'We know each other,' I said. ?thelwold was only a month or so younger than I, and he was fortunate, I suppose, that his Uncle Alfred was such a good Christian or else he could have expected a knife in the night. He was much better looking than Alfred, but foolish, flippant and usually drunk, though he appeared sober enough on that Sunday morning.
'I'm in charge of ?thelwold now,' Wulfhere said, 'and of you. And the king sent me to punish you.'
He brooded on that for a heartbeat. 'What his wife wants me to do,' he went on, 'is pull the guts out of your smelly arse and feed them to the pigs.' He glared at me. 'You know what the penalty is for drawing a sword in the king's presence?'
'A fine?' I guessed.
'Death, you fool, death. They made a new law last winter.’
'How was I supposed to know?'
'But Alfred's feeling merciful,' Wulfhere ignored my question. 'So you're not to dangle off a gallows.
Not today, anyhow. But he wants your assurance you'll keep the peace.'
'What peace?'
‘His damned peace, you fool. He wants us to fight the Danes, not slice each other up. So for the moment you have to swear to keep the peace.'
‘For the moment?'
'For the moment,' he said tonelessly, and I just shrugged. He took that for acceptance. 'So you killed Ubba?' he asked.
‘I did.'
'That's what I hear.' He sneezed again. 'You know Edor?'
'I know him,' I said. Edor was one of Ealdorman Odda's battle chiefs, a warrior of the men of Defnascir, and he had fought beside us at Cynuit.
'Edor told me what happened,' Wulfhere said, 'but only because he trusts me. For God's sake stop fidgeting!' This last shout was directed at ?thelwold who was poking beneath the altar's linen cover, presumably in search of something valuable. Alfred, rather than murder his nephew, seemed intent on boring him to death. ?thelwold had never been allowed to fight, lest he make a reputation for himself, instead he had been forced to learn his letters, which he hated, and so he idled his time away, hunting, drinking, whoring and filled with resentment that he was not the king. 'Just stand still, boy,' Wulfhere snarled.
'Edor told you,' I said, unable to keep the outrage from my voice, 'because he trusts you? You mean what happened at Cynuit is a secret? A thousand men saw me kill Ubba!'
'But Odda the Younger took the credit,' Wulfhere said, 'and his father is badly wounded and if he dies then Odda the Younger will become one of the richest men in Wessex, and he'll lead more troops and pay more priests than you can ever hope to do, so men won't want to offend him, will they? They'll pretend to believe him, to keep him generous. And the king already believes him, and why shouldn't he? Odda arrived here with Ubba Lothbrokson's banner and war axe. He dropped them at Alfred's feet, then knelt and gave the praise to God, and promised to build a church and monastery at Cynuit, and what did you do? Ride a damned horse into the middle of mass and wave your sword about. Not a clever thing to do with Alfred.'
I half smiled at that, for Wulfhere was right. Alfred was uncommonly pious, and a sure way to succeed in Wessex was to flatter that piety, imitate it and ascribe all good fortune to God.
'Odda's a prick,' Wulfhere growled, surprising me, 'but he's Alfred's prick now, and you're not going to change that.'
'But I killed ...'
'I know what you did!' Wulfhere interrupted me. 'And Alfred probably suspects you're telling the truth, but he believes Odda made it possible. He thinks Odda and you both fought Ubba. He may not even care if neither of you did, except that Ubba's dead and that's good news, and Odda brought that news and so the sun shines out of Odda's arse, and if you want the king's troops to hang you off a high branch then you'll make a feud with Odda. Do you understand me?'
'Yes.’
Wulfhere sighed. 'Leofric said you'd see sense if I beat you over the head long enough.'
'I want to see Leofric,' I said.
'You can't,' Wulfhere said sharply. 'He's being sent back to Hamtun where he belongs. But you're not going back. The fleet will be put in someone else's charge. You're to do penance.'
For a moment I thought I had misheard. 'I'm to do what?' I asked.
'You're to grovel.' ?thelwold spoke for the first time. He grinned at me. We were not exactly friends, but we had drunk together often enough and he seemed to like me. 'You're to dress like a girl,'
?thelwold continued, 'go on your knees and be humiliated.'
'And you're to do it right now,' Wulfhere added.
'I'll be damned ...'
'You'll be damned anyway,' Wulfhere snarled at me, then snatched the white bundle from ?thelwold's grasp and tossed it at my feet. It was a penitent's robe, and I left it on the ground.
'For God's sake, lad,' Wulfhere said, 'have some sense. You've got a wife and land here, don't you?
So what happens if you don't do the king's bidding? You want to be outlawed? You want your wife in a nunnery? You want the church to take your land?'
I stared at him. 'All I did was kill Ubba and tell the truth.'
Wulfhere sighed. 'You're a Northumbrian,' he said, 'and I don't know how they did things up there, but this is Alfred's Wessex. You can do anything in Wessex except piss all over his church, and that's what you just did. You pissed, son, and now the church is going to piss all over you.' He grimaced as the rain beat harder on the tent, then
