Alvar the Kingmaker

by Annie Whitehead

  But Alvar stood back, folded his arms, and stared at him, saying nothing. In the silence that followed, Dunstan withdrew his proffered hand and looked across at Oswald, who shook his head and shrugged.

  Still Alvar remained silent and they began to fidget; Dunstan fiddling with his sleeve-ends and Oswald with his fingernails.

  Alvar spoke at last. “Now what?”

  Dunstan struggled to keep his smile from wavering. “M-my lord?”

  “Now what will be done?”

  The archbishop folded his hands in front of his gown. He had seen a challenge where there was none. Alvar’s question was surprising in its simplicity, but he was happy to explain. “N-now you will swear hold-oath to King Edward, and our lives will g-go on much as before.” And then it does not matter if you wed Edgar’s widow. For, having sworn to Edward, you cannot then fight on her son’s behalf. I have won, Earl.

  “No.”

  This time the smile slid away and Dunstan felt his heart hammering. “My lord?”

  Alvar stepped closer, looked him in the eye, and spoke in tones barely above a whisper. “That youth is not born of both a king and a queen, and he is a snivelling shit to boot. I will not swear to him. So I shall tell you what is to be done now. Now you will feel the might of Mercia, and you will learn what a strong and worthy king could stop, that a child-king cannot.”

  He turned round and pulled the door shut behind him, and the only sound was the echo of the door-slam.

  Dunstan stared at the space that Alvar had occupied but a moment before. He said, “Archbishop Oswald, I am left with the feeling that we might have overreached ourselves.”

  “Edward is king. There is naught that Alvar can do about that now.”

  Dunstan wished he shared his friend’s conviction. “If, or should I say when, he weds the widow Alfreda, he will fight hard in the name of her whelp and if he wins, he will become king himself, in all but name.”

  Oswald laid a hand on Dunstan’s arm and the archbishop was surprised by the strength of the grip.

  Oswald said, “You and I have never played together at the gaming board. I fear I would beat you, for I know when to hold back and play my last piece.”

  Dunstan was tired. “I am sorry, Archbishop, you have lost me…”

  “Alvar will not wed the king’s widow. I know that his heart lies elsewhere, and I am going to show him what happens to ungodly women.”

  Dunstan shrank back. “Dear God, what has been unleashed this day?”

  Oswald said, “Do not worry. He is a beast with sharp teeth, yes, but not cunning. He will be easily snared, and I know how to lure him. And by the time I have dealt with this other woman, Alvar will not dare to wed the queen.” He bowed and quietly left the room.

  Dunstan sighed and looked around the room. An empty scriptorium was a rare sight, and the silence was unsettling. The gentle grinding of powder, the schwoop-click of the pen knife against the feather, the tapping of the ink pot, and the scratching of the nib on the vellum, all these were comforting sounds of continuous devotional industry. In one menacing flash, the heart had been ripped from this central core of religious activity, leaving naught but a shattered shell. Dunstan stepped forward to right an upset ink pot and crossed himself.

  Part III – Gerīpenung (The Reaping)

  Chapter Seventeen AD976

  Evesham

  The smooth-skinned novice stumbled through the doorway, and the book slipped from his hands. Illuminated pages fluttered to the ground, and the gold lettering glinted in the sunshine. He stared up at the earl, but made no attempt to stand up or to retrieve the book from the mud.

  Alvar leaned forward in the saddle and patted his horse’s neck. He looked down at the monk and said, “I can wait while you gather up each leaf, Brother.” More than likely, it was the money from his patronage which had paid for it, but the young man would have no recollection of this earl and would see him as wrecker, not benefactor.

  A volley of loud bangs echoed round the courtyard and the young monk scrabbled backwards on his knees.

  Alvar said, “It is only the crack of stools and benches being thrown on the fire. Your brothers would rather see the wood burned than someone else have it. You think that I mean you some harm, but I am only here to see to it that you leave.”

  The novice remained on his knees, but he began to scrape up the pages. Alvar saw now that the gold leaf illuminated the pages of the bible. “I mean no harm to that, either, or to the walls of this abbey. I would put back what belongs here, that is all.”

  More monks came through the doorway, chivvied from the other side by Helmstan. They bunched together in the courtyard and shuffled their feet as if unsure which direction to take, but there was no fear in the older men’s eyes. Like rats running out of a wet ditch. They would find another warm nest soon enough.

  Helmstan said, “Wulfgar has gathered the last of them from the church, my lord. Shall I ride a way down the road with them in case they try to come back?”

  Wulfgar walked up behind him. “They would not get far.” He stood in front of the group of monks. “Tell your abbot that all the Worcester and Gloucester thegns are on the roads, helping our lord put this land back how it was.”

  Alvar turned his head and looked out beyond the gate. Further down the road nearer the river, shouts and screams rose up, the words lost in the air, but the meaning clear. He wrinkled his nose as the thick smoke billowed not just from the bonfire, but from fires which had been set in the village. The wind brought the black clouds; they wafted round the abbey and turned day into night as they passed. He closed his mouth against the taste.

  Helmstan said, “The folk here blamed the bad harvest on last year’s fiery-tailed star. They are hungry and have no love for the abbey, where the monks have grown fat on food rents while others starved. Our men, as well as chasing the monks, might be called upon to safeguard them. It might help that they are abroad on the lanes.”

  Alvar stared at the road. “Or it might help to blacken our names.”

  Wulfgar said, “My lord, I found someone in the church who wishes to speak with you. Shall I bring him hither?”

  “No need.” The group of monks parted, and Oswald stepped between them to stand in front of Alvar. “I will not be brought before this man as if I am the law-breaker. I am here. And I would have some answers.”

  Wulfgar brandished his sword and waved it close to Oswald’s chin. “Shall I end it here and now, my lord?”

  Alvar said, “No. I am not a murderer. All that is done here this day will be lawful.”

  Oswald made a snorting sound and gestured with his arm. “You call this lawful? Turning holy men out onto the road?”

  “I am giving this land back to those to whom it belonged. I am merely righting a wrong.”

  Alvar pulled his horse round and looked down without lowering his head. Oswald was shaking, but whether through anger or cold, Alvar did not care. Another chair went on the fire, and newly fuelled, smoke-disturbed embers floated over them. Each of them squinted, but neither wiped their eyes. Alvar’s cloak hung open.

  Oswald pulled his cloak tighter against the wind. “You speak of the law, but you have sent weapon-men out onto the lanes without the king’s leave. And if he knew what you are doing to these holy brothers…”

  “Enough.” Alvar sniffed. “For too many years I have heard you say one thing, watched while your hands do another. Edward has no love for, or belief in, the ways of the folk in the old kingdoms. This was something that his father, a great man, understood. As to whether your Edward loves the abbeys, I know not nor care. He is not his father, and his father is not here. What will, or can, Edward do to stop me?”

  The tips of Oswald’s ears glowed red. “He is your king.”

  Alvar leaned over in the saddle and brought his face nearer to the archbishop’s. “No, he is not my king. He is the thing that you and Dunstan made. And when you stepped forward to put the king-helm on his head, against the wishes of Edgar, you sho
ved me too far.” He sat up straight.

  “Lord Alvar, your elbow…” Oswald knelt down to pick up his mitre from the mud.

  Alvar stared at the older man. “You see, Archbishop? It is not hard to put something on a man’s head. It is even less hard to knock it off again.”

  Oswald wiped at the headdress. “You have made it unclean.” He lifted his head to glare at the earl. “I hope you are proud now.”

  Alvar had to turn away, for his eyes stung from the smoke and were watering. He swallowed; all he could taste was the bitter smoke of the fire. The wind that whipped it up was sharp as it blew round him, and yet he was not cold.

  Oswald walked round to stand in front of Alvar’s horse. “You cannot burst into the grounds of an abbey like a wild hound.”

  Alvar looked the older man up and down. He flared his nostrils. “But I am a wild hound.” He sniffed again. “And you are no more than a chewed cloth that I have spat out. It is ended.” He said to Wulfgar, “Take him to Worcester and lock him in there.”

  “You will burn in hell for the deeds done here this day.”

  “Then I will see you by the Devil’s hearth, my lord Archbishop.” Oswald had transformed a cathedral chapter into a monastic priory. Now it would become his prison.

  Cheshire

  “Mother, Evesham was only the beginning. He gave the land to his brother’s eldest son, and all the old clergy have been brought back. From there he went to Winchcombe, where he threw out the abbot and all the monks. Then he went on to Deerhurst and Pershore.”

  “Has he gone mad?” Káta wrapped her cloak around her body.

  “Are you cold? We should go inside.”

  She shook her head. “No, I am not cold. It is only that I… And does your father stand with him on this?”

  “He does. But Alvar is not mad. He has seethed for years about losing his lands and his rights to them. He worries, too, about the folk who live upon them.”

  Káta gripped the edges of her cloak. “There will be an ache in his heart. His loathing for Oswald and Dunstan was well known, but he will be wroth with Edgar, too.”

  Siferth stepped nearer. “What do you mean; why would he be wroth with Edgar?”

  “For dying.” She looked up, hoping to see a glimpse of sun, but the winter sky was a solid grey. Ice lay like broken glass around the edges of the puddles. She sighed and walked back along the path towards the enclosure gate. Siferth skipped along beside her.

  She wanted to ask him about the rumours; that when the abbey at Evesham was attacked, the stones fell and the whole building collapsed. Underneath the stones, the grave of Saint Egwyn had been exposed, and it was said that his skin was as fresh and pink as if he had never died. Stories like these, true or not, served the monks’ cause, not Alvar’s. At such hard times as these, it would not do to have the folk turn against the lords. She stopped and put a hand on Siferth’s arm. “I do not know how it is elsewhere, but here we have had to bulk our dough with pease and beans, or go without bread. I have found folk eating riddled meat and unripe foods. The children have sore skin and eyes, and their gums bleed. If others, like us, have the loosening bowel sickness and they are as weak and hungry… Will they stand by Alvar or will they turn back to the Church?”

  He held her hand and they walked on. “They will not turn back to the Church. Yes, many are unwell. Many are starving. But many were also forced to sell their land to the Church for less than it is worth.”

  He told her then of the folk-moots, packed full of those men who were now landless. Alvar had heard the pleas of many men whose kin had been coerced into bequeathing their land to the Church, so that any surviving kin would be left with no means of a living when their relatives died.

  Siferth stopped on the path in front of her. “You are right, Mother; lots of folk think that the world is ending, and maybe they think it is God’s doing, but the food rents owed to the Church make their hardships worse.” He laid his hands on her shoulders. “These folk look to Alvar to give them back their lands and rights. And who will stop him now? The monks mourn Edgar, but they must have thought that Alvar’s power would also die with him. Yet Alvar has the weapon-men behind him, and he is the only one with the skill to lead them. Oswald is locked up in Worcester, and no man can say how Edward will blow.”

  Oswald locked up in Worcester. Thank God. Hunger was not the only demon stirring the folk. Comets and the death of kings terrified everyone; none more so than dear Wulfsige the priest, who, after all these years, had lost courage and gone running to the bishop of Lichfield with his tales. His departure was soon followed by the arrival of a deputation from the bishop of Worcester, demanding to know the provenance of her scar, and making clear their knowledge of her association with the earl, with whom she was overheard conversing at Chester, in what they called an over-familiar manner. She could not recall, but they said there was a monk who knocked into Alvar, who had heard their every word. The things of which they spoke had happened so long ago, but Edgar’s death was like slackened reins, and all horses were free now to run after years at the tether. News of the attacks on Evesham and elsewhere sent her inquisitors scuttling back, with naught from her lips to damn her, the folk who lived under her protection, or her loved ones. And now that Oswald had been incarcerated, she could breathe a little more freely.

  Her son was smiling, and his flushed cheeks were not due to the cold weather alone. She said, “You speak as if it is a game. You are barely fifteen and you have your whole life still to live. But the earl will be known forever as a man who harries monasteries. When men have food once more in their bellies, will they still follow him then?”

  A gust of wind blew across the enclosure and the paddock gate banged against its post. Káta stepped from his grasp to shut it. “This needs to be tied with twine. I will tell Burgred to fettle it.” The wood banged against her fingers. “Aah!” Why did knocks always smart more when the hand was cold to begin with? She wrestled with the gate and in a low voice she said, “String will not do. Too many things have come loose that cannot be tied together.”

  A drop of moisture bubbled at the end of Siferth’s nose. He sniffed it away. “You worry too much about Uncle’s good name. I was there, Mother, at Ely, with the queen. I heard Bishop Athelwold speak of him as a great patron of Abingdon and Glastonbury. Think on this: the abbeys that he has laid to waste all belong to Oswald.”

  Káta dredged her knowledge of the southern part of Mercia and brushed imaginary dirt from her hands. “Well then, this madness will soon blow itself out, for there are not many more of Oswald’s houses left for him to go at with his cudgel.” She looked at him, noting the sheepish expression. “What?”

  “It has gone a bit further. After Deerhurst, things got stirred up.”

  She caught her breath and stood still on the path. “What has Deerhurst to do with it?” All she knew of Deerhurst was that it was the ancient spiritual home of the Hwicce. Thegn Wulfgar often spoke to Helmstan of his proud heritage.

  “Alvar got it back for them.”

  She shook her head. “But I do not see…”

  “The Hwicce land is the heart of old Mercia. Whenever two athelings have fought for the kingship, Mercia has always supported one atheling and Wessex the other. The Mercians are now rising up, as they did when they put Edgar on the throne.”

  Her mouth was dry and she coughed. She needed no lessons in Mercian history. Helmstan refused even to acknowledge the new geographical shires, designed to transform Mercia from an independent kingdom into just another administrative area of Wessex. “So this is not simply a matter of restoring the monasteries?”

  “Maybe it was for Alvar, in the beginning. Let me say it this way: he and the Mercians may not wish for the same things, but they are going forward as one. A fight cannot be far away. Now that Edgar has gone… I heard Bishop Athelwold say that the hound is without the huntsman and runs unfettered.”

  Káta put a hand up to cover the lump stuck somewhere between her throat and he
r chest. Swallowing brought no relief. “What say the East Anglians? You were there, at Ely.”

  Siferth laughed. “Brandon said that he and his brother Thetford were as one. My lady the queen said that they needed to be, for each of them was less than half the worth of Alvar.” He slapped his thigh. “She is most witty, is she not?”

  Káta sniffed. “Her word-craft is good, but I wonder that she has need of it when men fawn over her like lovesick…” She looked up. “Never mind. I only wish to know when there will be an end to this silliness, so that my husband will come home. And who is there to see to the lord Alvar, for he needs someone with him who will…”

  Siferth pulled his spine up straight, and took a deep breath to inflate his chest. “I am there when Lady Alfreda has no need of me. And Father is always by his side. I do not know what makes you say such things, Mother, for…”

  “Do you know, I think I will go within, after all. This wind gets a hold of my bones like a bramble-thorn to the ankle.” She looked down at her hand, where her nails had dug four red crescents in her palm. “Let us go and speak of things more blithe, for I would make the most of you while I have you here. Did I tell you that Eadyth comes oft-times to beg tidings of you? Some weeks she is here on a Thursday, only to come again on the Friday. She is a pretty little thing.”

  “Mother, you do not need to shout; I am only standing by your side.”

  Káta smiled in apology. “Sometimes though, my son, you need loud words so that you cannot hear the din of the stillness.”