Paths of Exile

by Carla Nayland

  “They are brave men!” Treowin exclaimed. “All they need is a little guidance –”

  Eadwine turned sharply. “Have you been egging them on?”

  “Lord,” Lilla interrupted nervously, “listen –”

  Crashing in the undergrowth, heavy breathing and a bitten-off curse heralded the eruption of half a dozen large hairy men, all wielding clubs or spears, into the circle of firelight.

  “Stay where you are!” bawled the leader, through his bristling beard. “Don’t move or we’ll smash your heads in!”

  “Fulla, I presume?” Eadwine remarked, quite unmoved. “Do join us. I was expecting you.” He gestured expansively to the fire. “I am afraid I cannot compete with Wade’s wedding feast, but you will find there is plenty to go round.”

  Fulla hesitated, thrown by this unexpected reception and uncertain how to react, but his followers were already pushing for places around the fire and eagerly reaching for venison, so he really had little choice but to follow suit. In a society where hunger is never far away, the man handing out the food always has the advantage.

  “I hear you have been busy in my absence,” Eadwine said, with deceptive calm. “Do tell me about it.”

  It transpired, after much patient questioning, that Fulla and about a dozen other men had taken to the high moors, where they attacked Black Dudda at every opportunity. The one flaw with this was that Black Dudda had a warband of thirty-odd hardened warriors and little reason to venture onto the high moors, so opportunities were not very common. So far they had managed to murder one of Black Dudda’s spearmen in bed with a local girl, they had ambushed a hunting party and wounded two of them, not very severely, and they had killed two of Black Dudda’s slaves who had been driving home after dark with a cartload of firewood. In revenge, Black Dudda had slaughtered the spearman’s girl and her entire family, burned every boat in the Esk harbour, and destroyed four farms and all their inhabitants. Somewhat discouraged by this, Fulla’s men had then taken it upon themselves to punish people they considered disloyal, which consisted of abducting and abusing three local girls for sleeping with the enemy, and beating up half a dozen farmers from Beacon Bay and the Esk valley.

  “You did what?” Eadwine demanded, a dangerous edge in his voice.

  “They were coll – collabo – turncoats!” Fulla blustered.

  “Ar, an’ one of ’em wouldn’t let ’is daughter marry yer cousin,” Weasel piped up, ever one to tip the frying pan into the fire.

  “They were paying their food-rents to the Butcher,” Treowin explained, as though that settled the matter.

  Eadwine looked at him, and then at Fulla. “And?”

  Fulla squirmed. “Er – that’s it really –”

  “If no-one paid their food-rents, the Butcher would starve and have to leave,” Treowin lectured. “And if no-one in the whole of Deira paid, then Aethelferth the Twister would have to leave. Starve them out.”

  “Treowin, the man has a small army,” Eadwine snapped, thinking back to Severa’s valley and the Lord of Navio. “If the rent isn’t paid he can take what he wants. People have the choice of paying their rent or having it taken and having their homes burned as well.”

  “And if he burns every farm there’ll be nobody to feed his warband!” Treowin said triumphantly. “And he can oppress us no longer!”

  “Only because there’ll be nobody left to be oppressed!” Eadwine retorted. “You will make a wasteland and call it freedom.”

  “Oh, well, a few peasants get killed,” Treowin agreed airily, oblivious to the black looks he got from some of Fulla’s companions. “It is a price worth paying for freedom! Are we cowards, to live like slaves?”

  “Aye!” bellowed Fulla. “We’ve got the balls to stand up for our rights!”

  “Nobody denies you’ve got balls, Fulla,” Eadwine said wearily. “Just don’t bloody think with them all the time.”

  “What are we supposed to do?” Fulla flared. “If a wolf attacks your sheepfolds you fight back!”

  “Woden’s breath!” Eadwine exploded. “If a wolf attacks your sheepfolds you collect all the spearmen in the area, you track it to its lair and you kill it! You do not twist its tail until it turns round and bites someone else’s head off!”

  “We didn’t start it!”

  “You refused to pay your food-rents and lynched Aethelferth’s chosen lord! How the hell did you expect him to react?”

  “We only threw him out,” Fulla mumbled. “We didn’t kill him or anything. Anyway –” defensively “– it worked before.”

  “When you threw out my predecessor, you mean? Listen, Fulla, my father ruled Deira by right of blood and Eboracum by right of marriage. So he ruled by law and custom. He thought you a bunch of pig-headed loudmouths, but custom in Deira says that if freemen in folk-moot challenge a lord’s actions, the king has to hear the case. It was easier for my father to try sending you a new lord, so you got me. But Aethelferth rules by right of conquest. Why do you think he wants Deira? So your food-rents support his thanes and their warbands. More warriors for his army so he can use them to conquer other kingdoms, other territories. He doesn’t care about defending Deira so your military service is no interest to him. If you won’t pay your food-rents to a lord of his choosing, you’re of no value to him. You might as well be dead. In fact, if you won’t pay he would prefer you dead, so he can settle his own freemen and serfs on your lands. That is what Black Dudda is doing. Can you not see that?”

  A frown formed on Fulla’s heavy face, giving him something of the look of a perplexed bullock. He and his followers looked at each other, then at Treowin, then back at Eadwine.

  “He never told us that.”

  “’Cos you’re peasants an’ a price worth paying,” Weasel chimed in.

  “Now listen here –” Treowin began hotly.

  “Shurrup,” grunted Fulla, and went into a muttering huddle with his companions.

  “Here,” said one of them after a while, looking up and addressing Eadwine, “all that about the wolf an’all. Does that mean you reckon you can get rid of the Butcher?”

  “Yes,” Eadwine answered, very steadily. “I am the Warden of this March and I have a duty to protect its folk from thievery and murder. That includes Black Dudda. But you must do it my way.”

  The huddle reconvened.

  “Right you are, lord,” announced Fulla, getting up and walking round to Eadwine’s side of the fire. “We’ll do what you say.”

  “A hall-burning!” Treowin urged. “Surround his hall and torch it and roast the Butcher and his men alive!”

  “Aye, and any local lasses they’ve taken,” scowled Deornoth. He was the headman of the village at Beacon Bay, a worried-looking man with a pinched, hungry face. Behind him his wife huddled in the doorway of the clifftop fish-smoking shed that was now their only shelter, trying to comfort a baby that wailed incessantly.

  “No worse’n the Butcher’s already done,” Fulla growled. He had tried burning the hall down himself, failed miserably, and was keen to have another go.

  “Aye,” snarled Deornoth, “because of your stupid attacks!”

  “Now you look here –!”

  “Sit down, Fulla,” Eadwine ordered wearily. “And you too, Deornoth. There’ll be no hall-burning. In the first place, burning Black Dudda’s hall also means burning his food stores, and –” glancing at the hungry woman and child “– we have better uses for them. And in the second place, it’s possible to escape a hall-burning, if you’re agile and if the roof beams fall before they burn through. I want Black Dudda dead for certain.” And I want Beortred alive, he added silently, though he kept that thought to himself.

  “So what are you going to do?” Deornoth demanded.

  “We need to destroy all Black Dudda’s warband, and in such a way that someone else gets the blame. So far what Aethelferth’s men have encountered here is a mob of angry farmers and a rabble of outlaws. Not warriors. So Black Dudda and his men have to die in battle.”


  “You want to fight them?” Deornoth was incredulous. “Do you know how many men he’s got?”

  “Thirty-two, Weasel tells me, including one who was sick with the flux last week but should be well again by now.”

  “We can’t fight that many!”

  “Says who?” boasted Fulla, banging the butt-end of his spear against the hut wall and making the baby yowl a bit louder.

  “You’ll do as you’re told!” barked Treowin, at the same moment. “How dare you defy your king!”

  “I’m not asking you to fight them, Deornoth,” Eadwine said, ignoring both interruptions. “I’m asking you to help me fight them. You were willing to do that four months ago, and he had two hundred men then.”

  “True,” agreed Deornoth despondently, “but four months ago we didn’t know he could do this to us.” He gestured round at the pitiful shelter and the picked bones of his two prize dairy cows. “Everything we’ve done since then – and especially everything that oaf’s done –” pointing at Fulla “– has just made things worse.”

  “Then all the more reason to fight!” cried Treowin. “Better to die in the shield-wall like heroes than grovel in stinking huts like cowards!”

  “Treowin, will you hold your tongue!” Eadwine snapped, reaching the end of his patience. “When I want your advice I’ll ask for it! Please excuse my friend,” he added, turning to Deornoth. “His enthusiasm runs away with him.”

  “All right,” said Deornoth, somewhat mollified, as Treowin slunk off with a hurt expression, “what do you want us to do?”

  “Two things. First, let me ask for volunteers to help in the fighting. Like last time, anyone who can hunt with a spear or shoot for the pot. Not hand-to-hand. You remember how much damage you did at the fords of Esk, before they even got within reach of us.”

  “Aye,” agreed Deornoth, more confidently. “Aye, we did that! Volunteers, mind?”

  “Volunteers.”

  “Agreed. And the second thing?”

  “Three of your elders to go to the king –”

  “Aethelferth the Twister?” spluttered Deornoth.

  “No, no, the other king. My esteemed cousin Aethelric.”

  “He’s not a proper king,” snorted Fulla, and spat in contempt. “Your little weaselly friend says he always has two of the Twister’s thugs with him, pulling his strings.”

  “Quite so,” agreed Eadwine. “But Aethelferth likes to pretend Deira still has its own king, so let’s go along with that. Three men to go to Aethelric, swear loyalty to him, throw yourselves on his mercy and beg his protection because your lands are being wasted by Pictish raiders. Make sure as many people as possible hear, especially the Twister’s minders. Aethelric’ll be at his hall near the fort on the Humber. Just follow the army-path on the edge of the Wolds south until you run out of land.”

  “What d’ye expect Aethelric to do?” Fulla sneered.

  “Dither,” answered Eadwine, with absolute certainty. “But when word comes that Black Dudda and his warband have been killed by Pictish raiders, the Twister will believe it. No more reprisals.”

  Deornoth looked dubiously out at the empty sea. “I can’t see no Pictish raiders.”

  “No?” Eadwine said, grinning across at Drust. “I can see at least one.”

  Chapter 20

  “Again!” Drust roared.

  The twelve volunteers took a deep breath and yodelled a spine-chilling war cry.

  Eadwine raised an eyebrow. “Well?”

  “Och, they’ll do. Yon Sassenachs willna ken the difference, any road.”

  “Doesn’t sound like your war-cry.”

  “Ye’ve got a good memory. ’Tis my cousin’s. He’ll be pleased if he gets the credit. Black Dudda has a reputation. His balls are worth nailing up above your door.”

  “I hope you don’t mean that literally.”

  “Och, ye needna watch.”

  Eadwine surveyed the volunteers, who were hopping about in eager anticipation like dogs expecting a walk. “Will they pass for Picts?”

  “With the right shields, aye. From a distance.”

  “What’s the decoration for?”

  Fulla and one or two of the other men had woven feathers into their hair and beards, giving the impression of a badly-plucked chicken that had collided with a broom.

  “They think we do that!” Drust said indignantly. “What do they take us for, some kind of ignorant savages? And they wanted to take all their clothes off and paint themselves blue. In this weather!”

  “Oh, I see,” Eadwine said, with an air of enlightenment. “You only do that in the summer?”

  Drust gave him a withering look. “Did ye get the weapons?”

  “Yes. Black Dudda’s men have destroyed or stolen all the weapons they could find, but they haven’t found every hiding place.” He held out a small round shield. “Thirteen of these. Only eight of the right spears, but plenty more of our own. By the time anyone gets a close look at a spear point they’re not likely to notice the design.” He shot Drust a sharp glance. “Would you like to give them out? It’s your gear.”

  Drust’s shoulders, which had slumped a little at the bleak memory of defeat, straightened. “’Tis nae disgrace tae lose tae a noble enemy. I didna believe that before.”

  “Adversary,” Eadwine corrected. “Opponent. Foe. Not an enemy. Not now, not then.”

  “Ye wouldna beat me that way again, ye know.”

  “I should hope not. If I ever have to fight you again, Drust, I’ll think of a different way to beat you. Tomorrow, I am glad we are on the same side.”

  Eadwine made his round of the camp in the dusk, as he always did when he knew they were expecting a fight. They had thirty men, not counting Weasel. Fulla and his eleven erstwhile outlaws, all irresponsible young men who would pick a fight to liven up a dull evening, had been assigned to Drust. They were all thrilled at the prospect of exchanging their role as outlaws for the far more exotic one of Pictish raiders, and were gathered noisily round one fire like a gaggle of starlings, hanging on Drust’s every word as though he were a god come to earth. A few of the more impressionable local girls had been attracted in, and Drust had already had to crack heads together to break up the ensuing fights – which had only added to his prestige. Eadwine was well satisfied with them. Their part in tomorrow’s plan was the simplest one, consisting mainly of appearing in the right place and making a lot of noise, then wading in when, as he hoped, the fight collapsed into a general melee. They should be capable of that.

  Twelve rather steadier men, two women and five half-grown boys had volunteered from the coastal villages, along with Deornoth himself, and were gathered around a different fire, talking quietly among themselves while they fletched arrows, tested bowstrings and sharpened spears. Lilla and Ashhere were with them, and Ashhere was describing the skirmishes at the bridge on the Trent and the paved ford in glowing terms. Eadwine considered advising him to tone it down a little, and decided against it. Anything that reinforced the need to obey his orders instantly and to the letter would help, and tomorrow everything would depend on timing. This little group would have to respond to his commands as efficiently as his own limbs if they were to stand any chance at all, which was why he had picked out the steadier men for his group. Thirty against thirty-two sounded reasonable odds, but not when the thirty-two were all hardened warriors and the thirty had only five professional fighters among them, one of whom had only one hand.

  “Sulking,” said Lilla, in response to his enquiry for Treowin. “We asked him to join us but as soon as he’d eaten he sloped off.”

  Eadwine found Treowin in the direction Lilla had indicated, sitting morosely on the ground and staring into the middle distance. He threw himself at Eadwine’s feet.

  “I never meant to interfere! I only wanted to encourage them! I would die for you!”

  “I never doubted your courage or your loyalty, Treowin,” Eadwine said gently, feeling a little embarrassed. He stooped and raised Treo
win to his feet. Again there was that odd thrilling tension in Treowin’s body, and again Eadwine was the first to step back. “But if you take offence at every order, you will find that a far greater handicap then the loss of one hand.”

  Treowin took this the wrong way, as usual. “I can still fight, you know! I’m left-handed, and I found a shield I can strap to my arm.” He drew his sword and mimed a few very effective-looking cutting strokes. “I fought with the outlaws!”