'If the charges against me are retracted.'
The smile went from his face and he walked to the window and stared into the misty courtyard and I looked where he looked and saw that a small display was being mounted for my benefit.
Steapa was being armoured. Two men were dropping a massive mail coat over his wide shoulders, while a third stood by with an outsized shield and a monstrous sword.
'I talked with Steapa last night,' the king said, turning from the window, 'and he told me there was a mist when Svein attacked at Cynuit. A morning mist like this one.' He waved at the whiteness sifting into the chapel.
'I wouldn't know, lord,' I said.
'So it is possible,' the king went on, 'that Steapa was mistaken when he thought he saw you.' I almost smiled. The king knew Steapa had lied, though he would not say as much. 'Father Willibald also spoke to the crew of the Eftwyrd,' the king went on, 'and not one of them confirmed Steapa's tale.'
The crew was still in Hamtun, so Willibald's report must have come from there and that meant the king had known I was innocent of the slaughter at Cynuit even before I was charged. 'So I was falsely arraigned?' I said harshly.
'You were accused,' the king corrected me, 'and accusations must be proven or refuted.'
'Or withdrawn.'
‘I can withdraw the charges,' Alfred agreed. Steapa, outside the window, was making sure his mail coat was seated comfortably by swinging his great sword. And it was great. It was huge, a hammer of a blade. Then the king half-closed the shutter, hiding Steapa. 'I can withdraw the accusation about Cynuit,' he said, 'but I do not think Brother Asser lied to us.'
'I have a queen,' I said, 'who says he does.'
'A shadow queen,' Asser hissed, 'a pagan! A sorceressl' He looked at Alfred. 'She is evil, lord,' he said, 'a witch! Maleficos non patieris vivere!'
'Thou shalt not permit a witch to live,' Alfred translated for my benefit. 'That is God's commandment, Uhtred, from the holy scriptures.'
'Your answer to the truth,' I sneered, 'is to threaten a woman with death?'
Alfred flinched at that. 'Brother Asser is a good Christian,' he said vehemently, 'and he tells the truth. You went to war without my orders. You used my ship, my men, and you behaved treacherously!
You are the liar, Uhtred, and you are the cheat!' He spoke angrily, but managed to control his anger. 'It is my belief,' he went on, 'that you have paid your debt to the church with goods stolen from other good Christians.'
'Not true,' I said harshly. I had paid the debt with goods stolen from a Dane.
'So resume the debt,' the king said, 'and we shall have no death on this blessed day of Saint Cedd.'
I was being offered life. Alfred waited for my response, smiling. He was sure I would accept his offer because to him it seemed reasonable. He had no love for warriors, weapons and killing. Fate decreed that he must spend his reign fighting, but it was not to his taste. He wanted to civilise Wessex, to give it piety and order, and two men fighting to the death on a winter's morning was not his idea of a well-run kingdom.
But I hated Alfred. I hated him for humiliating me at Exanceaster when he had made me wear a penitent's robe and crawl on my knees. Nor did I think of him as my king. He was a West Saxon and I was a Northumbrian, and I reckoned so long as he was king then Wessex had small chance of surviving. He believed God would protect him from the Danes, while I believed they had to be defeated by swords.
I also had an idea how to defeat Steapa, just an idea, and I had no wish to take on a debt I had already paid, and I was young and I was foolish and I was arrogant and I was never able to resist a stupid impulse.
'Everything I have said is the truth,' I lied, 'and I would defend that truth with my sword.'
Alfred flinched from my tone. 'Are you saying Brother Asser lied?' he demanded.
'He twists truth,' I said, 'like a woman wrings a hen's neck.'
The king pulled the shutter open, showing me the mighty Steapa in his gleaming war glory. 'You really want to die?' he asked me.
'I want to fight for the truth, lord king,' I said stubbornly.
'Then you are a fool,' Alfred said, his anger showing again. 'You are a liar, a fool and a sinner.' He strode past me, pulled open the door and shouted at a servant to tell Ealdorman Wulfhere that the fight was to take place after all. 'Go,' he added to me, 'and may your soul receive its just reward.'
Wulfhere had been charged with arranging the fight, but there was a delay because the ealdorman had disappeared. The town was searched, the royal buildings were searched, but there was no sign of him until a stable slave nervously reported that Wulfhere and his men had ridden away from Cippanhamm before dawn. No one knew why, though some surmised that Wulfhere wanted no part in a trial by combat, which made little sense to me for the Ealdorman had never struck me as a squeamish man. Ealdorman Huppa of Thornsata was appointed to replace him, and so it was close to midday when my swords were brought to me and we were escorted down to the meadow that lay across the bridge which led from the town's eastern gate. A huge crowd had gathered on the river's far bank.
There were cripples, beggars, jugglers, women selling pies, dozens of priests, excited children and, of course, the assembled warriors of the West Saxon nobility, all of them in Cippanhamm for the meeting of the Witan, and all eager to see Steapa Snotor show off his renowned skill.
'You're a damned fool,' Leofric said to me.
'Because I insisted on fighting?'
'You could have walked away.'
'And men would have called me a coward,' I said. And that too was the truth, that a man cannot step back from a fight and stay a man. We make much in this life if we are able. We make children and wealth and amass land
