LITMIR.BIZ

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and moved away from the shutter.

      ‘She was a nun here,’ the man said. ‘Nice and young? Pretty too. Screams like a pig usually.’

      ‘No,’ I said.

      ‘Four pennies? She won’t put up a fight. Not now she won’t.’

      I walked on, convinced I was wasting my time. Had Alfred been and gone? More likely, I thought grimly, the fool had gone back to his hall and I wondered if I dared go there, but the thought of Guthrum’s revenge deterred me. The new fight had started. The Dane was crouching low, trying to cut Steapa’s feet from under him, but Steapa was swatting his blows easily enough and I sidled past the men holding his chains and saw another room off to my left, a large room, perhaps where the nuns had eaten, and a glint of gold in the light of its dying fire drew me inside.

      The gold was not metal. It was the gilding on the frame of a small harp that had been stamped on so hard that it broke. I looked around the shadows and saw a man lying in a heap at the far end and went to him. It was Alfred. He was barely conscious, but he was alive and, so far as I could see, unwounded, but he was plainly stunned and I dragged him to the wall and sat him up. He had no cloak and his boots were gone. I left him there, went back to the church and found a drunk to befriend. I helped him to his feet, put my arm around his shoulders and persuaded him I was taking him to his bed, then took him through the back door to the latrine yard of the nunnery where I punched him three times in the belly and twice in the face, then carried his hooded cloak and tall boots back to Alfred.

      The king was conscious now. His face was bruised. He looked up at me without showing any surprise, then rubbed his chin. ‘They didn’t like the way I played,’ he said.

      ‘That’s because the Danes like good music,’ I said. ‘Put these on.’ I threw the boots beside him, draped him with the cloak and made him pull the hood over his face. ‘You want to die?’ I asked him angrily.

      ‘I want to know about my enemies,’ he said.

      ‘And I found out for you,’ I said. ‘There are roughly two thousand of them.’

      ‘That’s what I thought,’ he said, then grimaced. ‘What’s on this cloak?’

      ‘Danish vomit,’ I said.

      He shuddered. ‘Three of them attacked me,’ he sounded surprised. ‘They kicked and punched me.’

      ‘I told you, the Danes like good music,’ I said, helping him to his feet. ‘You’re lucky they didn’t kill you.’

      ‘They thought I was Danish,’ he said, then spat blood that trickled from his swollen lower lip.

      ‘Were they drunk?’ I asked. ‘You don’t even look like a Dane.’

      ‘I pretended I was a musician who couldn’t speak,’ he mouthed silently at me, then grinned bloodily, proud of his deception. I did not grin back and he sighed. ‘They were very drunk, but I need to know their mood, Uhtred. Are they confident? Are they readying to attack?’ He paused to wipe more blood from his lips. ‘I could only find that out by coming to see them for myself. Did you see Steapa?’

      ‘Yes.’

      ‘I want to take him back with us.’

      ‘Lord,’ I said savagely, ‘you are a fool. He’s in chains. He’s got half a dozen guards.’

      ‘Daniel was in a lion’s den, yet he escaped. Saint Paul was imprisoned, yet God freed him.’

      ‘Then let God look after Steapa,’ I said. ‘You’re coming back with me. Now.’

      He bent to relieve a pain in his belly. ‘They punched me in the stomach,’ he said as he straightened. In the morning, I thought, he would have a rare black eye to display. He flinched as a huge cheer sounded from the courtyard and I guessed Steapa had either died or downed his last opponent. ‘I want to see my hall,’ Alfred said stubbornly.

      ‘Why?’

      ‘I’m a man who would look at his own home. You can come or stay.’

      ‘Guthrum’s there! You want to be recognised? You want to die?’

      ‘Guthrum will be inside, and I just want to look at the outside.’

      He would not be dissuaded and so I led him through the courtyard to the street, wondering if I should simply pick him up and carry him away, but in his obdurate mood he would probably struggle and shout until men came to find out the cause of the noise. ‘I wonder what happened to the nuns,’ he said as we left the nunnery.

      ‘One of them is being whored in there for pennies,’ I said.

      ‘Oh, dear God.’ He made the sign of the cross and turned back and I knew he was thinking of rescuing the woman, so I dragged him onwards. ‘This is madness!’ I protested.

      ‘It is a necessary madness,’ he said calmly, then stopped to lecture me. ‘What does Wessex believe? It thinks I am defeated, it thinks the Danes have won, it readies itself for the spring and the coming of more Danes. So they must learn something different. They must learn that the king lives, that he walked among his enemies and that he made fools of them.’

      ‘That he got given a bloody nose and a black eye,’ I said.

      ‘You won’t tell them that,’ he said, ‘any more than you’ll tell folk about that wretched woman who hit me with an eel. We must give men hope, Uhtred, and in the spring that hope will blossom into victory. Remember Boethius, Uhtred, remember Boethius! Never give up hope.’

      He believed it. He believed that God was protecting him, that he could walk among his enemies without fear or harm, and to an extent he was right for the Danes were well supplied with ale, birch wine and mead, and most were much too drunk to care about a bruised man carrying a broken harp.

      No one stopped us going into the royal compound, but there were six black-cloaked guards at the hall door and I refused to let Alfred get close to them. ‘They’ll take one look at your bloodied face,’ I said, ‘and finish what the others began.’

      ‘Then let me at least go to the church.’

      ‘You want to pray?’ I asked sarcastically.

      ‘Yes,’ he said simply.

      I tried to stop him. ‘If you die here,’ I said, ‘then Iseult dies.’

      ‘That wasn’t my doing,’ he said.

      ‘You’re the king, aren’t you?’

      ‘The bishop thought you would join the Danes,’ he said. ‘And others agreed.’

      ‘I have no friends left among the Danes,’ I said. ‘They were your hostages and they died.’

      ‘Then I shall pray for their pagan souls,’ he said, and pulled away from me and went to the church door where he instinctively pushed the hood off his head to show respect. I snatched it back over his hair, shadowing his bruises. He did not resist, but just pushed the door open and made the sign of the cross.

      The church was being used to shelter more of Guthrum’s men. There were straw mattresses, heaps of chain mail, stacks of weapons and a score of men and women gathered around a newly-made hearth in the nave. They were playing dice and none took any particular interest in our arrival until someone shouted that we should shut the door.

      ‘We’re leaving,’ I said to Alfred. ‘You can’t pray here.’

      He did not answer. He was gazing reverently to where the altar had been, and where a half-dozen horses were now tethered.

      ‘We’re leaving!’ I insisted again.

      And just then a voice hailed me. It was a voice full of astonishment and I saw one of the dice players stand and stare at me. A dog ran from the shadows and began to jump up and down, trying to lick me, and I saw the dog was Nihtgenga and that the man who had recognised me was Ragnar. Earl Ragnar, my friend.

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