It was a time of waiting. There were two smiths in Æthelingaeg now and, though neither had all the equipment they wanted, and though fuel for their furnaces was scarce, they were making good spear points. One of my jobs was to take men to cut ash poles for the spear shafts.
Alfred was writing letters, trying to discover how many men the shires could bring to battle, and he sent priests to Frankia to persuade the thegns who had fled there to return. More spies came from Cippanhamm confirming that Svein had joined Guthrum, and that Guthrum was strengthening his horses and raising men from the Danish parts of England. He was ordering his West Saxon allies like Wulfhere to arm their men, and warning his garrisons in Wintanceaster, Readingum and Badum that they must be ready to abandon their ramparts and march to his aid. Guthrum had his own spies and must have known Alfred was planning to assemble an army, and I dare say he welcomed that news for such an army would be Alfred's last hope and, should Guthrum destroy the fyrd, Wessex would fall never to rise again.
Æthelingaeg seethed with rumour. Guthrum, it was said, had five thousand men. Ships had come from Denmark and a new army of Norsemen had sailed from Ireland. The Britons were marching. The fyrd of Mercia was on Guthrum's side, and it was said the Danes had set up a great camp at Cracgelad on the River Temes where thousands of Mercian troops, both Danish and Saxon, were assembling. The tumours of Guthrum's strength crossed the sea and Wilfrith of Hamptonscir wrote from Frankia begging Alfred to flee Wessex.
'Take ship to this coast,' he wrote, 'and save your family.'
Leofric rarely rode on patrols with us, but stayed in Æthelingaeg for he had been named commander of the king's bodyguard. He was proud of that, as he should have been, for he had been peasant-born and he could neither read nor write, and Alfred usually insisted that his commanders were literate. Eanflaed's influence was behind the appointment, for she had become a confidante of Ælswith. Alfred's wife went nowhere without Eanflaed, even in church the one-time whore sat just behind Ælswith, and when Alfred held court, Eanflaed was always there.
'The queen doesn't like you,' Eanflaed told me one rare day when I found her alone.
'She's not a queen,' I said. 'Wessex doesn't have queens.'
'She should he a queen,' she said resentfully, 'it would be right and proper.' She was carrying a heap of plants and I noticed her forearms were a pale green. 'Dyeing,' she explained brusquely, and I followed her to where a great cauldron was bubbling on a fire. She threw in the plants and began stirring the mess in the pot. 'We're making green linen,' she said.
'Green linen?'
'Alfred must have a banner,' she said indignantly. 'He can't fight without a banner.' The women were making two banners. One was the great green dragon flag of Wessex, while the other bore the cross of Christianity.
'Your Iseult's working on the cross,' Eanflaed told me.
'I know.'
'You should have been at her baptism.'
'I was killing Danes.'
'But I'm glad she's baptised. Come to her senses, she has.'
In truth, I thought, Iseult had been battered into Christianity. For weeks she had endured the rancour of Alfred's churchmen, had been accused of witchcraft and of being the devil's instrument, and it had worn her down. Then came Hild with her gentler Christianity, and Pyrlig who spoke of God in Iseult's tongue, and Iseult had been persuaded. That meant I was the only pagan left in the swamp and Eanflaed glanced pointedly at my hammer amulet. She said nothing of it, instead asking me whether I truly believed we could defeat the Danes.
'Yes,' I said confidently, though of course I did not know.
'How many men will Guthrum have?'
I knew the questions were not Eanflaed's, but Ælswith's. Alfred's wife wanted to know if her husband had any chance of survival or whether they should take the ship we had captured from Svein and sail to Frankia.
'Guthrum will lead four thousand men,' I said, 'at least.'
'At least?'
'Depends how many come from Mercia,' I said, then thought for a heartbeat, 'but I expect four thousand.'
'And Wessex?'
'The same,' I said. I was lying. With enormous luck we could assemble three thousand, but I doubted it. Two thousand? Not likely, but possible. My real fear was that Alfred would raise his banner and no one would come, or that only a few hundred men would arrive. We could lead three hundred from Æthelingaeg, but what could three hundred do against Guthrum's great army?
Alfred also worried about numbers, and he sent me to Hamptonscir to discover how much of the shire was occupied by the Danes. I found them well entrenched in the north, but the south of the shire was free of them and in Hamtun, where Alfred's fleet was based, the warships were still drawn up on the beach. Burgweard, the fleet's commander, had over a hundred men in the town, all that was left of his crews, and he had them manning the palisade. He claimed he could not leave Hamtun for fear that the Danes would attack and capture the ships, but I had Alfred's scrap of parchment with his dragon seal on it, and I used it to order him to keep thirty men to protect the ships and bring the rest to Alfred.
'When?' he asked gloomily.
'When you're summoned,' I said, 'but it will be soon. And you're to raise the local fyrd too. Bring them.'
'And if the Danes come here?' he asked, 'if they come by sea?'
'Then we lose the fleet,' I said, 'and we build another.'
His fear was real enough. Danish ships were off the south coast again. For the moment, rather than attempt an invasion, they were being Vikings. They landed, raided, raped, burned, stole and went to sea again, but they were numerous enough for Alfred to worry that a whole army might land somewhere on the coast and march against him. We were harassed by that fear and by the knowledge that we were few and the enemy numerous, and that the enemy's horses were fattening on the new grass.
'Ascension Day,' Alfred announced on the day I returned from Hamtun.
That was the day we should be ready in Æthelingaeg, and on the Sunday after, which was the Feast of Saint Monica, we would gather the fyrd, if there was a fyrd. Reports said the Danes were readying to march and it was plain they would launch their attack south towards Wintanceaster, the town that was the capital of Wessex, and to protect it, to bar Guthrum's road south, the fyrd would gather at Egbert's Stone. I had never heard of the place, but Leofric assured me it was an important spot, the place where King Egbert, Alfred's grandfather, had given judgements.
'It isn't one stone,' he said, 'but three.'
'Three?'
'Two big pillars and another boulder on top. The giants made it in the old days.'
And so the summons was issued. Bring every man, the parchments instructed, bring every weapon and say your prayers, for what is left of Wessex will meet at Egbert's Stone to carry battle to the Danes, and no sooner was the summons sent than disaster struck. It came just a week before the fyrd was to gather.