saw the Danish shields hanging from the palisade. Steapa and I were hidden in the high woods and could see men guarding the gate, and other men standing watch in a pasture where forty or fifty horses were grazing on the first of the spring grass.
I could see Odda the Elder's hall where I had been reunited with Mildrith after the fight at Cynuit, and I could also see a triangular Danish banner flying above the larger hall that was the bishop's home. The western gate was open, though well guarded, and despite the sentries and the shields on the wall the town looked like a place at peace, not at war. There should be Saxons on this hill, I thought, Saxons watching the enemy, ready to attack. instead the Danes were living undisturbed.
'How far to Ocmundtun?' I asked Steapa.
'We can make it by nightfall.'
I hesitated. If Odda the Younger was at Ocmundtun then why go there? He was my enemy and sworn to my death. Alfred had given me a scrap of parchment on which he had written words commanding Odda to greet me peaceably, but what force did writing have against hatred?
'He won't kill you,' Steapa said, surprising me again. He had evidently guessed my thoughts. 'He won't kill you,' he said again.
'Why not?'
'Because I won't abide him killing you,' Steapa said and turned his horse west.
We reached Ocmundtun at dusk. It was a small town built along a river and guarded by a high spur of limestone on which a stout palisade offered a refuge if attackers came. No one was on the limestone spur now and the town, which had no walls, looked placid. There might be war in Wessex, but Ocmundtun, like Cridianton, was evidently at peace. Harald's hall was close to the fort on its hill and no one challenged us as we rode into the forecourt where servants recognised Steapa. They greeted him warily, but then a steward came from the hall door and, seeing the huge man, clapped his hands twice in a sign of delight.
'We heard you were taken by the pagans,' the steward said.
'I was.'
'They let you go?'
'My king freed me,' Steapa growled as though he resented the question. He slid from his horse and stretched. 'Alfred freed me.'
'Is Harald here?' I asked the steward.
'My lord is inside,' the steward was offended that I had not called the reeve “lord”.
'Then so are we,' I said, and led Steapa into the hall. The steward flapped at us because custom and courtesy demanded that he seek his lord's permission for us to enter the hall, but I ignored him.
A fire burned in the central hearth and dozens of rushlights stood on the platforms at the hall's edges. Boar spears were stacked against the wall on which hung a dozen deerskins and a bundle of valuable pine-marten pelts. A score of men were in the hall, evidently waiting for supper, and a harpist played at the far end. A pack of hounds rushed to investigate us and Steapa beat them off as we walked to the fire to warm ourselves.
'Ale,' Steapa said to the steward.
Harald must have heard the noise of the hounds for he appeared at a door leading from the private chamber at the back of the hall. He blinked when he saw its. He had thought the two of us were enemies, then he had heard that Steapa was captured, yet here we were, side by side. The hall fell silent as he limped towards us. It was only a slight limp, the result of a spear wound in some battle that had also taken two fingers of his sword hand.
'You once chided me,' he said, 'for carrying weapons into your hall. Yet you bring weapons into mine.'
'There was no gatekeeper,' I said.
'He was having a piss, lord,' the steward explained.
'There are to be no weapons in my hall,' Harald insisted.
That was customary. Men get drunk in hall and can do enough damage to each other with the knives we use to cut meat, and drunken men with swords and axes can turn a supper table into a butcher's yard. We gave the steward our weapons, then I hauled off my mail coat and told the steward to hang it on a frame to dry, then have a servant clean its links.
Harald formally welcomed us when our weapons were gone. He said the hall was ours and that we should eat with him as honoured guests. 'I would hear your news,' he said, beckoning a servant who brought us pots of ale.
'Is Odda here?' I demanded.
'The father is, yes. Not the son.'
I swore. We had come here with a message for Ealdorman Odda, Odda the Younger, only to discover that it was the wounded father, Odda the Elder, who was in Ocmundtun.
'So where is the son?' I asked.
Harald was offended by my brusqueness, but he remained courteous. 'The ealdorman is in Exanceaster.'
'Is he besieged there?'
'No.'
'And the Danes are in Cridianton?'
'They are.'
'And are they besieged?' l knew the answer to that, but wanted to hear Harald admit it.
'No,' he said.
