'Then the bastard's welcome to her,' he said. 'She cries a lot.’
'Mildrith does that,' I said and then, after a pause, 'Eanflaed was angry with you.'
'Eanflaed? Angry with me! Why?'
'Because you didn't go to see her.'
'How could I? I was in chains.' He looked satisfied that the whore had asked after him. 'Eanflaed doesn't cry, does she?'
'Not that I've seen.'
'Good girl that. I reckon she'd like Hamtun.'
If Hamtun still existed. Had a Danish fleet come from Lundene? Was Svein attacking across the Saefern Sea? I knew nothing except that Wessex was suffering chaos and defeat. It began to rain again, a thin winter's rain, cold and stinging. Iseult crouched lower and I sheltered her with my shield. Most of the folk who had gathered to watch the fight by the river had fled south and only a handful had come our way, which meant there were fewer Danes near our hiding place, and those that were in the northern river meadows were now gathering their spoils. They stripped corpses of weapons, belts, mail, clothes, anything of value. A few Saxon men had survived, but they were being led away with the children and younger women to be sold as slaves. The old were killed. A wounded man was crawling on hands and knees and a dozen Danes tormented him like cats playing with an injured sparrow, nicking him with swords and spears, bleeding him to a slow death. Haesten was one of the tormentors.
'I always liked Haesten,' I said sadly.
'He's a Dane,' Leofric said scornfully.
'I still liked him.'
'You kept him alive,' Leofric said, 'and now he's gone back to his own. You should have killed him.'
I watched as Haesten kicked the wounded man who called out in agony, begging to be killed, but the group of young men went on jabbing him, laughing, and the first ravens came. I have often wondered if ravens smell blood, for the sky can be clear of them all day, but when a man dies they come from nowhere on their shining black wings. Perhaps Odin sends them, for the ravens are his birds, and now they flapped down to start feasting on eyes and lips, the first course of every raven feast. The dogs and foxes would soon follow.
'The end of Wessex,' Leofric said sadly.
'The end of England,' I said.
'What do we do?' Iseult asked.
There was no answer from me. Ragnar must be dead, which meant I had no refuge among the Danes, and Alfred was probably dead or else a fugitive, and my duty now was to my son. He was only a baby, but he was my son and he carried my name. Bebbanburg would be his if I could take it back, and if I could not take it back then it would be his duty to recapture the stronghold, and so the name Uhtred of Bebbanburg would go on till the last weltering chaos of the dying world.
We must get to Hamtun,' Leofric said, 'find the crew.'
Except the Danes would surely be there already? Or else on their way. They knew where the power of Wessex lay, where the great lords had their halls, where the soldiers gathered, and Guthrum would be sending men to burn and kill and so disarm the Saxons' last kingdom.
'We need food,' I said, 'food and warmth.'
'Light a fire here,' Leofric grumbled, 'and we're dead.'
So we waited. The small rain turned to sleet. Haesten and his new companions, now that their victim was dead, wandered away, leaving the meadow empty but for the corpses and their attendant ravens. And still we waited, but Iseult, who was as thin as Alfred, was shivering uncontrollably and so, in the late afternoon, I took off my helmet and unbound my hair so it hung loose.
'What are you doing?' Leofric asked.
'For the moment,' I said, 'we're Danes. Just keep your mouth shut.'
I led them towards the town. I would have preferred to wait until dark, but Iseult was too cold to wait longer, and I just hoped the Danes had calmed down. I might look like a Dane, but it was still dangerous. Haesten might see me, and if he told others how I had ambushed the Danish ship off Dyfed then I could expect nothing but a slow death. So we went nervously, stepping past bloodied bodies along the riverside path. The ravens protested as we approached, flapped indignantly into the winter willows, and returned to their feast when we had passed. There were more corpses piled by the bridge where the young folk captured for slavery were being made to dig a grave. The Danes guarding them were drunk and none challenged us as we went across the wooden span and under the gate arch that was still hung with holly and ivy in celebration of Christmas.
The fires were dying now, damped by rain or else extinguished by the Danes who were ransacking houses and churches. I stayed in the narrowest alleys, edging past a smithy, a hide-dealer's shop and a place where pots had been sold. Our boots crunched through the pottery shards. A young Dane was vomiting in the alley's entrance and he told me that Guthrum was in the royal compound where there would be a feast that night. He straightened up, gasping for breath, but was sober enough to offer me a bag of coins for Iseult. There were women screaming or sobbing in houses and their noise was making Leofric angry, but I told him to stay quiet. Two of us could not free Cippanhamm, and if the world had been turned upside down and it had been a West Saxon army capturing a Danish town it would have sounded no different.
'Alfred wouldn't allow it,' Leofric said sullenly.
'You'd do it anyway,' I said. 'You've done it.'
I wanted news, but none of the Danes in the street made any sense. They had come from Gleawecestre, leaving long before dawn, they had captured Cippanhamm and now they wanted to enjoy whatever the town offered. The big church had burned, but men were raking through the smoking embers looking for silver. For lack of anywhere else to go we climbed the hill to the Corncrake tavern where we always drank and found Eanflaed, the redheaded whore, being held on a table by two young Danes while three others, not one of them more than seventeen or eighteen, took turns to rape her.
Another dozen Danes were drinking peaceably enough, taking scant notice of the rape.
'You want her,' one-of the young men said, 'you'll have to wait.'
'I want her now,' I said.
'Then you can jump in the shit-pit,' he said. He was drunk. He had a wispy beard and insolent eyes. 'You can jump in the shit-pit,' he said again, evidently liking the insult, then pointed to Iseult,
'and I'll have her while you drown.'
I hit him, breaking his nose and spattering his face with blood, and while he gasped I kicked him hard between the legs. He went down, whimpering, and I hit a second man in the belly while Leofric loosed all his day's frustration in a savage attack on another. The two who had been holding Eanflaed turned on us and one of them squealed when Eanflaed grabbed his hair and hooked sharp fingernails into his eyes. Leofric's opponent was on the floor and he stamped on the boy's throat and I head-slapped my boy until I had him by the door, then I thumped another in the ribs, rescued Eanflaed's victim and broke his jaw, then went back to the lad who had threatened to rape Iseult. I ripped a silver loop from his ear, took off his one arm ring and stole his pouch that clinked with coins. I dropped the silver into Eanflaed's lap, then kicked the groaning man between the legs, did it again, and hauled him out into the street.
'Go jump in a shit-pit,' I told him, then slammed the door. The other Danes, still drinking on the tavern's far side, had watched the fight with amusement, and now gave us ironic applause.