Conqueror

Of course forty years was well short of the three-score-years-and-ten promised in the Bible. But life was hard in these fallen times, and bodies wore out, even those of priests. In particular Cynewulf's knees ached constantly, no doubt a relic of the long hours he spent on them each day. He embraced such suffering and dedicated it to God.

But in a sense he had been spared. Most of Cynewulf's boyhood friends were dead and gone, and he knew very few people older than himself. Suddenly he found himself lost in a world full of youthful innocents, like Saberht, who knew nothing of the remote past of thirty years ago, or twenty or even ten, the days of Aethelingaig and Ethandune, knew nothing and cared less.

Why, Saberht didn't even fear the Dane. To him the Dane was a spent force who had been defeated by Alfred and now, in the King's latter years, was being beaten steadily back. Oh, the Dane clung on in the north-east, but what was there to fear? So quickly the generations turned, Cynewulf thought, so quickly the past was forgotten.

But Cynewulf had not forgotten, and nor had Alfred.

So Saberht was unafraid of the Dane – but, oddly, he was wary of Lunden.

On this last day of travelling, coming down towards Lunden from the north-through lands taken under Alfred's sway from the Danes just a year ago – they crossed over a ridge of high ground, and Lunden and its river opened up before them. Cynewulf pulled up his horse, breathing hard, and Saberht slowed beside him.

The river snaked lazily across a broad valley, its waters shining like beaten iron. The Roman wall was a great ellipse that hugged the north bank. The city had been abandoned so long ago that mature oak trees sprouted from the foundations of ruined office buildings. But today, smoke rose up from a hundred fires burning within the walls and gathered in a pall. For centuries the English had shunned Lunden's antique walls, but today the old city was no longer empty.

'Now look,' Cynewulf instructed Saberht. 'What a magnificent sight. And there are layers of histories, visible to us even from here.'

'Yes, Father,' Saberht mumbled passively.

'Once the Romans called this place Londinium, and it was the capital of their province, one of the greatest cities of the western empire. Now it is ours, and we call it Lundenburh.' Fortified Lunden.

Alfred had planted his burhs, his new towns, across his half of an England partitioned between Wessex and the Danes. The burhs had been based on the remains of Roman cities, or older hill-forts, or where necessary had been built from scratch, like Wealingaford. The streets were planned, the towns walled by stone or turf, and every one of them had a mint and a market. It was a whole country laid out to a grand design. Ultimately no point in England would be more than twenty Roman miles from a burh – and when the Northmen came again, they would find a country of towns rolled up like hedgehogs.

Cynewulf closed his eyes and smiled. 'The value of history – the value of reading, novice. Once the Emperor Constantine, faced by barbarian threats, developed a similar sort of deep defence. And now we do it again.'

'Yes, Father.'

And of all the burhs, none was greater than Lunden.

Cynewulf clapped Saberht on the shoulder. 'Somewhere in there, right now, the King is holding court. And that is where we're going.'

'We're going in there? Inside the walls?' Saberht touched his throat and muttered.

Cynewulf took the young man's wrist and pulled it smartly back. Around his neck Saberht wore a small crucifix, carved of wood. Cynewulf knew immediately that it wasn't the Christian cross that comforted Saberht but the wood itself.

'Oh, Saberht,' Cynewulf said. 'A wooden charm to protect you from cities of stone?'

'Yes, Father. I mean-'

'Never mind. We'll discuss this during your confession. For now we will complete our journey, and I want no more superstitious twitching from you.'

'No, Father.'

Side by side priest and novice rode down from the higher ground, towards the gates of Lunden.

XX

Cynewulf and Saberht sat cautiously on a mead bench at the feet of the King. It was not the first time Alfred had kept Cynewulf waiting, while he worked through business with his clerks.

The royal hall was unimpressive. Like many of the new buildings of Lundenburh, overshadowed by mightier ruins, it was a simple framework of oaken posts, so new you could smell the drying mud of the walls. But, floored by reused Roman roof tiles and with a fire blazing in the big central hearth, it was warm and well-lit, and its walls were adorned with tapestries and bosses of silver and gold.

Alfred himself sat on a handsome giving-throne that looked as if it had been carved out of a single massive trunk. On his head was the crown he had worn in the field that day at Ethandune. He still had his taste for display; his tunic, a rich purple, looked like silk from Constantinople. Flanked by clerks, he was working his way through a mound of papers, signing, hastily amending lines here and there with a pen adorned by a handsome jewel. But Alfred's skin was sallow, his tall frame was skeletal, and he habitually held a handkerchief to his mouth. Yet he laboured steadily. The years had been much harder on Alfred than on Cynewulf, who now felt ashamed of his own self-pity.

One of Alfred's famous candle-clocks burned down on a table. It was a row of six candles, each marked with four lines to map the hours, and connected to the others by lengths of wick, so that the burning-down of one would light the next. Invented by the King himself, it was a way of keeping track of time without reference to the sun. In this as in all things Alfred liked order, control, and records.

At last Alfred shooed away his clerks, like chasing away geese. 'It is good to see you, priest. I have my hearth-companions look out for veterans of those days at Aethelingaig and Ethandune.'

'I'd hardly call myself a veteran-'

'You did your part, Cynewulf. You and that enigmatic prophecy of yours. And you still have your reward?'

Cynewulf lifted up his arm so that his silver ring showed. Saberht gaped. He hadn't known that this feeble old priest owned such a ring, a gift from a king.

'I like to see those left alive,' Alfred said, 'so that I can refresh my memory of those who fell. Like your cousin Arngrim. His men gave him a ship burial, you know. On a tub we captured from the Danes.'

'Yes. Arngrim lived and died a pagan, and there was nothing I or any priest could do about that.'

Alfred laughed, but it was a harsh sound that coarsened into a cough. 'We were glad of it at the time. But it's an irony that I see more of my old adversary Guthrum than I do of those who fought with me against him. We pray together, you know. We even sing psalms – though his singing voice makes Arngrim sound like the Arch Cantor.'

'I'm glad the Danish king's Christianity has stuck.'

Alfred smiled. 'Isn't cynicism a sin, priest?'

'I'll have to ask my bishop.'

Saberht blurted, 'Lord. Everybody asks why you deal with the Danes at all. You had the Danes on the run at Ethandune. Why give them half the country? Why not just push them back into the sea?'

Cynewulf made to apologise, but Alfred held up his hand. 'You are fiery for one of the cloth, aren't you, boy? Your tonsure is a little ragged too, you ought to take more care over that. The truth is, and hard though it is even for my thegns to accept it, we did not defeat the Danes at Ethandune. We defeated the remnant of one army. If I had pursued the Danes to Eoforwic I would have won myself some glory, but at the risk of losing everything when the next assault came. Instead I have spent my energies in making England impregnable.'

'Not England,' Saberht said, despite Cynewulf's glares. 'Half of England, dominated by Wessex. And what about the rest?'