by H A CULLEY
Bedwyr started to sweat, despite the chill in the air rushing past him, and his tongue licked around his dry lips. He dug his heels into his pony but it was tiring. He tried veering to the left but this was only postponing the inevitable. He managed to get to the crest first but the older boy was only ten yards behind him now, and was closing the gap quickly.
The smaller pony stumbled and Bedwyr went flying over her head. He landed with a thump, unhurt but too badly winded to move. His chest felt as if it had been crushed and he struggled to breathe. The other boy rode up and, grinning triumphantly, he pulled a dagger from its sheath as he jumped off his pony.
He grabbed Bedwyr by his long hair and pulled his head back, exposing his throat. Bedwyr was spent, all the fight having been forced out of him along with his breath. He was resigned to having his throat cut when one of the other scouts reached them.
‘Don’t kill him. He’s more than likely one of Cadwalladr’s whelps and he’ll know where his camp is.’
The boy with the dagger gave an evil smile.
‘Can I cut off bits of him until he talks then?’
When the other man nodded he grasped the younger boy’s hand and put his dagger against the bottom knuckle of his little finger and sawed it to and fro.
‘You can do what you like to me, I’ll not talk,’ Bedwyr spat at him, grimacing as the somewhat blunt blade cut into his skin.
Suddenly the face of the boy with the dagger crumpled in disbelief as an arrow struck his chest. Bedwyr looked on uncomprehendingly as his assailant fell to the ground in a heap and lay still. Although something in his brain was telling him that he was saved, he didn’t believe the evidence of his own eyes. His was still in shock, waiting for death, and he couldn’t move.
The other five scouts looked around in alarm, seeking the archer. They saw two men standing in front of their ponies on top of the ridge fifty yards away. Before they could react, a second arrow hit one of the mounted men in the thigh. With a yell of fury the other four kicked their horses into motion and headed up the grass covered slope whilst the wounded man pulled the arrow from his leg.
It was a mistake. Blood spurted from the severed artery, which he frantically spent some time trying to staunch with his hand. In agony, and now faint from loss of blood, he toppled to the ground. Bedwyr calmly bound a dirty bit of cloth torn from the dead lad’s tunic around his bleeding finger and picked up the dagger. With a grunt of satisfaction, he plunged it into the neck of the wounded man, although he would have been dead soon anyway.
Meanwhile, two more men had been killed by the archers as they cantered towards them; the remaining two hastily changed their minds and started to head away from the two on the ridge. It was futile. One was hit in the back and crashed to the earth with a thud and the last one had his pony killed from under him. Two minutes later all the scouts were dead.
‘You’re a bloody fool, Bedwyr,’ one of the men told the boy. ‘I’m sorry we teased you about the size of your manhood when we all stopped for a piss but we meant no harm by it. Riding off like that in a sulk nearly got you killed.’
The man who’d spoken cuffed the boy around the head, partly because he was angry with him and partly in affection.
‘More importantly, you were captured by Cadafael’s men. You may think you would’ve stayed silent whilst that sadistic lad cut bits of you, but you wouldn’t. Never go off on your own again,’ the other man added quietly.
He had the sense to know that if you shouted at a boy of Bedwyr’s age he’d merely get resentful and wouldn’t listen. The message was more likely to hit home if delivered in a calm voice. The boy nodded dumbly, trying hard not to cry.
‘Right, let’s get back to camp.’
The boy sobbed, more in relief than anything, and told them about the army on the move. At first they didn’t believe him, but eventually he convinced them he wasn’t spinning a yarn.
‘Right, let’s get you back to the prince. He’ll want to know about this.’
‘And you’re sure that this was an army you saw, not just some chieftain and his retinue?’ Cadwalladr asked.
‘I can’t count very well, Brenin, but this was a mighty host.’
The boy had accorded the prince the title of king in Welsh. Though he had never succeeded his father, Cadwallon, his followers regarded Cadafael as a usurper and Cadwalladr as the true King of Gwynedd.
‘Very well. It would seem that Cadafael and his warriors are moving south east for some reason. We’d better go and see for ourselves.’
Bedwyr took them to the spot from where he’d spotted the army and they followed the wide valley until they caught up with the stragglers. Cadwalladr and a handful of his men then followed the slowly moving army, keeping just below the skyline along the tops of the hills as they did so, not that the men below spent much time looking around them. A light rain had started to fall and that was enough to discourage them from taking much of an interest in their surroundings.
‘It looks as if they are heading for Powys, but I thought that he and their king, Manwgan ap Selyfin, were in alliance against the Mercians at the moment,’ the prince said to his chieftains once the army below had stopped for the night.
‘Perhaps the slaying of Penda has changed things,’ one of them suggested.
‘I doubt it. It’s more likely that they have agreed to use the present chaos to launch a joint attack on the western part of Mercia,’ another said, shaking his head.
It had been twenty four years since Oswald had slain Cadwalladr’s father, Cadwallon, in Northumbria and sent the invading army of Welshmen fleeing back to their homeland. He had been twelve at the time, the same age as Bedwyr was now, and too young to become king. Instead a proven warrior named Cadafael had been given the throne in the interim. The expectation was that he would hand over to Cadwalladr when the boy grew to manhood. That had never happened, of course, and Cadafael had sought to kill the rightful heir ever since.
Cadwalladr had fled into the bleak mountain fastness around the mountain called Yr Wyddfa and had lived the life of an outlaw. He was now thirty six and the usurper was in his mid-forties. Despite his advancing years, Cadafael hadn’t slowed down and now he was on his way to invade the region of Mercia known as Salop.
That night Cadwalladr led his men on a raid into the enemy campsite. The moonless night was particularly cold for the time of year. The rain had ceased but raindrops still pattered from the trees onto the rotting foliage that covered the forest floor. Cadwalladr’s scouts had to brush the leaves aside with their feet before taking each step so as not to alert the sentries with the sound of crunching.
The sentries were few and had gathered around fires to keep warm. The forest around them wasn’t silent; nocturnal animals scurried hither and thither and from time to time the hungry nocturnal predators sprang on their prey. It was nothing to alarm the men, even if they had heard the sounds above the crackling of the fires.
Cadwalladr’s scouts were experts at their task and made less noise than the wildlife around them as they crept towards their prey. The sentries all died silently with slit throats. They retraced their steps as silently as they’d come and reported back to Cadwalladr, using gestures not words. He waved his men forwards and they advanced as quietly as they could into the camp.
Cadafael was fast asleep with a girl in his arms – one of a long line of bed mates. His affairs were always brief as he soon tired of even the prettiest. He had sired a number of bastards but had never acknowledged any of them. When the alarm rang out he leapt out of bed naked, grabbed his sword and a small round shield called a targe, and rushed outside. The sight that greeted him was confused. Men were running about, seemingly aimlessly, whilst sounds of fighting came from the darkness to his right.
‘Grab your weapons and stay in your groups,’ he bellowed at those nearest to him.
Taking the torch mounted on a pole outside his tent, he stalked off in the direction from where the clash of arms was coming. Sound is deceptive at
night and it took him a few minutes to find its source. The area illuminated by his torch wasn’t large but he could just make out a few mounted men herding his ponies away from the horse lines. He later found out that the ten men guarding the ponies had all been killed. He was about to turn around and return to his tent when several men ran at him out of the darkness.
‘To me, to your king,’ he roared out in the hope that some of his men were in earshot. As the first man reached him he brought his sword down towards the king’s bare head. His assailant was wearing a leather jerkin and a simple round helmet so he was able to see his face clearly. It had been well over twenty years since he’d last seen Cadwalladr and then he’d been a half grown boy, but he knew it had to be him. He threw up his targe to ward off the blow and swung his own sword around in an arc aiming to cut into his rival’s side. However, the blade was deflected by a spear and all it succeeded in doing was to chop the shaft in two near the point.
By now he was surrounded by six men and he started to sweat. He was a brave man but only a fool wouldn’t be afraid when outnumbered. He pushed all such thoughts from his mind and concentrated on taking as many with him as possible. He backed up against a tree and crouched down waving his sword to and fro, waiting for his enemies to make the first move. Two men went to attack him at the same time, but suddenly a dozen of his men arrived and his assailants vanished back into the darkness before a blow was struck.
He chased after them, exultant at his narrow escape from almost certain death, and tried to make contact with them again, but it was hopeless. After a couple of his warriors had been killed by men hiding in the woods he called them off and returned to the camp.
Once dressed, he gathered his chieftains together to find out what the damage had been. A few dozen men had been killed or badly wounded in the attack, but the most serious loss was that of their ponies. It was bad enough that one of the scouting parties that had been guarding his flank hadn’t returned yesterday; now he was completely blind. He wondered whether it was wise to continue. An army without scouts could easily walk right into a trap. Reluctantly he came to the conclusion that they would have to slow their progress so that scouts on foot were able to reconnoitre the flanks and the land ahead of them.
However, Cadwalladr hadn’t finished harassing his enemy. For a reason no one understood, the rearguard always seemed to have to march faster than the main body and, even then, an inevitable gap developed between them. Now, despite the slow pace set by those in the lead, the same gap was developing, not helped by the absence of the pack ponies and the consequent need for the men to carry Cadafael’s tent and the rest of the equipment between them.
Suddenly several dozen men attacked both sides of the straggling rear guard and another twenty interspersed themselves between them and the rest of the column. The rearguard struggled to divest themselves of the panels and poles of the heavy leather tent and the other equipment, but the enemy were too quick for them. By the time they were ready to fight their assailants had disappeared back into the woods that lined the slopes of the valley, leaving behind nineteen of the rear guard as casualties.
The man in charge sent a runner to tell Cadafael what had happened, but shortly after he left there was a second attack and twenty four more of the rear guard were cut down. They had had enough by the time that their attackers disappeared into side valleys once more. They abandoned the cumbersome tent and the rest of the equipment and supplies before running down the track in an effort to catch their comrades up.
‘Now,’ Cadwalladr yelled and once more his men emerged. This time to block the path ahead of the rearguard. More men cut off their retreat and arrows ripped into them from the flanks. They never had a chance and ten minutes later there wasn’t one left alive.
Cadafael had sworn when he heard the runner’s report and he sent one of his best subordinates back with fifty men to find out what was going on. They found the slaughtered remains of the rearguard some five hundred yards behind the last of the main body.
These new arrivals were not farmers and shepherds, as the rear guard had been, they were trained warriors and Cadwalladr had no intention of sacrificing his followers needlessly. So he confined himself to occasional volleys of arrows. They caused few casualties because the new rearguard had been trained to keep together and crouch down behind their interlocked shields as soon as they heard the thwack of a bowstring.
That night Cadafael cursed long and loudly when he realised that his tent had been lost. It was especially tough on his current bed mate as he took his rage out on her. His mood wasn’t helped by the torrential rain that started to fall at midnight. His men, even his chieftains, were used to sleeping wrapped in their cloaks in all weathers, but their king was not.
The next morning most woke up sopping wet, disgruntled and hungry. Those who had slept near the periphery of the camp didn’t wake up. Cadwalladr’s men had killed the sentries during the night and then crept into the camp and slew forty of the sleeping men.
Even worse for morale, the severed heads had been piled in the middle of the path leading south for the army to encounter as they set off the following morning. Cadafael’s men were terrified of further attacks and most slept badly the next night, but by then they had made it into Powys and Cadwalladr didn’t pursue them across the ill-defined border.
~~~
Alweo was surprised when King Oswiu sent for him. He had settled down as a member of the Bernician warband and now the former Mercian ætheling had accepted his lot. He was the son of Eowa, Penda’s turncoat brother, who had supported Oswald and been murdered by his own men in consequence. The Mercian king would undoubtedly have killed Alweo had Oswiu not rescued him. Now Penda was dead and Oswiu ruled Mercia. Perhaps he wanted to reward Alweo by appointing him to an important post in Mercia? He could only hope.
Alweo looked around the small chamber off the king’s hall in Eoforwīc as he entered. It was built of timber, like the rest of the hall, with one open window through which the cold wind whistled. The brazier in a corner did little to heat the room but it did fill it with acrid smoke. He was surprised how spartan the room was. Apart from a large coffer and a sleeping platform covered in furs, the only other furniture consisted of a chair, a bench and a stand on which the king’s byrnie, helmet and weapons hung. The floor was of beaten earth covered with dried rushes, the same as in the meanest hovel, and there were no animal skins, shields or other decoration on the walls.
Then he noticed a small table in a corner with a plain wooden cross on it. The earth in front of it was bare of rushes and had two small indentations, presumably made by the king’s knees when he prayed. Alweo thought that Oswiu must do that a lot to have worn the hard packed soil away.
‘Ah, Alweo. Come in and sit down.’
The young man sat on the edge of the bench and Oswiu took the chair. The king’s body servant, Ansgar, brought in two goblets of mead and a tray of sweet biscuits and then quietly withdrew.
‘How old are you now? The king asked, nibbling on a biscuit.
‘Twenty six, Cyning.’
The young man was holding a flagon of mead in one hand and a biscuit in the other, but he was too nervous to sample either.
‘They tell me that you’re a good rider and you know your horseflesh.’
‘Dunstan was training me at the request of Catinus. He wants me to take charge of his horsemen and their mounts at Bebbanburg.’
‘Well, I’m afraid that I’m going to disappoint Catinus. As you know, Dunstan was killed at the Battle of the Winwaed and I need someone to replace him. Everyone tells me that no-one is better qualified to be my master of horses than you.’
‘I’m, er, I’m not sure what to say, Cyning.’
‘Well, do you want the job or not?’
‘Yes, of course. I’m honoured. I’m just not sure that I can fill Dunstan’s shoes adequately.’
‘If you’re worried because he was a shipmaster as well, don’t be. I’m not asking you to take that on, just
breed my horses and train my men to ride.’
‘Thank you, Cyning. Of course, I accept with pleasure.’
‘Good.’ He paused. ‘If you were hoping to become an eorl in Mercia or something like that don’t be dissatisfied. I have no illusions about how difficult it’s going to be to keep Mercia subjugated. After all, your uncle didn’t manage to hang onto Wessex for long after he’d conquered it. In any case, many Mercians haven’t forgiven your father for betraying Penda and you’ll be tarred with the same brush.’
Alweo nodded, acknowledging the truth of what Oswiu had just said. Then he stood, put down his untasted mead and biscuit, inclined his head briefly in farewell and made his way to the stables. He knew the king was correct, but he couldn’t help but cherish a dream that one day he might return to Mercia as a noble. He shook off his malaise and thought about the future. He realised with surprise that he was actually eager to visit the farm where Dunstan had bred his horses and get started and there was no time like the present.
Oswiu had smiled to himself as Alweo left. He sensed that the young man was disappointed, despite what he’d told him about Mercia, but whatever he’d been hoping for when he’d entered the room, he should be pleased with the role that Oswiu had picked out for him. Once he’d settled in he’d talk to him about training fifty more of his warband to ride. With the vast domain he now ruled it would be useful to have a sizeable mobile force available to patrol it and nip any trouble in the bud.
Two days after Alweo had departed Oswiu started to muster the army he planned to take with him to settle matters with Powys and Gwynedd. He moved his base from Eoforwīc to Towcester and then west to the border between Mercia and Powys. Once the army was fully assembled he intended to attack the capital of Powys but then a messenger arrived to say that the Welsh were attacking the Mercian settlement at Elles’ Mere.
‘They’ve caught us unprepared,’ Oswiu said, banging his fist the table in front of him in frustration.
‘The scouts are watching them and so far they’ve failed to take the settlement,’ Ceadda replied. ‘The palisade is higher than normal and the Welsh haven’t got any siege equipment. Not yet at any rate. However, they are beginning to construct a battering ram and make ladders. That’ll take them time and, with any luck, the Mercians inside will be able to hold out for a day or two.’