Part 23 (1/2)

”Of course not.”

”Then I cannot commit the awful sin of murder. aethelred must live. Besides,” she gave me a smile, ”my father would never forgive me if I were to murder aethelred. Or allow you to murder him. And I don't want to disappoint my father. He's a dear man.”

I laughed at that. ”Your father,” I said, ”will be angry anyway.”

”Why?”

”Because you asked for my help, of course.”

aethelflaed gave me a curious look. ”Who do you think suggested that I ask for your help?”

”What?” I gaped at her and she laughed. ”Your father wanted me to come to you?” I asked in disbelief.

”Of course!” she said.

I felt like a fool. I thought I had escaped Alfred, only to discover that he had drawn me south. Pyrlig must have known, but had been very careful not to tell me. ”But your father hates me!” I told aethelflaed.

”Of course he doesn't. He just thinks of you as a very wayward hound, one that needs a whipping now and then.” She gave me a deprecatory smile, then shrugged. ”He knows Mercia will be attacked, Uhtred, and fears that Wess.e.x won't be able to help.”

”Wess.e.x always helps Mercia.”

”Not if Danes are landing on Wess.e.x's coast,” she said, and I almost laughed aloud. We had gone to such trouble in Dunholm to keep our plans secret, yet Alfred was already preparing for those plans. To which end he had used his daughter to draw me south, and I thought first how clever he was, then wondered just what sins that clever man was prepared to tolerate to keep the Danes from destroying Christianity in England.

We left the village to ride through sunlit country. The gra.s.s had greened and was growing fast. Cattle, released from their winter imprisonment, were gorging themselves. A hare stood on its hind legs to watch us, then skittered away before standing and staring at us again. The road climbed gently into the soft hills. This was good country, well watered and fertile, the kind of land the Danes craved. I had been to their homeland and seen how men scratched a bare living from small fields, from sand and from rock. No wonder they wanted England.

The sun was sinking as we pa.s.sed through another village. A girl carrying two yoked pails of milk was so scared by the sight of armed men that she stumbled as she tried to kneel and the precious milk ran into the road's ruts. She began to cry. I tossed her a silver coin, enough to dry her tears, and asked her if there was a lord living nearby. She pointed us northward to where, behind a great stand of elm trees, we discovered a fine hall surrounded by a decaying palisade.

The thegn who owned the village was named Ealdhith. He was a stout, red-haired man who looked aghast at the number of horses and riders who came seeking shelter for the night. ”I can't feed you all,” he grumbled, ”and who are you?”

”My name is Uhtred,” I said, ”and that is the Lady aethelflaed.”

”My lady,” he said, and went onto one knee.

Ealdhith fed us well enough, though he complained next morning that we had emptied all his ale barrels. I consoled him with a gold link I chopped from Aldhelm's chain. Ealdhith had little news to tell us. He had heard, of course, that aethelflaed had been a prisoner in the convent at Lecelad. ”We sent eggs and flour to her, lord,” he told me.

”Why?”

”Because I live a stone's throw from Wess.e.x,” he said, ”and I like West Saxons to be friendly to my folk.”

”Have you seen any Danes this spring?”

”Danes, lord? Those b.a.s.t.a.r.ds don't come near here!” Ealdhith was sure of that, which explained why he had allowed his palisade to deteriorate. ”We just till our land and raise our cattle,” he said guardedly.

”And if Lord aethelred summons you?” I asked, ”you go to war?”

”I pray it doesn't happen, but yes, lord. I can take six good warriors to serve.”

”You were at Fearnhamme?”

”I couldn't go, lord, I had a broken leg.” He lifted his smock to show me a twisted calf. ”I was lucky to live.”

”Be ready for a summons now,” I warned him.

He made the sign of the cross. ”There's trouble coming?”

”There's always trouble coming,” I said, and hauled myself into the saddle of Aldhelm's fine stallion. The horse, unused to me, trembled and I patted his neck.

We rode westward in the cool morning air. My children rode with me. A beggar was coming the other way and he knelt by the ditch to let us pa.s.s, holding out one mangled hand. ”I was wounded in the fight at Lundene,” he called. There were many such men reduced by war's injury to beggary. I gave my son Uhtred a silver coin and told him to toss it to the man, which he did, but then added some words. ”May Christ bless you!”

”What did you say?” I demanded.

”You heard him.” aethelflaed, riding on my left, was amused.

”I offered him a blessing, Father,” Uhtred said.

”Don't tell me you've become a Christian!” I snarled.

He reddened, but before he could say anything in reply Osferth spurred from among the hors.e.m.e.n behind. ”Lord! Lord!”

”What is it?”

He did not answer, but just pointed back the way we had come.

I turned to see a thickening plume of smoke on the eastern horizon. How often I have seen those great smoke columns! I have caused many myself, the marks of war.

”What is it?” aethelflaed asked.

”Haesten,” I said, my son's idiocy forgotten. ”It has to be Haesten.” I could think of no other explanation.

The war had started.

THREE.

Seventy of us rode toward the pyre of smoke that now appeared as a dark slow-moving smudge on the hazed horizon. Half the seventy were my men and half were Mercians. I had left my children in the village where Osferth and Beornoth were under orders to wait for our return.

aethelflaed insisted on riding with us. I tried to stop her, but she would take no orders from me. ”This is my country,” she said firmly, ”and my people, and I need to see what is being done to them.”

”Probably nothing,” I said. Fires were frequent. Houses had thatched roofs and open hearths, and sparks and straw go ill together, but I still had a sense of foreboding that had made me dress in mail before we started this return journey. My first response on seeing the smoke had been to suspect Haesten and, though reflection made that explanation seem ever more unlikely, I could not lose the suspicion.

”There's no other smoke,” Finan noted when we had retraced half our steps. Usually, if an army scavenges through a land, it fires every village, yet only the one dark smoke plume drifted skyward. ”And Lecelad's a far way from East Anglia,” he went on, ”if that fire is in Lecelad.”

”True enough,” I grunted. Lecelad was a long way from Haesten's camp in Beamfleot, indeed so deep in Saxon country that any Danish army marching straight on Lecelad was putting itself in danger. None of it made sense, unless, as both Finan and I wanted to believe, it was simply an errant spark and dry thatch.

The fire was indeed at Lecelad. It took some time to be certain of that for the land was flat and our view was obscured by trees, but we had no doubts once we were close enough to see the heat s.h.i.+mmering amidst the smoke. We were following the river, but now I turned away so that we could approach the village from the north. That, I believed, would be the direction in which any Danes retreated and we might have a chance to intercept them. Reason still said this had to be a simple house fire, but my instincts were also p.r.i.c.kling uncomfortably.

We reached the northward road to see it had been churned by hooves. The weather had been dry, so the hoofprints were not distinct, but even at a glance I could tell they had not been left by Aldhelm's men who, just the day before, had used this same track to approach Lecelad. There were too many prints, and those that pointed northward had mostly obliterated the ones going south. That meant whoever had ridden to Lecelad had already ridden away.