Death of Kings_ A Novel - Bernard Cornwell [86]
‘And no one ever came from Wessex to examine your accounts?’
‘What need was there?’ he asked, sounding surprised and amused at such a thought. ‘The church teaches us to be honest labourers in the Lord’s vineyard.’
I took all the documents and put them on the hall fire. Father Cynric and Fulk watched in speechless surprise as the parchments scorched, curled, cracked and burned. ‘You’ve been cheating,’ I said, ‘and now it stops.’ Father Cynric opened his mouth to protest, but then thought better of it. ‘Or do I have to hang one of you?’ I asked. ‘Maybe both?’
Finan searched both Fulk’s and Father Cynric’s houses and found some of their hoarded silver, which I used to buy timber and to pay back the steward who had lent me money. I have always loved to build, and Fagranforda needed a new hall, new storehouses and a palisade, all projects for the winter. I sent Finan north to patrol the lands between the Saxons and the Danes, and he took new men with him, men who came to me because they heard I was wealthy and gave silver. Finan sent messages every few days, and they all said that the Danes were surprisingly quiet. I had been certain that Alfred’s death would provoke an attack, but none came. Sigurd, it seemed, was sick, and Cnut had no desire to attack southwards without his friend. I thought it an opportunity for us to attack northwards and said so in a message to Edward, but the suggestion went unanswered. We heard rumours that Æthelwold had gone to Eoferwic.
Gisela’s brother had died and been succeeded as king in Northumbria by a Dane who ruled only because Cnut allowed it. Cnut, for whatever reason, had no wish to be king, but his man occupied the throne and Æthelwold was sent to Eoferwic presumably because it was so far from Wessex and so deep inside Danish land, and was thus a safe place. Cnut must have believed that Edward might send a force to destroy Æthelwold, and so hid his prize behind Eoferwic’s formidable Roman walls.
So Æthelwold cowered, Cnut waited and I built. I made a hall as high as a church with stout beams and a tall palisade. I nailed wolf skulls to the gable, which faced the rising sun, and I hired men to make tables and benches. I had a new steward, a man called Herric who had been wounded in the hip at Beamfleot and could no longer fight, but Herric was energetic and mostly honest. He suggested we build a mill on the stream, a good suggestion.
It was while I was searching for a good place to make the mill that the priest arrived. It was a cold day, as cold as the day on which Father Willibald had found me in Buccingahamm, and the edges of the stream were crackling with thin ice. A wind came cold from the northern uplands, while from the south came a priest. He rode a mule, but scrambled out of the saddle when he came close to me. He was young and even taller than I was. He was skeletally thin, his black robe was filthy and its hems caked with dried mud. His face was long, his nose like a beak, his eyes bright and very green, his fair hair straggly and his chin nonexistent. He had the wispiest, most pathetic beard, which dangled halfway down a long, thin neck around which he wore a large silver cross which was missing one of its arms. ‘You are the great Lord Uhtred?’ he enquired earnestly.
‘I am,’ I said.
‘And I am Father Cuthbert,’ he introduced himself, ‘and so very pleased to meet you. Do I bow?’
‘Grovel, if you like.’
To my surprise he went down on his knees. He bowed his head almost to the frost-whitened grass, then unfolded and stood. ‘There,’ he said, ‘I grovelled. Greetings, lord, from your new chaplain.’
‘My what?’
‘Your chaplain, your own priest,’ he said brightly. ‘It’s my punishment.’
‘I don’t need a chaplain.’
‘I’m sure you don’t, lord. I’m unnecessary, I know. I am not needed, I am a mere blight on the eternal church. Cuthbert the Unnecessary.’ He smiled suddenly as an idea struck him. ‘If I’m ever made into a saint,