The Bone Thief (2 page)

*
Athelfled
, known to her family as Fleda, eldest child of Alfred the Great and a West Saxon princess, now Lady of the Mercians

*
Athelred
, the ‘Old Boar’ of Mercia, her Lord

Kenelm
the Deacon, the Bishop of Worcester’s nephew

*
Werferth
, the Bishop of Worcester. If he really had only one eye, no chronicler ever bothered to record it

*
Ednoth of Sodbury
, a young man from a gentry family, whose father has a wergild of 200 shillings

Heremod ‘Straddler’
of Wappenbury, a minor land-owner, whose mother is a singularly fearless and stroppy old lady

WEST SAXONS

*
Athelwald Seiriol
, Atheling of Wessex. His father was Alfred the Great’s older brother and predecessor as King of Wessex. Anglo-Saxon laws of inheritance allow him to claim the throne. It is not clear who his mother was; I have invented a Welsh background for her, and a second, Welsh, name for him. He is known among the Danes as ‘Athelwald the Hungry’, also my invention

Garmund ‘Polecat’
, son of Wulfgar’s father and one of the field-slaves on their family estate at Meon in modern Hampshire

*
Edward
, King of Wessex, eldest son of Alfred the Great. Historians call him ‘Edward the Elder’ because there was another King Edward later in the tenth century, but obviously this did not apply in the first King Edward’s lifetime

*
Denewulf
, Bishop of Winchester. Legend has it that he was the swineherd in whose hut Alfred burnt the cakes. But it’s only a legend

LEICESTER

Gunnvor ‘Cat’s-Eyes’ Bolladottir
, whose father came from Norway as part of the Scandinavian Great Army. Only she knows where her father’s loot is buried

Father Ronan
, of St Margaret’s Kirk, Leicester Cathedral, son of a canon of Leicester Cathedral and his house-keeper, an Irish slave-woman

Kevin
, his altar-boy and son

Orm Ormsson
, Norwegian chancer

Ketil ‘Scar’ Grimsson
, Jarl of Leicester and younger brother of the late Hakon ‘Toad’ Grimsson. Hakon and his followers grabbed Leicester when Mercia imploded in the 870s

LINCOLN AND BARDNEY

Toli ‘Silkbeard’
(
Silkiskegg
)
Hrafnsson
, the young Jarl of Lincoln

Eirik ‘the Spider’
, a slave-trader who moves between Lincoln, the Northern Isles, and Dublin

Thorvald the Reeve
(Estate Manager) of Bardney, son of a Danish soldier and an Englishwoman, grandson of the last sacristan of Bardney when it was still a great church and site of pilgrimage

Leoba
, Thorvald’s English wife, and their two young children

The Spider’s Wife
, an Englishwoman of good family, originally from Northumbria, bought by Eirik when she was very young

CHAPTER ONE

Worcester, April, 900

LATE AGAIN
.

Wulfgar was still tugging at his choir robe as he hurried across the courtyard through the mild spring drizzle. He had pulled the robe straight on over his tunic, to save time, and now he was too hot and flustered, and there was an uncomfortable ruck of fabric somewhere round his lower back.

The bell summoning Worcester’s clerics to Vespers tolled for the last time.

Despite his best efforts to scrub his hands clean with pumice, ink had now somehow transferred itself to the cuff of his white robe.

Why, he wondered, am I bothering? I could have just stayed at my desk in the muniments room. Heaven and the Saints all know I’ve got more than enough to do, with the shire-court commencing this evening. Now I’ll be going in to Vespers late and all their horrible, smug faces will be staring at me. He found his feet were beginning to drag.

Come on, he encouraged himself, you’ve got this far! If you’re
ever
going to be accepted by the Mercian minster-men you’ve got to show your face sometimes. He could hear their singing now, blessedly muffled by the cathedral’s thick stone walls.

All the clerics might already be in the choir, but the courtyard outside the cathedral was bustling with activity, and he was nearly knocked over by a couple of harassed-looking palace servants staggering with trestles out of the Bishop’s great hall. ‘Look where you’re going,’ one of them shouted, just in time, and then laughed when Wulfgar had to jump out of the way.

He hurried through the gate, away from the thronged courtyard, his eyes on the cathedral’s north door, the nearest one to his stall in the choir. He was so intent on it that he didn’t notice the small boy running full pelt towards him. Likewise, the boy failed to notice Wulfgar because, as he ran, he was looking back over his shoulder.

Inevitably they collided. The little boy went flying across the slippery cobbles.

Wulfgar recovered his wits first.

‘Are you all right?’ he asked.

The child had gone crashing down with his arms extended, and he was now looking ruefully at two grazed and grubby palms. A pair of bigger boys had appeared out of nowhere and were gazing at them balefully from a short distance away. The expression on the little one’s face told Wulfgar everything he needed to know, and he couldn’t help but see his own past reflected in the young boy’s terrified eyes. The difference is, he thought, that I’m no longer the runt of the litter.

He straightened up and started walking towards the older boys. Older, yes, but only by a year or two. All three of them were clearly cathedral oblates, though their tonsures, like his own, were grown out from the long Lenten weeks of neglect.

‘You should know better,’ he said, when he was close enough. ‘Leave him alone.’

One of the boys looked as though he was backing down, but the other, a snub-nosed, freckled little monster, put on a pugnacious face.

‘We don’t have to do what you tell us. You’re not the oblate-master. You’re just that West Saxon.’

‘I’m the Lord and Lady’s secretary,’ he said sharply, ‘and that’s quite good enough.’ Five months in the post, and it still gave him a thrill to be able to say it. ‘And why aren’t you in Vespers?’

‘We’re helping get the hall ready for the shire-court,’ said the smaller, more conciliatory one.

‘Then do what you’re supposed to be doing,’ he said curtly. ‘Go on!’

The freckled one looked as though he were about to answer back again. Wulfgar wondered what he would do if the boys flatly refused to obey him. He rubbed his chin, trying to look stern and authoritative. Perhaps the six weeks’ growth of beard would help. Maundy Thursday tomorrow – Shear Thursday, as some jokingly called it. Every cleric in Worcester would be shaven and tonsured again by the evening, and not before time, he thought.

The freckled lad was pulling a sulky face.

‘Do what you’re told,’ Wulfgar said sharply, and at last the two older boys turned in the direction of the hall.

Hiding his relief, Wulfgar turned his attention back to the youngest one.

‘Let’s have a look at those hands. Why were they chasing you?’

The little boy was getting to his feet.

‘They wanted this.’ He dug down under the collar of his tunic and produced a leather thong with a small, trumpery, bronze cross
on
it. ‘They said new boys aren’t allowed to have anything of their own. But my mother gave it to me, before I left home, and I wasn’t going to let them take it …’ His chin wobbled, but he kept the tears at bay.

Wulfgar nodded. Mindful of the child’s dignity, he only said, ‘If they get at you again, you can always come to me.’

‘Thank you, sir. But—’

‘But what?’

He was shoving the cross back down the neck of his tunic and took a moment to answer. When he did, his mutter was inaudible, and he couldn’t meet Wulfgar’s eyes.

‘What is it?’

‘Well, sir, it’s just – like they said – you’re from Wessex. And they’ll probably be worse to me now, because of what you said.’

Wulfgar nodded, suppressing a sigh. It was a familiar story. How many times had the palace steward, back home in Winchester, saved him from the clutches of Edward and his gang, only for them to redouble their efforts when they finally caught up with him? No, he couldn’t fault the child’s reasoning, but he did resent the way all Mercians, even the smallest, seemed to dislike West Saxons.

‘If you went to Wessex,’ he said gently, ‘you’d find it swarming with Mercians, you know. Doing very well, some of them. Why shouldn’t a few of us come here?’

‘I don’t know, sir,’ the boy said miserably.

Wulfgar could have provided an answer, but it would have been a long and complex one, a tale of lost lands and faded glories, and a deep mistrust of Mercia’s old enemy to the south. Another time, perhaps. He straightened up.

‘Oh, run along,’ he told the boy.

The other clerics were already midway through the first hymn
as
he slipped into his place in the high, narrow choir. He took a deep breath of the numinous air and felt his pounding heart slow, his ragged breathing grow regular enough for him to join in towards the end.
Unloose the bands of guilt within
, he sang,
Remove the burden of our sin
, trying his best to sound as though he had been there all along.

Why am I letting what those boys said get under my skin? he thought.

He bowed his head to pray, noticing as he did so that the ink stain on his robe had now been augmented by smears of mud. Sorry, he thought, glancing up to the image of the Mother of God in her blue, starry cloak, her Son nestled on her lap, which adorned the wall above the high altar. Most Blessed Lady, I shouldn’t come before you like this, late and grubby and distracted. I’m such an ingrate. I should be counting my blessings, and being here in Worcester should be first on the list, he said to himself firmly, aware of her painted eyes on him. It was a beautiful cathedral, even if it was small. He looked at the glorious altar cross, with its gold, and rock crystal, and enamel. You can tell the Danes have never yet got this far, he observed. How many churches still have treasures like that? And look at you, Queen of Heaven, Star of the Sea. So beautiful … I do know when I’m well off, he told that friendly, painted face. Really, I do.

Queen of Heaven, help me get used to being here, he prayed. You don’t have to remind me Winchester will never be my home again. That door’s as closed as the gate of Paradise. He glanced up at the image on the south wall where Adam and Eve were turned away, weeping, by a stern-faced angel with a sword of fire.

But, he told himself, that doesn’t matter. I’m at the heart of affairs in Mercia now. The Lady knows my worth, and I think the
Lord’s
learning to, as well. I’m doing what I’ve been trained for since I was younger than that child outside. I even have a desk of my own, at last.

So why am I restless? Why isn’t this enough?

The choir began singing the Magnificat, reminding him to augment his list of blessings: he was involved in the solemnities and the splendour and the singing of one of the few great churches left to the English …

And my spirit hath rejoiced in God my Saviour, because he hath regarded the humility of his handmaiden
…

Singing. Humility. Queen of Heaven, he thought, I really am striving to be humble. His bad temper was tightening his throat and hampering his breathing, marring his own true tenor voice. But it was as nothing compared to the grating notes coming from the fair-haired young deacon standing next to him. Kenelm, that was his name. I don’t care if the Bishop
is
your uncle, Wulfgar thought impatiently, I was singing that phrase better when I was seven. He sneaked a glance at the precentor and the cantor and stifled a sigh. There was no chance those two would ever let him take charge of the choir, and doubtless they would live to be as old as Methuselah, just to spite him.

Oh, Winchester …

The old King’s funeral – now, that had been proper singing. It had been the last gift they could give him, even though Wulfgar had hardly been able to see through his tears.

And that thought led to the equally bittersweet memory of the night before the funeral, at his dead Lord’s wake, when the Lady of the Mercians, red-eyed and solemn-faced, had tugged at his sleeve and drawn him away from the mass of mourners drinking deep and singing raucous songs around her father’s bier.

‘I know it’s customary,’ Wulfgar remembered saying to the late King’s daughter, ‘but I wish they’d pray for him instead.’ He had known she was one of the few souls present who would understand his squeamishness. He had looked back over his shoulder at the shrouded figure on the bier, surrounded by stands of guttering candles, the richly draped catafalque barely visible through the crowd. ‘Not that he needs our prayers. If ever a soul went straight to God’s embrace—’