Conqueror

And within another month Aldgytha, though she was only thirteen, was pregnant.

'You have to hand it to the man,' Orm said to Godgifu, when they met in Lunden in March. 'Three months since Edward died, and Harold has already locked his only likely rivals in England into his brand-new dynasty. Although I can see trouble ahead when Harold's sons by Edith figure out what has happened.'

Godgifu was less impressed. She, or rather her father, had after all been allied to Tostig. 'It's another murky compromise,' she said. 'Mucky morals, from a man who got to where he is by betraying his own brother, bullying a dying king and lying about his last words – and breaking an oath made on a saint's relics.'

'Harold holds the throne. Nothing else matters. And you can't run a country without committing a few sins, I'm certain of that.'

Sihtric, meanwhile, took little notice of such detailed matters. His deduction that Harold should grab the throne – a deduction he had come to alone in his relentless study of the Menologium, a deduction he had not shared even with his sister before presenting it to Harold at Edward's deathbed – had raised his sense of his own self-importance to a new height. Now, as this critical year of 1066 unfolded, he withdrew even further from his sister and his bishop, and obsessed even more over his prophecy. He believed, he said, that a full understanding of it was tantalisingly close; and when he had decoded its message he would present it to the King, and so guide Harold's actions through the next crucial months. Godgifu found his grandiose strutting alternately comical and worrying.

But Sihtric had a credibility problem. March was the month in which the 'comet' was prophesied to appear, marking the transition from one Great Year to another. But as March wore on, the days lengthening and warming, there was no sign of a hairy star.

Sihtric showed his sister correspondence from a scholar based in Iberia, called Ibn Sharaf. It seemed this Ibn Sharaf had an ancestor of his own, one Ibn Zuhr, who as a slave in England had taken away a copy of the Menologium for himself, perhaps memorised.

'It's marvellous,' Sihtric said. 'This Ibn Sharaf is based in Toledo, the old Visigoth capital. Toledo is the world's hub of astronomy. Look – the Menologium describes nine visitations by comets, and the implication is that it is the same comet returning each time. Ibn Sharaf has checked records kept by Moor astronomers that go back centuries. There are observations that match all the dates embedded in the Menologium.

'Ibn Sharaf argues that a comet isn't a cloud, or a kind of star, as has been supposed by some. Some astronomers have seen the comets slide across the sky, brightening and darkening as they go. Ibn Sharaf says that comets ride on invisible roads between the spheres of heaven, brightening as they near the glow of the sun, diminishing as they recede. Ibn Sharaf is trying to establish the shape of such paths, for if one had that then perhaps one could explain the comets' strange periodicities. And perhaps one could know when to expect the next visitation.'

'As,' Godgifu said slowly, 'the drafter of the Menologium seems to have known.'

'To the men of the future,' Sihtric said pompously, 'the path of a comet in the sky will be a trivial puzzle.'

This irritated Orm. 'Well,' he said, 'even if that's so, they've got it wrong this time, haven't they? For March is nearly over, and your prophesied comet hasn't appeared yet.'

'It will come,' Sihtric promised. 'Ibn Sharaf and his astronomers are watching under the clear skies of al-Andalus.' But, a small man full of nervous tension, he was unable to sound confident.

X

That year, Easter fell in the middle of April.

Harold, with his pregnant bride, returned to Lunden, and held his Easter court at Westmynster. He took this first opportunity to display his power and status. There was a cycle of feasting, worship, receptions, and meetings to deal with royal business. He welcomed bishops, earls and thegns, and embassies from Scotland, Wales, Ireland, and the continent.

Sihtric and Godgifu took lodging in a house close to Westmynster that had belonged to a thegn of Tostig.

It was an uneasy time for Sihtric, for even now his overdue comet did not appear. Restless, agitated, he decided to deal with his 'rival' prophet, the monk Aethelmaer. Leaning on the authority of the bishops at the court, he summoned Aethelmaer from his monastery in Wessex.

Aethelmaer, crippled, had to be carted across the country on the back of a wagon, and then in Lunden two hefty young monks carried him everywhere on a litter.

On his arrival, Sihtric, Godgifu and Orm were shown into Aethelmaer's presence in Westmynster abbey. He was a fat man of about fifty lying stiffly on a couch, animated only from the waist up, his useless legs withered. There was a stink of rot in the room, only partially masked by wood smoke and a sharper tang of unguents.

At Aethelmaer's side was a low table covered in manuscripts and notes. Sihtric said, 'Despite your handicap, you have remained busy. God would be pleased.'

Aethelmaer, evidently an earthy man, snorted at that. 'But it was God who put me in my litter in the first place – God, and a handful of feathers, and the hardness of the earth… These sketches are just that, you know, scribbles on paper. It is only when you realise the machines, with wood and rope, canvas and cloth, metal and feathers, that you start to see what works and what doesn't – and how much you don't understand. And if God had chosen to leave me my legs I could have got a lot further by now. Eh, eh?'

'Machines?' That sparked Orm's curiosity, and he walked over to see the sketches for himself. Filled with complex diagrams they were grimy with handling and covered by spidery notes.

Sihtric said, 'Word of your prophecies have reached the court. They say that you have forecast the coming of a comet.'

'A comet? Oh, yes.' Aethelmaer reached painfully to tap the heap of papers. 'It's all in here. The comet will come, and England will fall – but it will rise again, changed.' He slumped back, face twisted with pain. 'But it's not the comet that matters, you know. It's all this.'

Orm said, 'These look like machines of war. Are they siege engines?'

'Oh, more than that,' Aethelmaer said, and he gri

Orm stared, shocked.

A young monk came in, an attendant from Maeldubesburg, carrying a tub of water and a cloth. 'Time for your wash, Domnus.'

Aethelmaer grumbled, 'Can't you see I'm busy?'

The monk wouldn't be put off. 'You're always busy. Come now.'

Aethelmaer acquiesced as the monk lifted his habit. His legs were white as snow, and one shin was afflicted by an ulcer, a suppurating, bloody, pus-soaked sore with the gleam of exposed bone. The stench of rotting flesh filled the room. Sihtric gulped, and Godgifu turned away. But Orm, a veteran of battlefields, had seen worse.

Sihtric said, 'Tell me where this prophecy came from.'

Aethelmaer seemed to feel nothing at all as the monk swabbed out pus and cut back rotten flesh. 'You're aware that our comet is a repeat visitant.'

'That's trivial,' snapped Sihtric.

'Then let me tell you that my "prophecy", as you call it, was a product of the comet's last visit to the earth.'

Sihtric, not to be outdone, hastily checked his own figures. 'In the year of Our Lord 989.'

'Exactly! And in that year, as the comet shone, a child was dumped at the gate of our monastery in Maeldubesburg: naked, no more than a few days old…'

The monks had taken in the child, as was their custom, and found him a wet-nurse. As a private joke they called him Aethelred, after the then King.