The Flame Bearer (The Last Kingdom Series, Book 10) (22 page)

Most of the ships, I reckoned, were trading craft. They had wider bellies and lower prows than the fighting ships. A few looked abandoned. One ship was half full of water, her timbers blackened by neglect. She had no sail bent on her yard, while one severed shroud lifted in the brisk wind, but she still had another ship moored outboard of her. Other ships were laden with barrels and crates, the cargo carefully stowed amidships, and all those ships had three or four men aboard. I counted fourteen such trading boats that looked ready for sea. Then there were the fighting ships, which were leaner, longer, and more menacing. Most, like the
Ælfswon
, had a cross on their prow. There were eight of them, including the
Ælfswon
, and all eight had men aboard, and most had clean waterlines. I stopped beside one and peered down into the scummy water and saw how the ship had recently been beached so that the weed could be scraped from her hull. A clean hull adds speed to a ship, and speed wins battles at sea. ‘What are you looking at, cripple?’ a man demanded.

‘God bless you,’ I called, ‘God bless you.’

‘Piss off and die,’ the man growled, then made the sign of the cross. A cripple meant bad luck. No sailor would willingly go to sea with a cripple aboard, and even a cripple close to a ship might bring a malevolent spirit.

I obeyed the first of his commands by limping further up the pier. I had counted sixteen pairs of benches on the ship, which meant thirty-two oarsmen. The
Ælfswon
and the two ships moored fore and aft of her were even bigger. Say fifty men aboard each and that meant Æthelhelm’s eight fighting ships could carry four hundred warriors, with still more on the cargo vessels. He had an army.

And I had no doubt where that army was going. To Bebbanburg. My cousin was a widower, so Æthelhelm would provide him with a bride. My cousin was being starved into surrender, so Æthelhelm would take him food. My cousin had men enough to defend Bebbanburg’s ramparts, but not enough to retake his lands, and so Æthelhelm would bring him warriors.

And what did Æthelhelm receive in return? He became master of northern Northumbria, and celebrated as the man who drove the Scots from Saxon land. He would have a secure fortress from which to launch an invasion of Sigtryggr’s kingdom from the north, an attack that would split my son-in-law’s forces when Edward invaded from the south. And he would take a fortress so formidable that he could openly defy Edward of Wessex. He could insist that Æthelstan be disinherited, or else all northern England would become the enemies of Wessex. And, sweetest of all perhaps, Æthelhelm would gain his revenge on me.

‘Good morrow,’ a friendly voice shouted, and I saw Renwald taking a piss off the pier’s edge, ‘still nasty weather!’ He and his crew had plainly slept aboard the
Rensnægl
that lay outboard of the Frisian trading ship. They had rigged a sailcloth awning across the
Rensnægl
’s stern to give them shelter from the wind.

‘You’ll lay up for a couple of days?’ I asked.

‘You’re limping!’ he said, frowning.

‘Just an ache in the hip.’

He looked up at the low clouds. ‘We’ll lay up till this passes. There’ll be some rain and wind, and then we’ll leave. Did you find your family?’

‘I’m not sure they’re here any longer.’

‘I pray they are,’ he said generously.

‘If I have to go back north,’ I asked, ‘will you take us? I’ll pay you.’

He chuckled at that. ‘I’m for Lundene! But you’ll find plenty of ships going north!’ He looked up at the clouds again. ‘This will probably clear today, so we’ll leave tomorrow. Give the weather time to settle, eh? Then sail on tomorrow’s ebb.’

‘I’ll pay you well,’ I said. I was beginning to fear I needed to return to the Humbre sooner than I had expected, and I had learned to trust Renwald.

He did not respond to my offer because he was gazing fixedly seawards. ‘Good God almighty,’ he said, and I turned to see a ship coming into the river. ‘Poor bastard must have had a rough night of it,’ Renwald added, making the sign of the cross.

The approaching ship looked dark under the dark sky. She was a fighting ship, long and low, with her sail brailed tight to her yard and banks of oars pulling her upstream. She looked ragged, with torn scraps of sailcloth and broken rigging flying loose in the wind. Her prow reared high and was capped by a cross from which streamed a long black pennant. She turned towards the piers, the small waves fretting white at her bows and her tired oarsmen fighting against wind, current, and tide.

Her steersman pointed the dark ship towards the
Ælfswon
, and I waited for the
Ælfswon
’s crew to shout at her to veer off, but to my surprise they were waiting with mooring lines. The lines were thrown, the oars shipped, and the newcomer was hauled in to settle beside the longer, white-hulled vessel. ‘He is privileged,’ Renwald said enviously, then shook his head. ‘I’m sorry, I’m going to Lundene! But you’ll find a ship going north.’

‘I hope so,’ I responded, then walked back down the pier to see who or what the dark ship had brought.

‘May God bless you all!’ a shrill voice called loud enough to be heard above the wind’s howling and the crying of the gulls, ‘in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the other one, my blessing on you!’

Ieremias had come to Dumnoc.

Ieremias, the mad bishop who was no bishop at all and who might not even have been mad, was my tenant, paying rent to the lord of Dunholm. This was the man who had brought me fifteen silver shillings and then pissed on them. His real name was Dagfinnr Gundarson, but Jarl Dagfinnr the Dane had turned himself into Bishop Ieremias of Gyruum, and today, as his dirty-looking ship was berthed alongside the pristine
Ælfswon
, he appeared in the bright robes of a bishop and carrying a crozier; a bishop’s staff that was nothing more than a shepherd’s crook, though Ieremias’s crozier had a hook of silver. ‘God bring you health!’ he shouted, his long white hair lifting to the wind, ‘and God bring you healthy sons and fertile women! God bring you good crops and plump fruit! May God multiply your flocks and increase your herds!’ He lifted his arms to the dull heavens, ‘I pray this, God! I pray that Thou bless these people and by Thy great mercy piss mightily upon all their enemies!’

It began to rain.

I was surprised the rain had held off for so long, but suddenly it began, hard spitting at first, but growing quickly into a vicious downpour. Ieremias cackled, then he must have seen me. He could not recognise me, of course, I wore the hood of my cloak over my head and he was looking through drenching rain from the wharf to where we stood on a pier, but he saw a bent-backed cripple, and immediately pointed his crozier towards me. ‘Heal him, God! Shower Thy mercy upon that broken man!’ His voice pierced through the sound of the rainstorm. ‘Straighten him, Lord! Lift Your curse from him! I ask this in the name of the Father, the Son, and of the other one!’

‘
Guds Moder
,’ I muttered.

‘Lord?’ Cerdic asked.

‘That’s the name of his ship,’ I said, ‘God’s mother, and don’t call me lord.’

‘Sorry, lord.’

I had been told that the
Guds Moder
was a shambles, a half-wrecked ship with gaping seams and frayed rigging that would sink if it so much as struck a ripple, but she would never have survived this weather if she had not been in good repair. Ieremias just wanted her to look dirty and uncared for. Loose lines blew ragged from the mast, but I could see that beneath that raggedness was a taut and seaworthy ship, a fighting ship. Ieremias had turned away from me and now crossed over the
Ælfswon
’s deck followed by four of his men, all in mail and wearing helmets. He kept praying or preaching as he crossed the wharf, though I could no longer hear him. We followed.

The rain was malevolent, streaming off the town’s thatched roofs and flooding the alleys. Ieremias did not care. He preached as he walked. Two of Æthelhelm’s warriors had met him, and now led him past the Goose, where he insisted on stopping to shout through the open door. ‘Whores and wine-guzzlers,’ he bellowed, ‘the scriptures forbid both! Repent you miserable sons of Beelzebub! You bibbers of ale and tuppers of tarts! Repent!’ Men stared in astonishment from the Goose’s door at the gaunt, rain-drenched bishop in his embroidered vestments who harangued them. ‘Who hath woe?’ he demanded. ‘Who hath babbling? They that guzzle wine! That is the word of God, you bastard bibbling babblers! Thine eyes shall behold strange women! The scriptures say that! Believe me! I have beheld strange women, but by the grace of God I am redeemed! I am sanctified! I am saved from strange women!’

‘Bastard’s mad,’ Cerdic said.

I was not so sure. Somehow the mad bastard had outlived Brida’s rule in Northumbria. She had hated Christians with a malevolence, but Ieremias had survived her slaughterous campaign against his god. He possessed a fort at Gyruum, but he had never needed it. Perhaps, I thought, Brida had recognised someone as moon-touched as herself, or else she had smelt that Ieremias’s religion was a joke.

One of Æthelhelm’s guards plucked at Ieremias’s elbow, plainly wanting to persuade the ranting prophet out of the rain and into a fire-warmed hall, and Ieremias let himself be led on. We followed, passing the street where the pig blood was being washed from walls by rain, then to the edge of the town where a substantial hall had been built on a slight rise of ground. It was a fine hall, steep roofed and thickly thatched, and big enough, I estimated, to feast two hundred men. Beside it were stables, storehouses, and a barn, the buildings surrounding a courtyard where two spearmen wearing Æthelhelm’s dark red cloaks were guarding the hall’s door. Ieremias was led inside. I doubted we could follow, nor did I want to risk an attempt to enter the hall in case I was recognised, but a group of beggars was huddled beneath a thatched shelter at one end of the barn, and I joined them there. I sent Oswi back to the Goose, but kept Cerdic with me.

We waited. We sat hunched, crammed with legless, blind, gibbering beggars. One of the women, her face a mess of weeping ulcers, crawled towards the hall door and was kicked back by one of the guards. ‘You were told to wait over there,’ the spearman snarled, ‘and be grateful his lordship allows it!’

His lordship? Was Æthelhelm here? If so, I thought, then coming to Dumnoc had been a terrible mistake, not because I feared he would recognise me, but if he was in the town then surely his fleet was ready to sail and I had no chance of joining my ships and men before he arrived at Bebbanburg. I sat shivering, worrying, and waiting.

It was past midday when the rain finally ended. The wind still gusted, but it had lost much of its spite. Two hounds came from the hall, wandered around in the mud and puddles for a while, then lifted their legs against a post. A girl brought the two guards at the hall door pots of ale, then stood chatting and laughing with them. I could just see over the rain-darkened thatch of the town to where a fishing boat was heading for sea, her sail bellying taut in the chill wind. A watery sun glinted on the far waves. The weather was improving, and that meant Æthelhelm’s fleet could go to sea.

‘Onto your knees, you earslings,’ a guard suddenly shouted at us. ‘If you’ve got knees, that is. If you haven’t, just grovel best you can! And make a line!’

A large group was coming from the hall. There were helmeted guards in their red cloaks, two priests, and then I saw Æthelhelm, bluff and genial, his arm around his daughter, who tried to lift the hem of her pale dress out of the mud. She still looked miserable, though her misery could not mask her delicate beauty. She was pale, her face flawless, and her slender frame making her appear fragile despite her height. Waldhere, my cousin’s warrior, was on her other side. His broad shoulders were draped by a black cloak beneath which he wore mail. He had no helmet. Behind him was Æthelhelm’s brute, Hrothard, grinning at something the ealdorman had just said, and last of all came Ieremias, resplendent in his damp bishop’s robes. I took a handful of mud and smeared it on my face, then made sure the hood was covering my eyes.

‘Charity is our duty,’ I heard Æthelhelm say as he approached us, ‘if we want God’s favour then in turn we must favour his most unfortunate children. When you are mistress of the north, my dear, you must be charitable.’

‘I will, father,’ Ælswyth answered dully.

I dared not look up. I could see Æthelhelm’s soft leather boots that were trimmed with silver and smeared with mud, and I could see his daughter’s tapestry slippers, their fine embroidery clogged with dirt. ‘God bless you,’ Æthelhelm said and dropped a silver shilling into my neighbour’s hand. I held out both my hands and kept my head bowed. ‘What ails you?’ Æthelhelm asked. He was standing directly in front of me.

I said nothing.

‘Answer his lordship,’ Hrothard growled.

‘He’s … he’s … he’s,’ Cerdic stuttered next to me.

‘He’s what?’ Hrothard demanded.

‘An id … id … idiot, lord.’

A shilling dropped into my hands, then another into Cerdic’s hand. ‘And you?’ Æthelhelm asked him. ‘What ails you?’

‘An id … idiot too.’

‘God bless both you idiots,’ Æthelhelm said, and walked on.

‘Touch this!’ Ieremias was coming behind the father and daughter, and he dangled a grubby strip of grey cloth in front of our eyes. ‘This was a gift to me from Lord Æthelhelm and it has power, my children, great power! Touch it! This is the very girdle the mother of Christ was wearing when her son was crucified! Look! You can see his blessed blood upon it! Touch it, my children, and be healed!’ He was right in front of me. ‘Touch it, you half-brained fool!’ He nudged me with a boot. ‘Touch the cloth of Gud’s moder and your wits will return like birds to their nest! Touch it and be healed! This cloth rested on the blessed womb that held our Lord!’

I raised the hand holding the shilling and brushed the strip of cloth with my knuckles, and as I did so, Ieremias leaned down and yanked my ragged-bearded chin to force my head up. He stooped over me and stared into my eyes. ‘You will be healed, you fool,’ he said passionately, ‘the devils that possess you will flee from my touch! Believe and be healed,’ and as he spoke I saw a sudden puzzlement cross his gaunt features. He had wide mad brown eyes, scarred cheeks, a hawk nose, and wild white hair. He frowned.