Wulfnoth's
Mutiny



Part Two



Sea Commander Brihtric flung open the door of the assembly hall and stormed out ahead of the members of the Witan council. King Aethelraed was still in the hallway in front of him, so he stopped and waited for the King to get out of sight.

His nephew Wulfnoth waited for him at the end of the corridor. Wulfnoth's boy was also there. The boy stood staring at the King.

Comander Brihtric was a big man, but his nephew Wulfnoth was another stone and two inches in height. They both appeared grim to others, but only Wulfnoth knew no fear. Brihtric was shaken by the chances they were taking.

Just one month ago, King Aethelraed had agreed to pay the Vikings a ransom to avoid an invasion. The sum of money he had to collect from his subjects to pay this ransom was vast. The English commanders had needed this money badly for themselves, but it had been taken from them by the King to ransom the country. Now the Eldormen and Lords had no money to finance their private armies.

Sea Commander Wulfnoth was one of those who was badly hit by this loss of money. He was penniless, and could not pay his debts. Wulfnoth took his troubles to Lord Eadric, one of his uncles. Eadric was eager to listen to Wulfnoth complain about the King. Years before, Eadric had arranged the murder of a man important to the King. The King in his anger had ordered Eadric's two sons blinded, in lieu of a wergeld fine. So Eadric hated the King. He was glad of a chance to encourage others to do the same. He promised Wulfnoth he would find money for him.

Eadric consulted with his brothers, Brihtric and Aethelmaer, and with their sons, about the possibility of getting money back from the Viking embassy. They agreed that he should approach the Vikings with some offer of mutual interest. The Englishmen wanted their money back, and the Vikings wanted land in Britain. So this was what they tried to bargain with. However, the Viking point man, Thorkell the Tall, would only consent to certain terms. He wanted more than just land for his own King Svein. He wanted the English traitor's help in overthrowing King Aethelraed. He laid out his own plan.

The English negotiators would receive a nice big cut out of the ransom for themselves, on one condition. They must grant him a foothold on English soil where he might prepare a Danish base of power in England.

Eadric now saw how much farther he could go in taking his revenge upon King Aethelraed. He suggested that if he could deliver the crown of England into the hands of King Svein of Denmark, perhaps he would merit the greatest possible rewards. Thorkell readily agreed, encouraging the Englishman's treachery. Eadric had eventually come to terms with Thorkell on this point. He took the offer to his brothers.

After Eadric had argued how well it would be for all of them when King Aethelraed were replaced by Svein of Denmark, they each agreed to the terms of his private treason. Brihtric knew how his brother hated the King, so he was not surprised by what Eadric had done. He was pleased that some of his cash would be secretly returned. None of them expected immediate trouble anyways, since the ransom would keep the Vikings at home. All the Englishmen wanted was some of their Danegold back. The easy return of their cash was too much to resist. But they had taken up with the enemy, and it was too late to turn back the clock.

Eadric had been busy since the pact was sealed between his brothers and Thorkell the Tall. He was crafty, he was shrewd, he was miserly with his fortune. What he had failed to mention to his partners was that he'd gone straight back to the Viking camp weeks ago and taken possession of the secret money from the Dane before the Viking embassy returned to Denmark. He was the only English Overlord who never ran out of money. He cheated whomever he could, never paid his tradesmen more than half what he owed them, forced his tenants to pay double rents almost every year by using threats and taking hostages, and collected the assets of the rich widows in his Feifdom by having them sold into slavery or killed. In short, he was the scum of the earth.

If he spent money freely in hard times, nobody wondered how he had gotten it. They expected him to have it. Even King Aetheraed turned to him for loans. Eadric was always generous to the King, as much as he hated him. For it was the King who kept Eadric in the Lordship of Mercia, and Mercia was the source of Eadric's power. As long as the King needed his money, Eadric was protected from justice.

Eadric was also generous to his thegns and warriors. They knew everyone else in England was going without pay, while they were well compensated. So they were devoted to Eadric's cause. This was the reason he could take his men into the Viking camp and leave with a King's ransom in gold and silver coin. His army was his vault, they would never steal from their gold giver.

There was a problem with secrecy however. It was always flawed. Rumors leaked out through leaps of logic, well aimed assumptions, insinuations made over grog in the mead Hall. And so it was that it came to the King's attention that a traitor had been making visits to the Viking camp when negotiations were under way over the Danegold ransom.

King Aethelraed was now without funds to prosecute the war against the Danes, and he turned to his Lord of Mercia to provide the money he needed. Eadric was called to the court in London and made to hand over money to the Royal treasury. This he did with obsequious graciousness. But he held back, informing the King of his recent expenses in furnishing the ransom, and pleading poverty. The King took what he could get.

Over supper at the King's high table, Aethelraed confided in Eadric his secret knowledge of a deep plot against his Crown, involving the recent Danish embassy. Eadric was alarmed by this information, and tested the King cleverly, to find out how much the King knew. He quickly realized the King knew nothing. So Eadric stepped into the breach and offered to search out the plot himself, by sending men through Northumbria to seek out further information for the King. Aethelraed was pleased by this.

With an eye to the future, and to cover his tracks, Eadric then planted the seed of a thought. He suggested that if any money were found in the possession of a traitor, he would hand it over to the King without delay. "Surely" he said, "money has changed hands, and a secret treasury lies in Northumbria, where the plot was hatched."

The King grew pleased with his Lord of Mercia, and said to him, "If you recover such a treasure, you can be sure of compensation for your good work. I have few men now that give me such good service as you."

Eadric left the King the next day in very good favor. He had already decided to "find" some of his Danegold for the King, and he had decided also who was going to have to take the blame for plotting with the Danes. Wulfnoth would never betray his family, and he was the least useful of the nephews. He would have to take the fall.

Within the month, the King’s spies on the continent had delivered bad news. The Viking invasion was on.

Aethelraed assembled the Witan Council and read them the riot act. He issued stern orders to the Naval Commanders whose attack fleet he had rapidly built up at crippling expense to his Royal treasury. The English navy had never been maintained at a greater strength of force than it now was. Now, the King intended that such a great fleet should be put to an equally great purpose.

Naval Commander Brihtric was ordered to keep the Royal fleet on station in the North Sea to prevent the Viking invasion, at all costs. "You will destroy the Danes at sea, or you will die trying."

As soon as the King had quit the council chamber, Brihtric had risen from his seat and departed. He intended to recall all of the stood-down fleet commanders, and to commission the vessels still in the ways at the Thames South Yard at once. It was then he ran into the waiting commander Wulfnoth.

He told his nephew, "We are to anchor at Sandwich until they come within range. The King’s plan is, we’re supposed to wipe them out at sea."

Wulfnoth received these orders with disgust, but he waited until they were outside and away from all the others before raising the main point. "What about our deal? We have to keep faith with the Dane or we get no money at all."

"I’m thinking."

"Yeah, well so am I."

Brihtric looked at Wulfnoth and his heart sank. His nephew was as stubborn as he was courageous. He didn't like Wulfnoth doing his own thinking. Then, he looked over at the boy, Godwine, who was watching and listening from the other side of the hall. The boy stared him down. Brihtric felt so much like giving the lad the back of his hand, that he turned and left without saying another word.

Wulfnoth turned to his son and said, "Go round up your gear and meet me at the Fleet Road wharves."

"What are you going to do?"

"Never mind what I do. Just do as you're told."

Godwine knew the difficulty his father was in. He had listened in on other conversations in the past. He, too, wondered how crushing the invasion would square with their getting money back from the Danes? On the other hand, he was beginning to doubt his father's intelligence. Godwine had no interest in having his own eyes put out by the King's men. He decided then and there that he, too, would do his own thinking.

When Godwine went to the wharves to meet with his father, he met his childhood friend, Prince Athelstan, instead, at the Fleet command centre above the wharves. Athelstan immediately ordered Godwine to his side, and required his company for the rest of the day. As a result of having to keep to Prince Athelstan's side, young Godwine missed his meeting with his father, and Wulfnoth fumed with anger at his son while he directed the loading of his ships.

The last of the provisions, and the most important, was a large stock of offensive weaponry. This was not ironwork, but refined bitumin. Wulfnoth personally directed the packing of the bitumin at the tar shed. He wanted the best of it for himself, since he was practiced in its use, and knew how important it was to have the first draws from the tar if it was going to be used to devastating effect in setting fire to the Viking fleet at sea.

While he stood there overseeing the work, his attention was drawn aloft. There was a remarkable display sixty feet above his head. There, atop the fixed spar flying the royal standard, stood a boy. The boy was defying the laws of nature by playing up there, but he was quite relaxed. Wulfnoth realized he was not a mad creature about to jump, but a youth of about fifteen going about his play with skill and pleasure. This lad is a ready made lookout on any mast at sea, he realized.

"You up there!" he bellowed, "get down here."

Young Paul looked down from his perch to see who was calling out to him. He saw that it was a Sea Commander. "Yes, sir! Right away, sir!" he called down. Then he bent down and grabbed the top of the mast with his big hands and swung himself down around the spar as easily as if he were a monkey, and began deliberately and quickly his descent. When he reached the level of the tar shed roof, he swung easily and pushed off the pole with one leg, landing on the roof. Then he swung himself down from there to the ground and presented himself to the Sea Commander who had ordered him down.

Wulfnoth could not help himself grinning with admiration. "Well done, boy!" Then he ordered Paul onto his own flagship and had him swear to service in the King's navy. He called over an older hand and gave that man instructions to train Paul in the duties of the lookout aloft, as well as all other duties expected of the lad aboard ship. These open warships were not complicated, and Paul knew the lay of it by the end of the afternoon. At dusk, they all ate aboard as the ship filled with crewmen. By the evening ebb tide they had weighed anchor and left for the Sandwich station up the coast. Paul never even had a chance to say goodbye to his father, who worked in the tar shed, and who had not noticed Paul's absence until just before sunset.


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