her, or else God Almighty worked the cure through me. Since then she has endured my presence.”
Brida also endured Skade’s presence. She would have killed her given an excuse, but Skade pleaded with Ragnar that she meant no harm and Ragnar, my friend, had no stomach for slaughtering women, especially good- looking women. He put Skade to work in the hall kitchen. “She worked in my kitchen in Lundene,” I told Brida.
“From where she slithered her way into your bed,” Brida said tartly, “though I don’t suppose that took much effort on her part.”
“She’s beautiful.”
“And you’re still the fool you always were. And now another fool will find her and she’ll make trouble again. I told Ragnar he should have split her from the crotch to the gullet, but he’s as stupid as you.”
I was on my feet by Yule, though I could take no part in the games that so delighted Ragnar. There were races, tests of strength and, his favorite, wrestling. He took part himself, winning his first six bouts, then losing to a giant Saxon slave who was rewarded with a handful of silver. On the afternoon of the great feast the fortress dogs were allowed to attack a bull, an entertainment that reduced Ragnar to tears of laughter. The bull, a wiry and savage creature, dashed around the hilltop between the buildings, attacking when he had a chance and tossing careless dogs into gut-spilled ruin, but eventually he lost too much blood and the hounds converged on him. “What happened to Nihtgenga?” I asked Brida as the roaring bull collapsed in a frantic heap of scrabbling dogs.
“He died,” Brida said, “long, long ago.”
“He was a good dog,” I said.
“He was,” she said, watching the hounds tear at the thrashing bull’s belly. Skade was on the far side of the killing ground, but she avoided my gaze.
The Yule feast was lavish because Ragnar, like his father, had always adored the winter celebrations. A great fir tree had been cut and dragged to the hall where it was hung with silver coins and jewelry. Skade was among the servants who brought the beef, pork, venison, bacon, blood sausages, bread, and ale. She still avoided my eye. Men noticed her, how could they not? One drunken man tried to seize her and pull her onto his lap, but Ragnar slapped the table so hard that the blow upset a horn of wine and the sound was enough to persuade the man to let Skade go.
There were harpists and skalds. The skalds chanted verses in praise of Ragnar and his family, and Ragnar beamed with delight when his father’s exploits were described. “Say that again,” he would roar when some treasured exploit was recounted. He knew many of the words and chanted along, but then startled the skald by slapping the table again. “What did you just sing?” he demanded.
“That your father, lord, served the great Ubba.”
“And who killed Ubba?”
The skald frowned. “A Saxon dog, lord.”
“This Saxon dog,” Ragnar shouted, lifting my arm. It was while men were still laughing that the messenger arrived. He came from the dark and for a moment no one noticed the tall Dane who, it turned out, had just ridden from Eoferwic. He was clad in mail because there were brigands on the roads, and the skirts of his armor, his boots, and the richly decorated scabbard of his sword were spattered with mud. He must have been tired, but there was a broad smile on his face.
Ragnar noticed the man first. “Grimbald!” he bellowed the name in welcome. “You should arrive before a feast, not after! But worry not, there’s food and ale!”
Grimbald bowed to Ragnar. “I bring you news, lord.”
“News that couldn’t wait?” Ragnar asked good-naturedly. The hall had gone quiet because men wondered what could have brought Grimbald in such haste through the cold, wet darkness.
“News that will please you, lord,” Grimbald said, still smiling.
“The price of virgins has dropped?”
“Alfred of Wessex, lord,” Grimbald paused, “is dead.”
There was a moment’s silence, then the hall burst into cheers. Men beat the table with their hands and whooped with delight. Ragnar was half drunk, but had enough sense to hold up his hands for silence. “How do you know this?”
“The news was brought to Eoferwic yesterday,” Grimbald said.
“By whom?” I demanded.
“By a West Saxon priest, lord,” Grimbald said. The tall messenger was one of mad King Guthred’s household warriors and, though he did not know me, my place of honor beside Ragnar persuaded him to call me lord.
“So his whelp is the new king?” Ragnar asked.
“So it is said, lord.”
“King Edmund?” Ragnar inquired, “that’ll take some getting used to.”
“Edward,” I said.
“Edmund or Edward, who cares? He’s not long for this life,” Ragnar said happily. “What kind of boy is he?” he asked me.
“Nervous.”
“Not a warrior?”
“His father was no warrior either,” I said, “yet he defeated every Dane who came to take his throne.”
“You did that for him,” Ragnar said cheerfully and slapped my back. The hall was suddenly full of talk as men glimpsed a new future. There was so much excitement, though I remember looking down at one of the tables and saw Osferth frowning in lonely silence. Then Ragnar leaned close to me. “You don’t look happy, Uhtred.”
How did I feel at that moment? I was not happy. I had never liked Alfred. He was too pious, too humorless, and too stern. His delight was order. He wanted to reduce the whole world to lists, to organization, to obedience. He loved to collect books and write laws. He believed that if only every man, woman, and child were to obey the law, then we would have a heavenly kingdom on earth, but he forgot the earthly pleasures. He had known them as a young man, Osferth was proof of that, but then he had allowed the nailed Christian god to persuade him that pleasure was sin and so he tried to make laws that would outlaw sin. A man might as well try to shape water into a ball.
So I did not like Alfred, but I had always been aware that I was in the presence of an extraordinary man. He was thoughtful, and he was no fool. His mind had been fast and open to ideas, so long as those ideas did not contradict his religious convictions. He was a king who did not believe that kingship implied omniscience and he was, in his way, a humble man. Above everything, he had been a good man, though never a comfortable one. He had also believed in fate, a thing all religions seem to share, though the difference between Alfred and me had been his conviction that fate was progress. He wanted to improve the world, while I did not believe and never have believed that we can improve the world, just merely survive as it slides into chaos.
“I respected Alfred,” I told Ragnar. I was still not certain I believed the news. Rumors fly around like summer gossamer, and so I beckoned Grimbald closer. “What exactly did the priest tell you?”
“That Alfred was in the church at Wintanceaster,” he said, “and that he collapsed during the rituals and was taken to his bed.”
That sounded convincing. “And his son is king now?”
“The priest said so.”
“Is Harald still trapped in Wessex?” Ragnar asked.
“No, lord,” Grimbald said, “Alfred paid him silver to depart.”
Ragnar bellowed for silence and made Grimbald repeat his last words about Harald, and the news that the wounded jarl had been paid to leave Torneie prompted another cheer in the hall. Danes love to hear of Saxons paying silver to rid themselves of Danes. It encourages them to attack Saxon lands in hope of similar bribes.
“Where did Harald go?” Ragnar asked, and I saw Skade listening.
“He joined Haesten, lord.”
“In Beamfleot?” I asked, but Grimbald did not know.
The news of Alfred’s death and of the wounded Harald’s enrichment gave the feast an added happiness. For once there were not even any fights as the mead, ale, and wine took hold of the tables. Every man in that hall, except perhaps a handful of my Saxon followers, saw a new opportunity to capture and plunder the rich fields, villages and towns of Wessex.
And they were right. Wessex was vulnerable, except for one thing.
The news was a rumor after all.
