‘Truly?’ he asked, then hastily added, ‘Lord.’
‘Truly,’ I snarled.
‘He is Lord Uhtred,’ an older man said brusquely. He had walked his horse close behind Awyrgan’s stallion and now looked down at me with an evident dislike. He, like Awyrgan, wore fine mail, was well-horsed, and carried a drawn sword, which, I could see, had a well-worn edge. His close-cut beard was grey and his hard face crossed with two scars, and I assumed he was an old and experienced soldier entrusted to give advice to the younger man. ‘I fought alongside you in East Anglia, lord,’ he said to me. He spoke curtly.
‘And you are?’
‘Swithun Swithunson,’ he said, still in a distinctly unfriendly tone, ‘and you, lord, are a long way from home.’ He had said ‘lord’ with a marked reluctance.
‘I was invited here,’ I said.
‘By?’ Awyrgan asked.
‘The Lady Eadgifu.’
‘The queen invited you?’ Awyrgan sounded astonished.
‘I just said so.’
There was an awkward silence, then Awyrgan pushed his sword into its long scabbard. ‘You are indeed welcome, lord,’ he said. He might be arrogant, but he was no fool. His horse tossed its head and skittered sideways and he calmed it with a gloved hand on its neck. ‘Any news of the king?’
‘None.’
‘And of the lady?’
‘So far as I know,’ I said, ‘she’s still in the convent and kept there by Æthelhelm’s men who now number well over a hundred. What are you hoping to do?’
‘Rescue her, of course.’
‘With thirty-six men?’
Awyrgan smiled. ‘Ealdorman Sigulf has another hundred and fifty horsemen to the east.’
So Eadgifu’s brother had answered his sister’s call. I had sailed south with the thought of allying myself with the men of Cent to free Wessex of Ælfweard’s kingship, but now that I was face to face with two of Cent’s leaders my doubts increased. Awyrgan was an arrogant youth and Swithun plainly hated me. Finan had come to join me, standing just a pace behind and to my right. I heard him growl, a signal that he wanted me to abandon this madness, to go back to Spearhafoc and so home.
‘What happened to Dreogan?’ I asked.
‘Dreogan?’ Awyrgan responded, puzzled.
‘One of Lord Æthelhelm’s men,’ I explained, ‘he led men to Contwaraburg to persuade Ealdorman Sigulf to stay in his bed.’
Awyrgan smiled. ‘Those men! We have their mail, we have their weapons, and we have their horses. I assume Lord Sigulf will have their lives too if they make trouble.’
‘And Ealdorman Sigulf,’ I went on, ‘sent you to do what?’
Awyrgan gestured to the west. ‘Stop the bastards escaping, lord. We’re to block the road to Lundene.’ He made it sound easy. Perhaps it was.
‘Do that then,’ I said.
Awyrgan was taken aback by my tone, which had been harsh, but he nodded to me and beckoned to his horsemen. ‘Will you come with us?’ he asked.
‘You don’t need me,’ I said.
‘True, we don’t,’ Swithun growled, then spurred his horse away. The Centish horsemen were keeping to the lower ground, trying to stay hidden from the town, though I suspected they must have been seen already because there was little cover in this low, damp land.
‘So do we help them?’ Finan demanded.
I still gazed after the horsemen. ‘It seems a pity,’ I said, ‘to come this far and not smell her tits again.’
Finan treated that jest with contempt. ‘They weren’t happy to see us. So why help them?’
‘Swithun wasn’t happy,’ I agreed, ‘and I’m not surprised. He remembers us from East Anglia.’
Cent had ever been a restless shire. It had once been its own kingdom, but that was far in the past and it was now a part of Wessex, though every now and then there were stirrings of independence, and that ancient pride had driven Sigulf’s grandfather to side with the Danes of East Anglia shortly after Edward became king. That alliance had not lasted, I had shamed the Centishmen into fighting for Wessex, but they had never forgotten the disgrace of their near treachery. Now Sigulf was rebelling again, this time to help Edmund, his sister’s eldest son, inherit the throne of Wessex.
‘If we join their fight,’ Finan said, ‘we’re fighting for Eadgifu’s boys.’
I nodded. ‘True.’
‘For God’s sake, why? I thought you supported Æthelstan!’
‘I do.’
‘Then …’
‘There are three claimants for the throne of Wessex,’ I interrupted him. ‘Ælfweard, Æthelstan and Edmund. Doesn’t it make sense that two of those should join together to defeat the third?’
‘And when he’s defeated? What happens to the two?’
I shrugged. ‘Eadgifu’s boy is an infant. The Witan will never choose him.’
‘So now we fight for Eadgifu?’
I paused a long while, then shook my head. ‘No.’
‘No?’
For a moment I did not answer. Instead I was thinking of Finan’s omen, his vision of my naked corpse in a field of barley, then I remembered the dead swan I had seen lying in the drab ditch with a broken neck. And that, I thought, was an omen if ever there was one, and at that moment I heard the beat of wings and looked skywards to see two swans flying north. Thor had sent me a sign and it could not have been clearer. Go north, go home, go now.
What a fool I was! To think I could lead a Centish rebellion against Wessex? To defeat Æthelhelm with a ragged band of Centishmen and a handful of Northumbrians? It was pride, I thought, mere foolish
