by M J Porter
Not that there weren’t other youths at the Witan that he could have spoken to. It was just that they were all someone else’s sons or someone else’s nephews and they were all as constrained as he was.
And there weren’t many young ladies’ either. They were all at their respective homes, locked up tight against the ravages of either Cnut or the uncouth young men of the Witan. His sister was in the same predicament, and he knew she loathed it. He almost pitied his mother for having to listen to her near constant grumbling about how unfair it all was. Almost. He couldn’t deny that he was pleased she wasn’t there bending his ear.
His father walked towards them, a faint smile on his tired face.
“Have they all gone to plot?” he asked, turning so that he stood beside his son and looked out at the other people walking through the hall, conversing as they went, or just intent on their next errand.
“Yes, Northman called on Uhtred, Olaf and Thorkell.”
His father nodded as though he’d expected it.
“Well, I didn’t expect him to include me,” he chuckled darkly. “His hatred for me, while still uncalled for, has never faltered in the last ten years.”
Leofric wasn’t used to his father speaking to him quite so openly, and he struggled for a moment to think of a reply.
“If you’re to serve me in any capacity at the Witan, you’ll have to get used to hearing my thoughts, and responding as you think yourself,” his father said, his words surprising Leofric. “I don’t surround myself with men who only tell me what I want to hear,” his father continued, “and don’t forget that. But don’t make up opinions just to be difficult either. Horic and Wulfstan always told me everything they thought, whether I wanted to hear it or not. Oscetel is a little more circumspect, he thinks before he speaks, but I need to hear everything all the same. So what do you think about today’s events.”
Leofric gave the question the attention it had deserved before he spoke.
“It’s just like it always was,” he finally said, his eyes taking in the expansive room and the people pressed within it. The din of conversation was almost deafening in the confined space, and he’d have liked nothing more than to escape.
“It is, you’re right, and that’s what we have to be aware of. It’s as it always has been. It’s as if the winter months never happened, and I don’t think that Æthelred will take kindly to anyone who reminds him of his temporary banishment. Once Eadric has chased Cnut from our land, the king will expect everything to fall into place as it used to do. I hear he’s sending messengers and men to bring Emma and the children home.”
Leofric knew that his father wasn’t saying something with his words, for all that they appeared open and honest enough, and then he grasped it.
“You don’t think it’ll be like it was before?”
“No, I don’t, and good lad. The king is a fool if he doesn’t realise how much has changed. Not with the way that the land is governed, taxes collected and the men and women provisioned and fed, but within the circles of the Witan everyone has realised just how vulnerable the king is, and how reliant he is on Eadric, who’s a conniving little bastard at the best of times.”
“What will you do?” Leofric asked, intrigued by his father’s reasoning.
“What all good ealdormen should do. Govern my lands for the king, collect his taxes and see to the roads and the bridges. But no, I won’t be going into battle against Cnut, and neither will I be warning him of what might be about to happen. For all that I respect him, I need to protect my own family first.”
“So we’ll be going home?” he asked, amazed that his father would leave London at such a time.
“Yes, when the king announces the attack, and the men of the fyrd are gathered, we’ll be leaving London and returning to Deerhurst. The king will not want me here, not until some other catastrophe occurs.”
“And you think it will?”
“Oh, it’s bound to lad. Æthelred holds onto the throne by a hair’s breadth and by the good wishes of the other ealdormen and churchmen, and because he thinks he has Eadric’s resources at his fingertips. But when his older sons realise that they’re once more being excluded there will be rumblings of discontent, and this time, they know that they can dislodge their father with the right support.”
Leofric was shocked by his father’s words and felt his mouth dropping open.
“You think there’ll be a power struggle?”
“I think there will be. Yes. Now, go and see how Athelstan is for me. He likes you, and your brother but makes no mention of him. See if you can glean his thoughts.”
Leofric felt a little worried by the task assigned to him, and also quite honoured. His father hadn’t yet trusted him with any delicate matter.
“Take the dog with you,” his father said, “Athelstan likes the hounds we breed.”
Calling to Beauty, the hound lurched to her feet and walked with far more confidence than Leofric felt towards the tables that Athelstan and his brother and their men had occupied. They were a slightly rowdy lot, but nothing that drew attention to them.
Athelstan was bent over the table, a drinking cup before him, as well as a trencher containing the carcass of a pig. He wasn’t alone. His brother sat beside him talking quietly. When he saw Leofric approach he smiled in welcome and gestured that he should sit. His glance shot over Leofric’s head, and although he wanted to turn and see if it was his father that Athelstan had made eye contact with, he refrained. Athelstan and his father had once had a close relationship, and Leofric assumed his father was hoping to rekindle that.
“It pains me to hear of the rift with your brother,” Athelstan said, his voice quiet so that no one else could hear them for all that they sat opposite each other on wooden stalls.
“He’s always been a stubborn fool,” Leofric offered with what he hoped was the expression of a martyr.
“Too much time with Eadric will do that to a man,” Edmund joked wryly, and Leofric managed to laugh with the two brothers.
“Your father is once more beset on all sides,” Athelstan continued, but Leofric only nodded. It was a clear statement.
“And you, how do you think you fit into the king’s new plans?” Athelstan’s eyes hardened at the question, but he didn’t become angry, more resigned than anything.
“We don’t, as usual. Once, when we were boys we were the most important things to him in the world, but now, well, he has new sons and younger sons that he can control. We’re just an annoyance, nothing more.”
“So will you stand with him against Cnut.” At that, Edmund sucked in a breath and Leofric feared he’d said something he shouldn’t.
Athelstan cautioned his brother with his eyes and spoke forcefully.
“It’s one thing to have our father withhold any hope of succeeding him from us, but it’s quite another for a total stranger to lay claim to the throne. We’ll fight to protect it, whether it’s for my brother, my half-brothers, or myself. The English throne belongs to the family of Wessex.”
“So you’ll go to war against Cnut then?” he pressed.
“We’ll do as we’re instructed,” Athelstan said, his tone still dark. “For now,” he qualified, and Leofric took the time to think how he’d feel if his father placed so little trust and support in him. He knew he wouldn’t like it, not one bit.
“Are you going to war?” Edmund queried a little defiantly.
“If we’re asked, but Lord Leofwine thinks we won’t be.”
“I’m inclined to agree.”
“And if we don’t we’re going home.”
At that Athelstan fixed him with his calm eyes, and Leofric watched emotion flash across his face.
“Leofric, your father is a man who reads the politics of this Witan better than anyone. Learn from him. Absorb all you can get from him. I wish I’d been lucky enough to have him as a role model.”
Chapter 12
AD1014
Northman
Near Gainsborough
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The king, against everyone’s expectations, had decided to march with his army towards Cnut’s base in Gainsborough. Northman was still amazed every time he glanced at the older man to find him amongst them. Yes, he had the best accommodation, and someone ensured his bed and clothing followed him wherever he went, but he was still with the army. That was a stunning statement from a man who’d always run away from battle apart from once, fourteen years ago when he’d been a much younger man, and a man made confident by his father’s own assurance that they would strike fear into the heart of their enemies.
Northman wondered if his father, with his intelligent ways, and who was so against this attack, was going to be proved wrong on this rare occasion. Then he realised, the king still had time aplenty to make a wrong move. The closer and closer they came to the ancient kingdom of Lindsey and the place that Swein and Cnut had claimed as their own, the more and more likely it was that the king would lose his nerve, or would inflame the palpable tensions in the local area. Already there were rumours that the men and women of Lindsey were quite content with their new king.
Rumour had it that Cnut had made an agreement with the people of the ancient kingdom of Lindsey and that in return for protecting them, they were supplying him with food and other necessities. Northman didn’t like the sound of the agreement and wondered how the king would punish his people when he got them back. When he chose to punish them.
Eadric called his name, and Northman looked up from his musings and eyed him with unease. Eadric was riding so high in the restored king’s esteem that he behaved almost as though he were a king himself, an over-mighty one as well. He issued orders and demands as though it was the right of the people around him to carry out his each and every whim. Northman was starting to tire of the pompous displays but was doing his best to curb his irritation.
He moved his horse so that it was next to Eadric’s and wondered what menial task he had for him now.
“The king is pleased with you,” he began, and Northman had a moment of premonition. “He wants to reward you with a gift of land. You need to thank him for his generosity. And you need to know that while you stand aloft from your father, the king will continue to reward you.”
Northman felt his face flush with pride, even though he resented Eadric’s arrogant tone and the implied threat behind it.
“The king honours me greatly,” he quietly said while Eadric smirked as though it was he rewarding Northman.
“He does, and through you, me. And it works the other way too. If you dishonour him, you dishonour your new family and me.”
Northman, barely able to contain his fury at Eadric’s slight when he was already sorely tested in his resolve, but knowing he needed to anyway, lowered his head and nodded at the same time.
“When the time comes, you will lead the men against Cnut.”
“My Lord?” Northman asked, perplexed by Eadric’s words.
“I’ll not be dying here. Not now. As I said, you’ll lead my men, and possibly the king’s as well. It’ll depend on how close we get to Cnut and whether the king allows the ealdormen and me to join the battle, or whether he decides to do it himself. So, plan our attack, and be ready when the time comes.”
Eadric raised his hand then to signal that he’d finished speaking with Northman, and Northman allowed his horse to fall back into the same position he’d been in before, behind Eadric but close enough to him to show that he was a prominent member of his entourage. Northman quirked a smile that Eadric was in the same position relative to the king.
Æthelred was at the front of the combined mass of men, Eadric to his right, and the other leading men to his left. Uhtred was not happy to be marching to war, again, but neither could he turn his backs on his new but old king. Northman couldn’t help thinking that none of this boded well for everyone being alive in a week’s time.
Idly he wondered what would be happening now if Cnut had become king on his father’s death. They’d not be marching to war once more, that was certain, for Cnut had won the war with his father, Swein.
Neither would he be estranged from his father, for if Cnut had become king, there would have been no need for this charade. Cnut understood Eadric, as his father had before and he’d have employed Swein’s policy of keeping Eadric close but not according him any status.
He thought of his wife and his sons. He’d far rather be at home with them than braving the contrariness of the early summer weather. His elder son was just becoming interesting, babbling along in his first attempts at conversation, his footsteps a little unsteady but confident all the same. And his wife. She’d been buoyant and overjoyed at the birth of their second child, and he wished more than anything that he was with them now.
His thoughts turned ever blacker. Was it not his father’s fault that the present he dreamed off had not come to fruition? It was he who’d had the power to speak for Cnut and him whom Swein had tasked with ensuring his son become king. Why hadn’t he done as he’d promised? Why had he allowed Æthelred to be recalled?
Northman felt anger stir as he examined that truth from as many angles as he could. The only answer he had was that his father was a man of honour, and he’d made a promise to Æthelred that hadn’t been nullified by his promise to Swein. His father was an honourable man who took his duties to his people and his king and country seriously. He’d not have been able to disregard his promise to restore Æthelred to the throne when Swein inconveniently died. If only Cnut and Swein had been stable in their new kingdom when Swein had died, then Leofwine would have found his oath impossible to implement. If only Swein hadn’t died.
Northman shook his dark thoughts aside. They were irrelevant and a thing of the past. As Wulfstan had often explained to him, to look back in regret for what couldn’t be changed was to waste the future that could be modified. As Northman sat astride his horse, he thought of what changes he could make in the future provided he knew each and every step that Eadric and the king planned.
He was in the place he needed to be. This way he could work to fulfil whatever his father decided was in the best interests of the people and the land. Leofwine might well have been a loyal ealdorman to Æthelred, and would have been the same for Swein, but with Æthelred’s rapid ageing the future was suddenly open to interpretation, and he wanted to ensure his father knew everything he needed to know. There were too many interested parties now, and many of them would make worthy kings.
Olaf from Norway fascinated him and represented a whole new avenue to explore. He was not much older than him and yet he had ships at his command, and a country he wanted to claim as his own, and Northman thought he stood a good chance of doing just that. Although he spoke little, as taciturn as every man from the northern lands that Northman had ever met, apart from Horic of course, every word he did utter was listened to by everyone. Even Æthelred.
Northman couldn’t quite get past the irony that with Swein’s death, Æthelred had cast out all possibility of a man from his dynasty inheriting the throne of England. In the same breath, he'd allied himself with Thorkell and Olaf, two men who were as hungry for their own throne as it was possible to be. He harboured the belief that, as with Olaf of Norway, whom his father had once been a friend with, Æthelred was keeping both men close. That he was rewarding them as much as he could, so that when Cnut was finally gone, he’d be able to dispatch them both to Denmark or Norway or Sweden, where they’d keep Cnut occupied with petty wars and their desires for his throne.
Northman thought the king shrewd in that regard. It was only fitting that Cnut should experience the same difficulties that he’d inflicted upon Æthelred.
Gainsborough was a strange choice for Cnut to have retreated to. Everyone said so, and Northman could understand why it was said. It was far inland, and so his ships had to be left at the coast, and more than that, it wasn’t even close to anywhere. As far as Northman could see, it offered the would-be English king nothing of value. It was ensconced in the ancient kingdom of Lindsey, bu
t that kingdom had been part of Mercia for so long now that it was only remembered in the memories of those who still thought of themselves as the people of Lindsey, and there were few of those men left.
Neither did it offer any natural protection from an advancing force. From his time fighting Thorkell in the land of the East Angles, Northman could only conclude that Cnut and his father before him, had decided to make camp as far inland as they could get without running into any significant opposition. It was a little awkward for them to meet him there, but nothing particularly onerous. Cnut would have done far better to choose a different site to the one that his father had first happened upon.
Northman was confident that with a show of force Cnut would have to retreat to his ships and that was why the King had come. He apparently thought that they’d be no real fighting, and if there were he’d leave it to Olaf and Thorkell, Eadric and Northman. There’d be no need for him to get involved.
Northman cast his eye over how many men walked or rode behind them. The force was vast, covering the horizon behind him. Thorkell had forty ships; Olaf had at least twenty, and while they might be of varying sizes they still contained men skilled in mobile warfare, and perhaps more importantly, men who fought on Cnut’s terms, men of his homeland, and then there was Thorkell of course. Thorkell had been responsible for teaching Cnut all he knew. For a moment Northman pitied Cnut, and then he brushed the thought aside. Cnut knew exactly what he’d involved himself in. Just as he did, with Eadric.
The day passed in a pleasant blur of early summer views and before he realised it Northman was down from his horse, having lead it to water and left it to graze with the other animals. He was sat around his own campfire, the tents having been hastily erected before full dark could fall. At his side his friend Olaf was trying to keep the conversation light, but Northman was paying only scant attention. Instead, he watched, and he listened to all the men in the camp around him.