*You did,' the bishop allowed, *but not till after he'd ravaged the county!'

*So men want Cent to be its own kingdom again?' I asked.

He hesitated a long time before answering, and even then he was evasive. *No one wanted that while Alfred lived,' he said, *but now?'

I stood and walked to a window from where I could stare down at the wharves. Gulls screamed and wheeled in the summer sky. There were two cranes on the wharf and they were lifting horses into a wide-bellied trading ship. The ship's hold had been divided into stalls where the frightened beasts were being tethered. *Where are the horses going?' I asked.

*Horses?' Swithwulf asked, puzzled, then realised why I had asked the unexpected question. *They send them to market in Frankia. We breed good horses here.'

*You do?'

*Ealdorman Sigelf does,' he said.

*And Sigelf rules here,' I said, *and his son talks to the Danes.'

The bishop shuddered. *So you say,' he said cautiously.

I turned to him. *And his son was in love with your daughter,' I said, *and for that reason hates Edward.'

*Dear God,' Swithwulf said quietly and made the sign of the cross. There were tears in his eyes. *She was a silly girl, a silly girl, but joyous.'

*I'm sorry,' I said.

He blinked away the tears. *And you look after my grandchildren?'

*They're in my care, yes.'

*I hear the boy is sickly,' he sounded anxious.

*That's just a rumour,' I reassured him. *They're both healthy, but it's better for their health if Ealdorman aethelhelm believes the contrary.'

*aethelhelm's not a bad man,' the bishop said grudgingly.

*But he'd still cut your grandchildren's throats if he had the chance.'

Swithwulf nodded. *What colour do they have?'

*The boy's dark like his father, the girl is fair.'

*Like my daughter,' he said in a whisper.

*Who married the aetheling of Wessex,' I said, *who now denies it. And Sigebriht, her rejected lover, went to the Danes out of hatred for Edward.'

*Yes,' the bishop said quietly.

*But then swore an oath to Edward when aethelwold fled north.'

Swithwulf nodded. *I heard.'

*Can he be trusted?'

The directness of the question unsettled Swithwulf. He frowned and shifted uncomfortably, then gazed through a window to where crows where loud on the grass. *I would not trust him,' he said softly.

*I couldn't hear you, bishop.'

*I would not trust him,' he said more loudly.

*But his father is ealdorman here, not Sigebriht.'

*Sigelf is a difficult man,' the bishop said, his voice low again, *but not a fool.' He looked at me with unhappy appeal. *I'll deny this conversation,' he said.

*Have you heard us having a conversation?' I asked Finan.

*Not a word,' he said.

We stayed that night in Hrofeceastre and next day went back to Lundene on the flooding tide. There was a chill on the water, the first taste of autumn coming, and I rousted my men from the new town's taverns and saddled horses. I was deliberately staying away from Fagranforda because it was so close to Natangrafum and so I took my small troop south and west along familiar roads until we reached Wintanceaster.

Edward was surprised and pleased to see me. He knew I had not been in Fagranforda for most of the summer so did not ask me about the twins, instead telling me that his sister had sent news of them. *They're well,' he said. He invited me to a feast. *We don't serve my father's food,' he assured me.

*That's a blessing, lord,' I said. Alfred had ever served insipid meals of weak broths and limp vegetables, while Edward, at least, knew the virtues of meat. His new wife was there, plump and pregnant, while her father, Ealdorman aethelhelm, was plainly Edward's most trusted counsellor. There were fewer priests than in Alfred's day, but at least a dozen were at the feast, including my old friend Willibald.

aethelhelm greeted me jovially. *We feared you'd be provoking the Danes,' he said.

*Who? Me?'

*They're quiet,' aethelhelm said, *and best not to wake them.'

Edward looked at me. *Would you wake them?' he asked.

*What I would do, lord,' I told him, *is send a hundred of your best warriors to Cent. Then I'd send another two or three hundred to Mercia and build burhs there.'

*Cent?' aethelhelm asked.

*Cent is restless,' I said.

*They've always been troublesome,' aethelhelm said dismissively, *but they hate the Danes as much as the rest of us.'

*The Centish fyrd must protect Cent,' Edward said.

*And Lord aethelred can build burhs,' aethelhelm declared. *If the Danes come we'll be ready for them, but there's no point in poking them with a sharp stick. Father Willibald!'

*Lord?' Willibald half stood at one of the lower tables.

*Have we heard from our missionaries?'

*We will, lord!' Willibald said, *I'm sure we will.'

*Missionaries?' I asked.

*Among the Danes,' Edward said. *We will convert them.'

*We shall beat Danish swords into ploughshares,' Willibald said, and it was just after those hopeful words were said that a messenger arrived. He was a mud-spattered priest who had come from Mercia, and he had been sent to Wessex by Werferth, who was the Bishop of Wygraceaster. The man had plainly ridden hard and there was a hush in the hall as we waited to hear his news. Edward raised a hand and the harpist lifted his fingers from the strings.

*Lord,' the priest went on his knees before the dais on which the high table was bright with candles, *great news, lord King.'

*aethelwold's dead?' Edward asked.

*God is great!' the priest said. *The age of miracles is not over!'

*Miracles?' I asked.

*It seems there is an ancient tomb, lord,' the priest explained, looking up at Edward, *a tomb in Mercia, and angels have appeared there to foretell the future. Britain will be Christian! You will rule from sea to sea, lord! There are angels! And they have brought the prophecy from heaven!'

There was a sudden spate of questions that Edward silenced. Instead he and aethelhelm questioned the man, learning that Bishop Werferth had sent trusted priests to the ancient tomb and they had confirmed the heavenly visitation. The messenger could not contain his joy. *The angels say the Danes will turn to Christ, lord, and you shall rule one kingdom of all the Angelcynn!'

*You see?' Father Coenwulf, who had survived being locked in a stable on the night he had gone to pray with aethelwold, could not resist the temptation to be triumphant. He was looking at me. *You see, Lord Uhtred! The age of miracles is not over!'

*Glory be to God!' Edward said.

Goose feathers and tavern whores. Glory be to God.

Natangrafum became a place of pilgrimage. Hundreds of people went there, and most were disappointed because the angels did not appear every night, indeed whole weeks went by with no lights showing at the tomb and no strange singing sounding from its stony depths, but then the angels would come again and the valley beneath Natangrafum's sepulchre would echo with the prayers of folk seeking help.

Only a few were permitted into the tomb, and those were chosen by Father Cuthbert, who led them past the armed men who protected the ancient mound. Those men were mine, led by Rypere, but the banner planted on the hill's top, close to the tomb's entrance, was aethelflaed's flag, which showed a rather ungainly goose that was somehow holding a cross in one webbed foot and a sword in the other. aethelflaed was convinced Saint Werburgh protected her, just as the saint had once protected a wheatfield by driving out a flock of hungry geese. That was supposed to be a miracle, in which case I am a miracle worker too, but I was also too sensible to tell that to aethelflaed. The goose banner suggested that the guards belonged to aethelflaed, and anyone invited into the tomb would assume that it was under aethelflaed's protection, and that was believable because no one would credit Uhtred the Wicked with guarding a place of Christian pilgrimage. The visitor, led past the guards, would come to the tomb entrance, which, at night, was lit by dim rushlights that showed two heaps of skulls, one on each side of the low, cave-like opening. Cuthbert would kneel with them, pray with them, then command them to take off their weapons and mail. *No one can go into the angelic presence with war gear,' he would say sternly and, once they had obeyed him, he offered them a potion in a silver cup. *Drink it all down,' he would order them.

I never tried that liquid, which was cooked up by Ludda. My memory of aelfadell's drink was more than sufficient. *It gives them dreams, lord,' Ludda explained when I made one of my rare visits to Turcandene. aethelflaed had come with me and insisted on sniffing the potion. *Dreams?' she asked.

*One or two vomit as well, lady,' Ludda said, *but yes, dreams.'

Not that they needed dreams for, once they had drunk, and when Cuthbert saw the vagueness in their eyes, he let them crawl into the tomb's long passage. Inside they saw the stone walls, floor and ceiling, and on either side the chambers heaped with bones, all lit by rushlights, but ahead of them were the angels. Three angels, not two, huddled together at the passage's end, where they were surrounded by the glorious feathers of their wings. *I chose three, as three is a sacred number, lord,' Cuthbert explained, *an angel for each member of the Trinity.'

The goose feathers were glued to the rock. They formed fans, which, in the dim light, could easily be mistaken for wings. It had taken Ludda a whole day to place the feathers, then the three girls had to be coached in their duties, which had taken the best part of a month. They sang softly when a visitor came. Cuthbert had taught them the music, which was soft and dreamlike, not much above a hum and with no words, just sounds that echoed in that small stone space.

Mehrasa was the central angel. Her dark skin, black hair and jet eyes made her mysterious, and Ludda had added to the mystery by pasting some raven feathers among the white. All three girls were simply robed in white linen, while the dark Mehrasa had a chain of gold about her neck. Men gazed in awe, and no wonder, for the three girls were beautiful. The two Franks were both very fair-haired with wide blue eyes. They were visions in that dark tomb, though both, Ludda told me, were prone to bouts of giggling when they should have been at their most solemn.

The visitor probably never noticed the giggles. A strange voice, Ludda's, seemed to come from the solid rock. Ludda chanted that the visitor had come before the angel of death and the two angels of life, and that they should address their questions to all three and wait for an answer.

Those questions were all important because they told us what men wanted to know, and most of that, of course, was trivial. Would they inherit from a relative? What was the prospect of the harvest? Some were heartbreaking pleas for the life of a child or a wife, some were prayers to be helped in a law suit or in a quarrel with a neighbour, and all those Ludda dealt with as best he could while the three girls crooned their soft, low and plangent melody. Then came the more interesting questions. Who would rule Mercia? Would there be war? Would the Danes come south and take the land of the Saxons? The whores, the feathers and the tomb were a net and we caught some interesting fish there. Beortsig, whose father had paid money to Sigurd, had come to the tomb and wanted to know if the Danes would take over Mercia and place a tame Mercian on the throne and then, more interesting still, Sigebriht of Cent had crawled up the dim stone passage that was pungent with the smell of burning incense, and had asked about aethelwold's fate.

*And what did you tell him?' I asked Ludda.

*What you ordered me to tell him, lord, that all his hopes and dreams would come true.'

*And did they come true that night?'

*Seffa did her duty,' Ludda said with a straight face. Seffa was one of the two Franks. aethelflaed glanced over at the girl. Ludda, Father Cuthbert and the three angels were living in the Roman house at Turcandene. *I like this house,' Father Cuthbert had greeted me, *I think I should live in a large house.'

*Saint Cuthbert the Comfortable?'

*Saint Cuthbert the Content,' he said.

*And Mehrasa?'

He gave her an adoring look. *She really is an angel, lord.'

*She looks happy,' I said, and so she did. I doubted she fully understood the strange things she was asked to do, but she was learning English fast and she was a clever girl. *I could find her a wealthy husband,' I teased Cuthbert.

*Lord!' He looked hurt, then frowned. *If I have your permission, lord, I would take her as my wife.'

*Is that what she wants?'

He giggled, he really giggled, then nodded. *Yes, lord.'

*So she's not as clever as she looks,' I said sourly. *But she must finish here first. And if she gets pregnant I'll seal you up with the other bones.'

The tomb was doing exactly what I had wished it to do. The questions men asked told us what was on their minds, thus Sigebriht's anxious enquiries about aethelwold confirmed that he had not abandoned his hopes of becoming King of Cent if aethelwold were to topple Edward from the throne. The angel's second task was to fight the rumours that came south from aelfadell's prophecies that the Danes would gain the overlordship of all Britain. Those rumours had dispirited men in both Mercia and Wessex, but now they heard a different prophecy, that the Saxons would be the victors, and that message, I knew, would encourage the Saxons, just as it would intrigue and irritate the Danes. I wanted to goad them. I wanted to defeat them.

I suppose that one day, long after I am dead, the Danes will find a leader who can unite them, and then the world will be consumed by flames and the halls of Valhalla will fill with the feasting dead, but so long as I have known, loved and fought the Danes they have been quarrelsome and divided. My present wife's priest, an idiot, says that is because God has sown dissension among them, but I have always thought it was because the Danes are a stubborn, proud and independent people, unwilling to bend their knees to a man simply because he wears a crown. They will follow a man with a sword, but as soon as he fails they drift away to find another leader, and so their armies come together, fall apart, and then reform. I have known Danes who almost succeeded in keeping a mighty army together and leading it to complete triumph, there was Ubba, Guthrum, even Haesten, all of them tried, yet in the end they all failed. The Danes did not fight for a cause or even for a country and certainly not for a creed, but only for themselves, and when they suffered a defeat their armies vanished as men went to find another lord who might lead them to silver, women and land.

And my angels were a lure to persuade them that there was reputation to be made in war. *Have any Danes visited the tomb?' I asked Ludda.

*Two, lord,' he said, *both merchants.'

*And you told them?'

Ludda hesitated, glanced at aethelflaed, then back to me. *I told them what you ordered me to tell them, lord.'

*You did?'

He nodded, then made the sign of the cross. *I told them you would die, lord, and that a Dane would earn great renown by slaying Uhtred of Bebbanburg.' aethelflaed drew in a sharp breath and then, like Ludda, made the sign of the cross. *You told them what?' she asked.

*What Lord Uhtred told me to tell them, lady,' Ludda said nervously.

*You're risking fate,' aethelflaed told me.

*I want the Danes to come,' I said, *and I need to offer them a bait.'

Because Plegmund was wrong, and aethelhelm was wrong, and Edward was wrong. Peace is a fine thing, but we only have peace when our enemies are too scared to make war. The Danes were not quiet because the Christian god had silenced them, but because they were distracted by other things. Edward wanted to believe they had abandoned their dreams of conquering Wessex, yet I knew they would come. aethelwold had not abandoned his dream either. He would come, and with him would come a savage horde of sword-Danes and spear-Danes, and I wanted them to come. I wanted to get it over. I wanted to be the sword of the Saxons.

And still they did not come.

I never did understand why it took the Danes so long to take advantage of Alfred's death. I suppose if aethelwold had been a more inspirational leader instead of being a weak man then they might have come sooner, but they waited so long that all Wessex was convinced that their god had answered their prayers and made the Danes peaceable. And all the while my angels sang their two songs, one to the Saxons and one to the Danes, and perhaps they made a difference. There were plenty of Danes who wanted to nail my skull to their gable, and the song of the tomb was an invitation.

Yet they hesitated.

Archbishop Plegmund was triumphant. Two years after Edward's coronation I was summoned to Wintanceaster and had to endure a sermon in the new great church. Plegmund, stern and fierce, claimed that God had conquered when all the swords of man had failed. *We are in the last days,' he said, *and we see the dawning of Christ's kingdom.'

I remember that visit because it was the last time I saw aelswith, Alfred's widow. She was retiring to a convent, driven there, I heard, by Plegmund's insistence. It was Offa who told me that. *She supports the archbishop,' Offa said, *but he can't stand her! She nags.'