The Pale Horseman

‘You don't think she is?'

'Of course she isn't! She's in love with you!' He laughed. 'And being in love with you means living among the Saxons, doesn't it? Poor girl. She's like a beautiful young hind that finds herself living among grunting pigs.'

'What a gift for words you have,' I said.

He laughed, delighted with his insult. 'Win your war, Lord Uhtred,' he said, 'then take her away from us priests and give her lots of children. She'll be happy, and one day she'll be truly wise. That's the women's real gift, to be wise, and not many men have it.'

And my gift was to be a warrior, though there was no fighting that day. We saw no Danes, though I was certain they had seen us and that by now Guthrum would have been told that Alfred had at last come from the swamp and was marching inland. We were giving him the opportunity to destroy us, to finish Wessex, and I knew that the Danes would be readying to march on us.

We spent that night in an earthen fort built by the old people, and next morning went north and east through a hungry land. I rode ahead, going into the hills to look for the enemy, but again the world seemed empty. Rooks flew, hares danced and cuckoos called from the woods that were thick with bluebells, but there were no Danes. I rode along a high ridge, gazing northwards, and saw nothing, and when the sun was at its height I turned east. There were ten of us in my band and our guide was a man from Wiltunscir who knew the country and he led us towards the valley of the Wilig where Egbert's Stone stands. A mile or so short of the valley we saw horsemen, but they were to the south of us and we galloped across un-grazed pastureland to find it was Alfred, escorted by Leofric, five soldiers and four priests.

'Have you been to the stone?' Alfred called out eagerly as we closed on him.

'No, lord.'

'Doubtless there are men there,' he said, disappointed that I could not bring him news.

'I didn't see any Danes either, lord.'

'It'll take them two days to organise,' he said dismissively. 'But they'll come! They'll come! And we shall beat them!' He twisted in his saddle to look at Father Beocca, who was one of the priests.

'Are you sore, father?'

'Mightily sore, lord.'

'You're no horseman, Beocca, no horseman, but it's not much farther. Not much farther, then you can rest!' Alfred was in a feverish mood. 'Rest before we fight, eh! Rest and pray, father, then pray and fight. Pray and fight!' He kicked his horse into a gallop and we pounded after him through a pink-blossomed orchard and up a slope, then across a long hilltop where the bones of dead cattle lay in the new grass. White mayflower edged the woods at the foot of the hill and a hawk slanted away from us, sliding across the valley towards the charred remains of a barn.

'It's just across the crest, lord!' my guide shouted at me.

'What is?'

'Defereal, lord!'

Defereal was the name of the settlement in the valley of the River Wilig where Egbert's Stone waited, and Alfred now spurred his horse so that his blue cloak flapped behind him. We were all galloping, spread across the hilltop, racing to be the first over the crest to see the Saxon forces, then Father Beocca's horse stumbled. He was, as Alfred said, a bad horseman, but that was no surprise for he was both lame and palsied, and when the horse tipped forward Beocca tumbled from the saddle. I saw him rolling in the grass and turned my horse back.

'I'm not hurt,' he shouted at me, 'not hurt! Not much. Go on, Uhtred, go on!'

I caught his horse. Beocca was on his feet now, limping as fast as he could to where Alfred and the other horsemen stood in a line gazing into the valley beyond.

'We should have brought the banners,' Beocca said as I gave him his reins.

'The banners?'

'So the fyrd knows their king has come,' he said breathlessly. 'They should see his banners on the skyline, Uhtred, and know he has come. The cross and the dragon, eh? In hoc signo! Alfred will be the new Constantine, Uhtred, a warrior of the cross! In hoc signo, God be praised, God be praised, God indeed be mightily praised.'

I had no idea what he meant, and nor did I care.

For I had reached the hilltop and could stare down into the long lovely valley of the Wilig.

Which was empty.

Not a man in sight. Just the river and the willows and the water meadows and the alders and a heron flying and the grass bending in the wind and the triple stone of Egbert on a slope above the Wilig where an army was supposed to gather. And there was not one man there. Not one single man in sight.

The valley was empty.

The men we had brought from Æthelingaeg straggled into the valley, and with them now was the fyrd of Sumorsaete. Together they numbered just over a thousand men, and about half were equipped to fight in the shield wall while the rest were only good for shoving the front ranks forward or for dealing with the enemy wounded or, more likely, dying.

I could not face Alfred's disappointment. He said nothing about it, but his thin face was pale and set hard as he busied himself deciding where the thousand men should camp, and where our few horses should be pastured. I rode up a high hill that lay to the north of the encampment, taking a score of men including Leofric, Steapa and Father Pyrlig. The hill was steep, though that had not stopped the old people from making one of their strange graves high on the slope. The grave was a long mound and Pyrlig made a wide detour rather than ride past it.

'Full of dragons, it is,' he explained to me.

'You've seen a dragon?' I asked.

'Would I be alive if I had? No one sees a dragon and lives!'

I turned in the saddle and stared at the mound. 'I thought folk were buried there?'

'They are! And their treasures! So the dragon guards the hoard. That's what dragons do. Bury gold and you hatch a dragon, see?'

The horses had a struggle to climb the steep slope, but at its summit We were rewarded by a stretch of firm turf that offered views far to the north. I had climbed the hill to watch for Danes. Alfred might believe that it would be two or three days before we saw them, but I expected their scouts to be close and it was possible that a war-band might try to harass the men camping by the Wilig.

Yet I saw no one. To the north-east were great downs, sheep hills, while straight ahead was the lower ground where the cloud shadows raced across fields and over blossoming mayflower and darkened the bright green new leaves.

'So what happens now?' Leofric asked me.

'You tell me.'

'A thousand men? We can't fight the Danes with a thousand men.'

I said nothing. Far off, on the northern horizon, there were dark clouds.

'We can't even stay here!' Leofric said, 'so where do we go?'

'Back to the swamp?' Father Pyrlig suggested.

'The Danes will bring more ships,' I said, 'and eventually they'll capture the swamp. If they send a hundred ships up the rivers then the swamp is theirs.'