“You are not Oswald. Oswald died upon a far field, and you did not save him. Oswald’s body was taken, and you did not claim it. Oswald’s head sits on a stake in our enemy’s land, and you have not brought it home. You are not Oswald. You are not our king.”
Oswiu paled beneath this verbal attack. Heeling his horse, he rode up to the gate and struck it with his sword.
“I am your king,” he shouted. “Open this gate or, so God help me, I will slaughter every last one of you and your children too.”
But the man above him laughed.
“The witan has made a man more worthy king of Deira: Oswine, son of Osric, the Godfriend; he is our king.”
“Where is he? Bring him out!”
“He is not here, but he left me charged to give over this city to no other king – and I will not.”
Oswiu urged his horse towards Æthelwin and, in one fluid motion, grabbed the spear from his warmaster’s hand and turned and hurled it up at where Hunwald stood upon the wall. The spear arched higher, its aim true, but just as it was about to strike home Hunwald stepped lightly aside and grabbed the haft of the spear as it flew past and, turning it, sent the spear arrowing back down, whence it came.
It was Æthelwin’s speed and wit that saved the king. With the height from which it fell, even a good linden shield might have been pierced through by the spear, but he pushed Oswiu’s horse aside with his own mount and deflected the spear into the ground, where it embedded itself in the earth, haft quivering.
“If you have not wit enough to know not to throw spears at a man so much higher than you, then you do not have wit enough to be our king,” shouted Hunwald. Behind him and alongside him, men started appearing, for few things will bring men running quicker than to see the dismay of the great and the powerful.
For his part, Æthelwin sought to speak to the king, urging him to fall back, but such rage had fallen upon Oswiu that he could not speak, but rode once more against the gate, striking at the wood with his sword as if it were living flesh that he might rend and cut.
To such fury, the men above, safe upon the ramparts, responded first with incredulity and then, increasingly, with scorn. One after another after another raised voice in insult and jest.
Behind him, Æthelwin was all too aware of the disquiet of the men: to see their king insulted thus and, worse, to see his futile anger, was to weaken and endanger the bonds that held a warrior to his lord. They would all stand with Oswiu and die with him, but they would not long sit upon their horses and be insulted by his impotence. It was time to act. Urging his horse on, he rode to the king and grabbed his arm, trying to pull Oswiu away. But caught still in his fury, the king turned upon him, raising his sword arm to strike. Unready, and with shield and sword still slung, the warmaster might have died then, under his own lord’s hand, if one of the men standing over the gate, raising insult to the physical, had not chosen that moment to throw a bucket full of cow manure over the battlements.
It landed upon Oswiu in a brown, stinking shower.
The king, shocked from his rage, stopped, his sword arm raised but now dripping. Æthelwin took the chance to free himself from the king’s grasp and, grabbing the bridle of Oswiu’s horse, pulled its head around and led it away from the city gates. As the two horses trotted away, the men over the gate, led by Hunwald, jeered, and a few of the bolder ones threw further handfuls of dung after them.
As they approached their waiting men, Oswiu wiped his forehead. He looked down and saw the dung covering his hand. For a moment he stared at his soiled hand, as the realization of what had happened, and the humiliation he had suffered in front of his men and the men of Deira, slowly grew. He glanced at his warmaster.
“That did not go as I might have wished,” he said, speaking quietly.
“No,” said Æthelwin. He too spoke quietly, his eyes fixed ahead, searching the faces of the waiting, watching men.
Oswiu glanced ahead and saw his men, and the way they broke eye contact with him, too embarrassed to share a gaze for more than an instant.
“Will they still follow me after that?” The king whispered the words.
Even quieter, Æthelwin replied, “I do not know.”
Oswiu nodded. “Then I will have to do something.” Heeling his horse, he sent it cantering towards the waiting men. Æthelwin, startled, followed.
The king, still a young man, pulled his horse up amid his household men, the retainers who shared his hall and ate his food, who travelled with him from one royal estate to another, the men who rode with him and fought with him: the men who would die for him.
Oswiu circled his horse, forcing them all to see him as he was: dung smeared, soiled and stinking. He made eye contact with man after man, holding each gaze past the comfort of his retainer, while they waited for him to speak. He wheeled his horse, round and again, and waited, waited, waited… Waited until every man was drawn in closer by his silence.
Then, Oswiu, king, spoke.
“Well, that was shit,” he said. He wiped a finger across his forehead and smelled it. “Cow shit, in fact.”
Æthelwin, tense with expectation, started. But the startlement, once loosened among the men, broke into first a snort, then a guffaw, until laughter, the first and best bond of men, spread among Oswiu’s men as fire through tinder. Mirth took them and remade them whole, and Oswiu laughed no less than any of his men, but his laughter was open eyed and he looked as he laughed, and saw his men return to him.
“Other kings call fame and glory upon their household, but to you, to you all, I will give a name shared by no others in the long history of our people, and it will be a title known to us alone – a word bond broken only when the last of us is dead.” Oswiu jerked his horse’s head round, so they could all see him.
“I name you now my dung devils. What say you?”
“I say – ” said one of the men, a smile broad upon his face, “I say we are now all your left hand, lord.”
And, laughing, the men held their left hands in the air, and Oswiu rode his horse around them, striking his own, excrement smeared, hand against theirs.
“Let them keep their wraith-haunted city. We’ll go back to our boats…” A groan rose among the men. “But not today,” Oswiu continued smoothly. “I am as sick of cold and wet as any of you. We will find a thegn’s hall, a man not so swift to turn his back on the favour of a king, and stay there for the night, then make sail north again tomorrow. What say you?”
The men acclaimed his words in shout and in gesture, clashing their spear hafts on shield rims, the wood ringing against metal or thudding on leather. Oswiu pulled his horse round to the warmaster.
“Do you know of any thegn’s hall?” he asked Æthelwin under his breath. “Within distance?”
Æthelwin shook his head. “I know little of this land, or who rules it.”
“Neither do I,” said Oswiu. “Ask me where to find the best food and drink anywhere between the Simonside and Pentland hills and I could tell you, and two others beside, but here…”
“I too, lord.”
Oswiu pointed east, following the river’s meandering path. “That is rich land. If we ride through it, right enough we will soon find some thegn’s hall. And we will keep the river in sight and watch for the boats.”
“Yes, lord. I’ll order the men.”
But just as Æthelwin was about to urge his horse to the head of the column, Oswiu laid a hand on his forearm and leaned close to the warmaster.
“I did it, didn’t I? I brought them round. I thought I’d lost them, but I brought them round.”
Æthelwin patted the hand upon his arm. Oswiu seemed young to him, despite the king’s thirty years, but then the warmaster did not know how many summers he had seen, nor how many winters. The frosting on his hair, and the creak of his bones and the leather of his muscles when he woke in the morning, blinking awareness and memory into whatever hall he woke to, told that he had seen many more years than his king. He had seen him grow from the
young and headstrong brother who had taken rule of the northern marches when first Oswald claimed his kingdom, into… Æthelwin smiled, into the somewhat older and hardly less headstrong man who now ruled in his own name.
The warmaster took and grasped the hand on his arm, and his eyes were warm as he looked to the king. “Yes, lord. You brought them round.” He chuckled. “The king of shit and his dung devils.” He shook his head. “Sometimes, I think your father must have been Loki, not Æthelfrith.”
Oswiu beamed. “Ah, but my father was named Flesaur, the Twister: maybe he was Loki-sired and I be his grandson. Besides, I think my mother would have told me if a god had got me upon her.”
“In my experience, women tell not these things if they be other than they ought.”
“Not my mother,” said Oswiu. “You know her, Æthelwin. Still think she might have accepted Loki into her bed rather than my father?”
Æthelwin considered but a bare moment. “No, not her, lord. No man would doubt her.”
“Nor do I.” Oswiu considered his warmaster for a moment. “Have you heard aught of my wife?”
Æthelwin paused, then answered carefully. “I have heard no ill spoken of Queen Rhieienmelth, lord.”
“That is good. Good.”
“Although it is passing strange that I have heard no whispers,” said Æthelwin. “Only Queen Mildrith of the Middle Saxons was never doubted, and that because her donkey looked more womanly than she.”
“That’s what worries me,” said Oswiu. “I am away often, and I know my queen’s blood, yet never have I heard any word against her. Therefore, I fear the more.” Oswiu made the horn sign, but surreptitiously, that the other men should not see. “I would not be the cuckold – not now, when I am king, and any child would be more throne-worthy than those I sired when I was yet only my brother’s thegn.”
“I am sure Rhieienmelth is faithful and loyal.”
“Yes.” Oswiu nodded. “Yes, I’m sure she is too.” But as Æthelwin turned his horse away to marshal the men, he added, seemingly to himself alone, “But to whom?”
Chapter 2
“You did what?”
Oswine, known to the people of Deira as Godfriend for the light that shone from his eyes whenever he spoke of things holy and sacred, looked at Hunwald the thegn with ill-concealed horror. The Godfriend sat upon the judgement seat in the great hall of York, the hall that Edwin had had made, of carved, curved wood and a high pitched roof of wooden shingle. The hall stood among the tumbledown brick houses and buildings of York as the one living thing in a forest of the dead.
The thegn, for his part, paled, the red veins of his face, the tellers of many nights’ feasting, standing out the more clearly as his skin grew whiter.
“Would you have had me open the gates and give him homage?”
“Oswiu is king, and you insulted him.”
“He is a king, but there are many kings. The witan of Deira has given rule into your hands, and you have taken the throne – I heard you accept with these, my ears. Think you, if I had opened the gates to him, that he would have opened the gates to you?”
“But the insults…”
Hunwald laughed, although there was little humour in it. “I did not just insult him.”
“What do you mean? What did you do?”
“When he rode away, Oswiu did not smell so sweet as when he arrived.” Hunwald pointed at the night soil bucket. “He got that over his head.”
The men standing beside the Godfriend gasped, then broke into laughter. But Oswine, for his part, shook his head.
“I would have peace with Oswiu, not war. We have enough, and more than enough, with Penda king to our south and demanding tribute. You would bring war to us from the north as well?”
“He came, and declared himself king.” Hunwald shook his head. “I – I ask your pardon, lord, but when he spoke thus, I remembered you and the fair words you spoke when the witan declared for you, and my anger grew faster than my wit. Besides, I would not have done as I did if he had not thrown first. His spear would have split me if I had not caught it.”
“He attacked you?”
“It was a fair throw. From horseback, and below – must have been thirty yards. But yes, Oswiu attacked first. Only then did I return his greetings, and in kind.”
Oswine Godfriend nodded. His gaze turned inward as he thought on the matter.
“I will have to send word to Oswiu,” he said.
“If you send soon, the word will reach Oswiu before he takes ship,” said Hunwald.
The Godfriend looked up, startled. “When did all this happen?”
Hunwald looked surprised in turn. “Did you not know, lord? Oswiu and his men had barely ridden from sight when you arrived.”
“Then he will still be nearby.” Oswine Godfriend looked to his companions. “I will speak with him.” But then he looked at Hunwald. “You had better stay here.”
*
“Riders.”
Æthelwin shook Oswiu from his nap. They’d given up the search for a hall after riding a few miles downriver and, with the prospect of rain blowing in from the west, made camp in a copse to wait for the boats.
“How many?” Oswiu asked.
Æthelwin pointed upriver. Oswiu looked through thin slit eyes, the better to see the men approaching. Fingers tapping the numbers on joint and knuckle, he counted.
“Twenty-five,” he said.
“I made twenty-six,” said Æthelwin.
“Even numbers.” Oswiu looked at his warmaster. “So not raiders or brigands.”
“They do not approach as for war.”
“They don’t always. Make the men ready.”
“Horse or foot?”
Oswiu scanned the ground. They were camped on the river bank, with the only good ground being that on which the riders were approaching. Their own boats would be arriving soon, pulled upriver against the flow by sweating rowers. And no horse would break a shieldwall so long as it held fast.
“Foot,” he said. “We’ll stand with the river behind us; then they can’t circle our position.”
“The horses?”
“Tether them, put two men to guard.” Oswiu pointed. “Put them there on that spit. Two men will hold it.”
Æthelwin made the courtesy, then ran to order the men while Oswiu began to arm himself. The riding had been long that day, and his body had welcomed the chance to be rid of the weight of mail and jacket. Oswiu slipped his arms into his padded jacket, then lifted his mail, the links flowing over his fingers like metal water, and draped it over his shoulders, tying a belt, with his seax sheathed upon it and his sword, also sheathed but hanging down rather than across, round his waist. Then his gloves, thick, strong leather and, last, his helmet. But this he picked up and held rather than wearing it, his fingers hooked round the noseguard. Let the riders see him first. If it came to fighting, he would wear the helm, but Oswiu preferred to see his enemies face to face first.
Taking his spear, Oswiu strode to the centre of his line and stood awaiting the approaching riders.
*
“Halt.”
Oswine Godfriend held up his hand and the column of riders behind him stopped. They were still some two hundred yards from where Oswiu waited, in loose but wary shieldwall, by the river. It was all too easy for such a meeting to dissolve into spear thrust and sword strike, and all through the nerves of a watching thegn rather than any wish for war on the part of the leaders of the two groups of men.
Oswine Godfriend desired no war. As such, he needed to go with care. Dismounting, he looked through his retainers. He wanted only the steadiest.
“Tondhere, bring my standard. The rest of you, wait upon us. Should you see weapons drawn, ride to us. Otherwise, wait.” The Godfriend looked to Tondhere. “Are you ready?”
The thegn, a man who had grown up with him in the same hall, fostered by Oswine’s father, nodded.
“Ready, lord.”
“Hold my standard high. Make sure they se
e it.” With his sword obviously sheathed, Oswine Godfriend walked towards the waiting shieldwall, Tondhere carrying the standard alongside and, when the breeze slackened, pulling the banner through the air so that its device, a white boar, streamed through the air. When they had halved the distance between the two groups of men, the Godfriend stopped and signalled for Tondhere to plant his banner.
“We wait,” he said.
*
“That is the banner of Deira.” Oswiu pointed to the white boar, streaming above the heads of the two standing men. “That is my banner.”
“But they have it,” said Æthelwin. “And they are flying it.”
“I can see that.” Oswiu planted his spear in the ground. If he should have to beat a quick retreat, a spear would only get in the way. “Let’s go and see who is flying my flag. Æthelwin, with me. The rest of you….” Oswiu looked to where the two men were waiting. Beyond them, some fifty yards further back, waited the line of riders. If the meeting should come to blows, there was no doubt who could expect help first. “The rest of you come as well. Stop when we halve the distance. Then, if I draw sword, come as fast as your legs will run.”
*
“They all approach.”
Oswine Godfriend nodded. “I can see that.”
“We are but two.”
“I know.”
“Shall I signal our men?”
The Godfriend measured the distance by eye, judging the time it would take men to run and men to ride.
“Wait,” he said. “Wait.”
*
“Put up my flag, Æthelwin. Let this upstart king know who he deals with.”
The warmaster unfurled the purple and gold standard of the Idings and let it flow in the river wind.
Oswiu held up his hand. The men, loose and ready, waited silently beside him. Fingers itched upon sword hilts. Knuckles tightened on spear shafts.
*
“They do not look like men coming to talk.” Tondhere looked to his lord. “We should go back.”
Oswine Godfriend did not look to his retainer. His eyes remained upon the line of approaching men.
Oswiu, King of Kings Page 3