The Flame Bearer (The Last Kingdom Series, Book 10) by Bernard Cornwell Read Free Book Online Page B

words.’
    Constantin laughed at that. ‘I wish I didn’t like you, Lord Uhtred,’ he said, ‘life would be so much simpler if I detested you.’
    ‘Most Christians do,’ I said, looking at his dour priests.
    ‘I could learn to detest you,’ Constantin said, ‘but only if you choose to be my enemy.’
    ‘Why would I do that?’ I asked.
    ‘Why indeed!’ The bastard smiled, and he seemed to have all his teeth, and I wondered how he had managed to keep them. Witchcraft? ‘But you won’t be my enemy, Lord Uhtred.’
    ‘I won’t?’
    ‘Of course not! I’ve come to make peace.’
    I believed that. I also believed that eagles laid golden eggs, fairies danced in our shoes at midnight, and that the moon was carved from good Sumorsæte cheese. ‘Maybe,’ I said, ‘peace would be better discussed by a hearth with some pots of ale?’
    ‘You see?’ Constantin turned to his scowling priests, ‘I assured you Lord Uhtred would be hospitable!’
    I allowed Constantin and his five companions to enter the fort, but insisted the rest of his men waited a half-mile away where they were watched by my warriors who lined Weallbyrig’s northern rampart. Constantin, feigning innocence, had asked that all his men be allowed through the gate, and I had just smiled at him for answer and he had the grace to smile back. The Scottish army could wait in the rain. There would be no fighting, not so long as Constantin was my guest, but still they were Scots, and no one but a fool would invite over three hundred Scottish warriors into a fort. A man might as well open a sheepfold to a pack of wolves.
    ‘Peace?’ I said to Constantin after the ale had been served, bread broken, and a flitch of cold bacon carved into slices.
    ‘It is my Christian duty to make peace,’ Constantin said piously. If King Alfred had said the same thing I would have known he was in earnest, but Constantin managed to mock the words subtly. He knew I did not believe him, any more than he believed himself.

    I had ordered tables and benches fetched into the large chamber, but the Scottish king did not sit. Instead he wandered around the room, which was lit by five windows. It was still gloomy outside. Constantin seemed fascinated by the room. He traced a finger up the small remaining patches of plaster, then felt the almost imperceptible gap between the stone jambs and lintel of the door. ‘The Romans built well,’ he said almost wistfully.
    ‘Better than us,’ I said.
    ‘They were a great people,’ he said. I nodded. ‘Their legions marched across the world,’ he went on, ‘but they were repelled from Scotland.’
    ‘From or by?’ I asked.
    He smiled. ‘They tried! They failed! And so they built these forts and this wall to keep us from ravaging their province.’ He stroked a hand along a row of narrow bricks. ‘I would like to visit Rome.’
    ‘I’m told it’s in ruins,’ I said, ‘and haunted by wolves, beggars, and thieves. You’d think yourself at home, lord King.’
    The two Scottish priests evidently spoke the English tongue because each of them muttered a reproof at me, while Cellach, the king’s son, looked as if he was about to protest, but Constantin was quite unmoved by my insult. ‘But what ruins!’ he said, gesturing his son to silence. ‘What marvellous ruins! Their ruins are greater than our greatest halls!’ He turned towards me with his irritating smile. ‘This morning,’ he said, ‘my men cleared Einar the White from Bebbanburg.’
    I said nothing, indeed I was incapable of speech. My first thought was that Einar could no longer supply the fortress with food and that the vast problem of his ships was solved, but then I plunged into renewed despair as I understood that Constantin had not attacked Einar on my behalf. One problem was solved, but only because a much greater obstacle now stood between me and Bebbanburg.
    Constantin must have sensed my gloom because he laughed. ‘Cleared him out,’ he said, ‘scoured