Sword of Kings

She had looked frustrated. ‘He has no love!’ she had insisted and looked puzzled by my lack of understanding. ‘His mother died giving birth to him.’ She made the sign of the cross. ‘Everyone knows the devil marks those babies!’

‘My mother died giving birth to me,’ I retorted.

‘You’re different,’ she had said. ‘I don’t trust him. And you should stay here when Edward dies!’ That had been her final word, spoken bitterly. Eadith was a strong, clever woman, and only a fool ignores such a woman’s advice, yet her anger aroused a fury in me. I knew she was right, but I was stubborn, and her resentment only made me more determined to keep the oath.

Finan had agreed with Eadith. ‘If you go south I’ll come with you,’ the Irishman had told me, ‘but we shouldn’t be going.’

‘You want Æthelhelm to live?’

‘I’d like to poke his eyeballs out by shoving Soul-Stealer up his rotten arse,’ Finan had said, speaking of his sword. ‘But I’d rather leave that pleasure to Æthelstan.’

‘I swore an oath.’

‘You’re my lord,’ he had said, ‘but you’re still a bloody fool. When do we leave?’

‘As soon as we hear of Edward’s death.’

For a year I had been expecting one of Æthelstan’s warriors to come from the south bringing news of a king’s death, but three days after I had first spoken with Æthelwulf a priest came instead. He found me in Bebbanburg’s harbour where Spearhafoc, newly repaired, was being launched. It was a hot day and I was stripped to the waist, helping the men who pushed the sleek hull down the beach. At first the priest did not believe I was Lord Uhtred, but Æthelwulf, who was with me and who was dressed as a nobleman, assured him I was indeed the ealdorman.

King Edward, the priest told me, still lived, ‘God be praised,’ he added. The priest was young, tired, and saddle sore. His horse was a fine mare, but like the rider she was dusty, sweat-soaked, and bone weary. The priest had ridden hard.

‘You rode all this way to tell me the king still lives?’ I asked harshly.

‘No, lord, I rode to bring you a message.’

I heard his message, and next day, at dawn, I went south.

I left Bebbanburg with just five men for company. Finan, of course, was one, while the other four were all good warriors, sword-skilled and loyal. I left the priest who had brought me the message in Bebbanburg and told my son, who had returned from the hills and was to command the garrison while I was away, to guard him well. I did not want the priest’s news spreading. I also gave my son instructions to keep Æthelwulf as an honoured prisoner. ‘He might be an innocent fool,’ I said, ‘but I still don’t want him riding south to warn his brother that I’m coming.’

‘His brother will know anyway,’ Finan had said drily. ‘He already knows you’re sworn to kill him!’

And that, I thought as I pounded the long road to Eoferwic, was strange. Æthelstan and I had sworn oaths to each other and agreed to keep those oaths secret. I had broken that agreement by telling Eadith, Finan, my son, and his wife, but I trusted all of them to keep the secret. So if Æthelhelm knew, then Æthelstan must have told someone, who, in turn, had told Æthelhelm of the threat, and that suggested there were spies in Æthelstan’s employment. That was no surprise, indeed I would have been astonished if Æthelhelm did not have men reporting to him from Mercia, but it did mean my enemy was forewarned of the threat I posed.

There was one last person I needed to tell of my oath, and I knew he would not be happy. I was right. He was furious.

Sigtryggr had been my son-in-law and was now King of Northumbria. He was a Norseman, and he owed his throne to me, which meant, I thought ruefully, that I was to Sigtryggr what Æthelhelm was to Edward. I was his most powerful noble, the one man he must either placate or kill, but he was also my friend, though when I met him in the old Roman palace of Eoferwic he fell into a rage. ‘You promised to kill Æthelhelm?’ he snarled at me.

‘I took an oath.’

‘Why!’ It was not a question. ‘To protect Æthelstan?’

‘I took an oath to protect him. I took that oath years—’

‘And he wants you to go south again!’ Sigtryggr interrupted me. ‘To save Wessex from its own chaos! To save Wessex! That’s what you did last year! You saved that bastard Æthelstan. We needed him dead! But no, you had to save the miserable arsehole’s life! You won’t go, I forbid it.’

‘Æthelstan,’ I pointed out, ‘is your brother-in-law.’

Sigtryggr uttered one word to that, then kicked a table. A Roman jug of blue glass fell and shattered, causing one of his wolfhounds to whine. He pointed a finger at me. ‘You must not go. I forbid it!’

‘Do you break your oaths, lord King?’ I asked.

He snarled again, paced angrily on the tiled floor, then turned on me again. ‘When Edward dies,’ he said, ‘the Saxons will start fighting amongst themselves. True?’

‘Probably true,’ I said.

‘Then let them fight!’ Sigtryggr said. ‘Pray that the bastards kill each other! It’s none of our business. While they’re fighting each other they can’t fight us!’

‘And if Ælfweard wins,’ I pointed out, ‘he will attack us anyway.’

‘You think Æthelstan won’t? You think he won’t lead an army across our frontier?’

‘He promised not to. Not while I live.’

‘And that can’t be long,’ Sigtryggr said, making it sound like a threat.

‘And you’re married to his twin sister,’ I retorted.

‘You think that will stop him?’ Sigtryggr glared at me. He had first been married to my daughter, who had died defending Eoferwic, and after her death King Edward had forced the marriage between Sigtryggr and Eadgyth, threatening invasion if Sigtryggr refused, and Sigtryggr, assailed by other enemies, accepted. Edward claimed the marriage was a symbol of peace between the Saxon kingdoms and Norse-ruled Northumbria, but only a fool did not recognise that the real reason for the marriage was to place a Saxon Christian queen in what was enemy country. If Sigtryggr died then his son, my grandson, would be too young to rule, and the Danes and Norse would never accept the pious Eadgyth as their ruler, and in her stead they would place one of their own on Northumbria’s throne and thus give the Saxon kingdoms a reason to invade. They would claim they came to restore Eadgyth to her proper place, and so Northumbria, my country, would be swallowed by Wessex.

And all that was true. Yet still I would travel south.

I took an oath, not just to Æthelstan, but to Æthelflaed who had been King Alfred’s daughter and once my lover. I swore to protect Æthelstan and I swore to kill his enemies when Edward died. And if a man breaks an oath he has no honour. We might have much in this life. We might be born to wealth, to land, to success, and I had been given all those things, but when we die we go to the afterlife with nothing except reputation, and a man without honour has no reputation. I would keep my oath.

‘How many men are you taking?’ Sigtryggr asked me.

‘Just forty.’

‘Just forty!’ he echoed scornfully. ‘And what if Constantin of Scotland invades?’

‘He won’t. He’s too busy fighting Owain of Strath Clota.’

‘And the Norse in the west?’ he demanded.

‘We defeated them last year.’

‘And they have new leaders, there are more ships arriving!’

‘Then we’ll defeat them next year,’ I said.

He sat again, and two of his wolfhounds came to be petted. ‘My younger brother came from Ireland,’ he said.

‘Brother?’ I asked. I had known Sigtryggr had a brother, but he had rarely been mentioned and I had thought he had stayed in Ireland.

‘Guthfrith,’ he said the name sourly. ‘He expects me to clothe and feed him.’

I looked around the big chamber where men watched us. ‘He’s here?’

‘Probably in a whorehouse. You’re going south then?’ he asked grumpily. He looked old, I thought, yet he was younger than me. His once handsome face with its missing eye was creased, his hair was grey and lank, his beard thin. I had not seen his new queen in the palace, reports said that she spent much of her time in a convent she had established in the city. She had given Sigtryggr no child.