The Bone Thief (20 page)

‘Eirik’s land?’ She sounded stunned. ‘Eirik the Spider? That Bardney? You’re crazy. Ronan, tell this little subdeacon of yours he’s crazy.’ She folded her arms.

Wulfgar looked over at the priest, who sat very still. Eventually he stirred, like a man waking from sleep.

‘Is it indeed
that
Bardney you mean? Eirik’s Bardney?’

Wulfgar nodded, feeling miserable. It was too late to keep silent now.

‘We had word that the bones are still there. The Lady – she needs the relics for her new church in Gloucester.’ He swallowed, still trying to pick up the threads of his thoughts. ‘The Lord – as you’ve heard – he’s desperately ill. We all need a miracle. A sign that God’s not turned his back on Mercia for the last time.’

Father Ronan cleared his throat and breathed in deeply through his nose. Then he said, ‘Eirik’s a dangerous man, so he is.’

‘We’ve got the name of someone who knows where the bones are buried.’ Orm’s words came back to him with terrible clarity. ‘It was supposed to be a secret. The Bishop of Worcester didn’t think anyone else was party to it.’ He put his head in his hands. ‘And now I come here and find St Oswald is ale-house gossip.’ Their reaction to the name of Bardney was only slowly sinking in. ‘Is it really so dangerous?’

Gunnvor and the priest exchanged glances. She shrugged.

‘Have you always lived in Winchester?’ Father Ronan asked.

Wulfgar nodded, puzzled, and said, ‘I was born on my father’s estates in Meon – we’re less than a day’s ride from Winchester. And then I was sent to Winchester, to my uncle at the cathedral, when I was very—’

But the priest was riding over him, thinking along some tangent of his own. His eyes had gone very dark.

‘Wulfgar, my friend – can I call you my friend?’

Wulfgar nodded.

‘With all due respect, you’re not taking this seriously enough.’ He snorted. ‘Men like Ketil, Hakon, what they love is wealth. They’ll do almost anything for it.’

Gunnvor was nodding her agreement.

‘Listen to the man,’ she said. ‘It could be my own father he’s talking about. Never missed an opportunity to turn a profit.’

‘Are you talking about him, or yourself, lass?’ Father Ronan chuckled dryly. ‘Your father wasn’t as greedy as some, rest his soul.’

She looked thoughtful. ‘Not as ruthless, maybe. But every bit as greedy.’

Father Ronan shrugged. ‘Aye, and that’s why they call you the richest woman in the Five Boroughs.’ He turned back to Wulfgar. ‘But even Ketil has standards. Men like him, they don’t want to lose face. Eirik – Eirik is another matter. There’s no appealing to
his
sense of honour.’

Gunnvor was shaking her head in agreement. ‘And you’re thinking of walking into the Spider’s web and taking something precious from him?’ She drummed her fingers on the table. ‘I don’t know him well but I know him well enough. Gore-crow – comes in after a fight to strip the bones. Took Bardney in payment of a debt.’ She bared her teeth then, an odd glint in her eye. ‘He’s had it these ten years, although I’ve heard his wife runs it. You’ll be a popular man if you rob Eirik, but I doubt you’ll be a long-lived one.’

Wulfgar felt a chill run up his backbone.

‘He’s a slave-dealer, the Bishop told me.’

‘
Já
,’ she said, nodding, ‘and on the grand scale. He trades in Dublin as well as Lincoln, and somewhere in the Northern Isles –
Hoy
, maybe? Hrossey?’ She shrugged at Wulfgar’s blank face. ‘He sits in Lincoln most of the winter. He’s little Toli Silkbeard’s man now old Hrafn’s dead.’

‘And Orm?’ Wulfgar was finding it hard to voice his thoughts. ‘Does he – I mean, should I –’ he glanced across the room at Ednoth ‘– should we worry about him? Should I take him seriously?’

Gunnvor and Father Ronan exchanged another glance.

Father Ronan nodded. ‘If Orm’s on the scent, yes. Worry. He doesn’t let much stand between him and a bargain.’

Gunnvor snorted. ‘Nothing less than an imperial official in Miklagard, anyway.’

Wulfgar put his head in his hands.

‘I knew we should be hurrying. We didn’t think … we’ve been four days on the road already.’

‘Four – from
Worcester
? Oh, Wulfgar, Wulfgar.’ Father Ronan shook his head. Then, ‘I’m coming with you,’ he said. He laughed, deep in his beard, but Wulfgar didn’t think he was amused. ‘Don’t look so shocked, lad. You, nesh as you are, and that gawmless boy, doing this on your own?’

Wulfgar felt an uprush of indignation. I might admit privately to myself that I’m a lost lamb here in the Danelands, he thought, but is it really so obvious to other people, too?

The priest looked over at Ednoth, knocking back drink for drink with his new friends, and shook his head, smiling.

‘What was he thinking, yon Bishop? No, I’ll come with you. Now Easter’s over, no one will fret if I’m away for a day or two.’ He cracked his knuckles. ‘Faith, it’ll be a penance for me, scrub a few grease-spots off my soul. I’ve an old horse and an older sword to put at St Oswald’s service.’

A priest with a sword?

‘Father, we can’t ask that of you—’

The priest looked amused.

‘Oh, I think you can. Don’t forget, my lad, I’m a Mercian, too. St Oswald’s one of mine. And Eirik and I go a long way back’

‘I never knew that,’ Gunnvor said, her head on one side.

Father Ronan shook his head at her.

‘There’s a lot you still don’t know about me, girl. Me and the Spider, we crossed blades in Dublin, a lifetime ago. And I’ve still a score or two to settle.’ He stood up, shouldering his harp bag. ‘Come on. The more I think about what Ormsson said, the more worried I get.’

Wulfgar, still weighed down by doubt and anxiety, was trying to chew the indigestible lumps of information that had been tossed his way. He didn’t like any of what he had been hearing.

‘You don’t think St Oswald was just the first saint that came to mind? Orm never mentioned Bardney, after all—’

Gunnvor snorted. ‘Come to
mind
? What mind? Ormsson doesn’t have a mind. And he knows less than I do about saints.’ She rubbed her hands together. ‘Maybe I’ll come with you, too. I could check no one’s been pilfering from my Lincoln warehouse while I’m about it. I’ve not been there all winter. And,’ her voice hardened, ‘I don’t fancy keeping company with Ketil, not in his present mood.’

Wulfgar’s eyes darted to the cut on her cheekbone. He took her point, but nonetheless he found himself blurting, ‘Come with us? Is that a good idea?’ Quailing at the sardonic look she gave him, he ploughed on, ‘I mean – I only meant – it’s supposed to be a secret. The more we are, the harder it’ll be …’ He subsided into silence. Now that his indignation was waning, he could admit to
himself
how truly grateful he was for Father Ronan’s offer. A priest, and a Mercian, too – he understood what was at stake, and his help would be invaluable. But this woman – this Gunnvor Cat’s-Eyes – coming as well? A Dane, he thought, and no daughter of the Church. My enemy.

Father Ronan frowned. ‘St Oswald’s remembered in Leicester, of course, but I’ve certainly never talked to Orm about him. And I can’t think where else he might have picked up the name, unless there are rumours coming out of Bardney. Unless, maybe, someone’s been singing him that old song?’

Wulfgar looked up, briefly distracted.

‘Song?’

‘“St Oswald’s Tree”?’

Wulfgar shook his head.

‘The raven – his tame raven – gathering the fragments of his body, after the battle?’

He shook his head again.

‘Ach, Wulfgar, I can’t believe you don’t know it! I’ll teach it to you, sometime.’ Father Ronan jerked his head towards the door. ‘But this – Orm, I mean – is bad news. Never mind paying your respects to Ketil. We’ll leave at first light.’

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

Easter Monday

IT WAS LONG
before first light, though, when Wulfgar felt Father Ronan’s hand shaking his shoulder. He sat up and tried to make sense of what the priest was saying.

‘Do you want to walk down to the cathedral with me? I can’t let you leave Leicester thinking my poor little St Margaret’s is the only kirk we have.’ He reached out a hand and pulled Wulfgar to his feet. ‘I’ve got to take your borrowed glory back before the world wakes, or my name will be mud. Besides, it’s all the Easter horse-racing and football today, and if we leave things too late we’ll never get away.’

Wulfgar struggled into his tunic and carefully bundled up the fragile red silk vestment, and the two clerics went quietly through the tangled lanes of the Danish settlement, and under the great gate in the walls, to where the cathedral sat at the heart of the city.

The cold air worked its little miracle on Wulfgar’s aching skull as they walked through the streets of the English town, where people were just beginning to stir.

‘Where does Ketil have his hall?’ he asked, trying to sound as though he didn’t care. ‘Will we be going anywhere near?’

Father Ronan shook his head.

‘We’ll be steering well clear – you don’t want him to catch wind of your being here, not now that you’re leaving without greeting him.’ He jerked a thumb to the north west. ‘He lies yonder. When Hakon took over Leicester, the Grimssons built themselves a longhouse, outside the walls, handy for the river.’

Still talking, they came through the gateway into the cathedral yard.

Wulfgar stopped in his tracks.

Leicester Cathedral. Even in the grey half-light he could see how beautiful the towering building was – or had been. It had been made of golden stone and russet tile, with a broad frieze of carved leaves and flowers around the outside of the building and a fine stone cross standing before the west door.

But the paint and plaster on the cross were faded and chipped, holes gouged where its gems had been hacked out; the cobbles around the door were matted with new chickweed and goose-grass, and the dried clumps of last year’s weed crop still disfigured the sagging roof. The surround of every window was smoke-blackened still, even after more than thirty years.

Father Ronan took one look at Wulfgar’s face.

‘Go in, why don’t you? I’ll take this back and come to find you.’

The great door creaked on rusty iron hinges, letting Wulfgar through into darkness. There was just enough light outside to show where the small, high windows were, and more came trickling in through the roof where tiles had fallen.

Just enough light to show how lovely it once had been, this cavernous shell of scorched and falling plaster. Wulfgar thought at
first
that he was alone, but there were rushlights burning at makeshift shrines around the walls and as his eyes made sense of the gloom he became aware of the occasional shadowy, kneeling figure. He lit a gift of his own from a light already burning at a shrine too murky to identify. It didn’t matter; he was making his offering to Mary, Queen of Heaven, and her Risen Son, St Oswald, St Modwenna, St Margaret, the nameless saint of the Bishop’s ring, lying against his breast-bone.

St Oswald
…

King and Martyr
.

When you were alive, he thought, the heathen Mercians were your enemies. You were slain fighting against them. And your death changed everything. The son of the king who killed you was the founder of the Bardney shrine.

Mercia never looked back, until this last generation.

That’s the sort of power you had, for over two hundred winters.

St Oswald, we need you now.

He was still hoping for a sign.

But all he got in return for his little, guttering light was silence and an overpowering sense of sadness.

The words of the psalmist came back to him unbidden:
Your foes have made uproar in your house of prayer
…

He didn’t realise he had been singing aloud until he heard a second voice at his shoulder …
Their axes have battered the wood of its doors
… It was Father Ronan. And together, quietly, they sang the whole psalm:
Oh God, they have set your sanctuary on fire … Do not forget the clamour of your foes, the daily growing uproar of your foes
.

Their eyes met.

‘I never hoped to meet anyone like you here,’ Wulfgar said.

‘Me? I was brought up in this church. My father was one of the
canons
. And my mother was one of his slaves.’ Father Ronan turned then and walked away, and after a moment’s hesitation Wulfgar followed.

‘Look,’ the priest said, ‘This was where the shrine of St Cuthwin used to stand. Our first Bishop, two hundred and fifty years gone.’ He pointed at a battered block of stone, the remains of painted carving just visible, shattered where metal fittings had been hacked out.

Wulfgar thought he could make out what had once been an angel. There was no sign of the reliquary.

‘This is where Uhtsang came from.’

‘Your harp?’

Father Ronan nodded.

‘Bishop Cuthwin’s relics. It was one of my jobs to dust them, as a lad. Nobody played her, ever. It used to drive me distracted, her hanging up there, long gone out of tune, the wood thirsty and the silver dull. You could see that she would be the sweetest singer, and I was learning on a dreadful old thing.’