Alvar the Kingmaker

by Annie Whitehead

  “I will go to mass with no guilt in my heart. I brought this woman here for the sake of Hild. I do what I need to do for my folk; all the gods that ever were should know this.” Káta took a deep breath. “On my soul be it, then.” She stepped back into Hild’s house.

  The old woman was standing with her arms folded and her chin up, but with her gaze turned towards the sick woman, who no longer squirmed, but lay still, moaning weakly.

  Káta said, “Do what you must.”

  Káta waited for the priest outside his church. She stood under the ancient yew that must have been a sapling before the Christians ever built their church on the holy land, and she thought wearily about the day’s events. After all her travails, Hild had been delivered of a dead baby, and soon there would be a fresh mound of earth in the churchyard close by the walls of the church. The old woman had said her spells, and worked to stave off the infection which threatened to send the mother the same way as the child. The hagtesse had told the women that she could do no more; that the Wyrd sisters, or the Norns as Káta’s mother would have known them, would weave the fate as they willed.

  The sinking sun cast long shadows across the churchyard. One of them moved; the priest was behind her. Unable to meet his gaze, she said, “Hild has borne a dead bairn.” She sighed, but it became a shudder as she struggled to keep the sob from her throat. “She might soon follow the child into the next world. Please do what you can for her and her child.” She looked up at him, waiting for his response.

  The priest expressed no surprise. Death, particularly that of a newborn or its mother, was no rarity, but nevertheless he frowned. She had expected him to. The babe had not drawn a single breath, and thus had died without being baptised. Priest Wulfsige was a good man, always driven by vocation to provide succour to his parishioners. But he was not a brave man. She was confident that he would agree to bury the infant in the small reserved area under the eaves of the church, but with every such request Wulfsige grew more reluctant, aware that he was breaking the law. She reached out and pressed her hand on his arm. She could feel him shaking. “Hild might not live. It would comfort her greatly if she could go to God with the knowledge that her bairn lies in the eaves-drip.”

  Priest Wulfsige chewed his lip, plainly struggling to reconcile his duty with his conscience. “Do you really believe it?”

  It did not matter what she believed. It was the way things had always been done. In the end, despite their prayers and best efforts, God had chosen to take the babe. None of them wanted to think of that small soul in purgatory, so why not give it the chance to be washed with drops of water from the church roof? It might just serve as enough of a baptism to send the child to God. She said, “What harm can it do?”

  Wulfsige gave a little whimper of a laugh. “You have not met the bishop of Lichfield, my lady. The laws are clear…”

  She released his arm. “Please,” she said, “Hild needs you.” She left him to gather what he needed, confident that he would find the courage to minister where it was most needed. She stepped from the churchyard out onto the lane that would take her back to Ashleigh. Any hand-wringing over the day’s events would have to wait; the hagtesse would be safer if she had an escort back to her home in the forest, Hild’s children would need food, and it was Káta’s duty to oversee the arrangements.

  Gloucestershire

  “I never thought so see you attending so many hundred-moots, my lord. Not when you have the right to send others in your stead.”

  Alvar glanced at Thegn Wulfgar’s twisted profile, and stared out ahead. “I must watch the bishop, or let him be a wolf in the fold. The man sticks to me closer than my own shadow.” Not for the first time, he recalled Edgar’s words. ‘Dunstan is my confessor… I cannot call off his hound.’

  “It must be goading to you, my lord.”

  Alvar grunted. “And you, too, I should have thought.” Wulfgar’s cheerfulness was so ingrained that he seemed able to forget that Oswald was a thorn in his own side, too. Wulfgar’s folk were descended from an ancient tribe, older than the Mercians, and possessed of the independent sense of identity so hated by the bishop.

  The road to the folk-moot gathering at Bledisloe Tump crossed a high ridge, and cut between forest on one side, and open land which sloped to the river below. Wulfgar looked down the hill. “Ah, well, we Hwicce from the dale look to our great lord to keep our foes off our backs. And we will love you even more if you give us good food and too much ale, much as your father did…”

  Alvar laughed. “Love me more, eh? Is that a kindness or a threat? Never fear; I shall see to it that my hall-boards always groan with food. You will never be short of fodder.” He looked over his shoulder. “The only men at your back today are your fellow thegns and my stewards.” He pointed to the scribe. “And one holy man will not harm you. As for keeping the bishop away, he should not gift any land without my leave, but…” The truth was that in his new ship-soke of three hundred hides of land, Oswald enjoyed private and total jurisdiction in an enclave of authority within the very heart of the earl’s lands. Alvar’s fingers tightened around the slack of the reins and he squeezed the leather.

  Wulfgar said, “I hear that he is still busily giving land to his kith and kin. The wonder is, that being such an ill-mannered man, he has so many friends. I, for one, have not forgotten that he once called me a ‘twisel-tooth’.” He turned and grinned at Alvar, showing his uneven teeth. “Although my wife is more upset about my broken nose.”

  Alvar smiled. “Hmm. That might be because you broke it falling drunk from the mead-bench.” He lifted his leg away from the saddle to scratch his inner thigh. “And there will be none of that whilst we are with Oswald. Settle yourself for a boring few days.”

  “You admit that it will be dull, so I ask again; why do you come? Why not do as the other great lords do?”

  “I am happy to let my thegns speak on my behalf in other hundreds, but I would have Oswald go no further than my eyes can see.” Last time he had turned his back, Oswald had decided to take every third penny paid in tax, which traditionally had gone to the lord of the area and was known as the earl’s penny. “I will not let him have any more from me.” He waved away an irritating fly. “I cannot be everywhere,” he grinned at Wulfgar, “Because my lands are so vast. Yes, you do right to bow to me,” he said in response to Wulfgar’s mock gesture of respect, “But whenever the hundred-moots are in the bishopric of Worcester I will be there, watching him.” He clenched his jaw. The meetings were held every four weeks, and it left him little time to do anything else. He cursed the bishop under his breath.

  His profanity amused Wulfgar, who broke into his notorious laugh. It began as a gurgle that caught in his throat and sounded like accelerated hiccups.

  Alvar grinned and glanced skyward. “The weather looks threatening. We should get off this ridge, for I could do without a wetting. Let us see if we can outride the rain as well as the bishop.”

  But at the Tump, Oswald and his group of scribes were already sitting on the wooden platform at the top of the mound, with every piece of their luggage unpacked around them. They made a play of shuffling along the bench to make space for the new arrivals. Alvar decided not to snap at the bait but waited while they fidgeted and sorted the documents spread over the table top.

  There was no room left for the king’s reeve when he arrived, and the delegation from the cathedral stared ahead as if to defy an order to move again. They sat in a line, hands clasped over the paunches that padded out their habits.

  Alvar laughed. “Lord Bishop, do the brothers forgo as much as they should? It strikes me that if they went a little hungrier we would have room for Reeve Sihtric to sit alongside us.”

  Oswald looked down at his own slender frame, then stared at Alvar. He flicked his hand and the brothers all shuffled along again.

  The king’s reeve sat down and said, “Shall we get to business?”

  Quills in one hand, pen knives in the other, the scribes were equip
ped to commence, but seemed in no hurry. Alvar sat forward, head in hands, and tapped his fingers against his cheeks. Why did they not have their wax tablets and styli, with which they could write quickly, to copy out at a later time? To keep him waiting, and make him fidget, whilst they wasted expensive vellum and precious time. Well, he could play that game too. He grinned and stretched out his legs, picked at a snagging fingernail, and whistled. The monks conferred, shrugged, and looked at Oswald. The bishop’s pale eyes narrowed before he gave a small nod.

  Alvar nudged Wulfgar. “At last we begin.”

  First to be called was a plaintiff called Thurferth, who accused his neighbour, Leofstan, of stealing two sheep from his flock.

  Alvar addressed the local official, the hundred-man. “Is Leofstan here to answer?”

  “He is, my lord,” the hundred-man said.

  Thurferth swore his oath that he made the accusation with honesty and in good faith, and Leofstan was called forward to answer the charge against him.

  He stood in front of the platform, his back to the gathering, and spoke the traditional oath with a raised voice so that those behind him, as well as above, could hear. “By the Lord, I am guiltless both in deed and thought of the wrongdoing which Thurferth says I have done.”

  Alvar said, “Who will speak for this man?” The light dimmed and he glanced up at the sky, where dirty clouds were rushing to the muster.

  The hundred-man stepped forward and gave the names of those who would bear witness for the defendant, and one by one they were called upon to give their oath.

  “By the Lord, the oath is true which Leofstan swore.”

  The case was dismissed. The hundred-man gave the name of another defendant, one Wynsige, who had failed to appear to answer a charge of theft. “This is not the first time that he has been called to answer.”

  Alvar decreed that compensation should be paid to the plaintiff and ordered the payment of a fine, half of which would go to the hundred and half to the king. “Is he a thegn, this Wynsige? Yes? Then sixty shillings will go the king and sixty shillings will go the hundred, and if after thirty days the shillings have not been paid, then Wynsige will become outlaw and be named wolf’s head.”

  The next case involved a man who had been caught stealing from his neighbour’s house. Wulfnoth accused Ealdstan, and brought forward witnesses who swore their oaths.

  “In the name of almighty God, so I stand here by Wulfnoth in true witness, unbidden and unbought, as I saw with my eyes and heard with my ears that which I say now with him.”

  Alvar spoke to the bishop, but projected his voice so that all might hear his judgement. “Lord Bishop, house-breaking is a wrong which cannot be redressed by payment of silver. I therefore give him over to you, that he may go to ordeal.”

  Oswald echoed the theatrical tones. “The man Ealdstan will go to the church of St Mary’s, where he will fast for three days, after which he will yield to ordeal by hot water.” To Alvar he said, “And there is no doubt in my mind that his hand will blister and not heal.”

  There remained the collection of various rents, fines, and taxes, and the hundred-man again came forward to make payments to the lord, the bishop, and the king’s reeve. The money was counted and recorded by the scribes, who made piles of the pennies and scratched the numbers onto their documents. A fat blob of rain landed on the platform table. The scribes held their pens in mid-mark and looked up. Two more drops smudged onto the vellum, diluting the charcoal ink, and the late afternoon gave way to an early evening as the sky darkened and the summer rain fired down on the gathering. Villagers, petitioners and witnesses, scattered in moments, and left the dignitaries to protect their paraphernalia from the rain as best they could.

  Wulfgar, already mounted, wheeled his horse around and shouted, “My lord, come and keep dry at my house.”

  Alvar waved a hand in gratitude and said to Oswald, “We go to Munford; you know it?”

  Thunder rumbled like a slow bellyache and Alvar leaped onto his own horse, and raced the others down the hillside to Wulfgar’s manor in the valley.

  The men ran through the hall door, stopped, looked at each other, and laughed. The need to rush was over and they flicked their sleeves and shook their feet. Wulfgar’s young wife, Mildrith, waved from the far end of the hall and continued with her directions to the servants to pull the trestle tables into the centre of the room. Alvar raised his hand to wave back and wiped water drips from his nose. The fire cast a welcoming glow, and he unpinned his cloak, rubbed his hair with it, threw it on a nearby bench, and made his way to the hearth. He tried to sit beside the fire but his breeches were stuck to his thighs. He was still peeling them from his skin when the bishop and his entourage arrived, in a scuttle that was neither a run nor a dignified walk.

  Oswald joined Alvar by the hearth and they both sat down. Alvar shuffled his chair sideways and stuck his legs out at an angle to ensure that the bishop had plenty of room. “I am not like a monk. I do not mind who sits beside me.”

  Oswald shook water from his hand. “Believe me, I have never thought of you as being like a monk. No, I think of you more as a silly youth who likes to play children’s games.”

  “Really? Is that not like the fox calling the wolf cunning?”

  A serving-boy approached. “My lords, my lady Mildrith begs forgiveness that there is little more than broth, bread, and cheese this evening. There is wine, though, if the lord and bishop would like it.”

  Oswald scowled and opened his mouth, but Alvar laid a hand on the boy’s arm. “Tell Lady Mildrith that I will eat heartily this night, and that I will gladly slake my thirst with her ale, for though she has been lady here for only a three-month, I know it to be well brewed here.”

  Oswald sniffed and moved closer to the fire. “I will have wine,” he said to the boy. He rubbed his hands together and held his palms to the heat. “We will go to the Tibblestone in the morning, to be there before the lark rises. I hope that the men of that hundred are not so lawless as those we dealt with today.”

  Alvar’s men were still throwing off their belts to loosen their wet tunics. They shouted to each other as they dried off. Servants were hurrying round the hall and conferring with their superiors who, in turn, took instruction from Mildrith and Wulfgar.

  Alvar shook his head. “Forgive me, Bishop, but in this din I think I misheard you.”

  Oswald said, “No, you did not. I said lawless.”

  Alvar raised an eyebrow. “This hundred is mostly a law-abiding one. Yes, there was theft and house-breaking, but no house-burning or murder, and never once have tolls or tithes not been paid.”

  “That may be so, but they live unchristian lives. I will have words with the priests, for they should speak more of Christianity and do more to quell heathenism.”

  “They do what they can and they look to their flock. What more would you ask of them?”

  Oswald suppressed a sneeze. “They must be harsh, brook no wrongdoing. I heard of a Cheshire thegn’s wife who has the mark of the Devil on her hand. It is said that she gave shelter to a pagan witch, who cursed and killed a newborn. And yet the priest did naught. At Lichfield they are working for me, to find the proof and give me the names. In London this year a witch was thrown from the bridge. This is the way to put a stop to these things.”

  The thundering hooves from moments before now echoed in Alvar’s chest. He put his hand over his heart. His sister-in-law did that when she watched her little ones climbing trees that were too high, or riding horses that were too big for them. He was used to seeing to the needs of those who depended on his protection, but this was a new sensation; he could only guess that it was fear.

  He stared at the bishop through narrowed eyes, took a deep breath, and lifted one foot to rest on the other knee. “I, too, have heard of this woman. It is my understanding that the mark on her hand came about during a mishap with a saw. A dear friend once told me of the Bridestones on Cloud Hill in Cheshire, where folk say a Viking and his Saxon br
ide were hounded and killed. Have we not gone beyond such deeds, where folk are damned ere we hear the truth?” Alvar paused to scratch his nose, as casual an act as he could think of. The strength of his reaction had surprised him. Unfortunately, the slight lift of Oswald’s mouth into what passed for a smile indicated that it had provided some useful intelligence to the Dane, too. And only when Alvar saw the bishop smile had he understood, finally, exactly what it was that he had revealed.

  He tried to steer the conversation not to a new path, but further down the road a little. “At least the folk here will follow the law of the moots. Be thankful for that, for most of the men who live here do not even deem it to be a real shire.”

  Oswald raised his eyebrows. “What are you saying to me? How can they not, when all England is shired and always has been?”

  “Not in Mercia. The shires here were new even in my father’s day. The folk here long for the old days and yearn for their old-rights.”

  The bishop sniffed again. “I am bound to be sick with cold.” He kicked the hearth-slave. “Stir yourself, thrall, and get this fire burning hotter.” He turned back to Alvar. “You speak of old heathen ways, I think. The king will not like this, you know. He wishes to have one strong kingdom. There are no worries like this in East Anglia. There, the folk are lawful and Christian.”

  “Pig shit. Brandon shows you his white teeth so much that you are now blinded by him.”

  “My lord Alvar, you must not speak to me in this way. I am a man of the Church.”

  “I will keep it in mind, if you do.” He looked Oswald in the eye and held his gaze until the bishop turned away to stare at the flames. “East Anglia was always more tightly bound to Wessex; Edgar knows this, and he also knew that he had to let the Danes in the east keep their own laws. Edgar knows a little, too, about Mercian law.”