‘I’m supposed to know who that is?’ I asked sourly. Anwyn’s tone suggested that Bishop Oswald was famous, but why would I care? A long life had condemned me to hear too many Christian sermons. ‘Why weren’t you listening?’ I asked Anwyn.
‘Why would I need a bloody Saxon bishop to tell me how to behave?’ Anwyn retorted, and his long bony face, usually so stern, broke into a smile. I had met him years before on a Welsh beach where my men and King Hywel’s men had slaughtered Rognvald’s Vikings. It was on that beach that Hywel had granted Berg his life. ‘And what were you shouting about?’ Anwyn asked. ‘Were you frightened by a mouse?’
‘By this,’ I said, taking the arrow from Finan.
Anwyn took it from me, hefted it and frowned. He must have guessed what I was thinking because he shook his head. ‘It wasn’t one of our men. Come, talk to King Hywel.’
‘He’s not in Rome?’
‘You think I’d ask you if he was in Rome?’ Anwyn replied. ‘The thought of keeping your company on that long journey gives me horrors, Lord Uhtred, but Hywel will want to meet you. For some strange reason he speaks well of you.’
But before we could move, still more men, carrying still more torches, appeared from the western side of the spinney. Most carried shields that bore Æthelstan’s dragon and lightning bolt and they were led by a young man mounted on an impressive grey horse. He had to duck his head to get beneath the branches, then curbed the stallion close to me. ‘You’re carrying a sword,’ he snarled at me, then looked around at all the other weapons. ‘The king has commanded that only sentries carry weapons.’
‘I’m a sentry,’ I said.
That annoyed him, as it was meant to. He stared at me. He was young, maybe just twenty-one or -two, his boyish face clean-shaven. He had very blue eyes, bright blond hair, a long nose, and a haughty expression. In truth he was striking, a handsome man, made more striking by the quality of his mail and by the thick gold chain he wore about his neck. He carried a drawn sword and I could see that the heavy crosspiece was glinting with more gold. He still stared at me, his distaste for what he saw evident on his face. ‘And who,’ he asked, ‘are you?’
One of his own men began to answer, but was hushed by Fraomar who had come with the young man. Fraomar was smiling. So was Anwyn. ‘I’m a sentry,’ I said again.
‘You call me lord, old man,’ the horseman said, then leaned from the saddle and lifted his gold-hilted sword so that the blade pointed at my hammer. ‘You call me lord,’ he said again, ‘and you hide that idolatrous bauble around your neck. Now who are you?’
I smiled. ‘I’m the man who will ram Serpent-Breath up your arsehole and slice off your tongue, you rat-faced piece of worm-shit.’
‘God be praised,’ Bishop Anwyn intervened hurriedly, ‘that the Lord Uhtred still possesses the tongue of angels.’
The sword dropped. The young man looked startled. He also, to my satisfaction, looked scared. ‘And you call me lord,’ I growled.
He had nothing to say. His horse whinnied and stepped sideways as Bishop Anwyn took another step forward. ‘There’s no trouble here, Lord Ealdred. We just came because King Hywel is eager to see Lord Uhtred again.’
So this, I thought, was Ealdred, another of Æthelstan’s favourite companions. He had made a fool of himself, thinking that his closeness to the king made him invulnerable, and he had suddenly become aware that he and his men were confronted and outnumbered by bitter Welshmen and hostile Northmen, both enemies of the Saxons. ‘Weapons,’ he said, but without any of his former arrogance, ‘are not to be carried in the camp.’
‘Were you talking to me?’ I demanded harshly.
He hesitated. ‘No, lord,’ he said, almost choking on the last word, then turned his stallion with a brutal jerk of the reins and spurred away.
‘Poor boy,’ Anwyn said, plainly amused. ‘But that poor boy will cause you trouble, lord.’
‘Let him try,’ I snarled.
‘No, let King Hywel tell you. He’ll be pleased you’re here. Come, lord.’
So I took Finan, Egil and Berg, and went to meet a king.
I have met many kings. Some, like Guthfrith, were fools, some struggled because they never knew what to do, while a few, very few, were men who commanded loyalty. Alfred was one, Constantine of Alba another, and the third was Hywel of Dyfed. I knew Alfred best of the three and since his death many folk have asked me about him, and I invariably say that he was as honest as he was clever. Is that true? He was as capable of cunning as Constantine or Hywel, but for all three men that cunning was always used in the service of what they believed was the best for their people. I disagreed with Alfred frequently, but I trusted him because he was a man of his word. I hardly knew Constantine, but those who knew him well often compared him to Alfred. Alfred, Constantine and Hywel were the three greatest kings of my lifetime, and all three had wisdom and a natural authority, but of the three I liked Hywel the best. He had an ease that Alfred lacked and a humour as broad as his smile. ‘My God,’ he greeted me, ‘but look what an ill wind has blown to my tent. I thought a pig had farted!’
I bowed to him. ‘Lord King.’
‘Sit down, man, sit down. Of course the King of the Sais has a great monastery as his lodging, but we poor Welshmen have to endure this,’ he waved around the great tent, which was carpeted with thick woollen rugs, warmed by a brazier, furnished with benches and tables, and lit
