The Earl of Mercia

by M J Porter

  The news about Earl Hakon made him cheerful. He’d tried to help Leofric with his relationship with Cnut in the past, and he was grateful for that, despite how badly the whole thing had backfired. That he was to create a marriage alliance with the powerful Jarl of Shetland’s family also made Leofric consider Scotland. He knew that Malcolm was being troublesome on the borders but was the marriage a way of surrounding Malcolm? Depending on the outcome of this meeting, and he doubted it would be a good one, Leofric thought it would be political expediency to meet with the House of Bamburgh, see if they would ally with Ælfgifu more firmly. It could prove to be a valuable asset in the divide between Cnut and Ælfgifu.

  He sat himself on the same bench he’d once spoken to Ælfgifu from, and allowed himself to be lulled. He was confident that someone from inside the hall would seek him out, and he’d decided it was far better to wait than to appear too keen to walk into an angry altercation with either the king or Godwine.

  Not that he had long to wait. No doubt Godwine, or the king, had actually seen him when they’d first entered the hall, despite his lurking in the shadows, and in the end it was Godwine who came to do his king’s bidding, and Leofric was both disappointed and unsurprised.

  It seemed that the king was trying to divide the alliance between Ælfgifu and himself but sending Godwine would only ever make him for loyal to Cnut’s first wife.

  “Earl Godwine,” he greeted him through sleepy half-closed eyes as soon as he heard someone enter the small orchard. He closed his eyes on Godwine’s reaction. He needed to keep his calm. He’d been saying the same to Ælfgifu all morning and now he needed to heed his own advice. But with Godwine it might not prove that easy.

  “Sheriff Leofric.”

  “A beautiful day?” Leofric offered but Godwine was silent. Perhaps he’d merely come here for some peace after all. Only then he opened his mouth to speak.

  “I’d hoped that we might have moved past our difficulties and that you might have come to understand why you had to leave Cnut’s court. It seems I expected too much from you.” The voice was sharp and bitter but Leofric kept his eyes closed and allowed the words to wash over him. He’d assumed that all along it had been Godwine’s self-preservation that had inaugurated the strife that had seen him driven from court by his less than grateful king.

  “I’d like to say I’m sorry to disappoint, but I’m not. I can’t even offer you an apology for not being sorry.”

  “After everything your father did for Cnut, can you really threaten his kingdom in such a way?” Godwine needled.

  “You speak as though my father and Cnut were great allies. Cnut became king merely because Edmund died, and what was his first act? Remind me again? Oh yes, it was to execute my loyal brother for actually trying to stop Eadric from causing more problems.”

  Leofric had opened his eyes and was watching Godwine now, his pretense at nonchalance forgotten about in the face of the man’s hostility. He was keeping his temper under control but he found Godwine’s assertion distasteful. He certainly hoped that wasn’t the way he was being talked about in Winchester, or wherever the king was holding his court at the moment.

  He wouldn’t want his father’s name to be tainted by his actions now. Not that his father would have worried about it. He would, as Leofric had realized, have appreciated the necessity of it all.

  “I’d ask you to consider what you say to me carefully,” Godwine threatened but Leofric had heard enough of the man’s bluffs.

  “Say whatever it is that you came to say to me and go back to the king.”

  “The king simply wants you to know that your apology would be accepted and that he’d welcome you back at court.”

  “Thank the king for his kind thought and tell him that I too, would welcome the same.”

  He didn’t imagine Godwine’s sharp intake of breath and he did wonder if he’d spoken too rashly, but in all honesty, he was the one who deserved the apology, not Cnut. Cnut and his earl had become cronies. It was a situation that Cnut had previously assiduously avoided.

  “Enjoy playing traitor then,” Godwine spat and walked away. Leofric watched him go and wondered why he’d even made an effort to come and speak to him. If that was all he could offer, why even bother? What outcome had Godwine promised his king this time? The audacity of his words was overwhelming and worrying. Did Godwine truly have the power to think that he could rewrite the past just because it was convenient to him? Had the king let Godwine’s preeminence become so great?

  For a moment Leofric pitied the queen. He’d always thought her a strong-willed woman but her moment of weakness had made her a pawn in Godwine’s game. What must she be thinking as she remained at Winchester while the king visited his first wife, for it couldn’t have been kept a secret? Not when Cnut travelled with fifty men and his imperial crown, refashioned after his visit to the papacy and his alliance with Emperor Conrad had made him think he was worthy of being named Emperor as well.

  He almost didn’t want to know what happened in the hall, and what efforts Cnut was trying on his first wife. Was he trying to scare her or cajole her? Rip her sons from her or simply appeal to her better nature, as Godwine had just tried to do with Leofric? He hoped that his attempts were as half hearted and poorly offered as Godwine had made of his own.

  It would make it easier to ignore the king’s visit.

  The next person to join him in the orchard was Ufegat and Leofric watched him make his way with the aid of a stick and his own hands. Leofric wondered why the man had never thought of getting himself a hound to help him. He almost made the offer, but then decided that the man had been blind for long enough to know what he needed and what he didn’t. How well the man walked, anyway, always amazed him. He was confident and aware of his surroundings.

  “Leofric, are you here?”

  “Yes, Ufegat, over by the seat?” he responded softly and the man walked to the seat and made himself comfortably.

  “The king is talking a load of horse’s shit,” he muttered angrily, and Leofric chuckled at the rage in his voice. “He’s just come to upset my sister and try and turn the boys against her.”

  “He’ll fail in both those regards, I hope.”

  “I imagine so. He shouldn’t have ignored the boys all those years if he wanted to reconcile with them. No father should cast out his children until it’s convenient to have them once more.”

  “No, but Cnut has been little of a father to his other children either. He’s relied on Harthacnut in Denmark and now he has Gunnhilda on the borderlands with Denmark and the Saxon Empire. I wouldn’t be surprised if he expected to send the boys somewhere else as well, just to strengthen his borders, but he can only do so if he trusts them.”

  “They hardly know him. How can they share his wants and desires? They’ve been kept away from the center of politics. As young as they are, they should still understand how the Witan works and how patronage can aid them. They only know how to cause disruption because that’s all Ælfgifu’s been able to accomplish herself.”

  “It’s the way the king was raised,” Ufegat said, not as an explanation but because it was the truth.

  “It was a different time,” Leofric grunted and Ufegat nodded in agreement.

  From inside the hall, Leofric heard a commotion and was unsurprised when another from their alliance joined them. He greeted Harald with a wry smile.

  “My father’s a total ass,” the boy moaned, anger radiating from every part of his tense body.

  “We know,” Ufegat replied but Harald’s face was angry. He didn’t wish to be merely indulged in his rage.

  “What’s he said?” Leofric queried. Harald, his young face so similar to Cnut’s older one, even wore one of his angry expressions. The lad was still ruled by his temper and his wants and needs, but for once he actually managed to reply quite reasonably, and the fact he’d left the hall rather than round on his father, meant that he was learning to control his emotions. Leofric was quietly impressed by the
boy’s behavior.

  “He speaks of the future, but his future, not my own, and not Swein’s. He seems to think that we should be the ones endeavoring to protect him and not vice versa. He speaks of a future where my brother is an earl and that he must learn his skills from Earl Godwine because Leofric has never been an earl and is a traitor anyway.”

  Leofric felt himself stiffen at the mention of his name, surprised that the king had even acknowledged him, and surprised that those words had upset Harald as well. He understood Harald’s rage though.

  “And for you?” he pressed, knowing there would be more to come.

  “I must go to Winchester, or wherever the king decides to live, and learn to understand the court. He wants me to look to the queen as my mother.” Although Leofric had never thought the boy cared much for his mother, it seemed that his loyalty to her ran deep.

  “I imagine your mother’s not happy with that statement?” Ufegat spat but Harald shook his head.

  “No, we mustn’t tell her. She’d be traumatized at the very thought of it. No, the king at least had the understanding not to say that in front of her.”

  Neither of the older men failed to notice that he didn’t refer to his father as his father.

  “What’s the king doing now?” Leofric asked.

  “Eating and scowling. Godwine spoke to him but he sent him away. He’s not happy. I hope he doesn’t stay. I don’t want him here.”

  “I think he’ll spend a night but I doubt it’ll be in the hall.” Leofric had noticed that there was a more elaborate tent set for Cnut amongst his household troop.

  Cnut seemed to have come with great plans but none of them involved him actually engaging with his family for any great length of time. Leofric was disappointed but unsurprised. He was out of touch with events that most personally touched him. It made him weak, just as Æthelred had been before him. Perhaps it was a problem for kings.

  Certainly his father had never abandoned his family, but had always tried to make his sons stronger. Yet kings lived and died by their own actions and so were probably more selfish. They wouldn’t want to be eclipsed by their successor, although they always seemed to strive to better their predecessor.

  The afternoon dragged on, the three of them exiling themselves from events inside the hall, and only as the day began to take on the softened edges of a pink sunset did anything happen that remotely surprised Leofric, and that was when Cnut himself walked into the orchard.

  He seemed unsurprised to find Leofric there, although he visibly started to see his son beside Leofric. Ufegat he spoke directly to, but it seemed that it was Leofric the king had come to speak to.

  He looked around the orchard, reaching up to touch the ripening fruit, and when he spoke it was with a vein of anger, for all that he was trying to appear offhand.

  “I told you to leave my court,” he began. “I didn’t expect to find you at my other royal establishment, here.”

  “The Lady Ælfgifu invited my wife for the occasion of your visit, but I could hardly allow her to come alone.”

  “Don’t take me for a fool Leofric,” the king hissed and Leofric heard Ufegat’s sharp intake of breath.

  “It does take one to recognise one,” he countered and even Harald was watching him now, his eyes round with surprise at hearing someone else counter his powerful father.

  The king swiveled his head quickly, his eyes flashing with the reflection of the golden sunset, his imperial crown still sitting improbably over his long, blond hair.

  “I have all the proof I need of your deceit.”

  “You have nothing because you listen to people who are hamstrung through fear. But until you realize that, I can’t help you and neither do I want to.”

  The king looked like he wanted to continue speaking, his entire stance furious and tight, but Leofric interjected.

  “This isn’t your home either. You walked away from it and left your wife and your sons to fend for themselves. You can’t now claim back what was once so inconvenient for you and neither can you deny me the opportunity to be here. This land has long held a special place in my heart, ever since my father helped to govern it, and defend it both, from your father’s attacks and also from your own.”

  “I am your king,” Cnut roared, much to Leofric’s amusement.

  “Then that’s the first mistake you’ve made, thinking that it gives you rights over your own children and your loyal supporters, just because you’re a king. You need to earn that accolade, and once you did, I’ll give you that, but since then you’ve made very many terrible mistakes and now you need to do the work again because there are far too many people who no longer believe in you. Just as your predecessor, you take too much for granted and think that you rule alone.”

  Cnut’s mouth opened and closed, but no sound came from it and Leofric knew for a certainty that it was the first time he’d been spoken to in such a way for a very long time. It was all well and good Estrid cautioning him and saying that the king was surrounded by enemies, Hakon telling him to balance the king’s wives for him, but what they’d both failed to realize was that Cnut had grown to believe the very legend he’d been creating.

  He’d become a victim of his own success and until he appreciated that, he’d continue to make the same mistakes.

  “I am not King Æthelred,” Cnut finally thundered, and stormed from the orchard. Leofric watched him go with interest. Had he, finally, managed to punch through the cloud of deceit and self-belief that Cnut had surrounded him with?

  Leofric doubted it.

  Anglo-Saxon Chronicle Entry for AD1029

  This year King Knute returned home to England.

  Chapter 26

  AD1030

  Bamburgh

  Leofric had never been this far north before. His father had been to York but Bamburgh was two days ride further north, almost on the borderlands with Scotland. It was wild country as well and he was pleased that he’d chosen to travel as soon as the weather warmed as opposed to trying to go late the previous year.

  It was his brother who’d cautioned him to a winter of nothing after Cnut’s failed attempt to win his abandoned first family back to his side, but Cnut had left Northampton having accomplished nothing more than firming the resolve of all of them to deny him any of his requests.

  It was only the older son, Swein, who’d shown even the smallest amount of desire to reconcile with his father, but as soon as Cnut had left Northampton, he’d quickly realized that his father had offered him nothing other than insults and nothing Earl Godwine had tempted him with had made him want to live within the earl’s household and learn to rule as he did.

  For those concerned with politics, the late summer and all winter had been an uneasy time, waiting to see who would act first, but Ælfgifu and Leofric had decided it was best to give that honor to the king. In the meantime, Leofric had offered to travel to Bamburgh to speak with the head of the long-lived House of Bamburgh. It seemed that Cnut and Earl Hakon were at pains to constrain Malcolm of Scotland, and so Leofric had decided it was best to see if they too could be of some assistance, albeit with an entirely different reason.

  If Ealdred, self-titled Earl of Bamburgh, could be brought into the ever-growing group of loyal supporters for Ælfgifu, then the king would be left with little choice but to actually treat Ælfgifu and her sons with the respect that they were due and give them positions of power and respect as opposed to trying to forget that Ælfgifu existed.

  The fortress of Bamburgh was perched on a precarious outcropping and Leofric was pleased to be coming as a potential ally rather than as an enemy. He was unsure how anyone would be able to get inside the fortress unless through the gated enclosure, as he travelled closer, and he imagined that this isolation accounted for the long-lived nature of the family.

  Not that they’d always held power within the area, but rather, they’d stayed safe inside their fortress and allowed events to happen around them. The Viking raiders had been and gone on two di
fferent occasions, and while the religious community on Holy Island had long been abandoned, Bamburgh had endured on its outcropping, surrounded by deep blue seas and golden sand.

  He rode with Orkning at his side once more, and even Orkning gave a low whistle of appreciation at seeing the place.

  “Good job we’ve got an invitation,” he also muttered and Leofric smirked at him.

  “I was thinking the exact same thing.”

  They were allowed inside the gated stockade, up the steep sided path with the sea swirling beneath them, and a man Leofric assumed must be Ealdred, came to personally greet them.

  He was a greying man, his face as chiseled as the path they’d just crested, but there was a spark of humor in his eye.

  “Sheriff Leofric, it’s a pleasure to meet with you. I’ve met you before, but I doubt you’ll remember and so I only remind you so that you know I also met your father and greatly admired him.”

  The greeting was so warm and heartfelt that Leofric immediately felt himself warm toward the older man. He only remembered Ealdred’s father vaguely. Ealdorman Uhtred had been a very powerful figure at Æthelred’s court, married for a second time to one of Æthelred’s daughter, but for that very reason he’d often been absent from the Witan, concerned only with affairs in the north.

  His murder at the hands of Thurbrand Hold on the orders of Eadric when Cnut had taken York, had been something that had fuelled his father’s anger at Cnut and made him fear for the future of England. It seemed that Leofwine had probably been right to be worried.

  “Earl Ealdred, it’s a pleasure to meet you and Lady Ælfgifu thanks you for receiving us.”

  Only now was there even the smallest crack in Ealdred’s pleasant posture and Leofric assumed it was caused by an old rift between the two families, but quickly the gloominess disappeared from Ealdred’s face and they spoke lightly of the weather and the landscape as they walked into the great hall.