Alvar the Kingmaker (22 page)

The archbishop was sitting next to Edgar, making a supreme effort not to look directly at his king, and Alvar would have granted away all of Shropshire to hear Dunstan’s shrift that day. The older man flicked glances around the room, but he also avoided looking at the queen. Alvar had no such compunction and was rewarded by a flirtatious smile whenever he made eye contact with Alfreda. This, he decided, would be his distraction today.

Brandon, too, had difficulty keeping his eyes still. He sat up in his seat and stared at the doorway, only to slump down whenever anyone walked through it. Only when Bishop Oswald stalked into the meeting hall did the East Anglian allow his shoulders to settle and he sat back, relaxed, into his seat.

With Oswald’s arrival the witan was complete. Edgar kissed his wife on the lips before he turned to address his audience in formal tones. “My kingdom is like a ploughed field.” He nodded and his blond hair, curling wildly underneath his coronet, swished to and fro as he moved his head. “The oxen keep it furrowed, but the oxen need to be fed if they are to work strongly.”

Alvar was tempted to make a joke about feeling the weight of the yoke, but he thought better of it.

Brandon cleared his throat and said, “Do you mean that we are not all pulling as we should, my lord?”

The others examined their nails, stared out of the window, or gazed at their knees, and Alvar chuckled.

Edgar smiled and adopted the tone which Alvar had heard him use in the nursery when talking to his son. “Far from it, far from it. I am blessed to have the wisest and most hard-working witan. Indeed I often hear of your tireless work in East Anglia, Foster-brother.”

Brandon’s shoulders came down and he looked across at Oswald, who nodded and smiled.

“No, my lords, it is time to feed you all once more and I think there is none so hungry as my lord of middle Mercia.”

Alvar, distracted by the silent exchange between Oswald and his pet, now sat upright and looked at Edgar.

The king said, “The Scots are snarling, and the lord of Chester is old and ill. I need strong leadership on the northern edges of our lands and so I gift northern Mercia to Lord Alvar. And henceforth, he and Earl Beorn answer to no man other than me.”

Alvar sat still and breathed hard as he tried to suppress a grin. He looked across at Beorn, and gave him a nod so tiny that it was little more than a downward movement of his eyes before he looked back up again.

Brandon’s mouth gaped like that of a landed fish.

Edgar waved his arm and mouthed the word “Wine”, and one of his thegns moved from the doorway. The thegn dispatched a slave-boy to the kitchen, then moved to the scribes’ table.

Edgar said, “I have the new law code to show you all.” He waited while the thegn collected a pile of documents from the scribe and handed one copy each to Alvar, Beorn, Brandon, Dunstan and Oswald.

Alvar scanned the charter. The prologue mentioned Edgar’s desire to remedy the effects of the recent pestilence and famine. After laying out several measures to that effect, and making nationwide provision for the protection of property and the prosecution of thieves, the new law code stated clearly, as Alvar had promised Beorn, that the Danes would retain their own laws because of ‘your loyalty, which you have always shown me.’ Alvar would look more fully at the content when he had more time to study the document, but it seemed to be a measured and considered response to the problems which beset the folk of England, and it acknowledged fully the debt owed to the northerners. In the last clause, Edgar even managed to smooth Brandon’s feathers, for, immediately after the command for Beorn to enforce this new law in the north, the final instruction was for copies to be given to Alvar and Brandon for distribution throughout England. They were the only three noblemen mentioned by name.

Edgar paused long enough for his ministers to read the salient points, then he cleared his throat. “Now, my lord Archbishop, how goes the work at Muchelney Abbey?”

The sudden change of subject caused everyone to look at Dunstan, just as the slave-boy came back with the wine. The door banged open and the archbishop flinched.

With a flicker of a smile, Edgar said, “My lord, be still; it is but a door opening loudly. What is there to fear from that?”

Alvar knew that this time, there was no need for the punishment of exile. This teasing remark was an assertion of Edgar’s confidence to run his own affairs, and that he would not be cowed by the archbishop. This was all that would be said on the matter, ever. Alvar looked at the queen, who smiled and raised a perfectly arched eyebrow.

Dunstan gave his shoulders a slight shake and took a deep breath. “The work at M-Muchelney shows the piety of the m-m-monks of Glastonbury, my lord, and the fastness with which they cleave to God’s word. They have wrought true wonders, with the abbot’s house an outstanding sight. The rooms are flooded with light; the d-drawings on the walls are dyed with…”

“You are glad then. Good.” Edgar held up a hand to silence Dunstan and directed his next question to Athelwold. “And at Winchester, my lord Bishop?”

Athelwold lifted his head, his features illuminated by a childlike smile. He had lost none of his enthusiasm for his reforms. “Well, although it has been less than a year since I became bishop at Winchester, we have sent away all the secular clergy and put in their stead monks from my beloved Abingdon…”

Alvar’s attention had begun to wander as soon as Dunstan had started to expound on the delights of the decoration at Muchelney. He looked across at the queen, watching as she took a sip from her gold cup and made a show of licking her lips slowly before setting the cup down, and letting her hand slide down the stem before she let go.

“Winchester is now run wholly by monks, my lords.”

Athelwold’s voice penetrated his thoughts and at the mention of a monastic cathedral Alvar sat forward. “What about the clerks who were there before?”

Edgar allowed no time for an answer but turned to speak to Oswald. “What of the work at Westbury-on-Trim?”

Oswald licked his lips. “The building of the new church goes well and the abbot teaches the monks thoroughly. We work more slowly than Bishop Athelwold but I tell God what we need and…”

Alvar drummed his fingers on the table.

Oswald stared at him as though he were an irksome insect. “Is there something wrong, my lord of Mercia?”

Alvar said, “A new monastery at Westbury is no worry to me, my lord Bishop. But if any more of the clerks at Worcester were to go the same way as those here at Winchester…”

Edgar raised his hands for silence and stood up. “My good bishops, my heart sings to hear of your good work. A strong Church is a sign of a kingdom at one with itself. Who amongst us would not welcome that?” He looked round the room and made eye contact with each of them, but he allowed his gaze to linger a little longer on Alvar. “And so we are all glad.” He held out his hand to Alfreda. “My lady, I think we are done here.”

The scrape of chairs on the wooden floor drowned out lone voices. Brandon gyrated on his feet like a child fighting a full bladder. He spoke out loudly against the background noise. “My lord? My lord King? If I might speak?”

Edgar turned to listen. He lifted his fingers to cover the hand that Alfreda had slipped through the crook of his arm.

“The lord of Chester is not the only one who is ailing. The lord known as the Red Lord is not a young man, and his lands once belonged to my father.” He looked down at the floor.

Alvar clenched and unclenched his fists. “The lands of which you speak are in Oxfordshire and Buckinghamshire, and they belong to Mercia. Your kin never held them by right.”

Alfreda looked up at Alvar, raised her free hand and put her finger to her lips. She tugged the king’s arm. “My lord, if you are all done here?”

Brandon shot a look at his elder brother, Thetford, who was lurking by the door, and then he tried once more. “But my lord, I was the only one who was not given any more lands.”

Edgar opened his mouth but Alfreda said, “Dear husband, I should be tired after such a day as this, but I find I am not sleepy. Yet, I feel I should lie down for a while. Shall we, my lord?”

Alvar suppressed the urge to laugh. Edgar might feel the pull of loyalty to his foster-family, but if his cock led him in one direction, not even familial duty would turn him and make him go in another.

Alfreda led the king away, and Brandon left the room and went straight to his brother. They conferred, heads low.

Alvar rubbed his hands together and walked out of the room. As he passed the East Anglians he said, “What is wrong, my lord Brandon? I cannot believe that this is the first time you have been bested by a lady.”

Thetford straightened up. “Have a care my lord, for we East Anglians do not forgive our foes.”

“No? Neither, it seems, does the queen.”

Alvar left the hall still smiling, but it was a brief and hollow respite. He had not yet overcome his aversion to the scheming and politicking of the court, and although Alfreda had persuaded Edgar to overlook Brandon’s request, the victory was not complete as long as Edgar continued to allow the eviction of clerics. But another facet had been added to the long list of Alvar’s duties, and for once it would not be the least bit odious; his new responsibilities would send him to Cheshire and he had no desire to linger at court any longer.

The light in the scriptorium was better than in some of the other outbuildings, but Brandon’s mood would have darkened the brightest space. Dunstan allowed him to pace the floor a number of times and hoped that, by watching him, he could relieve some of his own frustration. The day’s events had left him feeling as if he had been asked to swallow a drink made from hemlock. He waited while Brandon completed a few more circuits of the small building, and then swept his arm out to indicate the chair in front of him. Brandon sat down untidily, slumping forward and scattering the equipment from the writing desk onto the floor. Dunstan, torn between indulgence for his friend’s mood and his abhorrence of any defacement of tomes of learning, stepped forward and knelt down to rescue the wax tablets and writing styli. A pestle and mortar, used for grinding the mineral pigments, had disgorged its fine powdery contents which could not be scooped up for reuse without contamination from bits of grit and dust. The ink pots had, fortunately, been empty, and Dunstan picked them up and laid them carefully back on the table.

“My lord,” he said as he placed each one precisely, “We are all affronted by the heights which Alvar has now reached, but we must bide our time and wait until a way shows itself by which we can bring him and the king’s wife back down.” He stepped away from the table and paused to allow Brandon to respond. The earl looked at him as if he were having difficulty focusing and Dunstan had a brief, silent conversation with God, during which he assured his maker of his understanding that this was a trial; why else would one of his allies be as stupid as a mule while his enemy was sharp as a sword point?

He turned to Oswald, who, praise be to God, was possessed of a brain which worked swiftly and deviously. He said, “The law says that the hundred-moot must be held every four weeks, the borough court thrice a year and the shire court twice. Well then, let us look at this law and see how we can make it work for us. Your diocese is in the heart of Mercia. I think that there are many ways in which you can keep Lord Alvar busy within his own lands, and thus well away from the king?”

Oswald smiled. “As you say it, so it is done. Not only will I keep him busy, I will see to it that the wheels on our carts turn so slowly that he might never leave Mercia.”

Dunstan nodded. “Good. And while you are away, I will take every chance that I can to whisper in the king’s ear, to make him think about how often his wife’s smile alights upon the lord Alvar. Let me plant the seed and I will water it well.”

Brandon sat up as if waking. “What? Alvar and my brother’s whore? Is this true?”

Dunstan tried to keep his tone light and to resist the temptation to address the man as if he were a particularly unresponsive pupil. “I do not know.”

“Then why…”

Oswald said, “It does not matter if it is true. What matters is only that the king believes it.”

Dunstan offered up thanks that if Brandon was his trial, then at least Oswald was his assistance, and that the bishop understood his intent. But it was a plan with scant chance of success. Without proof, it would be difficult to convince one as supremely confident as Edgar that he was a cuckold. Dunstan needed more. He said to Oswald, “While you are busy in Worcester, my lord Bishop, keep a wary eye and an open ear for anything that could be fashioned into a shovel to dig the upstart’s grave.” He kept the rest of the thought to himself, remembering his status as archbishop.
And bury the whore-queen with him.

Cheshire

The chickens settled down to resume their pecking and the little boy ran at them again. He clapped his hands and they squawked and garbled and attempted to fly away, and he ran back to the fence to wait for them to quieten down again.

Out over the fields, the swallows twittered and chattered as they shot like arrows back and forth. Gytha came from behind the bake-house with a wooden bowl filled with wood-ash. “Siferth, it will be your bedtime soon,” she said, but the toddler took no notice as he launched the chickens for a third time.