Conqueror

XV

Aelfric managed to arrange a meeting with her father, Bertgils the thegn, at the King's coastal citadel of Bebbanburh. Perhaps an audience with the King would follow.

But Belisarius was aware that as they waited for this meeting the days slipped by, and May gave way to June, the month specified in the Menologium stanza, when disaster was due to strike.

At Aelfric's suggestion Belisarius took along a gift for the King. He chose one of his most precious books, the comedies of the Greek Aristophanes, centuries old, said to be only a few copy-generations younger than the playwright's own manuscript.

Aelfric/Aelfflaed discarded her habit before travelling. Dressed in leggings and a long tunic, her hair tied back under a cap to hide her tonsure, she looked more womanly than Belisarius had expected. He noticed that Macson, who seemed to have got over the 'lies' Aelfric had told him, looked at her with renewed interest. She instructed them they must all call her 'Aelfflaed' during the visit, for her monkish career was supposed to be a secret from all at the Butcher's court. Belisarius would try, but he could only think of her by her brave pseudonym.

Bebbanburh was half a day's ride north along the coast from the causeway to Lindisfarena. The citadel was a massive misshapen lump of hard black rock, right at the edge of the ocean, with tidal wrack and barnacles crowded at its foot. Looking up, shielding his eyes against a bright sky, Belisarius saw a bristling line of fortifications around the summit plateau. They ascended a flight of steps cut into the rock. The climb was lung-straining for them all, but poor old Boniface had to be practically carried up.

Belisarius wondered how this mighty rock had come to be here at all, what immense chthonic force, divine or natural, had thrust it up through the fabric of a gentler landscape of dunes and sea grass. Belisarius liked to think his mind was roomy enough for a glimmer of wonder at the marvels of the physical world, which served as a stage for humanity's petty dramas.

At the top of the steps, before an imposing gateway, they were stopped by a guard wielding a wooden-hilted sword. Aelfric spoke to him in her own tongue.

Belisarius, catching his breath, looked around. The summit was a narrow slope, which rose to a plateau where buildings clustered. Some of the slope was given over to grass, where sheep grazed. The view from this hilltop was remarkable, with the sea lapping right up to the promontory's cliff walls to his right, and to his left a view over the farms of the coastal plain to the rounded mountains beyond. Mountains and ocean in a single glance.

The guard waved them through. Aelfric seemed proud of this place that had been built in part by her father and his ancestors. 'There is the hall of the King, where we will meet my father. There is a separate apartment for the King, and a bower for the women of the court – you can see it over there. We have a well, cut through the rock by the thegns of King Ida who first landed here more than two centuries ago. It gives clean spring water. And in the church,' a compact stone building, rather grander than Lindisfarena's wooden cathedral, 'is a shrine to King Oswald, now a saint, where his incorruptible right hand is stored.'

Macson, of a practical frame of mind, was more interested in the stockade. 'Look here, Belisarius. I wondered how they had managed to plant foundations in rock as hard as this. See what they've done.' The stockade was actually a kind of box, with two timber walls set on the rock and the space between them filled with rubble. It wasn't anchored to the rock at all, Belisarius saw, but was so heavy as to be immovable.

Aelfric led her party to the central hall. It was impressive enough, though like most German buildings it was built entirely of wood, solidly constructed of huge oak beams. Belisarius was intrigued to see a hefty bone key sticking out of the big oak door; evidently this wooden hall was secured by a wooden lock.

Inside, the hall was already crowded. Brightly lit by mutton-fat lamps, the hall's hefty wooden frame was imposing, with uprights along its walls as regular as the pillars of a Greek temple, and mighty crossbeams supporting the roof overhead. The floor was lined by polished planks, and strewn with straw and some sweet-smelling herb. At the centre of the floor a fire burned smokily in a long hearth, over which huge blackened cauldrons were suspended by chains hung from the roof timbers. The walls were painted brightly, decorated with gold leaf, and hung with flags, standards and tapestries. The mournful faces of animals slain in the hunt, mighty buck deer, wolves, even the brooding snout of a bear, protruded from the glitter.

Though the Christian cross was apparent in the decoration, the tapestries' designs were angular abstractions, or showed figures thrusting boldly through elaborate tangles of forest and vine. Once again it struck Belisarius how shallow the veneer of Christianity was among these Germans.

Around the central hearth wooden benches were set out. These were the mead benches, Macson dryly explained to Belisarius. Men already sat at these benches, talking gruffly, laughing, taking draughts of ale from horn drinking cups. They wore cloaks fixed with huge thorns. The rows of benches radiated out from a central point, near the head of the hall; and at this focus sat an immense throne, carved of stone, covered with elaborate decorations. The Butcher was not yet in residence.

They had to crowd out of the way of the bustling slaves and servants setting up the feast. They all seemed tense. Evidently working for the Butcher was not a healthy occupation.

'Belisarius. This is my father.'

'You're the east Roman. My daughter has told me about you. I'm honoured to meet you.' Bertgils was a stocky man, clean-shaven save for the usual vast moustache, and his heavy blond hair hung loose. He wore a sword at his waist, and under a leather jacket a pendant of amber glinted. He might have been forty. Belisarius saw something of his daughter's frank intelligence in his eyes.

'The honour is mine.' Belisarius bowed in his turn and handed Bertgils his gift for the King. Bertgils glanced at the book dubiously, and handed it to a servant. Bertgils led Belisarius into the hall; the others followed. 'I'd be fascinated to hear you tell of your country. The King, too, has shown an interest – hence your invitation to join the feast.'

Belisarius nodded. 'But I'm here to give your King a warning.'

Bertgils said, 'Aelfflaed told me about that too.'

'If there's a sand-grain of truth in it, you need to be prepared.'

'All right. But I'll be frank with you. The King is made of stem stuff – he has had to be just to survive his own succession. He has no patience with prophets and auguries.'

'At least we can try,' Belisarius said.

'I owe my daughter that much. And in the meantime there is the feast.'

'Yes, the feast!' The voice boomed like thunder, and what felt like a side of ham slammed into Belisarius's shoulder.

Bertgils bowed. 'My lord.'

The Butcher was tall even among these tall Germans, and his chest was as wide as a barrel. Under a leather coat he wore a jacket of chain-mail, even here in his own hall. A monstrous silver cross hung by a gold chain around his neck, and each of his stubby fingers was adorned by a gleaming ring. He wore a vast moustache like the rest, and his hair was pulled into a knot on top of his head, exposing a neck that was dyed bright red from chin to chest, giving him the look of a huge predatory bird. His breath stank of spoiled meat. Belisarius tried not to recoil.

At the Butcher's side was a demure woman, much younger than he was – no older than Aelfric in fact, if that. She was expensively dressed too, and bizarrely she wore a sieve of silver on a chain around her neck.

Aethelred snapped, 'So you're the east Roman.' The King spoke a coarse Latin, to Belisarius's surprise.

'I'm honoured to meet you.'

Bertgils showed the King Belisarius's gift; Aethelred thumbed the precious pages casually, leaving grimy marks, as Belisarius tried to explain its provenance.

'I see you have brought along a pet monk.' The King turned on Boniface, who quailed. 'Ah, you're the one they call Pretty-face, are you not? Do you have a gift for me, Domnus Pretty-face?'

'I do not, King, for as you know I will partake neither of meat nor ale, and therefore-'

'What do you think of our monks, Belisarius? Do you have them where you come from? Do you know, I believe the abbot of that precious monastery is as rich as I am. What do you think of that?'

'We eschew personal wealth,' Boniface said bravely. 'All we have is dedicated-'

'To the works of God, blah blah. But, Belisarius, here is the thing. I often wonder if we need these Christians at all! What is Christianity but the relic of a vanished empire? All this airy waffle, all this scribbling and writing – it makes no difference to the lives of my people, you know. You've seen them, Belisarius. Their lives are blood and dirt; what matters to them is kin, loyalty, not abstractions.'

Boniface, frail, spoke up again. 'We offer the people a hope of a better life beyond this one. We offer them the healing peace of God which surpasses-'

'Yes, yes. And meanwhile your drunken bishops lord it in their palaces, your priests collect dues from villages where they never show up to teach, your monasteries are full of false monks who neither know nor care what your rules are.'

'I cannot defend the wrongs perpetrated by my brothers,' Boniface said. 'But, King, I can only do my best. For if you cup your hands around the tiniest of flames, eventually you will bring forth a conflagration in men's minds.'

The Butcher barked, 'Yes, but to what end? Do you really want to see a new Rome arising, defying the wyrd as much as the old, using up everything and crashing into ruins? Must we go through all that again? Look around you, man! You are still building your churches out of the rubble of the last "conflagration".' Aethelred snorted magnificently. 'I need a drink.' And he stalked off into the body of the hall, where his thegns came to fawn around him.

Aelfric comforted Boniface, who seemed exhausted.

Belisarius murmured to Bertgils, 'Your King expresses strong ideas, but with much anger.'

Bertgils nodded. 'And it is always best, Belisarius, not to get in the way of that anger.'