War of the Wolf

by Bernard Cornwell

  “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 leveled 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 backward. 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 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 rumor, that we had raped Ælswyth and then forced her into the m
arriage. 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.

  I had no doubt that Æthelhelm the Younger had committed treason by hiring Welsh troops to kill his nephew’s rival. But it made no sense that he would have persuaded the monk to tell me the lies that had brought me across Britain to Ceaster.

  Beneath us, on the arena’s floor, the first prisoner died. A stroke of a sword, a severed head, and blood. So much blood. Æthelstan’s revenge had started.

  Not every prisoner died, Æthelstan showed more sense than that. He killed those men he judged to be close to Cynlæf, but spared the youngest. Thirty-three men died, all put to the sword, and I remembered a day when I had handed Æthelstan my sword and told him to kill a man.

  Æthelstan had been a boy with an unbroken voice, but I was training him to be a king. I had captured Eardwulf, also a rebel. It had happened not far from Ceaster, beside a ditch, and I had beaten Eardwulf down so that he lay half stunned in the scummy water. “Make it quick, boy,” I had told Æthelstan. He had not killed before, but a boy must learn these skills, and a boy who would be king must learn to take life.

  I thought about that day as I watched Cynlæf’s men die. All had been stripped of their mail, stripped of anything of value. They shivered as, one by one, they were led to their deaths. Æthelstan must have remembered that distant day too because he used his youngest warriors as his executioners, doubtless wanting them to learn the lesson he had learned beside that ditch, that killing a man is hard. Killing a helpless man with a sword takes resolve. You look into their eyes, see their fear, smell it too. And a man’s neck is tough. Few of the thirty-three died cleanly. Some were hacked to death, and the old arena smelled as it must have smelled when the Romans filled the tiered seats and cheered the men fighting on the sand below; a stink of blood, shit, and piss.

  Æthelstan had killed Eardwulf quickly enough. He had not tried to hack off the rebel’s head, but had instead used Serpent-Breath to cut Eardwulf’s throat, and I had watched the ditch turn red. And Eardwulf had been Eadith’s brother, and Eadith was now my wife.

  Cynlæf died last. I thought Æthelstan might kill the rebel leader himself, but instead he summoned his servant, a boy who would grow to be a warrior, and gave him the sword. Cynlæf’s hands were bound, and he had been forced to his knees. “Do it, boy,” Æthelstan ordered, and I saw the youngster close his eyes as he swung the sword. He slammed the edge into Cynlæf’s skull, knocking him sideways and drawing blood, but Cynlæf had hardly been hurt. His left ear was sliced open, but the boy’s blow had lacked force. A priest, there were always priests with Æthelstan, raised his voice as he chanted a prayer. “Swing again, lad,” Æthelstan said.

  “And keep your eyes open!” I shouted.

  It took seven blows to kill Cynlæf. Those of his men whom Æthelstan had spared would swear new oaths to a new lord, they would be Æthelstan’s men.

  So the rebellion was defeated, at least in this part of Mercia. The fyrd, dragged from their fields and flocks, had gone to their homes leaving only melting snow, the ashes of campfires, and Gruffudd’s Welshmen who waited beside Cynlæf’s tents.

  “He calls himself a king,” I told Æthelstan as we walked toward the tents.

  “Kingship comes from God,” Æthelstan said. I was surprised by that response. I had merely been trying to amuse him, but Æthelstan was in a grim mood after the killings. “He should have told us he was a king last night,” he said disapprovingly.

  “He was in a humble mood,” I said, “and wanted a favor. Besides, he’s probably king of three dung heaps, a ditch, and a midden. Nothing more.”

  “I still owe him respect. He’s a Christian king.”

  “He’s a mucky Welsh chieftain,” I said, “who calls himself a king until someone who owns two more dung heaps than he does comes and slices his head off. And he’d slice your head off too if he could. You can’t trust the Welsh.”

  “I didn’t say I trusted him, merely that I respect him. God endows men with kingship, even in Wales.” And, to my horror, Æthelstan stopped a few paces from Gruffudd and bowed his head. “Lord King,” he said.

  Gruffudd liked the gesture and grinned. He also saw his son who was still guarded by Folcbald and Oswi. He said something in Welsh that none of us understood.

  “Gruffudd of Gwent begs you to release his son, lord Prince,” Father Bledod translated.

  “He agreed to give us a name first,” Æthelstan said, “and his chain, and a pledge that he will keep the peace for a year.”

  Gruffudd must have understood Æthelstan’s words because he immediately took the gold links from around his neck, handed them to Bledod, who, in turn, gave them to Æthelstan, who immediately handed the chain to Father Swithred. Then Gruffudd began telling a tale that Father Bledod did his best to interpret even as it was being told. It was a long tale, but the gist of it was that a priest had come from Mercia to talk with King Arthfael of Gwent, and an agreement had been made, gold had been given, and Arthfael had summoned his kinsman, Gruffudd, and ordered him to take his best warriors north to Ceaster.

  “The king,” Æthelstan interrupted at one point, “says the priest came from Mercia?”

  That provoked a hurried discussion in Welsh. “The priest offered us gold,” Father Bledod told Æthelstan, “good gold! Enough gold to fill a helmet, lord Prince, and to earn it we simply had to come here to fight.”

  “I asked if the priest was from Mercia,” Æthelstan insisted.

  “He was from the sais,” Bledod said.

  “So he could have been a West Saxon?” I asked.

  “He could, lord,” Bledod said unhelpfully.

  “And the name of the priest?” Æthelstan demanded.

  “Stigand, lord.”

  Æthelstan turned and looked at me, but I shook my head. I had never heard of a priest named Stigand. “But I doubt the priest used his own name,” I said.

  “So, we’ll never know,” Æthelstan said bleakly.

  Gruffudd was still speaking, indignant now. Father Bledod listened, then looked embarrassed. “Father Stigand is dead, lord Prince.”

  “Dead!” Æthelstan exclaimed.

  “On his way home from Gwent, lord Prince, he was waylaid. King Gruffudd says he is not to blame. Why would he kill a man who might bring him more sais gold?”

  “Why indeed?” Æthelstan asked. Had he expected to hear his enemy’s name? That was naive. He knew as well as I did that Æthelhelm the Younger was the likely culprit, but Æthelhelm was no fool, and would have taken care to conceal the treachery of hiring men to fight against his own king. So the man who had negotiated with Arthfael of Gwent was dead, and the dead take their secrets to the grave.

  “Lord Prince,” Bledod asked nervously, “the king’s son?”

  “Tell King Gruffudd of Gwent,” Æthelstan said, “that he may have his son.”

  “Thank you—” Bledod began.

  “And tell him,” Æthelstan interrupted, “that if he fights again for men who rebel against my father’s throne then I will lead an army into Gwent and I will lay Gwent waste and turn it into a land of death.”

  “I will tell him, lord Prince,” Bledod said, though none of us who were listening believed for one heartbeat that the threat would be translated.

  “Then go,” Æthelstan commanded.

  The Welshmen left. The sun was higher now, melting the snow, though it was still cold. A blustery wind came from the east to lift the banners hanging from Ceaster’s walls. I had crossed Britain to rescue a man who did not need rescu
ing. I had been tricked. But by whom? And why?

  I had another enemy, a secret enemy, and I had danced to his drumbeat. Wyrd bið ful āræd.

  Three

  The next day dawned bright and cold, the pale sky only discolored by smoke from the fires as Æthelstan’s men burned the remnants of Cynlæf’s encampment. Finan and I, mounted on horses captured from the rebels, rode slowly through the destruction. “When do we leave?” Finan asked.

  “As soon as we can.”

  “The horses could do with a rest.”

  “Maybe tomorrow, then.”

  “That soon?”

  “I’m worried about Bebbanburg,” I confessed. “Why else would someone drag me across Britain?”

  “Bebbanburg’s safe,” Finan insisted. “I still think it was Æthelhelm who tricked you.”

  “Hoping I’d be killed here?”

  “What else? He can’t kill you while you’re inside Bebbanburg, so he has to get you outside the walls somehow.”

  “I spend enough time with Stiorra and her children,” I pointed out. My daughter, Queen of Northumbria, lived in Eoferwic’s rambling palace, which was a mix of Roman grandeur and solid timber halls.

  “He can’t reach you in Eoferwic either. He wanted you out of Northumbria.”

  “Maybe you’re right,” I said, unconvinced.

  “I’m always right. I’m from Ireland. I was right about the snow, wasn’t I? And I’m still waiting for the two shillings.”

  “You’re a Christian. Patience is one of your virtues.”

  “I must be a living saint then.” He looked past me. “And talking of saints.”

  I twisted in the saddle to see Father Swithred approaching. The priest was mounted on a fine gray stallion that he rode well, calming the beast when it shied sideways as a man threw an armful of dirty thatch onto a fire. Smoke billowed and sparks flew. Father Swithred rode through the smoke and curbed the stallion near us. “The prince,” he said brusquely, “requests your company today.”