It seemed to get colder as we sat, and then a light snow began drifting from the dark clouds. Just a few flakes, but enough to convince me that we had to find shelter soon. Smoke was rising from the nearest swamp village, evidence that some folk still lived there. There would be food in their hovels and a meagre warmth.
'We have to get to that island,' I said, pointing.
But the others were staring westwards to where a flock of pigeons had burst from the trees at the foot of the slope. The birds rose and flew in circles.
'Someone's there,' Leofric said.
We waited. The pigeons settled in the trees higher up the hill.
'Maybe it's a boar?' I suggested.
'Pigeons won't fly from a boar,' Leofric said. 'Boars don't startle pigeons, any more than stags do.
There are folk there.'
The thought of boars and stags made me wonder what had happened to my hounds. Had Mildrith abandoned them? I had not even told her where I had hidden the remains of the plunder we had taken off the coast of Wales. I had dug a hole in a corner of my new hall and buried the gold and silver down by the poststone, but it was not the cleverest hiding place and if there were Danes in Oxton then they were bound to delve into the edges of the hall floor, especially if a, probing spear found a place where the earth had been disturbed.
A flight of ducks flew overhead. The snow was falling harder, blurring the long view across the swamp.
'Priests,' Leofric said.
There were a half-dozen men off to the west. They were robed in black and had come from the trees to walk along the swamp's margin, plainly seeking a path into its tangled vastness, but there was no obvious track to the small village on its tiny island and so the priests came nearer to us, skirting the ridge's foot. One of them was carrying a long staff and, even at a distance, 1 could see a glint at its head and I suspected it was a bishop's staff, the kind with a heavy silver cross. Another three carried heavy sacks.
'You think there's food in those bundles?' Leofric asked wistfully.
'They're priests,' I said savagely. 'They'll be carrying silver.'
'Or books,' Eanflaed suggested. 'Priests like books.'
'It could be food,' Leofric said, though not very convincingly.
A group of three women and two children now appeared. One of the women was wearing a swathing cloak of silver fur, while another carried the smaller child. The women and children were not far behind the priests, who waited for them and then they all walked eastwards until they were beneath us and there they discovered some kind of path twisting into the marshes. Five of the priests led the women into the swamp while the sixth man, evidently younger than the others, hurried back westwards.
'Where's he going?' Leofric asked.
Another skein of ducks flighted low overhead, skimming down the slope to the long meres of the swamp. Nets, I thought. There must be nets in the swamp villages and we could trap fish and wildfowl.
We could eat well for a few days. Eels, duck, fish, geese. If there were enough nets we could even trap deer by driving them into the tangling meshes.
'They're not going anywhere,' Leofric said scornfully, nodding at the priests who had stranded themselves a hundred paces out in the swamp. The path was deceptive. It had offered an apparent route to the village, but then petered out amidst a patch of reeds where the priests huddled. They did not want to come back and did not want to go forward, and so they stayed where they were, lost and cold and despairing. They looked as though they were arguing.
'We must help them,' Eanflaed said and, when I said nothing, she protested that one of the women was holding a baby. 'We have to help them!' she insisted.
I was about to retort that the last thing we needed was more hungry mouths to feed, but her harsh words in the night had persuaded me that I had to do something to show her I was not as treacherous as she evidently believed, so I stood, hefted my shield and started down the hill. The others followed, but before we were even halfway down I heard shouts from the west. The lone priest who had gone that way was now with four soldiers and they turned as horsemen came from the trees. There were six horsemen, then eight more appeared, then another ten and I realised a whole column of mounted soldiers was streaming from the dead winter trees. They had black shields and black cloaks, so they had to be Guthrum's men. One of the priests stranded in the swamp ran back along the path and I saw he had a sword and was going to help his companions.
It was a brave thing for the lone priest to do, but quite useless. The four soldiers and the single priest were surrounded now. They were standing back to back and the Danish horsemen were all around them, hacking down, and then two of the horsemen saw the priest with his sword and spurred towards him.
'Those two are ours,' I said to Leofric.
That was stupid. The four men were doomed, as was the priest if we did not intervene, but there were only two of us and, even if we killed the two horsemen, we would still face overwhelming odds, but I was driven by Eanflaed's scorn and I was tired of skulking through the winter countryside and I was angry and so I ran down the hill, careless of the noise I made as I crashed through brittle undergrowth.
The lone priest had his back to the swamp now and the horsemen were charging at him as Leofric and I burst from the trees and came at them from their left side.
I hit the nearest horse's flank with my heavy shield. There was a scream from the horse and an explosion of wet soil, grass, snow and hooves as man and beast went down sideways. I was also on the ground, knocked there by the impact, but I recovered first and found the rider tangled with his stirrups, one leg trapped under the struggling horse and I chopped Serpent-Breath down hard. I cut into his throat, stamped on his face, chopped again, slipped in his blood, then left him and went to help Leofric who was fending off the second man who was still on horseback. The Dane's sword thumped on Leofric's shield, then he had to turn his horse to face me and Leofric's axe took the horse in the face and the beast reared, the rider slid backwards and I met his spine with Serpent-Breath's tip.
Two down. The priest with the sword, not a half dozen paces away, had not moved. He was just staring at us.
'Get back into the marsh!' I shouted at him. 'Go! Go!'
Iseult and Eanflaed were with us now and they seized the priest and hurried him towards the path.
It might lead nowhere, but it was better to face the remaining Danes there than on the firm ground at the hill's foot.
And those black-cloaked Danes were coming. They had slaughtered the handful of soldiers, seen their two men killed and now came for vengeance.
'Come on!' I snarled at Leofric and, taking the wounded horse by the reins, I ran onto the small twisting path.
'A horse won't help you here,' Leofric said.
The horse was nervous. Its face was wounded and the path was slippery, but I dragged it along the track until we were close to the small patch of land where the refugees huddled, and by now the Danes were also on the path, following us. They had dismounted. They could only come two abreast and, in places, only one man could use the track and in one of those places I stopped the horse and exchanged Serpent-Breath for Leofric's axe. The horse looked at me with a big brown eye.