And that, I thought, was probably true. The West Saxon and East Anglian Witans, both firmly under Æthelhelm’s influence, would never vote to accept Æthelstan as a rival king in Mercia. They would claim all three kingdoms for Ælfweard.
‘So you don’t feel bound by the king’s last wishes?’ I asked.
‘Do you?’ Halldor asked belligerently.
‘He wasn’t my king,’ I said.
‘It is my belief,’ Halldor said, ‘that King Edward was of unsound mind when he dictated his will. So no, I do not feel bound by his final wishes.’
I agreed with Halldor that Edward had been a lackwit when he divided his kingdoms, but I was not going to admit that. ‘Where was King Æthelstan when his father died?’ I asked instead.
Halldor bridled at my calling Æthelstan a king, but managed to suppress his indignation. ‘I believe that Faeger Cnapa was still in Ceaster,’ he said coldly, ‘or maybe in Gleawecestre.’
‘Faeger Cnapa?’ I asked. He had said it as a name, but it means ‘pretty boy’. Faege, though, also means ‘doomed’. Whatever he meant it was plainly an insult.
Halldor looked at me coldly. ‘Men call him that.’
‘Why?’
‘Because he’s handsome?’ Halldor suggested.
His answer had been fatuous, but I let it pass. ‘And Æthelhelm?’ I asked. ‘Where is he now? Lundene?’
‘God, no,’ the priest answered with a shudder, earning a scowl from the tall Dane.
‘No?’ I asked, and again neither man replied so I touched the knife’s sharp tip onto the priest’s left cheek, just beneath the eye.
‘Mercian forces occupied Lundene,’ the priest said hurriedly. ‘We were lucky to escape unnoticed.’
Gerbruht shouted orders from Spearhafoc’s stern. We were leaving the Swalwan Creek, turning northwards, and the ship pounded into the first of the wide estuary’s larger waves. ‘Loosen that sheet!’ Gerbruht pointed to the windward sheet. ‘And haul in on that line!’ he pointed to the other sheet, and the sail turned to drive the boat north. The wind was freshening, the sea sparkled with reflected sunlight, and our white wake spread as we left Wessex behind and headed northwards. Father Aart, the priest who accompanied Eadgifu, suddenly lurched to the ship’s leeward rail and vomited. ‘There’s only once cure for seasickness, father!’ Gerbruht bellowed from the stern. ‘Sit under a tree!’
My men laughed at the old joke. They were happy because they were sailing north. North to home, north to safety. We would soon be in sight of the estuary’s further shore, the vast mud expanse where the East Saxons had settled. Then, if this wind held, we would sail up the East Anglian coast and so to the wilder shores of Bebbanburg.
Except Æthelstan’s men were in Lundene. For a few moments I was tempted to ignore that news. What did it matter to me if Æthelstan’s men had captured Lundene? I was going home to Bebbanburg, but Æthelstan’s forces were in Lundene?
‘You saw Æthelstan’s men?’ I asked the two prisoners.
‘We did,’ Halldor answered, ‘and they have no right to be there!’
‘Lundene is part of Mercia,’ I said.
‘Not since King Alfred’s day,’ the Dane insisted.
Which was probably true. Alfred had made certain that his West Saxon troops garrisoned Lundene and, despite Mercia’s legal claim to the city, it had been effectively ruled from Wintanceaster ever since. But Æthelstan had acted fast. Eadgifu had been right; he must have had troops north of the city, waiting for his orders, and those troops now separated Wessex from East Anglia. ‘Was there fighting?’ I asked.
‘None,’ Halldor sounded disappointed.
‘The garrison wasn’t strong, lord,’ the priest explained, ‘and the Mercians came suddenly and in great numbers. We were not expecting them.’
‘That was treachery!’ Halldor snarled.
‘Or cleverness,’ I said. ‘So where is Æthelhelm now?’
Both men shrugged. ‘He’s probably still in Wintanceaster, lord,’ Halldor said grudgingly.
That made sense. Wintanceaster was the capital of Wessex and in the heartland of Æthelhelm’s lavish estates. I had no doubt that Ælfweard was there too, hungry for the Witan to announce that he was truly king. Edward’s body, escorted by his own household troops, would be travelling south to Wintanceaster so he could be buried beside his father, and that funeral would assemble the West Saxon lords whose troops Æthelhelm would need. And Æthelstan, wherever he was, would be sending messengers to the Mercian lords demanding warriors to preserve his Mercian throne. In brief, both Æthelhelm and Æthelstan would be gathering the forces necessary to unpick Edward’s division of his kingdoms, but at least Æthelstan had shown forethought and sense in capturing Lundene before Æthelhelm could reinforce the city’s small garrison.
‘Is King Æthelstan in Lundene?’ I asked Halldor.
Again he grimaced at the word ‘king’, but made no comment on it. ‘I don’t know,’ he said.
‘But you’re quite sure his men are?’
He nodded unwillingly. By now the coast of East Seax was in sight, a low, dull brown streak of mud topped with a fringe of summer green. The few trees were small and wind-bent, the mud speckled with the white of seabirds. The tide would soon be ebbing, which made any landfall on that coast treacherous. We could be stranded on a falling tide for hours, yet I was determined to nose Spearhafoc into the shore. I pointed ahead. ‘That’s Fughelness,’ I told the two prisoners. ‘There’s little there except sand, mud, and birds. And soon you too, because I’m putting you ashore there.’ Fughelness was a bleak place, windswept and barren, locked in by tidal creeks, marshes and mudbanks. It would take Halldor and the priest the rest of the day to find a way to firmer ground, and then more time to work their way back to Wintanceaster if that was, indeed, where Æthelhelm was.
We lowered the sail as we neared the shore, and then, using a dozen oars, nosed our way gently through small breaking waves until Spearhafoc’s cutwater slid onto mud. ‘It would be easier to kill them,’ Awyrgan said as Berg, grinning, prodded the two captives off the bows towards the
