'Going back to Cippanhamm,' Alfred said. It was a foraging party, and their packhorses carried nets stuffed with hay to feed their war horses, and I remembered my childhood winter in Readingum, when the Danes first invaded Wessex, and how hard it had been to keep horses and men alive in the cold. We had cut feeble winter grass and pulled down thatch to feed our horses, which still became skeletal and weak. I have often listened to men declare that all that is needed to win a war is to assemble men and march against the enemy, but it is never that easy. Men and horses must be fed, and hunger can defeat an army much faster than spears. We watched the Danes go north, then turned aside to a half-ruined barn that offered us shelter for the night.
It began to snow that night, a relentless soft snow, silent and thick, so that by dawn the world was white under a pale blue sky. I suggested we waited till the snow had thawed before we rode further, but Egwine, who came from this part of the country, said we were only two or three hours south of Cippanhamm and Alfred was impatient.
'We go,' he insisted. 'We go there, look at the town and ride away.'
So we rode north, our hooves crunching the newly fallen snow, riding through a world made new and clean. Snow clung to every twig and branch while ice skimmed the ditches and ponds. I saw a fox's trail crossing a field and thought that the spring would bring a plague of the beasts for there would have been no one to hunt them, and the lambs would die bloodily and the ewes would bleat pitifully.
We came in sight of Cippanhamm before midday, though the great pall of smoke, made by hundreds of cooking fires, had shown in the sky all morning. We stopped south of the town, just where the road emerged from a stand of oaks, and the Danes must have noticed us, but none came from the gates to see who we were. It was too cold for men to stir themselves. I could see guards on the walls, though none stayed there long, retreating to whatever warmth they could find between their short forays along the wooden ramparts. Those ramparts were bright with round shields painted blue and white and blood-red and, because Guthrum's men were there, black.
'We should count the shields,' Alfred said.
'It won't help,' I said. 'They carry two or three shields each and hang them on the walls to make it look as if they have more men.'
Alfred was shivering and I insisted we find some shelter. We turned back into the trees, following a path which led to the river and a mile or so upstream we came across a mill. The millstone had been taken away, but the building itself was whole and it was well made, with stone walls and a turf roof held up by stout rafters. There was a hearth in a room where the miller's family had lived, but I would not let Egwine light a fire in case the trickle of smoke brought curious Danes from the town.
'Wait till dark,' I said.
'We'll freeze by then,' he grumbled.
'Then you shouldn't have come,' I snapped.
'We have to get closer to the town,' Alfred said.
'You don't,' I said, 'I do.'
I had seen horses paddocked to the west of the walls and I reckoned I could take our best horse and ride about the town's western edge and count every horse I saw. That would give a rough estimate of the Danish numbers, for almost every man would have a horse. Alfred wanted to come, but I shook my head. It was pointless for more than one man to go, and sensible that the one man who did go should speak Danish, so I told him I would see him back in the mill before nightfall and then I rode north.
Cippanhamm was built on a hill that was almost encircled by the river, so I could not ride clear around the town, but I went as close to the walls as I dared and stared across the river and saw no horses on its farther bank which suggested that the Danes were keeping all of their beasts on the western side of the town. I went there, keeping in the snowy woods, and though the Danes must have seen me they could not be bothered to ride into the snow to chase one man, and so I was able to find the paddocks where their horses shivered. I spent the day counting. Most of the horses were in fields beside the royal compound and there were hundreds of them. By late afternoon I had estimated that there were twelve hundred, and those were only the ones I could see, and the best horses would be in the town, but my reckoning was good enough.
It would give Alfred an idea of how large Guthrum's force was. Say two thousand men? And elsewhere in Wessex, in the towns the Danes had occupied, there must be another thousand. That was a strong force, but not quite strong enough to capture all the kingdom.
That would have to wait until spring when reinforcements would come from Denmark or from the three conquered kingdoms of England.
I rode back to the watermill as dusk fell. There was a frost and the air was still. Three rooks flew across the river as I dismounted. I reckoned one of Alfred's men could rub my horse down; all I wanted was to find some warmth and it was plain Alfred had risked lighting a fire, for smoke was pouring out of the hole in the turf roof.
They were all crouched about the small fire and I joined them, stretching my hands to the flames.
'Two thousand men,' I said, 'more or less.'
No one answered.
'Didn't you hear me?' I asked, and looked around the faces.
There were five faces. Only five.
'Where's the king?' I asked.
'He went,' Adelbert said helplessly.
'He did what?'
'He went to the town,' the priest said. He was wearing Alfred's rich blue cloak and I assumed Alfred had taken Adelbert's plain garment.
I stared at him. 'You let him go?'
'He insisted,' Egwine said.
'How could we stop him?' Adelbert pleaded. 'He's the king!'
'You hit the bastard, of course,' I snarled. 'You hold him down till the madness passes. When did he go?'
'Just after you left,' the priest said miserably, 'and he took my harp,' he added.
