most senior military advisor and chief spy-master,” said Alfred. “Very little happens in the kingdoms without his knowledge. He has been endeavoring to keep track of Aethelred since his escape. Chiswick?”
Chiswick unrolled a map of lower England across the table, positioning goblets and candlestick holders at its corners to hold it in place. The map was heavily adorned with annotations in Chiswick’s own hand.
As he studied it, Wulfric was immediately taken back to the Danish war. Often had he stood in Alfred’s tent with the King and his war council studying campaign maps and discussing strategy. The more senior of Alfred’s advisors had bristled at a commoner being invited to such high-level meetings, but Alfred, having come to know Wulfric after Ethandun, had insisted on it. All these nobles and knighted men tell me only what they think I want to hear, he had told the young Wulfric. Their desire to win my favor by constantly agreeing with me will get us all killed. I need men courageous enough to disagree with me when I am wrong.
And so Wulfric had done as he was asked and spoken the truth as he saw it. Alfred’s highborn advisors had had no choice but to suffer his presence, restricting their objections to furtive looks among themselves, particularly when the King took Wulfric’s advice over their own.
“Aethelred left here with six of our own men that he perverted to his will,” Chiswick said, pointing to Winchester on the map. “That was twenty days ago. Since then we have received numerous reports of disturbances throughout the northeast quarter of Wessex. Commonfolk fleeing their homes, claiming to have been attacked by rabid beasts like none they have ever seen. With each fresh report, the number of beasts grows. I believe Aethelred is working his way toward the Danelaw border, and that his army grows larger with each new town and village he enslaves along his route.”
To Wulfric it all still seemed so unbelievable. He had sat in dozens of military briefings just like this one, and yet nothing like it at all. This was more like something from a nightmare, or a ghost story told around the campfire by journeymen to frighten one another. It could not be real, and yet he could not deny what he had seen with his own eyes. It took a while for his mind, still racing, to focus and find its first question.
“How large is his force, by the most recent report?”
“The villagers we have spoken to are not the most reliable,” Chiswick answered. “Many are in shock, babbling. But the most coherent among them said they reckoned close to a hundred.”
Wulfric took a moment to contemplate that. A hundred of those . . . things . . . such as he had seen in Alfred’s dungeon? The thought chilled him.
“Where is he now?”
“The last known sighting was here,” replied Chiswick, gesturing to a small town about sixty miles short of the boundary where Wessex ended and the Danelaw began. “At his present rate, he could be at the Danes’ border by month’s end.”
“And his intention when he gets there?” Wulfric asked.
“He first proposed this force of beasts as a deterrent against another Danish invasion,” said Chiswick. “But now . . . I hesitate to try to predict the actions of a man so clearly mad, but I believe he intends to launch some kind of preemptive attack into their territory.”
“If he seriously intends to attack the Danish on their own ground with so small a force, I suspect this problem will take care of itself soon enough,” offered Wulfric.
“A hundred may not seem like many,” said Alfred, “but in our experience, just one of these beasts is the match of a dozen armed men. Who knows how many more Aethelred will have acquired by the time he reaches the Danelaw? With this power he employs, his enemies do not fall on the battlefield—they become his allies. Soon he could be using it to turn the Danes on themselves.”
A silence settled on the Great Hall for a moment. Alfred waited while the full implication of that sank in. Wulfric had become an expert at war, in both theory and practice, but this was no longer war as he understood it. The rules had changed. In the old way, the way it had been for thousands of years, both sides lost men in battle. But under Aethelred’s new rules, the victor converted the vanquished into his own ranks and grew more powerful with each conquest. It was a terrifying idea, both strategically and in other ways that troubled Wulfric far more deeply.
It was Chiswick who broke the silence. “Our concern is not a war between the Danes and Aethelred’s army, if one can even call it that. It is that any kind of attack from within Wessex will be perceived to be in the King’s name. If Aethelred breaks the accord and attacks the Danelaw, it will stir up an already precarious situation and perhaps lead to a counterinvasion.”
“And another all-out war,” Wulfric observed. It was a strange thing, he thought, to be considering ways in which to prevent an attack against the Norse, after all the times he had helped to plot them. He had no love for the Danes, after all they had done to him and those he loved, but the kingdom simply could not afford another war.
“My advice is simple,” he said. “Dispatch the full force of your armies to intercept Aethelred before he reaches the Danelaw. Crush him quickly, with overwhelming force, and end this thing before it begins.”
“Would that it were that easy,” Alfred responded with a heavy sigh, looking to Chiswick.
“Our forces are scattered throughout the kingdom,” said Chiswick, pointing to various annotations on his map indicating the disposition of infantry encampments and other military assets. “Even at best speed, they have little chance of assembling into a force sufficient to overwhelm Aethelred before he reaches the Danelaw. And even were it possible, committing such a force would leave the rest of Wessex ill defended should the Norse seize the opportunity to attack from elsewhere along the border. No, our best chance, we believe, would be to take him by surprise using a small, swift, mobile force, one specially formed for this task.”
Wulfric scratched his head, confused. “If Aethelred’s force is equal to more than a thousand men, what chance does a small contingent have against him? Most likely you would only be sending more men for him to enslave.”
For the first time, Alfred allowed himself a smile. Wulfric knew it well, the wry look the King adopted when he had a bright scheme. “Aethelred is not the only one with magickal tricks up his sleeve,” he said. “Come with me to the chapel. Thank you, Chiswick.”
The priest paced up and down before the stone altar of Winchester’s chapel. He had been told to await the King’s presence, and so far he had been waiting for more than an hour. Yet it was not the waiting that bothered him but the worry of what would be expected of him when the King did at last arrive. He had been practicing all hours of the day and night and was confident he had mastered what had been asked of him. But he also knew, more than most, what was at stake—and the price of failure, both for himself and for the men who would be placing their lives in his hands. One small mistake, one mispronounced syllable or moment of hesitation, would spell disaster.
The irony had not escaped him. He was not by nature cut out for the martial professions; he had entered the priesthood largely because it was a path of peace. But that path had now twisted in an unforeseen way and was leading him into the very thing he had hoped to avoid—a war, and not just any war, but one fought with weapons more horrendous than anything ever before conceived by man. A shiver ran through him, only partly because it was cold in the small stone-walled chamber.
He heard the chapel door open behind him and spun around to see King Alfred enter with a man he did not recognize. He looked to the young priest like a commoner, but the steeled look in the man’s eyes suggested he was more likely a soldier of some kind. The priest swallowed deep and corrected his posture as they approached.
“Your Majesty,” he said, bowing low before the King.
“Cuthbert, this is Sir Wulfric,” Alfred said. The priest’s eyes widened a little; he might not have recognized the scruffy-looking man standing beside the King, but he most certainly