The Last Kingdom Series Books 4-6: Sword Song, The Burning Land, Death of Kings

‘Yes,’ I said.

‘You know who that boy is?’

‘He’s the king’s bastard,’ I said brutally, ‘and I’ve just done Alfred a favour.’

‘You have?’ Beocca asked, still bristling, ‘and what kind of favour, pray?’

‘How long do you think he’ll last,’ I asked, ‘when I put him in the shield wall? How long before a Danish blade slits him like a wet herring? That, father, is the favour. I’ve just rid your pious king of his inconvenient bastard.’

We went to the feast.

The wedding feast was as ghastly as I expected. Alfred’s food was never good, rarely plentiful and his ale was always weak. Speeches were made, though I heard none, and harpists sang, though I could not hear them. I talked with friends, scowled at various priests who disliked my hammer amulet, and climbed the dais to the top table to give Æthelflaed a chaste kiss. She was all happiness. ‘I’m the luckiest girl in all the world,’ she told me.

‘You’re a woman now,’ I said, smiling at her upswept woman’s hair.

She bit her lower lip, looked shy, then grinned mischievously as Gisela approached. They embraced, golden hair against the dark, and Ælswith, Alfred’s sour wife, glowered at me. I bowed low. ‘A happy day, my lady,’ I said.

Ælswith ignored that. She was sitting beside my cousin, who gestured at me with a pork rib. ‘You and I have business to discuss,’ he said.

‘We do,’ I said.

‘We do, lord,’ Ælswith corrected me sharply. ‘Lord Æthelred is the Ealdorman of Mercia.’

‘And I’m the Lord of Bebbanburg,’ I said with an asperity that matched hers. ‘How are you, cousin?’

‘In the morning,’ Æthelred said, ‘I shall tell you our plans.’

‘I was told,’ I said, ignoring the truth that Alfred had asked me to devise the plans for the capture of Lundene, ‘that we were to meet the king tonight?’

‘I have other matters for my attention tonight,’ Æthelred said, looking at his young bride, and for an eyeblink his expression was feral, almost savage, then he offered me a smile. ‘In the morning, after prayers.’ He waved the pork rib again, dismissing me.

Gisela and I lay in the principal chamber of the Two Cranes tavern that night. We lay close, my arm around her, and we said little. Smoke from the tavern hearth sifted up through the loose floorboards and men were singing beneath us. Our children slept across the room with Stiorra’s nurse, while mice rustled in the thatch above. ‘About now, I suppose,’ Gisela said wistfully, breaking our silence.

‘Now?’

‘Poor little Æthelflaed is becoming a woman,’ she said.

‘She can’t wait for that to happen,’ I said.

Gisela shook her head. ‘He’ll rape her like a boar,’ she said, whispering the words. I said nothing. Gisela put her head on my chest so that her hair was across my mouth. ‘Love should be tender,’ she went on.

‘It is tender,’ I said.

‘With you, yes,’ she said, and for a moment I thought she was crying.

I stroked her hair. ‘What is it?’

‘I like her, that is all.’

‘Æthelflaed?’

‘She has spirit and he has none.’ She tilted her face to look at me and in the darkness I could just see the glint of her eyes. ‘You never told me,’ she said reprovingly, ‘that the Two Cranes is a brothel.’

‘There are not many beds in Wintanceaster,’ I said, ‘and not nearly enough for all the invited guests, so we were very lucky to find this room.’

‘And they know you very well here, Uhtred,’ she said accusingly.

‘It’s a tavern as well,’ I said defensively.

She laughed, then reached out a long thin arm and pushed a shutter open to find the heavens were bright with stars.

The sky was still clear next morning when I went to the palace, surrendered my two swords and was ushered by a young and very serious priest to Alfred’s room. I had met him so often in that small, bare chamber that was cluttered with parchments. He was waiting there, dressed in the brown robe that made him look like a monk, and with him was Æthelred who wore his swords because, as Ealdorman of Mercia, he had been granted that privilege within the palace. A third man was in the room, Asser the Welsh monk, who glared at me with undisguised loathing. He was a slight, short man with a very pale face that was scrupulously clean-shaven. He had good cause to hate me. I had met him in Cornwalum where I had led a slaughter of the kingdom where he was an emissary and I had tried to kill Asser too, a failure I have regretted all my life. He scowled at me and I rewarded him with a cheerful grin that I knew would annoy him.

Alfred did not look up from his work, but gestured at me with his quill. The gesture was evidently a welcome. He was standing at the upright desk he used for writing and for a moment all I could hear was the quill spluttering scratchily on the skin. Æthelred smirked, looking pleased with himself, but then he always did.

‘De consolatione philosophiae,’ Alfred said without looking up from his work.

‘Feels as if rain is coming, though,’ I said, ‘there’s a haze in the west, lord, and the wind is brisk.’

He gave me an exasperated look. ‘What is preferable,’ he asked, ‘and sweeter in this life than to serve and to be near to the king?’

‘Nothing!’ Æthelred said enthusiastically.

I made no answer because I was so astonished. Alfred liked the formalities of good manners, but he rarely wanted obsequiousness, yet the question suggested that he wished me to express some doltish adoration of him. Alfred saw my surprise and sighed. ‘It is a question,’ he explained, ‘posed in the work I am copying.’

‘I look forward to reading it,’ Æthelred said. Asser said nothing, just watched me with his dark Welsh eyes. He was a clever man, and about as trustworthy as a spavined weasel.

Alfred laid down the quill. ‘The king, in this context, Lord Uhtred, might be thought of as the representative of Almighty God, and the question suggests, does it not, the comfort to be gained from a nearness to God? Yet I fear you find no consolation in either philosophy or religion.’ He shook his head, then tried to wipe the ink from his hands with a damp cloth.

‘He had better find consolation from God, lord King,’ Asser spoke for the first time, ‘if his soul is not to burn in the eternal fire.’

‘Amen,’ Æthelred said.

Alfred looked ruefully at his hands that were now smeared with ink. ‘Lundene,’ he said, curtly changing the subject.

‘Garrisoned by brigands,’ I said, ‘who are killing trade.’

‘That much I know,’ he said icily. ‘The man Sigefrid.’

‘One-thumbed Sigefrid,’ I said, ‘thanks to Father Pyrlig.’

‘That I also know,’ the king said, ‘but I would dearly like to know what you were doing in Sigefrid’s company?’

‘Spying on them, lord,’ I said brightly, ‘just as you spied on Guthrum so many years ago.’ I referred to a winter night when, like a fool, Alfred had disguised himself as a musician and gone to Cippanhamm when it was occupied by Guthrum in the days when he was an enemy of Wessex. Alfred’s bravery had gone badly wrong, and if I had not been there then I dare say Guthrum would have become King of Wessex. I smiled at Alfred, and he knew I was reminding him that I had saved his life, but instead of showing gratitude he just looked disgusted.

‘It is not what we heard,’ Brother Asser went onto the attack.

‘And what did you hear, brother?’ I asked him.