‘tell him the bastard’s running.’
‘And you?’ he asked, hauling himself into the saddle.
‘I’ll go west.’
‘Not on your own,’ he said chidingly.
‘Just go,’ I said.
Steapa was right, of course. There was really little sense in riding alone into the night’s chaos, but I did not want to return to the chalk slopes of Baddan Byrig where, inevitably, the next two hours would be spent discussing what to do. I wondered what had happened to Father Coenwulf, and hoped he was alive, then I was through the gate and scattering the people in the torch-lit street as I spurred the horse down a lane that led eastwards.
?thelwold had lost his pitiable attempt to be acknowledged King of Wessex, but he had not given up. The folk of his own county had failed to support him, he had only the smallest band of supporters, and so he was fleeing to where he could find swords, shields and spears. He wanted to go north to the Danes, and he had only two choices that I could see. He could ride overland, hoping to circle around the small army that Edward had brought to Wimburnan, or he could go south to where a boat might be waiting for him. I dismissed that last thought. The Danes had not known when Alfred would die, and no Danish boat dared linger in West Saxon waters, which made it more than unlikely that any ship was waiting to rescue ?thelwold. He was on his own for now, and that meant he was trying to ride across country.
And I pursued him, or rather I groped my way into the darkness. There was a moon that night, but the shadows it cast were black on the road and neither I nor the horse could see well and so we went slowly. In places I thought I could detect the fresh hoof-prints, but I could not be sure. The road itself was mud and grass, wide between hedges and tall trees, a drover’s road that followed the river valley as it curved northwards. Sometime in the night I came to a village where light showed in a blacksmith’s hut. A boy was feeding the furnace. That was his job, to keep the fire alight through the darkness, and he cowered when he saw me in my war splendour, my helmet, mail and scabbard lit by the flames that brightened the muddy street.
I stopped the horse and gazed at the boy. ‘When I was your age,’ I spoke from behind my helmet’s cheek- plates, ‘I used to watch a charcoal fire. My job was to stuff the holes with moss and wet earth if any smoke escaped. I watched all night. It can be lonely.’
He nodded, still too terrified to say anything.
‘But I had a girl who used to watch with me,’ I said, remembering Brida in the darkness. ‘You don’t have a girl?’
‘No, lord,’ he said, on his knees now.
‘Girls are the best company on lonely nights,’ I said, ‘even if they do talk too much. Look at me, boy.’ He had lowered his head, perhaps out of awe. ‘Now tell me something,’ I went on, ‘did some men ride through here? They would have had a woman with them.’ The boy said nothing, just stared at me. My horse did not like the heat of the furnace, or perhaps its pungent smell upset him, and so I patted his neck to quieten him. ‘The men told you to keep silent,’ I said to the boy, ‘they said you must keep a secret. Did they threaten you?’
‘He said he was the king, lord,’ the boy almost whispered those words.
‘The real king is close by,’ I said. ‘What’s the name of this place?’
‘Blaneford, lord.’
‘It looks a good place to live. So they rode north?’
‘Yes, lord.’
‘How long ago?’
‘Not long, lord.’
‘And this road goes to Sceaftesburi?’ I asked, trying to remember these heartlands of rich Wessex. ‘Yes, lord.’
‘How many men were there?’ I asked.
‘Dick and mimp, lord,’ he said, and I realised that was his way of counting, different to the ways I was used to, and he was smart enough to realise it too and held up all his fingers once and then just one hand. Fifteen.
‘Was there a priest?’
‘No, lord.’
‘You’re a good lad,’ I said, and he was, because he had possessed the wit to count. I tossed him a scrap of silver. ‘In the morning,’ I said, ‘tell your father that you met Uhtred of Bebbanburg and that you did your duty to your new king.’
He gazed at me with very wide eyes as I turned and rode into the ford where I let the horse drink very little, then spurred uphill.
I remember thinking I could have died that night. ?thelwold had fourteen companions, not counting ?thelflaed, and he must have known he would be pursued. I assume he thought all of Edward’s army would blunder through the night, but if he had known it was a single horseman he would surely have set an ambush and I would have been beaten down by the blades and so hacked to death in the moonlight. A better death, I thought, than Alfred’s. Better than lying in a stinking room with the pain conquering the body, with a lump in the belly like a stone, with dribble and tears and shit and stench. But then comes the relief of the afterlife, the rebirth into joy. The Christians call it heaven and try to scare us into its marble halls with tales of a hell hotter than the blacksmith’s furnace in Blaneford, but I will go with a burst of light in the arms of a Valkyrie to the great hall of Valhalla, where my friends will wait for me, and not only my friends but my enemies too, the men I have killed in battle, and there will be feasting and drinking and fighting and women. That is our fate, unless we die badly, when we live for ever in the frigid halls of the goddess Hel.
I thought that was strange as I followed ?thelwold through the night. The Christians say that our punishment is hell and the Danes say that those who die badly go to Hel where the goddess of the same name rules. Hell and Hel sound the same, yet they are not the same. Hel is not hell. Hel does not burn people, they just live in misery. Die with a sword in your hand and you will never see Hel’s decaying body or feel hunger in her vast cold caverns, but there is no punishment about Hel’s domain of Hel. It is just ordinary life for ever. The Christians promise punishment or reward as if we are small children, but in truth what comes after is just what went before. All will change, as ?lfadell had told me, and all will be the same as ever it was and ever shall be. And remembering ?lfadell made me think of Erce, of that slim body undulating on mine, of the guttural sounds she had made, of the memory of joy.
Dawn brought the sound of stags roaring. This was the rutting season when starlings blacken the sky and the leaves begin to fall. I paused my tired horse at a rise in the road and looked about me, but saw no one. I seemed to be alone in a misted dawn, suspended in a gold and yellow world that was silent except for the roar of the stags, and even that sound vanished as I looked eastwards and southwards for any sign of Edward’s men, but still saw nothing. I kicked the horse on north towards the smoke-smear in the sky that betrayed the town of Sceaftesburi beyond the hills.
Sceaftesburi was one of Alfred’s burhs, a fortress town that protected both a royal mint and a nunnery that had been beloved of Alfred. ?thelwold would never dare demand entrance to such a town, or risk waiting for its gates to open so that he could ride through the streets. The burh’s commander, whoever he was, would be too curious, which meant ?thelwold must have circled Sceaftesburi. But which way? I searched for tracks and saw nothing obvious. I was tempted to abandon the pursuit, which had been a foolish idea in the first place. I wanted to find a tavern in the burh and eat a meal and find a bed and pay a whore to warm it, but then a hare ran across my path, east to west, and that was surely a sign from the gods. I turned west off the road.
And moments later the mist cleared and I saw the horses on a chalk hill. Between me and the hill was a wide, thickly wooded valley and I spurred into it even as I saw the horsemen had noticed me. They were in a group, staring my way and I saw one point at me, then they turned and went on northwards. I counted only nine men, yet surely it had to be ?thelwold, but once I dropped into the trees I could not look for the remaining horsemen because the mist thickened here and I had to go slowly because the branches dipped low and I needed to duck. Ferns grew thick. A small stream tumbled across my path. A dead tree was layered with fungi and moss. Brambles, ivy and holly choked the undergrowth either side of the path, a path pocked with fresh hoof-prints. It was silent among the trees and in the silence I felt the fear, the prickling, the knowledge born of nothing but experience that danger was close.
I dismounted and tied the horse’s reins to an oak. What I should do, I thought, was remount the horse and ride straight to Sceaftesburi and raise the alarm. I should requisition a fresh horse and lead the garrison’s men in
