The Pale Horseman Page 4

  “Thanks be to God,” Mildrith echoed.

  I was cleaning the blood from the blade of a boar spear and said nothing. I was thinking that Ragnar was released from the siege now and I could join him.

  “The treaty was sealed with solemn oaths yesterday,” Willibald said, “and so we have peace.”

  “They gave each other solemn oaths last year,” I said sourly. Alfred and Guthrum had made peace at Werham, but Guthrum had broken the truce and murdered the hostages he had been holding. Eleven of the twelve had died, and only I had lived because Ragnar was there to protect me. “So what have they agreed?” I asked.

  “The Danes are to give up all their horses,” Willibald said, “and march back into Mercia.”

  Good, I thought, because that was where I would go. I did not say that to Willibald, but instead sneered that Alfred was just letting them march away. “Why doesn’t he fight them?” I asked.

  “Because there are too many, lord. Because too many men would die on both sides.”

  “He should kill them all.”

  “Peace is better than war,” Willibald said.

  “Amen,” Mildrith said.

  I began sharpening the spear, stroking the whetstone down the long blade. It seemed to me that Alfred had been absurdly generous. Guthrum, after all, was the one remaining leader of any stature on the Danish side, and he had been trapped, and if I had been Alfred there would have been no terms, only a siege, and at its end the Danish power in southern England would have been broken. Instead Guthrum was to be allowed to leave Exanceaster. “It is the hand of God,” Willibald said.

  I looked at him. He was a few years older than I was, but always seemed younger. He was earnest, enthusiastic, and kind. He had been a good chaplain to the twelve ships, though the poor man was ever seasick and blanched at the sight of blood. “God made the peace?” I asked skeptically.

  “Who sent the storm that sank Guthrum’s ships?” Willibald retorted fervently. “Who delivered Ubba into our hands?”

  “I did,” I said.

  He ignored that. “We have a godly king, lord,” he said, “and God rewards those who serve him faithfully. Alfred has defeated the Danes! And they see it! Guthrum can recognize divine intervention! He has been making enquiries about Christ.”

  I said nothing.

  “Our king believes,” the priest went on, “that Guthrum is not far from seeing the true light of Christ.” He leaned forward and touched my knee. “We have fasted, lord,” he said, “we have prayed, and the king believes that the Danes will be brought to Christ, and when that happens there will be a permanent peace.”

  He meant every word of that nonsense and, of course, it was sweet music to Mildrith’s ears. She was a good Christian and had great faith in Alfred, and if the king believed that his god would bring victory, then she would believe it, too. It seemed madness to me, but I said nothing as a servant brought us barley ale, bread, smoked mackerel, and cheese. “We shall have a Christian peace,” Willibald said, making the sign of the cross above the bread before he ate, “sealed by hostages.”

  “We’ve given Guthrum hostages again?” I asked, astonished.

  “No,” Willibald said. “But he has agreed to give us hostages. Including six earls!”

  I stopped sharpening the spear and looked at Willibald. “Six earls?”

  “Including your friend, Ragnar!” Willibald seemed pleased by this news, but I was appalled. If Ragnar was not with the Danes, then I could not go to them. He was my friend and his enemies were my enemies, but without Ragnar to protect me I would be horribly vulnerable to Kjartan and Sven, the father and son who had murdered Ragnar’s father and who wanted me dead. Without Ragnar, I knew, I could not leave Wessex.

  “Ragnar’s one of the hostages?” I asked. “You’re sure?”

  “Of course I’m sure. He will be held by Ealdorman Wulfhere. All the hostages are to be held by Wulfhere.”

  “For how long?”

  “For as long as Alfred wishes, or until Guthrum is baptized. And Guthrum has agreed that our priests can talk to his men.” Willibald gave me a pleading look. “We must have faith in God,” he said. “We must give God time to work on the hearts of the Danes. Guthrum understands now that our god has power!”

  I stood and went to the door, pulling aside the leather curtain and staring down at the wide sea-reach of the Uisc. I was sick at heart. I hated Alfred, did not want to be in Wessex, but now it seemed I was doomed to stay there. “And what do I do?” I asked.

  “The king will forgive you, lord,” Willibald said nervously.

  “Forgive me?” I turned on him. “And what does the king believe happened at Cynuit? You were there, father,” I said, “so did you tell him?”

  “I told him.”

  “And?”

  “He knows you are a brave warrior, lord,” Willibald said, “and that your sword is an asset to Wessex. He will receive you again, I’m sure, and he will receive you joyfully. Go to church, pay your debts, and show that you are a good man of Wessex.”

  “I’m not a West Saxon,” I snarled at him. “I’m a Northumbrian!”

  And that was part of the problem. I was an outsider. I spoke a different English. The men of Wessex were tied by family, and I came from the strange north and folk believed I was a pagan, and they called me a murderer because of Oswald’s death, and sometimes, when I rode about the estate, men would make the sign of the cross to avert the evil they saw in me. They called me Uhtredærwe, which means Uhtred the Wicked, and I was not unhappy with the insult, but Mildrith was. She assured them I was a Christian, but she lied, and our unhappiness festered all that summer. She prayed for my soul, I fretted for my freedom, and when she begged me to go with her to the church at Exanmynster I growled at her that I would never set foot in another church all my days. She would weep when I said that and her tears drove me out of the house to hunt, and sometimes the chase would take me down to the water’s edge where I would stare at Heahengel.

  She lay canted on the muddy foreshore, lifted and dropped repeatedly by the tides, abandoned. She was one of Alfred’s fleet, one of the twelve large warships he had built to harry the Danish boats that raided Wessex’s coast, and Leofric and I had brought Heahengel up from Hamtun in pursuit of Guthrum’s fleet and we had survived the storm that sent so many Danes to their deaths and we had beached Heahengel here, left her mastless and without a sail, and she was still on the Uisc’s foreshore, rotting and apparently forgotten.

  Archangel. That was what her name meant. Alfred had named her and I had always hated the name. A ship should have a proud name, not a sniveling religious word, and she should have a beast on her prow, high and defiant, a dragon’s head to challenge the sea or a snarling wolf to terrify an enemy. I sometimes climbed on board Heahengel and saw how the local villagers had plundered some of her upper strakes, and how there was water in her belly, and I remembered her proud days at sea and the wind whipping through her seal-hide rigging and the crash as we had rammed a Danish boat.

  Now, like me, Heahengel had been left to decay, and sometimes I dreamed of repairing her, of finding new rigging and a new sail, of finding men and taking her long hull to sea. I wanted to be anywhere but where I was, I wanted to be with the Danes, and every time I said that Mildrith would weep again. “You can’t make me live among the Danes!”

  “Why not? I did.”

  “They’re pagans! My son won’t grow up a pagan!”

  “He’s my son, too,” I said, “and he will worship the gods I worship.” There would be more tears then, and I would storm out of the house and take the hounds up to the high woods and wonder why love soured like milk. After Cynuit I had so wanted to see Mildrith, yet now I could not abide her misery and piety and she could not endure my anger. All she wanted me to do was till my fields, milk my cows, and gather my harvest to pay the great debt she had brought me in marriage. That debt came from a pledge made by Mildrith’s father, a pledge to give the church the yield of almost half his land.
That pledge was for all time, binding on his heirs, but Danish raids and bad harvests had ruined him. Yet the church, venomous as serpents, still insisted that the debt be paid, and said that if I could not pay then our land would be taken by monks, and every time I went to Exanceaster I could sense the priests and monks watching me and enjoying the prospect of their enrichment. Exanceaster was English again for Guthrum had handed over the hostages and gone north so that peace of a sort had come to Wessex. The fyrds, the armies of each shire, had been disbanded and sent back to their farms. Psalms were being sung in all the churches and Alfred, to mark his victory, was sending gifts to every monastery and nunnery. Odda the Younger, who was being celebrated as the champion of Wessex, had been given all the land about the place where the battle had been fought at Cynuit and he had ordered a church to be built there, and it was rumored that the church would have an altar of gold as thanks to God for allowing Wessex to survive.

  Though how long would it survive? Guthrum lived and I did not share the Christian belief that God had sent Wessex peace. Nor was I the only one, for in midsummer Alfred returned to Exanceaster where he summoned his witan, a council of the kingdom’s leading thegns and churchmen, and Wulfhere of Wiltunscir was one of the men summoned and I went into the city one evening and was told the ealdorman and his followers had lodgings in The Swan, a tavern by the east gate. He was not there, but Æthelwold, Alfred’s nephew, was doing his best to drain the tavern of ale. “Don’t tell me the bastard summoned you to the witan?” he greeted me sourly. The “bastard” was Alfred who had snatched the throne from the young Æthelwold.

  “No,” I said. “I came to see Wulfhere.”

  “The ealdorman is in church,” Æthelwold said, “and I am not.” He grinned and waved to the bench opposite him. “Sit and drink. Get drunk. Then we’ll find two girls. Three, if you like. Four, if you want?”

  “You forget I’m married,” I said.

  “As if that ever stopped anyone.”

  I sat and one of the maids brought me ale. “Are you in the witan?” I asked Æthelwold.

  “What do you think? You think that bastard wants my advice? ‘Lord king,’ I’d say, ‘why don’t you jump off a high cliff and pray that God gives you wings.’” He pushed a plate of pork ribs toward me. “I’m here so they can keep an eye on me. They’re making sure I’m not plotting treason.”

  “Are you?”

  “Of course I am.” He grinned. “Are you going to join me? You do owe me a favor.”

  “You want my sword at your service?” I asked.

  “Yes.” He was serious.

  “So it’s you and me,” I said, “against all Wessex. Who else will fight with us?”

  He frowned, thinking, but came up with no names. He stared down at the table and I felt sorry for him. I had always liked Æthelwold, but no one would ever trust him for he was as careless as he was irresponsible. Alfred, I thought, had judged him right. Let him be free and he would drink and whore himself into irrelevance. “What I should do,” he said, “is go and join Guthrum.”

  “Why don’t you?”

  He looked up at me, but had no answer. Maybe he knew the answer, that Guthrum would welcome him, honor him, use him, and eventually kill him. But maybe that was a better prospect than his present life. He shrugged and leaned back, pushing hair off his face. He was a startlingly handsome young man, and that, too, distracted him for girls were attracted to him like priests to gold. “What Wulfhere thinks,” he said, his voice slurring slightly, “is that Guthrum is going to come and kill us all.”

  “Probably,” I said.

  “And if my uncle dies,” he said, not bothering to lower his voice even though there were a score of men in the tavern, “his son is much too young to be king.”

  “True.”

  “So it’ll be my turn!” He smiled.

  “Or Guthrum’s turn,” I said.

  “So drink, my friend,” he said, “because we’re all in the cesspit.” He grinned at me, his charm suddenly evident. “So if you won’t fight for me,” he asked, “how do you propose to pay back the favor?”

  “How would you like it paid?”

  “You could kill Abbot Hewald? Very nastily? Slowly?”

  “I could do that,” I said. Hewald was abbot at Winburnan and famous for the harshness with which he taught boys to read.

  “On the other hand,” Æthelwold went on, “I’d like to kill that scrawny bastard myself, so don’t do it for me. I’ll think of something that won’t make my uncle happy. You don’t like him, do you?”

  “No.”

  “Then we’ll brew up some mischief. Oh God.” This last imprecation was because Wulfhere’s voice was suddenly loud just outside the door. “He’s angry at me.”

  “Why?”

  “One of the dairy maids is pregnant. I think he wanted to do it himself, but I churned her first.” He drained his ale. “I’m going to the Three Bells. Want to come?”

  “I have to speak to Wulfhere.”

  Æthelwold left by the back door as the ealdorman ducked through the front. Wulfhere was accompanied by a dozen thegns, but he saw me and crossed the room. “They’ve been reconsecrating the bishop’s church,” he grumbled. “Hours upon damned hours! Nothing but chanting and prayers, hours of prayers just to get the taint of the Danes out of the place.” He sat heavily. “Did I see Æthelwold here?”

  “Yes.”

  “Wanted you to join his rebellion, did he?”

  “Yes.”

  “Damned fool. So why are you here? Come to offer me your sword?” He meant swear my allegiance to him and so become his warrior.

  “I want to see one of the hostages,” I said, “so I seek your permission.”

  “Hostages.” He sat down opposite me and snapped his fingers for ale. “Damned hostages. I’ve had to make new buildings to house them. And who pays for that?”

  “You do?”

  “Of course I do. And I’m supposed to feed them, too? Feed them? Guard them? Wall them in? And does Alfred pay anything?”

  “Tell him you’re building a monastery,” I suggested.

  He looked at me as if I was mad, then saw the jest and laughed. “True enough, he’d pay me then, wouldn’t he? Have you heard about the monastery they’re building at Cynuit?”

  “I hear it’s to have an altar of gold.”

  He laughed again. “That’s what I hear. I don’t believe it, but I hear it.” He watched one of the tavern girls cross the floor. “It’s not my permission you need to see the hostages,” he said, “but Alfred’s, and he won’t give it to you.”

  “Alfred’s permission?” I asked.

  “They’re not just hostages,” he said, “but prisoners. I have to wall them in and watch them day and night. Alfred’s orders. He might think God brought us peace, but he’s made damn sure he’s got high-born hostages. Six earls! You know how many retainers they have? How many women? How many mouths to feed?”

  “If I go to Wiltunscir,” I said, “can I see Earl Ragnar?”

  Wulfhere frowned at me. “Earl Ragnar? The noisy one? I like him. No, lad, you can’t, because no one’s allowed to see them except a damned priest who talks their language. Alfred sent him and he’s trying to make them into Christians, and if you go without my permission then Alfred will hear you’ve been there and he’ll want an explanation from me. No one can see the poor bastards.” He paused to scratch at a louse under his collar. “I have to feed the priest, too, and Alfred doesn’t pay for that, either. He doesn’t even pay me to feed that lout Æthelwold!”

  “When I was a hostage in Werham,” I explained, “Earl Ragnar saved my life. Guthrum killed the others, but Ragnar guarded me. He said they’d have to kill him before they killed me.”

  “And he looks like a hard man to kill,” Wulfhere said, “but if Guthrum attacks Wessex that’s what I’m supposed to do. Kill the lot of them. Maybe not the women.” He stared gloomily into the tavern’s yard where a group of his men were playing dice in the moonli
ght. “And Guthrum will attack,” he added in a low voice.

  “That’s not what I hear.”

  He looked at me suspiciously “And what do you hear, young man?”

  “That God has sent us peace.”

  Wulfhere laughed at my mockery. “Guthrum’s in Gleawecestre,” he said, “and that’s just a half day’s march from our frontier. And they say more Danish ships arrive every day. They’re in Lundene, they’re in the Humber, they’re in the Gewæsc.” He scowled. “More ships, more men, and Alfred’s building churches! And there’s this fellow Svein.”

  “Svein?”

  “Brought his ships from Ireland. Bastard’s in Wales now, but he won’t stay there, will he? He’ll come to Wessex. And they say more Danes are joining him from Ireland.” He brooded on this bad news. I did not know whether it was true, for such rumors were ever current, but Wulfhere plainly believed it. “We should march on Gleawecestre,” he said, “and slaughter the lot of them before they slaughter us, but we’ve got a kingdom ruled by priests.”

  That was true, I thought, just as it was certain that Wulfhere would not make it easy for me to see Ragnar. “Will you give a message to Ragnar?” I asked.

  “How? I don’t speak Danish. I could ask the priest, but he’ll tell Alfred.”

  “Does Ragnar have a woman with him?” I asked.

  “They all do.”

  “A thin girl,” I said, “black hair. Face like a hawk.”

  He nodded cautiously. “Sounds right. Has a dog, yes?”

  “She has a dog,” I said, “and its name is Nihtgenga.”

  He shrugged as if he did not care what the dog was called. Then he understood the significance of the name. “An English name?” he asked. “A Danish girl calls her dog Goblin?”

  “She isn’t Danish,” I said. “Her name is Brida, and she’s a Saxon.”

  He stared at me, then laughed. “The cunning little bitch. She’s been listening to us, hasn’t she?”