Death of Kings_ A Novel - Bernard Cornwell [54]
‘Ah!’ I poured Sihtric ale. ‘Sigebriht’s father is Ealdorman of Cent, isn’t he?’
‘Ealdorman Sigelf, lord, yes.’
‘So Sigebriht is unhappy that Edward was named King of Cent?’ I guessed.
‘Sigebriht hates Edward, lord,’ Sihtric told me. He was grinning, pleased with himself. I had planted him as a spy in Beortsig’s household and he knew he had done his work well, ‘and it isn’t just because Edward is King of Cent, lord, it’s because of a girl. The Lady Ecgwynn.’
‘He told you all this?’ I asked, astonished.
‘He told a slave girl, lord. He rutted her and he has a loose tongue when he’s rutting, and he told her and she told Ealhswith.’ Ealhswith was Sihtric’s wife. She was sitting in the hall now, eating with her two sons. She had been a whore and I had advised Sihtric not to marry her, but I had been wrong. She had proved to be a good wife.
‘So who is the Lady Ecgwynn?’ I asked.
‘She’s Bishop Swithwulf’s daughter, lord,’ Sihtric explained. Swithwulf was Bishop of Hrofeceastre in Cent, that much I knew, but I had not met the man, nor his daughter. ‘And she preferred Edward to Sigebriht,’ Sihtric went on.
So the bishop’s daughter was the girl who Edward had wanted to marry? The girl he had been ordered to abandon because his father disapproved. ‘I heard that Edward was forced to give the girl up,’ I said.
‘But she ran away with him,’ Sihtric told me, ‘that’s what Sigebriht said.’
‘Ran away!’ I grinned. ‘So where is she now?’
‘No one knows.’
‘And Edward,’ I said, ‘is betrothed to Ælflæd.’ There must have been some harsh words spoken between father and son, I thought. Edward had always been presented as the ideal heir to Alfred, the son without sin, the prince educated and groomed to be the next King of Wessex, but a smile from a bishop’s daughter had evidently undone a lifetime’s preaching from his father’s priests. ‘So Sigebriht hates Edward,’ I said.
‘He does, lord.’
‘Because he took the bishop’s daughter away. But would that be enough to make him swear loyalty to Sigurd?’
‘No, lord.’ Sihtric was grinning. He had kept his biggest news back. ‘He’s not sworn to Sigurd, lord, but to Æthelwold.’
And that was why Sihtric had returned to me, because he had discovered who the Saxon was, the Saxon whom Ælfadell had told me would destroy Wessex, and I wondered why I had not thought of it before. I had considered Beortsig because he wanted to be King of Mercia, but he was insignificant, and Sigebriht probably wanted to be King of Cent one day, but I could not imagine Sigebriht having the power to ruin Wessex, yet the answer was obvious. It had been there all along and I had never thought of it because Æthelwold was such a weak fool. Yet weak fools have ambition and cunning and resolve.
‘Æthelwold!’ I repeated the name.
‘Sigebriht is sworn to him, lord, and Sigebriht is Æthelwold’s messenger to Sigurd. There’s something else, lord. Beortsig’s priest is one-eyed, thin as a straw, and bald.’
I was thinking about Æthelwold, so it took a moment for me to remember that far-off day when the fools had tried to kill me and the shepherd had saved me with his sling and his flock. ‘Beortsig wanted me dead,’ I said.
‘Or his father,’ Sihtric suggested.
‘Because Sigurd ordered it,’ I guessed, ‘or perhaps Æthelwold.’ And it suddenly seemed so obvious. And I knew what I had to do. I did not want to do it. I had once sworn I would never return to Alfred’s court, but next day I rode to Wintanceaster.
To see the king.
Æthelwold. I should have guessed. I had known Æthelwold all my life and had despised him all that time. He was Alfred’s nephew, and he was aggrieved. Alfred, of course, should have killed Æthelwold years before, but some feeling, perhaps affection for his brother’s son or, more likely, the guilt that earnest Christians love to feel, had stayed his hand.
Æthelwold’s father had been Alfred’s brother, King Æthelred. Æthelwold, as eldest son of Æthelred, expected to be King of Wessex, but he was still a child when his father died and the Witan, the king’s council of leading men, had put his uncle, Alfred,