“Halfdan will do.” I was in no mood to get into my family’s downfall.
“Fine,” he said, his voice gentle. “I’m Botwolf, son of Cenwolf.”
I’d heard of him. He had been the last of the Saxons to lay down his sword at the Battle of Assandun, where he’d wielded it well against the Danes who had been trying to drive him from the site where his father had fallen.
“You wish to speak to the sons of Beorthold,” Botwolf said. “They are awaiting you.”
We followed his broad frame into the hall. There were no women or servants in there today. Three benches had been positioned on the hearth in front of the fire, delineating a square space on the floor. In the middle of it stood Ulfrid and Torold, legs planted wide apart. The benches were lined with a dozen or so seated noblemen. Sven Tostesøn, whom we hadn’t seen since our little garden interrogation, was among them. He was watching me with hate-filled eyes.
I surveyed the others, but Sven was the only Dane. The rest were all Saxon. I looked over at Ulfrid and Torold, whom I’d never studied carefully before. Though I had seen them in the church at Osfrid’s funeral, it had been dark. And when I’d followed them the day before, I’d only seen them from behind except for the brief instant when they stepped out the door after their meeting with Sven, and—as I already pointed out—I was quite busy fighting for my life at that moment.
Gray hair and deep wrinkles indicated that Ulfrid was the older of the two. He wore a sword, and expensive but not ostentatious clothing. He was as tall as me, but had narrower shoulders.
His brother was stronger without being stocky. He had a broad chest and muscular arms, and his clothes were slightly flashier than Ulfrid’s. Torold also wore a sword, and I noticed that both men’s weapons had long, slender blades that would pierce a man without difficulty.
We were not introduced to the other noblemen, who were all regarding us coolly.
One of them, a corpulent old man with greasy hair and angry-looking lips turned up in a scornful sneer, said, “Well if it isn’t the Danish king’s hounds.”
A flush of rage flared up my neck, but Winston was faster than me.
“Better the hunter than the hunted,” he said. “Because, just like King Cnut’s other hounds, once we’ve picked up the scent, we are tenacious to the end.”
Winston’s eyes challenged the noblemen, but no one spoke. All eyes were now on the two brothers, who stared at us placidly, their legs wide and their thumbs hooked under their sword belts.
“You’re accusing us of murder,” Ulfrid said, his voice deep and clear. A man who was sure of himself.
“No,” Winston replied, his voice no less firm.
“You’re not?” Torold asked, inhaling in surprise.
“I’m accusing one of you of murder,” Winston clarified.
The men on the benches started muttering angrily, but they fell quiet as Ulfrid took a step forward.
“That accusation will cost you your life,” Ulfrid barked.
“King Cnut is waiting for us to report back to him this evening,” Winston said, with a degree of equanimity I did not entirely share. “If we don’t show up, he’ll turn this town upside down looking for us. You plotters and schemers in here might be able to cover for each other, if you’re the kinds of men who approve of dishonorable killings. But what about your guards outside? Will they forget that we came in? I’m sure you can silence your women, too, but your servants? Can you really be sure that not a single one of them will admit that they were forced to leave the hall so that you could receive us?”
“Are you calling us plotters and schemers?” Botwolf’s voice was less placid than before.
Winston nodded. “You were all complicit in Osfrid’s death in the sense that your plot led to his death when he wanted out of it. If you had simply let him out of it, perhaps you could have simply heard about his murder without having any part in it.”
“You talk big,” Torold said, taking a step forward, “but have no evidence of murder or conspiracy.”
“Don’t I?” Winston said, his words hanging in the silence that followed.
Finally Botwolf cleared his throat. “Men discuss the things they wish would change. That does not make them conspirators.”
“Unless they take up arms against the master they’ve pledged to serve,” Winston said slowly. “Though of course that hasn’t happened. Yet.”
“The Witenagemot and the Thing meet tomorrow,” Botwolf said, still speaking for everyone. “Big decisions will be made and it is both right and reasonable for men to discuss these matters thoroughly amongst themselves.”
“Right and reasonable, yes,” Winston said, nodding at him in approval.
Winston seemed to appreciate Botwolf’s stance, and I had to admit that I, too, admired the Saxon nobleman for so dexterously explaining away the plot as the noblemen’s recognized right to discuss the affairs of the country among themselves.
“I am not here to side with you or the king,” Winston continued, “but—”
He was interrupted by a scornful snort from Torold.
“You wouldn’t walk away from it, though,” Torold growled. “There are bigger men than either you or us, who—”
“Silence!” Botwolf’s voice slammed down like a sword. His face was suddenly flushed with anger.
Torold stopped talking. His face, too, had gone scarlet with fury.
“ … but to expose a murderer,” Winston continued impassively. “I’ll be the first to admit that I had my doubts, right up until I walked in here. But now I’m sure.” He narrowed his eyes at Ulfrid and Torold. “Here we’ve seen anger and threats and a guilty man trying to demonstrate his innocence.” Winston turned to me. “Come on. The king is expecting us.”
I saw Ulfrid’s hand drop to his sword hilt, and I tensed my muscles, prepared to do battle then and there.
“Wait!” Botwolf shouted. Winston gave him a look of encouragement. Botwolf continued: “You have accused two Saxon noblemen of murder. It is your right as well as your obligation to present the evidence to the king, but since you are a fellow Saxon, I ask that you tell us why you are so sure of your conclusion.”
I hadn’t taken my eyes off Ulfrid. Now I noticed Torold moving to the left. They were going to attack me from two sides. I kept my eyes on Ulfrid and said, “So that we can be killed as soon as my partner finishes speaking.”
“I give you my word that you can leave here,” Botwolf said, stepping between me and the two brothers. “If you can prove that one of us here is guilty of murder, it is up to that man to clear his own name before the king.” Botwolf looked Winston in the eye. “You said it is the murderer you are looking for, is that correct?”
“Yes,” Winston said, nodding. “None of the rest of it matters to me.” He looked around at the assembled men. “Do you not understand that is why I’m here? If I had any desire to expose the plot, I would have gone straight to the king. But I have my reasons for not caring about the plots and ploys of the nobility.”
“And those are?” Botwolf asked, sounding genuinely interested.
“I want peace in this land,” Winston said. “Just as Cnut does—”
“As Cnut says he does,” Torold interrupted.
“As I choose to believe he does,” Winston said without raising his voice. “I believe he is honorable. Think about it! Eighty-three thousand pounds of silver are safely in his hands right now. In addition to that he is poised to rule over a rich country, which is his, justly conquered; a country that has bled silver for many years and yet still has not been bled dry. The king knows that peace will make him richer than any other prince in the world. War and conflict, however, will cause this land to continue bleeding, which will cost him dearly. Yes, I believe the king when he says he wants harmony and peace rather than conflict.”
The gathered noblemen had listened in silence. Several of them nodded to each other.
“And if peace does prevail,” Winston continued, “Saxons, Angles, Jutes, Danes, and Vikings will all t
hrive. This land and its many peoples have suffered decades of bloodshed. My wish is the same as the king’s: peace and harmony. That is why the murderer is my only objective here. The rest of it doesn’t matter to me.”
Botwolf looked from Ulfrid and Torold to the men seated on the benches. “And you can do that? Provide a reason for the murder that doesn’t involve blaming these noblemen for plotting against a harmonious agreement?”
“And I will do so even more happily with the knowledge that the plot faded away, like a wave into the sand,” Winston said.
Now they were all staring at him.
“I’m right, aren’t I?” Winston said, smiling at Botwolf. “Torold did not reveal any great secret when he claimed that there are more powerful men than us involved. I don’t even want to guess at who they might be, but I’m sure that they are close to Cnut. They do not act out openly against the king, because they are confident of victory. Tomorrow all the noblemen in the land will meet, and by then it will be too late. The blow should have been struck while everything was still uncertain. Stepping forward openly to oppose Cnut tomorrow is a task for lunatics. And these ‘more powerful men’ Torold spoke of know that. Therefore my message, which you will have to accept, is that the power is and will remain in Cnut’s hands.”
I saw in their eyes that the men knew he was right. And I saw something else: fear. Fear that the revelation of the murderer would bring everything into the light of day. They knew how Cnut thirsted for revenge against those who betrayed or opposed him, and they did not possess Winston’s insights into why it was not in the king’s own interest for their plot to be revealed.
“That is why,” Winston continued, “the murderer is my goal. And there he stands.”
Everyone’s eyes fell on the two brothers, who stared resolutely back at Winston.
“Osfrid told his guardsman that he was going to speak to a bastard—yes, that’s how highly he esteemed you,” Winston said, his eyes resting coolly on the two men, “because he’d changed his mind. The person who told me that thought it had to do with a business transaction, but they were mistaken. Osfrid wanted out of the plot.”
I could tell from Botwolf’s eyes that Winston was right.
“Maybe you all thought the killer would be too honorable to expose you, but you sent the wrong man to ensure Osfrid’s silence. You sent a man who had reason to hate Osfrid, a man whose sister Osfrid had allowed to die. Because Osfrid valued an heir more highly than his own wife.” Winston’s eyes fell on Ulfrid, who was baring his teeth in a wolflike manner. “Ulfrid, you told me yourself that it was lucky for Osfrid that it was a son who had cost your sister her life. For you are a nobleman yourself, and you know that heirs are a nobleman’s greatest joy.
“But your sister died in vain,” Winston continued. “Osfrid’s new wife, Tonild, didn’t give him any sons and he gradually became an old man. Tonild said that he had considered the possibility that he might die without a son. A possibility you also considered likely.
“Which would mean that your sister Everild was sacrificed for no reason. Her son was dead, true, but she could have been saved and nothing would have turned out any different for Osfrid. He would have been without a son, but married. Married to your sister Everild, who would still be alive.
“I don’t know whether you actually discussed it in such explicit terms,” Winston continued, “but I’m quite sure that you’re the ones Osfrid met with. You used Osfrid’s withdrawal from the plot as an excuse to avenge the death of your sister.”
Winston paused. There wasn’t a sound in the hall. Not even the brothers’ heavy breathing was audible.
“You guaranteed our lives,” Winston said, turning to look at Botwolf.
“I gave you my word,” Botwolf confirmed. “You may leave freely.”
We had made it most of the way to the door when Botwolf’s voice stopped us: “And what will you tell the king?”
“That Osfrid was killed as an act of revenge for a wife allowed to bleed to death in her childbed,” Winston said.
“Killed by whom?” Botwolf asked.
“Only you know that,” Winston said, his lip curling upward. “You were the ones who sent one of these two to speak to Osfrid.”
Chapter 35
The king had listened to Winston and asked a few questions, and when the illuminator was done with his account, Cnut turned and nodded to Godskalk. The leader of his housecarls, who had been listening, promptly turned on his heels and disappeared out the door of the Hall. Though the king had not uttered a word, his order had been clear: fetch Ulfrid and Torold.
A silence fell over the room. In addition to Winston and myself were the usual men we were accustomed to seeing around the king: Wulfstan, Thorkell, and Godwin.
Wulfstan’s head was bowed as though in prayer. There was no way to know whether his prayers were for the deceased or for his murderer. Godwin’s forehead was damp beneath his curly hair. I, too, was sweating in the Hall’s stifling heat. Thorkell was pulling his dragon hilt up in its sheath and letting it slide back down.
We waited.
Just as we had waited to see the king. When we had arrived at the Hall in midafternoon, we had been informed that Cnut was busy, so we would have to be patient.
I wasn’t convinced that Botwolf’s guarantee that we wouldn’t be killed would still apply once we were outside the walls of the lodging house. I also had my doubts that everyone who had heard him make that promise felt bound by it. So I had insisted that we should wait in the public square in front of the Hall.
We sat down in the grass by the front wall of the Hall. I drew my sword and laid it over my knees, which caused the guard by the front door of the Hall to look askance at me. With housecarls all around us, my sword at the ready, and a steady stream of noblemen coming and going, I felt relatively safe.
I watched the other men waiting outside. Some were let into the Hall immediately, while others waited patiently. A few were pacing back and forth restlessly in the square. I didn’t recognize any of them from the Saxon lodging house.
Baldwin was standing across the square in front of his treasury building with a wooden stave in his hand. Heavily laden carts groaned their way toward him, the oxen snorting as they came to a stop. Guards had formed two lines to create a protected path from the cart to the front door of the building, and sweating men carried heavy sacks, barrels bound with iron bands, and silver bullion down this walkway past Cnut’s master of accounts, who tallied the payments and carved a new notch in his staff at regular intervals.
Winston sat next to me, his eyes half closed. I, too, became drowsy in the warm afternoon sun, and straightened up a few times to counteract my desire to take a nap.
“So, you looked beyond the details to see the big picture,” I said, turning to him.
He smiled approvingly at me. “You have a good memory. Yes, I guessed at a few of them and took the risk of presenting my hunches as facts.”
“I should have seen it, too,” I said. I’d been wrestling with this.
“You were blinded by a detail that clouded your view,” Winston pointed out. He continued when he saw the puzzled look on my face: “The attack on you. Naturally you were wondering why someone wanted you killed. And that’s how it is: If one detail overshadows the others, it becomes hard to see the big picture.”
He was right.
“I still don’t get it,” I admitted.
“No,” Winston shook his head soberly. “And now that both assailants have been killed, we’ll never get it cleared up. I’m sure those two bastards”—I smiled despite myself—“will keep quiet. Who knows? Maybe they were trying to scare us off? Perhaps Ulfrid and Torold hired Toste to keep tabs on you and supply them with information about what we were up to, but maybe Toste was simply acting on his own once he recognized you as the man who’d mocked him in that hamlet? Then his companion, the Viking who attacked you while you were eavesdropping on the brothers and Sven, simply wanted to avenge Toste’s death?
/> “We’ll have to live with not knowing the truth,” Winston said.
There was a loud noise, like that of an oak branch breaking in a strong gust of wind. We looked across the square at the treasury. A cart had collapsed in front of it. The load of silver had been too heavy for the axle. Greedy men rushed toward it, but the guards were faster and they formed a human wall around the cart.
“You know a good deal about the business dealings of kings and noblemen. Not to mention plots,” I said circumspectly.
“As I told you earlier, I’ve spent a lot of time in monasteries and abbeys,” Winston said, leaning forward and massaging the small of his back. “Places like that are cesspools of gossip, and nothing preoccupies their residents as much as world events. Abbots, priors, and other church leaders are all noblemen’s sons, and they keep close tabs on what’s transpiring outside their walls. You’d have to be deaf, blind, and exceedingly dimwitted not to pick up on it. They also drop plenty of hints on what the various noblemen are up to.”
One thing had occurred to me.
“Do you think Torold was telling the truth when he claimed that there are more powerful men involved?” I asked.
“Oh yes,” Winston replied, smiling wryly. “At least, he and Botwolf believe that to be the case. It’s possible that a thane or ealdorman showed some interest in the plot or even that someone like that genuinely wanted to participate. After all, it’s not in their best interest to have too strong a king in this country.”
“Who do you think it was?” I asked, glancing instinctively over at the guards by the door.
“Who the hell knows?” Winston said. “The way Botwolf got all worked up makes me think it’s someone very close to the king.”
“Godwin?” I whispered.
“Hardly,” Winston shook his head. “Godwin sees Cnut as the ladder he needs to climb.”
I leaned over close to Winston’s ear and whispered, “Thorkell?”
“He’s more likely. As I said before, the good jarl remembers a time when he was the most powerful Viking in England. And he has switched sides before, as easily as you change shirts. Not that that happens very often,” Winston grinned and pinched his nose.
The King's Hounds (The King's Hounds series Book 1) Page 26
