Out loud he said, with a minimum of deference, “Lord. You are called to council.”
His message delivered, he turned away, contempt in the set of his shoulders.
Greatly daring, Oswi asked what all had wondered: “Battle this time, lord? We got to stop that Ivar sometime. We wouldn’t have minded if we’d done it sooner.”
Shef felt the reproach, overrode it. “Battle always comes soon enough, Oswi. The thing is to be ready.”
As soon as Shef stepped into the great meeting tent, he felt the hostility that faced him. The whole of the Wayman council was present, or seemed to be: Brand, Ingulf, Farman and the rest of the priests, Alfred, Guthmund, representatives from every group and unit of the joint army.
He sat down at his place, hand groping automatically for the whetstone-scepter left lying there for him. “Where is Thorvin?” he said, suddenly noting one absence.
Farman started to give a reply, but was immediately overridden by the angry voice of Alfred—the young king—speaking already in a fair approximation of the Anglo-Norse pidgin the Wayman army and council so often used with each other.
“One man here or there does not matter. What we have to decide on cannot wait. Already we have waited too long!”
“Yes,” rumbled Brand in agreement. “We are like the farmer who sits up all night to watch the hen-roost. Then in the morning he finds the fox has taken all his geese.”
“So who is the fox?” asked Shef.
“Rome,” said Alfred, rising to his feet to look down at the council. “We forgot the Church in Rome. When you took the land from the Church in this county, when I threatened to take the revenues from it in my kingdom, the Church took fright. The Pope in Rome took fright.”
“So?” asked Shef.
“So now there are ten thousand men ashore. Mailed horsemen of the Franks. Led by their king Charles. They wear crosses on their arms and their surcoats, and say that they have come to establish the Church in England against the pagans.
“The pagans! For a hundred years we have fought against the pagans, we Englishmen. Every year we sent Peter’s pence to Rome as a token of our loyalty. I myself”—Alfred’s youthful voice rose in pitch with indignation—”I myself was sent by my father to the last Pope, to good Pope Leo, when I was a child. The Pope made me a consul of Rome! Yet never have we had a ship or a man or a silver penny sent into England in exchange. But the day Church-land is threatened, Pope Nicholas can find an army.”
“But it is an army against the pagans,” said Shef. “Maybe us. Not you.”
Alfred’s face flushed. “You forget. Daniel, my own bishop, declared me excommunicate. The messengers say these Cross-wearers, these Franks, announce on all sides that there is no king in Wessex and they demand submission to King Charles. Till that is done they will ravage every shire. They come against the pagans. But they rob and kill only Christians.”
“What do you want us to do?” asked Shef.
“We must march at once and defeat this Frankish army before it destroys my kingdom. Bishop Daniel is dead or fleeing, and his Mercian backers with him. No Englishman will challenge my king-right again. My thanes and aldermen are already gathering to me, and I can raise the entire levy of Wessex, from every shire. If, as some say, the messengers have overcounted the strength of the enemy, then I can fight them on even terms. I will fight them on any terms. But your assistance would be greatly welcome.”
He sat down, looking round tensely for support.
In the long silence, Brand said one word. “Ivar.”
All eyes turned to Shef, sitting on his camp-stool, whetstone across his knees. He still seemed pale and gaunt after his sickness, cheekbones standing out, the flesh round his ruined eye pulled in so that it seemed a dark pit.
I do not know what he is thinking, reflected Brand. But he has not been with us these last days. If what Thorvin says is true, about the spirit leaving the body in these visions, then I wonder if it can be that you leave a little of it behind each time.