The Pale Horseman (12 page)

The monks were made to wade in the river until some bones were found, and those bones were
placed on a funeral pyre made from the timbers of the half-constructed buildings. It
was, by all accounts, a huge pyre, and when it was lit, and when the bones were at the heart
of a furnace blaze, the monks were thrown onto the flames. While their bodies burned the
Danes selected two girls, captured from the soldiers' shelters, raped them and then
strangled them, sending their souls to be company for Ubba in Valhalla.

We heard all this from two children who survived by hiding in a nettle patch, and some
folk from the nearby town who were dragged to see the end of the funeral pyre. “Svein of the
White Horse did this,” they were told, and made to repeat the words. It was a Danish custom
to leave some witnesses to their horror, so that the tales would spread fear and make
cowards of other folk who might be attacked, and sure enough the story of the burned monks
and murdered girls went through Wessex like a high wind through dry grass. It became
exaggerated as such tales do. The number of dead monks went from sixteen to sixty, the
raped girls from two to twenty, and the stolen silver from a chest of pennies to a hoard
worthy of the gods.

Alfred sent a message to Guthrum, demanding to know why he should not slaughter the
hostages he held, and Guthrum sent him a present of gold, two captured gospel books and a
grovelling letter in which he claimed that the two ships had not been from his forces, but
were pirates from beyond the sea. Alfred believed him and so the hostages lived and the
peace prevailed, but Alfred commanded that a curse should be pronounced on Svein in every
church of Wessex. The Danish chieftain was to be damned through all eternity, his men were
to burn in the fires of hell and his children, and his children's children, were all to bear
the mark of Cain. I asked a priest what the mark was, and he explained that Cain was the son
of Adam and Eve and the first murderer, but he did not know what mark he had carried. He
thought God would recognise it.

So Svein's two ships sailed away, leaving a pillar of smoke on the Wessex shore, and I
knew none of it. In time I would know all of it, but for now I was going home.

We went slowly, sheltering each night, retracing our steps that took us past the
blackened hillside where Peredur's settlement had stood, and on we went, under a
summer's sun and rain, until we had returned to the Uisc.

The Heahengel was afloat now and her mast was stepped, which meant Leofric could take her
and the Eftwyrd, for the Fyrdraca was no more, back to Hamtun. We divided the plunder
first and, though Leofric and I took the greater share, every man went away wealthy.

I was left with Haesten and Iseult, and I took them up to Oxton where Mildrith wept with
relief because she had thought I might be dead. I told her we had been patrolling the coast,
which was true enough, and that we had captured a Danish ship laden with wealth, and I
spilled the coins and gold bricks onto the floor and gave her a bracelet of amber and a
necklace of jet, and the gifts distracted her from Iseult who watched her with wide, dark
eyes, and if Mildrith saw the British girl's jewellery she said nothing.

We had come back in time for the harvest, though it was poor for there had been much rain
that summer. There was a black growth on the rye which meant it could not even be fed to the
animals, though the straw was good enough to thatch the hall I built. I have always enjoyed
building. I made the hall from clay, gravel and straw, all packed together to make thick
walls. Oak beams straddled the walls, and oak rafters held a high, long roof that looked
golden when the thatch was first combed into place. The walls were painted with powdered
lime in water, and one of the local men poured ox-blood into the mix so that the walls were
the colour of a summer sky at sunset. The hall's great door faced east towards the Uisc and
I paid a man from Exanceaster to carve the doorposts and lintels with writhing wolves, for
the banner of Bebbanburg, my banner, is a wolf's head. Mildrith wanted the carving to
show saints, but she got wolves. I paid the builders well, and when other men heard that I had
silver they came looking for employment, and though they were there to build my hall I took
only those who had experience of fighting. I equipped them with spades, axes, adzes,
weapons and shields.

'You are making an army,' Mildrith accused me. Her relief at my homecoming had soured
quickly when it was apparent that I was no more a Christian than when I had left her.

'Seventeen men? An army?'

'We are at peace,' she said.

She believed that because the priests preached it, and the priests only said what they
were told to say by the bishops, and the bishops took their orders from Alfred. A
travelling priest sought shelter with us one night and he insisted that the war with the
Danes was over.

'We still have Danes on the border,' I said.

'God has calmed their hearts,' the priest insisted and told me that God had killed the
Lothbrokson brothers, Ubba, Ivar and Halfdan, and that the rest of the Danes were so
shocked by the deaths that they no longer dared to fight against Christians. 'It is true,
lord,' the priest said earnestly, "I heard it preached in Cippanhamm, and the king was there
and he praised God for the truth of it. We are to beat our swords into and points and our
spear blades into reaping hooks.'

I laughed at the thought of melting Serpent-Breath into a tool to plough Oxton's
fields, but then I did not believe the priest's nonsense. The Danes were biding their time,
that was all, yet it did seem peaceful as the summer slid imperceptibly into autumn. No
enemies crossed the frontier of Wessex and no ships harried our coasts. We threshed the
corn, netted partridges, hunted deer on the hill, staked nets in the river and practised
with our weapons. The women span thread, gathered nuts, and picked mushrooms and
blackberries. There were apples and pears, for this was the time of plenty, the time when
the livestock was fattened before the winter slaughter. We ate like kings and, when my
hall was finished, I gave a feast and Mildrith saw the ox head over the door and knew it was
an offering to Thor, but said nothing.

Mildrith hated Iseult, which was hardly surprising, for I had told Mildrith that Iseult
was a queen of the Britons and that I held her for the ransom that the Britons would offer. I
knew no such ransom would ever come, but the story went some way to explaining Iseult's
presence, but Mildrith resented that the British girl was given her own house.

'She is a queen,' I said.

'You take her hunting,' Mildrith said resentfully.

I did more than that, but Mildrith chose to be blind to much of it. Mildrith wanted little
more than her church, her baby and an unvarying routine. She had charge of the women who
milked the cows, churned the butter, span wool and collected honey, and she took immense
pride that those things were done well. If a neighbour visited there would be a flurry of
panic as the hall was cleaned, and she worried much about those neighbours' opinions.

She wanted me to pay Oswald's wergild; it did not matter to Mildrith that the man had
been caught thieving, because to pay the wergild would make peace in the valley of the Uisc.
She even wanted me to visit Odda the Younger.

'You could be friends,' she pleaded.

'With that snake?'

'And Wirken says you have not paid the tithe.'

Wirken was the priest in Exanmynster, and I hated him.

'He eats and drinks the tithe,' I snarled.

The tithe was the payment all landholders were supposed to make to the church, and by
rights I should have sent Wirken part of my harvest, but I had not. Yet the priest was often
at Oxton, coming when he thought I was hunting, and he ate my food and drank my ale and was
growing fat on them.

'He comes to pray with us,' Mildrith said.

'He comes to eat,' I said.

'And he says the bishop will take the land if we don't pay the debt.'

'The debt will be paid,' 1 said.

'When? We have the money!' She gestured at the new hall. 'When?' she insisted,

'When I want to,' I snarled. I did not tell her when, or how, because if I had, then Wirken
the priest would know, and the bishop would know. It was not enough to pay the debt.
Mildrith's father had foolishly donated part of our land's future produce to the church,
and I wanted that burden taken away so the debt would not go on through eternity, and to
do that I needed to surprise the bishop, and so I kept Mildrith ignorant, and inevitably
those arguments would end with her tears. I was bored with her and she knew it. I found her
beating Iseult's maid one day. The girl was a Saxon I had given to Iseult as a servant, but
she also worked in the dairy and Mildrith was beating her because some cheeses had not been
turned. I dragged Mildrith away, and that, of course, provoked another argument and
Mildrith proved not to be so blind after all for she accused me of trying to whelp bastards
on Iseult, which was true enough, but I reminded her that her own father had sired enough
bastards, half a dozen of whom now worked for us.

'You leave Iseult and her maid alone,' I said, causing more tears. They were not happy
days.

It was the time when Iseult learned to speak English, or at least the Northumbrian
version of English for she learned it mostly from me. 'You're my men,' she said. I was
Mildrith's man and Iseult's men. She said she had been born again on the day I came into
Peredur's hall. 'I had dreamed of you,'

she said, 'tall and golden haired.'

'Now you don't dream?' I asked, knowing that her powers of scrying came from dreams.

'I do still dream,' she said earnestly, 'my brother speaks to me.'

'Your brother?' I asked, surprised.

'I was born a twin,' she told me, 'and my brother came first and then, as I was born, he
died. He went to the shadow world and he speaks to me of what he sees there.'

'What does he see?'

'He sees your king.'

'Alfred,' I said sourly, 'is that good or bad?'

'I don't know. The dreams are shadowy.'

She was no Christian. Instead she believed that every place and every thing had its own
god or goddess; a nymph for a stream, a dryad for a wood, a spirit for a tree, a god for the
fire and another for the sea. The Christian god, like Thor or Odin, was just one more deity
among this unseen throng of powers, and her dreams, she said, were like eavesdropping on
the gods. One day, as she rode beside me on the hills above the empty sea, she suddenly
said that Alfred would give me power.

'He hates me,' I told her, 'he'll give me nothing.'

'He will give you power,' she said flatly. I stared at her and she gazed to where the
clouds met the waves. Her black hair was unbound and the sea wind stirred it. 'My brother
told me,' she said. 'Alfred will give you power and you will take back your northern home
and your woman will be a creature of gold.'

'My woman?'

She looked at me and there was sadness in her face. 'There,' she said, 'now you know,' and
she kicked back her heels and made the horse run along the ridge top, her hair streaming, her
eyes wet with tears. I wanted to know more, but she said she had told me what she had dreamed
and I must be content.

At summer's end we drove the swine into the forests to feed on the fallen beechnuts and
acorns. I bought bags of salt because the killing time was coming and the meat of our pigs
and cattle would have to be salted into barrels to feed us through the winter. Some of
that food would come from the men who rented land at the edge of the estate, and I visited
them all so they would know I expected payment of wheat, barley and livestock, and, to
show them what would happen if they tried to cheat me, I bought a dozen good swords from a
smith in Exanceaster. I gave the swords to my men, and in the shortening days we practised
with them.

Mildrith might not believe war was coming, but I did not think God had changed Danish
hearts.

The late autumn brought heavy rain and the shire-reeve to Oxton. The reeve was called
Harald and he was charged with keeping the peace of Defnascir, and he came on horseback and
with him were six other horsemen, all in mail coats and helmets, and all with swords or
spears. I waited for him in the hall, making him dismount and come into the smoky shadows.
He came cautiously, expecting an ambush, then his eyes became accustomed to the gloom
and he saw me standing by the central hearth.

'You are summoned to the shire court,' he told me.

His men had followed Harald into the hall. 'You bring swords into my house?' I
asked.

Harald looked around the hall and he saw my men armed with their spears and axes. I had
seen the horsemen approaching and summoned my men and ordered them to arm themselves.

Harald had the reputation of being a decent man, sensible and fair, and he knew how
weapons in a hall could lead to slaughter. 'You will wait outside,' he told his men, and I
gestured for my men to put their weapons down.

'You are summoned …' Harald began again.

'I heard you,' I said.

'There is a debt to be paid,' he said, 'and a man's death to make good.'

I said nothing. One of my hounds growled softly and I put a hand into its fur to silence
it.

'The court will meet on All Saints' Day,' Harald said, 'at the cathedral.'

'I shall be there,' I said.

He took off his helmet to reveal a balding pate fringed with brown hair. He was at least
ten years older than I, a big man, with two fingers missing from his shield hand. He limped
slightly as he walked towards me. I calmed the hounds, waited.

'I was at Cynuit,' he said to me, speaking softly.

'So was I,' I said, 'though men pretend I was not.'

'I know what you did,' he said.

'So do I.'

He ignored my surliness. He was showing me sympathy, though I was too proud to show I
appreciated it. 'The ealdorman has sent men,' he warned me, 'to take this place once
judgment is given.'