“He didn’t resist?” Winston asked, having finally managed to maneuver his girlfriend back behind him.
“He asked only that we do it quickly,” Ealdred said, his eyes growing serious.
“Is that why you knocked him out first?” Winston asked, looking back and forth between Ulf and Ealdred.
Ealdred shook his head.
“He offered his chest to our swords, but when he realized we wanted to chop off his hand, not run him through with the sword, he went on the offensive and tried to overpower me. Ulf knocked him out with his sheath.”
“But you hewed off his hand while he was unconscious,” Winston said with a furrowed brow. “Didn’t you want him to suffer?”
“Oh yes,” Ealdred said bitterly. “But we were afraid he would cry out. We didn’t know how well sound would carry through the church windows, and the gate guards weren’t that far away.”
“And then you just watched him die?” Winston asked.
Ealdred nodded to Winston.
“Ulf had conked him so hard that he just twitched a little when we cut off his hand, and then as the blood flowed out of him, he just kicked his legs a few times.”
I saw Turold cross himself. Maybe because he was grateful the deceased hadn’t suffered.
“Which of you cut off the hand?” Ælfgar asked, as if the question were important.
“One of us guided Uhtred’s sword, but it was Uhtred himself who struck the blow to achieve his revenge,” Ealdred said, looking at Ulf, who nodded. “And now I ask that you step aside. We are bringing his sword home.”
My muscles tensed, and I saw my own sword over Ulf’s shoulder, leaning against the altar. I thought that if Ælfgar and I both started running at the same time, one of us might be able to reach them.
“No, Halfdan,” Ealdred said, shaking his head in warning. “None of you will be able to catch us.”
They both drew their swords and held them at the ready in hands that seemed quite calm.
I heard Ælfgar exhale through his mouth. Then he flung his hands up in the air and ordered, “Step aside, Halfdan.”
I looked at Winston, who nodded, and I stepped aside.
The two men walked calmly back down the length of the church, reached the door, and pushed it open. Then they stepped out into the daylight. Cursing under my breath, I raced up to the altar, grabbed my own and Ælfgar’s swords and ran back to catch up with the others, who were already halfway to the door.
Ælfgar took his sword, slid the baldric over his shoulder, and walked out the door ahead of me. The others were already outside.
We all stopped in front of the church and stared across the grass to the gate. Alwyn stood in the gateway. He was armed with his spear, and six spearmen stood behind him, all with their weapons lowered. Five paces ahead of them stood the two murderers with their swords drawn.
Chapter 34
Winston!” I cried, but didn’t wait to see if he heeded me and managed to push Alfilda behind him again. I moved toward the murderers, who were back to back now, their sides facing us and the gate.
Ulf’s quiet snarl didn’t stop me. I heard the slow scratch of a sword against the lip of a sheath and sensed more than saw that Ælfgar was keeping step with me as I moved through the grass.
Four paces from the two criminals, Ælfgar’s order—“Stop!”—caused me to slow my steps, but I kept going until I was so close to them that I could have reached them with my sword in half a step if I needed to.
Ulf made another growling noise in his throat.
“You make your own choice, Halfdan, whether you live or die,” Ealdred said sharply.
I glanced at Ælfgar, who had stopped by my side. I moved to the left, my eyes locked on Ulf’s. When I was a little lad, and Harding would drive me around in the thick sand on our practice ground with his wooden sword, he would say: The eyes, Halfdan, the eyes will tell you where and when your opponent will strike.
All four of us breathed heavily. Ulf was bent slightly at the waist, his torso tilted forward and his sword slightly downward, but I wasn’t fooled. I’d seen him fight and knew he could swing a deadly blow in less time than it took to inhale.
Then a silly thought occurred to me: maybe my chances would have been better if I had been facing Ealdred instead of Ulf. Sigh. Maybe Ælfgar had had that same thought, but I staunched that line of thinking. I didn’t take my eyes off Ulf, so I had no idea how Ælfgar was faring with his opponent.
Everything was totally quiet around us. We could hear Turold quietly saying prayers, that was all. Whether they were for the man who was already dead, for those who would soon be dead, or maybe for liberation from the sense of guilt he still no doubt carried around with him, I couldn’t tell you. He mumbled in Latin, not Danish or English.
Ulf’s eyes narrowed. I raised the tip of my sword slightly, which caused a cold smile to slide across his lips. I placed my right foot firmly on the ground and was ready to begin when Ælfgar’s voice broke the silence: “Alwyn!”
Over Ulf’s shoulder, I saw Alwyn take a step forward. The two murderers didn’t even look at Alwyn or his spearmen. They kept their eyes focused on us.
When the tips of the spearmen’s weapons were a hand’s width from the two murderers’ shoulders, Ælfgar barked and his men stopped advancing.
“Alwyn?” Ælfgar prompted.
“I went to the church to find you and heard the discussion,” Alwyn said, sounding very much like a man who knew he was about to be given the order to attack. “And I thought I’d better secure the monastery exit.”
“Good thinking,” Ælfgar said, sounding pleased.
A tense silence settled over us again. Ulf’s eyes hadn’t strayed from my own, and I had to admire his show of courage even in the face of certain death. I clung to the hope that it wouldn’t be left to me to kill him, that he would be gored by a spear.
I heard footsteps in the grass behind me, and suddenly Abbot Turold appeared in my field of vision. The aging abbot’s shoulders drooped, but his pace was steady as he proceeded, right hand raised.
He stepped between Ælfgar and myself, stopped, and straightened his stooped form as best he could.
“Concede,” he advised Ealdred and Ulf. Although his voice was gentle, there was a force to it, which made the words strike the two men like arrows on armor.
“Never,” Ealdred replied, his voice containing a touch of disdainful superiority.
“There is no shame in conceding to a superior force,” Ælfgar said, joining the conversation.
“Shame?” Ealdred’s voice suddenly sounded almost cheerful. “Our shame was cleansed in the church the other night. Now all that’s left is for us to die, as we should have done defending our master.”
Ulf’s eyes narrowed again, and I prepared myself for his lunge.
But again the fight was delayed, this time by the arrival of Edmund and Simon, dressed in their traveling clothes.
“What are you doing to my man?” Edmund thundered angrily once he realized what was going on.
“Your man has blood on his hands,” Ælfgar summarized, apparently not in the mood to go into long-winded explanations.
“Wulfgar?” Prior Edmund’s legs swayed. “That’s not true.”
Ælfgar didn’t deem this worthy of a response, and it got quiet again. A quiet that Simon interrupted when he realized what Ælfgar had just said.
“Wulfgar is a murderer?” Simon said. “He murdered Brother Godfrid?”
The only response was silence.
“Then you truly deserve to die, you who have desecrated the Church itself by shedding blood in this hallowed place,” Simon said, half choking on his words, overwhelmed as he was by rage.
This time all he received in response was a growl from Ulf.
“You have offended against the most powerful law of all and sullied the sanctuary itself,” Simon said sanctimoniously.
“Shut up, you monastic fart,” Ealdred growled.
I smiled in spite of mysel
f.
“There are laws,” Ealdred continued, “that are older and more sacred than those you know.”
Out of the corner of my eye, I sensed Ælfgar raise his head.
“Laws…? Such as…?” Simon spluttered, but he was interrupted by Turold.
Turold once again raised his hand to the killers, made the sign of the cross to Ulf, and loudly proclaimed: “Ego te absolvo.”
Simon sounded as if he were choking.
“Impossible!” Edmund said, scandalized. “There’s no excuse for this defilement.”
Apparently Turold didn’t hear him, because he turned to Ealdred to absolve him. But before he’d managed to raise his hand, Simon had stepped over to intercede, grabbing hold of his hand.
“Never, never!” Simon cried, horrified.
Ulf’s eyes had widened in surprise at being absolved of his crime. I thought about seizing that opportunity to start swashbuckling, but he wasn’t distracted for long. In an instant, he was alert again and ready to fight. He didn’t even glance at Turold and Simon struggling silently, Turold to raise his hand to absolve Ealdred and Simon to keep Turold from doing so.
Suddenly Winston stepped up behind Simon, grabbed him around the waist, and pulled him, squirming and twisting, away from Turold. Without another look at Simon, Turold crossed himself and conferred the Church’s absolution on Ealdred.
Ealdred stood silent for a bit, then nodded to Turold. Then he tightened his grip on his sword hilt.
“Thank you, Father,” Ealdred said. “Now step back.”
I saw a twinkle in Turold’s eyes as he walked by me. Once again I found myself eye to eye with Ulf, who appeared every bit as determined to die as I’d ever seen any man.
I slowly exhaled, the way you do to clear your mind and your muscles before an imminent battle. I relaxed my grip on my sword a little and then once again grabbed firm hold of the hilt and set the ball of my right foot hard on the ground.
“Raise your spears!” Ælfgar ordered Alwyn.
I saw a shadow pass over Ulf’s face. Edmund emitted an exclamation of astonishment and savagely ordered Simon to stand at his side. Then Alwyn raised the tip of his spear, followed by his six spearmen.
“Step aside,” Ælfgar commanded, calmly sheathing his sword and looking at Ealdred. “There is your path.”
“No!” Simon exclaimed, his voice sounding like a pained shriek.
“Shut up,” Ælfgar thundered. “As Ealdred said, there are laws older and more sacred than those you know. Go,” he continued, addressing the two murderers. “With my peace.”
Ealdred looked at Ælfgar in surprise, then bowed his head in a gesture of respect. He resheathed his sword and turned toward the gate, which now stood open. Ulf followed his example, and only once the two of them stood side by side did I put my sword back in the scabbard and realize what a hard time I was having breathing calmly.
Ulf and Ealdred walked on, surrounded by the spearmen. They reached the gate and then stopped suddenly. Ealdred turned to Ælfgar and said, “I arrived on horseback.”
Ælfgar looked at Alwyn and nodded, who gave a quiet order that immediately caused two spearmen to hand their weapons to their comrades and walk off toward the monastery’s stables.
We all stood there in silence while we waited. The silence was broken only by the two Benedictines’ labored breathing. But not a word was exchanged before the spearmen returned, each leading a horse by the reins.
Ulf held Ealdred’s horse for him while he climbed into the saddle; then Ulf swung himself up onto the mount provided and rode off in the lead, out the gate in the palisade. Once they were clear of the monastery gate, Ealdred turned his horse, looked Ælfgar in the eye, and raised his right hand.
“Hail to thee, Thane Ælfgar,” Ealdred said. “My life is yours.”
“I shall hold it as the sheath holds the sword,” Ælfgar said, bowing his head.
“But first,” Ealdred continued, his horse flinging his head, longing to run after days in the stable, “first I must satisfy the oath I took to my master, which he took with him to the grave.”
“You can only pledge your allegiance to one man at a time,” Ælfgar said, raising his right hand. “And in time I may draw that sword.”
They looked into each others’ eyes for a long time; then Ealdred finally turned his dancing horse toward the village square and quickly rode off.
I felt my shoulders relax and saw Alfilda lean against Winston, who had his arm around her shoulder. I gave Ælfgar a nod of approval, and he responded with an enigmatic smile. Abbot Turold raised his hand to Ælfgar and made the sign of the cross, which Ælfgar received with a bowed head.
Now only we and the Benedictines were left. Simon’s eyes seethed with rage as he took a step toward Ælfgar, who just raised a hand to him in warning and then walked right past him without so much as a glance.
Instead, Simon turned to Winston and said, “You laid a hand on me, a servant of the Lord. All agreements between us are annulled.”
Chapter 35
I yawned.
For the fourth straight week, I sat idly around at Peterborough while Winston spent his days the way he loved, bent over his drawings. If Alfilda or I disturbed him while he worked, he would look up at us in annoyance and then return all his attention to the parchment before him. We soon learned to leave him be from the time he left us in the morning until he returned in the evening.
Simon’s threat that all agreements were thereby annulled hadn’t stood. For two reasons: the first was obvious; the second was understandable if you knew how powerful men think.
The monks were very concerned that their book about Seaxwulf should be exquisite. They’d sought out Winston for good reason, and they’d agreed to his demand for one and a half pounds of silver in addition to room and board. Consequently they were not really of a mind to make do with mediocre work just because the illuminator had laid a hand on a subprior. And that subprior should have known better than to make a spectacle of himself in the face of an abbot who had just received the archbishop’s word that he was master of his own house.
The second reason was that Edmund had reinstated Winston’s agreement on the spot. No sooner had the words left Simon’s mouth than his superior stepped forward and proclaimed that of course the agreement was still in force. Winston had reached his agreement with the prior, not his underlings, so only the prior had the power to annul the agreement.
Simon pouted at me, and it was all I could do to conceal my condescending laughter. But having been put in his place by his prior, a man who would not stand for a subordinate assuming any of the powers that were rightly his, Simon didn’t say anything.
In addition to that, Simon was then forced to put up with Edmund asking me to command their spearmen until we reached Peterborough. Because, well, as he put it, “It’s only a day’s ride, but the men need someone in charge.”
I said yes, mostly to annoy Simon, but I was also glad to hand over command of the men as soon as we were safely inside Peterborough. I would still like to be a thane someday, but if I’m going to command men, let them be my own, not the ragtag flock of soldiers scraped together by a couple of monastic farts.
Winston was given space to work in Peterborough’s library, and we were housed outside the monastery in the town that had grown up around it, in a house owned by the monks. It was a good, solid post-and-plank structure, weatherproofed with moss and clay, and it had a freshly thatched roof. In addition to the common room with the kitchen at one end, there were three bedrooms, including a large one that Winston and Alfilda claimed. I took the somewhat smaller one at the other end of the house to be as far away from Winston’s snoring, and other nighttime noises, as possible. We kept our things in the room between us.
I was not really sure how Alfilda spent her days, apart from ensuring a proper meal for us. For my part, I explored the little town and found myself a couple of drinking buddies among the spearmen but quickly grew tired of our very limited convers
ations about weapons, battles we’d heard about or participated in, and women they’d bedded or would like to bed.
So one day I wandered out of town and strolled along the River Nene, which flows calmly in these parts. When I spotted a flock of geese grazing in the meadowlands along the riverbank, I sat down with my back against an oak in the late-afternoon sun to watch the birds waddling around—not because I’d taken a sudden interest in how grass is converted into plump, succulent roast goose, but because I’d noticed the leggy wench who tended the geese.
She was somewhat cool toward me in the beginning, but after a few days of attention—I even offered her wheat bread and mead—she warmed up, and on the fifth day after we met, she allowed me into her bed.
We had a few good weeks together, and then her betrothed, who was a spearman for the monastery, came home from a ride to Worcester on which he’d accompanied a delegation of monks. I had to make my exit then, which I did in a peaceful, orderly manner, without the fellow suspecting that his intended hadn’t been missing him all that much.
So now I sat outside our temporary home, yawning. The sound of someone clearing his throat made me open my eyes. I found myself looking up at Godskalk’s calm face.
Winston did not like to be disturbed while he was working, and he turned his back to me in irritation three times before he finally heard my quiet message that the king’s thane wanted to talk to us. Not that that made him stop working on the illumination he was putting the finishing touches on, but he did at least acknowledge that he’d received the message by snapping that I could certainly look after a housecarl until he came home.
Godskalk and I found a fairly respectable tavern, and by the time I figured Alfilda would have dinner waiting for us, I had heard all the news Godskalk thought might interest me. Although none of it was important enough that I remember the details today. For my part, I had only one question for him: Would his road be taking him toward Brixworth when he left here?
Oathbreaker (The King's Hounds series) Page 24
