'Now your Iseult,' Pyrlig went on, 'she's been raised with the power and she won't lose it.'
'Didn't the baptism wash it out of her?'
'Not at all! It just made her a bit colder and cleaner. Nothing wrong with a scrub once or twice a year.' He laughed. 'But she was frightened back there in the swamp. You were gone and all around were Saxons and they were spitting that she was a pagan, so what did you think she would do? She wants to be one of them, she wants folk to stop spitting at her, so she said she'd be baptised. And maybe she really is a Christian? I'd praise God for that mercy, but I'd rather praise him for making her happy.'
‘You don't think she is?'
'Of course she isn't! She's in love with you!' He laughed. 'And being in love with you means living among the Saxons, doesn't it? Poor girl. She's like a beautiful young hind that finds herself living among grunting pigs.'
'What a gift for words you have,' I said.
He laughed, delighted with his insult. 'Win your war, Lord Uhtred,' he said, 'then take her away from us priests and give her lots of children. She'll be happy, and one day she'll be truly wise. That's the women's real gift, to be wise, and not many men have it.'
And my gift was to be a warrior, though there was no fighting that day. We saw no Danes, though I was certain they had seen us and that by now Guthrum would have been told that Alfred had at last come from the swamp and was marching inland. We were giving him the opportunity to destroy us, to finish Wessex, and I knew that the Danes would be readying to march on us.
We spent that night in an earthen fort built by the old people, and next morning went north and east through a hungry land. I rode ahead, going into the hills to look for the enemy, but again the world seemed empty. Rooks flew, hares danced and cuckoos called from the woods that were thick with bluebells, but there were no Danes. I rode along a high ridge, gazing northwards, and saw nothing, and when the sun was at its height I turned east. There were ten of us in my band and our guide was a man from Wiltunscir who knew the country and he led us towards the valley of the Wilig where Egbert's Stone stands. A mile or so short of the valley we saw horsemen, but they were to the south of us and we galloped across un-grazed pastureland to find it was Alfred, escorted by Leofric, five soldiers and four priests.
'Have you been to the stone?' Alfred called out eagerly as we closed on him.
'No, lord.'
'Doubtless there are men there,' he said, disappointed that I could not bring him news.
'I didn't see any Danes either, lord.'
'It'll take them two days to organise,' he said dismissively. 'But they'll come! They'll come! And we shall beat them!' He twisted in his saddle to look at Father Beocca, who was one of the priests.
'Are you sore, father?'
'Mightily sore, lord.'
'You're no horseman, Beocca, no horseman, but it's not much farther. Not much farther, then you can rest!' Alfred was in a feverish mood. 'Rest before we fight, eh! Rest and pray, father, then pray and fight. Pray and fight!' He kicked his horse into a gallop and we pounded after him through a pink-blossomed orchard and up a slope, then across a long hilltop where the bones of dead cattle lay in the new grass. White mayflower edged the woods at the foot of the hill and a hawk slanted away from us, sliding across the valley towards the charred remains of a barn.
'It's just across the crest, lord!' my guide shouted at me.
'What is?'
'Defereal, lord!'
Defereal was the name of the settlement in the valley of the River Wilig where Egbert's Stone waited, and Alfred now spurred his horse so that his blue cloak flapped behind him. We were all galloping, spread across the hilltop, racing to be the first over the crest to see the Saxon forces, then Father Beocca's horse stumbled. He was, as Alfred said, a bad horseman, but that was no surprise for he was both lame and palsied, and when the horse tipped forward Beocca tumbled from the saddle. I saw him rolling in the grass and turned my horse back.
'I'm not hurt,' he shouted at me, 'not hurt! Not much. Go on, Uhtred, go on!'
I caught his horse. Beocca was on his feet now, limping as fast as he could to where Alfred and the other horsemen stood in a line gazing into the valley beyond.
'We should have brought the banners,' Beocca said as I gave him his reins.
'The banners?'
'So the fyrd knows their king has come,' he said breathlessly. 'They should see his banners on the skyline, Uhtred, and know he has come. The cross and the dragon, eh? In hoc signo! Alfred will be the new Constantine, Uhtred, a warrior of the cross! In hoc signo, God be praised, God be praised, God indeed be mightily praised.'
I had no idea what he meant, and nor did I care.
For I had reached the hilltop and could stare down into the long lovely valley of the Wilig.
Which was empty.
Not a man in sight. Just the river and the willows and the water meadows and the alders and a heron flying and the grass bending in the wind and the triple stone of Egbert on a slope above the Wilig where an army was supposed to gather. And there was not one man there. Not one single man in sight.
The valley was empty.
The men we had brought from ?thelingaeg straggled into the valley, and with them now was the fyrd of Sumorsaete. Together they numbered just over a thousand men, and about half were equipped to fight in the shield wall while the rest were only good for shoving the front ranks forward or for dealing with the enemy wounded or, more likely, dying.
