Sword Song by Bernard Cornwell Page B

all this whipped through my mind like a swirl of wind gusting across a threshing floor to spin the chaff up into the sky. I did not think clearly. I was as confused as the chaff spinning in the wind, and I did not weigh my oath to Alfred against my future as a king. I just saw two paths ahead, one hard and hilly, and the other a wide green way leading to a kingdom. And besides, what choice did I have? Wyrd bi? ful ãræd.
    Then, in the silence, Haesten suddenly knelt to me. “Lord King,” he said, and there was unexpected reverence in his voice.
    “You broke an oath to me,” I said harshly. Why did I say that then? I could have confronted him earlier, in the hall, but it was by that opened grave I made the accusation.
    “I did, lord King,” he said, “and I regret it.”
    I paused. What was I thinking? That I was a king already? “I forgive you,” I said. I could hear my heartbeat. Bjorn just watched and the light of the flaming torches cast deep shadows on his face.
    “I thank you, lord King,” Haesten said, and beside him Eilaf the Red knelt and then every man in that damp graveyard knelt to me.
    “I am not king yet,” I said, suddenly ashamed of the lordly tones I had used to Haesten.
    “You will be, lord,” Haesten said. “The Norns say so.”
    I turned to the corpse. “What else did the three spinners say?”
    “That you will be king,” Bjorn said, “and you will be the king of other kings. You will be lord of the land between the rivers and the scourge of your enemies. You will be king.” He stopped suddenly and went into spasm, his upper body jerking forward and then the spasms stopped and he stayed motionless, bent forward, retching drily, before slowly crumpling onto the disturbed earth.
    “Bury him again,” Haesten said harshly, rising from his knees and speaking to the men who had cut the Saxon’s throat.
    “His harp,” I said.
    “I will return it to him tomorrow, lord,” Haesten said, then gestured toward Eilaf’s hall. “There is food, lord King, and ale. And a woman for you. Two if you want.”
    “I have a wife,” I said harshly.
    “Then there is food, ale, and warmth for you,” he said humbly. The other men stood. My warriors looked at me strangely, confused by the message they had heard, but I ignored them. King of other kings. Lord of the land between the rivers. King Uhtred.
    I looked back once and saw the two men scraping at the soil to make Bjorn’s grave again, and then I followed Haesten into the hall and took the chair at the table’s center, the lord’s chair, and I watched the men who had witnessed the dead rise, and I saw they were convinced as I was convinced, and that meant they would take their troops to Haesten’s side. The rebellion against Guthrum, the rebellion that was meant to spread across Britain and destroy Wessex, was being led by a dead man. I rested my head on my hands and I thought. I thought of being king. I thought of leading armies.
    “Your wife is Danish, I hear?” Haesten interrupted my thoughts.
    “She is,” I said.
    “Then the Saxons of Mercia will have a Saxon king,” he said, “and the Danes of Mercia will have a Danish queen. They will both be happy.”
    I raised my head and stared at him. I knew him to be clever and sly, but that night he was carefully subservient and genuinely respectful. “What do you want, Haesten?” I asked him.
    “Sigefrid and his brother,” he said, ignoring my question, “want to conquer Wessex.”
    “The old dream,” I said scornfully.
    “And to do it,” he said, disregarding my scorn, “we shall need men from Northumbria. Ragnar will come if you ask him.”
    “He will,” I agreed.
    “And if Ragnar comes, others will follow.” He broke a loaf of bread and pushed the greater part toward me. A bowl of stew was in front of me, but I did not touch it. Instead I began to crumble the bread, feeling for the granite chips that are left from the grindstone. I was not thinking about what I did, just