The Earl of Mercia Read online

  The Earl of Mercia

  The Earls of Mercia Book VI

  MJ Porter

  Copyright notice

  Porter, M J

  The Earl of Mercia

  Copyright ©2016 (this edition 2017), Porter, M.J, Amazon edition

  All characters and events in this publication, other than those clearly in the public domain, are fictitious and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

  ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means without the prior written permission of the author, nor be otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition being imposed on the subsequent buyer.

  Contents

  Anglo Saxon Chronicle Entry for AD1023

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Anglo-Saxon Chronicle Entry for 1026

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Anglo Saxon Chronicle Entry for AD1028

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Anglo-Saxon Chronicle Entry for AD1029

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Anglo-Saxon Chronicle Entry for AD1030

  Chapter 29

  Anglo Saxon Chronicle Entry for AD1031

  Chapter 30

  Cast of Characters

  Historical Notes

  Meet the Author

  All Anglo-Saxon Chronicle quotations are from http://omacl.org/Anglo/part4.html but this website no longer works, and I’ve yet to relocate it.

  Anglo Saxon Chronicle Entry for AD1023

  This year returned King Knute (Cnut) to England; and Thurkyll (Thorkell) and he were reconciled. He committed Denmark and his son to the care of Thurkyll, while he took Thurkyll's son with him to England. This year died Archbishop Wulfstan; and Elfric succeeded him; and Archbishop Egelnoth blessed him in Canterbury. This year King Knute in London, in St. Paul's minster, gave full leave to Archbishop Ethelnoth, Bishop Britwine, and all God's servants that were with them, that they might take up from the grave the archbishop, Saint Elphege. And they did so, on the sixth day before the ides of June; and the illustrious king, and the archbishop, and the diocesan bishops, and the earls, and very many others, both clergy and laity, carried by ship his holy corpse over the Thames to Southwark. And there they committed the holy martyr to the archbishop and his companions; and they with worthy pomp and sprightly joy carried him to Rochester. There on the third day came the Lady Emma with her royal son Hardacnute; and they all with much majesty, and bliss, and songs of praise, carried the holy archbishop into Canterbury, and so brought him gloriously into the church, on the third day before the ides of June. Afterwards, on the eighth day, the seventeenth before the calends of July, Archbishop Ethelnoth, and Bishop Elfsy, and Bishop Britwine, and all they that were with them, lodged the holy corpse of Saint Elphege on the north side of the altar of Christ; to the praise of God, and to the glory of the holy archbishop, and to the everlasting salvation of all those who there his holy body daily seek with earnest heart and all humility. May God Almighty have mercy on all Christian men through the holy intercession of Elphege!

  Chapter 1

  Leofric of House Leofwine AD1026 Worcester

  He felt morose. He’d known in his mind that his father wouldn’t always be there to protect his family, but there was a huge difference between knowing something and experiencing it.

  He felt alone, chilled, exposed and it wasn’t a feeling he enjoyed or wanted to happen again.

  His father, or rather their father, he never forgot his sister and two brothers, had laboured all his life to make his family powerful. First under a dull king who’d been blind to all but his most diabolical advisors and then under both Swein and Cnut, the Danish kings who’d wanted and still wanted to use England as a means of ready coin, as a store of vast wealth. Only now it was his turn and Leofric instinctively knew that anything he’d already accomplished and anything his father had managed to achieve, would quickly be forgotten by Cnut with his mind so firmly fixed on events in his homeland and the wider Scandinavian kingdoms.

  Coupled with Cnut’s already well-known reliance on Godwine, Leofric wondered what role his family could now possibly hope to fulfill. His father had sent him to aid Cnut in securing his hold on Denmark, and he’d played a well-noted and valuable position in the strained family relationships that had made the problem there so urgent. But now he was back in England; his father was dead, and he knew that his endeavours would have been quickly forgotten.

  Cnut had a much loved and admired wife, an heir and a daughter and even a second wife (who was really his first, only it was best not to labour the point) who had provided him with two further robust sons.

  He had little or no opposition to his rule anymore. Many of Æthelred’s heirs were long dead, only the queen’s two elder sons still lived in exile in Normandy. Leofric thought, Cnut would do himself no end of damage if he tried to kill his own wife’s children from her previous marriage to the former king, and so it was best not to.

  No, the king had not one but two wives, three sons, a daughter and not even a brother to fight against for his kingdom.

  Added to which, and despite the bloody nature of his gaining the kingship, Cnut was well liked by the people at large, by the powerful church, who he’d managed to reconcile with despite his tempestuous youth, and by his close-knit group of allies.

  England was at peace for the first time in decades. Denmark was calm under Cnut’s sister’s control, Estrid, (men liked to say it was under his brother-in-law’s control but everyone knew the real force there was Cnut’s sister). That meant that only a handful of hardened Vikings were still turning their gaze toward the riches that England had to offer, and even then, the attacks were desultory; just enough to earn themselves a sufficient reputation to be considered for entry into Cnut’s elite group of household warriors.

  And so Leofric was morose. What could he do to make his father’s labours stand the test of time? How could he even attempt to make a name for himself without the external threat of war from England’s enemies, who were now her allies and who were now living side by side with the Saxon’s who’d originally settled the island?

  A polite cough brought him from his reverie, and he stared at the man next to him in shock. His brother-in-law was watching him intently, his eyebrows raised in a mixture of caution and amusement. He realised that his great hall was filled with men and women who’d come to petition him or seek justice in his guise as Sheriff of Worcester and he’d allowed his mind to wonder while he’d waited for everyone to file inside. He shook his head ruefully and nodded his thanks to Olaf before catching the eye of his wife, who grinned at him. She knew he was uneasy, prone to distraction and she’d only just cautioned him this morning to remain alert to his role for the day.

  He turned his attention to the first of his petitioners, recognising the older man as one of Wulfstan’s sons and someone that Leofric was surprised to see before him. He would have expected him just to seek him out and ask his boon, but this was clearly something more important. The man was shuffling uneasily,
and Leofric took the time to compare this man to his childhood hero, Wulfstan.

  Wulfstan had been old when Leofric knew him, or at least, old by his standards, but then anyone older than about twenty had been old to Leofric as a child. The thought amused him, but he kept it from his face. He was the sheriff. He hadn’t come here to be entertained.

  Wulfstan’s son was the age his father had been when Leofric first remembered him, and he looked like his father, only with less sternness to his face, and less gravitas as well. Wulfstan had been his father’s thegn, and more, his grandfather’s ally and friend. His choices hadn’t been open to his children, and neither, or so Leofric understood it, had they ever wanted them to be. No, his sons had become farmers, prosperous ones, owning their land and managing it well. Leofric couldn’t imagine what had brought the man before him now, but he indicated that he should speak.

  Wulfstan’s son was nervous but also clearly proud as he began to speak to his sheriff. Leofric found himself swept up in this tale of the farmer with the rapacious neighbour, who was careless with his crops and animals and keen to take those his neighbour nurtured most carefully.

  Leofric knew he was already predisposed to Wulfstan’s son, but there were many in the room who wouldn’t even know of the family connection, because Wulfstan had been such a reserved man, and that meant that finding in his favour wouldn’t be misconstrued as family loyalty. Wulfstan had been a deeply private man, and even now Leofric only knew the occasionally snatched fact about him. That he’d had two sons who held land that had once been on Leofric’s maternal grandfather’s area of control was about the be all and end all. Oh, and the knowledge that Wulfstan’s wife had forced him from their home and left Wulfstan with little choice but to call on his friendship with Leofric’s paternal grandfather to maintain some semblance of his old life.

  He listened with half an ear as he deciphered the complicated family dynamics. He’d never known his paternal grandfather, and could barely remember his maternal one, and yet it was all-important for him to know. The Kingdom of England was a network of family alliances, and it was well to know as much as possible to prevent mistakes and errors of judgment from happening. It was a lesson that Cnut had learnt quickly, aided by his beautiful and quick-witted wife, who had over two decades of experience unraveling the complicated English dynamics.

  Emma or Ælfgifu as she’d once been known before her marriage to the already old, and already richly endowed with sons and daughters, Æthelred II of England, had long been an ally of his family’s. It was the words of his father that had allowed her to release her young son to go and settle family matters in Denmark, providing a son of Cnut to rule his people in his absence. His sister was one of her ladies-in-waiting, his young niece growing up in the household of the king and his queen, and yet, well, he saw problems everywhere, and most of them wore the name of Earl Godwine.

  Leofric offered his judgment on the matter affecting Wulfstan’s son. No one could accuse him of preferential treatment. He was clearly in the right, and the other man was not; and he listened with half an ear to his thanks and also to the next petitioner. The matters were trifling to him, although not to the men and women involved, and he could only liken their complaints to his worries about his future.

  To these men and women, come to seek out justice in his shire court, their concerns would be the most important to them and their family. His worries that he might have fallen out of favour with the king would mean nothing to them. He lived in a different world to the one they inhabited. They worried about crops and animals and the neighbours; he worried about wars in Denmark and further north and he gnawed at the problem of Godwine, the English earl who was almost more Danish than his king.

  Godwine had a Danish wife; his first two children had Danish names. Cnut had two wives but one was English, and one was from Normandy, and while they might throw Danish names at their children, Leofric doubted that any within Denmark would consider the children as heirs to that kingdom unless they grew up in Denmark; as young Harthacnut was currently being forced to do.

  He thought the English were far more amenable in their relationships with the men and women from Denmark, Norway and Sweden, or perhaps they were simply desperate to have a mighty king, and Cnut was certainly that. It was evident everywhere, and Leofric knew his boredom and fears stemmed from a lack of activity because Cnut had quelled the raiders from the northern lands, and held the kingdom of England in such firm control, that he felt able to leave it for almost whole years at a time.

  With Emma as his proxy, he could have travelled along the fabled Dnieper River, to the heart of the Rus Empire, and still no one would have thought to attack England. He supposed he should take comfort from that, but all it meant was that while Estrid laboured in Denmark on Cnut’s behalf, Leofric could do little but dispense justice and order new land given to the Church, and new buildings raised in his name.

  When he was a small child, in awe of his father and his sword and shield; and occasionally terrified by the knowledge that his father fought for their survival, he’d known what his future would hold. He’d never considered that his future would be taken from him by the sort of king they’d always wanted, a benevolent king, a king their enemy feared and one who ruled well and with the full support of his earls and his bishops.

  It was all so very, very different to his first years when his father had always seemed to be wearing his war clothes. When his brother had been sent to live in the nest of vipers that Eadric of Mercia had represented, in an effort to undermine Eadric’s efforts to destabilise Æthelred’s efforts to rule and govern well.

  He gave his verdict again and again as he considered the irony of his disgruntlement. His father had worked throughout his long life to ensure England was secure and safe but now that he was dead and that very situation prevailed throughout England, he wanted nothing more than to be thrust back into the very circumstances his father had hoped to avoid.

  He smirked at his ill-humor as he rose from his ceremonial chair and went to mingle with those who’d remained to enjoy his largesse. His wife watched him carefully. She knew his mind, and that he’d have spent less time considering his petitioners than he would have done his uneasiness.

  As he watched her, he thought he was more than a fool. He had a beautiful wife; a delightful son and he had the honour of being his father’s son. His older brother, Northman, had been executed for his alleged treason against Cnut and his nephews and sister-by-marriage lived within his household. He imagined that his brother would be angry with him for his unhappiness, but then, Northman had been asked to leave Eadric, to think of his family first and foremost, and he’d not done so, and it had resulted in his death at Cnut’s hands.

  No, Leofric thought as he drank deeply from his drinking horn, before passing it along to his brother-by-marriage and the members of his war-band within his great hall, perhaps he was lucky to have what he had, after all. Better to know his family was safe than to have to think about the might-have-beens and the threat of war.

  “A messenger came this afternoon,” Godgifu muttered under her breath, and Leofric looked at her in surprise. Why hadn’t she mentioned this sooner or more publicly?

  “He comes from the king; the news isn’t good.”

  Leofric felt a spark alight in his chest at those words, and his wife, as though sensing that for all that he’d not moved a muscle, pulled her mouth down at the edges.

  “Thorkell is dead.” He glared at her blunt words, as he felt his world tilt beneath his feet once more, and she raised her eyebrow in triumph at having accomplished so much with just that statement.

  “Where’s the messenger?” he demanded, his voice low but filled with a trace of anger. Such a piece of news should not have been withheld from him.

  “He’s waiting outside, with the horses,” she retorted, her anger colouring her cheeks to maroon, and as he left he grabbed her hand and offered it a bruising kiss. He and his wife didn’t fight, and on this occasion
, they were both as guilty as the other of being a little too spiteful, because whether she admitted it or not, she was lethargic as well, desperate for something to brighten their days.

  Outside it was a bright summer day, a rare occurrence during the dreary year, and Leofric instantly understood why the messenger had chosen to stay outside. At his side, he could hear the sound of Orkning trailing his movements, and although he might once have found the man’s attention to duty a little too rigorous, on this occasion, he knew Orkning needed to hear what the messenger had been sent to say.

  The stables was a large building, used to house many of his stock and also those cattle lucky enough to be kept alive during the long, dark winter. It was a comfortable place in the summer sun, and Leofric found the messenger talking to his horse, a huge brown beast drinking thirstily from a deep bucket the man was holding.

  He wasn’t someone that Leofric recognised, and that temporarily stumped him. He was used to the same man coming to him from Cnut, but then, if this message was urgent it could well mean that the man hadn’t yet returned from his latest journey around the kingdom on the business of his king.

  “Lord Leofric,” the man said quickly, standing smartly while keeping a hold of his horse and his drinking bucket both.

  “My name’s Brithmaer and the king has sent me to deliver an important message.”

  “Well met Brithmaer. Please, tell me your message.”

  The man was looking over his shoulder at Orkning and Leofric stifled a smirk. Orkning was no doubt wearing his habitual glower, a look that many found discomforting.

  “This is Orkning, my commander. You can speak before him. He knows the King very well.”

  “Very well my lord,” the man offered, wrenching his hazel eyes away from Orkning and returning them to Leofric’s own.

  “The king has word that Thorkell’s been killed in an attack on the stronghold of the Jomsvikings, an attack led by the kings of Sweden and Norway. It seems that they’ve allied against Cnut.”