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Æthelstan smiled. ‘I am.’
‘Gruffudd of Gwent, lord, would return to his home,’ the priest said.
‘I am surprised,’ Æthelstan said mildly, ‘that Gruffudd of Gwent thought to leave his home in the first place. Or did he come to Mercia to enjoy the weather?’
The priest, who seemed to be the only Welshman capable of speaking the Saxon tongue, had no reply. He just frowned, while the eleven warriors stared at us in mute belligerence.
‘Why did he come?’ Æthelstan asked.
The priest made a helpless gesture with his left hand, then looked embarrassed. ‘We were paid to come, lord Prince,’ he admitted.
I could see that answer made Æthelstan angry. To the Welshmen he doubtless looked calm, but I could sense his fury that Cynlæf’s rebellion had hired Welsh troops. There had ever been enmity between Mercia and the Welsh. Each raided the other, but Mercia, with its rich fields and plump orchards, had more to lose. Indeed the first warrior I ever killed in a shield wall was a Welshman who had come to Mercia to steal cattle or women. I killed four men that day. I had no mail, no helmet, just a borrowed shield and my two swords, and that was the day I first experienced the battle-joy. Our small force of Mercians had been led by Tatwine, a monstrous beast of a warrior, and when the battle was done, when the bridge where we had fought was slippery with blood, he had complimented me. ‘God love me,’ I remembered him saying in awe, ‘but you’re a savage one.’I was a youngster, raw and half-trained, and thought that was praise.
Æthelstan controlled his anger. ‘You tell me that Gruffudd comes from Gwent,’ he said, looking at the man who showed the glint of gold at his neck. ‘But tell me, father, is not Arthfael King of Gwent?’
‘He is, lord Prince.’
‘And King Arthfael thought it good to send men to fight against my father, King Edward?’
Father Bledod still looked embarrassed. ‘The gold, lord, was paid to Gruffudd.’
That answer was evasive and Æthelstan knew it. He paused, looking at the warriors standing in the snow. ‘And who,’ he asked, ‘is Gruffudd of Gwent?’
‘He is kin to Arthfael,’ the priest admitted.
‘Kin?’
‘His mother’s brother, lord Prince.’
Æthelstan thought for a moment. It could hardly have been a surprise that Welsh troops were at the siege. The Welsh and the Mercians were enemies and had always been enemies. King Offa, who had ruled Mercia in the days of its greatness, had built a wall and ditch to mark the frontier and had sworn to kill any Welshman who dared cross the wall, but of course they dared, indeed they seemed to regard the barrier as a challenge. The Mercian rebellion was an opportunity for the Welsh to weaken their traditional enemy. They would have been fools not to take advantage of the Saxon troubles, and the kingdom of Gwent, which lay on the other side of Offa’s ditch, must have hoped to gain land if Cynlæf’s rebellion had succeeded. A few dead warriors was a small price to pay if the Welsh gained some prime Saxon farmland, and it was plain that King Arthfael had made that bargain with Cynlæf. Father Bledod had done his best to absolve the Gwentish king of blame, and Æthelstan did not press him. ‘Tell me,’ he said instead, ‘how many men did Gruffudd of Gwent bring to Ceaster?’
‘Seventy-four, lord.’
‘Then tell Gruffudd of Gwent,’ Æthelstan said, and each time he repeated the name he invested it with more scorn, ‘that he and his seventy-four men are free to cross the river and go home. I will not stop them.’ And that, I thought, was the right decision. There was no point in picking a quarrel with a defeated force. If Æthelstan had chosen to kill Gruffudd and his Welshmen, which he was surely entitled to do, the news of the massacre would spread through the Welsh kingdoms and provoke retaliation. It was better to provoke gratitude by allowing Gruffudd and his men to crawl back to their hovels. ‘But they may travel with nothing more than they brought with them,’ Æthelstan added. ‘If they steal so much as one goat I will slaughter all of them!’
Father Bledod showed no concern at the threat. He must have expected it, and he knew as well as Æthelstan that the threat was a formality. Æthelstan just wanted the foreigners gone from Mercia. ‘Your goats are safe, lord,’ the priest said with sly humour, ‘but Gruffudd’s son is not.’
‘What of his son?’
The priest gestured towards the arena. ‘He is in there, lord.’
Æthelstan turned and stared at the arena, its blood red walls lit by fire and half obscured by snow. ‘It is my intention,’ he said, ‘to kill every man inside.’
The priest made the sign of the cross. ‘Cadwallon ap Gruffudd is a hostage, lord.’
‘A hostage!’ Æthelstan could not hide his surprise. ‘Are you telling me that Cynlæf doesn’t trust Gruffudd of Gwent?’ Æthelstan asked, but the priest did not answer, nor did he need to. Gruffudd’s son had clearly been taken hostage as a surety that the Welsh warriors would not desert Cynlæf’s cause. And that, I thought, meant that Gruffudd must have given Cynlæf cause to doubt the Welshmen’s loyalty.
‘How many of your seventy-four men still live, priest?’ I asked.
Æthelstan looked annoyed at my intervention, but said nothing. ‘Sixty-three, lord,’ the priest answered.
‘You lost eleven men assaulting the walls?’ I asked.
‘Yes, lord.’ Father Bledod paused for a heartbeat. ‘We put ladders against the northern gate, lord, we took the tower.’ He meant one of the two bastions that flanked the Roman gate. ‘We drove the sais from the rampart, lord.’ He was proud of what Gruffudd’s men had achieved, and he had every right to be proud.
‘And you were driven from the gate,’ Æthelstan remarked quietly.
‘By you, lord Prince,’ the priest said. ‘We took the tower, but could not keep it.’
‘And how many sais,’ I used Bledod’s word for the Saxons, ‘died with you on the gate?’
‘We counted ten bodies, lord.’
‘No,’ I said, ‘I want to know how many of Cynlæf’s men died with you.’
‘None, lord,’ Father Bledod could not hide his scorn, ‘not one.’
Æthelstan understood my questions now. Cynlæf had let the Welshmen lead the assault and had done nothing to support them. The Welsh had done the fighting and the Saxons had let them die, and that experience had soured Gruffudd and his men. They could have resisted our arrival the previous day, but had chosen not to fight because they had lost faith in Cynlæf and his cause. Æthelstan looked at the warriors lined behind the priest. ‘What can Gruffudd,’ he asked, ‘give me in return for his son’s life?’
The priest turned and spoke with the short, broad-chested man who wore the gold chain about his neck. Gruffudd of Gwent had a scowling face, a grey tangled beard, and one blind eye, his right eye, which was white as the falling snow. A scar on his cheek showed where a blade had taken the sight from that eye. He spoke in his own language, of course, but I could hear the bitterness in the words. Father Bledod finally turned back to Æthelstan. ‘What does the lord Prince wish from Gruffudd?’
‘I want to hear what he will offer,’ Æthelstan said. ‘What is his son worth? Silver? Gold? Horses?’
There was another brief exchange in the Welsh language. ‘He will not offer gold, lord,’ the priest said, ‘but he will pay you with the name of the man who hired him.’
Æthelstan laughed. ‘Cynlæf hired him!’ he said. ‘I already know that! You waste my time, father.’
‘It is not Cynlæf,’ it was Gruffudd himself who spoke in halting English.
‘Of course it was not Cynlæf,’ Æthelstan said scornfully, ‘he would have sent someone else to bribe you. The devil has evil men to do his work.’
‘It is not Cynlæf,’ Gruffudd said again, then added something in his own language.
‘It was not Cynlæf,’ Father Bledod translated. ‘Cynlæf knew nothing of our coming till we arrived here.’
Æthelstan said nothing for a few heartbeats, then reached out and gently took his cloak from Father Bledod’s shoulders. ‘Tell Gruffudd of Gwent that I will spare his son’s life and he may leave at midday tomorrow. In exchange for his son he will give me the name of my enemy and he will also give me the gold chain about his neck.’
Father Bledod translated the demand, and Gruffudd gave a reluctant nod. ‘It is agreed, lord Prince,’ Bledod said.
‘And the chain,’ Æthelstan said, ‘will be given to the church.’
‘Earsling,’ I said again, still too low for Æthelstan’s ears.
‘And Gruffudd of Gwent,’ Æthelstan went on, ‘will agree to keep his men from raiding Mercia for one whole year.’ That too was agreed, though I suspected it was a meaningless demand. Æthelstan might as well have demanded that it did not rain for a whole year as expect that the Welsh would end their thieving. ‘We will meet again tomorrow,’ Æthelstan finished.
‘Tomorrow, edling,’ Gruffudd said, ‘tomorrow.’ He walked away, followed by his men and by Father Bledod. The snow was falling harder, the flakes whirling in the light of the campfires.
‘I sometimes find it difficult,’ Æthelstan said as he watched them walk away, ‘to remember that the Welsh are Christians.’
I smiled at that. ‘There’s a king in Dyfed called Hywel. You’d like him.’
‘I’ve heard of him.’
‘He’s a good man,’ I said warmly, and rather surprised myself by saying it.
‘And a Christian!’ Æthelstan was mocking me.
‘I said he was good, not perfect.’
Æthelstan crossed himself. ‘Tomorrow we must all be good,’ he said, ‘and spare the life of a Welshman.’
And discover the name of an enemy. I was fairly sure I already knew that name, though I could not be certain of it, though I was certain that one day I would have to kill the man. So a Welshman must live so that a Saxon could die.
Edling, a Welsh title, the same as our ætheling, meaning the son of the king who would be the next king. Gruffudd of Gwent, who I assumed was a chieftain of some kind, even maybe a minor king himself, had used the title to flatter Æthelstan, because no one knew who would succeed King Edward. Æthelstan was the oldest son, but malicious rumour, spread by the church, insisted he was a bastard, and almost all the ealdormen of Wessex supported Ælfweard, Edward’s second son, who was indubitably legitimate. ‘They should make me King of Wessex,’ I told Æthelstan next morning.
He looked shocked. Perhaps he was not fully awake and thought he had misheard. ‘You!’
‘Me.’
‘For God’s sake, why?’
‘I just think the best-looking man in the kingdom should be king.’
He understood I was joking then, but he was in no mood for laughter. He just grunted and urged his horse on. He led sixty of his warriors, while I led all of mine who were not already guarding the arena where Father Bledod was waiting for us. I had told the Welsh priest to join us. ‘How else will we know who Gruffudd’s boy is?’ I had explained. Away to our left, many of Cynlæf’s defeated men were already walking eastwards with their wives and children. I had sent Finan with twenty men to spread the news that they should leave or else face my warriors, and Finan’s small force had met no opposition. The rebellion, at least in this part of Mercia, had collapsed without a fight.
‘Father Swithred,’ Æthelstan said as he watched the beaten men walk away, ‘thought we should kill one man in ten. He said it was the Roman way.’
‘Why don’t you?’
‘You think I should?’ he asked.
‘No,’ I said firmly, ‘I think you should let them go. Most of them aren’t warriors. They’re the folk who tend the fields, raise the cattle, dig ditches, and plant the orchards. They’re carpenters and fullers, leather-workers and ploughmen. They came here because they were ordered to come, but once home they’ll go back to work. Your father needs them. Mercia is no use to him if it’s hungry and poor.’
‘It’s little use to him if it’s rebellious.’
‘You’ve won,’ I said, ‘and most of those men wouldn’t know a rebellion from a wet fart. They were led here. So let them go home.’
‘My father might disagree.’
I scoffed at that statement. ‘So why didn’t your father send a relief force?’
‘He’s ill,’ Æthelstan said, and made the sign of the cross.
I let Tintreg walk around an unburied corpse, one of Cynlæf’s house-warriors we had killed the previous day. Snow had settled on the body to make a soft shroud. ‘What’s wrong with the king?’ I asked.
‘Tribulations,’ Æthelstan said curtly.
‘And how do you cure that?’
He rode in silence for a few paces. ‘No one knows what ails him,’ he finally said, ‘he’s grown fat, and short of breath. But he has days when he seems to recover, thank God. He can still ride, he likes to hunt, he can still rule.’
‘The problem,’ I said, ‘sounds like an old sword in a new scabbard.’
‘What does that mean?’
‘It sounds as if his new bride is wearing him out.’
Æthelstan bridled at that, but did not argue. Instead he looked up at the sky that had cleared overnight. A bright sun glinted from the snow. It would melt quickly, I thought, as quickly as the siege had ended. ‘I suppose he’s waiting for the weather to improve,’ Æthelstan went on, ‘which means he might be coming soon. And he won’t be happy that the rebels are leaving unpunished.’
‘So punish their leaders,’ I said. The leaders of the rebellion, at least in northern Mercia, had trapped themselves in the arena.
‘I intend to.’
‘Then your father will be happy,’ I said, and urged Tintreg on to the arena entrance where Finan waited. ‘Any trouble?’ I called out to him. Finan had relieved Berg in the middle of the night, taking fresh troops to guard the arena. Æthelstan had also sent a score of men, and, like Finan, they all looked cold and tired.
Finan spat, evidently a gesture of scorn for the men trapped in the arena. ‘They made one feeble effort to get out. Didn’t even get past their own barricade. Now they want to surrender.’
‘On what terms?’ Æthelstan asked. He had heard Finan, and had spurred his horse forward.
‘Exile,’ Finan said laconically.
‘Exile?’ Æthelstan asked sharply.
Finan shrugged, knowing what Æthelstan’s answer would be. ‘They’re willing to surrender their lands and go into exile, lord Prince.’
‘Exile!’ Æthelstan exclaimed. ‘Tell them my answer is no. They can surrender to my justice, or else they fight.’
‘Exile them to Northumbria,’ I said mischievously. ‘We need warriors.’ I meant we needed warriors to resist the inevitable invasion that would engulf Northumbria when the Mercian troubles were over.
Æthelstan ignored me. ‘How are you talking to them?’ he asked Finan. ‘Are you just shouting through the entrance?’
‘No, you can go inside, lord Prince,’ Finan said, pointing to the closest staircase leading up to the tiered seating. It seemed that at first light Finan had ordered the barricade removed from that entrance and had led a score of men up to the arena’s seats from where they could look down on the trapped enemy.
‘How many are there?’ Æthelstan asked.
‘I counted eighty-two, lord Prince,’ Finan said, stepping forward to hold Æthelstan’s bridle. ‘There may be some we haven’t seen inside the building. And some of those we saw are servants, of course. Some women too.’
‘They’re all rebels,’ Æthelstan snarled. He dismounted and strode towards the staircase, followed by his men.
Finan looked up at me. ‘What does he want to do?’
‘Kill the lot.’
‘But he’s letting the Welsh live?’
‘One enemy at a time.’
Finan turned to watch as Æthelstan and all his warriors filed into the nearest staircase. ‘He’s changed, hasn’t he?’
