love it there!’ Pyrlig went on. ‘It’s warmer than home and there are no hills to speak of. Flat and wet, that’s East Anglia, and without a proper hill anywhere! And my wife’s never been fond of hills, which is why I probably found God. I used to live on hilltops just to keep away from her, and you’re closer to God on a hilltop. Bjorn isn’t dead.’
He had said the last three words with a sudden brutality, and I answered him just as harshly. ‘I saw him.’
‘You saw a man come from a grave, that’s what you saw.’
‘I saw him!’ I insisted.
‘Of course you did! And you never thought to question what you saw, did you?’ The Welshman asked the question harshly. ‘Bjorn had been put in that grave just before you came! They piled earth on him and he breathed through a reed.’
I remembered Bjorn spitting something out of his mouth as he staggered upright. Not the harp string, but something else. I had thought it a lump of earth, but in truth it had been paler. I had not thought about it at the time, but now I understood that the resurrection had all been a trick and I sat on the foredeck of the Swan and felt the last remnants of my dream crumbling. I would not be king. ‘How do you know all this?’ I asked bitterly.
‘King Æthelstan’s no fool. He has his spies.’ Pyrlig put a hand on my arm. ‘Was he very convincing?’
‘Very,’ I said, still bitter.
‘He’s one of Haesten’s men, and if we ever catch him he’ll go properly to hell. So what did he tell you?’
‘That I would be king in Mercia,’ I said softly. I was to be king of Saxon and Dane, enemy of the Welsh, king between the rivers and lord of all I ruled. ‘I believed him,’ I said ruefully.
‘But how could you be King of Mercia?’ Pyrlig asked, ‘unless Alfred made you king?’
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