Death of Kings_ A Novel - Bernard Cornwell [63]
‘Maybe you should have taken their advice, lord?’
His mouth showed the ghost of a smile. ‘Æthelwold is a sorry creature,’ he said, ‘without discipline or sense. He’s not a danger, just a reminder of our fallibility.’
‘He’s talked to Sigurd,’ I said, ‘and he has disaffected allies in both Cent and Mercia. That’s why I came to Wintanceaster, lord, to warn you of this.’
Alfred gazed at me for a long time, then sighed. ‘He’s always dreamed of being king,’ he said.
‘Time to kill him and his dream, lord,’ I said firmly. ‘Give me the word and I’ll rid you of him.’
Alfred shook his head. ‘He’s my brother’s son,’ Alfred said, ‘and a weak man. I don’t want my family’s blood on my hands when I stand before God at the judgement seat.’
‘So you let him live?’
‘He’s too weak to be dangerous. No one in Wessex will support him.’
‘Very few will, lord,’ I said, ‘so he’ll go back to Sigurd and Cnut. They will invade Mercia and then Wessex. There will be battles.’ I hesitated. ‘And in those battles, lord, Cnut, Sigurd and Æthelwold will die, but Edward and Wessex will be safe.’
He considered that glib statement for a moment, then sighed. ‘And Mercia? Not every man in Mercia loves Wessex.’
‘The Mercian lords must choose sides, lord,’ I said. ‘Those who support Wessex will be on the winning side, the others will be dead. Mercia will be ruled by Edward.’
I had told him what he wanted to hear, but also what I believed. Strange, that. I had been left confused by Ælfadell’s predictions, yet when I was asked to foretell the future I had no hesitation.
‘How can you be so sure?’ Alfred asked. ‘Did the witch Ælfadell tell you all that?’
‘No, lord. She told me the very opposite, but she was only telling me what Jarl Cnut wanted her to say.’
‘The gift of prophecy,’ Alfred said sternly, ‘would not be given to a pagan.’
‘Yet you ask me to tell the future, lord?’ I asked mischievously, and was rewarded by another grimace that was intended as a smile.
‘So how can you be sure?’ Alfred asked.
‘We’ve learned how to fight the Northmen, lord,’ I said, ‘but they haven’t learned how to fight us. When you have burhs, then the defender has all the advantages. They will attack, we will defend, they will lose, we shall win.’
‘You make it sound simple,’ Alfred said.
‘Battle is simple, lord, maybe that’s why I’m good at it.’
‘I have been wrong about you, Lord Uhtred.’
‘No, lord.’
‘No?’
‘I love the Danes, lord.’
‘But you are the sword of the Saxons?’
‘Wyrd bi ful ræd, lord,’ I said.
He closed his eyes momentarily. He lay so still that for a few heartbeats I feared he was dying, but then he opened his eyes again and frowned towards the smoke-blackened rafters. He tried to suppress a moan, but it escaped anyway and I saw the pain pass across his face. ‘That is so hard,’ he said.
‘There are potions that help with pain, lord,’ I said helplessly.
He shook his head slowly. ‘Not pain, Lord Uhtred. We are born to pain. No, fate is difficult. Is all ordained? Foreknowledge is not fate, and we may choose our paths, yet fate says we may not choose them. So if fate is real, do we have choice?’ I said nothing, letting him puzzle that unanswerable question for himself. He looked at me. ‘What would you have your fate be?’ he asked.
‘I would recapture Bebbanburg, lord, and when I find myself on my deathbed I want it to be in Bebbanburg’s high hall with the sound of her sea filling my ears.’
‘And I have Brother John filling my ears,’ Alfred said, amused. ‘He tells them they must open their mouths like hungry little birds, and they do.’ He put his right hand back on Osferth’s hand. ‘They want me to be a hungry little bird. They feed me thin gruel, Lord Uhtred, and insist that I eat, but I don’t want to eat.’ He sighed. ‘My son,’ he meant Osferth, ‘tells me you are a poor man. Why? Did you not capture a fortune at Dunholm?’
‘I did, lord.’
‘You wasted it?’
‘I wasted it in your service, lord, on men, mail and weapons. On guarding the frontier of Mercia. On equipping an army to defeat Haesten.’
‘Nervi bellorum pecuniae,’ Alfred said.
‘Your scriptures, lord?