Lords of the North

by Bernard Cornwell

  He grimaced and stared up at the ceiling beams. It was the pleasure of the Two Cranes for a man to cut a notch in the beam every time he hired one of the tavern’s whores and Offa seemed to be counting the cuts, a job that might take a lifetime, then he glanced at me sourly. “News, lord,” he said, “is a commodity like ale or hides or the service of whores. It is bought and sold.” He waited until I laid a coin on the table between us, then all he did was look at the coin and yawn, so I laid another shilling beside the first. “Where do you wish me to begin?” he asked.

  “The north.”

  Scotland was quiet, he said. King Aed had a fistula and that distracted him, though of course there were frequent cattle raids into Northumbria where my uncle, Ælfric the Usurper, now called himself the Lord of Bernicia.

  “He wants to be king of Bernicia?” I asked.

  “He wants to be left in peace,” Offa said. “He offends no one, he amasses money, he acknowledges Guthred as king, and he keeps his swords sharp. He is no fool. He welcomes Danish settlers because they offer protection against the Scots, but he allows no Danes to enter Bebbanburg unless he trusts them. He keeps that fortress safe.”

  “But he wants to be king?” I insisted.

  “I know what he does,” Offa said tartly, “but what he wants is between Ælfric and his god.”

  “His son lives?”

  “He has two sons now, both young, but his wife died.”

  “I heard.”

  “His eldest son liked my dogs and wanted his father to buy them. I said no.”

  He had little other news of Bebbanburg, other than that the hall had been enlarged and, more ominously, the outer wall and the low gate rebuilt higher and stronger. I asked if he and his dogs were welcome at Dunholm and he gave me a very sharp look and made the sign of the cross. “No man goes to Dunholm willingly,” Offa said. “Your uncle gave me an escort through Kjartan’s land and I was glad of it.”

  “So Kjartan thrives?” I asked bitterly.

  “He spreads like a green bay tree,” Offa said and, when he saw my puzzlement, enlarged the answer. “He thrives and steals and rapes and kills and he lurks in Dunholm. But his influence is wider, much wider. He has money and he uses it to buy friends. If a Dane complains about Guthred then you can be sure he has taken Kjartan’s money.”

  “I thought Kjartan agreed to pay a tribute to Guthred?”

  “It was paid for one year. Since then Good King Guthred has learned to do without.”

  “Good King Guthred?” I asked.

  “That is how he is known in Eoferwic,” Offa said, “but only to the Christians. The Danes consider him a gullible fool.”

  “Because he’s a Christian?”

  “Is he a Christian?” Offa asked himself. “He claims to be, and he goes to church, but I suspect he still half believes in the old gods. No, the Danes dislike him because he favors the Christians. He tried to levy a church tax on the Danes. It was not a clever idea.”

  “So how long does Good King Guthred have?” I asked.

  “I charge more for prophecy,” Offa said, “on the grounds that what is worthless must be made expensive.”

  I kept my money in its purse. “What of Ivarr?” I asked.

  “What of him?”

  “Does he still acknowledge Guthred as king?”

  “For the moment,” Offa said carefully, “but the Earl Ivarr is once again the strongest man in Northumbria. He took money from Kjartan, I hear, and used it to raise men.”

  “Why raise men?”

  “Why do you think?” Offa asked sarcastically.

  “To put his own man on the throne?”

  “It would seem likely,” Offa said, “but Guthred has an army too.”

  “A Saxon army?”

  “A Christian army. Mostly Saxon.”

  “So civil war is brewing?”

  “In Northumbria,” Offa said, “civil war is always brewing.”

  “And Ivarr will win,” I said, “because he’s ruthless.”

  “He’s more cautious than he was,” Offa said. “Aed taught him that three years ago. But in time, yes, he will attack. When he’s sure he can win.”

  “So Guthred,” I said, “must kill Ivarr and Kjartan.”

  “What kings must do, lord, is beyond my humble competence. I teach dogs to dance, not men to rule. You wish to know about Mercia?”

  “I wish to know about Guthred’s sister.”

  Offa half smiled. “That one! She’s a nun.”

  “Gisela!” I was shocked. “A nun? She’s become a Christian?”

  “I doubt she’s a Christian,” Offa said, “but going into a nunnery protected her.”

  “From whom?”

  “Kjartan. He wanted the girl as a bride for his son.”

  That did surprise me. “But Kjartan hates Guthred,” I said.

  “But even so Kjartan decided Guthred’s sister would be a suitable bride for his one-eyed son,” Offa said. “I suspect he wants the son to be king in Eoferwic one day, and marrying Guthred’s sister would help that ambition. Whatever, he sent men to Eoferwic and offered Guthred money, peace, and a promise to stop molesting Christians and I think Guthred was half tempted.”

  “How could he be?”

  “Because a desperate man needs allies. Perhaps, for a day or two, Guthred dreamed of separating Ivarr and Kjartan. He certainly needs money, and Guthred has the fatal mind of a man who always believes the best in other people. His sister isn’t so burdened with charitable ideas, and she would have none of it. She fled to a nunnery.”

  “When was this?”

  “Last year. Kjartan took her rejection as another insult and has threatened to let his men rape her one by one.”

  “She’s still in the nunnery?”

  “She was when I left Eoferwic. She’s safe from marriage there, isn’t she? Perhaps she doesn’t like men. Lots of nuns don’t. But I doubt her brother will leave her there for very much longer. She’s too useful as a peace cow.”

  “To marry Kjartan’s son?” I asked scornfully.

  “That won’t happen,” Offa said. He poured himself more ale. “Father Hrothweard, you know who he is?”

  “A nasty man,” I said, remembering how Hrothweard had raised the mob in Eoferwic to murder the Danes.

  “Hrothweard is an exceedingly unpleasant creature,” Offa agreed with rare enthusiasm. “He was the one who suggested the church tax on the Danes. He’s also suggested that Guthred’s sister become your uncle’s new wife, and that notion probably does have some appeal to Guthred. Ælfric needs a wife, and if he were willing to send his spearmen south then it would hugely increase Guthred’s strength.”

  “It would leave Bebbanburg unprotected,” I said.

  “Sixty men can hold Bebbanburg till Judgment Day,” Offa said dismissively. “Guthred needs a larger army, and two hundred men from Bebbanburg would be a Godsend, and certainly worth a sister. Mind you, Ivarr would do anything to stop that marriage. He doesn’t want the Saxons of northern Northumbria uniting with the Christians of Eoferwic. So, lord,” he pushed his bench back as if to suggest that his survey was finished, “Britain is at peace, except for Northumbria, where Guthred is in trouble.”

  “No trouble in Mercia?” I asked.

  He shook his head. “Nothing unusual.”

  “East Anglia?”

  He paused. “No trouble there,” he said after the hesitation, but I knew the pause had been deliberate, a bait on a hook, and so I waited. Offa just looked innocently at me and so I sighed, took another coin from my purse and placed it on the table. He rang it to make sure the silver was good. “King Æthelstan,” he said, “Guthrum as was, negotiates with Alfred. Alfred doesn’t think I know, but I do. Together they will divide England.”

  “They?” I asked. “Divide England? It’s not theirs to divide!”

  “The Danes will be given Northumbria, East Anglia, and the northeastern parts of Mercia. Wessex will gain the southwestern part of Mercia.”

 
I stared at him. “Alfred won’t agree to that,” I said.

  “He will.”

  “He wants all England,” I protested.

  “He wants Wessex to be safe,” Offa said, spinning the coin on the table.

  “So he’ll agree to give up half England?” I asked in disbelief.

  Offa smiled. “Think of it this way, lord,” he said. “In Wessex there are no Danes, but where the Danes rule there are many Saxons. If the Danes agree not to attack Alfred then he can feel safe. But how can the Danes ever feel safe? Even if Alfred agrees not to attack them, they still have thousands of Saxons on their land and those Saxons could rise against them at any time, especially if they receive encouragement from Wessex. King Æthelstan will make his treaty with Alfred, but it won’t be worth the parchment it’s scribbled on.”

  “You mean Alfred will break the treaty?”

  “Not openly, no. But he will encourage Saxon revolt, he will support Christians, he will foment trouble, and all the time he will say his prayers and swear eternal friendship with the enemy. You all think of Alfred as a pious scholar, but his ambition embraces all the land between here and Scotland. You see him praying, I see him dreaming. He will send missionaries to the Danes and you will think that’s all he does, but whenever a Saxon kills a Dane then Alfred will have supplied the blade.”

  “No,” I said, “not Alfred. His god won’t let him be treacherous.”

  “What do you know of Alfred’s god?” Offa asked scornfully, then closed his eyes. “‘Then the Lord our God delivered the enemy to us,’” he intoned, “‘and we struck him, and his sons, and all his tribe. We took all his cities and utterly destroyed the men, and the women, and the little children.’” He opened his eyes. “Those are the actions of Alfred’s god, Lord Uhtred. You want more from the holy scriptures? “‘The Lord thy God shall deliver all thy enemies to thee and thou shalt smite them and utterly destroy them.’” Offa grimaced. “Alfred believes in God’s promises, and he dreams of a land free of pagans, a land where the enemy is utterly destroyed and where only godly Christians live. If there is one man in the island of Britain to fear, Lord Uhtred, that man is King Alfred.” He stood. “I must make sure those stupid women have fed my dogs.”

  I watched him go and I thought he was a clever man who had misunderstood Alfred.

  Which was, of course, what Alfred wanted me to think.

  SEVEN

  The Witan was the royal council, formed by the leading men of the kingdom, and it assembled for the dedication of Alfred’s new church and to celebrate Æthelflaed’s betrothal to my cousin. Ragnar and I had no business in their discussions so we drank in the town’s taverns while they talked. Brida had been allowed to join us and Ragnar was the happier for it. She was an East Anglian Saxon and had once been my lover, but that had been years before when we were both children. Now she was a woman and more Danish than the Danes. She and Ragnar had never formally married, but she was his friend, lover, adviser, and sorceress. He was fair and she was dark, he ate like a boar while she picked at her food, he was raucous and she was quietly wise, but together they were happiness. I spent hours telling her about Gisela, and Brida listened patiently. “You really think she’s waited for you?” she asked me.

  “I hope so,” I said and touched Thor’s hammer.

  “Poor girl,” Brida said, smiling. “So you’re in love?”

  “Yes.”

  “Again,” she said.

  The three of us were in the Two Cranes on the day before Æthelflaed’s formal betrothal and Father Beocca found us there. His hands were filthy with ink. “You’ve been writing again,” I accused him.

  “We are making lists of the shire fyrds,” he explained. “Every man between twelve and sixty has to take an oath to serve the king now. I’m compiling the lists, but we’ve run out of ink.”

  “No wonder,” I said, “it’s all on you.”

  “They’re mixing a new pot,” he said, ignoring me, “and that will take time, so I thought you’d like to see the new church.”

  “I’ve been dreaming of little else,” I said.

  He insisted on taking us and the church was, indeed, a thing of utter splendor. It was bigger than any hall I had ever seen. It soared to a great height, its roof held up by massive oak beams that had been carved with saints and kings. The carvings had been painted, while the crowns of the kings and the halos and wings of the saints glinted with gold leaf that Beocca said had been applied by craftsmen brought from Frankia. The floor was stone-flagged, all of it, so that no rushes were needed and dogs were confused where to piss. Alfred had made a rule that no dogs were allowed in the church, but they got in anyway, so he had appointed a warden who was given a whip and charged with driving the animals out of the big nave, but the warden had lost a leg to a Danish war ax at Ethandun and he could only move slowly, so the dogs had no trouble avoiding him. The lower part of the church’s walls were built of dressed stone, but the upper parts and the roof were of timber, and just below the roof were high windows that were filled with scraped horn so the rain could not come in. Every scrap of the walls was covered with stretched leather panels painted with pictures of heaven and hell. Heaven was populated with Saxons while hell seemed to be the abode of Danes, though I noticed, with surprise, that a couple of priests seemed to have tumbled down to the devil’s flames. “There are bad priests,” Beocca assured me earnestly. “Not many, of course.”

  “And there are good priests,” I said, pleasing Beocca, “talking of which, do you hear anything of Father Pyrlig?” Pyrlig was a Briton who had fought beside me at Ethandun and I was fond of him. He spoke Danish and had been sent to be one of Guthrum’s priests in East Anglia.

  “He does the Lord’s work,” Beocca said enthusiastically. “He says the Danes are being baptized in great numbers! I truly believe we are seeing the conversion of the pagans.”

  “Not this pagan,” Ragnar said.

  Beocca shook his head. “Christ will come to you one day, Lord Ragnar, and you will be astonished by his grace.”

  Ragnar said nothing. I could see, though, that he was as impressed as I was by Alfred’s new church. The tomb of Saint Swithun was railed in silver and lay in front of the high altar that was covered with a red cloth as big as a dragon-boat’s sail. On the altar were a dozen fine wax candles in silver holders that flanked a big silver cross inlaid with gold that Ragnar muttered would be worth a month’s voyaging to capture. Either side of the cross were reliquaries; boxes and flasks of silver and gold, all studded with jewels, and some had small crystal windows through which the relics could be glimpsed. Mary Magdalene’s toe ring was there, and what remained of the feather from the dove that Noah had released from the ark. There was Saint Kenelm’s horn spoon, a flask of dust from Saint Hedda’s tomb, and a hoof from the donkey that Jesus rode into Jerusalem. The cloth with which Mary Magdalene had washed Jesus’s feet was encased in a great golden chest and next to it, and quite dwarfed by the gold’s splendor, were Saint Oswald’s teeth, the gift from Guthred. The two teeth were still encased in their silver oyster pot which looked very shabby compared to the other vessels. Beocca showed us all the holy treasures, but was most proud of a scrap of bone displayed behind a shard of milky crystal. “I found this one,” he said, “and it’s most exciting!” He lifted the lid of the box and took out the bone, which looked like something left over from a bad stew. “It’s Saint Cedd’s aestel!” Beocca said with awe in his voice. He made the sign of the cross and peered at the yellowed bone sliver with his one good eye as if the arrow-head shaped relic had just dropped from heaven.

  “Saint Cedd’s what?” I asked.

  “His aestel.”

  “What’s an aestel?” Ragnar asked. His English, after years of being a hostage, was good, but some words still confused him.

  “An aestel is a device to help reading,” Beocca said. “You use it to follow the lines. It’s a pointer.”

  “What’s wrong with a finger?” Ragnar wanted to know.


  “It can smear the ink. An aestel is clean.”

  “And that one really belonged to Saint Cedd?” I asked, pretending to be amazed.

  “It did, it did,” Beocca said, almost delirious with wonder, “the holy Cedd’s very own aestel. I discovered it! It was in a little church in Dornwaraceaster and the priest there was an ignorant fellow and had no idea what it was. It was in a horn box and Saint Cedd’s name was scratched on the box and the priest couldn’t even read the writing! A priest! Illiterate! So I confiscated it.”

  “You mean you stole it?”

  “I took it into safekeeping!” he said, offended.

  “And when you’re a saint,” I said, “someone will put one of those smelly shoes of yours into a golden box and worship it.”

  Beocca blushed. “You tease me, Uhtred, you tease me.” He laughed, but I saw from his blush that I had touched on his secret ambition. He wanted to be declared a saint, and why not? He was a good man, far better than many I have known who are now revered as saints.

  Brida and I visited Hild that afternoon and I gave her nunnery thirty shillings, almost all the money I had, but Ragnar was blithely confident that Sverri’s fortune would come from Jutland and that Ragnar would share with me, and in that belief I pressed the money on Hild who was delighted by the silver cross in Serpent-Breath’s hilt. “You must use the sword wisely from now on,” she told me sternly.

  “I always use it wisely.”

  “You have harnessed the power of God to the blade,” she said, “and it must do nothing evil.”

  I doubted I would obey that command, but it was good to see Hild. Alfred had given her a gift of some of the dust from Saint Hedda’s tomb and she told me that mixed with curds it made a miraculous medicine that had prompted at least a dozen cures among the nunnery’s sick. “If you are ever ill,” she said, “you must come here and we shall mix the dust with fresh curds and anoint you.”