'You're a warrior,' he said, 'all of you! You're warriors! You all know how to fight! You can inspire men, and lead men, and kill your enemies. And God is on your side. With God on your side, who can beat you, eh? You want a sign?'
'Give me a sign,' I said.
'Then look,' he said, and pointed down to the Wilig, and I turned my horse and there, in the afternoon sun, was the miracle we had wanted. Men were coming. Men in their hundreds. Men from the east and men from the south, men streaming down from the hills, men of the West Saxon fyrd, coming at their king's command to save their country.
'Now it's only two farmers to one warrior!' Pyrlig said cheerfully.
'Up to our arseholes,' Leofric said.
But we were not alone any longer. The fyrd was gathering.
PART THRE
R E
The Fyrd
Twel
e ve
Most men came in large groups, led by their thegns, while others arrived in small bands, but together they swelled into an army. Amulf, Ealdorman of Suth Seaxa, brought close to four hundred men and apologised that it could not be more, but there were Danish ships off his coast and he had been forced to leave some of his fyrd to guard the shore. The men of Wiltunscir had been summoned by Wulfhere to join Guthrum's army, but the reeve, a grim man named Osric, had scoured the southern part of the shire and over eight hundred men had ignored their Ealdorman's summons and came to Alfred instead. More arrived from the distant parts of Sumorsaete to join Wiglaf's fyrd that now numbered a thousand men, while half that many came from Hamptonscir, including Burgweard's garrison in which were Eadric and Cenwulf, crewmen from the Heahengel, and both embraced me, and with them was Father Willibald, eager and nervous. Almost every man came on foot, weary and hungry, with their boots falling apart, but they had swords and axes and spears and shields, and by mid afternoon there were close to three thousand men in the Wilig valley and more were still coming as I rode towards the distant hill where I thought I had seen the Danish scouts.
Alfred sent me and, at the last moment, Father Pyrlig had offered to accompany me and Alfred had looked surprised, appeared to think about it for a heartbeat, then nodded assent. 'Bring Uhtred home safe, father,' he had said stiffly.
I said nothing as we rode through the growing camp, but once we were on our own I gave Pyrlig a sour look. 'That was all arranged,' I said.
'What was?'
'You coming with me. He had your horse already saddled! So what does Alfred want?'
Pyrlig grinned. 'He wants me to talk you into becoming a Christian, of course. The king has great faith in my powers of speech.'
'I am a Christian,' I said.
'Are you now?'
'I was baptised, wasn't I? Twice, as it happens.'
'Twice! Doubly holy, eh? How come you got it twice?'
'Because my name was changed when I was a child and my stepmother thought heaven wouldn't recognise me under my old name.'
He laughed. 'So they washed the devil out of you the first time and slopped him back in the second?' I said nothing to that and Pyrlig rode in silence for a time. 'Alfred wants me to make you a good Christian,' he said after a while, 'because he wants God's blessing.'
'He thinks God will curse us because I'm fighting for him?'
Pyrlig shook his head. 'He knows, Uhtred, that the enemy are pagans. If they win then Christ is defeated. This isn't just a war over land, it's a war about God. And Alfred, poor man, is Christ's servant so he will do all he can for his master, and that means trying to turn you into a pious example of Christian humility. If he can get you onto your knees then it'll be easy to make the Danes grovel.'
I laughed, as he had meant me to. 'If it encourages Alfred,' I said, 'tell him I'm a good Christian.'
'I planned to tell him that anyway,' Pyrlig said, 'just to cheer him up, but in truth I wanted to come with you.'
‘Why?'
'Because I miss this life. God, I miss it! I loved being a warrior. All that irresponsibility! I relished it.
Kill and make widows, frighten children! I was good at it, and I miss it. And I was always good at scouting. We'd see you Saxons blundering away like swine and you never knew we were watching you.
Don't worry, I'm not going to talk Christ into you, whatever the king wants.'
Our job was to find the Danes, if they were near. Alfred had marched to the Wilig valley to block any advance Guthrum made into the heartland of Wessex, but he still feared that the Danes might resist the lure of destroying his small army and instead march around us to take southern Wessex, which would leave us stranded and surrounded by Danish garrisons. That uncertainty meant Alfred was desperate for news of the enemy, so Pyrlig and I rode north and east up the valley until we came to where a smaller river flowed south into the Wilig and we followed that lesser stream past a large village that had been reduced to ashes. The small river passed through good farmland, but there were no cattle, no sheep and the fields were unploughed and thick with weeds. We went slowly, for the horses were tired and we were well north of our army now. The sun was low in the west, though it was early May so the days were lengthening.
There were mayfly on the river and trout rising to them, and then a scuffling sound made us both pause, but it was only a pair of otter cubs scrabbling down to the water through the roots of a willow.
Doves were nesting in the blackthorn, and warblers called from the riverbank, and somewhere a woodpecker
