Dawn of Wolves (The Kingdom of Mercia) (19 page)

“Come, Aunty.” She gently pried Aethelthryth off her shoulder and placed an arm around the woman’s trembling form. “I will prepare you a hot bath and fetch you something to eat.”

She felt Wulfhere’s gaze shift to her. He had turned from unsaddling his horse. She could sense that he wanted her to look his way.

Ermenilda ignored him.

Seeing Aethelthryth so distraught boded ill and filled her with fear. She would not speak with her husband until she had spoken to her aunt in private.

Wynflaed watched her mistress lead the sobbing woman away. She glanced to the right and saw that the king was also observing his wife walk back toward the Great Tower.

Wulfhere’s gaze had narrowed, and his expression turned stony. Wynflaed watched him, alarm fluttering up from her belly.

She should have come forward to greet him properly.

Wynflaed liked the woman she served. Ermenilda was lively, clever, and sensitive. Despite that their opinions sometimes clashed, she treated her handmaid well, and over the months they had been at Tamworth, a strong friendship had grown between them. However, there were times when Wynflaed wanted to shake her. Did she not realize the trouble she was making for herself?

Wynflaed was about to move off, to follow the queen back inside the hall, when a man spoke behind her.

“Were you going to greet me?”

Wynflaed swiveled to find Elfhere waiting there, smiling.

“Did you miss me, fair Wynflaed?”

Wynflaed gave an unladylike snort in an attempt to mask the heat flowering in her cheeks. “As much as I’d miss one of my father’s hounds.”

Elfhere laughed at that, and Wynflaed noted—not for the first time—how handsome he was.

Yes, and I’m sure he knows that too.

“How did the campaign go?” she asked him, in an attempt to steer the conversation back to safer waters.

The laughter drained from Elfhere’s face.

“Well enough,” he replied, glancing askance at his king. Wulfhere was not paying him any attention, for he was barking orders at his men.

“What does that mean?” Wynflaed pressed, frowning. “Did the king have his reckoning or not?”

“Oh, he had his reckoning. Ely is nothing but a smoldering, pyre and the ealdorman and his brother are slain.”

Wynflaed went cold at this news. She could see from Elfhere’s expression that he was not pleased to be the bearer of such tidings. Wynflaed glanced toward the hall where Ermenilda and the weeping woman had just disappeared.

“And his lady?”

“Lady Aethelthryth is now King Wulfhere’s hostage,” Elfhere replied, his gaze shuttered, and all trace of his earlier good humor gone, “to do with as he sees fit.”

Ermenilda showed Aethelthryth over to a stool and helped her sit. They had taken refuge in the tiny space that held the iron bathtub. A heavy tapestry screened them from the rest of the hall, giving the women a moment alone.

Ermenilda knelt before her aunt, her gaze riveted upon Aethelthryth’s flushed face. Tears still streamed down her cheeks, although she had managed to rein back her sobbing.

“Aunty,” she said finally. “You must tell me what happened—”

At that moment, the tapestry shifted as Wynflaed poked her head inside the chamber.

“Milady . . . can I help you?”

“I’ve asked the slaves to prepare water for a bath,” Ermenilda replied. “Please bring my aunt something to eat and drink.”

Wynflaed nodded before disappearing back into the hall.

Ermenilda turned back to her aunt. She reached forward and took Aethelthryth’s hands—they were ice cold.

“Please,” she whispered, dread rising within her, for her aunt’s silence was damning. “Talk to me . . .”

Aethelthryth looked up, her eyes glittering.

“They killed Tondberct and Cedric,” she gasped, her voice breaking. “Put their heads upon pikes outside the gates.”

Ermenilda stared at her aunt, horror stealing through her. But Aethelthryth had not finished.

“They burned Ely,” she continued, choking out each word as if she was struggling to breathe. “They destroyed my church.”

Aethelthryth leaned forward, her face twisting with the force of her anguish.

“Your father was a fool,” she spat. “Wulfhere is no Christian. He is an unrepentant heathen, and his soul will burn for what he has done.”

Ermenilda continued to stare at her aunt, unable to respond. Aethelthryth’s news sickened her to the core.

“Did they spare anyone?” she finally managed, bile creeping up her throat.

“Only those who did not fight them,” Aethelthryth replied. “Any who tried to stop them from entering Ely, they cut down.”

“I am so sorry,” Ermenilda whispered. Tears now escaped her burning eyes and scalded her cheeks. “I tried to stop him from marching on Ely, but he would not listen.”

Aethelthryth did not appear to be listening to her. Such was her rage against the man who had killed her husband and taken her hostage that she almost appeared to be in a trance.

“And now I’m his prisoner,” she choked out. “To be kept here as a trophy.”

“Did he or any of his men hurt you?”

Ermenilda asked the question that she had been dreading to ask since she had seen her aunt. Despite everything, she could not imagine Wulfhere as a rapist—but, at that moment, she was ready to think the worst of him.

Aethelthryth’s lip curled and her stormy gaze hardened at that question. Eventually, she shook her head.

“It appears that even wolves have some scruples,” she admitted grudgingly. “He told one of his men to watch over me and warned the others not to touch his hostage.”

Relief, giddying in its intensity, flooded over Ermenilda. It was short-lived, for a deep anger now burned within her.

Night fell over Tamworth in a hazy twilight of mauve and pink, bringing a hot early summer’s day to a close. The aroma of roasting mutton greeted Wulfhere as he climbed the steps up to his hall. He was exhausted. His eyes felt gritty with fatigue, and his limbs ached from days in the saddle.

Inside, his gaze sought out his wife. He found her, sitting with her aunt in a far corner. Ermenilda was winding wool onto her distaff while Aethelthryth sat, eyes downcast, her hands folded onto her lap. His hostage was dressed in a clean light-brown tunic, with a fresh veil obscuring her hair from view.

Both women ignored him as he entered.

Wulfhere clenched his jaw—his wife’s coldness stung. Taking a deep breath, he looked away from Ermenilda and continued across the hall, calling for a hot bath to be drawn. There would be time for them to talk later.

Across the hall, Aethelred waved to him. The prince was grinning.

“How about a horn of mead to celebrate victory?”

“After I wash the smell of horse off me,” Wulfhere called back, his mood lifting slightly. At least his brother was happy to see him.

Mead flowed on the evening of Wulfhere’s victorious return to the Great Hall of Tamworth.

There was a feast of roast venison and platters of roast vegetables, served with wheels of aged cheese and slabs of freshly baked griddle bread. Slaves circuited the hall, filling feasters’ cups to the brim with frothy mead, while dogs positioned themselves under tables, eagerly awaiting morsels of food that would drop onto the rushes.

A scop stood at the far end of the high seat. The youth strummed a lyre as he sung a poem about a wronged king and his glorious reckoning.

Ermenilda sat in silence next to her husband and listened.

Wise sir, do not grieve.

It is always better to avenge dear ones

than to indulge in mourning.

For every one of us, living in this world

means waiting for our end.

Let whoever can win glory before death.

When a warrior is gone,

that will be his best and only bulwark.

The young man had a hauntingly beautiful voice, and thunderous applause echoed up into the rafters after each verse.

Ermenilda grew increasingly upset as the song progressed.

The scop sung of the old ways, of a warrior’s life dedicated to glory in battle—as if nothing else mattered. Ermenilda looked about the table and saw how the scop’s words affected Wulfhere’s men. Werbode’s eyes glittered as he listened. Elfhere stared down at his cup of mead, an intense expression upon his face. Some of the other men silently wept. Only two people at the table did not appear moved by the poem: Seaxwulf and Aethelthryth.

The priest sat at the far end, next to Ermenilda’s aunt. Seaxwulf’s expression was cool, although Ermenilda could see the disapproval in his eyes. Aethelthryth sat, head bowed, her face deathly pale.

It is always better to avenge dear ones than to indulge in mourning.

Was that why Aethelthryth and Seaxburh had plotted to kill Wulfhere?

They were both deeply religious women, but in the end, the lust for vengeance had triumphed over their beliefs.

Watching her aunt’s stricken face, Ermenilda felt a wave of pity consume her. Revenge was a never-ending cycle, like a serpent consuming its own tail. Once you awoke the beast, it would not die till it had consumed itself.

Finally, the scop finished his poem, his voice echoing in the silence before the feasters climbed to their feet and applauded him.

Ermenilda remained seated when Wulfhere joined them. Her husband held his drinking horn high in the air as his men cheered.

“To victory!”

Ermenilda stared at her trencher piled high with venison, roast onions, and carrots and knew she was too angry to eat a mouthful of it. She tried to quell the outrage building within her, but the impulse was too strong.

When Wulfhere sat back down beside her, she turned to him.

“What manner of victory is it to attack a town with barely the means to defend itself?” she asked.

Although she kept her voice low, it seemed to ring across the table.

“What glory is there in burning down the homes of folk who have never done you wrong?”

Her gaze met Wulfhere’s, and she saw the warning in the pale depths of his eyes. Around her, the hall went ominously silent, but Ermenilda did not heed it. She wanted Aethelthryth to see this; she wanted her aunt to know that she did not condone her husband’s behavior.

“You were baptized, and yet you burned Ely’s church to the ground. Why?”

“As a reminder, a warning,” Wulfhere replied, his voice quiet and devoid of emotion, “to all those who trespass against the King of Mercia.”

“But you swore an oath!”

“I serve no master. My choices are my own to make.”

“You’re a beast!” Ermenilda shot back, aware that her voice had turned shrill. “You made a promise you had no intention of fulfilling. You are a liar!”

A hiss of outrage reverberated around the hall, and Ermenilda emerged from the red haze that had made her blind to all else till this moment. She glanced about her and saw anger on their faces. Only Aethelthryth appeared pleased—her face flushed with pride at her niece’s outburst—and her eyes gleamed. Ermenilda looked back at her husband, and her stomach twisted with dread.

Wulfhere had gone pale—his handsome face all taut angles. His eyes were two glittering slits as he rose to his feet.

“Enough,” he growled.

He took her by the upper arm, his fingers biting into her skin, and propelled her toward the ladder that led up to the King’s Loft.

“Go upstairs,” he told her, his voice rough with barely contained anger. “I will deal with you later.”

Ermenilda, truly afraid of her husband for the first time since meeting him, did as he ordered. Her shaking limbs were as much from fury as from fear, as was her thundering pulse. She climbed the ladder, aware of the gazes of all burning into her, and staggered across to the furs.

There, she shakily sat down and tried to calm the rage that still pulsed in her breast.

Wulfhere returned to his seat and took a deep draft of mead from his drinking horn. Unfortunately, the honeyed mead, which had previously tasted so sweet, now left a bitter tang in his mouth.

Damn her. She has gone too far this time.

Next to him, Aethelred shifted uncomfortably. His brother was frowning, his gaze fixed upon Wulfhere.

“Save it,” Wulfhere growled at him. “I’m in no mood to listen.”

To make himself clearer still, Wulfhere stabbed the knife he had been using to cut meat into the table next to his trencher. His brother, perhaps remembering what had happened last time he had voiced his opinion on Wulfhere’s relations with his queen, held his tongue.

Around Wulfhere, conversation eventually resumed, although it was without the earlier joviality and sense of celebration. Ermenilda had achieved what she intended—to humiliate him in front of his kin and retainers.

Wulfhere’s gaze traveled to the far end of the table, where Seaxwulf was gloomily staring down at his half-eaten meal. Aethelthryth of Ely sat next to him, but she was not downcast and defeated, as she had been earlier. Instead, his hostage was staring at him, her eyes as hard as iron. She met his gaze unflinchingly and held it, in wordless challenge.

The women in this family. They’re all shrews with tongues like seax blades.

As if reading his thoughts, Aethelthryth favored Wulfhere with a hard smile, full of spite. Wulfhere tore his gaze away from her and glanced up at the loft he shared with Ermenilda. Perhaps his brother, and Werbode, had spoken true. He had been too soft, too permissive, with his bold-tongued wife and was now reaping what he had sown.

Ermenilda was still sitting upon the edge of the furs, her hands clasped together in front of her in a silent prayer, when she heard the scrape of Wulfhere’s boots on the rungs of the wooden ladder.

Mother Mary, save me. He is coming.

Heart hammering, Ermenilda rose to her feet and wiped her damp palms on her skirts. It was best to face him standing; he would not see her cowering in the corner, pleading for forgiveness.

Even so, she nearly quailed at the sight of Wulfhere climbing onto the platform. It had been almost a moon’s cycle since he had stood inside their private chamber beside her, and like before his departure, Wulfhere’s presence dominated the space. She felt tiny in comparison.