'Why would you do this?' he asked, staring at the raven's wing in my hair. 'You've already said you will not swear fealty to me.'
'My jarl is somewhere out there,' I said, picking dried blood from the rings of my brynja's shoulder and crumbling it between thumb and forefinger. 'After I have found Weohstan, I will find Sigurd.' I smiled at Ealdred then. 'I will find him before your god does.' And although that is what I told Ealdred, there was another reason why I would wet my sword with Welsh blood. I would bring Weohstan back to Wessex for Cynethryth.
That night Ealdred gave his people a great feast to celebrate his daughter's return and because, he said, she had escaped the bed of a Mercian sheep-lover before blooding his linen. He did not mention the holy gospel book of Saint Jerome, but that did not surprise me. You did not shout about owning such a treasure unless you wanted jealous men to covert it for themselves.
New rushes were laid, fires were set, and come evening the ealdorman's mead hall thronged with his people. Warriors, craftsmen, traders and merchants paid their compliments to Ealdred's family, made friends with his friends and gorged on swan and beef, pork and trout, wine and good sweet mead. Ealdred even managed to look mournful as he read a passage from a simple leather-bound book in memory of Father Egfrith, 'so cruelly slain by the heathens'. Then he had other priests say prayers before we were made to listen to one of his young nephews play the reed pipe. Thór's balls the boy was bad. The sound reminded me of a newborn's squawking and even Ealdred seemed relieved when the boy's mother led him ashamedly from the hall.
I did not sit with Cynethryth, but was given a place amongst the men I would lead out next morning. Not the forty I had asked for, but thirty. Ealdred feared to strip his lands of so many warriors and was quick to point out that King Coenwulf had done just that, which was why the Wolfpack had been able to steal the gospels of Saint Jerome and burn down his hall. Neither were the thirty all proper fighting men. I learned that twenty of them were fyrdsmen, farmers and merchants fulfilling their obligation of sixty days' armed service to their lord. And that night there was no shortage of mead to make them brave, even though it was a false courage that they would piss away come morning. The other ten were warriors, grizzled veterans of many fights who wore their battle scars as proudly as they wore their warrior rings, and I was glad of them. They reminded me of Mauger and each was eager to earn more silver rings fighting the Welsh. I wondered which of them we had fought in this very hall weeks before.
Many times during the night I tried to catch Cynethryth's eye, but she sat amongst cousins and aunts and high-born friends who were making such a fuss over her that she was never likely to notice me. I thought our eyes met once, but she looked away so quickly that I wondered if I had imagined it, so I began babbling to the man beside me to take my mind off the girl. At the high point of the feast, when the clamour in Ealdred's hall sounded like the wild song of the shieldwall, I saw Cynethryth give an empty smile, whisper in her father's ear and then leave the bench.
'I need to piss,' I said, breaking free of the throng to go out into the night. The new oak door creaked closed behind me, muffling the rowdy voices within as I drank in the cool night air, hoping to clear my head. If anything the fresh air along with the absence of others made me feel worse and for a moment I thought I would vomit. I had no idea where to look for Cynethryth and I doubted my tongue would speak any sense even if I found her, so I cursed and turned to go back in. Then I saw her by an ancient yew, the tree's dark branches silhouetted against a sentry fire before the fortress's main gate. Cynethryth leant against the gnarled trunk, staring into the flames.
'Cynethryth?' I spoke the name softly so as not to startle her, but she did not move and I thought she must not have heard. 'Cynethryth? Is everything all right?' She pressed the heels of her hands against her eyes, then turned to face me, and I saw she had been crying. 'What is it?' I asked. 'What's wrong?'
'How could anything be wrong?' she asked coldly, turning back into shadow. 'Everyone is happy. Is it not a feast to remember, Raven?' She gestured to the noisy mead hall. Cracks leaked a warm yellow glow out into the night and a wave of dizziness washed over me. I was about to confirm that I had never been to a greater feast, but then I thought better of it.
'I don't understand, Cynethryth,' I said, scratching the short beard on my cheeks.
'Why would you?' she snapped. 'You're a man.' She shook her head. 'My father is ealdorman and they all fall over themselves to please him while he drinks himself out of his mind.' I held in a belch, wondering how much mead I had poured down my throat. 'Ealdred will piss himself and take some girl to his bed and when the sun comes up he'll go hunting with the girl's father.' She stepped away from the yew tree and turned to look me in the eye. 'What about my brother? Damn Ealdred! What about his son?' she exclaimed. 'Weohstan is barely cold and they celebrate with goose and swan and God knows what else, but I know it should not be eaten tonight. Not tonight.'