*It was a gift from the Jarl Cnut,' he said, *who will be here by nightfall.'

*I wondered why you were waiting,' I said, *now I know. You need help.'

Haesten smiled as if he indulged my insults. The man with the green branch was a few paces behind him, while next to him was a warrior wearing another ornate helmet, this one with its cheek-pieces laced together so I could not see his face. His mail was expensive, his saddle and belt decorated with silver, and his arms thick with precious rings. His horse was nervous and he struck it hard on the neck, which only made it sidestep in the soft ground. Haesten leaned over and stroked the skittery stallion. *Jarl Cnut is bringing Ice-Spite,' he said to me.

*Ice-Spite?'

*His sword,' Haesten explained. *You and he, Lord Uhtred, will fight in the hazel branches. That's my gift to him.'

Cnut Ranulfson was reputed to be the greatest swordsman among all the sword-Danes, a magician with a blade, a man who smiled as he killed and was proud of his reputation. I confess I felt a tremor of fear at Haesten's words. A fight contained in a space marked by hazel branches was a formal fight, and always to the death. It would be a demonstration of skill by Cnut. *It will be a pleasure killing him,' I said.

*But didn't your angels say you were to die?' Haesten asked, amused.

*My angels?'

*A clever idea,' Haesten said, *young Sigurd here brought them back to us. Two such pretty girls! He enjoyed them! So did most of our men.'

So the horseman with Haesten was Sigurd's son, the puppy who had wanted to fight me at Ceaster, and the raid on Turcandene had been his doing, his initiation as a leader, though I did not doubt his father had sent older and wiser men to make sure his son made no fatal errors. I remembered the flies around Ludda's body and the crudely drawn raven on the Roman plaster. *When you die, puppy,' I told him, *I'll make sure you have no sword in your hand. I'll send you to Hel's rotten flesh instead. See how you enjoy that, you dribble of bat shit.'

Sigurd Sigurdson drew his sword, he drew it very slowly as if to demonstrate that he was not issuing an immediate challenge. *She is called Fire-Dragon,' he said, holding the blade upright.

*A puppy's blade,' I scoffed.

*I want you to know the name of the sword that will kill you,' he said, then wrenched his stallion's head around as if to drive the beast into me, but the horse half reared and young Sigurd had to cling to the mane to stay in the saddle. Haesten again leaned over and took hold of the stallion's bridle.

*Put the sword away, lord,' he told the boy, then smiled at me. *You have till evening to surrender,' he said, *and if you do not surrender,' his voice was harder now, riding over the comment I had been about to make, *then every one of you will die. But if you yield, Lord Uhtred, we shall spare your men. Till evening!' He turned his horse, dragging young Sigurd with him. *Till evening!' he called again as he rode away.

This was the war that passeth understanding, I thought. Why wait? Unless Haesten so feared losing a quarter or a third of his force. But if this truly was the vanguard of a great Danish army then it had no business loitering at Scrobbesburh. They should be pushing fast and hard into the soft underbelly of Saxon Mercia, then crossing the Temes to ravage Wessex. Every day that the Danes waited now was a day to assemble the fyrd and bring house-warriors from the Saxon shires, unless my suspicion was right and this Danish thrust was intended to deceive because the real attack was taking place somewhere else.

There were more Danes nearby. Late in the morning, as the rain at last ended and a watery sun showed weak through the clouds, we saw more smoke in the eastern sky. The smoke was thin at first, but thickened fast, and within an hour two more plumes appeared. So the Danes were harrying the nearby villages, and another band had crossed the river and were patrolling the great loop that trapped us. Osferth had found two boats, just skins stretched over willow frames, and had wanted to make a big raft like the one we had found to cross the Use, but the presence of the Danish horsemen ended that idea. I ordered my men to stiffen the barricade across the neck, raising it with beams and rafters to protect the men of the fyrd and channel any attack into my shield wall. I had small hope of surviving a determined assault, but men must be kept busy and so they pulled down six of the cottages and carried the timbers to the neck where the barrier slowly became more formidable. A priest who had taken refuge in Scrobbesburh walked along my defensive line giving men small scraps of bread. They knelt before him, he placed the crumbs on their lips, then added a pinch of soil. *Why's he doing that?' I asked Osferth.

*We come from the earth, lord, and that's where we'll go.'

*We'll go nowhere unless Haesten attacks,' I said.

*He fears us?'

I shook my head. *It's a trap,' I said, and there had been so many traps, from the moment the men tried to kill me on Saint Alnoth's day and the summons to seal a treaty with Eohric, and my burning of Sigurd's ships, and the creation of the angels, but now I suspected the Danes had sprung the largest trap and it had worked because in the afternoon there was a sudden flurry of panic on the river's far bank as the patrolling Danes spurred their horses westwards. Something had frightened them, and a few moments later a much larger band of horsemen appeared and these men were flaunting two banners, one with a cross and the other a dragon. They were West Saxons. Haesten was drawing men to Scrobbesburh, and I was convinced we were all needed in some place far away where the real Danish attack must be unfolding.

Steapa led the newcomers. He dismounted and clambered down the river bank to a small shelf of mud where he cupped his hands. *Where can we cross?'

*To the west,' I shouted back, *how many are you?'

*Two hundred and twenty!'

*We've got seven hundred Danes here,' I called, *but I don't think this is their great army!'

*More of our people are coming!' he called, ignoring my last words and I watched him clamber back up the bank.

He went west, vanishing in the trees as he sought a ford or bridge. I went back to the neck and saw the Danes still sitting in their line. They had to be bored, but they made no effort to provoke us, even when evening came and went. Haesten must have known I would not meekly surrender, yet he made no move to enforce his morning threat. We watched the Danish campfires spring up again, we watched westwards for the arrival of Steapa, we watched and we waited. Night fell.

And in the dawn the Danes were gone.

aethelflaed arrived an hour after the sun rose, bringing almost one hundred and fifty warriors. Like Steapa she had to ride west to find a ford and it was midday before we were all together. *I thought you were going south,' I greeted her.

*Someone has to fight them,' she retorted.

*Except they've gone,' I said. The land to the north of the neck was still dotted with smouldering campfires, but there were no Danes, only hoof tracks going eastwards. We now had an army, but no one to fight. *Haesten never meant to fight me,' I said, *he just wanted to draw men here.'

Steapa looked at me with a puzzled expression, but aethelflaed understood what I was saying. *So where are they?'

*We're in the west,' I said, *so they must be in the east.'

*And Haesten's gone to join them?'

*I'd think so,' I said. We knew nothing for certain, of course, except that Haesten's men had attacked south from Ceaster and then, mysteriously, ridden eastwards. Edward, like aethelflaed, had responded to my very first warnings, sending men north to discover whether there was an invasion or not. Steapa was supposed to confirm or deny my first message, then ride back to Wintanceaster. aethelflaed had ignored my orders to shelter in Cirrenceastre and instead brought her own house-warriors north. Other Mercian troops, she said, had been summoned to Gleawecestre. *That's a surprise,' I said sarcastically. aethelred, just as he had the last time Haesten invaded Mercia, would protect his own lands and let the rest of the country fend for itself.

*I should go back to the king,' Steapa said.

*What are your orders?' I asked him. *To find the Danish invasion?'

*Yes, lord.'

*Have you found it?'

He shook his head. *No.'

*Then you and your men come with me,' I said, *and you,' I pointed to aethelflaed, *should go to Cirrenceastre or else join your brother.'

*And you,' she said, pointing back at me, *do not command me, so I'll do what I wish.' She stared at me challengingly, but I said nothing. *Why don't we destroy Haesten?' she asked.

*Because we don't have enough men,' I said patiently, *and because we don't know where the rest of the Danes are. You want to start a battle with Haesten and then discover three thousand mead-crazed Danes are in your rear?'

*Then what do we do?' she asked.

*What I tell you to do,' I said, and so we went eastwards, following Haesten's hoof-prints, and it was noticeable that no more steadings had been burned and no villages sacked. That meant Haesten had been travelling fast, ignoring the chances for enrichment because, I assumed, he was under orders to join the Danish great army, wherever that was.

We hurried too, but on the second day we were close to Liccelfeld and I had business there. We rode into the small town that had no walls, but boasted a great church, two mills, a monastery and an imposing hall, which was the bishop's house. Many of the folk had fled southwards, seeking the shelter of a burh, and our arrival caused panic. We saw folk running towards the nearest woods, assuming we were Danes.

We watered the horses in the two streams that ran through the town and I sent Osferth and Finan to buy food while aethelflaed and I took thirty men to the town's second largest hall, a magnificent and new building that stood at Liccelfeld's northern edge. The widow who lived there had not fled from our arrival. Instead she waited in her hall, accompanied by a dozen servants.

Her name was Edith. She was young, she was pretty and she was hard, though she looked soft. Her face was round, her curly red hair was springy and her figure plump. She wore a gown of linen dyed gold and around her neck was a looped golden chain. *You're Offa's widow,' I said, and she nodded without speaking. *Where are his dogs?'

*I drowned them,' she said.

*How much did Jarl Sigurd pay your husband to lie to us?' I asked.

*I don't know what you're talking about,' she said.

I turned to Sihtric. *Search the place,' I told him, *take all the food you need.'

*You can't...' Edith began.

*I can do what I want!' I snarled at her. *Your husband sold Wessex and Mercia to the Danes.'

She was stubborn, admitting nothing, yet there was too much evident wealth in the newly built hall. She screamed at us, clawed at me when I took the gold from around her neck, and spat curses when we left. I did not leave the town straightaway, instead I went to the graveyard by the cathedral where my men dug Offa's body from its grave. He had paid silver to the priests so that he could be buried close to the relics of Saint Chad, believing that proximity would hasten his ascent into heaven on the day of Christ's return to earth, but I did my best to consign his filthy soul to the Christian hell. We carried his rotting body, still in its discoloured winding sheet, to the edge of town and there threw it into a stream.

Then we rode on eastwards to discover whether his treachery had doomed Wessex.

PART FOUR.

Death in Winter.

Eleven.

The village was no more. The houses were smouldering piles of charred timbers and ash, the corpses of four hacked dogs lay in the muddy street, and the stink of roasted flesh was mingling with the sullen smoke. A woman's body, naked and swollen, floated in a pond. Ravens were perched on her shoulders, tearing at the bloated flesh. Blood had dried black in the grooves of the flat washing-stone beside the water. A great elm tree towered above the village, but its southern side had been set alight by flames from the church roof and had burned so that the tree appeared lightning-blasted, one half in full green leaf, the other half black, shrivelled and brittle. The ruins of the church still burned and there was not one person alive to tell us the name of the place, though a dozen smears of smoke told us that this was not the only village to be reduced to charred ruin.

We had ridden eastwards, again following the tracks of Haesten's band, then those hoof-prints had turned south to join a larger burned and beaten path. That path had been made by hundreds of horses, probably thousands, and the smoke trails in the sky suggested that the Danes were journeying south towards the valley of the Temes and the rich pickings of Wessex beyond.

*There are corpses in the church,' Osferth told me. His voice was calm, yet I could tell he was angry. *Many corpses,' he said. *They must have locked them inside and burned the church around them.'

*Like a hall-burning,' I said, remembering Ragnar the Elder's hall blazing in the night and the screams of the people trapped inside.

*There are children there,' Osferth said, sounding angrier. *Their bodies shrivelled to the size of babies!'

*Their souls are with God,' aethelflaed tried to comfort him.

*There's no pity any more,' Osferth said, looking at the sky, which was a mix of grey cloud and dark smoke.

Steapa also glanced at the sky. *They're going south,' he said. He was thinking of his orders to return to Wessex and worrying that I was keeping him in Mercia while a Danish horde threatened his homeland.

*Or maybe to Lundene?' aethelflaed suggested. *Maybe south to the Temes, then downriver to Lundene?' She was thinking the same thoughts as me. I remembered the city's decayed wall, and Eohric's scouts watching that wall. Alfred had known the importance of Lundene, which is why he had asked me to capture it, but did the Danes know? Whoever garrisoned Lundene controlled the Temes, and the Temes led deep into Mercia and Wessex. So much trade went through Lundene and so many roads led there and whoever held Lundene held the key to southern Britain. I looked southwards where the great plumes of smoke drifted. A Danish army had passed this way, probably only a day before, but was it their only army? Was another besieging Lundene? Had another already captured the city? I was tempted to ride straight for Lundene to ensure that it would be well defended, but that would mean abandoning the burning trail of the great army. aethelflaed was watching me, waiting for an answer, but I said nothing. Six of us sat on our horses in the centre of that burned village while my men watered their horses in the pond where the swollen corpse floated. aethelflaed, Steapa, Finan, Merewalh and Osferth were all looking to me, and I was trying to place myself in the mind of whoever commanded the Danes. Cnut? Sigurd? Eohric? We did not even know that.

*We'll follow these Danes,' I finally decided, nodding towards the smoke in the southern sky.

*I should join my lord,' Merewalh said unhappily.

aethelflaed smiled. *Let me tell you what my husband will do,' she said, and the scorn in the word husband was as pungent as the stench from the burning church. *He will keep his forces in Gleawecestre,' she went on, *just as he did when the Danes last invaded.' She saw the struggle on Merewalh's face. He was a good man, and like all good men he wanted to do his oath-duty, which was to be at his lord's side, but he knew aethelflaed spoke the truth. She straightened in her saddle. *My husband,' she said, though this time without any scorn, *gave me permission to give orders to any of his followers that I encountered. So now I order you to stay with me.'

Merewalh knew she was lying. He looked at her for an instant, then nodded. *Then I shall, lady.'

*What about the dead?' Osferth asked, staring at the church. aethelflaed leaned over and gently touched her half-brother's arm. *The dead must bury their dead,' she said.

Osferth knew there was no time to give the dead a Christian burial. They must be left here, but the anger was tight in him and he slid from his saddle and walked to the smoking church where small flames licked from the burning timbers. He pulled two charred lengths of wood from the ruin. One was about five feet long, the other much shorter, and he scavenged among the ruined cottages until he found a strip of leather, perhaps a belt, and he used the leather to lash the two pieces of timber together. He made a cross. *With your permission, lord,' he told me, *I want my own standard.'

*The son of a king should have a banner,' I said.

He rammed the butt of the cross on the ground so that it shed ash, and the crosspiece tilted crookedly. It would have been funny if he had not been so bitterly enraged. *This is my standard,' he said, and called for his servant, a deaf-mute named Hwit, to carry the cross.

We followed the hoof tracks south through more burned villages, past a great hall that was now ashes and blackened rafters, and by fields where cattle lowed miserably because they needed milking. If the Danes had left cows behind then they must already have a vast herd, too big to manage, and they must have collected women and children for the slave markets as well. They were encumbered by now. Instead of being a fast, dangerous, well-mounted army of savage raiders they had become a lumbering procession of captives, wagons, herds and flocks. They would still be spewing out vicious raid parties, but each of those would bring back further plunder to slow the main army even more.

They had crossed the Temes. We discovered that next day when we reached Cracgelad where I had killed Aldhelm, aethelred's man. The small town was now a burh, and its walls were of stone, not earth and wood. The fortifications were aethelflaed's doing, and she had ordered the work done, not only because the small town guarded a crossing of the Temes, but because she had witnessed a small miracle there; touched, she believed, by a dead saint's hand. So Cracgelad was now a formidable fortress, with a flooded ditch fronting the new stone wall and it was hardly surprising that the Danes had ignored the garrison and instead had headed for the causeway that led across the marshes on the north bank of the Temes to the Roman bridge, which had been repaired at the same time that Cracgelad's walls had been rebuilt. We also followed the causeway and stood our horses on the northern bank of the Temes and watched the skies burn above Wessex. So Edward's kingdom was being ravaged. aethelflaed might have made Cracgelad into a burh, but the town still flew her husband's banner of the white horse above its southern gate rather than her flag of the cross-grasping goose. A dozen men now appeared at that gate and walked to join us. One was a priest, Father Kynhelm, and he gave us our first reliable news. aethelwold, he said, was with the Danes. *He came to the gate, lord, and demanded we surrender.'

*You recognised him?'

*I've never seen him before, lord, but he announced himself and I assume he told the truth. He came with Saxons.'

*Not Danes?'

Father Kynhelm shook his head. *The Danes stayed away. We could see them, but as far as I could tell the men at the gate were all Saxons. A lot of them shouted at us to surrender. I counted two hundred and twenty.'

*And one woman,' a man added.

I ignored that. *How many Danes?' I asked Father Kynhelm.

He shrugged. *Hundreds, lord, they blackened the fields.'

*aethelwold's banner is a stag,' I said, *with crosses for antlers. Was that the only flag?'

*They showed a black cross as well, lord, and a boar flag.'

*A boar?' I said.

*A tusked boar, lord.'

So Beortsig had joined his masters, which meant that the army plundering Wessex was part Saxon. *What answer did you give aethelwold?' I asked Father Kynhelm.

*That we served Lord aethelred, lord.'

*You have news of Lord aethelred?'

*No, lord.'

*You have food?'

*Enough for the winter, lord. The harvest was adequate, God be praised.'

*What forces do you have?'