The Empty Throne (The Warrior Chronicles, Book 8) by Bernard Cornwell Page B

rode or walked beside the road because the surface was too pitted and ruined for comfort, and so the road was just a weed-strewn marker for our journeys. Those markers led all across Britain, and they decayed, and I wondered what would happen to them. ‘Do you think,’ I asked Finan, ‘that we can see what happens here after we’re dead?’
    He looked at me strangely. ‘The priests say so.’
    ‘They do?’ I was surprised.
    ‘They say you can look into hell,’ he said, frowning, ‘so why not into this life too?’
    ‘I’d like to know what happens,’ I said. I supposed the roads would disappear, and the fields on either side would be overgrown with hazel saplings, and after them the thorny brambles would shroud the old paths. Is that what I would see from Valhalla? And was some Roman gazing at Cirrenceastre even now and wondering how it had turned from honey-coloured stone and white marble to damp thatch and rotted timbers? I knew I was making Finan uncomfortable, but I knew too that the Norns, those grim women who control our lives, were fingering my thread and wondering when to slice it with their sharp shears. I had feared that cut for so long, yet now I almost wanted it. I wanted an end to the pain, to the problems, but I also wanted to know how it would all end. But does it ever end? We had driven the Danes back, but now a new fight loomed, a fight for Mercia.
    ‘Here’s Father Cuthbert,’ Finan announced, and I was startled from my thoughts to see Osferth had brought the priest safely from Fagranforda. That was a relief. Cuthbert’s wife, Mehrasa, was with him. ‘You’re going north now,’ I told Osferth.
    ‘Lord!’ Cuthbert called, recognising my voice. He had been blinded by Cnut, and his face quested around as if trying to find where I was.
    ‘North?’ Osferth asked.
    ‘We all are,’ I said. ‘Families too. We’re going to Ceaster.’
    ‘Lord?’ Cuthbert said again.
    ‘You’re safe,’ I told him. ‘You and Mehrasa, you’re safe.’
    ‘From what, lord?’
    ‘You’re the only living witness to Edward’s first marriage,’ I told him, ‘and there are men in Wessex who want to prove that wedding never happened.’
    ‘But it did!’ he said plaintively.
    ‘So you’re going north to Ceaster,’ I told him, ‘both of you.’ I looked at Osferth. ‘You’ll take all the families north. I want you to leave by tomorrow. You can take two carts from Fagranforda to carry food and belongings, and I want you to travel through Alencestre.’ There were two good roads to Ceaster. One went close to the Welsh border and I encouraged my men to use it to prove to the Welsh that we did not fear them, but the road through Alencestre was safer because it lay much farther from the frontier lands. ‘You can take ten men as guards,’ I said, ‘and you wait for us at Alencestre. And you take everything valuable. Money, metal, clothes, harness, everything.’
    ‘We’re leaving Fagranforda for good?’ Osferth asked.
    I hesitated. The answer, of course, was yes, but I was not sure how my people would respond to that truth. They had made their homes and were raising their children in Fagranforda, and now I was moving them to Mercia’s northernmost frontier. I could have explained that by saying we needed to defend Ceaster against the Norse and Danes, and that was true, but the larger truth was that I wanted Ceaster’s stone walls about me if I had to defend myself against Eardwulf’s spite and Æthelhelm’s ambitions. ‘We’re going north for a time,’ I said evasively, ‘and if we’re not at Alencestre in two days then assume we’re not coming. And if that happens you must take Æthelstan and his sister to Ceaster.’
    Osferth frowned. ‘What would stop you arriving?’
    ‘Fate,’ I said too glibly.
    Osferth’s face hardened. ‘You’re starting a war,’ he accused me.
    ‘I am not.’
    ‘Æthelhelm wants the boy,’ Finan explained to Osferth, ‘and he’ll fight to get