The Earl's King

by M J Porter

  While Ælfgar hated to admit it, his gratitude for his Uncle’s sacrifice meant he was forever indebted to a man he’d never see again. Not in this life.

  When the coffin was slowly lowered into the grave in the Church grounds, Ælfgar watched his father step forward and place something metallic on the coffin. He didn’t need to see it to know what it was. The cross of the House of Leofwine was almost as well known as its hounds and the two-headed eagle standard. None could go forth in this world, or the next, without carrying the motif, even his young son, chortling in his arms and unheeding of the solemn affair, had the sigil embroidered into his clothes.

  That night, they all feasted in memory of his Uncle Eadwine and the men of Mercia who’d also lost their lives. Lady Ealdgyth had managed to find a scop to recite the stories of the men of Deerhurst, as well as the tales of more successful battles against the Welsh, back through the ages.

  Ælfgar drank and cried and cheered along with the rest, but when morning came, the harsh reality of the future took hold.

  “My Lord,” the cry from the gate warden roused Ælfgar from an unsettled and drunken sleep, for all that the shout was aimed at his father. Ælfgar staggered from his cramped position on the bench, where he’d fallen asleep, and blinking sleep from his eyes followed his father out of the hall and to the gate.

  It had been decreed that none should be allowed entry the night before. None at all. Far too much ale had been consumed to enable any to think straight. Be they friend or foe, no one, other than the household troops of Leofric, Ælfgar, Ealdgyth, Eadwine and Godwine had been allowed inside the enclosure. It had been for the good of everyone.

  Outside, daylight was still some time away, but a thin shard of grey was beginning to break through, although the gate warden yet relied on his torch to see.

  “Apologies, My Lords,” the man offered them both. “I thought this most urgent.”

  The messenger on the other side of the gate looked aggrieved at being kept out, but his expression relented when he saw the state of Ælfgar.

  “My Lords,” the man bowed low. “My apologies for intruding. I come from the king, with news of the North and a demand that you attend upon him in Northampton with great haste.”

  “What of the North?” Ælfgar asked. His mouth felt as though it was stuffed with dirt and no matter how many times he swallowed, he could force no fluid to swill his mouth with.

  “Earl Siward has had a great victory against the men of Strathclyde.” The news was good, and Ælfgar watched his father absorb it as though a blow had been struck against him.

  “Does the king summon us for a Witan?” Leofric asked.

  “No my Lords, a council of war.”

  “Against whom?” Ælfgar demanded. He was keen to battle the Welsh, very keen indeed, as had been the king’s previous orders.

  “The Danish, My Lord,” the messenger said, taking a swig from the ale offered to him by a servant who’d been alerted to a visitor to the household, even if they lingered at the gate, adhering to the instructions of the night before.

  Ælfgar licked his lips, wishing the servant had thought to bring more than one beaker.

  “Does the king summon all the earls?” Leofric demanded to know. Ælfgar understood why when he heard the answer.

  “All the earls are to attend upon the king. Earls Godwine, yourself, Hrani, Eilifr and Siward. None are to make excuses.”

  “And what of the lesser lords, the thegns and king-thegns?”

  “Not at the moment, My Lord. I know nothing further. I’m just the messenger.”

  “Of course,” his father consoled. “My apologies. We’ve just buried my brother. Nerves are on edge.”

  “Of course, Earl Leofric,” the man bowed, but he seemed profoundly disinterested in Leofric’s grief.

  “I must journey on,” the messenger stated. “Is it far from here to Hereford?” he turned to Ælfgar as he spoke.

  “No good man. A journey of less than a day. I’m sure Lord Hrani will provide you with a bed for the night before your journey North.”

  “With thanks, My Lord,” the man said, handing his beaker back to the servant and looking expectantly at Earl Leofric.

  “My Lord?” the man prompted when permission to depart wasn’t immediately granted.

  “Of course, my apologies. My thanks for your duty to the king. I’ll be in Northampton, as the king demands.”

  With that, the messenger left, but Leofric lingered, to Ælfgar’s surprise. He waited in silence at his father’s side. What thoughts his father wrestled with was a mystery to Ælfgar. All he cared about was drinking away the foul taste in his mouth, and having food to steady his queasy stomach.

  “I don’t like this,” Leofric finally admitted, turning to face his son as he did so.

  “The King is erratic in his thinking. To call the Earls to his side now, when the borderlands are in an uproar, is blinkered thinking. It’s as though he wishes to invite further trouble along the borders. One moment he wants a war with the Welsh, and the next, seemingly not.”

  “Perhaps that’s his wish,” Ælfgar spoke, without really thinking.

  Leofric nodded, his face unhappy, ensconced in shadow. He tugged on his son’s arm, an indication that he wished to move away from the interested gaze of the gate warden. Ælfgar followed on unsteady feet, wincing each time he stepped too heavily, and his head wobbled from side to side, the pain making him grit his teeth.

  Only when they stood beside the rushing water of the river that snaked around Deerhurst did Leofric stop. His face still looked troubled but also determined.

  “While you were gone I received news from an unlooked-for individual.”

  Ælfgar watched his father carefully. Like his father before him, Leofric had always understood the importance of obtaining information from more than one source. The contacts with the Danish family of Olaf and Orkning had been maintained, as had those with the church in Trondheim. Even now a stray messenger would arrive with haphazard regularity from men and women Ælfgar was unaware his father even knew.

  “Who was it?” Ælfgar asked, curiosity working to drive his pounding head from his mind.

  “Lady Emma,” Leofric whispered, watching behind his son’s head to ensure none heard the name.

  Ælfgar gasped in shock and also surprise. His father and Lady Emma had had no contact for close to two years now, or so he’d thought.

  “She reaches out to you for the first time?” Ælfgar asked, surprised when his father nodded. He’d convinced himself that his father had been keeping secrets.

  “She wrote to warn me and to offer some advice. She says Harthacnut plans to visit with her, soon, in Bruges. He’s finally started responding to her messengers.”

  “But this shouldn’t concern us. Harthacnut might simply be reconciling his family. Perhaps he has need of her help to make a good marriage for him. He must marry.”

  “No, I also received news from Denmark, via a trader I know and trust, and also from Norway, from another trader. They tell of a meeting between the two kings, of a peace that will be signed this summer, if not already. Harthacnut is planning his attack on England, and it’s not the one that King Harald believes it to be. The death of Harthacnut’s sister last year hit Lady Emma hard, and she has been reconciling with her son, and has managed to convince him that success will only come from unity.”

  “Then you must tell the king,” Ælfgar said, but it was more of a question. He was trying to remember Lady Emma’s daughter. He had a vague memory of a very young girl being taken to the Court of the Holy Roman Emperor in preparation for her marriage, but nothing else. It felt surreal to think that small child dead.

  “The king doesn’t listen to me. He hasn’t since he became king. Earl Godwine has stolen his ear, and poisons his mind with intrigue against our family.” Leofric sounded angry, and far from resigned to the situation.

  “Do you think Lady Emma is in contact with Earl Godwine?”

  “I don’t kno
w, but I imagine Harthacnut is. They share a tie of family, as extended as it is. I don’t believe that Godwine has ever reconciled himself to Harald. Now that Harthacnut is free of worries to the North, Godwine will entice him to England, and will play Harald false.”

  “Then Earl Godwine must be assured of Harthacnut’s good intentions toward him, no matter his part in what happened to his step-brother, Alfred. I have always assumed that Harthacnut would be wrathful toward Earl Godwine.”

  Ælfgar could see why his father worried so much. Earl Godwine was manipulative without end. He could, should he choose, convince the king to turn his attention to the North or to the Welsh borders, while Harthacnut attacked England from the South, with his mother’s assistance.

  “When we go to Northampton we must watch and listen to all that is said. I think there’s more at stake than we believe. It’s not just about the king of Powys and Gwynedd, although I would happily slice his head from his shoulders. No, there’s more to this than even Harald has determined, his focus as ever on his hated step-brother.”

  Ælfgar made no reply. He was thinking carefully about all he knew and could infer.

  “Harald has not been the king I thought he would be,” Ælfgar finally muttered, rubbing his forehead with one of his hands.

  “No, and neither has he been the king his own father would have been proud of. Only, I doubt Harthacnut’s abilities as well.”

  “A pity Cnut fathered such ineffectual men,” Ælfgar shuddered.

  “A great pity indeed,” his father agreed, before turning to make his way back inside the hall of Deerhurst.

  “This place seems to shrink every time I visit,” Leofric complained, and Ælfgar glanced at the solid wooden posts and neatly thatched roof with amusement.

  “It’s you. You grow taller.”

  Laughing amongst themselves, they returned to their beds. Ælfgar doubted his father slept, but he did, waking much later with a clearer head and the knowledge that the loss of his Uncle Eadwine in battle might merely be the first of many he was forced to endure.

  Chapter Twenty-One

  AD1039 Northampton Leofric

  Leofric entered Lady Ælfgifu’s hall with a steady step and a blank face. He had no intentions of being drawn into gossip before meeting with the king and instead made himself comfortable before the hearth. A servant rushed around him, bringing ale and food.

  He accepted both gratefully and allowed the silence of the hall to fill his thoughts.

  Throughout the journey to Northampton, he’d worried about the king’s intentions. Now that the matter was before him, he found his mind refreshingly still. He could argue with himself no more. Soon the time would come to dispute with the king, and probably with Earl Godwine, and whoever else advocated a course of action he couldn’t approve of. Yet, he was only one voice. He could not stand alone. Neither was there time to make alliances.

  Leofric accepted that he’d have to make the best of whatever the king demanded from the English.

  “Lord Leofric, I had no word of your arrival. My apologies.” It was Lady Ælfgifu who spoke, and he hastened to stand and bow before her.

  “I didn’t ask to have my presence announced, preferring to recover from the ride.”

  “The king is hunting, with Earl Godwine.”

  “The other earls have not yet arrived then? I understood the summons to be urgent. I’ve ridden straight from my brother’s funeral.”

  A momentary flash of sympathy touched the woman’s face but was so fleeting Leofric thought he might have imagined it.

  “The men will be here, as soon as they can be. It’s good you came so soon. I was pleased to hear that Lord Ælfgar yet lived.” Only when Lady Ælfgifu mentioned his son’s name was there any warmth to her voice.

  “Lady Godgifu is already arranging a donation to the Church to celebrate the survival of Ælfgar and his nephews, in fact, more than one,” Leofric spoke wryly, but there was no annoyance to his voice. He entirely agreed with his wife’s wishes on this occasion.

  “Yes, I imagine she’s most relieved, although, of course, you have a grandson who can continue the House of Leofwine should all else fail.” Ælfgifu’s voice held a suppressed rage, but Leofric ignored it. The fact Harald refused to marry was an endless source of grief to his mother, and one that few understood, Leofric amongst them.

  Harald battled to keep England for himself, and yet by not marrying, and producing an heir, he was making Harthacnut’s eventual accession to the English throne inevitable.

  “Indeed, My Lady. Still, Lady Godgifu is grateful for the return of her son.”

  “You must wish to take your revenge against the Welsh?” as she spoke, servants brought her a chair, which she settled in, meeting the eyes of Leofric as she continued to talk, before raising a goblet to her lips and sipping delicately from the glass vessel handed to her.

  “If I were just a man I would seek the wergeld for my brother, but I’m not just a man, and must wait for the king to make his intentions clear.”

  “Truly? You would let another dead brother go unavenged?”

  The sudden malice in her voice was ugly, but Leofric had sparred with Lady Ælfgifu too many times in the past. She spoke to wound. She always did.

  “I’ll await the king’s instructions,” Leofric reiterated, wishing Lady Ælfgifu anywhere but before him. He would sooner not speak to her when she was deliberately difficult.

  “My son was pleased to hear of the survival of his foster-brother,” Ælfgifu muttered, changing the subject. “But I believe the news has had no bearing on his plans toward Harthacnut, and the borderlands.”

  The news was not unexpected, but still, it angered Leofric to know that the king no doubt intended to undermine him by appointing new lords to Mercia.

  “The king must govern as he sees fit,” Leofric tried to deflect, reaching for his own goblet of ale, and sipping to give himself time to absorb the news. Over the top of the goblet, he studied Lady Ælfgifu.

  She looked old and worn, to his calculating eyes. She was little older than him, and indeed his wife, and yet she seemed to have lost her much-vaulted beauty too quickly.

  Her once long hair was shorter, thinner, and almost all grey. She’d taken to keeping it hidden beneath a veil that caught the glimmer of light from candles and the flames in the fire. No doubt she tried to retain her youthfulness but failed. All who knew her would be unable to keep the knowledge from showing on their faces that she was no longer Cnut’s beautiful bride.

  “Lady Elgiva is with child once more,” Leofric remembered, preferring to discuss matters of family with his king’s mother. But even this elicited a biting retort from Ælfgifu.

  “I hope she fares better with her sons than I did with my own.”

  With those words spoken, she lapsed into a reproachful silence, and Leofric was pleased. It was his wife who was an ally of Lady Ælfgifu and excused all that she did, in the name of friendship. He was somewhat harsher in his assessment of his king’s mother. Still, he held his tongue. He imagined the time for harsh words would come later, perhaps tomorrow, when all of the earls had arrived.

  By the time Harald returned to his mother’s hall, Leofric had fallen into a deep sleep. The last month had taken its toll on him so that he only woke when both the king and Earl Godwine stood before him.

  Opening his eyes slowly, Leofric focused on the stances of the men, unsurprised to see that Earl Godwine seemed uneasy being in Northampton. It was rare for him to leave Wessex or the confines of London. Earl Godwine was always aware that there might be an enemy at his back that he needed to counter.

  “Lord Leofric, it seems we’ve reason to celebrate,” Harald was in high spirits. “I’m pleased my foster-brother yet lives. I would have missed him.”

  Leofric stood to greet his king, a genuine smile on his face.

  “We’re all relieved that Ælfgar and his cousins yet live, although saddened by the loss of Lord Eadwine.”

  A grimace of annoyance
crossed Harald’s face at the reminder that all was not good news.

  “Of course,” Harald acknowledged. “The Welsh will pay for their desecration of his body.”

  “In good time,” Leofric agreed, watching Earl Godwine out of the corner of his eye.

  His oldest adversary and sometimes ally was speaking in hushed tones to Lady Ælfgifu. She, who had never had any great respect for the Wessex earl, laughed softly at his words, and Leofric was surprised that Earl Godwine could elicit such a warm response from her.

  “I take it you’ve heard about the North?” Harald demanded to know.

  “Only what the messenger informed me. A victory, or so he said, for Earl Siward.”

  “Yes, the man is a credit to England. Even now he races to Northampton to speak with me.”

  Somehow Leofric doubted that Siward would race anywhere on his king’s command, but he held his tongue.

  “Do you not fear reprisals from Donnchaid Mac Crinain?”

  “Hah, I understand he’s too much concerned with his own nobility. He’s a weak king. I can’t imagine he’ll retain his position for much longer.”

  “Then do you not fear retribution from the future king?”

  “I fear no one,” the king stated. “I have Earl Siward on the borders. He has the Earl of Bamburgh as his father-by-marriage, and none would dare attack from the kingdom of the Scots.”

  Ah, Leofric thought to himself. Harald as ever gave more away than he realised when he spoke.

  “But if he’s in Northampton, who’ll be watching the borders?”

  “There’s no damn need to watch the borders. Listen to my words, and actually hear them.”

  In a sudden temper, Harald strode from Leofric’s company, much to his relief.

  “My son is much troubled,” Lady Ælfgifu said into the silence.

  “Your son just told me he fears no one. How then can he be troubled?”

  Lady Ælfgifu was saved from floundering for an answer by the arrival of Earl Hrani. He strode into the hall with all the vigour of a young man, but Leofric knew time marched ever onwards.