trial.”
“I believe I have, lord,” I said gravely, wishing he would just end this ridiculous conversation.
“But I still hesitate to name you,” he admitted. “You are young! It is true you have proved your diligence by learning to read and that you are nobly born, but you are more likely to be found in a tavern than in a church. Is that not true?”
That silenced me, at least for a heartbeat or two, but then I remembered something Beocca had said to me during his interminable lessons and, without thinking, without even really knowing what they meant, I said the words aloud. “The son of man is come eating and drinking,” I said, “and…”
“‘You say, look, a greedy man and a drinker!’” Alfred finished the words for me. “You are right, Uhtred, right to chide me. Glory to God! Christ was accused of spending his time in taverns, and I forgot it. It is in the Scriptures!”
The gods help me, I thought. The man was drunk on God, but he was no fool, for now he turned on me like a snake. “And I hear you spend time with my nephew. They say you distract him from his lessons.”
I put my hand on my heart. “I will swear an oath, lord,” I said, “that I have done nothing except dissuade him from rashness.” And that was true, or true enough. I had never encouraged ?thelwold in his wilder flights of fancy that involved cutting Alfred’s throat or running away to join the Danes. I did encourage him to ale, whores, and blasphemy, but I did not count those things as rash. “My oath on it, lord,” I said. The wordoath was powerful. All our laws depend on oaths. Life, loyalty, and allegiance depend on oaths, and my use of the word persuaded him. “I thank you,” he said earnestly, “and I should tell you, Uhtred, that to my surprise the Bishop of Exanceaster had a dream in which a messenger of God appeared to him and said that you should be made commander of the fleet.”
“A messenger of God?” I asked.
“An angel, Uhtred.”
“Praise God,” I said gravely, thinking how Eanfl?d would enjoy discovering that she was now an angel.
“Yet,” Alfred said, and winced again as pain flared in his arse or belly. “Yet,” he said again, and I knew something unexpected was coming. “I worry,” he went on, “that you are of Northumbria, and that your commitment to Wessex is not of the heart.”
“I am here, lord,” I said.
“But for how long?”
“Till the Danes are gone, lord.”
He ignored that. “I need men bound to me by God,” he said, “by God, by love, by duty, by passion, and by land.” He paused, looking at me, and I knew the sting was in that last word.
“I have land in Northumbria,” I said, thinking of Bebbanburg.
“West Saxon land,” he said, “land that you will own, land that you will defend, land that you will fight for.”
“A blessed thought,” I said, my heart sinking at what I suspected was coming. Only it did not come immediately. Instead he abruptly changed the subject and talked, very sensibly, about the Danish threat. The fleet, he said, had succeeded in reducing the Viking raids, but he expected the new year to bring a Danish fleet, and one much too large for our twelve ships to oppose. “I dare not lose the fleet,” he said, “so I doubt we should fight their ships. I’m expecting a land army of pagans to come down the Temes and for their fleet to assault our south coast. I can hold one, but not the other, so the fleet commander’s job will be to follow their ships and harry them. Distract them. Keep them looking one way while I destroy their land army.”
I said I thought that was a good idea, which it probably was, though I wondered how twelve ships were supposed to distract a whole fleet, but that was a problem that would have to wait until the enemy fleet arrived. Alfred then returned to the matter of the land and that, of course, was the deciding factor that would give me or deny me the fleet. “I would tie you to me, Uhtred,” he said earnestly.
“I shall give you an oath, lord,” I said.
“You will indeed,” he responded tartly, “but I still want you to be of Wessex.”
“A high honor, lord,” I said. What else could I say?
“You must belong to Wessex,” he said, then smiled as though he did me a favor. “There is an orphan in Defnascir,” he went on, and here it came, “a girl, who I would see married.”
I said nothing. What is the point of protesting when the executioner’s sword is in midswing?
“Her name is Mildrith,” he went on, “and she is dear to me. A pious girl, modest, and faithful. Her father was reeve to Ealdorman Odda, and she will bring land to her husband, good land, and I would have a good man hold that good land.”
I offered a smile that I hoped was not too sickly. “He would be a fortunate man, lord,” I said, “to marry a girl who is dear to you.”
“So go to her,” he commanded me, “and marry her”—the sword struck—“and then I shall name you commander of the fleet.”
“Yes, lord,” I said.
Leofric, of course, laughed like a demented jackdaw. “He’s no fool, is he?” he said when he had recovered. “He’s making you into a West Saxon. So what do you know about this miltew?rc?”
Miltew?rc was a pain in the spleen.
“Mildrith,” I said, “and she’s pious.”
“Of course she’s pious. He wouldn’t want you to marry her if she was a legspreader.”
“She’s an orphan,” I said, “and aged about sixteen or seventeen.”
“Christ! That old? She must be an ugly sow! But poor thing, she must be wearing out her knees praying to be spared a rutting from an earsling like you. But that’s her fate! So let’s get you married. Then we can kill some Danes.”
It was winter. We had spent the Christmas feast at Cippanhamm, and that was no Yule, and now we rode south through frost and rain and wind. Father Willibald accompanied us, for he was still priest to the fleet, and my plan was to reach Defnascir, do what was grimly necessary, and then ride straight to Hamtun to make certain the winter work on the twelve boats was being done properly. It is in winter that ships are caulked, scraped, cleaned, and made tight for the spring, and the thought of ships made me dream of the Danes, and of Brida, and I wondered where she was, what she did, and whether we would meet again. And I thought of Ragnar. Had he found Thyra? Did Kjartan live? Theirs was another world now, and I knew I drifted away from it and was being entangled in the threads of Alfred’s tidy life. He was trying to make me into a West Saxon, and he was half succeeding. I was sworn now to fight for Wessex and it seemed I must marry into it, but I still clung to that ancient dream of retaking Bebbanburg. I loved Bebbanburg and I almost loved Defnascir as much. When the world was made by Thor from the carcass of Ymir he did well when he fashioned Defnascir and its shire next door, Thorns?ta. Both were beautiful lands of soft hills and quick streams, of rich fields and thick soil, of high heaths and good harbors. A man could live well in either shire, and I could have been happy in Defnascir had I not loved Bebbanburg more. We rode down the valley of the river Uisc, through welltended fields of red earth, past plump villages and high halls until we came to Exanceaster, which was the shire’s chief town. It had been made by the Romans who had built a fortress on a hill above the Uisc and surrounded it with a wall of flint, stone, and brick, and the wall was still there and guards challenged us as we reached the northern gate.
“We come to see Ealdorman Odda,” Willibald said.
“On whose business?”
“The king’s,” Willibald said proudly, flourishing a letter that bore Alfred’s seal, though I doubt the guards would have recognized it, but they seemed properly impressed and let us through into a town of decaying Roman buildings amid which a timber church reared tall next to Ealdorman Odda’s hall. The ealdorman made us wait, but at last he came with his son and a dozen retainers, and one of his priests read the king’s letter aloud. It was Alfred’s pleasure that Mildrith should be married to his loyal servant, the ealdorman Uhtred, and Odda was commanded to arrange the ceremony with as little delay as possible. Odda was not pleased at the news. He was an elderly man, at least forty years old, with gray hair and a face made grotesque by bulbous wens. His son, Odda the Younger, was even less pleased, for he scowled at the news. “It isn’t seemly, Father,” he complained.
“It is the king’s wish.”
“But…”
“It is the king’s wish!”
