The Empty Throne (The Warrior Chronicles, Book 8) (11 page)

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.

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-stinking 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.

‘Here’s Father Cuthbert,’ Finan announced, and I was startled from my thoughts to see Osferth had brought the priest safely from Fagranforda. That was a relief. Cuthbert’s wife, Mehrasa, was with him. ‘You’re going north now,’ I told Osferth.

‘Lord!’ Cuthbert called, recognising my voice. He had been blinded by Cnut, and his face quested around as if trying to find where I was.

‘North?’ Osferth asked.

‘We all are,’ I said. ‘Families too. We’re going to Ceaster.’

‘Lord?’ Cuthbert said again.

‘You’re safe,’ I told him. ‘You and Mehrasa, you’re safe.’

‘From what, lord?’

‘You’re the only living witness to Edward’s first marriage,’ I told him, ‘and there are men in Wessex who want to prove that wedding never happened.’

‘But it did!’ he said plaintively.

‘So you’re going north to Ceaster,’ I told him, ‘both of you.’ I looked at Osferth. ‘You’ll take all the families north. I want you to leave by tomorrow. You can take two carts from Fagranforda to carry food and belongings, and I want you to travel through Alencestre.’ There were two good roads to Ceaster. One went close to the Welsh border and I encouraged my men to use it to prove to the Welsh that we did not fear them, but the road through Alencestre was safer because it lay much farther from the frontier lands. ‘You can take ten men as guards,’ I said, ‘and you wait for us at Alencestre. And you take everything valuable. Money, metal, clothes, harness, everything.’

‘We’re leaving Fagranforda for good?’ Osferth asked.

I hesitated. The answer, of course, was yes, but I was not sure how my people would respond to that truth. They had made their homes and were raising their children in Fagranforda, and now I was moving them to Mercia’s northernmost frontier. I could have explained that by saying we needed to defend Ceaster against the Norse and Danes, and that was true, but the larger truth was that I wanted Ceaster’s stone walls about me if I had to defend myself against Eardwulf’s spite and Æthelhelm’s ambitions. ‘We’re going north for a time,’ I said evasively, ‘and if we’re not at Alencestre in two days then assume we’re not coming. And if that happens you must take Æthelstan and his sister to Ceaster.’

Osferth frowned. ‘What would stop you arriving?’

‘Fate,’ I said too glibly.

Osferth’s face hardened. ‘You’re starting a war,’ he accused me.

‘I am not.’

‘Æthelhelm wants the boy,’ Finan explained to Osferth, ‘and he’ll fight to get him.’

‘Which means he starts the war,’ I said, ‘not me.’

Osferth’s grave eyes flickered between me and Finan. Finally he scowled, looking astonishingly like his father, King Alfred. ‘But you’re provoking him,’ he said disapprovingly.

‘You’d rather Æthelstan was dead?’

‘Of course not.’

‘So what would you have me do?’ I demanded.

He had no answer to that. Instead he just grimaced. ‘It will be Saxon against Saxon,’ he said unhappily, ‘Christian against Christian.’

‘It will,’ I responded harshly.

‘But …’

‘So we’d better make sure the right Christians win,’ I said. ‘Now get ready to leave.’

‘For Ceaster?’ Finan asked.

‘Osferth goes to Alencestre,’ I said, ‘but you and me are going to Gleawecestre. We have a wedding to stop.’

And a war to provoke.

My daughter refused to ride with Osferth and the families. ‘I’m coming to Gleawecestre,’ she insisted.

‘You’ll go with Osferth,’ I told her.

She was rummaging through Æthelflaed’s clothes, which Brice and his men had piled untidily in the courtyard. She pulled out a precious dress made from rare silk the colour of thick cream and embroidered with strips of oak leaves. ‘This is pretty,’ she said, ignoring my order.

‘And it belongs to Æthelflaed,’ I said.

She held the dress to her shoulders and peered down to see if it fell as far as her feet. ‘Do you like it?’ she asked me.

‘It probably cost more than a ship,’ I said. Silk was one of those rarities that could be found in Lundene where it was sold by traders who claimed it came from some country far to the east, where it was woven by strange people, some with three legs, some with the heads of dogs, and some with no heads at all. The stories differed, but men swore they were all true.

‘It’s beautiful,’ Stiorra said wistfully.

‘It’ll go north with Osferth,’ I said, ‘and with you.’

She folded the dress over one arm and pulled a white linen cloak from the pile. ‘This will look well with the dress,’ she said.

‘He’s taking all the families north,’ I explained. ‘He’s taking two wagons, so you can ride in one of them.’

‘Father,’ she said patiently, ‘I can ride a horse. And draw a bow. This one will be better,’ she pulled another white cloak free, ‘because it has a hood. Oooh! And a silver brooch, see?’

‘Are you listening to me?’ I growled.

‘Of course, father. And we can pick some stitchwort, can’t we?’

‘Stitchwort?’ I asked.

‘To wear in my hair.’

‘Are you mad?’ I asked. ‘You’re going north with Osferth. Why would you want flowers in your hair?’

‘Because it’s too early for apple blossom, of course.’ She turned and gazed at me, and for a moment she looked so like her mother that the breath caught in my throat. ‘Father,’ she said in a patient tone, ‘how do you propose to reach Ælfwynn?’

‘Reach her?’

‘She’ll be in Lord Æthelred’s palace. To get married she just has to walk through the gate to Saint Oswald’s church next door, and I suppose there will be guards along the path, and in the church as well. You can’t just ride in and pick her up. So how will you reach her?’

I stared at her. In truth I had no idea how I was to find Ælfwynn. Sometimes it is impossible to make plans, you just reach the battlefield and snatch whatever chance presents itself. Which, I thought ruefully, was the mistake Brice had made, and now I was planning to do exactly the same.

‘She’s my friend!’ Stiorra said when it was plain I had no answer.

‘I’ve seen you with her,’ I acknowledged grudgingly.

‘I like her. Not everyone does, but I do, and it’s the custom for girls to go with the bride to the wedding.’

‘It is?’

‘So you give me two of your young men and we go to Lord Æthelred’s palace with a bridal gift.’

‘And they arrest you,’ I said flatly.

‘If they know who I am, maybe? But I’ve only spent a few days in Gleawecestre, and I’ve no wish to go into the great hall, just to the outer courtyard where Ælfwynn’s rooms are.’

‘So you go to the courtyard. What then?’

‘I’ll say I’ve come with a gift from Lord Æthelfrith.’

That was shrewd. Æthelfrith was the wealthy Mercian ealdorman whose lands lay next to Lundene. He disliked Æthelred and refused to travel to Gleawecestre. He might have been an ally for Æthelflaed, except that his real loyalty was to the West Saxons. ‘And what gift?’ I asked.

‘A horse,’ she said, ‘a young mare. We groom her and plait ribbons in her mane. I’m sure they’ll let Ælfwynn see the gift.’