Part 15 (1/2)

”Uhtred of Bebbanburg,” I said.

”Then I should congratulate you,” he said.

”Why?”

”For your victory over Harald. The news of it caused much rejoicing among good Christians.”

”So you didn't rejoice?” I retorted.

”Jarl Ragnar,” aelfric ignored my small insult and nodded gravely to my companion, ”you do me honor with this visit, lord, but you should have given me warning of your arrival. I would have made a feast for you.”

”We're just exercising the horses,” Ragnar said cheerfully.

”A long way from your home,” aelfric observed.

”Not from mine,” I said.

The dark eyes brooded on me. ”You are always welcome here, Uhtred,” my uncle said, ”any time you wish to come home, then just come. Believe me, I shall be glad to see you.”

”I'll come,” I promised him.

There was silence for a moment. My horse stamped a mud-clodded foot. The two lines of mail-clad warriors watched us. I could just hear the gulls at the distant sh.o.r.e. Their sound had been my childhood noise, never-ending like the sea. ”As a child,” my uncle broke the awkward silence, ”you were disobedient, headstrong, and foolish. It seems you haven't changed.”

”Ask Alfred of Wess.e.x,” I said, ”he wouldn't be king now without my headstrong foolishness.”

”Alfred knew how to use you,” my uncle observed. ”You were his dog. He fed you and held you. But like a fool you've slipped his lead. Who will feed you now?”

”I will,” Ragnar said happily.

”But you, lord,” aelfric said respectfully, ”don't have enough men to watch them die against my walls. Uhtred will have to find his own men.”

”There are many Danes in Northumbria,” I said.

”And Danes seek gold,” aelfric said, ”do you really think there's enough inside my walls to draw the Danes of Northumbria to Bebbanburg?” He half smiled. ”You will have to find your own gold, Uhtred.” He paused, expecting me to say something, but I kept quiet. A raven, driven away from the sheep's carca.s.s by our presence, protested from a bare tree. ”Do you think your aglaecwif will lead you to the gold?” aelfric asked.

An aglaecwif was a fiendish woman, a sorceress, and he meant Skade. ”I have no aglaecwif,” I said.

”She tempts you with her husband's riches,” aelfric said.

”Does she?”

”What else?” he asked. ”But Skirnir knows she does that.”

”Because you told him?”

My uncle nodded. ”I saw fit to send him news of his wife. A courtesy, I think, to a neighbor across the sea. Skirnir, no doubt, will greet you in the spring as I would greet you, Uhtred, should you decide to come home.” He stressed the last word, curdling it on his tongue, then gathered his reins. ”I have nothing more to say to you.” He nodded at Ragnar, then at his men, and the three turned away.

”I'll kill you!” I shouted after him, ”and your cabbage-s.h.i.+tting sons!”

He just waved negligently and kept riding.

I remember thinking he had won that encounter. aelfric had come from his fastness and he had treated me like a child, and now he rode back to that beautiful place beside the sea where I could not reach him. I did not move.

”What now?” Ragnar asked.

”I'll hang him with his son's intestines,” I said, ”and p.i.s.s on his corpse.”

”And how do you do that?”

”I need gold.”

”Skirnir?”

”Where else?”

Ragnar turned his horse. ”There's silver in Scotland,” he said, ”and in Ireland.”

”And hordes of savages protect both,” I said.

”Then Wess.e.x?” he suggested.

I had not moved my horse and Ragnar was forced to turn back to me. ”Wess.e.x?” I echoed him.

”They say Alfred's churches are rich.”

”Oh, they are,” I said. ”They're so rich they can afford to send silver to the Pope. They drip with silver. There's gold on the altars. There's money in Wess.e.x, my friend, so much money.”

Ragnar beckoned to his men and two of them rode forward with our swords. We buckled the belts around our waists and no longer felt naked. The two men walked their horses away, leaving us alone again. The sea wind brought the smell of home to lessen the smell of the carca.s.s. ”So will you attack next year?” I asked my friend.

He thought for a moment, then shrugged. ”Brida thinks I've grown fat and happy,” he said.

”You have.”

He smiled briefly. ”Why do we fight?” he asked.

”Because we were born,” I answered savagely.

”To find a place we call home,” Ragnar suggested. ”A place where we don't need to fight anymore.”

”Dunholm?”

”It's as safe a fortress as Bebbanburg,” he said, ”and I love it.”

”And Brida wants you to leave it?”

He nodded. ”She's right,” he admitted wanly. ”If we do nothing then Wess.e.x will spread like a plague. There'll be priests everywhere.”

We seek the future. We stare into its fog and hope to see a landmark that will make sense of fate. All my life I have tried to under stand the past because that past was so glorious and we see remnants of that glory all across Britain. We see the great marble halls the Romans made, and we travel the roads they laid and cross the bridges they built, and it is all fading. The marble cracks in the frost and the walls collapse. Alfred and his like believed they were bringing civilization to a wicked, fallen world, but all he did was make rules. So many rules, but the laws were only ever an expression of hope, because the reality was the burhs, the walls, the spears on the ramparts, the glint of helmets in the dawn, the fear of mailed riders, the thump of hoofbeats, and the screams of victims. Alfred was proud of his schools and his monasteries and his silver-rich churches, but those things were protected by blades. And what was Wess.e.x compared to Rome?

It is hard to bring thoughts into order, but I sense, I have always sensed, that we slide from light to darkness, from glory to chaos, and perhaps that is good. My G.o.ds tell us that the world will end in chaos, so perhaps we are living the last days and even I might survive long enough to see the hills crack and the sea boil and the heavens burn as the great G.o.ds fight. And in the face of that great doom, Alfred built schools. His priests scurried like mice in rotting thatch, imposing their rules as if mere obedience could stop the doom. Thou shalt not kill, they preached, then screamed at us warriors to slaughter the pagans. Thou shalt not steal, they preached, and forged charters to take men's lands. Thou shalt not commit adultery, they preached, and rutted other men's wives like besotted hares in springtime.