‘The curse of death,’ she said, just above a whisper.
‘What is she saying?’ Alfred asked.
‘She is reputed to be a sorceress, lord,’ I said, ‘and claims to have cursed me.’
Alfred and most of the churchmen touched the crosses hanging about their necks. It is a strange thing I have noticed about Christians, that they claim our gods have no power yet they fear the curses made in the names of those gods. ‘How did you capture her?’ Alfred asked.
I gave a brief account of what had happened at Edwulf’s hall and when I was done Alfred looked at her coldly. ‘Did she kill Edwulf’s priest?’ he asked.
‘Did you kill Edwulf’s priest, bitch?’ I asked her in Danish.
She smiled at me. ‘Of course I did,’ she said, ‘I kill all priests.’
‘She killed the priest, lord,’ I told Alfred.
He shuddered. ‘Take her outside,’ he ordered Steapa, ‘and guard her well.’ He held up a hand. ‘She is not to be molested!’ He waited till Skade was gone before looking at me. ‘You’re welcome, Lord Uhtred,’ he said, ‘you and your men. But I had hoped you would bring more.’
‘I brought enough, lord King,’ I said.
‘Enough for what?’ Bishop Asser asked.
I looked at the runt. He was a bishop, but still wore his monkish robes cinched tight around his scrawny waist. He had a face like a starved stoat, with pale green eyes and thin lips. He spent half his time in the wastelands of his native Wales, and half whispering pious poison into Alfred’s ears, and together the two men had made a law code for Wessex, and it was my amusement and ambition to break every one of those laws before either the king or the Welsh runt died. ‘Enough,’ I said, ‘to tear Harald and his men into bloody ruin.’
Æthelflæd smiled at that. She alone of Alfred’s family was my friend. I had not seen her in four years and she looked much thinner now. She was only a year or two above twenty, but appeared older and sadder, yet her hair was still lustrous gold and her eyes as blue as the summer sky. I winked at her, as much as anything to annoy her husband, my cousin, who immediately rose to the bait and snorted. ‘If Harald were that easy to destroy,’ Æthelred said, ‘we would have done it already.’
‘How?’ I asked, ‘by watching him from the hills?’ Æthelred grimaced. Normally he would have argued with me, because he was a belligerent and proud man, but he looked pale. He had an illness, no one knew what, and it left him tired and weak for long stretches. He was perhaps forty in that year, and his red hair had strands of white at his temples. This, I guessed, was one of his bad days. ‘Harald should have been killed weeks ago,’ I taunted him scornfully.
‘Enough!’ Alfred slapped the arm of his chair, startling a leather-hooded falcon that was perched on a lectern beside the altar. The bird flapped his wings, but the jesses held him firm. Alfred grimaced. His face told me what I well knew, that he needed me and did not want to need me. ‘We could not attack Harald,’ he explained patiently, ‘so long as Haesten threatened our northern flank.’
‘Haesten couldn’t threaten a wet puppy,’ I said, ‘he’s too frightened of defeat.’
I was arrogant that day, arrogant and confident, because there are times when men need to see arrogance. These men had spent days arguing about what to do, and in the end they had done nothing, and all that time they had been multiplying Harald’s forces in their minds until they were convinced he was invincible. Alfred, meanwhile, had deliberately refrained from seeking my help because he wanted to hand the reins of Wessex and Mercia to his son and to his son-in-law, which meant giving them reputations as leaders, but their leadership had failed, and so Alfred had sent for me. And now, because they needed it, I countered their fears with an arrogant assurance.
‘Harald has five thousand men,’ Ealdorman Æthelhelm of Wiltunscir said softly. Æthelhelm was a good man, but he too seemed infected by the timidity that had overtaken Alfred’s entourage. ‘He brought two hundred ships!’ he added.
‘If he has two thousand men, I’d be astonished,’ I said. ‘How many horses does he have?’ No one knew, or at least no one answered. Harald might well have brought as many as five thousand men, but his army consisted only of those who had horses.
‘However many men he has,’ Alfred said pointedly, ‘he must attack this burh to advance further into Wessex.’
That was a nonsense, of course. Harald could go north or south of Æscengum, but there was no future in arguing that with Alfred, who had a peculiar affection for the burh. ‘So you plan to defeat him here, lord?’ I asked instead.
‘I have nine hundred men here,’ he said, ‘and we have the burh’s garrison, and now your three hundred. Harald will break himself on these walls.’ I saw Æthelred, Æthelhelm and Ealdorman Æthelnoth of Sumorsæte all nod their agreement.
‘And I have five hundred men at Silcestre,’ Æthelred said, as though that made all the difference.
‘And what are they doing there?’ I asked, ‘pissing in the Temes while we fight?’
Æthelflæd grinned, while her brother Edward looked affronted. Dear Father Beocca, who had been my childhood tutor, gave me a long-suffering look of reproof. Alfred just sighed. ‘Lord Æthelred’s men can harry the enemy while they besiege us,’ he explained.
‘So our victory, lord,’ I said, ‘depends on Harald attacking us here? On Harald allowing us to kill his men while they try to cross the wall?’ Alfred did not answer. A pair of sparrows squabbled among the rafters. A thick beeswax candle on the altar behind Alfred guttered and smoked and a monk hurried to trim the wick. The flame grew again, its light reflected from a high golden reliquary that seemed to contain a withered hand.
‘Harald will want to defeat us.’ Edward made his first tentative contribution to the discussion.
‘Why?’ I asked, ‘when we’re doing our best to defeat ourselves?’ There was an aggrieved murmur from the courtiers, but I overrode it. ‘Let me tell you what Harald will do, lord,’ I said, speaking to Alfred. ‘He’ll take his army north of us and advance on Wintanceaster. There’s a lot of silver there, all conveniently piled in your new cathedral, and you’ve brought your army here so he won’t have much trouble breaking through Wintanceaster’s walls. And even if he does besiege us here,’ I spoke even louder to drown Bishop Asser’s angry protest, ‘all he needs do is surround us and let us starve. How much food do we have here?’
The king gestured to Asser, requesting that he stop spluttering. ‘So what would you do, Lord Uhtred?’ Alfred asked, and there was a plaintive note in his voice. He was old and he was tired and he was ill, and Harald’s invasion seemed to threaten all that he had achieved.
‘I would suggest, lord,’ I said, ‘that Lord Æthelred order his five hundred men to cross the Temes and march to Fearnhamme.’
A hound whined in a corner of the church, but otherwise there was no sound. They all stared at me, but I saw some faces brighten. They had been wallowing with indecision and had needed the sword stroke of certainty.
Alfred broke the silence. ‘Fearnhamme?’ he asked cautiously.
‘Fearnhamme,’ I repeated, watching Æthelred, but his pale face displayed no reaction, and no one else in the church made any comment.
I had been thinking about the country to the north of Æscengum. War is not just about men, nor even about supplies, it is also about the hills and valleys, the rivers and marshes, the places where land and water will help defeat an enemy. I had travelled through Fearnhamme often enough on my journeys from Lundene to Wintanceaster, and wherever I travelled I noted how the land lay and how it might be used if an enemy was near. ‘There’s a hill just north of the river at Fearnhamme,’