?thelwold’s father had been Alfred’s brother, King ?thelred. ?thelwold, as eldest son of ?thelred, expected to be King of Wessex, but he was still a child when his father died and the Witan, the king’s council of leading men, had put his uncle, Alfred, onto the throne instead. Alfred had wanted that and had worked for it, and there were men who still whispered that he was a usurper. ?thelwold had resented the usurpation ever since, but Alfred, instead of murdering his nephew as I had often recommended, indulged him. He let him keep some of his father’s estates, he forgave his constant treachery, and doubtless prayed for him. ?thelwold needed a lot of prayer. He was unhappy, frequently drunk, and perhaps that was why Alfred tolerated him. It was hard to see a drunken fool as a danger to the kingdom.
But ?thelwold was now talking with Sigurd. ?thelwold wanted to be king instead of Edward, and to make himself king he had plainly sought the alliance of Sigurd, and Sigurd, of course, would like nothing better than a tame Saxon whose claim to the throne of Wessex was every bit as good as Edward’s, indeed better, which meant Sigurd’s invasion of Wessex would have the spurious gloss of legitimacy.
Six of us rode south through Wessex. I took Osferth, Sihtric, Rypere, Eadric and Ludda. I left Finan in command of the rest of my men, and with a promise. ‘If there’s no gratitude in Wintanceaster,’ I said, ‘then we go north.’
‘We must do something,’ Finan said.
‘I promise,’ I told him. ‘We’ll go Viking. We’ll thrive. But I must give Alfred one last chance.’
Finan did not much care which side we fought for, so long as we were fighting profitably, and I understood how he felt. If my ambition was to one day retake Bebbanburg, his was to return to Ireland to take revenge on the man who had destroyed his wealth and family, and for that he needed silver as much as I did. Finan, of course, was a Christian, though he never allowed that to interfere with his pleasures, and he would have happily used his sword to attack Wessex if, at the end of the fighting, there was money enough to equip an expedition back to Ireland. I knew he believed my journey to Wintanceaster was a waste of time. Alfred did not like me, ?thelflaed appeared to have distanced herself from me, and Finan believed I was going to beg from folk who should have shown gratitude from the start.
And there were times on that journey when I thought Finan was right. I had fought to help Wessex survive for so many years now, and I had put so many of her enemies beneath the ground, and to show for it I had nothing but an empty purse. Yet I also had a reluctant allegiance. I have broken oaths, I have changed sides, I have scrambled through the thorns of loyalty, yet I had meant it when I told Osferth that I wanted to be the sword of the Saxons instead of the shield of Mercia, and so I would make one last visit to the heart of Saxon Britain to discover whether they wanted my sword or not. And if not? I had friends in the north. There was Ragnar, closer than a friend, a man I loved as a brother, and he would help me, and if the price I had to pay was eternal enmity for Wessex, then so be it. I rode, not as the beggar that Finan thought I was, but vengefully.
It rained as we neared Wintanceaster, a soft rain on a soft land, on fields rich with good earth, on villages that showed prosperity and had new churches and thick thatch and no gaunt skeletons of burned house-beams. The halls grew larger, because men like to have their land near power.
There were two powers in Wessex, king and church, and the churches, like the halls, grew larger as we neared the city. No wonder the Northmen wanted this land, who would not? The cattle were plump, the barns full and the girls were pretty. ‘It’s time you got married,’ I told Osferth as we passed an open-doored barn where two fair-haired girls winnowed grain on a threshing floor.
‘I’ve thought of it,’ he said gloomily.
‘Just thought?’
He half smiled. ‘You believe in destiny, lord,’ he said.
‘And you don’t?’ I asked. Osferth and I were riding a few paces ahead of the others. ‘And what does destiny have to do with a girl in your bed?’
‘
‘Both Father Beocca and Father Willibald tried to teach me Latin,’ I said, ‘and they both failed.’
‘It comes from the scriptures, lord,’ he said, ‘from the book of Deuteronomy, and it means a bastard isn’t allowed into the church and it warns that the curse will last for ten generations.’
I stared at him in disbelief. ‘You were training to be a priest when I met you!’
‘And I left my training,’ he said. ‘I had to. How could I be a priest when God bans me from his congregation?’
‘So you can’t be a priest,’ I said, ‘but you can be married!’
‘
‘So every bastard is doomed?’
‘God tells us that, lord.’
‘Then he’s a bloody-minded god,’ I said savagely, then saw that his distress was real. ‘It wasn’t your fault that Alfred played piggyback with a servant girl.’
‘True, lord.’
‘So how can his sin affect you?’
‘God is not always fair, lord, but he is just within his rules.’
‘Just! So if I can’t catch a thief I should whip his children instead and you’d call me just?’
‘God abhors sin, lord, and what better way to avert sin than threaten it with the direst punishment?’ He edged his horse to the left side of the road to allow a string of packhorses to pass by. They were travelling northwards, carrying sheepskins. ‘If God didn’t punish us severely,’ Osferth went on, ‘then what is to stop sin spreading?’
‘I like sin,’ I said and nodded to the horseman whose servants led the packhorses. ‘Does Alfred live?’ I asked him.
‘Scarcely,’ the man said. He made the sign of the cross and nodded thanks when I wished him a safe journey.
Osferth frowned at me. ‘Why did you bring me here, lord?’ he asked.
‘Why not?’
‘You could have brought Finan, but you chose me.’
‘You don’t want to see your father?’
He said nothing for a while, then turned to me and I saw there were tears in his eyes. ‘Yes, lord.’
‘That’s why I brought you,’ I said, and just then we turned a bend in the road and Wintanceaster was beneath us, its new church rearing high above the huddle of roofs.
Wintanceaster was, of course, the chief of Alfred’s burhs, those towns fortified against the Danes. It was surrounded by a deep ditch, flooded in places, beyond which was a high earthen bank topped by a palisade of oak trunks. There are few things worse than assaulting such a place. The defenders, like Haesten’s men at Beamfleot, hold all the advantage and can rain weapons and stones on the attackers, who have to struggle through obstacles and try to climb ladders that are being hacked apart by axes. Alfred’s burhs were what had made Wessex safe. The Danes could still ravage the countryside, but everything of value would be pulled inside the burh walls and the Danes could only ride around those walls and make empty threats. The surest way to capture a burh was to starve its garrison into submission, but that could take weeks or months, and for all that time the besiegers would be vulnerable to troops coming from other fortresses. The alternative was to throw men at the walls and watch them die in the ditch and the Danes were never profligate with men. The burhs were strongholds, too strong for the Danes, and Bebbanburg, I thought, was tougher than any burh.
The northern gateway to Wintanceaster was now made of stone and guarded by a dozen men who barred the open arch. Their leader was a small grizzled man with fierce eyes who waved his troops away when he saw me. ‘It’s Grimric, lord,’ he said, obviously expecting to be recognised.
‘You were at Beamfleot,’ I guessed.
‘I was, lord!’ he said, pleased that I remembered.
‘Where you did great slaughter,’ I said, hoping it was true.
‘We showed the bastards how Saxons fight, lord, didn’t we?’ he said, grinning. ‘I keep telling these lily boys that you know how to give a man a real fight!’ he jerked a thumb at his men, all of whom were youngsters pulled away from their farms or shops to serve their term of weeks in the burh’s garrison. ‘They’re still wet with mama’s
