Chapter Forty-three

Aelfred accepted Gunnarr’s oath of allegiance – after he had agreed to convert to Christianity. Asser was given the task of preparing him for baptism and of learning whatever he could about Guthrum’s strength. Asser spoke some Danish for reasons that he was reluctant to explain and when he needed further assistance he called on Dan’s magically acquired linguistic gifts. The news was not good. Guthrum’s forces did indeed number several thousand battle-hardened warriors, and in spite of the hard work of Aelfred’s men recruiting troops from throughout Wessex, Aelfred could not currently field half so many and scarcely any had much in the way of weaponry or skill.

Athelney turned itself over to the production of spears and shields. They pilfered and borrowed what wood they could and used every scrap of metal they could find, even nails, to heat in the furnace and flatten and sharpen into spear heads. Athelney grew busier every day. Aelfred had sent out a call to craftsmen, promising them a king’s commission and all the benefits that might come from serving the King of Wessex once he was restored to the throne. Hope and confidence somehow began to grow and gambling men began to see the point in backing Aelfred. He was, after all, a Wessex man of good lineage and everyone knew that the Danes made unreliable friends.

Aelfred accepted their captive and did not condemn him to death. The man’s father had been a blacksmith and though he had given up the craft after some undisclosed difference of opinion which saw him hiding out in the wilds of the levels. Aelfred was too practical to lose a potential smith, even one with an injured wrist, and put him to work as penance for his sins. Dan was pleased. He had a grudging admiration for the man’s gritty kind of awkwardness. He was also relieved that he could still be heartened by a man’s survival. It meant that he was not entirely lost to the bloodlust of the bear, that he could still find mercy and compassion somewhere in his soul.

Dan gave Ursula over to Rhonwen’s care. She did not open her eyes or show any sign of awareness of her surroundings, almost as if she was in a coma. She looked like a fairytale princess waiting for Prince Charming to breathe life back into her. Dan found the idea disturbing – he’d never met anyone less in need of rescuing than Ursula, and yet here she was. He had to fight back the urge to kiss her, as if they really were in a fairy tale. He was not at all sure that he had any right to cast himself in the role of handsome prince – more like the beast in ‘Beauty and the Beast’.

Dan did not hand her over easily. ‘What can we do? Can I go and find this Finna or what?’ the bear rumbled in Dan’s voice.

‘I don’t know,’ Rhonwen said tightly. ‘I have tried all the charms I know and nothing is working. Asser is praying for Ursula night and day. Taliesin can seek her out, but I fear it will do no good. There are some particular herbs we can try that might help him, but then …’

It took Rhonwen some time to acquire the herbs she needed and it was not until the fourth night of Ursula’s magical sleep that she was able to give Taliesin the sleeping draught she hoped would allow him to pursue Ursula.

‘It is bitter, mind, and it might make you sick.’

Taliesin pulled a face as he downed her concoction in one, then lay down on the floor next to Ursula and held her limp hand. Rhonwen had to hold Dan back.

‘For the love of all that is holy, Dan, do not hover over him like that. He will not hurt her. He needs to touch her in order to seek her. Watch yourself – we cannot have the bear in here.’

Dan made himself breathe deeply. He wanted to grab Ursula and shake some life into her, but even he could see that wouldn’t help. The draught worked quickly. Taliesin’s breathing slowed and his face became white and bloodless as a corpse.

‘Are you sure that is supposed to happen?’ Dan asked. Rhonwen’s face was pale too, even in the warm light of the candles she had set about the room.

‘Hush, Dan, you are not helping. This is risky. We know little more than you.’ She got down awkwardly on to her knees, helping herself with the aid of a broom; she was too proud to use a stick. She put her ear to Taliesin’s chest. ‘His heart still beats so the draught has not killed him.’

Dan was silenced. It had not occurred to him that Rhonwen and Taliesin would risk so much. He helped Rhonwen to her feet.

‘What do we do now?’ he whispered.

‘You can scream your head off now and he won’t hear you. There is nothing to do but wait,’ Rhonwen answered in an undertone.

It was not the first time Taliesin had sent his soul out of his body seeking what the earthbound human eye could not see, but Dan had never felt more concerned for his safe return. It was long after dawn that Taliesin finally awoke, wild-eyed and gasping for breath, as though he had been suffocated. Rhonwen rushed to get him water. He could not speak for several breaths. He had never looked more afraid.

‘Finna!’ he said. ‘She has Ursula but I can’t get to her. She almost had me.’

‘Here, catch your breath. Have some water. Give yourself a minute to come to,’ Rhonwen soothed him gently.

He gulped the liquid down and smoothed his wild hair with shaking hands.

‘She has set a trap for magic. The minute I drank your cup I was there. I couldn’t escape. Ursula is there but I had no power to talk to her or let her know that we are looking for her. I only got away because Finna was not looking for me. I doubt she even noticed me. She has all the power she can use in Ursula. We have to stop her. I cannot describe it but I know she could have made me do anything. I was not in control of myself.’ Taliesin’s voice trembled with shock and he suppressed a shudder. Rhonwen thrust another of her tinctures into his hand. It smelled of honey.

Dan was on his feet and ready to leave. ‘I’ll find Finna and kill her!’

Taliesin shook his head. ‘Dan, I believe Finna is at the heart of the Danish army. Even you cannot get to her there. You have to promise you will not try until you have Aelfred’s forces behind you. When you become the bear, there will be no one to help you get back to being Dan. You may never get back to being yourself. Even you can see it would be madness.’

‘I have kept control here.’

‘You have done well. But you haven’t had to fight an enemy. I don’t believe you could keep control if sorely pressed.’

Dan would have liked to have claimed that he could keep control for Ursula’s sake, but he knew it was not true: the bear was stronger than he was.

‘What can we do then?’

‘Wait and pray. Perhaps Ursula will find a way to break her bonds.’

Dan knew from the tone of Taliesin’s voice that he did not believe it.

Ursula’s breathing remained even and her colour good and Rhonwen said that she did not think she was about to die. The one-time sorceress found a way of getting Ursula to take some nourishment and Dan clung to her opinion. Ursula wasn’t dead yet.

He did everything the King asked of him to keep his mind off things, to fill the time. He helped to debrief Gunnarr. He helped to train troops, and listened to Aelfred and his ealdormen discussing strategy and logistics, adding a suggestion where his experience was of use. Long days passed. Aelfred finalised his plan. Dan did not feel able to judge whether the plan itself was good or bad, but he was relieved that they would finally see action. Waiting for battle overshadowed your days, formed a huge question mark in your life. Would this battle be the end? Would he die on some muddy field in some foreign version of an England he barely recognised? The bear did not much care, but Dan did.

Aelfred had sent out his messengers in force. The King’s fyrd was to muster at Egbert’s Stone, from which place they would move on to Iley Oak and make what preparations they could before marching to Cippenham to do battle with the treacherous former allies of Aelfred who had usurped him.

The King would have had Rhonwen and Ursula remain at Athelney along with his own wife and infants, but Taliesin and Aethelnoth backed Dan in his request to allow these two women to follow the army. As a result, Aelfred allowed Dan to commandeer a horse and cart from the farm he had defended so wildly. Ursula had to share it with provisions and with Rhonwen, but Dan was content with that. He was not sure he could have left her behind. He was grateful that his oath to Aelfred was not put to such a test.

In some ways it was good to be in an army again. Aelfred’s trust in him gave him rank and many of the men he trained treated him as an ealdorman or as a war leader in spite of his youth. They were quick to recognise his skills and he had no trouble with the men, only with the bear that lurked constantly just below the surface of his mind, conjuring slights from thin air, making him jumpy and difficult where once he had been known as relaxed and easy-going. Still, it felt good to walk with men his own age and listen to their chatter, to feel part of something, even if that something was too brutal and violent to be valued in his own time. It was not exactly a march by the exacting standards of the Romans or even of the Romano-British – it was more a brisk if shambling walk through the country. It was warmer than it had been and the signs of spring were everywhere; the no-longer-naked trees and bushes offered much more shelter on the road. It seemed a better, brighter country than the one he had ridden with Aethelnoth and Taliesin in search of Ursula.

Few of the men who travelled the cross-country route to Egbert’s Stone were properly armed or kitted out. Most only had their work clothes and perhaps a cap of boiled leather to protect their skull from spears and slingshot, the brunt of a blow from an axe, the blunt edge of a seax. Only a very few lucky wealthy men had proper metal helms – passed down from father to son through many generations. They were not much changed from the Roman helmets Dan had known in his other journeys through the Veil. Aelfred had brought all the new spears they had made and the shields, which were made from thick wooden planks and covered in stretched hide so as to make it more difficult for a spear point to bury itself in the wood. Dan knew from his training experience that trapping a spear did no man any good, rendering the shield useless and the spearman weaponless. Not many men carried swords and Dan’s splendid ancient Celtic sword was a treasure and a wonder beyond price. Asser had gone so far as to suggest that it would be a worthy gift for a king, but Dan ignored him. Dan had pledged it to Aelfred’s service and that was enough. He had given Bright Killer away once before and it was not something he intended to repeat. All the men carried seaxes: strong blades with one sharp edge for slicing, one blunt side for bludgeoning and a lethal point for stabbing – all attributes that would come in handy in the brutal close-quarters mayhem of the shield wall. Dan had always fought in Celtic fashion, as a free warrior among others – individualistic, wild to the point of insanity. He was fearful of standing shoulder to shoulder with other men; his madness was as likely to harm friend as foe. It was something he needed to talk to Aelfred about, though he had not yet found the courage.

Dan knew that he was not a coward in the usual sense. He had fought as a berserker, as an amnesiac, as an empath and as a bear, risking death and injury every time, and yet he was full of dread at the thought of joining the butcher’s line of the shield war, the press of men, the tight ranks. He had listened to the talk of the veterans trying to prepare the unblooded men. One man, a thegn of almost thirty-five, had been most graphic.

‘You have to look out for the men beside you, for none of you can shirk your duty or all will die. A broken line means you can be picked off, the enemy flooding in to take you, slaughtering the line from behind, killing you like beasts not men. When the line breaks, the men behind have to act quick and step on or over the fallen to take their place in the breach. It is their duty and the only proper act of a warrior. If the line is too tight packed, there is scarcely room to lift your arm above the shield and a man killed in the shield wall may not fall but stay propped between the living.’

It didn’t take much imagination for Dan, familiar as he was with warfare, to imagine the press of men, the stink of fear, the screams of the dying and the terrible claustrophobia of the shield wall. Neither Dan nor the bear could fight that way and much as he did not want to be seen to be a coward, he knew that neither his strength nor his speed and agility would help him much when forced to fight hard up against his fellows, struggling to pull down opponents’ shields and thrust his spear home. If he were to fight shoulder to shoulder with anyone, it ought to be Ursula. He thought of the recovered crystal orb he kept in a pouch under his tunic and mail. There had to be a way to free her, to get them both home.