“It’s wet,” I said.
“What else?”
I looked for the trap in the question and found none. “It can only be reached by punts,” I said, “and the Danes don’t have punts. But when they do have punts it’ll need more than Leofric and me to fight them off.”
“It doesn’t have a church,” he said.
“I knew I liked it,” I retorted.
He ignored that. “We know so little of our own kingdom,” he said in wonderment. “I thought there were churches everywhere.” He closed his eyes for a few heartbeats, then looked at me plaintively. “What should I do?”
That morning I had told him to fight, but I could see no fight in him now, just despair. “You can go south,” I said, thinking that was what he wanted to hear, “go south across the sea.”
“To be another exiled Saxon king,” he said bitterly.
“We hide here,” I said, “and when we think the Danes aren’t watching, we go to the south coast and find a ship.”
“How do we hide?” he asked. “They know we’re here. And they’re on both sides of the swamp.” The marshman had told us that a Danish fleet had landed at Cynuit, which lay at the swamp’s western edge. That fleet, I assumed, was led by Svein and he would surely be wondering how to find Alfred. The king, I reckoned, was doomed, and his family, too. If Æthelflaed was lucky she would be raised by a Danish family, as I had been, but more probably they would all be killed so that no Saxon could ever again claim the crown of Wessex. “And the Danes will be watching the south coast,” Alfred went on.
“They will,” I agreed.
He looked out at the marsh where the night wind rippled the waters, shaking the long reflection of a winter moon. “The Danes can’t have taken all Wessex,” he said, then flinched because Edward was coughing so painfully.
“Probably not,” I agreed.
“If we could find men,” he said, then fell silent.
“What would we do with men?” I asked.
“Attack the fleet,” he said, pointing west. “Get rid of Svein, if it is Svein at Cynuit, then hold the hills of Defnascir. Gain one victory and more men will come. We get stronger and one day we can face Guthrum.”
I thought about it. He had spoken dully, as if he did not really believe in the words he had said, but I thought they made a perverse kind of sense. There were men in Wessex, men who were leaderless, but they were men who wanted a leader, men who would fight, and perhaps we could secure the swamp, then defeat Svein, then capture Defnascir, and so, piece by piece, take back Wessex. Then I thought about it more closely and reckoned it was a dream. The Danes had won. We were fugitives.
Alfred was stroking his daughter’s golden hair. “The Danes will hunt us here, won’t they?”
“Yes.”
“Can you defend us?”
“Just me and Leofric?”
“You’re a warrior, aren’t you? Men tell me it was really you who defeated Ubba.”
“You knew I killed Ubba?” I asked.
“Can you defend us?”
I would not be deflected. “Did you know I won your victory at Cynuit?” I demanded.
“Yes,” he said simply.
“And my reward was to crawl to your altar? To be humiliated?” My anger made my voice too loud and Æthelflaed opened her eyes and stared at me.
“I have made mistakes,” Alfred said, “and when this is all over, and when God returns Wessex to the West Saxons, I shall do the same. I shall put on the penitent’s robe and submit myself to God.”
I wanted to kill the pious bastard then, but Æthelflaed was watching me with her big eyes. She had not moved, so her father did not know she was awake, but I did, so instead of giving my anger a loose rein I cut it off abruptly. “You’ll find that penitence helps,” I said.
He brightened at that. “It helped you?” he asked.
“It gave me anger,” I said, “and it taught me to hate. And anger is good. Hatred is good.”
“You don’t mean that,” he said.
I half drew Serpent-Breath and little Æthelflaed’s eyes grew wider. “This kills,” I said, letting the sword slide back into its fleece-lined scabbard, “but anger and hate are what gives it the strength to kill. Go into battle without anger and hate and you’ll be dead. You need all the blades, anger, and hate you can muster if we’re to survive.”
“But can you do it?” he asked. “Can you defend us here? Long enough to evade the Danes while we decide what to do?”
“Yes,” I said. I had no idea whether I spoke the truth, indeed I doubted that I did, but I had a warrior’s pride so gave a warrior’s answer. Æthelflaed had not taken her eyes from me. She was only six, but I swear she understood all that we talked about.
“So I give you charge of that task,” Alfred said. “Here and now I appoint you as the defender of my family. Do you accept that responsibility?”
I was an arrogant brute. Still am. He was challenging me, of course, and he knew what he was doing even if I did not. I just bridled. “Of course I accept it,” I said, “yes.”
“Yes what?” he asked.
I hesitated, but he had flattered me, given me a warrior’s responsibility, and so I gave him what he wanted and what I had been determined not to give to him. “Yes, lord,” I said.
He held out his hand. I knew he wanted more now. I had never meant to grant him this wish, but I had called him “lord” and so I knelt to him and, across Æthelflaed’s body, I took his hand in both mine.
“Say it,” he demanded, and he put the crucifix that hung about his neck between our hands.
“I swear to be your man,” I said, looking into his pale eyes, “until your family is safe.”
He hesitated. I had given him the oath, but I had qualified it. I had let him know that I would not remain his man forever, but he accepted my terms. He should have kissed me on both cheeks, but that would have disturbed Æthelflaed and so he raised my right hand and kissed the knuckles, then kissed the crucifix. “Thank you,” he said.
The truth, of course, was that Alfred was finished, but, with the perversity and arrogance of foolish youth, I had just given him my oath and promised to fight for him.
And all, I think, because a six-year-old stared at me. And she had hair of gold.
SEVEN
The kingdom of Wessex was now a swamp and, for a few days, it possessed a king, a bishop, four priests, two soldiers, the king’s pregnant wife, two nurses, a whore, two children, one of whom was sick, and Iseult.
Three of the four priests left the swamp first. Alfred was suffering, struck by the fever and belly pains that so often afflicted him, and he seemed incapable of rousing himself to any decision, so I gathered the three youngest priests, told them they were useless mouths we could not afford to feed, and ordered them to leave the swamp and discover what was happening on dry ground. “Find soldiers,” I told them, “and say the king wants them to come here.” Two of the priests begged to be spared the mission, claiming they were scholars incapable of surviving the winter or of confronting the Danes or of enduring discomfort or of doing any real work, and Alewold, the Bishop of Exanceaster, supported them, saying that their joint prayers were needed to keep the king healthy and safe, so I reminded the bishop that Eanflæd was present.
“Eanflæd?” He blinked at me as though he had never heard the name.
“The whore,” I said, “from Cippanhamm.” He still looked ignorant. “Cippanhamm,” I went on, “where you and she rutted in the Corncrake tavern and she says…”
“The priests will travel,” he said hastily.
“Of course they will,” I said, “but they’ll leave their silver here.”
“Silver?”
The priests had been carrying Alewold’s hoard, which included the great pyx I had given him to settle Mildrith’s debts. That hoard was my next weapon. I took it all and displayed it to the marshmen. There would be silver, I said, for the food they gave us and the fuel they brought us and the punts they provided
and the news they told us, news of the Danes on the swamp’s far side. I wanted the marshmen on our side, and the sight of the silver encouraged them, but Bishop Alewold immediately ran to Alfred and complained that I had stolen from the church. The king was too low in spirits to care, so Ælswith, his wife, entered the fray. She was a Mercian and Alfred had married her to tighten the bonds between Wessex and Mercia, though that did little good for us now because the Danes ruled Mercia. There were plenty of Mercians who would fight for a West Saxon king, but none would risk their lives for a king reduced to a soggy realm in a tidal swamp. “You will return the pyx!” Ælswith ordered me. She looked ragged, her greasy hair tangled, her belly swollen, and her clothes filthy. “Give it back now. This instant!”
I looked at Iseult. “Should I?”
“No,” Iseult said.
“She has no say here!” Ælswith shrieked.
“But she’s a queen,” I said, “and you’re not.” That was one cause of Ælswith’s bitterness, that the West Saxons never called the king’s wife a queen. She wanted to be Queen Ælswith and had to be content with less. She tried to snatch back the pyx, but I tossed it on the ground and, when she reached for it, I swung Leofric’s ax. The blade chewed into the big plate, mangling the silver crucifixion, and Ælswith squealed in alarm and backed away as I hacked again. It took several blows, but I finally reduced the heavy plate into shreds of mangled silver that I tossed onto the coins I had taken from the priests. “Silver for your help!” I told the marshmen.
Ælswith spat at me, then went back to her son. Edward was three years old and it was evident now that he was dying. Alewold had claimed it was a mere winter’s cold, but it was plainly worse, much worse. Every night we would listen to the coughing, an extraordinary hollow racking sound from such a small child, and all of us lay awake, dreading the next bout, flinching from the desperate, rasping sound, and when the coughing fits ended we feared they would not start again. Every silence was like the coming of death, yet somehow the small boy lived, clinging on through those cold wet days in the swamp. Bishop Alewold and the women tried all they knew. A gospel book was laid on his chest and the bishop prayed. A concoction of herbs, chicken dung, and ash was pasted on his chest and the bishop prayed. Alfred traveled nowhere without his precious relics, and the toe ring of Mary Magdalene was rubbed on the child’s chest and the bishop prayed, but Edward just became weaker and thinner. A woman of the swamp, who had a reputation as a healer, tried to sweat the cough from him, and when that did not work she attempted to freeze it from him, and when that did not work she tied a live fish to his chest and commanded the cough and the fever to flee to the fish, and the fish certainly died, but the boy went on coughing and the bishop prayed and Alfred, as thin as his sick son, was in despair. He knew the Danes would search for him, but so long as the child was ill he dared not move, and he certainly could not contemplate the long walk south to the coast where he might find a ship to carry him and his family into exile.
He was resigned to that fate now. He had dared to hope he might recover his kingdom, but the cold reality was more persuasive. The Danes held Wessex and Alfred was king of nothing, and his son was dying. “It is a retribution,” he said. It was the night after the three priests had left and Alfred unburdened his soul to me and Bishop Alewold. We were outside, watching the moon silver the marsh mists, and there were tears on Alfred’s face. He was not really talking to either of us, only to himself.
“God would not take a son to punish the father,” Alewold said.
“God sacrificed his own son,” Alfred said bleakly, “and he commanded Abraham to kill Isaac.”
“He spared Isaac,” the bishop said.
“But he is not sparing Edward,” Alfred said, and flinched as the awful coughing sounded from the hut. He put his head in his hands, covering his eyes.
“Retribution for what?” I asked, and the bishop hissed in reprimand for such an indelicate question.
“Æthelwold,” Alfred said bleakly. Æthelwold was his nephew, the drunken, resentful son of the old king.
“Æthelwold could never have been king,” Alewold said. “He is a fool!”
“If I name him king now,” Alfred said, ignoring what the bishop had said, “perhaps God will spare Edward?”
The coughing ended. The boy was crying now, a gasping, grating, pitiful crying, and Alfred covered his ears with his hands.
“Give him to Iseult,” I said.
“A pagan!” Alewold warned Alfred. “An adulteress!” I could see Alfred was tempted by my suggestion, but Alewold was having the better of the argument. “If God will not cure Edward,” the bishop said, “do you think he will let a witch succeed?”
“She’s no witch,” I said.
“Tomorrow,” Alewold said, ignoring me, “is Saint Agnes’s Eve. A holy day, lord, a day of miracles! We shall pray to Saint Agnes and she will surely unleash God’s power on the boy.” He raised his hands to the dark sky. “Tomorrow, lord, we shall summon the strength of the angels, we shall call heaven’s aid to your son, and the blessed Agnes will drive the evil sickness from young Edward.”
Alfred said nothing, just stared at the swamp’s pools that were edged with a thin skim of ice that seemed to glow in the wan moonlight.
“I have known the blessed Agnes perform miracles!” the bishop pressed the king. “There was a child in Exanceaster who could not walk, but the saint gave him strength and now he runs!”
“Truly?” Alfred asked.
“With my own eyes,” the bishop said, “I witnessed the miracle.”
Alfred was reassured. “Tomorrow then,” he said.
I did not stay to see the power of God unleashed. Instead I took a punt and went south to a place called Æthelingæg, which lay at the southern edge of the swamp and was the biggest of all the marsh settlements. I was beginning to learn the swamp. Leofric stayed with Alfred, to protect the king and his family, but I explored, discovering scores of trackways through the watery void. The paths were called beamwegs and were made of logs that squelched underfoot, but by using them I could walk for miles. There were also rivers that twisted through the low land, and the biggest of those, the Pedredan, flowed close to Æthelingæg, which was an island, much of it covered with alders in which deer and wild goats lived, but there was also a large village on the island’s highest spot and the headman had built himself a great hall there. It was not a royal hall, not even as big as the one I had made at Oxton, but a man could stand upright beneath its beams and the island was large enough to accommodate a small army.
A dozen beamwegs led away from Æthelingæg, but none led directly to the mainland. It would be a hard place for Guthrum to attack, because he would have to thread the swamp, but Svein, who we now knew commanded the Danes at Cynuit, at the Pedredan’s mouth, would find it an easy place to approach for he could bring his ships up the river and, just north of Æthelingæg, he could turn south onto the river Thon, which flowed past the island. I took the punt into the center of the Thon and discovered, as I had feared, that it was more than deep enough to float the Dane’s beast-headed ships.
I walked back to the place where the Thon flowed into the Pedredan. Across the wider river was a sudden hill, steep and high, which stood in the surrounding marshland like a giant’s burial mound. It was a perfect place to make a fort, and if a bridge could be built across the Pedredan, then no Danish ship could pass upriver.
I walked back to the village where I discovered that the headman was a grizzled and stubborn old man called Haswold who was disinclined to help. I said I would pay good silver to have a bridge made across the Pedredan, but Haswold declared the war between Wessex and the Danes did not affect him. “There is madness over there,” he said, waving vaguely at the eastern hills. “There’s always madness over there, but here in the swamp we mind our own business. No one minds us and we don’t mind them.” He stank of fish and smoke. He wore otter skins that were greasy with fish oil and his graying beard was flecked by fish scales. He ha
d small cunning eyes in an old cunning face, and he also had a half dozen wives, the youngest of whom was a child who could have been his own granddaughter, and he fondled her in front of me as if her existence proved his manhood. “I’m happy,” he said, leering at me, “so why should I care for your happiness?”
“The Danes could end your happiness.”
“The Danes?” He laughed at that, and the laugh turned into a cough. He spat. “If the Danes come,” he went on, “then we go deep into the swamp and the Danes go.” He grinned at me and I wanted to kill him, but that would have done no good. There were fifty or more men in the village and I would have lasted all of a dozen heartbeats, though the man I really feared was a tall, broad-shouldered, stooping man with a puzzled look on his face. What frightened me about him was that he carried a long hunting bow, not one of the short fowling bows that many of the marshmen possessed, but a stag killer, as tall as a man, and capable of shooting an arrow clean through a mail coat. Haswold must have sensed my fear of the bow for he summoned the man to stand beside him. The man looked confused by the summons, but obeyed. Haswold pushed a gnarled hand under the young girl’s clothes, then stared at me as he fumbled, laughing at what he perceived as my impotence. “The Danes come,” he said again, “and we go deep into the swamp and the Danes go away.” He thrust his hand deeper into the girl’s goatskin dress and mauled her breasts. “Danes can’t follow us, and if they do follow us, then Eofer kills them.” Eofer was the archer and, hearing his name, he looked startled, then worried. “Eofer’s my man,” Haswold boasted. “He puts arrows where I tell him to put them.” Eofer nodded.
“Your king wants a bridge made,” I said, “a bridge and a fort.”
“King?” Haswold stared about the village. “I know no king. If any man is king here, ’tis me.” He cackled with laughter at that and I looked at the villagers and saw nothing but dull faces. None shared Haswold’s amusement. They were not, I thought, happy under his rule and perhaps he sensed what I was thinking, for he suddenly became angry, thrusting his girl bride away. “Leave us!” he shouted at me. “Just go away!”