Sword of Kings

‘Thank God, no.’

He was standing just below the steering platform, guarded by a grinning Beornoth. We had raised the sail and were going northwards, going home, driven by the steady west wind. Most of my men were on the large ship we had captured, only a few were still on Spearhafoc, and those few were still bailing water. The young man who had sworn to kill me was still tied to the mast, from where he glowered at me. ‘That young fool,’ I said, talking to the priest and nodding towards the young man, ‘is from Wessex, but you sound Mercian.’

‘Christ’s kingdom has no boundaries,’ he retorted.

‘Unlike my mercy,’ I said, to which he answered nothing. ‘I’m from Northumbria,’ I went on, ignoring his defiance, ‘and in Northumbria I am an ealdorman. You call me lord.’ He still said nothing, just looked up at me with a scowl. Spearhafoc was still sluggish, reluctant to lift her bows, but she was sailing and she was heading home. Banamaðr and the captured ship were keeping us company, ready to take us off if Spearhafoc began to sink, though minute by minute I sensed that she would survive to be dragged ashore and repaired. ‘You call me lord,’ I repeated. ‘Where are you from?’

‘Christ’s kingdom.’

Beornoth drew back a meaty hand to strike the priest, but I shook my head. ‘You see that we’re in danger of sinking?’ I asked the priest, who stayed stubbornly silent. I doubted he could sense that Spearhafoc, far from foundering, was recovering her grace. ‘And if we do sink,’ I went on, ‘I’ll tie you to the mast alongside that idiot child. Unless, of course, you tell me what I want to know. Where are you from?’

‘I was born in Mercia,’ he spoke reluctantly, ‘but God saw fit to send me to Wessex.’

‘If he doesn’t call me lord again,’ I told Beornoth, ‘you can smack him as hard as you like.’ I smiled at the priest. ‘Where in Wessex?’

‘Wintanceaster,’ he said, paused, then sensed Beornoth moving and hastily added, ‘lord.’

‘And what,’ I asked, ‘is a priest from Wintanceaster doing in a ship off the Northumbrian coast?’

‘We were sent to kill you!’ he snarled, then yelped as Beornoth smacked the back of his head.

‘Be strong in the Lord, father!’ the young man shouted from the mast.

‘What is that idiot’s name?’ I asked, amused.

The priest hesitated a heartbeat, giving the young man a sideways glance. ‘Wistan, lord,’ he said.

‘And your name?’ I asked.

‘Father Ceolnoth,’ there was again a slight pause before he added ‘lord.’

And I knew then why he was familiar and why he hated me. And that made me laugh. We limped on home.

Two (#u83d52f60-1848-5b11-b7fd-71ecd3ceb922)

We took Spearhafoc home. It was not easy. Gerbruht had slowed the leak, yet still the sleek hull wallowed in the afternoon seas. I had a dozen men bailing her and feared that worsening weather might doom her, but the gusting wind was kind, settling into a steady westerly, and the fretting sea calmed and Spearhafoc’s wolf-sail carried us slowly north. It was dusk when we reached the Farnea Islands and limped between them and a western sky that was a red-streaked furnace of savage fire against which Bebbanburg’s ramparts were outlined black. It was a weary crew that rowed the stricken ship through the narrow channel into Bebbanburg’s harbour. We beached Spearhafoc, and in the morning I would assemble teams of oxen to drag her above the tideline where her bows could be mended. Banamaðr and the captured ship followed us through the channel.

I had talked with Father Ceolnoth as we laboured home, but he had proved sullen and unhelpful. Wistan, the young man who had believed his god wanted my death, had been miserable and equally unhelpful. I had asked them both who had sent them north to kill me, and neither would answer. I had released Wistan from the mast and showed him a heap of captured swords. ‘You can take one and try to kill me again,’ I told him. He blushed when my men laughed and urged him to accept the offer, but he made no attempt to do his god’s work. Instead he just sat in the scuppers until Gerbruht told him to start bailing. ‘You want to live, boy? Start slinging water!’

‘Your father,’ I spoke to Father Ceolnoth, ‘is Ceolberht?’

He seemed surprised that I knew, though in truth it had been a guess. ‘Yes,’ he said curtly.

‘I knew him as a boy.’

‘He told me,’ the priest said, a pause, then, ‘lord.’

‘He didn’t like me then,’ I said, ‘and I daresay he dislikes me still.’

‘Our God teaches us to forgive,’ he said, though in the bitter tone some Christian priests use when they are forced to admit an uncomfortable truth.

‘So where is your father now?’ I asked.

He stayed silent for a while, then evidently decided his answer revealed no secrets. ‘My father serves God in Wintanceaster’s minster. So does my uncle.’

‘I’m glad they both live!’ I said, though that was not true because I disliked both men. They were twins from Mercia, as alike to each other as two apples. They had been hostages with me, caught by the Danes, and while Ceolnoth and Ceolberht had resented that fate, I had welcomed it. I liked the Danes, but the twins were fervent Christians, sons of a bishop, and they had been taught that all pagans were the devil’s spawn. After their release from captivity they had both studied for the priesthood and grew to become passionate haters of paganism. Fate had decreed that our paths should cross often enough, and they had ever despised me, calling me an enemy of the church and worse, and I had finally repaid an insult by kicking out most of Father Ceolberht’s teeth. Ceolnoth bore a remarkable resemblance to his father, but I had guessed that the toothless Ceolberht would name his son after his brother. And so he had.

‘So what is the son of a toothless father doing in Northumbrian waters?’ I had asked him.

‘God’s work,’ was all he would say.

‘Torturing and killing fishermen?’ I asked, and to that question the priest had no answer.

We had taken prisoner those men who appeared to be the leaders of the defeated ships, and that night they were imprisoned in an empty stable that was guarded by my men, but I had invited Father Ceolnoth and the misery-stricken Wistan to eat in the great hall. It was not a feast, most of the garrison had eaten earlier, so the meal was just for the men who had crewed the ships. The only woman present, besides the serving girls, was Eadith my wife, and I sat Father Ceolnoth to her left. I did not like the priest, but I accorded him the dignity of his office, a gesture I regretted as soon as he took his place at the high table’s bench. He raised his hands to the smoke-darkened rafters and began to pray in a loud and piercing voice. I suppose it was brave of him, but it was the bravery of a fool. He asked his god to rain fire on this ‘pestilential fortress’, to lay it waste, and to defeat the abominations that lurked inside its ramparts. I let him rant for a moment, asked him to be silent, and, when he just raised his voice and begged his god to consign us to the devil’s cesspit, I beckoned to Berg. ‘Take the holy bastard to the pigs,’ I said, ‘and chain him there. He can preach to the sows.’

Berg dragged the priest from the hall, and my men, even the Christians, cheered. Wistan, I noticed, watched silently and sadly. He intrigued me. His helmet and mail, which were now mine, were of quality workmanship and suggested that Wistan was nobly-born. I also sensed that, for all his foolishness, he was a thoughtful young man. I pointed him out to Eadith, my wife. ‘When we’re done,’ I told her, ‘we’ll take him to the chapel.’

‘The chapel!’ she sounded surprised.

‘He probably wants to pray.’

‘Just kill the pup,’ Egil put in cheerfully.

‘I think he’ll talk,’ I said. We had learned much from the other prisoners. The small fleet of four ships had been assembled at Dumnoc in East Anglia and was crewed by a mix of men from that port, other East Anglian harbours, and from Wessex. Mostly from Wessex. The men were paid well and had been offered a reward if they succeeded in killing me. The leaders of the fleet, we learned, had been Father Ceolnoth, the boy Wistan and a West Saxon warrior named Egbert. I had never heard of Egbert, though the prisoners claimed he was a famed warrior. ‘A big man, lord,’ one had told me, ‘even taller than you! A scarred face!’ the prisoner had shuddered in remembered fear.

‘Was he on the ship that sank?’ I had asked. We had not captured anyone resembling Egbert’s description so I assumed he was dead.

‘He was on the Hælubearn, lord, the small ship.’

Hælubearn meant ‘child of healing’, but it was also a term the Christians used for themselves, and I wondered if all four ships had carried pious names. I suspected they did because another prisoner, clutching a wooden cross hanging at his breast, said that Father Ceolnoth had promised every man that they would go straight to heaven with all their sins forgiven if they succeeded in slaughtering me. ‘Why would Egbert be on the smallest ship?’ I had wondered aloud.

‘It was the fastest, lord,’ the first prisoner told me. ‘Those other boats are pigs to sail. Hælubearn might be small, but she’s nimble.’

‘Meaning he could escape if there was trouble,’ I had commented sourly, and the prisoners just nodded.

I reckoned I would learn nothing from Father Ceolnoth, but Wistan, I thought, was vulnerable to kindness and so, when the meal was over, Eadith and I took the boy to Bebbanburg’s chapel, which is built on a lower ledge of rock beside the great hall. It is made of timber like most of the fortress, but the Christians among my men had laid a flagstone floor which they had covered with rugs. The chapel is not large, maybe twenty paces long and half as wide. There are no windows, just a wooden altar at the eastern end, a scattering of milking stools, and a bench against the western wall. Three of the walls are hung with plain woollen cloths that block the draughts, while on the altar is a silver cross, kept well polished, and two large candles which are permanently lit.

Wistan seemed bemused when I led him inside. He glanced nervously at Eadith who, like him, wore a cross. ‘Lord?’ he asked nervously.

I sat on the bench and leaned against the wall. ‘We thought you might want to pray,’ I said.

‘It’s a consecrated space,’ Eadith reassured the boy.

‘We have a priest too,’ I added. ‘Father Cuthbert. He’s a friend and he lives in the fortress here. He’s blind and old and some days he feels unwell and then he asks the priest from the village to take his place.’

‘There’s a church in the village,’ Eadith said. ‘You can go there tomorrow.’

Wistan was now thoroughly confused. He had been taught that I was Uhtred the Wicked, a stubborn pagan, an enemy of his church and a priest-killer, yet now I was showing him a Christian chapel inside my fortress and talking to him of Christian priests. He stared at me, then at Eadith, and had nothing to say.