children. Ragnar and I both went to the performance, and Father Beocca found me there.
Poor Beocca. He was in tears because I lived. His hair, which had always been red, was heavily touched by gray now. He was over forty, an old man, and his wandering eye had gone milky. He limped and had a palsied left hand, for which afflictions men mocked him, though none did in my presence. Beocca had known me since I was a child, for he had been my father’s mass-priest and my early tutor, and he veered between loving me and detesting me, though he was ever my friend. He was also a good priest, a clever man, and one of Alfred’s chaplains, and he was happy in the king’s service. He was delirious now, beaming at me with tears in his eyes. “You live,” he said, giving me a clumsy embrace.
“I’m a hard man to kill, father.”
“So you are, so you are,” he said, “but you were a weakly child.”
“Me?”
“The runt of the litter, your father always said. Then you began to grow.”
“Haven’t stopped, have I?”
“Isn’t that clever!” Beocca said, watching two dogs walk on their hind legs. “I do like dogs,” he went on, “and you should talk to Offa.”
“To Offa?” I asked, glancing at the Mercian who controlled his dogs by clicking his fingers or whistling.
“He was in Bebbanburg this summer,” Beocca said. “He tells me your uncle has rebuilt the hall. It’s bigger than it was. And Gytha is dead. Poor Gytha,” he made the sign of the cross, “she was a good woman.”
Gytha was my stepmother and, after my father was killed at Eoferwic, she married my uncle and so was complicit in his usurpation of Bebbanburg. I said nothing of her death, but after the performance, when Offa and his two women assistants were packing up the hoops and leashing the dogs, I sought the Mercian out and said I would talk with him.
He was a strange man. He was tall like me, lugubrious, knowing, and, oddest of all, a Christian priest. He was really Father Offa. “But I was bored with the church,” he told me in the Two Cranes where I had bought him a pot of ale, “and bored with my wife. I became very bored with her.”
“So you walked away?”
“I danced away,” he said, “I skipped away. I would have flown away if God had given me wings.”
He had been traveling for a dozen years now, ranging throughout the Saxon and Danish lands in Britain and welcome everywhere because he provided laughter, though in conversation he was a gloomy man. But Beocca had been right. Offa had been in Northumbria and it was clear that he had kept a very sharp eye on all that he saw. So sharp that I understood why Alfred had invited his dogs to the palace. Offa was plainly one of the spies who brought news of Britain to the West Saxon court. “So tell me what happens in Northumbria,” I invited him.
He grimaced and stared up at the ceiling beams. It was the pleasure of the Two Cranes for a man to cut a notch in the beam every time he hired one of the tavern’s whores and Offa seemed to be counting the cuts, a job that might take a lifetime, then he glanced at me sourly. “News, lord,” he said, “is a commodity like ale or hides or the service of whores. It is bought and sold.” He waited until I laid a coin on the table between us, then all he did was look at the coin and yawn, so I laid another shilling beside the first. “Where do you wish me to begin?” he asked.
“The north.”
Scotland was quiet, he said. King Aed had a fistula and that distracted him, though of course there were frequent cattle raids into Northumbria where my uncle, ?lfric the Usurper, now called himself the Lord of Bernicia.
“He wants to be king of Bernicia?” I asked.
“He wants to be left in peace,” Offa said. “He offends no one, he amasses money, he acknowledges Guthred as king, and he keeps his swords sharp. He is no fool. He welcomes Danish settlers because they offer protection against the Scots, but he allows no Danes to enter Bebbanburg unless he trusts them. He keeps that fortress safe.”
“But he wants to be king?” I insisted.
“I know what he does,” Offa said tartly, “but what he wants is between ?lfric and his god.”
“His son lives?”
“He has two sons now, both young, but his wife died.”
“I heard.”
“His eldest son liked my dogs and wanted his father to buy them. I said no.”
He had little other news of Bebbanburg, other than that the hall had been enlarged and, more ominously, the outer wall and the low gate rebuilt higher and stronger. I asked if he and his dogs were welcome at Dunholm and he gave me a very sharp look and made the sign of the cross. “No man goes to Dunholm willingly,” Offa said. “Your uncle gave me an escort through Kjartan’s land and I was glad of it.”
“So Kjartan thrives?” I asked bitterly.
“He spreads like a green bay tree,” Offa said and, when he saw my puzzlement, enlarged the answer. “He thrives and steals and rapes and kills and he lurks in Dunholm. But his influence is wider, much wider. He has money and he uses it to buy friends. If a Dane complains about Guthred then you can be sure he has taken Kjartan’s money.”
“I thought Kjartan agreed to pay a tribute to Guthred?”
“It was paid for one year. Since then Good King Guthred has learned to do without.”
“Good King Guthred?” I asked.
“That is how he is known in Eoferwic,” Offa said, “but only to the Christians. The Danes consider him a gullible fool.”
“Because he’s a Christian?”
“Is he a Christian?” Offa asked himself. “He claims to be, and he goes to church, but I suspect he still half believes in the old gods. No, the Danes dislike him because he favors the Christians. He tried to levy a church tax on the Danes. It was not a clever idea.”
“So how long does Good King Guthred have?” I asked.
“I charge more for prophecy,” Offa said, “on the grounds that what is worthless must be made expensive.”
I kept my money in its purse. “What of Ivarr?” I asked.
“What of him?”
“Does he still acknowledge Guthred as king?”
“For the moment,” Offa said carefully, “but the Earl Ivarr is once again the strongest man in Northumbria. He took money from Kjartan, I hear, and used it to raise men.”
“Why raise men?”
“Why do you think?” Offa asked sarcastically.
“To put his own man on the throne?”
“It would seem likely,” Offa said, “but Guthred has an army too.”
“A Saxon army?”
“A Christian army. Mostly Saxon.”
“So civil war is brewing?”
“In Northumbria,” Offa said, “civil war is always brewing.”
“And Ivarr will win,” I said, “because he’s ruthless.”
“He’s more cautious than he was,” Offa said. “Aed taught him that three years ago. But in time, yes, he will attack. When he’s sure he can win.”
“So Guthred,” I said, “must kill Ivarr and Kjartan.”
“What kings must do, lord, is beyond my humble competence. I teach dogs to dance, not men to rule. You wish to know about Mercia?”
“I wish to know about Guthred’s sister.”
Offa half smiled. “That one! She’s a nun.”
“Gisela!” I was shocked. “A nun? She’s become a Christian?”
“I doubt she’s a Christian,” Offa said, “but going into a nunnery protected her.”
“From whom?”
“Kjartan. He wanted the girl as a bride for his son.”
