I had reached the back of the big tent and was hiding beside a great stack of firewood and, judging by the stink, was close to a latrine. I crouched and saw a man kneeling in the open space between the woodpile and the big tent and it was that man who was sobbing. He was also praying and sometimes beating his chest with his fists. I was astonished, even alarmed by what he did, but I lay on my belly like a snake and wriggled in the shadows to get closer to see what else he might do.
He groaned as if in pain, raised his hands to the sky, then bent forward as if worshipping the earth. ‘Spare me, God,’ I heard him say, ‘spare me. I am a sinner.’ He vomited then, though he did not sound drunk, and after he had spewed up he moaned. I sensed he was a young man, then a flap of the tent lifted and a wash of candlelight spilled across the grass. I froze, still as a log, and saw that it was indeed a young man who was so miserable, and then also saw, to my astonishment, that the person who had lifted the tent flap was Father Beocca. I had thought it a coincidence that there should be two priests with that name, but it was no coincidence at all. It was indeed red-haired, cross-eyed Beocca and he was here, in Mercia.
‘My lord,’ Beocca said, dropping the flap and casting darkness over the young man.
‘I am a sinner, father,’ the man said. He had stopped sobbing, perhaps because he did not want Beocca to see such evidence of weakness, but his voice was full of sadness. ‘I am a grievous sinner.’
‘We are all sinners, my lord.’
‘A grievous sinner,’ the young man repeated, ignoring Beocca’s solace. ‘And I am married!’
‘Salvation lies in remorse, my lord.’
‘Then, God knows, I should be redeemed, for my remorse would fill the sky.’ He lifted his head to stare at the stars. ‘The flesh, father,’ he groaned, ‘the flesh.’
Beocca walked towards me, stopped and turned. He was almost close enough for me to touch, but he had no idea I was there. ‘God sends temptation to test us, my lord,’ he said quietly.
‘He sends women to test us,’ the young man said harshly, ‘and we fail, and then he sends the Danes to punish us for our failure.’
‘His way is hard,’ Beocca said, ‘and no one has ever doubted it.’
The young man, still kneeling, bowed his head. ‘I should never have married, father. I should have joined the church. Gone to a monastery.’
‘And God would have found a great servant in you, my lord, but he had other plans for you. If your brother dies …’
‘Pray God he does not! What sort of king would I be?’
‘God’s king, my lord.’
So that, I thought, was Alfred. That was the very first time I ever saw him or heard his voice and he never knew. I lay in the grass, listening, as Beocca consoled the prince for yielding to temptation. It seemed Alfred had humped a servant girl and, immediately afterwards, had been overcome by physical pain and what he called spiritual torment.
‘What you must do, my lord,’ Beocca said, ‘is bring the girl into your service.’
‘No!’ Alfred protested.
A harp began to play in the tent and both men checked to listen, then Beocca crouched by the unhappy prince and put a hand on his shoulder. ‘Bring the girl into your service,’ Beocca repeated, ‘and resist her. Lay that tribute before God, let him see your strength, and he will reward you. Thank God for tempting you, lord, and praise him when you resist the temptation.’
‘God will kill me,’ Alfred said bitterly. ‘I swore I wouldn’t do it again. Not after Osferth.’ Osferth? The name meant nothing to me. Later, much later, I discovered Osferth was Alfred’s bastard son, whelped on another servant girl. ‘I prayed to be spared the temptation,’ Alfred went on, ‘and to be afflicted with pain as a reminder, and as a distraction, and God in his mercy made me sick, but still I yielded. I am the most miserable of sinners.’
‘We are all sinners,’ Beocca said, his good hand still on Alfred’s shoulder, ‘and we are all fallen short of the glory of God.’
‘None has fallen as far as me,’ Alfred moaned.
‘God sees your remorse,’ Beocca said, ‘and he will lift you up. Welcome the temptation, lord,’ he went on urgently, ‘welcome it, resist it, and give thanks to God when you succeed. And God will reward you, lord, he will reward you.’
‘By removing the Danes?’ Alfred asked bitterly.
‘He will, my lord, he will.’
‘But not by waiting,’ Alfred said, and now there was a sudden hardness in his voice that made Beocca draw away from him. Alfred stood, towering over the priest. ‘We should attack them!’
‘Burghred knows his business,’ Beocca said soothingly, ‘and so does your brother. The pagans will starve, my lord, if that is God’s will.’
So I had my answer, and it was that the English were not planning an assault, but rather hoped to starve Snotengaham into surrender. I dared not carry that answer straight back to the town, not while Beocca and Alfred were so close to me, and so I stayed and listened as Beocca prayed with the prince and then, when Alfred was calm, the two moved back to the tent and went inside.
And I went back. It took a long time, but no one saw me. I was a true sceadugengan that night, moving among the shadows like a spectre, climbing the hill to the town until I could run the last hundred paces and I called Ragnar’s name and the gate creaked open and I was back in Snotengaham.
Ragnar took me to see Ubba when the sun rose and, to my surprise, Weland was there, Weland the snake, and he gave me a sour look, though not so sour as the scowl on Ubba’s dark face. ‘So what did you do?’ he growled.
‘I saw no ladders …’ I began.
‘What did you do?’ Ubba snarled, and so I told my tale from the beginning, how I had crossed the fields and had thought I was being followed, and had dodged like a hare, then gone through the barricade and spoken to the sentry. Ubba stopped me there and looked at Weland. ‘Well?’
Weland nodded. ‘I saw him through the barricade, lord, heard him speak to a man.’
So Weland had followed me? I looked at Ragnar who shrugged. ‘My lord Ubba wanted a second man to go,’ he explained, ‘and Weland offered.’
Weland gave me a smile, the kind of smile the devil might give a bishop entering hell. ‘I could not get through the barrier, lord,’ he told Ubba.
‘But you saw the boy go through?’
‘And heard him speak to the sentry, lord, though what he said I could not tell.’
‘Did you see ladders?’ Ubba asked Weland.
‘No, lord, but I only skirted the fence.’
Ubba stared at Weland, making him uncomfortable, then transferred his dark eyes to me and made me uncomfortable. ‘So you got through the barrier,’ he said, ‘so what did you see?’ I told him how I had found the large tent, and of the conversation I had overheard, how Alfred had wept because he had sinned, and how he had wanted to attack the town and how the priest had said that God would starve the Danes if that was his will, and Ubba believed me because he reckoned a boy could not make up the story of the servant girl and the prince.
Besides, I was amused, and it showed. Alfred, I thought, was a pious weakling, a weeping penitent, a pathetic nothing, and even Ubba smiled as I described the sobbing prince and the earnest priest. ‘So,’ Ubba asked me, ‘no ladders?’
‘I saw none, lord.’
He stared at me with that fearsomely bearded face and then, to my astonishment, he took off one of his arm rings and tossed it to me. ‘You’re right,’ he told Ragnar, ‘he is a Dane.’
‘He’s a good boy,’ Ragnar