Paths of Exile

by Carla Nayland

  “Ye did, and I didna mind ye. I dinna care tae leave my lord outwith the walls, and with the enemy so close. Yon guard tried tae stop me, but I can take care of myself.”

  Eadwine sighed. “I’m sure you can, but I don’t want you beating up all our soldiers. Here.” He unfastened the brooch from his cloak, turning it so the incised bull design caught the light. “My word doesn’t count for much here, but the badge of my father’s house does. Wear that and no-one will challenge you.”

  “How come you’re working for Uncle Eadwine?” Hereric interrupted, his curiosity overcoming his alarm.

  “We agreed –” Eadwine began.

  “He beat me,” said Drust, admitting the disgrace with the air of one who won’t shirk an unpleasant duty but wants to get it over with as soon as possible.

  Hereric looked at his uncle with new respect. He had beaten this mighty warrior?

  “So you’re his slave? But you’ve got weapons and everything –”

  “I swore to serve him if he let my men go free. Ye could call me a hostage.”

  Hereric frowned. “So your men left you and ran away? That’s disgusting! They should have died for you!”

  “Aye, weel. And they would ha’ done, in a fair fight, if they thought it would ha’ saved me. But as it was –” he cast Eadwine a glance of grudging admiration “– as it was, none of us was going to get home alive. So I made a bargain.”

  “They should still have died for you! You had a right to expect them to!”

  Drust fixed him with a disconcerting stare. “Ye think so, laddie? Ye dinna think they had a right tae expect me tae spot the trap? I was the fool. ‘Tis right I should pay the price. ‘Tis a cruel thing tae have other men die for ye, laddie. Ye mind that, when ye’re old enough tae lead.”

  “But – you’re the important one – they don’t matter –”

  “Hereric, I’m surprised at you,” Eadwine said, a sharp edge in his tone. “Where did you get that idea from? Everything works both ways. You expect your men to obey you, and that means you have to take as much care of their lives and their honour as you do of your own. More, if anything. You expect the people of your lands to feed and clothe and maintain you and your warband, so they expect you to protect them. Rights on both sides. That’s what makes it fair.” He looked at the smoke smearing the northern horizon and his hands clenched and unclenched like a man in pain. “And the Twister is burning Eboracum Vale, and I can’t stop him! I couldn’t even keep Black Dudda out of my own March –!”

  “Och, they’ll be away home soon,” Drust said comfortably. “The Twister canna take yon city. Ye could hold it with a parcel of weans and women. I’m thinking yon auld Romans canna ha’ been much for fighting, or they wouldna ha’ needed tae build such a thing.”

  “Cynewulf says that,” Hereric put in, excited to be discussing warfare with this exotic new acquaintance. “He says walls are for cowards and we should march out and fight on the honest earth like men!”

  “Cynewulf is the biggest fool on the Council, and that’s a hotly contested title,” Eadwine said. “All mouth and prick, as – as –”

  He broke off. That had been Eadric’s epithet for his illegitimate rival, and the sudden reminder of his loss took his breath away.

  “But lots of people say the same,” argued Hereric. “Treowin agrees with him.” He only just refrained from adding “So there!” Treowin was Eadwine’s oldest and closest friend, so Hereric expected Eadwine to concede the point immediately. Instead, Eadwine merely shook his head and sighed.

  Drust grinned. “Och, ‘tis all true that ye Sassenach sheep havena the sense of a babe. Aethelferth canna take yon city, but on the field he’ll eat ye, laddie. He’s thrashed every king in the North who’s ever fought him.”

  “But they were only Brittonic, or Irish, or something,” Hereric protested. “Not proper warriors like us. Everyone says we’ll beat him in battle easy enough.”

  Drust’s grin turned into incredulous laughter. “Och, if I’d ha’ known, I’d ha’ led my men down Dere Street and never bothered with yon cliffy coast, and I’d be King of the North in Eboracum now. Ye seem determined tae lose.” He sobered up, and turned to Eadwine. “’Twould be funnier if I wasna in the middle of it. Can ye make them see sense?”

  “I never have yet,” Eadwine said wearily, “but I can try.”

  Hereric looked uncertainly from one to the other. He was looking forward to the excitement of a battle that would avenge his beloved father. The prevailing wisdom at court considered Eadwine a dreamer with a head full of moonshine, and as Drust had lost to him he must be even less of a warrior, so their opinions should be of little account. But they sounded very certain. And his father’s death had shaken his belief in Deiran invincibility.

  “So what do you think we should do, then?”

  “Stand a siege,” Eadwine answered instantly. “Look at the walls, Hereric! Imagine you’re an enemy soldier trying to attack. Could you climb them? No. Could you batter them down? No. Could you break open the gates? Not with us on the towers and the gallery hurling stones and spears and arrows at you. So you sit down outside and try to starve us out. But you’re a long way from home, you’ve no shelter, it’s past the end of summer and in a few weeks it’s going to be wet and cold, you’ve burnt all the harvest on your way here, and after a few weeks of bad food and bad water and sleeping in the mud your soldiers start falling sick with camp fever. And then we sally out from the city, where we’ve been warm and dry all this time, and Aethelferth will think himself lucky if he gets home alive. That’s what cities are for. That’s why Coel the Old made the giants build Eboracum for him, a long, long time ago.”

  They hurried in through the river gate, almost a short tunnel since the walls were so thick, and Hereric felt almost sorry for the attackers.

  “Can I –?” he began, but was interrupted by a disapproving voice.

  “Eadwine! I was just about to send a search party! Where have you been?”

  “Visiting my brother’s grave,” Eadwine said sharply. “By the Hammer, Treowin, why so many people? It looks as if you’ve come to arrest me!”

  “Don’t joke about it!” Treowin exclaimed. He was about Eadwine’s age, the son of Deira’s most aristocratic family, a thin, dark young man with an intense manner. He jerked his head in the direction of the smoke in the north. “I hope you’ve got a good reason for that.”

  An attractive dark-haired woman, no longer quite young, pushed her way through the crowd, calling Hereric’s name in a strong Brittonic accent. Hereric scowled, recognising her as Rhonwen, one of his mother’s ladies, and tried to hide behind Drust. But he was too late. Rhonwen had seen him, and swept down as inexorably as the incoming tide.

  “Hereric! You bad boy! Your mother was so worried – Why, Eadwine! They told me you were back.” She stood on tiptoe, put her arms round Eadwine’s neck, kissed him very deliberately, whispered something in his ear that made him start and stare at her, and then took Hereric’s reluctant hand and led the boy away, throwing a suggestive smile over her shoulder.

  “Old flame still burning for you, eh?” Treowin smirked, joining in the ribald laughter. “Nice-looking piece. You take her up on it. No call for you to be faithful to your wife after you’re married, never mind before.”

  Eadwine was still gazing after the woman, not listening, his mind in a whirl. Those whispered words had not been an amorous invitation after all. Rhonwen had said, Princess Heledd fears for the boy’s life. Come to her chambers after dark.

  Treowin shook him by the shoulder. “You’ve work to do first.” He looked at his friend sympathetically. “You look terrible. I’m sorry, I’d make excuses for you if I could, but the Council said now and they said it more than an hour ago. I hope your story’s a good one. They’re not pleased with you.”

  “And what the hell have you been doing?” Aethelferth of Bernicia slammed his fist into his palm and every man within earshot jumped. “You got here in twice the time with hal
f the men. What are you, an old woman?”

  Black Dudda stumbled through his sorry tale. The harbour mouth blocked by a burning ship so he had to land on the wrong side of the river. The ford spiked with Roman thorns, turning it into a killing ground of crippled and floundering men under a stinging rain of arrows. The deliberately set moorland wildfire that engulfed his camp and roasted those who could not run. The scouts and forage parties who set out and never returned. The sudden assault from forest or reed-bed that came without warning and vanished without trace, save for the wounded and dead.

  The scar on Aethelferth’s face stood out livid against his tanned skin as he listened, never a good sign, and the other captains and warlords exchanged wry glances. Black Dudda had been the subject of much envy when Aethelferth selected him for command, but now it looked like a very short straw indeed. More than one put a hand to an amulet or good-luck charm and offered silent thanks to their favourite god or saint.

  “I told you they’d got a competent marchwarden for once,” commented one of the captains, speaking Anglian but with the lilting accent that betrayed a Brittonic origin. “There’s a reason why I’ve given up raiding that coast.”

  Aethelferth gave him a level stare. “You know him? Who is he?”

  “Eadwine son of Aelle. Your new wife’s youngest brother. Half-brother, I should say. Lord King,” he remembered, as an afterthought.

  Aethelferth frowned. “Acha doesn’t think much of him. He’s a stripling.”

  “He’s a weasel bastard and I’m going to break his neck!” snarled Black Dudda, who did not take defeat well.

  The Brittonic captain eyed him with dislike and not a little satisfaction. Even in the fierce company of Aethelferth’s captains Black Dudda was regarded with a mixture of disgust and fear. He turned back to Aethelferth.

  “Eadwine is young, yes, but he’s sharp. And he’s his mother’s son. Or perhaps I should say his grandfather’s grandson. Your fathers slew Peredur King of Eboracum and his brother over twenty years ago at Caer Greu, and Peredur’s son ran away, yes. But Peredur left a daughter too, and she married Aelle and made herself Queen of both Eboracum and Deira. This Eadwine is the result. He is the heir of Coel the Old, King of all the North, and this is Coel’s city. Blood like that tells, Lord King.”

  An uneasy muttering broke out, and the captains looked unhappily across the newly-deserted fields to Eboracum, glowing gold in the setting sun. The ancient fortress was rectangular and immensely strong, sitting on a natural defensive site between two rivers. The broad River Ouse flowed past the south-west walls, spanned by a single imposing stone bridge that linked the fortress with the civilian city on the opposite bank. On the east side of the fortress was the River Foss, smaller but still a notable barrier, and the two rivers joined at an oblique angle some half a mile south of the fortress, protecting that flank. If any enemy made it across the natural defences, he was faced with a deep ditch to cross, full of clinging brambles. Then an earth rampart topped by thirty feet of vertical limestone walls jointed without ledge or crack. The massive gates in each wall were flanked by projecting towers and topped by a fighting gallery, from which the defenders could rain missiles down onto the attackers. Two huge many-angled towers on the corners fronting the Ouse, and more towers at the other two corners and at intervals round the rest of the circuit, completed the picture.

  Aethelferth’s captains, hardened fighters to a man, paled. The emperor who had rebuilt the city’s forbidding defences three centuries before had intended it to overawe barbarian warriors. It was still working.

  Aethelferth spat. His original intention had been thoroughly wrecked, partly by Black Dudda’s delay and partly because the Deirans had bolted into their city like mice into a hole at his approach, rather than marching out to stop the burning of Eboracum Vale as they were supposed to. But he was rarely at a loss for long. He already had a new plan for the impregnable city.

  “Remember, lads,” he said, “it ain’t the walls that fight. You think Aethelferth the Twister can’t outwit Aelle Ox-brains?” He drew his sword and held it up, the blade glowing red in the dying light. “Hear me, Woden! Hear me, O Masked One, Lord of Hosts, Master of the Gallows, Giver of Victory! Put fear into the hearts of our enemies, shackle them in the war-fetters, drive them witless and terrified before us! Give us victory, and I will give to you Aelle and his son Eadwine, King and Atheling, as a gift to your power! This I swear on my sword and call all the gods as witness! Hear me, O Terrible One! Hear me!”

  A large black crow, startled by the shouting, flapped out of the trees and flew away looking for a more peaceful place to roost.

  “A raven!” someone cried. “The bird of Woden! See, it flies over the city! An omen! He has given them into our hands!”

  Chapter 3

  Rhonwen was watching for Eadwine at the entrance to Heledd’s apartments, a warren of rooms that had once been the offices of the legionary headquarters. She swung the door closed behind him.

  “Here,” she said, pushing a cup of wine into his hand. “Sit down. I’ll go for Princess Heledd.”

  “I’ll go to her. I know she finds it painful to walk.”

  He had known his brother’s wife – his brother’s widow – ever since she had first come to Deira as a bride to seal the alliance with the neighbouring Brittonic kingdom of Elmet. Heledd had never been robust, and thirteen years of largely unsuccessful childbearing had left her with unspecified but persistent health problems. Now she was thirty but looked forty, her beauty faded and her smile tired. She did not rise as they entered. Eadwine greeted her in the Brittonic fashion, with a kiss on both cheeks, and took her hands.

  “My poor Heledd,” he said softly, speaking Brittonic. “What can I say? But he died a hero. That will be a comfort to you, in time.”

  Heledd lowered her eyes. She had seen the grief etched on his face, and could not hurt him by letting him see that her greatest regret over her husband’s death was that it had occurred just at the point when she was trapped in a besieged city with no way of getting back to her homeland. Eadric had bestridden his household like a golden god come to earth, and had treated both his pretty and bewildered foreign bride and his recently-motherless little half-brother with the same careless kindness that he extended to any vaguely appealing creature that did not annoy him. Both had been equally dazzled at first. For Heledd, who even at seventeen had known that men who truly respect their wives do not shame them by flaunting a succession of mistresses, the fascination had quickly worn off. For Eadwine it never had.

  “We must bear it as best we can,” she said, wishing she could comfort him rather than burden him with another problem. “Mother of God, but you look terrible! You need a good meal, a bath, and a good night’s sleep, in that order. The second I have no doubt Rhonwen will be delighted to help with. The first I can provide.” She indicated a table set for two and laden with food. “You will dine with me? I do not think you will wish to go into hall tonight?”

  “You heard about the Council?”

  “Some of it. Rhonwen was chased away before the end. Eat. Don’t start talking or you won’t stop. You can have peace and quiet here. I owe you that, at least.”

  She remembered what a Godsend he had been to a frightened bride adrift in a strange country, unable to speak the language and all but abandoned by her husband as soon as she was safely pregnant. A bright, curious, lively seven-year-old, equally at home in both languages, who had translated for her, helped her to learn Anglian, found her a Christian priest from the Brittonic monastery on the other side of the river, and talked incessantly on every subject under the sun – except the father he was never able to please. Now the boy had grown into this wary, intelligent young man, weary from over three years of command on the dangerous and thankless northern border. She noted the pallor of his skin, the dark smudges under his eyes, the tenseness in every movement, a muscle that occasionally twitched in his cheek. It was hard to believe that he was not yet quite twenty.

&nbs
p; “Tell me about the Council,” she said, when he pushed away his plate and tilted back his chair.

  Eadwine shrugged, staring moodily into his wine cup. “Much as you’d expect. The King blamed me for not preventing them landing, for not defending Derwentcaster, for not giving battle on the plain, for raising the March militia without proper authority, for disbanding them without permission, for not fighting hard enough and for losing too many men.”

  “He’s lost battle after battle all summer, he’s been kicked from one end of Deira to the other, thrown out of every fortress except here at Caer Ebrawg, and he blames you for not beating Aethelferth the Twister with ten men?”

  Eadwine shrugged again. “He has to blame someone. So – I am still Warden of the March, in so far as the March still exists. But here Cynewulf commands.”

  “Cynewulf? Mother of God!” There could be no greater insult to Eadwine than this blatant preferment of his slave-born half-brother.

  “You didn’t expect he’d give the command to me? The runt of the litter?” He slammed his fist against the table in a rare loss of control. “The King should have tied me in a sack and chucked me in the river at birth, like you do with unwanted kittens. It would have been better for all concerned.”

  “Not for me,” Heledd said quietly, “nor I suspect for the folk of the March. And you have more support here than you think. Aelle may be soft in the head over that strutting stallion he fathered, but there are many who remember that you are the Queen’s son.”

  “Including my father,” Eadwine said bitterly. He drew a breath and ran his hand through his hair. “Sorry. I ought to be used to it by now. It won’t matter who commands in any case. The Council had one more thing to do besides humiliating me. They have decided that tomorrow morning we march out and fight Aethelferth in open field.”