The Flame Bearer

by Bernard Cornwell

‘Just for his grandson, that piece of puke.’

  ‘It’s all he cares about,’ Æthelflaed said, ‘that Ælfweard becomes king, and my brother knows that the West Saxon Witan will vote that way. They’ve been bought.’

  ‘And Æthelstan?’ I asked, though I knew the answer.

  ‘You did well to demand him as a hostage. He’ll be safer with you than he is here.’

  ‘Which is why I asked for him,’ I said, then frowned. ‘Would Æthelhelm really dare to kill him?’

  ‘He’d dare to arrange his death, but no one would know. Do you ever read the scriptures?’

  ‘Every day,’ I said enthusiastically, ‘not a moment passes that I don’t have a quick read of Ieremias or dip into Ezekiel.’

  She smiled, amused. ‘What a barbarian you are! Have a priest tell you the story of Urias.’

  ‘Urias?’

  ‘Just remember the name,’ she said, ‘Urias Hetthius.’

  ‘Talking of priests,’ I said, ‘who is Hrothweard?’

  ‘The Archbishop of York,’ she said, ‘as you well know.’

  ‘A West Saxon,’ I said.

  ‘He is, and he’s a good man!’

  ‘Did the good man take Æthelhelm’s gold?’ I asked.

  ‘Oh no, he’s a good, pious man,’ she said briskly, then hesitated and frowned. ‘He was an abbot,’ she went on more tentatively, ‘and I remember his house receiving a generous grant of land. Twenty hides in Wiltunscir. It was a long way from his abbey.’

  ‘He got land instead of gold?’

  She still frowned. ‘Men give land to the church all the time.’

  ‘And Æthelhelm is Ealdorman of …’

  ‘Wiltunscir,’ she finished the sentence for me, then sighed. ‘Æthelhelm is buying lords in Mercia now, showering them with gold. He wants the Mercian Witan to appoint Ælfweard as my successor.’

  ‘No!’ I was shocked by the suggestion. That sullen, callow boy to be King of Mercia!

  ‘He proposed a marriage between Ælfweard and Ælfwynn,’ she said. Ælfwynn was her daughter. She was a frivolous girl, pretty and irresponsible. I liked her, probably more than her mother did, which is why Æthelflaed’s next words surprised me. ‘I said no,’ she went on, ‘because I think Ælfwynn should succeed me.’

  ‘You think what?’ I blurted out.

  ‘She’s a princess of Mercia,’ Æthelflaed said firmly, ‘and if I can rule Mercia, why can’t she? Why must a man always be the next ruler?’

  ‘I adore Ælfwynn,’ I said, ‘but she doesn’t have your good sense.’

  ‘Then she can marry Cynlæf Haraldson,’ Æthelflaed said, ‘and he’ll advise her. He’s a strong young man.’

  I said nothing. Cynlæf Haraldson was a young, handsome West Saxon warrior, but of no great birth, which meant he did not bring Ælfwynn the power of a big noble house, and he was of no great achievement either, which meant he did not have the reputation to attract men to follow him. I thought him shallow, but there was no point in saying so to Æthelflaed, who had always been charmed by his looks, manners, and courtesy.

  ‘Cynlæf will protect her,’ Æthelflaed said, ‘and so will you.’

  ‘You know I’m fond of her,’ I said, and that was an evasion. What she wanted to hear was that I would support Ælfwynn as I had supported her, that Ælfwynn would have my oath. I was saved from having to say more by Rorik, my servant, who slapped a hand on the tent flap and came nervously out of the sunlight.

  ‘Lord?’ he said, then remembered to bow to Æthelflaed.

  ‘What is it?’

  ‘King Sigtryggr is leaving, lord. You wanted me to tell you.’

  ‘I’m riding north with him,’ I told Æthelflaed.

  ‘Then go,’ she said.

  I stood and bowed to her. ‘I will protect Ælfwynn,’ I said, and that would have to satisfy her. Saying that much did not commit my oath to Ælfwynn, and Æthelflaed knew it, but she smiled anyway and held out her hand.

  ‘Thank you,’ she said.

  I bent and kissed her hand, then held onto it. ‘The best fate,’ I said, ‘is for you to get well. Become healthy! You’re the best ruler Mercia has ever had, so be well and go on ruling.’

  ‘I shall do my best.’

  Then I shocked the two nuns by bending further and kissing Æthelflaed on the mouth. She did not resist. We had been lovers, I still loved her, and I love her to this day. I sensed a slight sob as we kissed.

  ‘I shall come again,’ I promised her, ‘after I’ve taken Bebbanburg.’

  ‘Not Frisia?’ she asked mischievously. So the rumour was spreading.

  I lowered my voice. ‘I’m going to Bebbanburg next. Tell no one.’

  ‘Dear Lord Uhtred,’ she said softly, ‘everyone knows you’re going to Bebbanburg. Perhaps I’ll visit you there?’

  ‘You must, my lady, you must. You will be treated like the queen you are.’ I kissed her hand again. ‘Till we meet in the north, my lady,’ I said, then reluctantly released her fingers and followed Rorik out of the tent.

  I never saw her again.

  My men and Sigtryggr’s men rode together, going north. The sun shone, it was warm, and the summer air was filled with the sound of hooves and the jingle of harnesses. ‘I hate Saxons,’ Sigtryggr said.

  I did not answer. To my right was a field thick with growing wheat, a reminder of how rich this land was. Dust drifted from our passing.

  ‘You’ve bought me at least a year,’ Sigtryggr said, ‘thank you.’

  I saw a falcon high in the warm air, hovering, its wings motionless except for a slight quiver as it stared intensely at the ground where some creature was doomed. I watched it, hoping to see the bird stoop, but it just stayed there, effortlessly riding the high wind. An omen? Maybe an omen of peace, except I did not want peace. I was carrying my sword towards Bebbanburg.

  ‘They smell different,’ Sigtryggr said vengefully. ‘They reek of the Saxon stink! Rotted turnips! That’s what they smell like, rotted turnips! Smug, self-satisfied turnips!’

  I twisted in my saddle and looked at Æthelstan, who was riding next to my son a few paces behind us and who, thankfully, was out of earshot of Sigtryggr’s spleen. ‘Prince Æthelstan,’ I called, ‘do Danes and Norsemen smell?’

  ‘The Danes stink of curdled cheese, lord,’ he called back cheerfully, ‘while the Norse reek of bad fish.’

  Sigtryggr snorted. ‘I hope the Saxons do break the truce, Prince Æthelstan,’ he said loudly, ‘then I will have the pleasure of killing you.’ He knew I would never allow it, but he enjoyed making the threat.

  He looked older. I remembered the gleeful young battle-warrior who had leaped up the ramparts of Ceaster as he tried to kill me. A lord of war. I had taken one of his eyes and he had taken my daughter, and now we were friends, but a few months of kingship had put lines on his face and taken the joy from his soul.

  ‘And that bastard Thurferth!’ he spat. ‘He’s no better! He calls himself a Dane and lifts his arse for the Christians? I’d nail the treacherous bastard to a cross.’ His anger was justified. The Danish lords who ruled Northumbria’s southern burhs had the power to give Sigtryggr a formidable army, but their fear was proving stronger than their loyalty. I suspected most would follow Thurferth and give their allegiance to both the West Saxons and to the nailed god. ‘They’ll even march with the Saxons,’ Sigtryggr said bitterly.

  ‘Probably.’

  ‘And what do I do then?’ It was not a real question, more a cry of despair.

  ‘You come to live in Bebbanburg,’ I said mildly.

  We rode in silence for a half-mile as the road dropped to a shallow ford where the horses paused to drink. I rode ahead a few paces and checked Tintreg in the road’s dusty centre, just listening to the day’s silence.

  Sigtryggr followed me. ‘I can’t fight the Scots and the Saxons,’ he said. He sounded grudging, not wanting me to think him a coward, ‘not at the same time.’

  ‘The Saxons will keep the truce,’ I assured him, and
I was sure I was right.

  ‘Next year,’ he said, ‘or maybe the year after, the armies of Mercia and Wessex will come north. I can hold them. I have just enough men. At the very least I can make them wish they’d never heard of Northumbria. And with your men? We can darken the earth with their filthy blood.’

  ‘I won’t fight against Æthelflaed,’ I told him, ‘she has my oath.’

  ‘Then you can kill the bastard West Saxons,’ he said vengefully, ‘and I’ll kill the Mercians, but I can’t fight if I don’t have enough men.’

  ‘True.’

  ‘And to throw Constantin back to his hovels? I can do it, but at what price?’

  ‘A high price,’ I said, ‘the Scots fight like angry polecats.’

  ‘So …’ he began.

  ‘I know,’ I interrupted him. ‘You can’t throw away the best part of your army fighting the Scots, at least not till you’ve beaten back the Saxons.’

  ‘You understand?’

  ‘Of course I understand,’ I said. And he was right. Sigtryggr commanded a small army. If he led it north to evict the Scots from Bebbanburg’s land he would be inviting a war with Constantin, who would welcome a chance to weaken Northumbria’s army. Sigtryggr might well win the first battles, driving Domnall’s four hundred men northwards, but after that the howling devils of Niflheim would emerge from the Scottish hills, and the battles would become grimmer. Sigtryggr, even if he won, would lose the men he needed to stave off the Saxon assault.

  He gazed north to where the day’s heat shimmered above low hills and thick woods. ‘So you’ll wait to attack Bebbanburg?’ he asked. ‘You’ll wait till we’ve driven off the Saxons?’

  ‘I can’t wait.’

  Sigtryggr looked pained. ‘Without those bastard Thurferth’s troops,’ he said, ‘and the rest of those slimy toads in the south, I can’t assemble more than eight hundred men. I can’t lose a hundred to Constantin.’

  ‘I’ll want a hundred and fifty from you,’ I said, ‘maybe two hundred, and if I’m right, not one of those men will be scratched. I can’t wait because by next spring Constantin will have starved the bastard out and he’ll be sitting inside Bebbanburg, so I’m going there now, and I’m going to capture it,’ I touched the hammer, ‘and I need your help.’

  ‘But—’ he said.

  And I interrupted him again.

  By telling him how we would conquer the unconquerable, and how his men would suffer no casualties in the conquest.

  Or so I hoped. I gripped the hammer. Wyrd bið ful ãræd.

  PART THREE

  The Mad Bishop

  Seven

  ‘We’re going to Frisia,’ I told Eadith.

  She just stared at me in astonishment.

  I had ridden north to Eoferwic where I spent one night, feasting with Sigtryggr, my daughter and, of all people, the new Archbishop Hrothweard. He was indeed a decent man, or seemed so to me. He flinched when I told him what had happened in Hornecastre. ‘It seems God was on your side, Lord Uhtred,’ he said gently, ‘you snatched peace from the jaws of war.’

  ‘Which god?’ I asked him.

  He laughed, then asked me what I thought would happen at Bebbanburg and I gave him the same answer that Finan had given him, that Constantin would find an assault too costly, but that he hardly needed to expend troops on the fortress walls when hunger would do the job for him. Hrothweard shook his head sadly. ‘So Saint Cuthbert’s monastery, if it is rebuilt, will host Scottish monks.’

  ‘And that worries you?’ I asked him.

  He thought about his answer. ‘It shouldn’t,’ he finally said. ‘They will be godly men, I am sure.’

  ‘But you will lose the money that pilgrims bring,’ I said.

  He liked that retort, and his long face lit up with delight as he pointed a goose-leg at me. ‘You like to think the worst of us, Lord Uhtred!’

  ‘But it’s true, isn’t it?’

  He shook his head. ‘Lindisfarena is a holy place. An island of prayer. I would like to appoint its new abbot if God wills it, only to be certain that he is worthy of the island and will not bring God’s church into disrepute. And a worthy man, Lord Uhtred, would not be a greedy man, whatever you might think.’

  ‘I think Bishop Ieremias has dreams of being the next abbot,’ I said mischievously.

  Hrothweard laughed. ‘Poor man! What do men call him? The mad bishop?’ He chuckled. ‘There are those who urge me to excommunicate him, but what good would that do? He is sorely mistaken, I’m sure, but unlike some I can think of,’ he looked at me with humour in his eyes, ‘he worships the one god. He is, I think, harmless. In grievous error, of course, but harmless.’

  I liked the man. Like Father Pyrlig, he wore his faith lightly, but his piety, kindness, and honesty were obvious. ‘I shall pray for you,’ he said, on parting, ‘whether you like it or not.’

  I made no attempt to see Berg on that brief visit, though my daughter told me he had purchased three ships and was now repairing them on the wharves close to the Duck tavern. Now, back in Dunholm, I told Eadith of those ships, and of my plans to cross the sea to Frisia. It was night-time, and we talked in the house I had built above the main gate. In daylight the house gave us a fine view southwards, but now all that could be seen were the glow of fires from the small town below the fortress and the sparks of uncountable stars spread across the heavens. The house had been an extravagance. It had meant building a gatehouse tunnel to support it, and two chambers flanking the tunnel, one to house our servants and the other for the gate’s guards. A set of stairs led from our servants’ quarters into our private rooms, and I was inordinately proud of those stairs. They were rare! Of course every Roman town that had kept its walls had steps leading to the ramparts, but I had rarely seen stairs in the buildings we made. Many halls had an upper floor, but those platforms, which we usually used for sleeping, were reached by ladders, and sometimes by a ramp, but I had always admired how the Romans had made stairs inside their houses, and so I had ordered some built, though admittedly the Dunholm stair was made from wood and not from finely-cut stone. Building our house above the entrance tunnel meant thrusting a new rampart out over the approach road, and, because there were sentries on that rampart’s high platform, I kept my voice low, though not quite low enough to prevent our conversation from being overheard.

  ‘Frisia!’ Eadith exclaimed.

  ‘There are islands,’ I said, ‘off the Frisian coast. We’ll take one, build a fortress and make it home.’ I could see a mixture of disbelief and disappointment on her face. ‘Frisia is Christian,’ I said, reassuring her, because she was a Christian and, despite all my persuasion, had never reverted to the worship of my older gods, ‘well, it’s mostly Christian,’ I went on, ‘and you won’t find it a strange place. Their language is so close to ours that you can understand everything!’

  ‘But,’ she began, and gestured around our chamber that was lit by small rushlights that glowed on the woven wall hangings, on the big woollen rug and the heap of furs that was our bed.

  ‘I’ve made too many enemies,’ I said bleakly. ‘Æthelflaed is dying, so she can’t protect me, the West Saxons have never loved me, and Æthelhelm hates me, my cousin sits in Bebbanburg like a great toad, and Constantin would like nothing more than to squash me like a louse.’

  ‘Sigtryggr …’ she began.

  ‘Is doomed,’ I said firmly. ‘The Saxons will attack next year or the year after, and he might hold them off for a couple of months, but after that? They’ll keep coming, and Constantin will see his opportunity and start taking more land in the north of Northumbria.’

  ‘But Sigtryggr’s looking to you for help!’ she protested.

  ‘And that’s what I’m giving him,’ I said. ‘We’re making a new land in Frisia. He’ll be welcome!’

  ‘Sigtryggr knows about this?’

  ‘Of course he does,’ I said. I heard a scraping noise beneath the window that looked onto the approach road. It was probably the sound of a spe
ar-butt dragging on the gate’s fighting platform and it suggested someone was listening to our conversation.

  Eadith again looked about the room with its comforts. ‘I’ve grown fond of Dunholm,’ she said plaintively.

  ‘I’m giving it to Sihtric. He knows Dunholm. He was born here, he grew up here, and his father was the lord here.’ Sihtric was the bastard son of Jarl Kjartan the Cruel, a man who had been my dreadful enemy as a child. Sihtric had none of his father’s viciousness, but he was just as capable a warrior, and, starting as my servant, he had become one of my most trusted war-leaders. ‘A few men can stay with him,’ I said, ‘mostly the older men, and he can recruit and train new men. They’ll all be Christians, of course. Once the Saxons rule here, there’ll be no room for pagans.’

  ‘What about Bebbanburg?’ Eadith asked.

  ‘A year ago,’ I said bleakly, ‘I thought I had a chance of taking it. Now? My cousin holds it, and Constantin wants it. I might defeat my cousin, but I can’t defeat the Scots as well. I’m old, my love, I can’t fight for ever.’ I paused and half turned towards the ramparts. ‘But don’t tell anyone, not yet.’

  And next day, of course, everyone in Dunholm knew of my plans.

  We were going to Frisia.

  I trusted Eadith. Some men thought that stupid of me because she had once been my enemy, but now she was my friend as well as my wife, and how can there be love without trust? So, later that night, when I was certain we could not be overheard, I told her the truth. The earlier conversation had been solely for the benefit of whoever might have been listening on the rampart outside our chamber, and I knew the conversation would eventually reach my cousin.

  His first reaction, I’m sure, would be disbelief, but the story would be persistent and the evidence for its truth overwhelming. It would not make him drop his guard, but it would sow doubt, and doubt would be enough. And if I was wrong, and Eadith could not be trusted, then I had just removed that doubt. He would know I was coming.

  Eadith did not betray me, but I never discovered all those who did.

  I found a few, and hanged them from the nearest tree, but only after I had fed them misleading information they could pass on to my enemies. Still, I am certain there were many others I never discovered. I looked, of course. I looked for men who suddenly had more gold or silver than they should, or whose wives flaunted fine linen dresses with elegant embroidery, or men who would not meet my eyes, or who stood too close as I talked with Finan or with my son. I watched for men who paid too much attention to Eadith, or whose servants made efforts to be over-friendly with Rorik, my own servant.