The Bone Thief (49 page)

‘And Wessex,’ Edward said, cracking his knuckles. ‘And Wessex. What can I say, Fleda? I was going to ask you to give him back to me for judgment, but I couldn’t have done better myself.’

Wulfgar’s ears were ringing. He shook his head to clear them. Hard to breathe. No, there was no fault in her judgment, or her knowledge of the law. Only, he thought bitterly, in her haste, and her ignorance of the hearts of men. He clasped his hands together, the fingers of his left hand stroking his right. Warm. Pulse in the wrist. Calloused fingertips. Stubborn ink-stains which even now left their grey ghosts.

His pen-hand, he thought.

His harp-string hand.

He pressed it against his breast.

‘Do you have anything to say?’ She sounded wooden.

He couldn’t meet her gaze. Lips cold and numb, staring at her
chin
and veiled throat, he stammered, ‘My Lady, if all this were true, if I had thirty pounds of stolen silver hidden somewhere, why in the world would I ever have come back to Gloucester?’

Her eyes were wet.

‘Only you know the answer to that.’ Her lips tightened. ‘Open the doors. We need to make the judgment public.’

Wulfgar heard steps retreating away over the resounding floorboards, noted the change in the light as the doors far behind him opened, letting daylight into the gloom of the hall. He heard voices from outside, raised in argument. His shoulders tensed. Would they cut off his hand at once? In the courtyard? Using a kitchen knife? A butcher’s axe? Summary justice was the custom, after all. Done, and seen to be done.

CHAPTER FORTY-ONE

‘MY LADY.’ THE
respectful voice came from somewhere over Wulfgar’s left shoulder.

‘Is this important?’ The King sounded impatient.

The Lady held up a hand.

‘Wait, Edward.’ She nodded. ‘Continue.’

It was the steward who had spoken.

‘My Lady, there are some men outside who claim to carry news with a bearing on the case.’ He cleared his throat, diffident. ‘I know you have already given your judgment, my Lady, but one of them is the deacon, Kenelm.’ He bowed in the direction of Bishop Werferth. ‘The Bishop’s nephew, whom I was commanded to find.’ He bowed again to the Lady. ‘And one of them is your cousin, the Atheling of Wessex.’

Wulfgar tightened his grip, hand clutching cold hand till they blotched a numb white and red.

Don’t open the door to hope, he told himself. Judgment has been passed. Nothing can change that.

‘Too late.’ Edward thumped a fist on the table, satisfaction in his voice. ‘As your man says, judgment has been given.’

The Lady had gone even paler.

‘In an ordinary case, yes,’ said Bishop Werferth, leaning forward, ‘it would be too late. But, Fleda, this is not an ordinary case. The saint himself is on trial here.’

Denewulf of Winchester nodded. He opened his mouth as though to speak but glanced at Edward, swallowed, and reconsidered.

And now Edward is going to sulk, thought Wulfgar.

Sure enough, the King was pushing himself back in his chair and folding his splendidly embroidered arms across his chest.

‘Go on, then,’ he said. ‘Bring them in if you must. I can’t imagine anything they say will make a difference.’

The Lady nodded.

‘Let them in.’

Wulfgar concentrated on his stance. Feet evenly planted on the mat. Deep slow breathing. His hands were still clinging to each other: he managed to unclench them to hang at his sides. Head up. Eyes open. He stared unseeing at the high table. He was determined not to turn round. The back of his neck prickled.

‘Seiriol!’ The Lady sprang to her feet, her face alive with sudden delight.

The three men seated at the table had all gone very still.

Wulfgar heard the light, confident step coming up the length of the hall. It stopped at his side. A hand rested on his shoulder.

‘My Lord … King. My Lady. Bishops.’ But the greeting was only courtesy. He had nothing to say to them, not just then. ‘Wuffa? You seem to have got yourself into a little difficulty.’

Wulfgar found he couldn’t turn to look at the Atheling. Staring ahead, he muttered, ‘My Lord.’

‘I found some friends of yours down in the town. They told me they have something for you.’ The hand squeezed his shoulder and let go.

‘Why are you interrupting the court?’ Edward’s voice was harsh with barely suppressed rage. ‘Sentence has been passed on the traitor.’

And the Atheling actually laughed.

‘Oh, Eddi. This is Wulfgar we’re talking about. Traitor, indeed.’

‘He’s one and you’re another.’ Edward shoved his chair back. ‘You’re trying to undermine Fleda, now, aren’t you? You and your damned meddling – get out of here, do you hear?’ His voice rose as he unleashed his anger. ‘Get out!’

The Atheling shook his head.

‘You’re not in charge here, Eddi. We’re not in Winchester now.’ He turned to Fleda. ‘What do you say, cousin?’

The Lady was still standing, her cheeks pink but her voice dignified and steady.

‘Seiriol, it would give me great pleasure if you would join us.’ She indicated a place beside the Bishop of Worcester. ‘Steward, a chair. You are a neutral voice in this case, cousin: your opinion would be highly valued.’

‘Neutral!’

The Atheling vaulted up onto the dais.

‘King for half a year, Eddi, and you still can’t control your temper?’ He waved at the steward. ‘Never mind a chair. Let my witnesses in.’

Wulfgar’s heart fluttered as wildly as a bird caged in the fowler’s hands, for all his slow, careful breathing. He turned his palms outwards.
Mother of God, Queen of Heaven, ask your Son to have mercy on me, a sinner
…

More footsteps. Several pairs of feet. Not just Kenelm, then.

He heard the Lady’s voice, asking a question.

And then a voice he’d never really thought to hear again: ‘Father Ronan, priest of the kirk of St Margaret, in Leicester.’

He turned, mouth gaping.

‘Ronan!’

The steward thumped the ferrule of his staff on the floorboards.

‘Will the prisoner be silent?’

And next to Father Ronan, Ednoth. And next to Ednoth, Kenelm, holding out to him a bulky and familiar parcel. He reached for it, hands shaking.

The next minutes passed in a blur. He was only vaguely aware of the formalities of the court: of Father Ronan and then Ednoth being sworn in and asked to summarise their adventures; of Kenelm taking his oath that this was indeed the bundle with which Wulfgar had entrusted him.

‘Wulfgar of Winchester.’ The Lady’s voice brought him back to his senses. There was a softness in it now, but it didn’t move him as it would have once. He would have taken her word against Edward and Garmund and all the world beside, but she hadn’t trusted him. ‘Would you please open that bag?’

He didn’t think to climb up to the dais. He knelt on his rush mat and carefully unfolded out the sack-cloth before taking the bones out of the pile and arranging them in some kind of meaningful pattern.

Clavicles and scapulae.

The long line of strange, three-flanged vertebrae.

The smooth sickle-curves of the ribs.

Angel-wing pelvic bones.

The long scaffolding of femur and tibia.

Foot-bones like something children might use in a game, like cherry-stones for counting:
Merchant, Ploughman, Shipman, Bowman
… How did it go on?
Rich man, Poor man, Beggar-man, Thief
…

Soldier, Scholar, King, Saint
…

Fragments of a man who had blazed so brightly for a few years and then been treated so cruelly. Wulfgar weighed a weightless rib in his hands, thought about it flexing and relaxing in life and breath and prayer and song, forming part of the cage of that mighty heart.

A heap of brittle kindling.

No, Wulfgar
. He raised his head, listening.
I am more than that. I am here. I am with you now
.

He was barely aware of the other hands reaching out for the bones, lifting them, stroking them. Only when the bony blue-veined hands of the Bishop of Worcester reached to wrap them again in their sacking did he come blinking back to himself. He offered the rib to the Bishop, and noticed that the old man, kneeling at Wulfgar’s side, had tears streaming down his face. Both the good eye and the empty socket were weeping.

The Lady was offering him her hand. He looked at it for a long moment before taking it in his. Her skin was clammy.

‘I should never have doubted you,’ she said. After a long heartbeat, she took a deep breath and looked around her. ‘However, if we accept Wulfgar’s story, and the corroboration of his oath-swearers, then we have to decide what to do with the false witness borne by Garmund Polecat.’

They all looked around the hall.

Garmund had taken advantage of the diversion caused by the relics’ arrival. He was nowhere to be seen.

King Edward, still up on the dais, said stiffly, ‘I can deal with my own, thank you, sister. Garmund is my faithful man.’

‘And I wish you joy of him,’ she said, smiling.

‘We need someone to care for the saint,’ Bishop Werferth said. ‘Transfer him to the reliquary and get him back to the church, discreetly. Find a suitable box for the carved wood. Arrange proper burial for my old friend here.’ He rested a hand again on the skull, stroking a gentle thumb over the bony forehead, marking a cross. ‘Wulfgar—’

Wulfgar opened his mouth to lay claim to the honour the Bishop was offering him, but as he did so his eye fell on Kenelm, hanging back, his face set with misery. ‘My Lord,’ He was pleased to find his voice was firm. ‘May I suggest your nephew Kenelm is ideally qualified?’

The Bishop frowned for a moment, then he nodded. ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘Yes, you may.’

Kenelm flushed and beamed.

Edward had been watching their every move, lips compressed, eyes wary.

‘And what will you tell the good people of Gloucester?’ he asked. ‘You’ll look as big a fool as I will if you confess that that show yesterday was a case of mistaken identity.’

‘Edward.’ The Lady went over to her furious brother. ‘We all saw the miracle yesterday. And –’ she drew a deep breath ‘– when your message came, that my dear brother was on his way here bringing me this most marvellous gift, it was amongst the happiest days of my life.’ She put one hand to his face and turned it so that he couldn’t help looking into her eyes. ‘That gift was in good faith, and I honour you for it. And so do the people of Mercia.’

Bishop Werferth coughed.

‘Edward, it may be the destiny of Wessex and Mercia to be joined one day. Look at our own family, and how many marriages have been made across the border. But Mercia will not be
absorbed
into Wessex, any more than I was absorbed into my husband when I married him.’ She released him then. ‘And, speaking of my husband, I must go to him.’ Her tone had grown weary.

‘And we will be going back to Oxford,’ Edward said. He still wasn’t looking happy, but the pinched fury was relaxing out of his features.

The Lady turned to her cousin.

‘Seiriol, would you escort me to my husband’s bedside? You will be delighted to see how much better he is. His speech was less slurred this morning than it was last night, even.’

While she was speaking, Wulfgar watched the Atheling’s face. Was there the briefest flicker of anger? Frustration? Disappointment? He couldn’t be sure. The Atheling took her hand and bowed over it.

‘I’m sure I will. One moment, then I’m all yours.’ Letting go, he turned to Wulfgar, who held himself straight and still. Here came the interrogation he had been dreading.

‘Well done, Wuffa.’

‘Thank you, my Lord.’

The Atheling dropped his voice to a murmur, their faces close together.

‘And, tell me, did you speak to my friends?’

Wulfgar swallowed.

‘I carried your message to Toli Hrafnsson, my Lord.’

‘But you were too late, then, for Hakon?’

Wulfgar nodded. So, he knew about the death of Hakon Toad.

‘What about his brother?’ the Atheling asked.

He wondered what to say.

‘My Lord …’ Only the truth would do. ‘I wasn’t sure what to do, my Lord, but it seemed Ketil Scar would welcome the message, and so I passed it to him. He seemed to be expecting it.’ Wulfgar watched the Atheling’s face warily.

At last, he smiled. ‘And?’

He cast his mind back. It felt an eternity ago. ‘Toli said, “If you hear nothing from me, then, yes, let it be All Hallows”.’ Wulfgar glanced up. The Atheling was still smiling. He took a deep breath, ‘But, Ketil, my Lord – he said, “When I need him, I will send for him”. Meaning you.’

The Atheling’s eyes narrowed for a moment, then he looked at Wulfgar and smiled. ‘You’re a true servant, Wuffa. And a true friend. If they don’t appreciate you here—’ he glanced briefly at the Lady, still hanging on her brother’s arm ‘—you can always come to me. Wherever I am. Remember that. You have done a great kindness to me and my friends.’