'He's discovered the value,' I said, 'of murderous bastards like me, so perhaps he'll learn to distrust the advice of snivelling bastards like you who told him the Danes could be defeated by prayer.'
He sniffed at that insult, then looked disapprovingly at Iseult. ‘You have news of your wife?'
'None.'
Beocca had some news, though none of Mildrith. He had fled south in front of the invading Danes, getting as far as Dornwaraceaster in Thornsaeta where he had found refuge with some monks. The Danes had come, but the monks had received warning of their approach and had hidden in an ancient fort that lay near the town. The Danes had sacked Dornwaraceaster, taking silver, coins and women, then they had moved eastwards and shortly after that Huppa, the Ealdorman of Thornsaeta, had come to the town with fifty warriors. Huppa had set the monks and townspeople to mending the old Roman walls.
'The folk there are safe for the moment,' Beocca told me, 'but there is not sufficient food if the Danes return and lay siege.'
Then Beocca had heard that Alfred was in the great swamps and Beocca had travelled alone, though on his last day of walking he had met six soldiers going to Alfred and so he had finished his journey with them. He brought no news of Wulfhere, but he had been told that Odda the Younger was somewhere on the upper reaches of the Uisc in an ancient fort built by the old people. Beocca had seen no Danes on his journey.
'They raid everywhere,' he said gloomily, 'but God be praised we saw none of them.'
'Is Dornwaraceaster a large place?' I asked.
'Large enough. It had three fine churches, three!'
'A market?'
'Indeed, it was prosperous before the Danes came.'
'Yet the Danes didn't stay there?'
'Nor were they at Gifle,' he said, ‘and that's a goodly place.'
Guthrum had surprised Alfred, defeated the forces at Cippanhamm and driven the king into hiding, but to hold Wessex he needed to take all her walled towns, and if Beocca could walk three days across country and see no Danes then it suggested Guthrum did not have the men to hold all he had taken.
He could bring more men from Mercia or East Anglia, but then those places might rise against their weakened Danish overlords, so Guthrum had to be hoping that more ships would come from Denmark.
In the meantime, we learned, he had garrisons in Bafium, Readingum, Maerlebeorg and Andefera, and doubtless he held other places, and Alfred suspected, rightly as it turned out, that most of eastern Wessex was in Danish hands, but great stretches of the country were still free of the enemy. Guthrum's men were making raids into those stretches, but they did not have sufficient force to garrison towns like Wintanceaster, Gifle or Dornwaraceaster.
In the early summer, Alfred knew, more ships would bring more Danes, so he had to strike before then, to which end, on the day after Beocca arrived, he summoned a council.
There were now enough men on ?thelingaeg for a royal formality to prevail. I no longer found Alfred sitting outside a hut in the evening, but instead had to seek an audience with him. On the Monday of the council he gave orders that a large house was to be made into a church, and the family that lived there was evicted and some of the newly-arrived soldiers were ordered to make a great cross for the gable and to carve new windows in the walls. The council itself met in what had been Haswold's hall, and Alfred had waited till we were assembled before making his entrance, and we had all stood as he came in and waited as he took one of the two chairs on the newly-made dais. ?lswith sat beside him, her pregnant belly swathed in the silver fur cloak that was still stained with Haswold's blood.
We were not allowed to sit until the Bishop of Exanceaster said a prayer, and that took time, but at last the king waved us down. There were six priests in the half circle and six warriors. I sat beside Leofric, while the other four soldiers were newly-arrived men who had served in Alfred's household troops. One of those was a grey- bearded man called Egwine who told me he had led a hundred men at Uisc's Hill and plainly thought he should now lead all the troops gathered in the swamp. I knew he had urged his case with the king and with Beocca who sat just below the dais at a rickety table on which he was trying to record what was said at the council. Beocca was having difficulties for his ink was ancient and faded, his quill kept splitting and his parchments were wide margins torn from a missal, so he was unhappy, but Alfred liked to reduce arguments to writing.
The king formally thanked the bishop for his prayer, then announced, sensibly enough, that we could not hope to deal with Guthrum until Svein was defeated. Svein was the immediate threat for, though most of his men had gone south to raid Defnascir, he still had the ships with which to enter the swamp. 'Twenty-four ships,' Alfred said, raising an eyebrow at me.
'Twenty-four, lord,' I confirmed.
'So, when his men are assembled, he can muster near a thousand men.' Alfred let that figure linger awhile. Beocca frowned as his split quill spattered ink on his tiny patch of parchment.
'But a few days ago,' Alfred went on, 'there were only seventy ship-guards at the mouth of the Pedredan.'
'Around seventy,' I said. 'There could be more we didn't see.'
'Fewer than a hundred, though?'
'I suspect so, lord.'
'So we must deal with them,' Alfred said, 'before the rest return to their ships.'
There was another silence. All of us knew how weak we were. A few men arrived every day, like the half- dozen who had come with Beocca, but they came slowly, either because the news of Alfred's existence was spreading slowly, or else because the weather was cold and men do not like to travel on wet, cold days.
Nor were there any thegns among the newcomers, not one. Thegns were noblemen, men of property, men who could bring scores of well armed followers to a fight, and every shire had its thegns who ranked just below the reeve and ealdorman, who were themselves thegns. Thegns were the power of Wessex, but none had come to ?thelingaeg.
Some, we heard, had fled abroad, while others tried to protect their property. Alfred, I was certain, would have felt more comfortable if he had a dozen thegns about him, but instead he had me and Leofric and Egwine.
