‘And I’m not really a big fellow at all. Not tall like you!’
‘More like a weasel than a pig,’ I said.
‘But there was a wise woman at my birth,’ Finan ignored my sarcasm, ‘and she read the blood.’
‘She read the blood?’
‘To see the future, of course! She looked at the blood on my wee body before they washed it away.’
‘Your wee body,’ I said, and laughed. The laughter made my cracked ribs hurt. ‘But that’s sorcery,’ I went on, ‘and I thought you Irish were all Christians?’
‘So we are. We just like to improve it with a touch of harmless sorcery.’ He grinned. ‘And she said I’d live a long life and die in my bed.’
‘That’s all she said?’
‘That’s all,’ Finan said, ‘and that wise woman was never wrong! And I’m not likely to go to bed in Lundene, am I?’
‘Stay out of bed,’ I said, ‘and you’ll live for ever.’ And I should have avoided barley, I thought.
I knew why Finan was telling me of the wise woman’s prophecy. He was trying to encourage me. He knew I was reluctant to return to Lundene, that I had pressed Merewalh to attack simply because men expected me to lead them into battle. Yet the truth was that I only wanted to go home, to ride the great road to Northumbria and so gain the safety of Bebbanburg’s walls.
Yet much as I wanted the comfort and safety of home, I wanted to salvage my reputation too. My pride had been hurt and my sword stolen. Finan, who had wanted to go home for so long, was now pressing me to take up the fight again. Was it his reputation too? ‘It’s a huge risk,’ I told him.
‘Of course it’s a risk! Life is a risk! But are you going to let that bastard Waormund boast of defeating you?’
I did not answer, but I was thinking that we must all die, and when we die all that remains of us is reputation. So I must go to Lundene whether I liked it or not.
Which was why one hundred and eighty of Merewalh’s men were scraping their shields that afternoon. We had no lime and not nearly enough pitch, so instead of trying to repaint the shields men were using knives and adzes to scratch off Æthelstan’s symbol of the dragon and lightning strike. Then, once the willow boards were scraped clean, they used red hot-irons to burn a dark cross into the pale wood. It was a crude symbol, nothing like the triple-crown badge that many East Anglians carried, nor like Æthelhelm’s symbol of the leaping stag, but the best I could devise. Even I would carry a shield with the Christian cross.
Because we would go to Lundene under a false badge, pretending to be East Anglians come to reinforce the swelling garrison. Merewalh and Heorstan had opposed the plan, but their protests had become weaker as other men urged that we should attack instead of just waiting in Werlameceaster for other men to decide the conflict. Two arguments had persuaded them, and I made both of them, though in my heart I did not really trust either. I wanted to go home, yet the oath bound me, and Serpent-Breath drew me.
My first argument was that if we waited then Æthelhelm’s forces must inevitably grow stronger, and that was true, yet already we were woefully outnumbered by his garrison in Lundene. Merewalh had given me one hundred and eighty men and we would assault a city garrisoned by at least a thousand and, quite probably, two thousand.
Those odds should have dissuaded any man from following me, but I had made a second argument that had convinced them. I spoke of the East Anglians we had met in the Dead Dane tavern, how they had been reluctant to fight. ‘They were only there because their lord demanded their presence,’ I had said, ‘and not one wanted to fight.’
‘Which doesn’t mean they won’t fight,’ Merewalh had pointed out.
‘But for who?’ I had retorted. ‘They hate the West Saxons! Which was the last army to invade East Anglia?’
‘The West Saxon.’
‘And East Anglia,’ I had argued, ‘is a proud country. It has lost its king, it has been ruled by Danes, but now Wessex has imposed a king on them and they don’t love him.’
‘But will they love us?’ Merewalh had asked.
‘They will follow the enemy of their enemy,’ I had said, and did I believe that?
It was possible that some East Anglians would fight on the side of Mercia while others might refuse to fight altogether, but it is hard to persuade men to rebel against their lord. Men hold land from their lord, they look to their lord for food in hard times, for silver in good times, and even if that lord served a harsh and cruel king, he is still their lord. They might not fight with enthusiasm, but most would fight. I knew that truth, and Merewalh knew it too, yet in the end he was persuaded. And perhaps that persuasion did not come from my arguments, but rather from a passionate speech given by Father Oda.
‘I am an East Anglian,’ he had said, ‘and a Dane.’ There had been murmurs at those words, but Oda stood tall and stern. He had presence, an air of authority, and the murmurs had faded. ‘I was raised a pagan,’ he had continued, ‘but by the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ I have come to His throne, I have become one of His priests and one of His people. I am one of Christ’s people! I have no country. I fled East Anglia to live in Wessex, and there I served as a priest in the house of Æthelhelm.’ Again there were murmurs, but low and cut short when Oda lifted a hand. ‘And in the house of Æthelhelm,’ he had continued, making sure that his voice was heard throughout the whole square, ‘I looked upon the face of evil. I saw
