The Bone Thief Read online

  Wulfgar found himself sitting up.

  ‘You mean, you go to Leicester? Often?’ He could hear the echo of the Atheling’s voice: Find Hakon Grimsson in Leicester …

  His host offered him a sideways glance.

  ‘How much do I admit to a servant of the Lady’s?’

  ‘I’ve eaten your bread,’ Wulfgar protested.

  ‘And, clarnet that I am, I already told you we trade across Watling Street. With what’s left to us after we’ve paid our taxes south. In good English coin that gets harder to find every year.’ His eyes flared with anger then. ‘I’m as loyal as the next man, mind on. But you tell them south that squeezing us dry here on the border and never letting us have sight of them is no way to wield men’s loyalties. What do they expect me to do next time raiders come? Run to Gloucester, with mother on my back?’ His tone had curdled. ‘How much longer do I keep faith with a Lord I never see? You tell him that.’ He pushed the mead jug across the table to his guest and sat back, arms folded.

  ‘I’ll tell him,’ Wulfgar said, sorry for the way the talk had gone, his head hurting more than ever now. He wondered if he would ever have the chance to speak with the Lord of the Mercians again. ‘Taxes are even higher in Wessex, you know.’ Oh, this headache. He reached unthinking for the mead-jug and his elbow jogged his cup off the table to smash on the cobbles. ‘Oh, no!’

  It lay under the bench in half a dozen pieces.

  ‘Heremod, I’m so sorry.’ He bent to pick up the larger fragments. Far beyond mending. ‘I’d just been thinking how lovely it was, and what an honour that you should bring these out for us.’ He held the biggest shard up to the last long rays of sunlight, looking at the way the light penetrated the glaze. ‘We’ve nothing so fine at court. The Lady has a fondness for Frankish glass, but—’

  However, to Wulfgar’s astonishment, Heremod dismissed his apology with a wave of his hand.

  ‘We trade for them in Leicester. We’ve enough and to spare.’ As though to prove the truth of his words, a slave-girl had already come forward with a replacement, just as prettily glazed, and Heremod’s mother then filled it with mead that Wulfgar didn’t really want, not now. Heremod leaned forward, a light in his eyes. ‘Do you think folk in Worcester, or Gloucester, would take a fancy to them?’ he asked. ‘I can get you plenty. I’ll show you.’ He dismissed the girl to fetch some more cups with a pat to her rump.

  ‘Winchester, even,’ Wulfgar said, nodding. ‘My mother would have loved these.’ An idea was beginning to glimmer through the fog of his headache. ‘Do you know a man in Leicester called Hakon Grimsson?’

  Heremod whistled softly.

  ‘Hakon Toad? Our – their jarl, you mean? You don’t mess about, do you?’ His face was shuttered, cautious, now. ‘If you want a share of the pottery trade, or anything else in Leicester, you’ll have to deal with the Grimssons sooner rather than later. But a bit lower down the ladder might be a happier place to start.’

  ‘I’m sure you’re right,’ Wulfgar said. ‘I’d heard the name, that’s all.’ He tried to settle his aching rump more comfortably but the bench was too hard.

  Heremod looked down at his fingernails, and then up at Wulfgar.

  ‘The Grimssons are old Great Army men. Brothers. Hakon Toad – he’s the elder, the Jarl. Ketil Scar, he’s the little brother, and a much nastier piece of work. The last I heard from Leicester, a fortnight back, is that Hakon had taken sick. But he runs as tight a ship in Leicester as he ever did.’

  Toad? Scar? Hardly reassuring eke-names.

  ‘Are they heathens?’

  Heremod had the grace to turn his laugh into a cough.

  ‘Hakon’s been baptised. Rumour has it Ketil, too. And Hakon shows his ugly face at church from time to time. Or so I hear. But I wouldn’t count on them keeping those promises, or any others.’

  Drops of mead were drying, sticky, sunlit, on the cobbles among the shattered fragments of the yellow cup, but the wind had sharp teeth.

  Wulfgar had an unsettling vision of a little snarling animal, nipping at his nape. A stoat, maybe. A polecat … He pulled his cloak more snugly around his shoulders. It kept the chill wind at bay but not the fears which were racking him.

  Why would an Atheling of Wessex call a man like Hakon Grimsson his friend? How could he? He can hardly have forgotten what the Great Army did to Wessex. I don’t remember, Wulfgar thought, as it was around the time I was born. But the Atheling was – what – seven when Wareham was sacked? And then Exeter, and Chippenham a couple of years later. Rochester, too, I think. And I know he fought in the battle of Farnham, everyone knows that.

  Heremod leaned forward suddenly, elbows on the table, and looked him hard in the eye.

  ‘Wulfgar, you tell your Lady and her Lord this. I’m as loyal a Mercian as I can be. But I won’t look to Wessex for lordship. And I’m not alone.’

  ‘You mean …’

  Heremod shook his head, but Wulfgar could hear his unspoken words. If Wessex takes Mercia, men like me will turn to the Danes for protection. He closed his eyes. And where is that going to leave the Lady? Unsupported. Defenceless. Unwanted. An embarrassment to her brother.

  He knew the most likely outcome.

  The nunnery in Winchester.

  Or the knife in the dark.

  It’s happened often enough before, Heaven knows. Men are ruthless to superfluous queens. He pressed the damp linen pad against his temple. St Oswald, dear St Oswald, come to her aid, he prayed silently. You’re in this with us. You need her alive and well and on your side. Pray for her. For me. For all of us.

  The girl had brought out half a dozen more cups for him to look at – orange, and pale, creamy yellow, sage green and smoky blue – and was now engaged in sweeping up the broken shards.

  ‘I need to think about it,’ Heremod said, defensively. ‘Giving you a name in Leicester, I mean. I’ve got to look after my own interests, after all.’ His sweeping gesture took in the scorched timbers of his handsome hall, the raw wood of his fortifications, the outbuildings, the bustling slaves’ quarters, the stables and chicken house where a girl scattered grain, and the sheep-dotted fields beyond, noisy with the call and response of lambs and their mothers, all yellow where the long evening light was still slanting in under the gathering slate clouds. ‘I don’t go looking for trouble, you know. When I was a lad our land was smack in the middle of Mercia. Now we live on the edge.’

  Later that night, huddled in his cloak by the banked fire in the hall, Wulfgar, on the brink of sleep, mulled over Heremod’s bitter words. Loyalty, he thought. Loyalty is everything. But loyalty to what? Why should men like Heremod stay loyal, pay their taxes and renders, send men to the army, keep the roads and bridges in good repair, if they get nothing in return? He shifted restlessly. Especially if this Hakon has been baptised, and gives fair judgments in his court. He may be just as good a lord, in his way. Perhaps, he told himself, it’s not so strange that the Atheling should be reconciled with a Great Army warlord. The old King made peace with some of them, after all. Stood godfather to one, even. He yawned, and tried to settle himself on his other side. The headache was almost gone.

  His last conscious thought was, if Hakon’s been baptised, there must still be a priest in Leicester. And, if there’s a priest, perhaps I can go to Mass on Easter Sunday after all.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  Holy Saturday

  A STEADY DRIZZLE of rain was coming down from the north east when they set off. Heremod had said nothing more about Leicester while they were breaking their fast around the fire, and Wulfgar had been wondering whether to ask again. But at the last moment, after the formal leave-taking, he came up to Wulfgar’s stirrup and spoke in a rapid mutter.

  ‘You should go to the Wave-Serpent. Ask for Gunnar, that folk call Cat’s-Eyes.’

  Wulfgar could hardly hear him for his old mother, waving and beaming from the doorway of the hall. ‘Come back this way, my lovely boy!’ she screeched at Ednoth. ‘We’ll kill a pig for you!’


  Heremod backed away, slapping Fallow on her shaggy rump to get her going.

  ‘Yes, come back this way,’ he said, not meeting Wulfgar’s eyes. ‘Always welcome under my roof.’

  ‘What was that about?’ Ednoth asked, as they rode out through the gates. ‘Your black eye’s coming up nicely, by the way.’

  Wulfgar stroked the puffy skin around his eye, wincing as he did so. ‘It is a little tender,’ he admitted. What had Ednoth asked? ‘Oh, Heremod suggested someone to whom we could speak in Leicester. I thought we could plausibly claim to be interested in buying pottery to trade south, like the ware Heremod had on his table. He recommended a man called Gunnar, at the Wave-Serpent – that sounds like an ale-house. And the man’s a Dane, by his name.’

  But Ednoth seemed to have stopped listening several sentences earlier.

  ‘Did you say pottery trading?’

  ‘It’s very nice pottery.’

  ‘But I’m not a merchant.’ This seemed to have touched Ednoth on a tender spot.

  ‘No, of course not.’ Wulfgar tried to mollify him. ‘You’re a sheep farmer.’

  ‘I am not! I’m a warrior, or I will be. And I refuse to peddle pots and jugs.’

  Wulfgar took a deep breath. Keep your temper, he thought, and I’ll keep mine. ‘But it gives us an excuse for being the far side of Watling Street.’

  Ednoth exhaled in frustration.

  ‘We’re running from every fight, we’re not allowed to tell anyone what we’re doing, and now we’re pretending to be pottery—’

  ‘Ednoth, we’re a long way from home, and people are suspicious enough of strangers at the best of times.’ He winced at the pleading note in his own voice and tried to speak more firmly. ‘We need a reason to be this far east. That’s all. We don’t want to run any risks, or attract unwanted attention.’

  ‘I want to fight for the Lady.’

  Wulfgar, his temper shortened by his headache and a troubled night, shifted round in his saddle to face the boy.

  ‘Ednoth, you are a penitent on a pilgrimage. Try behaving like one. You nearly got us into very serious trouble at Offchurch, not just me but everyone at the feast, including your pink-cheeked little shepherdess. What would have happened to her if things had turned nasty? Think of that for a moment.’ He turned to look ahead again, basking in the unfamiliar and satisfying pleasure of being in the right and having asserted himself.

  Ednoth was silent.

  The rain was getting heavier again, and colder, and the wind was rising. Wulfgar stole a glance at Ednoth.

  The boy was huddled under his cloak, shoulders hunched and lips tight.

  Wulfgar sighed, wrapping his own cloak more tightly around his shoulders, and stared between Fallow’s ears. The wind and chilly rain were full in their faces; the valiant little horses put their heads down and plodded on.

  If the legions of Rome had ever laid their stone road along here, or Mercian lads on military service had hacked these brambles back within living memory, there was no sign of it. The going was sticky mud that sucked at the horses’ hooves, and Wulfgar found it hard work even to hold Fallow steady through the dense tangles of fresh green brambles and briars.

  In stark contrast to yesterday they had encountered no other travellers for several miles now, nor passed any inhabited dwellings. This was abandoned land: pasture and plough-land gone back to scrub and weed; the coppices overgrown; the homesteads deserted, their roofs fallen. There were no children herding or playing, no women scrubbing clothes in the streams, no men toiling at the spring sowing. Wulfgar was no farmer, but he could feel the sadness of all this once-good grazing and arable, now inhabited by the brittle ghosts of last year’s docks and nettles. Holy Saturday, he thought. Hell is being harrowed. The infernal gates are being broken down, and the patriarchs, the virtuous pagans, the parents of us all, are being set free. But oh, Queen of Heaven, while your Son is liberating Hell, He is absent from this middle-earth of ours, and it feels very empty.

  By the time evening had started to draw in, Wulfgar was chilled to the marrow, hands, feet and face numb. Earlier fears of another ambush by Garmund and his men had long been drowned by a more general misery. The greasy felt of his cloak was soaked and stinking like a wet hound. It would take days by a good fire to get it dry, and he could see no prospect of that. Despite their day of dogged riding, they hadn’t reached Leicester. They hadn’t even reached Watling Street yet.

  The horses were exhausted, too; they had barely stopped all day and now they were mud-spattered up to their flanks, dragging their feet, heads down, pulling at the reins and trying to graze at every patch of grass. Wulfgar wondered if Fallow were picking up his own reluctance: the closer they got to the border, the sicker he felt.

  Finally, he broke the sulky silence that had endured the whole day.

  ‘We won’t make Leicester tonight.’ His chilled lips could hardly frame the words.

  Ednoth didn’t turn his head.

  Wulfgar repeated himself, louder, and added ‘But, unless we’ve gone wrong, we can’t be far from the crossroads with Watling Street.’

  That got the boy’s attention.

  ‘So close?’

  ‘Yes,’ Wulfgar said, relieved to get a reply. ‘We must be. But I thought we’d find a busy highway. Instead, it looks as though no one’s been along here for years.’

  Ednoth pushed his cloak back and looked around him.

  ‘No, it doesn’t. This is just the new spring growth. We’ve been going due north east all day.’

  He still sounds grumpy, Wulfgar thought, but at least he’s talking to me again.

  ‘Well, that’s a relief.’ Wulfgar said pacifically, ‘I’m glad you’re here, Ednoth. I’m sure I’d get lost on my own.’

  ‘Do you want to hear a riddle?’ Ednoth asked in a more cheerful voice.

  No, Wulfgar thought, and this is hardly the moment, but I don’t want to rub you up the wrong way again.

  ‘Go on, then.’

  Ednoth chuckled.

  ‘I am the creature without a bone, and when the cunning maiden strokes me under the cloth, I rise – who am I?’

  ‘Bread dough.’ Wulfgar replied wearily. He peered ahead through the mist and thickening dusk, eager to forestall any further jocularity. ‘What’s that?’

  A massive fallen tree lay across their path.

  His heart plummeted further.

  ‘We must have lost our way. No one would leave that lying across a main road.’

  Ednoth jumped down from his saddle and handed Starlight’s reins to Wulfgar while he loped along to look.

  ‘But this hasn’t just fallen,’ he called back after a moment. ‘The branches have been trimmed.’ He made his way to the other end, and Wulfgar could just make out the words he called back. ‘Yes, it’s been felled and brought here, not long ago. Look, the axe marks are still fresh, and it’s not lying next to a stump.’ He sounded puzzled. ‘Do you see, the road is much clearer beyond here? We’ll probably have to hack a way around this to get past it, though.’

  Wulfgar looped Starlight’s reins over his saddlebow and walked both horses forward. The boy was quite right. He scuffed his foot against the mud and the moss, and the old stone of the road gleamed wet beneath.

  ‘Why would anybody do that?’ He raised his eyes ahead. ‘Ednoth, look. That must be Watling Street, there.’

  Beyond the fallen tree, the road ran on up the ridge in a tangle of greenery, but only a little way ahead a space that he had taken at first for a small clearing could now be seen to open up left and right. Ragged-winged rooks rose in a sudden flurry of cawing from their nest-building in a stand of elms.

  ‘Come on, let’s get going.’ He found himself eager to see the legendary boundary-road for himself, now that they were there and they had no choice.

  But Ednoth wasn’t listening. He had his face lifted to the damp breeze.

  ‘Can you smell woodsmoke?’

  Wulfgar shook his head.

  The b
oy still sniffled, pulling a face.

  ‘Woodsmoke, and a dung heap. First sign of life all day! Perhaps there’s someone we could find shelter with?’ He swung himself back into the saddle.

  A horse whinnied, but not one of theirs. There was a trampling in the bushes. And then a clear, carrying voice, shouted: ‘State your business.’

  They were surrounded by riders, cloaked and hooded. The horses had come out of nowhere, out of mist and shadows, blocking the road ahead and behind.

  Garmund.

  Wulfgar’s mind blanked with terror. He dropped his reins and held up his hands, anxious to appease whatever threat was coming.

  No.

  It wasn’t Garmund.

  The riders only numbered half a dozen, and the speaker was a slight, straight-backed figure on a rain-darkened mount.

  But it was far too soon to breathe again.

  ‘You heard. State your business.’ A gruffer voice this time.

  ‘We’re travelling, to Leicester,’ Wulfgar stammered. ‘Are we on the right road?’

  One of the men laughed.

  ‘You’re still half a day’s ride from Leicester,’ the first speaker said. ‘This is the High Cross, and we are collecting the tolls.’ It was a clear voice, perfect English but with something unfamiliar and musical about the vowels.

  ‘Tolls?’ Ednoth said.

  Wulfgar tensed, hearing the bluster in his voice.

  ‘Whose tolls? By whose authority?’ Ednoth asked.

  ‘My tolls, my rights, my crossroads. Granted to me by authority of Hakon Grimsson Toad, Jarl of Leicester. Are you arguing with me?’

  Was it amusement colouring that voice now?

  They were clearly outnumbered, and Wulfgar didn’t think they were being threatened with violence – or not yet, anyway. He prayed Ednoth wouldn’t betray them again with that reckless streak of his.

  ‘We don’t contest your right to the tolls,’ Wulfgar said, calmer now that he knew he wasn’t facing his old enemy. ‘Please, let us know how much we owe you,’ he said with what he hoped was an appeasing smile.