priesthood and instead walked about Britain with a pack of trained terriers who amused folk at fairs by walking on their hind legs and dancing. The few coins those dogs collected would never have paid for Offa’s fine house in Liccelfeld, but his real talent, the skill that had made him wealthy, was his ability to learn about men’s hopes, dreams and intentions. His ludicrous dogs were welcome in every great hall, whether Dane or Saxon, and Offa was sharp-eared and sharp-minded, and he listened, he questioned, and then he sold what he had learned. Alfred had used him, but so did Sigurd and Cnut. It was Offa who told me what happened in the north. ‘Sigurd’s sickness doesn’t seem fatal,’ he told me, ‘just weakening. He has fevers, he recovers, then they come back.’
‘Cnut?’
‘He won’t attack south till he knows Sigurd will join him.’
‘Eohric?’
‘Pisses himself with worry.’
‘?thelwold?’
‘Drinks and humps servant girls.’
‘Haesten?’
‘Hates you, smiles, dreams of revenge.’
‘?lfadell?’
‘Ah,’ he said, and smiled. Offa was a lugubrious man who rarely smiled. His long, deep-lined face was guarded and shrewd. He cut a slice of the cheese made in my dairy. ‘I hear you’re building a mill?’
‘I am.’
‘Sensible, lord. A good place for a mill. Why pay a miller when you can grind your own wheat?’
‘?lfadell?’ I asked again, placing a silver coin on the table.
‘I hear you visited her?’
‘You hear too much,’ I said.
‘You compliment me,’ Offa said, scooping up the coin. ‘So you met her granddaughter?’
‘Erce.’
‘So ?lfadell calls her,’ he said, ‘and I envy you.’
‘I thought you had a new young wife?’
‘I do,’ he said, ‘but old men shouldn’t take young wives.’
I laughed. ‘You’re tired?’
‘I’m getting too old to keep straying the roads of Britain.’
‘Then stay home in Liccelfeld,’ I said, ‘you don’t need the silver.’
‘I have a young wife,’ he said, amused, ‘so I need the peace of constant travel.’
‘?lfadell?’ I asked yet again.
‘She was a whore in Eoferwic,’ he said, ‘years ago. That’s where Cnut found her. She told fortunes as well as whoring, and she must have told Cnut something that turned out to be true because he took her under his shield.’
‘He gave her the cave at Buchestanes?’
‘It’s his land, so yes.’
‘And she tells folk what he wants them to hear?’
Offa hesitated, always a sign that whatever answer was required needed a little more money. I sighed and placed another coin on the table. ‘She speaks his words,’ Offa confirmed.
‘So what’s she saying now?’ I asked, and he hesitated again. ‘Listen,’ I went on, ‘you wizened piece of goat gristle, I’ve paid enough. So tell me.’
‘She’s saying that a new king of the south will arise in the north.’
‘?thelwold?’
‘They’ll use him,’ Offa said bleakly. ‘He is, after all, the rightful King of Wessex.’
‘He’s a drunken idiot.’
‘When did that make a man unfit to be king?’
‘So the Danes will use him to placate the Saxons,’ I said, ‘then kill him.’
‘Of course.’
‘Then why wait?’
‘Because Sigurd is sick, because the Scots are threatening Cnut’s land, because the stars aren’t aligned propitiously.’
‘So ?lfadell can only tell men to wait for the stars?’
‘She’s saying that Eohric will be King of the Sea, that ?thelwold will be King of Wessex, and that all the great lands of the south will be given to the Danes.’
‘King of the Sea?’
‘Just a fancy way of saying that Sigurd and Cnut won’t take Eohric’s throne. They worry that he’ll ally himself with Wessex.’
‘And Erce?’
‘Is she as beautiful as men say?’ he asked.
‘You haven’t seen her?’
‘Not in her cave.’
‘Where she’s naked,’ I said and Offa sighed. ‘She is more than beautiful,’ I said.
‘So I hear. But she’s a mute. She can’t speak. Her mind is touched. I don’t know if she’s mad, but she is like a child. A beautiful, dumb, half-mad child who drives men wholly mad.’
I thought about that. I could hear the sound of blades on blades outside the hall, the sound of steel hammering linden-wood shields. My men were practising. All day, every day, men rehearse warfare, using sword and shield, axe and shield, spear and shield, readying themselves for the day when they must face Danes who practise just as much. That day, it seemed, was being delayed by Sigurd’s bad health. We should attack instead, I thought, but to invade northern Mercia I needed troops from Wessex, and Edward had been advised by the Witan to keep Britain’s fragile peace.
‘?lfadell is dangerous,’ Offa interrupted my thoughts.
‘An old woman babbling her master’s words?’
‘And men believe her,’ he said, ‘and men who believe they know fate do not fear risk.’
I thought of Sigurd’s foolhardy attack on the bridge at Eanulfsbirig and knew Offa was right. The Danes might be waiting to attack, but all the time they were hearing magical prophecies that told them they would win. And rumours of those prophecies were spreading through the Saxon lands. Wyrd bi
ful 
r?d. I had an idea, and opened my mouth to speak, then thought better of it. If a man wants to keep a secret then Offa was the last man to tell because he made his living betraying other men’s secrets. ‘You were about to speak, lord?’ he asked.
‘What do you hear about the Lady Ecgwynn?’ I asked.
He looked surprised. ‘I thought you knew more about her than I do.’
‘I know she died,’ I said.
‘She was frivolous,’ Offa said disapprovingly, ‘but very lovely. Elfin.’
‘And married?’
He shrugged. ‘I hear a priest performed a ceremony, but there was no contract between Edward and her father. Bishop Swithwulf’s no fool! He refused to allow it. So was the marriage legal?’
‘If a priest performed it.’
‘Marriage requires a contract,’ Offa said sternly. ‘They weren’t two peasants humping like pigs in a mud- floored hut, but a king and a bishop’s daughter. Of course there must be a contract, and a bride-price! Without those? It’s just a royal rut.’
‘So the children are illegitimate?’
‘That’s what the Witan of Wessex says, so it must be true.’
I smiled. ‘They’re sickly children,’ I lied, ‘and most unlikely to live.’
Offa could not hide his interest. ‘Truly?’
‘?thelflaed can’t persuade the boy to suckle his wet nurse,’ I lied again, ‘and the girl is frail. Not that it matters if they die, they’re illegitimate.’
‘Their deaths would solve many problems,’ Offa said.
