The Empty Throne (The Warrior Chronicles, Book 8) (21 page)

‘Not good enough last night,’ I said.

Both twins ignored that. ‘And it was decided he could rule as King Edward’s reeve,’ Ceolnoth said.

‘So Edward would rule in Mercia?’

‘Who else, lord?’ Ceolberht said.

‘The lords of Mercia would have retained their lands and privileges,’ Ceolnoth explained, ‘but Eardwulf would have commanded the royal household troops as an army to face the Danes.’

‘And with Eardwulf gone?’ I asked.

The twins paused, thinking. ‘King Edward must rule directly,’ Ceolnoth said, ‘and appoint someone else to command Mercia’s troops.’

‘Why not his sister?’

Ceolnoth gave a bitter laugh. ‘A woman! Commanding warriors? The idea is absurd! A woman’s task is to obey her husband.’

‘Saint Paul gave us explicit instructions!’ Ceolberht agreed vigorously. ‘He wrote to Timothy saying that no woman could have authority over a man. The scripture is plain to understand.’

‘Did Saint Paul have brown eyes?’ I asked.

Ceolnoth frowned, puzzled by the question. ‘We don’t know, lord, why do you ask?’

‘Because he’s full of shit,’ I said vengefully.

Eadith laughed, suppressing it almost immediately, while both twins made the sign of the cross. ‘The Lady Æthelflaed must retire to a nunnery,’ Ceolberht said angrily, ‘and reflect on her sins.’

I looked at Eadith. ‘What a future you have!’

She shuddered again. I touched a spur to my horse and turned away. Someone, I thought, knew where Ice-Spite was hidden. And I would find her.

It was raining again when we reached Gleawecestre. Water was puddling in the fields, pouring down the road’s stone-choked gutters, and turning the stone of the Roman walls dark. We rode towards the eastern gate in mail, helmeted, with shields on our arms and spears held high. The gate guards stepped back without a challenge and watched in silence as we rode under the arch, spears momentarily lowered, and then clattered down the long street. The town seemed sullen, but perhaps that was just because of the low dark clouds and the rain that spilled from the thatched roofs and washed the roadway’s shit towards the Sæfern. We lowered spears and banners again to ride under the palace archway, which was guarded by three men carrying shields that were painted with Æthelred’s prancing horse. I curbed my stallion and looked at the oldest of the three. ‘Is the king still here?’

He shook his head. ‘No, lord. He left yesterday.’ I nodded and spurred on. ‘But the queen stayed, lord,’ he added.

I stopped and turned in the saddle. ‘Queen?’

He looked confused. ‘Queen Ælflæd, lord.’

‘West Saxons don’t have queens,’ I told him. Edward was king, but Ælflæd, his wife, was denied the title of queen. It had ever been thus in Wessex. ‘You mean the Lady Ælflæd?’

‘She’s here, lord.’ He jerked his head towards the largest hall, a Roman building, and I rode on. So Æthelhelm’s daughter was here? That suggested Æthelhelm himself had stayed in Gleawecestre and, sure enough, when I rode into the wide grassy courtyard there were men carrying his badge of the leaping stag on their shields. Other shields showed the West Saxon dragon.

‘Ælflæd’s here,’ I told Æthelflaed, ‘and probably occupying your quarters.’

‘My husband’s chambers,’ she corrected me.

I looked at the West Saxon guards, who watched us silently. ‘They’re telling us they’ve moved in,’ I said, ‘and won’t move out.’

‘But Edward left?’

‘Seems so.’

‘He doesn’t want to be involved in the argument.’

‘Which we have to win,’ I said, ‘and that means you move into the royal quarters.’

‘Without you,’ she said tartly.

‘I know that! I’ll sleep in a stable, but you can’t.’ I turned in the saddle and summoned Rædwald, a nervous warrior who had served Æthelflaed for years. He was a cautious man, but he was also loyal and reliable. ‘The Lady Æthelflaed will be using her husband’s quarters,’ I told him, ‘and your men will guard her.’

‘Yes, lord.’

‘And if anyone tries to stop her using those rooms you have my permission to slaughter them.’

Rædwald looked worried, but was saved by Æthelflaed. ‘I will share the rooms with the Lady Ælflæd,’ she said sharply, ‘and there will be no slaughter!’

I turned back to the gate and beckoned the guard who had told me about Edward leaving. ‘Did Eardwulf return here?’ I asked him.

He nodded. ‘Yesterday morning, lord.’

‘What did he do?’

‘He came in a hurry, lord, and was gone again in an hour.’

‘He had men?’

‘Eight or nine, lord. They left with him.’

I dismissed him and went to Eadith’s side. ‘Your brother came here yesterday,’ I said, ‘stayed a short while, and left.’

She made the sign of the cross. ‘I pray he lives,’ she said.

There would have been no time for news of Eardwulf’s failed attempt to kill Æthelflaed to reach Gleawecestre before he arrived in the city, so no one would have suspected his treachery, though doubtless they had wondered why he had fled so quickly. ‘Why did he come here?’ I asked Eadith.

‘Why do you think?’

‘So where was the money kept?’

‘It was hidden in Lord Æthelred’s private chapel.’

‘You’ll go there,’ I said, ‘and tell me if it’s gone.’

‘Of course it’s gone!’

‘I know that,’ I said, ‘and you know that, but I still want to be sure.’

‘And afterwards?’ she asked.

‘Afterwards?’

‘What happens to me?’

I looked at her and was envious of Æthelred. ‘You’re not an enemy,’ I said, ‘if you want to join your brother then you can.’

‘In Wales?’

‘Is that where he went?’

She shrugged. ‘I don’t know where he’s gone, but Wales is closest.’

‘Just tell me if the money is gone,’ I said, ‘and after that you can go.’

Her eyes glistened, but whether that was tears or the rain I could not tell. I slid from my horse, wincing at the pain in my ribs, and went to discover who ruled in Gleawecestre’s palace.

I was not reduced to sleeping in the stable, but instead found rooms in one of the smaller Roman buildings. It was a house built around a courtyard with just a single entrance, above which was nailed a wooden cross. A nervous steward told me the rooms were used by Æthelred’s chaplains. ‘How many chaplains did he have?’ I asked.

‘Five, lord.’

‘Five in this house! It could sleep twenty!’

‘And their servants, lord.’

‘Where are the chaplains?’

‘Standing vigil in the church, lord. The Lord Æthelred is buried tomorrow.’

‘Lord Æthelred doesn’t need chaplains now,’ I said, ‘so the bastards can move out. They can sleep in his stables.’

‘His stables, lord?’ the steward asked nervously.

‘Wasn’t your nailed god born in a stable?’ I asked, and he just looked at me dumbly. ‘If a stable was good enough for Jesus,’ I said, ‘it’s good enough for his damned priests. But not for me.’

We moved the priests’ belongings into the courtyard, then my men took over the empty rooms. Stiorra and Ælfwynn shared a room with their maids, while Æthelstan would sleep under the same roof as Finan and a half-dozen other men. I called the lad into the room I had taken, a room furnished with a low bed on which I was lying because the pain in my lower ribs was throbbing. I could feel pus and muck oozing from the wound.

‘Lord?’ Æthelstan said nervously.

‘The Lord Æthelhelm is here,’ I said.

‘I know, lord.’

‘So tell me what he wants with you?’

‘My death?’

‘Probably,’ I agreed, ‘but your father wouldn’t like that. So what else?’

‘He wants to take me away from you, lord.’

‘Why?’

‘So his grandson can be king.’

I nodded. Of course he knew the answers to my questions, but I wanted him to be alive to those answers. ‘Good boy,’ I said, ‘and what will he do with you?’

‘Send me to Neustria, lord.’

‘And what happens in Neustria?’

‘Either they kill me or sell me into slavery, lord.’

I closed my eyes as the pain sharpened. The stuff oozing from the wound stank like a cesspit. ‘So what must you do?’ I asked, opening my eyes to look at him.

‘Stay close to Finan, lord.’

‘You do not run off,’ I said savagely. ‘You do not look for adventure in the city. You do not find a girlfriend! You stay by Finan’s side! You understand me?’

‘Of course, lord.’

‘You might be the next King of Wessex,’ I told him, ‘but you won’t be anything if you’re dead or if you’re snatched away to some damn monastery to be arse-fodder for a pack of monks, so you stay here!’

‘Yes, lord.’

‘And if Lord Æthelhelm sends for you, you don’t obey him. You tell me instead. Now go.’

I closed my eyes. The damn pain, the damn pain, the damned pain. I needed Ice-Spite.

She came to me after dark. I had slept, and Finan or perhaps my servant, had brought a tall church candle into the room. It burned smokily, casting a small light on the cracked and peeling plaster of the walls and dancing strange shadows on the ceiling.

I woke to hear the voices outside, one pleading and the other gruff. ‘Let her in,’ I called, and the door opened so that the candle flame shuddered and the shadows leaped. ‘Close the door,’ I said.

‘Lord …’ the man standing guard started to speak.

‘Close the door,’ I said, ‘she’s not going to kill me.’ Though the pain was such that I might have welcomed it if she had.

Eadith came hesitantly. She had changed into a long dress of dark green wool, belted with a rope of gold and hemmed with thick strips embroidered with yellow and blue flowers. ‘Aren’t you supposed to be in mourning?’ I asked cruelly.

‘I am in mourning.’

‘So?’

‘You think I’ll be welcome at the funeral?’ she asked bitterly.

‘You think I will?’ I asked, then laughed and wished I had not.

She watched me nervously. ‘The money,’ she finally spoke, ‘has gone.’

‘Of course it has.’ I winced as pain throbbed. ‘How much?’

‘I don’t know. A lot.’

‘My cousin was generous,’ I said sourly.

‘He was, lord.’

‘So where has the bastard gone?’

‘He took a ship, lord.’

I looked at her in surprise. ‘A ship? He didn’t have enough men to crew a ship.’

She shook her head. ‘Maybe he didn’t. But Sella gave him bread and hams to take, and he told her he would find a fishing boat.’

‘Sella?’

‘She’s a kitchen maid, lord.’

‘A pretty one?’

She nodded. ‘Pretty enough.’

‘And your brother didn’t take her with him?’

‘He asked her to go, lord, but she said no.’

So Eardwulf was gone, but gone where? He had a handful of followers and a lot of money, and he would need refuge somewhere. A fishing boat made sense. Eardwulf’s few men could row it, the wind would carry it, but to where? Would Æthelhelm have offered him refuge in Wessex? I doubted it. Eardwulf was only useful to Æthelhelm if he could rid the ealdorman of Æthelstan, and he had failed in that, so he would not be in Wessex and certainly not in Mercia. ‘Is your brother a seaman?’ I asked her.

‘No, lord.’

‘What about his men?’

‘I doubt it, lord.’

So he could hardly sail from the Sæfern to Neustria in a small boat, so it had to be either Wales or Ireland. And with any luck a Danish or Norse ship would see his ship and that would be the end of Eardwulf. ‘If he’s no sailor,’ I said, ‘and if you love him, then you’d better pray for good weather.’ I had spoken sourly and decided I had been boorish. ‘Thank you for telling me.’

‘Thank you for not killing me,’ she responded.

‘Or for not sending you to join Sella in the kitchen?’

‘For that too, lord,’ she said humbly, then wrinkled her nose at the stench pervading the room. ‘Is that your wound?’ she asked, and I nodded. ‘I smelt the same when my father died,’ she went on, then paused, but I said nothing. ‘When was the wound last dressed?’ she asked.

‘A week ago, more. Can’t remember.’

She turned abruptly and went from the room. I closed my eyes. Why had King Edward gone? He had not been close to Æthelred, but it still seemed strange that he had left Gleawecestre before the funeral. Yet he had left Æthelhelm, his father-in-law, chief adviser, and the power behind the throne of Wessex, and my best guess was that Edward wanted to distance himself from the dirty work that Æthelhelm planned. That work was to ensure that the nobles of Mercia appointed Edward as Mercia’s ruler and encouraged Æthelflaed to retire to a convent. Well damn him. I was not dead yet, and so long as I lived I would fight for Æthelflaed.

Some time passed. It was the slow passing of time in a pain-filled night, but then the door opened again and Eadith returned. She was carrying a bowl and some cloths. ‘I don’t want you to clean the wound,’ I growled.

‘I did it for my father,’ she said, then knelt beside the bed and pulled back the pelts. She grimaced at the smell.

‘When did your father die?’ I asked.

‘After the battle at Fearnhamme, lord.’

‘After?’

‘He took a wound in the stomach, lord, and lingered for five weeks.’

‘That was almost twenty years ago.’

‘I was seven, lord, but he wouldn’t allow anyone else to tend him.’

‘Not your mother?’

‘She was dead, lord.’ I felt her fingers unbuckle the belt at my waist. She was gentle. She pulled up my tunic, unsticking it from the pus. ‘It should be cleaned every day, lord,’ she said reprovingly.

‘I’ve been busy,’ I said, and almost added that my business had been thwarting her damned brother’s ambitions. ‘What was your father called?’ I asked instead.

‘Godwin Godwinson, lord.’

‘I remember him,’ I said. I did too, a lean man with long moustaches.

‘He always said you were the greatest warrior of Britain, lord.’

‘That opinion must have sat well with Lord Æthelred.’

She pushed a cloth against the wound. She had warmed the water and the touch of it was strangely comforting. She held the cloth there, just soaking the crusted mess beneath. ‘Lord Æthelred was jealous of you,’ she said.

‘He hated me.’

‘That, too.’

‘Jealous?’

‘He knew you were a warrior. He called you a brute. He said you were like a dog that attacks a bull. You had no fear because you had no sense.’