Sword of Kings. Bernard Cornwell

is my daughter-in-law, the daughter of my enemy, and sister to his son, who hates me as much as his father did. Her father, Æthelhelm the Elder, planned to make her a queen, to exchange her beauty for some throne in Christendom, but my son gained her first and she had lived at Bebbanburg ever since. To look at her was to think that no girl so wan, so pale and thin could survive the harsh winters and brutal winds of Northumbria, let alone the agonies of childbirth, yet Ælswyth had given me two grandsons and she alone in the fortress seemed immune to the aches, sneezes, shivers, and coughs that marked our winter months. She looked frail, but was as strong as steel. Her face, so lovely, lit with joy when she saw Wistan. She had a smile that could melt the heart of a beast, but Wistan did not smile back, instead he just gaped at her as if shocked.

      ‘Æthelwulf!’ Eadith exclaimed and went towards him with open arms.

      ‘Æthelwulf!’ I repeated, amused. The name meant ‘noble wolf’ and the young man who had called himself Wistan might look noble, yet he looked anything but wolflike.

      Æthelwulf blushed. He let Ælswyth embrace him, then looked at me sheepishly. ‘I am Æthelwulf,’ he admitted, and in a tone that suggested I should recognise the name.

      ‘My brother!’ Ælswyth said happily. ‘My youngest brother!’ It was then she saw Wasp-Sting on the stone floor and frowned, looking to me for an explanation.

      ‘Your brother,’ I said, ‘was sent to kill me.’

      ‘Kill you?’ Ælswyth sounded shocked.

      ‘In revenge for the way we treated you,’ I continued. ‘Weren’t you raped and forced into an unwanted marriage?’

      ‘No!’ she protested.

      ‘And all that,’ I said, ‘after I had murdered your father.’

      Ælswyth looked up into her brother’s face. ‘Our father died of the fever!’ she said fiercely, ‘I was with him through the whole illness. And no one raped me, no one forced me to marry. I love this place!’

      Poor Æthelwulf. He looked as if the foundations of his life had just been ripped away. He believed Ælswyth of course, how could he not? There was joy on her face and enthusiasm in her voice, while Æthelwulf looked as if he was about to cry.

      ‘Let’s go to bed,’ I said to Eadith, then turned to Ælswyth. ‘And you two can talk.’

      ‘We shall!’ Ælswyth said.

      ‘I’ll send a servant to show you where you can sleep,’ I told Æthelwulf, ‘but you do know you’re a prisoner here?’

      He nodded. ‘Yes, lord.’

      ‘An honoured prisoner,’ I said, ‘but if you try to leave the fortress, that will change.’

      ‘Yes, lord,’ he said again.

      I picked up Wasp-Sting, patted my prisoner on the shoulder, and went to bed. It had been a long day.

      So Æthelhelm the Younger had sent his youngest brother to kill me. He had equipped a fleet, and offered gold to the crew, and placed a rancid priest on the ships to inspire Æthelwulf with righteous anger. Æthelhelm knew it would be next to impossible to kill me while I stayed inside the fortress and knew too that he could not send sufficient men to ambush me on my lands without those men being discovered and slaughtered by Northumbria’s warriors, so he had been clever. He had sent men to ambush me at sea.

      Æthelwulf was the fleet’s leader, but Æthelhelm knew that his brother, though imbued with the family’s hatred for me, was not the most ruthless of men, and so he had sent Father Ceolnoth to fill Æthelwulf with holy stupidity, and he had also sent the man they called Edgar. Except that was not his real name. Æthelhelm had wanted no one to know of the fleet’s true allegiance, or to connect my death to his orders. He had hoped the blame would be placed on piracy, or on some passing Norse ship, and so he had commanded the leaders to use any name except their own. Æthelwulf had become Wistan, and I learned that Edgar was really Waormund.

      I knew Waormund. He was a huge West Saxon, a brutal man, with a slab face scarred from his right eyebrow to his lower left jaw. I remembered his eyes, dead as stone. In battle Waormund was a man you would want standing beside you because he was capable of terrible violence, but he was also a man who revelled in that savagery. A strong man, even taller than me, and implacable. He was a warrior, and, though you might want his help in a battle, no one but a fool would want Waormund as an enemy. ‘Why,’ I asked Æthelwulf the next morning, ‘was Waormund in your smallest ship?’

      ‘I ordered him into that ship, lord, because I wanted him gone! He’s not a Christian.’

      ‘He’s a pagan?’

      ‘He’s a beast. It was Waormund who tortured the captives. I tried to stop him.’

      ‘But Father Ceolnoth encouraged him?’

      ‘Yes.’ Æthelwulf nodded miserably. We were walking on Bebbanburg’s seaward ramparts. The sun glittered from an empty sea and a small wind brought the smell of seaweed and salt. ‘I tried to stop Waormund,’ Æthelwulf went on, ‘and he cursed me and he cursed God.’

      ‘He cursed your god?’ I asked, amused.

      Æthelwulf made the sign of the cross. ‘I said God would not forgive his cruelty, and he said God was far more cruel than man. So I ordered him into Hælubearn because I couldn’t abide his company.’

      I walked on a few paces. ‘I know your brother hates me,’ I said, ‘but why send you north to kill me? Why now?’

      ‘Because he knows you swore an oath to kill him,’ Æthelwulf said, and that answer shocked me. I had indeed sworn that oath, but I had thought it was a secret between Æthelstan and myself, yet Æthelhelm knew of that oath. How? No wonder Æthelhelm wanted me dead before I attempted to fulfil the oath.

      My sworn enemy’s brother looked at me nervously. ‘Is it true, lord?’

      ‘Yes,’ I said, ‘but not until King Edward dies.’

      Æthelwulf had flinched when I told him that brutal truth. ‘But why?’ he asked. ‘Why kill my brother?’

      ‘Did you ask your brother why he wanted to kill me?’ I retorted angrily. ‘Don’t answer, I know why. Because he believes I killed your father, and because I’m Uhtredærwe the Pagan, Uhtred the Priest-Killer.’

      ‘Yes, lord,’ he said in a low voice.

      ‘Your brother has tried to kill Æthelstan,’ I said, ‘and he’s tried to kill me, and you wonder why I want to kill him?’ He said nothing to that. ‘Tell me what happens when Edward dies?’ I asked harshly.

      ‘I pray he lives,’ Æthelwulf said, making the sign of the cross. ‘He was in Mercia when I left, lord, but had taken to his bed. The priests visited him.’

      ‘To give him the last rites?’

      ‘So they said, lord, but he’s recovered before.’

      ‘So what happens if he doesn’t recover?’

      He paused, unwilling to give the answer he knew I did not want to hear. ‘When he dies, lord,’ he made the sign of the cross again, ‘Ælfweard becomes King of Wessex.’

      ‘And Ælfweard is your nephew,’ I said, ‘and Ælfweard is a sparrow-witted piece of shit, but if he becomes king, your brother thinks he can control him, and he thinks he can rule Wessex through Ælfweard. There’s just one problem, isn’t there? That Æthelstan’s parents really were married, which means Æthelstan is no bastard, so when Edward dies there’ll be civil war. Saxon against Saxon, Christian against Christian, Ælfweard against Æthelstan. And long ago I swore an oath to protect Æthelstan. I sometimes wish I hadn’t.’

      He stopped in surprise. ‘You do, lord?’

      ‘Truly,’ I said, and explained no further. I drew him on, pacing the long rampart.