The Last Kingdom Series Books 1–8: The Last Kingdom, The Pale Horseman, The Lords of the North, Sword Song, The Burning Land, Death of Kings, The Pagan Lord, The Empty Throne

When the work was done, or nearly done, I took Iseult back to Æthelingæg and I dressed her as she had been dressed before, only this time she wore a deerskin tunic beneath the precious fur, and I stood her in the centre of the village and said Haswold could take her. He looked at me warily, then looked at her. ‘She’s mine?’ he asked.

‘All yours,’ I said, and stepped away from her.

‘And her sisters?’ he asked greedily, ‘her cousins?’

‘I shall bring them tomorrow.’

He beckoned Iseult towards his hut. ‘Come,’ he said.

‘In her country,’ I said, ‘it is the custom for the man to lead the woman to his bed.’

He stared at Iseult’s lovely, dark-eyed face above the swathing silver cloak. I stepped further back, abandoning her, and he darted forward, reaching for her, and she brought her hands out from under the thick fur and she was holding Wasp-Sting and its blade sliced up into Haswold’s belly. She gave a cry of horror and surprise as she brought the blade up, and I saw her hesitate, shocked by the effort required to pierce a man’s belly and by the reality of what she had done. Then she gritted her teeth and ripped the blade hard, opening him up like a gutted carp, and he gave a strange mewing cry as he staggered back from her vengeful eyes. His intestines spilled into the mud, and I was beside her then with Serpent-Breath drawn. She was gasping, trembling. She had wanted to do it, but I doubted she would want to do it again.

‘You were asked,’ I snarled at the villagers, ‘to fight for your king.’ Haswold was on the ground, twitching, his blood soaking his otterskin clothes. He made a mewing noise again and one of his filthy hands scrabbled among his own spilt guts. ‘For your king!’ I repeated. ‘When you are asked to fight for your king it is not a request, but a duty! Every man here is a soldier and your enemy is the Danes and if you will not fight them then you will fight against me!’

Iseult still stood beside Haswold who jerked like a dying fish. I edged her away and stabbed Serpent-Breath down to slit his throat. ‘Take his head,’ she told me.

‘His head?’

‘Strong magic.’

We mounted Haswold’s head on the fort wall so that it stared towards the Danes, and in time eight more heads appeared there. They were the heads of Haswold’s chief supporters, murdered by the villagers who were glad to be rid of them. Eofer, the archer, was not one of them. He was a simpleton, incapable of speaking sense, though he grunted and, from time to time, made howling noises. He could be led by a child, but when asked to use his bow he proved to have a terrible strength and uncanny accuracy. He was Æthelingæg’s hunter, capable of dropping a full-grown boar at a hundred paces, and that was what his name meant; boar.

I left Leofric to command the garrison at Æthelingæg and took Iseult back to Alfred’s refuge. She was silent and I thought her sunk in misery, but then she suddenly laughed. ‘Look!’ she pointed at the dead man’s blood matted and sticky in Ælswith’s fur.

She still had Wasp-Sting. That was my short sword, a sax, and it was a wicked blade in a close fight where men are so crammed together that there is no room to swing a long sword or an axe. She trailed the blade in the water, then used the hem of Ælswith’s fur to scrub the diluted blood from the steel. ‘It is harder than I thought,’ she said, ‘to kill a man.’

‘It takes strength.’

‘But I have his soul now.’

‘Is that why you did it?’

‘To give life,’ she said, ‘you must take it from somewhere else.’ She gave me back Wasp-Sting.

Alfred was shaving when we returned. He had been growing a beard, not for a disguise, but because he had been too low in spirits to bother about his appearance, but when Iseult and I reached his refuge he was standing naked to the waist beside a big wooden tub of heated water. His chest was pathetically thin, his belly hollow, but he had washed himself, combed his hair and was now scratching at his stubble with an ancient razor he had borrowed from a marshman. His daughter Æthelflaed was holding a scrap of silver that served as a mirror. ‘I am feeling better,’ he told me solemnly.

‘Good, lord,’ I said, ‘so am I.’

‘Does that mean you’ve killed someone?’

‘She did,’ I jerked my head at Iseult.

He gave her a speculative look. ‘My wife,’ he said, dipping the razor in the water, ‘was asking whether Iseult is truly a queen.’

‘She was,’ I said, ‘but that means little in Cornwalum. She was queen of a dung-heap.’

‘And she’s a pagan?’

‘It was a Christian kingdom,’ I said. ‘Didn’t Brother Asser tell you that?’

‘He said they were not good Christians.’

‘I thought that was for God to judge.’

‘Good, Uhtred, good!’ He waved the razor at me, then stooped to the silver mirror and scraped at his upper lip. ‘Can she foretell the future?’

‘She can.’

He scraped in silence for a few heartbeats. Æthelflaed watched Iseult solemnly. ‘So tell me,’ Alfred said, ‘does she say I will be king in Wessex again?’

‘You will,’ Iseult said tonelessly, surprising me.

Alfred stared at her. ‘My wife,’ he said, ‘says that we can look for a ship now that Edward is better. Look for a ship, go to Frankia and perhaps travel on to Rome. There is a Saxon community in Rome.’ He scraped the blade against his jawbone. ‘They will welcome us.’

‘The Danes will be defeated,’ Iseult said, still tonelessly, but without a quiver of doubt in her voice.

Alfred rubbed his face. ‘The example of Boethius tells me she’s right,’ he said.

‘Boethius?’ I asked, ‘is he one of your warriors?’

‘He was a Roman, Uhtred,’ Alfred said in a tone which chided me for not knowing, ‘and a Christian and a philosopher and a man rich in book-learning. Rich indeed!’ He paused, contemplating the story of Boethius. ‘When the pagan Alaric overran Rome,’ he went on, ‘and all civilisation and true religion seemed doomed, Boethius alone stood against the sinners. He suffered, but he won through, and we can take heart from him. Indeed we can.’ He pointed the razor at me. ‘We must never forget the example of Boethius, Uhtred, never.’

‘I won’t, lord,’ I said, ‘but do you think book-learning will get you out of here?’

‘I think,’ he said, ‘that when the Danes are gone, I shall grow a proper beard. Thank you, my sweet,’ this last was to Æthelflaed. ‘Give the mirror back to Eanflæd, will you?’

Æthelflaed ran off and Alfred looked at me with some amusement. ‘Does it surprise you that my wife and Eanflæd have become friends?’

‘I’m glad of it, lord.’

‘So am I.’

‘But does your wife know Eanflæd’s trade?’ I asked.

‘Not exactly,’ he said. ‘She believes Eanflæd was a cook in a tavern. Which is truth enough. So we have a fort at Æthelingæg?’

‘We do. Leofric commands there and has forty-three men.’

‘And we have twenty-eight here. The very hosts of Midian!’ He was evidently amused. ‘So we shall move there.’

‘Maybe in a week or two.’

‘Why wait?’ he asked.

I shrugged. ‘This place is deeper in the swamp. When we have more men, when we know we can hold Æthelingæg, that is the time for you to go there.’

He pulled on a grubby shirt. ‘Your new fort can’t stop the Danes?’