And now her face was radiant.
And I remembered her face on the day she had been married in her father’s new church in Wintanceaster. She looked the same today as she had then. She looked happy. She glowed. She walked as lightly as a dancer, and she smiled so beautifully, and I recalled how I had thought, in that church, that she had been in love with love, and that, I suddenly realized, was the difference between that day and this.
Because the radiant smile was not for me. She looked behind once more and caught Erik’s eye, and I just stared. I should have known from everything Erik had said. I should have known, for it was as plain as new-shed blood on virgin snow.
Æthelflaed and Erik were in love.
Love is a dangerous thing.
It comes in disguise to change our life. I had thought I loved
Mildrith, but that was lust, though for a time I had believed it was love. Lust is the deceiver. Lust wrenches our lives until nothing matters except the one we think we love, and under that deceptive spell we kill for them, give all for them, and then, when we have what we have wanted, we discover that it is all an illusion and nothing is there. Lust is a voyage to nowhere, to an empty land, but some men just love such voyages and never care about the destination.
Love is a voyage too, a voyage with no destination except death, but a voyage of bliss. I loved Gisela, and we were fortunate because our threads had come together and stayed together and were twined about each other, and the three Norns, for a time at least, were kind to us. Love even works when the threads do not lie comfortingly side by side. I had come to see that Alfred loved his Ælswith, though she was like a streak of vinegar in his milk. Perhaps he just got used to her, and perhaps love is friendship more than it is lust, though the gods know the lust is always there. Gisela and I had gained that contentment, as Alfred did with Ælswith, though I think our voyage was happier because our boat danced on sunlit seas and was driven by a brisk warm wind.
And Æthelflaed? I saw it in her face. I saw in her radiance all her sudden love and all the unhappiness that was to come, and all the tears, and all the heartbreak. She was on a voyage, and it was a journey of love, but it was sailing into a storm so bleak and dark that my own heart almost broke for her.
“Lord Uhtred,” she said as she came close.
“My lady,” I said, and bowed to her, and then we said nothing.
Willibald chattered, but I do not think either of us heard him. I looked at her and she smiled at me and the sun shone on that springy high turf beneath the singing skylarks, but all I could hear was thunder wrecking the sky and all I could see were waves shattering in white-whipping fury and a ship swamping and her crew drowning in despair. Æthelflaed was in love.
“Your father sends his affection,” I said, finding my voice.
“Poor Father,” she said. “Is he angry with me?”
“He shows no anger to anybody,” I said, “but he should be furious with your husband.”
“Yes,” she agreed calmly, “he should.”
“And I am here to arrange your release,” I told her, ignoring my certainty that release was the very last thing she now desired, “and you will be pleased to know, my lady, that all is agreed and you will be home soon.”
She showed no pleasure at that news. Father Willibald, blind to her true feelings, beamed at her, and Æthelflaed rewarded him with a wry smile. “I am here to give you the sacraments,” Willibald said.
“I would like that,” Æthelflaed answered gravely, then looked up at me and, for an instant, there was despair on her face. “Will you wait for me?” she asked.
“Wait for you?” I asked, puzzled by the question.
“Out here,” she explained, “and dear Father Willibald can pray with me inside.”
“Of course,” I said.
She smiled her thanks and led Willibald back to the hall while I went to the ramparts and climbed the brief bank so that I could lean on the sun-warmed palisade and stare down into the creek so far below. The dragon ship, her carved head dismounted, was rowing into the channel and I watched as men unchained the moored guard-ship that blocked the Hothlege. The blocking ship was tethered at bow and stern by heavy chains connected to massive posts sunk into the muddy banks and the crew slipped the ship’s stern chain and then paid it out with a long rope. The chain sank to the creek bed as the ship swung on her bow chain to open like a gate on the incoming tide to clear the passage. The newly-arrived boat was rowed past, then the blocking ship’s crew hauled on the rope to retrieve the chain and so dragged the ship back to bar the creek again. There were at least forty men on that blocking ship, and they were not just there to haul on lines and chains. The flanks of the ship had been built up with extra strakes, all of heavy timber, so that her sheerline was well above the height of any vessel that might attack her. To assault that blocking
ship would be like tackling the palisade of a fortress. The dragon ship glided up the Hothlege, passing the boats hauled high on the muddy creek bank where men were caulking the planks with hair and tar. Smoke from the fires under the tar pots drifted up the slope where gulls circled, their cries raucous in the afternoon’s warmth.
“Sixty-four ships,” Erik said. He had climbed up beside me.
“I know,” I said, “I counted them.”
“And by next week,” Erik said, “we will have a hundred crews here.”
“And you’ll run out of food with so many mouths to feed.”
“There’s plenty of food here,” Erik said dismissively. “We have fish traps and eel traps, we net wildfowl and eat well. And the prospect of silver and gold buys a lot of wheat, barley, oats, meat, fish, and ale.”
“It will buy men too,” I said.
“It will,” he agreed.
“And thus,” I said, “Alfred of Wessex pays for his own destruction.”
“So it would seem,” Erik said quietly. He stared southward to where great clouds piled over Cent, their tops silver white and their bases dark above the distant green land.
I turned to look at the encampment inside its ring of ramparts and saw Steapa, walking with a slight limp and with his head bandaged, appear from a hut. He looked slightly drunk. He saw me, waved, and sat in the shade of Sigefrid’s hall where he appeared to fall asleep. “Do you think,” I said, my back still turned on Erik, “that Alfred has not thought of what you’ll buy with the ransom money?”
“But what can he do about it?”
“That’s not for me to tell you,” I said, trying to imply that there was an answer. In truth, if seven or eight thousand Northmen appeared in Wessex then we would have no choice but to fight, and the battle, I thought, would be horrendous. It would be a bloodletting even greater than Ethandun, and at its end there would most likely be a new king in Wessex and a new name for the kingdom. Norseland, perhaps.
“Tell me about Guthred,” Erik asked abruptly.
“Guthred!” I turned back to him, surprised by the question. Guthred was Gisela’s brother and King of Northumbria, and what he had to do with Alfred, Æthelflaed, or Erik I could not imagine.
“He’s a Christian, isn’t he?” Erik asked.
“So he says.”
“Is he?”
“How would I know?” I asked. “He claims to be a Christian, but I doubt he’s given up his worship of the true gods.”
“You like him?” Erik asked anxiously.
“Everyone likes Guthred,” I said, and that was true, yet it constantly astonished me that a man so affable and indecisive had held on to his throne for so long. Mainly, I knew, that was because my brother-in-law had the support of Ragnar, my soul brother, and no man would want to fight Ragnar’s wild forces.
“I was thinking,” Erik said, and then fell silent, and in his silence I suddenly understood what he was dreaming.
“You were thinking,” I told him the brutal truth, “that you and Æthelflaed can take a ship, maybe your brother’s ship, and go to Northumbria and live under Guthred’s protection?”
Erik stared at me as though I were a magician. “She told you?” he asked.
“Your faces told me,” I said.
“Guthred would protect us,” Erik said.
“How?” I asked. “You think he’ll summon his army if your brother comes after you?”
“My brother?” Erik asked, as if Sigefrid would forgive him anything.
“Your brother,” I said harshly, “who is expecting a payment of three thousand pounds of silver and five hundred pounds of gold, and if you take Æthelflaed away, then he loses that money. You think he won’t want her back?”
“Your friend, Ragnar,” Erik suggested hesitantly.
“You want Ragnar to fight for you?” I asked. “Why should he?”
“Because you ask him to,” Erik said firmly. “Æthelflaed says you love each other like brothers.”
“We do.”
“Then ask him,” he demanded.
I sighed and stared at those distant clouds and thought how love wrenches our lives and drives us to such sweet insanity. “And what will you do,” I asked, “against the murderers who come in the night? Against the vengeful men who will burn your hall?”
“Guard against them,” he said stubbornly.
I watched the clouds pile higher and thought that Thor would be sending his thunderbolts down to the fields of Cent before the summer evening was over. “Æthelflaed is married,” I said gently.
“To a vicious bastard,” Erik said angrily.
“And her father,” I went on, “regards marriage as sacred.”
“Alfred won’t fetch her back from Northumbria,” Erik said confidently, “no West Saxon army could reach that far.”
“He will send priests to gnaw her conscience, though,” I said, “and how do you know he won’t send men to fetch her? It doesn’t have to be an army. One crew of determined men might be enough.”
“All I ask,” Erik said, “is a chance! A hall in some valley, fields to till, beasts to raise, a place to be at peace!”
I said nothing for a while. Erik, I thought, was building a ship in his dreams, a beautiful ship, a swift-hulled ship of elegance, but it was all a dream! I closed my eyes, trying to frame my words. “Æthelflaed,” I finally said, “is a prize. She has value. She is a king’s daughter and her marriage portion was land. She’s rich, she’s beautiful, she’s valuable. Any man who wants to be rich will know where she is. Any scavenger wanting a fast ransom will know where to find her. You will never have peace.” I turned and looked at him. “Every night when you bar your door you will fear the enemies in the dark and every day you will look for enemies. There will be no peace for you, none.”
“Dunholm,” he said flatly.
I half smiled. “I know the place,” I said.
“Then you know that it is a fortress that cannot be captured,” Erik said stubbornly.
“I captured it,” I said.
“And no one else will do what you did,” Erik said, “not till the world falls. We can live in Dunholm.”
“Ragnar holds Dunholm.”
“Then I will swear oaths to him,” Erik said fervently, “I will become his man, I will swear my life to him.”
I thought about that for a moment, testing Erik’s wild dream against the harsh realities of this life. Dunholm, cradled in its loop of the river and poised on its high crag, was indeed almost unassailable. A man might think of dying in his bed if he held Dunholm, because even a handful of troops was sufficient to defend the steep rocky path that was its only approach. And Ragnar, I knew, would be amused by Erik and Æthelflaed, and so I felt myself being seduced by Erik’s passion. Maybe his dream was not as crazy as I thought? “But how,” I asked, “do you take Æthelflaed from here without your brother knowing?”
“With your help,” he said.
And with that answer I could hear the three Norns laughing. A horn blew in the camp, a summons, I supposed, to the feast that Sigefrid had promised. “I am sworn to Alfred,” I said flatly.
“I don’t ask you to break that oath,” Erik said.
“Yes, you do!” I said sharply. “Alfred gave me a mission. I have fulfilled half of it. The other half is to retrieve his daughter!”
Erik’s big fists curled and uncurled on the palisade’s top. “Three thousand pounds of silver,” he said, “and five hundred pounds of gold. Think how many men that will buy.”
“I have thought of it.”
“A crew of seasoned warriors can be purchased for a pound of gold,” Erik said.
“True.”
“And we have enough men now to challenge Wessex.”
“You can challenge Wessex, but not defeat it.”
“But we will, when we have the gold and the men.”
“True,” I allowed again.
“And the gold will bring more men,” Erik went on relentlessly, “and
more ships, and either this autumn or next spring we will lead a horde into Wessex. We will make the army you defeated at Ethandun look small. We shall blacken the land. We shall bring spears and axes and swords to Wessex. We will burn your towns, enslave your children, use your women, take your land, and kill your men. Is that what serving Alfred means to you?”
“That is what your brother plans?”
“And to do it,” Erik said, ignoring my question for he knew I already knew its answer, “he must sell Æthelflaed back to her father.”
“Yes,” I acknowledged. If no ransom was paid then the men already encamped in and around Beamfleot would vanish like dew on a hot morning. No more ships would come and Wessex would not be threatened.
“Your oath, as I understand it,” Erik said respectfully, “is to serve Alfred of Wessex. Do you serve him, Lord Uhtred, by allowing my brother to become rich enough to destroy him?”
So love, I thought, had turned Erik against his brother. Love would make him slash a blade through every oath he had ever sworn. Love has power over power itself. The horn blew again, more urgently. Men were hurrying toward the great hall. “Your brother,” I said, “knows you love Æthelflaed?”
“He believes I love her for now, but will lose her for silver. He thinks I use her for my pleasure and he is amused by that.”
“And do you use her?” I asked harshly, looking into his honest eyes.
“Is that your business?” he asked defiantly.
“No,” I said, “but you do want my help.”
He hesitated, then nodded. “I would not call it that,” he said, sounding defensive, “but we love each other.”
So Æthelflaed had drunk the bitter water before the sin and that, I thought, was very clever of her. I smiled for her, then went to Sigefrid’s feast.