The Pale Horseman (36 page)

'He did.'

'Then you did the right thing,' Odda said, 'and that is to be praised.' Svein, listening to
the translation that was provided by one of his own men, stared flatly at us. 'And now you
will do the right thing again,' Odda continued, 'and send the fyrd home.'

'The king has ordered otherwise,' Harald said.

'What king?' Odda asked.

'Alfred, who else?'

'But there are other kings in Wessex,' Odda said. 'Guthrum is King of East Anglia, and he
is in Wessex, and some say Æthelwold will be crowned king before the summer.'

'Æthelwold?' Harald asked.

'You'd not heard?' Odda asked. 'Wulfhere of Wiltunscir has sided with Guthrum, and both.
Guthrum and Wulfhere have said Æthelwold will be King of Wessex. And why not? Is not Æthelwold
the son of our last king? Should he not be king?'

Harald, uncertain, looked at me. He had not heard of Wulfhere's defection, and it was
hard news for him. I nodded. 'Wulfhere is with Guthrum,' I said.

'So Æthelwold, son of Æthelred, will he king in Wessex,' Odda said, 'and Æthelwold has
thousands of swords at his command. Alfrig of Kent is with the Danes. There are Danes in
Lundene, on Sceapig and on the walls of Contwaraburg. All northern Wessex is in Danish
hands. There are Danes here, in Defnascir. What, tell me, is Alfred king of?'

'Of Wessex,' I said.

Odda ignored me, looking at Harald.

'Alfred has our oaths,' Harald said stubbornly.

'And I have your oath,' Odda reminded him. He sighed. 'God knows, Harald, no one was more
loyal to Alfred than I. Yet he failed us! The Danes came and the Danes are here, and where is
Alfred? Hiding!

In a few weeks their armies will march! They will come from Mercia, from Lundene, from Kent!
Their fleets will be off our coast. Armies of Danes and fleets of Vikings! What will you do
then?'

Harald shifted uneasily. 'What will you do?' he retorted.

Odda gestured at Svein who, the question translated, spoke for the first time. I
interpreted for Harald.

‘Wessex is doomed,’ Svein said in his grating voice. ‘By summer it will be swarming with
Danes, with men newly come from the north, and the only Saxons who will live will be those men
who aid the Danes now. Those who fight against the Danes,’ Svein said, ‘will be dead, and their
women will be whores and their children will be slaves and their homes will be lost and their
names shall be forgotten like the smoke of an extinguished fire.’

'And Æthelwold will be king?' I asked scornfully. 'You think we will all bow to a whoring
drunkard?'

Odda shook his head. 'The Danes are generous,' he said, and he drew back his cloak and I
saw that he were six golden arm rings. 'To those who help them,' he said, 'there will be the
rewards of land, wealth and honour.'

‘And Æthelwold will be king?' I asked again.

Odda again gestured at Svein. The big Dane seemed bored, but he stirred himself. 'It is
right,' he said, 'that Saxons should he ruled by a Saxon. We shall make a king here.'

I scorned that. They had made Saxon kings in Northumbria and in Mercia and those kings were
feeble, leashed to the Danes, and then I understood what Svein meant and I laughed aloud.
'He's promised you the throne!' I accused Odda.

'I've heard more sense from a pig's fart,' Odda retorted, but I knew I was right Æthelwold
was Guthrum's candidate for the throne of Wessex, but Svein was no friend of Guthrum and would
want his own Saxon as king. Odda.

'King Odda,' I said jeeringly, then spat into the fire.

Odda Would have killed me for that, but we met under the terms of a truce and so he forced
himself to ignore the insult. He looked at Harald.

'You have a choice, Harald,' he said, 'you can die or you can live.'

Harald was silent. He had not known about Wulfhere, and the news had appalled him. Wulfhere
was the most powerful Ealdorman in Wessex, and if he thought Alfred was doomed, then what
was Harald to think? I could see the shire-reeve's uncertainty. His decency wanted him to
declare loyalty to Alfred, but Odda had suggested that nothing but death would follow
such a choice.

'I ...' Harald began, then fell silent, unable to say what he thought for he did not know
his own mind.

'The fyrd is raised,' I spoke, for him, 'at the king's orders, and the king's orders are to
drive the Danes from Defnascir.'

Odda spat into the fire for answer.

'Svein has been defeated,' I said. 'His ships are burned. He is like a whipped dog and you
give him comfort.' Svein, when that was translated, gave me a look like the stroke of a whip.
'Svein,' I went on as though he was not present, 'must be driven back to the sea.

You have no authority here,' Odda said.

'I have Alfred's authority,' I said, 'and a written order telling you to drive Svein from
your shire.'

'Alfred's orders mean nothing,' Odda said, 'and you croak like a swamp frog.' He turned to
Steapa.

'You have unfinished business with Uhtred.'

Steapa looked uncertain for a heartbeat, then understood what his master meant. 'Yes,
lord,' he said.

'Then finish it now.'

'Finish what now?' Harald asked.

'Your king,' Odda said the last word sarcastically, 'ordered Steapa and Uhtred to fight
to the death. Yet both live! So your king's orders have not been obeyed.'

'There is a truce!' Harald protested.

'Either Uhtred stops interfering in the affairs of Defnascir,' Odda said forcefully,
'or I shall have Defnascir kill Uhtred. You want to know who is right? Alfred or me? You want
to know who will be king in Wessex, Æthelwold or Alfred? Then put it to the test, Harald. Let
Steapa and Uhtred finish their fight and see which man God favours. If Uhtred wins then I shall
support you, and if he loses …' He smiled. He had no doubt who would win.

Harald stayed silent. I looked at Steapa and, as on the first time I met him, saw nothing
on his face. He had promised to protect me, but that was before he had been reunited with his
master. The Danes looked happy. Why should they mind two Saxons fighting? Harald, though,
still hesitated, and then the weary, feeble voice sounded from the doorway at the back of
the hall.

'Let them fight, Harald, let them fight.' Odda the Elder, swathed in a wolf-skin blanket,
stood at the door. He held a crucifix. 'Let them fight,' he said again, 'and God will guide the
victor's arm.'

Harald looked at me. I nodded. I did not want to fight, but a man cannot back down from
combat. What was I to do? Say that to expect God to indicate a course of action through a
duel was nonsense? To appeal to Harald? To claim that everything Odda had said was wrong
and that Alfred would win? If I had refused to fight I was granting the argument to Odda,
and in truth he had half convinced me that Alfred was doomed, and Harald, I am sure, was
wholly convinced. Yet there was more than mere pride making me fight in the hall that day.
There was a belief, deep in my soul, that somehow Alfred would survive. I did not like him, I
did not like his god, but I believed fate was on his side.

So I nodded again, this time to Steapa. 'I do not want to fight you,' I said to him, 'but I
have given an oath to Alfred, and my sword says lie will win and that Danish blood will dung
our fields.'

Steapa said nothing. He just flexed his huge arms, then waited as one of Odda's men went
outside and returned with two swords. No shields, just swords. He had taken a pair of blades
at random from the pile and he offered them to Steapa first who shook his head, indicating
that I should have the choice. I closed my eyes, groped, and took the first hilt that I touched.
It was a heavy sword, weighted towards its tip. A slashing weapon, not a piercing blade, and
I knew I had chosen wrong. Steapa took the other and scythed it through the air so that the
blade sang.

Svein, who had betrayed little emotion so far, looked impressed, while Odda the Younger
smiled.

'You can put the sword down,' he told me, 'and thus yield the argument to me.'

Instead I walked to the clear space beside the hearth. I had no intention of attacking
Steapa, but would let him come to me. I felt weary and resigned. Fate is inexorable.

'For my sake,' Odda the Elder spoke behind me, 'make it fast.'

'Yes, lord,' Steapa said, and he took a step towards me and then turned as fast as a
striking snake and his blade whipped in a slash that took Odda the Younger's throat. The sword
was not as sharp as it could have been, so that the blow drove Odda down, but it also ripped
his gullet open so that blood spurted a blade's length into the air, then splashed into the
fire where it hissed and bubbled.

Odda was on the floor-rushes now, his legs twitching, his hands clutching at his throat
that still pumped blood. He made a gargling noise, turned on his back and went into a spasm so
that his heels drummed against the floor and then, just as Steapa stepped forward to finish
him, he gave a last jerk and was dead.

Steapa drove the sword into the floor, leaving it quivering there.

'Alfred rescued me,' he announced to the hall. 'Alfred took me from the Danes. Alfred is
my king.'

'And he has our oaths,' Odda the Elder added, 'and my son had no business making peace
with the pagans.'

The Danes stepped back. Svein glanced at me, for I was still holding a sword, then he looked
at the boar spears leaning against the wall, judging whether he could snatch one before I
attacked him. I lowered the blade.

'We have a truce,' Harald said loudly.

'We have a truce,' I told Svein in Danish.

Svein spat on the bloody rushes, then he and his standard-bearer took another cautious
backwards pace.

'But tomorrow,' Harald said, 'there will be no truce, and we shall come to kill you.'

The Danes rode from Ocmundtun. And next day they also went from Cridianton. They could
have stayed if they wished. There were more than enough of them to defend Cridianton and make
trouble in the shire, but Svein knew he would be besieged and, man by man, worn down until he
had no force at all, and so he went north, going to join Guthrum, and I rode to Oxton. The land
had never looked more beautiful, the trees were hazed with green and bullfinches were
feasting on the first tight fruit buds, while anemones, stitchwort and white violets glowed in
sheltered spots. Lambs ran from the buck hares in the pastures. The sun shimmered on the wide
sea-reach of the Uisc and the sky was full of lark song beneath which the foxes took lambs,
magpies and jays feasted on other birds' eggs, and ploughmen impaled crows at the edges of
the fields to ensure a good harvest.

'There'll be butter soon,' a woman told me. She really wanted to know if I was
returning to the estate, but I was not. I was saying farewell. There were slaves living
there, doing their jobs, and I assured them Mildrith would appoint a steward sooner or
later, then I went to the hall and I dug beside the post and found my hoard untouched. The
Danes had not come to Oxton. Wirken, the sly priest of Exanmynster, heard 1 was at the hall
and rode a donkey up to the estate. He assured me he had kept a watchful eye on the place,
and doubtless he wanted a reward.

'It belongs to Mildrith now,' I told him.

'The Lady Mildrith? She lives?'

'She lives,' I said curtly, 'but her son is dead.'

'God rest his poor soul,' Wirken said, making the sign of the cross. I was eating a scrap of
ham and he looked at it hungrily, knowing I broke the rules of Lent. He said nothing, but I
knew he was cursing me for a pagan.

'And the Lady Mildrith,' I went on, 'would live a chaste life now. She says she will join the
sisters in Cridianton.'

'There are no sisters in Cridianton,' Wirken said. 'They're all dead. The Danes saw to that
before they left.'

'Other nuns will settle there,' I said. Not that I cared, for the fate of a small nunnery
was none of my business. Oxton was no longer my business. The Danes were my business, and the
Danes had gone north and I would follow them.

For that was my life. That spring I was twenty-one years old and for half my life I had been
with armies. I was not a farmer. I watched the slaves tearing the couch-grass from the home
fields and knew the tasks of farming bored me. I was a warrior, and I had been driven from my
home of Bebbanburg to the southern edge of England and I think I knew, as Wirken babbled on
about how he had guarded the storehouses through the winter, that I was now going north
again. Ever north. Back home.

'You lived off these storehouses all winter,' I accused the priest.

'I watched them all winter, lord.'

'And you got fat as you watched,' I said. I climbed into my saddle. Behind me were two
bags, ripe with money, and they stayed there as I rode to Exanceaster and found Steapa in The
Swan. Next morning, with six other warriors from Ealdorman Odda's guard, we rode north. Our
way was marked by pillars of smoke, for Svein was burning and plundering as he went, but we
had done what Alfred had wanted us to do. We had driven Svein back to Guthrum, so that now the
two largest Danish armies were united. If Alfred had been stronger he might have left them
separate and marched against each in turn, but Alfred knew he had only one chance to take back
his kingdom, and that was to win one battle. He had to overwhelm all the Danes and destroy
them in one blow, and his weapon was an army that existed only in his head. He had sent
demands that the fyrd of Wessex would be summoned after Easter and before Pentecost, but
no one knew whether it would actually appear. Perhaps we would ride from the swamp and find
no one at the meeting place. Or perhaps the fyrd would come, and there would be too few men.
The truth was that Alfred was too weak to fight, but to wait longer would only make him
weaker. So he had to-fight or lose his kingdom. So we would fight.

'You will have many sons,' Iseult told me. It was dark, though a half-moon was hazed by a
mist. Somewhere to the north-east a dozen fires burned in the hills, evidence that a strong
Danish patrol was watching the swamp. 'But I am sorry about Uhtred,' she said.