The Last Kingdom Series Books 4-6: Sword Song, The Burning Land, Death of Kings. Bernard Cornwell
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cutting onions.
And the next day, Alfred came.
The king came silently, his ship arriving at a wharf upstream of the broken bridge. The Haligast waited for a river trader to pull away, then ghosted in on short, efficient oar strokes. Alfred, accompanied by a score of priests and monks, and guarded by six mailed men, came ashore unheralded and unannounced. He threaded the goods stacked on the wharf, stepped over a drunken man sleeping in the shade and ducked through the small gate in the wall leading to a merchant’s courtyard.
I heard he went to the palace. Æthelred was not there, he was hunting again, but the king went to his daughter’s chamber and stayed there a long time. Afterwards he walked back down the hill and, still with his priestly entourage, came to our house. I was with one of the groups making repairs to the walls, but Gisela had been warned of Alfred’s presence in Lundene and, suspecting he might come to our house, had prepared a meal of bread, ale, cheese and boiled lentils. She offered no meat, for Alfred would not touch flesh. His stomach was tender and his bowels in perpetual torment and he had somehow persuaded himself that meat was an abomination.
Gisela had sent a servant to warn me of the king’s arrival, yet even so I arrived at the house long after Alfred to find my elegant courtyard black with priests, among whom was Father Pyrlig and, next to him, Osferth, who was once again dressed in monkish robes. Osferth gave me a sour look, as if blaming me for his return to the church, while Pyrlig embraced me. ‘Æthelred said nothing of you in his report to the king,’ he murmured those words, gusting ale-smelling breath over my face.
‘We weren’t here when the city fell?’ I asked.
‘Not according to your cousin,’ Pyrlig said, then chuckled. ‘But I told Alfred the truth. Go on, he’s waiting for you.’
Alfred was on the river terrace. His guards stood behind him, lined against the house, while the king was seated on a wooden chair. I paused in the doorway, surprised because Alfred’s face, usually so pallid and solemn, had an animated look. He was even smiling. Gisela was seated next to him and the king was leaning forward, talking, and Gisela, whose back was to me, was listening. I stayed where I was, watching that rarest of sights, Alfred happy. He tapped a long white finger on her knee once to stress some point. There was nothing untoward in the gesture, except it was so unlike him.
But then, of course, maybe it was very like him. Alfred had been a famous womaniser before he was caught in the snare of Christianity, and Osferth was a product of that early princely lust. Alfred liked pretty women, and it was obvious he liked Gisela. I heard her laugh suddenly and Alfred, flattered by her amusement, smiled shyly. He seemed not to mind that she was no Christian and that she wore a pagan amulet about her neck, he was simply happy to be in her company and I was tempted to leave them alone. I had never seen him happy in the company of Ælswith, his weasel-tongued, stoat-faced, shrike-voiced wife. Then he happened to glance over Gisela’s shoulder and saw me.
His face changed immediately. He stiffened, sat upright and reluctantly beckoned me forward.
I picked up a stool that our daughter used and heard a hiss as Alfred’s guards drew swords. Alfred waved the blades down, sensible enough to know that if I had wanted to attack him then I would hardly use a three-legged milking stool. He watched as I gave my swords to one of the guards, a mark of respect, then as I carried the stool across the terrace flagstones. ‘Lord Uhtred,’ he greeted me coldly.
‘Welcome to our house, lord King.’ I gave him a bow, then sat with my back to the river.
He was silent for a moment. He was wearing a brown cloak that was drawn tight around his thin body. A silver cross hung at his neck, while on his thinning hair was a circlet of bronze, which surprised me, for he rarely wore symbols of kingship, thinking them vain baubles, but he must have decided that Lundene needed to see a king. He sensed my surprise for he clawed the circlet off his head. ‘I had hoped,’ he said coldly, ‘that the Saxons of the new town would have abandoned their houses. That they would live here instead. They could be protected here by the walls! Why won’t they move?’
‘They fear the ghosts, lord,’ I said.
‘And you do not?’
I thought for a while. ‘Yes,’ I said after thinking about my answer.
‘Yet you live here?’ he waved at the house.
‘We propitiate the spirits, lord,’ Gisela explained softly and, when the king raised an eyebrow, she told how we placed food and drink in the courtyard to greet any ghosts who came to our house.
Alfred rubbed his eyes. ‘It might be better,’ he said, ‘if our priests exorcise the streets. Prayer and holy water! We shall drive the ghosts away.’
‘Or let me take three hundred men to sack the new town,’ I suggested. ‘Burn their houses, lord, and they’ll have to live in the old city.’
A half-smile flickered on his face, gone as quickly as it had showed. ‘It is hard to force obedience,’ he said, ‘without encouraging resentment. I sometimes think the only true authority I have is over my family, and even then I wonder! If I release you with sword and spear onto the new town, Lord Uhtred, then they will learn to hate you. Lundene must be obedient, but it must also be a bastion of Christian Saxons, and if they hate us then they will welcome a return of the Danes, who left them in peace.’ He shook his head abruptly. ‘We shall leave them in peace, but don’t build them a palisade. Let them come into the old city of their own accord. Now, forgive me,’ those last two words were to Gisela, ‘but we must speak of still darker things.’
Alfred gestured to a guard who pushed open the door from the terrace. Father Beocca appeared and with him a second priest; a black-haired, pouchy-faced, scowling creature called Father Erkenwald. He hated me. He had once tried to have me killed by accusing me of piracy and, though his accusations had been entirely true, I had slipped away from his bad-tempered clutches. He gave me a sour look while Beocca offered a solemn nod, then both men stared attentively at Alfred.
‘Tell me,’ Alfred said, looking at me, ‘what Sigefrid, Haesten and Erik do now?’
‘They’re at Beamfleot, lord,’ I said, ‘strengthening their camp. They have thirty-two ships, and men enough to crew them.’
‘You’ve seen this place?’ Father Erkenwald demanded. The two priests, I knew, had been fetched onto the terrace to serve as witnesses to this conversation. Alfred, ever careful, liked to have a record, either written or memorised, of all such discussions.
‘I’ve not seen it,’ I said coldly.
‘Your spies, then?’ Alfred resumed the questions.
‘Yes, lord.’
He thought for a moment. ‘The ships can be burned?’ he asked.
I shook my head. ‘They’re in a creek, lord.’
‘They must be destroyed,’ he said vengefully, and I saw his long thin hands clench on his lap. ‘They raided Contwaraburg!’ he said, sounding distraught.
‘I heard of it, lord.’
‘They burned the church!’ he said indignantly, ‘and stole everything! Gospel books, crosses, even the relics!’ he shuddered. ‘The church possessed a leaf of the fig tree that our Lord Jesus withered! I touched it once, and felt its power.’ He shuddered again. ‘It is all gone to pagan hands.’ He sounded as if he might weep.
I said nothing. Beocca had started writing, his pen scratching on a parchment held awkwardly in his lamed hand. Father Erkenwald was holding a pot of ink and had a look of disdain as if such a chore was belittling him. ‘Thirty-two ships, did you say?’ Beocca asked me.
‘That was the last I heard.’
‘Creeks can be entered,’ Alfred said acidly, his distress suddenly gone.
‘The creek at Beamfleot dries at low tide, lord,’ I explained, ‘and to reach the enemy ships we must pass their camp, which is on a hill above the mooring. And the last report