A month later, I travelled to London to see my brother’s shop. With six servants, two armed guards and Uncle Athelm in tow, we took ship at Southampton. I had heard some men and women have delicate stomachs at sea. Mine was like iron. Uncle Athelm told me I should not be proud of nature and God’s will, that some simply suffered and some did not. Of course, he was hanging over the stern at the time, green-faced and tied on by the sailors so he would not fall.
We spent four days hugging the coast as we made our way to the entrance of the Thames and from there, inland, until we saw the walls of London. I had seen France too for the first time as we’d rounded white cliffs, though that country had looked rather dark and threatening to my eye. I set foot on a dock by the Roman wall, close by the south-east corner and the single bridge spanning the Thames.
Perhaps I was too ready to dislike London on that first meeting. Too many preferred it to my beloved Winchester and I found it a shabby place compared to the royal capital. The river certainly stank and the streets, though some were cobbled, were hidden beneath a layer of human ordure. In my first moment after landing, I watched a man drop his leggings and squat by the docks, leaving a little pile, with the river just feet away. It was a strange welcome.
The Holy Church was served in London by a spired cathedral and another great chapel on Tower Hill – as much wood as stone, mind. The people of London protected the beams from burrowing insects with a coat of thick tar. That would prove a mistake, eventually, when it burned down.
It seemed to me a worn-out place, battered by time, though the river was busy enough. The Thames was the key, that black vein right through the heart. We went from a choppy sea to a safe berth at our London dock in a single day. It is true that we could have ridden across country from Winchester in less time, but then I arrived at peace, rather than scratched, torn, filthy and probably murdered on the road.
Wulfric came to meet us with a fine cart and another half a dozen of his employees. Good, strong-looking fellows all, they took up our bags and followed along in a great troop. Some urchins of the town began laughing and jeering and shying stones at us, until we put two men amongst them with horsewhips. It was not on my behalf, you understand, but rather for the dignity of the Church. Still, I enjoyed the way they screeched and wailed.
The Roman walls had ancient gates, old and much repaired. Wulfric’s shop was on the corner of a street that ended at the eastern gate, a fine establishment advertising its wares in great bales of cloth, open to the touch of passers-by. There were many of those, hurrying along, busy little bees all of them. I felt a touch of worry at the sight, but Winchester held the king. That was what mattered.
I entered the shop proper and found myself astonished by the noise and clatter of the place – and the size. It went back and back and was filled with young men, cutting and measuring, calling orders to one another using words I had never heard. I took it all in, understanding that my brother was actually not the failure I had thought he would be.
Wulfric saw my surprise and chuckled.
‘We bought out the last share this year. This is all ours now – and honestly, Dun, I’m thinking of buying another shop closer to the north gate. Just outside it, perhaps. It would be madness not to! Land is so cheap in London, more so than Winchester. Cloth needs looms and looms need space. We’ve room to breathe, here.’
‘I can see that,’ I said, a little faintly. The flush of excitement and healthy sweat on his skin was not what I had expected and it disturbed me. His scar remained, to remind me he owed his entire life to my hands.
‘I think Uncle Athelm has found the silk,’ Wulfric said.
We both turned to see our uncle fondling a piece of blue cloth with something like awe or greed in his eyes. It shimmered.
‘Dear boy, what is this?’
‘From Cathay,’ Wulfric said, raising his voice over the clatter around us. ‘Two years of travel to reach us here. It is strong and yet fine. We don’t have the secret of it yet, but I’m testing a dozen new threads to make those fibres. We’ll match it – and then we’ll make it better and faster than they can, you wait and see. London was built on trade, Dun.’
‘Trade … I’m afraid my interest lies more in faith and prayer, Wulfric,’ I told him, though it was petty and I felt sorry the moment his face fell in dismay.
‘Of course, of course it does! I’m sorry, Dun, I was carried away showing it all to you. Oh, I feel a fool now. Uncle Athelm! I will make a gift of that silk to you. Will you come through to the back now and see Alice and your great-niece?’
The prospect was enough to drag the archbishop from his discoveries, moving amongst us like a ship passing smaller boats.
I took Wulfric by the arm as Athelm went through to the back.
‘I am pleased to see you doing well, Brother, truly. I’m …’
He cocked one hand behind an ear to hear me.
‘Come into the back, Dunstan. It’s quieter in the rooms upstairs. I have a surprise for you.’
Away from the noise of the shop, we ascended a creaking staircase together. It seemed ancient and I was comforted that it had borne the weight of my uncle before me, proving its strength beyond all doubt.
A small door brought us through to a cramped living room, with a brick stove of its own. I entered to see Alice sitting with my mother, dandling a baby between them. It could have been my life in that warm room above the shop, if I had not taken vows and holy orders. I think that made me colder to them than I might have been.
‘Mother, Alice,’ I said stiffly, bowing my head. Did the pink-cheeked young woman know about the bag of goose fat and its horrible purpose? I shuddered, feeling hairs rise on my arms.
My mother came to me with an expression of wonder on her face.
‘You are a man, Dunstan! Oh, I saw you last when you were still a boy.’
She embraced me and some of my chill vanished. I was home, and my family was about me. I wondered what they would say when I took Wulfric back to Glastonbury.
22
‘I won’t go, Dun! You can’t ask me to. You’ve seen the life I’ve built here. You’ve seen my wife and my daughter, the way the shop runs.’
‘Pay another to manage it, or bring Alice and the girl with you. I need someone I can trust to oversee three hundred and sixty hides of land, Wulfric! Someone who won’t steal half the rents.’
We were walking along a street thick with filth that defied description. I imagine the Romans were cleaner, honestly. The north wall lay ahead and, in our argument, I realised we’d walked at least a mile. I turned to go back, fed up with London’s noise and reek. Wulfric took me by the arm.
‘It’s a life’s work, Dun,’ he said faintly. ‘What you’re asking. So many farms, the crops and mutton, timber, charcoal burners, hunting and poaching, quarry and fishing rights … I could not do so much and still run the shop here for my wife and our mother.’
‘I have not asked you to,’ I said firmly. ‘I’ve said Mother can find someone else to run her … cloth business. Or you can persuade her to sell the share you own. I’ll have a house built for you and Alice, don’t fear for that. Or I’ll buy our old home, whatever you want. I have won a huge holding for the abbey, Wulfric. I just need a good man to make it work.’
‘You do it, then,’ he said mulishly, surprising me.
‘I cannot! I am an abbot – and my concern is the king. If I can leave you in charge, I’ll know the work will go on, that I won’t come back to Glastonbury and find the place looted and abandoned. Those are the stakes, Wulfric. Come home.’
‘I can’t do it. This is my home now.’
I didn’t want to make my claim on him, but the ‘T’-shaped scar on his head had darkened pink in his anger, so that it drew my eye.
‘I climbed the tower and brought you down, Wulfric, in the rain.’
‘Dunstan, please,’ he said, groaning as we stood facing each other in the street.
‘I cut that pulley out of you in pieces.’
/> He pressed the heel of his hand into his eye, making a sound more like anger.
‘I let Encarius cut off your arm,’ I said, ‘because you were dead if I didn’t. Because I made the choice to have you in the world, but wounded, rather than not in the world.’
‘I know I owe you my life,’ he said. ‘But I have left all that behind. The shop is doing well, Alice is a fine wife and we hope to be blessed with more children. Alice wants a son as well. I’d like two or three, to be brothers to one another.’
‘Wulfric,’ I said gently, as if to a babbling child. ‘I cut threads into iron. You bear the scars still.’
‘And you killed Godwin in revenge,’ he said. His eyes opened and he glared at me, though I felt sick and cold. ‘It was all they talked of when you were gone, did you know? Caspar and Simeon raged together that you had survived. They searched for days in the fields around that cliff, looking for your body, for wherever you gave up and died. I prayed you would not be found – and you were not.’
‘I fell on soft ground,’ I whispered. I had never thought what it had been like for my brother. ‘You went to London, though, to this shop.’
‘Not for a month, Dun. I had to hear all their spite first. I’ve never asked you …’
‘And I have nothing to tell you, Wulfric. I have acted always in the service of God. That is all. I served God when I pulled up the bone of your skull, when I wept over you and washed you and spooned soup into your mouth and brought you back from the brink of death, over and over.’
I stopped, waiting, as his head sagged to his chest.
‘All right, Dun,’ he said. ‘I’ll come back.’
‘Thank you,’ I said. I was furious with him that he had made me plead for it. His life was mine own. He had no right to make another, away from me.
We walked back to the shop in silence. I could see a frown deepening in Wulfric as he considered how he would tell his wife she had to uproot and go back to Glastonbury. I thought I’d leave them privacy for that. I suspected Alice would blame me and I told Wulfric I’d remain on the street for a while, taking the air.
I felt trouble coming before I understood something was wrong. As I stood looking along the street by the gate, I saw people pull one another to a halt and talk with great vigour. I saw hands raised to cover mouths and eyes go wide, before I ever heard the urchins cry their news. I felt blood drain from my face as I understood what they were shouting. My breath seemed to choke me as I leaned in through the entrance to the shop.
‘Wulfric! Come now. Wulfric! We’ve lost York.’
The shop fell silent, with every face turned towards me.
‘Don’t just stare at me. Fetch my brother!’ I roared at them.
Rumours were wild things and I knew not to trust wild talk of Vikings and war when it was bawled on the street corners. We’d had scares before, of invasions and once of plague. There had been riots and great rushes of people, men and women falling underfoot as they ran like sheep in their panic.
The city of Rome had its news read aloud on the corners by senate heralds, while ours was three parts gossip, two of rumour and the truth all hidden within, if it existed at all. I could hear women shrieking nearby. They enjoyed the horror of it, the great emotions. I could always see it in their eyes as they wailed and had to be comforted.
The city had come to a halt as word spread. Clusters of people gathered, knots of them, swirling wherever someone claimed to know something.
I chafed as I waited for my brother, roaring ‘Wulfric!’ to the back of the shop at intervals. I kept my knife in my hand as well. There was that sense of panic in the air, as if the whole world might go up in flames at any moment. I felt my heart thumping and knew if it was true, I had to get back to Winchester and the king. If the invasion was actually happening, he would be making ready for war, just as Æthelstan had done.
I thought of the ship waiting at the docks, but it was too slow. It had to be horses. I knew I could make the ride in three days. I could do it in two with the wind behind me if I had to.
Uncle Athelm came out, pale and sweating.
‘What’s all this shouting, this madness?’ he demanded from me.
‘They’re saying we’ve lost York. That a fleet has landed in the north.’
I watched him look along the street as I had done, trying to sift the truth from the sight of panicking crowds.
‘Lord God, pray it is not true,’ he said softly.
‘You should go by ship, Uncle. Wulfric and I will ride to Winchester.’
My brother appeared at last in the doorway, wiping the front of his shirt with a cloth. I gathered some liquid had been thrown at him in his conversation with Alice and my mother. Yet we had other concerns then.
‘The ship is too slow, Wulfric,’ I said. ‘We can do it in two days on horseback, but we’ll need good mounts.’
‘It’s true, then? It’s war?’
I just gestured down the street, to a hundred clusters of men and women, all afraid.
Wulfric paused only a beat, then began to issue orders to his people. I watched in surprise as he sent his employees running to arrange all we would need. With no warning, Wulfric snapped out his arm to collar a lad trying to run through our little group. The boy’s legs flew up alarmingly as Wulfric grasped his coat.
‘What have you heard?’ he demanded.
‘Vikings, sir. They’ve taken York, they’re sayin’. Master says the king will call ’is levy and we’ll all go and cut their froats!’
Wulfric let the lad run off and sighed to me as he turned back.
‘His master has an ear for such things. Yet if we’ve lost York, truly lost that city, the kingdom is cut in half.’
‘Is it Anlaf, do you think?’ I asked. I wanted to remind my serious brother that I had experience of war. ‘I saw him on the field at Brunanburh. I thought we’d sent him running for good, with his tail between his legs. We’ll do so again, if he’s come back.’
‘We don’t have Æthelstan now,’ Wulfric murmured, staring off along the street. ‘God help us all.’
I frowned at that, though I wondered how many others were saying exactly the same, the length and breadth of the country.
‘Where are those horses?’ I demanded. ‘I need to get back.’
I heard the iron hooves clattering on cobbles before we saw them. I was ready and I leaped from the mounting block to the beast’s back with some show of skill. It made my robe ride up, however, so that my legs were left bare to the thigh and my buttocks were suddenly chilled by saddle leather. I considered calling for a cloak to go over it all, but it still looked ridiculous. In something of a temper, I dismounted again, stalking back into the shop to wait while the tailors ran up some thick woollen trews to go under the robe.
By the time we were all ready to go, Alice and my mother had come out to wave us off. Neither looked happy at the prospect, and Alice was in tears as she embraced Wulfric and told him to come back as soon as he could. She said not a word to me.
I thought my brother would not have been able to mount with one arm, but he jumped into the saddle with something like grace. I said a prayer over our little group, asking God and St Christopher to keep us safe on our journey through deep country. We crossed ourselves and wheeled our horses, then scattered urchins like leaves before us.
We reached Winchester late on the second night. The roads were good in the last dozen miles to the city, so I insisted on going on in the dark, though Wulfric wanted to camp and eat.
The gate of the city was closed, of course, with the country all a-tremble at alarms and invasions. We’d lost time on the road when troops of royal soldiers held us at bay until they were certain we were not enemy scouts or traitors. From those men I learned it was indeed Anlaf who had returned to England.
It seemed the old wolf had moved just about as soon as he’d heard Æthelstan had died, making plans and calling the Viking Irish who settled around Dublin and all along that east coast. I heard later that there w
as a great knot of them at Limerick and they’d walked to join his fleet that year, for silver and women and a king’s favour. They brought their old gods back with them. I fancied I could feel the unease in the land as the gate opened ahead of us.
There were soldiers everywhere in Winchester, ready to challenge and suspicious of all. Honestly, it is a wonder civil war did not break out on the streets, they were so ready for violence. Panic had spread amongst the people there and word was of the king calling all his lords. I wondered how many could possibly reach Winchester in time, so far to the south were we. For the first time in my life, with London dust in the buckles of my sandals, I wondered if the king’s capital should possibly be a little further north than Winchester, God forgive me. Leicester, perhaps.
Lamps fluttered on every corner, burning money, just about – and in paying boys to guard them so poor households could not steal the oil. There was a sense of chaos on the air as Wulfric and I rode in as far as we could, then passed the horses to the care of a couple of our own lads. They’d ride back to London to return the animals, but they’d wait first for news, whatever they could learn.
It could only be war. That much I understood as I made my way into a thicker and thicker crowd, all heading to the Witan hall for the king’s gathering. I came to a halt in the end and had to elbow close enough to catch the attention of two guards blocking a door.
‘Abbot Dunstan of Glastonbury, here on the king’s orders,’ I growled at them. I did not have to point to my tonsure and robe. They were nervous of the crowd turning ugly, but the Church is not to be crossed. Heads bowed and Wulfric and I swept inside.
In the Witan hall, I grew hot and angry in moments. I found myself buffeted and pushed, at least as roughly as I had been on the street outside. I’m afraid I used my elbows and knees quite ruthlessly to give Wulfric room. He did not seem unduly troubled, but with one arm, I wanted to get him to a seat – and there was at least one free, as Uncle Athelm could not have reached Winchester before us.