The Empty Throne (The Warrior Chronicles, Book 8) (31 page)

And as the blade left me so the stench came. A foul stench, and I felt liquid pouring from my rib. ‘It’s the evil,’ Eadith said, ‘coming out of him.’

Finan was holding her arm, but staring at me. ‘Christ,’ he murmured. I had bent forward when she stabbed me and saw a mixture of blood and pus pulsing from the new wound, so much blood and pus. It was bubbling, swelling, trickling away, and as I watched the filth erupt so the pain subsided. I looked up at Eadith in disbelief because the pain was flowing out of me, it was vanishing.

‘We need honey and cobwebs,’ she said. She frowned at the sword as if she did not know what to do with it.

‘Berg,’ I said, ‘take the sword.’

‘Her sword, lord?’

‘You need a sword and that’s a good one, I’m told.’ I straightened up and no pain came, so I bent down again and still there was no pain. ‘Cobwebs and honey?’

‘I should have thought to bring some,’ Eadith said.

There was a dull ache in my side, but that was all. I pressed a rib just above the wound and, miraculously, there was no agony. ‘What did you do?’

She half frowned, as if she was not quite sure of her answer. ‘There was evil inside you, lord,’ she said slowly, ‘and it had to be let out.’

‘Then why didn’t we use any sword?’

‘Because this was the sword that caused the evil, of course.’ She looked down at Ice-Spite. ‘My mother wanted to find the blade that wounded my father, but she couldn’t.’ She shuddered and handed the sword to Berg.

There was honey aboard Rognvald’s ship. He had stocked it with food, with salted fish, with bread, ale, cheeses, and barrels of horse-flesh. He had even killed his horses rather than leave them behind. There were also two jars of honey. Cobwebs were harder to find, but my son looked at the single grounded fishing craft at the beach’s end. ‘It looks abandoned,’ he said, ‘so it might be crawling with spiders.’ He wandered off to look while Gerbruht and Folcbald went to search the unburned houses. ‘Bring lots,’ Eadith called after them, ‘I want a whole handful of cobweb!’

‘I hate spiders,’ Gerbruht grumbled.

‘Don’t they taste good?’

He shook his head. ‘Crunchy and bitter, lord.’

I laughed and there was no pain. I stamped my foot and there was no pain. I stretched high and there was no pain, just the dull ache and the smell. I grinned at Finan. ‘It’s a miracle. There’s no pain.’

He was smiling. ‘I pray it stays that way, lord.’

‘It’s gone!’ I said, and I drew Serpent-Breath and swept her in a wide cut that thumped her blade hard into the ship’s hull. There was still no pain. I did it again, and again there was no rip of agony. I slid the blade into its scabbard and untied the laces that held a pouch to my belt. I gave the whole pouch to Eadith. ‘Yours,’ I said.

‘Lord!’ She was staring at the gold in the heavy pouch. ‘No, lord …’

‘Keep it,’ I said.

‘I didn’t do it because …’

‘Keep it!’

I grinned at my son who was hurrying back from the abandoned boat. ‘You found any cobwebs?’

‘No, but I found this,’ he said and held out a crucifix. It was a shabby thing, the cross and its victim both carved from beech wood and so eroded by weather and time that the body was smoothed and bleached. One arm of the cross was missing so that Christ’s arm stuck into empty air. There were two rusted nail holes through the cross’s upright, one at each end. ‘It was nailed to the mast,’ he said, ‘and the boat isn’t abandoned. Or it wasn’t. It’s been used within the last few days.’

A Christian boat on a pagan shore. I tossed the crucifix back to my son. ‘So Rognvald’s men captured a Welsh fishing boat?’

‘Called
Godspellere
?’ he asked, then jerked his head at the small craft. ‘It’s scratched on the bows, father.
Godspellere
.’

Preacher, a man who preaches the gospel. A typical name for a Christian boat. ‘Maybe the Welsh use the same word?’

‘Maybe,’ he sounded dubious.

Preacher. It seemed unlikely that the Welsh would use the same word, in which case the boat was Saxon, and I remembered that Eardwulf had stolen a fishing boat from the Sæfern. I looked at Eadith. ‘Your brother?’ I suggested.

‘It could be,’ she said uncertainly, yet the more I thought about it, the more likely it seemed. Eardwulf would have sailed from the Sæfern and would surely seek refuge as soon as he could, because a small boat on a wide sea was prey to enemies. So why not go ashore in Hywel’s territory? Because Eardwulf had a reputation as a man who fought the Welsh. If he had landed on Hywel’s shore he could have ended screaming as loudly as Rognvald, but the Norsemen might welcome him because he had become an enemy of their enemies. ‘See if he’s among the dead,’ I ordered my son, and he dutifully walked among the bodies, turning a couple with his foot, but there was no sign of him. Nor was Eardwulf among the men killed in the settlement, which meant that if he had come here then he had sailed away on one of Sigtryggr’s boats. ‘Berg!’ I summoned the boy and asked him about the fishing boat, but all he knew was that it had arrived with the rest of Sigtryggr’s fleet. ‘Yet they abandoned it,’ I said.

‘It’s too slow, lord,’ Berg said, and that was true.

I stared at the fishing craft, frowning. ‘Sigtryggr,’ I said the unfamiliar name carefully, ‘first came here a week ago?’

‘Yes, lord.’

‘Then went away? Why?’

‘The first rumour, lord, said that Sigtryggr would stay here. That he’d help us take more land.’

‘And then he changed his mind?’

‘Yes, lord.’

‘So where is his fleet going?’

‘They said north, lord,’ Berg said vaguely, though he was trying to be helpful. ‘They said we’d all be sailing north.’

Sigtryggr had been sent to find a place where his father’s forces could safely retreat if their Irish enemies became too strong. He had looked at Rognvald’s miserable settlement and thought of using his forces to carve it into a larger kingdom, but he had also explored northwards, and then suddenly returned and persuaded Rognvald to abandon Abergwaun and help him conquer some other place. Some other place to the north. A better place, a richer prize.

Ceaster.

And we later learned that the Welsh word for preacher was nothing like
godspellere
. ‘We might say
efengylydd
,’ Father Anwyn told me, ‘but certainly not
godspellere
. That’s your barbarous tongue.’

I gazed at the boat and wondered about Eardwulf, as his sister made a pad of honey and cobwebs and strapped it to the wound she had opened.

And there was no pain.

Next day I could bend, swing a sword, twist my body, even heave on a steering-oar, and there was no pain. I moved slowly, cautiously, always expecting the agony to return, but it was gone.

‘It was an evil trapped in your body,’ Eadith explained again.

‘A spirit,’ Finan reckoned.

‘And the sword was charmed,’ Eadith said.

‘She did a good job, lord,’ Finan said earnestly, and Eadith smiled at the compliment.

‘But if the sword had a spell on it,’ I asked, frowning, ‘why didn’t it just add to the evil when you stabbed me?’

‘I didn’t stab you, lord,’ she said, ‘I stabbed the evil spirit.’

We were aboard the
Ðrines
again. Sihtric had brought her back to the dragon’s mouth and Hywel had sent men to greet her. Gerbruht had ridden with them, and he gave Sihtric my orders to wait overnight while Hywel feasted us, which he did with the supplies captured from Rognvald’s ships, though the feast had been far from festive. The memory of those tortured bodies hung over the settlement like the smell of burning.

Hywel had been eager to talk, and asked a lot about Æthelflaed. Was her reputation of being a good Christian true?

‘It depends,’ I had said, ‘what Christian you ask. Many call her a sinner.’

‘We are all sinners,’ Hywel had answered.

‘But she is a good woman.’

He had wanted to know her thoughts about the Welsh. ‘If you leave her alone,’ I answered, ‘she will leave you alone.’

‘Because she hates the Danes more?’

‘She hates pagans.’

‘Except one, I hear,’ he had said drily. I ignored that. He smiled, listening to the harpist for a moment, then, ‘and Æthelstan?’

‘What of him, lord?’

‘You want him to be king, Lord Æthelhelm doesn’t.’

‘He’s a boy,’ I said dismissively.

‘But one you judge worthy to be a king. Why?’

‘He’s a good, strong lad,’ I said, ‘and I like him. And he’s legitimate.’

‘He is?’

‘The priest who married his parents is in my service.’

‘How very inconvenient for Lord Æthelhelm,’ Hywel said, amused. ‘And what about the boy’s father? You like him too?’

‘Well enough.’

‘But Æthelhelm rules in Wessex, so what Æthelhelm wants will happen.’

‘You must have good spies in the West Saxon court, lord,’ I said, amused.

Hywel had laughed at that. ‘I don’t need spies. You forget the church, Lord Uhtred. Churchmen write endless letters. They send news to each other, so much news! Gossip too.’

‘Then you know what Æthelflaed wants,’ I said, turning the conversation back to her. ‘She’ll ignore Æthelhelm and his ambitions, because all she cares about is driving the Danes from Mercia. And when she has done that, to drive them out of Northumbria.’

‘Ah,’ the king had said, ‘she wants Englaland!’ We had eaten outside, under the smoke-smeared stars. ‘Englaland,’ Hywel had said again, savouring the unfamiliar name as he stared into one of the big fires around which we sat. A bard was singing, and for a time the king listened to the words, then began to talk. He had spoken softly, ruefully, gazing into the flames. ‘I hear the name Englaland,’ he had said, ‘but our name for it is Lloegyr. The lost lands. They were once our lands. Those hills and valleys, those rivers and pastures, they were ours and they carried our names and the names were the stories of our people. Every hill had a tale, every valley a story. The Romans came and the Romans went, but the names remained, and then you came, the Saxons, and the names vanished like this smoke. And the stories went with the names, and now there are only your names. Saxon names. Listen to him!’ He had gestured towards the bard who was chanting his song, hard-striking the rhythm of his words on a small harp. ‘He sings the song of Caddwych and how he slaughtered our enemies.’

‘Our enemies?’ I asked.

‘How we slaughtered you, the Saxons,’ Hywel admitted, then laughed. ‘I told him not to sing of dead Saxons, but even a king can’t command poets, it seems.’

‘We sing songs too,’ I said.

‘And your songs,’ the king said, ‘will tell of Englaland, of slaughtered Danes, and what happens then, my friend?’

‘Then, lord?’

‘When you have your Englaland? When the pagans are gone? When Christ rules all Britain from the south to the north? What then?’

I had shrugged. ‘I doubt I’ll live to see it.’

‘Will the Saxons be content with their Englaland?’ he had asked, then shaken his head. ‘They will look at these hills, these valleys.’

‘Perhaps.’

‘So we must be strong. Tell your Æthelflaed that I will not fight her. I’ve no doubt some of my folk will steal your cattle, but young men must be kept busy. But tell her that I have a dream like her father’s dream. A dream of one country.’

I had been surprised, but why? This was a clever man, as clever as Alfred, and he knew that weakness invited war. So just as Alfred dreamed of uniting the Saxon kingdoms into one strong country, so Hywel was dreaming of uniting the Welsh kingdoms. He ruled the south, but to the north was a patchwork of little states, and little states are weak.

‘So,’ he continued, ‘your Æthelflaed will hear of war in our land, but assure her it is not her business. It is ours. Leave us alone and we will leave you alone.’

‘Until you don’t, lord,’ I said.

Again he smiled. ‘Until we don’t? Yes, one day we must fight, but you will make your Englaland and we will make our Cymru first. And we will probably both be long dead, my friend, before those shield walls meet.’

‘Cymru?’ I had asked, stumbling over the strange word.

‘You call it Wales.’

And now we left Cymru, blown by a south-westerly wind, the sea seething at the
Ðrines
’s bow and the wake spreading white and fretful behind us. I had liked Hywel. I knew him for such a short while and met him on only a few occasions, yet of all the kings I have met in my long life he and Alfred impressed me the most. Hywel still lives and now he rules over much of Wales and grows stronger every year, and one day, no doubt, the men of Cymru will come to take back the stories that we Saxons stole from them. Or we shall march to destroy them. One day. Not now.

And we sailed northwards to save Æthelflaed’s kingdom.

I could have been wrong. Perhaps Sigtryggr was looking for new land in Scotland, or on the rugged coast of Cumbraland, or perhaps in Gwynedd, which was the northernmost of all the Welsh kingdoms, but I somehow doubted it.

I had sailed Britain’s western shore and it is a cruel coast, rock-bound, wave-battered, and tide-swirled, yet north of the Sæfern there is one soft place, one spread of land where the rivers invite a ship to go deep inland, where the soil is not steep and rock-strewn, where cattle can graze and barley grow, and that place was Wirhealum, the land between the River Mærse and the River Dee. Ceaster was there, and it had been at Ceaster that Æthelflaed had led her men against the Norse. The capture of that city and of the rich lands around it had been because of Æthelflaed’s insistence, the achievement that had persuaded men to trust her with Mercia, but now, if my suspicions were correct, more Norsemen were going to Wirhealum. A new fleet was sailing with new warriors, hundreds of warriors, and if Æthelflaed was to begin her rule by losing Ceaster, if that great swathe of newly conquered land was to be lost, then men would say it was the Christian god’s revenge for appointing a mere woman to rule over them.

The safe thing was to return to Gleawecestre. We could have made the voyage quickly enough, helped by the wind, which blew from the south-west two days out of three, but once there we would still be a week’s hard march from Ceaster. I reckoned Æthelflaed would have stayed in Gleawecestre, where she was appointing clerks and scribes and priests to administer the lands she now ruled, but I knew she had already sent at least fifty men north to reinforce the garrison at Ceaster. Those were the men Sigtryggr would fight, if indeed he was heading for the land between the rivers.