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PART ONE
The Dying Lord

One

My son looked tired and angry. He was wet, covered in mud, his hair was like a damp haystack after a good romp, and one of his boots was slashed. The leather was stained black where a blade had pierced his calf, but he was not limping so I had no need to worry about him, except that he was gaping at me like a moonstruck idiot. ‘Don’t just stare at me, idiot,’ I told him, ‘buy me some ale. Tell the girl you want it from the black barrel. Sihtric, it’s good to see you.’

‘And you, lord,’ Sihtric said.

‘Father!’ my son said, still gaping.

‘Who did you think it was?’ I asked. ‘The holy ghost?’ I made room on the bench. ‘Sit beside me,’ I told Sihtric, ‘and tell me some news. Stop gawping,’ I said to Uhtred, ‘and have one of the girls bring us some ale. From the black barrel!’

‘Why the black barrel, lord?’ Sihtric asked as he sat.

‘It’s brewed from our barley,’ I explained, ‘he keeps it for people he likes.’ I leaned back against the wall. It hurt to bend forward, it hurt even to sit upright, it hurt to breathe. Everything hurt, yet it was a marvel that I lived at all. Cnut Longsword had near killed me with his blade Ice-Spite and it was small consolation that Serpent-Breath had sliced his throat in the same heartbeat that his sword had broken a rib and pierced my lung. ‘Christ Jesus,’ Finan had told me, ‘but the grass was slippery with blood. It looked like a Samhain pig slaughtering, it did.’

But the slipperiness had been Cnut’s blood, and Cnut was dead and his army destroyed. The Danes had been driven from much of northern Mercia and the Saxons gave thanks to their nailed god for that deliverance. Some of them doubtless prayed that they would be delivered from me too, but I lived. They were Christians, I am not, though rumours spread that it was a Christian priest who saved my life. Æthelflaed had me carried in a cart to her home in Cirrenceastre and a priest famed as a healer and bone-setter tended me. Æthelflaed said he pushed a reed through my ribs and a gust of foul air came from the hole. ‘It blew out,’ she told me, ‘and stank like a cesspit.’ ‘That’s the evil leaving him,’ the priest had explained, or so she said, and then he plugged the wound with cow dung. The shit formed a crust and the priest said it would stop the evil getting back inside me. Is that true? I don’t know. All I know is that it took weeks of pain, weeks in which I expected to die, and that some time in the new year I managed to struggle to my feet again. Now, almost two months later, I could ride a horse and walk a mile or so, yet I had still not regained my old strength, and Serpent-Breath felt heavy in my hand. And the pain was always there, sometimes excruciating, sometimes bearable, and all day, every day, the wound leaked filthy stinking pus. The Christian sorcerer probably sealed the wound before all the evil left and sometimes I wondered if he did that on purpose because the Christians do hate me, or most of them do. They smile and sing their psalms and preach that their creed is all about love, but tell them you believe in a different god and suddenly it’s all spittle and spite. So most days I felt old and feeble and useless, and some days I was not even sure I wanted to live.

‘How did you get here, lord?’ Sihtric asked me.

‘I rode, of course, how do you think?’

That was not entirely true. It was not far from Cirrenceastre to Gleawecestre, and I had ridden for some of the journey, but a few miles short of the city I climbed into a cart and lay on a bed of straw. God, it hurt climbing onto that cart’s bed. Then I let myself be carried into the city, and when Eardwulf saw me I groaned and pretended to be too weak to recognise him. The slick-haired bastard had ridden alongside the cart telling silky-tongued lies. ‘It is sad indeed to see you thus, Lord Uhtred,’ he had said and what he meant was that it was a joy to see me feeble and maybe dying. ‘You are an example to us all!’ he had said, speaking very slow and loud as if I were an imbecile. I just groaned and said nothing. ‘We never expected you to come,’ he went on, ‘but here you are.’ The bastard.

The Witan had been summoned to meet on Saint Cuthbert’s feast day. The summons had been issued over the horse-seal of Æthelred and it demanded the presence in Gleawecestre of Mercia’s leading men, the ealdormen and the bishops, the abbots and the thegns. The summons declared that they were called to ‘advise’ the Lord of Mercia, but as rumour insisted that the Lord of Mercia was now a drivelling cripple who dribbled piss down his legs it was more likely that the Witan had been called to approve whatever mischief Eardwulf had devised. I had not expected a summons, but to my astonishment a messenger brought me a parchment heavy with Æthelred’s great seal. Why did he want me there? I was his wife’s chief supporter, yet he had invited me. None of the other leading men who supported Æthelflaed had been called, yet I was summoned. Why? ‘He wants to kill you, lord,’ Finan had suggested.

‘I’m near enough dead already. Why should he bother?’

‘He wants you there,’ Finan had suggested slowly, ‘because they’re planning to shit all over Æthelflaed, and if you’re there they can’t claim no one spoke for her.’

That seemed a weak reason to me, but I could think of no other. ‘Maybe.’

‘And they know you’re not healed. You can’t cause them trouble.’

‘Maybe,’ I said again. It was plain that this Witan had been summoned to decide Mercia’s future, and equally plain that Æthelred would do everything he could to make certain his estranged wife had no part in that future, so why invite me? I would speak for her, they knew that, but they also knew I was weakened by injury. So was I there to prove that every opinion had been aired? It seemed strange to me, but if they were relying on my weakness to make sure that my advice was ignored then I wanted to encourage that belief, and that was why I had taken such care to appear feeble to Eardwulf. Let the bastard think me helpless.

Which I almost was. Except that I lived.

My son brought ale and dragged a stool to sit beside me. He was worried about me, but I brushed away his questions and asked my own. He told me about the fight with Haki, then complained that Eardwulf had stolen the slaves and plunder. ‘How could I stop him?’ he asked.

‘You weren’t meant to stop him,’ I said and, when he looked puzzled, explained. ‘Æthelflaed knew that would happen. Why else send you to Gleawecestre?’

‘She needs the money!’

‘She needs Mercia’s support more,’ I said, and he still looked puzzled. ‘By sending you here,’ I went on, ‘she’s showing that she’s fighting. If she really wanted money she’d have sent the slaves to Lundene.’

‘So she thinks a few slaves and two wagon-loads of rusted mail will influence the Witan?’

‘Did you see any of Æthelred’s men in Ceaster?’

‘No, of course not.’

‘And what is a ruler’s first duty?’

He thought for a few heartbeats. ‘To defend his land?’

‘So if Mercia is looking for a new ruler?’ I asked.

‘They’ll want someone,’ he said slowly, ‘who can fight?’

‘Someone who can fight,’ I said, ‘and lead, and inspire.’

‘You?’ he asked.

I almost hit him for his stupidity, but he was no longer a child. ‘Not me,’ I said instead.

My son frowned as he considered. He knew the answer I wanted, but was too stubborn to give it. ‘Eardwulf?’ he suggested instead. I said nothing and he thought a moment longer. ‘He’s been fighting the Welsh,’ he went on, ‘and men say he’s good.’

‘He’s been fighting bare-arsed cattle raiders,’ I said scornfully, ‘nothing else. When was the last time a Welsh army invaded Mercia? Besides, Eardwulf isn’t noble.’

‘So if he can’t lead Mercia,’ my son said slowly, ‘who can?’

‘You know who can,’ I said, and when he still refused to name her, I did. ‘Æthelflaed.’

‘Æthelflaed,’ he repeated the name and then just shook his head. I knew he was wary of her and probably frightened of her too, and I knew she was scornful of him, just as she scorned her own daughter. She was her father’s child in that way; she disliked flippant and carefree people, treasuring serious souls who thought life a grim duty. She put up with me, maybe because she knew that in battle I was as serious and grim as any of her dreary priests.

‘So why not Æthelflaed?’ I asked.

‘Because she’s a woman,’ he said.

‘So?’

‘She’s a woman!’

‘I know that! I’ve seen her tits.’

‘The Witan will never choose a woman to rule,’ he said firmly.

‘That’s true,’ Sihtric put in.

‘Who else can they choose?’ I asked.

‘Her brother?’ my son suggested, and he was probably right. Edward, King of Wessex, wanted the throne of Mercia, but he did not want to just take it. He wanted an invitation. Maybe that was what the Witan was supposed to agree? I could think of no other reason why the nobility and high churchmen had been summoned. It made sense that Æthelred’s successor should be chosen now, before Æthelred died, to avert the squabbling and even outright war that sometimes follows a ruler’s death, and I was certain that Æthelred himself wanted the satisfaction of knowing that his wife would not inherit his power. He would let rabid dogs gnaw on his balls before he allowed that. So who would inherit? Not Eardwulf, I was sure. He was competent, he was brave enough, and he was no fool, but the Witan would want a man of birth, and Eardwulf, though not low-born, was no ealdorman. Nor was there any ealdorman in Mercia who stood head and shoulders above the rest except perhaps for Æthelfrith who ruled much of the land north of Lundene. Æthelfrith was the richest of all Mercia’s noblemen after Æthelred, but he had stood aloof from Gleawecestre and its squabbles, allying himself with the West Saxons and, so far as I knew, he had not bothered to attend the Witan. And it probably did not matter what the Witan advised because, in the end, the West Saxons would decide who or what was best for Mercia.

Or so I thought.

And I should have thought harder.

The Witan began, of course it began, with a tedious service in Saint Oswald’s church, which was part of an abbey built by Æthelred. I had arrived on crutches, which I did not need, but I was determined to look more sickly than I felt. Ricseg, the abbot, welcomed me fulsomely, even trying to bow which was difficult because he had a belly like a pregnant sow. ‘It distresses me to see you in such pain, Lord Uhtred,’ he said, meaning he would have jumped for joy if he was not so damned fat. ‘May God bless you,’ he added, sketching a plump hand in the sign of a cross, while secretly praying that his god would flatten me with a thunderbolt. I thanked him as insincerely as he had blessed me, then took a stone bench at the back of the church and leaned against the wall, flanked there by Finan and by Osferth. Ricseg waddled about as he greeted men, and I heard the clatter of weapons being dropped outside the church. I had left my son and Sihtric out there to make sure no bastard stole Serpent-Breath. I leaned my head on the wall and tried to guess the cost of the silver candlesticks that stood at either side of the altar. They were vast things, heavy as war axes and dripping with scented beeswax, while the light from their dozen candles glinted from the silver reliquaries and golden dishes piled on the altar.

The Christian church is a clever thing. The moment a lord becomes wealthy he builds a church or a convent. Æthelflaed had insisted on making a church in Ceaster even before she began surveying the walls or deepening the ditch. I told her it was a waste of money, all she achieved was to build a place where men like Ricseg could get fat, but she insisted anyway. There are hundreds of men and women living off the churches, abbeys, and convents built by lords, and most do nothing except eat, drink and mutter an occasional prayer. Monks work, of course. They till the fields, grub up weeds, cut firewood, draw water and copy manuscripts, but only so their superiors can live like nobles. It is a clever scheme, to get other men to pay for your luxuries. I growled.

‘The ceremony will be over soon,’ Finan said soothingly, thinking that the growl was a sign of pain.

‘Shall I ask for honeyed wine, lord?’ Osferth asked me, concerned. He was King Alfred’s one bastard and a more decent man never walked this earth. I have often wondered what kind of king Osferth would have made if he had been born to a wife instead of to some scared servant girl who had lifted her skirts for a royal prick. He would have been a great king, judicious and clever and honest, but Osferth was ever marked by his bastardry. His father had tried to make Osferth a priest, but the son had wilfully chosen the way of the warrior and I was lucky to have him as one of my household.

I closed my eyes. Monks were chanting and one of the sorcerers was wafting a metal bowl on the end of a chain to spread smoke through the church. I sneezed, and it hurt, then there was a sudden commotion at the door and I thought it must be Æthelred arriving, but when I opened one eye I saw it was Bishop Wulfheard with a pack of fawning priests at his heels. ‘If there’s mischief,’ I said, ‘that tit-sucking bastard will be in the middle of it.’

‘Not so loud, lord,’ Osferth reproved me.

‘Tit-sucking?’ Finan asked.

I nodded. ‘That’s what they tell me in the Wheatsheaf.’

‘Oh no! No!’ Osferth said, shocked. ‘That can’t be true. He’s married!’

I laughed, then closed my eyes again. ‘You shouldn’t say things like that,’ I told Osferth.

‘Why not, lord? It’s just a foul rumour! The bishop is married.’

‘You shouldn’t say it,’ I said, ‘because it hurts so much when I laugh.’

Wulfheard was Bishop of Hereford, but he spent most of his time in Gleawecestre because that was where Æthelred had his deep coffers. Wulfheard hated me and had burned down my barns at Fagranforda in an effort to drive me from Mercia. He was not one of the fat priests, instead he was lean as a blade with a hard face that he forced into a smile when he saw me. ‘My Lord Uhtred,’ he greeted me.

‘Wulfheard,’ I responded churlishly.

‘I am delighted to see you in church,’ he said.

‘But not wearing that,’ one of his attendant priests spat, and I opened my eyes to see him pointing at the hammer I wore about my neck. It was the symbol of Thor.

‘Careful, priest,’ I warned the man, though I was too weak to do much about his insolence.

‘Father Penda,’ Wulfheard said, ‘let us pray that God persuades the Lord Uhtred to cast away his pagan trinkets. God listens to our prayers,’ he added to me.

‘He does?’

‘And I prayed for your recovery,’ he lied.

‘So did I,’ I said, touching Thor’s hammer.

Wulfheard gave a vague smile and turned away. His priests followed him like scurrying ducklings, all except for the young Father Penda who stood close and belligerent. ‘You disgrace God’s church,’ he said loudly.

‘Just go away, father,’ Finan said.

‘That is an abomination!’ the priest said, almost shouting as he pointed at the hammer. Men turned to look at us. ‘An abomination unto God,’ Penda said, then leaned down to snatch the hammer away. I grasped his black robe and pulled him towards me and the effort sent a stab of pain through my left side. The priest’s robe was damp on my face and it stank of dung, but the thick wool hid my agonised grimace as the wound in my side savaged me. I gasped, but then Finan managed to wrestle the priest away from me. ‘An abomination!’ Penda shouted as he was pulled backwards. Osferth half rose to help Finan, but I caught his sleeve to stop him. Penda lunged at me again, but then two of his fellow priests managed to grasp him by the shoulders and pull him away.

‘A silly man,’ Osferth said sternly, ‘but he’s right. You shouldn’t wear the hammer in a church, lord.’

I pressed my spine into the wall, trying to breathe slowly. The pain came in waves, sharp then sullen. Would it ever end? I was tired of it, and perhaps the pain dulled my thoughts.

I was thinking that Æthelred, Lord of Mercia, was dying. That much was obvious. It was a wonder he had survived this long, but it was plain that the Witan had been called to consider what should happen after his death, and I had just learned that the Ealdorman Æthelhelm, King Edward’s father-in-law, was in Gleawecestre. He was not in the church, at least I could not see him, and he was a difficult man to miss because he was big, jovial, and loud. I liked Æthelhelm and trusted him not at all. And he was here for the Witan. How did I know that? Because Father Penda, the spitting priest, was my man. Penda was in my pay and when I had pulled him close he had whispered in my ear, ‘Æthelhelm’s here. He came this morning.’ He had started to hiss something else, but then he had been pulled away.

I listened to the monks chanting and to the murmur of the priests gathered around the altar where a great golden crucifix reflected the light of the scented candles. The altar was hollow and in its belly lay a massive silver coffin that glinted with crystal inserts. That coffin alone must have cost as much as the church, and if a man bent down and looked through the small crystals he could dimly see a skeleton lying on a bed of costly blue silk. On special days the coffin was opened and the skeleton displayed and I had heard of miracles being performed on folk who paid to touch the yellow bones. Boils were magically healed, warts vanished, and the crippled walked, and all because the bones were said to be those of Saint Oswald, which, if true, would have been a miracle in itself because I had found the bones. They had probably belonged to some obscure monk, though for all I knew the remains might have come from a swineherd, though when I’d said that to Father Cuthbert he said that more than one swineherd had become a saint. You cannot win with Christians.

Besides the thirty or forty priests there must have been at least a hundred and twenty men in the church, all standing beneath the high beams where sparrows flew. This ceremony in the church was supposed to bring the nailed god’s blessing on the Witan’s deliberations, so it was no surprise when Bishop Wulfheard delivered a powerful sermon about the wisdom of listening to the advice of sober men, good men, older men, and rulers. ‘Let the elders be treated with double honour,’ he harangued us, ‘because that is the word of God!’ Maybe it was, but in Wulfheard’s mouth it meant that no one had been summoned to give advice, but rather to agree with whatever had already been decided between the bishop, Æthelred, and, as I had just learned, Æthelhelm of Wessex.

Æthelhelm was the richest man in Wessex after the king, his son-in-law. He owned vast tracts of land and his household warriors formed almost a third of the West Saxon army. He was Edward’s chief counsellor and his sudden presence in Gleawecestre surely meant that Edward of Wessex had decided what he wanted with Mercia. He must have sent Æthelhelm to announce the decision, but Edward and Æthelhelm both knew that Mercia was proud and prickly. Mercia would not simply accept Edward as king, so he must be offering something in return, but what? True, Edward could just declare himself king on Æthelred’s death, but that would provoke unrest, even outright opposition. Edward, I was sure, wanted Mercia to beg, and so he had sent Æthelhelm, genial Æthelhelm, generous Æthelhelm, gregarious Æthelhelm. Everyone liked Æthelhelm. I liked Æthelhelm, but his presence in Gleawecestre suggested mischief.

I managed to sleep through most of Wulfheard’s sermon and then, after the choir had chanted an interminable psalm, Osferth and Finan helped me leave the church while my son carried Serpent-Breath and my crutches. I exaggerated my weakness by leaning heavily on Finan’s shoulders and shuffling my feet. Most of it was pretence, but not all. I was tired of the pain, and tired of the stinking pus that seeped from the wound. A few men stopped to express their regret at my feeble appearance, and some of that sympathy was genuine, but many men took an obvious pleasure in my downfall. Before I had been wounded they had been frightened of me, now they could safely despise me.

Father Penda’s news had hardly been necessary because Æthelhelm was waiting in the great hall, but I supposed the young priest had wanted to give me what small warning he could as well as show that he was earning the gold I gave him. The West Saxon ealdorman was surrounded by lesser men, all of whom understood that the real power in this hall was his because he spoke for Edward of Wessex, and without the West Saxon army there would be no Mercia. I watched him, wondering why he was here. He was a big man, broad faced, with thinning hair, a ready smile and kindly eyes that looked shocked when he saw me. He shook off the men who spoke with him and hurried to my side. ‘My dear Lord Uhtred,’ he said.

‘Lord Æthelhelm.’ I made my voice slow and hoarse.

‘My dear Lord Uhtred,’ he said again, taking one of my hands in both of his. ‘I cannot express what I feel! Tell me what we can do for you.’ He pressed my hand. ‘Tell me!’ he urged.

‘You can let me die in peace,’ I said.

‘I’m sure you have many years yet,’ he said, ‘unlike my dear wife.’

That was news to me. I knew Æthelhelm was married to a pale, thin creature who had brought him half of Defnascir as her dowry. She had somehow given birth to a succession of fat, healthy babes. It was a marvel she had lasted this long. ‘I’m sorry,’ I said weakly.

‘She ails, poor thing. She wastes away and the end can’t be long now.’ He did not sound particularly upset, but I supposed the marriage to the wraith-like wife had only ever been a convenience that brought Æthelhelm land. ‘I’ll marry again,’ he said, ‘and I trust you will come to the wedding!’

‘If I live,’ I said.

‘Of course you will! I’ll pray for you!’

He needed to pray for Æthelred too. The Lord of Mercia had not attended the church service, but was waiting enthroned on the dais at the western end of the great hall. He slumped there, vacant-eyed, his body swathed in a great cloak of beaver fur. His red hair had turned white, though most of it was hidden beneath a woollen cap which, I supposed, hid his wound. I had no love for Æthelred, but I felt sorry for him. He seemed to become aware of my gaze because he stirred, raised his head and looked down the hall to where I had taken a bench at the back. He stared at me for a moment, then he leaned his head against the chair’s high back and his mouth fell slackly open.

Bishop Wulfheard climbed the dais. I feared he would deliver another sermon, but instead he rapped on the wooden boards with the base of his staff, and when silence fell over the hall contented himself with a brief blessing. Æthelhelm, I noticed, took a modest place to one side of the assembly, while Eardwulf stood against the other wall and between them the leading men of Mercia sat on uncomfortable benches. Æthelred’s household warriors lined the walls, the only men allowed to carry weapons in the hall. My son slipped through the door and crouched beside me. ‘The swords are safe,’ he muttered.

‘Sihtric’s there?’

‘He is.’

Bishop Wulfheard spoke so softly that I had to lean forward to hear what he said, and leaning forward hurt me. I endured the pain to listen. It was the Lord Æthelred’s pleasure, the bishop said, to see the kingdom of Mercia safer and larger than it had been for many years. ‘We have gained land by the strength of our swords,’ Wulfheard said, ‘and by the grace of God we have driven the pagans from the fields our forefathers tilled. We thank God for this!’

‘Amen,’ Lord Æthelhelm interjected loudly.

‘We owe this blessing,’ Wulfheard continued, ‘to the victory won last year by our Lord Æthelred with the help of his staunch West Saxon allies,’ he gestured towards Æthelhelm and the hall was filled with the noise of men stamping their feet in approbation. The bastard, I thought. Æthelred had been wounded from behind, and the battle had been gained by my men, not his.

The bishop waited for silence. ‘We have gained land,’ he went on, ‘good farmland, and it is Lord Æthelred’s pleasure to grant that land to those who fought for him last year,’ and the bishop pointed to a table at the side of the hall where two priests sat behind a heap of documents. The bribe was obvious. Support whatever Æthelred proposed and a man could expect a grant of land.

‘There’ll be none for me,’ I growled.

Finan chuckled. ‘He’ll give you enough land for a grave, lord.’

‘And yet,’ the bishop was speaking a little louder now, which meant I could lean back against the wall, ‘the pagans still hold towns which were a part of our ancient kingdom. Our land is still fouled by their presence, and if we are to bequeath to our children the fields that our forefathers ploughed then we must gird our loins and expel the heathen just as Joshua drove out the sinners of Jericho!’ He paused, perhaps expecting to hear foot-stamping again, but the hall was quiet. He was suggesting we had to fight, which we did, but Bishop Wulfheard was no man to inspire others to the bloody business of facing a shield wall of snarling spear-Danes.

‘But we shall not fight alone,’ the bishop continued. ‘The Lord Æthelhelm has come from Wessex to assure us, indeed to promise us, that the forces of Wessex will fight beside us!’

That provoked applause. Someone else would do the fighting, it seemed, and men stamped their feet as Æthelhelm climbed the wooden steps to the dais. He smiled at the hall, a big man, easy in his authority. A gold chain glinted from his mail-clad breast. ‘I have no right to speak at this noble gathering,’ he said modestly, his rich voice filling the hall, ‘but with Lord Æthelred’s permission?’ He turned and Æthelred managed to nod.

‘My king,’ Æthelhelm said, ‘prays daily for the kingdom of Mercia. He prays that the pagans will be defeated. He thanks God for the victory you gained last year and, my lords, let us not forget that it was the Lord Uhtred who led that fight! Who suffered in that fight! Who trapped the heathen and delivered them to our swords!’

That was a surprise. There was not a man in the hall who did not know that I was an enemy to Æthelred, yet here, in Æthelred’s own hall, I was being praised? Men turned to look at me, then one or two started to stamp their feet and soon the great hall was filled with noise. Even Æthelred managed to rap the arm of his chair twice. Æthelhelm beamed and I kept a straight face, wondering what serpent was hidden in this unexpected flattery.

‘It is the pleasure of my king,’ Æthelhelm waited for the racket to subside, ‘to keep a large force in Lundene, which army will be ever ready to oppose the Danes who infest the eastern parts of our land.’ That was greeted by silence, though it was hardly a surprise. Lundene, the greatest town of Britain, was part of Mercia, but it had been under West Saxon rule for years now. What Æthelhelm meant, and was not quite making plain, was that the city would now formally become a part of Wessex, and the men in the hall understood that. They might not like it, but if that was the price of West Saxon help against the Danes then it was already paid and so was acceptable.

‘We shall keep that mighty army in the east,’ Æthelhelm said, ‘an army dedicated to the task of bringing East Anglia back to Saxon rule. And you, my lords, will keep an army here, in the west, and together we shall clear the heathen from our land! We shall fight together!’ He paused, staring around the hall, then repeated the last word. ‘Together!’

He stopped there. It was a very abrupt ending. He smiled at the bishop, smiled at the silent men on the benches beneath him, then stepped back down to the floor. ‘Together,’ he had said, by which he surely meant a forced marriage between Wessex and Mercia. The serpent, I thought, was about to be let loose.

Bishop Wulfheard had sat through Æthelhelm’s words, but now stood again. ‘It is necessary, lords,’ he said, ‘that we keep an army of Mercia that will free the northern part of our land of the last pagans and so spread the rule of Christ to every part of our ancient kingdom.’ Someone in the hall began to speak, though I could not catch the words, and the bishop interrupted him. ‘The new lands that we grant will pay for the warriors we need,’ he said sharply, and his words stilled any protest that might have been made. Doubtless the protest had been about the cost of keeping a permanent army. An army has to be fed, paid, armed, and supplied with horses, weapons, armour, shields and training, and the Witan had scented new taxes, but the bishop seemed to be suggesting that the captured Danish farmlands would pay for the army. And so they might, I thought, and it was not a bad idea either. We had defeated the Danes, driven them from great swathes of Mercian land, and it made sense to keep them running. That was what Æthelflaed was doing near Ceaster, but she was doing it without the support of her husband’s money or men.

‘And an army needs a leader,’ Bishop Wulfheard said.

The serpent was flickering its tongue now.

There was silence in the hall.

‘We have thought long about this,’ Wulfheard said piously, ‘and we have prayed too! We have laid the problem before Almighty God and he, in his omniscience, has suggested an answer.’

The serpent slithered into the light, small eyes glinting.

‘There are a dozen men in this hall,’ the bishop continued, ‘who could lead an army against the heathen, but to raise one man above the rest is to provoke jealousy. If the Lord Uhtred was well then there would be no other choice!’ You lying bastard, I thought. ‘And we all pray for the Lord Uhtred’s recovery,’ the bishop went on, ‘but until that happy day we need a man of proven ability, of fearless character, and of godly reputation.’