by H A CULLEY
I had kept quiet at the meeting, except to acknowledge the thanks of the Witan for my part in saving the rest of the army. As the meeting drew to a close I was astonished when Eadbehrt got to his feet and added his own words of gratitude to me for my outstanding conduct at the battle – his words. He then confirmed me in the post of hereræswa. I was truly astounded and it took me a moment or two before I could stammer my thanks.
Of course, the words were politically motivated. It must have stuck in his craw to have had to make such a statement and to accept me as his army commander. It occurred to me that, whoever had forced him into this, had done me no favours. If the king had wanted me dead before the battle, he must want that more than ever now.
The summons came just as we were all preparing to travel home, now that the danger of invasion by Mercia seemed to have faded. I tramped through the muddy streets of Loidis, wishing that I had ridden the short distance to the king’s hall. The town was little more than an overgrown settlement, apart from the palisade around it and the small stone-built church. Stone was still an uncommon building material – there weren’t enough skilled masons in England, nor enough wealth, to construct more, although the raw material was abundant enough.
The hall itself was built in timber and, as it was originally that of the Kings of Elmet, it was old and beginning to need remedial work. The bottom of the frame and the timber lining were rotting where they met the ground, the walls themselves needed re-caulking with mud and straw or wool to make them windproof, and the roof leaked in places.
The interior was dark by comparison to the daylight outside, despite the fact that it was a gloomy day with rain in the offing. It took my eyes a minute or two to adjust then I spotted the king deep in conversation with his brother, the archbishop. I waited patiently and finally he glanced my way and an expression of distaste crossed his face before it was replaced by an insincere smile which quickly faded. If he was about to greet me civilly, he had apparently changed his mind.
‘Seofon, I don’t like you and I don’t trust you,’ Eadbehrt said, ‘but I need a couple of envoys to go and see King Offa to negotiate a formal treaty between us. I have chosen you, as the hereræswa, and my brother, Archbishop Egbert.’
The latter gave me a nod and a half smile.
‘He has all the details and he’ll brief you. This mission is vitally important so don’t screw it up. You depart in the morning. That’s all; you may leave.’
I found his curt dismissal infuriating. Obviously what he had said in the meeting of the Witan was pure lip service. It crossed my mind that I could be walking into a trap, but the company of the Archbishop of Eoforwīc was a comfort. Surely he wouldn’t endanger his own brother? Especially as he was such a powerful ally.
When I went to see Egbert in his own, smaller, hall beside the church that evening I was somewhat reassured. The mission was genuine. Eadbehrt wanted to renew the lasting peace that had existed with Mercia for several decades before Æthelbald had broken it. He was prepared to pay for it, but not in gold. We were to offer part of Luncæstershire as the price. I gathered that the king wasn’t specific about the size of the concession, but he did at least want it kept as small as possible. I was horrified at the idea, however small it was.
‘He can’t do that,’ I almost shouted. ‘It’s been part of Northumbria ever since Oswiu became King of Rheged over a hundred years ago. Besides it’ll increase the vulnerability of Elmet and the rest of Deira if it has Mercian territory to the west as well as to the south of it.’
‘Not if we secure a lasting peace, Seofon,’ the archbishop replied calmly.
‘No peace treaty lasts for ever. Eventually it gets broken by one side or the other.’
I knew why Eadbehrt had come up with this mad idea: he wanted to punish Ealdorman Fenton for defying him. Egbert sighed.
‘Our role is not to question the king’s orders, but to obey them and secure as good a deal as we can get. Better to lose a small part of our south-westernmost shire than to suffer another invasion. Offa has already shown himself to be ambitious. He covets Kent and East Anglia from what I hear.’
Evidently the senior clerics had a grapevine of their own.
‘Well, if he’s going to be fully occupied conquering East Anglia and Kent, that will keep him occupied for quite a while, not to mention the fact that such ambitions will bring him into conflict with Wessex again. He’ll be too busy to concern himself about us.’
‘That’s the point,’ Egbert said calmly. ‘He’ll be eager to conclude a treaty with us so that he can concentrate on making himself Bretwalda of the South.’
‘If he succeeds in doing that, he’ll be powerful enough to conquer Northumbria as well.’
‘That’s where the Welsh come in.’
‘The Welsh?’
‘They would love to take back the land to the east of the River Severn that Mercia pushed them out of long ago. We are to call and see the King of Gwynedd on our return home.’
~~~
It had taken us months to track down Offa as he traversed his new kingdom, binding its nobles to his side. By the time we found him he was in Lundenwic and it was nearly the end of the summer. I had expected the old Roman city to be occupied, as was the case at Eoforwīc, but a new town had been built near it. The old city was deserted, which seemed strange to me. It seemed a waste of the once strong defensive walls and the stone built buildings inside them. However, it was reputed to be haunted by the ghosts of the past and the local people never went inside it.
The town which had sprung up to the west of it had expanded over the years and was now much larger than anywhere I’d seen before; perhaps twice the size of Eoforwīc. Sited as it was on the River Tamyse, it had become a major trading port. Originally part of the Kingdom of Essex, it had been captured by the Mercians ninety years ago.
As it lay in the extreme south-eastern corner of Mercia it was too vulnerable and too isolated to be its capital, but it was by far the most important settlement in the kingdom.
It sprawled along the Tamyse and along the River Fleet which ran into the Tamyse from the north. The merchant’s warehouses lay along the larger river whilst it’s tributary provided a sheltered harbour for the fishing fleet.
I thought that Loidis stank, but it was nothing compared to Lundenwic. The archbishop wanted to pay his respects to the local bishop and so we headed for his church, a stone building near the old Roman walls, and the adjacent monastery. Presumably it had been sited there so that the masons could utilise the stone from the old city. Unfortunately, as we found out when we got there, the king’s hall lay at the other end of the settlement and so we had to make our way right through Lundenwic along the muddy streets that ran parallel to the river.
They were narrow, choked with people and littered with the rotting carcases of vermin, dogs and other animals. The inhabitants evidently just threw out the contents of the pails they used at night rather take them down to the river to dispose of. There were a number of communal latrines, but not enough, and many needed filling in, to judge by the smell that emanated from them. I was at a loss to understand how people could live there, but I supposed that they got used to it.
However, the stench got far worse when we reached the street of the butchers. Fly blown meat hung from hooks outside their huts and the bones and intestines that they couldn’t use were discarded in the street. The next street housed the fishmongers and, if anything, discarded heads, tails and fish that had rotted stank even worse. It was a relief to leave that part of the town behind as we carried on around a curve in the river and saw better quality huts, houses and even the odd hall on either side of the street. A couple of hundred yards further on we saw a palisade which ran up a gentle slope. A gate with a wooden tower beside it lay in the middle of the line of fortifications and another tower marked each end of the palisade before it turned and ran parallel to the river.
Piles of stone lay nearby so presumably Offa planned to replace the gateway in stone soon. As
we approached the gate our two banners were unfurled – mine displaying a black wolf’s head on a yellow background and the archbishop’s rather more elaborate one. The banner had been made by nuns and consisted of a crimson cloth fringed in gold bullion with two crossed keys – symbolising St. Peter’s keys to the gates of Heaven – embroidered on it in silver wire.
The gates had been open but, seeing a group of well-armed riders approaching, the sentries quickly slammed them shut.
‘Who are you? What do you want?’ a voice called down from the tower.
‘Archbishop Egbert of Eoforwīc and Ealdorman Seofon of Alnwicshire, Hereræswa of Northumbria, are here as representatives of King Eadbehrt to see King Offa,’ Egbert’s chaplain called back a trifle pompously.
‘Wait here.’
It was over half an hour before one of the double gates opened sufficiently for two riders to emerge. One was dressed in a blue tunic of good quality and the other was a cleric of some sort, though I didn’t recognise the cream habit he wore as being that of a priest or a monk.
‘I’m Ealdorman Godric and this is King’s Offa’s princeps domus.’
The latter was a term I was unfamiliar with, apart from knowing it was Latin, and I looked at Egbert for clarification.
‘It means head of the household, I assume.’
‘That’s correct, archbishop. He will show you and Seofon to your chamber. I fear that you’ll have to share. Your men will have to camp down there by the river.’
I turned to look at the marshy area between us and the river and shook my head.
‘No, that’s not a suitable place for them to set up their encampment.’
He shrugged his shoulders.
‘Well, they’ll have to find somewhere else then. The compound is full to overflowing.’
‘They can camp outside the palisade here then,’ I replied. ‘Can you at least provide them with water and food?’
‘I can loan a cart and a couple of barrels for them to fetch water in, as we have to. There is no well inside the palisade,’ the princeps domus replied.
I thought that it was pointless erecting a palisade for defence if there was no source of water inside it. All an enemy had to do was to wait for the garrison to die of thirst, but I didn’t comment.
It wasn’t until noon the next day that Egbert and I were sent for. Offa sat on an ornately carved throne at one end of his hall. Oddly enough it wasn’t raised off the floor and, as we were standing and he was sitting we ended up looking down at him.
‘It’s customary to kneel in the king’s presence,’ the princeps domus, who was standing on one side of the throne, said reprovingly.
‘May I remind you, whatever you name is, that I am an archbishop? I don’t even kneel to the King of Northumbria. I’m afraid a nod of the head will have to suffice.’
I thought I detected a ghost of a smile flit across Offa’s face.
‘Harrumph, that excuse doesn’t apply to a mere ealdorman,’ he said looking pointedly at me.
‘Do you require me to kneel in your presence, cousin?’
‘Cousin?’ Offa’s piercing eyes switched to me. ‘How are we related?’
‘My great grandfather was your grandmother’s brother.’
‘Rather distantly related then, but my grandmother was the daughter of the Ealdorman of Bebbanburg, not Alnwic, I think?’
‘Yes, Cyning; and my father is the current Ealdorman of Bebbanburg. I’m his eldest son and I will become Ealdorman of both shires in due course.’
‘Your grandfather, Swefred, was a good friend to my Uncle Heartbehrt, from what I’ve been told.’
‘And I believe that your father gave Swefred and his family sanctuary and land when he fell out of favour with King Osred.’
‘So it seems that our houses were bound together by more than ties of blood, although that was a long time in the past now.’
‘Our ancestors were allies then, yes, and I hope that we can at least be friends again, rather than foes.’
‘It wasn’t me that invaded Deira and sacked Eoforwīc, it was my fool of an uncle,’ he replied sharply.
‘May I assume from that that you disassociate yourself from King Æthelbald’s actions?’ Egbert interrupted smoothly.
‘To some extent,’ he replied warily. ‘Your brother invaded Mercia and he must be held to account for that. Æthelbald has already paid the price for his folly.’
It wasn’t the same thing, of course. Æthelbald had been killed in retaliation for raping the wife of the captain of his gesith, not for invading Northumbria, but I held my tongue.
‘And what price did you have in mind, Cyning, bearing mind we shall have to pay for the rebuilding of most of Eoforwīc, including my church and monastery?’
‘I thought it might be sensible to move the eastern part of our common border north from the Mersey to the River Ribble, archbishop.’
‘But that would give you two thirds of Luncæstershire and make the whole of Elmet defenceless against you,’ I said, aghast.
‘That wouldn’t matter if I signed a fifty year treaty with Northumbria.’
I knew full well that no treaty would last anything like as long as that, especially as thrones seemed to change hands so quickly these days.
‘May we consider your terms, Cyning, and come back again soon?’
‘Take as long as you like. For the moment I have my hands full with my quarrel with Essex and Kent. Once I have resolved that to my satisfaction, I still have Wessex to deal with, not to mention the Welsh. Eventually though, I shall turn my attention to my northern border and, one way or the other, I’m determined to secure that. Good day to you, cousin; you too archbishop.’
~~~
We had gone back to see Offa two days after our first meeting merely to say that we would convey his terms to King Eadbehrt but that we didn’t think that they would be acceptable.
‘Those are my terms for a treaty. Without one your southern border will never be safe,’ he replied and with that we departed.
Our meeting with Cadwaladr had been more productive. He had readily agreed that if Mercia tried to take the southern part of Luncæstershire by force he would raid Mercia. In return he wanted our help to take Caerlleon back from Mercia. It was a promise that was easy to give. The old Roman town lay next to the border between Gwynedd and Mercia and a few miles south of the Mersey, which formed our current border with Offa’s kingdom. In the hands of allies Caerlleon would help strengthen Luncæstershire’s defences.
After my return from Gwynedd I had returned to Alnwic in time for Christmas and then travelled north in February, once the snow had started to thaw, to see my father. Hilda had insisted on coming with me; she complained that she had seen nothing of me for a long time and she wasn’t about to let me out of her sight again. The boys came too, as did my brother Renweard, who was now the shire-reeve of Alnwic. To be honest I was away so much that the routine management of the shire fell almost completely onto his shoulders.
My sons were now six and nearly five and, as the journey wasn’t an arduous one, I allowed them to ride their own ponies. They rode alongside Hilda and me looking as proud as anything. Of course, they became tired after a while, but both were determined not to show it.
My father had made a good recovery and was delighted to see us. We had invited him to spend the Christmas period with us but the snow was too deep for travel. It seemed to me that the winters were getting worse. Most of the snow had melted in a sudden thaw the previous week so the roads were muddy. In places the road was like a quagmire and we had to make a detour to avoid it.
We stayed at Bebbanburg for a week and I took the opportunity of taking my sons to visit Lindisfarne. One of first monks we saw was Higbald, the captured Mercian boy who I had saved from torture at the hands of Eadbehrt. He was with a group of other novices repairing a hut whose roof had collapsed under the weight of snow.
He had coming running up with a look of delight on his face as soon as he saw me, but stopped a
s soon as the Master of the Novices, who was supervising the work yelled at him. I dismounted and went and introduced myself to the latter and explained my connection with the boy. The monk smiled and, after admonishing him for stopping work without permission, allowed Higbald to come and talk to me.
We walked through the monastery to the church as I wanted to show Octa and Uuffa where Aidan and Cuthbert were buried beside the altar. Northumbria had many saints, including two previous kings, Oswald and Oswiu. However the two most important were Aidan, who founded Lindisfarne and brought Christianity to Northumbria, and the most celebrated and revered of all - Cuthbert.
Higbald told me how well he was settling in. At first the fact that he was a Mercian had caused him a little difficulty, especially with his fellow novices, but his engaging personality had soon won them over. As we left the church it started to sleet and I prayed fervently that this wasn’t the precursor of more snow.
‘You had better make haste, lord,’ one of the monks told me as we remounted. ‘The tide is coming in fast.’
It was still sixty yards out when we started across the sands but it came in at an alarming rate. By the time we were halfway across it had nearly reached the hooves of our cantering steeds. The boys were laughing as they whipped their ponies into a gallop, exhilarated by the danger and the excitement. Their ponies little legs were splashing through water a foot deep by the time we made the other side and were exhausted, their sides heaving with the effort they had made. I jumped off my equally shattered horse and ran to scoop my sons into my arms and hugged them to me.