The Bone Thief (48 page)

‘Wulfgar?’ the Lady said. ‘To whom did you give the bones?’

‘Kenelm has them,’ he said in a very small voice.

Bishop Werferth turned from his muttered conversation with the steward.

‘My sister’s son?’

Wulfgar nodded. ‘He was with me when I was arrested. We were bringing the relics to you, my Lord.’

‘This is farcical.’ King Edward was really angry now. ‘Who is this Kenelm? Wulfgar has no witnesses. My man has twelve attested oath-swearers and the Bishop of Winchester himself to vouch for the worth of my gift.’ He was rattling his fingers on the table; and Wulfgar thought, he always did hate looking a fool, even more than most of us.

‘You’d better be telling the truth, Wulfgar,’ Bishop Werferth said, ‘or you’ll pay for dragging my family’s name into this unspeakable mess.’ The steward was summoned forward again by a wave of the Bishop’s bony, ring-laden hand and ordered to send men out to look for Kenelm.

‘Now what?’ Edward said. He stood up and began pacing up and down behind the high table, and Wulfgar was suddenly, forcibly, reminded of the Atheling. The cousins might look so different but there was something akin in them that transcended the physical: that restless appetite for action, that need to control, which Wulfgar found so alien. The King turned suddenly to lash out at the flinching Denewulf of Winchester. ‘You said you had no doubts! You were full of praise for Garmund! Now what, Bishop? Still no doubts?’

The Lady, ignoring his outburst, said, ‘Now we wait.’ She looked down at her folded hands, then, unfolding them to grip the edge of the table under its white linen, she said, ‘Edward, as a matter of interest, why were you going to donate the relics to Gloucester?’ Her voice was calm, almost casual, but Wulfgar observed the slight hunching of her shoulders. He also registered the tense of her question. Not
why did you
… but
why were you going to
… He felt a sudden rush of hope.

She was still speaking: ‘Why not keep them for Winchester? For the cathedral? Or your own new church? The great saint of the English!’ She half-turned in her seat to look up at him. ‘Why do you care for me so much, all of a sudden?’

‘Oh, for God’s sake, Fleda!’ Irritation riddled the King’s voice. ‘Don’t pretend to be so naïve. If I’m to rule Mercia as well as Wessex, I need the Mercians to love me.’

‘Rule? Mercia?’

Her brother didn’t seem to notice the shock in her voice.

‘Of course rule Mercia. It’s been such a messy,
de facto
arrangement for the last twenty years or so. Typical of Father. It’s time to sort it out, now that the Old Boar’s on his death-bed. When he dies I’ll take over
de jure
as well.’

‘He may not die. We had a miracle yesterday, if you remember’ The chill in her voice now made Wulfgar think of the three-year winter that would herald the Last Judgment.

Edward made an impatient gesture. ‘He’s an old man. One way or another, he’ll never be well again.’

‘So Mercia will be taken over?’ she said slowly.

Edward nodded.

‘It’s only common sense. We’ll absorb Mercia into Wessex. As Kent has been. Sussex. And then I’ll be able to take an army
against
the Danes in East Anglia …’ He smiled and pulled out his chair to sit down next to her again. ‘All the English peoples will be united in the end, Fleda. Under one king. One law. Mine.’ He was still smiling. ‘You’re in safe hands.’

‘And you think the Mercians will just … roll over for you?’

‘They love you,’ he said, taking her hand. ‘They’ve done what you’ve told them for nearly twenty years.’

‘Not me, Edward. My husband. And he’s the grandson of Mercian kings.’ She pulled away.

A slave brought in wine for the high table and, under cover of the ceremony on the dais, Garmund sidled close enough to hiss to Wulfgar, ‘Is it true, Litter-runt, what you said about the relics? The bones I brought are the wrong ones?’ His eyes flickered to King Edward.

‘Of course it’s true. I don’t lie on oath, unlike some people.’

Garmund’s eyes contracted and darkened.

‘If it’s true, I’m going to kill you.’

Wulfgar found he was rolling his own eyes to Heaven.

‘I’ve heard that before.’ Astounded and delighted, he realised that Garmund’s words didn’t frighten him. He smiled at his half-brother. ‘You should be thanking me, for not mentioning Offchurch.’

Garmund had clenched his fist before remembering where he was, and in whose presence. Lowering his hand again, he said, ‘You little – I
will
kill you.’

‘On Edward’s say-so, was it, the Offchurch raid? A foretaste of his policy towards Mercia? Does the Lady know?’ Wulfgar broke off at the sound of a knock at the great doors, turning on his heel in sudden, wild hope.

The reliquary had arrived from St Oswald’s church.

But there was still no sign of Kenelm.

CHAPTER FORTY

ST OSWALD’S RELIQUARY HAD
been smuggled up to Kingsholm disguised in a bundle of sacking and hidden in a rush basket. The whole ungainly parcel was placed on the table by the indignant sacristan of the new church. Werferth of Worcester quelled his brother prelate with one ferocious look.

‘Give me the keys, and then you may withdraw,’ he said to the sacristan, who had been hovering like a broody hen.

Outraged, the man opened his mouth, but one more glare from his Bishop had him backing out, bowing all the way to the doors.

‘Have you looked inside before, godfather?’ the Lady asked.

He shook his head without looking at her, intent on removing a second wooden box of new, golden oak, much smaller but still large enough to need both hands. He turned the second key. The slight click sounded loud in the silent hall.

As Bishop Werferth raised the lid of the inner box, he gave a bark of laughter. Wulfgar saw Denewulf of Winchester flinch.
Bishop
Werferth reached in with both hands and lifted out the skull.

‘Come up here, boy.’

Wulfgar looked at the Lady. She nodded, and he made his way up onto the dais. What a difference it made to his morale, looking down at Garmund.

Quiet, conversational, the Bishop said, ‘“The Death of St Oswald”, Wulfgar, how does it go?’

Wulfgar gaped.

‘Sing? Now?’

The Bishop nodded.

‘Just the account of the martyrdom, please.’

Wulfgar, baffled, groped after his singing voice but that seemed to have betrayed him too. It came out as a stammering croak.

His voice sounded very small in that great, echoing space.

Thankfully, the Bishop cut him off with an abrupt gesture.

‘So they do teach the classics at Winchester? I did wonder. Bishop Denewulf doesn’t appear to know the story.’ He turned to his colleague. ‘Thirty years a bishop and you can’t do better than this? You ignorant fool.’

Denewulf held up his hands, shying away from Edward rather than his fellow-prelate.

‘I knew full well there shouldn’t be a skull among the Bardney relics! The other bones – the fragments of the coffin – I never said
all
the bones were those of the saint!’

‘The fragments of the coffin. Yes.’ Werferth’s voice had
changed
, softened, gentler than Wulfgar had ever heard him. ‘These I do remember …’ He closed his eye. ‘The last time I ever went to Bardney, only a few years before the Danes –’ he crossed himself ‘– I had just been ordained priest, and I went as a pilgrim to give thanks to St Oswald. The good brothers made me so welcome. This man –’ he rested a hand on the smooth brow of the skull ‘– this very man must have been among them.’ He shivered suddenly and groped at the table for support. Wulfgar peered into the Bishop’s time-ravaged face, trying to make out the lineaments of a fit and vigorous man of thirty, full of pride in his new ordination. ‘The brothers opened the reliquary for me, and inside was an ancient wooden box.’ The Bishop put his other hand to his own forehead. ‘Our Lord and His Blessed Mother on the lid. Prayers incised around the rim in runes. Angels. And this is it. Wulfgar, my stool.’ He sank onto it. ‘Hand me one of those pieces.’

Wulfgar crossed himself, and lifted out an intricately carved piece of wood, the length of his foot and the width of his hand, damp, rotten and crumbling.

The Bishop pressed it to his lips.

‘Forgive an old man,’ he said under his breath.

There was a sudden crash as Edward banged his fist on the table, rocking it on its trestles. Wulfgar leapt to save the skull from falling off the edge.

‘But this proves
nothing
!’ the King shouted. ‘Wulfgar duped Garmund with false bones. So? He was always a slick little sycophant. Garmund was a fool to trust him, I’ll grant you that. Let’s have a judgement here.’

From the floor, Garmund called, ‘My Lord! If I may venture to speak?’ His tone was humble and ingratiating. ‘I admit it, I was a
fool
to trust Wulfgar, you’re right, my Lord. But he is my own brother, and a man of the Church. I never thought he would lie about these sacred matters.’

A shiver of disgust went through Wulfgar as he gently laid the skull back with the other bones. Slick little sycophant, was he? The King of Wessex could look to his own follower for the truth of that statement. He had a sudden onrush of memory: rough bark against his back, Garmund roping his arms, and Edward taunting him that they were going to re-enact the martyrdom of St Edmund … And the Lady – ah, but she was only Fleda then – rushing in from nowhere, plaits flying, bashing the big boys about the heads with her embroidery frame … How could she possibly think he would ever betray her?

But she was nodding now, her face pinched thin and pale with sorrow.

‘Wulfgar, you have no proof. I accept that these bones cannot be the bones of St Oswald. But that only makes matters worse. Garmund would never have believed these to be the real bones if you hadn’t put them together with the true fragments of wooden reliquary and sold the whole package to him. Your brother trusted you, just as I did.’ Her voice wobbled. ‘Implicitly. To find the saint. And there is no saint.’

‘But, my Lady—’ It was hopeless, though. She had turned away. He didn’t understand how she could credit any of Garmund’s lies.

‘Never mind the saint, where’s the silver?’ Edward leaned across, moving into the gap the Lady had left. ‘Thirty pounds of silver. My silver. Where have you hidden it?’

‘Thief!’ Garmund shouted from the floor.

Bishop Denewulf shook his fleecy white head.

‘Wulfgar, I never knew you properly, did I? Your uncle’s heart
will
be broken.’ He pursed his lips, heavy pink jowls quivering. ‘Where did we go wrong?’

‘We should wait for my nephew,’ the Bishop of Worcester said.

Wulfgar turned to this unlikely saviour with his heart racing, but, ‘No,’ the Lady was already saying. ‘It is time for judgment. Prisoner, please return to the floor of the hall.’ She looked at him. Her eyes were winter-grey again. ‘Will you get down? Or do I have to ask the guards to help you?’

Numb and exhausted, he shook his head, and climbed back down to the floor and his place on the square of rush matting.

‘Wulfgar of Winchester,’ the Lady said, ‘you have not been able to produce a single oath-swearer. Garmund has twelve. I have no choice but to find you guilty on the following charges. You have yourself confessed to killing one of Garmund’s men, and I find you guilty of manslaughter.’

‘Murder!’ Garmund shouted. ‘My man was stabbed in the back, in the dark! He had no chance.’

‘Silence!’ The thunder in the Lady’s voice was eerily reminiscent of her husband in his prime. ‘We will establish the status of the dead man and you will pay the appropriate fine to King Edward and to the man’s family. Next, that you stole and sold holy relics, in defiance of canon law. This is a Church matter, and I will ask the Bishops to come up with a suitable penance. I hope it will be a heavy one.’

She swallowed and glanced down at her hands, folded in front of her, white even against the white linen.

‘Then we come to the matter of deceiving Garmund with the false relics. A very rare crime, and not one which is mentioned in the dooms of Mercia. However, it appears to come under market law.’ She cleared her throat. ‘It seems to me to be comparable with
a
moneyer who mints false coin, and for that crime the penalty is to have the offending hand struck off at the wrist-joint and nailed above the mint.’ She blinked furiously. ‘The right hand.’

‘Where shall we nail Wulfgar’s hand?’ Edward was tight-lipped and bright-eyed.

‘I – I don’t know yet. Finally –’ she paused for a moment ‘– finally, you disobeyed your orders. You are my man, oath-sworn by head and hand. The Bishop of Worcester and I told you to find the relics and come back to us here in Gloucester. Instead, failing to find the relics, you stole those bones –’ she gestured at the piled skeleton in front of her ‘– you sold them under false pretences, and then you came to Gloucester and told us this web of lies. For the crime of oath-breaking, the only penalty the law allows me to impose is confiscation and exile. If you are ever seen within the borders of Mercia again, your life is forfeit without further trial.’