sympathy of the onlookers. It was better, though, to have the sympathy of the judge. Oswald’s family would have many supporters around Exanceaster, but gold is much the best argument in a law court.
And so it proved. To Mildrith’s astonishment the debt was paid and Oswald’s family denied two hundred shillings of wergild. I did not even bother to go to the court, relying on the persuasive power of gold, and sure enough the bishop peremptorily dismissed the demand for wergild, saying it was well known that Oswald had been a thief, and so I won. That did not make me any more popular. To the folk who lived in the Uisc’s valley I was a Northumbrian interloper and, worse, it was known I was a pagan, but none dared confront me for I went nowhere beyond the estate without my men and my men went nowhere without their swords.
The harvest was in the storehouses. Now was the time for the Danes to come, when they could be sure to find food for their armies, but neither Guthrum nor Svein crossed the frontier. The winter came instead and we slaughtered the livestock, salted the meat, scraped hides and made calves’ foot jelly. I listened for the sound of church bells ringing at an unusual time, for that would have been a sign that the Danes had attacked, but the bells did not ring.
Mildrith prayed that the peace would continue and I, being young and bored, prayed it would not. She prayed to the Christian god and I took Iseult to the high woods and made a sacrifice to Hoder, Odin and Thor and the gods were listening, for in the dark beneath the gallows tree, where the three spinners make our lives, a red thread was woven into my life. Fate is everything, and just after Yule the spinners brought a royal messenger to Oxton and he, in turn, brought me a summons. It seemed possible that Iseult’s dream was true, and that Alfred would give me power for I was ordered to Cippanhamm to see the king. I was summoned to the Witan.
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