by M J Porter
“We must clear this up.”
“Yes, we must, before Ælfgar leaves. Before anyone catches sight of Harald and raises the alarm that the king has been murdered. We need Harald to be cleaned and removed from his current position, his wound somehow masked.”
“Yes, we do,” Leofric concurred with Orkning. “But I’d rather Earl Godwine was alert and aware of what we did. I wouldn’t want any to think we three colluded to cover this up.”
“So it would be better if we four colluded?” his son asked softly, and Leofric nodded while appreciating his son’s incredulity.
“Yes, it would. When Harthacnut is declared king, Earl Godwine will be in the ascendant once more. We mustn’t let Earl Godwine muddy the water more than usual.”
Leofric spoke weightily. The future. He’d thought it assured, inconvenient, but winnable against Harthacnut’s attack on England. Now he was no longer sure.
Behind him, Leofric heard a noise and turned to see that Earl Godwine was staggering to his feet. His eyes were wild, his balance erratic and Leofric rushed to his side.
“Did you see him,” fetid breath covered him, and Leofric grimaced.
“Yes, what happened?”
At the question, Godwine staggered, and sobbed, his weight collapsing onto Leofric.
“I don’t know. I woke up and found him like that,” here Godwine faltered, sobs once more ricocheting down his body, as he pointed into the dark corner. Leofric feared for the man’s health.
“We must sort this,” Leofric cajoled, and Earl Godwine turned sharply to look him squarely in the eye while grasping his arm.
“Yes, yes, that’s why I came for you. Together, together we can do this.” Godwine was almost jabbering with relief, but behind them, Ælfgar coughed, and Godwine turned in shock.
“Who’s here? What’s going on?”
“My son, and my household commander, Orkning.”
“Why? What are you doing?”
“You were unable to help me. And someone must tell Lady Ælfgifu.”
There was an uncomfortable silence, as Earl Godwine considered the options.
“Of course, you’re quite right.” In an instant, Leofric felt the man recover some of his senses, and the thought settled him.
It was a shock. A terrible one, but if they handled the situation poorly, it would mean nothing but disaster. For all of them.
“You believe me?” Earl Godwine suddenly demanded, and Leofric nodded.
“Of course. I’ve eyes to see with. This was not the work of a man.”
“No, it wasn’t. But I don’t know who it was. We must track them down. Punish them.”
“No, we must arrange the king’s body, and what will happen from now on.”
Fury flickered in Earl Godwine’s eyes, and Leofric thought he’d argue with him, but then the other man subsided.
“Of course, of course. Retribution must come later.”
“We need warm water, we need new clothes, and we need the door warden to walk away. Otherwise, he’ll be punished for his part in this, and there was nothing he could have done to intervene.”
Earl Godwine grunted his agreement.
“I’ll speak with him. I know him well.” Godwine strode to the door and called the man inside. He seemed to have recovered from his shock, but Leofric kept an eye on him, all the same.
Leofric lingered for a moment, listening to the muted conversation and the cry of outrage from the door warden. The man peered into the gloom fearfully. But for once, Leofric determined that Earl Godwine was doing precisely what he’d said. He shook his head at his own fears that Godwine was about to accuse him of killing the king. And then he jumped, as something heavy was dropped onto the wooden floor, the sound like thunder in the silence.
“Sorry,” Ælfgar called, as Leofric spun rapidly. “I want to heat warm water.” He offered an apology, his voice tight with suppressed emotion, and Leofric watched him stalk from the hall, a cauldron in his hand. There was a well outside, within easy reach. Still, his son paused at the door, opening it slowly to make sure that no one was watching his actions. Clearly happy he was alone, Ælfgar quickly exited the building.
“Where would I find clothes, for the king?” Orkning’s voice was insistent. Indeed, by the opening and closing of the door, Leofric had seen the slivers of dawn streaking the sky.
Soon the men and women of Oxford would be awake, and there would be many questions if the king weren’t seen about his usual business.
“I, I don’t know,” Leofric looked around him, as though expecting someone else to answer the question.
“I’ll go,” the door warden whispered. “I know where he slept. No one will question me. I’ve done it many times before.”
Leofric nodded, surprised the door warden sounded so calm but pleased to have the question answered. As the man slipped from the hall, Ælfgar returned, labouring with his full cauldron of water. Leofric stepped to add even more fuel to the fire.
It was already sweltering inside the hall, but they needed warm water to clear away the blood from the body.
“Can you go to the Church?” Leofric asked Orkning, “have some of the priests come here, or a few monks. We must have the correct death rites performed.”
This occasioned Leofric a strained look.
“Surely we should wait? Move the body.”
“No, we’ll need independent witnesses as well as the death rites. Go quickly. I should have thought sooner.”
Orkning paused briefly and then nodded his agreement. “My Lord,” he bowed, rushing toward the opening doorway so that he nearly collided with the door warden returning. The other man carried a small pile of clothes in his hands, as well as a cloak and fresh boots.
“Here, these should suffice.” The man handed the clothes to Earl Godwine and then stood uncertainly.
“Stand as you normally would, but allow no one entry. Orkning will fetch priests or a monk, and we’ll clean the the body up. If there are any problems, pound on the door.” Earl Godwine faltered once more as he issued his commands, and Leofric could well understand why.
“My Lord,” the man agreed quickly, trying not to focus on the slumped form of the king
“And you’ve my greatest thanks for your assistance this morning.”
Now the man bowed his head low.
“It’s the least I can do. I should have done much more.”
“We all should,” Leofric replied, not unkindly, as the door once more opened and closed.
“We’ll have to remove our own clothes,” Earl Godwine stated, already sweeping his cloak from his shoulders. “Otherwise we’ll look as though we committed this murder.”
Striped down to only his tunic and trousers, his boots left carefully beside his cloak, the three of them who remained approached the body. This time they each took two candles. The single flame, which had gently illuminated the dead king, was replaced by the harsh light of another six candles, and all three of them grimaced at the terrible wound and lake of black blood.
“We need cloths,” Leofric muttered, looking around for anything that would do, only for Ælfgar to hand him a wad of linens.
“I found them, outside, drying.”
“Good,” Leofric grunted, offering some to Godwine as well.
“What should we do first?” Godwine asked, his face a grimace.
“Move the king. We’ll take him to the dais, lie him there, and clean him up and change his clothes. We should also try and conceal his wound, but I don’t know how to do that yet.”
“Ælfgar, can you mop the blood?” The task was distasteful, but Leofric thought his son looked relieved at the role that didn’t involve touching his foster-brother.
“Yes, but can you manage to lift him?”
Ælfgar eyed his father doubtfully, and on any other day, Leofric would have used it as an excuse to tease his son that he was not quite that old yet. But not today.
“You grab his arms,” Earl Godwine suggested, ignoring the words
spoken by Ælfgar as he grasped the legs tightly.
Not that it was easy. The king was slippery with blood, his face, his hands, his body, even his naked feet.
“Heave,” Godwine commanded, and Leofric took the strain, with an unpleasant squelching sound, and an even more unpleasant smell.
“Urgh,” Ælfgar gagged, but as Leofric and Godwine shuffled the few steps to the dais, he was busy at work, scrubbing the floor with his cloths. Ælfgar had left the cauldron of hot water for Leofric. It would have a use after the body had been cleaned.
In the growing light from outside, visible as the roof beams slowly came into view, Leofric was once again horrified by the cause of his king’s death.
The glass shards had perforated his throat, allowing blood to spill liberally, leaving behind uneven white flaps of skin.
It must have been a horrific death.
“Come on, let’s get on with it.” There was an urgency now, as Leofric worked to sit the body upright and remove the tunic, encrusted with blood and stuck solidly in many places as the blood dried, while Godwine slipped the trousers clear of Harald’s feet, and dipped his cloths in the hot water. With surprising tenderness, the other earl began to clean down the flaccid, white body of their king. Leofric followed suit quickly, while the soft curses of his son reached his ears.
There was a great deal of blood to mop up.
Working ever more quickly, Leofric soon managed to remove as much blood as he could and looked around for the king’s clean clothes.
The door warden had done his work well. The tunic he’d brought was generous and easy to slide over Harald’s lifeless head. Once done, Leofric turned his attention to the neck wound. How could he cover it up?
It gaped whitely in the bright candlelight, now that all the blood had been wiped away. He grimaced once more. He didn’t wish to see the innards of a man he’d loved as a son. This was so wrong, so very, very wrong. And yet, it was done, and there was nothing he could do to undo it. Harald was dead. What would befall the fortunes of England now was suddenly out of his control.
If the intelligence he’d heard was correct, Harald’s death had saved England from an invasion from Harthacnut. There would be no deaths, other than Harald’s.
“What are we going to do with that?” Godwine asked, breaking into his thoughts by pointing at the jagged cut Leofric had been contemplating.
Before he could say he didn’t know, the door to the hall opened once more, and in walked Orkning, with three black-robed monks trailing behind him.
The door warden hurried them inside, although as he snapped the door closed, Leofric noticed that the day had begun. It was a cold late winter’s day, but soon enough people would come to the king’s hall, and they must have answers for them.
One of the monks, a man Leofric recognised well, scurried to his side. Brother Wulfred was often a confidante of his wife, and no doubt felt a little more assured in the presence of the bizarre scene than the other men.
“Orkning informs me that you need my healing skills, although not to heal.” It took a brief moment for Leofric to understand what Brother Wulfred meant, but then he nodded, seeing the other monk preparing thread and needle.
“Please yes. We must do what we can to hide the terrible wound. We need to protect the king’s reputation.”
“Of course, My Lord.”
Perhaps used to working on the dead, or just not prepared to show any fear, Brother Wulfred tutted over the wound as he examined it, and then with skilled fingers began to weave the torn and jagged flesh together, with small, concise movements.
Leofric turned away, his reflex to gag almost too high.
Leofric hefted the cauldron of bloodied water and carried it to where his son still tried to erase the signs of Harald’s last struggle from the wooden floor. The younger of the monks had joined him, his habit tied around his waist so that his white legs flashed in the flickering light.
“Here,” Leofric offered, knowing that the water was needed.
“Wine,” the monk said, and Leofric glanced to his son, not understanding the request.
“Wine will remove the blood left over by the water. Trust me, I know,” the man spoke ruefully, perhaps he assisted the other monk when he healed men and women. Leofric didn’t know, but he strode to a discarded wooden table and picked up three remaining carafes of wine. He smelled them just to be sure they contained wine and not ale, and then he handed them to the monk.
By now Ælfgar had dipped his linens into the water, and it pooled thickly maroon, the smell that of slaughter-month. In fact, Leofric sniffed deeply, aware that the entire hall smelled little better than a battle site.
Leofric turned to the fire, squinting into the rafters above his head, happy to find a sweet bunch of herbs that he added to its heat. The dry herbs sizzled and sparked as they flared, but quickly their aroma began to overlay the stench of blood.
Leofric looked around, shaking his head. He swore he’d never witnessed a more bizarre sight. He, Godwine and his son, were almost bereft of clothing, a monk lay stitching together a dead man’s throat while his son slopped water in and out of the cauldron, as the younger monk applied the wine judiciously on the area already scrubbed as clean as possible.
Leofric knew he’d never forget this day, no matter what else happened to him in his life.
A banging on the wooden door told him that they were out of time. They could do nothing more.
“Quick, we must finish,” Leofric ordered, pleased to see that Earl Godwine was already washing his hands clean and pulling his tunic back over his head. Brother Wulfred was tidying away his needles, while the other monk was feeding the soiled cloths to the hungry fire, liberally dosing it with yet more of the herbs hung to dry in the rafters, so that the smell was redolent of the summer and nauseous all at the same time.
None of this was perfect, but the past couldn’t be undone.
Leofric had already sluiced his hands clean and now, with his tunic returned to him, and his boots back on, he walked toward his king.
Harald looked far more restful now, much more respectable, and Leofric quickly realised that if they added Harald’s cloak to his attire, there would be few who would notice the neat and tidy stitches around his neck. But there was something else that had to be organised first.
He turned to Lord Godwine, the man was eyeing Harald’s body with a mixed expression.
“What shall we say has happened here,” Leofric asked. They couldn’t say that the king had been murdered by a woman who’d fought off his predatory advances, although Leofric thought that the case. The truth wouldn’t endear them to anyone and would make Earl Godwine look a fool for sleeping through the attack.
“An affliction, of the heart, unexpected,” Earl Godwine said the words ponderously. “While he slept, perhaps from too much wine or ale.”
It wasn’t a perfect excuse, but Leofric knew there was little else they could say.
“Agreed,” he announced, turning to look at the select band of men who would know the truth that others wouldn’t know.
“Natural causes,” he said. “The king died from natural causes, discovered by Earl Godwine who called on the Holy Brothers from Oxford to help him, but there was nothing that could be done, the king died, instantly. My presence can be explained because Earl Godwine sent for me. My son will travel to Northampton and inform his mother. We must keep news of last night’s events from spreading until Lady Ælfgifu is informed, but we can’t outright keep it from being disseminated. We must use caution and our own powers of discretion.”
“There will be no trial?” the younger monk asked with some confusion, but Brother Wulfred quickly called him to his side, and they could be heard frantically whispering to each other. The younger man only slowly subsided to quiet as Brother Wulfred explained all to him. The remaining monk worked quickly at the fire, but peered down at the cauldron of bloodied water with confusion.
“What do we do with this?” he asked, and Leofric ec
hoed his worry. There was only the one door in and out of the hall, and at the moment, so the increased noise from outside could attest, there were many waiting to get inside, while the water needed to go outside.
Ælfgar grimaced.
“Fill the wine carafes with the bloodied water. That way we can get it through all those curious eyes.” Quickly, the task was accomplished, although the water slopped ungainly into the jug, spilling a little over the floor so that it had to be mopped up once more, with the only remaining linen.
“Shall we leave the body there?” Leofric finally asked. The washed and dressed dead body lay on the dais.
“No, lift him to the table,” Brother Wulfred instructed. “We can then begin our prayers. No one will think that strange.”
Once more Leofric and Godwine stood to either end of their dead monarch, their eyes meeting over the terrible collusion they’d been drawn into, and then they lifted the body, somehow grown heavier and did as Brother Wulfred had instructed.
The three monks quickly took up position around the king, the slow rumble of prayer and the death rites erupting from their mouths.
Leofric still couldn’t believe what had happened.
“I must leave,” Ælfgar reminded his father, and Leofric turned to his son.
“Go safely, and swiftly. She’ll be distraught. Remember, this isn’t your fault. She can be told the truth of her son’s death. She might well understand it better then.” His son nodded to show he comprehended but hesitated a moment longer.
“I’ve some knowledge which may ease Lady Ælfgifu’s misery, but it must remain a secret, for everyone’s sake.”
Leofric glanced at his son, surprised once more, but he trusted him, implicitly.
“Do what must be done. But warn Lady Ælfgifu that her time in England might well be curtailed now. We might not be able to protect her when Harthacnut comes.”
“Is that what will happen?” Ælfgar asked, and Leofric nodded.
“There’s no alternative.”
Leofric failed to see the fleeting expression on his son’s face as Ælfgar strode to the door, carrying two of the wine carafes, and demanded they be opened. Orkning followed behind, taking the remaining carafe, and then the doors were opened, and the questions began.