The Last Kingdom Series Books 1-6

‘Mildrith thinks the king has forgiven me,’ I said.

‘Has he?’

I shrugged. ‘Perhaps.’ I hoped so, not because I wanted Alfred’s forgiveness, but because I wanted to be given command of the fleet again. I wanted to be with Leofric. I wanted the wind in my face and the sea rain on my cheek. ‘It’s odd, though,’ I went on, ‘that he didn’t want me there for the whole witanegemot.’

‘Maybe,’ Iseult suggested, ‘they discussed religious things at first?’

‘He wouldn’t want me there for that,’ I said.

‘So that’s it,’ she said. ‘They talk about their god, but at the end they will talk of the Danes, and that is why he summoned you. He knows he needs you.’

‘Or perhaps he just wants me there for the feast,’ I suggested.

‘The feast?’

‘The Twelfth Night feast,’ I explained, and that seemed to me the likeliest explanation; that Alfred had decided to forgive me and, to show he now approved of me, would let me attend the winter feast. I secretly hoped that was true, and it was a strange hope. I had been ready to kill Alfred only a few months before, yet now, though I still hated him, I wanted his approval. Such is ambition. If I could not rise with Ragnar then I would make my reputation with Alfred.

‘Your road, Uhtred,’ Iseult went on, ‘is like a bright blade across a dark moor. I see it clearly.’

‘And the woman of gold?’

She said nothing to that.

‘Is it you?’ I asked.

‘The sun dimmed when I was born,’ she said, ‘so I am a woman of darkness and of silver, not of gold.’

‘So who is she?’

‘Someone far away, Uhtred, far away,’ and she would say no more. Perhaps she knew no more, or perhaps she was guessing.

We reached Cippanhamm late on the eleventh day of Yule. There was still frost on the furrows and the sun was a gross red ball poised low above the tangling black branches as we came to the town’s western gate. The city was full, but I was known in the Corncrake tavern where the red-headed whore called Eanflæd worked and she found us shelter in a half-collapsed cattle byre where a score of hounds had been kennelled. The hounds, she said, belonged to Huppa, Ealdorman of Thornsæta, but she reckoned the animals could survive a night or two in the yard. ‘Huppa may not think so,’ she said, ‘but he can rot in hell.’

‘He doesn’t pay?’ I asked her.

She spat for answer, then looked at me curiously. ‘I hear Leofric’s here?’

‘He is?’ I said, heartened by the news.

‘I haven’t seen him,’ she said, ‘but someone said he was here. In the royal hall. Maybe Burgweard brought him?’ Burgweard was the new fleet commander, the one who wanted his ships to sail two by two in imitation of Christ’s disciples. ‘Leofric had better not be here,’ Eanflæd finished.

‘Why not?’

‘Because he hasn’t come to see me!’ she said indignantly, ‘that’s why.’ She was five or six years older than I with a broad face, a high forehead and springy hair. She was popular, so much so that she had a good deal of freedom in the tavern, that owed its profits more to her abilities than to the quality of the ale. I knew she was friendly with Leofric, but I suspected from her tone that she wanted to be more than friends. ‘Who’s she?’ she asked, jerking her head at Iseult.

‘A queen,’ I said.

‘That’s another name for it, I suppose. How’s your wife?’

‘Back in Defnascir.’

‘You’re like all the rest, aren’t you?’ She shivered. ‘If you’re cold tonight bring the hounds back in to warm you. I’m off to work.’

We were cold, but I slept well enough and, next morning, the twelfth after Christmas, I left my six men at the Corncrake and took Iseult and Haesten to the king’s buildings that lay behind their own palisade to the south of the town where the river curled about the walls. A man expected to attend the witanegemot with retainers, though not usually with a Dane and a Briton, but Iseult wanted to see Alfred and I wanted to please her. Besides, there was the great feast that evening and, though I warned her that Alfred’s feasts were poor things, Iseult still wanted to be there. Haesten, with his mail coat and sword, was there to protect her, for I suspected she might not be allowed into the hall while the witanegemot debated and so might have to wait until evening for her chance to glimpse Alfred.

The gatekeeper demanded that we surrender our weapons, a thing I did with a bad grace, but no man, except the king’s own household troops, could go armed in Alfred’s presence. The day’s talking had already begun, the gatekeeper told us, and so we hurried past the stables and past the big new royal chapel with its twin towers. A group of priests was huddled by the main door of the great hall and I recognised Beocca, my father’s old priest, among them. I smiled in greeting, but his face, as he came towards us, was drawn and pale. ‘You’re late,’ he said sharply.

‘You’re not pleased to see me?’ I asked sarcastically.

He looked up at me. Beocca, despite his squint, red hair and palsied left hand, had grown into a stern authority. He was now a royal chaplain, confessor and a confidant to the king, and the responsibilities had carved deep lines on his face. ‘I prayed,’ he said, ‘never to see this day.’ He made the sign of the cross. ‘Who’s that?’ he stared at Iseult.

‘A queen of the Britons,’ I said.

‘She’s what?’

‘A queen. She’s with me. She wants to see Alfred.’

I don’t know whether he believed me, but he seemed not to care. Instead he was distracted, worried, and, because he lived in a strange world of kingly privilege and obsessive piety, I assumed his misery had been caused by some petty theological dispute. He had been Bebbanburg’s mass priest when I was a child and, after my father’s death, he had fled Northumberland because he could not abide living among the pagan Danes. He had found refuge in Alfred’s court where he had become a friend of the king. He was also a friend to me, a man who had preserved the parchments that proved my claim to the lordship of Bebbanburg, but on that twelfth day of Yule he was anything but pleased to see me. He plucked my arm, drawing me towards the door. ‘We must go in,’ he said, ‘and may God in his mercy protect you.’

‘Protect me?’

‘God is merciful,’ Beocca said, ‘and you must pray for that mercy,’ and then the guards opened the door and we walked into the great hall. No one stopped Iseult and, indeed, there were a score of other women watching the proceedings from the edge of the hall.

There were also more than a hundred men there, though only forty or fifty comprised the witanegemot, and those thegns and senior churchmen were on chairs and benches set in a half circle in front of the dais where Alfred sat with two priests and with Ælswith, his wife, who was pregnant. Behind them, draped with a red cloth, was an altar on which stood thick candles and a heavy silver cross, while all about the walls were platforms where, in normal times, folk slept or ate to be out of the fierce draughts. This day, though, the platforms were crammed with the followers of the thegns and noblemen of the Witan and among them, of course, were a lot of priests and monks, for Alfred’s court was more like a monastery than a royal hall. Beocca gestured that Iseult and Haesten should join those spectators, then he drew me towards the half circle of privileged advisers.

No one noticed my arrival. It was dark in the hall, for little of the wintry sunshine penetrated the small high windows. Braziers tried to give some warmth, but failed, succeeding only in thickening the smoke in the high rafters. There was a large central hearth, but the fire had been taken away to make room for the witanegemot’s circle of stools, chairs and benches. A tall man in a blue cloak was on his feet as I approached. He was talking of the necessity of repairing bridges, and how local thegns were skimping the duty, and he suggested that the king appoint an official to survey the kingdom’s roads. Another man interrupted to complain that such an appointment would encroach on the privileges of the shire ealdormen, and that started a chorus of voices, some for the proposal, most against, and two priests, seated at a small table beside Alfred’s dais, tried to write down all the comments. I recognised Wulfhere, the Ealdorman of Wiltunscir, who yawned prodigiously. Close to him was Alewold, the Bishop of Exanceaster, who was swathed in furs. Still no one noticed me. Beocca had held me back, as if waiting for a lull in the proceedings before finding me a seat. Two servants brought in baskets of logs to feed the braziers, and it was then that Ælswith saw me and she leaned across and whispered in Alfred’s ear. He had been paying close attention to the discussion, but now looked past his council to stare at me.

And a silence fell on that great hall. There had been a murmur of voices when men saw the king being distracted from the argument about bridges and they had all turned to look at me and then there was the silence that was broken by a priest’s sneeze and a sudden odd scramble as the men closest to me, those sitting beside the cold stones of the hearth, moved to one side. They were not making way for me, but avoiding me.

Ælswith was smiling and I knew I was in trouble then. My hand instinctively went to my left side, but of course I had no sword so could not touch her hilt for luck. ‘We shall talk of bridges later,’ Alfred said. He stood. He wore a bronze circlet as a crown and had a fur-trimmed blue robe, matching the gown worn by his wife.

‘What is happening?’ I asked Beocca.

‘You will be silent!’ It was Odda the Younger who spoke. He was dressed in his war-glory, in shining mail covered by a black cloak, in high boots and with a red-leather sword belt from which hung his weapons, for Odda, as commander of the king’s troops, was permitted to go armed in the royal hall. I looked into his eyes and saw triumph there, the same triumph that was on the Lady Ælswith’s pinched face, and I knew I had not been brought to receive the king’s favour, but summoned to face my enemies.

I was right. A priest was called from the dark gaggle beside the door. He was a young man with a pouchy, scowling face. He moved briskly, as if the day did not have enough hours to complete his work. He bowed to the king, then took a parchment from the table where the two clerks sat and came to stand in the centre of the Witan’s circle.

‘There is an urgent matter,’ Alfred said, ‘which, with the Witan’s permission, we shall deal with now.’ No one there was likely to disagree, so a low murmur offered approval of interrupting the more mundane discussions. Alfred nodded. ‘Father Erkenwald will read the charges,’ the king said, and took his throne again.

Charges? I was confused like a boar trapped between hounds and spears, and I seemed incapable of movement so I just stood there as Father Erkenwald unrolled the parchment and cleared his throat. ‘Uhtred of Oxton,’ he said, speaking in a high and precise voice, ‘you are this day charged with the crime of taking a king’s ship without our king’s consent, and with taking that ship to the country of Cornwalum and there making war against the Britons, again without our king’s consent, and this we can prove by oaths.’ There was a small murmur in the hall, a murmur that was stilled when Alfred raised a thin hand. ‘You are further charged,’ Erkenwald went on, ‘with making an alliance with the pagan called Svein, and with his help you murdered Christian folk in Cornwalum, despite those folk living in peace with our king, and this also we can prove by oaths.’ He paused, and now there was complete silence in the hall. ‘And you are charged,’ Erkenwald’s voice was lower now, as though he could scarce believe what he was reading, ‘with joining the pagan Svein in an attack on our blessed king’s realm by committing vile murder and impious church-robbery at Cynuit.’ This time there was no murmur, but a loud outburst of indignation and Alfred made no move to check it, so Erkenwald had to raise his voice to finish the indictment. ‘And this also,’ he was shouting now, and men hushed to listen, ‘we shall prove by oaths.’ He lowered the parchment, gave me a look of pure loathing, then walked back to the edge of the dais.

‘He’s lying,’ I snarled.

‘You will have a chance to speak,’ a fierce-looking churchman sitting beside Alfred said. He was in monk’s robes, but over them he wore a priest’s half cape richly embroidered with crosses. He had a full head of white hair and a deep, stern voice.

‘Who’s that?’ I asked Beocca.

‘The most holy Æthelred,’ Beocca said softly and, seeing I did not recognise the name, ‘Archbishop of Contwaraburg, of course.’