Sword of Kings

‘In revenge for the way we treated you,’ I continued. ‘Weren’t you raped and forced into an unwanted marriage?’

‘No!’ she protested.

‘And all that,’ I said, ‘after I had murdered your father.’

Ælswyth looked up into her brother’s face. ‘Our father died of the fever!’ she said fiercely, ‘I was with him through the whole illness. And no one raped me, no one forced me to marry. I love this place!’

Poor Æthelwulf. He looked as if the foundations of his life had just been ripped away. He believed Ælswyth of course, how could he not? There was joy on her face and enthusiasm in her voice, while Æthelwulf looked as if he was about to cry.

‘Let’s go to bed,’ I said to Eadith, then turned to Ælswyth. ‘And you two can talk.’

‘We shall!’ Ælswyth said.

‘I’ll send a servant to show you where you can sleep,’ I told Æthelwulf, ‘but you do know you’re a prisoner here?’

He nodded. ‘Yes, lord.’

‘An honoured prisoner,’ I said, ‘but if you try to leave the fortress, that will change.’

‘Yes, lord,’ he said again.

I picked up Wasp-Sting, patted my prisoner on the shoulder, and went to bed. It had been a long day.

So Æthelhelm the Younger had sent his youngest brother to kill me. He had equipped a fleet, and offered gold to the crew, and placed a rancid priest on the ships to inspire Æthelwulf with righteous anger. Æthelhelm knew it would be next to impossible to kill me while I stayed inside the fortress and knew too that he could not send sufficient men to ambush me on my lands without those men being discovered and slaughtered by Northumbria’s warriors, so he had been clever. He had sent men to ambush me at sea.

Æthelwulf was the fleet’s leader, but Æthelhelm knew that his brother, though imbued with the family’s hatred for me, was not the most ruthless of men, and so he had sent Father Ceolnoth to fill Æthelwulf with holy stupidity, and he had also sent the man they called Edgar. Except that was not his real name. Æthelhelm had wanted no one to know of the fleet’s true allegiance, or to connect my death to his orders. He had hoped the blame would be placed on piracy, or on some passing Norse ship, and so he had commanded the leaders to use any name except their own. Æthelwulf had become Wistan, and I learned that Edgar was really Waormund.

I knew Waormund. He was a huge West Saxon, a brutal man, with a slab face scarred from his right eyebrow to his lower left jaw. I remembered his eyes, dead as stone. In battle Waormund was a man you would want standing beside you because he was capable of terrible violence, but he was also a man who revelled in that savagery. A strong man, even taller than me, and implacable. He was a warrior, and, though you might want his help in a battle, no one but a fool would want Waormund as an enemy. ‘Why,’ I asked Æthelwulf the next morning, ‘was Waormund in your smallest ship?’

‘I ordered him into that ship, lord, because I wanted him gone! He’s not a Christian.’

‘He’s a pagan?’

‘He’s a beast. It was Waormund who tortured the captives. I tried to stop him.’

‘But Father Ceolnoth encouraged him?’

‘Yes.’ Æthelwulf nodded miserably. We were walking on Bebbanburg’s seaward ramparts. The sun glittered from an empty sea and a small wind brought the smell of seaweed and salt. ‘I tried to stop Waormund,’ Æthelwulf went on, ‘and he cursed me and he cursed God.’

‘He cursed your god?’ I asked, amused.

Æthelwulf made the sign of the cross. ‘I said God would not forgive his cruelty, and he said God was far more cruel than man. So I ordered him into Hælubearn because I couldn’t abide his company.’

I walked on a few paces. ‘I know your brother hates me,’ I said, ‘but why send you north to kill me? Why now?’

‘Because he knows you swore an oath to kill him,’ Æthelwulf said, and that answer shocked me. I had indeed sworn that oath, but I had thought it was a secret between Æthelstan and myself, yet Æthelhelm knew of that oath. How? No wonder Æthelhelm wanted me dead before I attempted to fulfil the oath.

My sworn enemy’s brother looked at me nervously. ‘Is it true, lord?’

‘Yes,’ I said, ‘but not until King Edward dies.’

Æthelwulf had flinched when I told him that brutal truth. ‘But why?’ he asked. ‘Why kill my brother?’

‘Did you ask your brother why he wanted to kill me?’ I retorted angrily. ‘Don’t answer, I know why. Because he believes I killed your father, and because I’m Uhtredærwe the Pagan, Uhtred the Priest-Killer.’

‘Yes, lord,’ he said in a low voice.

‘Your brother has tried to kill Æthelstan,’ I said, ‘and he’s tried to kill me, and you wonder why I want to kill him?’ He said nothing to that. ‘Tell me what happens when Edward dies?’ I asked harshly.

‘I pray he lives,’ Æthelwulf said, making the sign of the cross. ‘He was in Mercia when I left, lord, but had taken to his bed. The priests visited him.’

‘To give him the last rites?’

‘So they said, lord, but he’s recovered before.’

‘So what happens if he doesn’t recover?’

He paused, unwilling to give the answer he knew I did not want to hear. ‘When he dies, lord,’ he made the sign of the cross again, ‘Ælfweard becomes King of Wessex.’

‘And Ælfweard is your nephew,’ I said, ‘and Ælfweard is a sparrow-witted piece of shit, but if he becomes king, your brother thinks he can control him, and he thinks he can rule Wessex through Ælfweard. There’s just one problem, isn’t there? That Æthelstan’s parents really were married, which means Æthelstan is no bastard, so when Edward dies there’ll be civil war. Saxon against Saxon, Christian against Christian, Ælfweard against Æthelstan. And long ago I swore an oath to protect Æthelstan. I sometimes wish I hadn’t.’

He stopped in surprise. ‘You do, lord?’

‘Truly,’ I said, and explained no further. I drew him on, pacing the long rampart. It was true I had sworn an oath to protect Æthelstan, but increasingly I was not certain that I liked him. He was too pious, too like his grandfather, and, I also knew, too ambitious. There is nothing wrong with ambition. Æthelstan’s grandfather, King Alfred, had been a man of ambition, and Æthelstan had inherited his grandfather’s dreams, and those dreams meant uniting the kingdoms of Saxon Britain. Wessex had invaded East Anglia, it had swallowed Mercia, and it was no secret that Wessex wished to rule Northumbria, my Northumbria, the last British kingdom where men and women were free to worship as they wished. Æthelstan had sworn never to invade Northumbria while I lived, but how long could that be? No man lives for ever, and I was already old, and I feared that by supporting Æthelstan I was condemning my country to the rule of southern kings and their grasping bishops. Yet I had sworn an oath to the man most likely to make that happen.

I am a Northumbrian and Northumbria is my country. My people are Northumbrians, and Northumbrians are a hard, tough people, yet we are a small country. To our north lies Alba, full of ambitious Scots who raid us, revile us, and want our land. To the west lies Ireland, home to Norsemen who are never satisfied with the land they have, and always want more. The Danes are restless across the eastern sea, and they have never relinquished their claim to my land where so many Danes have already settled. So to the east, to the west, and to the north we have enemies, and we are a small country. And to the south are Saxons, folk who speak our language, and they too want Northumbria.

Alfred had always believed that all the folk who speak the English language should live in the same country, a country he dreamed of, a country called Englaland. And fate, that bitch who controls our lives, had meant I had fought for Alfred and his dream. I had killed Danes, I had killed Norsemen, and every death, every stroke of the sword, had extended the rule of the Saxons. Northumbria, I knew, could not survive. She was too small. The Scots wanted the land, but the Scots had other enemies; they were fighting the Norsemen of Strath Clota and of the Isles, and those enemies distracted King Constantin. The Norse of Ireland were fearsome, but could rarely agree on one leader, though that did not stop their dragon-headed ships crossing the Irish Sea bringing warriors to settle on Northumbria’s wild western coast. The Danes were more cautious about Britain now, the Saxons had become too strong, and so the Danish boats went further south in search of easier prey. And the Saxons were getting stronger. So one day, I knew, Northumbria would fall, and it was likely, in my judgement, to fall to the Saxons. I did not want that, but to fight against it was to draw a sword against fate, and if that fate was inevitable, and I believed it was, then it was better that Æthelstan should inherit Wessex. Ælfweard was my enemy. His family hated me, and if he took Northumbria he would bring the whole might of Saxon Britain against Bebbanburg. Æthelstan had sworn to protect me, as I had sworn to protect him.

‘He’s using you!’ Eadith had told me bitterly when I confessed to her that I had sworn to kill Æthelhelm the Younger on King Edward’s death.

‘Æthelstan is?’

‘Of course! And why are you helping him? He’s not your friend.’

‘I like him well enough.’

‘But does he like you?’ she had demanded.

‘I swore an oath to protect him.’

‘Men and oaths! You think Æthelstan will keep his oath? You believe he won’t invade Northumbria?’

‘Not while I live.’

‘He’s a fox!’ Eadith had said. ‘He’s ambitious! He wants to be King of Wessex, King of Mercia, King of East Anglia, king of everything! And he doesn’t care who or what he destroys to get what he wants. Of course he’ll break his oath! He never married!’

I stared at her. ‘What has that to do with it?’