by H A CULLEY
Oswiu had continued his reorganisation and, when Kenric died, his son, Beornheth – Cuthbert’s younger brother – had become an ealdorman. The Eorl of Dùn Èideann was now termed the Eorl of Lothian and the former British kingdom of Goddodin had been divided into a total of six shires, each with its own ealdorman under the eorl’s leadership.
Elmet too had been divided into shires under its eorl, as had Rheged. It was only a matter of time before the same structure would be applied to the rest of Deira, and to Bernicia.
Catinus’ thoughts were interrupted when a shout went up acclaiming Bruide as king. As his chieftains went up to swear their allegiance he was struck by the look of triumph on Bruide’s face. Suddenly their eyes met and Catinus almost recoiled from the coldness in those of the young man. It wasn’t exactly hatred but he didn’t know quite how to describe it; whatever it was a cold shiver ran down his spine. However friendly Bruide had appeared to be on the surface, it patently hid his true feelings. He was an enemy, and an implacable one at that.
The boy’s gaze shifted to Morleo and Catinus realised that he harboured nothing but animosity for his fellow king, presumably because Morleo’s father had killed his own. As far as he was concerned the Picts could do what they liked to each other, just so long as it didn’t affect him and his family.
Four days later he was back at Bebbanburg and within a week it was as if he’d never been away. There were changes, of course, the reeve had died the previous year and his place had been taken by his son, Godric, and several of the garrison and servants were new since he’d left.
One of the first things he’d done had been to ride around his shire visiting his thegns. Leoflaed’s father had died and her brother was now the Thegn of Bebbanburg Vill. Before he went to Wooler he rode to Lindisfarne to enquire whether Octha was there. The scared nine-year old boy he’d first encountered when he’d slain his father was now a strapping eighteen year old with no trace of a limp.
‘Do you remember me, Octha?’
‘Yes, lord. Of course I do.’ He said with a smile. ‘You saved me from a miserable life; how could I not remember you, and with gratitude.’
‘I’m going to Wooler tomorrow and wondered whether you are now ready to become its thegn?’
The young man shook his head.
‘No, lord. I’m content to remain here as a monk. God spared me from the plague and I wish to repay his mercy by serving him all my life.’
He paused before continuing.
‘However, I wonder whether I might request that Abbot Eata become the thegn in my place?’
‘You want to transfer title to the monastery?’
‘Yes please, lord.’
‘Very well. Does Abbot Eata know?’
‘No, lord. I thought it proper to ask you first.’
‘Very well. I’ll leave it to you to tell him. But he’ll either need to confirm the reeve in place or appoint a new reeve.’
~~~
Bruide gave the first indication of his ambitions in the early spring of 667. He had spent the year since he was crowned building up and training his warband. He had abandoned Kinneddar and moved back to Elgin; the last thing he was about to do was accept the legacy that Catinus had left him. He led his men along the coast to the mouth of the River Ness and then down the loch towards Morleo’s crannoch.
Snow still lay on the tops of the hills that lined the glen in which the loch lay. Down at sea level the track was muddy but the air was crisp and dry. However, on the second day, as they set out, black clouds swept across the sky and they hadn’t gone more than a mile before it started to hail. At first the hail was merely a nuisance but the hailstones got larger and were painful when they impacted on bare skin. Then one warrior was knocked out and the rest took shelter under their shields as they continued along the lochside.
The Picts may have been Christians but they were also superstitious. Whispers circulated that God was angry with them and was making his displeasure known. Bruide had enough sense to know that he had to do something to restore their morale or he would be heading for disaster.
‘How long can this hailstorm last?’ he asked Ruaidhrí, who had stayed on with Bruide to become his unofficial counsellor.
‘I’ve never seen anything like it, but hail doesn’t normally last very long.’
‘Warriors, never fear.’ He called out, trying to shout above the noise of the hail. ‘This has been sent to hide our approach. It will soon cease.’
Minutes later the intensity of the hail decreased, as did the size of the lumps of ice. As suddenly as it had begun it petered out, leaving the ground white as if it were covered in snow. Because the ground was now slippery, Bruide was forced to slow down or risk broken legs, or worse. However, the ice soon melted and the warriors were able to move more quickly again. As they did so their mood improved.
The settlement halfway down the loch had also been surprised by the hailstorm and everyone had quickly sought shelter, even the sentries at the end of the walkway over the water to the king’s hall, a structure on stilts out from the shore called a crannog. When they emerged they discovered that the small horses that were kept in a compound had evidentially panicked and had broken out of their enclosure and scattered.
It was purely fortuitous that three of the men who were sent to round up the horses spotted the warband of some three hundred making their way towards the crannoch. It was obvious that they were hostile and the three ran back to warn Morleo.
Given time, he might have raised twice the number of warriors as the attackers but, as it was, he had no more than eighty warriors to hand. Thirty were in his warband and the rest were men of the settlement who were able to fight. They would be no match for an army four times their size; he doubted if he would even be able to hold the crannog for long against such odds. He therefore decided that the sensible thing to do was to flee and gather an army to confront whoever the invaders were in due course.
‘The place is deserted, Brenin,’ one of his men told Bruide after they had searched the crannoch and the settlement.
‘No matter. They won’t have gone far.’
That evening his chieftains joined him for a feast to celebrate his success in capturing the capital of Ardewr so easily. He stood up to make a speech but, after the usual praise and congratulations, he managed to surprise them.
‘I’m going to make you Mormaer of Ardewr to rule it on my behalf,’ he told the eldest of them. ‘I’ll leave you the best part of the warband for now so that you can subdue the rest of the kingdom. Give the men the option of acknowledging you as their new leader or being killed after being forced to watch their family being slaughtered in front of them first. Few will choose the latter. Do you understand?’
The man nodded, elated at his good fortune. He knew that mormaer literally meant great steward and the appointment gave him power and a status that he hadn’t thought possible, so he thanked the king for his confidence in him; but Bruide had already turned his attention to his friend.
‘Ruaidhrí, I want you to take thirty of my best men, hunt down Morleo and kill him. Don’t come back without his head.’
Ruaidhrí swallowed hard. He was seeing a side of his friend that he hadn’t even suspected was there.
‘Don’t let me down,’ he told him in a tone of voice that left Ruaidhrí in no doubt what would happen if he did. ‘I want my men back by mid-summer.’
Gradually the inhabitants returned, once word got around that they and their families would be safe if they submitted to the new mormaer. Those few who resisted paid the price. Morleo tried to raise an army to oppose the invaders but everyone had been cowed by Bruide’s threats. Instead, he found himself a fugitive with a price on his head.
Fleeing to one of his fellow kings didn’t appeal; they would probably betray him for the reward. The irony was that this would come from the chests of silver and gold he’d left behind when he’d fled. He especially distrusted the high king, Drest. The man had never liked him. And so he and
the few warriors who had remained loyal to him made their way south east towards Prydenn where Oswiu’s eorl, Hunwald, ruled. The problem was that his fortress of Dùn Dè lay over a hundred miles away through the mountains. To make matters worse, they were on foot and they had no guide.
What he didn’t know was that Ruaidhrí wasn’t far behind him. One of his men was an excellent tracker and foolishly Morleo and his men had make no attempt to hide their passing.
~~~
Wilfrid prostrated himself in front of the Pope. Vitalianus was now an old man, and looked it. Wilfrid thought that he must be at least ninety. Very few men lived to be as old as that.
He had been about to return to Northumbria after his ordination as a bishop when he heard that Chad had been appointed in his place by Oswiu. He rapidly came to the conclusion that the only option open to him was an appeal to the Pope. However, it had taken him a month to secure an audience.
Vitalianus looked down at the man kneeling before him and beckoned with his hand for him to rise and kiss the ring on his hand. He sighed; it seemed that England brought him nothing but problems these days. When Archbishop Deusdedit of Cantwareburg died in 664, shortly after the Synod of Whitby, the King of Kent had secured the agreement of both Oswiu and Wulfhere to appoint Wighard, a Saxon priest and a native of Kent, to succeed him. He had been part of the late archbishop’s household and had been nominated by the monks at Cantwareburg. As archbishop he’d gone to Rome in person for the Pope’s confirmation of his appointment.
Vitalianus had been about to confirm his appointment when Wighart caught the plague and died. The Pope was now faced with two problems: who should lead the Church in England and the conflicting claims over the diocese of Northumbria. For a moment he thought that appointing Wilfrid as archbishop might kill two birds with one stone, but then he realised that if Oswiu, the most powerful man in Britain, let alone England, didn’t want the man as his bishop, he certainly wouldn’t accept him as archbishop.
‘So, if I’ve understood you correctly Abbot Wilfrid, Sub-king Alchfrith chose you to become bishop whilst his father was ill and then when King Oswiu recovered he chose another man in your place? Is it normal in Northumbria for kings to choose their bishop?’
‘Yes, Your Holiness; ever since Saint Aidan was sent from Iona the king has approved his successors. However, he has consulted the monks of Lindisfarne in the past.’
‘But now that the seat of the bishop has moved to Eoforwīc that is no longer the case?’
‘No, because the Abbot of Lindisfarne is not the bishop as well.’
‘I see. And why do you think that you are more suited to be bishop than this priest, Chad?’
‘Chad is a priest of the Celtic Church, Your Holiness, whereas I have always been a devout member of the Roman Catholic Church.’
‘Not quite. You were a novice monk of the Celtic Church on Lindisfarne and at Melrose were you not?’
Wilfrid was surprised at the old man’s knowledge of his background. Someone on his staff had evidently been digging into his past.
‘Yes, your Holiness, but only briefly. I completed my training at Cantwareburg and then I studied there, in Frankia and in Rome before returning to become Abbot of Ripon.’
‘And of Hexham, I think?’
Wilfrid took a deep breath. This wasn’t going as well as he’d expected.
‘Yes, and of Hexham; a new monastery I built on land given to me by King Alchfrith.’
‘It’s a pity that you aren’t as close to King Oswiu as you evidently are to his son. You call him King Alchfrith but I understood that the Sub-king of Deira is now another son, Ecgfrith?’
‘That is true, Holiness, but Alchfrith is the elder and should inherit.’
‘And how does Ecgfrith regard the Roman Church. Does he support us or the Celtic Church?’
‘He does what his father tells him.’
‘And Oswiu? He has aligned the date of Easter with our calculation but has he accepted my ultimate authority as leader of Christendom?’
Wilfrid shifted uncomfortably from one foot to the other.
‘That isn’t clear, Holiness. I believe that he still regards himself as being in charge of the Northumbrian Church.’
‘Is that so? Well, I think we’d better show him who’s master, hadn’t we? I’ll consecrate you as bishop myself and appoint you to the diocese of Northumbria. We’ll see what he does then.’
~~~
Ruaidhrí’s scouts came running back to tell him that Morleo and his men were less than two miles ahead of them. Ruaidhrí nodded his thanks and thought about how he should go about capturing Morleo. The problem was that he had liked Morleo when he’d met him at Bruide’s enthronement and he was far from sure that he wanted to either kill him or take him back to be executed, probably in a very unpleasant manner.
The more he thought about Bruide’s conduct since the invasion of Ardewr, the less he liked the young man he’d been friends with. Bruide had skilfully hidden his dark side as a novice monk and initially when he’d become king although, now he thought about it, his ruthless ambition had been there all along; he just hadn’t seen it.
However, even if he decided to let Morleo go, the warriors with him would probably kill him as well as the former King of Ardewr. There had to be a way to save Morleo and himself. The band of warriors had crowded around him, waiting for their orders to cut Morleo off and capture him. He sensed their impatience. He had to come up with something.
‘Right, it’s too late in the day to attack them now. We’ll camp shortly and when it’s dark I’ll take two of you with me to scout their camp. All being well we’ll attack at dawn.’
His men nodded at the sense of this plan and followed the trail for another half an hour until dusk, then they made camp. After they’d eaten Ruaidhrí picked the two best trackers to accompany him and they set off in the direction that Morleo had been heading. It was clear night and the partial moon gave them enough light to move quickly. Half an hour after they’d set off the leading scout crouched down and waved his hand for the other two to do the same.
‘They’ve camped by a small stream just head of us. There’s one sentry about a hundred yards to our right and another over the other side of the stream. They don’t have the common sense to stay still,’ he whispered.
‘Show me,’ Ruaidhrí whispered back. ‘You stay here,’ he told the second scout.
The first man seemed surprised but he did what Ruaidhrí asked. They crawled forward flat on the ground, hidden from sight by the bushes that grew over them.
‘There, can you see the man walking to and fro?’
Ruaidhrí pretended to look, moving his position as he did so. However, he wasn’t interested in the sentry, he was trying to surreptitiously unsheathe his seax. He got to his knees, still peering towards the sentry.
‘What are you doing?’ the scout hissed at him. ‘Get down….’
He never got to finish the sentence as Ruaidhrí’s seax sawed across his throat. He collapsed with a slight gurgling sound as his blood spurted out, half of it covering Ruaidhrí’s byrnie and arms. Leaving him where he lay, Ruaidhrí made his way back to the second scout.
‘What’s going on?’ Then he sniffed the air. The dark splodges of blood weren’t visible in the dark, but he smelt the coppery tang in the air. ‘Why are you covered …’
He got no further before Ruaidhrí stabbed him in the chest. Unlike him, few of the Picts had chainmail, or even a leather jerkin. The seax slid through the man’s rough tunic and into his heart. He fell to the ground, jerked once and lay still.
Ruaidhrí checked that he was dead and then made his way back to Morleo’s camp. He walked openly towards the nearest sentry and, when the man suddenly became aware of his presence, he called out that he’d come in peace to talk to Morleo. The sentry was suspicious and levelled his spear at him.
‘Don’t bother. If I’d wanted to kill you, you’d have been dead long since. Sentries should hide and stay still; moving arou
nd just makes it easy for an enemy. Now tell Morleo that Ruaidhrí of the Ulaidh wants to talk to him.’
‘Hello Ruaidhrí, what are you doing here? Have you been following me?’ a voice from the darkness asked suspiciously as Morleo appeared out of the gloom.
‘Yes, Bruide wants you dead. Is there somewhere private we can talk?’
‘I would take you aside but I’m not sure how far I can trust you. I thought that you were Bruide’s man?’
‘I was, but not anymore. If you look closely you’ll see blood on me. It belongs to two of my scouts. You can trust me; look, I’ll leave my weapons here.’
Once they were out of earshot the two men stopped and Morleo asked him what was going on.
‘Bruide sent me after you with a warband who are camped two miles away. The plan is for them to attack you at dawn. I suggest I return to them, say that the two scouts were killed by your sentries and then lead them into an ambush. How many men have you got?’
‘Fifteen. I had more but a few deserted.’
‘Hmmm, there are almost thirty of Bruide’s men. Even caught unawares in an ambush we’d be outnumbered by two to one. That’s not going to work.’
‘You say you killed their best scouts?’
‘Yes, that’s why I chose them. There are some hunters left but they aren’t nearly as good at tracking as those two were. Perhaps if we made our way down the stream we might be able to lose them, especially if we can find a rocky place to exit from.’
‘Yes, I agree. However, there is another problem. We don’t know where we are exactly; we need a guide.’
Ruaidhrí swore under his breath. He was beginning to wonder whether he’d made the right decision.
‘You mean that I’ve joined a group of men who are lost and who have no idea where they’re going? Wonderful!’
He paused in thought for a moment. He only had a hazy idea of the geography of the country outside Penntir but his knowledge of the coastline was much better.