Free Warriors of Ethandun by N. M. Browne Page B

better for holding a blade, however unfamiliar. His heart was beating too fast and his blood was up. He was on the brink of entering the dark place he found when he had fought as the Bear Sark, a berserker. He was not there yet, but even so it would have been very easy to stab the man with his own knife, it was difficult not to. He had been well schooled in the art of warfare and mercy was not a part of that training. He had to force himself to lower his arm to let the seax rest by his side. The encounter had taken less than a minute. Dan was breathing heavily: he was fit and strong but a fight was something different and he was out of practice. He had hoped to have remained that way.
    Dan was suddenly aware that the woman who had offered them her hospitality had lit a tallow candle. The householder lay on the ground groaning. Dan suspected that he might have broken his wrist. The packed earth of the floor was hard and he had not been gentle.
    â€˜What are you doing? You abuse my hospitality?’ The woman’s fury was tempered by the sight of her husband’s seax in Dan’s hand.
    â€˜Your husband was about to stab …’ Dan hesitated.
    â€˜Aelfred,’ his companion supplied, getting to his feet. ‘Aelfred, King of Wessex, in your debt.’
    The woman gave a little cry and swayed as if she might faint, but she was made of stronger stuff than that. Insteadof fainting, she took two bold steps towards Aelfred and kneeled at his feet.
    â€˜Begging your pardon, Sire. My husband is a good God-fearing man, but worried for our safety in such dangerous times. He mistook you for a bandit.’
    Aelfred shook his head. ‘You offered me hospitality, for which I am grateful, but attempted murder at your hearth? That I cannot easily forgive.’
    â€˜I wasn’t going to kill you!’ the householder protested, supporting his right wrist with his left hand, ‘You have a gold brooch on your tunic. I would have taken it to sell at Aller – there’s things we need. Any man can claim to be King – how can we know you tell the truth?’ He struggled to his feet, levering himself up on his elbows and wincing as this movement jarred his wrist. ‘By the Cross, how am I going to work now?’
    Dan could not quite bring himself to feel sorry for a man who had just tried to kill him. He raised his sword arm so that neither the householder nor his wife could fail to see that he still had the weapon and was prepared to use it. He felt his heart sink at the realisation that in saving a king he had once more put himself at the heart of important events. He did not want to get involved with this King Aelfred. He wanted to find Ursula and slip quietly away, home. If he stayed in this world, he knew it would not be long before he killed again. His berserker madness was still in him, a great venomous viper of violence coiled in his brain and ready to strike: that frightened him more than anything else.
    The King paused before answering the man, thenreached inside his tunic and pulled out a fine leather pouch from which he produced a seal ring. ‘This is the ring of the King of Wessex.’
    He held it out to show the woman, who still kneeled before him. She brought the candle up closer to her face so that she could view the object more clearly. Dan could see only that it was a very large gold ring, shaped like a bishop’s mitre and elaborately worked. It seemed to satisfy the woman.
    â€˜Have mercy, for the love of our Saviour,’ she whispered. ‘It is a hard life here. We have been flooded twice these last years and the swine drowned. Our son died of fever last Candlemas. My husband has not been the same since.’
    The householder glowered at Dan and Dan knew he was weighing up his chances of snatching back his knife.
    â€˜The word at market is that the old King was killed by the Danes at Christmas or that he fled abroad to throw himself on the mercy of the