When she had done, Alfred nodded. 'And this is what you have brought me, this doggerel?'

Arngrim said dryly, 'It's not its poetic qualities that the priest thinks are worth your attention, lord, but its scrying.'

'It does sound oddly precise,' Alfred said. 'All those lists of months! Can these "Great Years" be translated into Bede's system, Cynewulf, into Years of Our Lord?'

'They can,' said Cynewulf firmly, and he explained how the chronology of the Menologium had been established by scholars in the past. 'It is a matter of simple adding-up to work out the dates – simple, but laborious, it takes a computistor to do it. And the coming of the comet, whose irregular returns mark the passage of the Great Years, has appeared in the sky exactly as predicted in the stanzas of the Menologium.'

'Then this Menologium does not speak of the whole future. It is founded in the past.'

'Yes. If you follow the list of Great Years through, we are currently in the middle of the sixth – and it refers to your reign, lord.'

'Really?' Alfred asked sceptically.

'And for the earlier Years, some of the events it has predicted have already come to pass.'

But to his chagrin the King didn't seem impressed. 'That proves nothing. This poem could have been knocked up this morning for all I know. Believe me, as a buyer of books I have been presented with enough forgeries in my time. All the "lost works of Aristotle" for instance, which you may pick up for a clipped penny in the markets of Rome-'

Ibn Zuhr, to everybody's surprise, spoke up again. 'Lord, it is unlikely the priest will be able to convince you of the prophecy's authenticity. What is "proof" after all? But perhaps, for now, faith might suffice. As the priest said it is the sixth stanza, describing the sixth Great Year, which refers to your own past, and future. Aren't you curious about that?'

Alfred stared at him. 'I'm amazed how much latitude you allow this slave, Arngrim.'

Amgrim was embarrassed, and furious. 'Only because what he says has proven useful, lord. So far.'

Alfred smiled. 'Very well. Shall we grant you a little faith, priest, as this soulless Moor suggests?' He turned to his clerks. 'Read me the sixth stanza.'

The two inky clerks read their own scribbled handwriting, haltingly, in turn:

The Comet comes/in the month of February.

Deny five hundred months five./Blood spilled, blood mixed.

Even the dragon must lie/at the foot of the Cross.

Nine hundred and five/the months of the sixth Year…

Alfred seemed irritated. 'Enigmatic hokum, like all auguries.'

Now Cynewulf prepared to deliver what he believed his clinching argument. 'But, lord, there is nothing enigmatic about the numbers of the months.' He described how converting the Great Year months to calendar years had delivered a date of February, 837 AD, for the beginning of the sixth Great Year.

Alfred frowned. 'And five hundred months denied five, that is four hundred and ninety-five-'

'Forty-one years and three months. Lord, the sixth stanza refers to events that will take place in May – this year – three months from now.' Alfred's jaw dropped, and Cynewulf couldn't resist driving his advantage home. 'Can you see it now? The stanza can tell of nothing less than your coming conflict with the Danes – and your triumph!'

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.