Ednoth stared for a moment.
‘I don’t believe you. Where’s our saint then?’
Wulfgar swallowed the last few morsels, and then said, ‘He’s with Leoba.’ How, he wondered, could this possibly be the evening of the same day? A dozen lifetimes had come and gone, surely, since he had thrust that little bundle of bones into her arms at dawn.
‘Oh, well done,’ Ronan said softly. ‘Well done, Wuffa.’
‘But where’s Leoba?’ Ednoth still sounded aggrieved.
A voice said, ‘I gave her some silver and sent her and the brats on to Leicester, to the Wave-Serpent.’
Their heads turned. Gunnvor stood in the dark doorway. None of them had noticed her pull the door-curtain aside. She showed her teeth.
‘I must say, you boys are running up quite a tab. And, what’s more, I’ve sent one of my thralls to the lambing pens at Hanworth to collect your horses.’ She came into the firelight, shrugging her hood back and unpinning her cloak as she came.
Wulfgar found himself scrutinising her face for evidence of what she had been doing, but she still retained her cool, creamy air, every silver pin and trinket in its proper place as far as he could make out.
‘Another of your thralls, you mean.’ Ronan’s tone had an acerbic edge to it.
‘No, just the one.’ She pulled the white fox fur from around her throat and came to sit down next to the priest on the edge of the sleeping platform heaped with lambskins. ‘This is cosy. Give me some of that bread, Wuffa.’
‘Another thrall besides us,’ the priest said, and a snatch of conversation drifted back into Wulfgar’s mind: the shadowy, scorched splendour of Leicester’s cathedral, and Father Ronan saying, And my mother was one of his slaves …
Small wonder then that Ronan had seemed so attuned to Leoba’s fears about thraldom and the risk of her children being sold.
Ednoth was still looking for something to do with his anger. He stood up abruptly.
‘But what was your brother doing at Bardney, hey, if you didn’t tell him? And how in the name of Hell do you know Silkbeard? Because he knew you.’ He loomed over Wulfgar now, balling his fists. ‘You’ve been lying to us.’
Wulfgar put his head in his hands and stared at the black mounds and orange caves of charcoal glowing in the hearth. ‘Oh, Ednoth. Think about it. If that had been your father’s son, at Offchurch, would you have confessed it to the world?’ He glanced up at the lad then but Ednoth wasn’t ready to help him, not yet. ‘Garmund’s my father’s son, yes, and King Edward’s man. I have no idea how they learned about St Oswald in Winchester, but it was nothing to do with me.’ He sighed. ‘Rumours must have been flying for months.’ He passed a hand over his eyes, gritty and stinging with hearth-smoke and weariness. ‘Maybe it was Thorvald’s fault, blabbing to all and sundry.’
‘We can hardly ask him the truth of it now,’ Ronan said, ‘but Leoba might tell us, if we ask her gently.’
Wulfgar gave him a grateful smile.
‘As for Toli Silkbeard –’ the name was sticking fast in Wulfgar’s craw and he had to swallow hard ‘– it was the Atheling. You remember, Ednoth, when we were leaving Worcester?’
Ednoth nodded, his eyes still narrowed with suspicion.
‘He asked me to take Silkbeard his regards. That’s all.’ Wulfgar crossed his arms over his breast and hugged his half-truths behind them.
‘This Atheling you talk about – who is he, exactly?’ Ronan was looking troubled.
‘The Atheling!’ Ednoth said. ‘Athelwald Seiriol – everyone knows him! Oh, well, if he asked you, you couldn’t say no.’ He sat down again.
Wulfgar remembered how dazzled the lad had been by the Atheling’s attention, back in the Bishop’s yard in Worcester. How long ago it seemed.
‘Ach, so that’s the man you mean,’ Ronan said thoughtfully. ‘Athelwald the Hungry, they call him up here. He’s been seen in Leicester. Friendly with the Grimssons. And now you tell me he’s on nodding terms with little Silkbeard, too.’ Ronan drew his grizzled brows together. ‘Would he have had greetings for anyone else east of Watling Street, now?’
Wulfgar could hear the Atheling’s voice: We light the fire at All Hallows … Tell no one else. The air in Gunnvor’s little hall was warm and close, but the words went through his mind like winter wind hissing through a dry thorn-hedge. He shook his head, painfully conscious of his duplicity. He leaned forward, and said softly, ‘Father, when we have a moment, would you shrive me?’
Ronan nodded.
Gunnvor rubbed her hands together, brisk and cheerful.
‘Now I’ve bought you all,’ she said, ‘what am I going to do with you?’
Ronan turned to her, a new heartiness in his voice that didn’t quite ring true.
‘Free us, Bolladottir, if you know what’s good for you.’
‘Já, prestr? I was minded to mark you with my thrall-brand.’
‘That’s not funny, Bolladottir.’
‘Why, you think I’m joking?’ She looked amused. ‘I’ve paid Eirik very good money for you three.’
‘You didn’t pay good money for me,’ Wulfgar said, trying to make light of it. ‘I was quite cheap.’ Five øre. It still rankled.
‘Ah, I’ve got me the best bargain with you, Ulfgeir,’ she said, her voice still mocking. She sat opposite him, and he squinted at her through the hearth-smoke. ‘An oaf like Eirik doesn’t appreciate the finer things in life the way I do. I think I’ll keep you to sit at my feet and teach me English love-songs of a winter evening.’
Stay here? he thought. With her? Surely she was teasing him. Memories rose unbidden: the swell of her breasts, the curve of her hips, defined by her damp linen shift. The dawn light. The song of the wren. Her strong, capable hands, sorting the bones. Some memories, he thought, will stay with me for ever, whether I want them to or not.
There was a subdued knock at the door. Gunnvor rose and had a muttered conversation.
‘The horses were gone,’ she said, turning back to the room.
‘All of them? Dub, too?’ Ronan asked.
‘I’m sorry.’
‘Damnation,’ the priest said. ‘I love that beast.’
‘But I’ve got these for you.’ She nodded at her man, who came in and showed them what he held: two swords.
‘That’s mine!’ Ednoth’s delight was unabashed, the last of his bad mood put to flight. ‘How did you get my sword?’
She showed her teeth.
‘Eirik still wants to keep Toli sweet.’
Wulfgar had a worrying thought about the vanished horses.
‘Gunnvor, could anyone have followed you and Leoba, when you rode away? On our horses, I mean.’
‘I didn’t see anybody.’ She sat down again, next to Wulfgar this time, looking thoughtful. ‘We came back here. I gave her some food and a little silver and sent her down the Fosse, with my name as a surety. And then –’ she glanced at him with amusement ‘– I heard a rumour that you might be needing me in Silver Street.’ She gazed into the fire for a moment. ‘Nej, no one came after us. Maybe your horses have been taken to Bardney.’ She gave him another sideways glance, her eyes sparkling. ‘Shall I go back to Toli and wheedle for the horses, too?’
‘No,’ he said and stood up, stumbling away from her, his back to the room, appalled by the violence of his response.
‘Don’t you understand, Bolladottir?’ Ronan said, his voice savage. ‘He thinks you’ve been tumbling Toli.’
There was a long silence. Wulfgar stared unseeing at a row of bags of dried herbs hanging from a beam.
He heard a rustling behind him, but he didn’t turn. A hand rested on his arm, and he jerked it away.
‘Wuffa,’ she said. ‘Listen to me, will you?’ His shoulders tensed, as though in anticipation of a blow. ‘Little Toli might want to bed me, já? But that’s nothing compared to his lust for my father’s silver. Only I know where Bolli buried it, you see.’ She pulled at his arm. ‘Look at me.’ This time, still reluctant and
angry, he obeyed her. Her beautifully modelled face was stern and proud, and as serious as he had ever seen it. ‘I may not be your idea of a noble and virtuous lady—’ He opened his mouth to interrupt, but she stopped him, pressing his mouth closed with her fingertips. Her eyes were fierce. ‘Do me the courtesy of listening, for once. My father earned his fortune on the whale-roads, sure, going a-viking up and down your coasts, and fighting your kings, and I’m proud of him, do you hear?’ She lifted her chin, the hearth-light sparking fiery flashes from her silver hairpins, and took her hand away. ‘No, Wulfgar, I’ve no ancient English, Christian lineage behind me. I wasn’t brought up to weave and spin and bake and brew and run a great household.’ He blinked at her, rubbing his own fingers over his lips, dazed. ‘But,’ she said, ‘I still will not throw myself away on trash like little Toli Silkbeard. Do you hear me?’
Wulfgar felt furious shame, hot and cold in turn, flushing through his veins. It might have been less agonising if Ednoth and Ronan hadn’t been there as witnesses. He felt as though his world was tumbling around him. He fell to his knees.
‘My lady,’ he said, ‘I’m so sorry.’
He felt her fingertips on his head, stroking his hair.
‘Stand up,’ she said.
He obeyed slowly. When he was on his feet, she clasped her face in his hands and held his gaze. He felt as though she were surveying every last murky corner of his soul; it was a struggle not to turn his head away.
‘What beautiful eyes you have,’ she said at last. She leant forward and kissed him lightly on the forehead, between the brows.
‘Gunnvor, I—’
She was already turning away from him and clapping her hands.
‘Nonna!’ Her old house-keeper emerged from behind the curtain, and Gunnvor rattled off a string of orders in Danish, a feather-bed, a warm stone, lambskins, before turning back to her new purchases. ‘You sleep here. It’s plenty warm enough.’
‘Keeping the creature-comforts for yourself, eh, lass?’ Ronan raised an eyebrow.
‘I’ll let my old Nonna share my bed. She earns her keep, unlike some of my other thralls.’ She wrapped her arms around her ribs and gave a little shiver, though the room was stifling. ‘How any of you could think I’d bed Toli…’ Her voice brisker, she went on, ‘If you boys can’t sleep, then you can spend the night working out how to pay me back.’
‘And what to do tomorrow,’ Ronan said.
‘Ah, tomorrow.’
Wulfgar said, ‘We’ve got to ride to Leicester and find the saint.’ His eyes widened in realisation. ‘But we’ve no horses. We must find horses. We must get the relics back at once.’
‘Nonna, find me a tally-stick,’ Gunnvor said. ‘I’ll sort out horses, Wuffa. Just add it to your bill.’
Ronan put his hand on Wulfgar’s shoulder.
‘Easy, lad. With any luck we’ll overtake Leoba on the road. They’ll not be going fast, her and the bairns. And if not on the road we’ll find her safe at the Wave-Serpent.’ He looked hard at Wulfgar’s face. ‘Don’t let your dreams bother you. We’re on the homeward run now.’
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
‘COME ON, LAD.’ The priest was sitting himself down on the end of the sleeping platform where Ednoth was still snoring, and he gestured to the floorboards before him. Gunnvor had not yet emerged from her curtained alcove but old Nonna was bustling around, readying their bags and cooking their breakfast bannocks. ‘It’s hardly hallowed ground, but it will have to serve.’
‘Forgive me, Father, for I have sinned.’ Wulfgar stopped, his tongue of a sudden too big for his mouth.
The priest had to prompt him.
‘What are your sins, my son?’
He took a deep breath.
‘I have – I have – Father, I killed a man. I stabbed him in the back.’ His lips were quivering of a sudden. ‘I murdered him.’
‘Was this for personal gain, my son? Or for hatred of the man?’ Ronan’s voice was gentle, the measured, impersonal tones of the worldly-wise confessor who has heard it all before.
‘Oh, no, Father. I didn’t even know his name.’ He clenched his hands together to stop them shaking. Those killer’s hands. Putting it all into words was making it so present to him again.
‘And the man you killed, would he have done you the same favour?’
Wulfgar thought back to that dark, muddy nightmare at Bardney.
‘Yes, Father. I think he would.’
The priest cleared his throat.
‘My son,’ he said, ‘the secular law would call your actions justified. Not murder. Not even manslaughter. But I am not the secular law. You have done a most serious thing in the eyes of God. Every man is His handiwork; no man is to be thrown away.’
Wulfgar nodded. The floorboards swam before his eyes.
‘Father, what is my penance?’
‘Is there nothing else on your conscience, my child?’
Wulfgar closed his eyes. Wasn’t that enough? But the silence grew, and grew. Outside he could hear an early blackbird piping up. He opened his eyes again and focused on the worn, well-dubbined leather of Father Ronan’s shoes. The familiar rhythm of the confessional began to reassert itself. What are my sins? Anger, yes. Pride, sloth, envy, yes. Lust, yes. A yoke of guilt and sorrow began to press down on his shoulders.
‘I have lost my temper several times.’ The next admission was harder. ‘I have been thinking about a woman. With bodily desire.’
‘Indeed,’ Father Ronan said dryly.
Wulfgar didn’t dare look up.
‘Pride,’ he said next, with relief. ‘The relics. I’ve been thinking about bringing them to the Lady. How she’ll praise me. The songs men will make about it. Me carrying St Oswald through the streets of Gloucester, both of us in purple and gold …’ It was such a beautiful vision, so hard to relinquish. ‘I keep thinking it’s all about me.’
‘And it’s not, my son.’ Father Ronan’s voice was very gentle.
‘No, Father. And that’s not all.’ He braced himself to confront the hardest admission of all. ‘I have failed to tell the truth.’ Tell no one, the Atheling had said. Tell no one else. But telling a priest was like telling no one. The confessional was sacred and sealed, and his soul was at stake. He licked his lips nervously. ‘No, I mean, I lied. I lied to you, Father. The Atheling gave me more than greetings. For Toli Silkbeard, and for Hakon Grimsson.’
‘Just Hakon? Not Ketil, then?’ There was a new edge to Ronan’s voice.
Wulfgar shook his head.
‘And it’s heavy on your conscience?’ the priest went on.
‘I don’t know what it means,’ Wulfgar cried. Ednoth lifted his head sleepily. He lowered his voice. ‘He wants the high-seat of Mercia. But I can’t believe he would do anything that might hurt the Lady.’
‘What is the message?’ Ronan asked.
Wulfgar’s whisper was almost too faint to be heard: ‘We light the fire at All Hallows.’
‘Riddle upon riddle. Would yon hungry Atheling’s belly be satisfied with Mercia, think you?’
‘I don’t know.’ He thought back to the Atheling’s dark, vivid, contained face. ‘I doubt it, somehow.’ He looked up at Ronan. The priest frowned, preoccupied. ‘Father, my confession?’ Their talk seemed to have travelled a long way from his sins. Ednoth sat up and yawned loudly, and Wulfgar wanted to get to the end.
Ronan blinked, and cleared his throat.
‘When you get home, dedicate three masses to Thorvald’s memory. For the man you slew, a year of bread and water every Friday. For the other sins, three Paternosters every day for a month.’ He got to his feet.
‘But what about my absolution?’ Wulfgar asked, baffled.
Ronan sighed.
‘It’s the poor priest you must be thinking me.’ He sketched a cross. ‘Ego te absolvo. Go and sin no more. Try not to stab anyone, at least.’
What was the likelihood of that? I’m going home, Wulfgar thought, where I’m safe. He’d never need or want to kil
l a man again, of that much he was certain. High time he said his goodbyes to Lincoln. Back to Leicester, meet Leoba and the children, and then ride hard as they could for home. He couldn’t wait.
Gunnvor had lent Ednoth one of her own horses – ‘I trust you, I’ve seen you ride’ – and had borrowed others of lesser breeding. Wulfgar found himself on an old slug, who proved impossible to goad into more than a trot, shuffling his hooves and for ever drifting back to plod in the others’ wake.
After ten miles or so he woke from a half-doze to find the other three far down the road ahead of him, and his own horse at a standstill, tearing up mouthfuls of grass. Yanking on the reins and belabouring the beast’s ribs with his heels achieved nothing. In the end he slid down from the saddle, meaning to grab the halter and see if dragging might work where riding had failed.
He staggered slightly as his feet hit the ground, and as he was righting himself he heard a faint sound. He thought at first it was the cry of an unfamiliar bird, or perhaps an owl by day, and he crossed himself against ill-luck.
But then the sound came again.
There was no house in sight, not so much a shieling, but the sound was unmistakably that of a baby’s cry, coming from somewhere close at hand. The others had ridden out of sight, and he was frozen by indecision – perhaps it was just some travelling woman and her child, and she had understandably made herself scarce when she had seen men on horseback riding towards her. He tugged again on the old hack’s bridle and succeeded this time in getting it to relinquish the succulent grass.
Then the cry came again, a dull, tired grizzle. Wulfgar didn’t know much about babies, but this one sounded very young and very unhappy. Surely it wouldn’t make that appalling sound if it was with its mother? The crying seemed to be coming from a tangled stand of hawthorn and hazel.
No harm in going to see.
He hauled on the bridle again and the sulky horse fell in behind him as they walked through the grass, starred with white and yellow flowers. Celandines, he thought. Daisies. The swallows will be back soon. Somewhere invisible above him a lark was pouring out its praise-song at Heaven’s threshold. But it was the crying that drew him on.
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