by Justin Hill
After the killings at Brihtric’s hall there were many law cases to settle the deaths at Cicestre. Godwin was meticulous in dealing with each one. He rode to see each man who had lost family at the burning, paid over the odds and swore an oath of peace.
The last of the Sudsexe thegns to settle was an old warlord named Wiglaf the Red, who had lost his son in the killings. ‘He would rather feud than settle,’ Beorn said, and patted his sword. ‘Let him feud. He will end up worse.’
Godwin was irritated. ‘No,’ he said. ‘I will not feud, except with Eadric, and he is far away. No feud. Why waste English lives when it is the Danes who we have a quarrel with?’
Godwin made numerous approaches to Wiglaf, but he refused a reconciliation. Godwin armed his men and rode into Cicestre with all his company. They were a magnificent band, all mailed and helmeted and armed with spear and sword and shield. Each man had two horses, and they each had gold arm-bands that they had won in battle. With them rode Kendra, in a dress of fine linen and a cloak lined with fur.
Men stopped and stared.
‘Let them carry word to Wiglaf,’ Godwin muttered, ‘and see just who he is pitting himself against.’
The Hundred Court met each month at Ælle’s Stone. But this was a special moot, and a fire was lit to signal that the court would meet on the morrow, and from all the villages men looked and saw and made their way along the byways and lanes. Godwin and all his men came dressed in their finest. They were first to arrive. Godwin strode alone to the top of the stone, still cold and hard and silent. The crowd was eager to see Wulfnoth’s son for themselves. They regarded his men, both worn and elevated with the experience of exile, with curiosity and admiration.
Godwin did not contest the case but paid the silver over, without a penny missing, and when the scales balanced he tossed another lump of hack-silver on to tip them in Wiglaf’s favour.
‘Bear your grief, lord,’ men in poems said. ‘We all leave our life on this earth and your son now sleeps in Our Father’s eternal embrace!’ But poetry was not life, and the embrace of the grave was cold and damp and unfriendly, and grief was a heavy load to bear on any man’s shoulders – the grief for a son heaviest of all. So heavy that old Wiglaf could barely look at Godwin, and when at last he lifted his face Godwin saw hatred, furious and unhappy hatred.
‘Shake hands!’ the shire-reeve told them, but the older man’s handshake was hard and resolute, like two men about to duel.
I can duel, Godwin’s look said, and he took the old man’s grip without flinching, returned it knuckle crunch for knuckle crunch.
‘This was not my deed and has cost me dear,’ Godwin said in a low voice. ‘So let us be an example to our men. Let this be an end to the matter. Keep a tight rein on yours and I shall do the same, but if any of your men trouble me I shall repay violence with violence, killing with killing.’
Wiglaf sneered and Godwin gripped him tight.
‘Do not doubt me, greybeard! If you had courage to fight, you should have showed it when the Army came to plunder.’
The handshake continued for a few moments more and then both let go, though they held the other’s gaze as if they did not want to be the first to turn away.
Godwin watched him leave and let out a long sigh. That is over, he thought, and turned and looked at his father’s men. They were a grim and warlike band, dearly bought.
‘Come,’ he called out, ‘let us ride home. The matter is settled at last, and only Brihtric’s death remains unpaid for.’
‘Let him come and beg for justice,’ Beorn laughed.
‘Eadric owes me much,’ Godwin said, ‘but he owes the country more and only his death will repay his debt to us all.’
The weather was grim the rest of that week, but a few days after Candlemas a warm front blew in from the south-west and men woke not to frost and ice but a misty morning, with dew dripping from the trees.
It was still dark when the first blackbirds began to sing and their song roused the sleeping farmers out to the fields, to harrow and sow, each in their allotted place. They were resting the teams of oxen when men in the lower meads shouted up that horsemen were coming up the road from Cicestre. The men ran to fetch their weapons, and Godwin strode out of the hall door Kendra ran out behind him. Godwin buckled on his sword and stood at the hall doors, the wind fretting his cloak hems.
‘I see three horsemen,’ Beorn called out. ‘There is a monk and a mule with many packs upon its back. It’s a lady!’ he said a few moments later. ‘She’s wearing a red cloak and a white wimple.’
Godwin rushed forward. It took mere moments for him to recognise her. He started laughing. ‘Christ’s blood!’ he said, and told his men to put away their weapons. ‘Look smart! Prepare the welcome. That’s King Ethelred’s mother!’
Edmund’s grandmother gave Godwin’s hall a cursory inspection: the thatch on Lyftehal was so thick with grass and bracken that it looked more like a hummock than a hall. It was as crude as she remembered. Windswept and godforsaken. She had been here when Wulfnoth was young, when Edgar the Peaceful was king and she was queen, and the country was good. She walked her horse forward to the hall doors, let Godwin take the reins, but stayed in the saddle.
‘Lady,’ he said. ‘Welcome! What honour is this.’
‘Well met, Godwin Wulfnothson,’ she said. ‘Thank you.’
She had a bad hip and it took a long while for her to slide down from the saddle on to the stool. Godwin helped lower her down, and then she stood and straightened her robes.
‘I thought you might have come,’ she said. ‘I have been fretting about my sons and grandsons. Men say you were at Lundenburh and that you sailed to Wiht with them. Come! Have you a fire? Good. I am an old lady. Sixty-two!’ she said. ‘Tell me, Godwin, don’t you think it’s time you knocked this barn down and built yourself a fitting hall?’
‘Was it a good journey, lady?’ Godwin asked as he gave her his arm.
‘In winter? In these times? Don’t be a fool,’ Edmund’s grandmother said, and thought of chat was cut dramatically short.
Kendra brought the bowl of warm water and Edmund’s grandmother rinsed her hands, took the linen cloth and dried them. Her fingers were as fine and pale as whalebone, and just as hard.
‘You should not have come here.’ Godwin said. ‘You should have sent word and I would have ridden straight over.’
‘I am not so old I cannot ride a horse,’ she said, and then took in a deep and irritated breath as she sat on the seat of honour and arranged her gowns. ‘I was sick of the sight of the inside of my hall. This winter was too long and tiresome. I always ride once Candlemas is done, and when I heard that Wulfnoth’s son had taken back his father’s manor I resolved to come and seek news of my menfolk. You were with them in Lundenburh. You saw them leave. What were their plans? Why did they not fight?’
In her lap she held a tiny soapstone carving of the Baptism of Christ. She turned it over in her hands like prayer beads, and Godwin stood and picked out two good pieces of split oak from a wicker basket by the hearth and put them on the fire, and told all he knew.
‘And they have sailed for Normandig?’ she said at last, when Godwin had finished his tale. ‘They should not have left,’ she said. ‘They should have come to me. I would have sheltered them. They would be here now to seize the chance.
‘And your father has died, I hear? A slaver. Alas for Wulfnoth Cild! Your father would have risen high if my son was a better king.’ She let out a long sigh. ‘When Athelstan is king, you will do better, won’t you?’
Godwin nodded. ‘I will,’ he said, and she held his gaze long as if testing his resolve.
Her eyes twinkled. ‘I think you had better prepare for that moment. I have more news to tell. You have not heard, I think.’
‘Heard what?’
She was delighted with herself. ‘The whole country is so excited by the news. I think it will not be long before you see dear Edmund and Athelstan again.’
Godwin
leapt to his feet. ‘They have returned? I have much to tell! I have my own war bands now and silver to equip them with the best armour. When he raises his banner I shall be there.’
The old lady’s eyes sparkled with her secret. ‘No, I think, not yet. But as soon as he hears I am sure he will return.’
‘Why?’
The old lady smiled and her wrinkles were dark in the fading light. ‘Gaudete!’ she sang a song of thanks.
Godwin didn’t understand.
She sat forward and touched his arm and spelled it out in simple words that he could understand. ‘Our new king is dead,’ she said.
Godwin choked.
‘Swein is dead?’
‘Yes!’ she said, and clapped her hands. ‘Swein Forkbeard is dead and the Army have declared his son Knut king. But who is this Knut? He is a boy not much older than yourself!
‘He is only a boy! Will he be able to bridle his father’s proud warhorses? I think not. They are wild and lawless. They need a stronger master. Prepare your men, Godwin Wulfnothson! Edmund shall have need of you. Your time has come at last.’
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Ethelred Returns
In Snotingeham, Morcar sat in his hall chair and his face went pale when he heard the news.
‘Swein is dead?’ he whispered.
He listened to the whole story in a fearful silence. When the tale had been told in full, and all Morcar’s questions had been answered, he seemed unable to speak.
Swein had left his eldest son, Harald, as regent in Danemark, but he had brought his youngest son, Knut, to England, and Swein had picked Alderman Elfhelm’s daughter, the fair and fierce Edith, as Knut’s wife.
The betrothal feast had been memorable. Knut and Edith had been wed at the Yuletide feast, and Morcar had gloated. How Eadric would quake!
Morcar shut the doors on his retainers, knelt down as if in prayer and put his head in his hands. How he would be punished if Ethelred returned. How Fate could spin on its wheel. He had taken offerings to Elfhelm’s grave and promised his old friend that he would be avenged on Eadric.
‘No,’ he whispered. ‘No Lord, this cannot be!’
But it was, for in Euruic that very day the great and the good lined the street all the way down the slope from Mykelgate, across the bridge, to the gates of St Peter’s Minster, where Alderman Uhtred bowed before the dead king’s shrouded body.
Swein was laid in a prime spot near the altar, between the archbishops and the men of the ancient Northymbrian dynasty. Knut stood grim and stiff. Swein’s war chiefs stood behind him, as wild and shaggy as mountain wolves.
Ethelred had been in Normandig for five weeks when the tidings came. He choked on his morning posset of spiced wine and threatened to have the man whipped if he was jesting.
‘It’s true! Bring any relic for me to swear on,’ the messenger said. ‘I was at the minster and saw Swein laid out for his eternal rest. Uhtred sent me in his fastest ship. Your enemy is dead.’
Ethelred jumped to his feet and took a gold ring from his finger and pressed it into the man’s hand. ‘Bless you!’ he said. ‘Alleluia! Where are my ships? Have them ready to sail!’
Edmund and Athelstan had sailed to Flandran and had taken a merchant warehouse as their hall.
They heard the news three days after Ethelred, and they also heard that their half-brother Edward had been sent on behalf of their father to negotiate with the Witan.
‘He has sent that spotty, gangly lad to the Witan,’ Edmund cursed. ‘We should have been there first! If we were there, then they would be making you king!’
‘Hush,’ Athelstan said. ‘Calm. Swein is dead! Let Edward have his moment of fame. Once people see how weak he is, no man will think he can succeed.’
‘He cannot succeed,’ Edmund said. ‘We shall never defeat the Danes with a weakling as king. What men can we muster? There will be war, Athelstan. We should send out word to all who are loyal to us. They should bring their companions. We shall have to fight for our throne.’
February gave way to March, and little by little the days began to lengthen. Birdsong returned in the morning and evening, Godwin rode home along the Meredone lane, rich with the scent of wild garlic, saw snowdrops bright against the wood shadows. Lent was coming, and even though the news of Swein’s death overshadowed the tidings of Brihtric’s murder, the thought of Eadric was much on Godwin’s mind.
Eadric had remained in England and had no doubt heard by now of his brother’s murder. He would be in Lundenburh, where Ethelred had called a court, and Wulfnoth’s men were unhappy about the planned trip there: it was like walking into the wolf’s lair. But men did not mention Eadric’s name. He was the shadow in the room, unseen but watching.
Beorn stamped and blustered. ‘Why go to Lundenburh?’ he said. ‘It’s a godforsaken place. Why leave Sudsexe? We have spent years wandering the seas. I feel the need for hard ground beneath my feet, the ground of home.’
There were many who agreed with Beorn. All of them had dreamt of Contone. They had family here, and some had wives and children, and if they did not, they wanted them – and now they had enough money to settle down comfortably.
But Godwin needed them, and for days he did not know how to order them. He wished that Brihtric had not been killed at this moment.
‘You should have waited to kill him,’ he lectured Beorn, and Beorn shrugged.
‘Well, he’s dead now.’
Godwin became increasingly tense and frustrated. One night on the benches as they sat and talked, Godwin cut through the bickering. ‘We go to Lundenburh because Prince Edmund shall be there. We go because Ethelred shall return and the Wise will make him king. And it is important that we go there and witness that event.’
‘I will not go,’ Beorn said. ‘Let Ethelred stick his crown in his nose for all I care.’
Godwin stood up. ‘Has the sea turned you timid, Beorn Rolfson! You killed Brihtric, not I! I took you in and paid off each man and you refuse to come with me to Lundenburh! Where is your shame? You were bold when you cut that one-eyed monster down. I am Godwin Wulfnothson. Eadric shall not dictate where I ride or do not ride. I am a free man. This is my country!
‘I tell you, if you sit here, fear will move every shadow till it appears to be one of Eadric’s killers. You shall end up fearful to leave your house. And one day the killer will step inside and you will fall down dead with fright.’
Godwin stormed outside and slammed the door behind him in fury. The night was dark and clouded. He felt foolish for losing his temper and foolish for walking out. He drew in a deep breath. The shadows of the past lay heavy on them all.
Godwin stopped at the door, let out a sigh and strode inside.
He expected laughter, or sneering looks, but the men’s eyes were sympathetic. Beorn rose. He had a guilty look on his face. He opened his arms to Godwin and hugged him. ‘I will come,’ he said. ‘And even face Eadric, if need be.’
The day before Godwin was to leave for Lundenburh, Kendra waited while the men laid out mattresses on the floor and shook out their blankets. She crossed the hall to where Godwin sat whetting his sword. There was a compulsive manner about him. The scrape-scrape-scrape set her nerves on edge.
‘So,’ she said.
‘So what?’
Godwin put the whetstone down, took out a piece of uncured sheepskin, and rubbed it along the sword till it gleamed with the wool oils.
‘Is it your father?’
‘No.’
She waited.
He held the sword towards the firelight and used the red reflection to check the edge, which was notched but hard and keen and true.
‘You will see Edmund again.’
Godwin looked at her.
‘It is hot in here. I think I will go outside. I feel the need for fresh air on my face.’
Kendra stood up. ‘Do you mind if I walk with you?’
Godwin looked at her. Her skin was pale, even in firelight. Only her freckles were dark, a small con
stellation about her nose.
‘As you wish,’ he said.
The outside air was chill. It took a moment for their night-sight to come. Kendra stumbled and he held out his arm for her to take. They paused at the paddock. The horses snorted in the chill and one of them made water; the piss steamed in the starlight.
Orion had risen high above the horizon, big and bright and ready for war.
‘So Ethelred has called a court in Lundenburh.’
‘He has,’ Godwin said.
‘Will Eadric be there?’
‘I am sure.’
‘What is he like?’
‘Didn’t my father tell you?’
‘A little.’
‘Do you fear for me?’
She looked at him and half smiled. ‘Of course,’ she said. ‘I fear for all of you.’
They walked on a little further. The sky had been clouded all day but now that night had fallen and the chill had descended, the sky was clear. It was good to walk under the stars. Godwin let out a long sigh.
‘It seems that every time I climb one hill, another peak rises before me.’
‘What do you mean?’
He paused. ‘Once, I thought that I needed a lord, and I found one, but I could not rest. I was not born to be a serving man. I am a thegn’s son and my family were given this land. Then I thought that I would be happy when I took this place back, and yet when I took it I began to fear that someone would take it from me.’
‘And now?’
‘Now I have men to fill my benches and yet there is another peak. And each one is more precipitous than before, and if I fall I lose everything.’
Like my father, went unsaid.
Kendra leant on his arm as they walked a little further. He followed no plan, but found his steps turning towards the path that led down to the chapel. The bell tower was tall and dark above them. A bat flitted overhead and Kendra ducked.
‘I always thought my mother and father would lie here. But neither of them does,’ Godwin said.
They stopped at the lychgate. The grass was damp with dew. It gleamed white in the moonlight. Godwin turned and rested his back against the wattle fence and they looked back up the slope to where the hall stood, ghostly in the moonlight.