The Empty Throne (The Warrior Chronicles, Book 8) (20 page)

‘Enough! Stop!’ I heard Æthelflaed shout, and I turned back to the burning hall. I had thought she was in trouble, but instead she was halting the slaughter. ‘I will kill no more Mercians!’ she shouted. ‘Stop!’ The survivors were being herded together and stripped of their weapons.

I sat motionless, pain filling my chest, my sword held low. The fire was roaring now, the whole hall roof ablaze and filling the night with smoke, sparks, and blood-coloured light. Finan came to my side. ‘Lord?’ he asked anxiously.

‘I’m not hurt. It’s just the wound.’

He led my horse back to where Æthelflaed had gathered the prisoners. ‘Eardwulf escaped,’ I told her.

‘There’s nowhere he can go,’ she said. ‘He’s an outlaw now.’

A roof beam collapsed, surging new flames higher and showering the sky with bright sparks. Æthelflaed kicked her horse towards the prisoners, fourteen of them, who stood beside the barn. There were six corpses between the barn and the hall. ‘Take them away,’ Æthelflaed ordered, ‘and bury them.’ She looked at the fourteen men. ‘How many of you,’ she asked, ‘swore oaths of loyalty to Eardwulf?’

All but one raised their hands. ‘Just kill them,’ I growled.

She ignored me. ‘Your lord,’ she said, ‘is now an outlaw. If he lives he will flee to a far country, to heathen lands. How many of you wish to accompany your oath-lord?’

Not one of them raised a hand. They stood silent and fearful. Some were wounded, their scalps or shoulders bleeding from sword cuts made by the horsemen who had ambushed them.

‘You can’t trust them,’ I said, ‘so kill them.’

‘Are you all Mercians?’ Æthelflaed asked, and all nodded except for the one man who had not admitted his loyalty to Eardwulf. The Mercians looked at that man and he flinched. ‘What are you?’ Æthelflaed asked him. He hesitated. ‘Tell me!’ she commanded.

‘Grindwyn, my lady. I’m from Wintanceaster.’

‘A West Saxon?’

‘Yes, my lady.’

I kicked my horse closer to Grindwyn. He was an older man of maybe thirty or forty summers with a neatly trimmed beard, expensive mail, and a finely crafted cross hanging at his neck. The mail and the cross suggested he was a man who had earned silver across the years, not some adventurer driven by poverty to seek service with Eardwulf. ‘Who do you serve?’ I asked him.

Again he hesitated. ‘Answer!’ Æthelflaed called.

Still he hesitated. I could see he was tempted to lie, but all the Mercians knew the truth and so he grudgingly spoke it. ‘The Lord Æthelhelm, my lady,’ he said.

I laughed sourly. ‘He sent you to make certain Eardwulf did his bidding?’

He nodded for answer and I jerked my head to Finan, indicating he should take Grindwyn aside. ‘Keep him safe,’ I told Finan.

Æthelflaed looked down at the remaining prisoners. ‘My husband,’ she said, ‘gave high privileges to Eardwulf, yet Eardwulf had no right to make you swear loyalty to him instead of to my husband. He was my husband’s servant and had sworn an oath to him. But my husband is dead, God rest his soul, and the loyalty you should have offered him is now mine. Is there any one of you who refuses to give me that loyalty?’

They shook their heads. ‘Of course they’ll offer you loyalty,’ I snarled, ‘the bastards want to live. Just kill them.’

She ignored me again, looking instead at Sihtric who stood over a pile of captured weapons. ‘Give them their swords,’ she commanded.

Sihtric glanced at me, but I just shrugged and so he obeyed. He carried a bundle of swords and let the men choose their own. They stood holding their weapons, still uncertain, wondering if they were about to be attacked, but instead Æthelflaed dismounted. She gave the reins of her horse to Sihtric and walked towards the fourteen men. ‘Did Eardwulf give you orders to kill me?’ she asked.

They hesitated. ‘Yes, my lady.’ It was one of the older men who answered.

She laughed. ‘Then now is your chance.’ She spread her arms wide.

‘My lady …’ I began.

‘Be silent!’ she snapped at me without turning her head. She gazed at the prisoners. ‘You either kill me,’ she said, ‘or you kneel to me and give me your oaths.’

‘Guard her!’ I snapped at my son.

‘Stand back!’ she told Uhtred, who had drawn Raven-Beak and moved to her side. ‘Further back! These are Mercians. I need no protection from Mercians.’ She smiled at the captives. ‘Which of you commands?’ she asked and, when none answered, ‘Then who is the best leader among you?’ They shuffled their feet, but finally two or three of them pushed the oldest man forward. He was the man who had confirmed that Eardwulf’s ambition had been to kill Æthelflaed. He had a scarred face, a short beard, and a wall eye. He had lost half an ear in the fight and the blood was black on his hair and neck. ‘Your name?’ Æthelflaed asked.

‘Hoggar, my lady.’

‘Then for the moment you command these men,’ she said, indicating the prisoners, ‘now send them to me one by one to take their oaths.’

So she stood alone in the flamelight, and one after another her enemies came to her, each holding a sword, and each knelt to her and swore to be her man. And, of course, none raised their sword to kill her. I could see their faces, see how they had been seduced by her, how the oath they swore was heartfelt. She could do that to men. Hoggar was the last to swear his oath, and I could see tears in his eyes as he felt her hands clasp his about the hilt of his sword and as he said the words that tied his life to hers. Æthelflaed smiled at him, then touched his grey hair as if she was blessing him. ‘Thank you,’ she said to him, then turned to my men. ‘These warriors are no longer prisoners! They are my men now, they are your comrades, and they will share in our fortune, for good or for ill.’

‘But not that one!’ I called, indicating Æthelhelm’s man, Grindwyn.

‘Not that one,’ Æthelflaed agreed, then touched Hoggar’s head again. ‘Treat your wounds, Hoggar,’ she said gently.

And then the fifteenth prisoner was brought into the flamelight, the long dark-haired rider whose horse had stumbled just in front of me. The rider wore a long mail coat and a finely chased helmet that Eadric hauled off.

It was Eardwulf’s sister, Eadith.

We rode to Eardwulf’s camp in the dawn. I did not expect to find him there, nor was he. Instead the rest of his men, those who had refused to accompany him in the night, were either sitting about campfires or else saddling horses. They panicked when we appeared, some clambering into saddles, but Finan led a half-dozen men to head them off and the show of swords was enough to drive the fleeing men back to their comrades. Few were wearing mail, and none looked ready for a fight, while our men were mounted, armoured, and carrying weapons. I saw some of Eardwulf’s men cross themselves as if they expected sudden slaughter.

‘Hoggar!’ Æthelflaed called sharply.

‘My lady?’

‘You and your men will escort me. The rest of you,’ she turned and pointedly looked at me, ‘will wait here.’ She was insisting that she needed no protection from Mercians and, just as she had seduced Hoggar and his men in the night, so she would work her sorcery on the rest of Eardwulf’s troops.

She had ordered me to stay behind, but I nevertheless rode close enough to hear her words. The twin priests, Ceolberht and Ceolnoth, met her, bowing their heads respectfully, then claimed that they had restrained the rest of Eardwulf’s men from joining the night-time attack. ‘We told them, my lady, that what he planned was a sin and would be punished by God,’ Father Ceolnoth said. His toothless twin nodded vigorous agreement.

‘And did you tell them,’ I asked loudly, ‘that a failure to warn us was also a sin?’

‘We wanted to warn you, my lady,’ Father Ceolnoth said, ‘but he set guards on us.’

I laughed. ‘Two hundred of you and forty of them?’

Both priests ignored the question. ‘We thank God for your life, lady,’ Ceolberht lisped instead.

‘As you’d have thanked your god for Eardwulf’s success if he’d killed Lady Æthelflaed,’ I said.

‘Enough!’ Æthelflaed motioned me to silence. She looked back to the twin priests. ‘Tell me of my husband,’ she demanded.

They both hesitated, glancing at each other, then Ceolnoth made the sign of the cross. ‘Your husband died, my lady.’

‘So I hear,’ she said, but I sensed her relief that what had been mere rumour so far was now confirmed. ‘I will pray for his soul,’ she said.

‘As do we all,’ Ceolberht said.

‘It was a peaceful death,’ the other twin said, ‘and he received the sacraments with grace and calmness.’

‘Then my Lord Æthelred has gone to his heavenly reward,’ Æthelflaed said, and I snorted with laughter. She gave me a warning look, and then, escorted only by the men who just hours before had tried to kill her, she rode among the other Mercian troops. They had been her husband’s household warriors, supposedly the best in Mercia and for years her sworn enemies and, though I could not hear what she said to them, I watched them kneel to her. Finan joined me, leaning on his saddle’s pommel. ‘They love her.’

‘They do.’

‘So what now?’

‘So now we make her Mercia’s ruler,’ I said.

‘How?’

‘How do you think? By killing any bastard who opposes her.’

Finan smiled. ‘Oh,’ he said, ‘by persuasion!’

‘Exactly,’ I agreed.

But first we had to go to Gleawecestre, and we rode there over three hundred men strong, a band of warriors who, not hours before, had been fighting each other. Æthelflaed ordered her standard raised alongside her husband’s flag. She was telling the places we passed that her family still ruled in Mercia, though we still did not know whether the men waiting in Gleawecestre would agree with that claim. I wondered too how Edward of Wessex would take his sister’s ambition. He, of all people, could thwart her, and she would obey him because he was a king.

The answers to those questions must wait, but as we rode I sought out the twin priests because I had other questions for them. They bridled when I spurred my horse between their two geldings, and Ceolberht, whose mouth I had ruined, tried to kick his horse ahead, but I leaned down and seized the bridle. ‘You two,’ I said, ‘were at Teotanheale.’

‘We were,’ Ceolnoth said guardedly.

‘A great victory,’ his brother added, ‘thanks to God.’

‘Granted by Almighty God to Lord Æthelred,’ Ceolnoth finished, trying to irritate me.

‘Not to King Edward?’ I asked.

‘To him too, yes,’ Ceolnoth said hurriedly, ‘God be praised.’

Eadith was riding alongside Ceolnoth, guarded by two of my men. She still wore the mail coat over which hung a bright silver cross. She must have thought of the two priests as allies because they had been such stalwart supporters of Æthelred. She looked at me sullenly, wondering no doubt what I planned to do with her, though in truth I had no plans. ‘Where do you think your brother went?’ I asked her.

‘How would I know, lord?’ she asked in a cold voice.

‘You know he’s outlawed?’

‘I assumed so,’ she said distantly.

‘You want to join him?’ I asked. ‘You want to fester away in a Welsh valley, perhaps? Or shiver in some Scottish hovel?’

She grimaced, but said nothing. ‘The Lady Eadith,’ Father Ceolnoth said, ‘can find refuge in a holy nunnery.’

I saw her shudder and I smiled. ‘She can join the Lady Æthelflaed, perhaps?’ I asked Ceolnoth.

‘If her brother desires it,’ he said stiffly.

‘It is customary,’ Ceolberht said, ‘for a widow to seek God’s shelter.’

‘But the Lady Eadith,’ I heaped scorn on the word ‘lady’, ‘is not a widow. She’s an adulterer like the Lady Æthelflaed.’ Ceolnoth looked at me with shock. What I had said was common knowledge, but he had hardly expected me to say it aloud. ‘As am I,’ I added.

‘God offers his protection to sinners,’ Ceolnoth said unctuously.

‘Especially to sinners,’ Ceolberht said.

‘I’ll remember that,’ I said, ‘when I’ve finished sinning. But for now,’ I looked at Ceolnoth, ‘tell me what happened at the end of the battle of Teotanheale?’

He was puzzled by the question, but seemed to do his best to answer it. ‘King Edward’s forces pursued the Danes,’ he said, ‘but we were more concerned for the Lord Æthelred’s wound. We helped carry him from the field and so saw little of the pursuit.’

‘But before that,’ I said, ‘you saw me fight Cnut?’

‘Of course,’ he said.

‘Of course, lord,’ I reminded him of his absent courtesy.

He grimaced. ‘Of course, lord,’ he said reluctantly.

‘I was carried from the field too?’

‘You were, and we thank God you lived.’

Lying bastard. ‘And Cnut? What happened to his corpse?’

‘It was stripped,’ Father Ceolberht said, his lack of teeth making a thickly sibilant sound of the words. ‘He was burned with the other Danes,’ he paused, then forced himself to add, ‘lord.’

‘And his sword?’

There was a moment’s hesitation, a moment so short that it was hardly noticeable, but I noticed it, just as I noted that neither priest looked at me as Ceolnoth answered. ‘I did not see his sword, lord.’

‘Cnut,’ I said, ‘was the most feared warrior in Britain. His sword had killed hundreds of Saxons. It was a famous weapon. Who took it?’

‘How would we know, lord?’ Ceolnoth retorted.

‘It was probably a West Saxon,’ Ceolberht said vaguely.

The bastards were lying, but short of thumping the truth from them there was little I could do, and Æthelflaed, who was riding not twenty paces behind me, disapproved of me thumping priests. ‘If I discover that you’re lying to me,’ I said, ‘I’ll cut your damned tongues out.’

‘We do not know,’ Ceolnoth said firmly.

‘Then tell me what you do know,’ I said.

‘We told you, lord, nothing!’

‘About the next person to rule in Mercia,’ I finished my question. ‘Who should it be?’

‘Not you!’ Ceolberht spat.

‘Listen, you spavined piece of serpent shit,’ I said, ‘I don’t want to rule in Mercia, nor in Wessex, nor anywhere except my home in Bebbanburg. But you two supported her brother,’ I nodded towards Eadith who had been listening closely to the conversation. ‘Why?’

Ceolnoth hesitated, then shrugged. ‘The Lord Æthelred,’ he said, ‘left no heir. Nor was there any ealdorman who was a natural successor. We discussed the problem with the Lord Æthelhelm, who convinced us Mercia needed a strong man to defend its northern frontiers, and Eardwulf is a good warrior.’