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flames.

      ‘You want to go back to Cornwalum?’ I asked her.

      She seemed surprised I had spoken. It took her a few heartbeats to gather her thoughts, then she shrugged. ‘What is there for me?’

      ‘Home,’ Eanflæd said.

      ‘Uhtred is home for me.’

      ‘Uhtred is married,’ Eanflæd said harshly.

      Iseult ignored that. ‘Uhtred will lead men,’ she said, rocking back and forth, ‘hundreds of men. A bright horde. I want to see that.’

      ‘He’ll lead you into temptation, that’s all he’ll do,’ Eanflæd said. ‘Go home, girl, say your prayers and hope the Danes don’t come.’

      We kept trying to go southwards and we made some small progress every day, but the bitter days were short and the Danes seemed to be everywhere. Even when we travelled across countryside far from any track or path, there would be a patrol of Danes in the distance, and to avoid them we were constantly driven west. To our east was the Roman road that ran from Baðum and eventually to Exanceaster, the main thoroughfare in this part of Wessex, and I supposed the Danes were using it and sending patrols out to either side of the road, and it was those patrols that drove us ever nearer the Sæfern Sea, but there could be no safety there, for Svein would surely have come from Wales.

      I also supposed that Wessex had finally fallen. We met a few folk, fugitives from their villages and hiding in the woods, but none had any news, only rumour. No one had seen any West Saxon soldiers, no one had heard about Alfred, they only saw Danes and the ever-present smoke. From time to time we would come across a ravaged village or a burned church. We would see ragged ravens flapping black and follow them to find rotting bodies. We were lost and any hope I had of reaching Oxton was long gone, and I assumed Mildrith had fled west into the hills as the folk around the Uisc always did when the Danes came. I hoped she was alive, I hoped my son lived, but what future he had was as dark as the long winter nights.

      ‘Maybe we should make our peace,’ I suggested to Leofric one night. We were in a shepherd’s hut, crouched around a small fire that filled the low turf-roofed building with smoke. We had roasted a dozen mutton ribs cut from a sheep’s half-eaten corpse. We were all filthy, damp and cold. ‘Maybe we should find the Danes,’ I said, ‘and swear allegiance.’

      ‘And be made slaves?’ Leofric answered bitterly.

      ‘We’ll be warriors,’ I said.

      ‘Fighting for a Dane?’ He poked the fire, throwing up a new burst of smoke. ‘They can’t have taken all Wessex,’ he protested.

      ‘Why not?’

      ‘It’s too big. There have to be some men fighting back. We just have to find them.’

      I thought back to the long ago arguments in Lundene. Back then I had been a child with the Danes, and their leaders had argued that the best way to take Wessex was to attack its western heartland and there break its power. Others had wanted to start the assault by taking the old kingdom of Kent, the weakest part of Wessex and the part which contained the great shrine of Contwaraburg, but the boldest argument had won. They had attacked in the west and that first assault had failed, but now Guthrum had succeeded. Yet how far had he succeeded? Was Kent still Saxon? Defnascir?

      ‘And what happens to Mildrith if you join the Danes?’ Leofric asked.

      ‘She’ll have hidden,’ I spoke dully and there was a silence, but I saw Eanflæd was offended and I hoped she would hold her tongue.

      She did not. ‘Do you care?’ she challenged me.

      ‘I care,’ I said.

      Eanflæd scorned that answer. ‘Grown dull, has she?’

      ‘Of course he cares,’ Leofric tried to be a peacemaker.

      ‘She’s a wife,’ Eanflæd retorted, still looking at me. ‘Men tire of wives,’ she went on and Iseult listened, her big dark eyes going from me to Eanflæd.

      ‘What do you know of wives?’ I asked.

      ‘I was married,’ Eanflæd said.

      ‘You were?’ Leofric asked, surprised.

      ‘I was married for three years,’ Eanflæd said, ‘to a man who was in Wulfhere’s guard. He gave me two children, then died in the battle that killed King Æthelred.’

      ‘Two children?’ Iseult asked.

      ‘They died,’ Eanflæd said harshly. ‘That’s what children do. They die.’

      ‘You were happy with him?’ Leofric asked, ‘your husband?’

      ‘For about three days,’ she said, ‘and in the next three years I learned that men are bastards.’

      ‘All of them?’ Leofric asked.

      ‘Most.’ She smiled at Leofric, then touched his knee. ‘Not you.’

      ‘And me?’ I asked.

      ‘You?’ She looked at me for a heartbeat. ‘I wouldn’t trust you as far as I could spit,’ she said, and there was real venom in her voice, leaving Leofric embarrassed and me surprised. There comes a moment in life when we see ourselves as others see us. I suppose that is part of growing up, and it is not always comfortable. Eanflæd, at that moment, regretted speaking so harshly for she tried to soften it. ‘I don’t know you,’ she said, ‘except you’re Leofric’s friend.’

      ‘Uhtred is generous,’ Iseult said loyally.

      ‘Men are usually generous when they want something,’ Eanflæd retorted.

      ‘I want Bebbanburg,’ I said.

      ‘Whatever that is,’ Eanflæd said, ‘and to get it you’d do anything. Anything.’

      There was silence. I saw a snowflake show at the half-covered door. It fluttered into the firelight and melted. ‘Alfred’s a good man,’ Leofric broke the awkward silence.

      ‘He tries to be good,’ Eanflæd said.

      ‘Only tries?’ I asked sarcastically.

      ‘He’s like you,’ she said. ‘He’d kill to get what he wants, but there is a difference. He has a conscience.’

      ‘He’s frightened of the priests, you mean.’

      ‘He’s frightened of God. And we should all be that. Because one day we’ll answer to God.’

      ‘Not me,’ I said.

      Eanflæd sneered at that, but Leofric changed the conversation by saying it was snowing, and after a while we slept. Iseult clung to me in her sleep and she whimpered and twitched as I lay awake, half dreaming, thinking of her words that I would lead a bright horde. It seemed an unlikely prophecy, indeed I reckoned her powers must have gone with her virginity, and then I slept too, waking to a world made white. The twigs and branches were edged with snow, but it was already melting, dripping into a misty dawn. When I went outside I found a tiny dead wren just beyond the door and I feared it was a grim omen.

      Leofric emerged from the hut, blinking at the dawn’s brilliance. ‘Don’t mind Eanflæd,’ he said.

      ‘I don’t.’

      ‘Her world’s come to an end.’

      ‘Then we must remake it,’ I said.

      ‘Does that mean you won’t join the Danes?’

      ‘I’m a Saxon,’ I said.

      Leofric half smiled at that. He undid his breeches and had a piss. ‘If your friend Ragnar was alive,’ he asked, watching the steam rise from his urine, ‘would you still be a Saxon?’

      ‘He’s dead, isn’t he?’ I said bleakly, ‘sacrificed to Guthrum’s ambition.’

      ‘So

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