Death of Kings. Bernard Cornwell

would say that.’

      ‘And Lord Edward is betrothed.’

      ‘Betrothed?’

      ‘I went to the ceremony, lord. He’s going to marry the Lady Ælflæd.’

      ‘The ealdorman’s daughter?’

      ‘Yes, lord. She was the king’s choice.’

      ‘Poor Edward,’ I said, remembering Father Willibald’s gossip that Alfred’s heir had wanted to marry a girl from Cent. Ælflæd was daughter to Æthelhelm, Ealdorman of Sumorsæte, and presumably Alfred had wanted the marriage to tie Edward to the most powerful of Wessex’s noble families. I wondered what had happened to the girl from Cent.

      Sigurd had gone back to his lands from where, in petulance, he sent raiders into Saxon Mercia to burn, kill, enslave and steal. It was border war, no different from the perpetual fighting between the Scots and the Northumbrians. None of his raiders touched my estates, but my fields lay south of Beornnoth’s wide lands and Sigurd concentrated his anger on Ealdorman Ælfwold, the son of the man who had died fighting beside me at Beamfleot, and he left Beornnoth’s territory unscathed, and that I thought was interesting. So in March, when stitchwort was whitening the hedgerows, I took fifteen men north to Beornnoth’s hall with a new year’s gift of cheese, ale and salted mutton. I found the old man wrapped in a fur cloak and slumped in his chair. His face was sunken, his eyes watery, and his lower lip trembled uncontrollably. He was dying. Beortsig, his son, watched me sullenly.

      ‘It’s time,’ I said, ‘to teach Sigurd a lesson.’

      Beornnoth scowled. ‘Stop pacing around,’ he ordered me, ‘you make me feel old.’

      ‘You are old,’ I said.

      He grimaced at that. ‘I’m like Alfred,’ he said, ‘I’m going to meet my god. I’m going to the judgement seat to find out who lives and who burns. They’ll let him into heaven, won’t they?’

      ‘They’ll welcome Alfred,’ I agreed, ‘and you?’

      ‘At least it will be warm in hell,’ he said, then feebly wiped some spittle from his beard. ‘So you want to fight Sigurd?’

      ‘I want to kill the bastard.’

      ‘You had your chance before Christmas,’ Beortsig said. I ignored him.

      ‘He’s waiting,’ Beornnoth said, ‘waiting for Alfred to die. He won’t attack till Alfred’s dead.’

      ‘He’s attacking now,’ I said.

      Beornnoth shook his head. ‘Just raiding,’ he said dismissively, ‘and he’s pulled his fleet ashore at Snotengaham.’

      ‘Snotengaham?’ I asked, surprised. That was about as far inland as any seagoing ship could travel in Britain.

      ‘That tells you he’s not planning anything other than raids.’

      ‘It tells me he’s not planning seaborne raids,’ I said, ‘but what’s to stop him marching overland?’

      ‘Perhaps he will,’ Beornnoth allowed, ‘when Alfred dies. For now, he’s only stealing a few cattle.’

      ‘Then I want to steal a few of his cattle,’ I said.

      Beortsig scowled and his father shrugged. ‘Why prod the devil when he’s dozing?’ the old man asked.

      ‘Ælfwold doesn’t think he’s dozing,’ I said.

      Beornnoth laughed. ‘Ælfwold’s young,’ he said dismissively, ‘and he’s ambitious, he asks for trouble.’

      You could divide the Saxon lords of Mercia into two camps, those who resented the West Saxon dominance of their land and those who welcomed it. Ælfwold’s father had supported Alfred, while Beornnoth harked back to earlier times when Mercia had its own king and, like others of his mind, he had refused to send troops to help me fight Haesten. He had preferred his men to be under Æthelred’s command, which meant they had garrisoned Gleawecestre against an attack that had never come. There had been bitterness between the two camps ever since, but Beornnoth was a decent enough man, or perhaps he was so close to death that he did not want to prolong old enmities. He invited us to stay for the night. ‘Tell me stories,’ he said, ‘I like stories. Tell me about Beamfleot.’ That was a generous invitation, an implicit admission that his men had been in the wrong place the previous summer.

      I did not tell the whole story. Instead, in his hall, when the great fire lit the beams red and the ale had made men boisterous, I told how the elder Ælfwold had died. How he had charged with me and how we had scattered the Danish camp, and how we rampaged among the frightened men at the hill’s edge, and then how the Danish reinforcements had counter-charged and the fighting had become bitter. Men listened intently. Almost every man in the hall had stood in the shield wall, and they knew the fear of that moment. I told how my horse had been killed, and how we made a circle of our shields and fought against the screaming Danes who had so suddenly outnumbered us, and I described a death that Ælfwold would have wanted, telling how he killed his enemies, how he sent the pagan foemen to their graves, and how he defeated man after man until, at last, an axe blow split his helmet and felled him. I did not describe how he had looked at me so reproachfully, or the hatred in his dying words because he believed, falsely, that I had betrayed him. He died beside me, and at that moment I had been ready for death, knowing that the Danes must surely kill us all in that blood-reeking dawn, but then Steapa had come with the West Saxon troops and defeat had turned into sudden, unexpected triumph. Beornnoth’s followers hammered the tables in appreciation of the tale. Men like a battle-tale, which is why we employ poets to entertain us at night with tales of warriors and swords and shields and axes.

      ‘A good story,’ Beornnoth said.

      ‘Ælfwold’s death was your fault,’ a voice spoke from the hall.

      For a moment I thought I had misheard, or that the comment was not spoken to me. There was silence as every man wondered the same.

      ‘We should never have fought!’ It was Sihtric speaking. He stood to shout at me and I saw he was drunk. ‘You never scouted the woods!’ he snarled. ‘And how many men died because you didn’t scout the woods?’ I know I looked too shocked to speak. Sihtric had been my servant, I had saved his life, I had taken him as a boy and made him a man and a warrior, I had given him gold, I had rewarded him as a lord is supposed to reward his followers, and now he was staring at me with pure loathing. Beortsig, of course, was enjoying the moment, his eyes flicking between me and Sihtric. Rypere, who was sitting on the same bench as his friend Sihtric, laid a hand on the standing man’s arm, but Sihtric shook it off. ‘How many men did you kill that day through carelessness?’ he shouted at me.

      ‘You’re drunk,’ I said harshly, ‘and tomorrow you will grovel to me, and perhaps I will forgive you.’

      ‘Lord Ælfwold would be alive if you had a scrap of sense,’ he yelled at me.

      Some of my men tried to shout him down, but I shouted louder. ‘Come here, kneel to me!’

      Instead, he spat towards me. The hall was in uproar now. Beornnoth’s men were encouraging Sihtric, while my men were looking horrified. ‘Give them swords!’ someone called.

      Sihtric held out his hand. ‘Give me a blade!’ he shouted.

      I started towards him, but Beornnoth lunged and caught my sleeve in a feeble grip. ‘Not in my hall, Lord Uhtred,’ he said, ‘not in my hall.’ I stopped, and Beornnoth struggled to his feet. He had to grip the table’s edge with one hand to stay upright, while his other hand pointed shakily towards Sihtric. ‘Take him away!’ he ordered.

      ‘And you stay away from me!’ I shouted at him. ‘And that whore wife of yours!’

      Sihtric tried to break away from the men holding him, but they had too tight a grip and he was too drunk. They dragged him from the hall to the jeers of Beornnoth’s followers.