Only now I was fighting for Mercia.
?thelfl?d insisted that Aldhelm receive a Christian burial. There was a small church in the village, little more than a cattle byre with a cross nailed to its gable, and around it was a graveyard where we dug six graves for the six dead men. The existing graves were badly marked and one of the spades sliced into a corpse, tearing the woolen shroud and spilling stinking fat and ribs. We lay Aldhelm into that grave and, because so many of the Mercians had been his men and I did not want to strain their loyalty any further, I let him be buried in his fine clothes and mail coat. I kept his helmet, a gold chain, and his horse. Father Pyrlig prayed above the fresh burials, and then we could leave. My cousin was evidently at his estate near Gleawecestre, and so we rode there. I now led over two hundred men, mostly Mercians and, doubtless, in my cousin’s eyes, rebels. “You want me to kill ?thelred?” I asked ?thelfl?d.
“No!” She sounded shocked.
“Why not?”
“Do you want to be Lord of Mercia?” she retorted.
“No.”
“He is the chief Ealdorman of Mercia,” ?thelfl?d said, “and my husband.” She shrugged. “I may not like him, but I am wedded to him.”
“You can’t be wedded to a dead man,” I said.
“Murder is still a sin,” ?thelfl?d said gently.
“Sin,” I said scornfully.
“Some sins are so bad,” she said, “that a lifetime’s penance isn’t enough to redeem them.”
“Then let me do the sinning,” I suggested.
“I know what’s in your heart,” she said, “and if I don’t stop you then I am as guilty as you.”
I growled some retort, then nodded curtly to folk who knelt as we passed through their village that was all thatch, dung, and pigs. The villagers had no idea who we were, but they recognized mail and weapons and shields. They would be holding their breath till we had gone, but soon, I thought, the Danes might come this way and the thatch would be burned and the children taken for slaves.
“When you die,” ?thelfl?d said, “you’ll want a sword in your hand.”
“Of course.”
“Why?”
“You know why.”
“So you’ll go to Valhalla. When I die, Uhtred, I want to go to heaven. Would you deny me that?”
“Of course not.”
“Then I cannot commit the awful sin of murder. ?thelred must live. Besides,” she gave me a smile, “my father would never forgive me if I were to murder ?thelred. Or allow you to murder him. And I don’t want to disappoint my father. He’s a dear man.”
I laughed at that. “Your father,” I said, “will be angry anyway.”
“Why?”
“Because you asked for my help, of course.”
?thelfl?d gave me a curious look. “Who do you think suggested that I ask for your help?”
“What?” I gaped at her and she laughed. “Your father wanted me to come to you?” I asked in disbelief.
“Of course!” she said.
I felt like a fool. I thought I had escaped Alfred, only to discover that he had drawn me south. Pyrlig must have known, but had been very careful not to tell me. “But your father hates me!” I told ?thelfl?d.
“Of course he doesn’t. He just thinks of you as a very wayward hound, one that needs a whipping now and then.” She gave me a deprecatory smile, then shrugged. “He knows Mercia will be attacked, Uhtred, and fears that Wessex won’t be able to help.”
“Wessex always helps Mercia.”
“Not if Danes are landing on Wessex’s coast,” she said, and I almost laughed aloud. We had gone to such trouble in Dunholm to keep our plans secret, yet Alfred was already preparing for those plans. To which end he had used his daughter to draw me south, and I thought first how clever he was, then wondered just what sins that clever man was prepared to tolerate to keep the Danes from destroying Christianity in England.
We left the village to ride through sunlit country. The grass had greened and was growing fast. Cattle, released from their winter imprisonment, were gorging themselves. A hare stood on its hind legs to watch us, then skittered away before standing and staring at us again. The road climbed gently into the soft hills. This was good country, well watered and fertile, the kind of land the Danes craved. I had been to their homeland and seen how men scratched a bare living from small fields, from sand and from rock. No wonder they wanted England.
The sun was sinking as we passed through another village. A girl carrying two yoked pails of milk was so scared by the sight of armed men that she stumbled as she tried to kneel and the precious milk ran into the road’s ruts. She began to cry. I tossed her a silver coin, enough to dry her tears, and asked her if there was a lord living nearby. She pointed us northward to where, behind a great stand of elm trees, we discovered a fine hall surrounded by a decaying palisade.
The thegn who owned the village was named Ealdhith. He was a stout, red-haired man who looked aghast at the number of horses and riders who came seeking shelter for the night. “I can’t feed you all,” he grumbled, “and who are you?”
“My name is Uhtred,” I said, “and that is the Lady ?thelfl?d.”
“My lady,” he said, and went onto one knee.
Ealdhith fed us well enough, though he complained next morning that we had emptied all his ale barrels. I consoled him with a gold link I chopped from Aldhelm’s chain. Ealdhith had little news to tell us. He had heard, of course, that ?thelfl?d had been a prisoner in the convent at Lecelad. “We sent eggs and flour to her, lord,” he told me.
“Why?”
“Because I live a stone’s throw from Wessex,” he said, “and I like West Saxons to be friendly to my folk.”
“Have you seen any Danes this spring?”
“Danes, lord? Those bastards don’t come near here!” Ealdhith was sure of that, which explained why he had allowed his palisade to deteriorate. “We just till our land and raise our cattle,” he said guardedly.
“And if Lord ?thelred summons you?” I asked, “you go to war?”
“I pray it doesn’t happen, but yes, lord. I can take six good warriors to serve.”
“You were at Fearnhamme?”
“I couldn’t go, lord, I had a broken leg.” He lifted his smock to show me a twisted calf. “I was lucky to live.”
“Be ready for a summons now,” I warned him.
He made the sign of the cross. “There’s trouble coming?”
“There’s always trouble coming,” I said, and hauled myself into the saddle of Aldhelm’s fine stallion. The horse, unused to me, trembled and I patted his neck.
We rode westward in the cool morning air. My children rode with me. A beggar was coming the other way and he knelt by the ditch to let us pass, holding out one mangled hand. “I was wounded in the fight at Lundene,” he called. There were many such men reduced by war’s injury to beggary. I gave my son Uhtred a silver coin and told him to toss it to the man, which he did, but then added some words. “May Christ bless you!”
“What did you say?” I demanded.
“You heard him.” ?thelfl?d, riding on my left, was amused.
“I offered him a blessing, Father,” Uhtred said.
“Don’t tell me you’ve become a Christian!” I snarled.
He reddened, but before he could say anything in reply Osferth spurred from among the horsemen behind. “Lord! Lord!”
“What is it?”
He did not answer, but just pointed back the way we had come.
I turned to see a thickening plume of smoke on the eastern horizon. How often I have seen those great smoke columns! I have caused many myself, the marks of war.
