The Bone Thief (46 page)

Wulfgar nodded, a thrill going through him at the other man’s words. This is what I had been hoping for … I may never get any public recognition, but at least Kenelm knows.

‘It wasn’t just me. I couldn’t have managed without Ednoth, although he could be really annoying. Too young to know any better. And Ronan – Father Ronan – I wish you could meet him. He doesn’t look like a priest at all, big and burly, with a pied beard like a badger’s pelt and no tonsure, but I’ve never met faith like his …’

‘Who did you say his bishop was?’

‘I didn’t.’ Wulfgar frowned for a moment. ‘I’ve no idea, now you mention it.’

‘And you never thought to ask?’

Wulfgar shrugged. ‘Other things seemed more important.’

Kenelm raised his eyebrows but said no more on the subject.
‘And
your brother? That big horseman? Will he be at Kingsholm?’

‘Half-brother.’ Wulfgar nodded, feeling the familiar shiver in the small of his back. ‘And he’ll be after me, now he knows I’m here in Gloucester and I can prove the relics they’ve brought are fakes. He’ll want to make sure I’m kept quiet.’ He hugged himself. ‘And he’ll probably guess I’ve got the true bones. He’ll want them back. What do I do now?’

Kenelm looked anxious. ‘I believe your story, Wulfgar, but I don’t think I can help you. I wasn’t there. You need Ednoth, or that priest of yours. Without them, it’s your unlikely story against the King’s very plausible one.’

‘No.’ Wulfgar knew he looked grim. ‘It’s more than that. It’s St Oswald, against a pack of lies.’

CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN

‘WE MUST GO
to the Bishop. Now.’ Wulfgar stood up. ‘If you can believe me, then maybe your uncle will.’

‘Now? It’s not even dawn yet. Wouldn’t we be better getting some sleep?’ But Kenelm’s yawn was unconvincing.

‘Now.’ Wulfgar was already reaching for his cloak. ‘We owe it to the saint. But I’ll go on my own if I have to.’ He ached in every bone. He made for the door as Kenelm got awkwardly to his feet and followed him slowly.

The street was cold, the sky above clear, but the stars were paling and a greying in the east showed where the night was coming to its close. The first cocks were crowing.

‘I just want all this to be over.’ He felt as though his soul were floating somewhere above his body, a body that was slow-moving and clumsy. He tripped over a pile of kindling that had been stacked just inside the gate and only Kenelm’s quick snatch at his arm saved him from going headlong.

‘You do look tired. Would you like me to carry the relics for a bit? It would be an honour …’

Wulfgar pulled away, out of reach, as though Kenelm had threatened violence.

‘No! They’re not heavy, just awkward—’ He stopped and looked at the other man’s face. ‘Sorry.’ Trust had to start somewhere: why not here? He unfastened the pin at his throat and shrugged his cloak back over one shoulder. ‘Here.’ He pressed his lips to the improvised sling and held it out to Kenelm. ‘That goes over your head, and your arm through – that’s it.’

The two clerics moved quietly through the sleeping town, Kenelm’s face shining, his arms hugging his body, his steps careful. After the great events of yesterday, the festivities had lasted late into the night and there would be more than one aching head in Gloucester that morning. From behind a set of shuttered windows the sound of a baby crying reminded Wulfgar of little Electus, whose very existence had slipped his mind for the last few hours. How could he have forgotten about his own godson? Another reason to hurry to Kingsholm. That woman – was she honest? Was she kind? She had looked it, but how could one be sure?

They were at the city gates now. The guard stirred at the sight of them and unlatched the little wicket gate to let them out. So, we don’t look like trouble, Wulfgar thought. I don’t look like a killer, or a thief, or a wanted man.

They walked through the dewy fields, the hedgerows alive with birdsong and the fluttering of wings. Despite the dawn chorus, Wulfgar could hear his heart thudding in his breast.

‘The Bishop will be at Matins,’ Kenelm said. ‘We can wait for him outside the chapel door.’

The palace courtyard was barely recognisable from the previous day, when it had stood so empty. Despite the early hour, it was buzzing with horses and rumpled soldiers, yawning women carrying jugs of beer, scrambling dog-boys and turnspits.

The two clerics were admitted through the main gate without question, and nodded towards the chapel.

‘Come for the service of Thanksgiving, have ye?’ The guard was bright-eyed for all the early hour. ‘Best shift yourselves. They’ve been singing their “
Te Deums
” since first cockcrow.’

They were at the chapel’s very threshold when Wulfgar stopped. A shift of the pattern, and suddenly the meaning he had been seeking was clear to him.

‘He didn’t know.’

‘What?’

‘They don’t know.’

Kenelm stared at him.

‘Garmund, and King Edward. And Bishop Denewulf,’ Wulfgar explained, to himself as much as to Kenelm. ‘They don’t know that the relics they’ve brought are false. If they knew—’ He stopped and shivered.

Kenelm stared at him.

‘If they knew what?’

‘Garmund would have grabbed me yesterday, if he thought for a moment the real relics were still out there. They think they’ve brought the true relics to Gloucester.’ He put his hands to his eyes. Which was riskier? To connive in their unwitting fraud? Or to unmask the King of Wessex and the Bishop of Winchester as gullible fools? He groaned. He was right, he had to be. Garmund would never have exuded that well-fed, smug air if he had had a clue that Wulfgar had outwitted him.

‘Master!’ Suddenly a slave-woman was at his elbow. ‘Such a lovely baby, bless him. Suckling like a lamb! Shall I keep him by me today as well?’

He blinked at her, his thoughts miles away. ‘Baby?’

‘Aye, master, you left him with me yesterday.’

‘Oh, that was you, was it?’ Both Kenelm and the woman were staring at him now. ‘Yes, please do. Thank you. Bless you.’

‘Baby?’ Kenelm asked tentatively.

‘Did I not say? My godson.’ He moved his fingers to his temples. They hurt. Why, in the name of Heaven, if King Edward thought he had the true relics, would he give them away?

The sun was lifting clear of the horizon, flooding the courtyard with light. The white-plastered boards of the chapel were suddenly dazzling. A door opened up like a dark hole in front of him.

‘Wulfgar!’ a voice said.

And another voice shouted over the first one, ‘Arrest that man!’

He was face to face with Edward, King of Wessex.

Cold blue eyes, narrow and intent; a thin, bony nose; an abrupt and haughty gesture of the head – Wulfgar remembered how Edward had always reminded him of a bantam cockerel. He also remembered why the Litter-runt jibe always stung so much: Edward had never been any taller than Wulfgar was himself.

‘Arrest him!’ came the shout again, from somewhere in the courtyard. He turned to see whose the accusing voice was, but the sun was right in his eyes.

‘Take him in charge,’ the King said.

The whole royal party was in the courtyard of a sudden, with both the bishops, and a bevy of attendants. How had so many people packed into that tiny chapel? Wulfgar felt his elbows seized. No, not the whole party.

Miracle or no miracle, there was no sign of Athelred, Lord of the Mercians.

His Lady was in front of him now. He had imagined this reunion so many times, but he had never couched it in these terms: her mouth a set line, her brows narrowed, cheeks pale, sea-grey eyes remote and cold.

‘We will go to the hall,’ she said. ‘Bring him to us when we command.’

‘My Lady—’ But she had turned on her heel and was walking away in a sweep of white and silver.

‘Don’t look so worried, Litter-runt.’ Garmund was leering at him at him, and Wulfgar realised whose voice it had been, shouting for his arrest. ‘They won’t hang you, worse luck, not for this. It’ll be exile. You can scuttle back the far side of Watling Street where you have so many new friends.’

‘What did you tell them?’ Wulfgar’s voice was no more than a rasp.

‘What?’

He tried to clear the frog from his throat.

‘About what happened at Bardney? What do they think happened, Garmund? The bishops, and King Edward. And – and the Lady? What did you tell them?’

Garmund grinned again and tapped his index finger against his nose.

‘Me to know and you to find out, Litter-runt. And you will. Find out, I mean.’ He looked past Wulfgar to the guards at his elbows. ‘Tie his hands.’

Wulfgar closed his eyes.

‘Garmund, is that really necessary?’

‘It might be a long wait, Litter-runt. They’ll be preparing your
trial
. We don’t want you overpowering your guards and escaping, do we?’ The men standing round found this much funnier than Wulfgar did. Sycophants, he thought. But that means they think Garmund is someone worth flattering. He must be doing very well under Edward.

But the summons came before the rope.

CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT

WULFGAR HAD BEEN
cherishing the faintest of hopes that the meeting might be no more than an informal debriefing with the Lady. That hope died as he was jostled into the hall.

This had all the trappings of a formal trial.

The Lady sat in the place of honour in the middle of the high table, under the embroidered red cloth. King Edward was placed on her left. The Bishops of Worcester and Winchester, still vested for Mass, flanked them. A small wooden casket decorated with silver-gilt plaques stood on the table before them. The Kingsholm steward, tall and grey-haired, holding his staff of office, was there at one end of the dais. Clerics and hearth-retainers and the Lady’s women were lining the walls, but Wulfgar was only mistily aware of their presence.

The four pairs of eyes at the high table watched his approach.

Wulfgar looked at each face in turn as the guards propelled him up the length of the hall, past the cold, scoured hearth-place. The Lady had no expression at all. Edward’s thin face looked, if
anything
, amused. Denewulf, Bishop of Winchester, looked like an old sheep, but Wulfgar hadn’t served in his cathedral for more than fifteen years without learning that a lot went on behind that bland, bell-wether façade. And Werferth of Worcester? A thunderstorm, ready to break.

A small rush mat stood below the dais, in front of the Lady’s chair. He was frog-marched to it, and the guards took a step back and to the side. He felt very small.

The doors opened again, and he heard the sound of many feet pounding on the boards. Half-turning, he saw Garmund marching towards him at the head of a dozen or so men. Was it the same troop he had with him at Offchurch, and at Bardney? Wulfgar didn’t recognise any of their faces, but then, why would he?

‘Answer when you are spoken to!’

Wulfgar nearly jumped out of his skin. It was King Edward who had shouted, in that booming voice that belied the King’s slight build.

More gently, the Lady said, ‘Wulfgar of Winchester?’

He tried to speak, nodded instead.

She raised a hand. ‘Proclaim the charges,’ she said.

Somewhere behind him, the familiar voice of the steward said, ‘Wulfgar of Winchester, you are charged with the following crimes against the King of Wessex, against the Lord and Lady of the Mercians, and against your Saviour in Heaven. Firstly, that you did hinder Garmund, servant of King Edward, in carrying out his duties, and precipitate an attack on him and his men. Secondly, that you yourself were responsible, directly or indirectly, for the deaths of three of those same men. Thirdly, that you did, in flagrant contradiction of your clear orders, procure for yourself the sacred relics of the Most Holy Oswald and then sell them to the
aforesaid
Garmund for thirty pounds of silver coin, which you kept as private profit.’

The Bishop of Winchester stirred in his seat.

‘
Nefas est sacras reliquias vendere
,’ he intoned. ‘It is absolutely forbidden to sell sacred relics.’

Or to buy them, for that matter, my Lord Bishop, Wulfgar thought. But I don’t see Garmund standing on this mat.

The Lady held up a hand again, in mild reproof.

‘All in good time, my Lord of Winchester.’ She looked at Wulfgar again. ‘You have heard the charges. This casket contains a holy relic, a bone of St Oswald, whom you have also wronged. Do you lay your hand upon it and swear to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, knowing you invite damnation if you lie?’

But it doesn’t, he thought in a blur. Contain a relic, I mean. It can’t. Not of St Oswald. It must be a bone from the monk of Bardney. Dizzy, he found himself stepping forward, resting his hand on the casket, swearing a meaningless oath. No, not meaningless, he realised. Invalid, perhaps, but heartfelt for all that. If he swore by St Oswald, and meant it, then surely the oath had meaning. And who knew but that brother of Bardney was one of God’s many, many nameless saints, whose holiness was only known in Heaven? Better to assume virtue, he thought, sanctity, authenticity. He bowed his head.