The Witan took some of the brunt of the work, but that old vital safeguard remained: that any free man could put his grievance before the king. It was our way, older than his grandfather, when Wessex was all we had. Æthelstan had allowed petitions; Edmund could not deny them. He listened and ruled on disputes from before dawn to long into the night, sleeping hardly at all. Still they came, bleating, bleating at him.
I had kept my room at Lady Elflaed’s and was roused in the small hours by a servant banging on the door and telling me the king had asked for me. You may be sure I ran through the cobbled streets, feeling the chill. I believe that is why St Benedict included the rule about monks sleeping in the robe, so that we can rise and be about God’s business without delay. It has served me in that way a hundred times over the years, though they do have to be smoked out when lice or fleas bite especially hard. That night was not long after such a smoking and the odour of it was strong in my nostrils as I reached the royal estate and was taken through to the heart. I must have passed a hundred jealous gazes, even at that grey hour, all wondering why I should have been put ahead of them.
I arrived panting at the petition hall, passing through as the guards held back those who peered and pressed in. The doors closed behind me. It was almost dark within, though the sun rose outside. I confess I had a moment of worry, until King Edmund stood up from a seat by the fire and smiled. He did not wear the crown. I am certain he did not. Yet I see it on him. Memory is a strange thing at times.
‘Father Abbot,’ he said.
It was to be formal, then. I saw Edmund wore a new gold ring, thick and bright on his hand. I bowed to kiss it and felt it pass between my lips, as if I was trying to swallow his finger. He pulled back rather sharply, I thought.
As I raised my head, blushing, I became aware of the shadows of men in the corners. I squinted to make them out, but there was only the firelight and the dim gleam could not reveal them to my eye.
‘Thank you for asking for me,’ I said, bowing deeply. ‘I imagine the whole world is after you for something.’
‘You would not believe how true that is. I have all my own people sleeping outside to see me, but also sisters and cousins and lords in France asking . . . Ah, it does not matter. I will find the time, I’m sure. Mind you, how my brother did so much in his forties, I have no idea.’
‘Practice,’ I said.
He chuckled, though there was a sadness in his eyes. I realised Edmund was still deep in grief himself, for all the excitement of becoming king. Of course he’d dreamed of the day he would sit the throne, but he had also loved his older brother and expected him to live for decades longer.
It changed how I saw him, in that moment. He had not wanted to rule. He could still hardly believe he had been made to. I had come into that room full of life and laughter, ready for the easy way between us before. I put it all aside in a moment as I read the man he had become.
‘He was a great king,’ I said.
A sheen appeared in his eyes, called forth by just a few words.
‘So they all say. Everyone. Æthelstan was an extraordinary man, a great man, a great ruler. They tell me of Brunanburh as if I hadn’t heard every story of that day – and been part of most of them. And yet, Dunstan, what they forget . . . what they fail to understand . . .’ He trailed off, looking past me to the dark corners of the room. I watched resignation settle in his face and I was suddenly determined.
‘Would you like me to hear your confession, Your Highness? I’m sure we could find a private place.’
‘I doubt it,’ Edmund muttered, but he nodded even so. He gestured to a side door, away from the mob still waiting outside. I gave no sign I thought of them, so perhaps it was his own guilt that made him speak.
‘Oh, they are always there, don’t worry. They will be there when we return, just the same. Day or night, the faces change, but the queue stays.’
‘From the Latin cauda, a “tail”,’ I said.
He paused, not sure if that interested him or not.
‘Dunstan, you are a surprising man,’ he said. ‘If the king is the dog, they are the tail, yes.’ He laughed, but there was still pain in it. ‘Come on.’
I followed him out and endured the glare of his guards as he spoke sharply to them to make them stay behind. They were not happy about that! A king is hard to refuse, but equally, they knew their lives were the stake if they let him out and something befell him. I made no friends among them by taking Edmund out of that place. I began to realise he was as much a prisoner as the petitioners.
Without a crown, or some clear symbol of his kingship, Edmund was a stranger to almost all of his subjects. I hadn’t given it any thought, but as we passed into the crowds, I was glad he was not recognised. Of course, it did mean we had to refuse traders and street rats holding out something to buy, just about every four or five paces.
Once more, Winchester surprised a country boy like me with its raucous clatter. The streets were thronged with people. It was truly the capital then, not just of Wessex, as it had been under Alfred, but of all England. There are men of Middlesex and Kent who prefer London, I know, perhaps for its closeness to France. I don’t see it. Winchester has the great river Itchen, a royal mint, mills, monastic houses, merchants, all.
We walked downhill to the river bank, past the great timbered walls of Nunnaminster. The nuns were singing the Agnus Dei’, the Lamb of God. Their harmony was softly beautiful, muffled as it was through beams and plaster. I find the voices of women can be somewhat reedy as a rule, but it suited our mood then. The sound of John’s Gospel even stilled the yells of traders passing by. They crossed themselves and bowed their heads, and resumed their clamour only when they were further on.
At the wide river, great flat-bottomed barges were creeping through, taking bales of linen, bone goods, pewter and silver and stirrups, oh, a thousand things out to the world. Some of our spoons would end up in France or Flanders, or even Egypt.
The king’s city was the great forge. It took in ore and tin and gold and wool. Iron gleamed, spindles and looms clattered – and the city gave back tools, horseshoes, rings and whole cloth. The clicking of looms was just one of the noises, like insects in the joists, all scratching a living, all making something. York and London were almost as busy then, but there was an excitement to Winchester – in ambassadors and retinues and gorgeous extravagance – that lies only with the royal capital.
Edmund looked sideways at me and I saw he seemed awkward.
‘I do not know how to talk to you,’ he said.
‘What do you mean?’
‘Well, you are Dunstan, of course, whose hands were broken when first we met, but who laughed even so. I saw you canter across the battlefield at Brunanburh, clutching your axe and shield while your horse went, well, wherever he wanted.’
‘I hate that horse,’ I said quickly. He chuckled.
‘Yet you are also the abbot of Glastonbury, a man of the Church – though my own age, just about.’
I smiled to hear this.
‘I think I know what you mean, friend Edmund . . . who is also king of England.’
‘Perhaps we should remain friends first, as that came first – and abbots and kings after.’
I shook my head, a little sadly.
‘You can leave your crown behind and still be king. Neither does this robe make me abbot. There are deeper hooks in us. But, yes, I am your friend, Edmund.’
He seemed unhappy at that, but he did not press me.
‘Do you wish to confess?’ I asked him.
‘Only that I do not want to confess,’ he said lightly. ‘I was absolved of a lifetime of sins before my coronation, by your uncle. That was awkward enough. It’ll be some time before I go looking for another experience like it. No, I just wanted to get away for a moment, from all those solemn men and women telling me what a great man my brother was, what a fine king.’
He turned to me suddenly and I stopped. We stood on the edge of the river, on a narrow pa
th. A bargeman watched us about as amiably as any cow chewing its cud might have done.
‘And he was, yet if he was, how can I match him? How can I keep England safe as he did? Eh, Dunstan? What do you say to that?’
‘I say you have prepared for this your whole life. The torch has passed to your hand a little earlier than you would have liked – but you will not fail! You are your father’s son, just as Æthelstan was. Are you a lesser man? No, just a younger one! You are your grandfather’s grandson, as Æthelstan was. You, the grandson of Alfred the Great, the son of Edward the Elder, the brother to Æthelstan! There’s no better line in England. You will not be found wanting.’
He seemed to take heart from my words, though he rubbed his nose on his sleeve as we stood there. The bargeman was pointing us out to his mates, making some comment that had them all cackling toothlessly.
‘Come on, we’re drawing a right crowd of yokels here,’ I said.
One of them was miming something filthy that had the others slapping each other and guffawing. I was tempted to ask if they meant to offend the king of England, just to watch them swallow their own tongues, but I did not.
Edmund climbed up the shallow bank to look up the high street to the cathedral spire in the distance, dominating the city. He grimaced at the sight of two guardsmen much closer by. They stood awkwardly when they saw they had been spotted, but remained even so. He sighed.
‘The meanest churl in England can put down his tools and take a walk as a free man. Yet his king cannot do the same. It is a strange thing, Dunstan, truly.’
‘You are grieving still,’ I said. ‘Which makes you chafe – feeling the crown as a harness.’
He looked congested, with blood heavy in his face. I had never practised the doctor’s art, but I knew as much as any of those I had met, certainly when it came to herbs.
‘I don’t want to let him down, Dunstan. I feel his gaze on me.’
‘He’d be proud of you, I am sure, but more importantly, he would understand what burdens you now. Æthelstan wore the crown for fifteen years. He knew the weight of it, right enough. Yet he kept his oath to see you made king, did he not? He took no wife. I think he knew you would bear the crown well. Imagine if you had ruined yourself in drink and sin, if you had been a coward, an adulterer, or an oathbreaker! Would he have sat quietly then?’
Edmund seemed to take comfort from my words, which pleased me as they were clearly true.
‘My father died when I was very young,’ he said, ‘my mother soon after. Æthelstan was brother to me, but also father. I loved him – and he was always there. Now . . .’ He broke off and I saw that sheen return to his gaze as he looked into a distance I could not see.
The two royal guards followed us as I led the king to the same cart seller I’d visited so many times with Beatrice, years before. The old woman who made such a fine broth and ladled horseradish into it for warmth had not aged a day since then, as if age had given up and was just waiting in disgust for her to die.
Edmund took a bowl and raised his eyebrows when she offered one of the spoons on chains. I grinned at him.
‘She doesn’t know you. Can I vouch for him, Sally? He won’t run, my honour on it.’
‘For you, love, course,’ she said, producing a long-handled pewter spoon from somewhere in the folds of her skirts. Edmund bowed to her, but her attention was caught by the royal guards loitering on that part of the street. She turned away to keep her eye on such a strange pair.
‘Thank you, Dunstan,’ Edmund said. His colour deepened with a mouthful of the horseradish stew. ‘I have enjoyed this. I’ll go back to my tail of petitioners with renewed strength, I am certain.’
‘There is satisfaction in duty, without glory,’ I said. ‘In work done quietly, a life’s task.’
I hesitated then, but he only smiled, supping away at the thick broth and smacking his lips in appreciation.
‘Go on then, ask me,’ he said, between blowing on spoonfuls.
‘Ask?’ I said, though it was just to gain time.
‘Everyone does, sooner or later. What would you have of me?’
I didn’t like the idea of joining the vast number begging for favours, but I would have been a fool to miss such an opportunity. I saw then how lonely it was to be king.
‘I ask nothing for myself, Edmund. I do need land, though, for the abbey. Land I can rent or use to raise crops and mutton to sell, anything to bring enough coin to complete the task. Lady Elflaed has been generous, but I need much more.’
‘Very well, Dunstan,’ he said. ‘I’ll have my seneschal go over the maps with you. I know you’d prefer something close to the abbey, though I’ll tell him to pass on some farms near here to your care as well. It will give you a reason to visit me, perhaps.’
We smiled at each other and I realised with a shock that we truly were friends. It was a heady feeling.
‘How much land are you after?’ he said.
I had not expected to be asked to name a figure, so I pulled one out of the air. A hide of land was enough to feed one small family on its produce. My father had held twelve such and been a wealthy man. I multiplied Heorstan’s land by ten and then hesitated, then tripled the result. King Edmund was enjoying my company and the broth, after all.
Old Sally seemed to have understood something was up. She turned back and forth between us, peering with one eye then the other, her wrinkled mouth closing and opening as if it worked on its own. Honestly, the woman could have charged a penny just to watch her face change expression.
‘Three hundred and sixty?’ I said, feeling my throat grow tight.
Edmund didn’t blink, though he stopped smiling.
‘That is a lot of land, Dunstan. A fortune.’
‘For the Church,’ I reminded him. ‘For the first abbey to be built in your reign, in fact. You know, your brother was buried in Malmesbury. I could build a royal tomb and chapel at Glastonbury that would stand as great as any other.’
His eyebrows went up at my brazen offer – and I saw the same ambition that had touched me. He and I were alike in that. Why not? We have such a short time alive. Should we spend it drowsing in the sun? No! The sun goes down and each hour is more precious than a gold coin.
‘Very well, Father Abbot,’ he said. He handed the bowl and spoon back to the old woman, whose mouth hung open. Sally tried to bow and we both thought she’d fainted, so that we reached as one to hold her up.
‘That was wonderful broth,’ Edmund said to her. ‘The best I’ve ever tasted.’
He left her babbling something in delighted squeals as we went back to the royal grounds. I knew I’d made myself a petitioner by asking, at least for a time, but still I was almost dazed as I walked along. Three hundred and sixty hides of land would be enough to fund a huge construction. I’d be able to order marble from Ireland, glass from Venice, master craftsmen from all over England. I bit my lip as I walked, though, wondering if I should have asked for more. The thought still haunts me, sometimes.
A month later, I travelled to London to see my brother’s shop. With six servants, two armed guards and Uncle Athelm in tow, we took ship at Southampton. I had heard some men and women have delicate stomachs at sea. Mine was like iron. Uncle Athelm told me I should not be proud of nature and God’s will, that some simply suffered and some did not. Of course, he was hanging over the stern at the time, green-faced and tied on by the sailors so he would not fall.
We spent four days hugging the coast as we made our way to the entrance of the Thames and from there, inland, until we saw the walls of London. I had seen France too for the first time as we’d rounded white cliffs, though that country had looked rather dark and threatening to my eye. I set foot on a dock by the Roman wall, close by the south-east corner and the single bridge spanning the Thames.
Perhaps I was too ready to dislike London on that first meeting. Too many preferred it to my beloved Winchester and I found it a shabby place compared to the royal capital. The river certainly stank a
nd the streets, though some were cobbled, were hidden beneath a layer of human ordure. In my first moment after landing, I watched a man drop his leggings and squat by the docks, leaving a little pile, with the river just feet away. It was a strange welcome.
The Holy Church was served in London by a spired cathedral and another great chapel on Tower Hill—as much wood as stone, mind. The people of London protected the beams from burrowing insects with a coat of thick tar. That would prove a mistake, eventually, when it burned down.
It seemed to me a worn-out place, battered by time, though the river was busy enough. The Thames was the key, that black vein right through the heart. We went from a choppy sea to a safe berth at our London dock in a single day. It is true that we could have ridden across country from Winchester in less time, but then I arrived at peace, rather than scratched, torn, filthy and probably murdered on the road.
Wulfric came to meet us with a fine cart and another half a dozen of his employees. Good, strong-looking fellows all, they took up our bags and followed along in a great troop. Some urchins of the town began laughing and jeering and shying stones at us, until we put two men amongst them with horsewhips. It was not on my behalf, you understand, but rather for the dignity of the Church. Still, I enjoyed the way they screeched and wailed.
The Roman walls had ancient gates, old and much repaired. Wulfric’s shop was on the corner of a street that ended at the eastern gate, a fine establishment advertising its wares in great bales of cloth, open to the touch of passers-by. There were many of those, hurrying along, busy little bees all of them. I felt a touch of worry at the sight, but Winchester held the king. That was what mattered.
I entered the shop proper and found myself astonished by the noise and clatter of the place – and the size. It went back and back and was filled with young men, cutting and measuring, calling orders to one another using words I had never heard. I took it all in, understanding that my brother was actually not the failure I had thought he would be.
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