silver would seem adequate.”
Sigefrid stared at me for a long while, then stared around the hall where the men watched and listened. “Did I hear a Saxon fart?” he demanded, and was rewarded with laughter. He sniffed ostentatiously, then wrinkled his nose, while the spectators erupted into a chorus of farting noises. Then Sigefrid slammed a huge fist onto the arm of his chair and the hall went immediately silent. “You insult me,” he said, and I saw the anger in his eyes. “If Alfred is minded to offer so little, then I am minded to bring the girl here now and make you watch while we tup her. Why shouldn’t I!” He struggled in the chair as if he wanted to get to his feet, then slumped back. “Is that what you want, you Saxon fart? You want to see her raped?”
The anger, I thought, had been feigned. Just as I had to try and diminish ?thelflaed’s value, so Sigefrid had to exaggerate the threat to her, but I had noticed a flicker of disgust on Erik’s face when Sigefrid suggested rape, and that disgust had been aimed at his brother, not at me. I kept my voice calm. “The king,” I said, “gave me some discretion to increase his offer.”
“Oh, what a surprise!” Sigefrid said sarcastically, “so let me discover the limits of your discretion. We wish to be given ten thousand pounds of silver and five thousand pounds of gold.” He paused, wanting a response from me, but I kept silent. “And the money,” Sigefrid finally went on, “is to be brought here by Alfred himself. He is to pay it in person.”
That was a long day, a very long day, lubricated by ale, mead, and birch wine, and the negotiations were punctuated by threats, anger, and insults. I drank little, just some ale, but Sigefrid and his captains drank heavily and that, perhaps, is why they yielded more than I expected. The truth is they wanted money; they wanted a boatload of silver and gold so they could hire more men and more weapons and so begin their conquest of Wessex. I had made a rough estimate of the numbers in that high fort and reckoned Sigefrid could assemble an army of about three thousand men, and that was nowhere near sufficient to invade Wessex. He needed five or six thousand men, and even that many might not be sufficient, but if he could raise eight thousand warriors then he would win. With such an army he could conquer Wessex and become the crippled king of her fertile fields, and to get those extra warriors he needed silver, and if he did not receive the ransom then even the men he now possessed would quickly melt away in search of other lords who could give them bright gold and shining silver.
By midafternoon they had settled for three thousand pounds of silver and five hundred pounds of gold. They still insisted Alfred deliver the money in person, but I resolutely refused that demand, even going so far as to stand and pluck Father Willibald’s arm, telling him we were leaving because we could reach no agreement. Many of the spectators were bored, and more than a few were drunk, and they growled with anger when they saw me stand so that, for a moment, I thought we would be attacked, but then Haesten intervened.
“What about the bitch’s husband?” he asked.
“What about him?” I asked, turning back as the hall slowly quietened.
“Doesn’t her husband call himself the Lord of Mercia?” Haesten inquired, mocking the title with laughter. “So let the Lord of Mercia bring the money.”
“And let him beg me for his wife,” Sigefrid added, “on his knees.”
“Agreed,” I said, surprising them by the ease of my surrender to their suggestion.
Sigefrid frowned, suspecting I had given in much too easily. “Agreed?” he asked, not sure he had heard me correctly.
“Agreed,” I said, sitting again. “The Lord of Mercia will deliver the ransom and he will go on his knees to you.” Sigefrid was still suspicious. “The Lord of Mercia is my cousin,” I explained, “and I hate the little bastard,” and at that even Sigefrid laughed.
“The money is to be here before the full moon,” he said, then pointed a blunt finger at me, “and you come the day before to tell me the silver and gold is on its way. You will fly a green branch at your masthead as a signal you come in peace.”
He wanted the full day’s warning of the ransom’s arrival so he could assemble as many men as possible to witness his triumph, and so I agreed to come the day before the treasure ship sailed, but explained that he could not expect that to happen soon because such a vast sum would take time to collect. Sigefrid growled at that, but I hurried on, assuring him that Alfred was a man who kept his word and that, by the next full moon, as large a down payment as could be assembled would be brought to Beamfleot. ?thelflaed was to be released then, I insisted, and the rest of the silver and gold would arrive before the following full moon. They haggled over those demands, but by now the bored men in the hall were getting restless and angry, so Sigefrid yielded the point that the ransom could be paid in two parts, and I yielded that ?thelflaed would not be freed until the second part had been delivered. “And I wish to see the Lady ?thelflaed now,” I said, making my last demand.
Sigefrid waved a careless hand. “Why not? Erik will take you.” Erik had hardly spoken all day. Like me he had stayed sober, and had neither joined in the insults nor the laughter. Instead he had sat, serious and withdrawn, his watchful eyes going from his brother to me. “You will eat with us tonight,” Sigefrid said. He smiled suddenly, showing some of the charm I had felt when I had first met him in Lundene. “We shall celebrate our agreement with a feast,” he went on, “and your men at Thunresleam will also be fed. You can talk to the girl now! Go with my brother.”
Erik led Father Willibald and me toward a smaller hall that was guarded by a dozen men in long mail coats, all of them carrying shields and weapons. It was plainly the place where ?thelflaed was being held captive and it lay close to the seaward rampart of the camp. Erik did not speak as we walked, indeed he seemed almost oblivious of my company, keeping his eyes fixed so firmly on the ground at his feet that I had to steer him around some trestles on which men were shaping new oars. The long curling wood-shavings peeled off and smelled oddly sweet in the late afternoon warmth. Erik stopped just beyond the trestles and turned on me with a frown. “Did you mean what you said today?” he demanded angrily.
“I said a lot today,” I answered cautiously.
“About King Alfred not wanting to pay much for the Lady ?thelflaed? Because she’s a girl?”
“Sons are worth more than daughters,” I said truthfully enough.
“Or were you just bargaining?” he asked fiercely.
I hesitated. It struck me as a strange question because Erik was surely clever enough to have seen through that feeble attempt to lower ?thelflaed’s value, but there was real passion in his voice and I sensed he needed to hear the truth. Besides, nothing I said now could change the arrangements I had made with Sigefrid. The two of us had drunk the scot-ale to show that we had reached agreement, we had spat on our hands and touched palms, then sworn on a hammer amulet to keep faith with each other. That agreement was made, and that meant I could now tell the truth to Erik. “Of course I was bargaining,” I said. “?thelflaed is dear to her father, very dear. He’s suffering because of all this.”
“I thought you had to be bargaining,” Erik said, sounding wistful. He turned and stared across the wide estuary of the Temes. A dragon ship was sliding on the flooding tide toward the creek, her oar-blades rising and falling to catch and reflect the settling sun with every lazy stroke. “How much would the king have paid for his daughter?” he asked.
“Whatever was necessary,” I said.
“Truly?” He sounded eager now. “He set no limit?”
“He told me,” I answered truthfully, “to pay whatever was necessary to take ?thelflaed home.”
“To her husband,” he said flatly.
“To her husband,” I agreed.
“Who should die,” Erik said, and he shuddered uncontrollably, a swift shudder, but something that told me he had a touch of his brother’s anger in his soul.
“When the Lord ?thelred comes with the gold and silver,” I warned Erik, “then you cannot touch him. He will come under a banner of truce.”
“He hits her! Is that true?” The question was abrupt.
“Yes,” I said.
Erik stared at me for a heartbeat and I could see him struggling to control that sudden burst of anger. He nodded and turned. “This way,” he said, leading me toward the smaller hall. The hall’s guards, I noticed, were all older men, and I guessed they were trusted not just to guard ?thelflaed, but not to molest her either. “She has not been harmed,” Erik said, perhaps reading my thoughts.
“So I’ve been assured.”
“She has three of her own maids here,” Erik went on, “and I gave her two Danish girls, both nice girls. And I
