Above Lundene the sky was clear so that moonlight cast sharp shadows from the edges of the Roman roof tiles. ?thelfl?d leaned her head on my shoulder. “What are you thinking?”
“That unless we defeat the Danes there’ll be no convents left.”
“Then what will I do?” she asked lightly.
I smiled. “Father Beocca liked to talk of the wheel of fortune,” I said, and wondered why I had spoken of him as if he lay in the past. Did I see the end coming? Would those distant fires creep ever closer till they burned Lundene and seared the last Saxon from Britain? “At Fearnhamme,” I said, “I was your father’s warlord. Now I’m a fugitive with not enough men to fill a ship’s benches.”
“My father calls you his miracle worker,” ?thelfl?d said. “True,” she said when I laughed, “that’s what he calls you.”
“I could work him a miracle,” I said bitterly, “if he gave me men.” I thought again of Iseult’s prophecy, how Alfred would give me power and my woman would be golden, and that was when I turned at last from the distant fires and looked down at ?thelfl?d’s golden hair and took her into my arms.
And next day ?lfwold would leave Lundene and I would be left powerless.
Three horsemen came first. They arrived in the dawn, galloping across the Fleot’s filthy valley and up to the city gates. I heard the horn calling from the ramparts and I threw on clothes, pulled on boots, kissed ?thelfl?d, and ran down the stairs to the palace’s hall just as the door was thrown open and the three mailed men strode in, their feet splintering the already splintered tiles. Their leader was tall, grim and bearded. He stopped two paces from me. “You must have some ale in this shit-stinking city,” he said. I was staring with disbelief. “I need breakfast,” he demanded, and then could not help himself. He laughed. It was Steapa, and with him were two younger men, both warriors. I shouted for the servants to bring food and ale, still hardly believing that Steapa had come. “I’m bringing you twelve hundred men,” he said briskly.
For a moment I could hardly speak. “Twelve hundred?” I echoed feebly.
“Alfred’s best,” Steapa said, “and the ?theling is coming too.”
“Edward?” I was too astonished to make any sensible response.
“Edward and twelve hundred of Alfred’s best men. We rode ahead of them,” he explained, then turned and bowed as ?thelfl?d, swathed in a great cloak, entered the hall. “Your father sends his greetings, lady,” he said.
“And he sends your brother,” I said, “with twelve hundred men.”
“God be praised,” ?thelfl?d said.
The hall filled as the news spread. My children were there, and Bishop Erkenwald and ?lfwold and Father Pyrlig, then Finan and Weohstan. “The ?theling Edward will lead the forces,” Steapa said, “but he is to accept Lord Uhtred’s guidance.”
Bishop Erkenwald looked astonished. He was glancing from ?thelfl?d to me and I could tell he was scenting sin with the eagerness of a terrier smelling a fox’s earth. “The king sent you?” he asked Steapa.
“Yes, lord.”
“But what of the Danes in Defnascir?”
“They’re just scratching…” Steapa said, then reddened because he had almost said something that he thought would offend the bishop, let alone a king’s daughter.
“Scratching their arses?” I finished for him.
“They’re doing nothing, my lady,” Steapa muttered. He was the son of slaves and, for all his eminence as the commander of Alfred’s bodyguard, he was awed by ?thelfl?d’s presence. “But the king wants his men back soon, lord,” Steapa said, looking at me, “just in case the Northumbrian Danes do wake up.”
“So finish your breakfast,” I said, “then ride back to Edward. Tell him he’s not to enter the city.” I did not want the West Saxon army inside Lundene with its tempting taverns and whores. “He’s to march north around the city,” I ordered, “and keep marching east.”
Steapa frowned. “He’s expecting to find supplies here.”
I looked at Bishop Erkenwald. “You’ll send food and ale to the army. Weohstan’s garrison will provide escorts.”
The bishop, offended by my peremptory tone, hesitated, then nodded. He knew I spoke now with Alfred’s authority. “Where do I send the supplies?” he asked.
“You remember Thunresleam?” I asked Steapa.
“The old hall on the hill, lord?”
“Edward’s to meet me there. You too.” I looked back to the bishop. “Send the supplies there.”
“To Thunresleam?” Bishop Erkenwald asked suspiciously, smelling still more sin because the name reeked of paganism.
“Thor’s Grove,” I confirmed. “It’s close to Beamfleot.” The bishop made the sign of the cross, but he dared not protest. “You and one hundred of your men are coming with me,” I told Weohstan.
“My orders are to defend Lundene,” Weohstan said uncertainly.
“If we’re at Beamfleot,” I said, “there’ll be no Danes threatening Lundene. We march in two hours.”
It took nearer four hours, but with ?lfwold’s Mercians, Weohstan’s West Saxons, and my own men we numbered over four hundred mounted warriors who clattered through the city’s eastern gate. I left my children in the care of ?thelfl?d’s servants. ?thelfl?d insisted on riding with us. I argued against that, telling her she should not risk her life, but she refused to stay in Lundene. “Didn’t you take an oath to serve me?” she asked.
“More fool me, yes.”
“Then I give the orders,” she said, smiling.
“Yes, my duck,” I said, and earned a thump on the arm. At the beginning of their marriage ?thelred had always called ?thelfl?d “my duck,” an endearment that annoyed her. So now she rode beneath my banner of the wolf’s head, Weohstan flew the West Saxon dragon, while ?lfwold’s Mercians displayed a long flag showing the Christian cross. “I want my own banner,” ?thelfl?d told me.
“Then make one,” I said.
“It will show geese,” she said.
“Geese! Not ducks?”
She made a face at me. “Geese are Saint Werburgh’s symbol,” she explained. “There was a huge flock of geese ravaging a cornfield and she prayed and God sent the geese away. It was a miracle!”
“The abbess at Lecelad did that?”
“No, no! The abbess was named after Saint Werburgh. The saint died a long time ago. Maybe I’ll show her on my banner. I know she protects me! I prayed to her last night and see what she did?” She gestured at the men following us. “My prayers were answered!”
I wondered if she had prayed before or after she had come to my room, but decided that was a question best left unasked.
We rode just north of the drab marshes that edged the Temes. This was East Anglian territory, but there were no great estates close to Lundene. There had once been beamed halls and busy villages, but the frequent raids and counter-raids had left the halls in ashes and the villages in terror. The Danish King Eohric of East Anglia was supposedly a Christian and had signed a peace treaty with Alfred, agreeing that his Danes would stay away from both Mercia and Wessex, but the two kings might as well have signed an agreement to stop men drinking ale. The Danes were forever crossing the frontier and the Saxons retaliated, and so we rode past impoverished settlements. The people saw us coming and fled to the marshes or else to the woods on the few small hills. We ignored them.
Beamfleot lay at the southern end of the great line of hills which barred our path. Most of the hills were heavily wooded, though above the village, where the slopes were highest and steepest, we could see the old fort which had been made on the grassy dome above the river. We swerved northward, climbing a steep track which led to Thunresleam, and we rode cautiously because the Danes would have seen us coming and they could easily have sent a force to attack us as we rode uphill through the thick trees. I expected that attack. I had sent ?thelfl?d and her two maidservants to the center of our column and had ordered every man to ride with his shield looped onto his arms and weapons ready. I listened for the sound of birds fleeing through the leaves, for the clink of harness, for the thud of a hoof on leaf mold, for the sudden shout that would announce a charge of Viking horsemen from the hill above, but the only birds clattering through the leaves were the pigeons we ourselves scared away. The defenders of Beamfleot had evidently yielded the hill to us, and not one Dane tried to stop us.
