Welshmen he doubtless looked calm, but I could sense his fury that Cynlæf’s rebellion had hired Welsh troops. There had ever been enmity between Mercia and the Welsh. Each raided the other, but Mercia, with its rich fields and plump orchards, had more to lose. Indeed the first warrior I ever killed in a shield wall was a Welshman who had come to Mercia to steal cattle or women. I killed four men that day. I had no mail, no helmet, just a borrowed shield and my two swords, and that was the day I first experienced the battle-joy. Our small force of Mercians had been led by Tatwine, a monstrous beast of a warrior, and when the battle was done, when the bridge where we had fought was slippery with blood, he had complimented me. ‘God love me,’ I remembered him saying in awe, ‘but you’re a savage one.’ I was a youngster, raw and half-trained, and thought that was praise.
Æthelstan controlled his anger. ‘You tell me that Gruffudd comes from Gwent,’ he said, looking at the man who showed the glint of gold at his neck. ‘But tell me, father, is not Arthfael King of Gwent?’
‘He is, lord Prince.’
‘And King Arthfael thought it good to send men to fight against my father, King Edward?’
Father Bledod still looked embarrassed. ‘The gold, lord, was paid to Gruffudd.’
That answer was evasive and Æthelstan knew it. He paused, looking at the warriors standing in the snow. ‘And who,’ he asked, ‘is Gruffudd of Gwent?’
‘He is kin to Arthfael,’ the priest admitted.
‘Kin?’
‘His mother’s brother, lord Prince.’
Æthelstan thought for a moment. It could hardly have been a surprise that Welsh troops were at the siege. The Welsh and the Mercians were enemies and had always been enemies. King Offa, who had ruled Mercia in the days of its greatness, had built a wall and ditch to mark the frontier and had sworn to kill any Welshman who dared cross the wall, but of course they dared, indeed they seemed to regard the barrier as a challenge. The Mercian rebellion was an opportunity for the Welsh to weaken their traditional enemy. They would have been fools not to take advantage of the Saxon troubles, and the kingdom of Gwent, which lay on the other side of Offa’s ditch, must have hoped to gain land if Cynlæf’s rebellion had succeeded. A few dead warriors was a small price to pay if the Welsh gained some prime Saxon farmland, and it was plain that King Arthfael had made that bargain with Cynlæf. Father Bledod had done his best to absolve the Gwentish king of blame, and Æthelstan did not press him. ‘Tell me,’ he said instead, ‘how many men did Gruffudd of Gwent bring to Ceaster?’
‘Seventy-four, lord.’
‘Then tell Gruffudd of Gwent,’ Æthelstan said, and each time he repeated the name he invested it with more scorn, ‘that he and his seventy-four men are free to cross the river and go home. I will not stop them.’ And that, I thought, was the right decision. There was no point in picking a quarrel with a defeated force. If Æthelstan had chosen to kill Gruffudd and his Welshmen, which he was surely entitled to do, the news of the massacre would spread through the Welsh kingdoms and provoke retaliation. It was better to provoke gratitude by allowing Gruffudd and his men to crawl back to their hovels. ‘But they may travel with nothing more than they brought with them,’ Æthelstan added. ‘If they steal so much as one goat I will slaughter all of them!’
Father Bledod showed no concern at the threat. He must have expected it, and he knew as well as Æthelstan that the threat was a formality. Æthelstan just wanted the foreigners gone from Mercia. ‘Your goats are safe, lord,’ the priest said with sly humour, ‘but Gruffudd’s son is not.’
‘What of his son?’
The priest gestured towards the arena. ‘He is in there, lord.’
Æthelstan turned and stared at the arena, its blood red walls lit by fire and half obscured by snow. ‘It is my intention,’ he said, ‘to kill every man inside.’
The priest made the sign of the cross. ‘Cadwallon ap Gruffudd is a hostage, lord.’
‘A hostage!’ Æthelstan could not hide his surprise. ‘Are you telling me that Cynlæf doesn’t trust Gruffudd of Gwent?’ Æthelstan asked, but the priest did not answer, nor did he need to. Gruffudd’s son had clearly been taken hostage as a surety that the Welsh warriors would not desert Cynlæf’s cause. And that, I thought, meant that Gruffudd must have given Cynlæf cause to doubt the Welshmen’s loyalty.
‘How many of your seventy-four men still live, priest?’ I asked.
Æthelstan looked annoyed at my intervention, but said nothing. ‘Sixty-three, lord,’ the priest answered.
‘You lost eleven men assaulting the walls?’ I asked.
‘Yes, lord.’ Father Bledod paused for a heartbeat. ‘We put ladders against the northern gate, lord, we took the tower.’ He meant one of the two bastions that flanked the Roman gate. ‘We drove the sais from the rampart, lord.’ He was proud of what Gruffudd’s men had achieved, and he had every right to be proud.
‘And you were driven from the gate,’ Æthelstan remarked quietly.
‘By you, lord Prince,’ the priest said. ‘We took the tower, but could not keep it.’
‘And how many sais,’ I used Bledod’s word for the Saxons, ‘died with you on the gate?’
‘We counted ten bodies, lord.’
‘No,’ I said, ‘I want to know how many of Cynlæf’s men died with you.’
‘None, lord,’ Father Bledod could not hide his scorn, ‘not one.’
Æthelstan understood my questions now. Cynlæf had let the Welshmen lead the assault and had done nothing to support them. The Welsh had done the fighting and the Saxons had let them die, and that experience had soured Gruffudd and his men. They could have resisted our arrival the previous day, but had chosen not to fight because they had lost faith in Cynlæf and his cause. Æthelstan looked at the warriors lined behind the priest. ‘What can Gruffudd,’ he asked, ‘give me in return for his son’s life?’
The priest turned and spoke with the short, broad-chested man who wore the gold chain about his neck. Gruffudd of Gwent had a scowling face, a grey tangled beard, and one blind eye, his right eye, which was white as the falling snow. A scar on his cheek showed where a blade had taken the sight from that eye. He spoke in his own language, of course, but I could hear the bitterness in the words. Father Bledod finally turned back to Æthelstan. ‘What does the lord Prince wish from Gruffudd?’
‘I want to hear what he will offer,’ Æthelstan said. ‘What is his son worth? Silver? Gold? Horses?’
There was another brief exchange in the Welsh language. ‘He will not offer gold, lord,’ the priest said, ‘but he will pay you with the name of the man who hired him.’
Æthelstan laughed. ‘Cynlæf hired him!’ he said. ‘I already know that! You waste my time, father.’
‘It is not Cynlæf,’ it was Gruffudd himself who spoke in halting English.
‘Of course it was not Cynlæf,’ Æthelstan said scornfully, ‘he would have sent someone else to bribe you. The devil has evil men to do his work.’
‘It is not Cynlæf,’ Gruffudd said again, then added something in his own language.
‘It was not Cynlæf,’ Father Bledod translated. ‘Cynlæf knew nothing of our coming till we arrived here.’
Æthelstan said nothing for a few heartbeats, then reached out and gently took his cloak from Father Bledod’s shoulders. ‘Tell Gruffudd of Gwent that I will spare his son’s life and he may leave at midday tomorrow. In exchange for his son he will give me the name of my enemy and he will also give me the gold chain about his neck.’
Father Bledod translated the demand, and Gruffudd gave a reluctant nod. ‘It is agreed, lord Prince,’ Bledod said.
‘And