Conqueror tt-2

by Stephen Baxter

  'What about you?'

  'We will look after ourselves,' he said grimly. 'Go. Hide. Return to your father.'

  'But-'

  'Go!' He opened the door and shoved her out.

  XX

  The raiders came to the cell as rapidly as Belisarius had feared. Belisarius, Boniface and Macson were hauled out. They stood blinking in the bright fresh air. Belisarius had to support Boniface, who, murmuring his prayers, seemed too weak to stand.

  The three of them were surrounded. The Northmen were covered in blood, their clothes, their axes, their faces, even their hair, as if they had waded through an ocean of it. They were strong, murderous, solid as trees. At this moment Belisarius envied them their moral emptiness, their lack of doubt.

  It was late in the morning now, and the sun was warm on Belisarius's face. It had become a beautiful day, he noted, now the morning mist had burned off. Though fire licked only a few paces away, he could hear the calls of sea birds, undisturbed by all the human foolishness around them.

  One raider crawled through the vacated cell. When he emerged and spoke, his tongue was close enough to the German for Belisarius to guess his meaning. 'It's empty, Bjarni. Just these three.'

  The leader, Bjarni, glanced over them. He met Belisarius's eyes, and the Greek thought he detected regret there, weariness. But he shrugged. 'Very well. Askold, kill them.'

  'Wait.' Macson stepped forward. 'I have something you want.'

  He snagged the raiders' interest. The weapons were held still.

  'Ah,' Boniface whispered to Belisarius. 'The moment of destiny.'

  Bjarni studied Macson. 'What? Don't waste my time, boy.'

  'A prophecy,' Macson insisted. 'An augury, an omen. Do you understand? It tells the future. It is worth something to you.'

  'Bird guts tell me the future.'

  'Not like this. It is written down.' Macson smiled, a ghastly grimace. 'You will need me to read it to you.'

  'Show me.'

  Macson hunted through his tunic. When he realised he didn't have the scroll he turned on Belisarius. 'You! How did you take it?' He lunged at Belisarius, but was easily restrained by the raiders.

  Another voice broke in. 'I know him.' A smaller man emerged from the ranks of the raiders, dark, weasel-like. When he spoke again it was in Macson's tongue. 'Macson, isn't it?'

  Macson gaped. 'Rhodri?'

  Bjarni turned to this Rhodri. 'You know him, slave?'

  Rhodri smirked. 'He's another slave. I knew him in Brycgstow.'

  'If he's known service, he might have value. Spare him.' Bjarni turned away.

  But Macson protested, 'I'm no slave. My father bought his freedom, and mine.'

  Bjarni seemed irritated. He said to Rhodri, 'Explain that he can either live as a slave, or die free.'

  Macson bowed his head, his submission needing no more words.

  Bjarni approached Belisarius. 'Now,' he said, suspicious. 'What of you?'

  The other man, Askold, looked interested. 'Perhaps he's a Roman.'

  'I am from Constantinople,' Belisarius said. 'I am an east Roman.'

  'Then he might be worth a ransom.'

  Bjarni thought this over. 'Move away from the worthless old monk, east Roman, and you will be spared.'

  Belisarius stood his ground.

  Boniface closed his eyes once more. 'You are a visitor, Belisarius. A traveller. A dilettante. And you're an eastern orthodox. You have no need to die here.'

  'The Northmen's ransom would break my poor family. Better for me to die now, leaving them rich. And I think I've seen enough of this world. Besides, do you want to die alone, monk? The truth now.'

  Boniface hesitated. 'No.'

  'Then hold on to to me.' Belisarius took the monk's frail hand in his, and gripped it firmly.

  Bjarni shrugged and took a step back. 'Your choice.' Askold spat on his hands and lifted his axe, taking his time, while his companions laughed.

  Belisarius murmured to Boniface, 'By the way. The Menologium has many possible interpretations, it seems to me. I am not sure you have found the correct path through its tangle, Domnus.'

  'Perhaps. But we'll never know, will we? Even if we had survived this day, we would not. That is the glory of our faith. But we, less than dust, will nevertheless have played our part…'

  Belisarius squeezed his hand. 'Hush now and make ready.'

  Boniface dropped his head.

  Askold boasted to his grinning companions that he could behead the two of them with a single stroke. To Belisarius his uncivilised phrases were much uglier than the calls of the sea birds, and, in the end, of much less interest.

  Askold swung his blade.

  XXI

  The sun wheeled across the sky. Still Gudrid stood alone, on the headland that led to the causeway to the mainland.

  She had stood here as the raid had unfolded, as people fled and died, as fires blossomed like flowers, and as the patient sea had fallen back, exposing the fine sandy spine of the causeway. All this time she had been alone. The two men, Leif and Bjorn, assigned to accompany her by her father, had quickly run off, convinced that the others were stealing their share of the loot.

  In the event people did escape the island, but by boat, in tiny fishing craft laden with families. Gudrid couldn't have stopped them if she tried. They would take news of the attack, and terror would seep like poison into the mainland. But nobody tried to cross the causeway she guarded.

  Not until the end of the day.

  A monk came walking alone along the headland towards the causeway. Alone and unarmed. He hesitated when he saw Gudrid. Then he came on again, his steps heavy, for he had no choice. Gudrid hoisted her heavy axe on her shoulder, ready to swing, as her father had taught her. But could she kill – even if it meant that otherwise she would be killed herself?

  The monk stopped ten paces away. He was slim, his face young, his tonsured scalp smeared by soot and blood.

  'Don't try to pass,' Gudrid called. 'I will kill you.'

  'You're a woman,' the monk said. His accent was strange but comprehensible.

  'I am a woman, but I am a Viking, and the daughter of Bjarni, son of Bjarni. And I will kill you if I have to.'

  The monk waited. The sea birds wheeled and cried.

  Perhaps it would be enough to rob this monk, Gudrid thought impulsively, and let him live. 'What do you have?'

  The monk would not reply.

  She stepped forward, axe ready, and began to rummage through the monk's heavy habit. The wool stank of sweat. She found nothing but a scroll. She took it.

  The monk sighed. 'So the Weaver's will is done. Just as Boniface said.'

  'What?'

  'If you must take that, at least know what it is. It is a prophecy. It is called the Menologium of Isolde.'

  Gudrid's eyes widened. Was it possible that after all that had happened the treasure she had sought, the impulse behind the ancient story of Sulpicia and Ulf, had fallen into her hands? She peered at the scroll, but of course could not read a word.

  No scroll would satisfy her father. She needed more. Perhaps the monk wore a Christian cross around his neck; she had seen missionaries wearing such things. She stepped up to the monk and pulled at the front of his habit, ripping it.

  And to her astonishment, she exposed small breasts.

  'You are a woman!'

  The monk pulled up his – her – habit. 'It's a long story.'

  'If my father catches you, or my husband-'

  They both knew what would happen to her, how exciting the raiders would find this woman dressed as a man – and how she would be used, before she was sold into slavery, or killed.

  'You are a woman, as I am. In God's mercy let me pass.'

  Gudrid, frozen by indecision, kept her axe high. Then she stepped back stiffly.

  The monk walked forward. Her feet were bare, Gudrid saw, and they left indentations in the soft, damp sand. She paused by Gudrid. 'Thank you.'

  Gudrid shook her head wordlessly.
<
br />   The monk said suddenly, 'Come with me.'

  Gudrid's thoughts raced. 'I long to,' she said. 'I can't. My place is here.'

  The monk nodded. 'Take care of the prophecy. And beware it.' Then she turned and walked on.

  Gudrid didn't turn to see her go. She kept her place on the headland, keeping guard, until the sun touched the western horizon, and her father came to find her.

  III

  SCHOLAR AD 878-892

  I

  It was with a glad heart, that bleak January evening, that Cynewulf at last came to Alfred's hall at Cippanhamm. With Aebbe at his side, Cynewulf had to line up with the other petitioners at the gate to be checked over by the guard, a thickset thegn with a handful of hardfaced warriors. The royal estate was outside the village, and the hall and its subsidiary buildings were protected by their own palisade of cruelly barbed stakes.

  The sky was clear, the sun low. There was no snow, but the midwinter frost made the mud hard as Roman concrete under his leather shoes, and the heavy woollen cloaks of the people in the line, musty with a winter's use, steamed softly.

  The cold did nothing to dampen Cynewulf's spirits. He murmured to Aebbe, 'In the King's hall we will be warm.'

  'Nowhere in England is warm,' the girl said cynically.

  Aebbe, twenty years old and ten years Cynewulf's junior, was dark, compact, wary. She wore a cloak so filthy it was almost as dark as Cynewulf's own priest's habit. With her hair matted and pulled back from her brow, she barely looked female at all. But then she had born on Lindisfarena, in a community of fisher-folk eking out a living in the ruins of the abandoned monastery, and had been a refugee from the Northmen since she had been an infant.

  'This is the belly of Wessex,' Cynewulf said, forcing a smile. 'There are no Danes here. We really will be safe.'

  'If they let us in.'

  'Have faith,' Cynewulf murmured.

  At last they reached the gate. From here Cynewulf could glimpse the hall itself, the door posts elaborately carved with vine motifs, the gables adorned with horns. It was built according to old pagan traditions, although a crucifix had been fixed above the door. They were nearly there, nearly safe.

  But they still had to get past the thegn and his guard.

  They reached the head of the line. The thegn was a bear-like man with a tangle of greying beard, and a barrel of a chest under a mail tunic. At his side was a much smaller man in a drab, much-repaired cloak. The skin of his face was a rich acorn brown. This foreigner held a scroll of paper before him that he marked with a bit of charcoal as each petitioner passed. He shivered, seeming to suffer the winter cold more than those around him.

  The thegn faced Cynewulf. 'State your business.'

  'My name is Cynewulf. I am a priest. I grew up in Wessex, where my father Cynesige was a thegn of the then king. I lived in a monastery in Snotingaham, which is in Mercia-'

  'I know where it is.' The thegn eyed the girl. 'I didn't know priests took concubines.'

  Cynewulf flared. 'She is no concubine, and you should have more respect for my holy office. This is Aebbe, whom I have brought here from the heart of Mercia, at no small risk to myself, to meet the King.'

  'Why?'

  'She has a message for him.'

  'What sort of message?'

  'A prophecy,' Cynewulf admitted reluctantly. 'A prophecy that speaks of dark times for Alfred, but ultimate glory which-'

  The thegn grinned. 'The King follows the Christ. I doubt very much if he will be interested in the hokum you peddle.'

  'The prophecy is not for sale,' Cynewulf snapped. 'I bring it here out of duty. And it is not hokum.' He babbled, 'The internal consistency – a correlation with past events of record – the visitations of a certain comet which-'

  The thegn held up a gloved hand. 'Just hand it over and be on your way.'

  Cynewulf sighed. 'It is not written down. It is in her memory-in her head – and nowhere else.'

  The girl glared at the thegn. 'So what now, greybeard? Will you cut off my head and give it to the King?'

  To Cynewulf's relief the thegn seemed more amused than angry. 'You need to get this one under better control, priest.'

  'Believe me, I've tried.'

  'You see, my problem is this. If nothing is written down, what proof do you have of what you say?'

  'This.' Cynewulf reached into his robe and produced a letter on vellum, crumpled and stained by his own sweat; he had carried it across the country and back. 'This is a safe-conduct signed by the King himself. It has kept me alive, more than once – for even among the heathen Northmen Alfred's name carries weight.'

  The thegn took the letter. Cynewulf noted that he held it upside down. He passed it to the foreigner. 'Read it, Ibn Zuhr.' The foreigner murmured something Cynewulf couldn't hear, and passed the letter back to the thegn – who, to Cynewulf's horror, crumpled it and trod it into the dirt. 'An obvious forgery. On your way, priest, if you don't want to leave your head behind.'

  'But – but-' Cynewulf got to his knees, retrieved his precious note, and tried to smooth it out. 'Can you not read, man? Can't you see?'

  Aebbe placed a hand on his shoulder. 'Priest. Calm down.'

  'But these dolts – I have been across the country, I have faced down the heathen, only for this…'

  But Aebbe was smiling. When Cynewulf looked up, wondering, he saw that the thegn was smiling too. And though his grin through the beard looked like a wound in a bear's thigh, something in his eyes, the shape of his mouth, was familiar.

  'Arngrim? Is it you?'

  Arngrim grinned wider. 'You always were easy to tease, cousin!' And he leaned down to clap Cynewulf on the shoulder.

  Amgrim and Aebbe had to help Cynewulf up from his knees, and then they guided him into the hall of King Alfred.

  II

  Inside the hall Cynewulf was immersed in smoky warmth. A fire blazed in a huge central hearth, and rush torches on the walls cast bright light. There was a hubbub of rumbling conversation, for the hall was already crowded.

  He breathed deep of the fuggy air and rubbed his hands, gleeful. 'At last, at last.'

  Aebbe was unimpressed. 'You're glad to be here? In this tavern?'

  Arngrim laughed. 'You'll have to forgive him. He grew up in places like this, so he feels at home. Come on, let's find somewhere to sit.'

  They walked into the body of the hall. Two rows of century-old oaks divided the open floor into three aisles, like the Roman basilicas of older times. It was a massive wooden structure, an ark surely strong enough to withstand the mightiest storm. And if there was security here, there was wealth too. Though boar spears and deer skins hung on the walls, gold glinted everywhere, woven into the fabric of the tapestries on the walls, even inlaid into the mead benches.

  The hall was packed. Cynewulf knew he would find many of the great men of Wessex here: bishops, thegns, and ealdormen, the great land-owners. They had been summoned on Saint Stephen's Day for the King's witan, and were still here this January evening, the end of the feast of the Twelve Days of Christmas. The town of Cippanhamm was full of their families and retainers, and even here in the hall a few children picked at the food on the tables.

  Some of the men were sleeping, worn out by the long days of festivities. They lay on blankets on the floor behind the mead benches, with their polished wooden shields at their heads and their armour and weapons heaped up on the benches. These days even bishops were never out of reach of their swords.

  And at the head of the hall, opposite the great door, seated on his giving-throne, was the King himself. Alfred was a young man with a young family; his wife stood at his shoulder and children sat as his feet while lines of supplicants approached him. Among the warriors who drank on the mead benches must be the King's hearth-companions, his bodyguard and closest allies.

  Cynewulf felt hugely reassured to be in the presence of this mass of great men, bound to each other and their King by oaths, the foundation of the law. A king's hall was the very pivot of English soc
iety. He turned to Aebbe, beaming helplessly. 'I told you I would bring you home.'

  Aebbe still wasn't impressed. 'And that,' she said, pointing, 'is the King. Him?'

  Cynewulf looked again, and saw the King through her eyes. Alfred was a tall, pale man, his hair worn long and loose. Clean-shaven, he had a remarkably long chin that gave his face a perpetually mournful expression. His habit was almost as plain as Cynewulf's, but it glistened with gold's lustre. As the petitioners spoke to him, clerks at his elbows frantically scribbled down a record of all that was said, but the King was racked by fits of coughing, during which the clerks paused, their quill pens poised. After a few moments Alfred waved away his petitioners and bowed his head as a priest at his side began to intone prayers.

  Aebbe said, 'The last English king. The only man who stands before the Danes. And you tell me I am safe here, Cynewulf.'

  Cynewulf tried to suppress his own doubts. Alfred looked more a scholar than a warrior, it couldn't be denied. 'It is midwinter. The Danes never move in midwinter. And there is a truce between Alfred and Guthrum-'

  'Well, at least the King is pious, just as you said. Maybe his prayers will keep away the Northmen.'

  'For a girl born on a holy island you're terribly cynical.'

  'But think what she's been through.' Arngrim was five years older than Cynewulf, and probably twice his weight. 'The monks abandoned their house on Lindisfarena long before she was born, bearing the bones of Saint Cuthbert with them. Christianity didn't help them much, did it? And since then you've had to run yourself, girl, haven't you?'

  Aebbe's was a common story. More than eighty years after the first raid on Lindisfarena, and twelve years since the Danish army called the Force had landed in East Anglia and begun its purposeful rampage, the country's markets were ruined, trade withered, monasteries shattered, folk driven from their farms to starve. Even kings had died. Of the four great English kingdoms, only Wessex still stood. England was a land full of fear – and there were many, many refugees.