The Pale Horseman (22 page)

'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 for ever, 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.

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 Eanflaed was present.

'Eanflaed?' 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 marsh men. 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 marsh men 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 Mercian’s 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 axe. 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 marsh men.

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 travelled 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 Æthelingaeg 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 Æthelingaeg 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 Æthelingaeg, 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
Æthelingaeg, he could turn south onto the River Thon which flowed past the island. I took the
punt into the centre of the Thon and discovered, as I had feared, that it was more than deep
enough to float the Danes 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 up river.

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
greying beard was flecked by fish scales. He had small cunning eyes in an old cunning face,
and he also had a halfdozen 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 marsh men 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.