the new year to bring a Danish fleet, and one much too large for our twelve ships to oppose. ‘I dare not lose the fleet,’ he said, ‘so I doubt we should fight their ships. I’m expecting a land army of pagans to come down the Temes and for their fleet to assault our south coast. I can hold one, but not the other, so the fleet commander’s job will be to follow their ships and harry them. Distract them. Keep them looking one way while I destroy their land army.’
I said I thought that was a good idea, which it probably was, though I wondered how twelve ships were supposed to distract a whole fleet, but that was a problem which would have to wait until the enemy fleet arrived. Alfred then returned to the matter of the land and that, of course, was the deciding factor which would give me or deny me the fleet. ‘I would tie you to me, Uhtred,’ he said earnestly.
‘I shall give you an oath, lord,’ I said.
‘You will indeed,’ he responded tartly, ‘but I still want you to be of Wessex.’
‘A high honour, lord,’ I said. What else could I say?
‘You must belong to Wessex,’ he said, then smiled as though he did me a favour. ‘There is an orphan in Defnascir,’ he went on, and here it came, ‘a girl, who I would see married.’
I said nothing. What is the point of protesting when the executioner’s sword is in mid swing?
‘Her name is Mildrith,’ he went on, ‘and she is dear to me. A pious girl, modest and faithful. Her father was reeve to Ealdorman Odda, and she will bring land to her husband, good land, and I would have a good man hold that good land.’
I offered a smile that I hoped was not too sickly. ‘He would be a fortunate man, lord,’ I said, ‘to marry a girl who is dear to you.’
‘So go to her,’ he commanded me, ‘and marry her,’ the sword struck, ‘and then I shall name you commander of the fleet.’
‘Yes, lord,’ I said.
Leofric, of course, laughed like a demented jackdaw. ‘He’s no fool, is he?’ he said when he had recovered. ‘He’s making you into a West Saxon. So what do you know about this Miltewærc.’ Miltewærc is a pain in the spleen.
‘Mildrith,’ I said, ‘and she’s pious.’
‘Of course she’s pious. He wouldn’t want you to marry her if she was a leg-spreader.’
‘She’s an orphan,’ I said, ‘and aged about sixteen or seventeen.’
‘Christ! That old? She must be an ugly sow! But poor thing, she must be wearing out her knees praying to be spared a rutting from an earsling like you. But that’s her fate! So let’s get you married, then we can kill some Danes.’
It was winter. We had spent the Christmas feast at Cippanhamm, and that was no Yule, and now we rode south through frost and rain and wind. Father Willibald accompanied us, for he was still priest to the fleet, and my plan was to reach Defnascir, do what was grimly necessary, and then ride straight to Hamtun to make certain the winter work on the twelve boats was being done properly. It is in winter that ships are caulked, scraped, cleaned, and made tight for the spring, and the thought of ships made me dream of the Danes, and of Brida, and I wondered where she was, what she did, and whether we would meet again. And I thought of Ragnar. Had he found Thyra? Did Kjartan live? Theirs was another world now, and I knew I drifted away from it and was being entangled in the threads of Alfred’s tidy life. He was trying to make me into a West Saxon, and he was half succeeding. I was sworn now to fight for Wessex and it seemed I must marry into it, but I still clung to that ancient dream of retaking Bebbanburg.
I loved Bebbanburg and I almost loved Defnascir as much. When the world was made by Thor from the carcass of Ymir he did well when he fashioned Defnascir and its shire next door, Thornsæta. Both were beautiful lands of soft hills and quick streams, of rich fields and thick soil, of high heaths and good harbours. A man could live well in either shire, and I could have been happy in Defnascir had I not loved Bebbanburg more. We rode down the valley of the River Uisc, through well-tended fields of red earth, past plump villages and high halls until we came to Exanceaster which was the shire’s chief town. It had been made by the Romans who had built a fortress on a hill above the Uisc and surrounded it with a wall of flint, stone and brick, and the wall was still there and guards challenged us as we reached the northern gate.
‘We come to see Ealdorman Odda,’ Willibald said.
‘On whose business?’
‘The king’s,’ Willibald said proudly, flourishing a letter that bore Alfred’s seal, though I doubt the guards would have recognised it, but they seemed properly impressed and let us through into a town of decaying Roman buildings amidst which a timber church reared tall next to Ealdorman Odda’s hall.
The Ealdorman made us wait, but at last he came with his son and a dozen retainers, and one of his priests read the king’s letter aloud. It was Alfred’s pleasure that Mildrith should be married to his loyal servant, the Ealdorman Uhtred, and Odda was commanded to arrange the ceremony with as little delay as possible. Odda was not pleased at the news. He was an elderly man, at least forty years old, with grey hair and a face made grotesque by bulbous wens. His son, Odda the Younger, was even less pleased, for he scowled at the news. ‘It isn’t seemly, father,’ he complained.
‘It is the king’s wish.’
‘But …’
‘It is the king’s wish!’
Odda the Younger fell silent. He was about my age, almost nineteen, good-looking, black-haired, and elegant in a black tunic that was as clean as a woman’s dress and edged with gold thread. A golden crucifix hung at his neck. He gave me a grim look, and I must have appeared travel-stained and ragged to him, and after inspecting me and finding me about as appealing as a wet mongrel, he turned on his heel and stalked from the hall.
‘Tomorrow morning,’ Odda announced unhappily, ‘the bishop can marry you. But you must pay the bride price first.’
‘The bride price?’ I asked. Alfred had mentioned no such thing, though of course it was customary.
‘Thirty-three shillings,’ Odda said flatly, and with the hint of a smirk.
Thirty-three shillings was a fortune. A hoard. The price of a good war horse or a ship. It took me aback and I heard Leofric give a gasp behind me. ‘Is that what Alfred says?’ I demanded.
‘It is what I say,’ Odda said, ‘for Mildrith is my goddaughter.’
No wonder he smirked. The price was huge and he doubted I could pay it, and if I could not pay it then the girl was not mine and, though Odda did not know it, the fleet would not be mine either. Nor, of course, was the price merely thirty-three shillings, or 396 silver pence, it was double that, for it was also customary for a husband to give his new wife an equivalent sum after the marriage was consummated. That second gift was none of Odda’s business and I doubted very much whether I would want to pay it, just as Ealdorman Odda was now certain, from my hesitation, that I would not be paying him the bride price without which there could be no marriage contract.
‘I can meet the lady?’ I asked.
‘You may meet her at the ceremony tomorrow morning,’ Odda said firmly, ‘but only if you pay the bride price. Otherwise, no.’
He looked disappointed as I opened my pouch and gave him one gold coin and thirty-six silver pennies. He looked even more disappointed when he saw that was not all the coin I possessed, but he was trapped now. ‘You may meet her,’ he told me, ‘in the cathedral tomorrow.’
‘Why not now?’ I asked.
‘Because she is at her prayers,’ the Ealdorman said, and with that he dismissed us.
Leofric and I found a place to sleep in a tavern close to the cathedral, which was the bishop’s church, and that night I got drunk as a spring hare. I picked a fight with someone, I have no idea who, and only remember that Leofric, who was not quite as drunk as me,