The Price of Blood (24 page)

He led his company through the tent city that had sprung up around Sandwich to house the men who would crew the fleet, their numbers diminished now by more than half, he guessed. Inside the town gates the dwellings were all newly built, freshly thatched and painted, for Sandwich had been destroyed utterly in the Viking raids three years before. Whatever havoc the recent storm had caused had been cleared away and, no doubt due to the king’s presence, the town appeared orderly and peaceful. The nobles who would dine with the king tonight had begun to gather outside the entrance to the royal hall. Athelstan skirted that group and made instead for a nearby pavilion where Edmund’s banner tossed fitfully in the breeze that swooped in off the water. Directing his men to set up his own lodging near Edmund’s, he dismounted and went into Edmund’s tent.

His brother was speaking with two of his household guards, but he waved the men away the moment that he saw Athelstan.

“Where in Christ have you been?” Edmund demanded. “The king is suspicious as hell.”

“I went into Mercia,” Athelstan said, “looking into Eadric’s affairs.” He nodded in the direction of the harbor. “What’s been happening here?”

Edmund pointed him to a stool, and a servant appeared with water and a scrap of linen. He began to scour the travel grime from his face and hands as he listened to his brother.

“We’ve had more trouble than you could possibly imagine,” Edmund growled. “As soon as the king arrived here, Eadric’s lout of a brother Brihtric accused Wulfnoth of plotting rebellion.”

Athelstan froze, water dripping from his face. In his mind, blazing like a warning beacon, was the memory of the damning interview with Wulfnoth at Corfe.

“
Jesu,
” he cursed. “How did Wulfnoth answer the charge?”

“He did not answer it,” Edmund said, pulling up another stool and facing him. “It would have been his word against Brihtric’s. I expect Wulfnoth believed that he would be murdered no matter what he said, so he fled. Took twenty ships and their crews with him. More than five hundred men that the king could ill afford to lose.”

Athelstan swore again. Wulfnoth and his men were unquestionably among the best-trained shipmen in England. Their loss dealt a massive blow to the entire fleet.

“It gets worse.” Edmund’s voice was grim. “Wulfnoth took it into his head to raid along the Sussex coast for supplies. He and his crews hit royal storehouses mostly—helped themselves to food and arms, and cut down anyone who tried to stop them. When that news reached us, our worthy fleet master, Eadric”—he sneered the name—“insisted that Wulfnoth be brought back, dead or alive. The king agreed, and Eadric told his brother to take as many ships as he needed to do the job.”

Athelstan had been drying his hands and face as he listened, but now he tossed aside the towel and gave Edmund his full attention. “How many did he take?”

“Eighty of our best ships.”

“He took eighty ships to capture twenty, and the king allowed it?” Athelstan gaped at his brother, incredulous.

Edmund offered him a cup of ale, but he waved it away.

“Brihtric argued that the Sussex men’s skill at ship handling would give Wulfnoth a strong advantage,” Edmund said. “He insisted that without superior numbers he would have no hope of capturing his quarry. Five days ago they set sail, and we’ve had no word from them since. We had a hell of a blow here two nights back, the worst the locals have ever seen. Christ alone knows how they fared in that. The king has sent men overland to scour the harbors all along the southern coast in search of news.”

Athelstan was silent, digesting it all. It was the accusation of rebellion that worried him the most. Wulfnoth may have been accused by Brihtric, but surely it was Eadric who was behind it. Could Eadric have somehow learned of Wulfnoth’s meeting with all the king’s sons at Corfe?

“Did Brihtric accuse anyone else?” he asked.

“Not in my hearing. God only knows what he suggested to the king in private. But you and I know that Wulfnoth’s only crime, until now, was his hatred of Eadric.”

“That’s crime enough in the king’s eyes,” Athelstan said, “and in running away the fool has condemned himself of far worse.” He ran a hand through his hair, frustrated, maddened, and, he had to admit, afraid of what action the king might take now. “We’ve little hope of turning the king against Eadric after this, and even less chance of saving Wulfnoth’s hide. We’ll be lucky if he doesn’t bring us down with him.”

Edmund took a long swallow of ale, wiped his mouth with the back of his hand, and muttered a curse. “This is my fault, Athelstan, for summoning Wulfnoth to Corfe last fall. I may be able to right things, though, if I tell the king what happened there—that I encouraged Wulfnoth, but that you refused to have anything to do with his plan.”

Athelstan stopped his pacing to scowl at his brother.

“Do that and you’ll likely turn the king’s mind against both of us. No. There is advantage in having him continue to think well of you. Besides, we cannot even be certain that he knows what happened at Corfe, bar Edgar’s death. This may all be guesswork.” Pray God he was right.

Edmund grunted, and Athelstan took it as agreement, albeit grudging.

“What did you learn about Eadric in Mercia?” Edmund asked.

Athelstan grimaced. “That Wulfnoth was right when he claimed that there is little love for Eadric there. He is a heavy-handed administrator, assessing taxes and fines far higher than those in Wessex or Northumbria, and keeping more than his portion. His wealth has increased at the expense of a great many thegns, many of them Ælfhelm’s kin who already had good reason to hate him. They call him Eadric the Grasper.”

He would have said more, but one of Edmund’s men-at-arms drew aside the leather flap at the tent’s entrance and announced, “Riders have been spotted, lord, coming north from Eastry.”

“They may be bringing word of the fleet,” Edmund said. “If they’ve taken Wulfnoth, it could mean disaster for us.”

“With eighty ships in his wake, I don’t see how Wulfnoth could have escaped,” Athelstan replied. “But we’ve no choice except to go and hear the news. I will not make Wulfnoth’s mistake and run before I’ve had a chance to defend myself.”

Æthelred stalked into the hall on the heels of his bannermen and took his place upon the dais, flanked by his archbishops, his ealdormen, and his daughter. Edyth greeted him with an obeisance and a dazzling smile, and he grunted with approval. The girl acquitted herself well enough in the queen’s absence. His only regret at leaving Emma sequestered in London was that he had not been able to rid himself of her any sooner.

After rinsing his hands in the bowl before him, he nodded to Wulfstan, and as the archbishop intoned the blessing Æthelred glanced over the bowed heads of the magnates of England gathered there, gleaning what he could from the way they had aligned themselves. Feuds, bargains, marriages, and plots, he knew, often sprang from gatherings such as this.

He noted that the bearlike Thurbrand, whom he had at last managed to lure from his dank lair in Holderness, had placed himself between Morcar and his brother, Siferth. That boded ill, surely. They had all three been close to Ælfhelm, and he did not trust them. Who could say what their lingering outrage at the ealdorman’s death might spur them to do? Sooner or later that trio would have to be dealt with, but he had not yet determined how best to go about it.

Edrid and Edwig, he saw with approval, were seated near Ealdorman Ælfric. The old man would keep a close watch on them. He searched for Edmund and Athelstan and found them standing off to one side of the hall. His eldest son, it seemed, had arrived within the past hour without, happily, the show of force that he had half expected his son to bring with him. Although he had forged a plan for dealing with that eventuality, it was a relief not to have to set it in motion. If Athelstan had been contemplating some action in consort with Wulfnoth, then Eadric’s timely intervention had scotched it for now.

He had discovered long ago that the key to controlling his realm was to keep his enemies separate from one another so that they could not unite and bring a significant force against him. A weak nobility made for a strong king. Athelstan would have to discover that for himself one day, if he aspired to the throne.

For now his son stood with his eyes fixed expectantly on the door. Æthelred followed his gaze and saw three men, wet and travel-stained, huddled near the screens passage, waiting for the prayer to end. He placed a hand on Wulfstan’s shoulder to silence him, nodded to the men in the passage, and watched with everyone else in the hall as one of the men strode forward, limping with every step.

“That is Sitric, my lord,” Eadric whispered in his ear. “He is thegn to my brother Æthelnoth. He looks like he’s been in a brawl.”

Sitric, who was little more than a youth, was filthy. His long, fair hair was tangled and knotted, and his broad face bore a bruise below one eye and a weeping gash that ran from his ear to his chin. Watching him limp forward, Æthelred steeled himself against whatever wretched tale the man was about to inflict upon him.

When the young man reached the dais, he dropped to one knee and bowed his head.

“Rise,” Æthelred said. “What is your news?”

Sitric’s eyes flicked to Eadric before he said, “Evil tidings, my lord. Brihtric is drowned, along with many of his men, may God have mercy on their souls.”

It seemed to Æthelred that the hall darkened, as if half the torches had suddenly gone out. The men at the tables began to shout, cries of dismay mingled with disbelief, and he raised a hand that did little to quell the din.

“Silence!” It was Eadric who roared the command.

When it had been obeyed, Æthelred drew a heavy breath. There was worse to come. He could read it in the man’s face, could feel it in the thickening air. “Go on,” he said, dully. “I would hear it all.”

“It was the storm, lord,” Sitric said, and his voice trembled as he spoke. “We tried to outrun the bastard, hoping to reach safe harbor at the Camber, there in the haven behind Winchelsea’s great shingle bank. But the winds carried us past the channel entrance, and then we were at the mercy of the gale. The sea swallowed at least a dozen ships, and the rest were driven hard toward the shore, smashing one against the other. Lord Brihtric’s ship was one of those that went down with all hands.” He hesitated, his mouth working, and at last he ground out, “We lost, all told, nearly four hundred men to the sea.”

Cries and curses again split the air. Æthelred gaped, unbelieving, at the man cowering in front of him, and then from the youth’s mouth came the words, “There is more to tell, my lord.”

Eadric called once more for quiet, and although Æthelred wanted nothing more than to strangle the fellow into eternal silence, he nodded to him to continue.

“Æthelnoth bade us drag what ships we could salvage above the waterline, even those that were badly damaged. He intended, once the storm abated, to enlist the aid of the men of Winchelsea to make repairs. We followed his commands as best we could, hampered by rain and wind, and by a blackness that must have come straight from hell. When we could do no more, we found what shelter we could in the lee of a low ridge that runs behind the beach there.”

Now he drew another long breath, and Æthelred’s sense of foreboding increased.

“We did not know,” Sitric said, “that Wulfnoth’s fleet had made it into the Camber haven before the storm hit. When the storm abated, and while we were still sleeping, the traitors sailed from the haven, torched our ships, and set out westward with a good wind in their sails.” He took a breath and let it out again in a sob. “We could not save the ships, my lord. I am sorry. The ships are gone. They are all gone.”

His last words came on a wail that was echoed by the men gathered in the hall. It sliced through Æthelred’s body like the point of a spear, and his knees gave way so that he crumpled into his chair, grasping the table for support as he went down. He did not bother to search the shadows for his brother’s shade, for he felt its presence like an unseen hand upon his heart.

One hundred ships lost and countless men either drowned or fled. This was Edward’s cursed work, and God had allowed it for He was merciless in His vengeance. Time, treasure, and lives all wasted. His enemies, the living and the dead, were bent on his destruction, and every effort he made to defend his kingdom came to nothing.

He reached out to Wulfstan, who stood beside him, silent, for once, as if he had been turned to stone.

“You are God’s servant,” he said to his archbishop. “You must find a way to placate the Almighty. His face is turned against us, and if you cannot win His mercy, then we are all lost.”