“Finish the letters in proper form, Theophanus. I’ll sign and seal them tomorrow. Pick appropriate messengers.”

The old man rose, clutching his cat, and left the office without haste for his private quarters.

“Nice touch about the cross,” remarked one of the secretaries busily drafting copies in the Pope’s own purple ink.

“Yes. He got it from what the Englishman said, about the pagans wearing a hammer in mockery of the cross.”

“The touch they’ll really like,” said the senior secretary, sanding vigorously, “is the bit about prosperity. He’s telling them if they do what they’re told they can loot all Anglia. Or Britannia. Whatever it’s called.”

“Alfred wants missionaries?” said Shef incredulously.

“His very word. Missionarii.” In his excitement Thorvin betrayed what Shef had come to suspect, that for all his scorn of Christian learning he knew something of their sacred tongue, the Latin. “It is the word they have long used for the men they send to us, to turn us to the worship of their God. I have never before heard of a Christian king asking for men to be sent to his country, to turn them to the worship of our gods.”

“And that is what Alfred wants now?”

Shef was dubious. Thorvin, he could see, for all his belief in calm and self-control, was carried away by the thoughts of the glory this would bring him and his friends among the followers of the Way.

Yet it did mean something, he was sure, and not what it seemed. The atheling Alfred whom he had met took no interest in pagan gods, and had, as far as he could tell, a deep belief in the Christian one. If he was calling now for missionaries of the Way to be sent into Wessex it was for a deeper reason. A move against the Church, that was certain. You could believe in the Christian God and hate the Church that His followers had set up. But what did Alfred think he had to gain? And how would that Church react?

“My fellow priests and I must decide which of us, which of our friends are to go on this mission.”

“No,” said Shef.

“His favorite word again,” observed Brand from his chair.

“Do not send any of your own college. Do not send Norsemen. There are Englishmen now who know well enough what you believe. Give them pendants. Instruct them in what must be said. Send them into Wessex. They will speak the language better and will be more easily believed.”

As Shef spoke he stroked the carved faces on his scepter.

Brand had noted this before—that Shef did this now when he was lying. Shall I tell Thorvin? he thought. Or shall I tell Shef, so that he can lie better when need be?