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Aethelwold never feels less like an aetheling than when he rides with Uhtred. They cross the River Tamar, armour shining where Aethelwold has polished it, and he feels like a servant. Worse, a serving girl, fit for whatever Uhtred and Leofric decide to do with him, it does not feel much like a debt repaid.
The two men in question ride ahead of the column, often their laughter booming out over the hills, as they ride into Cornwallum. The rest of the men laugh too, their horses picking mud all up their legs and it will be Aethelwold who has to clean them, but he cannot.
He is thinking, as he watches Leofric laugh, of the bog slipping beneath his boots, the lurch in his chest as his legs came out from under him, and Leofric still coming after him like a mad dog, sword low like an adder before it strikes. I have never seen him that angry, he had said to Uhtred, but the truth is that he has, he just normally never lets it spill over into something tangible like that, he usually keeps it to rough grabs and sarcastic quips — the thud of his boot before Aethelwold woke up halfway to a monastery — but now they are beyond the hand of Uncle Alfred on his throne, beyond the rule of Saxons at all. They are in Cornwallum and it is only what Uhtred — Uhtred who snaps with anger at the king in front of the Witan, who won’t spare a thought for the kingship of a man without a crown, throne, or claim to the minds of wise men — says that goes.
Aethelwold is as good as dead if Uhtred changes his mind.
*
There are two fires. Aethelwold stirs the stew he’s making for the men, wishing he’d stayed to whore in Wintanc a ester, to get drunk and eat food other people had cooked. The woods smell of peat; Wessex, this is not.
He glances over at the other fire, where Leofric and Uhtred sit. They’re in conversation, their faces close together — Leofric’s scarred and cragged, shadows from the fire turning his eyes blacker than his hair, like the Devil’s pits, Uhtred’s smooth and young, his scars pink and somehow handsome, they make a strange picture side-by-side — their laughter quiet. They are always like that, at taverns in the presence of whores, in the square surrounded by their men, even before King Alfred. They talk like they’ve known each other more than a few years, faces close together, knowing every word to say to make the other laugh.
“Arseling,” Leofric says and shoves Uhtred on the shoulder so he goes sprawling in the leaf litter, laughing that harsh, barking, Dane laugh of his. These are the strange men Aethelwold has bound his life to, the adventure does not seem like such a good idea, any more. Leofric pulls Uhtred back up to sit on log they’d dragged over to the fire and picks leaves out of his hair for him, Aethelwold feels a little like he’s plunging into cold water while he watches, so he looks away and goes back to tending the stew and fire.
*
There’s no silver at the first village. Aethelwold stays out of sight while Uhtred rages, watching blood from innocent men dry in the straw. It doesn’t feel so much like adventure, it feels like murder. He is not blooded yet but he will be the one to clean blood from their axes and swords, most like, if Uhtred is this angry.
Leofric stands near Uhtred, quiet, his sword still in his hand. Aethelwold watches from the stables beside a dead farmer as Uhtred rages, then Leofric grabs him by the shoulder and looks him in the eyes, calms him like you might a horse, his hand slipping up the shoulder and onto Uhtred’s neck. Aethelwold can see Leofric’s fingers lacing in Uhtred’s hair, the smooth locks of it wound about his fingers, it makes his insides turn to ice. “There will be other villages,” he hears Leofric say, his rough voice a low rumble.
He watches them, talking indistinctly now, their faces too close together to work out their expressions, until he feels light-headed and goes to relocate his horse.
*
He knows that no one here cares if he lives or dies, aetheling or not, so he keeps back during the next raid, watching the blind terror of the Britons as Uhtred and the rest descend on them. He wanders through a copse of trees, an escaping woman and her daughter scream when they see him, clutching at their chests and backing away through the trees. He doesn’t bother following them.
When the village grows quiet again, except for Uhtred’s yells, he knows they’ve found nothing again. He tips his head back to the cold blue of a Cornwallum sky and thinks about a good pair of Saxon tits, about grovelling in the mud of Wintanc a ester but still being an aetheling and not a servant, about seeing those girls run from Alfred’s rooms, about the warm smoke and taste of ale that always chases his nights down back home.
He rides back in, watches from between two houses as Leofric calms Uhtred again with his hands and those terrifying dark eyes. He wonders that they can’t feel his gaze but perhaps they’re too wrapped up in their little rituals to notice him. He wonders if Uhtred has Leofric under some Pagan spell. He wonders if all those stories about Pagans are even real, as he sees one calmed by a Saxon warrior’s hand.
“No silver, then?” he dares to ask, as Uhtred and Leofric mount up and the rest of the men wander into the centre of the village, empty handed, too.
Uhtred looks at him like Aethelwold is something less than a king, less than a lord, less than a peasant, less than a man, less even than a dog he might let take scraps from his table. “No silver.”
“Not that you were helping, coward,” says Leofric.
He watches them ride away, with the column of men following openly sniggering in his face, and he thinks, I am the king! He thinks, I am smarter and quicker than you will ever be. He thinks of proud Uhtred not kneeling before the cross, unable to lie even for a second for Alfred’s forgiveness. Doesn’t he understand you don’t need to believe in God to kiss a cross, you don’t need to genuinely pray to go to church. Is the man an idiot? I am smarter than him, Aethelwold thinks, and follows them out of the village, steaming.
*
The next villages have nothing either, each time it is Leofric who calms Uhtred and it is Aethelwold who watches.
Aethelwold lies on his bedroll and watches the moon, the only silver they’ve seen since entering Cornwallum. It’s a dark night, it seems somehow darker than Wessex — though maybe that’s because Aethelwold spends most nights near firepits getting drunk, the only dark he sees between a good pair of tits — and it’s almost silent except for the crackling of a dying fire, the snorting of the horses, and men talking.
Closest, he can hear Leofric and Uhtred speaking.
“What will we do if there’s no silver?” Uhtred asks.
Leofric’s voice is rasping. “Then we won’t find silver.”
Uhtred makes a frustrated noise. “You’re very helpful.”
“Listen, Arseling,” says Leofric, and Aethelwold hears fabric on fabric and Leofric’s voice gets quieter, “I am with you, silver or not. The men will follow you, as long as we keep moving.”
Aethelwold turns beneath his blanket and sees them, Leofric’s hand on Uhtred’s cheek, like a lover.
“You are with me,” whispers Uhtred, like a prayer. He thinks Uhtred would have a much easier time with Alfred if he just pretended God was Leofric, and knelt at the altar.
*
He does not know what to think of them. He has blood drying on his front from the Briton that fell on his sword, the man’s life sticking to him like a second skin, like warm ale spilt at a tavern. The Queen rides with Uhtred at the front of the column, Leofric rides behind them with his dark eyes focussed on the back of the Pagans’ heads. Iseult, dead King Peredur’s wife, with her long dark curls looks like a smooth Leofric, Aethelwold thinks. Dark hair like night, dark eyes like caverns, but her skin unmarred and new, her lips a woman’s. Leofric with tits and magic powers, to boot. He almost pities the three of them, as they ride back to home, back to whores and ale.
Adventure, some adventure. His hands are sore from the work Uhtred put to him, his thighs ache from hard riding, Leofric looks sour and lovesick enough to give him worse sores. Skorpa’s bloody teeth grin from the dark corners of his mind.
The sky is a bright cold blue and men are dead and homes wrecked, all for Uhtred’s bloody silver. Aethelwold thinks if he ever wants to have Uhtred in the palm of his hand (or under it, ready to squash), he will have to be careful, slow and sure like a spider.
*
Uhtred leaves with Iseult, Aethelwold almost wants to join him to see the look on his pretty wife’s face. Before they leave, he pulls his horse close to Leofric’s and says something quiet that Aethelwold can’t hear. Leofric’s face gives nothing away, but his eyes follow Uhtred as he leaves, black and sad, and his hand twitches like he wants to reach out after him. It is a pitiful thing.
He rides with Leofric back to Wintancaester after Uhtred leaves and the rest of the men who followed them into Cornwallum drop off, one by one, to their own homes. Leofric is quiet and Aethelwold would be hesitant to speak, where they not back in Wessex, under the safety of Alfred’s ever present eye.
“Will you tell Alfred?” he asks as they ford a stream, sunlight playing prettily through the young leaves. “Of Cornwallum? Of the Pagan queen?”
“Why would I?” says Leofric, gruff and angry.
Aethelwold shrugs. “You know word will reach him, our Pagan friend was stupid to run around using his own name. People will ask where he got the treasure to pay off the bishop. People will ask where he got his sorceress.”
Leofric says nothing.
“You will die for it, if Alfred or your Lord Odda finds out you’ve lied for him.”
Leofric still says nothing.
“She looks a little like you. You if you were far, far prettier… and had tits.”
Now Leofric looks at him, and he almost looks afraid, his hand clenching bone white on the pommel of his sword.
“Alfred will find out,” says Aethelwold, hunching down in his cloak and wishing he’d kept his Dane furs, “it will be better for you and for him if you tell Odda as soon as we are back in the city, then you can save him and yourself. You can die for him, if that’s what your heart desires, Leofric.”
“Speak plain, Aethelwold.” There is a taut anger to him, a wildness to his dark eyes.
“You understand me, we don’t need to speak plainly,” he says. “I am only telling you the truth.”
Leofric stares at him, like he might kill him.
“Uncle Alfred may not like me, but he will not take kindly to you killing me, Leofric.”
“I am not going to kill you, aetheling. Though I should very much like to.”
Aethelwold smiles tensely. “Many people do. Don’t worry yourself, no one would believe me if I told them. Perhaps you should be more careful.” He nudges his horse and rides for home (for tits, for ale) and listens to Leofric urging his horse on too, behind. He wonders if he made the right move and supposes he shall find out, all in due course.