War Lord Page 10

  ‘No!’ he cried.

  ‘I don’t want to see your rotten face in Valhalla,’ I told him, then used both hands to drive Serpent-Breath down into his chest, breaking through mail, leather and bone. He jerked, made a moaning sound that turned to a choking groan, then I tugged Serpent-Breath free and tossed her to Roric. ‘Clean her,’ I said, then stooped and pulled off Kolfinn’s six arm rings, two of gold and four of silver, one of which was studded with garnets. ‘Take his sword belt,’ I told Roric.

  We took everything of value from Guthfrith’s men. Their horses, their coins, their mail, their helmets, their boots and their weapons. ‘Tell Guthfrith he’s welcome to weaken Bebbanburg,’ I told Hobern, ‘or welcome to try.’

  We rode back to the encampment. Guthfrith must have seen us pass, and seen we were leading a dozen riderless horses, but he stayed hidden in his shelter.

  And Fraomar was waiting for me. He bowed as I dismounted, and his freckled face looked dismayed when he saw the captured horses and saw Egil’s men throwing down the captured weapons. He said nothing of what he saw, just bowed again. ‘The king, Lord Uhtred, desires your presence.’

  ‘He can wait,’ I said. ‘I need dry clothes.’

  ‘He’s waited a long time, lord.’

  ‘Then he’s well practised in waiting,’ I said.

  I did not change. The rain had washed Kolfinn’s blood from my mail, but the stain was on my cloak, faded now to streaks of black, but still unmistakable. I made Fraomar wait for a while and then rode westwards with him to the monastery at Dacore. It lay in a small rainswept valley and was surrounded by patchwork fields and two well-tended orchards. There were more tents and shelters crammed into the fields, stands of bedraggled banners, and paddocks full of horses. More of Æthelstan’s Saxon army was here, surrounding the timber-built monastery that sheltered their king.

  I had to surrender Serpent-Breath at the monastery’s gatehouse. Only the royal household warriors could wear weapons in a king’s presence, though Hywel had made no fuss about Serpent-Breath the night before. I had brought Finan and Egil with me, and they laid Soul-Stealer and Adder on the table where another dozen swords lay. We added our seaxes, the short vicious broken-backed blades that could do such murderous work in the crush of a shield wall. My seax, Wasp-Sting, had bled the life from Waormund on the day I handed the crown to Æthelstan, and Waormund’s death had begun the collapse of the army that had opposed Æthelstan. ‘I should call that seax King-Maker,’ I told the steward, who just looked dumbly at me.

  Fraomar led us down a long passageway. ‘There are only a few monks here,’ he remarked as we passed doors that opened onto empty chambers. ‘The king needed the space for his followers, so the brothers were sent south to another house. But the abbot was happy!’

  ‘Happy?’

  ‘We rebuilt his dining hall, and the king, of course, was more than generous. He gave the monastery the eye of Saint Lucy.’

  ‘The what?’

  ‘Saint Lucy was blinded before martyrdom,’ Fraomar explained, ‘and his holiness the Pope sent King Æthelstan one of her eyes. It’s miraculous! It hasn’t shrivelled and Lucy died seven hundred years ago! I’m sure the king will be pleased to show it to you.’

  ‘I can’t wait,’ I growled, then paused as two guards, both in Æthelstan’s scarlet cloaks, pushed open a pair of massive doors.

  The chamber beyond must have been the newly built dining hall because it still smelled of raw timber. It was a long room, long and high, with great beams supporting a thatched roof. Six high windows were shuttered against the rain, so the hall was brightly lit by scores of thick candles burning on the long tables where fifty or sixty men sat. A dais was raised at the room’s far end where the high table was set beneath a massive crucifix.

  A raucous cheer welcomed me, which surprised and pleased me. Some men stood to greet me, men with whom I had stood shoulder to shoulder in shield walls. Merewalh, a good man who had led Æthelflaed’s household troops, gripped my hand, and Brihtwulf, a rich young warrior who had led his men to fight beside me at the Crepelgate, embraced me, then stepped back as a sharp rapping noise from the high table demanded silence and order in the hall.

  Æthelstan sat with six other men at the high table beneath the high crucifix. Bishop Oda, seated beside the king, had silenced the hall by hammering the table with the hilt of a knife. Æthelstan was at the table’s centre where a thick stand of candles lit the gold circlet on his long dark hair, which, I saw, glinted with the threads of gold he twisted into his ringlets. I assumed that Oda had demanded silence because my duty was to greet the king before I spoke to other men. He was right, of course, and I dutifully bowed. ‘Lord King,’ I said respectfully.

  Æthelstan stood, which meant every other man in the hall also had to stand, the harsh scrape of the benches sounding loud in the silence. I bowed a second time.

  The silence stretched. Æthelstan stared at me and I stared at him. He looked older, which naturally he was. The young man I remembered had become a handsome king with temples lightly touched by grey and with thin streaks of grey in his beard. His long face was stern. ‘Lord King,’ I said again, breaking the silence.

  Then Æthelstan smiled. ‘My friend,’ he said warmly, ‘my dear old friend! Come!’ He beckoned me, then gestured to servants who stood in the shadows at the hall’s edges. ‘Benches for Lord Uhtred’s companions,’ he pointed at one of the lower tables, ‘and bring them wine and food!’ He smiled at me again. ‘Come, lord, come! Join me here!’

  I started forward, then stopped.

  Four of the men who stood on the platform with Æthelstan were young warriors, their necks and arms bright with the gold of success. I recognised Ingilmundr who was smiling, and the sullen face of Ealdred, though the remaining two were strangers. And with the warriors were two priests, which was no surprise. Bishop Oda was in the place of honour at Æthelstan’s right and he, like both the king and Ingilmundr, was smiling at me in welcome.

  But the priest to Æthelstan’s left was not smiling, he was scowling, and he was no friend of mine; indeed he hated me.

  He was my eldest son.

  I had stopped in astonishment when I recognised my son. Astonishment and disgust. I was tempted to turn and walk away. Instead I looked back to Æthelstan and saw his smile had faded to an expression that mingled challenge and amusement. He had wanted this confrontation, there must be purpose in it, and I was beginning to suspect that my eldest son’s famous hostility towards pagans was a part of that purpose.

  Æthelstan owed me. Back in Lundene, on the day when the road by the Crepelgate was soaked with West Saxon blood, he had acknowledged his debt to me. I had given him the city, and with the city came the crown of three kingdoms; Mercia, East Anglia, and Wessex. But in the years since he had ignored me. It made sense now. Æthelstan had his advisers; warriors like Ingilmundr and Ealdred, and he had his priests like Oda, and now he had another; Father Oswald. And Father Oswald hated me, and suddenly I remembered what the Welsh priest Anwyn had said the night before, that Bishop Oswald was preaching. My son was a bishop, and a close adviser to Æthelstan.

  He had been named Uhtred at his birth. That is the tradition of our family. My elder brother was named Uhtred, but then a Dane took his head and threw it down in front of Bebbanburg’s Skull Gate. My father had renamed me on that day and I have been Uhtred ever since.

  I had also named my eldest son Uhtred, but he had ever been a disappointment. He had been a nervous and fussy child, frightened of the mail-clad warriors in my household, and unwilling to learn sword-skill. I confess I was a bad father, as my father had been too. I loved my children, but I was away at war and after Gisela died I had small time for them. Alfred had put the boys into a school at Wintanceaster where Uhtred had sucked greedily on Christian teats and I remembered my horror at seeing him dressed in white robes and singing in a choir. Both boys became Christians and only my beloved daughter followed my older gods.

  My younger son, now cal
led Uhtred, might be a Christian, but he took to the warrior’s life. He learned the craft of the sword, of the spear, and of the shield, but my eldest followed a different road, a road that led to his becoming a Christian priest. I disowned him that day. I called him Father Judas, a name he embraced for a while before settling on Oswald as his new name. I forgot him, except on the few occasions he appeared in my life. He was with me on the day that my younger son killed Sigurd Ranulfson, and Sigurd’s brother, Cnut, almost killed me. Father Oswald had stalked our shield wall that day, praying and encouraging us, but we did not reconcile. He hated pagans and I hated that he had rejected my family’s fate.

  Then Brida, that hell-bitch who hated Christians and who had once been my lover and had come to hate me in turn, had captured Father Oswald and gelded him. She died too, gutted by my daughter, and Father Oswald’s grievous wound had healed. I had cared for him, saw him healed, but was still resentful that he had abandoned Bebbanburg. We had not spoken since those days, but sometimes in the dark of night, as the sea wind about Bebbanburg’s roofs kept me awake, I would remember him, but never with affection. Only with regret and anger. He had betrayed the duty of our family, which was to hold Bebbanburg until the final chaos roils the earth, until the oceans boil and the gods fall in blood.

  And here he was. A bishop too? He was staring at me hard-faced from the platform, standing next to his king in a place of honour. ‘Come, lord!’ Æthelstan said again, smiling again. ‘Welcome! Come!’

  Gratitude, my father had always said, is a disease of dogs. So I climbed the platform to discover if Æthelstan had any trace of the sickness left and whether my eldest son, who resented me, was working for the destruction of my life’s ambition, which was to hold Bebbanburg for ever.

  Wyrd bið ful ãræd

  Fate is inexorable.

  Five

  I ate little, drank less. Æthelstan sat me at the place of honour, to his right, moving Bishop Oda down the bench to make room for me. The king offered me wine, ham, cheeses, fresh bread, and almonds he said were a gift from the King of the Franks. He asked after my health and enquired of Benedetta. ‘I heard she was living with you,’ he said, ‘and of course I remember her from my father’s court.’

  ‘Where she was a slave,’ I snarled.

  ‘And I remember her as a most beautiful woman,’ he ignored my tone, ‘and yes, a slave too. Is that why you haven’t married her, lord?’

  ‘Certainly not,’ I said curtly, then decided some explanation was needed. ‘She’s superstitious about marriage.’

  ‘As am I,’ Æthelstan said with a smile.

  ‘But you should marry, lord King,’ I said. ‘Your kingdoms need an heir.’

  ‘They have one! My half-brother Edmund. You know him, surely?’

  ‘I remember him as an irritating child.’

  He laughed at that. ‘You never liked children, did you? Even your own.’

  There was a sting in those last three words. ‘I loved my children,’ I said, ‘but I lost three.’ I touched the hammer hanging at my neck.

  ‘Three?’ he asked.

  ‘I had a son by my first marriage,’ I explained. ‘He died as a child.’

  ‘I’m sorry. I didn’t know.’

  ‘Then Stiorra died.’

  Æthelstan chose not to ask which child was the third, because he understood that I meant Bishop Oswald. And my eldest son was indeed a bishop, appointed to the diocese of Ceaster. He was still sitting to Æthelstan’s left, but the two of us ignored each other. My son had bowed his head in a cold welcome as I climbed to the platform, but I had not responded, not even looked into his eyes. Then, at a moment when Æthelstan was distracted, I had turned to Bishop Oda. ‘Why didn’t you tell me?’ I asked in a low voice.

  Oda had not needed the question explained. He shrugged. ‘The king wanted to surprise you, lord.’ He had looked at me with his grave, clever eyes, his expression unreadable.

  ‘You mean he wanted to shock me.’

  ‘I mean he prays for a reconciliation. We all do. Your son is a good man, lord.’

  ‘He’s not my son.’

  The anger and remorse were making me sullen. Æthelstan might have welcomed me profusely, but I still felt I was in a trap. Killing Kolfinn had been easy, but this welcome in a new-built hall was filling me with dread. ‘Prince Edmund shows promise!’ Æthelstan now said enthusiastically. ‘He’s become a good warrior, lord. He wanted to come north with us, but I left him to command in Wintanceaster.’

  I grunted in response and stared down into the candle-lit hall where men looked back at me. I knew many of them, but to the younger men I was a stranger, a relic, a name from the past. They had heard of me, they had heard the stories of men killed and armies beaten, and they could see the bright rings on my arms, could see the scars of war on my cheeks, but they could also see the grey beard and the deep lines that marked my face. I was the past and they were the future. I no longer mattered.

  Æthelstan glanced up at the shuttered windows. ‘I do believe the sun is trying to shine,’ he said. ‘I hoped to take a ride,’ he went on. ‘You’ll accompany me, lord?’

  ‘I rode this morning, lord King,’ I said ungraciously.

  ‘In that rain?’

  ‘There was a man I needed to kill,’ I said. He just looked at me, his dark eyes sunk in his long face. His enemies had ridiculed him as ‘pretty boy’, but those enemies were dead now, and the pretty boy had outgrown his boyish looks to become a sternly handsome man, even an impressive man. ‘He’s dead now,’ I finished.

  I saw a trace of a smile. He knew I was provoking him, but he refused to take offence at my sullen manners. He might have forbidden men to quarrel, had given orders that weapons were not to be carried, yet I had just confessed to a killing and he simply let it pass. ‘We’ll ride,’ he said firmly, ‘and take some hawks, yes?’ He clapped his hands, summoning the attention of everyone in the hall. ‘The sun is out! Shall we hunt?’ He pushed his seat back, prompting the whole hall to stand with him.

  We would go hunting.

  Neither Bishop Oda nor Bishop Oswald rode with us, which was something of a relief to me. Oda had told me that Æthelstan wanted a reconciliation and I had feared I would be thrust into my eldest son’s company through the afternoon, but instead Æthelstan himself rode with me while most of the company trailed behind. A score of mail-clad warriors escorted us, grim men in scarlet cloaks carrying long spears and mounted on big stallions. ‘You fear an enemy?’ I asked Æthelstan as we left the monastery.

  ‘I fear no enemies,’ he said cheerfully, ‘because I am well guarded.’

  ‘So am I,’ I retorted, ‘but last night an archer tried to kill me.’

  ‘So I heard! And you think they might try to skewer me too?’

  ‘Perhaps.’

  ‘And you thought it was one of Hywel’s men?’

  The question told me he knew I had been in Hywel’s tent the night before. ‘The Welsh use long hunting bows,’ I said, ‘but Hywel swears it was not one of his men.’

  ‘I’m sure it wasn’t! Hywel has no quarrel with you and he’s made peace with me. I trust him.’ He smiled. ‘Have you ever tried to stretch a long hunting bow? I tried once! Dear God, but you have to be strong! I pulled the cord all the way back, but my right arm was trembling with the effort.’ He turned to Ealdred who rode on his left. ‘Have you ever tried to pull one, Lord Ealdred?’

  ‘No, lord King,’ Ealdred said. He was unhappy at being forced into my company and refused to look at me.

  ‘You should try!’ Æthelstan said cheerfully. He carried a hooded hawk, which moved its head sharply as we spoke. ‘He’s a tiercel,’ Æthelstan said, lifting his wrist to show me the hawk. ‘Lord Ealdred prefers to fly a female. She’s bigger, of course, but I swear this little bastard is more vicious.’

  ‘They’re all vicious,’ I said. I carried no bird. If I hunt I like to use a boar spear, but my son, my second son, was fond of flying hawks. I had left him in command of B
ebbanburg and I hoped no vicious bastard was trying to take that fortress away from me while I was on the other side of Northumbria.

  We had ridden back to the encampment and Æthelstan curbed his horse close to the big stone circle where his tent stood. He pointed to a great boulder that stood gaunt at the entrance. ‘No one can explain those stones,’ he said.

  ‘The old people put them there,’ I said.

  ‘Yes, but why?’

  ‘Because they knew no better, lord King,’ Ealdred said.

  Æthelstan frowned slightly as he gazed at the stone. Men had seen us and some wandered towards our horses, only to be shepherded away by the mounted guards. ‘There are so many of them,’ Æthelstan said, talking of the stones, ‘all across the kingdom. Great circles of stone and we don’t know why they were put here.’

  ‘Pagan superstition,’ Ealdred said dismissively.

  ‘Your son,’ Æthelstan was speaking to me and he meant my eldest son, ‘would have us pull the stone circles down.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Because they’re pagan, of course!’

  ‘Those gods are dead,’ I said, nodding at the stone, ‘they can’t trouble us.’

  ‘They were never alive, Lord Uhtred, there is only one God!’ Æthelstan waved at the man commanding his escort. ‘Don’t push them back! They mean no harm!’ He was speaking of the men who had come to watch him pass and now he rode towards them, stopped close and spoke to them. I heard them laughing.