Wessex,' he protested.
'Why not?'
'It's too big. There have to be some men fighting back. We just have to find them.'
I thought back to the long ago arguments in Lundene. Back then I had been a child with the Danes, and their leaders had argued that the best way to take Wessex was to attack its western heartland and there break its power. Others had wanted to start the assault by taking the old kingdom of Kent, the weakest part of Wessex and the part which contained the great shrine of Contwaraburg, but the boldest argument had won. They had attacked in the west and that first assault had failed, but now Guthrum had succeeded. Yet how far had he succeeded? Was Kent still Saxon? Defnascir?
'And what happens to Mildrith if you join the Danes?' Leofric asked.
'She'll have hidden,' I spoke dully and there was a silence, but I saw Eanflaed was offended and I hoped she would hold her tongue.
She did not. 'Do you care?' she challenged me.
'I care,' I said.
Eanflaed scorned that answer. 'Grown dull, has she?'
'Of course he cares,' Leofric tried to be a peacemaker.
'She's a wife,' Eanflaed retorted, still looking at me. They tire of wives,' she went on and Iseult listened, her big dark eyes going from me to Eanflaed.
'What do you know of wives?' I asked.
'I was married,' Eanflaed said.
'You were?' Leofric asked, surprised.
'I was married for three years,' Eanflaed said, 'to a man who was in Wulfhere's guard. He gave me two children, then died in the battle that killed King ?thelred.'
'Two children?' Iseult asked.
'They died,' Eanflaed said harshly. 'That's what children do. They die.'
'You were happy with him?' Leofric asked, 'your husband?'
'For about three days,' she said, 'and in the next three years I learned that men are bastards.'
'All of then?' Leofric asked.
'Most.' She smiled at Leofric, then touched his knee. 'Not you.'
'And me?' I asked.
'You?' She looked at me for a heartbeat. 'I wouldn't trust you as far as I could spit,' she said, and there was real venom in her voice, leaving Leofric embarrassed and me surprised. There comes a moment in life when we see ourselves as others see us. I suppose that is part of growing up, and it is not always comfortable.
Eanflaed, at that moment, regretted speaking so harshly for she tried to soften it. 'I don't know you,'
she said, 'except you're Leofric's friend.'
'Uhtred is generous,' Iseult said loyally.
They are usually generous when they want something,' Eanflaed retorted.
'I want Bebbanburg,' I said.
'Whatever that is,' Eanflaed said, and to get it you'd do anything. Anything.'
There was silence. I saw a snowflake show at the half-covered door. It fluttered into the firelight and melted.
'Alfred's a good man,' Leofric broke the awkward silence.
'He tries to be good,' Eanflaed said.
'Only tries?' I asked sarcastically.
'He's like you,' she said. 'He'd kill to get what he wants, but there is a difference. He has a conscience.'
'He's frightened of the priests, you mean.'
'He's frightened of God. And we should all be that. Because one day we'll answer to God.'
'Not me,' I said.
Eanflaed sneered at that, but Leofric changed the conversation by saying it was snowing, and after a while we slept. Iseult clung to me in her sleep and she whimpered and twitched as I lay awake, half dreaming, thinking of her words that I would lead a bright horde. It seemed an unlikely prophecy, indeed I reckoned her powers must have gone with her virginity, and then I slept too, waking to a world made white. The twigs and branches were edged with snow, but it was already melting, dripping into a misty dawn. When I went outside I found a tiny dead wren just beyond the door and I feared it was a grim omen.
Leofric emerged from the hut, blinking at the dawn's brilliance.
'Don't mind Eanflaed,' he said.
'I don't.'
'Her world's come to an end.'
