by H A CULLEY
At the age of fifty I felt as fit and strong as ever I did but I did tire more easily. My ambition now was to see Octa in a position to inherit Bebbanburg and become the Ealdorman of Islandshire before I died. Not that I expected that to happen for a while yet.
My brother Renweard had remained behind in Paris to oversee the business and Hilda had stayed with him for the moment. I hadn’t told King Charles, who people were now calling Charlemagne – Charles the Great – in case he prevented me leaving with my warband, which now numbered one hundred and twenty. Renweard planned to follow me and take up his old position as shire reeve if we were successful. If we weren’t, then he could stay where he was.
With no children of his own he would be the last of the House of Catinus in that eventuality. I had thought of leaving either Octa or Uuffa with him but neither would hear of it.
Uuffa had preceded me by two days in our smallest birlinn, landing with Anarawd in a cove to the north of the Isle of Lindisfarne. They were dressed as monks and their role would be crucial to our success.
On the twentieth of March 774 I set foot once more on Northumbrian soil. I lifted Æthelred down from the side of the birlinn. He had just turned twelve and we had agreed that he should be treated as the king as soon as we landed.
‘Welcome back to your kingdom, Cyning,’ I said to him.
His reply surprised me.
‘Thank you, hereræswa, may God be with us.’
It was a long time since I had been the Hereræswa of Northumbria and it felt good to be accorded the title once more. However, we could call each other what we liked, it would mean nothing unless we could depose Alchfrith and get the boy accepted in his stead. The first step would be to capture the stronghold below whose fortifications we had just landed.
We planted my wolf’s head banner and that of the House of Æthelfrith, from whom Æthelred claimed descent, in the ground and my men started to set up camp around them.
What I hadn’t expected was that the man who now commanded the fortress would sally forth and attack us within an hour of our landing. Thankfully Octa, as captain of my warband, had put out sentries as soon as we had agreed where to camp.
We had landed ten of the horses we’d brought with us by that stage and they had been saddled ready for a group of my horsemen to patrol the surrounding countryside. I had no intention of being surprised by reinforcements loyal to Alchred.
As the force from the fortress charged out of the main gate and around the side of the rock on which it stood my men hastily stopped what they were doing and grabbed their helmets, shields and weapons. There was no time to pull on byrnies or other protective covering as they rushed to form a shield wall.
When I’d been master of Bebbanburg my warband were trained horsemen. However, the new lord evidently didn’t see the need to train his men to ride, or couldn’t afford the number of horses required. The men making their way towards us as fast as they could were on foot in the main. They were led by eight mounted men. One was wearing a very expensive byrnie which covered his arms as well as his torso and which had been gilded to look like gold.
His helmet was ornate with a crouching animal of some sort as its crest. This was made of gold and the helmet itself was inlaid with gold patterns. Instead of the fixed visor with eye holes that I favoured, his was open-faced. Beside him rode a man bearing a green banner. There was a strong breeze off the sea in which the banner fluttered so I could make out its emblem – a bear on all fours.
As I mounted and gathered nine other horsemen around me, Octa took command of the shield wall. Behind them the archers formed up and sent a couple of volleys at high trajectory towards the enemy.
They did little damage, although one horse was wounded and threw its rider, but the arrows striking shields made the attackers nervous and they slowed their pace. I smiled grimly; experienced fighters would have speeded up to reduce the length of time that they were vulnerable to arrows. These men were not battle-hardened. The next volley was more successful with several men suffering wounds to their legs and right arms. Another horse was hit, which reduced their mounted force to six.
They had drawn ahead of those on foot by a hundred yards or so and the gap was widening as the panting men behind them struggled to keep up. I led my nine horsemen around the right flank of my shield wall and headed for the richly dressed enemy leader. He saw me coming and turned his horse’s head to meet me.
I saw that he was riding like all Anglo-Saxons up to that time – in a saddle with no stirrups. I had learned from Charlemagne’s heavy cavalry and had bought new saddles like theirs. The stirrups which hung from the new saddles gave us greater agility when fighting from horseback, better control of our mounts and we were more difficult to unseat.
The man in the gilded byrnie thrust his spear at me as we closed but I ducked and it went over my shoulder. I sat up again as he passed me and stabbed my spear in the rump of his horse. It reared up and he fell backwards over its hind quarters. I had no more time to worry about him as another rider wielding an axe had it raised ready to chop down at my horse’s head. I yanked the reins to the left and the axe missed its target. The impetus of the swing unbalanced its owner and he started to fall off his horse to the side.
I looked around for another opponent but my men had disposed of the rest. I saw with alarm that the warriors on foot were only a few yards away so I yelled for my men to retreat and whirled my horse around to follow them. However, I had forgotten the two dismounted riders. The ornately dressed man ran at me with his sword whilst the other grabbed my shield and tried to pull me from my horse.
Because my feet were in stirrups I couldn’t kick the man holding my shield away so I kicked my spurs viciously into the side of my horse and it leaped forward in reaction to the pain. I let go of my shield and the man holding it fell away. His leader’s sword missed me and struck the rump of my horse just as I hit him a back handed blow with the haft of my spear. He stumbled and fell just as my horse reared up, neighing loudly because of his wounded rear. My stirrups meant that I was able to stay on the bucking horse. Then suddenly he started to bolt.
I clung on for dear life as he raced, not back towards my own men as I’d hoped, but towards my advancing foes. Those in front scattered out of the way but the press of men behind was too great and my fleeing steed was forced to a halt. I had dropped my spear and tried now to draw my sword, but to no avail. Hands grabbed me and my horse and pulled us to the ground.
My wounded horse fell onto its left side with my leg trapped under it. I felt a massive blow to my helmet and then everything went black.
~~~
I awoke feeling sick and my head felt as if a blacksmith was using it as an anvil. I lifted my head and vomited, then fell back into blessed unconsciousness. The next time I woke up it was dark. My stomach lurched but all that came out of my mouth was yellow bile. I felt dizzy and my head pounded as if someone was banging it on a rock. Gradually the nausea faded and the room stopped spinning around me.
My eyes were accustomed to the dark but all I could see was a very faint line under where I supposed the bottom of the door was. There didn’t appear to be any windows and the floor under my hands was hard earth. I knew where I was – in the small stone built hut that was used for prisoners in Bebbanburg. I was back in my ancestral home, but not in the way I had envisaged.
As I lay there, drifting in and out of consciousness, I tried to think of a way out of my predicament. I was certain the man who had worn the gilded byrnie was Beagnoth, the man Alchred had made Ealdorman of Islandshire in my place. I was equally certain he knew who I was. The only mystery was why was I still alive?
I had expected to find myself chained or tied up by rope, but presumably my captors thought that a stone prison with a stout wooden door made such additional measures unnecessary. As time wore on my head cleared and I felt a little better. I felt the side of my head gingerly. There was a large lump there and my hair was matter with dried blood. Otherwise I seemed unha
rmed, apart for a few bruises and a pain in my side – presumably a cracked rib or two.
I got to my feet slowly and immediately felt faint, so I sat down again with a bump. A few minutes later I tried again and, although I felt dizzy, I managed to stay on my feet. I took a few tottering steps and banged into the cold stone wall. My breath rasped in my throat with the effort and I held onto the wall until I was breathing normally again.
I cautiously took a few more steps with one hand against the wall for support and my breathing became less ragged and my balance improved. After what seemed like an age, but which was probably in reality no more than half an hour, I could stand and walk normally; not that there was far to walk in any one direction. My cell was, if I remembered correctly, no more than about eight feet square.
Either my mind was playing tricks on me or the faint light under the door was getting brighter. The sun must be rising and a feeling of dread overcame me. Dawn was the traditional time for executions. I jumped when I heard the bar outside the door being removed and the light of a new day flooded into my prison. A figure stood in the doorway, silhouetted against the pale sunlight reflected off the stone wall of the lord’s hall behind him.
‘Get up you heap of dung. Ealdorman Beagnoth invites you to join him on the parapet overlooking your camp,’ he said with a sneer. ‘Not that you’ll enjoy the view for long. He intends to hang you from the palisade where your men can watch you twitch and kick as the life ebbs out of you.’
‘How kind of the usurper who sits in my hall drinking my mead to ask for my company, but I fear I’m not feeling too well. Please convey my regrets to Beagnoth and tell him to go and copulate with himself.’
The man stepped into the small room intending to punch me for my insolence, but I stepped out of the way and his fist hit the far wall with a sickening crunch. He yelled in pain and clutched his broken hand with his left one. I swiftly kicked him behind his right knee and the leg gave way. I grabbed his head from behind and twisted it savagely to the right. I heard his neck break and let the body drop to the floor.
I stepped over it and peered cautiously out of the door, only to find myself standing in front of two monks. It was only then that I noticed the daggers dripping blood and the two dead warriors at their feet.
‘It seems that you didn’t need our help after all, father,’ Uuffa said standing beside a grinning Anarawd.
They had managed to enter the stronghold the day before my fleet arrived in the guise of monks from Lindisfarne on their way to Jarrow and had stayed with the chaplain overnight. The idea had been for them to open the sea gate at dawn, but they had watched the sally the previous day and seen me brought in as a captive. Their plans had then changed.
‘Did the chaplain suspect anything?’ I asked as we left the cell and stood in the narrow alleyway between it and the hall.
‘Yes, he soon realised that we weren’t proper monks when he found out we didn’t know that Higbald was now the prior of Lindisfarne Monastery. We left him tied up.’
‘I’m pleased for Higbald. He’s done well for someone who could well have ended up as a slave or worse,’ I said, thinking of the Mercian boy I’d saved from King Eadbehrt’s torturers nearly twenty years ago.
‘You two can catch up later,’ Anarawd hissed, ‘for now we need to worry about getting out of here alive.’
I was about to reprimand Anarawd for his insolence when I realised that he was right. We moved to the end of the prison wall and I risked a quick glance up to where Beagnoth was waiting impatiently up on the parapet which ran around the inside of the palisade. Just at that moment he sent a man to find out what was causing the delay in fetching me. I had less than a minute to come up with a plan.
~~~
What I didn’t know until later was that Beagnoth had lost nearly half his men in his abortive attempt at the sally to take us by surprise. Octa’s shield wall had held firm and, being composed of twice as many men as Beagnoth had, it had managed to outflank his men. They had turned and fled moments before being trapped and had lost more men during the rout that followed. Beagnoth had led the flight back into the fortress and the only horseman to escape had been the one carrying my unconscious body.
Now he only had twenty two men, some of those wounded, to defend Bebbanburg. However, even that would be enough as the only points vulnerable to assault were the two gates and the palisade either side of them as it ran up onto the basalt plateau on which Bebbanburg was built.
I was naturally concerned about all three of us staying alive, but that would be irrelevant if I couldn’t capture the stronghold before a relief force arrived.
‘Quick, drag those two bodies back into the cell.’
We did so and shut the door. I prayed that the man sent to see what was happening didn’t notice the blood stained grass but the ground in the alleyway was in shadow so there was a chance that he wouldn’t.
It was a tight squeeze in the cell with three bodies and the three of us. I was standing closest to the door and so Uuffa handed me a sword he’d taken from one of the dead men. As soon as the door opened I thrust the point into the man’s neck and we pulled his body inside as the last of his blood pumped out of the gaping wound.
We left the door open to let in some light as we sorted through the leather and linen padded over-tunics and found helmets that would fit. Then, arming ourselves with their weapons and shields, we left the hut, closing the door and barring it; not to keep the dead men inside, but so that all looked normal to anyone walking past.
We made our way to the sea gate. Octa had drawn up our warriors in expectation that his brother and Anarawd would be successful in getting them open, unrealistic as that original plan seemed to me now. Beagnoth stood on the parapet beside the gate with a dozen men, four more stood inside the gate and, having killed four of the remaining garrison, presumably the remaining two were guarding the main gate. Several of the men I could see had bandages around arms or legs.
I knew that the only way up to the parapet where Beagnoth stood was via the nearby ladder or the steps over a hundred yards away. I calculated that it would take the men on the parapet well over a minute to cover that distance, descend the steps and reach the gate. It wasn’t long but it would have to be enough.
We had brought thirty horses with us and I suspected that Octa would have his horsemen ready just out of arrow range to charge up the incline as soon as the gates started to open. I hoped so at any rate.
‘Where’s the damned prisoner?’ Beagnoth called down to us, thinking that we were the men he’d sent to fetch him.
‘He’s still unconscious, lord,’ Uuffa called back.
‘I don’t care if he’s bloody well dead, go and fetch him so I can hang him from the ramparts.’
‘Yes, lord.’
But instead of turning around I ran as fast as I could towards the four men standing inside the gates with Uuffa at my heels, whilst Anarawd ran over and pulled the ladder down. For a moment Beagnoth and his men stood there in stunned silence, then he realised what was going on.
‘Get them!’ he yelled, his face going puce with rage.
By this time Uuffa and I had reached the four at the gate. They were slow witted and only one managed to lower his spear before we were amongst them. We each killed one man before they could react and then I felt the spear point strike my borrowed shield. Uuffa killed my attacker whilst I warded off a sword cut at my head from the last man. He never stood a chance against two of us and a moment later we lifted the bar that held the gates closed.
We tugged at the heavy right hand gate trying desperately to open it before the pounding feet I could hear behind me reached us. As the gate opened, our horsemen started up the slope. They were a hundred yards away and closing fast but our foes were much closer. By now Anarawd had joined us and each of us levelled a spear at the onrushing warriors.
‘Good odds eh? Four to one,’ Anarawd laughed.
He was excited and his blood was up. Uuffa and I were more concern
ed about surviving for the next few moments.
Most of the men on the parapet had been off duty and were only there to watch an execution. All had swords and seaxes but only a few wore any form of protection and only one man, presumably one of those on duty, had a spear and shield. Then an arrow struck my shield. I had forgotten about the man up on the watchtower who was evidently an archer. However, I didn’t have to worry about him for the moment as he couldn’t send any more our way without hitting his fellow warriors.
The first to reach us were armed with sword and seax and they stabbed and hacked at us but to no avail. We stood together in the narrow gateway, which was a mere four feet wide as we’d only had time to open one of the two gates. As one man raised his sword to strike at me I blocked it with my shield and thrust my spear into his belly. He fell and I was forced to let go of the spear as it was well and truly embedded in his body. Thankfully the man behind him tripped over it and I had time to pull out my seax and cut downwards into his neck, severing his spinal cord, before he could recover.
At that moment I heard the pounding of hooves behind us and the three of us darted out of the way and stood to one side just in time as Octa led his horsemen through the open gate in single file. They scattered the remaining warriors, cutting them down with their swords and skewering them on the end of their spears as they went. We three followed the last of the horsemen through the gate just in time to see Beagnoth fall to my son’s blade.
But I’d forgotten the archer in the watchtower. I watched horrified as Octa toppled from his horse with an arrow in him. I headed for the tower to wreak my revenge on the sentry but I was too slow. Uuffa beat me to it and two minutes later I saw the man thrown from the top of the tower to land in a mess of blood and broken bones on the ground below.