‘A church on wheels?’ I asked sourly.
‘He can’t ride any more,’ Steapa told me gloomily.
Steapa was the commander of the royal bodyguard. He was a huge man, one of the few who were taller than me, and unremittingly fierce in battle. He was also unremittingly loyal to King Alfred. Steapa and I were friends, though we had started as enemies when I had been forced to fight him. It had been like attacking a mountain. Yet the two of us had survived that meeting, and there was no man I would rather have stood beside in a shield wall. ‘He can’t ride at all?’ I asked.
‘He does sometimes,’ Steapa said, ‘but it hurts too much. He can hardly walk.’
‘How many oxen drag this thing?’ I asked, gesturing at the wagon.
‘Six. He doesn’t like it, but he has to use it.’
We were in Æscengum, the burh built to protect Wintanceaster from the east. It was a small burh, nothing like the size of Wintanceaster or Lundene, and it protected a ford which crossed the River Wey, though why the ford needed protection was a mystery because the river could be easily crossed both north and south of Æscengum. Indeed, the town guarded nothing of importance, which was why I had argued against its fortification. Yet Alfred had insisted on making Æscengum into a burh because, years before, some half-crazed Christian mystic had supposedly restored a raped girl’s virginity at the place, and so it was a hallowed spot. Alfred had ordered a monastery built there, and Steapa told me the king was waiting in its church. ‘They’re talking,’ he said bleakly, ‘but none of them knows what to do.’
‘I thought you were waiting for Harald to attack you here?’
‘I told them he wouldn’t,’ Steapa said, ‘but what happens if he doesn’t?’
‘We find Harald and kill the earsling, of course,’ I said, gazing east to where new smoke pyres betrayed where Harald’s men were plundering new villages.
Steapa gestured at Skade. ‘Who’s she?’
‘Harald’s whore,’ I said, loud enough for Skade to hear, though her face showed no change from her customary haughty expression. ‘She tortured a man called Edwulf,’ I explained, ‘trying to get him to reveal where he’d buried his gold.’
‘I know Edwulf,’ Steapa said, ‘he eats and drinks his gold.’
‘He did,’ I said, ‘but he’s dead now.’ Edwulf had died before we left his estate.
Steapa held out a hand to take my swords. The monastery was serving this day as Alfred’s hall, and no one except the king, his relatives and his guards could carry a weapon in the royal presence. I surrendered Serpent-Breath and Wasp-Sting, then dipped my hands in a bowl of water offered by a servant. ‘Welcome to the king’s house, lord,’ the servant said in formal greeting, then watched as I looped the rope about Skade’s neck.
She spat in my face and I grinned. ‘Time to meet the king, Skade,’ I said, ‘spit at him and he’ll hang you.’
‘I will curse you both,’ she said.
Finan alone accompanied Steapa, Skade and I into the monastery. The rest of my men took their horses through the western gate to water them in a stream while Steapa led us to the abbey church, a fine stone building with heavy oak roof beams. The high windows lit painted leather hides, and the one above the altar showed a white-robed girl being raised to her feet by a bearded and haloed man. The girl’s apple-plump face bore a look of pure astonishment, and I assumed she was the newly-restored virgin, while the man’s expression suggested she might soon need the miracle repeated. Beneath her, seated on a rug-draped chair placed in front of the silver-piled altar, was Alfred.
A score of other men were in the church. They had been talking as we arrived, but the voices dropped to silence as I entered. On Alfred’s left was a gaggle of churchmen, among whom were my old friend Father Beocca and my old enemy Bishop Asser, a Welshman who had become the king’s most intimate adviser. In the nave of the church, seated on benches, were a half-dozen ealdormen, the leaders of those shires whose men had been summoned to join the army that faced Harald’s invasion. To Alfred’s right, seated on a slightly smaller chair, was his son-in-law, my cousin Æthelred, and behind him was his wife, Alfred’s daughter, Æthelflæd.
Æthelred was the Lord of Mercia. Mercia, of course, was the country to the north of Wessex, and its northern and eastern parts were ruled by the Danes. It had no king, instead it had my cousin, who was the acknowledged ruler of the Saxon parts of Mercia, though in truth he was in thrall to Alfred. Alfred, though he never made the claim explicit, was the actual ruler of Mercia, and Æthelred did his father-in-law’s bidding. Though how long that bidding could continue was dubious, for Alfred looked sicker than I had ever seen him. His pale, clerkly face was thinner than ever and his eyes had a bruised look of pain, though they had lost none of their intelligence.
He looked at me in silence, waited till I had bowed, then nodded a curt greeting. ‘You bring men, Lord Uhtred?’
‘Three hundred, lord.’
‘Is that all?’ Alfred asked, flinching.
‘Unless you wish to lose Lundene, lord, it’s all.’
‘And you bring your woman?’ Bishop Asser sneered.
Bishop Asser was an earsling, which is anything that drops out of an arse. He had dropped out of some Welsh arse, from where he had slimed his way into Alfred’s favour. Alfred thought the world of Asser who, in turn, hated me. I smiled at him. ‘I bring you Harald’s whore,’ I said.
No one answered that. They all just stared at Skade, and none stared harder than the young man standing just behind Alfred’s throne. He had a thin face with prominent bones, pale skin, black hair that curled just above his embroidered collar, and eyes that were quick and bright. He seemed nervous, overawed perhaps by the presence of so many broad-shouldered warriors, while he himself was slender, almost fragile, in his build. I knew him well enough. His name was Edward, and he was the Ætheling, the king’s eldest son, and he was being groomed to take his father’s throne. Now he was gaping at Skade as though he had never seen a woman before, but when she met his gaze he blushed and pretended to take a keen interest in the rush-covered floor.
‘You brought what?’ Bishop Asser broke the surprised silence.
‘Her name is Skade,’ I said, thrusting her forward. Edward raised his eyes and stared at Skade like a puppy seeing fresh meat.
‘Bow to the king,’ I ordered Skade in Danish.
‘I do what I wish,’ she said and, just as I supposed she would, she spat towards Alfred.
‘Strike her!’ Bishop Asser yapped.
‘Do churchmen strike women?’ I asked him.
‘Be quiet, Lord Uhtred,’ Alfred said tiredly. I saw how his right hand was curled into a claw that clutched the arm of the chair. He gazed at Skade, who returned the stare defiantly. ‘A remarkable woman,’ the king said mildly, ‘does she speak English?’
‘She