“And don’t let Edward lead the men out too soon! Trust Steapa! He might be dumb as a parsnip, but he knows how to fight.”
“I shall pray that God gives them both good judgment,” my old friend said. He reached up his good hand to clutch my gloved hand. “How is Gisela?”
“Maybe a mother again. And Thyra?”
His face lit up like tinder catching flame. This ugly, crippled man who was mocked by children in the street had married a Dane of startling beauty. “God keeps her in his loving hand,” he told me. “She is a pearl of great price!”
“So are you, father,” I said, then ruffled his white hair to annoy him.
Finan spurred beside me. “We’re ready, lord.”
“Open the gate!” I shouted.
The wagon was first through the wide arch. Its holy banners swayed alarmingly as it lurched onto the rutted track, then my two hundred men, bright in mail, rode after it and turned westward. We flew standards, braying horns announced our departure, and the sun shone on the royal wagon. We were the lure, and the Danes had seen us. And so the hunt began.
The wagon led the way, lumbering along a farm track that would lead us to the Wintanceaster road. A shrewd Dane might well wonder why, if we wanted to retreat to the larger burh at Wintanceaster, we would use ?scengum’s northern gate instead of the western, which led directly onto the road, but I somehow doubted those worries would reach Harald. Instead he would hear that the King of Wessex was running away, leaving ?scengum to be protected by its garrison that was drawn from the fyrd. The men of the fyrd were rarely trained warriors. They were farmers and laborers, carpenters and thatchers, and Harald would undoubtedly be tempted to assault their wall, but I did not believe he would yield to the temptation, not while a much greater prize, Alfred himself, was apparently vulnerable. The Danish scouts would be telling Harald that the King of Wessex was in the open country, traveling in a slow wagon protected by a mere couple of hundred horsemen, and Harald’s army, I was certain, would be ordered to the pursuit.
Finan commanded my rearguard, his job to tell me when the enemy pursuit got too close. I stayed near the wagon and, just as we reached the Wintanceaster road a half-mile west of ?scengum, a slender rider spurred alongside me. It was ?thelfl?d, clad in a long mail coat that appeared to be made from silver rings close-linked over a deerskin tunic. The mail coat fitted her tightly, clinging to her thin body, and I guessed that it was fastened at the back with loops and buttons because no one could pull such a tight coat over their head and shoulders. Over the mail she wore a white cloak, lined with red, and she had a white-scabbarded sword at her side. A battered old helmet with face-plates hung from her saddle’s pommel and she had doubtless used the helmet to hide her face before we left ?scengum, though she had also taken the precaution of covering her distinctive cloak and armor with an old black cape that she tossed into the ditch as she joined me. She grinned, looking as happy as she had once looked before her marriage, then nodded toward the lumbering wagon. “Is that my half-brother?”
“Yes. You’ve seen him before.”
“Not often. Doesn’t he look like his father!”
“He does,” I said, “and you don’t, for which I’m grateful.” That made her laugh. “Where did you get the mail?” I asked.
“?thelred likes me to wear it,” she said. “He had it made for me in Frankia.”
“Silver links?” I asked. “I could pierce those with a twig!”
“I don’t think my husband wants me to fight,” she said drily, “he just wants to display me.” And that, I thought, was understandable. ?thelfl?d had grown to be a lovely woman, at least when her beauty was not clouded by unhappiness. She was clear-eyed and clear-skinned, with full lips and golden hair. She was clever, like her father, and a good deal cleverer than her husband, but she had been married for one reason only, to bind the Mercian lands to Alfred’s Wessex, and in that sense, if in no other, the marriage had been a success.
“Tell me about Aldhelm,” I said.
“You already know about him,” she retorted.
“I know he doesn’t like me,” I said happily.
“Who does?” she asked, grinning. She slowed her horse, that was getting too close to the crawling wagon. She wore gloves of soft kid leather over which six bright rings glittered with gold and rare stones. “Aldhelm,” she said softly, “advises my husband, and he has persuaded ?thelred of two things. The first is that Mercia needs a king.”
“Your father won’t allow it,” I said. Alfred preferred Mercia look to Wessex for its kingly authority.
“My father will not live forever,” she said, “and Aldhelm has also persuaded my husband that a king needs an heir.” She saw my grimace and laughed. “Not me! ?lfwynn was enough!” She shuddered. “I have never known such pain. Besides, my dear husband resents Wessex. He resents his dependency. He hates the hand that feeds him. No, he would like an heir from some nice Mercian girl.”
“You mean…”
“He won’t kill me,” she interrupted blithely, “but he would love to divorce me.”
“Your father would never allow that!”
“He would if I was taken in adultery,” she said in a remarkably flat tone. I stared at her, not quite believing what she told me. She saw my incredulity and mocked it with a smile. “Well,” she said, “you did ask me about Aldhelm.”
“?thelred wants you to…”
“Yes,” she said, “then he can condemn me to a nunnery and forget I ever existed.”
“And Aldhelm encourages this idea?”
“Oh, he does, he does.” She smiled as if my question was silly. “Luckily I have West Saxon attendants who protect me, but after my father dies?” She shrugged.
“Have you told your father?”
“He’s been told,” she said, “but I don’t think he believes it. He does, of course, believe in faith and prayer, so he sent me a comb that once belonged to Saint Milburga and he says it will strengthen me.”
“Why doesn’t he believe you?”
“He thinks I am prone to bad dreams. He also finds ?thelred very loyal. And my mother, of course, adores ?thelred.”
“She would,” I said gloomily. Alfred’s wife, ?lswith, was a sour creature and, like ?thelred, a Mercian. “You could try poison,” I suggested. “I know a woman in Lundene who brews some vicious potions.”
“Uhtred!” she chided me, but before she could say more, one of Finan’s men came galloping from the rearguard, his horse throwing up clods of earth torn from the meadow beside the road.
“Lord!” he shouted, “time to hurry!”
“Osferth!” I called, and our pretend king happily jumped from his father’s wagon and hauled himself into the saddle of a horse. He threw the bronze circlet back into the wagon and pulled on a helmet.
“Dump it,” I shouted to the wagon’s driver. “Take it into the ditch!”
He managed to get two wheels in the ditch and we left the heavy vehicle there, canted over, the frightened horses still in their harness. Finan and our rearguard came pounding up the road and we spurred ahead of them into a stretch of woodland where I waited until Finan caught up, and just as he did so the first of the pursuing Danes came into sight. They were pushing their horses hard, but I reckoned the abandoned wagon with its tawdry treasures would delay them a few moments and, sure enough, the leading pursuers milled about the vehicle as we turned away.
“It’s a horse race,” Finan told me.
“And our horses are faster,” I said, which was probably true. The Danes were mounted on whatever animals their raiding parties had succeeded in capturing, while we were riding some of Wessex’s best stallions. I snatched a last glance as dismounted enemies swarmed over the wagon, then plunged deeper into the trees. “How many of them are there?” I shouted at Finan.
“Hundreds,” he called back, grinning. Which meant, I guessed, that any man in Harald’s army who could saddle a horse had joined the pursuit. Harald was feeling the ecstasy of victory. His men had plundered all eastern Wessex, now he believed he had turned Alfred’s army out of ?scengum, which effectively opened the way for the Danes to maraud the whole center of the country. Before those pleasures, however, he wanted to capture Alfred himself and so his men were wildly following us, and Harald, unconcerned about their lack of discipline, believed his
