Lords of the North s-3

by Bernard Cornwell

  “Lord King,” the monks echoed, “welcome.”

  Now that was an interesting moment. Eadred, remember, had selected Guthred to be the king because Saint Cuthbert had shown him Hardicnut’s son in a dream. Yet now he thought that I was the king, which meant that either Cuthbert had shown him the wrong face or else that Eadred was a lying bastard. Or perhaps Saint Cuthbert was a lying bastard. But as a miracle, and Eadred’s dream is always remembered as a miracle, it was decidedly suspicious. I told a priest that story once and he refused to believe me. He hissed at me, made the sign of the cross, and rushed off to say his prayers. The whole of Guthred’s life was to be dominated by the simple fact that Saint Cuthbert revealed him to Eadred, and the truth is that Eadred did not recognize him, but these days no one believes me. Willibald, of course, was dancing around like a man with two wasps up his breeches, trying to correct Eadred’s mistake, so I kicked him on the side of the skull to make him quiet then gestured toward Guthred who had taken the hood from his head. “This,” I said to Eadred, “is your king.”

  For a heartbeat Eadred did not believe me, then he did and a look of intense anger crossed his face. It was a sudden contortion of utter fury because he understood, even if no one else did, that he was supposed to have recognized Guthred from his dream. The anger flared, then he mastered it and bowed to Guthred and repeated his greeting and Guthred returned it with his customary cheerfulness. Two monks hurried to take his horse and Guthred dismounted and was led into the church. The rest of us followed as best we could. I ordered some monks to hold Witnere and Hild’s mare. They did not want to, they wanted to be inside the church, but I told them I would break their tonsured heads if the horses were lost, and they obeyed me.

  It was dark in the church. There were rushlights burning on the altar, and more on the floor of the nave where a large group of monks bowed and chanted, but the small smoky lights hardly lifted the thick gloom. It was not much of a church. It was big, bigger even than the church Alfred was building in Wintanceaster, but it had been raised in a hurry and the walls were untrimmed logs and when my eyes became accustomed to the darkness I saw that the roof was ragged with rough thatch. There were probably fifty or sixty churchmen inside and half that number of thegns, if the men of Cumbraland aspired to that rank. They were the wealthier men of the region and they stood with their followers and I noted, with curiosity, that some wore the cross and others wore the hammer. There were Danes and Saxons in that church, mingled together, and they were not enemies. Instead they had gathered to support Eadred who had promised them a god-given king.

  And there was Gisela.

  I noticed her almost immediately. She was a tall girl, dark-haired, with a very long and very grave face. She was dressed in a gray cloak and shift so that at first I thought she was a nun, then I saw the silver bracelets and the heavy brooch holding the cloak at her neck. She had large eyes that shone, but that was because she was crying. They were tears of joy and, when Guthred saw her, he ran to her and they embraced. He held her tight, then he stepped away, holding her hands, and I saw she was half crying and half laughing, and he impulsively led her to me. “My sister,” he introduced her, “Gisela.” He still held her hands. “I am free,” he told her, “because of Lord Uhtred.”

  “I thank you,” she said to me, and I said nothing. I was conscious of Hild beside me, but even more conscious of Gisela. Fifteen? Sixteen? But unmarried, for her black hair was still unbound. What had her brother told me? That she had a face like a horse, but I thought it was a face of dreams, a face to set the sky on fire, a face to haunt a man. I still see that face so many years later. It was long, long nosed, with dark eyes that sometimes seemed far away and other times were mischievous and when she looked at me that first time I was lost. The spinners who make our lives had sent her and I knew nothing would be the same again.

  “You’re not married, are you?” Guthred asked her anxiously.

  She touched her hair that still fell free like a girl’s hair. When she married it would be bound up. “Of course not,” she said, still looking at me, then turned to her brother, “are you?”

  “No,” he said.

  Gisela looked at Hild, back to me, and just then Abbot Eadred came to hurry Guthred away and Gisela went back to the woman who was her guardian. She gave me a backward glance, and I can still see that look. The lowered eyelids and the small trip as she turned to give me a last smile.

  “A pretty girl,” Hild said.

  “I would rather have a pretty woman,” I said.

  “You need to marry,” Hild said.

  “I am married,” I reminded her, and that was true. I had a wife in Wessex, a wife who hated me, but Mildrith was now in a nunnery so whether she regarded herself as married to me or married to Christ I neither knew nor cared.

  “You liked that girl,” Hild said.

  “I like all girls,” I said evasively. I lost sight of Gisela as the crowd pressed forward to watch the ceremony which began when Abbot Eadred unstrapped the sword belt from his own waist and buckled it around Guthred’s ragged clothes. Then he draped the new king in a fine green cloak, trimmed with fur, and put a bronze circlet on his fair hair. The monks chanted while this was being done, and kept chanting as Eadred led Guthred around the church so that everyone could see him. The abbot held the king’s right hand aloft and no doubt many folk thought it odd that the new king was being acclaimed with slave chains hanging from his wrists. Men knelt to him. Guthred knew many of the Danes who had been his father’s followers and he greeted them happily. He played the part of the king well, for he was an intelligent as well as a good-natured man, but I saw a look of amusement on his face. Did he really believe he was king then? I think he saw it all as an adventure, but one that was certainly preferable to emptying Eochaid’s shit-pail.

  Eadred gave a sermon that was blessedly short even though he spoke in both English and Danish. His Danish was not good, but it sufficed to tell Guthred’s fellow-countrymen that God and Saint Cuthbert had chosen the new king, and here he was, and glory must inevitably follow. Then he led Guthred toward the rushlights burning in the center of the church and the monks who had been gathered about those smoky flames scrambled to make way for the new king and I saw they had been clustered around three chests which, in turn, were circled by the small lights.

  “The royal oath will now be taken!” Eadred announced to the church. The Christians in the church went to their knees again and some of the pagan Danes clumsily followed their example.

  It was supposed to be a solemn moment, but Guthred rather spoiled it by turning and looking for me. “Uhtred!” he called, “you should be here! Come!”

  Eadred bridled, but Guthred wanted me beside him because the three chests worried him. They were gilded, and their lids were held by big metal clasps, and they were surrounded by the flickering rush-lights, and all that suggested to him that some Christian sorcery was about to take place and he wanted me to share the risk. Abbot Eadred glared at me. “Did he call you Uhtred?” he asked suspiciously.

  “Lord Uhtred commands my household troops,” Guthred said grandly. That made me the commander of nothing, but I kept a straight face. “And if there are oaths to be taken,” Guthred continued, “then he must make them with me.”

  “Uhtred,” Abbot Eadred said flatly. He knew the name, of course he did. He came from Lindisfarena where my family ruled and there was a sourness in his tone.

  “I am Uhtred of Bebbanburg,” I said loudly enough for everyone in the church to hear, and the announcement caused a hiss among the monks. Some crossed themselves and others just looked at me with apparent hatred.

  “He’s your companion?” Eadred demanded of Guthred.

  “He rescued me,” Guthred said, “and he is my friend.”

  Eadred made the sign of the cross. He had disliked me from the moment he mistook me for the dream-born king, but now he was fairly spitting malevolence at me. He hated me because our family was supposedly the guardians of Lindisfarena�
��s monastery, but the monastery lay in ruins and Eadred, its abbot, had been driven into exile. “Did Ælfric send you?” he demanded.

  “Ælfric,” I spat the name, “is a usurper, a thief, a cuckoo, and one day I shall spill his rotting belly and send him to the tree where Corpse-Ripper will feed on him.”

  Eadred placed me then. “You’re Lord Uhtred’s son,” he said, and he looked at my arm rings and my mail and at the workmanship of my swords and at the hammer about my neck. “You’re the boy raised by the Danes.”

  “I am the boy,” I said sarcastically, “who killed Ubba Lothbrokson beside a southern sea.”

  “He is my friend,” Guthred insisted.

  Abbot Eadred shuddered, then half bowed his head as if to show that he accepted me as Guthred’s companion. “You will take an oath,” he growled at me, “to serve King Guthred faithfully.”

  I took a half-step backward. Oath-taking is a serious matter. If I swore to serve this king who had been a slave then I would no longer be a free man. I would be Guthred’s man, sworn to die for him, to obey him and serve him until death, and the thought galled me. Guthred saw my hesitation and smiled. “I shall free you,” he whispered to me in Danish, and I understood that he, like me, saw this ceremony as a game.

  “You swear it?” I asked him.

  “On my life,” he said lightly.

  “The oaths will be taken!” Eadred announced, wanting to restore some dignity to the church that now murmured with talk. He glowered at the congregation until they went quiet, then he opened one of the two smaller chests. Inside was a book, its cover crusted with precious stones. “This is the great gospel book of Lindisfarena,” Eadred said in awe. He lifted the book out of the chest and held it aloft so that the dim light glinted from its jewels. The monks all crossed themselves, then Eadred handed the heavy book to an attendant priest whose hands shook as he accepted the volume. Eadred stooped to the second of the small chests. He made the sign of the cross then opened the lid and there, facing me with closed eyes, was a severed head. Guthred could not suppress a grunt of distaste and, fearing sorcery, took my right arm. “That is the most holy Saint Oswald,” Eadred said, “once king of Northumbria and now a saint most beloved of almighty God.” His voice quivered with emotion.

  Guthred took a half-pace backward, repelled by the head, but I shook off his grip and stepped forward to gaze down at Oswald. He had been the lord of Bebbanburg in his time, and he had been king of Northumbria too, but that had been two hundred years ago. He had died in battle against the Mercians who had hacked him to pieces, and I wondered how his head had been rescued from the charnel-house of defeat. The head, its cheeks shrunken and its skin dark, looked quite unscarred. His hair was long and tangled, while his neck had been hidden by a scrap of yellowed linen. A gilt-bronze circlet served as his crown. “Beloved Saint Oswald,” Eadred said, making the sign of the cross, “protect us and guide us and pray for us.” The king’s lips had shrivelled so that three of his teeth showed. They were like yellow pegs. The monks kneeling closest to Oswald bobbed up and down in silent and fervent prayer. “Saint Oswald,” Eadred announced, “is a warrior of God and with him on our side none can stand against us.”

  He stepped past the dead king’s head to the last and biggest of the chests. The church was silent. The Christians, of course, were aware that by revealing the relics, Eadred was summoning the powers of heaven to witness the oaths, while the pagan Danes, even if they did not understand exactly what was happening, were awed by the magic they sensed in the big building. And they sensed that more and greater magic was about to happen, for the monks now prostrated themselves flat on the earthen floor as Eadred silently prayed beside the last box. He prayed for a long time, his hands clasped, his lips moving and with his eyes raised to the rafters where sparrows fluttered and then at last he unlatched the chest’s two heavy bronze locks and lifted the big lid.

  A corpse lay inside the big chest. The corpse was wrapped in a linen cloth, but I could see the body’s shape clearly enough. Guthered had again taken my arm as if I could protect him against Eadred’s sorcery. Eadred, meanwhile, gently unwrapped the linen and so revealed a dead bishop robed in white and with his face covered by a small white square of cloth that was hemmed with golden thread. The corpse had an embroidered scapular about its neck and a battered miter had fallen from its head. A cross of gold, decorated with garnets, lay half-hidden by his hands that were prayerfully clasped on his breast. A ruby ring shone on one shrunken finger. Some of the monks were gasping, as though they could not endure the holy power flowing from the corpse and even Eadred was subdued. He touched his forehead against the edge of the coffin, then straightened to look at me. “You know who this is?” he asked.

  “No.”

  “In the name of the Father,” he said, “and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost,” and he took the square of golden-hemmed linen away to reveal a yellowed face blotched with darker patches. “It is Saint Cuthbert,” Eadred said with a tearful catch in his voice. “It is the most blessed, the most holy, the most beloved Cuthbert. Oh dear sweet God,” he rocked backward and forward on his knees, “this is Saint Cuthbert himself.”

  Until the age of ten I had been raised on stories of Cuthbert. I learned how he had trained a choir of seals to sing psalms, and how the eagles had brought food to the small island off Bebbanburg where he lived in solitude for a time. He could calm storms by prayer and had rescued countless sailors from drowning. Angels came to talk with him. He had once rescued a family by commanding the flames that consumed their house to return to hell, and the fire had miraculously vanished. He would walk into the winter sea until the cold water reached his neck and he would stay there all night, praying, and when he came back to the beach in the dawn his monk’s robes would be dry. He drew water from parched ground during a drought and when birds stole newly-sewn barley seed he commanded them to return it, which they did. Or so I was told. He was certainly the greatest saint of Northumbria, the holy man who watched over us and to whom we were supposed to direct our prayers so that he could whisper them into the ear of God, and here he was in a carved and gilded elm box, flat on his back, nostrils gaping, mouth slightly open, cheeks fallen in, and with five yellow-black teeth from which the gums had receded so they looked like fangs. One fang was broken. His eyes were shut. My stepmother had possessed Saint Cuthbert’s comb and she had liked to tell me that she had found some of the saint’s hair on the comb’s teeth and that the hair had been the color of finest gold, but this corpse had hair black as pitch. It was long, lank, and brushed away from a high forehead and from his monkish tonsure. Eadred gently restored the miter, then leaned forward and kissed the ruby ring. “You will note,” he said in a voice made hoarse by emotion, “that the holy flesh is uncorrupted,” he paused to stroke one of the saint’s bony hands, “and that miracle is a sure and certain sign of his sanctity.” He leaned forward and this time kissed the saint full on the open, shriveled lips. “Oh most holy Cuthbert,” he prayed aloud, “guide us and lead us and bring us to your glory in the name of Him who died for us and upon whose right hand you now sit in splendor everlasting, amen.”

  “Amen,” the monks chimed. The closest monks had got up from the floor so they could see the uncorrupted saint and most of them cried as they gazed at the yellowing face.

  Eadred looked up at me again. “In this church, young man,” he said, “is the spiritual soul of Northumbria. Here, in these chests, are our miracles, our treasures, our glory, and the means by which we speak with God to seek his protection. While these precious and holy things are safe, we are safe, and once,” he stood as he said that last word and his voice grew much harder, “once all these things were under the protection of the lords of Bebbanburg, but that protection failed! The pagans came, the monks were slaughtered, and the men of Bebbanburg cowered behind their walls rather than ride to slaughter the pagans. But our forefathers in Christ saved these things, and we have wandered ever since, wandered across the wild lands, and we ke
ep these things still, but one day we shall make a great church and these relics will shine forth across a holy land. That holy land is where I lead these people!” He waved his hand to indicate the folk waiting outside the church. “God has sent me an army,” he shouted, “and that army will triumph, but I am not the man to lead it. God and Saint Cuthbert sent me a dream in which they showed me the king who will take us all to our promised land. He showed me King Guthred!”

  He stood and raised Guthred’s arm aloft and the gesture provoked applause from the congregation. Guthred looked surprised rather than regal, and I just looked down at the dead saint.

  Cuthbert had been the abbot and bishop of Lindisfarena, the island that lay just north of Bebbanburg, and for almost two hundred years his body had lain in a crypt on the island until the Viking raids became too threatening and, to save the saintly corpse, the monks had taken the dead man inland. They had been wandering Northumbria ever since. Eadred disliked me because my family had failed to protect the holy relics, but the strength of Bebbanburg was its position on the sea-lashed crag, and only a fool would take its garrison beyond the walls to fight. If I had a choice between keeping Bebbanburg and abandoning a relic, then I would have surrendered the whole calendar of dead saints. Holy corpses are cheap, but fortresses like Bebbanburg are rare.

  “Behold!” Eadred shouted, still holding Guthred’s arm aloft, “the king of Haliwerfolkland!”

  The king of what? I thought I had misheard, but I had not. Haliwerfolkland, Eadred had said, and it meant the Land of the Holy Man People. That was Eadred’s name for Guthred’s kingdom. Saint Cuthbert, of course, was the holy man, but whoever was king of his land would be a sheep among wolves. Ivarr, Kjartan, and my uncle were the wolves. They were the men who led proper forces of trained soldiers, while Eadred was hoping to make a kingdom on the back of a dream, and I had no doubts that his dream-born sheep would end up being savaged by the wolves. Still, for the moment, Cair Ligualid was my best refuge in Northumbria, because my enemies would need to cross the hills to find me and, besides, I had a taste for this kind of madness. In madness lies change, in change is opportunity, and in opportunity are riches.