“I’ll carry you,” he said. “The floor is slimy and treacherous. I’m used to it. Ashhere will help Hereric. You carry the lamp for me.”
He was stronger than she had expected, lifting her with apparent ease. She hooked one arm round his shoulders, and held the lamp up with the other. The whole floor of the tunnel seemed to shift and slither away into the shadows ahead, and oily ripples came lapping back. The smell got worse, if that were possible.
“Rats,” Eadwine said. “Don’t be afraid, they won’t come near the light.”
Behind them they heard Hereric yelp in disgust, quickly cut off, and the heavy sloshing sound as first Wulfgar and then Wulfraed descended the ladder. Then a scraping sound as the trapdoor was pulled across.
Heledd repressed a shiver. “How do you know about this disgusting place?”
“From when I was Hereric’s age, or a bit younger. Treowin found the trapdoor under a heap of leaves and brambles. We hauled it up, and he bet me I wouldn’t dare go down and follow the tunnel to its end. I was terrified, but I was damned if I was going to lose a dare. And then later it was a convenient way out of the city when the gates were all barred.”
“Ah. I thought you knew Rhonwen before she joined my ladies.”
“It was useful for visiting Father Ysgafnell, too. Ah – here we are. Leave the lamp here. I can’t risk a light being seen on the bank.”
He waited for the others to catch up, spoke a few quiet words of command, and moved cautiously forward again, feeling for each step. The remains of the lantern light faded behind, and a dim grey glimmer showed ahead. Starlight on the river. Heledd felt strands of ivy brush her face, a bramble tugged at her cloak as Eadwine lifted her over the lip of the ditch, and they were out.
A solid-looking shadow moved on the bank, and she made out a large coracle bobbing on the swell. A strange way for a Princess of Elmet to return to her homeland, but better than being taken as a prize of war.
“No time for farewells,” Eadwine whispered. “They won’t chase wild geese for ever, and you must be away before they start looking this way again. Wulfgar, Wulfraed, take the oars. You are in the Lady Heledd’s service now. I release you from mine and from all obligations to me. Guard the lady and the Atheling with your lives. Heledd – fare you well. May your Christian God hold his hand over you. Hereric, make your father proud of you. Go now, quickly!”
The cockleshell boat, laden to its limits with four occupants, slipped soundlessly out onto the black water, turned like a leaf spinning on the ebbing tide, and was gone.
Eadwine tugged at Lilla’s and Ashhere’s sleeves to indicate they should make their way back though the tunnel. They had hardly taken a step when a sentry’s voice roared out from above.
“Halt! Who goes there?”
They dropped into the ditch and lay rigid among the brambles, waiting for the expected hail of spears and arrows. Stupid way to die, skewered by their own sentries under the walls of their own city….. But no missiles came. The sentries were not concerned with them after all, but with something else moving in the ditch nearer to the river gate. Something that was far too heavy to be a rat, something that had not had three years’ practice ambushing raiders on the March and did not know how to move silently through undergrowth. Someone creeping in the pre-dawn dark from the enemy camp to the river gate. And they had left their weapons in the city.
Eadwine froze, heart pounding, trying to judge whether it was really men moving in the ditch or merely his overwrought nerves making an enemy attack out of a foraging hedgehog. If it was men, it was not many, no more than two or three. Not enough for an attempted attack. A reconnaissance party, perhaps, trying to judge the state of the ditch? Whatever it was, it was moving away.
He released a breath he had not known he was holding, feeling his strength draining away along with the tension that had kept him going for the last few crowded hours. He shivered, suddenly cold in his wet clothes. Back to the city, barricade this drain just in case, and then there was no more for him to do. He might get an hour’s sleep before sunrise.
“Bugger,” Aethelferth muttered, standing on the edge of the Bernician camp and watching the dawn lighten over the city and its still-shut gate. “Bugger, bugger, bugger!”
Chapter 4
“Assemble in the courtyard!” bawled the herald, doing the rounds of Eboracum’s ramparts. “Assemble in the courtyard!” He saw Ashhere, Drust and Lilla sitting in a row on the wall above the north-west gate, sharing bread and cheese and beer and apparently leaning on a bundle of rags. “You lot! Who’s your lord?”
Lilla, whose peasant forebears had generations of experience in dealing with unwelcome royal officials, saluted smartly. “Lord Eadwine, sir!”
“Where is he? I’ve been looking for him since dawn!”
“He went that way, sir!”
The herald looked down at the coloured threads on his tally stick. “You’re to fight with Lord Eadric’s hearth-troop. On the left, next to Lord Treowin’s men. Get going.”
“Yes, sir!” cried Lilla, not moving. “Right away, sir!”
The herald glared, but he was in a hurry and had better things to do than chivvy three unimportant housecarls. He scurried off.
“I think they mean it this time,” Ashhere said. “We’d better wake him.”
“Shame,” sighed Lilla. “When he’s asleep he doesn’t know his brother’s dead.” He shook the rags gently. “Lord?”
The bundle stirred, rolled over, and was revealed to be Eadwine, rolled in his cloak and covered by Ashhere’s. He sat up, his face still grey and drawn from grief and weariness.
“What is it?”
“Battle,” said Lilla, succinctly. “They still haven’t seen sense.”
Eadwine rubbed his eyes. “Not our decision.” He yawned. “Have you got your gear?”
Ashhere pointed to a stack of weapons and a mail shirt against the wall. “And we collected yours too.”
“And we got you dry clothes,” added Lilla, handing over a bundle of cloth. “Treowin told us where to look.”
“And breakfast,” said Ashhere, proffering a basket and a flagon. “It’s beer, not mead.”
“You have been busy,” Eadwine said, dressing with his customary speed and handing Ashhere his cloak back. “What have I done to deserve all this attention? Don’t answer that.” He broke off a chunk of bread and peered out of the nearest embrasure at the Bernician camp, pitched just out of spear range below. “How odd.”
“What?”
Eadwine pointed. “They’re all armed and ready, but they’re sitting in rows and eating. As if they were all lined up for battle and then stood down for some reason. Looks like they were planning a dawn attack and it was called off. But they’re only just starting to fetch timber to make ladders, look. Wonder how they were expecting to get in without ladders?” He yawned again, exhausted, and dismissed the problem as not immediately relevant.
Some of the Bernicians had noticed the movement on the walls and were pointing and jeering. One of the captains, a big fair-haired man in bright mail, stalked to the edge of the camp.
“Cowards!” he taunted. “Come out and fight!”
“Little does he know,” Ashhere grumbled miserably.
Eadwine shot him a sharp glance. Since they must fight, it was his responsibility to see that his men fought in good heart, whatever the depth of his own despair. He leaned over the wall as if to take a good look at the man below.
“Well, well. If it isn’t our friend from three days ago. Four days ago now.” He cupped his hands to his mouth. “Black Dudda!”
The man in mail started. “Who wants him?”
Eadwine stood up in the embrasure and shouted, as he had shouted four days ago across the fords of Esk, “I am Eadwine son of Aelle, Warden of the North March, and you are not welcome in my land!”
“This is not the North March,” jeered another voice from the camp, with a strong Brittonic accent. “Saxon pigs!”
“I am a
lso Eadwine son of Elen daughter of Peredur, heir of Coel Godebawg, Protector of the North,” Eadwine called back. “Get back beyond the Wall, bog-trotter!”
Black Dudda jabbed his spear in their direction, but it was much too far to throw, especially as he would also have to throw upwards, and he sensibly did not make a fool of himself by trying. He hurled a stream of insults instead.
Eadwine scorned him with a laugh. “Fine words! But words are cheap, and you have many fewer men than when we last met! Have you brought the rest to die on the walls of Eboracum?”
“I’ll see you dead, boy!”
“When?” Eadwine jeered back. “It was your men did the dying! Take a good look, men of Bernicia! Here’s the man who lost half an army fighting ten Deiran warriors!”
Black Dudda’s face went crimson and he ran a few paces forward. “Cowards’ tricks! Weasel’s tricks!”
“Too clever for you, bollock-brain!” Eadwine mocked, and added in an undertone, “Pass me a spear, out of sight. If I can annoy him enough he’ll come within range, and he hasn’t got a helmet on.”
But Black Dudda was not stupid. He shouted a final insult, and stalked back into his camp. Eadwine cast a last look over the wall and jumped down from the embrasure. “Oh, well, it was worth a try – Ash! Get down!”
Ashhere, who had been leaning with his back against one of the other embrasures, obediently threw himself flat just as a spear flew over his head and rattled against the nearby tower, accompanied by a stream of derisory Brittonic from below.
“By the Hammer,” Lilla chided, retrieving the weapon, “Thunor must have his work cut out looking after you!”
Ashhere got up, shaken. “What the –?”
“That Brittonic fellow was creeping through the bushes,” Eadwine explained. “I was watching him. It seems you weren’t.”
“They haven’t got tails after all,” Lilla said, taking a cautious look over the wall. The Brittonic spearman had run back out of range and was now capering at the edge of the Bernician camp, shouting Brittonic abuse and occasionally emphasising a point by turning his back, lowering his trousers and flashing his bare backside at the walls. “What’s he saying?”
Eadwine listened for a moment. “Well, if you really want a translation, we’re creeping toads who lack male swords, we fornicate with pigs – I wonder how that’s supposed to work without the proper equipment? – and we’re all bum-boys and arse-prickers.” He leaned forward and shouted something in Brittonic over the walls. He had a clear, carrying voice, and the Bernician camp erupted into a howl of laughter. The spearman whipped round, brick-red with fury, ran forward, dropped his trousers to his ankles and waggled his genitals obscenely at the watchers on the walls.
Drust looked at Eadwine in admiration. “What did ye say?”
“I told him if he hoped to get lucky, darling, he’d better wash his arse. Now he’s demonstrating what he and his friends are going to do to our women. Which is really not intelligent when you’ve come within range and have just given the enemy a free spear. Ash? We could all hit him from here, but you owe him one, I think.”
Ashhere grinned, the spear flew back, and a scream echoed up from below.
“Good shot, Ash,” Lilla said, as they clattered down the rampart stairs at a run. “He’ll be your slave when you get to Woden’s hall.”
“Do foreigners go to Woden’s hall?”
“He should,” Eadwine joked. “He died with his sword in his hand.”
They were still laughing as they ran into the palace courtyard. No-one else was. The yard was a milling mass of men and horses in no particular order. It seemed that Aelle wanted to lead a grand procession out from the city, with the mounted leaders riding at its head. They would dismount to fight, of course, for cavalry fighting was a Brittonic tactic that most of the Anglians regarded with profound suspicion, but riding rather than walking to war was a symbol of prestige that Aelle was not prepared to give up. A heated argument over who was going to ride in front of whom was developing among the great lords, and looked about to come to blows. It took an outstanding leader to weld all the individuals together into a greater whole. Aethelferth of Bernicia was such a one. Eadric, at least according to Eadwine, was another. Aelle of Deira was not, or not any more. He was past sixty now, not in the best of health, and cut a somewhat pathetic figure in his splendid armour, grey-bearded, balding and fat, shouting querulously in his wheezy voice at the quarrelling lords.
Eadwine threaded his way through the press to where a big, fair man with a scarred face was haranguing a slightly less indisciplined-looking knot of men.
“– and you’ll make Lord Eadric’s name live for ever in song – Ah, here’s the little brother!” He wrung Eadwine’s hand. “We fight with you today. For Lord Eadric’s memory!”
“For Eadric’s memory,” Eadwine agreed, suddenly sober. “Ashhere, Lilla, Drust, this is Beortred. Captain of my brother’s hearth-troop. Whatever happens, stick with Beortred today. You can trust him with your lives. My brother did.” He clapped them each on the shoulder in turn. “I’ll have to ride at the front, but I’ll join you in the line. If I don’t get another chance to say this, you’re the best. And you’ve got my permission to get as drunk as lords tonight. May the Three Ladies be kind to you.”
Ashhere shivered, watching Eadwine push through the crowd to the King’s side. The Three Ladies of Fate, the implacable weavers of destiny who were impervious to pleas and petitions, who would raise a man high at one moment and dash him into the dust on a whim, whose dominion extended even over the gods. If there was a bleaker power to put your faith in before a battle, he couldn’t think of one.
“That sounded like a farewell,” he said sadly. His spirits had risen after the incident on the walls, but the sullen chaos in the courtyard had punctured his confidence again.
“I don’t suppose he cares if it is or not,” Lilla answered. “When you’ve just lost the most important person in your life you don’t have much heart for going on without them.”
“I care,” growled Drust. “Yon stupid king can kill himself if he likes, but he isna taking my guid lord with him. Not if I have anything tae do with it.”
“Right!” rumbled Beortred, at Ashhere’s elbow. “Hear that, lads? Protect young Eadwine with your lives today! Until Hereric’s of age, he’s the nearest we’ve got to Lord Eadric.”
Eadwine sat his horse a little distance from the rest of the lords, having tried to suggest something to his father and been rebuffed. He was armed for battle, except for the heavy helmet which he would not put on until the last minute. He rarely wore it on the March, where the grubby routine was more akin to hunting than battle and its eye-catching splendour would be a liability. The helmet, even more than his mail and decorated sword, marked him out as a prince or a lord, a man to be killed.
He smiled grimly to himself. Good. He had attached his last three followers to Beortred, who would see them right if anyone could, and if he himself was fated to die it would be a relief. At least it would ease this unbearable ache of loneliness. How was it possible that the world could continue without Eadric alive in it? Eadric, the golden and glorious hero, treacherously stabbed in the back by some unknown assassin. Why? Violent death at the hands of a rival was never far away, if you were considered at all important. But the conventional method was for the rival to pick a fight in public, or to gather his followers and march openly on your hall. Once the victim was dead, the murderer would announce who he was, who he had just killed and why, and would brag about the deed at every opportunity. It was up to the victim’s kin to take revenge, and if they could not, or would not, or tried and failed, that was taken as a sign that the gods approved of the new status quo. The murderer gained wealth, or a woman, or prestige, or recognition of his superior power. What possible point could there be in a murder that was not claimed? It had a hint of madness about it.
Eadwine tried to make his weary mind think. The murderer was probably in this courtyard, and if he coul
d only work out who it was, today would be his opportunity to avenge Eadric. That would ensure his brother would be pleased to see him in Woden’s hall, that would mean he need not feel ashamed in that glorious company. But it had to be the right man, and there was no shortage of possible candidates.
One of the other athelings? Unlike property, the kingship did not pass automatically to the eldest son but was elected by the Council from the adult males of the royal family, and if the King was seen to be failing the jockeying for position would often start long before his actual death. With Eadric gone and Hereric under-age, the most obvious contenders for heir were Eadwine himself, Osric and Aethelric who were the sons of Aelle’s brother Aelfric, or some more distant cousins descended from Aelle’s grandfather. It could be any of them. It could even be Cynewulf, Aelle’s beloved illegitimate son by a pretty farm girl. Cynewulf was in his early twenties, a repeat edition of Aelle in his magnificent prime, and already had much support on the Council. With Eadric gone, enough of the Council might be prepared to overlook Cynewulf’s low birth on his mother’s side and back him as the heir.
Or someone from one of the other aristocratic dynasties, like Treowin’s family? Aelle’s ancestors were no more noble than the other adventurers who had led groups of warriors to serve one Emperor or another over a period spanning half a century. Arguably less than some. All the warrior families claimed descent from Woden, as the god had a notorious sexual appetite and was prone to visiting the ravishingly beautiful wives of early chieftains and leaving superhuman hero-sons who went on to found the family fortunes. But in Treowin’s family the errant wife had been a daughter of Offa the King of Angeln, and Aelle could not match that. What better way to achieve a change of dynasty than by getting rid of the leading member of the existing one?
Paths of Exile Page 5