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knew I had two or three strokes only,’ he said, ‘before he realised I knew what I was doing. Then he’d have cut the flesh off my bones.’

      ‘He would,’ I agreed, ‘but I reckoned you had those three strokes and they’d prove enough.’

      ‘Thank you for that, Uhtred,’ he said, then broke off a lump of cheese and gave it to me. ‘How are you these days?’

      ‘Bored.’

      ‘I hear you’re married?’

      ‘I’m not bored with her,’ I said hurriedly.

      ‘Good for you! Me, now? I can’t stand my wife. Dear God, what a tongue that viper has. She can split a sheet of slate just by talking to it! You’ve not met my wife, have you?’

      ‘No.’

      ‘Sometimes I curse God for taking Adam’s rib and making Eve, but then I see some young girl and my heart leaps and I think God knew what he was doing after all.’

      I smiled. ‘I thought Christian priests were supposed to set an example?’

      ‘And what’s wrong with admiring God’s creations?’ Pyrlig asked indignantly. ‘Especially a young one with plump round tits and a fine fat rump? It would be sinful of me to ignore such signs of his grace.’ He grinned, then looked anxious. ‘I heard you were taken captive?’

      ‘I was.’

      ‘I prayed for you.’

      ‘Thank you for that,’ I said, and meant it. I did not worship the Christian god, but like Erik I feared he had some power, so prayers to him were not wasted.

      ‘But I hear it was Alfred who had you released?’ Pyrlig asked.

      I paused. As ever I hated to acknowledge any debt to Alfred, but I grudgingly conceded that he had helped. ‘He sent the men who freed me,’ I said, ‘yes.’

      ‘And you reward him, Lord Uhtred, by naming yourself King of Mercia?’

      ‘You heard that?’ I asked cautiously.

      ‘Of course I heard it! That great oaf of a Norseman bawled it just five paces from my ear. Are you King of Mercia?’

      ‘No,’ I said, resisting the urge to add ‘not yet’.

      ‘I didn’t think you were,’ Pyrlig said mildly. ‘I’d have heard about that, wouldn’t I? And I don’t think you will be, not unless Alfred wants it.’

      ‘Alfred can piss down his own throat for all I care,’ I said.

      ‘And of course I should tell him what I heard,’ Pyrlig said.

      ‘Yes,’ I said bitterly, ‘you should.’

      I leaned against the curving timber of the ship’s stem and stared at the backs of the oarsmen. I was also watching for any sign of a pursuing ship, half expecting to see some fast warship swept along by banks of long oars, but no mast showed above the river’s long bends, which suggested Erik had successfully persuaded his brother against taking an instant revenge for the humiliation Pyrlig had given him. ‘So whose idea is it,’ Pyrlig asked, ‘that you should be king in Mercia?’ He waited for me to answer, but I said nothing. ‘It’s Sigefrid, isn’t it?’ he demanded. ‘Sigefrid’s crazy idea.’

      ‘Crazy?’ I asked innocently.

      ‘The man’s no fool,’ Pyrlig said, ‘and his brother certainly isn’t. They know Æthelstan’s getting old in East Anglia, and they ask who’ll be king after him? And there’s no king in Mercia. But he can’t just take Mercia, can he? The Mercian Saxons will fight him and Alfred will come to their aid, and the Thurgilson brothers will find themselves facing a fury of Saxons! So Sigefrid has this idea to rally men and take East Anglia first, then Mercia, and then Wessex! And to do all that he really needs Earl Ragnar to bring men from Northumbria.’

      I was appalled that Pyrlig, a friend of Alfred’s, should know all that Sigefrid, Erik and Haesten planned, but I showed no reaction. ‘Ragnar won’t fight,’ I said, trying to end the conversation.

      ‘Unless you ask him,’ Pyrlig said sharply. I just shrugged. ‘But what can Sigefrid offer you?’ Pyrlig asked, and, when I did not respond again, provided the answer himself. ‘Mercia.’

      I smiled condescendingly. ‘It all sounds very complicated.’

      ‘Sigefrid and Haesten,’ Pyrlig said, ignoring my flippant comment, ‘have ambitions to be kings. But there are only four kingdoms here! They can’t take Northumbria because Ragnar won’t let them. They can’t take Mercia because Alfred won’t let them. But Æthelstan’s getting old, so they could take East Anglia. And why not finish the job? Take Wessex? Sigefrid says he’ll put that drunken nephew of Alfred’s on the throne, and that’ll help calm the Saxons for a few months until Sigefrid murders him, and by then Haesten will be King of East Anglia and someone, you perhaps, King of Mercia. Doubtless they’ll turn on you then and divide Mercia between them. That’s the idea, Lord Uhtred, and it’s not a bad one! But who’d follow those two brigands?’

      ‘No one,’ I lied.

      ‘Unless they were convinced that the Fates were on their side,’ Pyrlig said almost casually, then looked at me. ‘Did you meet the dead man?’ he asked innocently, and I was so astonished by the question that I could not answer. I just stared into his round, battered face. ‘Bjorn, he’s called,’ the Welshman said, putting another lump of cheese into his mouth.

      ‘The dead don’t lie,’ I blurted out.

      ‘The living do! By God, they do! Even I lie, Lord Uhtred,’ he grinned at me mischievously, ‘I sent a message to my wife and said she’d hate being in East Anglia!’ He laughed. Alfred had asked Pyrlig to go to East Anglia because he was a priest and because he spoke Danish, and his task there had been to educate Guthrum in Christian ways. ‘In fact she’d love it there!’ Pyrlig went on. ‘It’s warmer than home and there are no hills to speak of. Flat and wet, that’s East Anglia, and without a proper hill anywhere! And my wife’s never been fond of hills, which is why I probably found God. I used to live on hilltops just to keep away from her, and you’re closer to God on a hilltop. Bjorn isn’t dead.’

      He had said the last three words with a sudden brutality, and I answered him just as harshly. ‘I saw him.’

      ‘You saw a man come from a grave, that’s what you saw.’

      ‘I saw him!’ I insisted.

      ‘Of course you did! And you never thought to question what you saw, did you?’ The Welshman asked the question harshly. ‘Bjorn had been put in that grave just before you came! They piled earth on him and he breathed through a reed.’

      I remembered Bjorn spitting something out of his mouth as he staggered upright. Not the harp string, but something else. I had thought it a lump of earth, but in truth it had been paler. I had not thought about it at the time, but now I understood that the resurrection had all been a trick and I sat on the foredeck of the Swan and felt the last remnants of my dream crumbling. I would not be king. ‘How do you know all this?’ I asked bitterly.

      ‘King Æthelstan’s no fool. He has his spies.’ Pyrlig put a hand on my arm. ‘Was he very convincing?’

      ‘Very,’ I said, still bitter.

      ‘He’s one of Haesten’s men, and if we ever catch him he’ll go properly to hell. So what did he tell you?’

      ‘That I would be king in Mercia,’ I said softly. I was to be king of Saxon and Dane, enemy of the Welsh, king between the rivers and lord of all I ruled. ‘I believed him,’ I said ruefully.

      ‘But how could you be King of Mercia?’ Pyrlig asked, ‘unless Alfred made you king?’

      ‘Alfred?’

      ‘You gave him your oath, did you not?’

      I

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