The Last Kingdom Series Books 1–8: The Last Kingdom, The Pale Horseman, The Lords of the North, Sword Song, The Burning Land, Death of Kings, The Pagan Lord, The Empty Throne. Bernard Cornwell

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СКАЧАТЬ and I followed the sound which led me to the nunnery by the river wall. I had never been inside the convent, but the gate was open and the courtyard inside was lit by two vast fires which offered some warmth to the men nearest the flames. And there were at least a hundred men in the courtyard, bellowing encouragement and insults at two other men who were fighting in the mud and melted snow between the fires. They were fighting with swords and shields, and every clash of blade against blade or of blade against wood brought raucous shouts. I glanced briefly at the fighters, then searched for faces in the crowd. I was looking for Haesten, or anyone else who might recognise me, but I saw no one, though it was hard to distinguish faces in the flickering shadows. There was no sign of any nuns and I assumed they had either fled, were dead or had been taken away for the conquerors’ amusement.

      I slunk along the courtyard wall. I was wearing my helmet and its face-plate was an adequate disguise, but some men threw me curious glances, for it was unusual to see a helmeted man off a battlefield. In the end, seeing no one I recognised, I took the helmet off and hung it from my belt. The nunnery church had been turned into a feasting hall, but there was only a handful of drunks inside, oblivious to the noise outside. I stole half a loaf of bread from one of the drunks and took it back outside and watched the fighting.

      Steapa Snotor was one of the two men. He no longer wore his mail armour, but was in a leather coat and he fought with a small shield and a long sword, but around his waist was a chain that led to the courtyard’s northern side where two men held it and, whenever Steapa’s opponent seemed to be in danger, they yanked on the chain to pull the huge Saxon off balance. He was being made to fight as Haesten had been fighting when I first discovered him, and doubtless Steapa’s captors were making good money from fools who wanted to try their prowess against a captured warrior. Steapa’s current opponent was a thin, grinning Dane who tried to dance around the huge man and slide his sword beneath the small shield, doing what I had done when I had fought Steapa, but Steapa was doggedly defending himself, parrying each blow and, when the chain allowed him, counterattacking fast. Whenever the Danes jerked him backwards the crowd jeered and once, when the men yanked the chain too hard and Steapa turned on them, only to be faced by three long spears, the crowd gave him a great cheer. He whipped back to parry the next attack, then stepped backwards, almost to the spear points, and the thin man followed fast, thinking he had Steapa at a disadvantage, but Steapa suddenly checked, slammed the shield down onto his opponent’s blade and brought his left hand around, sword hilt foremost, to hit the man on the head. The Dane went down, Steapa reversed the sword to stab and the chain dragged him off his feet and the spears threatened him with death if he finished the job. The crowd liked it. He had won.

      Money changed hands. Steapa sat by the fire, his grim face showing nothing, and one of the men holding the chain shouted for another opponent. ‘Ten pieces of silver if you wound him! Fifty if you kill him!’

      Steapa, who probably did not understand a word, just stared at the crowd, daring another man to take him on, and sure enough a half drunken brute came grinning from the crowd. Bets were made as Steapa was prodded to his feet. It was like a bull-baiting, except Steapa was being given only one opponent at a time. They would doubtless have set three or four men on him, except that the Danes who had taken him prisoner did not want him dead so long as there were still fools willing to pay to fight him.

      I was sidling around the courtyard’s edge, still looking at faces. ‘Six pennies?’ a voice said behind me and I turned to see a man grinning beside a door. It was one of a dozen similar doors, evenly spaced along the limewashed wall.

      ‘Six pennies?’ I asked, puzzled.

      ‘Cheap,’ he said, and he pushed back a small shutter on the door and invited me to look inside.

      I did. A tallow candle lit the tiny room which must have been where a nun had slept, and inside was a low bed and on the bed was a naked woman who was half covered by a man who had dropped his breeches. ‘He won’t be long,’ the man said.

      I shook my head and moved away from the shutter.

      ‘She was a nun here,’ the man said. ‘Nice and young? Pretty too. Screams like a pig usually.’

      ‘No,’ I said.

      ‘Four pennies? She won’t put up a fight. Not now she won’t.’

      I walked on, convinced I was wasting my time. Had Alfred been and gone? More likely, I thought grimly, the fool had gone back to his hall and I wondered if I dared go there, but the thought of Guthrum’s revenge deterred me. The new fight had started. The Dane was crouching low, trying to cut Steapa’s feet from under him, but Steapa was swatting his blows easily enough and I sidled past the men holding his chains and saw another room off to my left, a large room, perhaps where the nuns had eaten, and a glint of gold in the light of its dying fire drew me inside.

      The gold was not metal. It was the gilding on the frame of a small harp that had been stamped on so hard that it broke. I looked around the shadows and saw a man lying in a heap at the far end and went to him. It was Alfred. He was barely conscious, but he was alive and, so far as I could see, unwounded, but he was plainly stunned and I dragged him to the wall and sat him up. He had no cloak and his boots were gone. I left him there, went back to the church and found a drunk to befriend. I helped him to his feet, put my arm around his shoulders and persuaded him I was taking him to his bed, then took him through the back door to the latrine yard of the nunnery where I punched him three times in the belly and twice in the face, then carried his hooded cloak and tall boots back to Alfred.

      The king was conscious now. His face was bruised. He looked up at me without showing any surprise, then rubbed his chin. ‘They didn’t like the way I played,’ he said.

      ‘That’s because the Danes like good music,’ I said. ‘Put these on.’ I threw the boots beside him, draped him with the cloak and made him pull the hood over his face. ‘You want to die?’ I asked him angrily.

      ‘I want to know about my enemies,’ he said.

      ‘And I found out for you,’ I said. ‘There are roughly two thousand of them.’

      ‘That’s what I thought,’ he said, then grimaced. ‘What’s on this cloak?’

      ‘Danish vomit,’ I said.

      He shuddered. ‘Three of them attacked me,’ he sounded surprised. ‘They kicked and punched me.’

      ‘I told you, the Danes like good music,’ I said, helping him to his feet. ‘You’re lucky they didn’t kill you.’

      ‘They thought I was Danish,’ he said, then spat blood that trickled from his swollen lower lip.

      ‘Were they drunk?’ I asked. ‘You don’t even look like a Dane.’

      ‘I pretended I was a musician who couldn’t speak,’ he mouthed silently at me, then grinned bloodily, proud of his deception. I did not grin back and he sighed. ‘They were very drunk, but I need to know their mood, Uhtred. Are they confident? Are they readying to attack?’ He paused to wipe more blood from his lips. ‘I could only find that out by coming to see them for myself. Did you see Steapa?’

      ‘Yes.’

      ‘I want to take him back with us.’

      ‘Lord,’ I said savagely, ‘you are a fool. He’s in chains. He’s got half a dozen guards.’

      ‘Daniel was in a lion’s den, yet he escaped. Saint Paul was imprisoned, yet God freed him.’

      ‘Then СКАЧАТЬ