‘Ælfweard?’

‘It seems Lord Varin was tied to a post and the boy was given a sword. It took some time.’ He made the sign of the cross. ‘Men were made to watch, and were told it was the fit punishment for a lack of vigilance. And Lord Varin was not even given a Christian burial! His corpse was thrown to the dogs, and what the dogs left was burned. And to think that Ælfweard is a grandson of King Alfred!’ He said the last words bitterly, then added, almost as an afterthought, ‘The sentries believe the army will march soon.’

‘Of course it will,’ I said. Æthelhelm had assembled a massive army and he needed to feed it, and the easiest way to do that was to march into Mercia and steal whatever food could be found. For the moment his troops would be surviving on the supplies they had discovered in Lundene’s storehouses and on what food they had brought with them, but hunger would come soon enough. Doubtless Æthelhelm still hoped that Æthelstan would assault Lundene and that he could slaughter the Mercians beneath the city walls, but if Æthelstan did not oblige him then he would be forced to leave the city and seek to destroy the enemy in battle. And the West Saxons, I reflected bitterly, must be confident. They had the bigger army, much the bigger army, and that army would march soon.

‘The signal,’ Father Oda went on, ‘will be the ringing of the city bells. When they sound, the troops must assemble at the old fort.’

‘Ready to march,’ I grunted.

‘Ready to march,’ Oda confirmed. ‘But it is an unhappy army.’

‘Unhappy?’

‘The East Anglians are treated as serfs by the West Saxons, and the Christians are unhappy too.’

I snorted a humourless laugh. ‘Why?’

‘Because the archbishop,’ Oda began, then stopped.

‘Athelm?’

‘They say he’s a prisoner in the palace here. An honoured one, perhaps.’ He paused, frowning. ‘But still they dared lay hands on Christ’s servant!’

I had long suspected that Athelm, the Archbishop of Contwaraburg, was an opponent of Æthelhelm and his family, even though Athelm was himself a distant cousin to the ealdorman. Perhaps that kinship explained his hostility, an hostility born of knowing Æthelhelm and his nephew only too well. ‘They won’t dare kill the archbishop,’ I said.

‘Of course they will,’ Oda said brusquely. ‘They’ll say he’s sick,’ and once again he made the sign of the cross, ‘then claim he died of a fever. Who is to know? But it won’t happen yet. They need him to place the helmet on the boy’s head.’ Ælfweard would not be properly king until that ceremony was performed, and Æthelhelm would surely insist that Archbishop Athelm lifted the gem-encrusted helmet of Wessex. Any lesser bishop would be seen as a poor substitute, calling into question Ælfweard’s legitimacy.

‘Has the Witan met?’ I asked. Ælfweard needed the Witan’s approval before he could receive the royal helmet.

Oda shrugged. ‘Who can tell? Maybe? But my suspicion is that Æthelhelm is waiting until the Witan of all three kingdoms can meet. He wants to proclaim Ælfweard as the king of all the Saxons.’ He turned, frowning, as sudden loud voices sounded from the sentries, but it was only the arrival of two girls. Whores, I assumed, from one of the river taverns. ‘Æthelhelm has the support of the West Saxon lords, of course,’ Oda went on, ‘and the East Anglians are too frightened to oppose him, but to get the Mercian support he needs to crush Æthelstan. Once that’s done he’ll kill the Mercian lords who defied him and appoint new men to their estates. Then Æthelhelm’s family will rule all Englaland.’