“Skade?” I asked.
The Irishman nodded. “It seems she led them, lord.”
“Haesten wasn’t here?”
“If he was, lord, then no one noticed him.”
“The woman gave all the orders, lord,” Cealworth said.
I stared northward and wondered what happened in the rest of Mercia. I was looking for the telltale plumes of smoke, but saw none. ?thelfl?d came to stand beside me and, without thinking, I put an arm about her shoulder. She did not move.
“Why did they come here?” Finan asked.
“For me,” ?thelfl?d said bitterly.
“That would make sense, my lady,” Finan said.
In a way it made sense. I did not doubt that Haesten would have sent spies into Mercia. Those spies would have been merchants or vagabonds, anyone with a reason to travel, and they would have told him ?thelfl?d was a prisoner in Lecelad, and ?thelfl?d would certainly make a powerful and useful hostage, but why send Skade to capture her? I thought, though I did not speak the thought aloud, that it was much more likely that Skade had come for my children. Haesten’s spies would have learned that the three were with ?thelfl?d, and Skade hated me now. And when Skade hated there was no cruelty sufficient to slake her appetite. I knew my suspicion was right and I shuddered. If Skade had come just two days earlier she would have taken my children and had me in her power. I touched Thor’s hammer. “We bury the dead,” I said, “then we ride.” Just then a bee landed on my right hand that was still resting on ?thelfl?d’s shoulder. I did not try to brush it off, for I did not want to take my arm away. I felt it first, then saw it crawling dozily toward my thumb. It would fly away, I thought, but then, for no reason, it stung me. I swore at the sudden pain and slapped the insect dead, startling ?thelfl?d.
“Rub an onion on the sting,” she told me, but I could not be bothered to hunt for an onion, so I left it alone. I knew the sting was an omen, a message from the gods, but I did not want to think about it, for it could surely be no good sign.
We buried the dead. Most of the nuns had been shrunken to small burned corpses scarce bigger than children, and now they shared a grave with their crucified abbess. Father Pyrlig spoke words over their bodies, and then we rode westward again. By the time we discovered Osferth and Beornoth, their men, and my family, my hand was so swollen that I could scarcely fold the puffy fingers around the stallion’s reins. I could certainly not hold a sword with any skill. “It’ll be gone in a week,” Finan said.
“If we have a week,” I said gloomily. He looked at me quizzically, and I shrugged. “The Danes are on the move,” I said, “and we don’t know what’s happening.”
We were still traveling with my men’s wives and families. They slowed us down, and so I left a score of men to guard them as they followed us, and hurried on toward Gleawecestre. We spent the night in the hills to the west of that city and, in the dawn, saw smears in the sky far to the east and north. There were too many to count and in places they joined together to make darker patches that might have been clouds, though I doubted it. ?thelfl?d saw them too and frowned. “My poor country,” she said.
“Haesten,” I said.
“My husband should have marched against them already,” she said.
“You think he has?”
She shook her head. “He’ll wait for Aldhelm to tell him what to do.”
I laughed at that. We had reached the hills above the valley of the S?fern and I checked my horse to gaze down at my cousin’s holdings that lay just south of Gleawecestre. ?thelred’s father had been content with a hall half the size that his son had built, and beside that new and magnificent hall were stables, a church, barns, and a massive granary raised on stone mushrooms to keep the rats at bay. All the buildings, new and old, were surrounded by a palisade. We cantered down the hill. Guards stood on a timber platform above the gate, but they must have recognized ?thelfl?d because they made no attempt to challenge us, but just ordered that the great gates be pushed open.
?thelred’s steward met us in the wide courtyard. If he was aston ished to see ?thelfl?d he showed no sign of it, but just bowed deeply and welcomed her graciously. Slaves brought us bowls of water so we could wash our hands, while stable boys took our horses. “My lord is in the hall, lady,” the steward told ?thelfl?d, and for the first time sounded nervous.
“Is he well?” ?thelfl?d asked.
“God be praised, yes,” he answered, and his eyes flicked to me and back to her. “You’ve come for the council, perhaps?”
“What council?” ?thelfl?d asked, taking a woolen cloth from a slave to dry her hands.
“There is trouble from the heathens, lady,” the steward said cautiously, then glanced at me again.
“This is the Lord Uhtred of Bebbanburg,” ?thelfl?d said with apparent carelessness, “and yes, we’ve come for the council.”
“I shall tell your husband you are here,” the steward said. He had looked startled when he heard my name and taken a hasty backward step.
“No need for an announcement,” ?thelfl?d said sharply.
“Your swords?” the steward asked. “If you please, my lords, your swords?”
“Is anyone else armed in the hall?” I asked.
“The ealdorman’s own guards, lord, no one else.”
I hesitated, then gave the steward my two swords. It was usual to wear no weapon in a king’s hall, and ?thelred evidently saw himself as near enough to a king to demand the same courtesy. It was more than a courtesy, it was a precaution against the slaughter that could follow a drunken feast. I half wondered if I should keep Serpent-Breath, but reckoned the long blade would be a provocation.
I took Osferth, Finan, Father Pyrlig, and Beornoth. My hand was throbbing and red, the flesh so swollen that I thought the simple touch of a knife’s edge would split it open like bursting fruit. I kept it hidden beneath my cloak as we went from the sunlight into the shadowed darkness of ?thelred’s great hall.
If the steward’s first response to seeing ?thelfl?d had been restrained, her husband’s was the very opposite. He looked irritated when we first walked into the hall, plainly offended at the inter ruption, then hopeful, because he must have thought Aldhelm had arrived, and then he recognized us and, for a gratifying instant, he appeared terrified. He was sitting in a chair, more of a throne than a chair, that was set on the dais where, normally, the high table would be set for feasting. He wore a thin bronze circlet on his red hair, a circlet that fell just short of a crown. He had a thick gold chain over his embroidered jerkin and a fur-trimmed cloak that had been dyed a deep scarlet. Two men with swords and shields stood at the back of the dais, while ?thelred was flanked by a pair of priests who sat facing four benches set on the rush-strewn floor. Eighteen men occupied the benches and they all turned to stare at us. The priest on ?thelred’s right was my old enemy, Bishop Asser, and he was looking at me with wide-open eyes and unconcealed surprise. If Alfred had manipulated me into returning, then he had plainly not told Asser.
It was Asser who broke the silence, and that by itself was interesting. This hall belonged to ?thelred who was the Ealdorman of Mercia, yet the Welsh bishop thought nothing of assuming authority. It was a sign of Alfred’s dominance over Saxon Mercia, a dominance that ?thelred secretly detested. He could not wait for Alfred to die so he could turn the circlet into a proper crown, yet he also needed the assistance that Wessex gave. Bishop Asser, shrewd and waspish, was undoubtedly here to pass on Alfred’s commands, but now he stood and pointed a bony finger at me. “You!” he said. A pair of hounds had rushed to greet ?thelfl?d. She soothed them. There was a babble of voices that Bishop Asser overrode. “You were declared outlaw,” he yapped.
I told him to be silent, but of course he went on protesting, becoming ever more indignant until Father Pyrlig spoke to him in Welsh. I had no idea what Pyrlig said, but it silenced Asser who just spluttered and kept pointing at me. I assume Father Pyrlig revealed that Alfred had conspired at my return, but that was small consolation to the bishop, who regarded me as a creature sent by his religion’s demon, the creature they call Satan. Whatever, he stayed silent as ?thelflaed went to the dais and snapped her fingers to a servant who hurried to fetch her a chair. She leaned down to ?thelred and gave him a very public kiss on the cheek, but she also whispered something in his ear and I saw him redden. Then she sat next to him and reached for his hand. “Do sit down, bishop,” she told Asser, then looked gravely at the assembled lords. “I bring bad news,” she said. “The Danes have destroyed the convent at Lecelad. Every dear sister there is dead, as is my dear Lord Aldhelm. I pray for their souls.”
