The Pale Horseman (13 page)

There was a gasp behind me and I realised Mildrith had come into the hall. Harald bowed
to her.

'The hall will be taken?' Mildrith asked.

'If the debt is not paid,' Harald said, 'the land will he given to the church.' He stared
up at the newly hewn rafters as if wondering why I would build a hall on land doomed to be
given to God.

Mildrith came to stand beside me. She was plainly distressed by Harald's summons, but
she made a great effort to compose herself. 'I am sorry,' she said, 'about your wife.'

A flicker of pain crossed Harald's face as he made the sign of the cross. 'She was sick a
long time, lady. It was merciful of God, I think, to take her.'

I had not known he was a widower, nor did I care much.

'She was a good woman,' Mildrith said.

'She was,' Harald said.

'And I pray for her.'

'I thank you for that,' Harald said.

'As I pray for Odda the Elder,' Mildrith went on.

'God be praised, he lives,' Harald made the sign of the cross again. 'But he is feeble and
in pain.' He touched his scalp showing where Odda the Elder had been wounded.

'So who is the judge?' I asked harshly, interrupting the two.

'The bishop,' Harald said.

'Not the ealdorman?'

'He is at Cippanhamm.'

Mildrith insisted on giving Harald and his men ale and food. She and Harald talked a
long time, sharing news of neighbours and family. They were both from Difnascir and I was
not, and so I knew few of the folk they talked about, but I pricked up my ears when Harald
said that Odda the Younger was marrying a girl from Mercia. 'She's in exile here,' he
said, 'with her family.'

'Well born?' Mildrith asked.

'Exceedingly,' Harald said.

'I wish them much joy,' Mildrith said with evident sincerity.

She was happy that day, warmed by Harald's company, though when he had gone she chided
me for being churlish. 'Harald is a good man,' she insisted, 'a kind man. He would have
given you advice. He would have helped you!'

I ignored her, but two days later I went into Exanceaster with Iseult and all my men.
Including Haesten I now had eighteen warriors and I had armed them, given them shields and
leather coats, and I led them through the market that always accompanied the court's
sittings.

There were stilt-walkers and jugglers, a man who ate fire, and a dancing bear. There
were singers, harpists, storytellers, beggars, and pens of sheep, goats, cattle, pigs,
geese, ducks and hens. There were fine cheeses, smoked fish, bladders of lard, pots of honey,
trays of apples and baskets of pears. Iseult, who had not been to Exanceaster before, was
amazed at the size of the city, and the life of it, and the seething closeness of its houses,
and I saw folk make the sign of the cross when they saw her for they had heard of the shadow
queen held at Oxton and they knew her for a foreigner and a pagan.

Beggars crowded at the bishop's gate. There was a crippled woman with a blind child,
men who had lost arms or legs in the wars, a score of them, and I threw them some pence, then,
because I was on horseback, ducked under the archway of the courtyard beside the
cathedral where a dozen chained felons were awaiting their fate. A group of young monks,
nervous of the chained men, were plaiting beehives, while a score of armed men were
clustered around three fires. They eyed my followers suspiciously as a young priest, his
hands flapping, hurried across the puddles.

'Weapons are not to be brought into the precinct!' he told me sternly.

'They've got weapons,' I nodded at the men warming themselves by the flames.

'They are the reeve's men.'

'Then the sooner you deal with my business,' I said, 'the sooner my weapons will be
gone.'

He looked up at me, his face anxious. 'Your business?'

'… is with the bishop.'

'The bishop is at prayer,' the priest said reprovingly, as though I should have known
that. 'And he cannot see every man who comes here. You can’t talk to him.'

I smiled and raised my voice a little. 'In Cippanhamm, two years ago,' I said, 'your
bishop was friends with Eanflaed. She has red hair and works her trade out of the Corncrake
tavern. Her trade is whoring.'

The priest's hands were flapping again in an attempt to persuade me to lower my
voice.

'I've been with Eanflaed,' I said, 'and she told me about the bishop. She said ...'

The monks had stopped making beehives and were listening, but the priest cut me off by
half shouting. 'The bishop might have a moment free.'

'Then tell him I'm here,' I said pleasantly.

'You are Uhtred of Oxton?' he asked.

'No,' I said. 'I am the Lord Uhtred of Bebbanburg.

'Yes, lord.'

'Sometimes known as Uhtredaerwe,' I added mischievously. Uhtred the Wicked.

'Yes, lord,' the priest said again and hurried away.

The bishop was called Alewold and he was really the bishop of Cridianton, but that
place had not been thought as safe as Exanceaster and so for years the bishops of
Cridianton had lived in the larger town which, as Guthrum had shown, was not the wisest
decision. Guthrum's Danes had pillaged the cathedral and the bishop's house, which was
still scantily furnished and I discovered Alewold sitting behind a table that looked as
if it had once belonged to a butcher, for its hefty top was scored with knife cuts and
stained with old blood. He looked at me indignantly. 'You should not be here,' he said.

'Why not?'

'You have business before the court tomorrow.'

'Tomorrow,' I said, 'you sit as a judge. Today you are a bishop.'

He acknowledged that with a small nod. He was an elderly man with a heavy jowled face
and a reputation as a severe judge. He had been with Alfred in Scirehurnan when the Danes
arrived in Exanceaster, which is why he was still alive, and, like all the bishops in
Wessex, he was a fervent supporter of the king, and I had no doubt that Alfred's dislike
of me was known to Alewold, which meant I could expect little clemency when the court
sat.

'I am busy,' Alewold said, gesturing at the parchments on the stained table. Two clerks
shared the table and a half-dozen resentful priests had gathered behind the bishop's
chair.

'My wife,' I said, 'inherited a debt to the church.'

Alewold looked at Iseult who alone had come into the house with me. She looked
beautiful, proud and wealthy. There was silver at her throat and in her hair, and her cloak
was fastened with two brooches, one of jet and the other of amber.

'Your wife?' the bishop asked snidely.

'I would discharge the debt,' I said, ignoring his question, and I tipped a bag onto
his butcher's table and the big silver plate we had taken from Ivar slid out. The silver
made a satisfying noise as it thumped down and suddenly, in that small dark room ill-lit
by three rush lights and a small, woodbarred window, it seemed as if the sun had come out.
The heavy silver glowed and Alewold just stared at it.

There are good priests. Beocca is one and Willibald another, but I have discovered in
my long life that most churchmen preach the merits of poverty while they lust after wealth.
They love money and the church attracts money like a candle brings moths. I knew Alewold
was a greedy man, as greedy for wealth as he was for the delights of a red-haired whore in
Cippanhamm, and he could not take his eyes from that plate. He reached out and caressed the
thick rim as if he scarce believed what he was seeing, and then he pulled the plate towards
him and examined the twelve apostles.

'A pyx,' he said reverently.

'A plate,' I said casually.

One of the other priests leaned over a clerk's shoulder. 'Irish work,' he said.

’It looks Irish,' Alewold agreed, then looked suspiciously at me. 'You are returning
it to the church?'

'Returning it?' I asked innocently.

'The plate was plainly stolen,' Alewold said, 'and you do well, Uhtred, to bring it
back.'

'I had the plate made for you,' I said.

He turned the plate over, which took some effort for it was heavy, and once it was
inverted he pointed to the scratches in the silver. 'It is old,' he said.

'I had it made in Ireland,' I said grandly, 'and doubtless it was handled roughly by
the men who brought it across the sea.'

He knew I was lying. I did not care.

'There are silversmiths in Wessex who could have made you a pyx,' one of the priests
snapped.

'I thought you might want it,' I said, then leaned forward and pulled the plate out of the
bishop's hands, 'but if you prefer West Saxon work,' I went on, 'then I can ...'

'Give it back!' Alewold said and, when I made no move to obey, his voice became pleading.
'It is a beautiful thing.' He could see it in his church, or perhaps in his hall, and he
wanted it. There was silence as he stared at it. If he had known that the plate existed, if
I had told Mildrith of it, then he would have had a, response ready, but as it was he was
overwhelmed by desire for the heavy silver. A maid brought in a flagon and he waved her out
of the room. She was, I noted, red-haired.

'You had the plate made,' Alewold said sceptically.

'In Dyflin,' I said.

'Is that where you went in the king's ship?' the priest who had snapped at me asked.

'We patrolled the coast,' I said, 'nothing more.'

'The value of the plate …' Alewold began, then stopped.

'… is far and above the debt Mildrith inherited,' I said. That was probably not true,
but it was close to the amount, and I could see Alewold did not care. I was going to get what
I wanted.

The debt was discharged. I insisted on having that written down, and written three
times, and I surprised them by being able to read and so discovering that the first scrap
of parchment made no mention of the church yielding their rights to the future produce of
my estate, but that was corrected and I let the bishop keep one copy while I took two.

'You will not be arraigned for debt,' the bishop said as he pressed his seal into the wax
of the last copy, 'but there is still the matter of Oswald's wergild.'

"I rely on your good and wise ,judgment, bishop,' I said, and I opened the purse hanging
at my waist and took out a small lump of gold, making sure he could see there was more gold
inside as I placed the small lump on the plate.

'Oswald was a thief.'

'His family will make oaths that he was not,' the priest said.

'And I will bring men who will swear he was,' I said.

A trial relied heavily on oaths, but both sides would bring as many liars as they could
muster, and judgment usually went to the better liars or, if both sides were equally
convincing, to the side who had the sympathy of the onlookers. It was better, though, to
have the sympathy of the judge. Oswald's family would have many supporters around
Exanceaster, but gold is much the best argument in a law court.

And so it proved, To Mildrith's astonishment the debt was paid and Oswald's family
denied two hundred shillings of wergild. I did not even bother to go to the court, relying
on the persuasive power of gold, and sure enough the bishop peremptorily dismissed the
demand for wergild, saying it was well known that Oswald had been a thief, and so I won.
That did not make me any more popular. To the folk who lived in the Uisc's valley I was a
Northumbrian interloper and, worse, it was known I was a pagan, but none dared confront
me for I went nowhere beyond the estate without my men and my men went nowhere without
their swords.

The harvest was in the storehouses. Now was the time for the Danes to come, when they
could be sure to find food for their armies, but neither Guthrum nor Svein crossed the
frontier. The winter came instead and we slaughtered the livestock, salted the meat,
scraped hides and made calves' foot jelly. I listened for the sound of church bells ringing
at an unusual time, for that would have been a sign that the Danes had attacked, but the
bells did not ring.

Mildrith prayed that the peace would continue and I, being young and bored, prayed it
would not. She prayed to the Christian god and I took Iseult to the high woods and made a
sacrifice to Hoder, Odin and Thor and the gods were listening, for in the dark beneath the
gallows tree, where the three spinners make our lives, a red thread was woven into my life.
Fate is everything, and just after Yule the spinners brought a royal messenger to Oxton
and he, in turn, brought me a summons. It seemed possible that Iseult's dream was true, and
that Alfred would give me power for I was ordered to Cippanhamm to see the king. I was
summoned to the Witan.