The Fall of the House of Æthelfrith: Kings of Northumbria Book 5

by H A CULLEY

  Swefred had travelled down to Whitby to see Ælfflaed to discuss urgent matters with her. As she got older and less able to travel he found that more and more of the running of the kingdom fell onto his shoulders. However, he didn’t feel comfortable about making important decisions on his own.

  ‘I know that you’re right,’ she sighed. ‘I know that my time left in this world is limited and I haven’t been able to give you the support you need. I think it’s time I handed over to another, perhaps to Bishop John?’

  ‘He is a Holy and devout man and a scholar who has seen something of the world. He’d be a good choice I think.’

  Swefred didn’t try and comfort Ælfflaed by telling her that she’d get better. She would know a lie for what it was, however well intentioned. She had spent her whole life at Whitby from the time she was a baby and seemed quite ready to die there. She had expressed a desire to be buried near her predecessor, the blessed Saint Hild, and her parents, Oswiu and Eormenburg.

  Swefred had placed Osric with Eochaid after he finished his education at Lindisfarne deliberately to keep him away from the influence of his two brothers.

  When Ælfflaed died two months later Osred tried once again to persuade the Witan to allow him to rule alone as he was now nearly eighteen, but Swefred and John of Beverley managed to get the Witan to delay the inevitable until the king’s birthday in the middle of December.

  With his cousin on the throne of Mercia and both Strathclyde and Pictland still recovering from their disastrous invasion two years previously, Northumbria was peaceful and prosperous. At home Swefred enjoyed playing with his two year old son, Ulfric and his foster son, Æthelwald, who had acquired the nickname Moll. Eochaid and his family were frequent visitors and life seemed idyllic.

  In early November he could no longer ignore the storm clouds gathering on the horizon. If five weeks’ time the Witan would gather at Eoforwīc to formally recognise Osred as king in his own right and to swear fealty to him. Swefred was not so stupid as to consider attending. He might as well put his head in a noose. He considered laying in supplies for a long siege and defying Osred to try and take Bebbanburg but that would be the act of a traitor and a rebel. He was neither of those things.

  He therefore made preparations to leave. Two weeks later he set sail with his family, little Æthelwald Moll and his gesith in two knarrs and three berlins to brave the winter storms around the north of Caledonia with the intention of offering his sword to his cousin Heartbehrt, King of Man.

  However, when they eventually reached Man after surviving two storms it was only to find that Heartbehrt had been killed in a hunting accident the previous September. The present King of Man was Thringfrith, Alweo’s youngest son.

  ~~~

  Osred sat on his throne positively gloating as the Witan congratulated him on becoming the absolute ruler of Northumbria. As the nobles trooped forward one by one to swear to be loyal and faithful to him, his demeanour can best be described as bored distain. When Eochaid knelt and took the kings hands in his Osred leaned forward and whispered in his ear.

  ‘Your relationship to the traitor Swefred has not been forgotten, Eochaid. I will be watching you very closely. You can start to earn my favour by sending Osric to me.’

  ‘Why, Cyning, he has only just started his training to be a warrior.’

  ‘I don’t trust him. I trust Otta but Osric and I have never been friends. I need to keep him close to me.’

  ‘Osred is taking steps to eliminate his enemies, or those he perceives as enemies,’ Eochaid told Beorhtmund three months later when the latter came down to visit Alnwic. ‘He’s ordered me to send Osric to him.’

  ‘What are you going to do?’

  ‘Well, I won’t let Osred get his hands on Osric, that’s for certain. I have a nasty feeling that the boy would suffer some sort of accident.’

  ‘You mean Osred would kill him?’

  ‘Otta’s no threat to him - he’s completely under his thumb – but Osric could well be if he’s allowed to grow up. I gather that he has sent men to arrest Cenred and his brother too.’

  ‘Because some might consider them æthelings? What happened?’

  ‘They were held up in a snow storm and someone managed to get a warning to them. They got away safely.’

  ‘Where to?’

  ‘They’ve joined Swefred on Man, or so rumour has it.’

  ‘How long will it be before he sends men to arrest us I wonder?’

  ‘He won’t take Dùn Barra in a hurry and the whole of Lothian will rise up if he tries.’

  Eochaid smiled, remembering the unsure little boy, almost scared of his own shadow, just two and a half years ago. Now Beorhtmund reminded him more of Swefred than he did his former self. He was self-confident and a strong leader, but he was still quiet and thoughtful.

  ‘Have you seen anything of that sycophantic little rat that Osred gave Bebbanburg to?’

  ‘No, he’s hardly ever there. He hangs around Osred most of the time, no doubt hoping for more scraps from his table.’

  ‘What are we going to do? There are more and more complaints about what is laughingly called the king’s justice. Anything that comes before him is decided in favour of who can pay most.’

  ‘There is only one solution as far as I can see.’

  ‘Revolt? Depose Osred?’

  ‘I wouldn’t trust him not to try and recover his throne even then. No, death is the answer.’

  ~~~

  At first Thringfrith was unwilling to offer sanctuary to Swefred, saying that he didn’t need more warriors or mouths to feed, but then the Hibernians from Béal Feirste raided several villages on the west coast of Man and enslaved the inhabitants. He and Swefred combined their ships and forces to launch a retaliatory raid, burned part of their town and carried off seventy women and children as slaves. Eventually negotiations resulted in the release of both sets of captives and a truce was signed.

  After that Thringfrith reluctantly agreed that having his cousin around might be useful and he gave him a vill in the north-west of the island. His warriors turned into farmers and for a time Swefred thought that his destiny might be to remain a Mercian thegn.

  When Cenred and Ceolwulf joined him, shortly followed by Osric, Swefred began to realise how bad things had become in Northumbria. It was the autumn of 714 before he heard news about Eochaid and his family. He’d been deprived of Alnwic and they had sought refuge with Beorhtmund in the fortress of Dùn Barra. Standing on an outcrop of rock separated from the mainland by a narrow strip of sea and accessible only via a wooden bridge which could be raised and lowered as needed, the stronghold was even more impregnable than Bebbanburg. Besides, it lay in the far north east corner of Lothian, all of whose ealdormen detested Osred.

  The new Ealdorman of Alnwic, who Osred had appointed to replace Eochaid, made the mistake of raping the daughter of a local reeve. Even worse, he allowed his gesith to bed whosoever took their fancy, even married women and young girls. The reaction of the local people was predictable. One night someone opened the gates of the palisade around the lord’s hall to the Alnwicshire fyrd and they slaughtered the ealdorman and his gesith as they lay in a drunken stupor.

  When the king sent men to punish them they found the hall, the vill and all the surrounding vills in the shire deserted. The people had taken to the hills.

  Alnwic wasn’t an isolated incident. Other vills where the people had been abused and treated dishonourably revolted against the rule by Osred’s favourites and outlaws became a problem throughout the kingdom.

  It was against this background that Swefred returned with Cenred in the spring of 716. Leaving his family, Osric and Coelwulf on Man, he landed near Dùn Barra. Whilst his gesith made camp and he set off on foot with just Cenred and Uurad as his companions to talk to Beorhtmund.

  ~~~

  ‘He’s made Otta his hereræswa,’ Beorhtmund said glumly.

  ‘An eighteen year old boy with absolutely no military experience? The Picts
must be quaking in their shoes,’ Swefred replied with a snigger.

  ‘He has to go before he ruins the kingdom. Beorhtmund and I have discussed this and the only real solution is to kill him.’ Eochaid stated.

  Silence greeted this statement whilst everyone thought about what Eochaid had said.

  ‘It seems that we’re all in agreement, but how do we go about achieving that,’ Cenred asked eventually. ‘And who will succeed him once we do get rid of him. Not Otta. Osric?’

  ‘We’ve had enough of boy kings, no. It has to be someone who is experienced enough and someone we can rely on to rule fairly and wisely,’ Swefred said.

  ‘You? After all your brother was on the throne briefly. You are descended from Ida and you would make a great king,’ Beorhtmund suggested.

  ‘No!’ Swefred said vehemently. ‘Whatever my qualities, or lack of them, I’m not an ætheling. Descent through the mother’s side doesn’t count. That rules Eochaid out as well I fear.’

  ‘I agree.’ Eochaid looked thoughtful for a moment. ‘But you’re descended from Ida through the male line, Cenred.’

  The latter tried not to look pleased at the suggestion and failed.

  ‘Would you all support me?’

  ‘It looks like a choice of you or your brother, and he’s still a boy. Of course, there are other families descended from Ida on the male side, but they are unknown quantities; so yes. You have my vote,’ Swefred grinned.

  Having settled on the objective, the execution of their plan remained a problem. They discussed open revolt, assassination and calling the Witan to depose Osred. The latter option was soon dismissed. It was too fraught with difficulty. Who would call the meeting? Bishop John? Would he be prepared to do it? Probably not; all three bishops had gone remarkable quiet since Osred had turned eighteen.

  No one was in favour of assassination. It was the coward’s tool and could be counter-productive in bringing the kingdom back together afterwards. The last thing they wanted was for Osred to be regarded as some sort of martyr.

  ‘Open revolt it is then,’ Swefred said.

  ‘I know that the four shires of Lothian will be with us,’ Beorhtmund said, ‘but there are fourteen other shires.’

  ‘We can forget about Cumbria and Luncæstershire. They are the other side of the mountains and, if we launch our revolt in late winter the passes will still be blocked by snow.’

  ‘Bebbanburg, Alnwic, Catterick, Jarrow and Loidis are in the hands of Osred’s toadies. That leaves the other four shires in Deira and four in Bernicia.’

  ‘We don’t want to leave anything to chance. We can’t be certain that all eight shires who still have their original ealdormen in place would join us. After all they swore fealty to Osred.’

  ‘We can’t rule out the possibility that he could do something stupid like calling on Æthelbald of Mercia for support too.’

  The southern border had been quiet for a long time, mainly because the Mercians were locked in a power struggle with Wessex for domination of southern England. However, Æthelbald might see helping Osred as a way of gaining an ally in his struggle with King Ine of Wessex.

  ‘We don’t seem to be getting very far,’ Cenred said, pointing out the obvious.

  ‘Perhaps we need to draw him north so we can fight him on our ground,’ Swefred said thoughtfully.

  ‘How do we do that?’

  ‘By taking back Bebbanburg.’

  ~~~

  Bebbanburg wasn’t going to be easy to take. Swefred now regretted fitting the locked grille over the entrance to the rubbish chute; that would have been the easy way in. He only hoped that the sentries weren’t over-vigilant.

  He’d waited until the new moon but it was a night overcast by dark clouds in any case. Fortunately it was dry, though rain seemed possible, given the state of the sky. He crept forward accompanied by his best two climbers. He reasoned that there would be fewer sentries on the eastern side facing the sea, especially as it was only just after high tide and there was very little beach exposed.

  On the western side the rock face was vertical but it was more of a steep incline on the eastern side. Above it the palisade loomed some fifteen feet tall. The two young men and Swefred watched but in over half an hour they saw no-one look over the palisade. Swefred tapped the two climbers on the shoulder and they scrambled up the rock towards the base of the timber wall until it was too dark to see them.

  He retraced his steps to a point where the beach widened out and then turned left to find where he’d left Beorhtmund, Eochaid and their three gesiths crouched in the bushes not far from the sea gate. All told they numbered seventy – mostly experienced warriors with a handful of youths who had yet to experience battle. The latter were excited at the thought of going into action and some might have thought them a liability on a clandestine operation like this, but the three ealdormen had allocated an older mentor to keep an eye on each the youngsters.

  Each man had wrapped everything that might have clanked or rattled in cloth and now they moved silently towards the gates, which were somewhere ahead of them hidden by the blackness of the night. The success of the venture all depended on the two climbers managing to get into the fortress unseen and then noiselessly killing the sentries on the sea gate. They waited impatiently for what seemed ages with the gates in sight, illuminated by a brazier whose flames lit up the inside of the palisade and cast a dim red glow visible from the outside.

  Suddenly they heard a muffled cry and everybody tensed. Shortly afterwards one of the gates swung open and Swefred and his men ran forwards. He could see that one of his climbers was lying on the ground with two other men, presumably defenders. A third man was clashing swords with the other climber. Swefred cursed. The din would wake the garrison, whose strength he didn’t know. All possibility of being able to kill or capture them whilst they were asleep was now at an end. He just prayed that they could reach the inner palisade with its small postern gate, built at the time of the siege by Eadwulf, before the enemy.

  He thrust his sword into the man fighting his remaining climber as he ran past, dragging his sword out of his body as he went. One of the younger warriors beat him to the little gate in the inner wall and shoulder charged it. Thankfully it was unlocked and the youth stumbled through it as it flew open, clutching at his dislocated shoulder and crying out in agony.

  Swefred ignored him, leaving someone else to push the joint back into place. Now he was inside the fortress proper and made for where he knew the warriors’ hall to be, Beorhtmund and Cenred at his side. As they had agreed, Eochaid and a few of his gesith had remained behind to secure the two gates.

  A warrior dressed in just a tunic loomed out of the darkness and Swefred thrust his sword at his neck. The man raised his shield just in time but that exposed his groin and Cenred thrust his spear into him. He man screamed and went down. Another of the garrison appeared from his right and he felt an axe strike his shield, nearly ripping it from his arm. This time it was Beorhtmund who killed the assailant.

  A man carrying a torch came out of the hall twenty paces in front of him and now he could see that there were about twenty men forming up as a shield wall in front of him. Several more were spilling out of the hall behind them, but not too many. Only a few had managed to put on a byrnie or leather armour and a helmet but they all had a weapon of some sort and a shield.

  Leaving Beorhtmund and their warriors to deal with the garrison, Swefred, Cenred and Uurad ran to their right and made for the ealdorman’s hall. This had a torch blazing in a sconce by the door. He could see two sentries guarding the entrance and, as he ran to tackle them, the door burst open and a man wearing a byrnie and an ornate helmet with a faceguard, topped by a crest of crouching lion, burst out of the hall. Behind him a woman and two children peered fearfully round the side of the open door.

  Leaving his two companions to tackle the sentries, Swefred made a cut at the man who was evidently the new lord of Bebbanburg.

  ‘Who are you,’ the man grunted
as he tried to parry Swefred’s assault.

  ‘Swefred,’ he replied, making a thrust towards the man’s leading leg.

  His opponent dropped his shield to absorb the blow and Swefred smashed the boss of his own shield into the over-elaborate faceguard. It did little to protect the man’s nose and he saw blood, black in the light of the torch, running down his neck.

  The new lord took a step back and Swefred pressed his attack home. Feinting with his shield towards the man’s face again and then stabbing him in the stomach when he raised his shield to protect his head. The chain mail links were strong, but only strong enough to deaden the blow. A few of them split asunder and the tip of the sword cut into flesh by several inches.

  The man cried out and dropped his shield. It was far too late and Swefred calmly took advantage of his folly by stabbing him in the neck. The man dropped to the ground and his wife ran to him, sobbing. Swefred relaxed after checking that his two companions had also killed their opponents. It was a mistake. The lord’s elder son, a boy of ten, screamed in rage and flew at him clutching a seax in his right hand.

  He dropped to one knee and thrust it up under the hem of Swefred’s byrnie, intending to stab him in the groin. The seax dropped from his grasp just in time as Cenred stabbed his spear into the boy’s back. He was wounded but not dead. As he shrieked in pain and fell onto his back, Cenred thrust his spear down again into the centre of his chest, breaking through his ribcage into his heart.

  Seeing her son killed as well as her husband, the woman tried to grab the fallen seax but Beorhtmund clubbed her over the head with the pommel of his sword and she dropped unconscious. Cenred quickly bound her arms and feet with her own girdle and a belt taken from one of the sentries and left her. The three walked into the hall - the stone hall built by Swefred’s mother – and found several terrified servants cowering in a corner, one of them hugging the other boy, a lad of perhaps five or six, to her.