later, when the Danes had gone, I found her hiding in one of the turf-roofed shelters behind the wall.
'I hoped the Danes would come,' she told me.
'So they could take you away?'
'So I could watch you kill them.'
It was one of the rare days when it was not raining. There was sunshine on the green hills and I sat on the wall, took Serpent-Breath from her fleece-lined scabbard and began sharpening her two edges with a whetstone. ?thelflaed insisted on trying the whetstone and she laid the long blade on her lap and frowned in concentration as she drew the stone down the sword. 'How many Danes have you killed?' she asked.
'Enough.'
'Mama says you don't love Jesus.'
'We all love Jesus,' I said evasively.
'If you loved Jesus,' she said seriously, 'then you could kill more Danes. What's this?' She had found the deep nick in one of Serpent-Breath's edges.
'It's where she hit another sword,' I said. It had happened at Cippanhamm during my fight with Steapa and his huge sword had bitten deep into Serpent-Breath.
'I'll make her better,' she said, and worked obsessively with the whetstone, trying to smooth the nick's edges. 'Mama says Iseult is an aglaecwif.' She stumbled over the word, then grinned in triumph because she had managed to say it. I said nothing. An aglaecwif was a fiend, a monster. 'The bishop says it too,' ?thelflaed said earnestly. 'I don't like the bishop.'
'You don't?'
'He dribbles.' She tried to demonstrate and managed to spit onto Serpent-Breath. She rubbed the blade. 'Is Iseult an aglaecwif?'
'Of course not. She made Edward better.'
'Jesus did that, and Jesus sent me a baby sister.' She scowled because all her efforts had made no impression on the nick in Serpent-Breath.
'Iseult is a good woman,' I said.
'She's learning to read. I can read.'
'You can?'
'Almost. If she reads then she can be a Christian. I'd like to be an aglaecwif.'
'You would?' I asked, surprised.
For answer she growled at me and crooked a small hand so that her fingers looked like claws. Then she laughed. 'Are those Danes?' She had seen some horsemen coming from the south.
'That's Wiglaf,' I said.
'He's nice.'
I sent her back to ?thelingaeg on Wiglaf's horse and I thought of what she had said and wondered, for the thousandth time, why I was among Christians who believed I was an offence to their god. They called my gods dwolgods, which meant false gods, so that made me Uhtredarwe, living with an aglaecwif and worshipping dwolgods. I flaunted it, though, always wearing my hammer amulet openly, and that night Alfred, as ever, flinched when he saw it. He had summoned me to his hall where I found him bent over a tall board. He was playing against Beocca, who had the larger set of pieces. It seems a simple game, tall, where one player has a king and a dozen other pieces, and the other has double the pieces, but no king, and then you move the pieces about the chequered board until one or other player has all his wooden pieces surrounded. I had no patience for it, but Alfred was fond of the game, though when I arrived he seemed to be losing and so was relieved to see me.
'I want you to go to Defnascir,' he said.
'Of course, lord.'
'I fear your king is threatened, lord,' Beocca said happily.
'Never mind,' Alfred said irritably. 'You're to go to Defnascir,' he said, turning back to me, 'but Iseult must stay here.'
I bridled at that. 'She's to be a hostage again?' I asked.
'I need her medicines,' Alfred said.
'Even though they're made by an aglaecwif?'
He gave me a sharp look. 'She is a healer,' he said, 'and that means she is God's instrument, and with God's help she will come to the truth. Besides, you must travel fast and don't need a woman for company. You will go to Defnascir and find Svein, and once you've found him you will instruct Odda the Younger to raise the fyrd. Tell him Svein must he driven from the shire, and once Odda has achieved that, he is to come here with his household troops. He commands my bodyguard, he should be here.'
'You want me to give Odda orders?' I asked, partly in surprise, partly with scorn.
'I do,' Alfred said, 'and I order you to make your peace with him.'
'Yes, lord,' I replied.
He heard the sarcasm in my voice. 'We are all Saxons, Uhtred, and now, more than ever, is the time to heal our wounds.'
Beocca, realising that defeating Alfred at tall would not help the king's mood, was taking the pieces from the board. 'A house divided against itself,' he interjected, 'will be destroyed. Saint Matthew said that.'
