‘He’s a king,’ I said, ‘he should be ruthless.’
‘Ruthless, generous, pious, boring, that’s Alfred,’ Leofric spoke gloomily. ‘When he was a child his father gave him toy warriors. You know, carved out of wood? Just little things. He used to line them up and there wasn’t one out of place, not one, and not even a speck of dust on any of them!’ He seemed to find that appalling, for he scowled. ‘Then when he was fifteen or so he went wild for a time. Humped every slave girl in the palace, and I’ve no doubt he lined them up too and made sure they didn’t have any dust before he rammed them.’
‘He had a bastard too, I hear,’ I said.
‘Osferth,’ Leofric said, surprising me with his knowledge, ‘hidden away in Winburnan. Poor little bastard must be six, seven years old now? You’re not supposed to know he exists.’
‘Nor are you.’
‘It was my sister he whelped him on,’ Leofric said, then saw my surprise. ‘I’m not the only good-looking one in my family, Earsling.’ He poured more ale. ‘Eadgyth was a palace servant and Alfred claimed to love her.’ He sneered, then shrugged. ‘But he looks after her now. Gives her money, sends priests to preach to her. His wife knows all about the poor little bastard, but won’t let Alfred go near him.’
‘I hate Ælswith,’ I said.
‘A bitch from hell,’ he agreed happily.
‘And I like the Danes,’ I said.
‘You do? So why do you kill them?’
‘I like them,’ I said, ignoring his question, ‘because they’re not frightened of life.’
‘They’re not Christians, you mean.’
‘They’re not Christians,’ I agreed. ‘Are you?’
Leofric thought for a few heartbeats. ‘I suppose so,’ he said grudgingly, ‘but you’re not, are you?’ I shook my head, showed him Thor’s hammer and he laughed. ‘So what will you do, Earsling,’ he asked me, ‘if you go back to the pagans? Other than follow your bloodfeud?’
That was a good question and I thought about it as much as the ale allowed me. ‘I’d serve a man called Ragnar,’ I said, ‘as I served his father.’
‘So why did you leave his father?’
‘Because he was killed.’
Leofric frowned. ‘So you can stay there so long as your Danish lord lives, is that right? And without a lord you’re nothing?’
‘I’m nothing,’ I admitted. ‘But I want to be in Northumbria to take back my father’s fortress.’
‘Ragnar will do that for you?’
‘He might do. His father would have done, I think.’
‘And if you get back your fortress,’ he asked, ‘will you be lord of it? Lord of your own land? Or will the Danes rule you?’
‘The Danes will rule.’
‘So you settle to be a slave, eh? Yes, lord, no, lord, let me hold your prick while you piss all over me, lord?’
‘And what happens if I stay here?’ I asked sourly.
‘You’ll lead men,’ he said.
I laughed at that. ‘Alfred has lords enough to serve him.’
Leofric shook his head. ‘He doesn’t. He has some good warlords, true, but he needs more. I told him, that day on the boat when he let the bastards escape, I told him to send me ashore and give me men. He refused.’ He beat the table with a massive fist. ‘I told him I’m a proper warrior, but still the bastard refused me!’
So that, I thought, was what the argument had been about. ‘Why did he refuse you?’ I asked.
‘Because I can’t read,’ Leofric snarled, ‘and I’m not learning now! I tried once, and it makes no damn sense to me. And I’m not a lord, am I? Not even a thegn. I’m just a slave’s son who happens to know how to kill the king’s enemies, but that’s not good enough for Alfred. He says I can assist,’ he said that word as if it soured his tongue, ‘one of his Ealdormen, but I can’t lead men because I can’t read, and I can’t learn to read.’
‘I can,’ I said, or the drink said.
‘You take a long time to understand things, Earsling,’ Leofric said with a grin. ‘You’re a damned lord, and you can read, can’t you?’
‘No, not really. A bit. Short words.’
‘But you can learn?’
I thought about it. ‘I can learn.’
‘And we have twelve ships’ crews,’ he said, ‘looking for employment, so we give them to Alfred and we say that Lord Earsling is their leader and he gives you a book and you read out the pretty words, then you and I take the bastards to war and do some proper damage to your beloved Danes.’
I did not say yes, nor did I say no, because I was not sure what I wanted. What worried me was that I found myself agreeing with whatever the last person suggested I did; when I had been with Ragnar I had wanted to follow him and now I was seduced by Leofric’s vision of the future. I had no certainty, so instead of saying yes or no I went back to the palace and I found Merewenna, and discovered she was indeed the maid who had caused Alfred’s tears on the night that I had eavesdropped on him in the Mercian camp outside Snotengaham, and I did know what I wanted to do with her, and I did not cry afterwards.
And next day, at Leofric’s urging, we rode to Cippanhamm.
I suppose, if you are reading this, that you have learned your letters, which probably means that some damned monk or priest rapped your knuckles, cuffed you around the head or worse. Not that they did that to me, of course, for I was no longer a child, but I endured their sniggers as I struggled with letters. It was mostly Beocca who taught me, complaining all the while that I was taking him from his real work which was the making of a life of Swithun, who had been Bishop of Wintanceaster when Alfred was a child, and Beocca was writing the bishop’s life. Another priest was translating the book into Latin, Beocca’s mastery of that tongue not being good enough for the task, and the pages were being sent to Rome in hopes that Swithun would be named a saint. Alfred took a great interest in the book, forever coming to Beocca’s room and asking whether he knew that Swithun had once preached the gospel to a trout or chanted a psalm to a seagull, and Beocca would write the stories in a state of great excitement, and then, when Alfred was gone, reluctantly return to whatever text he was forcing me to decipher. ‘Read it aloud,’ he would say, then protest wildly. ‘No, no, no! Forliðan is to suffer shipwreck! This is a life of Saint Paul, Uhtred, and the apostle suffered shipwreck! Not the word you read at all!’
I looked at it again. ‘It’s not forlegnis?’
‘Of course it’s not!’ he said, going red with indignation. ‘That word means …’ he paused, realising that he was not teaching me English, but how to read it.
‘Prostitute,’ I said, ‘I know what it means. I even know what they charge. There’s a redhead in Chad’s tavern who …’
‘Forliðan,’ he interrupted me, ‘the word is forliðan. Read on.’
Those weeks were strange. I was a warrior now, a man, yet in Beocca’s room it seemed I was a child again as I struggled with the black letters crawling across the cracked parchments. I learned from the lives of the saints, and in the end Beocca could not