Conqueror

XII

The King rose from his throne and paced restlessly, although his movements were more nervous than energetic. He had his clerks read the key lines over and over: 'Blood spilled, blood mixed./Even the dragon must lie/at the foot of the Cross…'

'The reference to the dragon is surely clear enough,' Alfred said rapidly. 'The Northmen with their dragon ships – the dragon is the Dane, his Force. And if he is to lie at the foot of the Cross, then he will be destroyed by a Christian power.'

'Yes! That is surely the correct reading, lord-'

'Actually the dragon will submit, but he will not be destroyed,' Ibn Zuhr pointed out quietly.

Arngrim growled, 'Be still, Moor!'

Ibn Zuhr dropped his eyes, immediately humble.

Alfred sighed. 'He does have a point. The line does seem to imply that we will defeat the Dane but we won't be rid of him. And what was that about "blood spilled, blood mixed"?' Nobody replied, and Alfred snapped, 'Speak up, slave! You seem to have all the answers.'

Ibn Zuhr said calmly, 'Perhaps it is telling us that after the wars are over, the blood of the Danes and English will mingle. A new race will emerge, neither one nor the other, but something fused. Something greater.'

Arngrim snorted. 'Impossible.'

'But we saw it ourselves,' said Ibn Zuhr. 'In Jorvik, in the northern country. Where even the languages are merging. Then,' he went on relentlessly, 'there is the rest of the prophecy.' He turned to Cynewulf. 'I read your notes. This is what a previous commentator on the Menologium, Boniface, has argued. The prophecy sets out a course, step by step, by which an empire of the "Aryans" in the future, a new Rome, will be established.'

'Who are these Aryans?' Alfred asked.

'Nobody knows,' Ibn Zuhr said. 'Perhaps they will arise from the blood of the Danes and the English. But you see, lord, your victory over the Danes may be partial, but it is a necessary step in the programme – a step in the founding of the ultimate empire.'

Cynewulf was astonished to hear this analysis, mortified he hadn't worked it out for himself – and furious at the slave for showing him up.

Alfred shook his head. 'So I must save my kingdom but spare those who threaten it.' He glared at the priest. 'Is this what you have brought me to stiffen my morale, Cynewulf?'

The priest said, hotly embarrassed, 'I hadn't thought it through this far, lord.'

'No, I'm sure you hadn't. Which is why I am a king and you are a mere priest, no doubt.' The King threw himself down on his throne and coughed explosively. 'Prophecies, prophecies. Is there room in the universe for such things?' He picked up his copy of the Consolations and thumbed through it. 'What do we humans know of history? We are as worms who tunnel in the dark, knowing nothing of the shape of the whole round world. But Boethius writes of other perceptions of time than the linear human experience. Boethius would argue, I think, that God is atemporal – outside time, as I am outside the pages of this book – and so free to intervene in past and future as He pleases.' He leafed through the book, jabbing his finger at random at the pages. 'Just as I may change a letter here, a word there, in the narrative. And if I accept that, then I suppose I can believe that God, or a pious servant of God, might indeed have found a way to send a warning, or a promise, from the future, back into time.' He glanced at Cynewulf. 'Is this blasphemy, priest?'

Cynewulf was all but holding his breath. 'I don't believe so, lord.'

'I ought to ask a bishop. I have enough of them in my pocket. "Even the dragon must lie/at the foot of the Cross…" Ambiguous as it is, perhaps this message from the future, or the past, does harden my resolve. Pilgrimages can wait until my old age. And if all I win from the Danes must one day be taken back by them – well, then, it is up to us to act as if it were not so. Do you agree with that much, Cynewulf?'

'Yes, lord,' Cynewulf said, relieved.

A priest murmured in Alfred's ear. Time for prayers. He dismissed Cynewulf's party.

Aebbe, still standing on the spot where she had recited the Menologium to a king, had watched all this, her eyes grave, judgmental.