Earl Ragnar, son of Ragnar, welcomed me.
There was joy in that meeting. Ragnar and I embraced like brothers, and I thought of him as a brother, and he thumped my back, poured ale, and gave me news. Kjartan and Sven still lived and were still in Dunholm. Ragnar had confronted them in a formal meeting where both sides were forbidden to carry weapons, and Kjartan had sworn that he was innocent of the hall-burning and declared he knew nothing of Thyra. ‘The bastard lied,’ Ragnar told me, ‘and I know he lied. And he knows he will die.’
‘But not yet?’
‘How can I take Dunholm?’
Brida was there, sharing Ragnar’s bed, and she greeted me warmly, though not as hotly as Nihtgenga who leaped all over me and washed my face with his tongue. Brida was amused that I was going to be a father. ‘But it will be good for you,’ she said.
‘Good for me? Why?’
‘Because you’ll be a proper man.’
I thought I was that already, yet there was still one thing lacking, one thing I had never confessed to anyone, not to Mildrith, not to Leofric, and not now to Ragnar or Brida. I had fought the Danes, I had seen ships burn and watched men drown, but I had never fought in a great shield wall. I had fought in small ones, I had fought ship’s crew against ship’s crew, but I had never stood on a wide battlefield and watched the enemy’s banners hide the sun, and known the fear that comes when hundreds or thousands of men are coming to the slaughter. I had been at Eoferwic and at Æsc’s Hill and I had seen the shield walls clash, but I had not been in the front rank. I had been in fights, but they had all been small and small fights end quickly. I had never endured the long blood-letting, the terrible fights when thirst and weariness weaken a man and the enemy, no matter how many you kill, keeps on coming. Only when I had done that, I thought, could I call myself a proper man.
I missed Mildrith, and that surprised me. I also missed Leofric, though there was huge pleasure in Ragnar’s company, and the life of a hostage was not hard. We lived in Werham, received enough food and watched the grey of winter shorten the days. One of the hostages was a cousin of Alfred’s, a priest called Wælla, who fretted and sometimes wept, but the rest of us were content enough. Hacca, who had once commanded Alfred’s fleet, was among the hostages, and he was the only one I knew well, but I spent my time with Ragnar and his men who accepted me as one of them and even tried to make me a Dane again. ‘I have a wife,’ I told them.
‘So bring her!’ Ragnar said. ‘We never have enough women.’
But I was English now. I did not hate the Danes, indeed I preferred their company to the company of the other hostages, but I was English. That journey was done. Alfred had not changed my allegiance, but Leofric and Mildrith had, or else the three spinners had become bored with teasing me, though Bebbanburg still haunted me and I did not know how, if I was to keep my loyalty to Alfred, I would ever see that lovely place again.
Ragnar accepted my choice. ‘But if there’s peace,’ he said, ‘will you help me fight Kjartan?’
‘If?’ I repeated the word.
He shrugged. ‘Guthrum still wants Wessex. We all do.’
‘If there’s peace,’ I promised, ‘I will come north.’
Yet I doubted there would be peace. In the spring Guthrum would leave Wessex, the hostages would be freed, and then what? The Danish army still existed and Ubba yet lived, so the onslaught on Wessex must begin again, and Guthrum must have been thinking the same for he talked with all the hostages in an effort to discover Alfred’s strength. ‘It is a great strength,’ I told him, ‘you may kill his army and another will spring up.’ It was all nonsense, of course, but what else did he expect me to say?
I doubt I convinced Guthrum, but Wælla, the priest who was Alfred’s cousin, put the fear of God into him. Guthrum spent hours talking with Wælla, and I often interpreted for him, and Guthrum was not asking about troops or ships, but about God. Who was the Christian god? What did he offer? He was fascinated by the tale of the crucifixion and I think, had we been given time enough, Wælla could even have persuaded Guthrum to convert. Wælla certainly thought so himself for he enjoined me to pray for such a conversion. ‘It’s close, Uhtred,’ he told me excitedly, ‘and once he has been baptised then there will be peace!’
Such are the dreams of priests. My dreams were of Mildrith and the child she carried. Ragnar dreamed of revenge. And Guthrum?
Despite his fascination with Christianity, Guthrum dreamed of just one thing.
He dreamed of war.
Alfred’s army withdrew from Werham. Some West Saxons stayed to watch Guthrum, but very few, for armies are expensive to maintain and, once gathered, they always seem to fall sick, so Alfred took advantage of the truce to send the men of the fyrds back to their farms while he and his household troops went to Scireburnan that lay a half-day’s march north-west of Werham and, happily for Alfred, was home to a bishop and a monastery. Beocca told me that Alfred spent that winter reading the ancient law codes from Kent, Mercia and Wessex, and doubtless he was readying himself to compile his own laws, which he eventually did. I am certain he was happy that winter, criticising his ancestors’ rules and dreaming of the perfect society where the church told us what not to do and the king punished us for doing it.
Huppa, Ealdorman of Thornsæta, commanded the few men who were left facing Werham’s ramparts, while Odda the Younger led a troop of horsemen who patrolled the shores of the Poole, but the two bands made only a small force and they could do little except keep an eye on the Danes, and why should they do more? There was a truce, Guthrum had sworn on the holy ring, and Wessex was at peace.
The Yule feast was a thin affair in Werham, though the Danes did their best and at least there was plenty of ale so men got drunk, but my chief memory of that Yule is of Guthrum crying. The tears poured down his face as a harpist played a sad tune and a skald recited a poem about Guthrum’s mother. Her beauty, the skald said, was rivalled only by the stars, while her kindness was such that flowers sprang up in winter to pay her homage. ‘She was a rancid bitch,’ Ragnar whispered to me, ‘and ugly as a bucket of shit.’
‘You knew her?’
‘Ravn knew her. He always said she had a voice that could cut down a tree.’
Guthrum was living up to his name ‘the Unlucky’. He had come so close to destroying Wessex and it had only been Halfdan’s death that had cheated him of the prize, and that was not Guthrum’s fault, yet there was a simmering resentment among the trapped army. Men muttered that nothing could ever prosper under Guthrum’s leadership, and perhaps that distrust had made him gloomier than ever, or perhaps it was hunger.
For the Danes were hungry. Alfred kept his word and sent
