A Letter From the Pope

“He means that runaway bastard Burgred,” snarled the scarred man, Wihtbord.

“Indeed that must be it. ‘. Burgred, who now lives with us in our Holy See, in peace and in honor. So we exhort you to show honor to your priests, bishops, and archbishop, as you wish to have our friendship in this life and salvation in the life to come.’”

“It is the truth, God’s truth!” Daniel cried aloud. “Spoken from the throne of God on earth. Just what I said before the message came. If we fulfil our spiritual duties, our temporal difficulties will disappear. Listen to His Holiness, my king. Restore the rights of the Church. When you do this the Vikings will be destroyed and dispersed by hand of God.”

Anger clouded Alfred’s face — but before he could speak Edbert hurried on.

“There’s another paragraph. ” He looked up from the paper to his master with a face of woe.

“What does it say?”

“Well, it says, it says — ‘We have heard with great displeasure that our previous orders have not been obeyed. That in spite of the opinion of the apostolic See, the clerics of England have not yet unitarily given up the lay habit, and do not clothe themselves in tunics after the Roman fashion, reaching chastely to the ankle.’ And then he says, well he goes on, that if this vile habit is given up and we all dress as he does, then God will love us and our afflictions will vanish like snow.”

A bark of laughter came from the red-faced Ethelnoth. “So that’s what’s been causing our troubles! If the priestlings all hide their knees Guthrum will be terrified and run right back to Denmark!” He spat, forcefully, on the puddled floor. The pope’s messenger drew back, not following the quick talk — but knowing that something was very wrong.

“You have no awareness of spirituality, lord Alderman,” said Daniel, the archbishop of Canterbury’s representative, pulling on his riding gloves with an air of finality, eyeing both his own long robe and Edbert’s short-cut tunic and breeches. “We were asking for a message to guide us, and one has come. We must take the advice and the instruction of our father in God. I regard that as settled. There is one other matter, lord King, trivial in itself, but which I see as a trial of your good intentions and sincerity. That man, that man who came in with the message, with the gold ring round his neck. He is a runaway slave from one of my own manors. I recognize him. I must have him back.”

“Tobba?” barked Wulfsige. “You can’t have him. He may be a churl, he may even have been a slave, but he’s accepted now. He’s accepted by the companions. The king gave him that gold ring himself.”

“Enough of this,” Alfred said wearily. “I’ll buy him from you.”

“That will not do. I must have him back in person. We have had too many runaways recently—”

“I know that — and I know that they’re running to the Vikings,” shouted Alfred, goaded at last out of politeness. “But this man ran to his king, to fight the invaders of England. You can’t—”

“I must have him back,” ground on Daniel. “I shall make an example of him. The law says that if a slave cannot make restitution to his master then he shall pay for it with his hide. And he cannot make restitution to the Church for his own worth—”

“He has a gold ring worth ten slaves!”

“But since that is his possession, and he is my possession, it is my possession too. And he has also committed sacrilege, in removing himself from the ownership of the Church.”

“So what are you going to do?”

“The penalty for church-breach is flaying, and I shall flay him. Not fatally. My men are most expert. But all who see his back in future will know that the arm of the Church is long. He must be delivered to my tent before sunrise. And mark this, King.” Daniel turned back from the door. “If you persist in holding him, and in your other errors, there will be no passing of your messages. You will come to Edgebright’s Stone, and find it as bare of men as a nunnery’s privy!”

He turned and swept through the makeshift door. In the silence that followed all eyes were on Alfred. He avoided their gaze, rose and took up his long sword and strode from the room, his face set and unreadable. Wulfsige scrambled to his feet too late to bar the way.

“Where are you going?” called Edbert after him.

“Lord King, let me come with you,” Wulfsige bellowed. “Guards!”

Behind, in the shelter, Osbert muttered to Ethelnoth and the others, “What’s he doing? Will he do what that bastard Burgred did? Is this the end? If so, it’s time we all made our peace with Guthrum—”

“I can’t say,” said the alderman. “But if that fool of a bishop, and of a pope, make him give up between them, then that is the end of England, now and forever.”