I had not realised quite how important the proposed treaty was to Alfred until I returned to Buccingahamm and found sixteen monks eating my food and drinking my ale. The youngest of them were still unshaven striplings, while the oldest, their leader, was a corpulent man of about my own age. He was called Brother John, and was so fat that he had trouble offering me a bow. ‘He is from Frankia,’ Willibald said proudly.
‘What’s he doing here?’
‘He is the king’s songmaster! He leads the choir.’
‘A choir?’ I asked.
‘We sing,’ Brother John said in a voice that seemed to rumble from somewhere inside his capacious belly. He waved a peremptory hand at his monks and shouted at them, ‘The Soli Deo Gloria. Stand up! Breathe deep! Upon my word! A one! A two!’ They began chanting. ‘Mouths open!’ Brother John bellowed at them, ‘Mouths wide! Mouths wide as little birdies! From the stomach! Let me hear you!’
‘Enough!’ I shouted before they had finished their first line. I tossed my sheathed sword to Oswi, my servant, then went to warm myself by the hall’s central hearth. ‘Why,’ I asked Willibald, ‘must I feed singing monks?’
‘It’s important we make an impressive display,’ he answered, casting a dubious eye on my mud-spattered mail. ‘We represent Wessex, lord, and we must demonstrate the glory of Alfred’s court.’
Alfred had sent banners with the monks. One showed the dragon of Wessex, while others were embroidered with saints or holy images. ‘We’re taking those rags as well?’ I asked.
‘Of course,’ Willibald said.
‘I can take a banner showing Thor, perhaps? Or Woden?’
Willibald sighed. ‘Please lord, no.’
‘Why can’t we have a banner showing one of the women saints?’ I asked.
‘I’m sure we can,’ Willibald said, pleased at the suggestion, ‘if that’s what you’d like.’
‘One of those women who were stripped naked before they were killed,’ I added, and Father Willibald sighed again.
Sigunn brought me a horn of mulled ale and I gave her a kiss. ‘All well here?’ I asked her.
She looked at the monks and shrugged. I could see Willibald was curious about her, especially when I put an arm around her and drew her close. ‘She’s my woman,’ I explained.
‘But,’ he began and finished abruptly. He was thinking about Æthelflaed, but did not have the courage to name her.
I smiled at him. ‘You have a question, father?’
‘No, no,’ he said hurriedly.
I looked at the largest banner, a great gaudy square of cream linen emblazoned with an embroidery of the crucifixion. It was so large that it would need two men to parade it, and even more if the wind was blowing anything above a gentle breeze. ‘Does Eohric know we’re bringing an army?’ I asked Willibald.
‘He has been told to expect up to one hundred people.’
‘And does he expect Sigurd and Cnut too?’ I enquired acidly, and Willibald just stared at me with a vacant expression. ‘The Danes know about this treaty,’ I told him, ‘and they’ll try to prevent it.’
‘Prevent it? How?’
‘How do you think?’ I asked.
Willibald looked paler than ever. ‘King Eohric is sending men to escort us,’ he said.
‘He’s sending them here?’ I spoke angrily, thinking that I would be expected to feed even more men.
‘To Huntandon,’ Willibald said, ‘and from there they take us to Eleg.’
‘Why are we going to East Anglia?’ I asked.
‘To make the treaty, of course,’ Willibald said, puzzled by the question.
‘So why isn’t Eohric sending men to Wessex?’ I demanded.
‘Eohric did send men, lord! He sent Ceolberht and Ceolnoth. The treaty was King Eohric’s suggestion.’
‘Then why isn’t it being sealed and signed in Wessex?’ I persisted.
Willibald shrugged. ‘Does it matter, lord?’ he asked with a trace of impatience. ‘And we’re supposed to meet at Huntandon in three days,’ he went on, ‘and if the weather turns bad,’ he let his voice fade away.
I had heard of Huntandon, though I had never been there, and all I knew was that it lay somewhere beyond the vague frontier between Mercia and East Anglia. I gestured to the twins, Ceolberht and Ceolnoth, and they hurried over from the table where they had been sitting with the two priests sent with Willibald from Wessex. ‘If I were to ride straight to Eleg from here,’ I asked the twins, ‘what way would I go?’
They muttered together for a few seconds, then one of them suggested that the quickest route lay through Grantaceaster. ‘From there,’ the other one continued, ‘there’s a Roman road straight to the island.’
‘Island?’
‘Eleg is an island,’ a twin said.
‘In a marsh,’ the other added.
‘With a convent!’
‘Which was burned by the pagans.’
‘Though the church is now restored.’
‘Thanks be to God.’
‘The holy Æthelreda built the convent.’
‘And she was married to a Northumbrian,’ Ceolnoth or Ceolberht said, thinking to please me because I am a Northumbrian. I am the Lord of Bebbanburg, though in those days my vicious uncle lived in that great ocean fortress. He had stolen it from me and I planned to take it back.
‘And Huntandon,’ I asked, ‘lies on the road to Grantaceaster?’
The twins looked surprised at my ignorance. ‘Oh no, lord,’ one of them said, ‘Huntandon lies farther north.’
‘So why are we going there?’
‘King Eohric, lord,’ the other twin began, then faltered. It was plain that neither he nor his brother had thought about that question.
‘It’s as good a route as any,’ his brother said stoutly.
‘Better than Grantaceaster?’ I demanded.
‘Very nearly as good, lord,’ one of the twins said.
There are times when a man feels like a wild boar trapped in woodland, hearing the hunters, listening to the hounds baying, feeling the heart beat harder and wondering which way to flee, and not knowing because the sounds come from everywhere and nowhere. None of it was right. None of it. I summoned Sihtric who had once been my servant, but was now a house-warrior. ‘Find someone,’ I told him, ‘anyone, who knows Huntandon. Bring him here. I want him here by tomorrow.’
‘Where do I look?’ Sihtric asked.
‘How do I know? Go to the town. Talk to people in taverns.’
Sihtric, thin and sharp-faced, looked at me resentfully. ‘I’m to find someone in a tavern?’ he asked, as if the task were impossible.
‘A merchant,’ I shouted at him. ‘Find me someone who travels! And don’t get drunk. Find someone and bring them to me.’ Sihtric still looked sullen, perhaps because he was unwilling to go back into the cold outside. For a moment he looked like his father, Kjartan the Cruel, who had whelped Sihtric on a Saxon slave, but then, controlling his anger, he turned and walked away. Finan, who had noticed Sihtric’s truculence, relaxed. ‘Find me someone who knows how to get to Huntandon and to Grantaceaster