“No.” Cuthred took another pull at his ale. “But I looked at his nails. All clipped short. Except the right thumbnail. It’s been grown an inch long. Hard as steel. I got it here.” He tossed a bloody claw onto the table.
“So it’s Ragnar,” said King Ella in the silence. “So what do we do with him?”
The warriors exchanged puzzled looks. “Like you mean beheading’s too good for him?” ventured Cuthred. “We should hang him instead?”
“Or something worse?” put in one of the other nobles. “Like a runaway slave or something? Maybe the monks—what was that story about Holy Saint… Saint…? The one with the gridiron, or…” His imagination ran out; he fell into silence.
“I have another idea,” said Ella. “We could let him go.”
Consternation faced him. The king leaned forward from his high seat, his sharp, mobile face and keen eyes passing to each man in turn.
“Think. Why am I king? I’m king because Osbert”—the forbidden name sent a visible shudder through the listening men, and called an answering twinge from the lacerated back of the servant who stood listening behind Wulfgar’s stool—”because Osbert could not defend this kingdom against the Viking raiders. He just did what we’d always done. Told everyone to keep a lookout and organize their own defense. So we had ten shiploads land on a town and do what they liked while the other towns and parishes pulled the blankets over their heads and thanked God it wasn’t them. What did I do? You know what I did. I pulled everyone back except the lookout stations, I organized the rider teams, I set up the mounted levies at the vital places. Now, they come down on us, we have a chance of coming down on them before they get too far, of teaching them a lesson. New ideas.
“I think we need another new idea here. We can let him go. We can do a deal with him. He stays away from Northumbria, he gives us hostages, we treat him as an honored guest till the hostages come, we send him off with a pile of presents. Doesn’t cost us too much. Could save us a lot. By the time he’s exchanged he’ll have got over Cuthred’s conversation with him. All part of the game. What do you say?”
The warriors looked at each other, eyebrows rising, heads shaking in surprise.
“Might work,” muttered Cuthred.
Wulfgar cleared his throat to speak, a look of displeasure crossing his reddened face. He was cut off by a voice from the black monks at the end of the table.
“You may not do that, my lord.”
“May not?”
“Must not. You have other duties than those in this world. The archbishop, our reverend father and former brother, has reminded us of the foul deeds done by this Ragnar against Christ’s Church. Deeds done against us as men and Christians—those we are commanded to forgive. But deeds done against Holy Church—those we must avenge with all our heart and all our strength. How many churches has this Ragnar burned? How many Christian men and women carried off to sell to the pagans and worse, to the followers of Mohammed? How many precious relics destroyed? And the gifts of the faithful stolen?
“It would be a sin against your soul to forgive these deeds. It would imperil the salvation of every man around this table. No, King, give him to us. Let us show you what we have made for you, for those who molest Mother Church. And when the news of that reaches back to the pagans, the robbers from the sea, let them know that Mother Church’s arm is as heavy as her mercy is long. Let us give him to the serpent-pit. Let us make men talk of the worm-yard of King Ella.”
The king hesitated, fatally. Before he could speak, the sharp agreement of the other monks and of the archbishop was echoed by the rumble of surprise, curiosity, approval from his warriors.
“I have never seen a man given to the worms,” said Wulfgar, his face beaming with pleasure. “It is what every Viking in the world deserves. And so I shall say when I return to my own king, and I shall praise the wisdom and the cunning of King Ella.”