The Burning Land

“What will you do?” ?thelfl?d asked.

“Take you north,” I said, “take my children north, and fight till I have the silver to raise an army that can capture Bebbanburg.”

She turned her face up to mine. “No,” she said. “I am Mercian now, Uhtred.”

“Mercian and Christian,” I said sourly.

“Yes,” she said, “Mercian and Christian. And what are you, Lord Uhtred?”

I looked to where reflected sunlight winked from the spear-points of the watchmen on Beamfleot’s high hill. “A fool,” I said bitterly, “a fool.”

“My fool,” she said, and stood on tiptoe to kiss my cheek.

“Row!” Ralla bellowed, “row!” He shoved the steering oar hard over so that the Haligast turned southward and then west. Two large enemy ships were nosing out of the creek, sliding past the new ship-fortresses, their oar-banks catching the sun as they dipped and rose.

We fled upriver.

And, like the fool I was, I dreamed of capturing Beamfleot.

FOUR

Next day Ealdorman ?lfwold came to Lundene. His lands lay in the northern parts of Saxon Mercia, which made them the most vulnerable to Danish attacks, and he had only kept his estates by the expense of hiring warriors, by bribing the Danes, and by fighting. He was old, a widower, and tired of the struggle. “As soon as the harvest is gathered,” he said, “the Danes come. Rats and Danes, they arrive together.”

He brought nearly three hundred men, most of whom were well armed and properly trained. “They might as well die with you as rot at Gleawecestre,” he remarked. He was homeless because his hall had been burned by one of Haesten’s bands. “I abandoned it,” he admitted. “I’m used to fighting off a couple of hundred of the bastards, but not thousands.” He had sent his household servants, his daughters, and grandchildren to Wessex in the hope they would be safe there. “Are the northern jarls truly planning an attack on Alfred?” he asked me.

“Yes.”

“God help us,” he said.

Folk were moving into the old city. Lundene is really two cities, the Roman one built on the high ground and, to the west, beyond the River Fleot, the new Saxon city. The first was a place of high stone walls and the faded glory of marble pillars, while the other was a malodorous swamp of thatch and wattle, but folk preferred the swamp because they swore the crumbling Roman buildings were haunted by ghosts. Now, fearing Haesten’s men more than any specter, they were crossing the Fleot and finding themselves shelter in the older houses. The city stank. The Roman sewers had caved in, the cesspits were not large enough, and the streets became fouled. Cattle were penned in the old Roman arena and pigs roamed the streets. Weohstan’s garrison manned the walls, which were high and stout. Most of the battlements were Roman-built, but where time had decayed the stonework there were thick oak palisades.

Finan was leading horsemen north and east every day and brought back news of Danes returning eastward. “They’re taking plunder to Beamfleot,” he said, “plunder and slaves.”

“Are they staying in Beamfleot?”

He shook his head. “They go back to Mercia.” He was angry because we did not have enough men for him to attack the Danish horsemen. He could only watch.

Ralla, scouting downriver in the Haligast, saw more Danes arriving from across the sea. Rumors had spread that both Wessex and Mercia were in disarray and the crews were hurrying to share the plunder. Haesten, meanwhile, tore destruction across Mercia’s farmlands while ?thelred waited at Gleawecestre for an attack that never came. Then, the day after ?lfwold brought his housecarls to Lundene, came the news I had been expecting. The Northumbrian fleet had landed in Defnascir and had made a camp above the Uisc, which meant Alfred’s West Saxon army marched to protect Exanceaster.

The Saxons seemed doomed. A week after my foray downriver I sat in the palace hall and watched the fire- cast shadows flicker on the high ceiling. I could hear monks chanting from Erkenwald’s cavernous church, which lay next to the Mercian palace. If I had climbed to the roof I would have seen the glow of fires far to the north and west. Mercia was burning.

That was the night ?lfwold abandoned hope. “We can’t just wait here, lord,” he told me at the evening meal, “the city has enough men to defend it, and my three hundred are needed elsewhere.”

I ate that evening with my usual companions; ?thelfl?d, Finan, ?lfwold, Father Pyrlig, and Beornoth. “If I had another three hundred,” I said, and despised myself for saying it. Even if fate brought me another three hundred warriors I would still not have nearly enough men to capture Beamfleot. ?thelred had won. We had challenged him, we had lost.

“If you were me, lord,” ?lfwold, a shrewd man, asked quietly, “what would you do?”

I gave him an honest answer. “Rejoin ?thelred,” I said, “and persuade him to attack the Danes.”

He crumbled a piece of bread, finding a chip of millstone that he rubbed between his fingers. He was not aware of what he did. He was thinking of the Danes, of the battle he knew must be fought, of the battle he feared would be lost. He shook his head. “Tomorrow,” he said quietly, “I take my men west.” He looked up at me. “I’m sorry.”

“You have no choice,” I said.

I felt like a man who had lost almost everything playing at dice and then, like a fool, had risked all that remained on one last throw. I had failed. What had I thought? That men would come to me because of reputation? Instead they had stayed with their gold-givers. ?thelred did not want me to succeed and so he had opened his chests of silver and offered wealth to men if they joined his army. I needed a thousand men and I could not find them, and without them I could do nothing. I thought bitterly of Iseult’s prophecy made so many years before, that Alfred would give me power, that I would lead a shining horde and have a woman of gold.

That night, in the upper room of the palace where I had a straw mattress, I gazed at the dull glow of distant fires beyond the horizon and I wished I had stayed in Northumbria. I had been drifting, I thought, ever since Gisela’s death. I thought ?thelfl?d’s summons had given my life a new purpose, but now I could see no future. I stood at the window, a great stone arch that framed the sky, and I could hear singing from the taverns, the shouts of men arguing, a woman’s laughter, and I thought that Alfred had taken away the power he had given me and the promised shining horde was a half-crew of men who were beginning to doubt my ability to lead them anywhere.

“So what will you do?” ?thelfl?d asked from behind me.

I had not heard her come. Her bare feet made no sound on the stone floor. “I don’t know,” I admitted.

She came and stood beside me. She touched my hand where it rested on the sill, tracing the ball of my thumb with a gentle finger. “The swelling has gone,” she said.

“The itch too,” I said.

“See?” she asked, amusement in her voice, “the sting was no omen.”

“It was,” I said, “but I’ve yet to discover what it means.”

She left her hand on mine, her touch light as a feather. “Father Pyrlig says I have a choice.”

“Which is?”

“To go back to ?thelred or find a nunnery in Wessex.”

I nodded. Monks still chanted in the church, their droning punctuated by laughter and singing from the taverns. Folk were seeking oblivion in ale or else they were praying. They all knew what the fires of the burning sky meant, that the end was coming. “Did you turn my eldest son into a Christian?” I asked.

“No,” ?thelfl?d said, “he found it for himself.”

“I’ll take him north,” I said, “and beat the nonsense out of him.” ?thelfl?d said nothing to that, just pressed her hand on mine. “A nunnery?” I asked bleakly.

“I’m married,” she said, “and the church tells me that if I am not with my God-given husband then I must be seen to be virtuous.” I was still gazing at the fire-smeared horizon where the flames lit the underside of clouds.