The Pale Horseman (19 page)

'You want her,' one-of the young men said, 'you'll have to wait.'

'I want her now,' I said.

'Then you can jump in the shit-pit,' he said. He was drunk. He had a wispy beard and
insolent eyes. 'You can jump in the shit-pit,' he said again, evidently liking the insult,
then pointed to Iseult,

'and I'll have her while you drown.'

I hit him, breaking his nose and spattering his face with blood, and while he gasped I
kicked him hard between the legs. He went down, whimpering, and I hit a second man in the
belly while Leofric loosed all his day's frustration in a savage attack on another. The
two who had been holding Eanflaed turned on us and one of them squealed when Eanflaed grabbed
his hair and hooked sharp fingernails into his eyes. Leofric's opponent was on the floor
and he stamped on the boy's throat and I headslapped my boy until I had him by the door, then I
thumped another in the ribs, rescued Eanflaed's victim and broke his jaw, then went back to
the lad who had threatened to rape Iseult. I ripped a silver loop from his ear, took off his
one arm ring and stole his pouch that clinked with coins. I dropped the silver into Eanflaed's
lap, then kicked the groaning man between the legs, did it again, and hauled him out into the
street.

'Go jump in a shit-pit,' I told him, then slammed the door. The other Danes, still drinking
on the tavern's far side, had watched the fight with amusement, and now gave us ironic
applause.

'Bastards,' Eanflaed said, evidently talking of the men we had driven away. 'I'm sore as
hell. What are you two doing here?'

'They think we're Danes,' I said.

'We need food,' Leofric said.

'They've had most of it,' Eanflaed said, jerking her head at the seated Danes, 'but there
might be something left in the back.' She tied her girdle. 'Edwulf's dead.' Edwulf had owned
the tavern. 'And thanks for helping me, you spavined bastards!' She shouted this at the
Danes, who did not understand her and just laughed at her, then she went towards the back room
to find us food, but one of the men held out a hand to stop her.

'Where are you going?' he asked her in Danish.

'She's going past you,' I called.

'I want ale,' he said, 'and you? Who are you?'

'I'm the man who's going to cut your throat if you stop her fetching food,' I said.

'Quiet, quiet!' an older man said, then frowned at me. 'Don't I know you?'

'I was with Guthrum at Readingum,' I said, 'and at Werham.'

'That must be it. He's done better this time, eh?'

'He's done better,' I agreed.

The man pointed at Iseult. 'Yours?'

'Not for sale.'

'Just asking, friend, just asking.'

Eanflaed brought us stale bread, cold pork, wrinkled apples and a rock-hard cheese in
which red worms writhed. The older man carried a pot of ale to our table, evidently as a
peace offering, and he sat and talked with me and I learned a little more of what was
happening. Guthrum had brought close to three thousand men to attack Cippanhamm. Guthrum
himself was now in Alfred's hall and half his men would stay in Cippanhamm as a garrison
while the rest planned to ride either south or west in the morning.

'Keep the bastards on the run, eh?' the man said, then frowned at Leofric. 'He doesn't say
much.'

'He's dumb,' I said.

'I knew a man who had a dumb wife. He was ever so happy.'

He looked jealously at my arm rings. 'So who do you serve?'

'Svein of the White Horse.'

'Svein? He wasn't at Readingum. Or at Werham.'

'He was in Dyflin,' I said, 'but I was with Ragnar the Older then.'

'Ah, Ragnar! Poor bastard.'

'I suppose his son's dead now?' I asked.

'What else?' the man said. 'Hostages, poor bastards.' He thought for a heartbeat then
frowned again. 'What's Svein doing here? I thought he was coming by ship?'

'He is,' I said. 'We're just here to talk to Guthrum.'

'Svein sends a dumb man to talk to Guthrum?'

'He sent me to talk,' I said, 'and sent him,' I jerked a thumb at the glowering Leofric,
'to kill people who ask too many questions.'

'All right, all right!’ The man held up a hand to ward off my belligerence.

We slept in the stable loft, warmed by straw, and we left before dawn, and at that moment
fifty West Saxons could have retaken Cippanhamm for the Danes were drunk, sleeping, and
oblivious to the world. Leofric stole a sword, axe and shield from a man snoring in the
tavern, then we walked unchallenged out of the western gate. In a field outside we found
over a hundred horses, guarded by two men sleeping in a thatched hut, and we could have
taken all the beasts, but we had no saddles or bridles and so, reluctantly, I knew we must
walk. There were four of us now, because Eanflaed had decided to come with us. She had
swathed Iseult in two big cloaks, but the British girl was still shivering.

We walked west and south along a road that twisted through small hills. We were heading for
Babum, and from there I could strike south towards Defnascir and my son, but it was clear the
Danes were already ahead of us. Some must have ridden this way the previous day for in the
first village we reached there were no cocks crowing, no sound at all, and what I had taken
for a morning mist was smoke from burned cottages. Heavier smoke showed ahead, suggesting
the Danes might already have reached Babum, a town they knew well for they had negotiated
one of their truces there. Then, that afternoon, a horde of mounted Danes appeared on the
road behind us and we were driven west into the hills to find a hiding place.

We wandered for a week. We found shelter in hovels. Some were deserted while others
still had frightened folk, but every short winter's day was smeared with smoke as the Danes
ravaged Wessex. One day we discovered a cow, trapped in its byre in an otherwise deserted
homestead. The cow was with calf and bellowing with hunger, and that night we feasted on
fresh meat. Next day we could not move for it was bitterly cold and a slanting rain slashed on
an east wind and the trees thrashed as if in agony and the building that gave us shelter leaked
and the fire choked us and Iseult just sat, eyes wide and empty, staring into the small
flames.

'You want to go back to Cornwalum?' I asked her.

She seemed surprised I had spoken. It took her a few heartbeats to gather her thoughts,
then she shrugged. 'What is there for me?'

'Home,' Eanflaed said.

'Uhtred is home for me.'

'Uhtred is married,' Eanflaed said harshly.

Iseult ignored that. 'Uhtred will lead men,' she said, rocking back and forth, 'hundreds of
men. A bright horde. I want to see that.'

'He'll lead you into temptation, that's all he'll do,' Eanflaed said. 'Go home, girl, say
your prayers and hope the Danes don't come.'

We kept trying to go southwards and we made some small progress every day, but the bitter
days were short and the Danes seemed to be everywhere. Even when we travelled across
countryside far from any track or path, there would be a patrol of Danes in the distance, and
to avoid them we were constantly driven west. To our east was the Roman road that ran from
Babum and eventually to Exanceaster, the main thoroughfare in this part of Wessex, and I
supposed the Danes were using it and sending patrols out to either side of the road, and it
was those patrols that drove us ever nearer the Saefern Sea, but there could be no safety
there, for Svein would surely have come from Wales.

I also supposed that Wessex had finally fallen. We met a few folk, fugitives from their
villages and hiding in the woods, but none had any news, only rumour. No one had seen any
West Saxon soldiers, no one had heard about Alfred, they only saw Danes and the
ever-present smoke. From time to time we would come across a ravaged village or a burned
church. We would see ragged ravens flapping black and follow them to find rotting bodies. We
were lost and any hope I had of reaching Oxton was long gone, and I assumed Mildrith had fled
west into the hills as the folk around the Uisc always did when the Danes came. I hoped she was
alive, 1 hoped my son lived, but what future he had was as dark as the long winter nights.

'Maybe we should make our peace,' I suggested to Leofric one night. We were in a
shepherd's hut, crouched around a small fire that filled the low turf-roofed building with
smoke. We had roasted a dozen mutton ribs cut from a sheep's half-eaten corpse. We were all
filthy, damp and cold. 'Maybe we should find the Danes,' I said, 'and swear allegiance.'

'And be made slaves?' Leofric answered bitterly.

'We'll be warriors,' I said.

'Fighting for a Dane?' He poked the fire, throwing up a new burst of smoke. 'They can't have
taken all Wessex,' he protested.

'Why not?'

'It's too big. There have to be some men fighting back. We just have to find them.'

I thought back to the long ago arguments in Lundene. Back then I had been a child with the
Danes, and their leaders had argued that the best way to take Wessex was to attack its
western heartland and there break its power. Others had wanted to start the assault by
taking the old kingdom of Kent, the weakest part of Wessex and the part which contained the
great shrine of Contwaraburg, but the boldest argument had won. They had attacked in the
west and that first assault had failed, but now Guthrum had succeeded. Yet how far had he
succeeded? Was Kent still Saxon? Defnascir?

'And what happens to Mildrith if you join the Danes?' Leofric asked.

'She'll have hidden,' I spoke dully and there was a silence, but I saw Eanflaed was
offended and I hoped she would hold her tongue.

She did not. 'Do you care?' she challenged me.

'I care,' I said.

Eanflaed scorned that answer. 'Grown dull, has she?'

'Of course he cares,' Leofric tried to be a peacemaker.

'She's a wife,' Eanflaed retorted, still looking at me. They tire of wives,' she went on
and Iseult listened, her big dark eyes going from me to Eanflaed.

'What do you know of wives?' I asked.

'I was married,' Eanflaed said.

'You were?' Leofric asked, surprised.

'I was married for three years,' Eanflaed said, 'to a man who was in Wulfhere's guard. He
gave me two children, then died in the battle that killed King Æthelred.'

'Two children?' Iseult asked.

'They died,' Eanflaed said harshly. 'That's what children do. They die.'

'You were happy with him?' Leofric asked, 'your husband?'

'For about three days,' she said, 'and in the next three years I learned that men are
bastards.'

'All of then?' Leofric asked.

'Most.' She smiled at Leofric, then touched his knee. 'Not you.'

'And me?' I asked.

'You?' She looked at me for a heartbeat. 'I wouldn't trust you as far as I could spit,' she
said, and there was real venom in her voice, leaving Leofric embarrassed and me surprised.
There comes a moment in life when we see ourselves as others see us. I suppose that is part
of growing up, and it is not always comfortable.

Eanflaed, at that moment, regretted speaking so harshly for she tried to soften it. 'I
don't know you,'

she said, 'except you're Leofric's friend.'

'Uhtred is generous,' Iseult said loyally.

They are usually generous when they want something,' Eanflaed retorted.

'I want Bebbanburg,' I said.

'Whatever that is,' Eanflaed said, and to get it you'd do anything. Anything.'

There was silence. I saw a snowflake show at the half-covered door. It fluttered into the
firelight and melted.

'Alfred's a good man,' Leofric broke the awkward silence.

'He tries to be good,' Eanflaed said.

'Only tries?' I asked sarcastically.

'He's like you,' she said. 'He'd kill to get what he wants, but there is a difference. He
has a conscience.'

'He's frightened of the priests, you mean.'

'He's frightened of God. And we should all be that. Because one day we'll answer to
God.'

'Not me,' I said.

Eanflaed sneered at that, but Leofric changed the conversation by saying it was
snowing, and after a while we slept. Iseult clung to me in her sleep and she whimpered and
twitched as I lay awake, half dreaming, thinking of her words that I would lead a bright horde.
It seemed an unlikely prophecy, indeed I reckoned her powers must have gone with her
virginity, and then I slept too, waking to a world made white. The twigs and branches were
edged with snow, but it was already melting, dripping into a misty dawn. When I went outside
I found a tiny dead wren just beyond the door and I feared it was a grim omen.

Leofric emerged from the hut, blinking at the dawn's brilliance.

'Don't mind Eanflaed,' he said.

'I don't.'

'Her world's come to an end.'

'Then we must remake it,' I said.

'Does that mean you won't join the Danes?'

'I'm a Saxon,' I said.

Leofric half smiled at that. He undid his breeches and had a piss. 'If your friend Ragnar
was alive,'

he asked, watching the steam rise from his urine, 'would you still be a Saxon?'

'He's dead, isn't he?' I said bleakly, 'sacrificed to Guthrum's ambition.'

'So now you're a Saxon?'

'I'm a Saxon,' I said again, sounding more certain than I felt, for I did not know what the
future held. How can we? Perhaps Iseult had told the truth and Alfred would give me power and
I would lead a shining horde and have a woman of gold, but I was beginning to doubt Iseult's
powers. Alfred might already be dead and his kingdom was doomed, and all I knew at that
moment was that the land stretched away south to a snow-covered ridge line, and there it
ended in a strange empty brightness. The skyline looked like the world's rim, poised above an
abyss of pearly light.

'We'll keep going south,' I said. There was nothing else to do except walk towards the
brightness.

We did. We followed a sheep track to the ridge top and there I saw that the hills fell
steeply away, dropping to the vast marshes of the sea. We had come to the great swamp, and the
brightness I had seen was the winter light reflecting from the long meres and winding
creeks.