The Flame Bearer (The Last Kingdom Series, Book 10) (19 page)

‘Sigtryggr knows about this?’

‘Of course he does,’ I said. I heard a scraping noise beneath the window that looked onto the approach road. It was probably the sound of a spear-butt dragging on the gate’s fighting platform and it suggested someone was listening to our conversation.

Eadith again looked about the room with its comforts. ‘I’ve grown fond of Dunholm,’ she said plaintively.

‘I’m giving it to Sihtric. He knows Dunholm. He was born here, he grew up here, and his father was the lord here.’ Sihtric was the bastard son of Jarl Kjartan the Cruel, a man who had been my dreadful enemy as a child. Sihtric had none of his father’s viciousness, but he was just as capable a warrior, and, starting as my servant, he had become one of my most trusted war-leaders. ‘A few men can stay with him,’ I said, ‘mostly the older men, and he can recruit and train new men. They’ll all be Christians, of course. Once the Saxons rule here, there’ll be no room for pagans.’

‘What about Bebbanburg?’ Eadith asked.

‘A year ago,’ I said bleakly, ‘I thought I had a chance of taking it. Now? My cousin holds it, and Constantin wants it. I might defeat my cousin, but I can’t defeat the Scots as well. I’m old, my love, I can’t fight for ever.’ I paused and half turned towards the ramparts. ‘But don’t tell anyone, not yet.’

And next day, of course, everyone in Dunholm knew of my plans.

We were going to Frisia.

I trusted Eadith. Some men thought that stupid of me because she had once been my enemy, but now she was my friend as well as my wife, and how can there be love without trust? So, later that night, when I was certain we could not be overheard, I told her the truth. The earlier conversation had been solely for the benefit of whoever might have been listening on the rampart outside our chamber, and I knew the conversation would eventually reach my cousin.

His first reaction, I’m sure, would be disbelief, but the story would be persistent and the evidence for its truth overwhelming. It would not make him drop his guard, but it would sow doubt, and doubt would be enough. And if I was wrong, and Eadith could not be trusted, then I had just removed that doubt. He would know I was coming.

Eadith did not betray me, but I never discovered all those who did.

I found a few, and hanged them from the nearest tree, but only after I had fed them misleading information they could pass on to my enemies. Still, I am certain there were many others I never discovered. I looked, of course. I looked for men who suddenly had more gold or silver than they should, or whose wives flaunted fine linen dresses with elegant embroidery, or men who would not meet my eyes, or who stood too close as I talked with Finan or with my son. I watched for men who paid too much attention to Eadith, or whose servants made efforts to be over-friendly with Rorik, my own servant.

But I never discovered all who betrayed me, nor did my enemies ever discover all who betrayed them.

I spent good money on my own spies, just as my enemies spent gold to spy on me. I had all those men who served Edward in Wintanceaster, and I had a wine-steward, a clerk, and a blacksmith who were in Æthelhelm’s employment. I had no one in my cousin’s service. I had tried to find a man or woman who could tell me what happened inside Bebbanburg, but my efforts were never successful, though I did hear a great deal of my cousin’s doings from folk scattered up and down the east coast, and even from across the sea in Frisia. The same harbour taverns brought me news from Scotland because, again, I had no spies in Constantin’s court.

My cousin, I was sure, had someone watching me. Perhaps it was one of my own men? Or a priest in Eoferwic? Or a merchant in Dunholm? I did not know who, but I knew such men existed. And he had folk listening to rumours as I did. Christians had the strange habit of confessing their worst behaviour to their sorcerers, and many of those priests sold what they learned, and my cousin took care to donate money to churches and churchmen. I doubted that Cuthbert, my blind priest, took my cousin’s money. Cuthbert was loyal, and took a relish in passing me scraps he heard from such confessions. ‘Would you believe it, lord? Swithun and Vidarr’s wife! I’m told she’s ugly.’

‘Not truly ugly, but spiteful.’

‘Poor boy, he must be desperate.’

Not every man or woman who sent me news was a spy. Priests, monks, and nuns constantly exchanged letters, and many were happy to share what they had learned from some faraway abbey, and merchants were always keen to pass on gossip, though inevitably much of that information was wrong, and almost always it was long out of date by the time it made its way to Northumbria.

But now, in the days following the meetings at Hornecastre, I also had Æthelstan’s spies on my side. They did not know that. They probably thought they were keeping the young prince supplied with news while he suffered the ordeal of being my hostage, but Æthelstan promised to pass on much of what they told him. He was a Christian, of course, and was accompanied by three priests as well as six servants, four of whom were plainly warriors just pretending to be servants. ‘Do you trust them?’ I asked him as we hunted for deer in the hills north of Dunholm. It was a week since I had arrived back from Eoferwic, and, to bolster the rumour that I was leaving for Frisia, I had ordered my servants to start packing our goods.

‘I trust them with my life,’ Æthelstan said. ‘They’re all Mercian warriors, given to me by the Lady Æthelflaed.’

‘And the priests?’

‘I don’t trust Swithred, but the other two?’ He shrugged. ‘They’re young and full of noble ideals. I asked them to be my priests, they weren’t imposed on me.’

I smiled at that. Æthelstan was about twenty-two or twenty-three in that year, no older than the two young priests. ‘And Father Swithred was imposed on you?’ I asked.

‘By my father. Maybe he just sends news to him?’

‘And any letters he sends,’ I said, ‘will be read by the king’s clerks, who might be in Æthelhelm’s pay.’

‘So I assume,’ he said.

Swithred was an older man, maybe forty or even fifty, with a scalp as bald as an egg, sharp dark eyes, and a perpetual frown. He resented being among pagans and let the resentment show. ‘Have you noticed,’ I had asked him as we journeyed north, ‘that at least half my men are Christians?’

‘No Christian can serve a heathen lord,’ he had answered gruffly, then reluctantly added, ‘lord.’

‘You mean by serving me they cease to be Christians?’

‘I mean that they place themselves in dire need of redemption.’

‘They have their own church in Dunholm,’ I had told him, ‘and a priest. Would you provide the same for pagans in Wessex or Mercia?’

‘Of course not!’ he had said. He had been riding a tall grey horse, a fine beast, and he rode it well. ‘Might I ask,’ he had said, then seemed to think better of his question.

‘Ask,’ I had said.

‘What arrangements will be made for Prince Æthelstan’s comfort?’

He meant what arrangements would be made for his own comfort, but I pretended to believe that his concern was solely for the prince. ‘He’s a hostage,’ I had told him, ‘so we’ll probably keep him in a cattle byre or maybe in a pig shed, fasten his ankles with chains and feed him slops and water.’

Æthelstan, who had been listening, laughed. ‘Don’t believe him, father.’

‘And if even one West Saxon crosses the frontier,’ I had continued, ‘I’ll cut his throat. And yours too!’

‘This is not amusing, lord,’ Father Swithred had said sternly.

‘He will be treated as the prince that he is,’ I had assured him, ‘with honour, with comfort, and with respect.’

And so he was. Æthelstan feasted with us, hunted with us, and worshipped in the small church inside Dunholm’s walls. He had become more pious as he grew into manhood. He still had his fierce joy in life, a hunger for activity, and an appetite for laughter, but now, much like his grandfather Alfred, he prayed every day. He read Christian texts, guided by the two young priests he had brought with him to Dunholm. ‘What changed you?’ I asked as we waited on the edge of some woodland. We were armed with hunting bows. I was never a good archer, but Æthelstan had already killed two fine beasts with an arrow apiece.

‘You changed me,’ he said.

‘Me!’

‘You persuaded me I could be king, and if I’m to be king, lord, then I must have God’s blessing.’

I raised the bow and notched an arrow as leaves sounded loud in the wood, but no beast appeared and the noise subsided. ‘What’s wrong with having Thor and Woden on your side?’

He smiled at that. ‘I’m a Christian, lord. And I try to be a good one.’ I made a grumbling noise, but said nothing. ‘God won’t reward me,’ he said, ‘if I do evil.’

‘The gods have looked after me,’ I said truculently.

‘By sending you to Frisia?’

‘Nothing wrong with Frisia.’

‘It isn’t Bebbanburg.’

‘When you become king,’ I said, watching the trees as I spoke, ‘you’ll discover that some ambitions can be fulfilled and some cannot. The important thing is to recognise which is which.’

‘So you won’t go north to Bebbanburg?’ he asked.

‘I told you, I’m going to Frisia.’

‘And when you reach,’ he paused, then stressed the next word, ‘Frisia, will there be fighting?’

‘There’s always fighting, lord Prince.’

‘And this fighting in,’ again the slight pause, ‘Frisia will be fierce?’

‘Fighting always is.’

‘Then you will allow me to fight alongside you?’

‘No!’ I spoke more vehemently than I had intended. ‘The fight will be none of your concern. The enemies I fight will not be your enemies. And you’re my hostage, so I have a duty to keep you alive.’

He was gazing at the tree line, waiting for prey, his bow half drawn, though the arrow was still pointing to the ground. ‘I owe you a lot, lord,’ he said. ‘You have protected me, I know that, and one way to repay you is to help you in your battles.’

‘And if you die in battle,’ I said brutally, ‘then I’ve just done Æthelhelm a favour.’

He nodded, accepting that truth. ‘The Lord Æthelhelm,’ he said, ‘wanted me to command the troops he sent to Hornecastre. He asked my father to appoint me, but father sent Brunulf instead.’

‘Urias Hetthius,’ I said.

He laughed at that. ‘You were well educated!’

‘By Lady Æthelflaed.’

‘My clever aunt,’ he said approvingly, then took his hand off the bow’s cord to make the sign of the cross, doubtless saying a silent prayer for her recovery at the same time. ‘Yes, Æthelhelm thought he could arrange my death in battle.’

Urias Hetthius was a soldier who served King David, who, in turn, was a hero to Christians. I had asked Father Cuthbert, my blind priest and good friend, who Urias was, and he had chuckled. ‘Uriah! That’s how we pronounce his name, lord. Uriah the Hittite. He was an unlucky man!’

‘Unlucky?’

‘He was married to a beautiful woman,’ Cuthbert had told me wistfully, ‘one of those girls you look at and you can’t look away!’

‘I’ve known a few,’ I had said.

‘And you married them, lord,’ Cuthbert had said with a grin. ‘Well David wanted to bounce on the bed with Uriah’s wife, so he sent a message to Uriah’s commander and told him to put the poor man in the front rank of the shield wall.’

‘And he died?’

‘Oh he did, lord! Poor bastard was cut to pieces!’

‘And David …’ I had begun.

‘Bounced the pretty wife, lord, probably from dawn to dusk and back to dawn again. Lucky man!’

And Æthelhelm had wished that fate on Æthelstan. He had wanted him isolated deep in Northumbria in the hope that we would slaughter him. ‘So if you think I’m going to risk your life in battle,’ I told Æthelstan, ‘you’re dreaming. You’ll stay well away from any fighting.’

‘In Frisia,’ Æthelstan said pointedly.

‘In Frisia,’ I repeated.

‘So when do you leave?’ he asked.

But that I could not answer. I was waiting for news. I wanted my spies or Æthelstan’s informants to tell me what my enemies planned. Some folk wondered why I did not march straight to Bebbanburg, or, if they believed the rumours, sail directly to Frisia. Instead I lingered at Dunholm; hunting, practising sword-craft, and feasting. ‘What are you waiting for?’ Eadith asked me one day.

The two of us were riding in the hills west of Dunholm, hawks on our wrists, trailed by a dozen men who guarded me whenever I left the fortress. None of those men were in earshot. ‘I can take fewer than two hundred warriors to Bebbanburg,’ I told her, ‘and my cousin has at least that many behind his ramparts.’

‘But you’re Uhtred,’ she said loyally.

I smiled at that. ‘And Uhtred knows the ramparts of Bebbanburg,’ I said, ‘and I don’t want to die under those walls.’

‘So what will change?’

‘My cousin is getting hungry. One of his granaries burned. So he’ll be negotiating for someone to help him, someone to bring him food. But the coast is guarded by Einar’s ships, so whoever takes the food north will need a fleet because they’ll have to fight their way to the Sea Gate.’ For a time I had suspected Hrothweard, but my daughter assured me that the archbishop was neither collecting food nor recruiting shipmasters, and my own meeting with the man had convinced me that she spoke the truth.

‘And when that fleet sails,’ Eadith began, then paused as she saw what I intended. ‘Oh!’ she said, ‘I see! Your cousin will be expecting ships!’

‘He will.’

‘And one ship looks much like another!’ She was a clever woman, as clever as she was beautiful.

‘But I can’t put to sea,’ I said, ‘until I know where that fleet is and who commands it and when it will sail.’

It was a time of waiting for news. I knew much of what happened on Bebbanburg’s land because I sent scouts to watch Constantin’s men, and they reported that Domnall, Constantin’s commander, was still content to starve the fortress into submission. Scottish troops had garrisoned two of the forts on the Roman wall. Both garrisons were small because Constantin had other worries; there were aggressive Norsemen in the far north of his country and the ever troublesome kingdom of Strath Clota to the west. Both needed troops to contain them, so his men on the wall were simply there to enforce his claim to Bebbanburg’s land and, of course, to warn him if we brought an army north. He would be alarmed when he heard that the truce between the Saxons and Sigtryggr had been renewed for over a year, and my fear was that he would order an assault on Bebbanburg’s ramparts to forestall any attempt by Sigtryggr and myself to drive him away, but his spies would be reassuring him that Sigtryggr was strengthening the walls of Lindcolne and Eoferwic, readying himself for the inevitable attack that would come when the truce ended. There would be no hint of any preparations to attack Constantin’s men, and common sense would convince him that Sigtryggr would not want to lose men in a war against Scotland when he was about to face a larger war against the southern Saxons. Constantin was willing to wait, knowing that the fortress would eventually starve. And perhaps Constantin even believed my tale of going to Frisia. He had to be contemplating an assault on Bebbanburg’s walls, but he knew how slaughterous that attack would be, and the news he received from the south suggested he did not need to sacrifice scores of his men to gain a prize that would eventually be given to him by hunger.