Conqueror

Aebbe still wasn't impressed. 'And that,' she said, pointing, 'is the King. Him?'

Cynewulf looked again, and saw the King through her eyes. Alfred was a tall, pale man, his hair worn long and loose. Clean-shaven, he had a remarkably long chin that gave his face a perpetually mournful expression. His habit was almost as plain as Cynewulf's, but it glistened with gold's lustre. As the petitioners spoke to him, clerks at his elbows frantically scribbled down a record of all that was said, but the King was racked by fits of coughing, during which the clerks paused, their quill pens poised. After a few moments Alfred waved away his petitioners and bowed his head as a priest at his side began to intone prayers.

Aebbe said, 'The last English king. The only man who stands before the Danes. And you tell me I am safe here, Cynewulf.'

Cynewulf tried to suppress his own doubts. Alfred looked more a scholar than a warrior, it couldn't be denied. 'It is midwinter. The Danes never move in midwinter. And there is a truce between Alfred and Guthrum-'

'Well, at least the King is pious, just as you said. Maybe his prayers will keep away the Northmen.'

'For a girl born on a holy island you're terribly cynical.'

'But think what she's been through.' Arngrim was five years older than Cynewulf, and probably twice his weight. 'The monks abandoned their house on Lindisfarena long before she was born, bearing the bones of Saint Cuthbert with them. Christianity didn't help them much, did it? And since then you've had to run yourself, girl, haven't you?'

Aebbe's was a common story. More than eighty years after the first raid on Lindisfarena, and twelve years since the Danish army called the Force had landed in East Anglia and begun its purposeful rampage, the country's markets were ruined, trade withered, monasteries shattered, folk driven from their farms to starve. Even kings had died. Of the four great English kingdoms, only Wessex still stood. England was a land full of fear – and there were many, many refugees.

'I can look after myself,' Aebbe said defiantly. 'And as for Christ, there are many who say He has deserted England, for why would He let us suffer so?'

'You can see she's mixed up,' Cynewulf said hastily.

'You mustn't mind Cynewulf, Aebbe,' Arngrim said. 'Christianity is only a generation deep in our family. That's why Cynewulf works so hard at it. Even Alfred, pious as he might be, is directly descended from Cerdic, the first Saxon to land in Wessex four hundred years ago, who in turn was descended from Woden.'

The foreigner, Arngrim's companion, spoke for the first time. 'For a follower of your Christ-prophet the King seems remarkably fond of wealth. I am so blinded by his jewellery I can barely see him.' His voice was a deep brown tone, and he made Aebbe laugh.

Cynewulf turned on him. 'And who are you?'

The foreigner seemed to remember himself, and hastily dropped his eyes. 'I have no name but my master's. I apologise.'

Amgrim said, 'His name is Ibn Zuhr. I bought him at the slave market at Brycgstow.'

'A Moor,' Cynewulf said, startled.

'He has his uses. He can count, for example.'

'Even you can count,' Cynewulf said dryly.

'Not like him. He can compute sums beyond nine hundred!'

'Impossible,' breathed Cynewulf.

'Apparently not.'

'Why bring him here?'

Amgrim sighed. 'Alfred insists his thegns be Christian, and literate. Well, I can fake the Christianity but not the literacy, and I don't have time to learn, not with the Northmen rampaging around the country. If I have him I am literate too, at least by proxy. But he hasn't got me any closer to Alfred.'

Cynewulf was intrigued. 'Does he have a tongue of his own? Say something in your own language.'

Ibn Zuhr spoke rapidly, a string of harsh syllables.

'What did you say?'

'I complimented you on your appearance.' But there was a hint of mockery in this slave's eyes.

'Why are you literate?'

'In my country, although I was taken away by the Northmen when I was a young man, I was a scholar. A pharmacist, in fact.'

There was a commotion at the head of the hall, where the King had interrupted his prayers. He was bent over, his hands on his chest, evidently struggling to breathe.

Aebbe murmured, 'He looks ill.'

'They say he has struggled for breath all his life,' Arngrim said.

'Perhaps he is asthmatic,' suggested Ibn Zuhr. It was a Greek term the others weren't familiar with.

Aebbe was interested. 'You said you were a pharmacist. Perhaps you have something to treat the King.'

The Moor smiled, and opened his cloak. The interior was stitched with tiny pockets, each barely wide enough to admit a probing forefinger. 'I had my stock with me when I was taken from al-Andalus. It is much depleted, but a little remains. Hold out your hand,' he said to Arngrim. He sprinkled a pinch of a ground leaf, deep green, into the thegn's palm.

Arngrim sniffed this suspiciously. 'What is it?'

'Its name is-never mind. It is a plant from Africa, a country my people now own. Tell your King to crush this in a little wine, and then to rub the paste under his nose. It will not cure him but will relieve his symptoms.'

Arngrim closed his fist. 'Maybe this will be my way to the King's hearth.'

'You trust this slave?' Cynewulf asked. 'What if it's poisonous?'

Arngrim glanced at the Moor. 'I've seen him work his magic before. And he's a very long way from home. If he did betray me, where could he go, with skin that colour? Eh, Moor?'

Ibn Zuhr merely smiled.

Arngrim had to wait until the King's latest prayers were finished. Then he pushed his way through the line of supplicants and presented his pinch of herbs to the King. With some scepticism Alfred's physicians took it away to be prepared, and at length returned with a bowl of paste. When the King applied this to his face, leaving a smear like a green moustache under his prominent nose, his breathing seemed to ease.

Alfred smiled on Arngrim.

The Moorish slave, eyes downcast, said nothing.

III

They found a place to sit, at one end of a long mead bench.

Ibn Zuhr fetched food and drink for them all. Even at this dying end of the Twelve Days feast there was meat – pork, mutton and game bird – and winter vegetables blended into a broth, and ale and wine to drink. Cynewulf wondered if this greasy meat, thick broth and lumpy ale was much like the food the Moor had been used to at home. But Ibn Zuhr had evidently learned the lesson of all slaves that you filled your belly whenever you got the chance, and, sitting at Arngrim's feet, he wolfed down his portion.

Aebbe was curious about Arngrim and Cynewulf. 'You don't look like cousins.'

Arngrim grunted. 'That's what your choices in life will do for you. I always hunted and wrestled, and drank myself into a stupor in honour of Woden, while poor Cynewulf laboured over obscure books and argued with even more obscure theologians. And look at us now!' He slammed his heavy arm down on the table.

'My father encouraged me,' Cynewulf protested. 'He could sense the way the wind was blowing – Alfred's father King Aethelwulf was just as learned and pious as he is himself. Anyhow I don't regret it, not for a second, for my course in life has brought me closer to God.'

Arngrim snorted. 'But it has denied you a family, among other pleasures. I have three strong boys, Aebbe, tucked away with their mother this cold Christmas, safe within the walls of a town. But for all our differences, we were always friends – eh, Cynewulf?'

'That's easy for you to say,' the priest said resentfully. 'You were five years older than me, twice my size, and you bullied me relentlessly.'

Amgrim laughed and quaffed his gritty ale. 'I was only trying to toughen him up. Maybe it worked too. But what about you, Aebbe? What's all this about a prophecy?'