Sword Song

“Brace yourself for the ransom,” I said as we smelled Lundene’s filthy stench.

Sea-Eagle slid into her dock. Gisela was waiting and I gave her the news, and she gave a small cry as though she were in pain, and then she waited for ?thelred to come ashore, but he ignored her just as he ignored me. He walked uphill toward his palace and his face was pale. His men, those that survived, closed protectively around him.

And I found the stale ink, sharpened a quill, and wrote another letter to Alfred.

PART THREE

THE SCOURING

NINE

We were forbidden to sail down the Temes.

Bishop Erkenwald gave me the order and my instinctive response was to snarl at him, saying that we should have every Saxon ship in the wide estuary harrying the Danes mercilessly. He listened to me without comment and, when I had finished, he appeared to ignore everything I had said. He was writing, copying some book that was propped on his upright desk. “And what would your violence achieve?” he finally asked in an acid voice.

“It would teach them to fear us,” I said.

“To fear us,” he echoed, saying each word very distinctly and imbuing them with mockery. His quill scratched on the parchment. He had summoned me to his house, which was next to ?thelred’s palace and was a surprisingly comfortless place, with nothing in the main large room except an empty hearth, a bench, and the upright desk on which the bishop was writing. A young priest sat on the bench, saying nothing, but watching the two of us anxiously. The priest, I was certain, was simply there to be a witness so that, should an argument arise over what was said in this meeting, the bishop would have someone to back his version. Not that much was being said, for Erkenwald ignored me again for another long period, bending low over the desk with his eyes fixed on the words he laboriously scratched. “If I am right,” he suddenly spoke, though he continued to peer at his work, “the Danes have just destroyed the largest fleet ever to be deployed from Wessex. I hardly think they will take fright if you stir the water with your few oars.”

“So we leave the water calm?” I asked angrily.

“I dare say,” he said, then paused as he made another letter, “that the king will want us to do nothing that might aggravate,” another pause as still another letter was formed, “an unfortunate situation.”

“The unfortunate situation,” I said, “being that his daughter is being raped daily by the Danes? And you expect us to do nothing?”

“Precisely. You have seized upon the essence of my orders. You are to do nothing to make a bad situation worse.” He still did not look at me. He dipped the quill in his pot and carefully drained the excess ink from the tip. “How do you prevent a wasp from stinging you?” he asked.

“By killing it first,” I said.

“By remaining motionless,” the bishop said, “and that is how we shall behave now, by doing nothing to aggravate the situation. Do you have any evidence that the lady is being raped?”

“No.”

“She is valuable to them,” the bishop said, repeating the argument I had myself used to Steapa, “and I surmise they will do nothing to lessen that value. No doubt you are more informed than I of pagan ways, but if our enemies possess even a scrap of good sense they will treat her with the proper respect due to her rank.” He at last looked at me, offering a sideways glance of pure loathing. “I will need soldiers,” he said, “when the time comes to raise the ransom.”

Meaning my men were to threaten every other man who might possess a battered coin. “And how much will that be?” I asked sourly, wondering what contribution would be expected of me.

“Thirty years ago in Frankia,” the bishop was writing again, “the Abbot Louis of the monastery of Saint Denis was captured. A pious and good man. The ransom for the abbot and his brother amounted to six hundred and eighty-six pounds of gold and three thousand, two hundred and fifty pounds of silver. The Lady ?thelflaed might be a mere woman, but I cannot imagine our enemies will settle for a dissimilar sum.” I said nothing. The ransom the bishop had quoted was unimaginable, yet he was surely right in thinking that Sigefrid would want the same or, more likely, a greater amount. “So you see,” the bishop went on coldly, “the lady’s value is of considerable significance to the pagans, and they will not wish to devalue her. I have assured the Lord ?thelred on this point, and I would be grateful if you do not disabuse him of that hope?”

“Have you heard from Sigefrid?” I asked, thinking that Erkenwald seemed very certain that ?thelflaed was being well treated.

“No, have you?” The question was a challenge, implying that I might be in secret negotiations with Sigefrid. I did not answer and the bishop did not expect me to. “I foresee,” he continued, “that the king will wish to supervise the negotiations himself. So until he arrives here, or until he offers me contrary orders, you are to stay in Lundene. Your ships will not sail!”

Nor did they. But the Northmen’s ships were sailing. Trade, which had increased through the summer, died to nothing as swarms of beast-headed boats rowed out from Beamfleot to scour the estuary. My best sources of information died with the traders, though a few men did find their way upriver. They were usually fishermen bringing their catch to Lundene’s fish market, and they claimed that over fifty ships now grounded their keels in the drying creek beneath Beamfleot’s high fort. Vikings were flocking to the estuary.

“They know Sigefrid and his brother will be rich,” I told Gisela the night after the bishop had ordered me to do nothing provocative.

“Very rich,” she said drily.

“Rich enough to assemble an army,” I went on bitterly because, once the ransom was paid, the Thurgilson brothers would be gold-givers and ships would come from every sea, swelling into a horde that could drive into Wessex. The brothers’ dream of conquering all the Saxon lands, which had once depended on Ragnar’s help, now looked as though it might come true without any northern help, and all thanks to ?thelflaed’s capture.

“Will they attack Lundene?” Gisela asked.

“If I were Sigefrid,” I said, “I would cross the Temes and slash into Wessex through Cent. He’ll have enough ships to carry an army across the river and we have nowhere near enough to stop him.”

Stiorra was playing with a wooden doll I had carved out of beech-wood and which Gisela had clothed with scraps of linen. My daughter looked so intent on her play and so happy, and I tried to imagine losing her. I tried to imagine Alfred’s distress, and found my heart could not even endure the mere thought. “The baby’s kicking,” Gisela said, stroking her belly.

I felt the panic I always experienced when I thought of the approaching childbirth. “We must find a name for him,” I said, hiding my thoughts.

“Or her?”

“Him,” I said firmly, though without joy because the future, that night, seemed so bleak.

Alfred came, as the bishop had foreseen, and once again I was summoned to the palace, though this time we were spared any sermon. The king came with his bodyguard, what was left of it after the disaster on the Sture, and I greeted Steapa in the outer courtyard where a steward collected our swords. The priests had come in force, a flock of cawing crows, but among them were the friendly faces of Father Pyrlig, Father Beocca and, to my surprise, Father Willibald. Willibald, all bounce and cheerfulness, scurried across the courtyard to embrace me. “You’re taller than ever, lord!” he said.

“And how are you, father?”

“The Lord sees fit to bless me!” he said happily. “I minister to souls in Exanceaster these days!”

“I like that town,” I said.

“You had a house nearby, didn’t you? With your…” Willibald paused, embarrassed.

“With that pious misery I married before Gisela,” I said. Mildrith still lived, though these days she was in a nunnery and I had long forgotten most of the pain of that unhappy union. “And you?” I asked. “You’re married?”

“To a lovely woman,” Willibald said brightly. He had been my tutor once, though he had taught me little, yet he was a good man, kind and dutiful.