Part 9 (1/2)

”Steapa! Hold him!” Alfred called.

But Steapa liked me. He did move toward me, but slowly enough so that I reached the door where the royal guards made a halfhearted effort to bar my way, but a menacing growl from Finan drove their spears aside. He dragged me into the night. ”Now come,” he said, ”fast!”

We ran down the hill to the dark river.

And behind us was a dead monk and uproar.

PART TWO.

VIKING.

ONE.

I stayed furious, unrepentant, pacing the large room beside the river where servants, cowed to silence by my rage, revived the fire. It is strange how news spreads in a city. Within minutes a crowd had gathered outside the house to see how the night would end. The folk were silent, just watching. Finan had barred the outer doors and ordered torches lit in the courtyard. Rain hissed in the flames and slicked the paving stones. Most of my men lived close by and they came one by one, some of them drunk, and Finan or Cerdic met them at the outer door and sent them to fetch their mail and weapons. ”Are you expecting a fight?” I asked Finan.

”They're warriors,” he said simply.

He was right, so I put on my own mail. I dressed as a warlord. I dressed for battle, with gold on my arms and both swords at my waist, and it was just after I had buckled the belt that Alfred's emissary arrived.

The emissary was Father Beocca. My old friend came alone, his priest's robes muddy from the streets and wet from the rain. He was s.h.i.+vering and I put a stool beside the central hearth and draped a fur cloak about his shoulders. He sat, then held his good hand toward the flames. Finan had escorted him from the front gate and he stayed. I saw that Skade, too, had crept into a shadowed corner. I caught her eye and gave a curt nod that she could remain.

”You've looked under the floor?” Father Beocca said suddenly.

”Under the floor?”

”The Romans,” he said, ”would heat this house with a furnace that vented its heat into the s.p.a.ce under the floor.”

”I know.”

”And we hack holes in their roofs and make hearths,” he said sadly.

”You'll make yourself ill if you insist on walking about on cold, wet nights,” I said.

”Of course a lot of those floors have collapsed,” Beocca said as if it was a very important point he needed to make. He rapped the tiles with the stick he now used to help himself walk. ”Yours seems in good repair, though.”

”I like a hearth.”

”A hearth is comforting,” Beocca said. He turned his good eye to me and smiled. ”The monastery at aescengum cleverly managed to flood the s.p.a.ce under their floor with sewage, and the only solution was to pull the whole house down and build anew! It was a blessing, really.”

”A blessing?”

”They found some gold coins among the t.u.r.ds,” he said, ”so I suspect G.o.d directed their effluent, don't you?”

”My G.o.ds have better things to do than worry about s.h.i.+t.”

”That's why you've never found gold among your t.u.r.ds!” Beocca said and started laughing. ”There, Uhtred,” he said triumphantly, ”I have at last proved my G.o.d is mightier than your false idols!” He smiled at me, but the smile slowly faded so that he looked old and tired again. I loved Beocca. He had been my childhood tutor and he was always exasperating and pedantic, but he was a good man. ”You have until dawn,” he said.

”To do what?”

He spoke tiredly, as if he despaired of what he told me. ”You will go to the king in penitence,” he said, ”without mail or weapons. You will abase yourself. You will hand the witch to the king. All the land you hold in Wess.e.x is forfeited. You will pay a wergild to the church for the life of Brother G.o.dwin, and your children will be held hostages against that payment.”

Silence.

Sparks whirled upward. A couple of my wolfhounds came into the room. One smelled Beocca's robes, whined, and then both settled by the fire, their doleful eyes looking at me for a moment before closing.

”The wergild,” Finan asked for me, ”how much?”

”One thousand and five hundred s.h.i.+llings,” Beocca said.

I sneered. ”For a mad monk?”

”For a saint,” Beocca said.

”A mad fool,” I snarled.

”A holy fool,” Beocca said mildly.

The wergild is the price we pay for death. If I am judged guilty of unjustly killing a man or woman I must pay their kin a price, that price depending on their rank, and that is fair, but Alfred had set G.o.dwin's wergild at almost a royal level. ”To pay that,” I said, ”I'd have to sell almost everything I own, and the king has just taken all my land.”

”And you must also swear an oath of loyalty to the etheling,” Beocca said. He usually became exasperated with me and would splutter as his exasperation grew, but that night he was very calm.

”So the king would impoverish me,” I asked, ”and tie me to his son?”

”And he will return the sorceress to her husband,” Beocca said, looking at the black-cloaked Skade, whose eyes glittered from the room's darkest corner. ”Skirnir has offered a reward for her return.”

”Skirnir?” I asked. The name was unfamiliar to me.

”Skirnir is her husband,” Beocca said. ”A Frisian.”

I looked at Skade who nodded abruptly.

”If you return her,” I said, ”she dies.”

”Does that concern you?” Beocca asked.

”I don't like killing women.”

”The law of Moses tells us we should not allow a witch to live,” Beocca said. ”Besides, she is an adulterer, so her husband has the G.o.d-given right to kill her if that is his wish.”

”Is Skirnir a Christian?” I asked, but neither Skade nor Father Beocca answered. ”Will he kill you?” I asked Skade and she just nodded. ”So,” I turned back to Beocca, ”until I pay the wergild, make my oath to Edward, and send Skade to her death, my children are hostages?”

”The king has decreed that your children will be cared for in the Lady aethelflaed's household,” Beocca answered. He looked me up and down with his good eye. ”Why are you dressed for war?” I made no answer and Beocca shrugged. ”Did you think the king would send his guards?”

”I thought he might.”

”And you would have fought them?” He sounded shocked.