Warriors of Ethandun (13 page)

Dan felt suddenly inadequate – how could he save Ursula if she could not save herself against the might of a Danish army? ‘Do you have no herbs or spells that I could use to help her?'

‘You've been taking too much notice of Asser. I'm not a witch and there's no potion on earth strong enough to match her magic. You could feed her deadly nightshade and she would live. All the magic on the earth is drawn to her as surely as water runs down a hill; she is the sea and the tides of magic that flow through her will kill her.' Rhonwen looked thoughtful. ‘What I wouldn't give for a fraction of that power. I'd make myself young again and go home. For all my years of meddling I've little enough to show for my pains. Arturus's deeds are barely
remembered here and …'

She shrugged. ‘Ignore an old woman's meanderings. Go to your friend and may the blessings of your God be with you.' She patted Dan on his arm and Braveheart on the head and Dan got the strong feeling that she made little distinction between them.

The warrior, Gunnarr, came to Ursula many times after she answered his question. Each time he brought a small animal and slaughtered it. Sometimes he offered her the blood and one time, when she had been hunting with wolves, she came back to herself sufficiently to be able to drink it.

Sometimes she ate the offerings but mostly she ignored both the man and his questions. He wanted to know the future but when the present was so infinitely various, what did she care about the future? He talked too about the land he was going to be given by the war leader Guthrum, and how now that the fighting was done and Aelfred soon to be dead, he might give up the Viking life for the life of a landowner. Guthrum would give him land he was sure, and he knew quite a bit about farming. He had his eye on a local girl who was of high Aenglisc birth and had the body of a goddess, though, he added hastily, she was as a toothless old crone when compared to the loveliness of Ursula herself. Actually he called her ‘Freya' but Ursula knew what he meant. She was only half aware of his
low-voiced talk, though she found the soft rhythms of his voice soothing, almost like music, holding a part of her still connected to her own body, to her own ears and to that element within herself that still understood ambition and desire. She did not speak – the greater part of her mind was elsewhere – but the man's earnest confiding voice reminded her of something precious.

Time passed and the man went away and came back again. He was strong and single-handedly carried her to another cart. He would not let anyone else touch her. He alone arranged her robes around her and took care that the cart was well padded. In return she did not burn him or harm him in any way, but allowed his large calloused hands to handle her fevered flesh: she was on fire with magic. He rode at her side as she was conveyed somewhere else. He did not speak to her so much then but she knew he was her guard and her protector and that amused and comforted her, he got through to her even in her strange detachment. He was very like someone, but she could not remember who.

They travelled for a time and the warrior lifted her head and fed her the still warm blood of a deer they had slaughtered on the road. They ate the venison and this time Ursula allowed the warrior to feed her choice morsels while her mind still hunted with hawks and entangled herself in the roots of the sleeping forest. They were almost ready to wake, those roots. She could feel the power of future growth building within them. She amused
herself by forcing some parts of the forest into an early growth, but it was cold and would do the plants no good, so she stopped.

They came at last to a sizeable town where the air was thick with pride and exultation, with the sense of conquest. There were women there too – captives chiefly, cowed and terrified. They feared more violence: the men had been drunk for weeks and they were running low on food. Ursula found it was difficult to engage with so many thoughts and emotions. It made her nervous and worried. There was death and there was birth and all around there was tension. She did not like it and let herself slip away to simpler, cleaner worlds of running and killing or flying and killing or hiding and killing, where all the killing made sense and where fear was easy to understand and untainted by the complexity of the thinking of men. She left even the warrior behind, though he still sat beside her in the middle of a garden in a small copse. They kept torches burning around her and a brazier to keep her warm, though she had need of neither the light nor the warmth, carrying her own flame of magic within her. The warrior stood guard and whispered to her still, but she could not stay to hear him and she only noticed that he was gone when music drew her back from her journeying.

‘This is indeed a goddess. What does it mean that she is here?' It was a man's voice speaking when the music ended. She did not want to hear his thoughts, which were, in the main, ugly and confusing and full of desire.

‘It means that good fortune will accompany you in all that you do. She is a being of great power and if she is with us, none can stand against us.' It was the voice of a woman and it chilled Ursula's overheated blood. It was a voice that knew how to call to the magic in her and she did not want that magic to be called. This was a person who knew about magic. She did not wield it – not as Ursula did – but she knew how it worked. Ursula wanted nothing to do with her. She turned her mind away from the woman and escaped.

It was the singing that brought her back, the high reedy voice of the woman chanting. Ursula's recumbent form developed goose pimples and shivered. The song was repetitive and tuneless, an unmusical refrain in a strange, unlovely soprano, but it called to the magic in Ursula and she found that she had to open her eyes. The woman was bending over her, stretching out her small hands over Ursula's body as though she was warming herself.

‘Ah! The Goddess, she has come to us. She will speak to us, but you'd better be quick. She is little interested in the affairs of men.'

The woman was very small and childlike in appearance; perhaps, for all her authority, she was no more than a child. She was like a malnourished eleven-year-old with straggly, dirty blonde hair. It hung loosely in rat's tails about her thin shoulders. She smiled briefly at the leader, Guthrum. His emotions spilled out of him and into Ursula's awareness. Here was a man who liked killing for the sense of power it gave him, for the fine treasure in
gold and silver it won him and for the sheer pleasure of seeing someone else suffer. Ursula saw that the girl, though frail, was enormously self-possessed. Guthrum was afraid of this snaggle-toothed girl and that gave her a great deal of power.

‘What do I do?' Guthrum asked.

‘Speak to her as you would to anyone else with power.' Ursula could feel the girl's quiet confidence like a small, cold hand on her heart. She thought she had the measure of Ursula as she had the measure of Guthrum. Ursula was aware of Guthrum nodding and gathering his thoughts. That did not take long; he did not have many that were worth gathering.

‘Will I win?' he said, and without willing it Ursula had a vivid picture of the man drunkenly holding court in a gold-decked hall. He was sitting on a carved chair while men around him sat on benches. He was playing some game and betting wildly and luck was on his side. Ursula could feel the heat of the hearth fire in the centre of the hall. She could smell the ale and the stale smell of sweat and congealed grease and the musky odour of the dogs, one of which had been rolling in the rotting carcass of a rabbit. It was as if she were there. The raucous, triumphant sound of Guthrum's laughter rang in her ears. Her mouth was dry and it was difficult to get her voice to work again. It seemed to have been a long time since she'd spoken – she did not know how long; she had almost forgotten how to count the days.

‘Yes,' she said throatily and then closed her eyes. She
had done what the woman had called her to do and she fled as far away as she could, letting the magic clear the memory of Guthrum's vileness from her and allowing the image of the girl's pale green, blind eyes to fade.

Dan took Braveheart and made his way across the frozen rutted path that led towards the largest building on the small island – a hall built within the heart of an old fortress. This was Aelfred's stronghold, and Dan knew that he would find him there. He could not help noticing the poor state of the fort. The encircling timbers were rotten and the earth walls needed reinforcing, but to Dan's not inexperienced eyes it looked like a ramshackle but still defensible site. No one stopped him as he entered the hall, even though his sword was at his hip and his war dog was a killer. Aelfred definitely needed to tighten his control here.

Aelfred was in deep discussion with Asser and a plump woman with a mass of unruly dark hair.

‘I need to see for myself,' he said shortly. ‘This is not a subject that is open for discussion.' He looked up as Dan approached and smiled, his brow uncreasing. ‘My companion in adventure! I have ordered a small pack to be made for our journey and then we should be off. First we must collect our horses and then we will go on to
Cippenham. Tell me, do you play an instrument of any kind? I was hoping to pose as a scop, a bard, and slip into the town that way. Don't worry if you can't play an instrument. There will be at least one musician in our party – we'll meet him on the way – but it would look better if you had some gift.'

‘My Lord, would it not be better to send one of your loyal subjects to spy for you at Cippenham?'

‘No! I cannot ask others to take risks while I do not. A king should not skulk in the marshes or hide in a hole in the corner of his kingdom and wait for events.'

‘But who will supervise the rebuilding of the fortress and the recruitment of men if you are not here?' Dan said carefully.

Aelfred scowled. ‘What is wrong with the fortress? No one knows we are here and the marsh itself protects us.'

Dan had no wish to start telling a king what to do, but he knew a little about defences and Aelfred's were not good enough.

‘There are those who might betray you to your enemies,' Dan said, thinking of the householder whose boat they had taken. ‘This place is easily reachable by boat and the fortress is rotting away. It would not take much to bring it up to a good standard, but it will take organisation. You are too easy to kill at the moment, Sire, and that is not a good quality in a king.' Dan was aware that both Asser and the woman were holding their breath, as if expecting Aelfred to order Dan's execution, but Dan had always told the truth as he saw it and the presence of Bright Killer at his hip and Braveheart at his side made
him reckless. Aelfred raised a surprised eyebrow and cleared his throat.

‘Well, of course, Aethelnoth, my dearest and most loyal friend, ealdorman of Somerset, will be left in charge of our defensive preparations. He is a good man and I can assure you that men do not need a king to oversee the chopping of wood or the organisation of a guard's roster or to plunder food from the farmers that were once under my protection …'

Aelfred's tone was bitter and Dan sensed that the King, shamed by the loss of his throne, was desperate for action, for some way to make himself feel better. He did not want to remain in the decayed fortress, being nagged by a monk and the woman Dan presumed was his wife. Dan was glad he was no longer truly empathic because he could imagine all too easily how Aelfred was feeling – trapped, just like Dan himself.

Asser was no fool either and he swallowed whatever he had intended to say next. His clear, shrewd eyes met Dan's. ‘I was known as a tidy singer in my youth. I would travel with you if my presence was not an extra burden and if my Lady Ealswith could contrive to manage in my absence.' Asser added in his own language, ‘If you are known to Rhonwen, I do not trust you. Be assured that if you cause harm to come to the King, God himself will strike you down. He is our earthly salvation, of that I'm sure.'

Dan nodded, amused by Aelfred's efforts to thank Asser for his concern and willingness to accept danger on his behalf, while disguising his horror at the very thought of
Asser pretending to be anything other than what he was. Asser's gleam of humour was not lost on Dan either; Asser understood Aelfred well enough.

It did not take long for Aelfred to be ready. Dan had expected some long and complicated arrangements, but there were none. He was relieved; he was desperate to get to Ursula before it was too late. Dan held on to Braveheart very tightly as their party crossed the now calm lake – not because he was afraid, but because he thought that the war dog must surely fear the water. Dan was wrong; the biggest difficulty was keeping Braveheart in the boat. Dan had not known it but Braveheart loved to swim and barked at the water as if it were an old friend. Dan, on the other hand was less enthusiastic. He found that his legs were shaking when he got off at the other side. The journey was not much helped by Aelfred's attempts to recall the songs from his youth. The King was better at hymns than at what Dan would properly call songs, and his grasp of a tune was tentative. Dan hoped that the bard Aelfred had mentioned was some kind of musical genius, or they would be killed as an act of mercy to all music lovers. He was not so tactless as to point it out, but the King was almost tone deaf.

There were five of them in the boat, all armed, and Dan hoped that the other three men would accompany them on their reconnaissance. Dan did not want to have sole responsibility for the King's protection, but Aelfred was not a man to think about other people's convenience, nor, it seemed, about his own safety.

After they had been walking a couple of hours the
ground became altogether firmer and more suitable for crops. The small party hid in a clump of trees to discuss their next move. Apparently they had left horses there in the care of the local farmer, but no one was sure of his loyalties. Dan was privately appalled that Aelfred knew so little about what was going on at his door.