Conqueror

by Baxter, Stephen

  Alfred, King of Wessex, sat on his giving-throne, priests and clerks at his elbow. He was reading a book. As always his clerks recorded everything that came to pass, and the priests murmured prayers.

  Cynewulf, with Arngrim, Aebbe and Ibn Zuhr, sat on a mead bench and waited for the King’s attention. Cynewulf saw how Alfred picked out the letters in his book with a moving finger, and mouthed the words. Orphaned young, his education neglected by the older brothers who raised him, this most scholarly of kings had been almost grown before he learned to read English or Latin.

  This ‘hall’ was a hovel constructed of the skinny trunks and limp branches of willow trees, plastered with marsh-bottom mud. But the King put on an impressive show. The walls were draped with hangings that glittered with golden thread. The King’s giving-throne had been loaned to him by his sound supporter Aethelnoth. Alfred himself was dressed in leather and a mail shirt, but he glistened with jewellery, shoulder-brooches and pendants and rings and arm bands.

  For a king, image was all. And so he wore his jewels and said his prayers, here in the middle of the bog, even while the Danes skulked through the thickets to assassinate him.

  Cynewulf, whispering, remarked on this to Arngrim.

  Arngrim bluffly murmured, ‘Oh, I believe in Alfred. He may babble on about God, but he is the descendant of Woden after all, and he has a deeper wisdom than any priest. Think about his name.’

  Alfred - Aelfred - the wisdom of the elves.

  Cynewulf was startled. He hissed, ‘Arngrim, the Menologium. There is a line in the ninth stanza that talks of elf-wisdom—’

  ‘Not now,’ Arngrim said.

  Despite the finery the foetid stink of the swamp penetrated even this royal cabin. Alfred looked shrivelled, and as he tired he coughed into a handkerchief, which Cynewulf saw was spotted with blood.

  Ibn Zuhr murmured to his master, ‘The King is ill.’

  ‘Is there anything you can do for him, Moor?’

  Ibn Zuhr shook his head. ‘It is the foul air,’ he said softly. ‘If he could get away from that, perhaps his condition would improve.’

  The King looked up, disturbed by their talk. He closed his book with a sigh. ‘I’m sorry for keeping you waiting, Arngrim. It’s just that I get lost in words.’ He held up the book. ‘We are short of parchment, you know. Some of my thegns would have me tear up my books to keep the orders flowing out of here. Books, sacrificed to the needs of war - a terrible thing. But not this one; next to the Bible it is the one book I could not live without, I think. De Consolatione Philosophiae - The Consolation of Philosophy, by Boethius. Have you heard of it?’

  ‘I’m not what you would call a book-reader, lord,’ Arngrim growled.

  Ibn Zuhr coughed. ‘Master, if I may?’

  Cynewulf was astonished at the gall of a slave daring to speak before a king. But Alfred waved for the Moor to speak.

  Ibn Zuhr said clearly, ‘Anicius Manlius Severinus Boethius. A Roman scholar who died some four centuries ago. He was a senator, indeed a consul. But he lived through the expulsion of the last western emperor, and served under Theodoric the Ostrogoth, King of Italy. He translated Aristotle. He wrote extensively on the Arian heresy …’

  Arngrim rumbled like a wolf. ‘Lord, I am not sure if the frozen thoughts of a long-dead Roman are much help to us now.’

  ‘That is the fallacy of the illiterate,’ Alfred snapped. ‘And it is why, dear Arngrim, I hold you no closer.’

  Cynewulf could sense Arngrim’s irritation.

  ‘How did Boethius die, slave?’

  Ibn Zuhr said, ‘He was executed. I believe he was suspected of intriguing with the East Roman Emperor against King Theodoric.’

  ‘Yes, yes. And while he was in prison, even while he waited for death, he wrote this, his masterwork. What a consolation Boethius’s philosophy is to me now, with his talk of grades of being beyond the human, and his dream of a summum bonum, a highest good that controls and orders the universe. Even in an age of catastrophe - even while waiting for his own unjust execution at the hands of a barbarian king - he kept working. Perhaps this is the course I should take, do you think? Perhaps I should go into exile, like the wretched King Burghred of Mercia. Or I should lock myself away in a monastery, and write like Bede. For I sometimes think it is books I love above all else, save my children.’

  This talk of giving up, delivered in a feeble voice by an ill man, alarmed Cynewulf. Perhaps they hadn’t come a moment too soon.

  Arngrim apparently felt the same way. He said carefully, ‘You speak of Rome’s catastrophe in Boethius’s time. If you were to turn away from your duty now, lord, it would be an English catastrophe of no less magnitude.’

  Alfred snorted. ‘I would think you were flattering me, Arngrim, if I did not respect you too much.’

  ‘It is sincere, lord.’

  ‘And, lord,’ Cynewulf said, rising nervously, ‘the reason we have asked to speak to you today is that we have proof - proof that you must fight on. Proof that you must win.’

  Alfred glared at him. ‘Cynewulf, is it? You bring me a prophecy, I hear. You should know me better, if you believe you can deflect me with hints of the wyrd. I have plenty of half-converted pagans in my court muttering auguries in my ear.’

  ‘I am a priest,’ Cynewulf said defiantly. ‘What I bring you is, I believe, a revelation of God’s providence.’

  The King snapped, ‘Show me, then.’

  Cynewulf sighed. ‘I cannot show you, lord. But I can tell you.’ He turned to Aebbe.

  Here was another moment of high tension. Aebbe had not spoken a word since Eoforwic. If she refused to speak now, all would be lost.

  But to his immense relief she stood, faced the King, and, in a clear but harsh voice, began to recite the Menologium of Isolde:

  These the Great Years/of the Comet of God

  Whose awe and beauty/in the roof of the world

  Lights step by step/the road to empire

  An Aryan realm/THE GLORY OF CHRIST …

  Alfred listened for a few lines. Then he ordered the girl to begin again, so he could be sure his clerks wrote down the words accurately. He always had two clerks working together, who took down alternate sentences and then compiled a composite account later.

  When she had done, Alfred nodded. ‘And this is what you have brought me, this doggerel?’

  Arngrim said dryly, ‘It’s not its poetic qualities that the priest thinks are worth your attention, lord, but its scrying.’

  ‘It does sound oddly precise,’ Alfred said. ‘All those lists of months! Can these “Great Years” be translated into Bede’s system, Cynewulf, into Years of Our Lord?’

  ‘They can,’ said Cynewulf firmly, and he explained how the chronology of the Menologium had been established by scholars in the past. ‘It is a matter of simple adding-up to work out the dates - simple, but laborious, it takes a computistor to do it. And the coming of the comet, whose irregular returns mark the passage of the Great Years, has appeared in the sky exactly as predicted in the stanzas of the Menologium.’

  ‘Then this Menologium does not speak of the whole future. It is founded in the past.’

  ‘Yes. If you follow the list of Great Years through, we are currently in the middle of the sixth - and it refers to your reign, lord.’

  ‘Really?’ Alfred asked sceptically.

  ‘And for the earlier Years, some of the events it has predicted have already come to pass.’

  But to his chagrin the King didn’t seem impressed. ‘That proves nothing. This poem could have been knocked up this morning for all I know. Believe me, as a buyer of books I have been presented with enough forgeries in my time. All the “lost works of Aristotle” for instance, which you may pick up for a clipped penny in the markets of Rome—’

  Ibn Zuhr, to everybody’s surprise, spoke up again. ‘Lord, it is unlikely the priest will be able to convince you of the prophecy’s authenticity. What is “proof” after all? But perhaps, for now, faith might suffice. As t
he priest said it is the sixth stanza, describing the sixth Great Year, which refers to your own past, and future. Aren’t you curious about that?’

  Alfred stared at him. ‘I’m amazed how much latitude you allow this slave, Arngrim.’

  Amgrim was embarrassed, and furious. ‘Only because what he says has proven useful, lord. So far.’

  Alfred smiled. ‘Very well. Shall we grant you a little faith, priest, as this soulless Moor suggests?’ He turned to his clerks. ‘Read me the sixth stanza.’

  The two inky clerks read their own scribbled handwriting, haltingly, in turn:

  The Comet comes/in the month of February.

  Deny five hundred months five./Blood spilled, blood mixed.

  Even the dragon must lie/at the foot of the Cross.

  Nine hundred and five/the months of the sixth Year …

  Alfred seemed irritated. ‘Enigmatic hokum, like all auguries.’

  Now Cynewulf prepared to deliver what he believed his clinching argument. ‘But, lord, there is nothing enigmatic about the numbers of the months.’ He described how converting the Great Year months to calendar years had delivered a date of February, 837 AD, for the beginning of the sixth Great Year.

  Alfred frowned. ‘And five hundred months denied five, that is four hundred and ninety-five-’

  ‘Forty-one years and three months. Lord, the sixth stanza refers to events that will take place in May - this year - three months from now.’ Alfred’s jaw dropped, and Cynewulf couldn’t resist driving his advantage home. ‘Can you see it now? The stanza can tell of nothing less than your coming conflict with the Danes - and your triumph!’

  XII

  The King rose from his throne and paced restlessly, although his movements were more nervous than energetic. He had his clerks read the key lines over and over: ‘Blood spilled, blood mixed./Even the dragon must lie/at the foot of the Cross …’

  ‘The reference to the dragon is surely clear enough,’ Alfred said rapidly. ‘The Northmen with their dragon ships - the dragon is the Dane, his Force. And if he is to lie at the foot of the Cross, then he will be destroyed by a Christian power.’

  ‘Yes! That is surely the correct reading, lord—’

  ‘Actually the dragon will submit, but he will not be destroyed,’ Ibn Zuhr pointed out quietly.

  Arngrim growled, ‘Be still, Moor!’

  Ibn Zuhr dropped his eyes, immediately humble.

  Alfred sighed. ‘He does have a point. The line does seem to imply that we will defeat the Dane but we won’t be rid of him. And what was that about “blood spilled, blood mixed”?’ Nobody replied, and Alfred snapped, ‘Speak up, slave! You seem to have all the answers.’

  Ibn Zuhr said calmly, ‘Perhaps it is telling us that after the wars are over, the blood of the Danes and English will mingle. A new race will emerge, neither one nor the other, but something fused. Something greater.’

  Arngrim snorted. ‘Impossible.’

  ‘But we saw it ourselves,’ said Ibn Zuhr. ‘In Jorvik, in the northern country. Where even the languages are merging. Then,’ he went on relentlessly, ‘there is the rest of the prophecy.’ He turned to Cynewulf. ‘I read your notes. This is what a previous commentator on the Menologium, Boniface, has argued. The prophecy sets out a course, step by step, by which an empire of the “Aryans” in the future, a new Rome, will be established.’

  ‘Who are these Aryans?’ Alfred asked.

  ‘Nobody knows,’ Ibn Zuhr said. ‘Perhaps they will arise from the blood of the Danes and the English. But you see, lord, your victory over the Danes may be partial, but it is a necessary step in the programme - a step in the founding of the ultimate empire.’

  Cynewulf was astonished to hear this analysis, mortified he hadn’t worked it out for himself - and furious at the slave for showing him up.

  Alfred shook his head. ‘So I must save my kingdom but spare those who threaten it.’ He glared at the priest. ‘Is this what you have brought me to stiffen my morale, Cynewulf?’

  The priest said, hotly embarrassed, ‘I hadn’t thought it through this far, lord.’

  ‘No, I’m sure you hadn’t. Which is why I am a king and you are a mere priest, no doubt.’ The King threw himself down on his throne and coughed explosively. ‘Prophecies, prophecies. Is there room in the universe for such things?’ He picked up his copy of the Consolations and thumbed through it. ‘What do we humans know of history? We are as worms who tunnel in the dark, knowing nothing of the shape of the whole round world. But Boethius writes of other perceptions of time than the linear human experience. Boethius would argue, I think, that God is atemporal - outside time, as I am outside the pages of this book - and so free to intervene in past and future as He pleases.’ He leafed through the book, jabbing his finger at random at the pages. ‘Just as I may change a letter here, a word there, in the narrative. And if I accept that, then I suppose I can believe that God, or a pious servant of God, might indeed have found a way to send a warning, or a promise, from the future, back into time.’ He glanced at Cynewulf. ‘Is this blasphemy, priest?’

  Cynewulf was all but holding his breath. ‘I don’t believe so, lord.’

  ‘I ought to ask a bishop. I have enough of them in my pocket. “Even the dragon must lie/at the foot of the Cross …” Ambiguous as it is, perhaps this message from the future, or the past, does harden my resolve. Pilgrimages can wait until my old age. And if all I win from the Danes must one day be taken back by them - well, then, it is up to us to act as if it were not so. Do you agree with that much, Cynewulf?’

  ‘Yes, lord,’ Cynewulf said, relieved.

  A priest murmured in Alfred’s ear. Time for prayers. He dismissed Cynewulf’s party.

  Aebbe, still standing on the spot where she had recited the Menologium to a king, had watched all this, her eyes grave, judgmental.

  XIII

  As the days lengthened and the weather warmed, it was as if the world’s blood was stirring. The punts brought weapons, armour, and scrap metal which, to a ringing of hammers day and night, was turned into spears, arrow-heads and coats of mail.

  Arngrim had his favourite horse brought close by, a handsome beast he called Strong-and-Fleet. And he sharpened and polished his battle sword, which he loved more than the horse, Cynewulf thought, and which he had named too, after the manner of pagan warriors. A gift from his father, it was a hardened blade with an ornate wooden hilt; he called it Ironsides.

  Campaigning season was coming, the long warm months of war. Even Cynewulf felt his sap rising. But he prayed that this martial excitement could be banished from his own blood, for in the country there was misery.

  The Danes, bottled up by Alfred, stole seedcorn and slaughtered pregnant ewes and cows. All farmers lived close to the edge of survival, even in the best of times, and this spring famine made eyes hollow. The priests excused the folk their tithes, and at the Easter feast, the one occasion when the parishioners were allowed to share in the priests’ communion bread and wine, hunger was more evident than faith. And supplicants came from across the country to Aethelingaig, starving farmers who knelt to place their heads in their lords’ hands, giving themselves up as bondsmen in return for a little food.

  But despite the tension, despite the misery, it was a beautiful season. The colours of the new marsh flowers, the croaking of the mating frogs, the songs of the nesting birds all seemed more vivid than before to Cynewulf. For if the war went badly this year, it was almost certain that he, Cynewulf, the centre of the whole universe, would never see spring again.

  As the season advanced, the logic of the war unfolded relentlessly. Unexpected news came that ealdorman Odda had scattered the second Danish Force. Their leader, Ubba, had been killed, along with eight hundred of his men, and the rest had fled back to their ships. For the English it was the first real piece of good news since the rout of the Twelve Days.

  But Alfred still had to face Guthrum.

  And now the dragon stirred. Guthrum’s Force left its captured fortress
at Cippanhamm. Unopposed, watched fearfully by the farmers of Wessex, the Force worked its lawless way across the country, taking food, horses, slaves and women as it chose. After some weeks the Force settled again at a place called Ethandune.

  Cynewulf, restless himself, accompanied Arngrim on a spying trip ordered by Alfred. Arngrim knew the land from hunting trips as a young man, and he led Cynewulf confidently along tracks over high moorland. As they climbed the views opened up, revealing rolling wooded country stretching towards Cippanhamm.

  The Dane camp was at the foot of a sharp ridge. It was this ridge that gave the place its name - Ethandune, the ‘waste down’. There were relics of long occupation here, Cynewulf saw: the furrowed ditches of an abandoned camp, perhaps centuries old, and the emblem of a horse cut raggedly into a hillside.

  And, crouching for cover in the gorse, they could clearly see the settlement which the Danes had taken. It was another royal enclosure, smaller than Cippanhamm, but with earth fortifications and a hall. The fires of the Force sent threads of smoke into the air, and the horses, every last one of them stolen from the English, were corralled in a large paddock.

  Like the English, the Danes were preparing for war. Cynewulf saw men wrestling and mock-fighting with swords and shields. And he heard laughter, songs. There was none of the nervous energy, the determined tension of Alfred’s camp. To the English everything was at stake - their homes, their families, their faith, their lives. But to the Danes this was an adventure, a bloody game - the best game in the world.

  Arngrim murmured, ‘They are smug. That’s a convenient camp, but it has the disadvantage of the low ground. And Alfred’s strategy has paid off. We have kept them bottled up all winter, and they are short of reinforcements and weapons and provisions.’

  ‘Yet they laugh.’

  ‘Yet they laugh. They think they will beat us come what may.’ Arngrim was a slab of anger, of clenched muscle, as he looked down on this scene. ‘I know this land. I have hunted here, with the athelings. This is our land, won from the British with twenty generations of blood and toil. You know, I’ve had enough of these Danes.’