‘Your spears?’
‘Mine indeed! Didn’t Hywel tell you? If his land is attacked then we will defend it. I am making a Christian peace, an alliance of Christian nations against the pagan north, and war costs money.’
‘Yet your peace demands that the weak pay the strong. Shouldn’t you be paying Hywel to keep his own army strong?’
Æthelstan appeared to ignore that question. He paced on, frowning. ‘We are an island and an attack on one Christian kingdom is an attack on all. There has to be a leader, and God has decreed that we are the largest kingdom, the strongest, and so we will lead the defence against whatever pagans come to ravage the island.’
‘So if the Norse land in northern Alba,’ I suggested, ‘you will march to fight them?’
‘If Constantine cannot defeat them? Of course!’
‘So Hywel and Constantine are paying for their own protection?’
‘Why shouldn’t they?’
‘They didn’t ask for it,’ I said harshly, ‘you imposed it on them.’
‘Because they lack vision. This peace I’m forging is for their own good.’ He had led me to the low masonry walls where he sat, inviting me to join him. ‘In time they will understand that.’ He paused as if expecting an answer, but when I said nothing, he became agitated. ‘Why do you think I called this gathering in Burgham?’
‘I’ve no idea.’
‘This is Cumbria!’ He waved a hand glinting with jewel-studded rings. ‘This is Saxon land, our land, it was captured by our ancestors and for centuries it has been farmed by our people. There are churches and monasteries, roads and markets, yet in all Britain there isn’t a more lawless place! How many Norse live here now? How many Danes! Owain of Strath Clota claims it as his own, Constantine has even dared name a man to rule it! Yet what country is it? It is Northumbria!’ He stressed the last three words, slapping a stone as he said each one. ‘And what has Northumbria done to drive out the invaders? Nothing! Nothing! Nothing!’
‘I lost good men defeating Sköll Grimmarson at Heahburh,’ I said fiercely, ‘and there was no help from Mercia or Wessex then! Maybe because I hadn’t paid them?’
‘Lord, lord!’ he said soothingly. ‘No one doubts your courage. No one disputes the debt we owe you. Indeed I came to pay that debt.’
‘By invading Northumbria?’ I was still angry. ‘Something you swore not to do in my lifetime!’
‘And you swore to kill Æthelhelm the Elder,’ he said quietly, ‘and you didn’t. Other men did.’
I just stared at him. What he had said was true, but it was also outrageous. Æthelhelm died because I had defeated his men, slaughtered his champion, and put his troops to flight. Æthelstan had helped, of course, but he could only join the fight because I had held and given him Lundene’s Crepelgate.
‘An oath is an oath,’ he still spoke quietly, but with a firm authority. ‘You swore to kill a man, you didn’t, so the oath is invalid.’ He held up a hand to still my protest, ‘And it is decreed that an oath with a pagan has no force. Only oaths sworn on Christ and his saints can bind us.’ Again he held up his hand. ‘But I have still come to pay the debt I owe you.’
One man, even the Lord of Bebbanburg, cannot fight the army of three kingdoms. I felt betrayed, I was betrayed, but I managed to bite down on my anger. ‘The debt,’ I said.
‘In a moment, lord, in a moment.’ He stood and began pacing in the small space enclosed by the ruined walls. ‘Cumbria is lawless, you agree?’
‘It is.’
‘Yet it is a part of Northumbria, is it not?’
‘It is.’
‘And Northumbria is an Ænglisc kingdom, yes?’
I was still getting used to that word, just as I was becoming accustomed to the name Englaland. There were some who preferred Saxonland, but the West Saxons, who were leading the efforts to unite all speakers of the Ænglisc tongue preferred Englaland. It encompassed not just the Saxons, but those who were Angles or Jutes. We would no longer be Saxons or Angles, but Ænglisc.
‘Northumbria is Ænglisc,’ I admitted.
‘Yet now more men in Cumbria speak the northern tongues than speak our language!’
I hesitated, then shrugged. ‘A good number do.’
‘I went hawking three days ago, stopped to talk with a forester. Man spoke Norse! I could have been speaking Welsh for all he knew, and this in an Ænglisc country!’
‘His children will speak our tongue,’ I pointed out.
‘Damn his children! They’ll be raised pagan!’
I let that statement rest a moment, watching Æthelstan pace. He was mostly right. Northumbria had rarely exercised power over Cumbria, even though it was a part of the kingdom, and the Norse, seeing weakness, were landing on the coast and building steadings in the valleys. They paid no money to Eoferwic, and it was only the powerful burhs on the Mercian frontier that deterred them from raiding deep into Æthelstan’s land. And it was not just the Norse who sensed the weakness of Cumbria. Strath Clota, that lay on Cumbria’s northern border, dreamed of taking the land, as did Constantine.
As did Æthelstan. ‘If you dislike the Norse,’ I said, ‘and want Cumbria to be Ænglisc, then why keep Guthfrith as king in Eoferwic?’
‘You don’t like him.’
‘He’s a foul man.’
Æthelstan nodded, then sat again to face me. ‘My first duty, lord, is not to kill the Norse, though God knows I’ll slaughter every last one if it is His will. My first duty is to convert them.’ He paused, waiting for me to speak, but I said nothing. ‘My grandfather,’ he went on, ‘taught me that those who are Christ’s servants are neither Saxon nor Norse, neither Angle nor Dane, but live united in Christ. Look at Ingilmundr! Once a Norseman and a pagan, but now a Christian who renders service to me, his king.’
‘And one who met Anlaf Guthfrithson on the island of Mön,’ I put in harshly.
‘On my orders,’ Æthelstan retorted immediately, ‘and why not? I
