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send you to Gleawecestre?’
    ‘She needs the money!’
    ‘She needs Mercia’s support more,’ I said, and he still looked puzzled. ‘By sending you here,’ I went on, ‘she’s showing that she’s fighting. If she really wanted money she’d have sent the slaves to Lundene.’
    ‘So she thinks a few slaves and two wagon-loads of rusted mail will influence the Witan?’
    ‘Did you see any of Æthelred’s men in Ceaster?’
    ‘No, of course not.’
    ‘And what is a ruler’s first duty?’
    He thought for a few heartbeats. ‘To defend his land?’
    ‘So if Mercia is looking for a new ruler?’ I asked.
    ‘They’ll want someone,’ he said slowly, ‘who can fight?’
    ‘Someone who can fight,’ I said, ‘and lead, and inspire.’
    ‘You?’ he asked.
    I almost hit him for his stupidity, but he was no longer a child. ‘Not me,’ I said instead.
    My son frowned as he considered. He knew the answer I wanted, but was too stubborn to give it. ‘Eardwulf?’ he suggested instead. I said nothing and he thought a moment longer. ‘He’s been fighting the Welsh,’ he went on, ‘and men say he’s good.’
    ‘He’s been fighting bare-arsed cattle raiders,’ I said scornfully, ‘nothing else. When was the last time a Welsh army invaded Mercia? Besides, Eardwulf isn’t noble.’
    ‘So if he can’t lead Mercia,’ my son said slowly, ‘who can?’
    ‘You know who can,’ I said, and when he still refused to name her, I did. ‘Æthelflaed.’
    ‘Æthelflaed,’ he repeated the name and then just shook his head. I knew he was wary of her and probably frightened of her too, and I knew she was scornful of him, just as she scorned her own daughter. She was her father’s child in that way; she disliked flippant and carefree people, treasuring serious souls who thought life a grim duty. She put up with me, maybe because she knew that in battle I was as serious and grim as any of her dreary priests.
    ‘So why not Æthelflaed?’ I asked.
    ‘Because she’s a woman,’ he said.
    ‘So?’
    ‘She’s a woman!’
    ‘I know that! I’ve seen her tits.’
    ‘The Witan will never choose a woman to rule,’ he said firmly.
    ‘That’s true,’ Sihtric put in.
    ‘Who else can they choose?’ I asked.
    ‘Her brother?’ my son suggested, and he was probably right. Edward, King of Wessex, wanted the throne of Mercia, but he did not want to just take it. He wanted an invitation. Maybe that was what the Witan was supposed to agree? I could think of no other reason why the nobility and high churchmen had been summoned. It made sense that Æthelred’s successor should be chosen now, before Æthelred died, to avert the squabbling and even outright war that sometimes follows a ruler’s death, and I was certain that Æthelred himself wanted the satisfaction of knowing that his wife would not inherit his power. He would let rabid dogs gnaw on his balls before he allowed that. So who would inherit? Not Eardwulf, I was sure. He was competent, he was brave enough, and he was no fool, but the Witan would want a man of birth, and Eardwulf, though not low-born, was no ealdorman. Nor was there any ealdorman in Mercia who stood head and shoulders above the rest except perhaps for Æthelfrith who ruled much of the land north of Lundene. Æthelfrith was the richest of all Mercia’s noblemen after Æthelred, but he had stood aloof from Gleawecestre and its squabbles, allying himself with the West Saxons and, so far as I knew, he had not bothered to attend the Witan. And it probably did not matter what the Witan advised because, in the end, the West Saxons would decide who or what was best for Mercia.
    Or so I thought.
    And I should have thought harder.
     
    The Witan began, of course it began, with a tedious service in Saint Oswald’s church, which was part of an abbey built by Æthelred. I had arrived on crutches, which I did not need, but I was determined to look more sickly than I felt. Ricseg, the abbot, welcomed me