Death of Kings. Bernard Cornwell

dogs off now,’ I told the shepherd.

      The first archer was still alive, but there was a patch of blood-matted hair above his right ear. I kicked him hard in the ribs and he groaned, but he was insensible. I gave his bow and arrow-bag to the shepherd. ‘What’s your name?’

      ‘Egbert, lord.’

      ‘You’re a rich man now, Egbert,’ I told him. I wished that were true. I would reward Egbert well for this morning’s work, but I was no longer rich. I had spent my money on the men, mail and weapons that had been needed to defeat Haesten and I was desperately poor that winter.

      The other outlaws had vanished, gone back northwards. Willibald was shaking. ‘They were searching for you, lord,’ he said through chattering teeth, ‘they’ve been paid to kill you.’

      I stooped by the archer. The shepherd’s stone had shattered his skull and I could see a ragged, splintered piece of bone among the blood-matted hair. One of the shepherd’s dogs came to sniff the wounded man and I patted its thick wiry pelt. ‘They’re good dogs,’ I told Egbert.

      ‘Wolf-killers, lord,’ he said, then hefted the sling, ‘though this is better.’

      ‘You’re good with it,’ I said. That was mild, the man was lethal.

      ‘Been practising these twenty-five years, lord. Nothing like a stone to drive a wolf away.’

      ‘They’d been paid to kill me?’ I asked Willibald.

      ‘That’s what they said. They were paid to kill you.’

      ‘Go into the hut,’ I said, ‘get warm.’ I turned on the younger man who was being guarded by the larger dog. ‘What’s your name?’

      He hesitated, then spoke grudgingly, ‘Wærfurth, lord.’

      ‘And who paid you to kill me?’

      ‘I don’t know, lord.’

      Nor did he, it seemed. Wærfurth and his men came from near Tofeceaster, a settlement not far to the north, and Wærfurth told me how a man had promised to pay my weight in silver in return for my death. The man had suggested a Sunday morning, knowing that much of my household would be in church, and Wærfurth had recruited a dozen vagrants to do the job. He must have known it was a huge gamble, for I was not without reputation, but the reward was immense. ‘Was the man a Dane or a Saxon?’ I asked.

      ‘A Saxon, lord.’

      ‘And you don’t know him?’

      ‘No, lord.’

      I questioned him more, but all he could tell me was that the man was thin, bald and had lost an eye. The description meant little to me. A one-eyed, bald man? Could be almost anyone. I asked questions till I had wrung Wærfurth dry of unhelpful answers, then hanged both him and the archer.

      And Willibald showed me the magic fish.

      A delegation waited at my hall. Sixteen men had come from Alfred’s capital at Wintanceaster and among them were no less than five priests. Two, like Willibald, came from Wessex, and the other pair were Mercians who had apparently settled in East Anglia. I knew them both, though I had not recognised them at first. They were twins, Ceolnoth and Ceolberht who, some thirty years before, had been hostages with me in Mercia. We had been children captured by the Danes, a fate I had welcomed and the twins had hated. They were close to forty years old now, two identical priests with stocky builds, round faces and greying beards. ‘We have watched your progress,’ one of them said.

      ‘With admiration,’ the other finished. I had not been able to tell them apart when they were children, and still could not. They finished each other’s sentences.

      ‘Reluctant,’ one said.

      ‘Admiration,’ his twin said.

      ‘Reluctant?’ I asked in an unfriendly tone.

      ‘It is known that Alfred is disappointed,’

      ‘That you eschew the true faith, but…’

      ‘We pray for you daily!’

      The remaining pair of priests, both West Saxons, were Alfred’s men. They had helped compile his code of laws and it appeared they had come to advise me. The remaining eleven men were warriors, five from East Anglia and six from Wessex, who had guarded the priests on their travels.

      And they had brought the magic fish.

      ‘King Eohric,’ Ceolnoth or Ceolberht said.

      ‘Wishes an alliance with Wessex,’ the other twin finished.

      ‘And with Mercia!’

      ‘The Christian kingdoms, you understand.’

      ‘And King Alfred and King Edward,’ Willibald took up the tale, ‘have sent a gift for King Eohric.’

      ‘Alfred still lives?’ I asked.

      ‘Pray God, yes,’ Willibald said, ‘though he’s sick.’

      ‘Very close to death,’ one of the West Saxon priests intervened.

      ‘He was born close to death,’ I said, ‘and ever since I’ve known him he’s been dying. He’ll live ten years yet.’

      ‘Pray God he does,’ Willibald said and made the sign of the cross. ‘But he’s fifty years old, and he’s failing. He’s truly dying.’

      ‘Which is why he seeks this alliance,’ the West Saxon priest went on, ‘and why the Lord Edward makes this request of you.’

      ‘King Edward,’ Willibald corrected his fellow priest.

      ‘So who’s requesting me?’ I asked, ‘Alfred of Wessex or Edward of Cent?’

      ‘Edward,’ Willibald said.

      ‘Eohric,’ Ceolnoth and Ceolberht said together.

      ‘Alfred,’ the West Saxon priest said.

      ‘All of them,’ Willibald added. ‘It’s important to all of them, lord!’

      Edward or Alfred or both wanted me to go to King Eohric of East Anglia. Eohric was a Dane, but he had converted to Christianity, and he had sent the twins to Alfred and proposed that a great alliance should be made between the Christian parts of Britain. ‘King Eohric suggested that you should negotiate the treaty,’ Ceolnoth or Ceolberht said.

      ‘With our advice,’ one of the West Saxon priests put in hastily.

      ‘Why me?’ I asked the twins.

      Willibald answered for them. ‘Who knows Mercia and Wessex as well as you?’

      ‘Many men,’ I answered.

      ‘And where you lead,’ Willibald said, ‘those other men will follow.’

      We were at a table on which was ale, bread, cheese, pottage and apples. The central hearth was ablaze with a great fire that flickered its light on the smoke-blackened beams. The shepherd had been right and the sleet had turned to snow and some flakes sifted through the smoke-hole in the roof. Outside, beyond the palisade, Wærfurth and the archer were hanging from the bare branch of an elm, their bodies food for the hungry birds. Most of my men were in the hall, listening to our conversation. ‘It’s a strange time of year to be making treaties,’ I said.

      ‘Alfred has little time left,’ Willibald said, ‘and he wishes this alliance, lord. If all the Christians of Britain are united, lord, then young Edward’s throne will be protected when he inherits the crown.’

      That made sense, but why would Eohric want the alliance? Eohric of East Anglia had been perched on the fence between Christians and pagans, Danes and Saxons, for as long as I could remember, yet now he wanted to proclaim his allegiance to the Christian Saxons?

      ‘Because of Cnut Ranulfson,’ one of the twins explained when I asked the question.

      ‘He’s