‘Is that why you did it?'
'To give life,' she said, 'you must take it from somewhere else.' She gave me back Wasp-Sting.
Alfred was shaving when we returned. He had been growing a beard, not for a disguise, but because he had been too low in spirits to bother about his appearance, but when Iseult and I reached his refuge he was standing naked to the waist beside a big wooden tub of heated water. His chest was pathetically thin, his belly hollow, but he had washed himself, combed his hair and was now scratching at his stubble with an ancient razor he had borrowed from a marsh man. His daughter, ?thelflaed was holding a scrap of silver that served as a mirror.
'I am feeling better,' he told me solemnly.
'Good, lord,' I said, 'so am I.'
'Does that mean you've killed someone?'
'She did,' I jerked my head at Iseult.
He gave her a speculative look. 'My wife,' he said, dipping the razor in the water, 'was asking whether Iseult is truly a queen.'
'She was,' I said, 'but that means little in Cornwalum. She was queen of a dung-heap.'
'And she's a pagan?'
'It was a Christian kingdom,' I said. 'Didn't Brother Asser tell you that?'
'He said they were not good Christians.'
'I thought that was for God to judge.'
'Good, Uhtred, good!' He waved the razor at me, then stooped to the silver mirror and scraped at his upper lip. 'Can she foretell the future?'
'She can.'
He scraped in silence for a few heartbeats. ?thelflaed watched Iseult solemnly.
'So tell me,' Alfred said, 'does she say I will be king in Wessex again?'
‘You will,' Iseult said tonelessly, surprising me.
Alfred stared at her. 'My wife,' he said, 'says that we can look for a ship now that Edward is better.
Look for a ship, go to Frankia and perhaps travel on to Rome. There is a Saxon community in Rome.'
He scraped the blade against his jawbone. 'They will welcome us.'
'The Danes will be defeated,' Iseult said, still tonelessly, but without a quiver of doubt in her voice.
Alfred rubbed his face. 'The example of Boethius tells me she's right,' he said.
'Boethius?' I asked, 'is he one of your warriors?'
'He was a Roman, Uhtred,' Alfred said in a tone which chided me for not knowing, 'and a Christian and a philosopher and a man rich in book-learning. Rich indeed!' He paused, contemplating the story of Boethius. 'When the pagan Alaric overran Rome,' he went on, 'and all civilisation and true religion seemed doomed, Boethius alone stood against the sinners. He suffered, but he won through, and we can take heart from him, indeed we can.' He pointed the razor at me. 'We must never forget the example of Boethius, Uhtred, never.'
'I won't, lord,' I said, 'but do you think book-learning will get you out of here?'
'I think,' he said, 'that when the Danes are gone, I shall grow a proper beard. Thank you, my sweet,'
this last was to ?thelflaed. 'Give the mirror back to Eanflaed, will you?'
?thelflaed ran off and Alfred looked at me with some amusement. 'Does it surprise you that my wife and Eanflaed have become friends?'
'I'm glad of it, lord.'
'So am I.'
'But does your wife know Eanflaed's trade?' I asked.
'Not exactly,' he said. 'She believes Eanflaed was a cook in a tavern. Which is truth enough. So we have a fort at ?thelingaeg?'
'We do. Leofric commands there and has forty-three men.'
'And we have twenty-eight here. The very hosts of Midianl' He was evidently amused. 'So we shall move there.'
'Maybe in a week or two.'
'Why wait?' he asked.
I shrugged. 'This place is deeper in the swamp. When we have more men, when we know we can hold ?thelingaeg, that is the time for you to go there.'
He pulled on a grubby shirt. 'Your new fort can't stop the Danes?'
'It will slow them, lord. But they could still struggle through the marsh.' They would find it difficult, though, for Leofric was digging ditches to defend ?thelingaeg’s western edge.
'You're telling me ?thelingaeg is more vulnerable than this place?'
'Yes, lord.'
'Which is why I must go there,' he said. ‘Then they can't say their king skulked in an unreachable place, can they?' He smiled at me. 'They must say he defied the Danes. That he waited where they could reach him, that he put himself into danger.'
