Conqueror (24 page)

Arngrim said dryly, ‘It’s not its poetic qualities that the priest thinks are worth your attention, lord, but its scrying.’

‘It does sound oddly precise,’ Alfred said. ‘All those lists of months! Can these “Great Years” be translated into Bede’s system, Cynewulf, into Years of Our Lord?’

‘They can,’ said Cynewulf firmly, and he explained how the chronology of the Menologium had been established by scholars in the past. ‘It is a matter of simple adding-up to work out the dates - simple, but laborious, it takes a computistor to do it. And the coming of the comet, whose irregular returns mark the passage of the Great Years, has appeared in the sky exactly as predicted in the stanzas of the Menologium.’

‘Then this Menologium does not speak of the whole future. It is founded in the past.’

‘Yes. If you follow the list of Great Years through, we are currently in the middle of the sixth - and it refers to your reign, lord.’

‘Really?’ Alfred asked sceptically.

‘And for the earlier Years, some of the events it has predicted have
already come to pass.’

But to his chagrin the King didn’t seem impressed. ‘That proves nothing. This poem could have been knocked up this morning for all I know. Believe me, as a buyer of books I have been presented with enough forgeries in my time. All the “lost works of Aristotle” for instance, which you may pick up for a clipped penny in the markets of Rome—’

Ibn Zuhr, to everybody’s surprise, spoke up again. ‘Lord, it is unlikely the priest will be able to convince you of the prophecy’s authenticity. What is “proof” after all? But perhaps, for now, faith might suffice. As the priest said it is the sixth stanza, describing the sixth Great Year, which refers to your own past, and future. Aren’t you curious about that?’

Alfred stared at him. ‘I’m amazed how much latitude you allow this slave, Arngrim.’

Amgrim was embarrassed, and furious. ‘Only because what he says has proven useful, lord. So far.’

Alfred smiled. ‘Very well. Shall we grant you a little faith, priest, as this soulless Moor suggests?’ He turned to his clerks. ‘Read me the sixth stanza.’

The two inky clerks read their own scribbled handwriting, haltingly, in turn:

 

 

Alfred seemed irritated. ‘Enigmatic hokum, like all auguries.’

Now Cynewulf prepared to deliver what he believed his clinching argument. ‘But, lord, there is nothing enigmatic about the numbers of the months.’ He described how converting the Great Year months to calendar years had delivered a date of February, 837 AD, for the beginning of the sixth Great Year.

Alfred frowned. ‘And five hundred months denied five, that is four hundred and ninety-five-’

‘Forty-one years and three months. Lord, the sixth stanza refers to events that will take place in May - this year - three months from now.’ Alfred’s jaw dropped, and Cynewulf couldn’t resist driving his advantage home. ‘Can you see it now? The stanza can tell of nothing less than your coming conflict with the Danes - and your triumph!’

The King rose from his throne and paced restlessly, although his movements were more nervous than energetic. He had his clerks read the key lines over and over: ‘Blood spilled, blood mixed./Even the dragon must lie/at the foot of the Cross ...’

‘The reference to the dragon is surely clear enough,’ Alfred said rapidly. ‘The Northmen with their dragon ships - the dragon is the Dane, his Force. And if he is to lie at the foot of the Cross, then he will be destroyed by a Christian power.’

‘Yes! That is surely the correct reading, lord—’

‘Actually the dragon will
submit,
but he will not be destroyed,’ Ibn Zuhr pointed out quietly.

Arngrim growled, ‘Be still, Moor!’

Ibn Zuhr dropped his eyes, immediately humble.

Alfred sighed. ‘He does have a point. The line does seem to imply that we will defeat the Dane but we won’t be rid of him. And what was that about “blood spilled, blood mixed”?’ Nobody replied, and Alfred snapped, ‘Speak up, slave! You seem to have all the answers.’

Ibn Zuhr said calmly, ‘Perhaps it is telling us that after the wars are over, the blood of the Danes and English will mingle. A new race will emerge, neither one nor the other, but something fused. Something greater.’

Arngrim snorted. ‘Impossible.’

‘But we saw it ourselves,’ said Ibn Zuhr. ‘In Jorvik, in the northern country. Where even the languages are merging. Then,’ he went on relentlessly, ‘there is the rest of the prophecy.’ He turned to Cynewulf. ‘I read your notes. This is what a previous commentator on the Menologium, Boniface, has argued. The prophecy sets out a course, step by step, by which an empire of the “Aryans” in the future, a new Rome, will be established.’

‘Who are these Aryans?’ Alfred asked.

‘Nobody knows,’ Ibn Zuhr said. ‘Perhaps they will arise from the blood of the Danes and the English. But you see, lord, your victory over the Danes may be partial, but it is a necessary step in the programme - a step in the founding of the ultimate empire.’

Cynewulf was astonished to hear this analysis, mortified he hadn’t worked it out for himself - and furious at the slave for showing him up.

Alfred shook his head. ‘So I must save my kingdom but spare those who threaten it.’ He glared at the priest. ‘Is this what you have brought me to stiffen my morale, Cynewulf?’

The priest said, hotly embarrassed, ‘I hadn’t thought it through this far, lord.’

‘No, I’m sure you hadn’t. Which is why I am a king and you are a mere priest, no doubt.’ The King threw himself down on his throne and coughed explosively. ‘Prophecies, prophecies. Is there room in the universe for such things?’ He picked up his copy of the
Consolations
and thumbed through it. ‘What do we humans know of history? We are as worms who tunnel in the dark, knowing nothing of the shape of the whole round world. But Boethius writes of other perceptions of time than the linear human experience. Boethius would argue, I think, that God is atemporal - outside time, as I am outside the pages of this book - and so free to intervene in past and future as He pleases.’ He leafed through the book, jabbing his finger at random at the pages. ‘Just as I may change a letter here, a word there, in the narrative. And if I accept that, then I suppose I can believe that God, or a pious servant of God, might indeed have found a way to send a warning, or a promise, from the future, back into time.’ He glanced at Cynewulf. ‘Is this blasphemy, priest?’

Cynewulf was all but holding his breath. ‘I don’t believe so, lord.’

‘I ought to ask a bishop. I have enough of them in my pocket. “Even the dragon must lie/at the foot of the Cross ...” Ambiguous as it is, perhaps this message from the future, or the past, does harden my resolve. Pilgrimages can wait until my old age. And if all I win from the Danes must one day be taken back by them - well, then, it is up to us to act as if it were not so. Do you agree with that much, Cynewulf?’

‘Yes, lord,’ Cynewulf said, relieved.

A priest murmured in Alfred’s ear. Time for prayers. He dismissed Cynewulf’s party.

Aebbe, still standing on the spot where she had recited the Menologium to a king, had watched all this, her eyes grave, judgmental.

As the days lengthened and the weather warmed, it was as if the world’s blood was stirring. The punts brought weapons, armour, and scrap metal which, to a ringing of hammers day and night, was turned into spears, arrow-heads and coats of mail.

Arngrim had his favourite horse brought close by, a handsome beast he called Strong-and-Fleet. And he sharpened and polished his battle sword, which he loved more than the horse, Cynewulf thought, and which he had named too, after the manner of pagan warriors. A gift from his father, it was a hardened blade with an ornate wooden hilt; he called it Ironsides.

Campaigning season was coming, the long warm months of war. Even Cynewulf felt his sap rising. But he prayed that this martial excitement could be banished from his own blood, for in the country there was misery.

The Danes, bottled up by Alfred, stole seedcorn and slaughtered pregnant ewes and cows. All farmers lived close to the edge of survival, even in the best of times, and this spring famine made eyes hollow. The priests excused the folk their tithes, and at the Easter feast, the one occasion when the parishioners were allowed to share in the priests’ communion bread and wine, hunger was more evident than faith. And supplicants came from across the country to Aethelingaig, starving farmers who knelt to place their heads in their lords’ hands, giving themselves up as bondsmen in return for a little food.

But despite the tension, despite the misery, it was a beautiful season. The colours of the new marsh flowers, the croaking of the mating frogs, the songs of the nesting birds all seemed more vivid than before to Cynewulf. For if the war went badly this year, it was almost certain that he, Cynewulf, the centre of the whole universe, would never see spring again.

As the season advanced, the logic of the war unfolded relentlessly. Unexpected news came that ealdorman Odda had scattered the second Danish Force. Their leader, Ubba, had been killed, along with eight hundred of his men, and the rest had fled back to their ships. For the English it was the first real piece of good news since the rout of the Twelve Days.

But Alfred still had to face Guthrum.

And now the dragon stirred. Guthrum’s Force left its captured fortress at Cippanhamm. Unopposed, watched fearfully by the farmers of Wessex, the Force worked its lawless way across the country, taking food, horses, slaves and women as it chose. After some weeks the Force settled again at a place called Ethandune.

Cynewulf, restless himself, accompanied Arngrim on a spying trip ordered by Alfred. Arngrim knew the land from hunting trips as a young man, and he led Cynewulf confidently along tracks over high moorland. As they climbed the views opened up, revealing rolling wooded country stretching towards Cippanhamm.

The Dane camp was at the foot of a sharp ridge. It was this ridge that gave the place its name - Ethandune, the ‘waste down’. There were relics of long occupation here, Cynewulf saw: the furrowed ditches of an abandoned camp, perhaps centuries old, and the emblem of a horse cut raggedly into a hillside.

And, crouching for cover in the gorse, they could clearly see the settlement which the Danes had taken. It was another royal enclosure, smaller than Cippanhamm, but with earth fortifications and a hall. The fires of the Force sent threads of smoke into the air, and the horses, every last one of them stolen from the English, were corralled in a large paddock.

Like the English, the Danes were preparing for war. Cynewulf saw men wrestling and mock-fighting with swords and shields. And he heard laughter, songs. There was none of the nervous energy, the determined tension of Alfred’s camp. To the English everything was at stake - their homes, their families, their faith, their lives. But to the Danes this was an adventure, a bloody game - the best game in the world.

Arngrim murmured, ‘They are smug. That’s a convenient camp, but it has the disadvantage of the low ground. And Alfred’s strategy has paid off. We have kept them bottled up all winter, and they are short of reinforcements and weapons and provisions.’

‘Yet they laugh.’

‘Yet they laugh. They think they will beat us come what may.’ Arngrim was a slab of anger, of clenched muscle, as he looked down on this scene. ‘I know this land. I have hunted here, with the athelings. This is
our
land, won from the British with twenty generations of blood and toil. You know, I’ve had enough of these Danes.’

In Alfred’s court there were many who agreed it was time to take the fight to the Danes. But there was intense debate about the timing of any action. Arngrim was among those who urged Alfred to move against the Danes as early as possible. The summer would bring more Danes across the ocean, and even before then the Force could retire to Mercia to graze its horses on the spring grass. The earlier Alfred struck the better.

But, defying these counsels, Alfred waited in Aethelingaig as April’s warmth settled. The weapon-makers were glad of the extra time, but the warriors grew increasingly restless.

Cynewulf reflected that the crucial sixth stanza of the Menologium had referred to a war in the month of May. Perhaps Alfred was paying respect to its prophesying. But Cynewulf believed that the Menologium was only one of the strands that made up the web of decision-making in the head of this clever, deep-thinking ruler.

It was on Whit Sunday, in mid-May, that Alfred at last rode out of Aethelingaig with a score of his thegns and their followers. Cynewulf rode with the other priests. Arngrim rode Strong-and-Fleet, and wore Ironsides on his back, with his short stabbing sword and his axe at his belt.

Alfred established a new overnight camp, only a few hours’ ride from the Danes’ position. The camp was centred on a great old oak tree, under whose spreading branches the King set up his giving-throne. He might be a Christian King, but Alfred knew the deep old symbolism of his people, and through the day Cynewulf saw warriors pat the tree for luck, murmuring prayers to antique deities.

It was on the evening of Whit Sunday that Alfred at last summoned the ealdormen, the great landowners, from north, south, east and west, to come to him with their fyrd levies. The next morning he sat under the oak tree, with the dragon banner of Wessex fluttering over his head, and waited.

Cynewulf knew that the whole future depended on the response of the lords and the people to Alfred’s call. Alfred had to face the Danes this year, come what may; even if he survived another winter his credibility as a war leader would not. But many English kings had fallen to the Northmen before. If the fyrd did not respond to his summons when he made it, if the farmers did not turn out to fight for this last scrap of England, it could surely never be summoned again.