Warriors of Ethandun (11 page)

‘There may be archers,' Aelfred said reluctantly. ‘If you do not sheathe your sword, you will be killed for treachery.'

‘If I sheathe this sword, a bowman or this spearman here may take a shot at me and I'll be dead anyway,' Dan said evenly, making no attempt to put away his sword. When he held it, all his doubts and uncertainties faded: he knew who he was. Already he had begun to distance himself from the death of the two hapless enemies. He could
not afford to dwell on such things: keeping himself alive took up all his attention. ‘I would like some guarantees that you will not have me killed once you are with your men. I have saved your life and could kill you now if I wanted to – surely that is proof enough that I am not your enemy. How many warriors do you have that you can afford to lose one like me?'

That at least seemed to get through to the King. He paused to speak – it seemed as if he could not walk and speak at once and was again struggling for breath.

‘You're a warrior, I can see that, but you fight like a Dane – without mercy or conscience. I do not think I can trust you.'

Dan's sword arm moved almost of its own volition in the direction of the King's throat. The guardsman raised his spear. Dan ignored both it and him and met Aelfred's eyes.

‘How can I prove to you that I am not a spy?'

Aelfred shook his head. ‘You cannot. Not here. Not now. Unless I ask God to put you to the test.'

‘What do you mean?'

‘If you are truly innocent, and no spy, and we were to put you in the lake, yonder, God would accept your body into the depths. If you are guilty, he would reject you, allowing you to float.'

‘So if I am innocent, I drown?'

‘Of course not! We tie a rope around you and haul you up.'

Dan thought about it for a moment. It seemed ludicrous to him and of course it could be a trick, but
Aelfred's expression was earnest. Dan was still more sensitive to other people's feelings than he would have liked, so he knew that this was what Aelfred wanted him to do. He was good at sinking – his swimming teacher at school always accused him of having heavy bones. Dan's heart did some sinking of its own as he thought about what it might mean to allow himself to drop to the bottom of a lake, at the mercy of a man who might want him dead, trusting that he would bring him back to the surface. But without Aelfred's trust he would be dead soon anyway. He could not fight every man the King sent against him and there were too many ways of killing by stealth – a knife in the back, poison in the food; it was too risky. He tried to think of some other way to prove his innocence in Aelfred's eyes, but his mind remained unhelpfully blank.

‘How can I trust that you will bring me to the surface when I am proved innocent?' Dan said, adding ‘Sire' when he saw the look of outrage on the guardsman's face.

‘I am the King of Wessex and my oath is binding.'

‘I have your oath that if I do this thing, that if I prove my innocence, you will not let your men kill me?'

‘You have my oath.'

‘And will you help me find my comrade?'

King Aelfred smiled. ‘You bargain with me?'

‘I do not want to go into the lake. I already know that I'm not a spy.'

The King nodded. ‘If God proves your innocence, I will do what I can to help you find your comrade, though
you must know that my commitment to restoring my kingdom and atoning for my failings before God is my chief concern.'

‘When do we do it?' Dan had to fight to keep his voice steady. He clutched his sword hilt tightly. He was shivering. He would rather face an army on his own than face his own fear of drowning.

‘We are almost at the lake. My guardsman here carries a rope with him. The ground is so treacherous that parts of the land can bury a man in mud. We need a stout rope and a strong companion like we need our faith and God's saints.'

Aelfred did not lie and within a few more paces the thin grey line which Dan had taken to be the horizon proved itself to be a broad lake. The water looked grey and cold and as welcoming as a sea of spears. Dan's guts churned. He could see an island, a dark blob of rock and trees, and he wondered if he could perhaps swim for that until it occurred to him that the island was likely to be Aelfred's stronghold.

‘He must drop his spear,' Dan said, indicating Aelfred's guard with a nod of his head. When the guardsman reluctantly complied, Dan sheathed his sword and gave the sword belt to Aelfred. ‘I want it back.' He paused. ‘Sire,' he said bluntly.

‘It is too shallow here. We have to go out into the middle of the lake. You must be naked so that the weight of your clothes will not help you sink. It would be easier to do that now.'

Dan felt foolish. He was not shy about nudity but it was
not comfortable to be naked in front of clothed people, particularly clothed people who might want you dead. Reluctantly he removed his sweatshirt and trousers, his polo shirt, socks and trainers. He kept his boxers on even though the King looked at them curiously. When he had made a heap of his clothes, he wrapped himself in the cloak. He was cold and scared and his teeth had begun to chatter. He felt more than naked without the sword – he felt as though he had lost a limb.

Aelfred gave a loud and not very regal whistle and men emerged from the hidden places around the lake, and Dan scooped up his clothes and followed the King to a small boat moored out of sight by the lakeside. Aelfred's arrival caused a furore. It was clear to Dan that many of the men keeping watch on the lake had not expected to see their King again. With his men around him Aelfred immediately straightened his bowed back and began issuing orders. Dan watched to be certain that he did not give Bright Killer away.

The small boat had room only for Aelfred, the oarsman and an extra guard, in addition to the spearman Dan had considered killing. The spearman unwound a length of hemp rope from under his jerkin and tied it roughly around Dan's naked goose-pimpled chest, just under his arms. By the expression on the spearman's face he would have preferred to be tying it around Dan's neck.

Two of Aelfred's men pushed the boat, wading out into the lake until they were knee-deep in mud. The water when it splashed against Dan was icy. A storm was brewing; the bright sunlight of earlier in the day was gone and
once they got into the lake a raw wind blew, turning ripples on the water into full-blown waves. The sky darkened and it began to rain. Dan hoped that Aelfred did not take all this as an omen of God's displeasure. Dan wanted to get the trial over with, before the bad weather hit.

‘We will do it here,' Aelfred announced, taking the end of the rope and tying it round his own waist and that of the guardsman. Dan had grown a lot in the year or so he had spent since his first trip through the Veil. He might even have been as tall as Ursula – six foot one or so – and he knew that he was getting on for fifteen stone of hard-won muscle because he'd weighed himself in the gym the week before. That was a lot of weight to haul from the bottom of a lake in a storm, particularly if the King had anything to do with the hauling. Aelfred's skin looked green in the strange diffuse light and he didn't look capable of landing a small fish. Dan tried to control his trembling; he did not want to look like a guilty man.

Aelfred began to speak. ‘In the absence of a priest I will lead the prayers and you men of my guard, my brothers in Christ, will be witness to what is done here today and no one who has seen what God is about to show us may doubt the truth of this judgement.' He fixed the two guardsmen with an intense glare which prompted them to mutter a hasty ‘amen'.

He turned to Dan and spoke to him directly.

‘May omnipotent God, who did order baptism to be made by water and did grant remission of sins to men through baptism, may He, through His mercy, decree a right judgement through that water. If, namely, thou art
guilty in that matter, may the water which received Him in baptism not receive thee now; if, however, thou art innocent, may the water which received Him in baptism receive thee now. Through Christ our Lord.'

At the ‘amen' strong hands pushed Dan into the choppy, white-crested waves. He had to fight a scream as the icy water engulfed him. Fortunately he remembered to keep his mouth closed. The water was so cold his body felt numb almost immediately. His instinct was to swim and in a moment of panic he almost did, but then he found his quiet place, the calm place that overrode panic and helped even his frozen brain to think. He tucked his knees up to his chest, let out an air-bubble stream and sank down through the dark water. The lake was deep – it had to be because it felt as though he were falling down for a long time. Surely the rope could not be much longer. How long could he hold his breath? His lungs hurt, he needed to breathe, he needed someone to pull him back to the surface, but still he remained in the water. At that moment, he knew it was a trick. Aelfred wanted him dead and did not want to lose more men in the process. Dan had been a fool to trust him and now he would never find Ursula, never let his sister Lizzie know how much he loved her, nor tell her that she should not take too much notice of Dad and his depressive moods and bad temper. It hurt to keep his eyes open when there was nothing to see, so he closed them, sealing himself into his own private world. He hoped Ursula would find her own way home – if home was what she wanted to find. He had expected, when he'd thought about it at all, that they
would die together fighting somewhere. He would rather have died with Bright Killer in his hand, with Ursula and Braveheart beside him. Perhaps then he would have been less afraid. Maybe it wouldn't hurt too much? Perhaps the cold would let his brain shut down gently? He had always been afraid of water. He had never wanted to drown.

Dan must have lost consciousness or something because the next thing he knew he was coughing his guts out in the bottom of the wooden boat, while Aelfred covered him in his cloak.

Dan gulped air and vomited foul-smelling lake water where he lay. He could not stop shivering and his stomach heaved and twisted out of his control. He could not quite believe he had survived.

‘God has spoken,' Aelfred said, patting Dan on his shoulder.

Dan still struggled to breathe between his racking coughs. Speaking was out of the question.

‘It seems you are to be trusted,' Aelfred said and handed Dan his sword back. Dan nodded an acknowledgement and tried to clutch the sword hilt with what little strength he had, but his muscles refused to obey him and the sword clattered against the sides of the boat. Fortunately Aelfred caught it before it hit the bottom and landed in the bilge water. Perhaps he was supposed to thank Aelfred, but Dan was not feeling particularly
grateful to the man who had all but drowned him. Aelfred, on the other hand, was elated. ‘You have come to me for a reason, I know you have. You give me hope in these dark days.'

Dan's shivering did not abate, though Aelfred insisted that his guards loan him their cloaks in an effort to warm him up. Dan could not feel his hands or his feet and he did not think that was a good sign.

When they got to the shore, he had to be half carried, half dragged from the boat. He had only the vaguest impression of more marshy land lashed by the rain, of a huddle of people, many of them armoured men, and of the familiar sensation of being only partially tied to his body. He was brought back to himself by the sudden ambush of a monstrous beast. It came from nowhere, running at full pelt, and all but knocked over the men who were carrying Dan. Dan smelled his meaty breath. The animal's rough warm tongue was all over his face, licking his icy fingers, throwing himself at his chest and yelping with uncontrollable delight. It was Braveheart – Dan's war dog and the first good thing to have happened to Dan since he'd crossed the Veil. Dan suddenly found that he could not swallow; something caught in his throat. He struggled to move numb arms and to clasp the huge shaggy head of the dog to his face and breathe in the familiar scent of his wet fur.

If the King was bemused by the way the war dog greeted this apparent stranger, Dan did not notice. He allowed the guard to carry him to some kind of low-roofed, smoke-filled dwelling and to lay him on a
straw-filled mattress close to the fire. The dog lay down beside him and his body heat slowly began to thaw Dan out. Dan drifted off to sleep, confident that Braveheart would not allow him to come to any harm.

When the great dog growled, he woke at once. Daylight shone through a vellum window, illuminating the room with a diffuse glow.

‘I should have known that it would be you when they said the dog acted strangely.'

It took Dan a moment to realise that the woman speaking in the language of the Combrogi was talking to him. He opened his eyes and was quite unable to recognise the old crone he saw staring at him. One side of her face was horribly scarred, the skin raw and shiny as though she'd been burned. Her hair was hidden beneath a white coif. Only gradually did he realise who she was.

‘Rhonwen?'

Her voice was older-sounding and huskier than it had been, but it still possessed a power, a kind of hidden fire that sent shivers down his spine.

‘There is no need to talk just now. I hear you were tested by the King. The man is a fool if he tries to drown every new warrior that comes to his service – he's got few enough.' She touched Dan's face tenderly with soft, aged fingers. ‘Still so young, so unchanged, and here am I so old – I have lost track of the number of summers I have seen. So many changes to my face – too many places in my memory.'

She patted his hand in a very maternal way and Braveheart licked her arm – not at all what Dan would
have expected of Rhonwen. Seeing the look on his face, she cackled.

‘The years have changed more than my face, sure enough. Our disagreements are so long in the past that they are scarcely a memory. I wish you no harm, though I fear it is coming your way whether I wish it or not.'