‘That was Guthrum,’ I said. ‘And he knew it was you he pursued?’

‘I suppose so.’

‘What else would draw Guthrum here?’ I asked. ‘He wants you dead. Or captured.’

Yet, for the moment, we were safe. The island village had a score of damp hovels thatched with reeds and a few storehouses raised on stilts. The buildings were the colour of mud, the street was mud, the goats and the people were mud-covered, but the place, poor as it was, could provide food, shelter and a meagre warmth. The men of the village had seen the refugees and, after a discussion, decided to rescue them. I suspect they wanted to pillage us rather than save our lives, but Leofric and I looked formidable and, once the villagers understood that their king was their guest, they did their clumsy best for him and his family. One of them, in a dialect I could scarcely understand, wanted to know the king’s name. He had never heard of Alfred. He knew about the Danes, but said their ships had never reached the village, or any of the other settlements in the swamp. He told us the villagers lived off deer, goats, fish, eels and wildfowl, and they had plenty of food, though fuel was scarce.

Ælswith was pregnant with her third child, while her first two were in the care of nurses. There was Edward, Alfred’s heir, who was three years old and sick. He coughed, and Ælswith worried about him, though Bishop Alewold insisted it was just a winter’s cold. Then there was Edward’s elder sister, Æthelflaed, who was now six and had a bright head of golden curls, a beguiling smile and clever eyes. Alfred adored her, and in those first days in the swamp, she was his one ray of light and hope. One night, as we sat by a small, dying fire and Æthelflaed slept with her golden head in her father’s lap, he asked me about my son.

‘I don’t know where he is,’ I said. There were only the two of us, everyone else was sleeping, and I was sitting by the door staring across the frost-bleached marsh that lay black and silver under a half-moon.

‘You want to go and find him?’ he asked earnestly.

‘You truly want me to do that?’ I asked. He looked puzzled. ‘These folk are giving you shelter,’ I explained, ‘but they’d as soon cut your throats. They won’t do that while I’m here.’

He was about to protest, then understood I probably spoke the truth. He stroked his daughter’s hair. Edward coughed. He was in his mother’s hut. The coughing had become worse, much worse, and we all suspected it was the whooping cough that killed small children. Alfred flinched at the sound. ‘Did you fight Steapa?’ he asked.

‘We fought,’ I said curtly, ‘the Danes came, and we never finished. He was bleeding, I was not.’

‘He was bleeding?’

‘Ask Leofric. He was there.’

He was silent a long time, then, softly, ‘I am still king.’

Of a swamp, I thought, and said nothing.

‘And it is customary to call a king “lord”,’ he went on.

I just stared at his thin, pale face that was lit by the dying fire. He looked so solemn, but also frightened, as if he were making a huge effort to hold onto the shreds of his dignity. Alfred never lacked for bravery, but he was not a warrior and he did not much like the company of warriors. In his eyes I was a brute; dangerous, uninteresting, but suddenly indispensable. He knew I was not going to call him lord, so he did not insist. ‘What do you notice about this place?’ he asked.

‘It’s wet,’ I said.

‘What else?’

I looked for the trap in the question and found none. ‘It can only be reached by punts,’ I said, ‘and the Danes don’t have punts. But when they do have punts it’ll need more than Leofric and me to fight them off.’

‘It doesn’t have a church,’ he said.

‘I knew I liked it,’ I retorted.

He ignored that. ‘We know so little of our own kingdom,’ he said in wonderment. ‘I thought there were churches everywhere.’ He closed his eyes for a few heartbeats, then looked at me plaintively. ‘What should I do?’

I had told him to fight, but I could see no fight in him now, just despair. ‘You can go south,’ I said, thinking that was what he wanted to hear, ‘go south across the sea.’

‘To be another exiled Saxon king,’ he said bitterly.

‘We hide here,’ I said, ‘and when we think the Danes aren’t watching, we go to the south coast and find a ship.’

‘How do we hide?’ he asked. ‘They know we’re here. And they’re on both sides of the swamp.’ The marshman had told us that a Danish fleet had landed at Cynuit, which lay at the swamp’s western edge. That fleet, I assumed, was led by Svein and he would surely be wondering how to find Alfred. The king, I reckoned, was doomed, and his family too. If Æthelflaed was lucky she would be raised by a Danish family, as I had been, but more probably they would all be killed so that no Saxon could ever again claim the crown of Wessex. ‘And the Danes will be watching the south coast,’ Alfred went on.

‘They will,’ I agreed.

He looked out at the marsh where the night wind rippled the waters, shaking the long reflection of a winter moon. ‘The Danes can’t have taken all Wessex,’ he said, then flinched because Edward was coughing so painfully.

‘Probably not,’ I agreed.

‘If we could find men,’ he said, then fell silent.

‘What would we do with men?’ I asked.

‘Attack the fleet,’ he said, pointing west. ‘Get rid of Svein, if it is Svein at Cynuit, then hold the hills of Defnascir. Gain one victory and more men will come. We get stronger and one day we can face Guthrum.’

I thought about it. He had spoken dully, as if he did not really believe in the words he had said, but I thought they made a perverse kind of sense. There were men in Wessex, men who were leaderless, but they were men who wanted a leader, men who would fight, and perhaps we could secure the swamp, then defeat Svein, then capture Defnascir, and so, piece by piece, take back Wessex. Then I thought about it more closely and reckoned it was a dream. The Danes had won. We were fugitives.

Alfred was stroking his daughter’s golden hair. ‘The Danes will hunt us here, won’t they?’

‘Yes.’

‘Can you defend us?’

‘Just me and Leofric?’

‘You’re a warrior, aren’t you? Men tell me it was really you who defeated Ubba.’

‘You knew I killed Ubba?’ I asked.

‘Can you defend us?’

I would not be deflected. ‘Did you know I won your victory at Cynuit?’ I demanded.

‘Yes,’ he said simply.

‘And my reward was to crawl to your altar? To be humiliated?’ My anger made my voice too loud and Æthelflaed opened her eyes and stared at me.

‘I have made mistakes,’ Alfred said, ‘and when this is all over, and when God returns Wessex to the West Saxons, I shall do the same. I shall put on the penitent’s robe and submit myself to God.’

I wanted to kill the pious bastard then, but Æthelflaed was watching me with her big eyes. She had not moved, so her father did not know she was awake, but I did, so instead of giving my anger a loose rein I cut it off abruptly. ‘You’ll find that penitence helps,’ I said.

He brightened at that. ‘It helped you?’ he asked.

‘It gave me anger,’ I said, ‘and it taught me to hate. And anger is good. Hatred is good.’

‘You don’t mean that,’ he said.

I half drew Serpent-Breath and little Æthelflaed’s eyes grew wider. ‘This kills,’ I said, letting the sword slide back into its fleece-lined scabbard, ‘but anger and hate are what gives it the strength to kill. Go into battle without anger and hate and you’ll be dead. You need all the blades, anger and hate you can muster if we’re to survive.’

‘But can you do it?’ he asked. ‘Can you defend us here? Long enough to evade the Danes while we decide what to do?’

‘Yes,’ I said. I had no idea whether I spoke the truth, indeed I doubted that I did, but I had a warrior’s pride so gave a warrior’s answer. Æthelflaed had not taken her eyes from me. She was only six, but I swear she understood all that we talked about.

‘So I give you charge of that task,’ Alfred said. ‘Here and now I appoint you as the defender of my family. Do you accept that responsibility?’

I was an arrogant brute. Still am. He was challenging me, of course, and he knew what he was doing even if I did not. I just bridled. ‘Of course I accept it,’ I said, ‘yes.’

‘Yes what?’ he asked.

I hesitated, but he had flattered me, given me a warrior’s responsibility and so I gave him what he wanted and what I had been determined not to give to him. ‘Yes, lord,’ I said.

He held out his hand. I knew he wanted more now. I had never meant to grant him this wish, but I had called him ‘lord’ and so I knelt to him and, across Æthelflaed’s body, I took his hand in both mine.

‘Say it,’ he demanded, and he put the crucifix that hung about his neck between our hands.

‘I swear to be your man,’ I said, looking into his pale eyes, ‘until your family is safe.’

He hesitated. I had given him the oath, but I had qualified it. I had let him know that I would not remain his man for ever, but he accepted my terms. He should have kissed me on both cheeks, but that would have disturbed Æthelflaed and so he raised my right hand and kissed the knuckles, then kissed the crucifix. ‘Thank you,’ he said.

The truth, of course, was that Alfred was finished, but, with the perversity and arrogance of foolish youth, I had just given him my oath and promised to fight for him.

And all, I think, because a six-year-old stared at me. And she had hair of gold.