if my uncle dies,’ he said, not bothering to lower his voice even though there were a score of men in the tavern, ‘his son is much too young to be king.’
‘True.’
‘So it’ll be my turn!’ He smiled.
‘Or Guthrum’s turn,’ I said.
‘So drink, my friend,’ he said, ‘because we’re all in the cesspit.’ He grinned at me, his charm suddenly evident. ‘So if you won’t fight for me,’ he asked, ‘how do you propose to pay back the favour?’
‘How would you like it paid?’
‘You could kill Abbot Hewald? Very nastily? Slowly?’
‘I could do that,’ I said. Hewald was abbot at Winburnan and famous for the harshness with which he taught boys to read.
‘On the other hand,’ Æthelwold went on, ‘I’d like to kill that scrawny bastard myself, so don’t do it for me, I’ll think of something that won’t make my uncle happy. You don’t like him, do you?’
‘No.’
‘Then we’ll brew up some mischief. Oh God,’ this last imprecation was because Wulfhere’s voice was suddenly loud just outside the door. ‘He’s angry at me.’
‘Why?’
‘One of the dairymaids is pregnant. I think he wanted to do it himself, but I churned her first.’ He drained his ale. ‘I’m going to the Three Bells. Want to come?’
‘I have to speak to Wulfhere.’
Æthelwold left by the back door as the ealdorman ducked through the front. Wulfhere was accompanied by a dozen thegns, but he saw me and crossed the room. ‘They’ve been reconsecrating the bishop’s church,’ he grumbled. ‘Hours upon damned hours! Nothing but chanting and prayers, hours of prayers just to get the taint of the Danes out of the place.’ He sat heavily. ‘Did I see Æthelwold here?’
‘Yes.’
‘Wanted you to join his rebellion, did he?’
‘Yes.’
‘Damned fool. So why are you here? Come to offer me your sword?’ He meant swear my allegiance to him and so become his warrior.
‘I want to see one of the hostages,’ I said, ‘so I seek your permission.’
‘Hostages,’ he snapped his fingers for ale. ‘Damned hostages. I’ve had to make new buildings to house them. And who pays for that?’
‘You do?’
‘Of course I do. And I’m supposed to feed them too? Feed them? Guard them? Wall them in? And does Alfred pay anything?’
‘Tell him you’re building a monastery,’ I suggested.
He looked at me as if I were mad, then saw the jest and laughed. ‘True enough, he’d pay me then, wouldn’t he? Have you heard about the monastery they’re building at Cynuit?’
‘I hear it’s to have an altar of gold.’
He laughed again. ‘That’s what I hear. I don’t believe it, but I hear it.’ He watched one of the tavern girls cross the floor. ‘It’s not my permission you need to see the hostages,’ he said, ‘but Alfred’s, and he won’t give it to you.’
‘Alfred’s permission?’ I asked.
‘They’re not just hostages,’ he said, ‘but prisoners. I have to wall them in and watch them day and night. Alfred’s orders. He might think God brought us peace, but he’s made damn sure he’s got high-born hostages. Six earls! You know how many retainers they have? How many women? How many mouths to feed?’
‘If I go to Wiltunscir,’ I said, ‘can I see Earl Ragnar?’
Wulfhere frowned at me. ‘Earl Ragnar? The noisy one? I like him. No, lad, you can’t, because no one’s allowed to see them except a damned priest who talks their language. Alfred sent him and he’s trying to make them into Christians, and if you go without my permission then Alfred will hear you’ve been there and he’ll want an explanation from me. No one can see the poor bastards.’ He paused to scratch at a louse under his collar. ‘I have to feed the priest too, and Alfred doesn’t pay for that either. He doesn’t even pay me to feed that lout Æthelwold!’
‘When I was a hostage in Werham,’ I explained, ‘Earl Ragnar saved my life. Guthrum killed the others, but Ragnar guarded me. He said they’d have to kill him before they killed me.’
‘And he looks like a hard man to kill,’ Wulfhere said, ‘but if Guthrum attacks Wessex that’s what I’m supposed to do. Kill the lot of them. Maybe not the women.’ He stared gloomily into the tavern’s yard where a group of his men were playing dice in the moonlight. ‘And Guthrum will attack,’ he added in a low voice.
‘That’s not what I hear.’
He looked at me suspiciously ‘And what do you hear, young man?’
‘That God has sent us peace.’
Wulfhere laughed at my mockery. ‘Guthrum’s in Gleawecestre,’ he said, ‘and that’s just a half day’s march from our frontier. And they say more Danish ships arrive every day. They’re in Lundene, they’re in the Humber, they’re in the Gewæsc.’ He scowled. ‘More ships, more men, and Alfred’s building churches! And there’s this fellow Svein.’
‘Svein?’
‘Brought his ships from Ireland. Bastard’s in Wales now, but he won’t stay there, will he? He’ll come to Wessex. And they say more Danes are joining him from Ireland.’ He brooded on this bad news. I did not know whether it was true, for such rumours were ever current, but Wulfhere plainly believed it. ‘We should march on Gleawecestre,’ he said, ‘and slaughter the lot of them before they slaughter us, but we’ve got a kingdom ruled by priests.’
That was true, I thought, just as it was certain that Wulfhere would not make it easy for me to see Ragnar. ‘Will you give a message to Ragnar?’ I asked.
‘How? I don’t speak Danish. I could ask the priest, but he’ll tell Alfred.’
‘Does Ragnar have a woman with him?’ I asked.
‘They all do.’
‘A thin girl,’ I said, ‘black hair. Face like a hawk.’
He nodded cautiously. ‘Sounds right. Has a dog, yes?’
‘She has a dog,’ I said, ‘and its name is Nihtgenga.’
He shrugged as if he did not care what the dog was called, then he understood the significance of the name. ‘An English name?’ he asked. ‘A Danish girl calls her dog Goblin?’
‘She isn’t Danish,’ I said. ‘Her name is Brida, and she’s a Saxon.’
He stared at me, then laughed. ‘The cunning little bitch. She’s been listening to us, hasn’t she?’
Brida was indeed cunning. She had been my first lover, an East Anglian girl who had been raised by Ragnar’s father and who now slept with Ragnar. ‘Talk to her,’ I said, ‘and give her my greetings, and say that if it comes to war …’ I paused, not sure what to say. There was no point in promising to do my best to rescue Ragnar, for if war came then the hostages would be slaughtered long before I could reach them.
‘If it comes to war?’ Wulfhere prompted me.
‘If it comes to war,’ I said, repeating the words he had spoken to me before my penance, ‘we’ll all be looking for a way to stay alive.’
Wulfhere stared at me for a long time and his silence told me that though I had failed to find a message for Ragnar I had given a message to Wulfhere. He drank ale. ‘So the bitch speaks English, does she?’
‘She’s