No one had tried to leave the town during the short summer night. Merewalh had doubled the number of sentries who guarded Werlameceaster’s gates and paced its walls. Those men would stay in the town as a small garrison while the rest of us, one hundred and eighty men under my command and two hundred led by Merewalh, assaulted the enemy in Lundene.
I had long been awake as the dawn silvered the mist. I had pulled on my mail coat, buckled the sword belt with its borrowed blade, and then had nothing better to do than sit and watch the men who must fight and the women they would leave behind.
Benedetta joined me on the bench, which stood in a street leading from the wide square in front of the great hall. She said nothing. Alaina, who now followed Benedetta everywhere, sat on the street’s far side and watched us both anxiously. She had found a kitten that she petted, though she never took her eyes from us.
‘So you will go today,’ Benedetta finally said.
‘Today.’
‘And tomorrow? The day after?’
I had no answer to her implied questions, so said nothing. A crow flew down from a rooftop, pecked at something in the square, and flew again. Was that an omen? I had tried to read every sign that morning, watched every bird in the mist, had tried to recall my dreams, but nothing made sense. I drew the borrowed sword and gazed at its blade, wondering if there was some message in the dull steel. Nothing. I lay the sword down. The gods were silent.
‘How are you feeling?’ Benedetta asked.
‘Just a bit sore,’ I said, ‘that’s all.’ My body felt stiff, my shoulders were sore, the muscles of my arms ached, my skin’s lacerations stung, the inside of my cheek was swollen, my head throbbed, and my ribs were bruised if not broken.
‘You should not go,’ Benedetta said firmly and, when I did not reply, repeated herself. ‘You should not go, it is dangerous.’
‘War is dangerous.’
‘Father Oda,’ she said, ‘was speaking to me last night. He said the thing you plan is madness.’
‘It is madness,’ I agreed, ‘but Father Oda wants us to attack. He was the one who persuaded Merewalh to attack.’
‘But he said it is the madness of God, so you will be blessed.’ She sounded dubious.
The madness of God. Was that why my own gods had sent me no sign? Because this was the madness of the Christian god, not of my gods? Unlike the Christians, who insist that all other gods are false, even insisting that they do not exist, I have always acknowledged that the nailed god has power. So perhaps the Christian god would give us victory? Or perhaps my gods, angered that I harboured that hope, would punish me with death.
‘But God is not mad,’ Benedetta went on, ‘and God will not want you dead.’
‘Christians have been praying for my death for years.’
‘Then they are mad,’ she said with great certainty and, when I smiled, she became angry. ‘Why are you going? Tell me that! Why?’
‘To fetch my sword,’ I said, because I did not really know the answer to her question.
‘Then you are mad,’ she said with finality.
‘It doesn’t matter if I go,’ I said, speaking slowly, ‘but I should not be taking other men with me.’
‘Because they will die?’
‘Because I will lead them to their deaths, yes.’ I paused and instinctively touched my hammer, but of course it was gone. ‘Or perhaps to a victory?’ I added.
She heard the doubt in my last few words. ‘In your heart,’ Benedetta pressed me, ‘which do you believe?’
I could not admit the truth, which was that I was sorely tempted to tell Merewalh that we should abandon the assault. The easy course was to let Æthelhelm and Æthelstan battle out their quarrel while I went north, went home, went to Bebbanburg.
Yet there was a chance, a slight chance, that what we planned could end the war almost before it had begun. Merewalh was to lead two hundred horsemen south to attack Æthelhelm’s small garrison at Toteham, then ride on towards Lundene. He would be close to the city by nightfall and would doubtless encounter forage parties who would flee to tell Æthelhelm’s men that an enemy force was approaching. Then, as dark fell, his men would light fires, as many as they could, on the heaths that lay some three miles north of the city. The glow of those fires would surely convince the city’s garrison that a besieging force had come and, in the dawn, they would be gazing northwards, readying to send patrols to discover the enemy’s strength and ensuring that the walls were fully manned.
And it was then that I planned to lead the smaller force into the city and give the enemy a gut-stroke like that which had killed Heorstan. But just as flesh closes around a sword, sometimes making it almost impossible to drag the trapped blade free, so Æthelhelm’s men would close on us and outnumber us. It was Father Oda’s conviction that the East Anglians would change sides, but I reckoned that would only happen if we had first killed or captured Æthelhelm and his nephew King Ælfweard. That was why I was going, not just to retrieve Serpent-Breath, but to kill my enemies.
‘The enemy knows you’re coming!’ Benedetta protested.
I smiled at her. ‘The enemy knows what I want them to know. That’s why we let Heorstan’s men ride south yesterday, to mislead the enemy.’
‘And that will be enough?’ she asked. ‘To mislead them? You will win because of that?’ She was scornful. I said nothing. ‘You lie to me because you are not well! Your ribs! You are hurting. You think you can fight? Tell me what you believe!’
And still I said nothing, because lurking in my heart was the temptation to break my oath to Æthelstan. Why kill his enemies even if they were mine? If a great war broke out between Wessex and Mercia
