warmed by a fire, while in the night the snow falls and the sentries shiver as they watch for enemies trying to escape from a trap they have made for themselves. Except now I was not sure who was trapped, or by whom.
‘I never sent Father Swithred to fetch help,’ Æthelstan said. ‘Your monk lied. And Father Swithred is in good health, God be thanked.’
Prince Æthelstan was King Edward’s eldest son. He had been born to a pretty Centish girl, the daughter of a bishop, and the poor girl had died whelping him and his twin sister, Eadgyth. After the pretty girl’s death Edward had married a West Saxon girl, and had fathered another son, which made Æthelstan an inconvenience. He was the king’s eldest son, the ætheling, but he had a younger half-brother whose vengeful mother wanted Æthelstan dead because he stood between her son and the throne of Wessex, and so she and her supporters spread the rumour that Æthelstan was a bastard because Edward had never married the pretty Centish girl. He had indeed married her, but in secret because his father had not given permission, and over the years the rumour was embellished so that now Æthelstan’s mother was said to be the daughter of a shepherd, a low-born whore, and no prince would ever marry such a girl, and the rumour was believed because truth is ever feeble against passionate falsehood.
‘Truly!’ Æthelstan now told me. ‘We didn’t need relief, I asked for none.’
For a moment I just stared at him. I loved Æthelstan like a son. For years I had protected him, fought for him, taught him the ways of the warrior, and when I had heard from Brother Osric that Æthelstan was under siege and hard-pressed, I had ridden to rescue him. It did not matter that saving Æthelstan was against the interests of Northumbria, I had sworn an oath to protect him, and here I was, in the Roman great hall where he had just told me that he had never sought my help. ‘You didn’t send Father Swithred?’ I asked. A log cracked in the fire and spat a bright spark onto the rushes. I ground the spark beneath my foot.
‘Of course not! He’s here.’ Æthelstan gestured across the hall to where the tall, stern-faced priest watched me suspiciously. ‘I have asked Archbishop Athelm to appoint him Bishop of Ceaster.’
‘And you didn’t send him out of the city?’
‘Of course not! I had no need.’
I looked at Finan, who shrugged. The wind had picked up, driving the smoke back into the great hall, which had been a part of the Roman commandant’s house. The roof was made of sturdy timbers covered with tiles, many of which remained, though at some time a Saxon had hacked a hole in the tiles to let the smoke out. Now the freshening wind gusted the smoke back, swirling it around the blackened rafters. Snowflakes came through the roof-hole, a few even lasting long enough to die on the table where we ate. ‘So you never sought my help?’ I asked Æthelstan yet again.
‘How often do I have to tell you?’ he asked, pushing the jug of wine towards me. ‘And besides, if I’d needed help, why send for you when my father’s forces are closer? You wouldn’t have helped me anyway!’
I growled at that. ‘Why would I not help you? I swore an oath to protect you.’’
‘But trouble in Mercia,’ he said, ‘is good for Northumbria, yes?’
I nodded grudgingly. ‘It is.’
‘Because if we Mercians fight each other,’ Æthelstan went on, ‘we can’t be fighting you.’
‘Do you want to fight us, lord Prince?’ Finan asked.
Æthelstan smiled. ‘Of course I do. Northumbria is ruled by a pagan, by a Norseman—’
‘By my son-in-law,’ I interrupted him harshly.
‘—and it is the fate of the Saxons,’ Æthelstan ignored my words, ‘to be one people, under one king and one God.’
‘Your god,’ I snarled.
‘There is no other,’ he said gently.
Everything he said made sense, except for his nonsense about one god, and that good sense meant I had been lured across Britain for no good purpose. ‘I should have left you here to rot,’ I growled.
‘But you didn’t.’
‘Your grandfather always said I was a fool.’
‘My grandfather was right about so many things,’ Æthelstan said with a smile. His grandfather was King Alfred.
I stood and walked to the hall door. I pulled it open and just stared at the glow of fire above the eastern ramparts. Much of that glow came from the encampment where Cynlæf’s men sheltered from the snow that was slanting fast from the north. Braziers burned on the ramparts, where cloaked spearmen kept a watch on the cowed enemy. The brighter light of two flaming torches just outside the hall’s great doors showed the new snow piling against the house walls.
So Brother Osric had lied. We had brought the monk south with us, but I had got tired of his endless complaining about the cold and about his saddle sores, and we had let him leave us at Mameceaster, where, he claimed, the church would shelter him. I should have killed the bastard instead. I shivered, suddenly feeling the night’s cold. ‘Rorik,’ I shouted back into the hall, ‘bring my cloak!’
Brother Osric had lied. The monk had told me that Æthelstan had fewer than a hundred warriors, but in truth he had twice as many, which was still a very small garrison for a place the size of Ceaster, but enough to stave off the feeble assaults Cynlæf had made. Brother Osric had told me the garrison was starving, but in truth they had storehouses still half-full with last year’s harvest. A lie had brought me to Ceaster, but why?
‘Your cloak, lord,’ a mocking voice said, and I turned to see it was Prince Æthelstan himself who had brought me the heavy fur garment. He was cloaked himself. He nodded to one of the sentries to close the hall door behind us, then stood beside me to watch the snow fall soft and relentless. ‘I didn’t send for you,’ he said, draping the thick fur across my shoulders, ‘but thank you for coming.’
‘So who did send the monk?’ I asked.
‘Maybe no one.’
‘No one?’
Æthelstan shrugged. ‘Perhaps the monk knew of the siege, wanted to summon help, but knew you’d mistrust him, so he invented the tale of Father Swithred.’
I shook my head. ‘He wasn’t that clever. And he was frightened.’
‘You frighten many Christians,’ Æthelstan said drily.
I stared at the snow whirling around the corner of the house opposite. ‘I should go to Hwite,’ I said.
‘Hwite? Why?’
‘Because the monk came from the monastery there.’
‘There’s no monastery at Hwite,’ Æthelstan said. ‘I’d like to build one, but …’ his voice trailed away.
‘The bastard lied,’ I said vengefully, ‘I should have known!’
‘Known? How?’
‘He said Father Swithred walked south from here. How could he? The bridge was broken. And why send Swithred? You’d have sent a younger man.’
