[What Might Have Been 02] Alternate Heroes Read online

  There was a long silence, while most of the men present stared at the floor. Alderman Ethelnoth slowly shook his head from side to side. No one could doubt his courage, but he had been at a lot of lost battles too. Only Daniel the bishop kept his head firmly erect. Finally, and with an impatient frown, he spoke.

  “It is not for a servant of the Lord to give advice on secular matters—while laymen sit silent. But is it not clear that the issue of all battles is in the hands of God? If we do our part, he will do his, and will succor us as he did Moses and the Israelites from Pharoah, or the people of Bethulia from the Assyrians. Let us have faith, and make the muster, trusting not in the feeble strength of mortal men.”

  “We’ve had faith many times before,” remarked Ethelnoth. “It’s done us no good any time. Except at Ashdown. And it wouldn’t have done then if the king had waited for the end of mass.”

  “Then that victory is the result of sin!” The bishop sat up straighter on his canvas stool and glared round him. “It is the sins of this country which have exposed us to what we now suffer! I had not thought to speak of this, but you force it on me. The sin is in this very room!”

  “Who do you mean?” asked Wulfsige.

  “I mean the highest. I mean the king. Deny it, lord, if you dare. But have you not again and again imposed on the rights of my true lord the archbishop? Have you not burdened his minsters with calls for tribute, for bridge money and fort money? And when the abbots, as was right and proper, refused to consent to these demands, relying on the charters given to their ancestors for ever, have you not given the land to others, and sent your officers to seize church property by violence? Where are your endowments to the Church? And how have you tried to expiate the wrong your brother did, marrying his father’s widow in defiance of the laws of the Church and the word of the Holy Father himself? And what of the noble abbot Wulfred—”

  “Enough, enough,” Alfred broke in. “As for my brother’s incest, that is between him and God. You anger me greatly with these charges. There have been no seizures by violence, except where my officers have been attacked. Wulfred brought his own troubles on himself. And as for the fort tax and the bridge tax, lord bishop, the money is to fight the heathens! Is that not a suitable object for the wealth of the Church? I know the charters except Church lands from such tolls, but they were drawn up before ever a heathen pirate set foot in England. Is it not better to give the money to me than to be pillaged by Guthrum?”

  “Secular matters are not my concern,” Daniel muttered.

  “Is that so? Then why should my men protect you from the Vikings?”

  “Because it is your duty to keep safe the kingdom committed to you by the Lord—if you wish afterwards to receive the life of the eternal kingdom.”

  “And what is your duty?”

  “My duty is to see that the rights of the Church are not diminished or infringed in any way, no matter what Herod or Pilate—”

  “Lords, lords!” It was Bishop Ceolred who broke in, his voice so frail and weak that all stared at him with alarm. “I beg you, lord Bishop. Think only what may come. You have not seen a Viking sack—I have. After that horror there are no rights for the Church, or for any of God’s poor. They killed my confessor with ox bones. That dear brave man, he changed robes with me, died in my place. And me they sent out as you see now.” He laid a thumbless, swollen hand on his lap. “They said I would write no more lying papers. I beg you, lords, come to an agreement.”

  “I cannot give away my lord archbishop’s rights,” said Daniel.

  For some time Alfred had been aware of growing commotion in the camp outside. It did not sound alarmed—rather more joyful and excited. The canvas screen was lifted, and the massive figure of Tobba appeared in the gap, the gold ring glinting round his neck, given by the king as his personal share of the spoil three days before.

  “It’s an errand rider, lord. From Rome. From the pope.”

  “A sign!” cried Edbert. “A token from God. Even as the dove returned to Noah with olive in its beak, so peace has come to our dissensions.”

  The young man who entered seemed no dove. His olive skin was drawn with fatigue, his well-cut garments dusty and stained from the road. He stared around him with incomprehension, looking at the roughly dressed men, the rude quarters.

  “Your pardon, gentlemen, lords? I am looking, seeking the king of English. Alfredo, king of English. One of great trust, told me here to seek…”

  His befuddlement was obvious. Alfred controlled his anger and spoke quietly. “I am he.”

  The young man looked about rather obviously for a clean patch of earth to kneel on, found only mud, and with a suppressed sigh knelt and handed over a document. It was a vellum roll, a heavy wax seal dangling from it.

  As Alfred unscrolled it gold leaf glinted between the carefully scribed rows of purple ink. The king held it for a moment, not knowing what to think. Could this be his salvation! He remembered the marble buildings and great power. He had been to Rome himself, twice, had viewed the grandeur of the Holy See. But that had been many years ago, before his life shut down to a blur of rain and blood, days in the saddle, nights planning and conferring. Now the Holy See had come to him.

  He passed the document to Edbert. “Read it to us all.”

  Edbert handled the document reverently, and spoke in a hushed voice. “It is written in Latin, my lord. Illuminated by scribes—and signed by His Holiness himself. It says … it says … ‘To Alfred, king of the English. Know, lord King, that we have heard of your travels…’ no, that is trials ‘… and as you, being placed in the life of this world, daily sustain certain hardships, so in like measure do we, and we not only weep for our own—but also sorrow with you, condolens, having sympathy’—no, no—‘suffering alas, jointly with you.’”

  Osbert muttered angrily. “Are there Vikings in Rome too?” He turned away from Bishop Daniel’s furious glare. Edbert read on.

  “‘But for all our joint sufferings, we exhort and warn you, King, that you should not do as a foolish worldling would do, and think only of the troubles of this present time. Remember that the blessed God will not suffer you to be tempted or, or probare, to prove.’ No—‘will not suffer you to be tempted or tried above that of which you are able, but will give you the strength to bear any of the trials which in His wisdom He has set upon you. Above all you should strive with willing heart to protect the priests, the men, and the women of the Church.’”

  “That’s exactly what we are all doing,” grunted Ethelnoth.

  “‘But know, O King, that we have heard from our most reverend and holy brother, the archbishop of the race of the English who takes his See in Canterbury, that in your folly you have oppressed upon his rights and privileges as a father of those committed to his care. Now, of all sins, the sin of avaritia, of greed is most foul and repellent among the rulers and protectors of the Christian peoples, most abominable and dangerous to the soul. We do most solemnly therefore advise, exhort, and command by this letter from our apostolic dignity that you do now cease and desist from all oppressions against the Church, and do restore to its rulers all those privileges and rights especially in the matter of peaceful and untroubled and taxless possession of the Church’s lands, which were granted to them by your ancestors, as we have heard the most godly kings of the English race, and even by your contemporaries, such as the most pious and worthy gentleman…’ The scribe has written the name Bulcredo, my lord, but he must mean—”

  “He means that runaway bastard Burgred,” snarled the scarred man, Wihtbord.

  “Indeed that must be it. ‘… Burgred, who now lives with us in our Holy See, in peace and in honor. So we exhort you to show honor to your priests, bishops, and archbishop, as you wish to have our friendship in this life and salvation in the life to come.’”

  “It is the truth, God’s truth!” Daniel cried aloud. “Spoken from the throne of God on earth. Just what I said before the message came. If we fulfil our spiritual duties, our temp
oral difficulties will disappear. Listen to His Holiness, my king. Restore the rights of the Church. When you do this the Vikings will be destroyed and dispersed by hand of God.”

  Anger clouded Alfred’s face—but before he could speak Edbert hurried on.

  “There’s another paragraph…” He looked up from the paper to his master with a face of woe.

  “What does it say?”

  “Well, it says, it says—‘We have heard with great displeasure that our previous orders have not been obeyed. That in spite of the opinion of the apostolic See, the clerics of England have not yet unitarily given up the lay habit, and do not clothe themselves in tunics after the Roman fashion, reaching chastely to the ankle.’ And then he says, well he goes on, that if this vile habit is given up and we all dress as he does, then God will love us and our afflictions will vanish like snow.”

  A bark of laughter came from the red-faced Ethelnoth. “So that’s what’s been causing our troubles! If the priestlings all hide their knees Guthrum will be terrified and run right back to Denmark!” He spat, forcefully, on the puddled floor. The pope’s messenger drew back, not following the quick talk—but knowing that something was very wrong.

  “You have no awareness of spirituality, lord Alderman,” said Daniel, the archbishop of Canterbury’s representative, pulling on his riding gloves with an air of finality, eyeing both his own long robe and Edbert’s short-cut tunic and breeches. “We were asking for a message to guide us, and one has come. We must take the advice and the instruction of our father in God. I regard that as settled. There is one other matter, lord King, trivial in itself, but which I see as a trial of your good intentions and sincerity. That man, that man who came in with the message, with the gold ring round his neck. He is a runaway slave from one of my own manors. I recognize him. I must have him back.”

  “Tobba?” barked Wulfsige. “You can’t have him. He may be a churl, he may even have been a slave, but he’s accepted now. He’s accepted by the companions. The king gave him that gold ring himself.”

  “Enough of this,” Alfred said wearily. “I’ll buy him from you.”

  “That will not do. I must have him back in person. We have had too many runaways recently—”

  “I know that—and I know that they’re running to the Vikings,” shouted Alfred, goaded at last out of politeness. “But this man ran to his king, to fight the invaders of England. You can’t—”

  “I must have him back,” ground on Daniel. “I shall make an example of him. The law says that if a slave cannot make restitution to his master then he shall pay for it with his hide. And he cannot make restitution to the Church for his own worth—”

  “He has a gold ring worth ten slaves!”

  “But since that is his possession, and he is my possession, it is my possession too. And he has also committed sacrilege, in removing himself from the ownership of the Church.”

  “So what are you going to do?”

  “The penalty for church-breach is flaying, and I shall flay him. Not fatally. My men are most expert. But all who see his back in future will know that the arm of the Church is long. He must be delivered to my tent before sunrise. And mark this, King.” Daniel turned back from the door. “If you persist in holding him, and in your other errors, there will be no passing of your messages. You will come to Edgebright’s Stone, and find it as bare of men as a nunnery’s privy!”

  He turned and swept through the makeshift door. In the silence that followed all eyes were on Alfred. He avoided their gaze, rose and took up his long sword and strode from the room, his face set and unreadable. Wulfsige scrambled to his feet too late to bar the way.

  “Where are you going?” called Edbert after him.

  “Lord King, let me come with you,” Wulfsige bellowed. “Guards!”

  Behind, in the shelter, Osbert muttered to Ethelnoth and the others, “What’s he doing? Will he do what that bastard Burgred did? Is this the end? If so, it’s time we all made our peace with Guthrum—”

  “I can’t say,” said the alderman. “But if that fool of a bishop, and of a pope, make him give up between them, then that is the end of England, now and forever.”

  Alfred strode through the encampment, none daring to obstruct or challenge him, and out into the wet, dripping forest and marshland along the line of the flooded river Tone. But he was not walking completely at random. The thought had been growing on him for weeks that there might come a time when he had to be away from men, from the crowds of faces looking to him for advice and orders, even from the silent pressure of his disapproving wife and coughing, fearful children at her skirts.

  He knew now where he was going. To the charcoal burners. They had huts scattered all through the forests, coming out only when they needed to sell their wares, and then returning immediately to the thickets. Even in peacetime kings’ officers did not bother them much. People said that they carried out strange rituals and spoke an ancient tongue among themselves. Alfred had been careful to mark one encampment down when he stumbled on it in the course of one of the hunting expeditions he and his men carried out for food, before they had begun simply to levy toll on the peasants round about. He headed straight for it through the winter dusk.

  It was dark by the time he reached the first of the huts. The large man in the doorway looked at him with grave suspicion and lifted his ax.

  “I wish to stay here. I will pay for my lodging.”

  He was taken in without fuss, or indeed recognition, when he showed them that he had both silver pennies and a long sword at his side to resist secret murder. The man looked oddly enough at the king’s-head pennies when they were offered, as if wondering how long they would be tender. But the silver was good, and that was enough. No doubt they thought he was another runaway thane, deserting his allegiance, but not yet ready to go home or to approach the Vikings’ court and sue for amnesty.

  On the evening of the next day, the king sat in warm, homely darkness, lit only by the glow of red coals. He was alone in the hut, while the few men and women of the camp busied themselves with the complex operations of their trade. The wife had slung a griddle over the low fire and put raw griddle cakes on it, telling him in her thick accent to watch them and turn them as they cooked. He sat, listening to the crackle of the fire and smelling the pleasant mix of smoke and warm bread. For the first time for many months, the king was at peace. It was a moment taken out of time, a moment when all the pressures outside balanced each other and canceled out.

  Whatever happened now, Alfred thought comfortably and lazily, would be decisive. Should he fight? Should he give up and go to Rome? He no longer knew the answers. There was a numbness within where before a fire had burned. He looked up but felt no surprise when the door scraped quietly, and through it came the massive head and shoulders of the grim churl Tobba. He was no longer wearing his gold ring, but trailed his Viking ax at his side. Stooping beneath the low roof, he came over to the fire and sat down on his haunches opposite the king. For a while neither man spoke.

  “How did you find me?” asked Alfred at last.

  “Asked around. Got a lot of friends in these woods. Quiet people. Don’t talk much unless you knows ’em.”

  They sat a while longer. Absently, Tobba reached out and began to turn the cakes in his thick fingers, dropping them back on to the hot plate with faint hisses of steam.

  “Got some news for you,” he offered.

  “What?”

  “Messenger come in from Alderman Odda the morning after you left. Ubbi Ragnarsson attacked. Took his fleet down channel, landed, chased off Odda and his levy. Reckoned they was only peasants, since they only ’ad clubs and pitchforks. Chased ’em into a hill forest by the beach, bottled ’em up, reckoned that was it. That was a mistake. Come midnight, pouring rain, Odda bust out with all his men. Clubs and pitchforks they do all right in the dark. Killed Ubbi, lot of his men, took the Raven banner.”

  Alfred felt a reluctant stir of interest, an emotion that penetrated the numbne
ss that possessed him. But he still did not speak, only sighed as he stared into the fire. Tobba tried to catch his interest.

  “The Raven banner, you know, it really does flap its wings when the Vikings are going to win, and droops them when they’re going to lose.” He grinned. “Messenger said there were some kind of arrangement on the back so you could control it. Odda’s sending it to you. Token of respect. Maybe you can use it in the next battle.”

  “If there is a next battle.” The words spoken with great reluctance.

  “I got an idea about that.” Tobba turned a few more cakes, as if suddenly embarrassed. “If you don’t mind hearing one from a churl, that is, well, really, a slave…”

  Alfred shook his head glumly. “You will be no slave, Tobba. If I leave, you come with me. I can do at least that. I will not hand you back to Daniel and his torturers.”

  “No, lord, I think you should hand me over—or the messengers won’t go out and there will be no army for you. But that will only be the start of it. I escaped before—can do it again. And there is something then that I could do…”

  For several minutes the churl spoke on, low-voiced, clumsy, not used to ordering his thoughts and speaking in this manner. But he would not be stopped. Finally the two men sat other, both in different ways awed by what they had come to.

  “I think it could work,” said Alfred. “But you know what he’s going to do to you before you escape?”

  “Won’t be much worse than what I’ve had to put up with all my life.”

  Alfred paused one more moment. “You know, Tobba, you could just run to the Vikings. If you took them my head they’d make you a jarl in any county you wanted. Why are you on my side?”

  Tobba hung his head. “To tell … words, they don’t come easy. I been, my whole life, a slave, but my father, you know, he wasn’t, and maybe my kids won’t be, if I ever have any.” His voice dropped to a mutter. “I don’t see why they should grow up talking Danish. My dad didn’t, nor my grandad. That’s all I care about.”