links shine. 'I can't see my own future. It's all dark.'
'You shall be the lady of Bebbanburg,' I said, 'and I shall dress you in furs and crown you with bright silver.'
She smiled, but I saw there were tears on her face. I took it for fear. There was plenty of that in the camp that night, especially when men noticed the glow of light showing where the Danes had lit their fires in the nearby hills. We did sleep, but I was woken long before dawn by a small rain. No one slept through it, but all stirred and pulled on war gear.
We marched in the grey light. The rain came and went, spiteful and sharp, but always at our backs.
Most of us walked, using our few horses to carry shields. Osric and his men went first, for they knew the shire. Alfred had said that the men of Wiltunscir would be on the right of the battle line, and with them would be the men of Suth Seaxa. Alfred was next, leading his bodyguard that was made of all the men who had come to him in ?thelingaeg, and with him was Harald and the men of Defnascir and Thornsaeta. Burgweard and the men from Hamptonscir would also fight with Alfred, as would my cousin Ethelred from Mercia, while on the left would be the strong fyrd of Sumorsaete under Wiglaf.
Three and a half thousand men. The women came with us. Some carried their men's weapons, others had their own.
No one spoke much. It was cold that morning, and the rain made the grass slippery. Men were hungry and tired. We were all fearful.
Alfred had told me to collect fifty or so men to lead, but Leofric was unwilling to lose that many from his ranks, so I took them from Burgweard instead. I took the men who had fought with me in the Heahengel when she had been the Fyrdraca, and twenty-six of those men had come from Hamtun.
Steapa was with us, for he had taken a perverse liking to me, and I had Father Pyrlig, who was dressed as a warrior, not a priest. We were fewer than thirty men, but as we climbed past a green-mounded grave of the old folk, ?thelwold came to us. 'Alfred said I could fight with you,' he said.
'He said that?'
'He said I'm not to leave your side.'
I smiled at that. If I wanted a man by my side it would be Eadric or Cenwulf, Steapa or Pyrlig, men I could trust to keep their shields firm. 'You're not to leave my back,' I said to ?thelwold.
'Your back?'
'And in the shield wall you stay close behind me. Ready to take my place.'
He took that as an insult, 'I want to be in the front,' he insisted.
'Have you ever fought in a shield wall?'
'You know I haven't.'
'Then you don't want to be in the front,' I said, 'and besides, if Alfred dies, who'll be king?'
'Ah.' He half smiled. 'So I stay behind you?'
'You stay behind me.'
Iseult and Hild were leading my horse. 'If we lose,' I told them, 'you both get in the saddle and ride.'
'Ride where?'
'Just ride. Take the money,' I said. My silver and treasures, all I possessed, were in the horse's saddlebags, 'take it and ride with Hild.'
Hild smiled at that. She looked pale and her fair hair was plastered tight to her scalp by the rain.
She had no hat, and was dressed in a white shift belted with rope. I was surprised that she had come with the army, thinking she would have preferred to find a convent, but she had insisted on coming.
'I want to see them dead,' she told me flatly. 'And the one called Erik I want to kill myself.' She patted the long, narrow-bladed knife hanging from her belt.
'Erik is the one who ...' I began, then hesitated.
'The one who whored me,' she said.
'So he wasn't the one we killed that night?'
She shook her head. 'That was the steersman of Erik's ship. But I'll find Erik, and I won't go back to a convent till I see him screaming in his own blood.'
'Full of hate, she is,' Father Pyrlig told me as we followed Hild and Iseult up the hill.
'Isn't that bad in a Christian?'
Pyrlig laughed. 'Being alive is bad in a Christian. We say a person is a saint if they're good, but how few of us become saints? We're all bad! Some of us just try to be good.'
I glanced at Hild. 'She's wasted as a nun,' I said.
'You do like them thin, don't you?' Pyrlig said, amused. 'Now I like them meaty as well-fed heifers!
Give me a nice dark Briton with hips like a pair of ale barrels and I'm a happy priest. Poor Hild. Thin as a ray of sunlight, she is, but I pity a Dane who crosses her path today.'
Osric's scouts came back to Alfred. They had ridden ahead and seen the Danes. The enemy was waiting, they reported, at the edge of the escarpment, where the hills were highest and where the old people's fort stood. Their banners, the scouts said, were numberless. They had also seen Danish scouts, so Guthrum and Svein must have known we were coming.
On we went, ever higher, climbing into the chalk downs, and the rain stopped, but no sun appeared for the whole sky was a turmoil of grey and black. The wind gusted from the west. We passed whole rows of graves from the ancient days and I wondered if they contained warriors who had gone to battle as we did, and I wondered if in the thousands of years to come other men would toil up these hills with swords and shields. Of warfare there is no end, and I looked into the dark sky for a sign from Thor or Odin, hoping to see a raven fly, but there were no birds.
