Death of Kings st-6

by Bernard Cornwell

  ‘What do we do with the others?’ he asked.

  ‘Let the men go,’ I said, ‘they’re young, they’ll survive.’

  Ludda and I spoke with the girls while Father Cuthbert just stared at them wide-eyed. He was entranced by the dark-skinned girl, whose name appeared to be Mehrasa. She looked the oldest of the six, she was perhaps sixteen or seventeen while the others were all three or four years younger. Once they realised they were safe, or at least not in any immediate danger, they began to smile. Two were Saxon girls, taken from the coast of Cent by Frankish raiders, and two were Franks. Then there was the mysterious Mehrasa, and the sick girl who was a Frisian. ‘The Centish girls can go home,’ I said, ‘but you take the others to Fagranforda.’ I was speaking to Ludda and Father Cuthbert. ‘Choose a pair of them. Teach them what they need to know. The other two can work in the dairy or kitchens.’

  ‘A pleasure, lord,’ Father Cuthbert said.

  I looked at him. ‘If you mistreat them,’ I said, ‘I’ll hurt you.’

  ‘Yes, lord,’ he said humbly.

  ‘Now go.’

  I sent Rypere and a dozen men to protect the girls on their journey, but Finan and I stayed in Lundene. I have always liked that city and there was nowhere better to discover what happened in the rest of Britain. I talked to traders and travellers and even listened to one of Erkenwald’s interminable sermons, not because I needed his advice, but to hear what the church was telling its people. The bishop preached well and his message was exactly what Archbishop Plegmund wanted. It was a plea for peace, to give the church time to enlighten the heathen. ‘We have been oppressed by war,’ Erkenwald said, ‘and we have been soaked by the tears of widows and of mothers. Every man who kills another man breaks a mother’s heart.’ He knew I was in the church and was staring into the shadows where I stood, then he pointed at a fresh painting on the wall that showed Mary, Christ’s mother, weeping at the foot of the cross. ‘What guilt those Romans had to bear, and what guilt we bear when we kill! We are the children of God, not lambs to be slaughtered.’

  There had been a time when Erkenwald preached slaughter, urging us to ravage the pagan Danes, but the coming of the year 900 had somehow persuaded the church to enjoin peace on us, and it seemed their prayers were being answered. There were cattle raids on the borderlands, yet no Danish armies came to conquer. Later that summer Finan and I went aboard one of Weohstan’s ships and were rowed downriver to the wide estuary where I had spent so much time. We went close to Beamfleot and I saw that no Danes had tried to rebuild the burned forts and no ships lay in the Hothlege Creek, though we could see the blackened ribs of the vessels we had burned there. We went further east to where the Temes widened into the great sea and we nosed the boat across the shallows at Sceobyrig, another place where Danish crews liked to wait in ambush for trading ships travelling to and from Lundene, but the anchorage was empty. It was the same on the estuary’s southern bank. Nothing but wild birds and wet mud.

  We rowed up the curving River Medwæg to the burh at Hrofeceastre where I saw that the timber palisade atop the mighty earth bank was rotting like the one in Lundene, but a great heap of newly felled oak trunks suggested that someone here was ready to repair the defences. Finan and I went ashore at the wharf by the Roman bridge and walked to the bishop’s house beside the great church. The steward bowed to us and, when he heard my name, did not dare ask for my sword. Instead he took us to a comfortable room and had servants bring us ale and food.

  Bishop Swithwulf and his wife arrived an hour later. The bishop was a worried-looking man, grey-haired, with a long face and twitching hands, while his wife was small and nervous. She must have bowed to me ten times before sitting. ‘What brings you here, lord?’ Swithwulf asked.

  ‘Curiosity,’ I said.

  ‘Curiosity?’

  ‘I’m wondering why the Danes are so quiet,’ I said.

  ‘God’s will,’ the bishop’s wife said timidly.

  ‘Because they’re planning something,’ Swithwulf said. ‘Never trust a Dane when he’s silent.’ He looked at his wife. ‘Don’t the cooks need your advice?’

  ‘The cooks? Oh!’ She stood, fluttered for a moment, then fled.

  ‘Why are the Danes quiet?’ Swithwulf asked me.

  ‘Sigurd’s ill,’ I suggested, ‘Cnut’s busy on his northern border.’

  ‘And Æthelwold?’

  ‘Getting drunk in Eoferwic,’ I said.

  ‘Alfred should have strangled him,’ Swithwulf growled.

  I was warming to the bishop. ‘You’re not preaching peace like the rest?’ I asked.

  ‘Oh, I preach what I’m told to preach,’ he said, ‘but I’m also deepening the ditch and rebuilding the wall.’

  ‘And Ealdorman Sigelf?’ I asked. Sigelf was the ealdorman of Cent, the county’s military leader and its most prominent noble.

  The bishop looked at me suspiciously. ‘What of him?’

  ‘He wants to be King of Cent, I hear.’

  Swithwulf was taken aback by that statement. He frowned. ‘His son had that idea,’ he said cautiously, ‘I’m not sure if Sigelf thinks the same way.’

  ‘And Sigebriht was talking to the Danes,’ I said. Sigebriht, who had surrendered to me outside Sceaftesburi, was Sigelf’s son.

  ‘You know that?’

  ‘I know that,’ I said. The bishop sat silent. ‘What’s going on in Cent?’ I asked, and still he was silent. ‘You’re the bishop,’ I said, ‘you hear things from your priests. So tell me.’

  He still hesitated, but then, like a millpond’s dam bursting, he told me of the unhappiness in Cent. ‘We were our own kingdom once,’ he said. ‘Now Wessex treats us as runts of the litter. Look what happened when Haesten and Harald landed! Were we protected? No!’

  Haesten had landed on Cent’s northern coast while Jarl Harald Bloodhair had brought more than two hundred ships to the southern shore where he had stormed a half-built burh and slaughtered the men inside, then spread across the county in an orgy of burning, killing, enslaving and robbing. Wessex had sent an army led by Æthelred and Edward to oppose the invaders, but the army had done nothing. Æthelred and Edward had placed their men on the great wooded ridge at the centre of Cent and then argued whether to strike north towards Haesten or south towards Harald, and all the while Harald had burned and killed.

  ‘I killed Harald,’ I said.

  ‘You did,’ the bishop allowed, ‘but not till after he’d ravaged the county!’

  ‘So men want Cent to be its own kingdom again?’ I asked.

  He hesitated a long time before answering, and even then he was evasive. ‘No one wanted that while Alfred lived,’ he said, ‘but now?’

  I stood and walked to a window from where I could stare down at the wharves. Gulls screamed and wheeled in the summer sky. There were two cranes on the wharf and they were lifting horses into a wide-bellied trading ship. The ship’s hold had been divided into stalls where the frightened beasts were being tethered. ‘Where are the horses going?’ I asked.

  ‘Horses?’ Swithwulf asked, puzzled, then realised why I had asked the unexpected question. ‘They send them to market in Frankia. We breed good horses here.’

  ‘You do?’

  ‘Ealdorman Sigelf does,’ he said.

  ‘And Sigelf rules here,’ I said, ‘and his son talks to the Danes.’

  The bishop shuddered. ‘So you say,’ he said cautiously.

  I turned to him. ‘And his son was in love with your daughter,’ I said, ‘and for that reason hates Edward.’

  ‘Dear God,’ Swithwulf said quietly and made the sign of the cross. There were tears in his eyes. ‘She was a silly girl, a silly girl, but joyous.’

  ‘I’m sorry,’ I said.

  He blinked away the tears. ‘And you look after my grandchildren?’

  ‘They’re in my care, yes.’

  ‘I hear the boy is sickly,’ he sounded anxious.

  ‘That’s just a rumour,’ I reassured him. ‘They’re both
healthy, but it’s better for their health if Ealdorman Æthelhelm believes the contrary.’

  ‘Æthelhelm’s not a bad man,’ the bishop said grudgingly.

  ‘But he’d still cut your grandchildren’s throats if he had the chance.’

  Swithwulf nodded. ‘What colour do they have?’

  ‘The boy’s dark like his father, the girl is fair.’

  ‘Like my daughter,’ he said in a whisper.

  ‘Who married the ætheling of Wessex,’ I said, ‘who now denies it. And Sigebriht, her rejected lover, went to the Danes out of hatred for Edward.’

  ‘Yes,’ the bishop said quietly.

  ‘But then swore an oath to Edward when Æthelwold fled north.’

  Swithwulf nodded. ‘I heard.’

  ‘Can he be trusted?’

  The directness of the question unsettled Swithwulf. He frowned and shifted uncomfortably, then gazed through a window to where crows where loud on the grass. ‘I would not trust him,’ he said softly.

  ‘I couldn’t hear you, bishop.’

  ‘I would not trust him,’ he said more loudly.

  ‘But his father is ealdorman here, not Sigebriht.’

  ‘Sigelf is a difficult man,’ the bishop said, his voice low again, ‘but not a fool.’ He looked at me with unhappy appeal. ‘I’ll deny this conversation,’ he said.

  ‘Have you heard us having a conversation?’ I asked Finan.

  ‘Not a word,’ he said.

  We stayed that night in Hrofeceastre and next day went back to Lundene on the flooding tide. There was a chill on the water, the first taste of autumn coming, and I rousted my men from the new town’s taverns and saddled horses. I was deliberately staying away from Fagranforda because it was so close to Natangrafum and so I took my small troop south and west along familiar roads until we reached Wintanceaster.

  Edward was surprised and pleased to see me. He knew I had not been in Fagranforda for most of the summer so did not ask me about the twins, instead telling me that his sister had sent news of them. ‘They’re well,’ he said. He invited me to a feast. ‘We don’t serve my father’s food,’ he assured me.

  ‘That’s a blessing, lord,’ I said. Alfred had ever served insipid meals of weak broths and limp vegetables, while Edward, at least, knew the virtues of meat. His new wife was there, plump and pregnant, while her father, Ealdorman Æthelhelm, was plainly Edward’s most trusted counsellor. There were fewer priests than in Alfred’s day, but at least a dozen were at the feast, including my old friend Willibald.

  Æthelhelm greeted me jovially. ‘We feared you’d be provoking the Danes,’ he said.

  ‘Who? Me?’

  ‘They’re quiet,’ Æthelhelm said, ‘and best not to wake them.’

  Edward looked at me. ‘Would you wake them?’ he asked.

  ‘What I would do, lord,’ I told him, ‘is send a hundred of your best warriors to Cent. Then I’d send another two or three hundred to Mercia and build burhs there.’

  ‘Cent?’ Æthelhelm asked.

  ‘Cent is restless,’ I said.

  ‘They’ve always been troublesome,’ Æthelhelm said dismissively, ‘but they hate the Danes as much as the rest of us.’

  ‘The Centish fyrd must protect Cent,’ Edward said.

  ‘And Lord Æthelred can build burhs,’ Æthelhelm declared. ‘If the Danes come we’ll be ready for them, but there’s no point in poking them with a sharp stick. Father Willibald!’

  ‘Lord?’ Willibald half stood at one of the lower tables.

  ‘Have we heard from our missionaries?’

  ‘We will, lord!’ Willibald said, ‘I’m sure we will.’

  ‘Missionaries?’ I asked.

  ‘Among the Danes,’ Edward said. ‘We will convert them.’

  ‘We shall beat Danish swords into ploughshares,’ Willibald said, and it was just after those hopeful words were said that a messenger arrived. He was a mud-spattered priest who had come from Mercia, and he had been sent to Wessex by Werferth, who was the Bishop of Wygraceaster. The man had plainly ridden hard and there was a hush in the hall as we waited to hear his news. Edward raised a hand and the harpist lifted his fingers from the strings.

  ‘Lord,’ the priest went on his knees before the dais on which the high table was bright with candles, ‘great news, lord King.’

  ‘Æthelwold’s dead?’ Edward asked.

  ‘God is great!’ the priest said. ‘The age of miracles is not over!’

  ‘Miracles?’ I asked.

  ‘It seems there is an ancient tomb, lord,’ the priest explained, looking up at Edward, ‘a tomb in Mercia, and angels have appeared there to foretell the future. Britain will be Christian! You will rule from sea to sea, lord! There are angels! And they have brought the prophecy from heaven!’

  There was a sudden spate of questions that Edward silenced. Instead he and Æthelhelm questioned the man, learning that Bishop Werferth had sent trusted priests to the ancient tomb and they had confirmed the heavenly visitation. The messenger could not contain his joy. ‘The angels say the Danes will turn to Christ, lord, and you shall rule one kingdom of all the Angelcynn!’

  ‘You see?’ Father Coenwulf, who had survived being locked in a stable on the night he had gone to pray with Æthelwold, could not resist the temptation to be triumphant. He was looking at me. ‘You see, Lord Uhtred! The age of miracles is not over!’

  ‘Glory be to God!’ Edward said.

  Goose feathers and tavern whores. Glory be to God.

  Natangrafum became a place of pilgrimage. Hundreds of people went there, and most were disappointed because the angels did not appear every night, indeed whole weeks went by with no lights showing at the tomb and no strange singing sounding from its stony depths, but then the angels would come again and the valley beneath Natangrafum’s sepulchre would echo with the prayers of folk seeking help.

  Only a few were permitted into the tomb, and those were chosen by Father Cuthbert, who led them past the armed men who protected the ancient mound. Those men were mine, led by Rypere, but the banner planted on the hill’s top, close to the tomb’s entrance, was Æthelflaed’s flag, which showed a rather ungainly goose that was somehow holding a cross in one webbed foot and a sword in the other. Æthelflaed was convinced Saint Werburgh protected her, just as the saint had once protected a wheatfield by driving out a flock of hungry geese. That was supposed to be a miracle, in which case I am a miracle worker too, but I was also too sensible to tell that to Æthelflaed. The goose banner suggested that the guards belonged to Æthelflaed, and anyone invited into the tomb would assume that it was under Æthelflaed’s protection, and that was believable because no one would credit Uhtred the Wicked with guarding a place of Christian pilgrimage. The visitor, led past the guards, would come to the tomb entrance, which, at night, was lit by dim rushlights that showed two heaps of skulls, one on each side of the low, cave-like opening. Cuthbert would kneel with them, pray with them, then command them to take off their weapons and mail. ‘No one can go into the angelic presence with war gear,’ he would say sternly and, once they had obeyed him, he offered them a potion in a silver cup. ‘Drink it all down,’ he would order them.

  I never tried that liquid, which was cooked up by Ludda. My memory of Ælfadell’s drink was more than sufficient. ‘It gives them dreams, lord,’ Ludda explained when I made one of my rare visits to Turcandene. Æthelflaed had come with me and insisted on sniffing the potion. ‘Dreams?’ she asked.

  ‘One or two vomit as well, lady,’ Ludda said, ‘but yes, dreams.’

  Not that they needed dreams for, once they had drunk, and when Cuthbert saw the vagueness in their eyes, he let them crawl into the tomb’s long passage. Inside they saw the stone walls, floor and ceiling, and on either side the chambers heaped with bones, all lit by rushlights, but ahead of them were the angels. Three angels, not two, huddled together at the passage’s end, where they were surrounded by the glorious feathers of their wings. ‘I chose three, as three is a sacred number,
lord,’ Cuthbert explained, ‘an angel for each member of the Trinity.’

  The goose feathers were glued to the rock. They formed fans, which, in the dim light, could easily be mistaken for wings. It had taken Ludda a whole day to place the feathers, then the three girls had to be coached in their duties, which had taken the best part of a month. They sang softly when a visitor came. Cuthbert had taught them the music, which was soft and dreamlike, not much above a hum and with no words, just sounds that echoed in that small stone space.

  Mehrasa was the central angel. Her dark skin, black hair and jet eyes made her mysterious, and Ludda had added to the mystery by pasting some raven feathers among the white. All three girls were simply robed in white linen, while the dark Mehrasa had a chain of gold about her neck. Men gazed in awe, and no wonder, for the three girls were beautiful. The two Franks were both very fair-haired with wide blue eyes. They were visions in that dark tomb, though both, Ludda told me, were prone to bouts of giggling when they should have been at their most solemn.

  The visitor probably never noticed the giggles. A strange voice, Ludda’s, seemed to come from the solid rock. Ludda chanted that the visitor had come before the angel of death and the two angels of life, and that they should address their questions to all three and wait for an answer.

  Those questions were all important because they told us what men wanted to know, and most of that, of course, was trivial. Would they inherit from a relative? What was the prospect of the harvest? Some were heartbreaking pleas for the life of a child or a wife, some were prayers to be helped in a law suit or in a quarrel with a neighbour, and all those Ludda dealt with as best he could while the three girls crooned their soft, low and plangent melody. Then came the more interesting questions. Who would rule Mercia? Would there be war? Would the Danes come south and take the land of the Saxons? The whores, the feathers and the tomb were a net and we caught some interesting fish there. Beortsig, whose father had paid money to Sigurd, had come to the tomb and wanted to know if the Danes would take over Mercia and place a tame Mercian on the throne and then, more interesting still, Sigebriht of Cent had crawled up the dim stone passage that was pungent with the smell of burning incense, and had asked about Æthelwold’s fate.