The Bone Thief

by V. M. Whitworth

  He was barely aware of the other hands reaching out for the bones, lifting them, stroking them. Only when the bony blue-veined hands of the Bishop of Worcester reached to wrap them again in their sacking did he come blinking back to himself. He offered the rib to the Bishop, and noticed that the old man, kneeling at Wulfgar’s side, had tears streaming down his face. Both the good eye and the empty socket were weeping.

  The Lady was offering him her hand. He looked at it for a long moment before taking it in his. Her skin was clammy.

  ‘I should never have doubted you,’ she said. After a long heartbeat, she took a deep breath and looked around her. ‘However, if we accept Wulfgar’s story, and the corroboration of his oath-swearers, then we have to decide what to do with the false witness borne by Garmund Polecat.’

  They all looked around the hall.

  Garmund had taken advantage of the diversion caused by the relics’ arrival. He was nowhere to be seen.

  King Edward, still up on the dais, said stiffly, ‘I can deal with my own, thank you, sister. Garmund is my faithful man.’

  ‘And I wish you joy of him,’ she said, smiling.

  ‘We need someone to care for the saint,’ Bishop Werferth said. ‘Transfer him to the reliquary and get him back to the church, discreetly. Find a suitable box for the carved wood. Arrange proper burial for my old friend here.’ He rested a hand again on the skull, stroking a gentle thumb over the bony forehead, marking a cross. ‘Wulfgar—’

  Wulfgar opened his mouth to lay claim to the honour the Bishop was offering him, but as he did so his eye fell on Kenelm, hanging back, his face set with misery. ‘My Lord,’ He was pleased to find his voice was firm. ‘May I suggest your nephew Kenelm is ideally qualified?’

  The Bishop frowned for a moment, then he nodded. ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘Yes, you may.’

  Kenelm flushed and beamed.

  Edward had been watching their every move, lips compressed, eyes wary.

  ‘And what will you tell the good people of Gloucester?’ he asked. ‘You’ll look as big a fool as I will if you confess that that show yesterday was a case of mistaken identity.’

  ‘Edward.’ The Lady went over to her furious brother. ‘We all saw the miracle yesterday. And –’ she drew a deep breath ‘– when your message came, that my dear brother was on his way here bringing me this most marvellous gift, it was amongst the happiest days of my life.’ She put one hand to his face and turned it so that he couldn’t help looking into her eyes. ‘That gift was in good faith, and I honour you for it. And so do the people of Mercia.’

  Bishop Werferth coughed.

  ‘Edward, it may be the destiny of Wessex and Mercia to be joined one day. Look at our own family, and how many marriages have been made across the border. But Mercia will not be absorbed into Wessex, any more than I was absorbed into my husband when I married him.’ She released him then. ‘And, speaking of my husband, I must go to him.’ Her tone had grown weary.

  ‘And we will be going back to Oxford,’ Edward said. He still wasn’t looking happy, but the pinched fury was relaxing out of his features.

  The Lady turned to her cousin.

  ‘Seiriol, would you escort me to my husband’s bedside? You will be delighted to see how much better he is. His speech was less slurred this morning than it was last night, even.’

  While she was speaking, Wulfgar watched the Atheling’s face. Was there the briefest flicker of anger? Frustration? Disappointment? He couldn’t be sure. The Atheling took her hand and bowed over it.

  ‘I’m sure I will. One moment, then I’m all yours.’ Letting go, he turned to Wulfgar, who held himself straight and still. Here came the interrogation he had been dreading.

  ‘Well done, Wuffa.’

  ‘Thank you, my Lord.’

  The Atheling dropped his voice to a murmur, their faces close together.

  ‘And, tell me, did you speak to my friends?’

  Wulfgar swallowed.

  ‘I carried your message to Toli Hrafnsson, my Lord.’

  ‘But you were too late, then, for Hakon?’

  Wulfgar nodded. So, he knew about the death of Hakon Toad.

  ‘What about his brother?’ the Atheling asked.

  He wondered what to say.

  ‘My Lord …’ Only the truth would do. ‘I wasn’t sure what to do, my Lord, but it seemed Ketil Scar would welcome the message, and so I passed it to him. He seemed to be expecting it.’ Wulfgar watched the Atheling’s face warily.

  At last, he smiled. ‘And?’

  He cast his mind back. It felt an eternity ago. ‘Toli said, “If you hear nothing from me, then, yes, let it be All Hallows”.’ Wulfgar glanced up. The Atheling was still smiling. He took a deep breath, ‘But, Ketil, my Lord – he said, “When I need him, I will send for him”. Meaning you.’

  The Atheling’s eyes narrowed for a moment, then he looked at Wulfgar and smiled. ‘You’re a true servant, Wuffa. And a true friend. If they don’t appreciate you here—’ he glanced briefly at the Lady, still hanging on her brother’s arm ‘—you can always come to me. Wherever I am. Remember that. You have done a great kindness to me and my friends.’

  The Atheling’s friends. Toli Silkbeard Hrafnsson. Ketil Scar Grimsson. Not just names now. Wulfgar thought of touchy, swaggering, lecherous Toli, of massive, irascible Ketil, and the louring ghost of Hakon Toad. We light the fire at All Hallows … He still didn’t know what it meant.

  He bowed. ‘Yes, my Lord.’

  The Atheling nodded. Softer than ever, he said, ‘And if I ask you to help me another time?’ He held up a hand. ‘We’ll talk about it later. But remember, Edward is only King of a very small part of these islands.’

  ‘Yes, my Lord.’

  And it’s true, Wulfgar thought. To think I once believed Winchester was the whole world.

  ‘Thank you. Later.’ That warm clasp on his shoulder again.

  ‘Thank you, my Lord.’

  The Atheling saved my hand, Wulfgar thought. My life, really. And he had made King Edward look petty. Wulfgar half-smiled at the memory of the King’s expression. He would be in the Atheling’s debt for that these many years. But he still didn’t trust him. Wulfgar watched the Lady and her cousin walk arm in arm down the hall and out of the great doors, her smiling face turned up to his like a flower to the sun. The familiar sight made him uneasy for some reason.

  Edward, at his shoulder, said, ‘You were only doing your duty, I suppose.’

  Wulfgar jumped, and bowed.

  ‘As was Garmund, my Lord King.’

  Edward’s face tightened.

  ‘Why do they all love you so much? Fleda? Seiriol? My father? He always thought your shit smelt of roses.’ He raised a clenched right fist, and then lowered it slowly. ‘No, don’t bother answering. I don’t really care.’ He walked away.

  Wulfgar had no answer for him, anyway.

  CHAPTER FORTY-TWO

  ‘HOLY BLOOD, THEY’VE all taken themselves off at last!’

  ‘Ronan, I can’t believe you’re here.’

  Father Ronan smiled. ‘Faith, I like to think I’m not easily cowed, but put me in a room – even a muckle great room like this – with the Lady of Mercia, the King of Wessex, two bishops and a prince of the blood, all staring daggers at me, and I find I’m quaking in my shoes.’ He shook his head, still smiling. ‘What, Wuffa, did you think I could come so far with you, and not see St Oswald put to bed?’

  Ednoth clapped Wulfgar’s shoulder, and then gave him a clumsy hug.

  ‘What on earth’s been going on?’ he asked, letting go.

  Wulfgar looked at him, and then at Kenelm. ‘I don’t know where to start. Where did you get to?’

  Kenelm had flushed an unbecoming shade of puce. ‘I’m so sorry, Wulfgar. I panicked. When they were shouting for your arrest, I mean.’ He swallowed. ‘I ran away.’

  ‘Don’t be too hard on yourself, boy,’ Ronan said. ‘The saint took a hand. You ran slap into us.’

  Kenelm nodded. �
��Just outside the city gate. I recognised Ednoth, of course, from the court,’ he went on. ‘And I guessed who Father Ronan was, from the way you’d described him.’

  Ronan raised an eyebrow. ‘Oh, aye? What have you been telling him, Wuffa?’

  Ronan here, Wulfgar thought, in Gloucester. It seemed miraculous. Was it conceivable that Gunnvor was here, too?

  Ednoth was grinning more broadly than ever. ‘Oh, it took a little doing, but we got the story out of him,’ – he prodded Kenelm’s arm – ‘and convinced him to take us here. And then the guards weren’t going to let us in. And then the Atheling rode up to the gates, and he recognised me!’ His face was radiant. ‘And, of course, the guards had to do what he told them.’

  ‘We should go back into Gloucester,’ Ronan said, his eyes twinkling. ‘I hear there are some fine ale-houses.’

  ‘They speak well of the beer at the Lammastide,’ Kenelm said. ‘The canons, I mean, at St Peter’s.’ He looked from face to face. ‘I’ll show you the way – if you want me to come?’ He bit his lip.

  ‘Come with us if you like,’ Ednoth said, ‘but I think we’ll go to the Holly-Tree.’

  Wulfgar shrugged. Any ale-house, and any company, would be welcome just then. Suddenly remembering a duty he had wholly forgotten, he said, ‘I should just check on Electus.’

  He found the wet-nurse in a sunny corner of the courtyard. She had put her broom down and was suckling the baby, seated on an upturned half-barrel, leaning back with the sun on her face and her eyes closed. He stopped a few feet away, feeling shy, and reluctant to disturb such obvious contentment.

  ‘Call it a miracle, master.’ Another young woman had paused at his elbow, yoked buckets of milk swinging. ‘She lost her little one only last week. It never thrived.’ She shook her head. ‘Now someone’s brought her this brave boy.’ Her eyes brimmed with easy tears.

  Wulfgar nodded. When he found his voice he said, ‘Tell her I’ll be back later. I’ll provide for his care.’ That poor woman had lost her own baby, and now she could feed Leoba’s. Who was he to question the ways of Heaven?

  Preoccupied, he followed the others back along the well-trodden path to the gates of Gloucester. Like everywhere else in the city, the Holly-Tree was teeming with holiday custom. They found a long bench outside and a bowl of the house cider.

  ‘Absent friends,’ Ronan said, and they all lifted their cups. The priest caught Wulfgar’s eye, and they both smiled.

  A heartbeat later, Wulfgar’s smile froze as he stared at the earthenware cup in his hand. Smart, wheel-thrown, skilfully spattered with yellow glaze. He looked up from it to encounter Ednoth’s eyes.

  ‘Oh, the cups?’ Ednoth’s offhand air didn’t fool Wulfgar for a moment. The boy was insufferably pleased with himself. ‘Ketil’s going to be very happy with the deal we’ve already made this morning, with the ale-wife here,’ Ednoth went on. ‘And I’ve taken several more orders. I just hope he can keep up supplies. I still need to sort myself out a trader’s licence, but that shouldn’t be a problem. I suspect the Lord and Lady will think they owe me a favour.’

  Wulfgar shook his head, smiling through his disbelief. ‘So, this is why you wanted to linger with Ketil? Pottery trading? But you were so scornful!’

  Ednoth brushed his doubts aside with an airy gesture. ‘Oh, I didn’t know what I was talking about.’ His eyes lit up. ‘Wuffa, this is just the start! Gunnvor’s introduced me to some lads from an island somewhere away east. Gotland, Father Ronan? Would that be right? Anyway, they’re looking for backers for an eastern venture. Beyond Miklagard, they said. Serkland! Saracens!’

  ‘And are you going to invest?’ Wulfgar asked.

  ‘Might do.’ Ednoth was pink with elation. ‘I might even go along. Maybe not this trip, but there will be others. And it’ll make a change from sheep-farming. There’s a great big world out there, Wuffa! Let’s drink to it.’

  ‘What a shame,’ Ronan said over Wulfgar’s shoulder. ‘The lad seems quite deranged.’ He lifted a hand to draw the attention of the pot-boy.

  ‘Ronan, Gunnvor hasn’t come south with you, has she?’ It was a forlorn hope, and Wulfgar wasn’t surprised to see the priest shaking his head.

  ‘No.’ He cocked his head. ‘And I can’t tell from the look on your face whether you’re glad or sorry.’

  ‘Where is that pot-boy?’ Ednoth got to his feet. ‘No, you stay where you are, Father Ronan. I’ll look for him.’

  ‘I’ll come with you,’ Kenelm said.

  Ronan shuffled along the bench and gripped Wulfgar’s knee.

  ‘How are you doing, lad?’ His eyes were dark and intent.

  Wulfgar smiled but he couldn’t put his heart in it this time.

  ‘Still brooding on the man you killed?’

  Wulfgar nodded.

  ‘That, and other things.’ Leoba. Thorvald. Their little girl. Some things would be etched on his heart for ever.

  ‘We’re all bearing that burden with you, you know,’ Ronan said. ‘Even Gunnvor, though you might not think it.’

  ‘That’s different. She – she—’ Wulfgar fell silent. He wasn’t sure what he wanted to say. He shied away from thinking just how ruthless, how efficient, Gunnvor had proved in that nightmarish fight on the Bardney causeway.

  ‘She’d done it before?’

  He didn’t want to hear that, although he suspected it might be true. Eventually, he said. ‘She isn’t in holy orders.’

  Ronan snorted.

  ‘Hardly! And there’s nowt in her commandments or her upbringing to tell her not to kill.’ He paused for a moment, eyes opaque. ‘I’ve killed men myself before now, you know, Wuffa. It was only by chance – and ill-chance at that – I didn’t at Bardney.’

  ‘Have you killed anyone since you became a priest?’

  Ronan was quiet for a long time, contemplating his empty cup. Then he said, ‘No, as it happens I haven’t, not since I was ordained. But, lad, my path to the priesthood was a long and winding one. It was what my father wanted for me; it was why he freed me and had me taught my letters. But I fled it, over land and sea. I went as far away as I knew how.’ He shook his head. ‘Dublin was the least of it. I did a lot of bad things, Wuffa. I was full on forty when my vocation cornered me at last.’ Then, his voice brisker, he said, ‘That man you stabbed – he would certainly have killed you, you know, as well as Thorvald.’

  Wulfgar nodded.

  They shared the silence.

  Ednoth was making his way back to them.

  ‘What does a man have to do to get a drink around here? I‘ve never seen an ale-house so packed.’ He squeezed himself in on the end of the bench. ‘The pot-boy says he’ll get round to us when he can.’

  ‘Where’s Kenelm got to?’

  Ednoth shrugged.

  ‘Need-house?’

  ‘Be kind to him, Wuffa,’ Ronan said. ‘He let you down very badly, and he knows it. It can’t be easy, being the Bishop’s nephew. Especially not that Bishop.’

  Wulfgar let the priest’s words sink in. He nodded, thoughtful.

  ‘The Bishop!’ Ednoth said. ‘He says I’ve got to walk through Gloucester in a white shirt, barefoot and carrying a candle, and then he’ll let me go to Mass again. It hardly seems worth it.’ He grinned, ignoring Wulfgar’s frown. ‘Do you want to hear a riddle?’

  ‘Not really.’

  Ronan put his hands over his ears.

  ‘Of course you do,’ Ednoth said, undaunted. ‘It’s a new one. I am the hard thing that hangs by a man’s thigh. I lift my head in search of a hole – what am I?’

  Wulfgar and Ronan groaned in unison.

  ‘A key, of course,’ Wulfgar said.

  ‘Oh, before I forget!’ Ronan said. He leaned over to one side and rummaged in the big bag he’d brought with him. ‘Gunnvor gave me this for you. She said you must have left it behind, that last time you were in the Wave-Serpent.’

  He handed a small linen-swathed parcel to Wulfgar, who turned it over, curious. He looked up at th
e priest.

  ‘Do you know what it is?’ Wulfgar asked.

  Ronan shrugged.

  He unfolded a small bag of unbleached linen to find it contained something flat, no larger than his hand. Bewildered, he untied the strings to take out a rectangular metal object.

  He stared at it.

  The others were both looking at him. He was about to say, ‘This isn’t mine. I’ve never seen it before, and I certainly didn’t drop it in the Wave-Serpent’, when the memory flooded back.

  Squatting a few feet from Thorvald’s cooling body in the darkness after moonset, ferreting through mud and damp sacking for those precious bones, his fingers coming across the embossed metal plaque. He had only ever explored it by touch. Now, closing his eyes and running the ball of his thumb over the bumpy surface, there came a stomach-churning jolt of recognition.

  This plaque had been among the bones when Gunnvor had gone off to sort them. That morning seemed half a dream, now. A wren singing, and Gunnvor singing, and the sun coming up …

  She had found it.

  Taken it.

  Stolen it, in fact.

  He thought of everything they had gone through together since she had asked him to sing ‘The Death of St Oswald’. And all the time she had been hiding this little treasure from him. It was his old refrain: treachery everywhere.

  But now she had returned it. It was tantamount to confessing the sin, he thought, and he forgave her from the bottom of his soul.

  He tilted the plaque the better to catch the light.

  Ronan inhaled sharply.

  Chased and embossed silver gilt, the gold worn in places and the silver tarnished, but still a beautiful thing. A tall, graceful figure of a man with a large, heavy-beaked bird on his shoulder and a tree growing behind him, the whole scene framed by a rounded arch. Panels around the edge showed more birds and beasts caught up in a tangle of richly fruiting vine.

  Ronan and Ednoth were both craning over his shoulder to see.

  Ednoth looked at Wulfgar.

  ‘Did you find that in the grave?’

  Wulfgar nodded, speechless.

  ‘They don’t make them like that nowadays,’ Father Ronan commented.