‘Just two,’ he said, ‘and four wounded. The rest are under guard.’
I looked at Father Creoda. ‘Take Æthelstan into another room and beat some Latin into him. Finan? Bring me the priest.’
There was little point in questioning Brice. He was Æthelhelm’s dog, but I suspected the priest was really the man who commanded these troops. Æthelhelm would trust Brice to force his way through any obstacle, but would never trust him to be subtle or clever, and Father Aldwyn had doubtless been sent to give advice and to take charge of Æthelstan. I wanted to know what fate that would have meant for the boy.
The priest staggered as he crossed the threshold, evidently pushed hard by Finan, who followed him, then closed the door. ‘He’s protesting,’ Finan said, amused.
‘I am chaplain to Lord Æthelhelm,’ Father Aldwyn said, ‘his confessor and father in God.’
‘You’re my prisoner,’ I said, ‘and you will tell me what Ealdorman Æthelhelm ordered you to do.’
‘I will tell you nothing!’ he said scornfully.
‘Hit him,’ I told my son, but Uhtred hesitated. The Christian sorcerers have power and my son was frightened of the consequences.
‘You see?’ Father Aldwyn sneered. ‘My god protects me.’ He thrust a finger towards my son. ‘Touch me, young man, and you will rot in everlasting damnation.’
‘How do we even know you’re a priest?’ I asked.
‘I am Lord Æthelhelm’s chaplain!’
I frowned. ‘Aldwyn, yes? Is that your name? But I seem to remember meeting Father Aldwyn. An old man with long white hair and a shaking hand. He had the palsy, isn’t that right, Finan?’
‘That’s the fellow, right enough,’ Finan caught my lie and embroidered it, ‘a little fellow with a lame leg. He dribbled a bit.’
‘So this isn’t Father Aldwyn?’
‘Can’t be, he’s not dribbling.’
‘You’re an imposter,’ I told the priest.
‘I am not …’ he began, but I interrupted him.
‘Take his frock off,’ I told Finan. ‘He’s no more a priest than I am.’
‘You dare not …’ Father Aldwyn shouted, then stopped abruptly because Finan had buried a fist in his belly. The Irishman shoved Aldwyn against the wall and drew a knife.
‘See?’ I said to my son. ‘He’s an imposter. He’s just pretending to be a priest like that fat fellow who came to Cirrenceastre last winter.’ The man had been collecting coins that he said were to feed the poor and hungry, but all they did was add to his belly till we had Father Creoda question him. The fat fellow could not even repeat the creed, so we stripped him down to his shirt and then whipped him out of town.
Aldwyn made a strangled noise as Finan slashed down through his black robe. The Irishman sheathed the knife, then ripped the robe clean down the centre and tugged it off the priest’s shoulders. Aldwyn was left wearing a dirty shift that hung to his knees. ‘See?’ I said again. ‘He’s no priest.’
‘You make an enemy of God!’ Aldwyn hissed at me. ‘Of God and his holy saints!’
‘I don’t give a rat’s turd for your god,’ I said, ‘and besides, you’re not a priest. You’re an imposter.’
‘I …’ the words were cut off because Finan had hit him in the belly again.
‘So tell me, imposter,’ I said, ‘what Lord Æthelhelm planned to do with Prince Æthelstan?’
‘He’s no prince,’ Aldwyn gasped.
‘Uhtred,’ I looked at my son, ‘hit him.’ My son paused a heartbeat, then crossed the room and slapped the priest hard around the head. ‘Good,’ I said.
‘The boy is a bastard,’ Aldwyn said.
‘Again,’ I told my son, and he backhanded the priest hard.
‘King Edward and Æthelstan’s mother,’ I said, ‘were married in a church and the priest who married them lives.’ I hoped Father Cuthbert was still alive and, judging by Aldwyn’s surprised reaction, he was. Aldwyn was staring at me, trying to judge the truth of what I had said, and I suspected that if he had been told of Father Cuthbert’s existence then he would not be gazing at me so fixedly. ‘He lives,’ I went on, ‘and will swear on oath that he married Edward and the Lady Ecgwynn. And that means Æthelstan is the king’s eldest son, the ætheling, next in line to the throne.’
‘You lie,’ Aldwyn said, though without conviction.
‘So now answer my question,’ I said patiently. ‘What were you planning to do with the ætheling?’
It took time and threats, but in the end he told us. Æthelstan was to be sent south across the sea to Neustria, which is a great stretch of rocky land that forms the westernmost province of Frankia. ‘There is a monastery there,’ Aldwyn said, ‘and the boy would be entrusted to the monks for his education.’
‘His imprisonment, you mean.’
‘His education,’ Aldwyn insisted.
‘In a place racked by warfare,’ I said. The province of Neustria had been invaded by Northmen, hordes of them, men who reckoned that there were easier pickings in Frankia than in Britain. Any monastery on that wild land beside the ocean was likely to be sacked by vengeful Norsemen, with everyone inside the walls put to the sword. ‘You want the ætheling dead,’ I accused him, ‘without blood on your hands.’
‘They are holy men in Neustria,’ he said weakly.
‘Holy jailers,’ I said. ‘Does King Edward know of this?’
‘The king agrees that his bastard son should be educated by the church,’ Aldwyn said.
‘And he thinks it will be in some West Saxon monastery,’ I guessed, ‘not in some Neustrian cesspit waiting for the Norsemen to open his guts with a blade.’
‘Or sell him into slavery,’ Finan put in quietly.
And that made sense. Æthelstan and his sister? Two young children? They could fetch a high price in Frankia’s slave markets. ‘You bastard,’ I said to Aldwyn, ‘and what of his twin sister? You were hoping she’d be enslaved too?’ He said nothing, just raised his head and stared defiantly at me. ‘Did you travel to Neustria?’ I asked on an impulse.
Aldwyn hesitated, then shook his head. ‘No, why would I do that?’
I stood, wincing at the inevitable pain. I drew Wasp-Sting and walked so close to the priest that I could smell his foul breath. ‘I’ll give you another chance,’ I said. ‘Did you travel to Neustria?’
He hesitated again, but this time out of fear of the seax’s short blade. ‘Yes,’ he admitted.
‘And who,’ I asked, ‘did you see there?’
He grimaced as I twitched Wasp-Sting. ‘The abbot of Saint Stephen’s in Cadum,’ he said in a panic.
‘You lying bastard,’ I said. If he had simply wanted to place a boy in the monastery’s school then a letter would have been sufficient. I raised the blade, lifting the ragged hem of his shift. ‘Who did you see?’
He shuddered, feeling the tip of the blade at his groin. ‘Hrolf,’ he whispered.
‘Louder!’
‘Hrolf!’
Hrolf was a Norseman, a chieftain who had taken his crews to Frankia where he had ravaged great stretches of countryside. News had come to Britain that Hrolf had captured a large part of Neustria and was intent on staying there. ‘You planned to sell the twins to Hrolf?’ I asked Aldwyn.
‘Hrolf is a Christian. He would raise them properly!’
‘Hrolf is no more a Christian than I am,’ I snarled. ‘He says he is because the Franks demanded that as a price for him staying there. I’d say the same thing if it gave me a new kingdom to rule. You’d have sold Æthelstan and Eadgyth to the bastard, and what would he do? Kill them?’
‘No,’ the priest whispered, but without conviction.
‘And that would have left Lord Æthelhelm’s grandson as the only heir to the kingdom of Wessex.’ I raised Wasp-Sting higher till her tip touched Aldwyn’s belly. ‘You’re a traitor, Aldwyn. You were planning to murder the king’s eldest children.’
‘No,’ he whispered again.
‘So tell me why I shouldn’t k
ill you.’
‘I am a priest,’ he whimpered.
‘You’re not dressed as a priest,’ I said, ‘and you struck my daughter. That’s not the act of a priest, is it?’
He had nothing to say. He knew my reputation as a priest-killer. Most men, of course, feared to kill a monk or priest, knowing that the act would condemn them to the nailed god’s perpetual torment, but I had no fear of the Christian god’s vengeance. ‘You’re a traitor, Aldwyn,’ I said again, ‘so why shouldn’t I kill you? You deserve it.’
‘Let me,’ my daughter said and I turned in astonishment. Stiorra had taken two paces forward and was just looking at me with an expressionless face. She held out her right hand for the seax. ‘Let me,’ she said again.
I shook my head. ‘Killing isn’t woman’s work,’ I said.
‘Why not?’ she asked. ‘We give life, can’t we take it too?’
‘No,’ Aldwyn said, ‘no!’
I ignored him. ‘It’s harder than you think to kill a man,’ I said to Stiorra, ‘and though this bastard deserves to die, he should have a quick end.’
‘Why?’ she asked. ‘He thought to enjoy me, father. Would that have been quick?’
‘Think of your soul,’ my son said.
‘My soul?’ she asked him.
‘God will see what you do,’ he said, ‘and killing a priest is an unforgivable sin.’
‘Not to my gods,’ she said and I just stared at her, scarcely believing what I had heard. I wanted to say something, but nothing came, so I just stared and she turned back to me, smiling now. ‘My mother was a pagan,’ she said, ‘and you are. Why shouldn’t I be?’
My son looked horrified, Finan was grinning. ‘You worship my gods?’ I asked.
‘I do, father.’
‘But you were raised Christian!’ her brother said.
‘So was father,’ she said, still gazing at me, ‘and so were you, brother, but don’t tell me you don’t pray to our gods too. I know you do.’ Then she looked past me at Aldwyn, and her face hardened. At that moment she looked so like her mother that it hurt to see her. ‘Let me, father,’ she said, holding out her hand again.
I gave her Wasp-Sting.
‘No!’ Aldwyn exclaimed.
Stiorra used her left hand to tear the linen dress out of the brooch so that one breast was exposed. ‘Isn’t that what you wanted to see, priest?’ she asked. ‘So look at it!’
‘No!’ Aldwyn was whimpering. He half crouched, not daring to look.
‘Stiorra!’ my son whispered.
But my daughter had no pity. I watched her face as she killed the priest and it was hard, merciless and determined. She cut him first, slashing the short-sword to open his scalp and his neck, then to slice his forearms as he tried to defend himself, and her breast and dress were spattered with his blood as she beat him down with two more cuts to the head, and only then did she use two hands on Wasp-Sting’s short hilt to slice hard at his throat. The blade lodged there and she grunted as she hauled it back and across to cut his gullet. She watched as he fell, as his blood spurted to puddle on one of the naked women running from the goat-god. She watched Aldwyn die and I watched her. It was always difficult to read her face, but I did not see any revulsion at the slaughter she had made, only what looked like curiosity. She even smiled slightly as the priest twitched and made a gurgling noise. His fingers clawed at the little tiles, then he gave a great jerk and was still.
Stiorra offered the sword hilt-first to me. ‘Thank you, father,’ she said calmly. ‘Now I must wash.’ She held the ruined, blood-soaked dress over her nakedness and walked from the room.
‘Christ Jesus,’ my son said quietly.
‘She’s your daughter, so she is,’ Finan said. He walked to the priest’s corpse and nudged it with his foot, ‘And the image of her mother,’ he added.
‘We need six wagons,’ I said, ‘at least six.’
Finan and my son were still both staring at the dead priest, who, quite suddenly, farted.
‘Six wagons,’ I said again, ‘harnessed with horses, not oxen. And preferably loaded with hay or straw. Something heavy, anyway. Logs, maybe.’
‘Six wagons?’ Finan asked.
‘At least six,’ I said, ‘and we need them by tomorrow.’
‘Why, lord?’ he asked.
‘Because we’re going to a wedding,’ I said, ‘of course.’
And so we were.
Three
There was a cavernous space beneath Father Creoda’s church, a space so big that it stretched beyond the church’s walls, which were supported by massive stone pillars and arches. The cellar walls were also of stone, great blocks of roughly trimmed masonry, while the floor was beaten earth. There were some ancient bones piled on a stone shelf against the eastern wall, but otherwise the cellar was empty, dark and stinking. The Romans must have built it, though in their day I doubted that a nearby cesspit would have been allowed to leak through the stonework. ‘You can smell it in the church,’ Father Creoda said sadly, ‘unless the wind is in the east.’
‘Shit leaks through the masonry?’ I asked. I had no intention of finding out by dropping through the massive trapdoor into the dark space.
‘Constantly,’ he said, ‘because the mortar has crumbled.’
‘Then seal it with pitch,’ I suggested, ‘like a boat’s timbers. Stuff the cracks with horsehair and smother it in pitch.’
‘Pitch?’
‘You can buy it in Gleawecestre.’ I peered into the darkness. ‘Whose bones?’
‘We don’t know. They were here before the Lady Æthelflaed built the church, and we didn’t like to disturb them.’ He made the sign of the cross. ‘Ghosts, lord,’ he explained.
‘Sell them as relics,’ I said, ‘and use the money to buy a new bell.’
‘But they could be heathens!’ He sounded shocked.
‘So?’ I asked, then straightened, wincing at the inevitable pain. For now the foul-smelling cellar would be a prison for Brice and his men. They deserved worse. They had ransacked Æthelflaed’s house, making a pile of her most precious possessions; her clothes, tapestries, jewels, kitchen pots, and lamps. ‘It all belongs to her husband,’ Brice had told me sullenly, ‘and she won’t be needing finery in a nunnery.’
So that, too, was part of the bargain Æthelhelm had made with Æthelred, that the powerful West Saxon would somehow force Æthelflaed into a convent. Would her brother approve of that? I wondered. But Edward, I realised, was probably jealous of his sister’s reputation. He was constantly being compared with his father and found wanting, and now, even worse, he was reckoned to be a lesser warrior than his sister. Kings, even decent ones like Edward, have pride. He might accept that he could never rival his father, but it must gall him to hear his sister praised. He would gladly see her retired to a convent.
Father Aldwyn’s body had been brought into the church. Finan had dressed the corpse in the torn black robe, but there was no hiding the violence of the priest’s end. ‘What happened?’ Father Creoda had asked in an appalled whisper.
‘He killed himself out of remorse,’ I had told him.
‘He …’
‘Killed himself,’ I had growled.
‘Yes, lord.’
‘So as a suicide,’ I said, ‘he can’t be buried in hallowed ground. I don’t know why Finan even brought him into the church!’
‘I wasn’t thinking,’ Finan said, grinning.
‘So you’d best dig the bastard a deep grave somewhere out of town,’ I advised.
‘At a crossroads,’ Finan said.
‘A crossroads?’ Father Creoda asked.
‘So his soul gets confused,’ Finan explained. ‘He won’t know which way to go. You don’t want his spirit coming back here, God forbid, so plant him at a crossroads and confuse him.’
‘Confuse him,’ Father Creoda repeated, staring in horror at the grimace on the dead priest’s savaged face.
Brice and his men were thrust down into the darkness of the shit-st
inking cellar. They had all been stripped of their mail, their boots, their jewellery, and their sword belts. ‘You can let them out in two days,’ I told the town’s reeve. ‘Throw down some bread for the bastards, give them some buckets of water, then leave them for two whole days. They’ll try to persuade you to let them out sooner, they’ll try to bribe you, but don’t release them.’
‘I won’t, lord.’
‘If you do,’ I said, ‘you make an enemy of me and of Lady Æthelflaed.’ There had been a time, I thought, when that threat carried real weight.
‘And of me,’ Finan put in.
The reeve shuddered at Finan’s soft words. ‘They’ll stay two days, lord, I promise. I swear it on our Lord’s body.’ He turned and bowed to the altar, where feathers from the geese expelled from the cornfield by Saint Werburgh were encased in silver.
‘Let them out sooner,’ Finan added, ‘and the ghosts of the bones will come for you.’
‘I swear it, lord!’ the reeve said in desperation.
‘I suppose they’ll bury me at a crossroads,’ I said to Finan as we walked back to Æthelflaed’s house.
He grinned. ‘We’ll give you a proper funeral. We’ll light a fire big enough to dim the sun. Trust me, your gods will know you’re coming.’
I smiled, but I was thinking of the crossroads, of all the roads that the Romans had made, and which crumbled across Britain. Parts were washed away by floods, sometimes the stones were stolen because the big flat slabs made good field markers or foundations for pilings. As often as not when we travelled across country we rode or walked beside the road because the surface was too pitted and ruined for comfort, and so the road was just a weed-strewn marker for our journeys. Those markers led all across Britain, and they decayed, and I wondered what would happen to them. ‘Do you think,’ I asked Finan, ‘that we can see what happens here after we’re dead?’
He looked at me strangely. ‘The priests say so.’
‘They do?’ I was surprised.
‘They say you can look into hell,’ he said, frowning, ‘so why not into this life too?’
‘I’d like to know what happens,’ I said. I supposed the roads would disappear, and the fields on either side would be overgrown with hazel saplings, and after them the thorny brambles would shroud the old paths. Is that what I would see from Valhalla? And was some Roman gazing at Cirrenceastre even now and wondering how it had turned from honey-coloured stone and white marble to damp thatch and rotted timbers? I knew I was making Finan uncomfortable, but I knew too that the Norns, those grim women who control our lives, were fingering my thread and wondering when to slice it with their sharp shears. I had feared that cut for so long, yet now I almost wanted it. I wanted an end to the pain, to the problems, but I also wanted to know how it would all end. But does it ever end? We had driven the Danes back, but now a new fight loomed, a fight for Mercia.