who almost fell from his horse in terror of meeting such an exalted prince.
Father Heahberht was our guide. I had asked him where there might be ships, and he had said that he had seen two trading ships being hauled from a river to the north less than a week before. “They aren’t far away, lord,” he had told me. He said the ships belonged to a Danish trader and had been beached for repairs. “But they may not be seaworthy, lord,” he added nervously.
“It doesn’t matter,” I said, “just take us there.”
It was a warm, sun-kissed day. We rode through good farmland that Father Heahberht said belonged to a man called Thorstein who had ridden with Haesten into Mercia. Thorstein had done well for himself. His land was well watered, had fine woodlands and healthy orchards. “Where’s his hall?” I asked Heahberht.
“We’re going there, lord.”
“Is this Thorstein a Christian?” Edward wanted to know.
“He says so, lord,” Heahberht stammered, blushing. He obviously wanted to say more, but fear meant he could not find the words and he just gazed slack-jawed at the ?theling. Edward waved the priest ahead of us, but the poor man had no idea how to quicken his horse so Osferth leaned over to take his bridle. They trotted ahead with Heahberht gripping the saddle’s pommel for dear life.
Edward grimaced. “A country priest,” he said dismissively.
“They do more harm than good,” Coenwulf said. “One of our duties, lord, will be to educate the country clergy.”
“He wears the short tunic!” Edward observed knowingly. The Pope himself had ordered priests to wear full- length robes, a command Alfred had enthusiastically endorsed.
“Father Heahberht,” I said, “is a clever man, and a good one. But he’s frightened of you.”
“Of me!” Edward asked, “why?”
“Because he’s a peasant,” I said, “but a peasant who learned to read. Can you even imagine how hard it was for him to become a priest? And all his life he’s been pissed on by thegns. So of course he’s scared of you. And he wears a short robe because he can’t afford a long one, and because he lives in mud and shit, and short robes don’t get as filthy as long ones. So how would you feel if you were a peasant who meets a man who might one day be King of Wessex?”
Edward said nothing, but Father Coenwulf pounced. “Might?” he demanded indignantly.
“Might indeed,” I said airily. I was goading them, reminding Edward that he had a cousin, ?thelwold, who had more right to the throne than Edward himself, though ?thelwold, Alfred’s nephew, was a poor excuse of a man.
My words silenced Edward for a while, but Father Coenwulf was made of sterner stuff. “I was surprised, lord,” he broke the silence, “to discover the Lady ?thelfl?d here.”
“Surprised?” I asked, “why? She’s an adventurous lady.”
“Her place,” Father Coenwulf said, “is with her husband. My lord the ?theling will agree with me, is that not so, lord?”
I glanced at Edward and saw him redden. “She should not be here,” he forced himself to say and I almost laughed aloud. I realized now why he had ridden with us. He was not much interested in seeing a few miles of East Anglia, instead he had come to carry out his father’s instructions, and those instructions were to persuade ?thelfl?d to her duty. “Why tell me?” I asked the pair.
“You have influence over the lady,” Father Coenwulf said grimly.
We had crossed a watershed and were riding down a long and gentle slope. The path was edged with coppiced willows and there were glimpses of water far ahead, silver sheens bright beneath the pale sky. “So,” I ignored Coenwulf and looked at Edward, “your father sent you to reprove your sister?”
“It is a Christian duty to remind her of her responsibilities,” he answered very stiffly.
“I hear he is recovered from his illness,” I said.
“For which God be praised,” Coenwulf put in.
“Amen,” Edward said.
But Alfred could not live long. He was already an old man, well past forty years, and now he was looking to the future. He was doing what he always did, arranging things, tidying things, trying to impose order on a kingdom beset by enemies. He believed his baleful god would punish Wessex if it were not a godly kingdom, and so he was trying to force ?thelfl?d back to her husband, or else, I guessed, to a nunnery. There could be no visible sin in Alfred’s family, and that thought inspired me. I looked at Edward again. “Do you know Osferth?” I asked cheerfully. He blushed at that and Father Coenwulf glared as if warning me to take that subject no further. “You haven’t met?” I asked Edward in pretended innocence, then called to Osferth. “Wait for us!”
Father Coenwulf tried to turn Edward’s horse away, but I caught hold of the bridle and forced the ?theling to catch up with his half-brother. “Tell me,” I said to Osferth, “how you would make the Mercians fight.”
Osferth frowned at the question, wondering just what lay behind it. He glanced at Edward, but did not acknowledge his half-brother, though the resemblance between them was startling. They both had Alfred’s long face, hollow cheeks, and thin lips. Osferth’s face was harder, but he had lived harder too. His father, ashamed of his own bastard, had tried to make Osferth a priest, but Osferth had turned himself into a warrior, a trade to which he brought his father’s intelligence. “The Mercians can fight as well as anyone,” Osferth said cautiously. He knew I was playing some game and was trying to detect it and so, unseen by either Edward or Coenwulf who both rode on my left, I cupped a hand to indicate a breast and Osferth, despite having inherited his father’s almost complete lack of humor, had to resist an amused smile. “They need leadership,” he said confidently.
“Then we thank God for the Lord ?thelred,” Father Coenwulf said, refusing to look directly at Osferth.
“The Lord ?thelred,” I said savagely, “couldn’t lead a wet whore to a dry bed.”
“But the Lady ?thelfl?d is much loved in Mercia,” Osferth said, now playing his part to perfection. “We saw that at Fearnhamme. It was the Lady ?thelfl?d who inspired the Mercians.”
“You’ll need the Mercians,” I told Edward. “If you become king,” I went on, stressing the “if” to keep him unbalanced, “the Mercians will protect your northern frontier. And the Mercians don’t love Wessex. They may fight for you, but they don’t love you. They were a proud country once, and they don’t like being told what to do by Wessex. But they do love one West Saxon. And you’d shut her up in a convent?”
“She is a married…” Father Coenwulf began.
“Oh, shut your mouth,” I snapped at him. “Your king used his daughter to bring me south, and here I am, and I’ll stay here so long as ?thelfl?d asks. But don’t think I’m here for you, or for your god, or for your king. If you have plans for ?thelfl?d then you had better count me as a part of them.”
Edward was too embarrassed to meet my eyes. Father Coenwulf was angry, but dared not speak, while Osferth grinned at me. Father Heahberht had listened to the conversation with a shocked expression, but now found his timid voice. “The hall is that way, lords,” he said, pointing, and we turned down a track rutted by cart wheels and I saw a reed-thatched roof showing between some heavy-leaved elm trees. I kicked ahead of Edward, to see that Thorstein’s home was built on a low ridge above the river. There was a village beyond the hall, its small houses straggling along the bank where dozens of fires smoked. “They dry herring here?” I asked the priest.
“And they make salt, lord.”
“Is there a palisade?”
“Yes, lord.”
The palisade was unmanned and the gates lay open. Thorstein had taken his warriors with Haesten, leaving only a handful of older men to protect his family and lands, and those men knew better than to put up a fight they must lose. Instead a steward welcomed us with a bowl of water. Thorstein’s gray-haired wife watched from the hall door, but when I turned to her she stepped back into the shadows and the door slammed shut.
The palisade enclosed the hall, three barns, a cattle shed, and a pair of elm-timbered slipways where the two ships had been hauled high above the tideline. They were trading ships, their fat bellies patched pale where carpenters were nailing new oak strakes. “Your master is a shipbuilder?” I asked the steward.
“They’ve always built ships here, lord,” he said humbly, meaning that Thorstein had stolen the shipyard from a Saxon.
I turned on Osferth. “Make sure the women aren’t molested,” I ordered, “and find a wagon and draft horses.” I looked back to the steward. “We need ale and food.”
“Yes, lord.”
There was a long low building beside the slipways and I went to it. Sparrows quarreled beneath the thatch.
