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  I let them get well ahead, then followed. I had heard them speak as they passed and knew they were Saxons and, by their accents, probably from Mercia. Robbers, I assumed. A Roman road passed through deep woods nearby and masterless men haunted the woods to ambush travellers who, to protect themselves, went in large groups. I had twice led my warriors on hunts for such bandits and thought I had persuaded them to make their living far from my estate, but I could not think who else these men could be. Yet it was not like such vagrants to invade an estate. The hair at the back of my neck still prickled.

  I moved cautiously as I approached the edge of the trees, then saw the men beside the shepherd’s hut that resembled a heap of grass. He had made the hovel with branches covered by turf, leaving a hole in the centre for the smoke of his fire to escape. There was no sign of the shepherd himself, but Willibald had been captured, though so far he was unhurt, protected, perhaps, by his status as a priest. One man held him. The others must have realised I was still in the trees, because they were staring towards the copse that hid me.

  Then, suddenly, the shepherd’s two dogs appeared from my left and ran howling towards the thirteen men. The dogs ran fast and lithe, circling the group and sometimes leaping towards them and snapping their teeth before sheering away. Only one man had a sword, but he was clumsy with the blade, swinging it at the bitch as she came close and missing her by an arm’s length. One of the two bowmen put a string on his cord. He hauled the arrow back, then suddenly fell backwards as if struck by an invisible hammer. He sprawled on the turf as his arrow flitted into the sky and fell harmlessly into the trees behind me. The dogs, down on their front paws now, bared their teeth and growled. The fallen archer stirred, but evidently could not stand. The other men looked scared.

  The second archer raised his stave, then recoiled, dropping the bow to clap his hands to his face and I saw a spark of blood there, blood bright as the holly berries. The splash of colour showed in the winter morning, then it was gone and the man was clutching his face and bending over in pain. The hounds barked, then loped back into the trees. The sleet was falling harder, loud as it struck the bare branches. Two of the men moved towards the shepherd’s cottage, but were called back by their leader. He was younger than the others and looked more prosperous, or at least less poor. He had a thin face, darting eyes and a short fair beard. He wore a scarred leather jerkin, but beneath it I could see a mail coat. So he had either been a warrior or else had stolen the mail. ‘Lord Uhtred!’ he called.

  I did not answer. I was hidden well enough, at least for the moment, but knew I would have to move if they searched the copse, but whatever had drawn blood was making them nervous. What was it? It had to be the gods, I thought, or perhaps the Christian saint. Alnoth must hate outlaws if he had been murdered by them, and I did not doubt that these men were outlaws who had been sent to kill me. That was not surprising because in those days I had plenty of enemies. I still have enemies, though now I live behind the strongest palisade in northern England, but in that far-off time, in the winter of 898, there was no England. There was Northumbria and East Anglia, Mercia and Wessex, and the first two were ruled by the Danes, Wessex was Saxon while Mercia was a mess, part Danish and part Saxon. And I was like Mercia because I had been born a Saxon, but raised as a Dane. I still worshipped the Danish gods, but fate had doomed me to be a shield of the Christian Saxons against the ever-present threat of the pagan Danes. So any number of Danes might want me dead, but I could not imagine any Danish enemy hiring Mercian outlaws to ambush me. There were also Saxons who would love to see my corpse put in its long home. My cousin Æthelred, Lord of Mercia, would have paid well to watch my grave filled, but surely he would have sent warriors, not bandits? Yet he seemed the likeliest man. He was married to Æthelflaed, Alfred of Wessex’s daughter, but I had planted the cuckold’s horns on Æthelred’s head and I reckoned he had returned the favour by sending thirteen outlaws.

  ‘Lord Uhtred!’ the young man called again, but the only answer was a sudden panicked bleating.

  The sheep were streaming down the path through the copse, harried by the two dogs that snapped at their ankles to drive them fast towards the thirteen men and, once the sheep had reached the men, the dogs raced around, still snapping, herding the animals into a tight circle that enclosed the outlaws. I was laughing. I was Uhtred of Bebbanburg, the man who had killed Ubba beside the sea and who had destroyed Haesten’s army at Beamfleot, but on this cold Sunday morning it was the shepherd who was proving to be the better warlord. His panicked flock were tightly packed around the outlaws, who could hardly move. The dogs were howling, the sheep bleating and the thirteen men despairing.

  I stepped out of the wood. ‘You wanted me?’ I called.

  The young man’s response was to push towards me, but the tightly packed sheep obstructed him. He kicked at them, then hacked down with his sword, but the more he struggled the more scared the sheep became, and all the while the dogs herded them inwards. The young man cursed, then snatched at Willibald. ‘Let us go or we kill him,’ he said.

  ‘He’s a Christian,’ I said, showing him Thor’s hammer that hung about my neck, ‘so why should I care if you kill him?’

  Willibald stared at me aghast, and then turned as one of the men shouted in pain. There had again been a sudden flash of holly-red blood in the sleet, and this time I saw what had caused it. It was neither the gods nor the murdered saint, but the shepherd who had come from the trees and was holding a sling. He took a stone from a pouch, placed it in the leather cup, and whirled the sling again. It made a whirring noise, he let go one cord and another stone hurtled in to strike a man.

  They turned away in pure panic and I gestured at the shepherd to let them go. He whistled to call the dogs off and both men and sheep scattered. The men were running, all but the first archer who was still on the ground, stunned by the stone that had struck his head. The young man, braver than the others, came towards me, perhaps thinking his companions would help him, then realised he was alone. A look of pure fright crossed his face, he turned, and just then the bitch leaped at him, sinking her teeth in his sword arm. He shouted, then tried to shake her off as the dog hurtled in to join his mate. He was still shouting when I hit him across the back of the skull with the flat of my sword-blade. ‘You can call the dogs off now,’ I told the shepherd.

  The first archer was still alive, but there was a patch of blood-matted hair above his right ear. I kicked him hard in the ribs and he groaned, but he was insensible. I gave his bow and arrow-bag to the shepherd. ‘What’s your name?’

  ‘Egbert, lord.’

  ‘You’re a rich man now, Egbert,’ I told him. I wished that were true. I would reward Egbert well for this morning’s work, but I was no longer rich. I had spent my money on the men, mail and weapons that had been needed to defeat Haesten and I was desperately poor that winter.

  The other outlaws had vanished, gone back northwards. Willibald was shaking. ‘They were searching for you, lord,’ he said through chattering teeth, ‘they’ve been paid to kill you.’

  I stooped by the archer. The shepherd’s stone had shattered his skull and I could see a ragged, splintered piece of bone among the blood-matted hair. One of the shepherd’s dogs came to sniff the wounded man and I patted its thick wiry pelt. ‘They’re good dogs,’ I told Egbert.

  ‘Wolf-killers, lord,’ he said, then hefted the sling, ‘though this is better.’

  ‘You’re good with it,’ I said. That was mild, the man was lethal.

  ‘Been practising these twenty-five years, lord. Nothing like a stone to drive a wolf away.’

  ‘They’d been paid to kill me?’ I asked Willibald.

  ‘That’s what they said. They were paid to kill you.’

  ‘Go into the hut,’ I said, ‘get warm.’ I turned on the younger man who was being guarded by the larger dog. ‘What’s your name?’

  He hesitated, then spoke grudgingly, ‘Wærfurth, lord.’

  ‘And who paid you to kill
me?’

  ‘I don’t know, lord.’

  Nor did he, it seemed. Wærfurth and his men came from near Tofeceaster, a settlement not far to the north, and Wærfurth told me how a man had promised to pay my weight in silver in return for my death. The man had suggested a Sunday morning, knowing that much of my household would be in church, and Wærfurth had recruited a dozen vagrants to do the job. He must have known it was a huge gamble, for I was not without reputation, but the reward was immense. ‘Was the man a Dane or a Saxon?’ I asked.

  ‘A Saxon, lord.’

  ‘And you don’t know him?’

  ‘No, lord.’

  I questioned him more, but all he could tell me was that the man was thin, bald and had lost an eye. The description meant little to me. A one-eyed, bald man? Could be almost anyone. I asked questions till I had wrung Wærfurth dry of unhelpful answers, then hanged both him and the archer.

  And Willibald showed me the magic fish.

  A delegation waited at my hall. Sixteen men had come from Alfred’s capital at Wintanceaster and among them were no less than five priests. Two, like Willibald, came from Wessex, and the other pair were Mercians who had apparently settled in East Anglia. I knew them both, though I had not recognised them at first. They were twins, Ceolnoth and Ceolberht who, some thirty years before, had been hostages with me in Mercia. We had been children captured by the Danes, a fate I had welcomed and the twins had hated. They were close to forty years old now, two identical priests with stocky builds, round faces and greying beards. ‘We have watched your progress,’ one of them said.

  ‘With admiration,’ the other finished. I had not been able to tell them apart when they were children, and still could not. They finished each other’s sentences.

  ‘Reluctant,’ one said.

  ‘Admiration,’ his twin said.

  ‘Reluctant?’ I asked in an unfriendly tone.

  ‘It is known that Alfred is disappointed,’

  ‘That you eschew the true faith, but…’

  ‘We pray for you daily!’

  The remaining pair of priests, both West Saxons, were Alfred’s men. They had helped compile his code of laws and it appeared they had come to advise me. The remaining eleven men were warriors, five from East Anglia and six from Wessex, who had guarded the priests on their travels.

  And they had brought the magic fish.

  ‘King Eohric,’ Ceolnoth or Ceolberht said.

  ‘Wishes an alliance with Wessex,’ the other twin finished.

  ‘And with Mercia!’

  ‘The Christian kingdoms, you understand.’

  ‘And King Alfred and King Edward,’ Willibald took up the tale, ‘have sent a gift for King Eohric.’

  ‘Alfred still lives?’ I asked.

  ‘Pray God, yes,’ Willibald said, ‘though he’s sick.’

  ‘Very close to death,’ one of the West Saxon priests intervened.

  ‘He was born close to death,’ I said, ‘and ever since I’ve known him he’s been dying. He’ll live ten years yet.’

  ‘Pray God he does,’ Willibald said and made the sign of the cross. ‘But he’s fifty years old, and he’s failing. He’s truly dying.’

  ‘Which is why he seeks this alliance,’ the West Saxon priest went on, ‘and why the Lord Edward makes this request of you.’

  ‘King Edward,’ Willibald corrected his fellow priest.

  ‘So who’s requesting me?’ I asked, ‘Alfred of Wessex or Edward of Cent?’

  ‘Edward,’ Willibald said.

  ‘Eohric,’ Ceolnoth and Ceolberht said together.

  ‘Alfred,’ the West Saxon priest said.

  ‘All of them,’ Willibald added. ‘It’s important to all of them, lord!’

  Edward or Alfred or both wanted me to go to King Eohric of East Anglia. Eohric was a Dane, but he had converted to Christianity, and he had sent the twins to Alfred and proposed that a great alliance should be made between the Christian parts of Britain. ‘King Eohric suggested that you should negotiate the treaty,’ Ceolnoth or Ceolberht said.

  ‘With our advice,’ one of the West Saxon priests put in hastily.

  ‘Why me?’ I asked the twins.

  Willibald answered for them. ‘Who knows Mercia and Wessex as well as you?’

  ‘Many men,’ I answered.

  ‘And where you lead,’ Willibald said, ‘those other men will follow.’

  We were at a table on which was ale, bread, cheese, pottage and apples. The central hearth was ablaze with a great fire that flickered its light on the smoke-blackened beams. The shepherd had been right and the sleet had turned to snow and some flakes sifted through the smoke-hole in the roof. Outside, beyond the palisade, Wærfurth and the archer were hanging from the bare branch of an elm, their bodies food for the hungry birds. Most of my men were in the hall, listening to our conversation. ‘It’s a strange time of year to be making treaties,’ I said.

  ‘Alfred has little time left,’ Willibald said, ‘and he wishes this alliance, lord. If all the Christians of Britain are united, lord, then young Edward’s throne will be protected when he inherits the crown.’

  That made sense, but why would Eohric want the alliance? Eohric of East Anglia had been perched on the fence between Christians and pagans, Danes and Saxons, for as long as I could remember, yet now he wanted to proclaim his allegiance to the Christian Saxons?

  ‘Because of Cnut Ranulfson,’ one of the twins explained when I asked the question.

  ‘He’s brought men south,’ the other twin said.

  ‘To Sigurd Thorrson’s lands,’ I said. ‘I know, I sent that news to Alfred. And Eohric fears Cnut and Sigurd?’

  ‘He does,’ Ceolnoth or Ceolberht said.

  ‘Cnut and Sigurd won’t attack now,’ I said, ‘but in the spring, maybe.’ Cnut and Sigurd were Danes from Northumbria and, like all the Danes, their abiding dream was to capture all the lands where English was spoken. The invaders had tried again and again, and again and again they had failed, yet another attempt was inevitable because the heart of Wessex, which was the great bastion of Saxon Christendom, was failing. Alfred was dying, and his death would surely bring pagan swords and heathen fire to Mercia and to Wessex. ‘But why would Cnut or Sigurd attack Eohric?’ I asked. ‘They don’t want East Anglia, they want Mercia and Wessex.’

  ‘They want everything,’ Ceolnoth or Ceolberht answered.

  ‘And the true faith will be scourged from Britain unless we defend it,’ the older of the two West Saxon priests said.

  ‘Which is why we beg you to forge the alliance,’ Willibald said.

  ‘At the Christmas feast,’ one of the twins added.

  ‘And Alfred sent a gift for Eohric,’ Willibald went on enthusiastically, ‘Alfred and Edward! They have been most generous, lord!’

  The gift was encased in a box of silver studded with precious stones. The lid of the box showed a figure of Christ with uplifted arms, around which was written ‘Edward mec heht Gewyrcan’, meaning that Edward had ordered the reliquary made, or more likely his father had ordered the gift and then ascribed the generosity to his son. Willibald lifted the lid reverently, revealing an interior lined with red-dyed cloth. A small cushion, the width and breadth of a man’s hand, fitted snugly inside, and on the cushion was a fish skeleton. It was the whole fish skeleton, except for the head, just a long white spine with a comb of ribs on either side. ‘There,’ Willibald said, breathing the word as if speaking too loud might disturb the bones.

  ‘A dead herring?’ I asked incredulously, ‘that’s Alfred’s gift?’

  The priests all crossed themselves.

  ‘How many more fish bones do you want?’ I asked. I looked at Finan, my closest friend and the commander of my household warriors. ‘We can provide dead fish, can’t we?’

  ‘By the barrelful, lord,’ he said.

  ‘Lord Uhtred!’ Willibald, as ever, rose to my taunting. ‘That fish,’ he pointed a quivering finger at the bones, ‘was one of the two fishes our Lord use
d to feed the five thousand!’

  ‘The other one must have been a damned big fish,’ I said, ‘what was it? A whale?’

  The older West Saxon priest scowled at me. ‘I advised King Edward against employing you for this duty,’ he said, ‘I told him to send a Christian.’

  ‘So use someone else,’ I retorted. ‘I’d rather spend Yule in my own hall.’

  ‘He wishes you to go,’ the priest said sharply.

  ‘Alfred also wishes it,’ Willibald put in, then smiled, ‘he thinks you’ll frighten Eohric.’

  ‘Why does he want Eohric frightened?’ I asked. ‘I thought this was an alliance?’

  ‘King Eohric allows his ships to prey on our trade,’ the priest said, ‘and must pay reparations before we promise him protection. The king believes you will be persuasive.’

  ‘We don’t need to leave for at least ten days,’ I said, looking gloomily at the priests, ‘am I supposed to feed you all till then?’

  ‘Yes, lord,’ Willibald said happily.

  Fate is strange. I had rejected Christianity, preferring the gods of the Danes, but I loved Æthelflaed, Alfred’s daughter, and she was a Christian and that meant I carried my sword on the side of the cross.

  And because of that it seemed I would spend Yule in East Anglia.

  Osferth came to Buccingahamm, bringing another twenty of my household warriors. I had summoned them, wanting a large band to accompany me to East Anglia. King Eohric might have suggested the treaty, and he might be amenable to whatever demands Alfred made, but treaties are best negotiated from a position of strength and I was determined to arrive in East Anglia with an impressive escort. Osferth and his men had been watching Ceaster, a Roman camp on Mercia’s far north-western frontier where Haesten had taken refuge after his forces had been destroyed at Beamfleot. Osferth greeted me solemnly, as was his manner. He rarely smiled, and his customary expression suggested disapproval of whatever he saw, but I think he was glad to be reunited with the rest of us. He was Alfred’s son, born to a servant girl before Alfred discovered the dubious joys of Christian obedience. Alfred had wanted his bastard son trained as a priest, but Osferth had preferred the way of the warrior. It had been a strange choice, for he did not take great joy from a fight or yearn for the savage moments when anger and a blade make the rest of the world seem dull, yet Osferth brought his father’s qualities to a fight. He was serious, thoughtful and methodical. Where Finan and I could be rashly headstrong, Osferth used cleverness, and that was no bad thing in a warrior.