The Last Kingdom Series Books 4-6: Sword Song, The Burning Land, Death of Kings

‘And does nothing?’

‘He makes promises.’

‘And Vikings use his land with impunity,’ I observed.

Alfred bridled. ‘Are you suggesting I declare war on King Æthelstan?’

‘He allows raiders to come to Wessex, lord,’ I said, ‘so why don’t we return the favour? Why don’t we send ships to East Anglia to hurt King Æthelstan’s holdings?’

Alfred stood, ignoring my suggestion. ‘What is most important,’ he said, ‘is that we do not lose Lundene.’ He held a hand towards Father Erkenwald who opened a leather satchel and took out a scroll of parchment sealed with brown wax. Alfred held the parchment to me. ‘I have appointed you as Military Governor of this city. Do not let the enemy retake it.’

I took the parchment. ‘Military Governor?’ I asked pointedly.

‘All troops and fyrd members will be under your command.’

‘And the city, lord?’ I asked.

‘Will be a godly place,’ Alfred said.

‘We shall cleanse it of its iniquity,’ Father Erkenwald interjected, ‘and wash it whiter than snow.’

‘Amen,’ Beocca said fervently.

‘I am naming Father Erkenwald as Bishop of Lundene,’ Alfred said, ‘and the civil governance will reside with him.’

I felt a lurch in my heart. Erkenwald? Who hated me? ‘And what about the Ealdorman of Mercia?’ I asked, ‘does he not have civil governance here?’

‘My son-in-law,’ Alfred said distantly, ‘will not countermand my appointments.’

‘And how much authority does he have here?’ I asked.

‘This is Mercia!’ Alfred said, tapping the terrace with a foot, ‘and he rules Mercia.’

‘So he can appoint a new military governor?’ I asked.

‘He will do as I tell him,’ Alfred said, and there was a sudden anger in his voice. ‘And in four days’ time we shall all gather,’ he had recovered his poise quickly, ‘and discuss what needs to be done to make this city safe and full of grace.’ He nodded brusquely to me, inclined his head to Gisela and turned away.

‘Lord King,’ Gisela spoke softly, checking Alfred’s departure, ‘how is your daughter? I saw her yesterday and she was bruised.’

Alfred’s gaze flickered to the river where six swans rode the water beneath the tumult of the broken bridge. ‘She’s well,’ he said distantly.

‘The bruising …’ Gisela began.

‘She was always a mischievous child,’ Alfred interrupted her.

‘Mischievous?’ Gisela’s response was tentative.

‘I love her,’ Alfred said, and there could have been no doubt of that from the unexpected passion in his voice, ‘but while mischief in a child is amusing, in an adult it is sinful. My dear Æthelflaed must learn obedience.’

‘So she learns to hate?’ I asked, echoing the king’s earlier words.

‘She’s married now,’ Alfred said, ‘and her duty before God is to be obedient to her husband. She will learn that, I am sure, and be grateful for the lesson. It is hard to inflict punishment on a child you love, but it is a sin to withhold such punishment. I pray God she comes to a state of good grace.’

‘Amen,’ Father Erkenwald said.

‘Praise God,’ Beocca said.

Gisela said nothing and the king left.

I should have known that the summons to the palace on top of Lundene’s low hill would involve priests. I had expected a council of war and a hard-headed discussion on how best to scour the Temes of the brigands who infested the estuary, but instead, once I had been relieved of my swords, I was shown into the pillared hall where an altar had been erected. Finan and Sihtric were with me. Finan, a good Christian, made the sign of the cross, but Sihtric, like me, was a pagan and he looked at me with alarm as though he feared some religious magic.

I endured the service. Monks chanted, priests prayed, bells were rung and men genuflected. There were some forty men in the room, most of them priests, but only one woman. Æthelflaed was seated beside her husband. She was dressed in a white robe, gathered at her waist by a blue sash, and her corn-gold hair had speedwell woven into its bun. I was behind her, but once, when she turned to look at her father, I saw the purplish bruise around her right eye. Alfred did not look at her, but stayed on his knees. I watched him, watched Æthelflaed’s slumped shoulders, and thought about Beamfleot, and how that wasps’ nest could be burned out. First, I thought, I needed to take a ship downriver and see Beamfleot for myself.

Alfred suddenly stood up and I assumed the service was at last over, but instead the king turned to us and delivered a mercifully brief homily. He encouraged us to ponder the words of the prophet Ezekiel, whoever he was. ‘“Then the heathen that are left round about you,”’ the king read to us, ‘“shall know that I the Lord build the ruined places, and plant that which was desolate”. Lundene,’ the king put down the parchment with Ezekiel’s words, ‘is again a Saxon city, and though it is in ruins, with God’s help we shall rebuild it. We shall make it a place of God, a light to the pagans.’ He paused, smiled gravely and beckoned to Bishop Erkenwald who, draped in a white cape hung with red strips on which silver crosses had been embroidered, stood to deliver a sermon. I groaned. We were supposed to be discussing how to rid the Temes of our enemies, and instead were being tortured with dull piety.

I had long learned to ignore sermons. It has been my unhappy fate to hear many, and the words of most have passed over me like rain running down newly laid thatch, but some minutes into Erkenwald’s hoarse harangue I began to take notice.

Because he was not preaching about remaking ruined cities, nor even about the heathen who threatened Lundene, instead he was preaching to Æthelflaed.

He stood by the altar and he shouted. He was ever an angry man, but on that spring day in the old Roman hall, he was filled with a passionate fury. God, he said, was speaking through him. God had a message, and God’s word could not be ignored or else the brimstone fires of hell would consume all mankind. He never used Æthelflaed’s name, but he stared at her, and no man in the room could doubt the message that the Christian’s god was sending to the poor girl. God, it seemed, had even written the message down in a gospel book, and Erkenwald snatched a copy from the altar, held it up so that the light from the smoke-hole in the roof caught the page, and read aloud.

‘“To be discreet,”’ he looked up to glare at Æthelflaed, ‘“chaste! Keepers of the home! Good! Obedient to their husbands!” Those are God’s own words! That is what God demands of a woman! To be discreet, to be chaste, to be home-keepers, to be obedient! God spoke to us!’ He almost writhed in ecstasy as he said those last four words. ‘God still speaks to us!’ he gazed up at the roof as if he could glimpse his god peering through the ceiling. ‘God speaks to us!’

He preached for over an hour. His spittle spun through the ray of sunlight cast through the smoke-hole. He cringed, he shouted, he shuddered. And time and again he went back to the words in the gospel book that wives must be obedient to their husbands.

‘Obedient!’ he shouted, and paused.

I heard a thump from the outer hall as a guard rested his shield.

‘Obedient!’ Erkenwald shrieked again.

Æthelflaed’s head was held high. From my view behind her it seemed as if she were staring straight at that mad, vicious priest who was now the bishop and ruler of Lundene. Æthelred, beside her, fidgeted, but the few glimpses I got of his face showed a smug, self-satisfied look. Most of the men there looked bored and only one, Father Beocca, seemed to disapprove of the bishop’s sermon. He caught my eye once and made me smile by raising an indignant eyebrow. I am certain Beocca did not dislike the message, but he doubtless believed it should not have been preached in so public a manner. As for Alfred, he just gazed serenely at the altar as the bishop ranted, yet his passivity disguised involvement because that bitter sermon could never have been preached without the king’s knowledge and permission.

‘Obedient!’ Erkenwald cried again, and stared up at heaven as though that one word was the solution to all mankind’s troubles. The king nodded approval, and it occurred to me that Alfred had not only approved Erkenwald’s rant, but must have requested it. Perhaps he thought that a public admonition would save Æthelflaed from private beatings? The message certainly matched Alfred’s philosophy, for he believed that a kingdom could only thrive if it was ruled by law, was ordered by government and was obedient to the will of God and the king. Yet he could look at his daughter, see her bruises and approve? He had always loved his children. I had watched them grow, and I had seen Alfred play with them, yet his religion could allow him to humiliate a daughter he loved? Sometimes, when I pray to my gods, I thank them fervently that they let me escape Alfred’s god.

Erkenwald at last ran out of words. There was a pause, then Alfred stood and turned to face us. ‘The word of God,’ he said, smiling. The priests murmured brief prayers, then Alfred shook his head as though clearing it of pious matters. ‘The city of Lundene is now a proper part of Mercia,’ he said, and a louder murmur of approval echoed through the room. ‘I have entrusted its civil government to Bishop Erkenwald,’ he turned and smiled at the bishop, who smirked and bowed, ‘while Lord Uhtred will be responsible for the defence of the city,’ Alfred said, looking at me. I did not bow.

Æthelflaed turned then. I think she had not known I was in the room, but she turned when my name was spoken and stared at me. I winked at her, and her bruised face smiled. Æthelred did not see the wink. He was pointedly ignoring me.

‘The city, of course,’ Alfred went on, his voice suddenly ice cold because he had seen my wink, ‘falls under the authority and rule of my beloved son-in-law. In time it will become a valuable part of his possessions, yet for the moment he has graciously agreed that Lundene must be administered by men experienced in government.’ In other words Lundene might be part of Mercia, but Alfred had no intention of allowing it out of West Saxon hands. ‘Bishop Erkenwald has the authority to set dues and raise taxes,’ Alfred explained, ‘and one third of the money will be spent on civil government, one third on the church, and one third on defending the city. And I know that under the bishop’s guidance and with the help of Almighty God we can raise a city that glorifies Christ and His church.’

I did not know most of the men in the room because they were almost all Mercian thegns who had been summoned to Lundene to meet Alfred. Aldhelm was among them, his face still black and bloodied from my hands. He had glanced at me once and twisted fast away. The summons had been unexpected and only a few thegns had made the journey to Lundene, and those men now listened politely enough to Alfred, but almost all were torn between two masters. Northern Mercia was under Danish rule, and only the southern part, which bordered Wessex, could be called free Saxon land and even that land was under constant harassment. A Mercian thegn who wished to stay alive, who wished his daughters safe from slavers and his livestock free of cattle-raiders, did well to pay tribute to the Danes as well as pay taxes to Æthelred who, because of his inherited landholdings, marriage and lineage, was acknowledged as the most noble of the Mercian thegns. He might call himself king if he wished, and I had no doubt he did so wish, but Alfred did not, and Æthelred without Alfred was nothing.

‘It is our intention,’ Alfred said, ‘to rid Mercia of its pagan invaders. To do that we needed to secure Lundene and so put a stop to the Northmen’s ships raiding up the Temes. Now we must hold Lundene. How is that to be done?’

The answer to that was obvious, though it did not stop a general discussion that meandered aimlessly as men argued about how many troops would be needed to defend the walls. I took no part. I leaned against the back wall and noted which of the thegns were enthusiastic and which were guarded. Bishop Erkenwald glanced at me occasionally, plainly wondering why I did not contribute my grain of wheat to the threshing floor, but I kept silent. Æthelred listened intently and finally summed up the discussion. ‘The city, lord King,’ he said brightly, ‘needs a garrison of two thousand men.’

‘Mercians,’ Alfred said. ‘Those men must come from Mercia.’