walls were built of dressed stone, but the upper parts and the roof were of timber, and just below the roof were high windows that were filled with scraped horn so the rain could not come in. Every scrap of the walls was covered with stretched leather panels painted with pictures of heaven and hell. Heaven was populated with Saxons while hell seemed to be the abode of Danes, though I noticed, with surprise, that a couple of priests seemed to have tumbled down to the devil’s flames. “There are bad priests,” Beocca assured me earnestly. “Not many, of course.”
“And there are good priests,” I said, pleasing Beocca, “talking of which, do you hear anything of Father Pyrlig?” Pyrlig was a Briton who had fought beside me at Ethandun and I was fond of him. He spoke Danish and had been sent to be one of Guthrum’s priests in East Anglia.
“He does the Lord’s work,” Beocca said enthusiastically. “He says the Danes are being baptized in great numbers! I truly believe we are seeing the conversion of the pagans.”
“Not this pagan,” Ragnar said.
Beocca shook his head. “Christ will come to you one day, Lord Ragnar, and you will be astonished by his grace.”
Ragnar said nothing. I could see, though, that he was as impressed as I was by Alfred’s new church. The tomb of Saint Swithun was railed in silver and lay in front of the high altar that was covered with a red cloth as big as a dragon-boat’s sail. On the altar were a dozen fine wax candles in silver holders that flanked a big silver cross inlaid with gold that Ragnar muttered would be worth a month’s voyaging to capture. Either side of the cross were reliquaries; boxes and flasks of silver and gold, all studded with jewels, and some had small crystal windows through which the relics could be glimpsed. Mary Magdalene’s toe ring was there, and what remained of the feather from the dove that Noah had released from the ark. There was Saint Kenelm’s horn spoon, a flask of dust from Saint Hedda’s tomb, and a hoof from the donkey that Jesus rode into Jerusalem. The cloth with which Mary Magdalene had washed Jesus’s feet was encased in a great golden chest and next to it, and quite dwarfed by the gold’s splendor, were Saint Oswald’s teeth, the gift from Guthred. The two teeth were still encased in their silver oyster pot which looked very shabby compared to the other vessels. Beocca showed us all the holy treasures, but was most proud of a scrap of bone displayed behind a shard of milky crystal. “I found this one,” he said, “and it’s most exciting!” He lifted the lid of the box and took out the bone, which looked like something left over from a bad stew. “It’s Saint Cedd’s aestel!” Beocca said with awe in his voice. He made the sign of the cross and peered at the yellowed bone sliver with his one good eye as if the arrow-head shaped relic had just dropped from heaven.
“Saint Cedd’s what?” I asked.
“His aestel.”
“What’s an aestel?” Ragnar asked. His English, after years of being a hostage, was good, but some words still confused him.
“An aestel is a device to help reading,” Beocca said. “You use it to follow the lines. It’s a pointer.”
“What’s wrong with a finger?” Ragnar wanted to know.
“It can smear the ink. An aestel is clean.”
“And that one really belonged to Saint Cedd?” I asked, pretending to be amazed.
“It did, it did,” Beocca said, almost delirious with wonder, “the holy Cedd’s very own aestel. I discovered it! It was in a little church in Dornwaraceaster and the priest there was an ignorant fellow and had no idea what it was. It was in a horn box and Saint Cedd’s name was scratched on the box and the priest couldn’t even read the writing! A priest! Illiterate! So I confiscated it.”
“You mean you stole it?”
“I took it into safekeeping!” he said, offended.
“And when you’re a saint,” I said, “someone will put one of those smelly shoes of yours into a golden box and worship it.”
Beocca blushed. “You tease me, Uhtred, you tease me.” He laughed, but I saw from his blush that I had touched on his secret ambition. He wanted to be declared a saint, and why not? He was a good man, far better than many I have known who are now revered as saints.
Brida and I visited Hild that afternoon and I gave her nunnery thirty shillings, almost all the money I had, but Ragnar was blithely confident that Sverri’s fortune would come from Jutland and that Ragnar would share with me, and in that belief I pressed the money on Hild who was delighted by the silver cross in Serpent-Breath’s hilt. “You must use the sword wisely from now on,” she told me sternly.
“I always use it wisely.”
“You have harnessed the power of God to the blade,” she said, “and it must do nothing evil.”
I doubted I would obey that command, but it was good to see Hild. Alfred had given her a gift of some of the dust from Saint Hedda’s tomb and she told me that mixed with curds it made a miraculous medicine that had prompted at least a dozen cures among the nunnery’s sick. “If you are ever ill,” she said, “you must come here and we shall mix the dust with fresh curds and anoint you.”
I saw Hild again the next day when we were all summoned to the church for its consecration and to witness ?thelflaed’s betrothal. Hild, with all the other nuns of Wintanceaster, was in the side aisle, while Ragnar, Brida, and I, because we arrived late, had to stand at the very back of the church. I was taller than most men, but I could still see very little of the ceremony which seemed to last forever. Two bishops said prayers, priests scattered holy water, and a choir of monks chanted. Then the Archbishop of Contwaraburg preached a long sermon which, bizarrely, said nothing about the new church, nor about the betrothal, but instead berated the clergy of Wessex for wearing short tunics instead of long robes. This bestial practice, the archbishop thundered, had offended the holy father in Rome and must stop forthwith on pain of excommunication. A priest standing near us was wearing a short tunic and tried to crouch so that he looked like a dwarf in a long robe. The monks sang again and then my cousin, red-haired and cocksure, strutted to the altar and little ?thelflaed was led to his side by her father. The archbishop mumbled over them, they were sprinkled with holy water, then the newly betrothed couple were presented to the congregation and we all dutifully cheered.
?thelflaed was hurried away as the men in the church congratulated ?thelred. He was twenty years old, eleven years older than ?thelflaed, and he was a short, red-haired, bumptious young man who was convinced of his own importance. That importance was that he was his father’s son, and his father was the chief ealdorman in southern Mercia which was the region of that country least infested by Danes, and so one day ?thelred would become the leader of the free Mercian Saxons. ?thelred, in short, could deliver a large part of Mercia to Wessex’s rule, which was why he had been promised Alfred’s daughter in marriage. He made his way down the nave, greeting the lords of Wessex, then saw me and looked surprised. “I heard you were captured in the north,” he said.
“I was.”
“And here you are. And you’re just the man I want.” He smiled, certain that I liked him, in which certainty he could not have been more mistaken, but ?thelred assumed that everyone else in the whole world was envious of him and wanted nothing more than to be his friend. “The king,” he said, “has honored me with the command of his household guard.”
“Alfred has?” I asked, surprised.
“At least until I assume my father’s duties.”
“Your father’s well, I trust?” I asked drily.
“He’s sick,” ?thelred said, sounding pleased, “so who knows how long I shall command Alfred’s guard. But you’d be of great use to me if you would serve in the household troops.”
“I’d rather shovel shit,” I said, then held a hand toward Brida. “Do you remember Brida?” I asked. “You tried to rape her ten years ago.”
He went bright red, said nothing, but just hurried away. Brida laughed as he retreated, then gave a very small bow because ?lswith, Alfred’s wife, was walking past us. ?lswith ignored us, for she had never liked Brida or me, but Eanfl?d smiled. She was ?lswith’s closest companion and I kissed my hand toward her. “She was a tavern whore,” I told Brida, “and now she rules the king’s household.”
“Good for her,” Brida said.
“Does Alfred know she was a whore?” Ragnar asked.
“He pretends not to know,” I said.
Alfred came last. He looked sick, but that was nothing unusual. He half inclined his head to me, but said nothing, though Beocca scuttled over to me as we waited for the crowd at the door to thin. “You’re to see the king
