‘No!’ he cried.
‘I don’t want to see your rotten face in Valhalla,’ I told him, then used both hands to drive Serpent-Breath down into his chest, breaking through mail, leather and bone. He jerked, made a moaning sound that turned to a choking groan, then I tugged Serpent-Breath free and tossed her to Roric. ‘Clean her,’ I said, then stooped and pulled off Kolfinn’s six arm rings, two of gold and four of silver, one of which was studded with garnets. ‘Take his sword belt,’ I told Roric.
We took everything of value from Guthfrith’s men. Their horses, their coins, their mail, their helmets, their boots and their weapons. ‘Tell Guthfrith he’s welcome to weaken Bebbanburg,’ I told Hobern, ‘or welcome to try.’
We rode back to the encampment. Guthfrith must have seen us pass, and seen we were leading a dozen riderless horses, but he stayed hidden in his shelter.
And Fraomar was waiting for me. He bowed as I dismounted, and his freckled face looked dismayed when he saw the captured horses and saw Egil’s men throwing down the captured weapons. He said nothing of what he saw, just bowed again. ‘The king, Lord Uhtred, desires your presence.’
‘He can wait,’ I said. ‘I need dry clothes.’
‘He’s waited a long time, lord.’
‘Then he’s well practised in waiting,’ I said.
I did not change. The rain had washed Kolfinn’s blood from my mail, but the stain was on my cloak, faded now to streaks of black, but still unmistakable. I made Fraomar wait for a while and then rode westwards with him to the monastery at Dacore. It lay in a small rainswept valley and was surrounded by patchwork fields and two well-tended orchards. There were more tents and shelters crammed into the fields, stands of bedraggled banners, and paddocks full of horses. More of Æthelstan’s Saxon army was here, surrounding the timber-built monastery that sheltered their king.
I had to surrender Serpent-Breath at the monastery’s gatehouse. Only the royal household warriors could wear weapons in a king’s presence, though Hywel had made no fuss about Serpent-Breath the night before. I had brought Finan and Egil with me, and they laid Soul-Stealer and Adder on the table where another dozen swords lay. We added our seaxes, the short vicious broken-backed blades that could do such murderous work in the crush of a shield wall. My seax, Wasp-Sting, had bled the life from Waormund on the day I handed the crown to Æthelstan, and Waormund’s death had begun the collapse of the army that had opposed Æthelstan. ‘I should call that seax King-Maker,’ I told the steward, who just looked dumbly at me.
Fraomar led us down a long passageway. ‘There are only a few monks here,’ he remarked as we passed doors that opened onto empty chambers. ‘The king needed the space for his followers, so the brothers were sent south to another house. But the abbot was happy!’
‘Happy?’
‘We rebuilt his dining hall, and the king, of course, was more than generous. He gave the monastery the eye of Saint Lucy.’
‘The what?’
‘Saint Lucy was blinded before martyrdom,’ Fraomar explained, ‘and his holiness the Pope sent King Æthelstan one of her eyes. It’s miraculous! It hasn’t shrivelled and Lucy died seven hundred years ago! I’m sure the king will be pleased to show it to you.’
‘I can’t wait,’ I growled, then paused as two guards, both in Æthelstan’s scarlet cloaks, pushed open a pair of massive doors.
The chamber beyond must have been the newly built dining hall because it still smelled of raw timber. It was a long room, long and high, with great beams supporting a thatched roof. Six high windows were shuttered against the rain, so the hall was brightly lit by scores of thick candles burning on the long tables where fifty or sixty men sat. A dais was raised at the room’s far end where the high table was set beneath a massive crucifix.
A raucous cheer welcomed me, which surprised and pleased me. Some men stood to greet me, men with whom I had stood shoulder to shoulder in shield walls. Merewalh, a good man who had led Æthelflaed’s household troops, gripped my hand, and Brihtwulf, a rich young warrior who had led his men to fight beside me at the Crepelgate, embraced me, then stepped back as a sharp rapping noise from the high table demanded silence and order in the hall.
Æthelstan sat with six other men at the high table beneath the high crucifix. Bishop Oda, seated beside the king, had silenced the hall by hammering the table with the hilt of a knife. Æthelstan was at the table’s centre where a thick stand of candles lit the gold circlet on his long dark hair, which, I saw, glinted with the threads of gold he twisted into his ringlets. I assumed that Oda had demanded silence because my duty was to greet the king before I spoke to other men. He was right, of course, and I dutifully bowed. ‘Lord King,’ I said respectfully.
Æthelstan stood, which meant every other man in the hall also had to stand, the harsh scrape of the benches sounding loud in the silence. I bowed a second time.
The silence stretched. Æthelstan stared at me and I stared at him. He looked older, which naturally he was. The young man I remembered had become a handsome king with temples lightly touched by grey and with thin streaks of grey in his beard. His long face was stern. ‘Lord King,’ I said again, breaking the silence.
Then Æthelstan smiled. ‘My friend,’ he said warmly, ‘my dear old friend! Come!’ He beckoned me, then gestured to
