There was silence until Harald irritably gestured at the harpist who struck a chord and began playing a melancholy tune. Someone began singing, but no one joined in and his voice trailed away.
'I must look to the sentinels,' Harald said, and he threw me an inquisitive look which I took as an invitation to join him, and so I buckled on my swords and then walked with him down Ocmundtun's long street to where three spearmen stood guard beside a wooden hut. Harald talked to them for a moment, then led me further east, away from the light of the sentinels' fire. A moon silvered the valley, lighting the empty road until the track vanished among trees.
'I have thirty fighting men,' Harald said suddenly.
He was telling me he was too weak to fight.
'How many men does Odda have in Exanceaster?' I asked.
'A hundred? Hundred and twenty?'
'The fyrd should have been raised.'
'I had no orders,' Harald said,
'Did you seek any?'
'Of course I did.' He was angry with me now. 'I told Odda we should drive Svein away, but he wouldn't listen.'
'Did he tell you the king ordered the fyrd raised?'
'No.' Harald paused, staring down the moonlit road. 'We heard nothing of Alfred, except that he'd been defeated and was hiding. And we heard the Danes were all across Wessex, and that more were gathering in Mercia.'
'Odda didn't think to attack Svein when he landed?'
‘He thought to protect himself,' Harald said, 'and sent me to the Tamur.'
The Tamur was the river which divided Wessex from Cornwalum.
'The Britons are quiet?' I asked.
'Their priests are telling them not to fight us.'
'But priests or no priests,' I said, 'they'll cross the river if the Danes look like winning.'
'Aren't they winning already?' Harald asked bitterly.
'We're still free men,' I said.
He nodded at that. Behind us, in the town, a dog began howling and he turned as if the noise indicated trouble, but the howling stopped with a sharp yelp. He kicked a stone in the road.
'Svein frightens me,' he admitted suddenly.
'He's a frightening man,' I agreed.
'He's clever,' Harald said, 'clever, strong and savage.'
'A Dane,' I said dryly.
'A ruthless man,' Harald went on.
'He is,' I agreed, 'and do you think that after you have fed him, supplied him with horses and given him shelter, he will leave you alone?'
'No,' he said, 'but Odda believes that.'
Then Odda was a fool. He was nursing a wolf cub that would tear him to shreds when it was strong enough.
'Why didn't Svein march north to join Guthrum?' I asked.
'I wouldn't know.'
But I knew. Guthrum had been in England for years now. He had tried to take Wessex before, and he had failed, but now, on the very brink of success, he had paused. Guthrum the Unlucky, he was called, and I suspected he had not changed. He was wealthy, led many men, but he was cautious.
Svein, though, came from the Norsemen's settlements in Ireland and was a very different creature. He was younger than Guthrum, less wealthy than Guthrum, and led fewer men, but he was undoubtedly the better warrior. Now, bereft of his ships, he was weakened, but he had persuaded Odda the Younger to give him refuge and he gathered his strength so that when he did meet Guthrum he would not he a defeated leader in need of help, but a Spear-Dane of power. Svein, I thought, was a far more dangerous man than Guthrum, and Odda the Younger was only making him more dangerous.
'Tomorrow,' I said, 'we must start raising the fyrd. Those are the king's orders.'
Harald nodded. I could not see his face in the darkness, but I sensed he was not happy, yet he was a sensible man and must have known that Svein had to be driven out of the shire.
'I shall send the messages,' he said, 'but Odda might stop the fyrd assembling. He's made his truce with Svein and he won't want me breaking it. Folk will obey him before they obey me.'
‘And what of his father?' I asked. 'Will they obey him?'
'They will,' he said, 'but he's a sick man. You saw that. It's a miracle he lives at all.'
'Maybe because my wife nurses him?'
'Yes,' he said, and fell silent. There was something odd in the air now, something unexpressed, a discomfort.
