Huppa, Ealdorman of Thornsaeta, wrote that forty Danish ships were off his coast, and that he dared not lead the fyrd away from their threat. Worse, because the Danes were so numerous, he had begged Harald of Defnascir to lend him men.
That letter almost destroyed Alfred's spirits. He had clung to his dream of surprising Guthrum by raising an unexpectedly powerful army, but all his hopes were now shredding away. He had always been thin, but suddenly he looked haggard and he spent hours in the church, wrestling with God, unable to understand why the Almighty had so suddenly turned against him. And two days after the news of the Danish fleet, Svein of the White Horse led three hundred mounted men in a raid against the hills on the edge of the swamp and, because scores of men from the Sumorsaete fyrd had gathered in Æthelingaeg, Svein discovered and stole their horses. We had neither the room nor the forage to keep many horses in Æthelingaeg itself, and so they were pastured beyond the causeway, and I watched from the fort as Svein, riding a white horse and wearing his white-plumed helmet and white cloak, rounded up the beasts and drove them away. There was nothing I could do to stop him. I had twenty men in the fort and Svein was leading hundreds.
'Why were the horses not guarded?' Alfred wanted to know.
'They were,' Wiglaf, Ealdorman of Sumorsaete, said, 'and the guards died.' He saw Alfred's anger, but not his despair. 'We haven't seen a Dane here for weeks!' he pleaded, 'how were we to know they'd come in force?'
'How many men died?'
'Only twelve.'
'Only?' Alfred asked, wincing, 'and how many horses lost?'
'Sixty-three.'
On the night before Ascension Day Alfred walked beside the river. Beocca, faithful as a hound, followed him at a distance, wanting to offer the king God's reassurance, but instead Alfred called to me.
There was a moon, and its light shadowed his cheeks and made his pale eyes look almost white.
'How many men will we have?' he asked abruptly.
I did not need to think about the answer. 'Two thousand.'
He nodded. He knew that number as well as I did.
'Maybe a few more,' I suggested.
He grunted at that. We would lead three hundred and fifty men from Æthelingaeg and Wiglaf, Ealdorman of Sumorsaete, had promised a thousand, though in truth I doubted if that many would come. The fyrd of Wiltunscir had been weakened by Wulfhere's defection, but the southern part of the shire should yield five hundred men, and we could expect some from Hamptonscir, but beyond that we would depend on whatever few men made it past the Danish garrisons that now ringed the heartland of Wessex. If Defnascir and Thornsaeta had sent their fyrds then we would have numbered closer to four thousand, but they were not coming.
'And Guthrum?' Alfred asked, 'how many will he have?’
'Four thousand.'
'More like five,' Alfred said. He stared at the river that was running low between the muddy banks.
The water rippled about the wicker fish traps. 'So should we fight?'
‘What choice do we have?'
He smiled at that. 'We have a choice, Uhtred,' he assured me. 'We can run away. We can go to Frankia. I could become a king in exile and pray that God brings me back.'
‘You think God will?'
‘No,' he admitted. If he ran away then he knew he would die in exile.
'So we fight,' I said.
'And on my conscience,' he said, 'I will for ever bear the weight of all those men who died in a hopeless cause. Two thousand against five thousand? How can 1 justify leading so few against so many?'
'You know how.'
'So I can be king?'
'So that we are not slaves in our own land,' I said.
He pondered that for a while. An owl flew low overhead, a sudden surprise of white feathers and the rush of air across stubby wings. It was an omen, I knew, but of what kind?
'Perhaps we are being punished,' Alfred said.
'For what?'
'For taking the land from the Britons?'
That seemed nonsense to me. If Alfred's god wanted to punish him for his ancestors having taken the land from the Britons, then why send the Danes? Why not send the Britons? God could resurrect Arthur and let his people have their revenge, but why send a new people to take the land?
'Do you want Wessex or not?' I asked harshly.
He said nothing for a while, then gave a sad smile. 'In my conscience,' he said, 'I can find no hope for this fight, but as a Christian I must believe we can win it. God will not let us lose.'
'Nor will this,' I said, and I slapped Serpent-Breath's hilt.
'So simple?' he asked.
'Life is simple,' I said. 'Ale, women, sword and reputation. Nothing else matters.'
He shook his head and I knew he was thinking about God and prayer and duty, but he did not argue.
'So if you were I, Uhtred,' he said, 'would you march?'
'You've already made up your mind, lord,' I said, 'so why ask me?'
He nodded. A dog barked in the village and he turned to stare at the cottages and the hall and the church he had made with its tall alder cross.
'Tomorrow,' he said, you will take a hundred horsemen and patrol ahead of the army.'
'Yes, lord.'
'And when we meet the enemy,' he went on, still staring at the cross, 'you will choose fifty or sixty men from the bodyguard. The best you can find. And you will guard my banners.'
He did not say more, but nor did he need to. What he meant was that I was to take the best warriors, the most savage men, the dangerous warriors who loved battle, and I was to lead them in the place where the fight would be hardest, for an enemy loves to capture his foe's banners. It was an honour to be asked and, if the battle was lost, an almost certain death sentence.
'I shall do it gladly, lord,' I said, 'but ask a favour of you in return.'
'If I can,' he said guardedly.
'If you can,' I said, 'don't bury me. Burn my body on a pyre, and put a sword in my hand.'
He hesitated, then nodded, knowing he had agreed to a pagan funeral. 'I never told you,' he said,
'that I am sorry about your son.'
'So am I, lord.'
'But he is with God, Uhtred, he is assuredly with God.'
'So I'm told, lord, so I'm told.'
And next day we marched. Fate is inexorable, and though numbers and reason told us we could not win, we dared not lose and so we marched to Egbert's Stone.
We marched with ceremony. Twenty-three priests and eighteen monks formed our vanguard and chanted a psalm as they led Alfred's forces away from the fort guarding the southern trackway and east towards the heartland of Wessex.
They chanted in Latin so the words meant nothing to me, but Father Pyrlig had been given use of one of Alfred's horses and, dressed in a leather coat and with a great sword strapped to his side and with a stout-shafted hoar spear on one shoulder, he rode alongside me and translated the words.
"'God,"' he said, '"you have abandoned me, you have scattered us, you are angry with us, now turn to us again." That sounds a reasonable request, doesn't it? You've kicked us in the face, so now give us a cuddle, eh?'