The Burning Land

“Loki told you that?”

She nodded.

“Did he tell you that you would be Queen of Wessex?”

“Yes,” she said simply.

“But Odin has more power,” I said, and wished Odin had thought to protect Gisela instead of Wessex, and then I wondered why the gods had allowed the Christians to win at Fearnhamme instead of letting their worshippers capture Wessex, but the gods are capricious, full of mischief, and none more so than the cunning Loki. “And what does Loki tell you to do now?” I asked harshly.

“To submit.”

“I have no need of you,” I said, “so jump. Swim. Go. Starve.”

“It is not my fate,” she said again. Her voice was dull, as though there was no life in her soul.

“What if I push you?”

“You won’t,” she said confidently, and she was right. I left her in the bows as we turned the ship and let the swift current take us back to the Temes and Lundene. That night I released her from the storeroom that served as her prison. I told Finan she was not to be touched, she was not to be restrained, that she was free, and in the morning she was still in my courtyard, crouching, watching me, saying nothing.

She became a kitchen slave. The other slaves and servants feared her. She was silent, baleful, as if the life had been drained from her. Most of my household were Christian and they made the sign of the cross when Skade crossed their path, but my orders that she was to be unmolested were obeyed. She could have left any time, but she stayed. She could have poisoned us, but no one fell ill.

The autumn brought wet, cold winds. Envoys had been sent to the lands across the sea, and to the Welsh kingdoms, announcing that Haesten’s family was to be baptized and inviting envoys to witness the ceremony. Alfred evidently regarded Haesten’s willingness to sacrifice his wife and sons to Christianity as a victory to set alongside Fearnhamme, and he ordered that the streets of Lundene were to be hung with banners to welcome the Danes. Alfred came to the city late one afternoon in a seething rainstorm. He hurried to Bishop Erkenwald’s palace that lay beside the rebuilt church at the top of the hill, and that evening there was a service of thanksgiving that I refused to attend.

Next morning I took my three children to the palace. ?thelred and ?thelfl?d, who at least pretended to a happy marriage when ceremony demanded, had come to Lundene, and ?thelfl?d had offered to let my three children play with her daughter. “Does that mean,” I asked her, “that you’re not going to the church?”

“Of course I’m going,” she said, smiling, “if Haesten even arrives.” Every church bell in the city was ringing in anticipation of the arrival of the Danes, and crowds were gathering in the streets, despite a spitting cold rain that blew from the east.

“He’s coming,” I said.

“You know that?”

“They left at dawn,” I said. I kept watchers on the mudflats of the widening Temes and the beacons had been lit at first light, signaling that ships had left Beamfleot’s creek and were heading upriver.

“He’s only doing it,” ?thelfl?d said, “so my father doesn’t attack him.”

“He’s a weasel’s earsling,” I said.

“He wants East Anglia,” she said. “Eohric’s a weak king and Haesten would like his crown.”

“Maybe,” I said dubiously, “but he’d prefer Wessex.”

She shook her head. “My husband has an informer in his encampment and he’s certain Haesten plans an attack on Grantaceaster.”

Grantaceaster was where East Anglia’s new Danish king had his capital, and a successful attack might well give Haesten the throne of East Anglia. He certainly wanted a throne, and all reports said that Eohric was a feeble ruler, but Alfred had made a treaty with Guthrum, the previous king, which agreed that Wessex would not interfere in East Anglia’s affairs, so if Haesten’s ambition was to take that throne, why should he need to placate Alfred? Haesten really wanted Wessex, of course, but Fearnhamme would have persuaded him that it was far too difficult an ambition. Then I remembered the one vacant throne, and it all made sense to me. “I think he’s more interested in Mercia,” I said.

?thelfl?d considered that idea, then shook her head. “He knows he’d have to fight both us and Wessex to conquer Mercia. And my husband’s spy is certain it’s East Anglia.”

“We’ll see.”

She glanced into the next room where the children were playing with carved wooden toys. “Uhtred’s old enough to attend church,” she said.

“I’m not raising him as a Christian,” I said firmly.

She smiled at me, her lovely face momentarily showing the mischief I remembered from her childhood. “Dear Lord Uhtred,” she said, “still swimming against the current.”

“And you, lady?” I asked, remembering how nearly she had fled with a pagan Dane.

“I drift in my husband’s boat,” she sighed, then servants came to summon her to ?thelred’s side. Haesten, it seemed, was within sight of the city walls.

He arrived in Dragon-Voyager, which he berthed at one of the decaying quays downstream of my house. He was greeted by Alfred and by ?thelred, both men wearing fur-trimmed robes and bronze coronets. Horns sounded and drummers beat out a swift rhythm that was spoiled when the rain became harder and made the drum skins soggy. Haesten, presumably advised by Willibald, wore no armor or weapons, though his long leather coat looked thick enough to withstand a sword thrust. His beard plaits were tied with leather laces and I swore a hammer amulet was tucked inside one of the braids. His wife and two sons were in penitential white and they walked barefoot in the procession that climbed Lundene’s hill. His wife was called Brunna, though on this day she would be given a new and Christian name. She was small and dumpy with nervous eyes that flickered left and right as though she expected an attack from the crowds that lined the narrow streets. I was surprised by her unattractive looks. Haesten was an ambitious man, eager to be recognized as one of the great warlords, and to such a man a wife’s appearance was as important as the splendor of his armor or the wealth of his followers, but Haesten had not married Brunna for her looks. He had married her because she had brought a dowry that had started him on his upward journey. She was his wife, but I guessed she was not his companion in bed, hall, or anywhere else. He was willing to have her baptized simply because she was not important to him, though Alfred, with his high-minded view of marriage, would never have comprehended such cynicism. As to Haesten’s sons, I doubt he took their baptism seriously and, just as soon as he got them away from Lundene, he would order them to forget the ceremony. Children are easily swayed by religion, which is why it is a good thing that most eventually grow into sense.

Chanting monks led the procession, then came children with green boughs, more monks, a group of abbots and bishops, then Steapa and fifty men of the royal guard, who walked immediately in front of Alfred and his guests. Alfred walked slowly, clearly in discomfort, but he had refused the offer of a cart. His old wagon, which I had ditched outside Fearnhamme, had been recovered, but Alfred insisted on walking because he liked the humility of approaching his god on foot. He leaned on ?thelred sometimes, and so king and son-in-law limped painfully uphill together. ?thelflaed walked a pace behind her husband and, behind her and behind Haesten, were the emissaries from Wales and Frankia who had traveled to witness the miracle of this Danish conversion.

Haesten hesitated before entering the church. I suspect he half thought it was an ambush, but Alfred encouraged him, and the Danes stepped gingerly inside to find nothing more threatening than a black-robed gaggle of monks. There was precious little room in the church. I had not wanted to be there, but a messenger from Alfred had insisted on my presence, and so I stood at the very back and watched the smoke rise from tall candles and listened to the chanting of the monks that, at times, was drowned by the sheer beat of rain on the thatched roof. A crowd had gathered in the small square outside, and a bedraggled priest stood on a stool in the sanctuary door to repeat Bishop Erkenwald’s words to the sopping people. The priest had to bellow to make himself heard above the wind and the rain.

Three silver-hooped barrels stood in front of the altar, each half filled with water from the Temes. Brunna, looking completely confused, was persuaded to climb into the center barrel. She gave a small cry of horror as she dropped into the cold water, then stood shivering with her arms crossed over her breasts. Her two sons were unceremoniously dumped into the barrels on either side, then Bishop Erkenwald and Bishop Asser used ladles to scoop water over the frightened boys’ heads. “Behold the spirit descends!” Bishop Asser shouted as he drenched