BURY ME DEEP an utterly gripping crime thriller with an epic twist (Detective Rozlyn Priest Book 1) by JANE ADAMS (best book reader .txt) 📗

that if my father had not taken power and led our people through these times, many would have died and the land been ruined into the bargain.”

“What my brother refrains from saying,” Eldred interrupted, “is that we have little faith in any king’s peace or any king’s men. Where was the king when our vill was razed, not once, but twice in the space of as many years? When our women were raped and the old folk forced to flee with the children into the woods. The winter was bitter that year and they dared not return. There were men camped here, in this house until past the Christmastide. We buried five out in the woods. Cate’s mother among them and children too. Cold and sick with no shelter and fire only when we dared to risk.”

“I lost my family to these invaders,” Treven replied with equal heat. “Father, wife and son and the lands my family held. You have returned. Your children are fed, your harvest brought home. There has been peace here since the Eastertime and this peace will be kept. My king pledges this and I, as his servant, pledge it too.”

“And does Guthrum pledge it? Or are these just words he saw fit to say, knowing that for one battle he had been defeated? And what of those that Guthrum does not control? How many in that Great Army only a dozen miles away agree with Guthrum, or Athelstan or whatever his name should be, that they will keep the peace because he bids them do so. Will the pledge he made to king and Christ outweigh the pledges he has made, lifelong to his own kings and his own gods? I’ve known men boast that they’ve gathered as many as thirty Baptismal shirts; one for each time they’ve made a promise to the church.”

Treven said nothing for a moment. Eldred’s words were so like his own thoughts — the ones that came when he was at his weakest — that he did not know the way to reply. Finally, he said, “I have fought beside my king when things had grown so sour that all he had to claim as his was a scant half mile of land. He never admitted, not even to himself, that he might not win out against the foe. That this time the battle would see him utterly defeated. I rode with messages to men who might have doubted him had they seen in what dire straits he had landed himself. Holed up in marshland so treacherous it could be navigated only by flat boat. He sent messages, bidding those that might lose heart to come and fight with him because he would never surrender the government of our land. That there would be no defeat, only victory and the rule of law. Our king is a warrior. Guthrum is a warrior. Guthrum knows when he looks into Aelfred’s eyes that the thoughts behind his gaze are the same thoughts, the same courage, the same resolve as Guthrum himself carried into battle. Aelfred could have shamed his enemy. He chose not to shame him but to welcome him into the Church and give him land and a place where his own laws and judgments would be kept.”

“And how is that different from the blood gold that his kinsmen paid? How is it changed? Once they said, ‘here, have gold and horses and then leave us,’ and the Danes would leave for a time until the gold ran out and they needed new brood mares to improve their stock and more slaves to sell in Paris and the Eastern lands beyond. Then they came back and attacked again, knowing they would be paid well for their warfare. How is this different? Instead of gold, we now give land. Instead of horses, cattle for them to farm. How long before they will encroach upon our land by a mile, or a field or a hide? Before these strangers take our women as wives or slaves?”

“My brother speaks as many feel,” Edmund said and Treven could hear the impatience in his voice.

“As many have a right to feel,” Hugh told him. “But we must face the times as they are made. Treven here does not come to strip the land. He looks for a place of peace in which to remarry and raise his children.”

I do? Treven wondered. The thought of wife and children was not an idea which had previously occurred.

“I too have served King Aelfred since boyhood,” Hugh said. “And his brothers before him. I know him to be an honest man and a wise ruler. He places men like Treven at his frontiers knowing that they will brook no trouble and no encroachment. Men whose hunger for their own land is as great as the hunger you and your folk endured in that bloody winter.”

“Fine words,” Eldred interrupted.

“Words that will be backed by action,” Treven informed him angrily. He took a deep frustrated breath. “I have endured talk which another would have maintained was treason. I have allowed you to question my words, to doubt the King’s intent because I know what the land has suffered. The bloodshed and the pain. I know that you and your men must have gathered at the weapontake knowing that the most you could achieve would be to fight until your women and children and old people were in hiding and how much that must have chafed against men like yourselves, who, I don’t doubt, have hearts as strong as any warriors that met full battle. And I know too the anger that you must have felt when the king’s demand for foot soldiers stripped your lands of the youngest and fittest of men and forced one of you to leave when you would fain have stayed and protected your own.”

He intercepted Eldred’s quick and anxious glance towards his brother and knew