The King's Hounds (The King's Hounds series Book 1)

by Martin Jensen

  I turned to look at him.

  “I’m certain Alfred’s innocent. And now I have only three days to prove it.”

  Chapter 11

  That night I learned that Winston’s snoring could wake the dead.

  The bed was wide and there was plenty of room for both of us, so I had no trouble falling asleep—especially since Alfilda had given us a tankard of her strongest ale before bed.

  The room was already half-lit from the first light of the late spring dawn when I woke up. The room was reverberating with a deep rumbling noise, which I had a hard time placing at first. I thought it might be coming from outside the window until I noticed that the bed was shaking. I sat up and stared through the semidarkness at my bedmate, who was flat on his back with his mouth wide open, puffing away like a workhorse.

  My bladder was full from the late-night ale, so I got out of bed and staggered into the hallway. I fumbled my way to the back door and into the alleyway, where I pulled down my breeches and relieved myself. As I did so, I listened to the swifts, which had already begun their shrill hunt for flies high over the town.

  When I returned to bed, Winston’s snoring was even louder than before. I pulled my side of the blanket all the way up over my ears, but couldn’t block out the noise.

  I slept in fits and starts for the rest of the night, awoken intermittently by extra-loud snores from my bedmate. By the time Alfilda started clanking around in the kitchen, I was quite groggy.

  Winston, however, sat up bright-eyed and wished me a good morning. I answered with a surly grunt.

  He looked over at me and asked what was wrong.

  After my crabby reply, he looked sheepish.

  “Oh,” he said. “I should have told you just to kick me.”

  I mumbled that I would keep that in mind in the future, then stumbled out through the tavern to the well that I’d spotted four buildings down from the inn. I hoisted a bucket of water, dumped it over my head and upper body, and gasped myself the rest of the way awake, though my head did not feel any lighter nor my body less tired for the effort.

  There was honey to go with our bread, the ale was malted and sweet, and I ate and drank with a growing appetite, only half listening to Winston and Alfilda, who were chatting away like old friends.

  Finally Winston wiped his mouth, drained the last little gulp from his tankard, and stood up. “Time to go have a chat with the widow.”

  On our way, he insisted that we stop by his mule’s stable. We found Atheling in the company of several mounts and pack animals, his muzzle buried in a sack of oats that probably rightly belonged to the horse next to him, but neither Atheling nor Winston seemed interested in doing anything about that.

  The animal snorted at Winston, causing the chaff to fly up around its ears. Atheling then gave me a disdainful glance and returned to his gluttony with a scowl at the animal next to him, which meekly started munching chaff. Bite marks on the shoulder of the neighboring horse suggested that Atheling had bullied it into submission.

  With Winston reassured that his animal was not suffering any hardship, we left the stables and walked through the narrow, twisting streets out toward the meadow of noblemen’s tents, which we found every bit as busy as an anthill someone had poked a stick into.

  The bustle was even greater than the day before. More tents had been erected and a great many more men were scurrying around pretending they knew what they were doing—which I very much doubted.

  We headed straight to Tonild’s tent, which we found ringed by men armed with spears and swords and watchful eyes. One of them stepped forward and gruffly asked us what business we had here.

  Winston calmly stroked his beard and said, “We have an appointment to speak to the lady.”

  Curtly instructing us to wait, the guard walked over to the tent, cleared his throat, and flung open the flap after a muffled response from inside. He disappeared for a few seconds, then came back out and returned to his post without glancing at us. He resumed his position with his legs firmly planted, his hand on his spear, and the hilt of his sword pulled up clear of its sheath.

  I glared at him and began to walk over to the opening in the tent, but Winston’s hand on my arm held me back.

  “Have you forgotten the ways of the nobility?” Winston asked me quietly. “Keep the riffraff waiting until you feel like talking to them. Let’s just play by Tonild’s rules for now.”

  “But …”

  “If we barge in, we risk her refusing to speak to us at all,” Winston said calmly. “Patience, my friend.”

  So we waited. Though the camp hubbub continued all around us, Tonild’s guards remained perfectly still. A long while later, the tent flap slid to the side, and the same clergyman from the day before waved us in.

  Tonild was standing by her husband’s bier.

  The manure-smeared cape and the other clothes he had been wearing when we found his body had been removed, and he was now dressed in a clean outfit. Wearing soft buckskin boots, delicately woven scarlet breeches, a white linen shirt embroidered across the chest, and a cornflower blue cloak, his outfit was obviously quite expensive and even a bit ostentatious.

  The dead man’s hands were folded around his bare sword, the hilt resting in the middle of his chest.

  He was a warrior who had gone to God.

  I hadn’t been able to see Tonild all that well the day before. When she burst into the king’s Hall, she was backlit in the bright doorway, and later I’d been preoccupied by Winston’s observations about where the murder had taken place. I looked at her closely now.

  She was younger than I’d thought—based on her voice I’d guessed she was in her mid-thirties, but now I realized that there was no way she could be any more than twenty-five. She was buxom and tall and blonde, judging from the few strands of hair poking out from under her wimple. She was dressed in a floor-length, pigeon-blue dress with a silver chain around her waist. The pin at her bosom that held her dress together was made of gem-inlaid gold: she was a warrior’s wife, who looked more like a woman seeking revenge than a widow in mourning.

  She looked us in the eye. Her eyes were gray, her mouth small, and her cheekbones high. Her skin was smooth and healthy, and only the fine lines around her eyes and her headdress revealed that she was a woman and not a young maiden.

  There were no children in sight. Either Osfrid’s dead son had been their only child, or the children had stayed at home so that the king wouldn’t be tempted to take yet another hostage from their family.

  Winston bowed slightly. “I’m sorry for your loss, my lady.”

  She remained silent while I, too, expressed my condolences.

  “Did you know that the king has asked us to investigate your husband’s killing?” Winston asked casually, as though he were asking if she’d been out riding recently.

  She responded with a snort.

  “Yes, I know,” Winston said with an audible sigh. “You think the king is responsible for the murder.”

  “I know he is,” Tonild said, her words striking like the lash of a whip.

  “If you’re right, perhaps we can count on your help in proving it?” Winston asked.

  Tonild’s eyes widened a little. “Proving that the king is guilty?”

  Winston nodded and explained, “The king has asked me … us … to solve the murder. I will not hesitate to name the man I determine to be guilty.”

  Tonild shook her head skeptically and replied, “And I’m supposed to believe that?”

  Winston nodded.

  “You would accuse the king himself?” Tonild said, a note of derision in her voice.

  “If I find evidence of his guilt, yes, my lady, I will present that evidence. To you, to him, and to the Witenagemot.”

  Now she sneered openly and retorted, “So he can just swear his innocence before all the noblemen in England, conveniently already gathered here in the same place.”

  Winston nodded again. “That possibility does exist. But you’re forgetti
ng one thing, my lady.”

  She looked at him with eyebrows raised.

  “The compurgation defense entitles Cnut to swear that he is innocent,” Winston continued. “All he needs to do is enlist twelve compurgators to swear that they believe him. And, yes, I agree with what you haven’t said yet, namely, that the king won’t have any trouble finding twelve people to swear they believe him.”

  “There. You see?” Tonild said, sounding downright scornful.

  “And yet I see what you do not,” Winston said with a twinkle in his eye. “If I present evidence that the king is to blame for your husband’s death, no oath will exonerate him. He would not have to pay any penalties or fines, but do you seriously think the Witenagemot would still accept him as king?”

  Tonild bit her lip and glanced from Winston to me. I looked her in the eye—which was no hardship, truth be told. She was a fine-looking woman, and I would have been happy to gaze into those eyes for a good long while.

  “Cnut’s well-armed housecarls will be attending the meeting in force,” Tonild pointed out. “They will make sure everyone at the Witenagemot understands that Cnut will remain king whether they accept him or not.”

  “Cnut has convened a joint meeting of the Thing and the Witenagemot for only one reason,” Winston said. “As I’m sure you know, my lady, the king wants the Saxons, Angles, Danes, and all the other peoples of England to choose unity—and for everyone to abide by the same laws. If I present evidence when they meet that the king is guilty of Osfrid’s murder, and Cnut decides to swear he is innocent anyway, how many of the assembled witan, noblemen, and clergymen will give him what he wants—namely, a single, unified kingdom?”

  Tonild looked at us. I had difficulty not staring at her breasts and her tiny feet, whose tips were just peeking out from below the hem of her dress, but I forced my gaze to remain on her gray eyes.

  But then she suddenly looked away and turned to her priest. “What do you say, Father Egbert?”

  With dark hair and a flat face, he looked to be about Winston’s age and had a nose that protruded like a juniper bush in a moor. His voice was gentle, but his words were neither tentative nor uncertain. “What do you have to lose by taking them at their word?” he asked Tonild.

  Tonild obviously wasn’t one to follow advice simply because she had asked for it. She sat quietly for a long while looking at Egbert, who gazed calmly back at her. Finally she nodded.

  “Fine,” she said looking over at Winston. “I choose to believe you.”

  “That’s enough for me,” Winston said with an almost imperceptible smile.

  “So what do you want to know?” Tonild asked.

  “I would like you to tell me about yourself, your son, and your husband,” Winston said gently.

  Tonild wiped her eyes. “Well, I think you’d better sit down then.”

  She clapped her hands, and a servant stuck his head in through the tent opening. “Bring chairs!” she ordered. “And a flagon of wine and cups.”

  He bowed and disappeared, and Tonild held out her palms in a welcoming gesture. “Be my guests.”

  Noblemen’s wives always remember their manners in the end.

  Chapter 12

  Tonild’s father, a thane by the name of Wighelm, owned land in several different shires. Once the trusted man of King Ethelred the Unready, Wighelm had sworn fealty to Edmund Ironside after Ethelred’s death. Wighelm survived the Battle of Assandun and was loyal to Edmund for the six months his short reign lasted. When Edmund died and Cnut became king of all England, Wighelm had refused to swear allegiance to Cnut.

  Tonild had been very calm up to that point, but now she stopped and slumped down, her eyes blazing with anger.

  “And then what?” Winston asked, although it was clear from his voice that he had already guessed what she was going to say next.

  “Cnut decided to clear the most powerful of his enemies out of the way,” Tonild said, her voicing trembling with rage.

  “So when Cnut culled the ranks of Saxon noblemen who did not want to swear allegiance to him, he ordered your father killed, but your husband Osfrid survived?” Winston asked.

  Tonild raised her cup and drank. As her breasts rose and fell, I had a hard time keeping my eyes off them. “My husband and I were introduced while Osfrid was serving King Edmund, just like my father,” she continued. “We were married the very day Cnut and Edmund signed their agreement to divide the kingdom between them and rule as coregents. When Edmund died, my husband decided to give Cnut his full support—something my father refused to do. Osfrid was a law-abiding man, and a man of his word. He said it would be wrong not to respect the agreement that both the kings had made.”

  I looked up from her bosom, and my eyes met Winston’s. “So Oslaf wasn’t your son?” I asked.

  Tonild shook her head. She was breathing more calmly now. “Oslaf was the son of Osfrid’s first wife, Everild.”

  “Who?” Winston asked, sipping his drink for the first time and peering into the cup appreciatively before setting it down.

  “Her name was Everild,” Tonild said. “She died in childbirth with a second son for Osfrid.”

  “And that baby?” Winston asked.

  Tonild’s eyes glazed over. “Once Osfrid realized he might lose both the baby and his wife, he ordered that his son’s life should be saved, so the midwife sent for a doctor from the monastery that my husband supported financially.” Tonild paused and looked down at the floor.

  “Where is this son now, then?” Winston asked.

  I followed his example and tasted my own drink. The wine was sweet and good. I shook my head at Winston, to warn him that this was a sensitive topic.

  Winston saw me and turned to Tonild. “The doctor failed,” he surmised.

  She nodded. “They both died.” No one spoke for a moment.

  “And you don’t have any children of your own?” Winston asked, breaking the silence.

  “No.”

  I saw Father Egbert lean forward and rest a hand on the widow’s arm. She gave him a strange look and moved her arm away.

  A childless widow only slightly older than myself, who had probably inherited a large South Saxon estate. It was fertile between those hills down there. Suddenly it wasn’t only her breasts I was thinking about.

  “Who is Osfrid’s heir?” I asked.

  All three of them looked at me in astonishment, so I hurried to add that we were investigating a murder.

  “You’re right. That might be important,” Winston said, nodding. He looked to Tonild for an answer, but it was Father Egbert who answered. “Apart from the money Osfrid set aside in his will to establish a monastery following his son’s death, everything else goes to her ladyship.”

  I immediately corrected my posture, hoping to make a better impression on her, and suddenly regretted that I was still in my tattered clothes. At least they were freshly washed.

  Winston rolled his eyes at my efforts and then looked back to the widow.

  “So you’re a rich woman all of a sudden,” he said.

  Tonild’s eyes widened.

  “Are you suggesting that I had my husband murdered in order to become a wealthy widow?” she said. Winston shook his head and held up a hand to ward off any further objections.

  “Not at all,” he said. “I saw you stand up to the king yesterday, and I have no doubt you were a good wife to your husband. But you should think of yourself now,” Winston said. “I mean, the Danes’ law is the same as ours—a widow has full right of ownership to her land and property until she remarries. Yesterday you were your husband’s wife. Today you’re a much-coveted, childless widow of childbearing age. Perhaps you should consider approaching the king and asking him to help find you a new husband in order to avoid dealing with a long line of suitors trying for your hand.”

  “Approach the king?” Tonild scoffed. “Never. Besides, my husband is lying right there.” She stretched her quivering hand out toward his bier. Winston nodded.

 
; “Of course you’ll hold onto your property for the requisite year of mourning,” he said. “But bear in mind that men will pursue you even during that period. It would also be wise to bear in mind that, in three days’ time, Cnut will no longer be merely the conqueror of our country. He will have been crowned the country’s sole, anointed king, and he will govern in harmony with the Witenagemot. A young widow would certainly be wise to avoid open displays of hatred for the new king.”

  “Did you forget that you promised me evidence that Cnut had my husband assassinated?” Tonild scoffed.

  Winston shook his head and clarified. “I promised you that if I found evidence that he was behind the killing, I would present it to both the Witenagemot and the Thing,” he said. “But if you’re asking whether I think that’s likely, I have to admit I do not.”

  Tonild leapt up. “Then you lied to me!”

  “By no means,” Winston objected. “I said I would find evidence if I could. I have never hidden the fact that I doubt such evidence exists.”

  Tonild sat down again, her eyes still blazing. I smiled at her.

  “I do not plan to approach the king,” she said, spitting out each word.

  “That is your choice, my lady,” Winston said. He leaned back in his chair and asked, “Whom did your husband meet yesterday?”

  Tonild looked every bit as surprised as I felt at Winston’s abrupt change of topic. “Meet?” she repeated, looking over at the priest. Father Egbert cleared his throat.

  “The, uh, thane did not mention his plans,” the priest said.

  “He didn’t?” Winston said, raising his eyebrows. “He just walked out?”