Conqueror tt-2

by Stephen Baxter

  'I do not, King, for as you know I will partake neither of meat nor ale, and therefore-'

  'What do you think of our monks, Belisarius? Do you have them where you come from? Do you know, I believe the abbot of that precious monastery is as rich as I am. What do you think of that?'

  'We eschew personal wealth,' Boniface said bravely. 'All we have is dedicated-'

  'To the works of God, blah blah. But, Belisarius, here is the thing. I often wonder if we need these Christians at all! What is Christianity but the relic of a vanished empire? All this airy waffle, all this scribbling and writing – it makes no difference to the lives of my people, you know. You've seen them, Belisarius. Their lives are blood and dirt; what matters to them is kin, loyalty, not abstractions.'

  Boniface, frail, spoke up again. 'We offer the people a hope of a better life beyond this one. We offer them the healing peace of God which surpasses-'

  'Yes, yes. And meanwhile your drunken bishops lord it in their palaces, your priests collect dues from villages where they never show up to teach, your monasteries are full of false monks who neither know nor care what your rules are.'

  'I cannot defend the wrongs perpetrated by my brothers,' Boniface said. 'But, King, I can only do my best. For if you cup your hands around the tiniest of flames, eventually you will bring forth a conflagration in men's minds.'

  The Butcher barked, 'Yes, but to what end? Do you really want to see a new Rome arising, defying the wyrd as much as the old, using up everything and crashing into ruins? Must we go through all that again? Look around you, man! You are still building your churches out of the rubble of the last "conflagration".' Aethelred snorted magnificently. 'I need a drink.' And he stalked off into the body of the hall, where his thegns came to fawn around him.

  Aelfric comforted Boniface, who seemed exhausted.

  Belisarius murmured to Bertgils, 'Your King expresses strong ideas, but with much anger.'

  Bertgils nodded. 'And it is always best, Belisarius, not to get in the way of that anger.'

  XVI

  The hall filled up. Belisarius and the others followed Bertgils to their places at the rear, behind the rows of drunken thegns.

  The King sat on his throne of stone, with his young wife at his side and his athelings close by, a line of them ranging from children with wooden play-swords to young men and women. German kings still took many wives, despite the best efforts of the priests to suppress such practices.

  At length the feast began, with a burst of music from a harp. Servants brought hot meaty broth from the cauldrons hanging over the fire. Others carried in immense plates of meat. The thegns used their own knives to hack at butchered hogs. In their heavy coats and fur leggings they looked like bears, tearing at the carcasses.

  The air grew thick with the smoke from the candles and lamps, and the soot from the fire, and the stink of broiling meat. Huge shadows played among the rafters of the tall ceiling. The noise increased until you had to bellow like an ox to make yourself heard.

  And the drink flowed like a river. Belisarius sipped only cautiously, striving to keep a clear head. He tried the mead, which, fermented from crushed honeycombs, was very strong; and wine, which was raw and new and too strongly flavoured for his taste.

  The ale, which the Germans called beor, was sweet and lumpy, with a consistency like porridge. When the ale came the purpose of the King's wife's silver sieve became apparent. When ale was poured for the King she used her sieve to strain out the grit, which she then dumped on the floor at her feet, where dogs lapped it up eagerly.

  The gift-giving began. Belisarius watched curiously as one by one the thegns approached the throne, to be given a gift by the King – and, sometimes, to deliver a gift in turn. The gifts were precious, always jewellery or weapons; often they were bracelets to wear on the arm, a very old custom. And there was no doubt much significance for these jostling courtiers in the value of the gifts exchanged, and the precise degree of warmth of the King's embrace.

  These Germans had imported their culture from their homelands. It was a primitive society of kinship, of small communities tied together by blood, with the King bound to his companions by gift-giving and oaths of loyalty. And yet this culture had displaced the sophisticated Roman Britons in a few centuries, and grown until it had sprouted powerful kingdoms. Why, Offa had negotiated with continental emperors and corresponded with the Pope.

  But perhaps these petty kings in their wooden palaces had gone as far as they could. Their politics seemed fragile and anachronistic to Belisarius, and in the future their kingdoms might prove more vulnerable than any of those present tonight imagined.

  As the level of general drunkenness reached new heights, the singing began. The songs were of the relentless German type, each line split into two halves with two stressed syllables each, just like the Menologium, Belisarius thought. But in their compelling rhythm Belisarius imagined he could hear the slap of oars, the echo of a migration across a cold ocean.

  Bertgils leaned towards Belisarius and yelled in his ear, 'These are old songs from the days of the great migration. We mourn our lost homeland. We mourn our ancestors. And for light relief we mourn the shortness of life.'

  'You're a cheerful lot,' Belisarius shouted back.

  Bertgils grinned. 'We are a people without an afterlife, at least except for those few of us who are successful warriors. We have a lot to be gloomy about.'

  'But you're Christian now.'

  'There is that,' Bertgils said dryly. 'Belisarius, about this prophecy – I do think we need something a bit more substantial to take before Aethelred and the witan. For instance, if this threat of "dragons" is real – where is it to come from? Aethelred knows all about the other German kings, and the Picts to the north, and the British to the west.'

  Belisarius mused, 'It might come from another direction altogether.' He turned to the computistor. 'Boniface, speaking of the Menologium, what of the later stanzas – which presumably describe a further future? For instance, that business in stanza seven of how the dragon will fly west. What lies west of Britain? There are legends, centuries old, of lands to the north called Thule – could there be any truth in such a tale?'

  Macson was dismissive. 'Everybody knows there is nothing to the west but ocean.'

  'Actually that isn't true,' Aelfric said. 'The monks have found that out.'

  'How?'

  'By sailing there.'

  Over the centuries some monks, emulating Cuthbert, in search of ever deeper solitude, had set off on eremitic quests into the western sea. They journeyed from Lindisfarena, its parent house on Iona, and monasteries in Ireland, sailing in fragile little boats of wood and leather called currachs. Many of them failed to return – but some did, telling of lands they found scattered across the face of the ocean.

  Boniface said, 'This went on for centuries. And there grew among the monks a tradition that somewhere out there to the west was to be found the Promised Land of the Saints. And so they went further and further.'

  This culminated in the seven-year voyage of Saint Brendan, founder of many monasteries, who was supposed to have sailed west to an island of sheep, an island of birds, an island of fire, an island of grapes. He came to a pillar of glass that rose out of the sea. He found the apostle Judas sitting on a rock. And so on.

  'What rubbish,' Macson said.

  'But Brendan returned to tell the tale,' Belisarius said. 'Clearly he found something.'

  Bertgils asked, 'What are you getting at, Belisarius?'

  'The Menologium talks later of sea voyages. What if the threat is to come, not from the land, but from the sea? None of your kings is looking that way.'

  'But who would come?' Bertgils asked. 'The Franks? Offa is on good terms with them. And the ocean is a hard road to travel.'

  'Your people came raiding once, across the ocean,' Belisarius said evenly. 'The Romans did before you.'

  'But that was centuries ago. Everything is different now. Look around you. Northumbria is stro
ng – no fool would come here. And besides we would have the support of Mercia. No, Belisarius, this is an interesting speculation but there is nothing in it.'

  The Butcher spoke, and the hall fell quiet. 'I can't hear you singing, Father Pretty-face!'

  Boniface stood uncertainly, his tumour livid in the lamp light. 'I'm afraid I don't know your songs, King.'

  'Then let's hear one of yours.'

  Boniface flinched, but all eyes turned to him. 'Very well. This is a hymn of midsummer, composed by Dom Caedmon of-'

  'Get on with it!' shouted a thegn, and a chicken bone came whirling out of the air.

  Boniface flinched, but he began to sing. His clear voice, smoothed by a lifetime of chanting, delivered a simple, sweet, lilting song in German, of the month of June, in which John the Baptist was born, and the apostles Peter and Paul had suffered martyrdom.

  The catcalls began after only a few lines. And as the bones and lumps of bread began to fly, Belisarius got to his feet and put his arm around the frail monk, sheltering him from the greasy storm. 'Get him out of here,' he murmured to Aelfric.

  Aelfric led the bewildered Boniface away.

  The Butcher was angry and mocking. 'Where's my little monk? I want to hear him sing!'

  'Perhaps, my lord,' Belisarius said smoothly, 'you would prefer to hear a song from my own country.' And, without waiting for agreement, he launched into a gloomy old lament of a refugee from Rome, on the eve of its terrible sacking by Alaric the Goth. "'Great were the cries of the maidens of Rome… Even the statues of the forum shed marble tears…"' He did his best to translate the lyrics into German; the scansion was terrible, but he doubted this audience would care about that.

  He got the reaction he expected. At first there were catcalls, a few flying bones, and cries of 'Bring back the monk!' But then the repetitive dolefulness of the tune cut into the thegns' drunken consciousness. Some of them swayed to the rhythm, and tried to join in the chorus: "'Rome! Rome! When will you rise again?"'

  As the verses unwound, the listeners got restive. In the end they seemed relieved when he finished and sat down. The feasting mob turned to other matters.

  Bertgils handed Belisarius a cloth to mop the grease from his face. 'You did well. That barrage would have been dreadful for poor old Boniface.'

  'Yes. And I would wager none of them would even remember having done it, the next morning.'

  'None but the Butcher,' murmured Bertgils, 'who sees everything.'

  'How soon do you think we can get out of here?'

  From the far end of the hall there was a roar, a clatter of flying dishes, a splinter of an overturned bench.

  Bertgils grimaced. 'The fighting has started. Now would be a good time.'

  'Well, it's been charming. We must come again.'

  Bertgils grinned and clapped him on the shoulder.

  When they emerged from the hall, though the drunken feast was still in progress, a cold pink light was seeping reluctantly into a cloud-strewn eastern sky. With relief Belisarius gazed at the sea, and filled his lungs with clean salty air.

  And he thought he saw something sliding across the far horizon.

  Macson said, 'You didn't speak to the King about the prophecy.'

  'Bertgils can use his own judgement in what he tells the King.' And besides, Belisarius wondered if this King would lift a finger to protect monks about whom he spoke so cynically.

  Macson murmured, 'We don't have to stay around for this, you know. The dragon attack, however it manifests itself. This isn't your country, these aren't my people.'

  'You would run away? Besides, you came here for the prophecy.'

  'We could simply take it,' Macson said coldly. 'It won't even be theft, if it is destined only to be burned by the dragon's breath.'

  Belisarius smiled. 'Interesting sophistry. You might make a good lawyer, or a theologian.'

  Macson glared. 'I'm tired of your games. I think we should go and leave these fools to their fate, their wyrd.'

  'I'm afraid it's already too late for that,' Belisarius said sadly. And he pointed to the eastern horizon, where a sail was clearly visible now, just a scrap of colour, black and red. 'We must hurry,' he said to Macson.

  XVII

  When Elfgar woke, the light of morning was already seeping through the chinks in the mud-coated walls of the hut. He yawned and stretched. Once again his head was sore and his belly over-full of the villagers' filthy ale. He should stick to the monks' mead.

  A round arse pressed against his leg, belonging to the slave girl – what was her name? – who he had tupped during the night. The girl stirred, annoying him, and he threw her a random punch in the kidney. Then he pushed aside the heap of woollen blankets, rolled off the pallet, and pulled on his pants and habit.

  He stumbled out of the hut. The sun hung huge on the horizon over the sea. Probably the monks were coming out of Matins by now. He sighed, lifted his habit, and pissed against the wall of the hut. His aching pipe sprayed hot fluid all over his legs and bare feet. His servicing of Dom Wilfrid always left him sore, and he liked to soothe his aches away in the easier hole or mouth of a slave girl or two. Got you clean of Wilfrid's blood and shit as well.

  At the sight of the misty sun, and the sea birds that wheeled before it, something in Elfgar's soul reluctantly stirred. Funny thing was, while he was burying himself up to his hips in the grunting girl last night, he kept thinking of Wilfrid and his woolly arse, and the old man's foolish words of love and shame. Maybe his own taste was changing.

  A shadow passed across the wall before him. He turned, his cock still in his hand.

  He didn't recognise the big man standing over him. He had a lean, hard, weather-beaten face, bright blue eyes, and a shock of yellow-grey hair pulled back from his brow. He carried some kind of axe, and he smelled of the sea. The deacon was vaguely aware of more men behind him, and a couple of the villagers watching curiously.

  The big man smiled at Elfgar.

  His hand still clutching his crotch, Elfgar scowled. 'Travellers, are you? Pilgrims, come to see Cuthbert's bones?'

  The big man spoke. His tongue was strange, but to Elfgar it sounded as if he said, 'My name is Bjarni.'

  'Good for you, Bjami. You need to see the abbot at the monastery. He'll tell you the tithes to pay.'

  Bjarni seemed to think this over. Then he said, 'I'm sorry.'

  'What for?'

  'This.' And he drove his axe into Elfgar's face.

  On the causeway the tide was rising. Belisarius and Macson had rushed back from Bebbanburh. Now, hurrying to Lindisfarena, they had taken off their boots, but the clinging sand sucked at their bare feet, and the water, steadily rising, lapped at their shins.

  'This is ridiculous,' panted Macson. 'Dangerous. We should go back.'

  'We go on.'

  Macson, defiantly, stopped dead. 'We'll get ourselves killed! And for what?'

  Belisarius paused, breathing hard. He knew Macson had a point. Though he and Macson had ridden hard from Bebbanburh, those ships with the checked sails had beaten them here. He had seen for himself how they had pulled in to a shallow sandy beach near the village. And he had seen their carved prows, the snarling dragons' faces – dragons, just as in the prophecy.

  He should have known, Belisarius told himself. East Romans knew all about the dragon ships of the Northmen, which came raiding down the great rivers of Asia. He should have put the pieces of the puzzle together; he should have known what the Menologium meant. Then perhaps he could have saved lives, fragile, grumpy old Boniface and his flickering candle of literacy, and Aelfric, young, so eager to learn she was prepared to hide her own sex to do it. And then there were the books-including his own stock, still sitting in their wooden chest in the monastery's library.

  As Macson kept saying, this wasn't his fight. But remarkably, all around him, the prophecy was coming true, a tapestry of omens and numbers that had somehow tangled him up. He was part of this now and felt he could not leave, not until these darkly fore
shadowed events had played out.

  'We go on,' he said grimly. 'We swim if we have to. But we go on.' And he marched on towards the island, splashing in the deepening water. He didn't look back. Macson was engaged in his own conflicts, a war between his greed for the Menologium and his urge for self-protection. At last Belisarius heard a curse, couched in an obscure mix of Latin and British, as Macson came wading after him.

  Gudrid had been on one raid before.

  It was five years ago. She had been fifteen, about to be wed. It had just been a jaunt along the coast, an assault on a village against whom Bjarni and his elders had a grudge over an unpaid debt. Raiding wasn't a woman's work, but her father Bjarni insisted she saw blood spilled, just once, so she might be better prepared if anybody ever came to raid her home. One man on each side was killed, a few heads were broken and limbs chopped, and Bjarni's raiders had crowded a few head of nervous rustled cattle into the boats. It had all been brisk, efficient, business-like. And although the target village had launched a petty raid in their turn the next season, nobody held a grudge.

  Gudrid had found the sight of blood hugely distressing. But her father understood. He hated to see slaughter too, clearly. But this was how things were. If you went hungry, your neighbours' cattle were your emergency larder. Others did the same if you had a good year and them a bad one. It was just work, just business.

  Here, though, on this British island, it was different. Here, the villagers didn't scatter, even when the shallow-draught Viking ships came sliding up the beach. They didn't try to gather their children and livestock and petty valuables when the Vikings came striding out of their boats, weapons in hand. They even clustered around, curious, as Bjarni confronted the scowling, arrogant man in the black habit – the monk. They felt safe here, on their holy island. They hadn't played this game before, this lethal game of iron and blood, and didn't know the rules.