Everyone knew that King Ethelred was on his way, but his route had not been announced, and Aldred was surprised that he would choose to cross the river at Dreng’s Ferry.

When Aldred heard the din he was at work in the monastery’s new building, a stone edifice housing the school, the library, and the scriptorium. Resting a sheet of parchment on a board on his knees, he was painstakingly copying Saint Matthew’s Gospel in the insular miniscule script used for literature in English. He worked prayerfully, for this was a holy task. Writing out a part of the Bible had a double purpose: it created a new book, of course, but it was also a perfect way to meditate on the deeper meaning of the Holy Scriptures.

He had a rule that worldly developments should never be allowed to interrupt spiritual work—but this was the king, and he stopped.

He closed Saint Matthew’s book, put the stopper back into his inkhorn, rinsed the nib of his quill in a bowl of clean water, blew on his parchment to dry the ink, then put everything back into the chest where such costly articles were kept. He did so methodically, but his heart was racing. The king! The king was the hope of justice. Shiring had become a tyranny, and only Ethelred could change that.

Aldred had never seen the king. He was called Ethelred the Misled, for people said that his fault was to follow bad advice. Aldred was not sure he believed that. Saying that the king was ill-advised was usually a way of attacking the monarch without seeming to.

Anyway, Aldred was not convinced that Ethelred’s decisions were disastrous. He had become king when he was twelve years old, and despite that he had reigned for twenty-five years so far—an achievement in itself. True, Ethelred had failed to inflict a decisive defeat on the marauding Vikings, but they had been raiding England for something like two hundred years, and no other king had done much better against them.

Aldred reminded himself that Ethelred might not be in company with the approaching troops today. He might have diverted on some errand, arranging to rejoin the army later. Kings were not the servants of their own plans.

By the time Aldred stepped outside, the first soldiers were visible on the far bank of the river. Most were boisterous young men carrying homemade weapons, mainly spears with a few hammers and axes and bows. There was a sprinkling of graybeards and a few women, too.

Aldred walked down to the riverside. Dreng was there, looking bad-tempered.

Blod was already poling the ferry across. A few men swam the river immediately, impatient to get across, but most people could not swim; Aldred himself had never learned. One man led his horse into the water and clung to the saddle while the mount swam across, but most of the horses were heavily laden pack animals. Soon a waiting crowd gathered. Aldred wondered how many men there were in total, and how long it would take for them all to cross the river.