The Empty Throne

‘The king wants his son returned to Wessex,’ Brice said flatly.

‘You’re a good warrior,’ I told Brice. ‘I’d welcome you into any shield wall, but I wouldn’t trust you to empty my piss pot. You’re not clever enough. That’s why you don’t command Æthelhelm’s household troops. So no, you don’t serve the king because the king wouldn’t want you. So who did send you? Lord Æthelhelm?’

I had annoyed him, but he managed to bite back his anger. ‘The king,’ he said slowly, ‘wants his son, and you, Lord Uhtred, will find the boy and bring him here.’

‘You might find it strange,’ I said, ‘but I don’t take orders from you.’

‘Oh, you will,’ he said, ‘you will.’ He thought he was hiding his nervousness by belligerence, but I could see he was confused. He had orders to fetch Æthelstan and the boy had gone missing and my warriors now outnumbered his, but Brice did not have the sense to abandon his mission, instead he would tackle it as he did every other problem, by savage directness. He turned his head towards the house. ‘Bring her!’ he called.

The house door opened and a man brought Stiorra into the sunlight. A murmur sounded through the crowd because my daughter’s face was smeared with blood and she was clutching her torn robe to her breasts. Finan leaned from his saddle and put a hand on my arm, restraining me, but I had no need of his gesture. I was angry, yes, but I was no fool. I was too weak to attack Brice, and besides, my anger was cold. I was going to win this confrontation, but not by brute force. Not yet. Brice, meanwhile, was certain I had no choice but to obey him. ‘You bring me the boy,’ he said with a sneer, ‘and your daughter is freed.’

‘And if I don’t?’

He shrugged. ‘You’ll find out, won’t you?’

I turned and jerked my head at my son. ‘Come here.’ I waited till Uhtred had dismounted and joined me. ‘Where is he?’ I asked quietly. If anyone knew where Æthelstan was hiding it would be my son.

He glanced at Brice, then half turned his back on the West Saxon. ‘He spends time at the smithy,’ he told me.

‘The smithy?’

‘Godwulf’s smithy. He’s got friends there.’ He spoke too low for Brice to hear what he was saying. ‘Godwulf’s son and daughter. He goes to see her, really.’

‘He’s just ten!’

‘Nine, I think. And she’s twelve.’

‘He likes older women, does he?’ I asked. ‘So go and find the little brute and bring him here, but take your time. Don’t hurry.’

He nodded and left, pushing through the sullen crowd. ‘Where’s he going?’ Brice demanded.

‘To fetch the boy, of course,’ I said.

He was suspicious, but not clever enough to think beyond the next step, though he must have thought that step was a good idea. ‘Tell your men to leave,’ he demanded.

‘Leave?’ I pretended to be as stupid as Brice.

‘Leave!’ he snarled. ‘I want them out of sight, now!’

He thought he was ridding himself of their threat, though in truth he was demanding just what I wanted him to demand. ‘Take the men onto the city wall,’ I told Finan quietly, ‘and when I give the signal go in through the stable roof.’

‘What are you telling him?’ Brice wanted to know.

‘To wait in the Barley inn,’ I said, ‘the ale’s good there, much better than the stale muck they serve in the Muddy Goose.’ I nodded to Finan and he led my men away, vanishing into one of the narrow alleys that opened from the church square. I waited till the sound of their hooves had faded, then walked slowly towards my daughter. ‘What’s your name?’ I asked the man holding her.

‘Hrothard,’ he said.

‘Quiet!’ Brice snarled at him.

‘If you hurt her, Hrothard,’ I said, ‘you will die very slowly.’

Brice took two fast paces to stand in my face. ‘Hrothard will do what I tell him to do,’ he said and I smelt his rotten breath, but then he could probably smell the filthy pus that was seeping from my wound.

‘And you’ll tell him to let her go when I bring you Æthelstan,’ I said, ‘isn’t that what you want?’

He nodded. He was still suspicious, but too stupid to see the trap. May the gods always send me stupid enemies. ‘You know where the boy is?’ he asked.

‘We think so,’ I said, ‘and, of course, if the king wants his son then who am I to stand in his way?’

He thought about that question for a few heartbeats and must have decided that I had yielded altogether to his demands. ‘The king asked Lord Æthelhelm to fetch the boy,’ Brice said, trying to shade his lies into truth.

‘You should have told me that from the beginning,’ I said, ‘because I’ve always liked Æthelhelm.’ Brice half smiled, placated by the words. ‘But I don’t like men who strike my daughter,’ I added.

‘It was an accident, lord,’ he said too quickly. ‘The man will be punished.’

‘Good,’ I said, ‘and now we wait.’ We waited while Finan’s men dismounted and then climbed to the city wall by steps hidden beyond the church and far from Brice’s sight. The old fort, most of which had been pulled down, had stood in a corner of those walls and so the ramparts formed the northern and western sides of Æthelflaed’s house. The servant quarters and stables were on the northern side, and over the years their roofs had decayed to be replaced by thatch held up by rafters and wattles. Tear the thatch aside and break through the wattles and a man could drop into the stables. I could see Finan and his men on the wall now, and Brice would have seen them too had he turned around, but I kept his attention by asking him about Teotanheale and listening as he described his part in that battle. I pretended to be impressed, encouraging him to tell me more while Finan’s men ducked down low. Only one stayed upright, leaning lazily against the outer rampart. ‘What about the boy’s twin sister?’ I asked Brice.

‘The king wants her too,’ he said.

‘Where is she now?’

‘In the house. With the kitchen maids.’

‘She’d better be safe and unharmed,’ I said.

‘She is,’ Brice said.

I turned away. ‘You will forgive me,’ I said, ‘but my wound still hurts. I need to sit.’

‘I pray for your recovery,’ he said, though it took an effort for him to say it.

‘The gods will have their will,’ I said and turned back to my horse, which was being held by Edric, a lad of some eight or nine years who was my new servant. I braced myself against the pain, then climbed into the saddle. Brice had also turned away and walked back to the house door where he waited close to Stiorra.

She was staring at me. I have been a bad father, though I have ever loved my children. Yet small children bore me, and as they grew I was forever away fighting. I trained my son to be a warrior, and I was proud of him, but Stiorra puzzled me. She was my youngest, and it hurt to look at her because she so resembled her dead mother; she was tall and lithe and had her mother’s long face, the same black hair, the same dark eyes, and the same grave expression that could light into beauty with a smile. I did not know her well because I had been fighting as she grew, and Æthelflaed had raised her. She had been sent to the nuns in Cracgelad for much of her youth, schooled there in religion and the womanly arts. She was sweet-natured, though there was steel beneath that honey, and she was affectionate, though I never did know what she was thinking. It was time, I knew, that she was married, but I had found no one to whom I wanted to give my daughter, and she had never spoken of wanting to be married. Indeed she never spoke much, guarding her truth-hoard behind silence and stillness.

Her lower lip had been broken. It was swollen and bloody. Someone had hit her hard to do that and I would find that man and kill him. Stiorra was my daughter and no one hit her without my permission, and she was too old to be struck now. Children should be whipped into obedience, but once a child comes of age then the beatings stop. Husbands beat wives, of course, though I had never beaten Gisela, nor any of my lovers. I was not alone in that. Many men do not beat their wives, even though the law allows it and the church encourages it, but a man gains no reputation by beating a weaker person. Æthelred had beaten Æthelflaed, but he was a weak man, and it takes a weak man to prove his strength by striking a woman.

I was thinking these thoughts and watching my daughter, who stood very straight and still. A gust of wind brought a spatter of rain. I looked up, surprised, because most of the day had been fair, but the rain was brief and light.

‘Lord,’ Brice called harshly. He was becoming suspicious again, but before he could voice his fears my son appeared with Æthelstan. ‘Bring the boy here,’ Brice called to my son.

‘Bring him to me,’ I ordered, and Uhtred obediently brought Æthelstan to my stirrup. I grinned down at the boy who I loved as though he were another son. He was a good boy, mischievous as a boy should be, but intelligent and tough. He had started his weapon training, learning sword-craft and shield-lore, and the exercises had filled him out. In time, I thought, he would be a good-looking man. He was dark-haired, thin-faced, with green eyes that I supposed had come from his mother. ‘You get the boy,’ I called to Brice, ‘when I get my daughter.’

That made him think. He was such a stupid man. His brains, I thought, must be made of barley mush. A good warrior, yes, but men like Brice need to be controlled like dogs. I assumed Æthelhelm had sent him to Cirrenceastre because Brice could be relied on to obey his orders come what may, he was unstoppable like a boar-hound, but when the boar has sunk his tusk into the dog’s belly and is ripping the intestines out then the dog should know he’s beaten. Brice was still thinking, something he found hard to do, but at last he saw the apparent trap in my words. ‘We shall make the exchange outside the town,’ he proposed.

‘Outside the town?’ I asked, pretending not to understand.

‘You think I’m a fool, lord?’ he asked.