Alvar the Kingmaker (37 page)

“It has gone a bit further. After Deerhurst, things got stirred up.”

She caught her breath and stood still on the path. “What has Deerhurst to do with it?” All she knew of Deerhurst was that it was the ancient spiritual home of the Hwicce. Thegn Wulfgar often spoke to Helmstan of his proud heritage.

“Alvar got it back for them.”

She shook her head. “But I do not see…”

“The Hwicce land is the heart of old Mercia. Whenever two athelings have fought for the kingship, Mercia has always supported one atheling and Wessex the other. The Mercians are now rising up, as they did when they put Edgar on the throne.”

Her mouth was dry and she coughed. She needed no lessons in Mercian history. Helmstan refused even to acknowledge the new geographical shires, designed to transform Mercia from an independent kingdom into just another administrative area of Wessex. “So this is not simply a matter of restoring the monasteries?”

“Maybe it was for Alvar, in the beginning. Let me say it this way: he and the Mercians may not wish for the same things, but they are going forward as one. A fight cannot be far away. Now that Edgar has gone… I heard Bishop Athelwold say that the hound is without the huntsman and runs unfettered.”

Káta put a hand up to cover the lump stuck somewhere between her throat and her chest. Swallowing brought no relief. “What say the East Anglians? You were there, at Ely.”

Siferth laughed. “Brandon said that he and his brother Thetford were as one. My lady the queen said that they needed to be, for each of them was less than half the worth of Alvar.” He slapped his thigh. “She is most witty, is she not?”

Káta sniffed. “Her word-craft is good, but I wonder that she has need of it when men fawn over her like lovesick…” She looked up. “Never mind. I only wish to know when there will be an end to this silliness, so that my husband will come home. And who is there to see to the lord Alvar, for he needs someone with him who will…”

Siferth pulled his spine up straight, and took a deep breath to inflate his chest. “I am there when Lady Alfreda has no need of me. And Father is always by his side. I do not know what makes you say such things, Mother, for…”

“Do you know, I think I will go within, after all. This wind gets a hold of my bones like a bramble-thorn to the ankle.” She looked down at her hand, where her nails had dug four red crescents in her palm. “Let us go and speak of things more blithe, for I would make the most of you while I have you here. Did I tell you that Eadyth comes oft-times to beg tidings of you? Some weeks she is here on a Thursday, only to come again on the Friday. She is a pretty little thing.”

“Mother, you do not need to shout; I am only standing by your side.”

Káta smiled in apology. “Sometimes though, my son, you need loud words so that you cannot hear the din of the stillness.”

Shropshire 

Dust flew up around their faces. Ground which was once fertile moist mud had been turned to barren powder by the continued lack of rain. The thatch on the roofs was as dry as tinder and the air was depressingly devoid of the stench of animal dung. Alvar and Helmstan exchanged glances and Wulfgar spoke for them all.

“There will be no food to be had here. Much longer, and we will be eating our own horses.”

Alvar could only nod. Soon, they would no longer have the strength or resources to continue patrolling the land. It was unreasonable to expect even his own estates to continue to provide food and supplies for his entourage. The folk of this settlement had packed what little they had left and moved away. The door of the tiny wooden chapel hung open, occasionally clattering against the wall. There was naught but cold ash in the smith’s furnace, and baskets which should have been in the storage lofts lay empty, some upturned, on the ground. In the burial ground next to the chapel, numerous mounds of freshly dug and repacked earth spoke of the recent deaths. Alvar said, “Come. There is naught for us here. We’ll go on to…” Before apprising them of their destination, he stopped to listen. “Down by the river; shouting.”

They kicked their mounts into a gallop and hastened to the riverside. Once there, Alvar needed no time to assess the situation. A young monk, black habit enveloping his wasted frame, lay slumped against a tree trunk. The blood from the head wound that had killed him had stopped flowing, and a red trail stretched from his temple to his chin. The prize for which he had been slaughtered, a cow with bony haunches, stood nearby, pathetically scratching for grass on the parched earth. The source of the shouting was the two men, perhaps friends, perhaps not, who had seemingly set about the monk and were now fighting over the booty. Wulfgar leaped from his horse and grabbed one of the men, pulling him away from the other, and dragging him roughly to his feet.

The man turned to face Alvar, staring up from eyes sunken into his head. His cheekbones were sharp, foreshowing the skeleton he would eventually become. He retained an air of defiance. “He wants to kill it for its meat.”

The other combatant stood up, hand-saex still poised. “He wants it for milk. Hah! As if a starving beast can be milked. We will die of thirst ere he gets his way.”

Alvar could only concur. “Slaughter it and share the meat. When your bellies are full, make your way to Shrewsbury. Tell the reeve there that Lord Alvar sent you. Nowhere is thriving, but the towns are not as badly off. Maybe you will fare a little better there for a while.”

They did not look impressed with his advice, but he could do no more. Yet if he could not put this right, then who could? This was not what he’d been about when he embarked on his mission, nor was this situation good for England. He knew he was watching Edgar’s legacy slipping away. The laws and structures that Edgar put in place must be adhered to, otherwise it would all have been for nothing, and they would all have to admit that the success of the kingdom had rested on the one man. As soon as he could, Alvar would need to get back to the seat of Government and swallow his pride.

Cheshire 

Káta stood by the table in the kitchen and stared at the bare rafters. Just twelve months before, she had met Hild in the lane. Káta had been to take some of the surplus cheeses to the folk who lived beyond the mill, and had also left them two flasks of milk. She smiled to recall Hild’s incredulity that the flasks had contained whole milk, rather than the leavings from the
cheese-making. Káta had laughed then, assuring the other woman that the yield was abundant. Leofsige had feared for his head, with so many cheeses smoking above him in the kitchen, although it was true that his head was nearer to the roof than most.

Now even the tallest man in the land could walk round her kitchen without fear. This year, there was no spare cheese, and there would be precious little to put into the stores for the winter. They had turned the hunting dogs loose to fend for themselves, but one had returned last night, starving and diseased, and had not survived the night. It needed to be buried or burned, but Leofsige, one of the few men left on the estate, had gone out foraging in the woods for her, steadfast in his loyalty, and desirous to see her well fed. She had teased him before he left, telling him it felt odd to send a bear to catch a hare, but he had been determined, as cook, to find something for them to eat. And while he was gone, he said, she could watch the cauldron and add water as necessary to keep the stew bubbling nicely, and he would bring a bit of meat to add to it.

Trying to ignore the fact that the stew consisted, essentially, of the water, she ladled more in, and gave the huge pot a good stir. Despondent, she unlocked her spice box, thinking how nice it would be to add flavour to the meagre meal, but she knew even before she lifted the lid that she would find little inside which would enhance the taste. Shaking her head, she closed the box, wondering why hope had ever triumphed over knowledge. She reached out for her leech-worts, briefly entertaining the notion that some of her healing herbs also tasted pleasant. But the thought was banished as quickly as it arrived, for she would never forgive herself if she ate anything that might help an ailing villager. She was not that hungry, yet.

Since the herbs and potions were on the table in front of her, she reasoned that she might as well check them for freshness and potency. Spreading them out in front of her, she began her inventory. She had plenty of dried elderflowers, and there might still be some berries worth picking. The garlic bulbs were ready to be pulled; garlic was always a good standby for headaches and sore throats. There should still be some heartsease to harvest, and she could dry the whole plants to keep in her store. It was too late in the year to collect any more nettle because it needed to be picked before flowering, but the meadowsweet would still be in flower and the blossom was useful not just for flavouring ale, but for easing pains in the joints of the elderly. When the kitchen door opened, she called out to Leofsige that she might need to send him back out again. “I will need some more elderberries, some feverfew, comfrey, oh and marigold.”

“Would that be so that you can cast a spell with it?

Káta felt instantly cold, as if all the blood had drained from her body and out through her feet into the earth. Her heart began to knock loudly as if it, too, wanted to leave her body. She turned slowly, swallowing in an attempt to reintroduce saliva to her mouth. Standing in the doorway, the monk from Worcester was staring at her, his hands tucked into his sleeves. He exuded a sense of confident calmness which she was desperate to emulate. Lowering her chin slightly, she inhaled deeply and said, “You are always welcome at my house, Brother, although I must say I had not thought to see you again so soon.”

The monk stepped into the room and she saw that he had not travelled alone. Two henchmen were visible just beyond the doorway and the noise of horse tack rattling and the scuffing of hooves suggested that there were more men waiting in the yard.

The monk, whose name she did not know, moved nearer. “We were not able to finish our business last time. Our beloved Bishop Oswald is locked up and cannot leave the minster, but we can still do his work for him.” He raised his hand, preventing her speech. “And, before you ask, the lords Helmstan and Alvar are, as far as I can gather, busy over in the east, more days’ ride away than it will take us to get to London.”

Flexing her legs and trying to stop her knees from buckling, she said, “London?”

Panic created a loud noise in her head, making it difficult to hear his words. He explained something about taking her to trial, gave some reason for the location having to be London and she nodded but knew, even as she did so, that she had not listened properly. He repeated the charges against her. The crimes of brewing herbs and reciting curses to ward off nuisances such as wens were risible, given that every woman in every parish used such things in the absence of a Leech. They were no more than spoken orders that the wen would ‘Shrivel as coal on the fire, shrink as muck in the wall, and waste away like water in a pail and become smaller than a worm’s hipbone’. When he came to his last, though, she grew indignant.

“Well-worshipping? No, never. A simple rite carried out by the well; that was all. And it was so many years ago.”

He smiled. Had she not known the reason for his presence, she might have thought his expression benign. “You do not deny it?”

“Would it do me any good?”

“And what have you to say of the foul-smelling woman whom you brought to the house of another during childbirth, ensuring that the child was stillborn and could not be baptised?”

Outrage fuelled a burgeoning defiance. Káta lifted her head and said, “I say that without her, Hild would have died along with her child. The bairn was laid to rest in the eaves-drip, thus receiving water from the church roof and God’s blessing. I am a Christian woman, Brother. Folklore and heathenism are not the same thing. If you came out into the world from behind your prayer books more often, you would know this.”

The smile froze. “If, as you say, you are a Christian woman, then you will have naught to fear from ordeal.” He turned and took a step to one side, allowing the men to come into the room.

Her bravery evaporated. “You mean to shackle me?”

“No, lady. Not unless we need to.”

They would not let her ride, but made her walk between the horses. Not only did this make for a hot, uncomfortable and smelly journey, with dust and flies swirling around at her head height, but it also consigned any plans for escape to the realm of fantasy. Helmstan’s rank spoke for naught now, and she was being treated like a lowly churl. She took no exception to her loss of status, but it reinforced the awareness that there was no-one to swear an oath for her, no-one to speak on her behalf, no-one to come to her rescue. The path led them further and further from Ashleigh, from the place which had given her welcome and shelter for all these years. Every impulse urged her to struggle, resist, run back to the haven of her home. With every step forward, the ball of fear in her belly expanded so that waves of dread rose up into her chest and set her heart hammering.

They came to the Chester road, but they would not turn north. From this point, there would be naught that was familiar to her; the terrain of fields, forests, and hedges would be similar, but not known. Would she ever be allowed to come home?

The horses came to a halt and, above her, the men began to mutter. Peering from her restricted vantage point, she strained to see around the beasts and ascertain why they had stopped. Ahead, the path had been blocked at the entrance to the woods. Parched trees had been felled, no doubt with ease, and laid across the track. The barrier had been supplemented with twigs, lumps of earth, stones and a brown lump that looked as if it might be a dead dog. Káta put her hand up to her mouth. With the path blocked, they would have to find another way round, either through the woods, or back to Ashleigh to take the road south of Oakhurst. Had Leofsige organised this; was he lying in wait to effect an ambush? Hope flew back from its banishment and lodged with a tentative grip in her mind, lifting her spirits and calming her heartbeat.