Paths of Exile

by Carla Nayland

  “It’s a country without a lord,” Eadwine cut in, before Ashhere had even managed to reach for his amulets. “The king was killed in our grandfathers’ day and since then it’s been raided and fought over and raided again. It’s been claimed by half a dozen kingdoms and defended by none of them, and Irish pirates raid from the coast into the bargain. No farmer can make a living with rival armies passing through every year. Plant crops and they’ll be trampled, build a house and it’ll be torched, breed livestock and they’ll be stolen, raise a family and they’ll be enslaved or murdered. So one by one the farmers give up. No farmers means no warlords. Now it looks like even bandits can’t make a living here.” He shot a sharp glance over his shoulder. “And you can think on that, Lilla, while you’re cursing me for not taking revenge on the Lord of Navio. Quite apart from the fact that four against fifty is lousy odds, how long do you think they’d have survived without a lord? Bastard he may be, but he has to keep his sheep alive so he can fleece them.”

  Lilla flushed. “I never said –” he began defensively.

  “No,” came the dry response, “you didn’t have to.” He lengthened his stride. “We’d better get moving. I want to cross the moors before dark. It’ll be cold up there.”

  The army-path, which had been following an ever-narrowing valley, now decided that the valley was no longer going in the right direction and abandoned it to zig-zag steeply up the side, emerging onto a plateau of soggy moorland blanketed in equally soggy fog. Visibility was no more than a few hundred yards, but the army-path carved a straight course into the grey distance, giving the comforting impression that it thought it was going somewhere. Ashhere, who had been hopelessly lost since they left home, hoped it was right.

  He hurried to keep up with Eadwine. “Cross the moor? What’s on the other side?”

  Something that might have been a sigh. “Elmet, of course.”

  “You can’t go to Elmet now!” Lilla burst out. “Were you listening to me? They’re looking for you there as well!”

  “It’s nice to be popular, isn’t it?”

  “That thane of Ceretic’s said he knew you!”

  “So? He’s in Navio, not in Elmet.”

  “There’ll be others! If you’re recognised –!”

  “I know.” Eadwine ran a hand over his chin. “I’ve got an idea about that.”

  Everyone they had encountered since leaving Deira, from Severa to the Lord of Navio, had assumed he was Brittonic. Partly because he was dark and slim when popular prejudice declared all Saxons to be blond and beefy, but mainly because he spoke the language as if it were his mother tongue – which, of course, it was. Language was the great identifier in Britannia. The Brittonic dialects and the Anglian dialects were utterly different in structure, sounds, grammar and stress patterns and the only words they had in common were the handful that both had borrowed from Latin. Communities spoke one or the other, never both. Many people spoke some of the other language if it was useful to them – in parts of Deira the headmen of neighbouring villages usually knew enough to settle boundary disputes, negotiate marriages and borrow one another’s stud livestock – but it was invariably obvious which was the native tongue and which was learned. In mixed marriages, women expected to learn the language of their husband’s village and their children would be raised speaking the husband’s language, whichever way round it was. Fluent Brittonic instantly labelled him as Brittonic. The bandit raid had provided him with a Brittonic sword, a Brittonic spear and a Brittonic brooch, and now, courtesy of Severa, he also had a genuine Brittonic cloak. His hair had been sorely in need of cutting since the summer and was now nearly down to his shoulders, not far off the length favoured by Brittonic men. About the only part of his appearance that might suggest his Anglian origin was his scruffy beard. Sadly, it would have to go. A reason for travelling would complete a plausible disguise. Severa had joked that he could earn a living as a bard, and while he hoped he would never have to rely on it for his bread, it was a useful idea. Many bards did wander the land from one court to another, particularly young men who had yet to find a rich patron. They were usually from the weapon-bearing upper classes, invariably educated, and often had servants or other hangers-on. He fitted the pattern fairly well. And no-one searching for a Saxon prince was likely to look very hard at a Brittonic bard.

  Accordingly, as soon as they descended from the moors and reached the first valleys and farms of Elmet, he haggled for some hours with a village headman and obtained a harp and a razor in exchange for his carved ivory comb and the decorative bronze plates from his belt. And three days later a tall, willowy, languid young man, with a harp under his arm and a nick in his chin, was to be seen lounging nonchalantly against a wall at a lord’s hall on the Wharfe, waiting with a crowd of other supplicants for Princess Heledd to come out of church.

  “I didn’t recognise you!” Heledd exclaimed. “You look so different! It was only when you asked for alms in Latin that I knew it must be you!” She hugged him again. “Oh, I’m so glad to see you! But what possessed you to come here? Don’t you know there’s a price on your head?”

  “Rather a good one, so I hear,” Eadwine answered, sinking gratefully into a chair and stretching his tense muscles. After that fleeting instant of stunned recognition, Heledd had casually hired him to entertain the hall in exchange for a meal and a bed for the night, and being the focus of all attention for most of the evening had wound his nerves up tighter than his harp-strings. It was not easy to play, and sing, and get the words in the right order, while expecting at every moment to feel a heavy hand on his shoulder or a knife in his back. He had got through two tales of Arthur and the Dream of Prince Macsen – long-dead heroes were the safest subject in a foreign hall where he did not know the local politics – before Heledd had announced that she would retire to her private chamber as she had a headache, and perhaps the bard would be good enough to come with her and play some soothing music to ease the pain. Lamps were lit, mead brought, her servants and ladies shooed out, and now, finally, they were alone.

  “I’ll say it’s a good price!” Heledd returned. “He doesn’t like being beaten. All Britannia knows you escaped, and all Britannia is sniggering behind its hand watching Aethelferth the Twister hunting shadows. When it isn’t plotting how to obtain the reward, that is.”

  “Tempted?”

  “Don’t tease. I owe you my life and Hereric’s. But others might be.”

  “Ceretic, for instance? Yes, I know. At least he stipulated all of me, alive, not just my head. One must be grateful for small mercies. What of you? Is he treating you well?”

  “Of course he is. His father was my brother. He’d be universally despised if he did anything against me and mine. Besides, I’m not dependent entirely on Ceretic’s goodwill. On my mother’s side I’m kin to the Lords of Wharfedale, and cousin Constantine welcomed me with open arms, gave me the use of this hall and the estate that goes with it. We were always close. You need not fear for me.”

  “Is Hereric safe?”

  She nodded vigorously. “He is at court with Constantine’s youngest brother. Ceretic is taking an interest in him, and he is with the other youngsters training for a place in the warband. Almost like a foster-son.”

  “Can you trust Ceretic?”

  “With Hereric, yes. In the first place, he would not sink so low as to betray a blood-tie. In the second place, Wulfgar and Wulfraed are with Hereric as his bodyguards, and it’s a brave man would incur their wrath. What they lack in brains they make up for in brawn. And in the third place, Ceretic does not dare annoy the Lords of Wharfedale. Constantine controls his northern border and he knows it. Besides, the Twister does not seem much interested in Hereric. It’s you he wants. I don’t know why.”

  “Oh, thank you.”

  Heledd wrinkled her nose. “Don’t be obtuse. What I mean is, you’re not the only atheling left. Both your cousins survived.”

  “Osric and Aethelric? Good for them. How?”

 
“Osric got lost on the way to Eboracum, met some survivors, ran home in a panic, and his wife bundled him and everything else she could carry onto a ship bound for Kent. It must have been the most overloaded vessel since the Ark. The last I heard, they were settled in at Aethelbert’s court for the duration.”

  Eadwine laughed softly. For anyone else, getting lost on the way to a battle would have been at best a polite fiction. For the hapless Osric it was quite likely to be true. Osric blundered through life with an air of hopeful puzzlement, apparently unable to do anything right but always willing to try again.

  “And Aethelric?”

  “Aethelric is King of Deira.”

  Eadwine jolted upright so sharply that he spilled his mead. “You’re joking!”

  “No. He was captured a few days after the battle, and Aethelferth put him in prison for a while. Then when he went back north he probably thought his new province might be quieter if he let them pretend they’ve got their own king. So he got Aethelric out of prison, dusted him off, and installed him as King of Deira. I’m told Ceretic wet himself laughing when he heard.”

  “I’m not surprised. Aethelric King! I’ve seen jellyfish with more backbone.”

  “I think that’s his chief attraction. No chance of him starting another revolt.”

  Eadwine tensed. “Revolt? What revolt?”

  “Oh, it didn’t amount to much. The Twister parcelled out the land among his thanes, as you’d expect, and it seems a handful of peasants somewhere in the north took exception to their new lord and threw him out.” She shook her head. “Brave, but stupid. You can guess Aethelferth’s reaction. He sent a warband north, with instructions to take no prisoners.”

  “They didn’t deserve that,” Eadwine whispered. Somewhere in the north. In his country? Some of the farmers on the March were probably boneheaded enough to revolt against Aethelferth the Twister.

  “Nobody deserves that,” Heledd said sombrely. “He sent Black Dudda.”

  Eadwine drew a sharp breath. “Again?”

  “What do you mean, again? Do you know him?”

  “He led the invading army, before Eboracum. I crossed swords with him then, and he came off worst. If he’s taking it out on the March, on my patch –!”

  “If he is, there’s nothing you can do about it,” Heledd cut in sharply. “You shouldn’t even be here. You should be a long, long way away, out of the Twister’s reach. Is that why you came to me? You need money? A ship? I can find Constantine’s wine merchant, and I think we have a distant cousin somewhere in Gaul –”

  “No.”

  “Then what do you think you’re doing here?”

  “Hunting my brother’s murderer.”

  He explained his suspicions about Beortred – the unique knife that matched the murder weapon, Beortred’s suspicious secret flight. Heledd listened, frowning.

  “Captain Beortred? I can hardly believe it.”

  “I didn’t want to believe it either.”

  “And you would risk your life to take revenge?”

  “I owe it to Eadric. He would expect no less.”

  “The good opinion of a ghost,” she remarked dryly, “is not something I would set great store by. You are as big a fool as he was.”

  “That is my concern,” Eadwine retorted, annoyed. “But if you care little for your husband’s honour, do you care more for the life of your son?”

  Heledd paled. “Hereric?”

  “It was you that said it. He who killed the father may also try to kill the son.”

  “And you think he will come here?”

  “Not if I find him first.”

  She swallowed. “But it is such a risk. For you. Could not someone else –?”

  “Hereric is Eadric’s son. All that is left of Eadric on this earth. I’d protect him with my life. Now will you help me?”

  “What do you need?”

  “Nothing too taxing. First, refuge. For me and my three companions.”

  “Then you’re hired for the winter as court bard. Your friends will have to make themselves useful, though. They can sleep with the servants.”

  “I assumed we all would. Second, news. I want to know if anyone remotely answering Beortred’s description is seen. You were always well-informed, and that doesn’t seem to have changed.”

  “Constantine has a lot of spies,” she said, with a crooked half-smile. “He hears things, shall we say. So do I. There are a few refugees from Deira in Elmet already. Mostly people with family ties here, but anyone who has nowhere to go comes cap in hand to me, widow of the Aetheling. Astonishing the number of people who claim to have been in Eadric’s service. I had no idea we had such a big household.”

  He sat forward eagerly. “Who? Can you give me names? And where they are living?”

  She shrugged, with a yawn. “If you don’t mind it taking all night. Let me see –”

  A tap at the door made them both stiffen and Eadwine reach a hand to his dagger, but it was only an elderly woman who entered, looking around her with eager curiosity.

  “Begging your pardon, my lady, but I was just wondering if you and the – gentleman – would be wanting anything?”

  “No,” Heledd said firmly. “Go to bed, Eurdyl. Now. Irritating woman,” she confided, as the door closed behind the disappointed gossip. “Still, I suppose we have been in here for quite some time now.”

  “Shouldn’t I play the harp or something?” Eadwine suggested, feeling the colour rise in his face. “They might wonder – I mean, they might think –”

  “Oh, they’ll think you’re my toy-boy. Everybody knows about rich widows and their bards.” She gave him a sunny smile. “Don’t look so shocked! Did you think epithets like ‘Silvertongue’ referred to singing? You can be such an innocent.”

  Eadwine glared at her, feeling foolish, hurt and a little disgusted by her levity. How could she not mourn the death of the finest man in the world?

  “You seem to have taken your husband’s death very well.”

  “Listen,” Heledd said, in a changed tone. “You cannot expect everyone to mourn him as you do. I know you thought him a god come to earth, but it was not so. You hardly saw him for these last three years, or you might not be so blind. Waiting to be king had soured him. He wanted it so much, and here he was turned forty and Aelle was still blundering along refusing to die, interfering in everything and heaping honours on his bastard son. Honours that should have gone to you – Eadric’s faithful shadow and therefore no threat – but instead were going to his rival. He feared that by the time Aelle finally had the decency to die he would be too old and the Council would pass him over. Eadric was never a patient man, and the anger was eating him up. Sometimes he flew into such a rage that I feared for my life.”

  “Eadric would never harm a woman,” Eadwine insisted.

  She sighed. “I knew you’d say that. But you don’t know what you’re saying. You never crossed his will.”

  Eadwine left Heledd shortly after and picked his way carefully among the snoring bodies in the hall to the main door. Ashhere was sitting on watch beside the weapon rack, with Lilla and Drust stretched out on either side. He moved over when he saw Eadwine, leaving a vacant sleeping place, but Eadwine declined the offer with a smile and a shake of the head. He knew he ought to sleep, but he also knew he would not be able to. He pulled his cloak tighter round his shoulders, groped for the door latch, and slipped silently out into the night.

  It was cold, damp and overcast outside, but at least it wasn’t raining. He paced up and down along the length of the hall, the steady rhythm helping to shake his thoughts into some sort of order. Heledd’s attitude was a disappointment – she seemed happier as a widow than she ever had as a wife – but that was none of his business, no matter how angry he was at the insult to Eadric’s memory. What mattered now was finding Beortred and avenging Eadric’s death. And then he would be free to find Aethelind. He hugged the thought to him. Heledd’s news that Aethelferth was still searching with unabate
d ferocity had sent his spirits soaring. All Britannia knew he had survived. Therefore Aethelind, wherever she was, would know he had survived. She would know he would come for her. All she had to do was wait. He imagined finding her, unhappy and dishevelled perhaps, but still with that voluptuous beauty undimmed – and she would throw herself into his arms – and he would carry her away –

  At which point his imagination failed him. Try as he might, he could not see Aethelind, the girl who had balked at the minor discomforts of living on the March, enduring the hardship and danger of life as a hunted exile. Whenever he thought of Aethelind, he saw her sitting placidly in the sun with her embroidery, or (more often) in his bed. Not even his fertile imagination could conjure a picture of Aethelind opening the gate of a hostile fort, or deceiving enemy guards, or facing down the Lord of Navio. Aethelind would not be his active ally. She would have to be looked after, escorted, guarded, taken care of. In short, she would be an unmitigated nuisance –

  He stopped short as if he had walked into a wall. Had he really just thought that? About his beloved Aethelind? For shame! A woman’s place was in the home. It was the man’s place – his place – to provide that home. So he would find a way. Somehow. Aethelind was pledged to him by a solemn promise, and he would keep faith with her.

  Heledd’s information sources yielded no word of Aethelind. But they did provide the names of people who had fled Deira and were now living in Elmet, and those people turned out to have relatives and friends and friends of friends, scattered all over the kingdom. Searching among them all for news of Beortred was a long task. The choice of travelling bard as a disguise proved to have two huge unforeseen advantages. In the first place, it stilled – or rather, channelled – all the inevitable gossip that surrounded the presence of a stranger at Heledd’s court. Anyone enquiring who he might be was sure to receive the answer “Ooo-ooh, he’s the lady’s new bard [nudge, wink]”, and by the time someone had smirked, “I hear he’s very good, you know,” and got the reply, “And he plays the harp quite well too,” and they had all fallen about digging each other in the ribs and sniggering, the gossips’ interest appeared to be satisfied. And in the second place, it gave him complete freedom of movement. Whereas the arrival of armed strangers caused respectable people to bolt inside their houses and bar the doors, the harp under his arm guaranteed an instant welcome from shepherd’s hut to lord’s hall. He could travel in dead of winter, alone or with one or more of his companions, and they could be sure of a meal of some sort, even if it was turnip soup and stale bread, and shelter for the night, even if it was in a barn or a shed. In this fashion, Eadwine crossed and re-crossed Elmet many times that winter, from the villages perched on islands in the eastern fens to the sheep farms in the foothills of the moors, and from the Wharfe in the north to the Don and the Sheaf in the south. He met men who had fought in Eadric’s hearth-troop, men who had fled the burning in Eboracum Vale, and a great many more who turned out to have nothing whatever to do with Deira. None of them was Beortred, and none of them had seen or heard anything of Beortred, either. By the time Yule – or Christ Mass, as Heledd’s household called it – had come and gone, and the days were getting longer and colder, he was beginning to question whether Beortred had ever intended to pursue Hereric to Elmet at all, and, by extension, whether Beortred had had anything to do with Eadric’s murder. He had failed to pick up the trail, and must cast about for a new lead. And then Heledd relayed the gossip that yet another envoy from Aethelferth was on his way to Ceretic’s court. It had to be important, for no-one travelled in winter if they could help it. An exchange of galloping messengers, and Heledd’s younger cousin whisked Hereric away on a hunting trip deep in family territory. If the envoy was coming to demand Hereric, no-one was prepared to trust entirely to Ceretic’s word for his safety. And Eadwine, knowing that the most likely place he would be recognised was Ceretic’s court and that recognition would mean instant death (if he was lucky), set out as unobtrusively as possible for Loidis. He went alone, much to the alarm of his friends, who tried to insist on accompanying him until he pointed out sharply that they were far more likely to attract attention than he was.