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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one complained except Bishop Alewold who grimaced whenever he saw another fish stew. There were no deer left in the swamp, all had been netted and eaten, but at least we had fish, eels and wildfowl, while outside the swamp, in those areas the Danes had plundered, folk starved. We practised with our weapons, fought mock battles with staves, watched the hills, and welcomed the messengers who brought news. Burgweard, the fleet commander, wrote from Hamtun saying that the town was garrisoned by Saxons, but that Danish ships were off the coast. ‘I don’t suppose he’s fighting them,’ Leofric remarked glumly when he heard that news.
‘He doesn’t say so,’ I said.
‘Doesn’t want to get his nice ships dirty,’ Leofric guessed.
‘At least he still has the ships.’
A letter came from a priest in distant Kent saying that Vikings from Lundene had occupied Contwaraburg and others had settled on the Isle of Sceapig, and that the ealdorman had made his peace with the invaders. News came from Suth Seaxa of more Danish raids, but also a reassurance from Arnulf, Ealdorman of Suth Seaxa, that his fyrd would gather in the spring. He sent a gospel book to Alfred as a token of his loyalty, and for days Alfred carried the book until the rain soaked into the pages and made the ink run. Wiglaf, Ealdorman of Sumorsæte, appeared in early March and brought seventy men. He claimed to have been hiding in the hills south of Baðum and Alfred ignored the rumours which said Wiglaf had been negotiating with Guthrum. All that mattered was that the ealdorman had come to Æthelingæg and Alfred gave him command of the troops that continually rode inland to shadow the Danes and to ambush their forage parties. Not all the news was so encouraging. Wilfrith of Hamptonscir had fled across the water to Frankia, as had a score of other ealdormen and thegns.
But Odda the Younger, Ealdorman of Defnascir, was still in Wessex. He sent a priest who brought a letter reporting that the ealdorman was holding Exanceaster. ‘God be praised,’ the letter read, ‘but there are no pagans in the town’.
‘So where are they?’ Alfred asked the priest. We knew that Svein, despite losing his ships, had not marched to join Guthrum, which suggested he was still skulking in Defnascir.
The priest, a young man who seemed terrified of the king, shrugged, hesitated, then stammered that Svein was close to Exanceaster.
‘Close?’ the king asked.
‘Nearby,’ the priest managed to say.
‘They besiege the town?’ Alfred asked.
‘No, lord.’
Alfred read the letter a second time. He always had great faith in the written word and he was trying to find some hint of the truth that had escaped him in the first reading. ‘They are not in Exanceaster,’ he concluded, ‘but the letter does not say where they are. Nor how many they are. Nor what they’re doing.’
‘They are nearby, lord,’ the priest said hopelessly. ‘To the west, I think.’
‘The west?’
‘I think they’re to the west.’
‘What’s to the west?’ Alfred asked me.
‘The high moor,’ I said.
Alfred threw the letter down in disgust. ‘Maybe you should go to Defnascir,’ he told me, ‘and find out what the pagans are doing.’
‘Yes, lord,’ I said.
‘It will be a chance to discover your wife and child,’ Alfred said.
There was a sting there. As the winter rains fell the priests hissed their poison into Alfred’s ears and he was willing enough to hear their message, which was that the Saxons would only defeat the Danes if God willed it. And God, the priests said, wanted us to be virtuous. And Iseult was a pagan, as was I, and she and I were not married, while I had a wife, and so the accusation was whispered about the swamp that it was Iseult who stood between Alfred and victory. No one said it openly, not then, yet Iseult sensed it. Hild was her protector in those days, because Hild was a nun, a Christian, and a victim of the Danes, but many thought Iseult was corrupting Hild. I pretended to be deaf to the whispers until Alfred’s daughter told me of them.
Æthelflæd was almost seven and her father’s favourite child. Ælswith was fonder of Edward, and in those wet winter days she worried about her son’s health and the health of her newborn child, which gave Æthelflæd a deal of freedom. She would stay at her father’s side much of the time, but she also wandered about Æthelingæg where she was spoiled by soldiers and villagers. She was a bright ripple of sunlight in those rain-sodden days. She had golden hair, a sweet face, blue eyes and no fear. One day I found her at the southern fort, watching a dozen Danes who had come to watch us. I told her to go back to Æthelingæg and she pretended to obey me, but an hour later, when the Danes had gone, I found her hiding in one of the turf-roofed shelters behind the wall. ‘I hoped the Danes would come,’ she told me.
‘So they could take you away?’
‘So I could watch you kill them.’
It was one of the rare days when it was not raining. There was sunshine on the green hills and I sat on the wall, took Serpent-Breath from her fleece-lined scabbard and began sharpening her two edges with a whetstone. Æthelflaed insisted on trying the whetstone and she laid the long blade on her lap and frowned in concentration as she drew the stone down the sword. ‘How many Danes have you killed?’ she asked.
‘Enough.’
‘Mama says you don’t love Jesus.’
‘We all love Jesus,’ I said evasively.
‘If you loved Jesus,’ she said seriously, ‘then you could kill more Danes. What’s this?’ She had found the deep nick in one of Serpent-Breath’s edges.
‘It’s where she hit another sword,’ I said. It had happened at Cippanhamm during my fight with Steapa and his huge sword had bitten deep into Serpent-Breath.
‘I’ll make her better,’ she said, and worked obsessively with the whetstone, trying to smooth the nick’s edges. ‘Mama says Iseult is an aglæcwif.’ She stumbled over the word, then grinned in triumph because she had managed to say it. I said nothing. An aglæcwif was a fiend, a monster. ‘The bishop says it too,’ Æthelflaed said earnestly. ‘I don’t like the bishop.’
‘You don’t?’
‘He dribbles.’ She tried to demonstrate and managed to spit onto Serpent-Breath. She rubbed the blade. ‘Is Iseult an aglæcwif?’
‘Of course not. She made Edward better.’
‘Jesus did that, and Jesus sent me a baby sister.’ She scowled because all her efforts had made no impression on the nick in Serpent-Breath.
‘Iseult is a good woman,’ I said.
‘She’s learning to read. I can read.’
‘You can?’
‘Almost. If she reads then she can be a Christian. I’d like to be an aglæcwif.’
‘You would?’ I asked, surprised.
For answer she growled at me and crooked a small hand so that her fingers looked like claws. Then she laughed. ‘Are those Danes?’ She had seen some horsemen coming from the south.
‘That’s Wiglaf,’ I said.
‘He’s nice.’
I sent her back to Æthelingæg on Wiglaf’s horse and I thought of what she had said and wondered, for the thousandth time, why I was among Christians who believed I was an offence to their god. They called my gods dwolgods, which meant false gods, so that made me Uhtredærwe, living with an aglæcwif and worshipping dwolgods. I flaunted it, though, always wearing my hammer amulet openly, and that night Alfred, as ever, flinched when he saw it. He had summoned me to his hall where I found him bent over a tafl board. He was playing against Beocca, who had the larger set of pieces. It seems a simple game, tafl, where one player has a king