The Last Kingdom Series Books 1-6

‘You must belong to Wessex,’ he said, then smiled as though he did me a favour. ‘There is an orphan in Defnascir,’ he went on, and here it came, ‘a girl, who I would see married.’

I said nothing. What is the point of protesting when the executioner’s sword is in mid swing?

‘Her name is Mildrith,’ he went on, ‘and she is dear to me. A pious girl, modest and faithful. Her father was reeve to Ealdorman Odda, and she will bring land to her husband, good land, and I would have a good man hold that good land.’

I offered a smile that I hoped was not too sickly. ‘He would be a fortunate man, lord,’ I said, ‘to marry a girl who is dear to you.’

‘So go to her,’ he commanded me, ‘and marry her,’ the sword struck, ‘and then I shall name you commander of the fleet.’

‘Yes, lord,’ I said.

Leofric, of course, laughed like a demented jackdaw. ‘He’s no fool, is he?’ he said when he had recovered. ‘He’s making you into a West Saxon. So what do you know about this Miltewærc.’ Miltewærc is a pain in the spleen.

‘Mildrith,’ I said, ‘and she’s pious.’

‘Of course she’s pious. He wouldn’t want you to marry her if she was a leg-spreader.’

‘She’s an orphan,’ I said, ‘and aged about sixteen or seventeen.’

‘Christ! That old? She must be an ugly sow! But poor thing, she must be wearing out her knees praying to be spared a rutting from an earsling like you. But that’s her fate! So let’s get you married, then we can kill some Danes.’

It was winter. We had spent the Christmas feast at Cippanhamm, and that was no Yule, and now we rode south through frost and rain and wind. Father Willibald accompanied us, for he was still priest to the fleet, and my plan was to reach Defnascir, do what was grimly necessary, and then ride straight to Hamtun to make certain the winter work on the twelve boats was being done properly. It is in winter that ships are caulked, scraped, cleaned, and made tight for the spring, and the thought of ships made me dream of the Danes, and of Brida, and I wondered where she was, what she did, and whether we would meet again. And I thought of Ragnar. Had he found Thyra? Did Kjartan live? Theirs was another world now, and I knew I drifted away from it and was being entangled in the threads of Alfred’s tidy life. He was trying to make me into a West Saxon, and he was half succeeding. I was sworn now to fight for Wessex and it seemed I must marry into it, but I still clung to that ancient dream of retaking Bebbanburg.

I loved Bebbanburg and I almost loved Defnascir as much. When the world was made by Thor from the carcass of Ymir he did well when he fashioned Defnascir and its shire next door, Thornsæta. Both were beautiful lands of soft hills and quick streams, of rich fields and thick soil, of high heaths and good harbours. A man could live well in either shire, and I could have been happy in Defnascir had I not loved Bebbanburg more. We rode down the valley of the River Uisc, through well-tended fields of red earth, past plump villages and high halls until we came to Exanceaster which was the shire’s chief town. It had been made by the Romans who had built a fortress on a hill above the Uisc and surrounded it with a wall of flint, stone and brick, and the wall was still there and guards challenged us as we reached the northern gate.

‘We come to see Ealdorman Odda,’ Willibald said.

‘On whose business?’

‘The king’s,’ Willibald said proudly, flourishing a letter that bore Alfred’s seal, though I doubt the guards would have recognised it, but they seemed properly impressed and let us through into a town of decaying Roman buildings amidst which a timber church reared tall next to Ealdorman Odda’s hall.

The Ealdorman made us wait, but at last he came with his son and a dozen retainers, and one of his priests read the king’s letter aloud. It was Alfred’s pleasure that Mildrith should be married to his loyal servant, the Ealdorman Uhtred, and Odda was commanded to arrange the ceremony with as little delay as possible. Odda was not pleased at the news. He was an elderly man, at least forty years old, with grey hair and a face made grotesque by bulbous wens. His son, Odda the Younger, was even less pleased, for he scowled at the news. ‘It isn’t seemly, father,’ he complained.

‘It is the king’s wish.’

‘But …’

‘It is the king’s wish!’

Odda the Younger fell silent. He was about my age, almost nineteen, good-looking, black-haired, and elegant in a black tunic that was as clean as a woman’s dress and edged with gold thread. A golden crucifix hung at his neck. He gave me a grim look, and I must have appeared travel-stained and ragged to him, and after inspecting me and finding me about as appealing as a wet mongrel, he turned on his heel and stalked from the hall.

‘Tomorrow morning,’ Odda announced unhappily, ‘the bishop can marry you. But you must pay the bride price first.’

‘The bride price?’ I asked. Alfred had mentioned no such thing, though of course it was customary.

‘Thirty-three shillings,’ Odda said flatly, and with the hint of a smirk.

Thirty-three shillings was a fortune. A hoard. The price of a good war horse or a ship. It took me aback and I heard Leofric give a gasp behind me. ‘Is that what Alfred says?’ I demanded.

‘It is what I say,’ Odda said, ‘for Mildrith is my goddaughter.’

No wonder he smirked. The price was huge and he doubted I could pay it, and if I could not pay it then the girl was not mine and, though Odda did not know it, the fleet would not be mine either. Nor, of course, was the price merely thirty-three shillings, or 396 silver pence, it was double that, for it was also customary for a husband to give his new wife an equivalent sum after the marriage was consummated. That second gift was none of Odda’s business and I doubted very much whether I would want to pay it, just as Ealdorman Odda was now certain, from my hesitation, that I would not be paying him the bride price without which there could be no marriage contract.

‘I can meet the lady?’ I asked.

‘You may meet her at the ceremony tomorrow morning,’ Odda said firmly, ‘but only if you pay the bride price. Otherwise, no.’

He looked disappointed as I opened my pouch and gave him one gold coin and thirty-six silver pennies. He looked even more disappointed when he saw that was not all the coin I possessed, but he was trapped now. ‘You may meet her,’ he told me, ‘in the cathedral tomorrow.’

‘Why not now?’ I asked.

‘Because she is at her prayers,’ the Ealdorman said, and with that he dismissed us.

Leofric and I found a place to sleep in a tavern close to the cathedral, which was the bishop’s church, and that night I got drunk as a spring hare. I picked a fight with someone, I have no idea who, and only remember that Leofric, who was not quite as drunk as me, pulled us apart and flattened my opponent, and after that I went into the stable yard and threw up all the ale I had just drunk. I drank some more, slept badly, woke to hear rain seething on the stable roof and then vomited again.

‘Why don’t we just ride to Mercia?’ I suggested to Leofric. The king had lent us horses and I did not mind stealing them.

‘What do we do there?’

‘Find men?’ I suggested. ‘Fight?’

‘Don’t be daft, Earsling,’ Leofric said. ‘We want the fleet. And if you don’t marry the ugly sow, I don’t get to command it.’

‘I command it,’ I said.

‘But only if you marry,’ Leofric said, ‘and then you’ll command the fleet and I’ll command you.’

Father Willibald arrived then. He had slept in the monastery next door to the tavern and had come to make sure I was ready, and looked alarmed at my ragged condition. ‘What’s that mark on your face?’ he asked.

‘Bastard hit me last night,’ I said, ‘I was drunk. So was he, but I was more drunk. Take my advice, father, never get into a fight when you’re badly drunk.’

I drank more ale for breakfast. Willibald insisted I wear my best tunic, which was not saying much for it was stained, crumpled and torn. I would have preferred to wear my coat of mail, but Willibald said that was inappropriate for a church, and I suppose he was right, and I let him brush me down and try to dab the worst stains out of the wool. I tied my hair with a leather lace, strapped on Serpent-Breath and Wasp-Sting, which again Willibald said I should not wear in a holy place, but I insisted on keeping the weapons, and then, a doomed man, I went to the cathedral with Willibald and Leofric.

It was raining as if the heavens were being drained of all their water. Rain bounced in the streets, flowed in streams down the gutters and leaked through the cathedral’s thatch. A brisk cold wind was coming from the east and it found every crack in the cathedral’s wooden walls so that the candles on the altars flickered and some blew out. It was a small church, not much bigger than Ragnar’s burned hall, and it must have been built on a Roman foundation for the floor was made of flagstones that were now being puddled by rainwater. The bishop was already there, two other priests fussed with the guttering candles on the high altar, and then Ealdorman Odda arrived with my bride.

Who took one look at me and burst into tears.

What was I expecting? A woman who looked like a sow, I suppose, a woman with a pox-scarred face and a sour expression and haunches like an ox. No one expects to love a wife, not if they marry for land or position, and I was marrying for land and she was marrying because she had no choice, and there really is no point in making too much of a fuss about it, because that is the way the world works. My job was to take her land, work it, make money, and Mildrith’s duty was to give me sons and make sure there was food and ale on my table. Such is the holy sacrament of marriage.

I did not want to marry her. By rights, as an Ealdorman of Northumbria, I could expect to marry a daughter of the nobility, a daughter who would bring much more land than twelve hilly hides in Defnascir. I might have expected to marry a daughter who could increase Bebbanburg’s holdings and power, but that was plainly not going to happen, so I was marrying a girl of ignoble birth who would now be known as the Lady Mildrith and she might have shown some gratitude for that, but instead she cried and even tried to pull away from Ealdorman Odda.

He probably sympathised with her, but the bride price had been paid, and so she was brought to the altar and the bishop, who had come back from Cippanhamm with a streaming cold, duly made us man and wife. ‘And may the blessing of God the Father,’ he said, ‘God the Son and God the Holy Ghost be on your union.’ He was about to say amen, but instead sneezed mightily.

‘Amen,’ Willibald said. No one else spoke.

So Mildrith was mine.

Odda the Younger watched as we left the church and he probably thought I did not see him, but I did, and I marked him down. I knew why he was watching.