The Pale Horseman (15 page)

'He's lying,' I snarled.

'You will have a chance to speak,' a fierce-looking churchman sitting beside Alfred
said. He was in monk's robes, but over them he wore a priest's half cape richly embroidered
with crosses. He had a full head of white hair and a deep, stern voice.

'Who's that?' I asked Beocca.

'The most holy Æthelred,' Beocca said softly and, seeing I did not recognise the name,
'Archbishop of Contwaraburg, of course.'

The archbishop leaned over to speak with Erkenwald. Ælswith was staring at me. She had
never liked me, and now she was watching my destruction and taking a great pleasure from
it. Alfred, meanwhile, was studying the roof beams as though he had never noticed them
before, and I realised he intended to take no part in this trial, for trial it was. He
would let other men prove my guilt, but doubtless he would pronounce sentence, and not just
on me, it seemed, because the archbishop scowled. 'Is the second prisoner here?'

'He is held in the stables,' Odda the Younger said.

'He should be here,' the archbishop said indignantly. 'A man has a right to hear his
accusers.'

'What other man?' I demanded.

It was Leofric, who was brought into the hall in chains, and there was no outcry against
him because men perceived him as my follower. The crime was mine, Leofric had been snared by
it, and now he would suffer for it, but he plainly had the sympathy of the men in the hall as
he was brought to stand beside me. They knew him, he was of Wessex, while I was a
Northumbrian interloper.

He gave me a rueful glance as the guards led him to my side. 'Up to our arses in it,' he
muttered.

'Quiet!' Beocca hissed.

'Trust me,' I said.

'Trust you?' Leofric asked bitterly.

But I had glanced at Iseult and she had given me the smallest shake of her head, an
indication, I reckoned, that she had seen the outcome of this day and it was good. 'Trust
me,' I said again.

'The prisoners will be silent,' the archbishop said.

'Up to our royal arses,' Leofric said quietly.

The archbishop gestured at Father Erkenwald. 'You have oathmakers?' he asked.

'I do, lord.'

'Then let us hear the first.'

Erkenwald gestured to another priest who was standing by the door leading to the
passage at the back of the hall. The door was opened and a slight figure in a dark cloak
entered. I could not see his face for he wore a hood. He hurried to the front of the dais and
there bowed low to the king and went on his knees to the archbishop who held out a hand so that
his heavy, jewelled ring could be kissed. Only then did the man stand, push back his hood and
turn to face me.

It was the Ass. Asser, the Welsh monk. He stared at me as yet another priest brought him a
gospelbook on which he laid a thin hand. 'I make oath,' he said in accented English, still
staring at me, 'that what I say is truth, and God so help me in that endeavour and condemn me
to the eternal fires of hell if I dissemble.' He bent and kissed the gospel-book with the
tenderness of a man caressing a lover.

'Bastard,' I muttered.

Asser was a good oath-maker. He spoke clearly, describing how I had come to Cornwalum
in a ship that bore a beast-head on its prow and another on its stem. He told how I had agreed
to help King Peredur, who was being attacked by a neighbour assisted by the pagan Svein,
and how I had betrayed Peredur by allying myself with the Dane. 'Together,' Asset said,
'they made great slaughter, and I myself saw a holy priest put to death.'

'You ran like a chicken,' I said to him, 'you couldn't see a thing.'

Asser turned to the king and bowed. I did run, lord king. I am a brother monk, not a
warrior, and when Uhtred turned that hillside red with Christian blood I did take flight. I am
not proud of that, lord king, and I have earnestly sought God's forgiveness for my
cowardice.'

Alfred smiled and the archbishop waved away Asser's remarks as if they were nothing.

'And when you left the slaughter,' Erkenwald asked, 'what then?'

'I watched from a hilltop,' Asset said, 'and I saw Uhtred of Oxton leave that place in the
company of the pagan ship. Two ships sailing westwards.'

'They sailed westwards?' Erkenwald asked.

'To the west,' Asser confirmed.

Erkenwald glanced at me. There was silence in the hall as men leaned forward to catch each
damning word. 'And what lay to the west?' Erkenwald asked.

'I cannot say,' Asser said. 'But if they did not go to the end of the world then I assume
they turned about Cornwalum to go into the Saefern Sea.'

'And you know no more?' Erkenwald asked.

'I know I helped bury the dead,' Asser said, 'and I said prayers for their souls, and I saw
the smouldering embers of the burned church, but what Uhtred did when he left the place of
slaughter I do not know. I only know he went westwards.'

Alfred was pointedly taking no part in the proceedings, but he plainly liked Asser
for, when the Welshman's testimony was done, he beckoned him to the dais and rewarded him
with a coin and a moment of private conversation. The Witan talked among themselves,
sometimes glancing at me with the curiosity we give to doomed men. The Lady Ælswith,
suddenly so gracious, smiled on Asser.

'You have anything to say?' Erkenwald demanded of me when Asser had been dismissed.

'I shall wait,' I said, 'till all your lies are told.'

The truth, of course, was that Asser had told the truth, and told it plainly, clearly and
persuasively. The king's councillors had been impressed, just as they were impressed by
Erkenwald's second oathmaker.

It was Steapa Snotor, the warrior who was never far from Odda the Younger's side. His
back was straight, his shoulders square and his feral face with its stretched skin was grim. He
glanced at me, bowed to the king, then laid a huge hand on the gospel-hook and let Erkenwald
lead him through the oath, and he swore to tell the truth on pain of hell's eternal agony, and
then he lied. He lied calmly in a flat, toneless voice. He said he had been in charge of the
soldiers who guarded the place at Cynuit where the new church was being built, and how two
ships had come in the dawn and how warriors streamed from the ships, and how he had fought
against them and killed six of them, but there were too many, far too many, and he had been
forced to retreat, but he had seen the attackers slaughter the priests and he had heard the
pagan leader shout his name as a boast. 'Svein, he was called.'

'And Svein brought two ships?'

Steapa paused and frowned, as though he had trouble counting to two, then nodded. 'He had
two ships.'

'He led both?'

'Svein led one of the ships,' Steapa said, then he pointed a finger at me. 'And he led the
other.'

The audience seemed to growl and the noise was so threatening that Alfred slapped the arm
of his chair and finally stood to restore quiet. Steapa seemed unmoved. He stood, solid as
an oak, and though he had not told his tale as convincingly as Brother Asser, there was
something very damning in his testimony. It was so matter-of-fact, so unemotionally
told, so straightforward, and none of it was true.

'Uhtred led the second ship,' Erkenwald said, 'but did Uhtred join in the killing?'

'Join it?' Steapa asked. 'He led it.' He snarled those words and the men in the hall growled
their anger.

Erkenwald turned to the king. 'Lord king,' he said, 'he must die.'

'And his land and property must be forfeited!' Bishop Alewold shouted in such
excitement that a whirl of his spittle landed and hissed in the nearest brazier.
'Forfeited to the church!'

The men in the hall thumped their feet on the ground to show their approbation. Ælswith
nodded vigorously, but the archbishop clapped his hands for silence. 'He has not spoken,'
he reminded Erkenwald, then nodded at me. 'Say your piece,' he ordered curtly.

'Beg for mercy,' Beocca advised me quietly.

When you are up to your arse in shit there is only one thing to do. Attack, and so I
admitted I had been at Cynuit, and that admission provoked some gasps in the hall.

'But I was not there last summer,' I went on. 'I was there in the spring, at which time I
killed Ubba Lothbrokson, and there are men in this hall who saw me do it! Yet Odda the
Younger claimed the credit. He took Ubba's banner, which I laid low, and he took it to his
king and he claimed to have killed Ubba. Now, lest I spread the truth, which is that he is a
coward and a liar, he would have me murdered by lies.' I pointed to Steapa. 'His lies.'

Steapa spat to show his scorn. Odda the Younger was looking furious, but he said nothing
and some men noted it. To be called a coward and a liar is to be invited to do battle, but
Odda stayed still as a stump.

'You cannot prove what you say,' Erkenwald said.

'I can prove I killed Ubba,' I said.

'We are not here to discuss such things,' Erkenwald said loftily, 'but to determine
whether you broke the king's peace by an impious attack on Cynuit.'

'Then summon my crewmen,' I demanded. 'Bring them here, put them on oath, and ask what
they did in the summer.'

I waited, and Erkenwald said nothing. He glanced at the king as if seeking help, but
Alfred's eyes were momentarily closed.

'Or are you in so much of a hurry to kill me,' I went on, 'that you dare not wait to hear the
truth?'

'I have Steapa's sworn testimony,' Erkenwald said, as if that made any other evidence
unnecessary. He was flustered.

'And you can have my oath,' I said, 'and Leofric's oath, and the oath of a crewman who is
here.'

I turned and beckoned Haesten who looked frightened at being summoned, but at Iseult's
urging came to stand beside me.

'Put him on oath,' I demanded of Erkenwald.

Erkenwald did not know what to do, but some men in the Witan called out that I had the right
to summon oath-makers and the newcomer must be heard, and so a priest brought the gospel
book to Haesten. I waved the priest away.

'He will swear on this,' I said, and took out Thor's amulet.

'He's not a Christian?' Erkenwald demanded in astonishment.

'He is a Dane,' I said.

'How can we trust the word of a Dane?' Erkenwald demanded.

'But our lord king does,' I retorted. 'He trusts the word of Guthrum to keep the peace, so
why should this Dane not be trusted?'

That provoked some smiles. Many in the Witan thought Alfred far too trusting of Guthrum
and I felt the sympathy in the hall move to my side, but then the archbishop intervened to
declare that the oath of a pagan was of no value. 'None whatsoever,' he snapped. 'He must
stand down.'

'Then put Leofric under oath,' I demanded, 'and then bring our crew here and listen to
their testimony.'

'And you will all lie with one tongue,' Erkenwald said, 'and what happened at Cynuit is
not the only matter on which you are accused. Do you deny that you sailed in the king's ship?
That you went to Cornwalum and there betrayed Peredur and killed his Christian people? Do
you deny that Brother Asser told the truth?'

'But what if Peredur's queen were to tell you that Asser lies?' I asked. 'What if she were
to tell you that he lies like a hound at the hearth?' Erkenwald stared at me. They all stared at
me and I turned and gestured at Iseult who stepped forward, tall and delicate, the silver
glinting at her neck and wrists.

'Peredur's queen,' I announced; 'whom I demand that you hear under oath, and thus hear how
her husband was planning to join the Danes in an assault on Wessex.'

That was rank nonsense, of course, but it was the best I could invent at that moment, and
Iseult, I knew, would swear to its truth. Quite why Svein would fight Peredur if the Briton
planned to support him was a dangerously loose plank in the argument, but it did not
really matter for I had confused the proceedings so much that no one was sure what to do.
Erkenwald was speechless.

Men stood to look at Iseult, who looked calmly back at them, and the king and the
archbishop bent their heads together. Ælswith, one hand clapped to her pregnant belly,
hissed advice at them. None of them wanted to summon Iseult for fear of what she would say,
and Alfred, I suspect, knew that the trial, which had already become mired in lies, could
only get worse.

'You're good, earsling,' Leofric muttered, 'you're very good.'

Odda the Younger looked at the king, then at his fellow members of the Witan, and he must
have known I was slithering out of his snare for he pulled Steapa to his side. He spoke to him
urgently. The king was frowning, the archbishop looked perplexed, Ælswith's blotched face
showed fury while Erkenwald seemed helpless. Then Steapa rescued them. 'I do not lie!' he
shouted.

He seemed uncertain what to say next, but he had the hall's attention. The king gestured
to him, as if inviting him to continue, and Odda the Younger whispered in the big man's
ear.

'He says I lie,' Steapa said, pointing at me, 'and I say I do not, and my sword says I do
not.' He stopped abruptly, having made what was probably the longest speech of his life, but
it was enough. Feet drummed on the floor and men shouted that Steapa was right, which he was
not, but he had reduced the whole tangled morass of lies and accusations to a trial by
combat and they all liked that.

The archbishop still looked troubled, but Alfred gestured for silence.

He looked at me. 'Well?' he asked. 'Steapa says his sword will support his truth. Does
yours?'

I could have said no. I could have insisted on letting Iseult speak and then allowing the
Witan to advise the king which side had spoken the greater truth, but I was ever rash, ever
impetuous, and the invitation to fight cut through the whole entanglement. If I fought
and won then Leofric and I were innocent of every charge.

I did not even think about losing. I just looked at Steapa. 'My sword,' I told him, 'says I
tell the truth, and that you are a stinking bag of wind, a liar from hell, a cheat and a
perjurer who deserves death.'