Warrior of Mercia by MJ Porter

Author:MJ Porter [Porter, M J]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Boldwood Books

14

‘So, this is Mercia then?’ I ask into the silence, hoping for them to confirm this for me. Wulfheard doesn’t look at me, and neither does Ealdorman Ælfstan. I still don’t know the name of the river we’ve been following for much of the day.

I turn the coin between my fingers. It’s a dull silver colour, despite the fact the surface of the coin is sharp and angled beneath my finger. I grip it in my left hand, and it disappears beneath my fingers when I curl them over it. The coin is new. That can’t be denied. It might never have been used for any reason other than to pay for a single item. But what was that item? I don’t truly want to consider it.

‘It could have come from anywhere, my lord,’ Wulfheard murmurs, but I know we’re all thinking the same thing. It could have come from anywhere, but it must have been minted at Londonia and it must have come straight from there. Has the Wessex king determined to send his enemy to attack Mercia? Or are we all imagining something because of where we are, the dank day and the even more insidious threat of an attack that surrounds us?

‘Is this what you found in the debris?’ I ask the ealdorman.

He nods, just once, and turns aside, his cheeks lifting in an unhappy scowl.

‘What does this mean?’ I demand from Wulfheard, and he refuses to meet my eyes as well.

‘I can’t say, not for sure. But I don’t believe it’s good. Not this far from Londonia. Yes, King Ecgberht ruled for over a year, but even so, the people of this settlement should trade in the coins of the East Angles, not of the Mercians.’

I swallow down my fear, wincing at the sharp slap of the dead body finally being pulled from the river and no doubt being laid onto the quayside.

‘Come with me,’ Wulfheard commands, and I follow, uneasy at what I’m going to find, because we’re now heading towards the quayside.

The smell of pottage makes my stomach rumble, and I spare a glance towards the half-roofed building under whose thatch others of the men are resting themselves and drying before the large hearth fire. I’d sooner be there, than here.

Wulfheard carries a brand before him, and it sizzles as rain slides over it but manages to stay alight, somehow. No doubt, the rushes must be infused with oil to do so.

At the quayside, the two men are bickering.

‘You take his bloody hands, and I’ll take his feet,’ Ordlaf orders, but Æthelmod already has the feet.

‘Bugger that,’ he exclaims. ‘You get his hands, and I’ll carry this part of his body.’

The flesh is shockingly white, a wreath of blond hair almost blinding beneath the light of the brand. I don’t know if this man is a Viking raider, but I suspect he is, from the dark band of inkings around the top of his left arm, so similar to the ones I saw on the Viking raiders my uncle killed on the Welsh borderlands.

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