Warriors of Ethandun (29 page)

‘I was wild in my youth, Dan,' he confessed, ‘and before my marriage I did not always conduct myself as befits a Christian man. When I settled gold on the Danes to stay away from Wessex, for five whole years I did not properly prepare for their return. There is so much that I ought to have done that I left undone. I sometimes feel that God is punishing me for my sins in particular.'

Dan did not know what to say.

‘The important thing is that you are ready now, Sire,' he said; but he was not sure that they were ready. There were no more than a few hundred men at Athelney. As days passed a steady trickle of ceorls turned up when they could be spared from the land, but few were trained. Aelfred was confident that as word spread that the true King waited to reclaim his throne from those who bowed their knees to the heathen hordes, more men would come – that all the loyal men of Wessex would answer his call. Dan was less confident. How many men would Aelfred have to fight against the battle-hardened warriors of Guthrum?

Ursula battled on in her own private hell. She had not used her magic, but although she felt more herself when Dan or Rhonwen were near she was still struggling to contain the power that burned through her blood. She insulated herself from contact with the earth as much as possible, but there were no horses on Athelney and no need for them. Focusing on the moment was difficult and
she felt weak with the effort and, worse, the longing to use the magic grew daily more powerful. Every second she fought the urge to do what came most naturally to her. The men did not help. They were reluctant to take heed of her, and as the rumours spread of her time in the Viking camp, they became more afraid and contemptuous of her; it was worse than school. In the past she had been buoyed up by the loyalty and love of the men she had fought with and the men she had led. She found this barely disguised hostility difficult to accept. It did not seem to matter that she could best any man there with any weapon they chose; they did not love her for it.

‘I don't know what I'm doing wrong!' she complained to Dan after the first week. ‘I don't think I'm being any different than I was with the cavalry before Baddon or Camlann, but I can't connect with these people.'

She felt disconnected from everything, as if in trying not to wield magic she had become a kind of a ghost, less than a person. Maybe the men knew that. In an unguarded moment Dan allowed her to see herself through his eyes and she did indeed resemble a ghost more than the living vital warrior she had been. She had grown thin as the magic burned her up from the inside. Her hair seemed bleached almost to whiteness and her face was pale and grey as the snow-laden clouds that threatened them with a return to winter. Her eyes looked like dark pits from which no warmth escaped.

‘Ah,' she said, ‘I understand how they might feel that Aelfred has given them over to a wraith.'

‘But a warrior wraith,' Dan said in an effort to cheer
her up, but she could detect his concern for her in the tightness in his face and his forced good humour.

As if her days were not bad enough, her nights were worse. The visions that had plagued her continued. Mostly she could make little sense of them. She saw men whispering to each other of a great army building in the wild country of the marshes. She saw endless arguments and disputes about loyalty, fathers screaming at sons to stay and work the land, mothers entreating their children not to fight, and everywhere young men taking what weapons they had and slipping away from the fields to answer Aelfred's call. She saw a vast army of men on a high ridge, screaming to their gods. They banged their round shields with long knives and axes, shook their spears and gathered their courage, in a wild group battle madness. Against them, similarly dressed, she saw Aelfred's men tightly pressed shoulder to shoulder in a long wall of shields, yelling back their defiance. She knew that this was the future towards which they were all marching – and it filled her with fear.

Finna pursued her through her dreams, her pale blind eyes grown a darker shade of green, as if she had increased in power.

‘Come, Freya, we call you back to your own people. We will bring you victory and much blood! You can bathe in the blood of our vanquished enemies. Come. We entreat you.'

Ursula felt herself being drawn towards the girl even in her sleep, but fought her and escaped. Unfortunately she could not escape from her dreams.

One night, some weeks after she had proved herself a warrior to Aelfred's court in exile, she dreamed of Gunnarr, her Viking friend and gentle champion, arguing with Guthrum. He objected to Finna's undue influence as he saw it and Guthrum released him from his oath of allegiance, sending him off to fight with the sons of Ragnarr up north. She thought that Guthrum might have killed him but they were kinsmen of a kind and that, perhaps, saved him. Gunnarr did not seem to feel that he was saved. She saw his stricken face as he rode out of Cippenham with all his hopes of advancement dashed. He did not set out north, however, but sought Ursula, calling to her in his dreams as Freya, his beloved. When she woke at dawn to the crowing of the rooster in the yard, she knew she had to help him.

For decency's sake Ursula did not sleep in the barracks with the men, so Dan could not help her fight her nightmares; instead she slept on a pallet beside her former enemy, Rhonwen. Rhonwen was herself a restless sleeper, much given to muttering in her sleep, and she was always awake before dawn – fussing with the fire, busy at her potions, her brewing and her baking.

‘Well?' Rhonwen asked. ‘The dreams were worse last night, I suppose?' She handed Ursula one of her pleasanter concoctions, a kind of herbal tea that tasted sweet: it calmed and settled Ursula's early morning jitters. It was not tea, but it offered her the same kind of comfort.

‘How did you know?'

‘You could say that your screams gave it away; but tell me, who is Gunnarr? Some Viking, I imagine?'

Ursula drained her beaker and considered telling Rhonwen all she knew. It was not much, but Rhonwen was an ally. Rhonwen filled up her beaker.

‘He is a cousin of Guthrum who was kind to me when I was captive. He is looking for me. He and Guthrum have parted ways. I do not think he is loyal to him any longer, but they were close once. He knows things that might be useful. Do you think I should tell the King?'

‘Is he coming this way?'

Ursula nodded. ‘He was with Finna when she asked me to find Aelfred. The men that were sent to kill the King may never have found him, but Gunnarr is clever and we are not so difficult to find. Now that so many recruits have come here, the way is known.'

Rhonwen pulled a face and handed Ursula a piece of warm griddle cake from the bakestone over the fire.

‘Yes, I think you should see the King. You should tell him of your visions, but I think you should talk to Asser first.'

‘Asser?'

Rhonwen nodded grimly. ‘If Asser takes you to the King, Aelfred will trust that your visions are of God.'

‘But they are not evil, you know that, Rhonwen. They are just images of what is or is going to be.'

‘Then you will have nothing to fear from Asser.'

‘He doesn't like me.'

‘He is full of nonsense about women. Take no notice. He wants what is best for Aelfred and Wessex. I will come with you if you like, but you would be better going alone.'

Ursula nodded. ‘I will go alone.' She hesitated. ‘Do you
think I should wear a dress?'

Rhonwen's throaty cackle made Ursula smile. ‘We'll make a diplomat of you yet,' she said. ‘I have clothes that might do, though I will have to lengthen them.' She patted Ursula's hand. ‘Don't worry. Somehow it will work out all right.'

Rhonwen's cottage had no mirror of any kind, so Ursula had no idea how she looked in the sombre woollen garments she had been lent. Rhonwen had plaited her hair and arranged it in some fashion around her head so that she looked less wild. Rhonwen seemed happy with the finished effect.

‘What of my sword?'

‘You could wear it under your cloak if you insist. Why? Have you foreseen trouble?'

‘Not exactly, but there is so much violence in the air – can't you feel it? I don't like to be weaponless.'

Rhonwen knew better than to mention Ursula's magic – a weapon like no other.

‘Pinch your cheeks a bit to give yourself more colour,' she said, ‘and don't be too bold when you speak to the bishop.' Ursula was about to argue, but Rhonwen hushed her. ‘Charm is a weapon in its way and I learned of it too late. If you want to help Aelfred and save your friend Gunnarr, forget your wild foreign manners and act as Asser would expect of a virtuous, honourable woman –
that is, after all, what you are.'

Ursula was not so sure but said nothing. It was quite amusing to be told how to behave by a proud Combrogi princess who had always done exactly what she pleased without much thought of the consequences. Ursula took her advice in the spirit in which it was intended and walked carefully out of the cottage and out of the fortress to Asser's former sty. It was cold and the ground was crisp and iced with frost.

‘Your Eminence,' she called into the blackness.

Asser was not asleep, but had just returned from prayer at the chapel. If he was startled to see Ursula in her modest robes and uncomfortable hairstyle, he gave no sign.

‘My child, how can I help you?'

She told him, haltingly at first, about her visions of the battle to come and of Gunnarr's imminent arrival. He was a good listener and with a little careful prompting on his part she feared that she had told him more than she wanted, if less than the full truth. She dared not talk to him of magic.

He looked grave. ‘My child, do you claim these visions are of God and not born of the evil witchcraft practised by my compatriot?'

‘I do not think they are evil, Your Eminence, for I think they are true, and doesn't truth belong to God?'

Asser nodded. ‘That is indeed so. We must inform the King. I think he will be glad to hear news of the battle to come, for by the sound of it we will have built an army fit to meet the Danes and that will give him heart.'

By this time the spring sun had begun to warm the air
and the frozen ground was once more reverting to mud.

Aelfred looked ashen and deep lines of illness and worry were inscribed on his face. Ursula took one look at him and recognised a fellow sufferer: someone else harried by dreams and nightmares. She smiled at him and was surprised to receive a warm answering smile that transformed his face.

‘Lady Ursula, what drives you to seek an audience so early in the day?'

She repeated her story yet again. He was, as Asser had expected, heartened by her vision of a great Saxon army. He was less convinced that Gunnarr could be an ally.

‘Lady Ursula, it grieves me to question your judgement but I have trusted these Danes to my cost in earlier years and have found them to hold the oaths that bind to be of little value; their loyalty is a slippery thing. I believe that Gunnarr might come here and offer his sword; what I find harder to accept is that we should trust him. When he has something that Guthrum wants, like the precise location of our fortress, he may well be welcomed back with open arms – a hero to his own people.'

Ursula had thought of that, but doubted Gunnarr was so fickle.

‘I understand, Your Majesty, but I would ask that you speak to him before you condemn him. He was kind to me when I was captive there and I understand that he is a fine warrior and well respected by the men. If he were to fight for you, that may unsettle the Vikings. Guthrum is not much loved, though his record of victory earns its own respect.'

Aelfred scowled and played with his scrubby young man's beard.

‘I will do this for you. I will send Dan, Aethelnoth and Taliesin to meet your Dane on the road. Between them they should come to a suitable conclusion.'

Ursula knew she had been dismissed and left the hall faintly dissatisfied and determined to accompany Dan and the others; she would be needed to find the way.

She dressed in her warrior's garb and met Dan a little later to cross the lake. He was fighting the bear valiantly, but at every small annoyance – the discomfort of the crossing, Aethelnoth's coolness towards her and Taliesin's inappropriate cheerfulness – she could see the bear peering out through his eyes. She held his hand surreptitiously, but though he smiled at her gratefully enough, the smile did not reach his eyes and she knew that her presence did not help. Mindful of her dreams of Finna she did not dare open her mind to him. She was too afraid.

Taliesin seemed to have cast himself in the role of court jester and would not stop talking, as if by his words alone he could glue their strange ill-suited party together. He didn't try magic, he wasn't stupid, but even so Ursula wished that he'd stop and leave them each to their own separate misery.

They had been travelling for about an hour, picking their way through the marsh, leading their mounts as often as they rode them because the ground was treacherous, when Ursula became sure that Gunnarr was close. Dan's animal senses picked up his scent a little later.

‘He stinks like a Viking,' Dan grunted.

‘I will go to him – it is me he wants,' Ursula said and was surprised when Dan responded with a growl.

‘Why are you putting us all to this much trouble – the man's an enemy, isn't he?'

‘He could be useful to Aelfred – he was close to Guthrum.'

‘He is a spy more like and will betray us to his cousin as soon as he has drunk our ale and ravished our women; you know nothing of Danes.' That was the longest speech that Ursula had heard Aethelnoth give. His suspicion was obviously why Aelfred had insisted that he be one of their party.

‘Danes, Saxons, Celts, Romans – there is good and bad in all …' Taliesin said, and looked taken aback when Ursula, Dan and Aelthelnoth all glared at him. Ursula mounted up and rode ahead without a backward glance. She wanted to speak to Gunnarr alone, out of range of Aethelnoth's sword and Dan's dangerous temper.