The Empty Throne

And Cuthbert was in danger. I was not certain that Æthelhelm knew that it had been Father Cuthbert who had married Edward to his Centish love. If he did know, then Cuthbert would have to be silenced, though it was possible Edward had never revealed the priest’s identity. Edward was fond of his son, and he was fond of Cuthbert too, but how far did that affection reach? Edward was not a weak king, but he was a lazy one, happy to leave most of the kingdom’s affairs to Æthelhelm and to a pack of diligent priests who, in truth, ruled Wessex fairly and firmly. That left Edward free to hunt and to whore.

And while the king hunted deer, boars, and women, Æthelhelm gathered power. He used it well enough. There was justice in Wessex, and the burhs were kept in repair, and the fyrd practised with weapons, and the Danes had finally learned that invading Wessex led only to defeat, and Æthelhelm himself was a decent enough man except that he saw a chance to be the grandfather of a king, and a great king at that. He would guide his grandson as he guided Edward, and I did not doubt that Æthelhelm’s ambition was the same dream that had haunted Alfred. That dream was to unite the Saxons, to take the four kingdoms and make them one. And that was a good dream, but Æthelhelm wanted to be sure it was his family that made the dream come true.

And I would stop him.

If I could.

I would stop him because I knew Æthelstan was legitimate. He was the ætheling, the king’s eldest son and, besides, I loved that boy. Æthelhelm would stop at nothing to destroy him and I would do anything to protect him.

We did not have far to go. Once on the hilltops we could see the smear of smoke that marked Cirrenceastre’s hearth fires. We were hurrying and my ribs hurt. The land either side of the Roman road belonged to Æthelflaed, and it was good land. The first lambs were in the fields, guarded by men and dogs. The wealth of the land had been granted to Æthelflaed by her father, but her brother could take it away, and Æthelhelm’s unexpected presence in Gleawecestre suggested that Edward was siding with Æthelred, or rather that Æthelhelm was making the decisions that would dictate Mercia’s fate.

‘What will he do to the boy?’ Finan asked, evidently thinking much the same thoughts as those in my head. ‘Cut his throat?’

‘No. He knows Edward likes the twins.’ Æthelstan had a twin sister, Eadgyth.

‘He’ll put Æthelstan into a monastery,’ my son suggested, ‘and little Eadgyth into a convent.’

‘Like enough.’

‘Somewhere far away,’ my son went on, ‘with some bastard abbot who beats the shit out of you every two days.’

‘They’ll try to make him into a priest,’ Finan said.

‘Or hope he falls ill and dies,’ I said, then winced as my horse came down heavily on a rough patch of stone. The roads decayed. Everything decayed.

‘You shouldn’t be riding, father,’ my son said reprovingly.

‘I’m in pain all the time,’ I said, ‘and if I gave into it then I’d do nothing.’

But that journey was painful and by the time I came to Cirrenceastre’s western gate I was almost weeping with agony. I tried to hide the pain. I sometimes wonder whether the dead can see the living? Do they sit in Valhalla’s great feast-hall and watch those they left behind? I could imagine Cnut sitting there and thinking that I must join him soon, and we would raise a horn of ale together. There is no pain in Valhalla, no sadness, no tears, no broken oaths. I could see Cnut grinning at me, not with any pleasure at my pain, but rather because we had liked each other in life. ‘Come to me,’ he was saying, ‘come to me and live!’ It was tempting.

‘Father?’ My son sounded worried.

I blinked and the shadows that had clouded my eyes drained away and I saw we had reached the gate and one of the town guards was frowning up at me. ‘Lord?’ the man said.

‘Did you speak?’

‘The king’s men are in my lady’s house,’ he said.

‘The king’s men!’ I exclaimed, and the man just stared at me. I turned to Osferth. ‘Keep going! Find Cuthbert!’ His route to Fagranforda lay through the town. ‘The king’s men?’ I asked the guard again.

‘King Edward’s men, lord.’

‘And they’re still there?’

‘So far as I know, lord.’

I spurred on. Æthelflaed’s house had once belonged to the Roman commander, or I assumed it had been the commander’s house because it was a lavish building that lay in a corner of the old Roman fort. The fort’s walls had been pulled down, except for the northern side, which was part of the town’s ramparts, but the house was easily defended. It was built about a large courtyard, and the outer walls were of honey-coloured stone and had no windows. There was a pillared entrance facing south, and Æthelflaed had made a new gateway from her stable yard through the town’s northern wall. I sent Sihtric with six companions to guard that northern entrance while I rode with thirty men to the small square that faced the southern door. There was a crowd of curious folk in the square, all wondering why King Edward of Wessex had sent armed men to Cirrenceastre. The crowd parted as our horses’ hooves sounded loud in the street behind them, then we were in the open space and I saw two spearmen beside Æthelflaed’s door. One was sitting on a stone urn that held a small pear tree. He stood and snatched up his shield as we arrived, while the other rapped on the closed door with the butt of his spear. Both men were in mail, they wore helmets, and their round shields were freshly painted with the dragon of Wessex. There was a small hatch in the door and I saw it slide to one side and someone peered out at us. Two boys were guarding horses on the eastern side of the square beside Æthelflaed’s tall wooden church. ‘Count the horses,’ I told my son.

‘Twenty-three,’ he answered almost at once.

So we outnumbered them. ‘I don’t expect a fight,’ I said.

Then a scream sounded from inside the house.

A scream to pierce the ears with all the force of a well-made spear striking through the willow boards of a shield.

‘Sweet God,’ Finan said.

And the screaming stopped.

Two

The door to Æthelflaed’s house opened.

Brice appeared.

I knew Brice. Not well, but inevitably our paths had crossed in the long years we had struggled to push the Danes farther northwards. I had seen him in encampments, had even exchanged a word or two before battle, and he was a veteran of many battles, a man who had stood in the shield wall time after time, and always under Ealdorman Æthelhelm’s banner of the leaping stag. He was skilled with weapons, strong as a bull, but slow of wit, which is why he had never risen to command one of Æthelhelm’s larger companies. Yet today, it seemed, Brice had been put in charge of the men sent to find Æthelstan. He strode towards us, a warrior in his formidable war-glory, but I had too often dressed in the same way to be impressed by the display.

His mail was good and tight, probably from Frankia, but it had been cut in a half-dozen places where new rings showed against the duller metal. He wore tall boots of dark leather, while his sword belt, buckled tight about the bright mail, was decorated with silver lozenges. His sword was long and heavy, scabbarded in a red sheath criss-crossed with silver bands. A silver chain hung at his neck. A dark-red cloak was spread by his wide shoulders, clasped at his throat by an ornate brooch studded with garnets. He wore no helmet. His red hair was longer than most Saxons liked to wear it, framing a face that had seen many enemies. He had gouged a cross onto his right cheek then rubbed the wound with soot or dirt to leave the dark mark that proclaimed him a Christian warrior. He was a hard man, but what else would he be? He had stood in the shield wall, he had watched the Danes come to the attack, and he had lived. He was no youngster. His beard was grey and his dark face deep-lined. ‘My Lord Uhtred,’ he said. There was no respect in his voice, instead he spoke sourly as though my arrival was a tedious nuisance which, I suppose, it was.

‘Brice.’ I nodded to him from my saddle.

‘The king sent me,’ he said.

‘You serve King Edward now?’ I asked. ‘What happened? Did Lord Æthelhelm tire of your stench?’

He ignored the insult. ‘He sent me to fetch the boy bastard,’ he said.

I looked up at the wooden tower that crowned Æthelflaed’s church. A bell that had cost her a heavy chest of silver hung there. She had been so proud of the bell, which had been made by Frisian craftsmen and brought across the sea. It carried an inscription about its skirt: ‘Æthelflaed, by the grace of God and by the blessing of Saint Werburgh, had this bell made’, and by the grace of God the bell had cracked the very first time it was struck. I had laughed when it happened, and ever since the bell had not rung to summon folk to church, instead it just hurt the sky with its harsh noise.

‘Did you hear me?’ Brice demanded.

I took my time to turn from the cracked bell, then I looked Brice up and down. ‘Which boy bastard?’ I finally asked.

‘You know who,’ he said.

‘I should buy the Lady Æthelflaed another bell,’ I said to Finan.

‘And she’d like that,’ he said.

‘Maybe I’ll have “the gift of Thor” written on the thing.’

‘And she won’t like that at all.’

‘Lord Uhtred!’ Brice interrupted our nonsense.

‘You’re still here?’ I asked, pretending surprise.

‘Where is he?’

‘Where is who?’

‘The bastard Æthelstan,’ he said.

I shook my head. ‘I don’t know a bastard called Æthelstan. Do you?’ I asked Finan.

‘Never heard of him, lord.’

‘The boy Æthelstan,’ Brice said, struggling to restrain his temper, ‘King Edward’s boy.’

‘He’s not home?’ I pretended surprise again. ‘He should be at home or else at school.’

‘He’s not here,’ Brice said curtly, ‘and we looked in the school. So find him.’

I took a deep breath, then dismounted. It took an effort to hide the pain and I had to hold onto the horse for a moment as the agony drained from my side. I even wondered whether I could walk without support, but then managed to let go of the saddle. ‘That sounded like a command,’ I said to Brice as I took a few slow steps towards him.

‘From the king,’ he said.

‘The King of Wessex?’ I asked. ‘But this is Mercia.’

‘The king wants his son returned to Wessex,’ Brice said flatly.

‘You’re a good warrior,’ I told Brice. ‘I’d welcome you into any shield wall, but I wouldn’t trust you to empty my piss pot. You’re not clever enough. That’s why you don’t command Æthelhelm’s household troops. So no, you don’t serve the king because the king wouldn’t want you. So who did send you? Lord Æthelhelm?’

I had annoyed him, but he managed to bite back his anger. ‘The king,’ he said slowly, ‘wants his son, and you, Lord Uhtred, will find the boy and bring him here.’

‘You might find it strange,’ I said, ‘but I don’t take orders from you.’

‘Oh, you will,’ he said, ‘you will.’ He thought he was hiding his nervousness by belligerence, but I could see he was confused. He had orders to fetch Æthelstan and the boy had gone missing and my warriors now outnumbered his, but Brice did not have the sense to abandon his mission, instead he would tackle it as he did every other problem, by savage directness. He turned his head towards the house. ‘Bring her!’ he called.

The house door opened and a man brought Stiorra into the sunlight. A murmur sounded through the crowd because my daughter’s face was smeared with blood and she was clutching her torn robe to her breasts. Finan leaned from his saddle and put a hand on my arm, restraining me, but I had no need of his gesture. I was angry, yes, but I was no fool. I was too weak to attack Brice, and besides, my anger was cold. I was going to win this confrontation, but not by brute force. Not yet. Brice, meanwhile, was certain I had no choice but to obey him. ‘You bring me the boy,’ he said with a sneer, ‘and your daughter is freed.’

‘And if I don’t?’

He shrugged. ‘You’ll find out, won’t you?’

I turned and jerked my head at my son. ‘Come here.’ I waited till Uhtred had dismounted and joined me. ‘Where is he?’ I asked quietly. If anyone knew where Æthelstan was hiding it would be my son.

He glanced at Brice, then half turned his back on the West Saxon. ‘He spends time at the smithy,’ he told me.

‘The smithy?’

‘Godwulf’s smithy. He’s got friends there.’ He spoke too low for Brice to hear what he was saying. ‘Godwulf’s son and daughter. He goes to see her, really.’

‘He’s just ten!’

‘Nine, I think. And she’s twelve.’

‘He likes older women, does he?’ I asked. ‘So go and find the little brute and bring him here, but take your time. Don’t hurry.’

He nodded and left, pushing through the sullen crowd. ‘Where’s he going?’ Brice demanded.

‘To fetch the boy, of course,’ I said.

He was suspicious, but not clever enough to think beyond the next step, though he must have thought that step was a good idea. ‘Tell your men to leave,’ he demanded.

‘Leave?’ I pretended to be as stupid as Brice.

‘Leave!’ he snarled. ‘I want them out of sight, now!’

He thought he was ridding himself of their threat, though in truth he was demanding just what I wanted him to demand. ‘Take the men onto the city wall,’ I told Finan quietly, ‘and when I give the signal go in through the stable roof.’

‘What are you telling him?’ Brice wanted to know.

‘To wait in the Barley inn,’ I said, ‘the ale’s good there, much better than the stale muck they serve in the Muddy Goose.’ I nodded to Finan and he led my men away, vanishing into one of the narrow alleys that opened from the church square. I waited till the sound of their hooves had faded, then walked slowly towards my daughter. ‘What’s your name?’ I asked the man holding her.

‘Hrothard,’ he said.

‘Quiet!’ Brice snarled at him.

‘If you hurt her, Hrothard,’ I said, ‘you will die very slowly.’

Brice took two fast paces to stand in my face. ‘Hrothard will do what I tell him to do,’ he said and I smelt his rotten breath, but then he could probably smell the filthy pus that was seeping from my wound.

‘And you’ll tell him to let her go when I bring you Æthelstan,’ I said, ‘isn’t that what you want?’

He nodded. He was still suspicious, but too stupid to see the trap. May the gods always send me stupid enemies. ‘You know where the boy is?’ he asked.

‘We think so,’ I said, ‘and, of course, if the king wants his son then who am I to stand in his way?’

He thought about that question for a few heartbeats and must have decided that I had yielded altogether to his demands. ‘The king asked Lord Æthelhelm to fetch the boy,’ Brice said, trying to shade his lies into truth.

‘You should have told me that from the beginning,’ I said, ‘because I’ve always liked Æthelhelm.’ Brice half smiled, placated by the words. ‘But I don’t like men who strike my daughter,’ I added.

‘It was an accident, lord,’ he said too quickly. ‘The man will be punished.’

‘Good,’ I said, ‘and now we wait.’ We waited while Finan’s men dismounted and then climbed to the city wall by steps hidden beyond the church and far from Brice’s sight. The old fort, most of which had been pulled down, had stood in a corner of those walls and so the ramparts formed the northern and western sides of Æthelflaed’s house. The servant quarters and stables were on the northern side, and over the years their roofs had decayed to be replaced by thatch held up by rafters and wattles. Tear the thatch aside and break through the wattles and a man could drop into the stables. I could see Finan and his men on the wall now, and Brice would have seen them too had he turned around, but I kept his attention by asking him about Teotanheale and listening as he described his part in that battle. I pretended to be impressed, encouraging him to tell me more while Finan’s men ducked down low. Only one stayed upright, leaning lazily against the outer rampart. ‘What about the boy’s twin sister?’ I asked Brice.

‘The king wants her too,’ he said.

‘Where is she now?’

‘In the house. With the kitchen maids.’

‘She’d better be safe and unharmed,’ I said.

‘She is,’ Brice said.

I turned away. ‘You will forgive me,’ I said, ‘but my wound still hurts. I need to sit.’

‘I pray for your recovery,’ he said, though it took an effort for him to say it.

‘The gods will have their will,’ I said and turned back to my horse, which was being held by Edric, a lad of some eight or nine years who was my new servant. I braced myself against the pain, then climbed into the saddle. Brice had also turned away and walked back to the house door where he waited close to Stiorra.

She was staring at me. I have been a bad father, though I have ever loved my children. Yet small children bore me, and as they grew I was forever away fighting. I trained my son to be a warrior, and I was proud of him, but Stiorra puzzled me. She was my youngest, and it hurt to look at her because she so resembled her dead mother; she was tall and lithe and had her mother’s long face, the same black hair, the same dark eyes, and the same grave expression that could light into beauty with a smile. I did not know her well because I had been fighting as she grew, and Æthelflaed had raised her. She had been sent to the nuns in Cracgelad for much of her youth, schooled there in religion and the womanly arts. She was sweet-natured, though there was steel beneath that honey, and she was affectionate, though I never did know what she was thinking. It was time, I knew, that she was married, but I had found no one to whom I wanted to give my daughter, and she had never spoken of wanting to be married. Indeed she never spoke much, guarding her truth-hoard behind silence and stillness.

Her lower lip had been broken. It was swollen and bloody. Someone had hit her hard to do that and I would find that man and kill him. Stiorra was my daughter and no one hit her without my permission, and she was too old to be struck now. Children should be whipped into obedience, but once a child comes of age then the beatings stop. Husbands beat wives, of course, though I had never beaten Gisela, nor any of my lovers. I was not alone in that. Many men do not beat their wives, even though the law allows it and the church encourages it, but a man gains no reputation by beating a weaker person. Æthelred had beaten Æthelflaed, but he was a weak man, and it takes a weak man to prove his strength by striking a woman.

I was thinking these thoughts and watching my daughter, who stood very straight and still. A gust of wind brought a spatter of rain. I looked up, surprised, because most of the day had been fair, but the rain was brief and light.

‘Lord,’ Brice called harshly. He was becoming suspicious again, but before he could voice his fears my son appeared with Æthelstan. ‘Bring the boy here,’ Brice called to my son.

‘Bring him to me,’ I ordered, and Uhtred obediently brought Æthelstan to my stirrup. I grinned down at the boy who I loved as though he were another son. He was a good boy, mischievous as a boy should be, but intelligent and tough. He had started his weapon training, learning sword-craft and shield-lore, and the exercises had filled him out. In time, I thought, he would be a good-looking man. He was dark-haired, thin-faced, with green eyes that I supposed had come from his mother. ‘You get the boy,’ I called to Brice, ‘when I get my daughter.’

That made him think. He was such a stupid man. His brains, I thought, must be made of barley mush. A good warrior, yes, but men like Brice need to be controlled like dogs. I assumed Æthelhelm had sent him to Cirrenceastre because Brice could be relied on to obey his orders come what may, he was unstoppable like a boar-hound, but when the boar has sunk his tusk into the dog’s belly and is ripping the intestines out then the dog should know he’s beaten. Brice was still thinking, something he found hard to do, but at last he saw the apparent trap in my words. ‘We shall make the exchange outside the town,’ he proposed.

‘Outside the town?’ I asked, pretending not to understand.

‘You think I’m a fool, lord?’ he asked.

‘I would never think that,’ I said gently.

‘Your men will stay inside the walls,’ he ordered, ‘and you will bring the boy outside.’

I frowned as if I was considering that proposal, which, of course, made sense for Brice. He had worked out that my men could ambush him in Cirrenceastre’s narrow streets, but if the exchange was made in the fields outside the town then there was no danger of such a trap.

‘Well?’ he demanded.

I stared at the man on the wall and, very slowly, raised my head. I paused, then nodded fast. The man on the wall vanished, but Brice, of course, believed the nod was for him. ‘We shall do it your way,’ I said to Brice, ‘but I want your word of honour.’

‘My word, lord?’

‘That the man who struck my daughter will be punished.’

‘I said so, didn’t I?’

I spurred my horse a little closer. The hooves were loud on the Roman paving. ‘I want you to give the man to me,’ I said.

‘He will be punished,’ Brice said stubbornly.

Then the shouts started and the unmistakable sound of swords clashing and I knew Finan and his men were inside the house. They had not bothered to clear the thatch and break the wattles beneath, but simply jumped onto the roof, which instantly gave way. Gerbruht, a Frisian who never seemed to stop eating and who weighed as much as a horse, had evidently jumped first, and the rest of Finan’s men followed through the gaping hole he had made. I did not react to the sounds, but just kept looking at Brice. ‘You will give the man to me,’ I said, and might have saved my breath because Brice suddenly heard the commotion and realised he had been tricked. I was ready to spur my horse at him, using the stallion’s weight to throw him down, but instead he drew his sword and ran at me.

‘You bastard!’ he shouted. He was quick. No warrior stays alive by being slow, but for a big man he was surprisingly fast. He covered the few paces towards me, sword swinging to take my horse in the face and I wrenched the reins and almost blacked out with the stab of pain that seared from my lower ribs, and I knew I had lost, that he was too fast, that he would drag me from the saddle and either kill me or, if he had a grain of sense, hold me as another hostage.

Yet if he was fast, my son was like lightning.

Brice’s sword never struck me or my horse. I was hardly aware what happened, but I learned that Uhtred drew his seax, Attor, and threw it. The short blade struck Brice’s legs, tripping him. I heard the clatter as he fell, but I was still trying to calm my breathing. Brice stood immediately, but Uhtred had his long-sword, his precious Raven-Beak, drawn. He had thrust Æthelstan back, away from the fight. ‘Come on, earsling,’ he taunted Brice. The crowd that had been so silent suddenly cheered.

‘Bastard,’ Brice said. He kicked Attor away, then went for my son. Brice, remember, was an experienced sword-warrior, a man who had spent his life training with blades, a man who had become wealthy with sword-skill. He had no fear, and Uhtred, my son, had an open face that looked forever cheerful and gave him the appearance of innocence. Brice reckoned he could chop him down with two or three strokes, and the first stroke was a scything blow that would have opened my son’s belly like a knife slashing across a sack of eels.

Uhtred skipped back, he laughed. He lowered Raven-Beak and laughed again, and Brice took the bait and attacked a second time, this time lunging and, as Raven-Beak rose to parry, he twisted the lunge, turning it about my son’s blade and dragging his sword back so it would saw across his enemy’s neck. That was fast and that was skilful, and Uhtred just leaned back and away, the edge of Brice’s blade missing by the breadth of a finger, and Brice was slightly off balance and my son just reached out and pushed him with Raven-Beak’s tip. ‘You’re slow,’ he said reprovingly as the West Saxon staggered.