The Pagan Lord. Bernard Cornwell

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      And there she was, Æthelflaed herself, and the angry murmur of the rabble died away as she rode slowly to face them. She was mounted on a white mare, wore a white cloak, and had a circlet of silver about her pale hair. She looked like a queen, and she was the daughter of a king, and she was loved in Mercia. Bishop Wulfheard, recognising her, spurred to her side where he spoke low and urgently, but she ignored him. She ignored me too, facing the crowd and straightening in her saddle. For a while she said nothing. The flames of the burning buildings flickered reflections from the silver she wore in her hair and about her neck and on her slim wrists. I could not see her face, but I knew that face so well, and knew it would be icy stern. ‘You will leave,’ she said almost casually. A growl sounded and she repeated the command in a louder voice. ‘You will leave!’ She waited until there was silence. ‘The priests here, the monks here, will lead you away. Those of you who have come far will need shelter and food, and you will find both in Cirrenceastre. Now go!’ She turned her horse and Bishop Wulfheard turned after her. I saw him plead with her, and then she raised a hand. ‘Who commands here, bishop,’ she demanded, ‘you or I?’ There was such a challenge in those words.

      Æthelflaed did not rule in Mercia. Her husband was the Lord of Mercia and, if he had possessed a pair of balls, might have called himself king of this land, but he had become the thrall of Wessex. His survival depended on the help of West Saxon warriors, and those only helped him because he had taken Æthelflaed as his wife and she was the daughter of Alfred, who had been the greatest of the West Saxon kings, and she was also the sister of Edward, who now ruled in Wessex. Æthelred hated his wife, yet needed her, and he hated me because he knew I was her lover, and Bishop Wulfheard knew it too. He had stiffened at her challenge, then glanced towards me, and I knew he was half tempted to meet her challenge and try to reimpose his mastery over the vengeful crowd, but Æthelflaed had calmed them. She did rule here. She ruled because she was loved in Mercia, and the folk who had burned my steading did not want to offend her. The bishop did not care. ‘The Lord Uhtred,’ he began and was summarily interrupted.

      ‘The Lord Uhtred,’ Æthelflaed spoke loudly so that as many folk as possible could hear her, ‘is a fool. He has offended God and man. He is declared outcast! But there will be no bloodshed here! Enough blood has been spilled and there will be no more. Now go!’ Those last two words were addressed to the bishop, but she glanced at the crowd and gestured that they should leave too.

      And they went. The presence of Æthelflaed’s warriors was persuasive, of course, but it had been her confidence and authority that overrode the rabid priests and monks who had encouraged the crowd to destroy my estate. They drifted away, leaving the flames to light the night. Only my men remained, and those men who were sworn to Æthelflaed, and she turned towards me at last and stared at me with anger. ‘You fool,’ she said.

      I said nothing. I was sitting in the saddle, gazing at the fires, my mind as bleak as the northern moors. I suddenly thought of Bebbanburg, caught between the wild northern sea and the high bare hills.

      ‘Abbot Wihtred was a good man,’ Æthelflaed said, ‘a man who looked after the poor, who fed the hungry and clothed the naked.’

      ‘He attacked me,’ I said.

      ‘And you are a warrior! The great Uhtred! And he was a monk!’ She made the sign of the cross. ‘He came from Northumbria, from your country, where the Danes persecuted him, but he kept the faith! He stayed true despite all the scorn and hatred of the pagans, only to die at your hands!’

      ‘I didn’t mean to kill him,’ I said.

      ‘But you did! And why? Because your son becomes a priest?’

      ‘He is not my son.’

      ‘You big fool! He is your son and you should be proud of him.’

      ‘He is not my son,’ I said stubbornly.

      ‘And now he’s the son of nothing,’ she spat. ‘You’ve always had enemies in Mercia, and now they’ve won. Look at it!’ She gestured angrily at the burning buildings. ‘Æthelred will send men to capture you, and the Christians want you dead.’

      ‘Your husband won’t dare attack me,’ I said.

      ‘Oh he’ll dare! He has a new woman. She wants me dead, and you dead too. She wants to be Queen of Mercia.’

      I grunted, but stayed silent. Æthelflaed spoke the truth, of course. Her husband, who hated her and hated me, had found a lover called Eadith, a thegn’s daughter from southern Mercia, and rumour said she was as ambitious as she was beautiful. She had a brother named Eardwulf who had become the commander of Æthelred’s household warriors, and Eardwulf was as capable as his sister was ambitious. A band of hungry Welshmen had ravaged the western frontier and Eardwulf had hunted them, trapped them, and destroyed them. A clever man, I had heard, thirty years younger than me, and brother to an ambitious woman who wanted to be a queen.

      ‘The Christians have won,’ Æthelflaed told me.

      ‘You’re a Christian.’

      She ignored that. Instead she just gazed blankly at the fires, then shook her head wearily. ‘We’ve had peace these last years.’

      ‘That’s not my fault,’ I said angrily. ‘I asked for men again and again. We should have captured Ceaster and killed Haesten and driven Cnut out of northern Mercia. It isn’t peace! There won’t be peace till the Danes are gone.’

      ‘But we do have peace,’ she insisted, ‘and the Christians don’t need you when there’s peace. If there’s war then all they want is Uhtred of Bebbanburg fighting for them, but now? Now we’re at peace? They don’t need you now, and they’ve always wanted to be rid of you. So what do you do? You slaughter one of the holiest men in Mercia!’

      ‘Holy?’ I sneered. ‘He was a stupid man who picked a fight.’

      ‘And the fight he picked was your fight!’ she said forcibly. ‘Abbot Wihtred was the man preaching about Saint Oswald! Wihtred had the vision! And you killed him!’

      I said nothing to that. There was a holy madness adrift in Saxon Britain, a belief that if Saint Oswald’s body could be discovered then the Saxons would be reunited, meaning that those Saxons under Danish rule would suddenly become free. Northumbria, East Anglia and northern Mercia would be purged of Danish pagans, and all because a dismembered saint who had died almost three hundred years in the past would have his various body parts stitched together. I knew all about Saint Oswald: he had once ruled in Bebbanburg, and my uncle, the treacherous Ælfric, possessed one of the dead man’s arms. I had escorted the saint’s head to safety years before, and the rest of him was supposed to be buried at a monastery somewhere in southern Northumbria.

      ‘Wihtred wanted what you want,’ Æthelflaed said angrily, ‘he wanted a Saxon ruler in Northumbria!’

      ‘I didn’t mean to kill him,’ I said, ‘and I’m sorry.’

      ‘You should be sorry! If you stay here there’ll be two hundred spearmen coming to take you to judgement.’

      ‘I’ll fight them.’

      She scorned that with a laugh. ‘With what?’

      ‘You and I have more than two hundred men,’ I said.

      ‘You’re more than a fool if you think I’ll tell my men to fight other Mercians.’

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