It was fear for something strange at work in the world. Twice now he had met the young man Shef with the one eye. The first time he had had him in the hollow of his hand: he, Alfred, atheling and commander of an undefeated army; the other, Shef, at the very last end of his resources, about to be overwhelmed by the army of the Mark. That time the atheling had rescued the carl, raised him to alderman, or jarl a the Way-folk said. The second time Shef the jarl had been the one with the undefeated army; he, Alfred, had been the fugitive and the suppliant. Yet even then not a suppliant without hope or without resources.
And now how did things stand? The one-eye had sent him south, said each should fight their own battle. Alfred had fought his, fought it with all the men he could gather to his banner from the eastern shires of his kingdom, men who had come willingly to fight an invader. And they had been scattered like leaves in a gale, unable to hold the terrible charge of the mailed horsemen. Alfred was sure in his heart that matters had not gone so in the battle his ally and rival had meant to fight. Shef would have won.
Christianity had not entirely driven from Alfred and his countrymen the belief in something older and deeper than any gods—pagan or Christian ones: luck. The luck of a person. The luck of a family. Something that did not change with the years, something you either had or did not have. The great prestige of Alfred’s royal house, the descendants of Cerdic, depended silently on a deep belief in the family’s luck, which had kept them in power for four hundred years.
To the fugitive sitting by the hearth it seemed that his luck and that of his family had run out. No. It had been cancelled by the luck of a stronger figure—the one-eyed man who had started as a slave, a thrall in the heathen language, who had fought his way up past the execution-ground to be a carl in the Great Army of the North, and then up yet again to be a jarl. What greater proof of luck could there be? With so much of it in one man, how could there be any left for his allies? His competitors? Alfred felt the heart-chilling despair of someone who has given away the advantage in a contest, lightheartedly and without thought of consequences, only to see the advantage grow and grow, the initiative pass forever into the other’s hands. In that bleak moment he felt it was over for him, for his family, for his kingdom. For England. He sniffed back a tear.
Smelled as he did so the reek of charring bread. Guiltily his hand darted to the griddle, to flip the oatcakes over to cook on the other side. Too late. Burned through. Burned inedible. Simultaneously Alfred’s belly cramped inside him at the realization that after sixteen hours of desperate exertion there was nothing, nothing at all left to eat. And the door of the hovel opened to let in the churl and his wife, to fill the air with rage and blame. Nothing left to eat for them either. Their last food wasted. Burned by a good-for-nothing. A vagrant, too cowardly to die in battle, too lazy to do the simplest task. Too proud to pay anything for the meal and shelter they had offered him.
As they loaded curses on him, the worst of Alfred’s punishment was the feeling that what they said was true. He could not imagine, ever, the slightest recovery. This was the bottom from which no one could climb. Any future there was would not be for him and his like, the Christians of England. It would be decided between the Franks and the Norse, the Cross-wearers and the Way-folk. Alfred walked into the shelterless night, heart breaking with despair.
This time it was Shef who sat by the bed. Brand turned his head very slightly to look at him, face gray under the beard. Shef could see that even the tiny movements needed for that caused agony, as the poison spread inside Brand’s belly cavity to fight against the strength still locked in his massive frame.