War of the Wolf

‘Everything passes,’ I agreed. ‘Look at the city now. Nothing but thatch and wattle, dirt and dung. I doubt it stank like a cesspit when the Romans were here.’

A word of command from Æthelstan caused the ring of men to take a pace forward. The ring shrank. Cynlæf still turned his horse, still looking for an escape that did not exist.

‘The Romans, lord …’ Bledod began, then faltered.

‘The Romans what?’ I asked.

Another word of command and the ring shrank again. Spears were levelled at the man and his branded horse. A score of Æthelstan’s warriors were now guarding the prisoners, herding them to one side of the arena while the dead made a tideline of bloody corpses by the entrance.

‘The Romans should have stayed in Britain, lord,’ Father Bledod said.

‘Because?’ I asked.

He hesitated, then gave me his sly grin again. ‘Because when they left, lord, the sais came.’

‘We did,’ I said, ‘we did.’ We were the sais, we Saxons. Britain had never been our home any more than it was home to the Romans. They took it, they left, and we came and we took it. ‘And you hate us,’ I said.

‘We do indeed, lord,’ Bledod was still smiling and I decided I liked him.

‘But you fought against the Romans, didn’t you? Didn’t you hate them?’

‘We hate everyone who steals our land, lord, but the Romans gave us Christianity.’

‘And that was a good exchange?’

He laughed. ‘They left! They gave us back our land, so thanks to the Romans we had our land and we had the true faith.’

‘Then we came.’

‘Then you came,’ he agreed. ‘But maybe you’ll leave too?’

It was my turn to laugh. ‘I think not, father. Sorry.’

Cynlæf was turning his horse continually, plainly fearing an assault from behind. His shield was limewashed white without any symbol. His helmet was chased with silver that glinted in the wintry sun. He wore his hair long like the Danes so that it flowed down his back. Æthelstan called out again, and once again the ring of spearmen contracted, men leaving the front rank as the weapons and shields tightened on Cynlæf.

‘So what will happen now, lord?’ Bledod asked.

‘Happen?’

‘To us, lord. To King Gruffudd’s men.’

‘King Gruffudd?’ I asked, amused. His kingdom was probably the size of a village, a patch of scrubby land with goats, sheep, and dung heaps. There were as many kings in Wales as fleas on a dog, though Hywel of Dyfed, whom I had met and liked, was swallowing those petty kingdoms to make one great one. Just as Wessex was swallowing Mercia, and, one day, would swallow Northumbria. ‘So he’s a king?’

‘His father was before him,’ Bledod said, as if that justified the title.

‘I thought Arthfael was King of Gwent?’

‘So he is, lord. Gruffudd is king beneath Arthfael.’

‘How many kings does Gwent have?’ I asked, amused.

‘It’s a mystery, lord, like the trinity.’

Cynlæf suddenly spurred his horse forward and slashed down with his sword. He had little room to move, but doubtless he hoped he could cut his way through the circle of men, though he must have known the hope was desperate, and so it was. The sword crashed into a shield and suddenly men were all around him, reaching for him. Cynlæf tried to draw the sword back, but one of Æthelstan’s warriors leaped up and seized his sword arm. Another snatched the horse’s bridle, while a third seized Cynlæf’s long hair and dragged him backwards. He fell, the horse reared and neighed, then the men backed away, and I saw Cynlæf being pulled to his feet. He was alive. For now.

‘Your King Gruffudd can leave with his son,’ I told Bledod, ‘but only after he tells us who bribed you. Not that he needs to tell us. I already know.’

‘You still think it was Cynlæf?’ he asked.

‘It was Æthelhelm the Younger,’ I said, ‘Ealdorman Æthelhelm.’

Who hated me and hated Æthelstan.

Æthelhelm the Elder was dead. He had died a prisoner in Bebbanburg. That had been inconvenient because his release had depended on his family paying me a ransom. The first part of that ransom, all in gold coins, had arrived, but Æthelhelm contracted a fever and died before the second payment was delivered.

His family had accused me of killing him, which was a nonsense. Why kill a man who would bring me gold? I would have been happy to kill him after the ransom was paid, but not before.

Æthelhelm had been the richest man in the kingdom of Wessex, richer even than King Edward to whom Æthelhelm had married his daughter. That marriage had made Æthelhelm as influential as he was wealthy, and it also meant that his grandson, Ælfweard, might become king after Edward. Ælfweard’s rival, of course, was Æthelstan, so it was no surprise that Æthelhelm had done all he could to destroy his grandson’s rival. And because I was Æthelstan’s protector I had also become Æthelhelm’s enemy. He had fought against me, he had lost, he had become my prisoner, and then he had died. We had sent his body home in a coffin, and I was told that by the time it reached Wiltunscir the corpse had swollen with gas, was leaking filthy liquid, and smelled vile.

I had liked Æthelhelm once. He had been genial and even generous, and we had been friends until his oldest daughter married a king and whelped a son. Now Æthelhelm’s eldest son, also called Æthelhelm, was also my enemy. He had succeeded his father as Ealdorman of Wiltunscir, and believed, wrongly, that I had murdered his father. I had taken gold from his family, and that was cause enough to hate me. I also protected Æthelstan. Even though King Edward had put aside his second wife and taken a younger woman, Æthelhelm the Younger still supported Edward because he hoped to see his nephew become the next king, but that support was given only so long as Ælfweard, Æthelhelm’s nephew, remained the crown prince. If Ælfweard became king, then Æthelhelm the Younger would remain the most powerful noble in Wessex, but if Æthelstan became king, then Æthelhelm and his family could look forward to royal revenge, to a loss of their estates, and even to enforced exile. And that prospect was more than enough reason to bribe a Welsh chieftain to take his famously savage warriors to Ceaster. If Æthelstan were to die, then Ælfweard would have no rival, and Æthelhelm’s family would rule in Wessex.

So Æthelhelm the Younger had cause to want Æthelstan dead, but, if it were possible, he hated me even more than he detested Æthelstan, and I did not doubt he sought my death just as eagerly as he wished for Æthelstan’s. And it was not just the death of his father that had prompted his hatred, but the fate of his youngest sister, Ælswyth.

Ælswyth had been captured alongside her father, and, after his death, she chose to stay at Bebbanburg rather than return to her family in Wessex. ‘You can’t,’ I had told her.

‘Why not, lord?’ she had asked. I had summoned her and she had stood in front of me, so young, so pale, so vulnerable, so enchantingly beautiful.

‘You can’t stay,’ I had spoken harshly, ‘because I have an agreement with your family. You will be returned to them when the ransom is paid.’

‘But the ransom isn’t paid, lord.’

‘Your father is dead,’ I had insisted, and wondered why she showed so little grief, ‘so there can be no more ransom. You must go home, as agreed.’

‘And your grandchild must go too, lord?’ she had asked innocently.

I had frowned, not understanding. My only grandchildren, my daughter’s two children, were in Eoferwic. Then I did understand, and I had just stared at her. ‘You’re pregnant?’ I finally said.

And Ælswyth had smiled so very sweetly. ‘Yes, lord.’

‘Tell my son I’ll kill him.’

‘Yes, lord.’

‘But marry him first.’

‘Yes, lord.’

So they did marry, and in time a child was born, a boy, and as is the custom in our family he was named Uhtred. Æthelhelm the Younger immediately spread a new rumour, that we had raped Ælswyth and then forced her into the marriage. He called me Uhtred the Abductor, and no doubt he was believed in Wessex where men were ever ready to believe lies about Uhtred the Pagan. It was my belief that the summons from Edward that had required me to travel to Gleawecestre to pay homage for my Mercian lands had been an attempt to bring me within sword’s length of Æthelhelm’s revenge, but why lure me across Britain to Ceaster? He would have known I would bring warriors, and all he would have achieved was to combine my forces with Æthelstan’s men, making the task of slaughtering either of us that much harder.