The Burning Land (35 page)

“Because they ride in small groups?”

“At least a dozen bands,” Ælfwold said, “maybe as many as twenty.”

“And how many men can we lead against them?” she asked the question of her husband, her voice respectful.

“Fifteen hundred,” he said surlily.

“We must have more warriors than that!” Æthelflæd said.

“Your father,” Æthelred said, and he could not resist saying those two words with derision, “insists we leave five hundred to protect Lundene.”

“I thought the Lundene garrison was West Saxon,” I put in, and I should have known because I had commanded that garrison for five years.

“Alfred has left three hundred men in Lundene,” Bishop Asser said, forcing cordiality into his voice, “and the rest have gone to Wintanceaster.”

“Why?”

“Because Haesten sent us a warning,” the bishop said bitterly. He paused, and his weasel face twitched uncontrollably, “that you and the northern jarls planned an attack on Wessex.” The hatred in his voice was unmistakable. “Is that true?”

I hesitated. I had not betrayed Ragnar’s plans because he was my
friend, which meant I had left the discovery of the Northumbrian attack to fate, but Haesten, it seemed, had already sent a warning. He had done it, clearly, to keep West Saxon troops out of Mercia, and it seemed the warning had been successful.

“Well?” Æthelred, aware of my discomfort, pressed the attack.

“The Northumbrian jarls have discussed an attack on Wessex,” I said weakly.

“Will it happen?” Asser wanted to know.

“Probably,” I said.

“Probably,” Bishop Asser sneered the word, “and what is your role, Lord Uhtred?” The derision with which he spoke my name had an edge as sharp as Serpent-Breath. “To mislead us? To betray us? To slaughter more Christians?” He stood again, sensing his advantage. “In Christ’s name,” he shouted, “I demand this man’s arrest!”

No one moved to take hold of me. Æthelred gestured at his two household warriors, but the gesture lacked conviction and neither man moved.

“The Lord Uhtred is here to protect me,” Æthelflæd broke the silence.

“You have a nation’s warriors to protect you,” Asser said, sweeping his arm to encompass the men sitting on the benches.

“What need I of a nation’s warriors,” Æthelflæd asked, “when I have Lord Uhtred?”

“The Lord Uhtred,” Asser said in his sharp voice, “cannot be trusted.”

“You’d listen to that Welsh piece of gristle,” I addressed the men on the benches. “A Welshman saying a Saxon can’t be trusted? How many men here have lost friends, sons, or brothers to Welsh treachery? If the Danes are Mercia’s worst enemy, then the Welsh are the next worst. We’re going to take lessons in loyalty from a Welshman?”

I heard Father Pyrlig mutter behind me, but again he spoke in Welsh. I suspect he was insulting me, but he knew well enough why I had spoken as I did. I was appealing to the deep-seated mistrust that all Mercians felt for the Welsh. Since the beginning of Mercia, deep in the lost times of our ancestors, the Welsh had raided Saxon
lands to steal cattle, women, and treasure. They called our land their “lost land,” and ever in Welsh hearts is a wish to drive the Saxons back across the sea, and so few men in Æthelred’s hall had any love for their ancestral enemies.

“The Welsh,” Asser shouted, “are Christians! And now is the time for all Christians to unite against the pagan filth that threatens our faith. Look!” His finger was pointing again. “The Lord Uhtred wears the symbol of Thor. He is an idolater, a heathen, an enemy of our dear Lord Jesus Christ!”

“He is my friend,” Æthelflæd said, “and I trust him with my life.”

“He is an idolater,” Asser repeated, evidently thinking that was the worst he could say of me. “He betrayed his sworn oath! He killed a saint! He is an enemy of all that we hold most dear, he is the…” His voice died away.

He had gone silent because I had climbed the dais and pushed him hard in the chest so that he was forced to sit down. Now I leaned on the chair’s arms and looked into his eyes. “You want martyrdom?” I asked. He took a deep breath to reply, then thought better of saying anything. I smiled into his furious face and patted his sallow cheek before turning back to the benches. “I am here to fight for the Lady Æthelflæd, and she is here to fight for Mercia. If any of you believe Mercia will suffer because of my help then I am sure she will relieve me of my oath and I will depart.”

No one seemed to want my departure. The men in the hall were embarrassed, but Ælfwold, who had already suffered from Haesten’s invasion, returned the discussion to its proper place. “We don’t have the men to face Haesten,” he said unhappily, “not without West Saxon help.”

“And that help is not coming,” I said, “isn’t that true, bishop?” Asser nodded. He was too angry to speak. “There will be an attack on Wessex,” I said, “and Alfred will need his army to meet that attack, so we must cope with Haesten on our own.”

“How?” Ælfwold asked. “Haesten’s men are everywhere and nowhere! We send an army to find them and they’ll just ride around us.”

“You retreat into your burhs,” I said. “Haesten isn’t equipped
to besiege fortified towns. The fyrd protects the burhs, and you take your cattle and silver behind those walls. Let Haesten burn as many villages as he likes, he can’t capture a properly defended burh.”

“So we just let him ravage Mercia while we cower behind walls?” Ælfwold asked.

“Of course not,” I said.

“Then what?” Æthelred asked.

I hesitated again. Haesten, by all reports, had chosen a new strategy. When Harald had invaded Wessex the year before he had brought a great army and with it he had brought an army’s baggage: the women and children and animals and slaves. But Haesten, if the urgent messages spoke true, had brought nothing but horsemen. He had brought his own men, the survivors of Harald’s army, and the Danish warriors of East Anglia to plunder Mercia and they were moving fast, covering miles of ground, burning and stealing as they went. If we marched against them they could slide out of our path or, if we found ourselves in treacherous ground, assemble to attack us. Yet if we did nothing then inevitably Mercia would be weakened so much that men would rather seek Danish protection. So we had to strike a blow that would weaken the Danes before they weakened us. We had to be daring.

“Well?” Asser demanded, thinking that my hesitation denoted uncertainty.

And still I hesitated because I did not think it could be done.

Yet I could not think what else we could do.

Everyone in that hall was watching me, some with unconcealed dislike, others with desperate hope. “Lord Uhtred?” Æthelflæd prompted me gently.

So I told them.

Nothing was simple. Æthelred argued that Haesten’s ambition was to capture Gleawecestre. “He’ll use it as a base to attack Wessex,” he argued, and reminded Bishop Asser how, many years be
fore, Guthrum had used Gleawecestre as the place to assemble the Danish army that had come closest to conquering Wessex. Asser agreed with the argument, probably because he wanted the thegns to reject my plan. In the end it was Æthelflæd who cut the argument short. “I go with Uhtred,” she said, “and those who wish can come with us.”

Æthelred would not accompany me. He had always disliked me, but now that dislike was pure hatred because I had rescued Æthelflaed from his spite. He wanted to defeat the Danes, but even more he wanted Alfred dead, Æthelflæd put aside, and his chair turned into a real throne. “I shall assemble the army in Gleawecestre,” he declared, “and thwart any attack on Wessex. That is my decision.” He looked at the men on the benches. “I expect you all to join me. I demand that you join me. We muster in four days!”

Æthelflæd gave me a quizzical glance. “Lundene,” I mouthed to her.

“I go to Lundene,” she said, “and those of you who wish to see a Mercia free of the heathens will join me there. In four days.”

If I had been Æthelred I would have scotched Æthelflæd’s defiance there and then. He had armed men in the hall while none of us wore a weapon, and a single command could have left me dead on the floor’s rushes. But he lacked the courage. He knew I had men outside the hall and perhaps he feared their vengeance. He quivered when I approached his chair, then looked up at me with nervous and sullen eyes. “Æthelflæd remains your wife,” I told him quietly, “but if she dies mysteriously, or if she sickens, or if I hear rumors of a spell cast against her, then I shall find you, cousin, and I shall suck the eyeballs out of your skull and spit them down your throat so you choke to death.” I smiled. “Send your men to Lundene and keep your country.”

He did not send men to Lundene, nor did most of the Mercian lords. They were frightened of my idea and they looked to Æthelred for patronage. He was the gold-giver in Mercia, while Æthelflæd was almost as poor as I was. So most of Mercia’s warriors went to Gleawecestre and Æthelred kept them there, waiting for an attack from Haesten that never came.

Haesten was plundering all across Mercia. In the next few days, as I waited at Lundene and listened to the reports brought by fugitives, I saw how the Danes were moving with lightning speed. They were capturing anything of value, whether it was an iron spit, a harness, or a child, and all that plunder was sent back to Beamfleot where Haesten had his stronghold above the Temes shore. He was amassing a treasure there, a treasure that could be sold in Frankia. His success brought more Danes to his side, men from across the sea who saw Mercia’s impending fall and wanted to share in the land that would be divided when the conquest was done. Haesten captured some towns, those that had not yet been turned into burhs, and the silver from their churches, convents, and monasteries flowed back to Beamfleot. Alfred did send men to Gleawecestre, but only a few, because rumors were now rife of a great Northumbrian fleet sailing southward. It was all chaos.

And I was helpless because, after four days, I led only eighty-three men. They were my own shrunken crew and those few Mercians who had come in response to Æthelflæd’s summons. Beornoth was one, though most of the men who had sided with me at Lecelad had stayed with Æthelred. “More would have come, lord,” Beornoth told me, “but they’re frightened of the ealdorman’s displeasure.”

“What would he do to them?”

“Take their homes, lord. How do they live, except on his generosity?”

“Yet you came,” I said.

“You gave me my life, lord,” he said.

My old house was now occupied by the garrison’s new commander, a dour West Saxon called Weohstan who had fought at Fearnhamme. When I had reached Lundene, arriving unexpectedly on a rainswept night, Bishop Erkenwald had ordered Weohstan to arrest me, but Weohstan had doggedly ignored the order. Instead he came to see me in the Mercian royal palace that occupied the old Roman governor’s mansion. “Are you here to fight the Danes, lord?” he asked me.

“He is,” Æthelflæd answered for me.

“Then I’m not sure I have enough men to arrest you,” Weohstan said.

“How many do you have?”

“Three hundred,” he said with a smile.

“Not nearly enough,” I assured him.

I told him what I planned and he looked skeptical. “I’ll help you if I can,” he promised, but there was doubt in his voice. He had lost almost all his teeth so his speech was a hissing slur. He was over thirty years old, bald as an egg, ruddy faced, short in stature, but broad in the shoulders. He had skill with weapons and a hard manner that made him an effective leader, but Weohstan was also cautious. I would have trusted him to defend a wall forever, but he was not a man to lead a bold attack. “You can help me now,” I told him that first day, and asked to borrow a ship.

He frowned as he considered the request, then decided he was not risking too much in granting it. “Bring it back, lord,” he said.

Bishop Erkenwald tried to stop me taking the ship downriver. He met me at the wharf beside my old house. Weohstan had tactfully found business elsewhere and though Erkenwald had brought his personal guard, those three men were no match for my crew. The bishop confronted me. “I govern Lundene,” he said, which was true, “and you must leave.”

“I am leaving.” I gestured at the waiting ship.

“Not in one of our ships!”

“Then stop me,” I said.

“Bishop,” Æthelflæd was with me and intervened.

“It is not a woman’s place to speak of men’s business!” Erkenwald turned on her.

Æthelflæd bridled. “I am…”

“Your place, lady, is with your husband!”

I took Erkenwald by the shoulders and steered him onto the terrace where Gisela and I had spent so many quiet evenings. Erkenwald, much smaller than me, tried to resist my arm, but he stayed still when I released him. The water foamed through the gaps in the
old Roman bridge, forcing me to raise my voice. “What do you know of Æthelred and Æthelflæd?” I asked.

“It is not for man to interfere in the sacrament of marriage,” he said dismissively.

“You’re not a fool, bishop,” I said.

He glared up at me with his dark eyes. “The blessed apostle Paul,” he said, “instructs wives to submit to their husbands. You would have me preach the opposite?”

“I would have you be sensible,” I said. “The Danes want to eradicate your religion. They see Wessex weakened by Alfred’s sickness. They would destroy Saxon power in Mercia, then move against Wessex. If they have their way, bishop, then within a few weeks some spear-Dane will be skewering your belly and you’ll be a martyr. Æthelflæd wants to stop that and I’m here to help her.”

To his credit Erkenwald did not accuse me of treachery. Instead he bristled. “Her husband also wishes to stop the Danes,” he said firmly.

“Her husband also wants to separate Mercia from Wessex,” I said. He did not say anything to that because he knew it was true. “So who do you trust to protect you from martyrdom?” I asked. “Æthelred or me?”

“God will protect me,” he said stubbornly.

“I shall only be here a few days,” I said, “and you can help me or hinder me. If you fight me, bishop, you make it more likely that the Danes will win.”

He looked across at Æthelflæd and a tremor showed on his thin face. He was smelling sin in our apparent alliance, but he was also thinking of the vision I had given him, a vision of a mail-coated Dane thrusting a blade into his belly. “Bring the ship back,” he said grudgingly, echoing Weohstan, then abruptly turned and walked away.