was of Wessex, while I was a Northumbrian interloper.
He gave me a rueful glance as the guards led him to my side. 'Up to our arses in it,' he muttered.
'Quiet!' Beocca hissed.
'Trust me,' I said.
'Trust you?' Leofric asked bitterly.
But I had glanced at Iseult and she had given me the smallest shake of her head, an indication, I reckoned, that she had seen the outcome of this day and it was good. 'Trust me,' I said again.
'The prisoners will be silent,' the archbishop said.
'Up to our royal arses,' Leofric said quietly.
The archbishop gestured at Father Erkenwald. 'You have oathmakers?' he asked.
'I do, lord.'
'Then let us hear the first.'
Erkenwald gestured to another priest who was standing by the door leading to the passage at the back of the hall. The door was opened and a slight figure in a dark cloak entered. I could not see his face for he wore a hood. He hurried to the front of the dais and there bowed low to the king and went on his knees to the archbishop who held out a hand so that his heavy, jewelled ring could be kissed.
Only then did the man stand, push back his hood and turn to face me.
It was the Ass. Asser, the Welsh monk. He stared at me as yet another priest brought him a gospel-book on which he laid a thin hand. 'I make oath,' he said in accented English, still staring at me, 'that what I say is truth, and God so help me in that endeavour and condemn me to the eternal fires of hell if I dissemble.' He bent and kissed the gospel-book with the tenderness of a man caressing a lover.
'Bastard,' I muttered.
Asser was a good oath-maker. He spoke clearly, describing how I had come to Cornwalum in a ship that bore a beast-head on its prow and another on its stem. He told how I had agreed to help King Peredur, who was being attacked by a neighbour assisted by the pagan Svein, and how I had betrayed Peredur by allying myself with the Dane. 'Together,' Asset said, 'they made great slaughter, and I myself saw a holy priest put to death.'
'You ran like a chicken,' I said to him, 'you couldn't see a thing.'
Asser turned to the king and bowed. I did run, lord king. I am a brother monk, not a warrior, and when Uhtred turned that hillside red with Christian blood I did take flight. I am not proud of that, lord king, and I have earnestly sought God's forgiveness for my cowardice.'
Alfred smiled and the archbishop waved away Asser's remarks as if they were nothing.
'And when you left the slaughter,' Erkenwald asked, 'what then?'
'I watched from a hilltop,' Asset said, 'and I saw Uhtred of Oxton leave that place in the company of the pagan ship. Two ships sailing westwards.'
'They sailed westwards?' Erkenwald asked.
'To the west,' Asser confirmed.
Erkenwald glanced at me. There was silence in the hall as men leaned forward to catch each damning word. 'And what lay to the west?' Erkenwald asked.
'I cannot say,' Asser said. 'But if they did not go to the end of the world then I assume they turned about Cornwalum to go into the Saefern Sea.'
'And you know no more?' Erkenwald asked.
'I know I helped bury the dead,' Asser said, 'and I said prayers for their souls, and I saw the smouldering embers of the burned church, but what Uhtred did when he left the place of slaughter I do not know. I only know he went westwards.'
Alfred was pointedly taking no part in the proceedings, but he plainly liked Asser for, when the Welshman's testimony was done, he beckoned him to the dais and rewarded him with a coin and a moment of private conversation. The Witan talked among themselves, sometimes glancing at me with the curiosity we give to doomed men. The Lady ?lswith, suddenly so gracious, smiled on Asser.
'You have anything to say?' Erkenwald demanded of me when Asser had been dismissed.
'I shall wait,' I said, 'till all your lies are told.'
The truth, of course, was that Asser had told the truth, and told it plainly, clearly and persuasively.
The king's councillors had been impressed, just as they were impressed by Erkenwald's second oathmaker.
It was Steapa Snotor, the warrior who was never far from Odda the Younger's side. His back was straight, his shoulders square and his feral face with its stretched skin was grim. He glanced at me, bowed to the king, then laid a huge hand on the gospel-hook and let Erkenwald lead him through the oath, and he swore to tell the truth on pain of hell's eternal agony, and then he lied. He lied calmly in a flat, toneless voice. He said he had been in charge of the soldiers who guarded the place at Cynuit where the new church was being built, and how two ships had come in the dawn and how warriors streamed from the ships, and how he had fought against them and killed six of them, but there were too many, far too many, and he had been forced to retreat, but he had seen the attackers slaughter the priests and he had heard the pagan leader shout his name as a boast. 'Svein, he was called.'
'And Svein brought two ships?'
Steapa paused and frowned, as though he had trouble counting to two, then nodded. 'He had two ships.'
'He led both?'
