The Last Kingdom Series Books 1–8: The Last Kingdom, The Pale Horseman, The Lords of the North, Sword Song, The Burning Land, Death of Kings, The Pagan Lord, The Empty Throne. Bernard Cornwell
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off and Alfred looked at me with some amusement. ‘Does it surprise you that my wife and Eanflæd have become friends?’
‘I’m glad of it, lord.’
‘So am I.’
‘But does your wife know Eanflæd’s trade?’ I asked.
‘Not exactly,’ he said. ‘She believes Eanflæd was a cook in a tavern. Which is truth enough. So we have a fort at Æthelingæg?’
‘We do. Leofric commands there and has forty-three men.’
‘And we have twenty-eight here. The very hosts of Midian!’ He was evidently amused. ‘So we shall move there.’
‘Maybe in a week or two.’
‘Why wait?’ he asked.
I shrugged. ‘This place is deeper in the swamp. When we have more men, when we know we can hold Æthelingæg, that is the time for you to go there.’
He pulled on a grubby shirt. ‘Your new fort can’t stop the Danes?’
‘It will slow them, lord. But they could still struggle through the marsh.’ They would find it difficult, though, for Leofric was digging ditches to defend Æthelingæg’s western edge.
‘You’re telling me Æthelingæg is more vulnerable than this place?’
‘Yes, lord.’
‘Which is why I must go there,’ he said. ‘Men can’t say their king skulked in an unreachable place, can they?’ He smiled at me. ‘They must say he defied the Danes. That he waited where they could reach him, that he put himself into danger.’
‘And his family?’ I asked.
‘And his family,’ he said firmly. He thought for a moment. ‘If they come in force they could take all the swamp, isn’t that true?’
‘Yes, lord.’
‘So no place is safer than another. But how large a force does Svein have?’
‘I don’t know, lord.’
‘Don’t know?’ It was a reproof, gentle enough, but still a reproof.
‘I haven’t gone close to them, lord,’ I explained, ‘because till now we’ve been too weak to resist them, and so long as they leave us undisturbed then so long do we leave them undisturbed. There’s no point in kicking a wild bees’ nest, not unless you’re determined to get the honey.’
He nodded acceptance of that argument. ‘But we need to know how many bees there are, don’t we?’ he said. ‘So tomorrow we shall take a look at our enemy. You and me, Uhtred.’
‘No, lord,’ I said firmly. ‘I shall go. You shouldn’t risk yourself.’
‘That is exactly what I need to do,’ he said, ‘and men must know I do it for I am the king, and why would men want a king who does not share their danger?’ He waited for an answer, but I had none. ‘So let’s say our prayers,’ he finished, ‘then we shall eat.’
It was fish stew. It was always fish stew.
And next day we went to find the enemy.
There were six of us. The man who poled the punt, Iseult and I, two of the newly-arrived household troops and Alfred. I tried once again to make him stay behind, but he insisted. ‘If anyone should stay,’ he said, ‘it is Iseult.’
‘She comes,’ I said.
‘Evidently.’ He did not argue, and we all climbed into a large punt and went westwards, and Alfred stared at the birds, thousands of birds. There were coot, moorhen, dabchicks, ducks, grebes and herons, while off to the west, white against the sullen sky, was a cloud of gulls.
The marshman slid us silent and fast through secret channels. There were times when he seemed to be taking us directly into a bank of reeds or grass, yet the shallow craft would slide through into another stretch of open water. The incoming tide rippled through the gaps, bringing fish to the hidden nets and basket traps. Beneath the gulls, far off to the west, I could see the masts of Svein’s fleet, which had been dragged ashore on the coast.
Alfred saw them too. ‘Why don’t they join Guthrum?’
‘Because Svein doesn’t want to take Guthrum’s orders,’ I said.
‘You know that?’
‘He told me so.’
Alfred paused, perhaps thinking of my trial in front of the Witan. He gave me a rueful look. ‘What sort of man is he?’
‘Formidable.’
‘So why hasn’t he attacked us here?’
I had been wondering the same thing. Svein had missed a golden chance to invade the swamp and hunt Alfred down. So why had he not even tried? ‘Because there’s easier plunder elsewhere,’ I suggested, ‘and because he won’t do Guthrum’s bidding. They’re rivals. If Svein takes Guthrum’s orders then he acknowledges Guthrum as his king.’
Alfred stared at the distant masts which showed as small scratches against the sky, then I mutely pointed towards a hill that reared steeply from the western water flats and the marshman obediently went that way, and when the punt grounded we clambered through thick alders and past some sunken hovels where sullen folk in dirty otter fur watched us pass. The marshman knew no name for the place, except to call it Brant, which meant steep, and it was steep. Steep and high, offering a view southwards to where the Pedredan coiled like a great snake through the swamp’s heart. And at the river’s mouth, where sand and mud stretched into the Sæfern Sea, I could see the Danish ships.
They were grounded on the far bank of the Pedredan in the same place that Ubba had grounded his ships before meeting his death in battle. From there Svein could easily row to Æthelingæg, for the river was wide and deep, and he would meet no challenge until he reached the river barrier beside the fort where Leofric waited. I wanted Leofric and his garrison to have some warning if the Danes attacked, and this high hill offered a view of Svein’s camp, but was far enough away so that it would not invite an attack from the enemy. ‘We should make a beacon here,’ I said to Alfred. A fire lit here would give Æthelingæg two or three hours’ warning of a Danish attack.
He nodded, but said nothing. He stared at the distant ships, but they were too far off to count. He looked pale, and I knew he had found the climb to the summit painful, so now I urged him downhill to where the hovels leaked smoke. ‘You should rest here, lord,’ I told him. ‘I’m going to count ships. But you should rest.’
He did not argue and I suspected his stomach pains were troubling him again. I found a hovel that was occupied by a widow and her four children, and I gave her a silver coin and said her king needed warmth and shelter for the day, and I do not think she understood who he was, but she knew the value of a shilling and so Alfred went into her house and sat by the fire. ‘Give him broth,’ I told the widow, whose name was Elwide, ‘and let him sleep.’
She scorned that. ‘Folk can’t sleep while there’s work!’ she said. ‘There are eels to skin, fish to smoke, nets to mend, traps to weave.’
‘They can work,’ I said, pointing to the two household troops, and I left them all to Elwide’s tender mercies while Iseult and I took the punt southwards and, because the Pedredan’s mouth was only three or four miles away, and because Brant was such a clear landmark, I left the marshman to help skin and smoke eels.
We crossed a smaller river and then poled through a long mere broken by marram grass and by now I could see the hill on the Pedredan’s far bank where we had been trapped by Ubba, and I told Iseult the story of the fight as I poled the punt across the shallows. The hull grounded twice and I had to push it into deeper water until I realised the tide was falling fast and so I tied the boat to a rotting stake, then we walked across a drying waste of mud and sea lavender towards the Pedredan. I had grounded farther from the river than I had wanted, and