truth, of course, was that Asser had told the truth, and told it plainly, clearly and persuasively. The king’s councillors had been impressed, just as they were impressed by Erkenwald’s second oath-maker.
It was Steapa Snotor, the warrior who was never far from Odda the Younger’s side. His back was straight, his shoulders square and his feral face with its stretched skin was grim. He glanced at me, bowed to the king, then laid a huge hand on the gospel-book and let Erkenwald lead him through the oath, and he swore to tell the truth on pain of hell’s eternal agony, and then he lied. He lied calmly in a flat, toneless voice. He said he had been in charge of the soldiers who guarded the place at Cynuit where the new church was being built, and how two ships had come in the dawn and how warriors streamed from the ships, and how he had fought against them and killed six of them, but there were too many, far too many, and he had been forced to retreat, but he had seen the attackers slaughter the priests and he had heard the pagan leader shout his name as a boast. ‘Svein, he was called.’
‘And Svein brought two ships?’
Steapa paused and frowned, as though he had trouble counting to two, then nodded. ‘He had two ships.’
‘He led both?’
‘Svein led one of the ships,’ Steapa said, then he pointed a finger at me. ‘And he led the other.’
The audience seemed to growl and the noise was so threatening that Alfred slapped the arm of his chair and finally stood to restore quiet. Steapa seemed unmoved. He stood, solid as an oak, and though he had not told his tale as convincingly as Brother Asser, there was something very damning in his testimony. It was so matter-of-fact, so unemotionally told, so straightforward, and none of it was true.
‘Uhtred led the second ship,’ Erkenwald said, ‘but did Uhtred join in the killing?’
‘Join it?’ Steapa asked. ‘He led it.’ He snarled those words and the men in the hall growled their anger.
Erkenwald turned to the king. ‘Lord king,’ he said, ‘he must die.’
‘And his land and property must be forfeited!’ Bishop Alewold shouted in such excitement that a whirl of his spittle landed and hissed in the nearest brazier. ‘Forfeited to the church!’
The men in the hall thumped their feet on the ground to show their approbation. Ælswith nodded vigorously, but the archbishop clapped his hands for silence. ‘He has not spoken,’ he reminded Erkenwald, then nodded at me. ‘Say your piece,’ he ordered curtly.
‘Beg for mercy,’ Beocca advised me quietly.
When you are up to your arse in shit there is only one thing to do. Attack, and so I admitted I had been at Cynuit, and that admission provoked some gasps in the hall. ‘But I was not there last summer,’ I went on. ‘I was there in the spring, at which time I killed Ubba Lothbrokson, and there are men in this hall who saw me do it! Yet Odda the Younger claimed the credit. He took Ubba’s banner, which I laid low, and he took it to his king and he claimed to have killed Ubba. Now, lest I spread the truth, which is that he is a coward and a liar, he would have me murdered by lies.’ I pointed to Steapa. ‘His lies.’
Steapa spat to show his scorn. Odda the Younger was looking furious, but he said nothing and some men noted it. To be called a coward and a liar is to be invited to do battle, but Odda stayed still as a stump.
‘You cannot prove what you say,’ Erkenwald said.
‘I can prove I killed Ubba,’ I said.
‘We are not here to discuss such things,’ Erkenwald said loftily, ‘but to determine whether you broke the king’s peace by an impious attack on Cynuit.’
‘Then summon my crewmen,’ I demanded. ‘Bring them here, put them on oath, and ask what they did in the summer.’ I waited, and Erkenwald said nothing. He glanced at the king as if seeking help, but Alfred’s eyes were momentarily closed. ‘Or are you in so much of a hurry to kill me,’ I went on, ‘that you dare not wait to hear the truth?’
‘I have Steapa’s sworn testimony,’ Erkenwald said, as if that made any other evidence unnecessary. He was flustered.
‘And you can have my oath,’ I said, ‘and Leofric’s oath, and the oath of a crewman who is here.’ I turned and beckoned Haesten who looked frightened at being summoned, but at Iseult’s urging came to stand beside me. ‘Put him on oath,’ I demanded of Erkenwald.
Erkenwald did not know what to do, but some men in the Witan called out that I had the right to summon oath-makers and the newcomer must be heard, and so a priest brought the gospel-book to Haesten. I waved the priest away. ‘He will swear on this,’ I said, and took out Thor’s amulet.
‘He’s not a Christian?’ Erkenwald demanded in astonishment.
‘He is a Dane,’ I said.
‘How can we trust the word of a Dane?’ Erkenwald demanded.
‘But our lord king does,’ I retorted. ‘He trusts the word of Guthrum to keep the peace, so why should this Dane not be trusted?’
That provoked some smiles. Many in the Witan thought Alfred far too trusting of Guthrum and I felt the sympathy in the hall move to my side, but then the archbishop intervened to declare that the oath of a pagan was of no value. ‘None whatsoever,’ he snapped. ‘He must stand down.’
‘Then put Leofric under oath,’ I demanded, ‘and then bring our crew here and listen to their testimony.’
‘And you will all lie with one tongue,’ Erkenwald said, ‘and what happened at Cynuit is not the only matter on which you are accused. Do you deny that you sailed in the king’s ship? That you went to Cornwalum and there betrayed Peredur and killed his Christian people? Do you deny that Brother Asser told the truth?’
‘But what if Peredur’s queen were to tell you that Asser lies?’ I asked. ‘What if she were to tell you that he lies like a hound at the hearth?’ Erkenwald stared at me. They all stared at me and I turned and gestured at Iseult who stepped forward, tall and delicate, the silver glinting at her neck and wrists. ‘Peredur’s queen,’ I announced, ‘whom I demand that you hear under oath, and thus hear how her husband was planning to join the Danes in an assault on Wessex.’
That was rank nonsense, of course, but it was the best I could invent at that moment, and Iseult, I knew, would swear to its truth. Quite why Svein would fight Peredur if the Briton planned to support him was a dangerously loose plank in the argument, but it did not really matter for I had confused the proceedings so much that no one was sure what to do. Erkenwald was speechless. Men stood to look at Iseult, who looked calmly back at them, and the king and the archbishop bent their heads together. Ælswith, one hand clapped to her pregnant belly, hissed advice at them. None of them wanted to summon Iseult for fear of what she would say, and Alfred, I suspect, knew that the trial, which had already become mired in lies, could only get worse.
‘You’re good, earsling,’ Leofric muttered, ‘you’re very good.’
Odda the Younger looked at the king, then at his fellow members of the Witan, and he must have known I was slithering out of his snare for he pulled Steapa to his side. He spoke to him urgently. The king was frowning, the archbishop looked perplexed, Ælswith’s blotched face showed fury while Erkenwald seemed helpless. Then Steapa rescued them. ‘I do not lie!’
