and the evidence of his first marriage had been sent to my care.
‘God, you’re a fool,’ I said.
‘So the bishop tells me. Saint Cuthbert the Foolish? But I was a friend of Edward, and he begged me, and she was a delightful little thing. So pretty,’ he sighed.
‘She had nice breasts?’ I asked sarcastically.
‘They were like two young fawns, lord,’ he said earnestly.
I’m sure I gaped at him. ‘Two young fawns?’
‘The holy scriptures describe perfect breasts as being like two young fawns, lord. I have to say I’ve researched the matter thoroughly,’ he paused to consider what he had just said, then nodded approval, ‘very thoroughly! Yet still the similarity escapes me, and who am I to question the holy scriptures?’
‘And now,’ I said, ‘everyone is saying the marriage never happened.’
‘Which is why I can’t tell you that it did,’ Cuthbert said.
‘But it did,’ I said, and he nodded. ‘So the twin babies are legitimate,’ I went on, and he nodded again. ‘Didn’t you know Alfred would disapprove?’ I asked.
‘Edward wanted the marriage,’ he said simply and seriously.
‘And you’re sworn to silence?’
‘They threatened to send me to Frankia,’ he said, ‘to a monastery, but King Edward preferred I came to you.’
‘In hope that I’d kill you?’
‘In hope, lord, that you would protect me.’
‘Then for God’s sake don’t go around telling people that Edward was married.’
‘I shall keep silence,’ he promised, ‘I shall be Saint Cuthbert the Silent.’
The twins were with ?thelflaed, who was building her convent in Cirrenceastre, a town not far from my new estate. Cirrenceastre had been a great place when the Romans ruled in Britain and ?thelflaed lived in one of their houses, a fine building with large rooms enclosing a pillared courtyard. The house had once belonged to the older ?thelred, Ealdorman of Mercia and husband to my father’s sister, and I had known it as a child when I fled south from my other uncle’s usurpation of Bebbanburg. The older ?thelred had expanded it so that Saxon thatch was joined to Roman tile, but it was a comfortable house and well protected by Cirrenceastre’s walls. ?thelflaed had men pulling down some ruined Roman houses and was using the stone to make her convent. ‘Why bother?’ I asked her.
‘Because it was my father’s wish,’ she said, ‘and because I promised to do it. It will be dedicated to Saint Werburgh.’
‘She’s the woman who frightened the geese?’
‘Yes.’
?thelflaed’s household was loud with children. There was her own daughter, ?lfwynn, and my two youngest, Stiorra and Osbert. My oldest, Uhtred, was still at school in Wintanceaster from where he wrote me dutiful letters that I did not bother to read because I knew they were filled with tedious pieties. The youngest children at Cirrenceastre were Edward’s twins who were just babies. I remember looking at ?thelstan in his swaddling clothes and thinking that so many problems could be solved with one plunge of Serpent-Breath. I was right in that, but wrong too, and little ?thelstan would grow into a young man I loved. ‘You know he’s legitimate?’ I asked ?thelflaed.
‘Not according to Edward,’ she said tartly.
‘I have the priest who married them in my household,’ I told her.
‘Then tell him to keep his mouth shut,’ she said, ‘or he’ll be buried with it open.’
We were in Cirrenceastre, which lay not that far from Gleawecestre where ?thelred had his hall. He hated ?thelflaed, and I worried he would send men to capture her, then either simply kill her or immure her in a nunnery. She no longer had the protection of her father, and I doubted Edward frightened ?thelred nearly as much as Alfred had, but ?thelflaed dismissed my fears. ‘He might not be worried by Edward,’ she said, ‘but he’s terrified of you.’
‘Will he make himself King of Mercia?’ I asked.
She watched a mason chip at a Roman statue of an eagle. The poor man was attempting to make it look like a goose, and so far had only managed to make it resemble an indignant chicken. ‘He won’t,’ ?thelflaed said.
‘Why not?’
‘Too many powerful men in southern Mercia want Wessex’s protection,’ she said, ‘and ?thelred really is not interested in power.’
‘He’s not?’
‘Not now. He used to be. But he falls ill every few months and he fears death. He wants to fill what time he has with women.’ She gave me a very tart look. ‘He’s like you in some ways.’
‘Nonsense, woman,’ I said, ‘Sigunn is my housekeeper.’
‘Housekeeper,’ ?thelflaed said scornfully.
‘And terrified of you.’
She liked that and laughed, then she sighed as an unwise blow of the mason’s mallet knocked off the sad chicken’s beak. ‘All I asked for,’ she said, ‘was a statue of Werburgh and one goose.’
‘You want too much,’ I teased her.
‘I want what my father wanted,’ she said quietly, ‘England.’
In those days I was always surprised when I heard that name. I knew Mercia and Wessex, and I had been to East Anglia and reckoned Northumbria was my homeland, but England? It was a dream back then, a dream of Alfred’s, and now, after his death, that dream was as vague and faraway as ever. It seemed likely that if ever the four kingdoms were to be joined then they would be called Daneland rather than England, yet ?thelflaed and I shared Alfred’s dream. ‘Are we English?’ I asked her.
‘What else?’
‘I’m Northumbrian.’
‘You’re English,’ she said firmly, ‘and have a Danish bedwarmer.’ She prodded me hard in the ribs. ‘Tell Sigunn I wish her a good Christmas.’
I celebrated Yule with a feast at Fagranforda. We made a great wheel from timber, more than ten paces wide, and we wrapped it in straw and mounted it horizontally on an oak pillar and greased the spindle with fleece- oil so that the wheel could revolve. Then, after dark, we set fire to it. Men used rakes or spears to turn the wheel, which whirled about spewing sparks. My two youngest children were with me, and Stiorra held my hand and gazed wide-eyed at the huge burning wheel. ‘Why did you set fire to it?’ she asked.
‘It’s a sign to the gods,’ I said, ‘it tells them that we remember them, and it begs them to bring new life to the year.’
‘It’s a sign to Jesus?’ she asked, not quite comprehending.
‘Yes,’ I said, ‘and to the other gods.’
There was a cheer when the wheel collapsed and then men and women competed to jump over the flames. I held my two children in my arms and leaped with them, flying through the smoke and sparks. I watched those sparks fly into the cold night and I wondered how many other wheels were burning in the north where the Danes dreamed of Wessex.
Yet if they dreamed they did nothing about those dreams. That, of itself, was surprising. Alfred’s death, it seemed to me, should have been a signal to attack, but the Danes had no one leader to unite them. Sigurd was still sick, we heard Cnut was busy beating the Scots into submission, and Eohric did not know whether his loyalties were to the Christian south or to the Danish north and so did nothing. Haesten still lurked in Ceaster, but he was weak. ?thelwold remained in Eoferwic, but he was helpless to attack Wessex until Cnut allowed it and so we were left in peace, though I was sure that could not last.
I was tempted, so tempted, to go north and consult ?lfadell again, yet I knew that was stupid, and I knew it was not ?lfadell I wished to see, but Erce, that strange, silent beauty. I did not go, but I had news when Offa came to Fagranforda and I sat him in my new hall and piled the fire high to warm his old bones.
Offa was a Mercian who had once been a priest, but whose faith had weakened. He abandoned the
