PART ONE. The Sorceress
One
‘Every day is ordinary,’ Father Willibald said, ‘until it isn’t.’ He smiled happily, as though he had just said something he thought I would find significant, then looked disappointed when I said nothing. ‘Every day,’ he started again.
‘I heard your drivelling,’ I snarled.
‘Until it isn’t,’ he finished weakly. I liked Willibald, even if he was a priest. He had been one of my childhood tutors and now I counted him as a friend. He was gentle, earnest, and if the meek ever do inherit the earth then Willibald will be rich beyond measure.
And every day is ordinary until something changes, and that cold Sunday morning had seemed as ordinary as any until the fools tried to kill me. It was so cold. There had been rain during the week, but on that morning the puddles froze and a hard frost whitened the grass. Father Willibald had arrived soon after sunrise and discovered me in the meadow. ‘We couldn’t find your estate last night,’ he explained his early appearance, shivering, ‘so we stayed at Saint Rumwold’s monastery,’ he gestured vaguely southwards. ‘It was cold there,’ he added.
‘They’re mean bastards, those monks,’ I said. I was supposed to deliver a weekly cartload of firewood to Saint Rumwold’s, but that was a duty I ignored. The monks could cut their own timber. ‘Who was Rumwold?’ I asked Willibald. I knew the answer, but wanted to drag Willibald through the thorns.
‘He was a very pious child, lord,’ he said.
‘A child?’
‘A baby,’ he said, sighing as he saw where the conversation was leading, ‘a mere three days old when he died.’
‘A three-day-old baby is a saint?’
Willibald flapped his hands. ‘Miracles happen, lord,’ he said, ‘they really do. They say little Rumwold sang God’s praises whenever he suckled.’
‘I feel much the same when I get hold of a tit,’ I said, ‘so does that make me a saint?’
Willibald shuddered, then sensibly changed the subject. ‘I’ve brought you a message from the ?theling,’ he said, meaning King Alfred’s eldest son, Edward.
‘So tell me.’
‘He’s the King of Cent now,’ Willibald said happily.
‘He sent you all this way to tell me that?’
‘No, no. I thought perhaps you hadn’t heard.’
‘Of course I heard,’ I said. Alfred, King of Wessex, had made his eldest son King of Cent, which meant Edward could practise being a king without doing too much damage because Cent, after all, was a part of Wessex. ‘Has he ruined Cent yet?’
‘Of course not,’ Willibald said, ‘though…’ he stopped abruptly.
‘Though what?’
‘Oh it’s nothing,’ he said airily and pretended to take an interest in the sheep. ‘How many black sheep do you have?’ he asked.
‘I could hold you by the ankles and shake you till the news drops out,’ I suggested.
‘It’s just that Edward, well,’ he hesitated, then decided he had better tell me in case I did shake him by the ankles, ‘it’s just that he wanted to marry a girl in Cent and his father wouldn’t agree. But really that isn’t important!’
I laughed. So young Edward was not quite the perfect heir after all. ‘Edward’s on the rampage, is he?’
‘No, no! Merely a youthful fancy and it’s all history now. His father’s forgiven him.’
I asked nothing more, though I should have paid much more attention to that sliver of gossip. ‘So what is young Edward’s message?’ I asked. We were standing in the lower meadow of my estate in Buccingahamm, which lay in eastern Mercia. It was really ?thelflaed’s land, but she had granted me the food-rents, and the estate was large enough to support thirty household warriors, most of whom were in church that morning. ‘And why aren’t you at church?’ I asked Willibald before he could answer my first question, ‘it’s a feast day, isn’t it?’
‘Saint Alnoth’s Day,’ he said as though that was a special treat, ‘but I wanted to find you!’ He sounded excited. ‘I have King Edward’s news for you. Every day is ordinary…’
‘Until it isn’t,’ I said brusquely.
‘Yes, lord,’ he said lamely, then frowned in puzzlement, ‘but what are you doing?’
‘I’m looking at sheep,’ I said, and that was true. I was looking at two hundred or more sheep that looked back at me and bleated pathetically.
Willibald turned to stare at the flock again. ‘Fine animals,’ he said as if he knew what he was talking about.
‘Just mutton and wool,’ I said, ‘and I’m choosing which ones live and which ones die.’ It was the killing time of the year, the grey days when our animals are slaughtered. We keep a few alive to breed in the spring, but most have to die because there is not enough fodder to keep whole flocks and herds alive through the winter. ‘Watch their backs,’ I told Willibald, ‘because the frost melts fastest off the fleece of the healthiest beasts. So those are the ones you keep alive.’ I lifted his woollen hat and ruffled his hair, which was going grey. ‘No frost on you,’ I said cheerfully, ‘otherwise I’d have to slit your throat.’ I pointed to a ewe with a broken horn, ‘Keep that one!’
‘Got her, lord,’ the shepherd answered. He was a gnarled little man with a beard that hid half his face. He growled at his two hounds to stay where they were, then ploughed into the flock and used his crook to haul out the ewe, then dragged her to the edge of the field and drove her to join the smaller flock at the meadow’s farther end. One of his hounds, a ragged and pelt-scarred beast, snapped at the ewe’s heels until the shepherd called the dog off. The shepherd did not need my help in selecting which animals should live and which must die. He had culled his flocks since he was a child, but a lord who orders his animals slaughtered owes them the small respect of taking some time with them.
‘The day of judgement,’ Willibald said, pulling his hat over his ears.
‘How many’s that?’ I asked the shepherd.
‘Jiggit and mumph, lord,’ he said.
‘Is that enough?’
‘It’s enough, lord.’
‘Kill the rest then,’ I said.
‘Jiggit and mumph?’ Willibald asked, still shivering.
‘Twenty and five,’ I said. ‘Yain, tain, tether, mether, mumph. It’s how shepherds count. I don’t know why. The world is full of mystery. I’m told some folk even believe that a three-day-old baby is a saint.’
‘God is not mocked, lord,’ Father Willibald said, attempting to be stern.
‘He is by me,’ I said, ‘so what does young Edward want?’
‘Oh, it’s most exciting,’ Willibald began enthusiastically, then checked because I had raised a hand.
The shepherd’s two dogs were growling. Both had flattened themselves and were facing south towards a wood. Sleet had begun to fall. I stared at the trees, but could see nothing threatening among the black winter branches or among the holly bushes. ‘Wolves?’ I asked the shepherd.
