‘He’s guarding me,’ I said.
‘Please?’ Fraomar said to Egil, ignoring me, and Egil obligingly sheathed Adder’s long blade.
‘Thank you,’ Fraomar said. I reckoned he was in his mid thirties, a confident and competent-looking man, whose presence had dispelled the onlookers, though I saw how Guthfrith’s men looked back at me with something close to hatred. ‘We should find you somewhere to camp,’ Fraomar went on.
I pointed south and west, to a space between the Saxon and Welsh encampments. ‘That will do,’ I said. I dismounted, threw the stallion’s reins to Aldwyn, and walked with Fraomar ahead of my men. ‘Are we the last to arrive?’ I asked.
‘Most folk came three days ago,’ he said, then paused awkwardly. ‘They took the oaths on Saint Bartholomew’s day.’
‘Not Saint …’ I paused, unable to remember the name of the idiot pope. ‘When was Bartholomew’s day?’
‘Two days ago, lord.’
‘And what oaths?’ I asked. ‘What oaths?’
Another awkward pause. ‘I wouldn’t know, lord. I wasn’t there. And I’m sorry about that idiot Cenwalh.’
‘Why?’ I really wanted to ask about the oaths, but it was plain Fraomar did not want to talk about them and I reckoned I would learn soon enough. I also wanted to know why the nervous priest had instructed us to come late, but reckoned Fraomar would have no answer to that. ‘Is Cenwalh one of your men?’
‘He’s West Saxon,’ Fraomar said. His own accent betrayed him as a Mercian.
‘And the West Saxons are still resentful of Mercia?’ I asked. Æthelstan was also a West Saxon, but the army he had led to take the throne of Wessex was largely Mercian.
Fraomar shook his head. ‘There’s not much trouble. The West Saxons know he was the best choice. Maybe a few still want to fight old battles, but not many.’
I grimaced. ‘Only a fool wants a battle like Lundene again.’
‘You mean the fight at the city gate, lord?’
‘It was a horror,’ I said, and so it had been. My men against the best of the West Saxon troops, a slaughter that still sometimes woke me at night with a feeling of doom.
‘I saw it, lord,’ Fraomar said, ‘or the end of it.’
‘You were with Æthelstan?’
‘I rode with him, lord. Saw your men fighting.’ He walked in silence for a few paces, then turned and glanced at Egil. ‘He’s really with you, lord?’
‘He is,’ I said. ‘He’s a Norseman, a poet, a warrior, and my friend. So yes, he’s with me.’
‘It just seems strange …’ Fraomar’s voice faltered.
‘Being among so many pagans?’
‘Pagans, yes, and the damned Scots. Welsh too.’
I thought how sensible it was of Æthelstan to order that no swords should be worn in the camp except, of course, for those men standing guard. ‘You don’t trust pagans, Scots or Welshmen?’ I asked.
‘Do you, lord?’
‘I’m one of them, Fraomar. I’m a pagan.’
He looked embarrassed. He must have known I was not a Christian, the hammer at my chest told him that, if my reputation was not enough. ‘Yet my father said you were the best friend King Alfred ever had, lord.’
I laughed at that. ‘Alfred was never a friend,’ I said. ‘I admired him and he endured me.’
‘And King Æthelstan must know what you did for him, lord,’ he said, though to my ears he sounded dubious.
‘I’m sure he appreciates what we all did for him.’
‘It was a rare fight in Lundene!’ Fraomar said, plainly relieved I seemed not to have noticed the tone of his previous remark.
‘It was,’ I said and then, as casually as I could, ‘I haven’t seen him since that day.’
The lure worked. ‘He’s changed, lord!’ Fraomar hesitated, then realised he had to qualify that comment. ‘He’s become,’ he paused again, ‘very grand.’
‘He’s a king.’
‘True.’ He sounded rueful. ‘I suppose I’d be grand if I was a king.’
‘King Freckles?’ I suggested, he laughed and the moment passed. ‘Is he here?’ I asked, gesturing at the huge tent erected in the large circle.
‘He’s lodging in the monastery at Dacore,’ Fraomar said. ‘It’s not far away. You can camp here,’ he had stopped in a wide swathe of meadow. ‘Water from the river, firewood from the copse, you’ll be comfortable enough. There’s a church service at sundown, but I suppose …’ his voice tailed off.
‘You suppose right,’ I said.
‘Shall I tell the king you’re here, lord?’ Fraomar asked, and again there was a slight awkwardness in his voice.
I smiled. ‘He’ll know I’m here. But if it’s your job to tell him? Do it.’
Fraomar left us and we set about making our shelters, though I took the precaution of sending Egil with a dozen men to scout our surroundings. I did not expect trouble, there were too many of Æthelstan’s warriors for any Scotsman or Welshman to start a war, but I did not know this part of Cumbria and if trouble came I wanted to know how best to escape it. And so, while we made ourselves comfortable, Egil scouted.
I had brought no tents. Benedetta had wanted to fashion one from sailcloth, but I had assured her we were well used to making shelters and that our packhorses already had enough to carry with their heavy tubs of ale, barrels of bread, and sacks of smoked meat, cheese and fish. Instead of tents my men chopped down branches with war axes to make simple gable-shaped shelters lashed together by withies, cut turf with their knives to roof them, then lined the floors with bracken. They competed, of course, not to be the first finished, but for who could make the most elaborate shelter, and the winner, an impressive turf hut almost the size of a small hall, was given to me to share with Finan, Egil, and his brother Thorolf. Naturally we were expected to pay the builders with hacksilver, ale and praise, which we did, then watched as two men cut and stripped a towering larch trunk on which they hoisted Egil’s eagle banner. By then the sun was setting and we lit
