and six from Wessex, who had guarded the priests on their travels.
And they had brought the magic fish.
‘King Eohric,’ Ceolnoth or Ceolberht said.
‘Wishes an alliance with Wessex,’ the other twin finished.
‘And with Mercia!’
‘The Christian kingdoms, you understand.’
‘And King Alfred and King Edward,’ Willibald took up the tale, ‘have sent a gift for King Eohric.’
‘Alfred still lives?’ I asked.
‘Pray God, yes,’ Willibald said, ‘though he’s sick.’
‘Very close to death,’ one of the West Saxon priests intervened.
‘He was born close to death,’ I said, ‘and ever since I’ve known him he’s been dying. He’ll live ten years yet.’
‘Pray God he does,’ Willibald said and made the sign of the cross. ‘But he’s fifty years old, and he’s failing. He’s truly dying.’
‘Which is why he seeks this alliance,’ the West Saxon priest went on, ‘and why the Lord Edward makes this request of you.’
‘King Edward,’ Willibald corrected his fellow priest.
‘So who’s requesting me?’ I asked, ‘Alfred of Wessex or Edward of Cent?’
‘Edward,’ Willibald said.
‘Eohric,’ Ceolnoth and Ceolberht said together.
‘Alfred,’ the West Saxon priest said.
‘All of them,’ Willibald added. ‘It’s important to all of them, lord!’
Edward or Alfred or both wanted me to go to King Eohric of East Anglia. Eohric was a Dane, but he had converted to Christianity, and he had sent the twins to Alfred and proposed that a great alliance should be made between the Christian parts of Britain. ‘King Eohric suggested that you should negotiate the treaty,’ Ceolnoth or Ceolberht said.
‘With our advice,’ one of the West Saxon priests put in hastily.
‘Why me?’ I asked the twins.
Willibald answered for them. ‘Who knows Mercia and Wessex as well as you?’
‘Many men,’ I answered.
‘And where you lead,’ Willibald said, ‘those other men will follow.’
We were at a table on which was ale, bread, cheese, pottage and apples. The central hearth was ablaze with a great fire that flickered its light on the smoke-blackened beams. The shepherd had been right and the sleet had turned to snow and some flakes sifted through the smoke-hole in the roof. Outside, beyond the palisade, Wærfurth and the archer were hanging from the bare branch of an elm, their bodies food for the hungry birds. Most of my men were in the hall, listening to our conversation. ‘It’s a strange time of year to be making treaties,’ I said.
‘Alfred has little time left,’ Willibald said, ‘and he wishes this alliance, lord. If all the Christians of Britain are united, lord, then young Edward’s throne will be protected when he inherits the crown.’
That made sense, but why would Eohric want the alliance? Eohric of East Anglia had been perched on the fence between Christians and pagans, Danes and Saxons, for as long as I could remember, yet now he wanted to proclaim his allegiance to the Christian Saxons?
‘Because of Cnut Ranulfson,’ one of the twins explained when I asked the question.
‘He’s brought men south,’ the other twin said.
‘To Sigurd Thorrson’s lands,’ I said. ‘I know, I sent that news to Alfred. And Eohric fears Cnut and Sigurd?’
‘He does,’ Ceolnoth or Ceolberht said.
‘Cnut and Sigurd won’t attack now,’ I said, ‘but in the spring, maybe.’ Cnut and Sigurd were Danes from Northumbria and, like all the Danes, their abiding dream was to capture all the lands where English was spoken. The invaders had tried again and again, and again and again they had failed, yet another attempt was inevitable because the heart of Wessex, which was the great bastion of Saxon Christendom, was failing. Alfred was dying, and his death would surely bring pagan swords and heathen fire to Mercia and to Wessex. ‘But why would Cnut or Sigurd attack Eohric?’ I asked. ‘They don’t want East Anglia, they want Mercia and Wessex.’
‘They want everything,’ Ceolnoth or Ceolberht answered.
‘And the true faith will be scourged from Britain unless we defend it,’ the older of the two West Saxon priests said.
‘Which is why we beg you to forge the alliance,’ Willibald said.
‘At the Christmas feast,’ one of the twins added.
‘And Alfred sent a gift for Eohric,’ Willibald went on enthusiastically, ‘Alfred and Edward! They have been most generous, lord!’
The gift was encased in a box of silver studded with precious stones. The lid of the box showed a figure of Christ with uplifted arms, around which was written ‘Edward mec heht Gewyrcan’, meaning that Edward had ordered the reliquary made, or more likely his father had ordered the gift and then ascribed the generosity to his son. Willibald lifted the lid reverently, revealing an interior lined with red-dyed cloth. A small cushion, the width and breadth of a man’s hand, fitted snugly inside, and on the cushion was a fish skeleton. It was the whole fish skeleton, except for the head, just a long white spine with a comb of ribs on either side. ‘There,’ Willibald said, breathing the word as if speaking too loud might disturb the bones.
‘A dead herring?’ I asked incredulously, ‘that’s Alfred’s gift?’
The priests all crossed themselves.
‘How many more fish bones do you want?’ I asked. I looked at Finan, my closest friend and the commander of my household warriors. ‘We can provide dead fish, can’t we?’
‘By the barrelful, lord,’ he said.
‘Lord Uhtred!’ Willibald, as ever, rose to my taunting. ‘That fish,’ he pointed a quivering finger at the bones, ‘was one of the two fishes our Lord used to feed the five thousand!’
‘The other one must have been a damned big fish,’ I said, ‘what was it? A whale?’
The older West Saxon priest scowled at me. ‘I advised King Edward against employing you for this duty,’ he said, ‘I told him to send a Christian.’
‘So use someone else,’ I retorted. ‘I’d rather spend Yule in my own hall.’
‘He wishes you to go,’ the priest said sharply.
‘Alfred also wishes it,’ Willibald put in, then smiled, ‘he thinks you’ll frighten Eohric.’
‘Why does he want Eohric frightened?’
