“Earl Ragnar is with Guthrum, lord, in East Anglia. He has four boats.”
We chained Hroi and sent him under guard to Wintanceaster for Alfred liked to talk with Danish prisoners. I do not know what happened to him. He was probably hanged or beheaded, for Alfred did not extend Christian mercy to pagan pirates.
And I thought of Ragnar the Younger, Earl Ragnar now, and wondered if I would meet his boats on the Wessex coast, and wondered too whether Hroi had lied and that Guthrum would invade that summer. I thought he would, for there was much fighting across the island of Britain. The Danes of Mercia had attacked the Britons in north Wales, I never did discover why, and other Danish bands raided across the West Saxon frontier, and I suspected those raids were meant to discover West Saxon weaknesses before Guthrum launched his great army, but no army came and, as the summer reached its height, Alfred felt safe enough to leave his forces in North Wessex to visit the fleet. His arrival coincided with news that seven Danish ships had been seen off Heilincigae, an island that lay in shallow waters not far to Hamtun’s east, and the news was confirmed when we saw smoke rising from a pillaged settlement. Only half our ships were in Hamtun, the others were at sea, and one of the six in port, theEvangelista, was on the hard having her bottom scraped. Hacca was nowhere near Hamtun, gone to his brother’s house probably, and he would doubtless be annoyed that he had missed the king’s visit, but Alfred had given us no warning of his arrival, probably because he wanted to see us as we really were, rather than as we would have been had we known he was coming. As soon as he heard about the Danes off Heilincigae he ordered us all to sea and boardedHeahengel along with two of his guards and three priests, one of whom was Beocca who came to stand beside the steering oar.
“You’ve got bigger, Uhtred,” he said to me, almost reproachfully. I was a good head taller than him now, and much broader in the chest.
“If you rowed, father,” I said, “you’d get bigger.”
He giggled. “I can’t imagine myself rowing,” he said, then pointed at my steering oar. “Is that difficult to manage?” he asked.
I let him take it and suggested he turn the boat slightly to the steorbord and his crossed eyes widened in astonishment as he tried to push the oar and the water fought against him. “It needs strength,” I said, taking the oar back.
“You’re happy, aren’t you?” He made it sound like an accusation.
“I am, yes.”
“You weren’t meant to be,” he said.
“No?”
“Alfred thought this experience would humble you.”
I stared at the king who was up in the bows with Leofric, and I remembered the king’s honeyed words about me having something to teach these crews, and I realized he had known I had nothing to contribute, yet he had still given me the helmet and armor. That, I assumed, was so I would give him a year of my life in which he hoped Leofric would knock the arrogance out of my bumptious youthfulness.
“Didn’t work, did it?” I said, grinning.
“He said you must be broken like a horse.”
“But I’m not a horse, father. I’m a lord of Northumbria. What did he think? That after a year I’d be a meek Christian ready to do his bidding?”
“Is that such a bad thing?”
“It’s a bad thing,” I said. “He needs proper men to fight the Danes, not praying lickspittles.”
Beocca sighed, then made the sign of the cross because poor Father Willibald was feeding the gulls with his vomit. “It’s time you were married, Uhtred,” Beocca said sternly. I looked at him in astonishment. “Married! Why do you say that?”
“You’re old enough,” Beocca said.
“So are you,” I retorted, “and you’re not married, so why should I be?”
“I live in hope,” Beocca said. Poor man, he had a squint, a palsied hand, and a face like a sick weasel, which really did not make him a great favorite with women. “But there is a young woman in Defnascir you should look at,” he told me enthusiastically, “a very well born young lady! A charming creature, and…” He paused, evidently having run out of the girl’s qualities, or else because he could not invent any new ones. “Her father was the shire reeve, rest his soul. A lovely girl. Mildrith, she’s called.” He smiled at me expectantly.
“A reeve’s daughter,” I said flatly. “The king’s reeve? The shire reeve?”
“Her father was reeve of southern Defnascir,” Beocca said, sliding the man down the social ladder, “but he left Mildrith property. A fair piece of land near Exanceaster.”
“A reeve’s daughter,” I repeated, “not an ealdorman’s daughter?”
“She’s sixteen, I believe,” Beocca said, gazing at the shingled beach sliding away to our east.
“Sixteen,” I said scathingly, “and unmarried, which suggests she has a face like a bag of maggots.”
“That is hardly relevant,” he said crossly.
“You don’t have to sleep with her,” I said, “and no doubt she’s pious?”
“She is a devoted Christian, I’m happy to say.”
“You’ve seen her?” I asked.
“No,” he admitted, “but Alfred has talked of her.”
“This is Alfred’s idea?”
“He likes to see his men settled, to have their roots in the land.”
“I’m not his man, Father. I’m Uhtred of Bebbanburg, and the lords of Bebbanburg don’t marry pious maggotfaced bitches of low birth.”
“You should meet her,” he persisted, frowning at me. “Marriage is a wonderful thing, Uhtred, ordained by God for our happiness.”
“How would you know?”
“It is,” he insisted weakly.
“I’m already happy,” I said. “I hump Brida and I kill Danes. Find another man for Mildrith. Why don’t you marry her? Good God, Father, you must be near thirty! If you don’t marry soon you’ll go to your grave a virgin. Are you a virgin?”
He blushed, but did not answer because Leofric came back to the steering deck with a black scowl. He never looked happy, but he appeared grimmer than ever at that moment and I had an idea that he had been arguing with Alfred, an argument he had plainly lost. Alfred himself followed, a serene look of indifference on his long face. Two of his priests trailed him, carrying parchment, ink, and quills, and I realized notes were being taken. “What would you say, Uhtred, was the most crucial equipment for a ship?” Alfred asked me. One of the priests dipped his quill in the ink in readiness for my answer, then staggered as the ship hit a wave. God knows what his writing looked like that day. “The sail?” Alfred prompted me. “Spears? Archers? Shields? Oars?”
“Buckets,” I said.
“Buckets?” He looked at me with disapproval, suspecting I was mocking him.
“Buckets to bail the ship, lord,” I said, nodding down intoHeahengel ’s belly where four men scooped out seawater and chucked it over the side, though a good deal landed on the rowers. “What we need, lord, is a better way of caulking ships.”
“Write that down,” Alfred instructed the priests, then stood on tiptoe to look across the intervening low land into the sea lake where the enemy ships had been sighted.
“They’ll be long gone,” Leofric growled.
“I pray not,” Alfred said.
“The Danes don’t wait for us,” Leofric said. He was in a terrible mood, so terrible that he was willing to snarl at his king. “They aren’t fools,” he went on. “They land, they raid, and they go. They’ll have sailed on the ebb.” The tide had just turned and was flooding against us now, though I never did quite understand the tides in the long waters from the sea to Hamtun for there were twice as many high tides there as anywhere else. Hamtun’s tides had a mind of their own, or else were confused by the channels.
“The pagans were there at dawn,” Alfred said.
“And they’ll be miles away by now,” Leofric said. He spoke to Alfred as if he was another crewman, using no respect, but Alfred was always patient with such insolence. He knew Leofric’s worth. But Leofric was wrong that day about the enemy. The Viking ships were not gone, but still off Heilincigae, all seven of them, having been
