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‘Thank God, no.’
He was standing just below the steering platform, guarded by a grinning Beornoth. We had raised the sail and were going northwards, going home, driven by the steady west wind. Most of my men were on the large ship we had captured, only a few were still on Spearhafoc, and those few were still bailing water. The young man who had sworn to kill me was still tied to the mast, from where he glowered at me. ‘That young fool,’ I said, talking to the priest and nodding towards the young man, ‘is from Wessex, but you sound Mercian.’
‘Christ’s kingdom has no boundaries,’ he retorted.
‘Unlike my mercy,’ I said, to which he answered nothing. ‘I’m from Northumbria,’ I went on, ignoring his defiance, ‘and in Northumbria I am an ealdorman. You call me lord.’ He still said nothing, just looked up at me with a scowl. Spearhafoc was still sluggish, reluctant to lift her bows, but she was sailing and she was heading home. Banamaðr and the captured ship were keeping us company, ready to take us off if Spearhafoc began to sink, though minute by minute I sensed that she would survive to be dragged ashore and repaired. ‘You call me lord,’ I repeated. ‘Where are you from?’
‘Christ’s kingdom.’
Beornoth drew back a meaty hand to strike the priest, but I shook my head. ‘You see that we’re in danger of sinking?’ I asked the priest, who stayed stubbornly silent. I doubted he could sense that Spearhafoc, far from foundering, was recovering her grace. ‘And if we do sink,’ I went on, ‘I’ll tie you to the mast alongside that idiot child. Unless, of course, you tell me what I want to know. Where are you from?’
‘I was born in Mercia,’ he spoke reluctantly, ‘but God saw fit to send me to Wessex.’
‘If he doesn’t call me lord again,’ I told Beornoth, ‘you can smack him as hard as you like.’ I smiled at the priest. ‘Where in Wessex?’
‘Wintanceaster,’ he said, paused, then sensed Beornoth moving and hastily added, ‘lord.’
‘And what,’ I asked, ‘is a priest from Wintanceaster doing in a ship off the Northumbrian coast?’
‘We were sent to kill you!’ he snarled, then yelped as Beornoth smacked the back of his head.
‘Be strong in the Lord, father!’ the young man shouted from the mast.
‘What is that idiot’s name?’ I asked, amused.
The priest hesitated a heartbeat, giving the young man a sideways glance. ‘Wistan, lord,’ he said.
‘And your name?’ I asked.
‘Father Ceolnoth,’ there was again a slight pause before he added ‘lord.’
And I knew then why he was familiar and why he hated me. And that made me laugh. We limped on home.
Two (#u83d52f60-1848-5b11-b7fd-71ecd3ceb922)
We took Spearhafoc home. It was not easy. Gerbruht had slowed the leak, yet still the sleek hull wallowed in the afternoon seas. I had a dozen men bailing her and feared that worsening weather might doom her, but the gusting wind was kind, settling into a steady westerly, and the fretting sea calmed and Spearhafoc’s wolf-sail carried us slowly north. It was dusk when we reached the Farnea Islands and limped between them and a western sky that was a red-streaked furnace of savage fire against which Bebbanburg’s ramparts were outlined black. It was a weary crew that rowed the stricken ship through the narrow channel into Bebbanburg’s harbour. We beached Spearhafoc, and in the morning I would assemble teams of oxen to drag her above the tideline where her bows could be mended. Banamaðr and the captured ship followed us through the channel.
I had talked with Father Ceolnoth as we laboured home, but he had proved sullen and unhelpful. Wistan, the young man who had believed his god wanted my death, had been miserable and equally unhelpful. I had asked them both who had sent them north to kill me, and neither would answer. I had released Wistan from the mast and showed him a heap of captured swords. ‘You can take one and try to kill me again,’ I told him. He blushed when my men laughed and urged him to accept the offer, but he made no attempt to do his god’s work. Instead he just sat in the scuppers until Gerbruht told him to start bailing. ‘You want to live, boy? Start slinging water!’
‘Your father,’ I spoke to Father Ceolnoth, ‘is Ceolberht?’
He seemed surprised that I knew, though in truth it had been a guess. ‘Yes,’ he said curtly.
‘I knew him as a boy.’
‘He told me,’ the priest said, a pause, then, ‘lord.’
‘He didn’t like me then,’ I said, ‘and I daresay he dislikes me still.’
‘Our God teaches us to forgive,’ he said, though in the bitter tone some Christian priests use when they are forced to admit an uncomfortable truth.
‘So where is your father now?’ I asked.
He stayed silent for a while, then evidently decided his answer revealed no secrets. ‘My father serves God in Wintanceaster’s minster. So does my uncle.’
‘I’m glad they both live!’ I said, though that was not true because I disliked both men. They were twins from Mercia, as alike to each other as two apples. They had been hostages with me, caught by the Danes, and while Ceolnoth and Ceolberht had resented that fate, I had welcomed it. I liked the Danes, but the twins were fervent Christians, sons of a bishop, and they had been taught that all pagans were the devil’s spawn. After their release from captivity they had both studied for the priesthood and grew to become passionate haters of paganism. Fate had decreed that our paths should cross often enough, and they had ever despised me, calling me an enemy of the church and worse, and I had finally repaid an insult by kicking out most of Father Ceolberht’s teeth. Ceolnoth bore a remarkable resemblance to his father, but I had guessed that the toothless Ceolberht would name his son after his brother. And so he had.
‘So what is the son of a toothless father doing in Northumbrian waters?’ I had asked him.
‘God’s work,’ was all he would say.
‘Torturing and killing fishermen?’ I asked, and to that question the priest had no answer.
We had taken prisoner those men who appeared to be the leaders of the defeated ships, and that night they were imprisoned in an empty stable that was guarded by my men, but I had invited Father Ceolnoth and the misery-stricken Wistan to eat in the great hall. It was not a feast, most of the garrison had eaten earlier, so the meal was just for the men who had crewed the ships. The only woman present, besides the serving girls, was Eadith my wife, and I sat Father Ceolnoth to her left. I did not like the priest, but I accorded him the dignity of his office, a gesture I regretted as soon as he took his place at the high table’s bench. He raised his hands to the smoke-darkened rafters and began to pray in a loud and piercing voice. I suppose it was brave of him, but it was the bravery of a fool. He asked his god to rain fire on this ‘pestilential fortress’, to lay it waste, and to defeat the abominations that lurked inside its ramparts. I let him rant for a moment, asked him to be silent, and, when he just raised his voice and begged his god to consign us to the devil’s cesspit, I beckoned to Berg. ‘Take the holy bastard to the pigs,’ I said, ‘and chain him there. He can preach to the sows.’
Berg dragged the priest from the hall, and my men, even the Christians, cheered. Wistan, I noticed, watched silently and sadly. He intrigued me. His helmet and mail, which were now mine, were of quality workmanship and suggested that Wistan was nobly-born. I also sensed that, for all his foolishness, he was a thoughtful young man. I pointed him out to Eadith, my wife. ‘When we’re done,’ I told her, ‘we’ll take him to the chapel.’
‘The chapel!’ she sounded surprised.
‘He probably wants to pray.’
‘Just kill the pup,’ Egil put in cheerfully.
‘I think he’ll talk,’ I said. We had learned much from the other prisoners. The small fleet of four ships had been assembled at Dumnoc in East Anglia and was crewed by a mix of men from that port, other East Anglian harbours, and from Wessex. Mostly from Wessex. The men were paid well and had been offered a reward if they succeeded in killing me. The leaders of the fleet, we learned, had been Father Ceolnoth, the boy Wistan and a West Saxon warrior named Egbert. I had never heard of Egbert, though the prisoners claimed he was a famed warrior. ‘A big man, lord,’ one had told me, ‘even taller than you! A scarred face!’ the prisoner had shuddered in remembered fear.
‘Was he on the ship that sank?’ I had asked. We had not captured anyone resembling Egbert’s description so I assumed he was dead.
‘He was on the Hælubearn, lord, the small ship.’
Hælubearn meant ‘child of healing’, but it was also a term the Christians used for themselves, and I wondered if all four ships had carried pious names. I suspected they did because another prisoner, clutching a wooden cross hanging at his breast, said that Father Ceolnoth had promised every man that they would go straight to heaven with all their sins forgiven if they succeeded in slaughtering me. ‘Why would Egbert be on the smallest ship?’ I had wondered aloud.
‘It was the fastest, lord,’ the first prisoner told me. ‘Those other boats are pigs to sail. Hælubearn might be small, but she’s nimble.’
‘Meaning he could escape if there was trouble,’ I had commented sourly, and the prisoners just nodded.
I reckoned I would learn nothing from Father Ceolnoth, but Wistan, I thought, was vulnerable to kindness and so, when the meal was over, Eadith and I took the boy to Bebbanburg’s chapel, which is built on a lower ledge of rock beside the great hall. It is made of timber like most of the fortress, but the Christians among my men had laid a flagstone floor which they had covered with rugs. The chapel is not large, maybe twenty paces long and half as wide. There are no windows, just a wooden altar at the eastern end, a scattering of milking stools, and a bench against the western wall. Three of the walls are hung with plain woollen cloths that block the draughts, while on the altar is a silver cross, kept well polished, and two large candles which are permanently lit.
Wistan seemed bemused when I led him inside. He glanced nervously at Eadith who, like him, wore a cross. ‘Lord?’ he asked nervously.
I sat on the bench and leaned against the wall. ‘We thought you might want to pray,’ I said.
‘It’s a consecrated space,’ Eadith reassured the boy.
‘We have a priest too,’ I added. ‘Father Cuthbert. He’s a friend and he lives in the fortress here. He’s blind and old and some days he feels unwell and then he asks the priest from the village to take his place.’
‘There’s a church in the village,’ Eadith said. ‘You can go there tomorrow.’
Wistan was now thoroughly confused. He had been taught that I was Uhtred the Wicked, a stubborn pagan, an enemy of his church and a priest-killer, yet now I was showing him a Christian chapel inside my fortress and talking to him of Christian priests. He stared at me, then at Eadith, and had nothing to say.
I rarely carried Serpent-Breath when I was inside Bebbanburg, but I had Wasp-Sting at my hip and now I drew the short-sword, turned her so that the hilt was towards Wistan, then slid the blade across the flagstones. ‘Your god says you must kill me. Why don’t you?’
‘Lord …’ he said, then had nothing more to say.
‘You told me you were sent to rid the world of my wickedness,’ I pointed out. ‘You know they call me Uhtredærwe?’
‘Yes, lord,’ he said, scarce above a whisper.
‘Uhtred the priest-killer?’
He nodded. ‘Yes, lord.’
‘I have killed priests,’ I said, ‘and monks.’
‘Not on purpose,’ Eadith put in.
‘Sometimes on purpose,’ I said, ‘but usually in anger.’ I shrugged. ‘Tell me what else you know about me.’
Wistan hesitated, then found his courage. ‘You are a pagan, lord, and a warlord. You are friends with the heathen, you encourage them!’ He hesitated again.
‘Go on,’ I said.
‘Men say you want Æthelstan to be king in Wessex because you have bewitched him. That you will use him to take the throne for yourself!’
‘Is that all?’ I asked, amused.
He had not been looking at me, but now raised his eyes to gaze into mine. ‘They say you killed Æthelhelm the Elder and that you forced his daughter to marry your son. That she was raped! Here, in your fortress.’ He had anger on his face and tears in his eyes and, for a heartbeat, I thought he would snatch up Wasp-Sting.
Then Eadith laughed. She said nothing, just laughed, and her apparent amusement puzzled Wistan. Eadith was looking quizzically at me, and I nodded. She knew what the nod meant and so went into the windswept night. The candles fluttered wildly as she opened and closed the door, but they stayed lit. They were the only illumination in the small chapel, so Wistan and I spoke in near darkness. ‘It’s a rare day when there’s no wind,’ I said mildly. ‘Wind and rain, rain and wind, Bebbanburg’s weather.’
He said nothing.
‘Tell me,’ I said, still sitting beside the chapel wall, ‘how did I kill Ealdorman Æthelhelm?’
‘How would I know, lord?’
‘How do men in Wessex say that he died?’ He did not answer. ‘You are from Wessex?’
‘Yes, lord,’ he muttered.
‘Then tell me what men in Wessex say about Ealdorman Æthelhelm’s death.’
‘They say he was poisoned, lord.’
I half smiled. ‘By a pagan sorcerer?’
He shrugged. ‘You would know, lord, not me.’
‘Then, Wistan of Wessex,’ I went on, ‘let me tell you what I do know. I did not kill Ealdorman Æthelhelm. He died of the fever despite all the care we gave him. He received the last rites of your church. His daughter was with him when he died, and she was neither raped nor forced into marriage with my son.’
He said nothing. The light of the big candles flickered their reflection from Wasp-Sting’s blade. The night wind rattled the chapel door and sighed about the roof. ‘Tell me what you know of Prince Æthelstan,’ I said.
‘That he is a bastard,’ Wistan said, ‘and would take the throne from Ælfweard.’
‘Ælfweard,’ I said, ‘who is nephew to the present Ealdorman Æthelhelm, and is King Edward’s second oldest son. Does Edward still live?’
‘Praise God, yes.’
‘And Ælfweard is his second son, yet you claim he should be king after his father.’
‘He is the ætheling, lord.’
‘The eldest son is the ætheling,’ I pointed out.
‘And in the eyes of God the king’s eldest son is Ælfweard,’ Wistan insisted, ‘because Æthelstan is a bastard.’
‘A bastard,’ I repeated.
‘Yes, lord,’ he said stubbornly.
‘Tomorrow,’ I said, ‘I’ll introduce you to Father Cuthbert. You’ll like him! I keep him safe in this fortress, do you know why?’ Wistan shook his head. ‘Because many years ago,’ I went on, ‘Father Cuthbert was foolish enough to marry the young Prince Edward to a pretty Centish girl, the daughter of a bishop. That girl died in childbirth, but she left twin children, Eadgyth and Æthelstan. I say Father Cuthbert was foolish because Edward did not have his father’s permission to marry, but nevertheless the marriage was consecrated by a Christian priest in a Christian church. And those who would deny Æthelstan his true inheritance have been trying to silence Father Cuthbert ever since. They would kill him, Wistan, so that the truth is never known, and that is why I keep him safe in this fortress.’
‘But …’ he began, and again he had nothing to say. For his whole life, which I guessed was about twenty years, he had been told by everyone in Wessex that Æthelstan was a bastard, and that Ælfweard was the true heir to Edward’s throne. He had believed that lie, he had believed that Æthelstan was whelped on a whore, and now I was destroying that belief. He believed me, and he did not want to believe me, and so he said nothing.
‘And you believe your god sent you to kill me?’ I asked.
He still said nothing. He just gazed at the sword that lay by his feet.
I laughed. ‘My wife is a Christian, my son is a Christian, my oldest and closest friend is a Christian, and over half my men are Christians. Wouldn’t your god have asked one of them to kill me instead of sending you? Why send you all the way from Wessex when there are a hundred or more Christians here who can strike me down?’ He neither moved nor spoke. ‘The fisherman you tortured and killed was also a Christian,’ I said.
He started at that and shook his head. ‘I tried to stop that, but Edgar …’
His voice tailed away to silence, but I had noted the very slight hesitation before the name Edgar. ‘Edgar isn’t his real name, is it?’ I asked. ‘Who is he?’
But the church door creaked open before he could answer, and Eadith led Ælswyth into the wind-fluttering candlelight. Ælswyth stopped as soon as she entered, she stared at Wistan, and then she smiled with delight.
Ælswyth is my daughter-in-law, the daughter of my enemy, and sister to his son, who hates me as much as his father did. Her father, Æthelhelm the Elder, planned to make her a queen, to exchange her beauty for some throne in Christendom, but my son gained her first and she had lived at Bebbanburg ever since. To look at her was to think that no girl so wan, so pale and thin could survive the harsh winters and brutal winds of Northumbria, let alone the agonies of childbirth, yet Ælswyth had given me two grandsons and she alone in the fortress seemed immune to the aches, sneezes, shivers, and coughs that marked our winter months. She looked frail, but was as strong as steel. Her face, so lovely, lit with joy when she saw Wistan. She had a smile that could melt the heart of a beast, but Wistan did not smile back, instead he just gaped at her as if shocked.
‘Æthelwulf!’ Eadith exclaimed and went towards him with open arms.
‘Æthelwulf!’ I repeated, amused. The name meant ‘noble wolf’ and the young man who had called himself Wistan might look noble, yet he looked anything but wolflike.
Æthelwulf blushed. He let Ælswyth embrace him, then looked at me sheepishly. ‘I am Æthelwulf,’ he admitted, and in a tone that suggested I should recognise the name.
‘My brother!’ Ælswyth said happily. ‘My youngest brother!’ It was then she saw Wasp-Sting on the stone floor and frowned, looking to me for an explanation.
‘Your brother,’ I said, ‘was sent to kill me.’
‘Kill you?’ Ælswyth sounded shocked.
