'Go to Defnascir,' Steapa growled.
And the same thing would happen there, I thought. We would be safe for a time in Defnascir's tangle of hills and woods, but the Danes would come and there would be a succession of little fights and bit by bit Alfred would be bled to death. And once the Danes across the sea knew that Alfred was pinned into a corner of Wessex they would bring more ships to take the good land that he could not hold. And that, I thought, was why he had been right to try and end the war in one blow, because he dared not let Wessex's weakness become known.
Except we were weak. We were a thousand men. We were pathetic. We were dreams fallen to earth, and suddenly I began to laugh.
'What is it?' Leofric asked.
'I was thinking that Alfred insisted I learn to read,' I said, 'and for what?'
He smiled, remembering. It was one of Alfred's rules that every man who commanded sizeable bodies of troops must be able to read, though it was a rule he had ignored when he made Leofric commander of his bodyguard. It seemed funny at that moment. All that effort so I could read his orders and he had never sent me one. Not one.
'Reading is useful,' Pyrlig said.
'What for?'
He thought about it. The wind gusted, flapping his hair and beard. 'You can read all those good stories in the gospel-book,' he suggested brightly, 'and the saints' lives! How about those, eh? They're full of lovely things, they are. There was Saint Donwen! Beautiful woman she was, and she gave her lover a drink that turned him into ice.'
'Why did she do that?' Leofric asked.
'Didn't want to marry him, see?' Pyrlig said, trying to cheer us up, but no one wanted to hear more about the frigid Saint Donwen so he turned and stared northwards. 'That's where they'll come from, is it?' he asked.
'Probably,' I said, and then I saw them, or thought I did. There was a movement on the far hills, something stirring in the cloud shadow and I wished Iseult was on the hilltop for she had remarkable eyesight, but she would have needed a horse to climb to that summit and there were no horses to spare for women. The Danes had thousands of horses, all the beasts they had captured from Alfred at Cippanhamm, and all the animals they had stolen across Wessex, and now I was watching a group of horsemen on that far hill. Scouts, probably, and they would have seen us. Then they were gone. It had been a glimpse, no more, and so far away that I could not be sure of what I had seen.
'Or perhaps they won't come at all,' I went on, 'perhaps they'll march around us. Capture Wintanceaster and everywhere else.'
'The bastards will come,' Leofric said grimly, and I thought he was probably right. The Danes would know we were here, they would want to destroy us, and after that all would be easy for them.
Pyrlig turned his horse as if to ride back down to the valley, then paused. 'So it's hopeless, is it?' he asked.
'They'll outnumber us four or five to one,' 1 said.
'Then we must fight harder!'
I smiled. 'Every Dane who comes to Britain, father,' I explained, 'is a warrior. The farmers stay in Denmark, but the wild men come here. And us? We're nearly all farmers and it takes three or four farmers to beat down a warrior.'
'You're a warrior,' he said, 'all of you! You're warriors! You all know how to fight! You can inspire men, and lead men, and kill your enemies. And God is on your side. With God on your side, who can beat you, eh? You want a sign?'
'Give me a sign,' I said.
'Then look,' he said, and pointed down to the Wilig, and I turned my horse and there, in the afternoon sun, was the miracle we had wanted. Men were coming. Men in their hundreds. Men from the east and men from the south, men streaming down from the hills, men of the West Saxon fyrd, coming at their king's command to save their country.
'Now it's only two farmers to one warrior!' Pyrlig said cheerfully.
'Up to our arseholes,' Leofric said.
But we were not alone any longer. The fyrd was gathering.
PART THRE
R E
The Fyrd
Twel
e ve
Most men came in large groups, led by their thegns, while others arrived in small bands, but together they swelled into an army. Amulf, Ealdorman of Suth Seaxa, brought close to four hundred men and apologised that it could not be more, but there were Danish ships off his coast and he had been forced to leave some of his fyrd to guard the shore. The men of Wiltunscir had been summoned by Wulfhere to join Guthrum's army, but the reeve, a grim man named Osric, had scoured the southern part of the shire and over eight hundred men had ignored their Ealdorman's summons and came to Alfred instead. More arrived from the distant parts of Sumorsaete to join Wiglaf's fyrd that now numbered a thousand men, while half that many came from Hamptonscir, including Burgweard's garrison in which were Eadric and Cenwulf, crewmen from the Heahengel, and both embraced me, and with them was Father Willibald, eager and nervous. Almost every man came on foot, weary and hungry, with their boots falling apart, but they had swords and axes and spears and shields, and by mid afternoon there were close to three thousand men in the Wilig valley and more were still coming as I rode towards the distant hill where I thought I had seen the Danish scouts.
Alfred sent me and, at the last moment, Father Pyrlig had offered to accompany me and Alfred had looked surprised, appeared to think about it for a heartbeat, then nodded assent. 'Bring Uhtred home safe, father,' he had said stiffly.
I said nothing as we rode through the growing camp, but once we were on our own I gave Pyrlig a sour look. 'That was all arranged,' I said.
'What was?'
'You coming with me. He had your horse already saddled! So what does Alfred want?'
Pyrlig grinned. 'He wants me to talk you into becoming a Christian, of course. The king has great faith in my powers of speech.'
'I am a Christian,' I said.
'Are you now?'
'I was baptised, wasn't I? Twice, as it happens.'
'Twice! Doubly holy, eh? How come you got it twice?'
'Because my name was changed when I was a child and my stepmother thought heaven wouldn't recognise me under my old name.'
He laughed. 'So they washed the devil out of you the first time and slopped him back in the second?' I said nothing to that and Pyrlig rode in silence for a time. 'Alfred wants me to make you a good Christian,' he said after a while, 'because he wants God's blessing.'
'He thinks God will curse us because I'm fighting for him?'
Pyrlig shook his head. 'He knows, Uhtred, that the enemy are pagans. If they win then Christ is defeated. This isn't just a war over land, it's a war about God. And Alfred, poor man, is Christ's servant so he will do all he can for his master, and that means trying to turn you into a pious example of Christian humility. If he can get you onto your knees then it'll be easy to make the Danes grovel.'
I laughed, as he had meant me to. 'If it encourages Alfred,' I said, 'tell him I'm a good Christian.'
'I planned to tell him that anyway,' Pyrlig said, 'just to cheer him up, but in truth I wanted to come with you.'