wet tentacle wrapped around his face and tore his head from his neck. Blood spewed from the pikeman’s neck as the beast tossed his lifeless body aside. His head was given to the tongues, which grasped at it and pulled it down inside the monster’s neck, swallowing it greedily.
The other pikemen were attacking now. But this was not like the pig-thing, nor any of the creatures Aethelred had conjured before. This one was heavily armored, and the pike-heads merely glanced off its thick hide. The beast whirled around and skewered an unsuspecting soldier with a boned claw that sank deep into his chest and out his back. He slid backward and fell, dead before he hit the ground. A third pikeman was grabbed around the ankle and flung across the yard with such force that Alfred heard the man’s bones break when he hit the stone wall. Five desperate men still surrounded the beast, which was yet unhurt and becoming more enraged.
“Let me stop it!” Aethelred cried. “Before it kills us all!”
Alfred was loath to let the man free even for a moment, but he knew he must act quickly, and he had few other options. He nodded to the guards to release the archbishop. Shrugging free of their grip, Aethelred raised his hands in his contorted sorcerer’s grip and shouted a command that neither Alfred nor any man present could understand, though they all recognized it as the same arcane language used in the incantations.
The beast stopped instantly. It had two men cornered and would surely have killed them both within moments, but instead it turned to face Aethelred, suddenly docile. Aethelred spoke in the strange tongue again, and the beast approached, seemingly compliant.
As it shambled toward the archbishop, Alfred and the other men standing nearby took cautious steps backward, but Aethelred raised a hand to reassure them. “It is all right,” he said. “It will not harm anyone else—unless I command it to. It is perfectly under my control, of no danger to us or our troops in battle. But set against the Danish horde . . . a very different matter.”
The beast stood at least seven feet tall and towered over Aethelred, who yet showed no fear of it. Alfred stiffened as the archbishop reached out to pet the horrendous creature with the affection one might show to a beloved dog. In response, the beast gave a miserable whimper. To any sane man, the sight of this vile, wretched thing would inspire a combination of fear, pity, and disgust. Alfred saw the way Aethelred looked at it—in admiration—and he knew: he has gone mad.
Aethelred was so besotted with his creation that he did not notice the pikemen, now regrouped and taking position behind the beast. With a nod, Alfred gave them the order they were waiting for. They lunged as one, driving their blades hard into the creature’s back, finding the tender muscle and flesh between its thick plates of bone. The beast let out a hideous screech and sank to the ground, its limbs giving way. Before it could recover, the pikemen were climbing up onto its back to stab it again and again, driving their pikes deep. Aethelred protested, but none were listening. The beast finally slumped forward onto its belly, its tongues thrashing like rattlesnake tails for a moment longer. And then, at last, it was dead.
More pikemen rushed into the yard, attracted by all the screaming and commotion. Alfred pointed to Aethelred. “Take this man and place him in the tower under guard,” he ordered. The pikemen surrounded the archbishop, taking him firmly by each arm.
“You did not need to kill it,” said Aethelred, still thinking more of his precious experiment than of the four men who now lay dead. “There was much we could have learned from it.”
Alfred was barely able to contain his fury. “I have learned all I needed today. I learned that I have allowed these experiments of yours to go too far. Well, now I am putting an end to it. To all of it!”
“And discard all the progress we have made?” Aethelred protested. “This was my most successful subject yet. If you will only hear me out—”
“Nothing you can offer could possibly justify this atrocity!” Alfred bellowed, red with rage. “How many others have there been? How many men did you mutilate before this poor bastard here?”
“None that you would not have put to death anyway,” said Aethelred. “All came from the lists of condemned men.”
“I would never condemn any man to such a fate as this! I tolerated this foul enterprise because of your assurance that it would allow us to wage war without spilling the blood of Englishmen!”
“Sire, one man transformed is worth twenty of any other! In strength, in resilience, in aggression! See here what this single one did, and imagine the havoc that a hundred such beasts could wreak upon our enemies! A mere hundred, compared to the thousands we might lose in a conventional battle.”
Alfred’s tone lowered, but he remained no less resolute. “I will not suffer this curse to be put upon even one more man, be he condemned or not.”
“The transformation need not be permanent,” offered Aethelred. “I assure you, given more time, I can find a way to reverse the effect—to restore them to their original form when they return from battle.”
With a heavy sigh, Alfred rubbed his brow. “I’ve had about as many of your assurances as I can take. Guards, see the archbishop to the tower. There he will stay, until I decide what to do with him.”
The pikemen marched Aethelred away, leaving Alfred to survey the carnage in the yard before him. He shook his head, cursing himself for being so foolish as to believe that this could ever have come to any good.
Barrick and Harding, the two largest and least obliging of Alfred’s jailors, marched Aethelred roughly up the stone steps of the spiral staircase. Torchlight flickered on the walls as Barrick unlocked the heavy oak door to the solitary cell atop the tower and Harding tossed the archbishop inside. He landed in a pile of dank straw, with barely time to right himself before the door slammed closed again and the key turned in the lock.
He dusted himself off and straightened his robe. For a moment he sat there in the dark, listening to the idle chatter of the two guards now standing post outside. And a thin smile played across his lips. Alfred is more blind than I thought, he delighted in thinking to himself. After all that he has seen, he actually thinks that he can cage me.
Alfred had convened his senior counselors in the war room. All by now had heard of the slaughter in the yard; some had seen it for themselves. Though months ago all had voted to explore Aethelred’s proposal, they had, like Alfred, grown increasingly uneasy with where it was leading. Today’s events had been the final straw. None needed convincing that it was time for this ill-advised episode to be brought to a close. Alfred had already ordered all record of it destroyed, including the accursed scrolls that had begun it all. The only question now was what to do with the Archbishop of Canterbury himself.
“He is finished as archbishop, and in the church. That much is certain,” the King declared to unanimous nods of approval. “The senior clergy will not dispute it. Many of them were also disquieted by what Aethelred was doing here. For that, I will apologize and ask them to put forward a successor of their choosing.”
“What, though, is to be his fate beyond excommunication?” asked Cromwell, one of Alfred’s high reeves and a trusted military advisor. “Is he to be charged with a crime? Is there to be a trial?”
“If Aethelred is guilty of a crime, then I am equally guilty for condoning it this long,” Alfred said. “And a public trial of such a . . . bizarre nature would only spread superstition and fear throughout the kingdom.”
There was a long pause before anyone spoke again. This time it was Chiswick, another of Alfred’s war counselors. His special responsibility was to manage the army’s apparatus of spies and subterfuge, and he could often be relied upon to suggest unconventional solutions to difficult problems.
“Perhaps, then . . . an accident?”
Alfred and the others looked at him.
“It is well-known from here to Canterbury that the archbishop was engaged in dangerous work, though not the