‘Only by obedience?’ I asked. I thought swords might help.
‘Only by obedience,’ Beocca said firmly, ‘and by faith. God will give us victory if we worship him with all our hearts, and if we mend our ways and give him the glory. And Alfred will do that! With him at our head the very hosts of heaven will come to our aid. Æthelwold can’t do that. He’s a lazy, arrogant, tiresome child.’ Beocca seized my hand and pulled me through the entourage of West Saxon and Mercian lords. ‘Now remember to kneel to him, boy, he is a prince.’ He led me to where Alfred was sitting and I duly knelt as Beocca introduced me. ‘This is the boy I spoke of, lord,’ he said, ‘he is the Ealdorman Uhtred of Northumbria, a prisoner of the Danes since Eoferwic fell, but a good boy.’
Alfred gave me an intense look which, to be honest, made me uncomfortable. I was to discover in time that he was a clever man, very clever, and thought twice as fast as most others, and he was also a serious man, so serious that he understood everything except jokes. Alfred took everything heavily, even a small boy, and his inspection of me was long and searching as if he tried to plumb the depths of my unfledged soul. ‘Are you a good boy?’ he finally asked me.
‘I try to be, lord,’ I said.
‘Look at me,’ he ordered, for I had lowered my eyes. He smiled when I met his gaze. There was no sign of the sickness he had complained of when I eavesdropped on him and I wondered if, after all, he had been drunk that night. It would have explained his pathetic words, but now he was all earnestness. ‘How do you try to be good?’ he asked.
‘I try to resist temptation, lord,’ I said, remembering Beocca’s words to him behind the tent.
‘That’s good,’ he said, ‘very good, and do you resist it?’
‘Not always,’ I said, then hesitated, tempted to mischief, and then, as ever, yielded to temptation. ‘But I try, lord,’ I said earnestly, ‘and I tell myself I should thank God for tempting me and I praise him when he gives me the strength to resist the temptation.’
Both Beocca and Alfred stared at me as if I had sprouted angel’s wings. I was only repeating the nonsense I had heard Beocca advise Alfred in the dark, but they thought it revealed my great holiness, and I encouraged them by trying to look meek, innocent and pious. ‘You are a sign from God, Uhtred,’ Alfred said fervently. ‘Do you say your prayers?’
‘Every day, lord,’ I said, and did not add that those prayers were addressed to Odin.
‘And what is that about your neck? A crucifix?’ He had seen the leather thong and, when I did not answer, he leaned forward and plucked out Thor’s hammer that had been hidden behind my shirt. ‘Dear God,’ he said, and made the sign of the cross. ‘And you wear those too,’ he added, grimacing at my two arm rings which were cut with Danish rune-letters. I must have looked a proper little heathen.
‘They make me wear them, lord,’ I said, and felt his impulse to tear the pagan symbol off the thong, ‘and beat me if I don’t,’ I added hastily.
‘Do they beat you often?’ he asked.
‘All the time, lord,’ I lied.
He shook his head sadly, then let the hammer fall. ‘A graven image,’ he said, ‘must be a heavy burden for a small boy.’
‘I was hoping, lord,’ Beocca intervened, ‘that we could ransom him.’
‘Us?’ Alfred asked, ‘ransom him?’
‘He is the true Ealdorman of Bebbanburg,’ Beocca explained, ‘though his uncle has taken the title, but the uncle will not fight the Danes.’
Alfred gazed at me, thinking, then frowned. ‘Can you read, Uhtred?’ he asked.
‘He has begun his lessons,’ Beocca answered for me. ‘I taught him, lord, though in all honesty he was ever a reluctant pupil. Not good with his letters, I fear. His thorns were prickly and his ashes spindly.’
I said that Alfred did not understand jokes, but he loved that one, even though it was feeble as watered milk and stale as old cheese. But it was beloved of all who taught reading, and both Beocca and Alfred laughed as though the jest were fresh as dew at sunrise. The thorn, ð and the ash, æ were two letters of our alphabet. ‘His thorns are prickly,’ Alfred echoed, almost incoherent with laughter, ‘and his ashes spindly. His b’s don’t buzz and his i’s,’ he stopped, suddenly embarrassed. He had been about to say my i’s were crossed, then he remembered Beocca and he looked contrite. ‘My dear Beocca.’
‘No offence, my lord, no offence.’ Beocca was still happy, as happy as when he was immersed in some tedious text about how Saint Cuthbert baptised puffins or preached the gospel to the seals. He had tried to make me read that stuff, but I had never got beyond the shortest words.
‘You are fortunate to have started your studies early,’ Alfred said to me, recovering his seriousness. ‘I was not given a chance to read until I was twelve years old!’ His tone suggested I should be shocked and surprised by this news so I dutifully looked appalled. ‘That was grievously wrong of my father and stepmother,’ Alfred went on sternly, ‘they should have started me much earlier.’
‘Yet now you read as well as any scholar, my lord,’ Beocca said.
‘I do try,’ Alfred said modestly, but he was plainly delighted with the compliment.
‘And in Latin too!’ Beocca said, ‘and his Latin is much better than mine!’
‘I think that’s true,’ Alfred said, giving the priest a smile.
‘And he writes a clear hand,’ Beocca told me, ‘such a clear, fine hand!’
‘As must you,’ Alfred told me firmly, ‘to which end, young Uhtred, we shall indeed offer to ransom you, and if God helps us in that endeavour then you shall serve in my household and the first thing you will do is become a master of reading and writing. You’ll like that!’
‘I will, lord,’ I said, meaning it to sound as a question, though it came out as dull agreement.
‘You will learn to read well,’ Alfred promised me, ‘and learn to pray well, and learn to be a good honest Christian, and when you are of age you can decide what to be!’
‘I will want to serve you, lord,’ I lied, thinking that he was a pale, boring, priest-ridden weakling.
‘That is commendable,’ he said, ‘and how will you serve me, do you think?’
‘As a soldier, lord, to fight the Danes.’
‘If God wishes it,’ he said, evidently disappointed in my answer, ‘and God knows we shall need soldiers, though I pray daily that the Danes will come to a knowledge of Christ and so discover their sins and be led to end their wicked ways. Prayer is the answer,’ he said vehemently, ‘prayer and fasting and obedience, and if God answers our prayers, Uhtred, then we shall need no soldiers, but a kingdom always has need of good priests. I wanted that office for myself, but God disposed otherwise. There is no higher calling than the priestly service. I might be a prince, but in God’s eyes I am a worm while Beocca is a jewel beyond price!’
‘Yes, lord,’ I said, for want of anything else to say. Beocca tried to look modest.
Alfred leaned forward, hid Thor’s hammer behind my shirt, then laid a hand on my head. ‘God’s blessing on you, child,’ he said, ‘and may his face shine upon you and release you from your thraldom and bring you into the blessed light of freedom.’
‘Amen,’ I said.
They let me go then and I went back to Ragnar. ‘Hit me,’ I said.
‘What?’