hefty payment of gold or royal land would doubtless persuade the church that their doctrine was wrong, and the king could discard one woman and marry another. ‘So you’re now in favour, lord Prince?’ I asked. ‘You’re the heir again?’
He shook his head. Our footsteps squeaked in the new snow. He was leading me down an alley that would take us to the eastern gate. Two of his guards followed us, but not close enough to hear our conversation. ‘My father is still fond of Ælfweard, I’m told.’
‘Your rival,’ I said bitterly. I despised Ælfweard, Edward’s second son, who was a petulant piece of weasel shit.
‘My half-brother,’ Æthelstan said reprovingly, ‘whom I love.’
‘You do?’ For a moment he did not answer me. We were climbing the Roman steps to the eastern wall, where braziers warmed the sentries. We paused at the top, staring at the encampment of the defeated enemy. ‘You really love that little turd?’ I asked.
‘We are commanded to love one another.’
‘Ælfweard is despicable,’ I said.
‘He might make a good king,’ Æthelstan said quietly.
‘And I’ll be the next Archbishop of Contwaraburg.’
‘That would be interesting,’ he said, amused. I knew he despised Ælfweard as much as I did, but he was saying what it was his familial duty to say. ‘Ælfweard’s mother,’ he went on, ‘is out of favour, but her family is still wealthy, still strong, and they’ve sworn loyalty to the new woman.’
‘They have?’
‘Ælfweard’s uncle is the new ealdorman. He took Edward’s side, and did nothing to help his sister.’
‘Ælfweard’s uncle,’ I said savagely, ‘would whore his own mother to make Ælfweard king.’
‘Probably,’ Æthelstan agreed mildly.
I shivered, and it was not the cold. I shivered because in those words I sensed the trap. I still did not know why I had been lured across Britain, but I suspected I knew who had baited the trap. ‘I’m an old fool,’ I said.
‘And the sun will rise tomorrow.’
‘Lord Prince! Lord Prince!’ an excited voice interrupted us. A small warrior was running along the ramparts to greet us; a warrior small as a child, but dressed in mail, carrying a spear, and wearing a helmet decorated with red and white ribbons.
‘Sister Sunngifu,’ Æthelstan said fondly as the small figure dropped to her knees in front of him. He touched a gloved hand to her helmet and she smiled up at him adoringly. ‘This is the Lord Uhtred of Bebbanburg,’ he introduced me, ‘and Sister Sunngifu,’ he was talking to me now, ‘raised a band of fifty women who stand guard on the ramparts to give my warriors a chance to rest and to deceive the enemy of our numbers. The deception worked well!’
Sunngifu moved her gaze to me, offering a dazzling smile. ‘I know the Lord Uhtred, lord Prince,’ she said.
‘Of course you do,’ Æthelstan said, ‘I remember now, you told me.’
Sunngifu was smiling as if she had waited half her life to greet me. I saw she was wearing a nun’s grey habit beneath the mail coat and thick cloak. I reached down and gently lifted the ribbon-decked helmet just enough to see her forehead, and there was the small reddish birthmark, shaped like an apple, the only disfigurement on one of the most beautiful women I have ever known. She was looking up at me with amusement. ‘It’s good to see you again, lord,’ she said humbly.
‘Hello, Mus,’ I said.
The little warrior was Mus, Sunngifu, Sister Gomer, bishop’s widow, whore and troublemaker.
And damn the trap, I was suddenly happy to be in Ceaster.
‘So, you remember Sister Sunngifu?’ Æthelstan asked me. We had left the ramparts and were leaving the city through the eastern gate, going to inspect the sentries who guarded the enemy trapped in the arena. It was cold, snow made the ground treacherous, and Æthelstan must have been tempted to stay in the great hall’s warmth, but he was doing what he knew should be done; sharing his men’s discomfort.
‘Sunngifu is difficult to forget,’ I said. A dozen of Æthelstan’s guards now followed us. Within a quarter mile there were hundreds of defeated enemy, though I expected no trouble from them. They had been cowed, and now sheltered in their makeshift hovels waiting to see what the morning brought. ‘I’m surprised she became a nun,’ I added.
‘She’s not a nun,’ Æthelstan said, ‘she’s a novice when she’s not pretending to be a soldier.’
‘I always thought she’d marry again,’ I went on.
‘Not if she’s called to God’s service.’
I laughed at that. ‘Her beauty is wasted on your god.’
‘Beauty,’ he said stiffly, ‘is the devil’s snare.’
The fires we had placed around the arena lit his face. It was tight, almost angry. He had asked me about Sunngifu, but now it was plain he was uncomfortable talking of her. ‘And how,’ I asked mischievously, ‘is Frigga?’ Frigga was a young girl I had captured near Ceaster some years before and had given to Æthelstan. ‘She’s a beauty, I remember,’ I went on, ‘I almost kept her for myself.’
‘You’re married,’ he said censoriously.
‘You’re not,’ I retorted, ‘and it’s time you were.’
‘There will be a time for marriage,’ he said dismissively. ‘And Frigga married one of my men. She’s a Christian now.’
Poor girl, I thought. ‘But you should be married,’ I said. ‘You can practise with Sunngifu,’ I teased him, ‘she plainly adores you.’
He stopped and glared at me. ‘That is unseemly!’ He made the sign of the cross. ‘With Sister Sunngifu? With Bishop Leofstan’s widow? Never! She’s a most pious woman.’
God in his dull heaven, I thought as we walked on, and Æthelstan didn’t know her real story?
I will never understand Christians. I can understand their insistence that their nailed god rose from the dead, that he walked on water and cured diseases, because all gods can do those things. No, it’s their other beliefs that astonish me. Sunngifu had been married to Bishop Leofstan, a good man. I liked him. He was a fool, of course, but a holy fool, and I remember him telling me that one of his god’s prophets had married a whore called Gomer. I forget now why this prophet married a whore, it’s all explained in the Christian holy book. I do recall that it wasn’t just because he wanted to bounce her, it was something to do with his religion, and Bishop Leofstan, who at times had the brain of a mayfly, decided to do the same, and had plucked Sunngifu from some Mercian brothel and made her his wife. He solemnly assured me that his Gomer, as he insisted on calling her, had reformed, had been baptised, and was indeed a living saint, but when he wasn’t looking, Sunngifu was humping my men like a demented squirrel.
