Death of Kings_ A Novel - Bernard Cornwell [122]
‘What is women’s business, Lord Uhtred?’ she asked with mock sweetness. ‘Oh, please, please! Tell me!’
I looked for the trap hidden in the question. There obviously was a trap, though I could not see it. ‘A woman’s business,’ I said stiffly, ‘is to look after the household.’
‘To clean? To sweep? To spin? To cook?’
‘To supervise the servants, yes.’
‘And to raise the children?’
‘That too,’ I agreed.
‘In other words,’ she said tartly, ‘women are supposed to do all that a man can’t do. And right now it seems men can’t fight, so I’d better do that too.’ She smiled triumphantly, then laughed when I scowled. In truth I was glad of her company. It was not just that I loved her, but Æthelflaed’s presence always inspired men. The Mercians adored her. She might have been a West Saxon, but her mother was a Mercian, and Æthelflaed had adopted that country as her own. Her generosity was famous, there was hardly a convent in Mercia that did not depend on the income from the wide estates Æthelflaed had inherited to help their widows and orphans.
Once across the Temes we were in Wessex. The same hoof-scarred path showed where the great army had spread out as they went southwards, and the first villages we passed were burned, their ashes now turned to a grey sludge by the night’s rain. I sent Finan and fifty men ahead to act as scouts, warning them that the smoke trails in the sky were much closer than I had expected. ‘What did you expect?’ Æthelflaed asked me.
‘That the Danes would go straight to Wintanceaster,’ I said.
‘And attack it?’
‘They should,’ I said, ‘or ravage the country around the city and hope they can lure Edward out for a fight.’
‘If Edward’s there,’ she said uncertainly.
But instead of attacking Wintanceaster, the Danes seemed to be scouring the land just south of the Temes. It was good land with plump farms and rich villages, though much of its wealth would have been driven or carried into the closest burhs. ‘They have to besiege a burh or leave,’ I said, ‘and they don’t usually have the patience for a siege.’
‘Then why come in the first place?’
I shrugged. ‘Maybe Æthelwold thought folk would support him? Maybe they hope Edward will lead an army against them and they can defeat him?’
‘Will he?’
‘Not till he has enough strength,’ I said, hoping that was true. ‘But right now,’ I said, ‘the Danes are being slowed by captives and by plunder and they’ll send some of that back to East Anglia.’ That was what Haesten had done during his great ravaging of Mercia. His forces had moved swiftly, but he had constantly detached bands of men to escort his captive slaves and loaded pack mules back to Beamfleot. If my suspicion was right, the Danes would be sending men back along the route they had come, and that was why I rode south, looking for one of those Danish bands taking plunder back to East Anglia.
‘It would make more sense for them to use another route,’ Æthelflaed observed.
‘They have to know the country to do that. Following your own tracks home is much easier.’
We did not need to ride far from the bridge because the Danes were surprisingly close, indeed they were very close. Within an hour Finan had returned to me with news that large bands of Danes were spread all across the nearer country. The land rose gradually towards the south and the fires of destruction were burning on the far skyline while men brought captives, livestock and plunder to the lower ground. ‘There’s a village on the road ahead,’ Finan told me, ‘or rather there was a village, and they’re collecting the plunder there, and there’s not more than three hundred of the bastards.’
I worried that the Danes had not guarded the bridge at Cracgelad, but the only answer to that worry was to assume they had no fear of any attack from Mercia. I had sent scouts along the river bank to east and west, but none reported any news of a Danish presence. It seemed the enemy was intent on amassing plunder and was not watching for an attack from across the Temes. That was either carelessness, or else a careful trap.
We numbered almost six hundred men. If