The Bone Thief (22 page)

No wonder the Atheling had been so eager to back the Bishop’s plan, and to send Wulfgar off into the wilds. The Lady and the Bishop would be safely distracted with their hopes over the relics, while he made his bid for power …

And I even agreed to be the Atheling’s errand-boy. What a gullible fool I am, Wulfgar thought despairingly.

Why had he ever thought he could play this game? He was no politician. He should have stayed in Wessex, he thought, even if he had ended up teaching farmers’ sons like Ednoth their
abecedarium
in some backwoods minster.

He bit his lip. Did he really mean it? Give up everything he had been trained to do, destined for since birth? Abandon the thrill of working at the heart of the court, among the rich and great? Relinquish the hopes of a cathedral or at least a great minster of his own?

And then, for the first time, he thought, if this mission were to fail, he might have to, willy-nilly. No one would be very pleased to see him come empty-handed back to Mercia. Especially not the Lady.

No one – except perhaps Athelwald Seiriol, Atheling of Wessex.

There was no hope of getting back to sleep now. He pushed his cloak away and levered himself to his feet, then shuffled his way between the sleeping figures, brushing bits of straw from his clothes as he went, feeling his way with his feet, nervous of treading on someone’s hand or leg. He needed a quiet place to interrogate the hubbub in his head.

If the Atheling had really wanted the relics back in a week, he would have gone himself.

Or sent one of his bodyguard.

Someone like Garmund, Wulfgar reflected bitterly. Garmund would go thundering up the road, grab the relics, whack a few people on the head for good measure, and be back in plenty of time.

And then, tight-lipped with humiliation, he thought, perhaps the Atheling chose me because he knew I would fail.

Once he was out in the courtyard, the stable offered itself to him in the first grey light. He let himself in, leaving the door ajar and taking care not to wake the ostler or the horse-boy, and went over to where Fallow was tethered in the gloom, between Starlight and Father Ronan’s black gelding. Fallow whickered softly in recognition, and for the first time he noticed with appreciation the moleskin sheen of her nose and the gentle, slightly anxious gleam in her eye. He scooped up a handful of oats, offering them to her carefully flat-palmed. She shook her fringe out of her eyes
and
snuffled them up, damp and tickly. He patted her neck with his free hand. ‘Oh, Fallow. I feel such a fool. You don’t care though, do you? You still trust me.’

He wasn’t sure how long he stayed there, leaning against Fallow’s warm bulk, but he became slowly aware of voices, cooking smells, seeping silvery light. He didn’t want to face Ednoth or Ronan just yet, and he turned out of the stable and through the inn’s gatehouse, into the street outside. The inn was set back from the river, and he turned that way, drawn by the shrieking of the gulls. The great pool was full of trading ships among which dozens of swans swam, searching for scraps. Something in the arrogant, fastidious way they carried their heads reminded him of Gunnvor. The merchants had drawn up their boats on the shelving mud and were setting out their stalls, shouting cheerfully at one another as they carried baskets and barrels and bales up from their vessels.

Wulfgar noticed amber necklaces, and exquisitely polished stone cups and bowls, bronze lamps in styles he didn’t recognise, and silver or tin brooches to suit every taste and pocket. There was a food market, too: local farmers coming in with their carts and selling from the cart-tail. He stopped at one to buy a fresh curd cheese to eat there and then: moist and rich and sweet, he could almost taste the spring grass the sheep had been eating.

His head was still buzzing, his angry thoughts half-directed at himself and half at the Atheling. It was time to be getting back though: Ednoth and Ronan would be waking up and wondering where he had got to, and, although he was still confused as well as furious and humiliated, one thing was quite clear to him.

The Bishop’s story is true: St Oswald needs me; and Mercia needs St Oswald.

What was it Ednoth had said?
This is us fighting back. This is the
start
of the new Mercia
… Thousands of other people would feel the same way.

If we bring St Oswald home to Gloucester as soon as we can, he thought, I’ve done my duty. This isn’t about me. I’ve got to forget about being angry, and about being a failure, and just find the relics, and take them to the Lady, as quickly as possible.

His heart pounded. He pressed the palms of his hands together, and forced himself to breathe deeply.

He found he had walked the whole length of the market and, as he turned round, he wondered whether there was anything worth knowing to be gleaned from the stall-holders. Some of them might well know Eirik the Spider.

Wulfgar had averted his eyes from the slave-merchants’ stalls as he came past the first time. It’s one thing, what we do in Wessex, he thought, taking a family on your own land into bond to save them from famine. That’s people you know, people who already work for you. But stealing people from their homes and selling them overseas? How can that be justified?

And so
young
, so many of them quite little children. He frowned. They can’t all be orphans, can they? Many of them looked no more than seven or eight years old, little groups of them huddled close together. And lots of young women. He didn’t want to think about how they had got there, or their probable future. As he drew closer he could see the slaves had no choice but to huddle; they were roped or, in one or two cases, chained. He wondered if they were local or whether merchants had brought them in from further afield. He felt a terrible squeamishness about going closer. There was nothing he could do to help them, and he couldn’t bear the dull hopelessness in their young faces.

It occurred to Wulfgar with a pang that maybe he hadn’t had
such
a bad time after all, when he had been their age. Yes, Edward and Garmund had tormented him. But he had been safe, really. Not only at Meon, when his mother had still been alive, but even after he had been despatched to Winchester. There had always been someone looking out for him.

Why do I find it so hard to admit that I was privileged, cosseted even? That there was nothing special about the hard times I had? Just a different throw of the dice, a different strand in Fate’s weaving, and I could have been here, tied by the ankle, staring at the dust. If I were here under different circumstances, I’d buy one, free him, take him home … But which one? There are so many.

He watched a buyer examining one young woman, pinching her arm and her thigh, getting her to open her mouth to let him check her teeth. Wulfgar burned with indignation on her behalf, but apart from a sullen expression she made no protest.

How could men like this Eirik the Spider do what they did?

At that question, he turned back to his immediate problem. Being in the market was too good an opportunity to waste. He should wander over to one of the slave-traders, pretend to be a buyer himself, make an idle comment –
Eirik usually has a good stock
– and ask,
where is he to be found today?

But what if he asked his questions of Eirik himself, without knowing it?

Ever more jittery, he drifted in the direction of the slave-stalls, pretending interest in this and that. The place was getting crowded now, pedlars looking for bargains to take round the hinterland of Lindsey; housewives wanting the fresh chalky cheeses and the cabbages with the dew still on them. As he pushed past one scrap-metal stall, Wulfgar looked idly over the goods on offer, and froze.

To the untutored glance it would have looked like a small red
box
, sparsely set with metal. Wulfgar’s trained eye saw it at once for what it was.

A gospel book.

A single gospel, its leather binding tooled with a cross whose arms were set with silver. They would have held cabochon glass or gems once, but those had been long lost from fittings which gaped sadly as toothless gums.

He reached out his hand.

But someone else got there first.

The stall-holder, a dark-haired, burly man, had swooped down, and now he held it just beyond arm’s reach.

‘I’m afraid that’s sold,’ he said in English. ‘Sorry. My mistake.’

Wulfgar found his voice.

‘If I could just have a look?’ He wiped his damp, sticky hand against his tunic and held it out.

‘If it’s silver you want, perhaps I could interest you in this wire? I’ll give you the same price. There’s more here than you’ve got there, and it’s already refined.’

‘Refined?’

‘Melted down. Burned. Whatever you call it.’ He grinned. ‘I’m no silversmith.’

Wulfgar was still holding out his hand.

‘Just a look?’

The man shrugged.

‘Go on, then. But it is sold.’

Wulfgar took the book into his hands, shivering slightly. This was a book to be enthroned as the Son of God, not haggled over or fingered by hands still smelling of cheese. I’ve never touched a gospel book before, not with my bare hand … The leather was calfskin, supple still to the touch, embossed over a design made,
Wulfgar
guessed, by gluing thin string to the boards beneath. He touched the inlaid silver cross lightly, noting the depth of the cavity at its centre and guessing that this had once held a relic. The back had a winding pattern, a muddle of knotwork to the uninitiated, but Wulfgar could pick out the overlapping crosses hidden in the intersections and interstices.

He opened it.

As he had thought, a single gospel.

St John:
IN PRINCIPIO … In the beginning was the Word
… The flawless curves of the deceptively simple script marked it as the work of a scribe as skilful as the binder, writing long ago: eight lives of men, he guessed, or more. He wished he could write as beautifully as that, but these were skills that had been lost, somewhere along the road.

It was a gospel book fit for a bishop.

Or a king.

St Oswald could have owned this, Wulfgar realised. It was old enough, and more than beautiful enough …

Refined
, the man had said.
Melted down. Burned
. Someone could buy this wonderful book? Someone could buy it for its
silver
?

‘I have to have this,’ he said. He hadn’t meant to speak his thoughts aloud, but once he had started he couldn’t stop. ‘How much?’ He couldn’t buy a slave, but he could redeem God’s Word.

‘I’ve sold it already, I tell you.’ The man glanced around, furtively. ‘He promised me five shillings, in English coin.’

Wulfgar felt a gust of hope.

‘So he’s not paid you yet? I’ll give you ten.’ It was the Bishop’s money, not his. Half of their travelling expenses – significantly more than half of what was left to them. He told himself the Bishop would understand.

‘But it’s my good name, and he’s a good customer, a regular,’ the man said. He put his head on one side, wheedling. ‘Surely that’s worth a bit?’

‘Fifteen,’ Wulfgar said, reckless in his lust. He wasn’t even sure there was that much left in the Bishop’s bag. ‘I’ll have to go back and get it.’

The trader frowned.

‘But the other one, he might come back—’

‘Let me take this with me – I could leave you my cloak, my belt-knife—’

But the trader was shaking his head.

‘Do I look born yesterday?’

And a new voice, tinged with foreignness, said, ‘Got my goods there?’

Wulfgar turned.

‘Did you buy this? Can I buy it from you?’

The newcomer’s eyes narrowed. He was another big man, older, a conical hat trimmed with fur on his head, a fur-lined cloak and leather boots.

‘Why? What’s it worth to you? There’s not much silver in it.’

‘But it’s a
book
. No,
the
book! St John’s gospel, and it’s so old, and it’s so beautiful—’ Wulfgar stopped.

The fur-hatted man was laughing, laughing so hard he had to bend forward, laughing so that he wheezed, tears squeezing themselves out of his eyes. His red, slab-cheeked face was turning purple. The stall-holder, nervous, was joining in.

Wulfgar held on to his treasure.

‘You could have the binding,’ he said, though it cost him a pang. ‘I could just keep the pages.’

Wulfgar thought at first that the fur-hatted man wasn’t
listening
, so caught up was he in his mirth, but when he finally finished wiping his eyes, he said, ‘It just gets better and better. Christians – don’t you love them? I haven’t had a laugh like that for years. No, my boy, it’s got my name on it. Hand it over and I’ll pay the man.’

‘No,’ Wulfgar said. ‘You’re not being fair.’

Fur Hat reached out a meaty hand and tried to grab the little volume.

Wulfgar turned away, shielding it with his body, and found himself being hauled backwards by the neck of his tunic. He staggered a couple of steps away from the stall, still clinging to the book. Fur Hat came for him. He ducked his head, shoved the little gospel down the front of his undershirt, and blundered away.