uncle will not fight the Danes.”
Alfred gazed at me, thinking, then frowned. “Can you read, Uhtred?” he asked.
“He has begun his lessons,” Beocca answered for me. “I taught him, lord, though in all honesty he was ever a reluctant pupil. Not good with his letters, I fear. His thorns were prickly and his ashes spindly.”
I said that Alfred did not understand jokes, but he loved that one, even though it was feeble as watered milk and stale as old cheese. But it was beloved of all who taught reading, and both Beocca and Alfred laughed as though the jest were fresh as dew at sunrise. The thorn, , and the ash,?, were two letters of our alphabet. “His thorns are prickly,” Alfred echoed, almost incoherent with laughter, “and his ashes spindly. Hisb ’s don’t buzz and hisi ’s—” He stopped, suddenly embarrassed. He had been about to say myi ’s were crossed, then he remembered Beocca and he looked contrite. “My dear Beocca.”
“No offense, my lord, no offense.” Beocca was still happy, as happy as when he was immersed in some tedious text about how Saint Cuthbert baptized puffins or preached the gospel to the seals. He had tried to make me read that stuff, but I had never got beyond the shortest words.
“You are fortunate to have started your studies early,” Alfred said to me, recovering his seriousness. “I was not given a chance to read until I was twelve years old!” His tone suggested I should be shocked and surprised by this news so I dutifully looked appalled. “That was grievously wrong of my father and stepmother,” Alfred went on sternly. “They should have started me much earlier.”
“Yet now you read as well as any scholar, my lord,” Beocca said.
“I do try,” Alfred said modestly, but he was plainly delighted with the compliment.
“And in Latin, too!” Beocca said. “And his Latin is much better than mine!”
“I think that’s true,” Alfred said, giving the priest a smile.
“And he writes a clear hand,” Beocca told me, “such a clear, fine hand!”
“As must you,” Alfred told me firmly, “to which end, young Uhtred, we shall indeed offer to ransom you, and if God helps us in that endeavor then you shall serve in my household and the first thing you will do is become a master of reading and writing. You’ll like that!”
“I will, lord,” I said, meaning it to sound as a question, though it came out as dull agreement.
“You will learn to read well,” Alfred promised me, “and learn to pray well, and learn to be a good honest Christian, and when you are of age you can decide what to be!”
“I will want to serve you, lord,” I lied, thinking that he was a pale, boring, priestridden weakling.
“That is commendable,” he said, “and how will you serve me, do you think?”
“As a soldier, lord, to fight the Danes.”
“If God wishes it,” he said, evidently disappointed in my answer, “and God knows we shall need soldiers, though I pray daily that the Danes will come to a knowledge of Christ and so discover their sins and be led to end their wicked ways. Prayer is the answer,” he said vehemently, “prayer and fasting and obedience, and if God answers our prayers, Uhtred, then we shall need no soldiers, but a kingdom always has need of good priests. I wanted that office for myself, but God disposed otherwise. There is no higher calling than the priestly service. I might be a prince, but in God’s eyes I am a worm while Beocca is a jewel beyond price!”
“Yes, lord,” I said, for want of anything else to say. Beocca tried to look modest. Alfred leaned forward, hid Thor’s hammer behind my shirt, then laid a hand on my head. “God’s blessing on you, child,” he said, “and may his face shine upon you and release you from your thralldom and bring you into the blessed light of freedom.”
“Amen,” I said.
They let me go then and I went back to Ragnar. “Hit me,” I said.
“What?”
“Thump me round the head.”
He glanced up and saw that Alfred was still watching me, so he cuffed me harder than I expected. I fell down, grinning. “So why did I just do that?” Ragnar asked.
“Because I said you were cruel to me,” I said, “and beat me constantly.” I knew that would amuse Ragnar and it did. He hit me again, just for luck. “So what did the bastards want?” he asked.
“They want to ransom me,” I said, “so they can teach me to read and write, and then make me into a priest.”
“A priest? Like the squinty little bastard with the red hair?”
“Just like him.”
Ragnar laughed. “Maybe I should ransom you. It would be a punishment for telling lies about me.”
“Please don’t,” I said fervently, and at that moment I wondered why I had ever wanted to go back to the English side. To exchange Ragnar’s freedom for Alfred’s earnest piety seemed a miserable fate to me. Besides, I was learning to despise the English. They would not fight, they prayed instead of sharpening their swords, and it was no wonder the Danes were taking their land. Alfred did offer to ransom me, but balked at Ragnar’s price that was ludicrously high, though not nearly so steep as the price Ivar and Ubba extracted from Burghred. Mercia was to be swallowed. Burghred had no fire in his big belly, no desire to go on fighting the Danes who got stronger as he grew weaker. Perhaps he was fooled by all those shields on Snotengaham’s walls, but he must have decided he could not beat the Danes and instead he surrendered. It was not just our forces in Snotengaham that persuaded him to do this. Other Danes were raiding across the Northumbrian border, ravaging Mercian lands, burning churches, slaughtering monks and nuns, and those horsemen were now close to Burghred’s army and were forever harassing his forage parties, and so Burghred, weary of unending defeat, weakly agreed to every outrageous demand, and in return he was allowed to stay as King of Mercia, but that was all. The Danes were to take his fortresses and garrison them, and they were free to take Mercian estates as they wished, and Burghred’s fyrd was to fight for the Danes if they demanded it, and Burghred, moreover, was to pay a vast price in silver for this privilege of losing his kingdom while keeping his throne. ?thelred and Alfred, having no part to play in the discussions, and seeing that their ally had collapsed like a pricked bladder, left on the second day, riding south with what remained of their army, and thus Mercia fell. First Northumbria, then Mercia. In just two years half of England was gone and the Danes were only just beginning.
We ravaged the land again. Bands of Danes rode into every part of Mercia and slaughtered whoever resisted, took whatever they wished, then garrisoned the principal fortresses before sending messages to Denmark for more ships to come: more ships, more men, more families, and more Danes to fill the great land that had fallen into their laps.
I had begun to think I would never fight for England because by the time I was old enough to fight there would be no England. So I decided I would be a Dane. Of course I was confused, but I did not spend much time worrying about my confusion. Instead, as I approached twelve years old, I began my proper education. I was made to stand for hours holding a sword and shield stretched out in front of me until my arms ached, I was taught the strokes of the blade, made to practice with throwing spears, and given a pig to slaughter with a war spear. I learned to fend with a shield, how to drop it to stop the lunge beneath the rim, and how to shove the heavy shield boss into an enemy’s face to smash his nose and blind him with tears. I learned to pull an oar. I grew, put on muscle, began to speak in a man’s voice, and was slapped by my first girl. I looked like a Dane. Strangers still mistook me for Ragnar’s son for I had the same fair hair that I wore long and tied with a strip of leather at the nape of my neck, and Ragnar was pleased when that happened though he made it plain that I would not replace Ragnar the Younger or Rorik. “If Rorik lives,” he said sadly, for Rorik was still sickly, “you will have to fight for your inheritance,” and so I learned to fight and, that winter, to kill.
We returned to Northumbria. Ragnar liked it there and, though he could have taken better land in Mercia, he liked the northern hills and the deep vales and the dark hanging woods where, as the first frosts crisped the morning, he took me hunting. A score of men and twice as many dogs beat through the woods, trying to trap boar. I stayed with Ragnar, both of us armed with heavy boar spears. “A boar can kill you, Uhtred,” he warned me. “He can rip you from the crotch to the neck unless you place the spear just right.”
The spear, I knew, must be placed in the beast’s chest or, if you were lucky, down its throat. I knew I could not kill a boar, but if one came, I would have to try. A fullgrown boar can be twice the weight of a man and I did not have the strength to drive one back, but Ragnar was determined to give me first strike and he would be close behind to help. And so it happened. I have killed hundreds of boar since, but I will always remember that first beast, the small eyes, the sheer anger, the determination, the stench, the bristling hairs flecked with mud, and the sweet thud of the spear going deep into the chest, and I was hurled back as if I had been kicked by Odin’s eightlegged horse, and Ragnar drove his own spear through the thick hide and the beast squealed and roared, legs scrabbling,
