The King's Earl

by M J Porter

  On frozen, numb legs, he’d tried to go to her, reach for her, but his body and his eyesight had failed him, and he’d mistimed his dismount, caught his right leg in his horse’s harness and stumbled to the muddy ground. He'd landed with a resounding thud, like the sealing stone of an ancient tomb pushed into place. The pain hadn’t registered then, or for days later, his body too numb with grief. But he’d broken his leg that day and even though everyone else had noticed, had called for the herb woman, set his leg, fed him healing herbs, his leg was twisted now, another physical reminder of what he’d lost. As if he needed another one from the House of Swein, the Danish royal family.

  He reached for his stick and encountered the head of Healer, his new but older hound. She was a companionable animal, keener to help him than any of the other hounds had ever been and gentler as well. His daughter had given him the beast, an apologetic and yet fiercely determined expression on her young face. His heart had ached for how much she looked like his wife in her younger years. He was getting old, and he little liked it,

  “I didn’t name her recently,” she’d said, forestalling his arguments. “I’ve had her three years now, and her name is for her caring nature. I’ve trained her myself, as an experiment to see if I could, she’s soft and gentle, but reliable and very intelligent.”

  His daughter had allowed no argument and Leofwine had quickly learnt to appreciate the substantial presence of the additional hound. She was excellent at finding his walking stick when he mislaid it, which was often.

  Now she nudged the stick into his hand and waited patiently as he painstakingly rose to his feet. He’d been kneeling all morning, and his right leg would be useless to him for long moments.

  He didn’t speak as he moved, focusing instead on his breathing and calming his anger. There was no point in letting his rage consume him. Cnut was merely a king; he didn’t have the power to reset time and bring his son back to him. No one had that power, not even the Old Gods that some of Cnut’s people might well still pray to, that some of the people within England still offered sacrifices to.

  Cnut kneeled beside him as he struggled to his feet, but once Leofwine was upright, with his legs working, his walking stick and his hounds to guide him, he touched him on the shoulder, and the young man rose fluidly, a movement that Leofwine envied. It reminded him of everything he’d lost, both personally and in the shape of his son.

  Still not speaking he made his way out of the cool interior and into the bright daylight, squinting as he did so. The air felt warm. Was it possible that the deprivations of winter were nearly over and he’d not even realised, too caught up in his own grief?

  “You shouldn’t have come here,” Leofwine said slowly as though the words were heavy stones he needed to force from his mouth, through the tightness of his grief. “But I understand why you have,” he finished tiredly before Cnut could interrupt him. “There’s nothing for us now. You and your father have taken too much from me. My sight and my son these things can never be returned. I offered my loyalty and my friendship, and this is how it’s been repaid.”

  His voice was aged and slow and when he thought of his son words almost failed him. He wanted to sound angry, but he was too resigned. His son was dead, talking about it would accomplish nothing but remind him and if there was one thing he now knew it was that a father should never lose a son first. It should be the other way round.

  Always.

  “My son has lost his life and his reputation. His family has no father or husband. I could and have forgiven many things but not that, never that.” He felt calm as he spoke, as though finally offering the words that had been working their way through his mind in a never-ending circle was healing. Perhaps, after all, he was pleased to have had this opportunity to speak to Cnut before his death came, as he knew it must soon. He was weighed down with grief and age. He didn’t want to live like this, no matter how much it would hurt his children and his wife.

  Cnut walked beside him into the maintained gardens of the church and the monastery, filled with sweet smelling herbs and the sound of buzzing insects. The day was temperate and held the promise of a good summer. But as Leofwine glanced at his king, daring to look away from his stick and his hounds, he only saw grief and worry. Cnut didn’t see the possibilities anymore, only the problems. Leofwine remembered the feeling well. Cnut would need to learn to bend and trust if he was to enjoy his hard-won kingdom and it had been very hard won.

  “I have a son,” the king said, his voice breaking as he said the words. He swallowed slowly and began again. “A son I love and would protect any way I could. I should. I should have considered that first, been less blind to Godwine’s wants and Eadric’s treachery.”

  The king met his glance then. His eyes were anguished, and Leofwine couldn’t deny that the grief Cnut felt was genuine. But it changed nothing. Northman was still dead. It would be too easy to give in, to offer the words of absolution that Cnut was hoping to hear from him. Instead, he changed the subject.

  “You’ve divided Eadric’s land amongst your loyal followers?” Leofwine had been indifferent to the news when he’d first heard it. He’d expected nothing less, but if Cnut truly meant his remorse, Leofwine would have hoped for something for his sons who yet lived.

  It seemed Cnut hadn’t considered them and in doing so he made a fool of himself with his show of remorse. Leofwine needed actions, not words. Words could be twisted and turned to the will of another. He knew it only too well. Actions, actions were what were needed to make any pretense of reconciliation possible.

  “Yes, good men, all of them.” If the king was surprised by his change of conversation, he didn’t show it, as though it was easier to talk about anything but Northman.

  “And the English people are happy?” he probed knowing full well that they weren’t. He’d been inundated with complaints from people who’d once looked to him as his or her ealdorman and who’d hoped to again. They’d thought that they’d be released from Ealdorman Eadric’s rule and returned to Leofwine’s. They couldn’t have been more wrong.

  Leofric had listened patiently to everyone who sought him out and had relayed some of the comments to his father. He’d overheard most of them himself as well. It was hard to keep any secrets in their home near Deerhurst, even when Leofwine was trying so hard to withdraw from his position of power.

  The English people were desperate for some continuity, Cnut’s earls, as they were now called in deference to the Danish origin where they would have been a jarl were not providing that continuity. The change in title was a bad idea, but Cnut hadn’t asked his advice. He was only asking him now for his help, and it was already too late. Leofwine could only see rebellion and problems in Cnut’s future. The English didn’t want to be conquered, and certainly not by a man who was more than half a Viking.

  Cnut looked uncomfortable at the probing question.

  “Ealdorman Leofwine I need you. I know that. I’m not stupid enough to think that the people will let me do what I want, or my earls, but my men helped me gain my throne. They have to be rewarded.”

  “I don’t deny that,” Leofwine said, he didn’t want the king to think he was criticising him he just wanted to distract him from his reason for being here. He didn’t want to answer awkward questions.

  “But you would have done something different?” the king pressed and Leofwine stopped his slow pace and turned to face the young man before him. He wished he could hate him but he couldn’t, and that was part of the problem. He understood the error; he understood why he’d done what he’d, but none of it brought his son back.

  “I don’t know what I’d have done,” Leofwine answered honestly.

  “But you wouldn’t have done that?” Cnut pressed earnestly.

  “Perhaps not,” Leofwine said with a wry smile.

  Cnut watched him with an expression that mixed need with desire.

  “This is why I need you Leofwine,” he said softly.

  Leofwine looked away. This was
the problem. All his life, all of his life, he’d done what was right for other people, what his honour demanded of him and now it was all people expected from him, even when they’d ordered the execution of his son.

  What made it harder was that he knew he could be swayed by the words, by the entreaty. Men and women looked up to him, looked to him for guidance, and he would provide it. If only …..

  Leofwine took a deep breath.

  “I will think on it, my Lord King,” he bowed formally. “But my family will need to be compensated if we agree to your requests.”

  Cnut was nodding vigorously, just like an eager child, and that immediately transported Leofwine’s thoughts back to his sons. This would be too hard for him. He knew it would be his undoing.

  “I think, I think to start with you will have to use Leofric as a go-between for our communication. I can’t just come back to the Witan as it is. There are too many new faces, too many memories. My wife will need time. I will need time.”

  Cnut was watching him intently. Leofwine hoped he never had to endure such pain in his life. It was as though his foster-son had murdered his own son. How was he to ever reconcile that? He could have masses said; he could have the family cross recast to be even more magnificent than it ever had been and yet it didn’t detract from the knowledge that the past had robbed him of his future.

  Everything was too intertwined. Olaf of Norway had killed his father, Swein had half-blinded him, Swein had killed Olaf, or so they said, Swein had tried to kill him but then they’d become friends, not enemies. And after all that he’d worked to ensure that Cnut would inherit the throne on Æthelred’s death, or rather, he’d made sure that he wasn’t a detractor to his kingship.

  His father and his son, dead at the hands of men who held land elsewhere and yet who coveted England and her wealth, a wealth others had worked hard to achieve. So little of it made sense that it gave him a headache to think about it. The lives of the people he knew and either loved or hated were too entangled and interconnected.

  Was it all the fault of Æthelred being a weak man, as some were now saying, especially those sympathetic to Cnut’s rule, or was it something else?

  He and the Abbot, when he was in a more forgiving frame of mind, had considered the possibilities. Leofwine knew he was growing old and that he should be imbibed with wisdom but he still felt as though he failed to understand certain events. He remembered the old Ealdorman of the Western Provinces fondly, Æthelweard. He had been a great man. He’d known things, he’d studied the past, he could write in the ancient Latin script, the language of the Church. Leofwine felt he should have the same wisdom, but he lacked it. He knew he did. All of his experiences were practical, borne out of necessity, not a desire to gain knowledge or become a wiser man.

  The Abbot and Finn had tried to help him with his questions about the past, but the past was a strange place, half filled with legends and men who might or might not have lived. Leofwine found no answers there. He envied Æthelweard the peace he’d discovered in the past, knowing that it would always allude him. His own history was relevant, not that which had made England a country from the fragments of once great kingdoms, Mercia, Wessex, Northumbria, Kent and East Anglia. They weren’t important to the here and now.

  Sometimes he wished he could be irrational, blame everyone for everything that had ever befallen him and his family. But he was too reasoned, too understanding. Men and women both were the victims of events beyond their control. He knew that. He was aware that men panicked in battle, that women loved where they shouldn’t, that weakness could make a man strong as well as weak and that all men and women wanted was to be loved, cared for and made to feel safe.

  Men and women craved peace. So did he, and had firmly believed that it was Cnut who offered the best chance of that. In his heart, he knew he still was.

  Æthelred’s older sons would have made good kings if it hadn’t been for the violent aggression from the Norsemen. Athelstan, the son who’d died in 1014, would have ruled with compassion, belief and a strong sense of justice, living up to his namesake nearly a century ago, his predecessor given the title of the first king of the English. Edmund, the son who’d briefly ruled in partnership with Cnut, had shown his own commitment to compromise and the welfare of his people. He’d demonstrated that the threat from the Norsemen could be countered without weapons, but he’d died too soon, injured by the fighting, just as King Swein, Cnut’s father had been before him.

  How different England would be if Swein had lived, Æthelred had never been recalled and the almost civil war of the previous four years had been avoided.

  His son would be alive. He knew that much.

  Eadric would still be dead. He knew that as well.

  He wished Eadric had been exiled or killed before Swein had died. With Eadric no longer involved in the governance of England, the four years of strife and difficulty would have been avoided. Or so he thought. Or so he hoped. Eadric was the cause of all his problems. Only he wasn’t and Leofwine knew that only too well. He wasn’t an unreasoned man. He was aware that much of his life had been outside his control.

  “I would like to make an apology to your wife, personally,” Cnut murmured, breaking his reverie. Leofwine nodded mutely. It was strange to be faced with a man who clearly had as much honour as he did. The words he spoke were the ones he would have chosen if he’d had the same to atone for, and he would also have demanded to make reparation himself.

  He hoped he’d never angered people as much as Cnut now angered him.

  So much honour would kill him, just as it had killed his son.

  “I understand that. You’ll find her less accepting than I am,” he quietly said, pleased to see Cnut start at that piece of information.

  “Mothers and their children, no matter how old they are, will never forgive those who injure their sons and daughters, who forget that someone else loves them and nurtured them. You would do well to remember that with your own tangled marriage arrangements,” he finished. He hadn’t meant to admonish the king, but he knew no one else would.

  “My Lord Leofwine,” Cnut spoke angrily before reconsidering and changing his response. “Decisions made in the heat of passion are very different to those made in the first flush of kingship. It is no excuse; I appreciate that, but I need continuity. Emma as my wife offers that continuity. She was the old king’s wife; she has borne him sons and daughters, and she knows the men and women of England as you do.”

  “I admire the woman,” Leofwine said, “never forget that. She and I have sometimes worked together very well. But, you have a wife already, and your Christian faith means you should only have the one.”

  Cnut closed his eyes and pressed his fingers to his creased nose and frowning forehead.

  “As I said. Sometimes I make decisions that aren’t always the correct ones.”

  “In that case you need to start thinking before you act. Don’t become the sort of king that Æthelred was. He was too easily swayed by others Eadric especially. As much as you want friends, you need to remember that as a king you’re more likely to have enemies dressed up as friends. It’s a painful lesson to learn but one you must.”

  Cnut looked as though he wanted to speak further, defend his actions, but he grinned.

  “I wouldn’t let another man speak to me in this way,” he said instead and Leofwine thought that was a great omission from his new king, “but you have a way of making your words sound less censorious than they are. It’s a skill I envy. I’ll think on your words, but I’m unsure if I can do anything to resolve the problem now.”

  Leofwine agreed with his assessment but didn’t allude to it. Two wives, one who’d already given him a son and if rumour had it, the other with another child on the way. Cnut had ensured that his life would be difficult for many, many years to come. Leofwine could almost pity him, but he had an abundance of sons and Leofwine was now missing one.

  It was ironic and bitter.

  “I’d like you to
return to the Witan when you’re able but if you can’t come to me, can I send my men to you. My followers, my earls I should say, Hrani and Eilifr, would benefit from your advice. I know it’s much to ask, but if you would at least think about it, I would appreciate it.”

  Leofwine realised at that moment that it was easier to talk about politics than it was to speak of his son and his grief. Perhaps what he needed was to walk from the church, return to the people who yet lived, cast aside his grief.

  But no, his heart stuttered to think so. He needed his grief. It might be a raw thing, but it would fuel him. He needed to work so everyone quickly saw the error of Cnut’s ways in executing his son. He didn’t want his son’s name to be tainted for any longer than it needed to be.

  “You must do something for me Cnut,” he said abruptly. The King had been talking, but Leofwine had stopped listening as he thought.

  “Anything Leofwine, anything you ask.”

  “The Chronicle of our time, the history of events written by the monks in Winchester and Worcester, it must be written to reflect that Northman was killed in error, that he was not guilty of the crimes everyone thinks he is. I’ll not allow his name to be written without the correction. Future generations must know that his death was a mistake.”

  He knew he asked his king for a huge admission of guilt, but he also knew that without it his son’s reputation would never heal. Even if one day a hundred years from now, his family were somehow rulers of the English, people would still speak about Northman as a traitor. He’d not allow that to happen. No matter what Cnut thought about it.

  “I have no power over what the monks write,” Cnut said slowly, but Leofwine was having none of it.

  “You can and you will. Don’t think I don’t hear the rumours of the slant being placed over Æthelred’s reign. I’m no fool Cnut. You’re king; you can command men to do what you want. It is such a small concession to wring from you; I see your hesitation as proof that while you think you need me at your Witan, really it is just your pride that demands my attention.”