So we waited. The small rain turned to sleet. Haesten and his new companions, now that their victim was dead, wandered away, leaving the meadow empty but for the corpses and their attendant ravens. And still we waited, but Iseult, who was as thin as Alfred, was shivering uncontrollably and so, in the late afternoon, I took off my helmet and unbound my hair so it hung loose.
'What are you doing?' Leofric asked.
'For the moment,' I said, 'we're Danes. Just keep your mouth shut.'
I led them towards the town. I would have preferred to wait until dark, but Iseult was too cold to wait longer, and I just hoped the Danes had calmed down. I might look like a Dane, but it was still dangerous. Haesten might see me, and if he told others how I had ambushed the Danish ship off Dyfed then I could expect nothing but a slow death. So we went nervously, stepping past bloodied bodies along the riverside path. The ravens protested as we approached, flapped indignantly into the winter willows, and returned to their feast when we had passed. There were more corpses piled by the bridge where the young folk captured for slavery were being made to dig a grave. The Danes guarding them were drunk and none challenged us as we went across the wooden span and under the gate arch that was still hung with holly and ivy in celebration of Christmas.
The fires were dying now, damped by rain or else extinguished by the Danes who were ransacking houses and churches. I stayed in the narrowest alleys, edging past a smithy, a hide-dealer's shop and a place where pots had been sold. Our boots crunched through the pottery shards. A young Dane was vomiting in the alley's entrance and he told me that Guthrum was in the royal compound where there would be a feast that night. He straightened up, gasping for breath, but was sober enough to offer me a bag of coins for Iseult. There were women screaming or sobbing in houses and their noise was making Leofric angry, but I told him to stay quiet. Two of us could not free Cippanhamm, and if the world had been turned upside down and it had been a West Saxon army capturing a Danish town it would have sounded no different.
'Alfred wouldn't allow it,' Leofric said sullenly.
'You'd do it anyway,' I said. 'You've done it.'
I wanted news, but none of the Danes in the street made any sense. They had come from Gleawecestre, leaving long before dawn, they had captured Cippanhamm and now they wanted to enjoy whatever the town offered. The big church had burned, but men were raking through the smoking embers looking for silver. For lack of anywhere else to go we climbed the hill to the Corncrake tavern where we always drank and found Eanflaed, the redheaded whore, being held on a table by two young Danes while three others, not one of them more than seventeen or eighteen, took turns to rape her.
Another dozen Danes were drinking peaceably enough, taking scant notice of the rape.
'You want her,' one-of the young men said, 'you'll have to wait.'
'I want her now,' I said.
'Then you can jump in the shit-pit,' he said. He was drunk. He had a wispy beard and insolent eyes. 'You can jump in the shit-pit,' he said again, evidently liking the insult, then pointed to Iseult,
'and I'll have her while you drown.'
I hit him, breaking his nose and spattering his face with blood, and while he gasped I kicked him hard between the legs. He went down, whimpering, and I hit a second man in the belly while Leofric loosed all his day's frustration in a savage attack on another. The two who had been holding Eanflaed turned on us and one of them squealed when Eanflaed grabbed his hair and hooked sharp fingernails into his eyes. Leofric's opponent was on the floor and he stamped on the boy's throat and I head-slapped my boy until I had him by the door, then I thumped another in the ribs, rescued Eanflaed's victim and broke his jaw, then went back to the lad who had threatened to rape Iseult. I ripped a silver loop from his ear, took off his one arm ring and stole his pouch that clinked with coins. I dropped the silver into Eanflaed's lap, then kicked the groaning man between the legs, did it again, and hauled him out into the street.
'Go jump in a shit-pit,' I told him, then slammed the door. The other Danes, still drinking on the tavern's far side, had watched the fight with amusement, and now gave us ironic applause.
'Bastards,' Eanflaed said, evidently talking of the men we had driven away. 'I'm sore as hell. What are you two doing here?'
'They think we're Danes,' I said.
'We need food,' Leofric said.
'They've had most of it,' Eanflaed said, jerking her head at the seated Danes, 'but there might be something left in the back.' She tied her girdle. 'Edwulf's dead.' Edwulf had owned the tavern. 'And thanks for helping me, you spavined bastards!' She shouted this at the Danes, who did not understand her and just laughed at her, then she went towards the back room to find us food, but one of the men held out a hand to stop her.
'Where are you going?' he asked her in Danish.
'She's going past you,' I called.
'I want ale,' he said, 'and you? Who are you?'
'I'm the man who's going to cut your throat if you stop her fetching food,' I said.
'Quiet, quiet!' an older man said, then frowned at me. 'Don't I know you?'
'I was with Guthrum at Readingum,' I said, 'and at Werham.'
'That must be it. He's done better this time, eh?'
'He's done better,' I agreed.
The man pointed at Iseult. 'Yours?'
'Not for sale.'
'Just asking, friend, just asking.'
Eanflaed brought us stale bread, cold pork, wrinkled apples and a rock-hard cheese in which red worms writhed. The older man carried a pot of ale to our table, evidently as a peace offering, and he sat and talked with me and I learned a little more of what was happening. Guthrum had brought close to three thousand men to attack Cippanhamm. Guthrum himself was now in Alfred's hall and half his men would stay in Cippanhamm as a garrison
