Alvar the Kingmaker

by Annie Whitehead

  Oswald sneezed. “Mercian law, West Saxon law, they are but one thing.”

  “No, they are not. The folk here feel that most keenly, and it must not be forgotten.”

  “But this is tiresome. Must I call all these folk Mercian, then? Are we not all English?”

  Alvar grinned at the unintentional irony. “Some of us are. I think you will find, lord Bishop, that in this dale, and all along the Severn, they call themselves not Mercian, but Hwicce.”

  The bishop rolled his eyes, and went to his seat at table.

  Mildrith adjusted her veil, and smoothed her skirts. She served the head table and did not sit down, but whispered to the servants who kept up a relay to and from the kitchen. Alvar kept his hand-saex away from the table and used Mildrith’s cutlery instead, wiped his mouth on the napkin provided, and refrained from retrieving any dropped food. He smiled and gave Mildrith an encouraging wink.

  Wulfgar turned his lopsided face and scowled. He pointed at Alvar, mouthed, “You,” drew his finger across his throat, and barked out his yuk-yuk laugh.

  Alvar smiled back, but he was troubled by his earlier conversation and could not resist glancing at Oswald, even though the bishop’s face was a mask. Had he got away with it? Perhaps he had let nothing slip, after all. It was a strong reaction, but only because he had not, until now, been aware of the strength of his feelings. For that reason, it was possible that he was magnifying something which was, after all, of little consequence to Oswald, who continued to eat in silence, staring straight ahead.

  The Tibblestone marked the crossing of the roads which passed through the hundred and was an ancient and sacred meeting place. Alvar leaned against the stone and curled his toes against the wet that seeped through his boots from the previous day’s rain. He should have waited for Oswald and his clerks to rouse themselves, for few people had gathered yet for the court meeting, but had he watched them any longer he would have loaded the monks’ carts for them. A few stall-holders had arrived, eager to take advantage of the day’s gathering, and he watched as a cloth merchant draped his samples over willow hurdles spiked into the ground. Further down the road, a metal-worker displayed his pewter brooches and trinkets, no doubt hopeful of selling his inferior but affordable jewellery and accessories to the poorer folk of the neighbourhood. Soon the air would be filled with the smell of bread and hot broth when the food sellers arrived, but for now, Alvar widened his nostrils to breathe in the scent of the damp ground, turned his face to the sun as it started its climb into position, and guessed at the hour.

  “My lord, may I speak?”

  Alvar looked down and nodded at the thegn, Goscelin of Worcester.

  “It is about my brother, Leofwine, and his kin. You might know him? No? Well, he was one of the clerks at Worcester before he was put out to make way for the monks. I did what I could to help, but I have only a few hides of land myself so I could not do much in their time of need. They are finding it hard, my lord. Many had their own lands elsewhere, but my brother is not a rich man and…”

  Every muscle in Alvar’s back knotted into a ball, each one knocking against the next and sending a pull of tension down his arms and into his fists. “Tell him to go to my house at Upper Slaughter,” Alvar said. “Have him make himself known to my steward there and he will be given work and somewhere to sleep. When I am back there, I will make a gift of land, enough for his needs and for the needs of his wife and children.”

  Goscelin sagged onto his knees in the wet grass. “My lord, I thank you. My brother will weep with gladness at these wondrous tidings. You are a great and kind…”

  The bishop’s train arrived. Alvar silenced Goscelin with a wave of his hand and beckoned him to his feet. He pushed himself upright away from the stone and stood up straight. Striding up to the bishop he said, “Come, my lord, we have many tales of lawlessness to hear this day.”

  Oswald continued to oversee the unloading of the chests and furniture from the carts.

  “Hmm, I thought so. What form does the wrongdoing take?”

  “Theft. Of land and belongings, with no payment.”

  “Well that will never do.” Oswald put a hand out as if to steady one of the boxes. “Take care with that, Brother Oswi.” He turned to look at Alvar. “So, this is another lawless hundred after all.”

  “No, lord Bishop, the lawlessness of which I speak is not in this hundred. The wrong has been done by the bishop of Worcester, and the men whom you have wronged are the clerks of the minster who have been put out of their homes and thrown off their land. I warned you that this would not do.”

  Oswald turned round. His mouth twitched, his cheeks grew red, and a vertical line dug a channel into his forehead. He stared at the younger man and smiled, though his thin lips lifted only from a downward arc into a straight line and the furrow on his brow remained. “You are a hindrance, but you are right, Lord Alvar, when you say that there is much work to be done. For when I have done with these hundred-moots I must go to see the lord Brandon. There are many fens in his earldom where we need to build in the name of the wondrous St Benedict.” He tilted his chin so that his mouth came closer. His eyes gleamed like a hearth-fire given life by a taper. “We will build and we will strengthen the Church and we will strengthen Wessex. We will build and drive the heathen folk from the fenland. We will not stop, nor bow before our foes. We shall…”

  “Those lands do not belong to you, you mad old goat.”

  “Not belong? It might be that those fenlands were once in Mercia, but they are not now, nor will they ever be again. God has a greater need for them.” Oswald’s breath came in rapid bursts and his nostrils whistled as he expelled the air. He swallowed, and when his breathing slowed he said, “And so do I.”

  “To stop me having them?”

  Oswald sucked another breath into his wraith-like body. “You can believe what you wish, my lord. There is naught that you can do.”

  Alvar clenched his hand around his sword hilt and took a step forward.

  Oswald marched to the standing stone and called for a scribe to produce a document, from which he proceeded to read. “And we bid that every priest keenly upholds Christianity and wholly quells every heathenism; and forbids well-worshipping and witchcraft and spells and all that is done at or near trees…”

  Wulfgar came to stand by his lord. “The old weasel is bent on killing our ways and taking all our land. What is to be done?”

  Alvar, angry and fearful, could only thank God for the sliver of composure that kept him rooted to the spot rather than indulging his sudden lust for butchery. He shook his head, and spoke through a jaw that would not fully open. “I have been wrestling with the thought that forever in hell would be no time at all, if it meant that I could slit Oswald’s throat.” He took a calming breath. “Whilst I might have the king’s love, I do not think Edgar would forgive me for slaying his bishop. He wants the Church rebuilt and strengthened, so he needs Oswald; that is the burden we must bear. The Church will grow strong, and England with it, and the old ways such as yours will soon be no more.”

  Wulfgar grunted. “The giving of a name will not make folk like mine feel English.”

  “You know this, as do I. And so does Edgar, but Oswald does not care.”

  “So we are toothless as bairns?”

  Alvar slapped his hand on Wulfgar’s shoulder. “Oh, my teeth are sharp enough. We must bide our time, but all will be well.”

  He glared across the grassy sward at Oswald, who turned and met his gaze with a stare from eyes that flashed cold enough to burn.

  Chapter Eleven AD967

  Cheshire

  “You are early; here we are with the haw blossom barely out. We do not usually see you before full summer.” Káta put down her wool-combs and patted the stool next to her. “Here, sit, and leave your men in the hall. They are making a mickle din in there and I would not be able to hear you.” She picked up her spinning. Each time the spindle dropped to the floor, she gathered it up, wound the threa
d round it and dropped it to spin once more. “Not only have you come early, but Helmstan says he has had many letters from you over the last few months, each one asking after me.” She looked up and smiled.

  Alvar, his face to the sun, squinted as he said, “Lady, I would be here more often, but I need to watch that snake Oswald like a hawk watches a hare.” And he could not have come earlier, for fear of leading Oswald straight after him, so he had stayed at home and watched the watcher, plaguing Oswald by following him everywhere, much as the bishop had been doing to him this past year or more.

  “So which is he then, your bishop, a snake or a hare?”

  She kept her head tilted over her spinning, but looked up and smiled. A strand of hair broke loose from her veil and fell across her forehead. He wanted to reach forward and brush it to one side for her. He filled his nostrils with the waft of lavender before he sat back and said, “It is not kind to tease.” But being teased was a small price to pay for seeing her well, and free from harm. Helmstan’s letters had been full of assurances, but visual proof was better, being irrefutable and not subject to being outdated.

  “I have a hare,” said Siferth. He did not turn his head, but picked another piece from the log pile given to him by the woodsman. He added it to the top of his tower. “He lives in the field.”

  Káta leaned forward and spoke in a conspiratorial whisper. “I think it might not be the same one that he sees each time. But I will not shatter his notion.”

  She gathered up her spindle and repeated the spinning process. Her hands did not shake, even though she must know that he was staring. She had fetched the extra stool from the hall herself and weathered the looks of his men with a gracious smile. She still often looked down at the floor when she spoke, but sometimes she met his gaze now when they talked, and he was able to see her eyes as well as the downward sweep of her pale lashes.

  He spoke quietly. “You seem to be burdened with few worries these days.”

  She said, “When you have a child, your own life becomes meaningless. I go to mass every day, for his sake; I would not want any of my wrongdoing to come back on him. No-one ever speaks of what I once did.”

  “Oh my lady, thank God. That is… I meant to say…” He clamped his mouth shut. She was referring only to the well-worshipping. She did not know that he was aware of the hagtesse, and he had no wish to alarm her. “You have had no trouble with your priest?”

  She shook her head. “I barely stepped outside the law, and I do not think God minds. How can he, when he gave me the child?”

  He agreed. “I know many men who think naught of stretching their own beliefs into a new shape if they need to.” Certainly, Dunstan and Oswald were not above rewriting canon law when it suited them. “Maybe I should follow that lead sometimes. If I were not so unbending, I might find it less hard to get what I crave.”

  She laughed and brushed the loose tress away from her face. He wanted to take off her veil and place the hair back behind her ear.

  She said, “You forget that all sins will be answered for in the afterlife. If you wander too far from the path of righteousness there might be a reckoning.”

  “Lady, sometimes I think it would be worth it.”

  He stared at her until she blushed, shook her head and looked away.

  Her words came at a new speed. “Well, you speak of stretching, which is what I will need to do to my hall if we are to fit all these men in for the night. The new bower is not finished, as you can see.” She waved a hand towards the new guest-house, where two men were planing and filing the upright green-oak timbers of the new building. Inside the hall, the noise increased and as it fell away, Wulfgar barked out his laugh. She winced and said, “You have brought nearly a whole fyrd and one of them makes a din like a kicked mule. So, now that I have fed and watered them, will you tell me why you are here?”

  “When will Helmstan be back from his hunt?”

  “As I told you when you came, he will be back any day now. Do not play with me any more, my lord.” She leaned over, placed her spindle by her feet, and rested her hand on his. “Why are you here? It was not merely to ask after my welfare.”

  He cleared his throat, pretended an itch on his ear, and brought his hand up from under hers. “I need men to fight with me in Wales, while Earl Beorn is dealing with the Scots. Edgar wants the northern and western marches secure. There has been unrest there.”

  “And you would have my husband’s life laid down.”

  “Lady, you know that I would not ask if there were any other way. But the king looks to me as earl of Mercia to keep the borderlands free from…”

  She slapped her hands down on her knees. “Oh, stop there. If there were any other way? You love naught better than a fight, and you know that Helmstan will be the first to offer you his sword. You will even hope that the fighting lasts, so that you can get the full sixty days owed from the weapon-men. You are like an eager child.”

  He could only take the rebuke with good grace. He would not insult her by pretending that wars in Wales did not offer opportunities for fame, and for booty to be distributed to allies and kinsmen. It was an enjoyable and profitable pastime and he was, as she said, as excited as a small boy.

  On cue, Siferth walked over to Alvar. “Lift me up and spin me,” he said.

  “I thought you would have forgotten that,” Alvar said, but he scooped the boy up by his legs and whirled round, while Siferth flung his arms out and shrieked and whooped.

  Káta spoke through her own laughter. “Put him down before he is sick.”

  After a few more turns, Alvar set the boy down and Siferth giggled and tottered like a drunk towards the builders, who laughed, turned him round and pushed him back towards his mother.

  Alvar sat back down. “You do not mind? I thought you might be over-chary with him.”

  “Even if I were, it looks as though you have done it before, while I was not looking.” She put her hands up, palms towards him. “No, keep your ‘sorry’ for another day.” Leaning over, she picked up a bowl from under the stool. “I do not know if he will want to eat this now though.”

  She stirred the mush of boiled rosehip with her finger. “Siferth, will you eat this before the wasps settle in it?”

  She licked the puree off her finger, and Alvar ran his finger round the neck of his tunic. He coughed. “You do not fret over him much, then?”

  She rested her hands in her lap. “I nearly died bearing him. God willed that we would both live; He is not going to take him away from me in the middle of a silly game.”

  Alvar nodded. He said, “I understand. Only when you have fought hard for something do you earn the right to hold it dear. That is why I…” That was why he could only sit and talk with her instead of lying in her bed. He shook his head.

  “What is it?”

  He coughed out a laugh. “I only meant that I should not be thinking of soft pillows on the eve of a fight. I must earn my rest first.”

  She nodded her understanding, but her quizzical frown betrayed that nod as a polite pretence.

  He shuffled his stool back so that he could lean against the cook-house wall, stretched his legs out, and disturbed a foraging chicken. “And what about me, my lady; will I be taken from my child’s game, as you call it?”

  She gave him a long, slow smile and he shuffled in his seat, at once warmed and yet too hot.

  “You think to tease me. Will you die in the fight, you ask? Well, who would take you; I think that both the Devil and Christ would claim you as one of their own.”

  “Then truly I cannot be harmed by any Welshman’s spear.”

  “Oh, you may laugh now, and you may laugh loudly, but you will not laugh again if you bring Helmstan or yourself home wounded.”

  “Lady, it was only a meal, not a big gathering. The woad-dyed one was pretty enough; you could have worn it.”

  Káta, wearing only her linen shift, danced with the red and yellow shot-silk gown and ignored Gytha’s attempts to catch her
and brush her hair. “But this one was brighter, do you not think? The Godweb cloth was not cheap, and the workings on it are pretty.”

  Gytha sniffed. “I think you would have looked good in either. Now, are you going to let me comb your hair?”

  Yes, I will sit. Aah! No need to wrench my head from my shoulders.”

  “Sorry. But if you had not worn the head-cloth I would not have needed to use so many hair-needles. I do not know why you worried so much about tonight. Leofsige told me that you were clucking in the kitchen while he was cooking. You do not usually do that.”

  Káta sat up straight as Gytha worked the carved-antler comb through to the ends of her hair. “Lord Alvar is a great and wealthy lord and should have the best food. To have an earl eating in our hall brings my husband a higher standing, and I was acting in his stead. I did not wish to shame him.”

  Gytha puffed out a snort of air.

  “I gave out the drinks myself and did not spill a drop, like thus.” Káta picked up the water jug, lifted it high and splashed the liquid into the cup. “Not one drop.”

  “And you are proud of yourself? I do that every day. Now sit still.”

  Káta sat back and hugged herself. “I do not feel so worthless now that I know I can do the right things in front of such a lord,” she said.

  Gytha tugged on a tangle. “Maybe you will go to the king’s house now, sometimes?”

  Káta sat up straight. “There is no need. Besides, there are too many other high-born ladies there.”

  “So? You have shown what you can do. You have the best clothes…”

  “No, I like it better here; when it is only… I mean that it is not so hard. I can make believe that everything belongs to me when I am here.”

  Gytha sniffed, pulled the comb through the separated hair and said, “That will do.” She placed the comb on the table and held a taper to the fire. When it caught the flame, she held it up to light the wicks in the wall cressets and said, “I do not know what you mean, Lady. All this does belong to you.” She threw the taper into the fire.