Oswiu looked to Aidan. Yes, the monk was blushing.
“I–I do not say do not be pretty…” Aidan began, but it was too late. Ahlflæd twirled again, her hair flowing out in shining waves (being yet a child, she did not wear a headscarf).
But if Aidan was too embarrassed to act, Ahlflæd’s brother was not.
“She cheated.” Mud caking face and hands, Ahlfrith made to grab his sister.
Seeing the dirt with which he might cover her, Ahlflæd squealed and darted out of reach.
“She cheated,” the boy repeated, tears of outrage making tracks down his cheeks. “I’d have beaten her if she hadn’t tripped me up.”
“I know, I know,” said Oswiu, taking hold of his son’s shoulders. “I could see how fast you have become.”
Ahlfrith brightened. “I can beat anyone my age, and most of the older boys too.”
Oswiu nodded solemnly. “I’m sure you can.”
“But he can’t beat me,” said Ahlflæd, skipping into view from behind her father’s back, then skipping back again when Ahlfrith lunged for her.
Oswiu pulled him up short, leaned close and whispered to his son. “Learn from this, son. Men, and women, play tricks, in life and war. Better you fall for them now, from your sister, than when you are older and are leading men in battle.” Dropping his voice even further, Oswiu added, “I’m sure you’ll beat her next time.”
Ahlfrith nodded fiercely. “I won’t run so close to her next time.”
“Good, good.” Oswiu let the boy go and turned back to his daughter. “Stop teasing your brother.”
Ahlflæd stood straight. “Of course, Daddy.”
“Don’t try to pretend…What did you say?”
“I said, ‘Of course, Daddy.’”
“That’s what I thought you said.” Oswiu looked suspiciously at his daughter. “I can’t see your hands – are you crossing your fingers?”
“She is, she is!” Ahlfrith said, quivering with boyish outrage at this female stratagem.
“Ahlflæd…”
The girl held her hands in front. “I’ll try, Daddy.”
“You will?”
“Honest.” Ahlflæd paused, then lowered her voice so only her father could hear. “Only, maybe you could tell Ahlfrith not to make it so easy for me.”
“What did she say?” the boy demanded, suspicious.
But Oswiu held his hand up and shook his head. He bent down to his daughter. “Try, please.”
“I will, Daddy.” Ahlflæd’s eyes were big and honest, but Oswiu still checked that he could see her hands.
“She’s crossing her toes!” Ahlfrith pointed.
“Ahlflæd…” Oswiu sighed. “Where is your mother? Where is the queen?”
“Oh, she’s looking after him.”
“Who’s him?”
“Him. You know. Our cousin.” Ahlflæd put a slight lisp into her voice. “‘My father was king and I will be king as well and tell you all what to do.’ That cousin. Œthelwald.”
“Mummy spends more time with him than she does with me,” said Ahlfrith. “Not that I care, of course, ’cause I’m practising with the men most of the time,” he added.
“Prince Œthelwald’s father and mother are dead,” said Aidan. “Your parents care for him as if he were their own.”
“Yes,” said Ahlflæd, “Mummy does.”
Aidan glanced at Oswiu. “That is her generosity and kindness. Come, let us go find the queen. I am sure she is waiting for you.”
“Good, good. But you – you have not told me how you come to be here. I had no chance to send messenger.” Oswiu looked sidelong at his friend as they walked across the inner ward towards the great hall, scrutinizing him, but not too obviously. Although Aidan walked with his eyes fixed ahead, he coloured: his flesh felt the gaze upon it.
“I – I…Um, in prayer, in the early hours, when it is so dark a man might not see the fingers of his own hand and we send up the Great Work that God might send the day once more, I – I saw your need of me. So I came.”
Oswiu paused at the bottom of the steps leading up to the great hall. “We are all here, then. Tonight, when the feast is done, we must take council. There is much to say and more to decide.”
Chapter 4
“I – we – we have lost Deira.”
The feast, the hasty, thrown-together feast to mark the king’s return, was over. There had been no chance for the steward to find any choice items for the meal from the ships that pulled up upon the strand when wind and weather allowed. It had been a meal of mutton and mead, and bread and beer, with the steward forever bobbing his apologies before the king and his family at the high table, until in the end, as the beer flowed readily among the eating men, he had been driven from the hall by a volley of bones. The dogs, appreciating the game more than the steward, fell to gnawing the bones as the hall settled to a long evening of talk and riddles and stories and remembering.
But at the high table, the stools were drawn closer about Oswiu’s seat, and cups were filled with beer or wine, and minds were turned to council.
“I say again, Deira is lost.” Oswiu looked around the people gathered at table with him: his mother, Acha; his sister, Æbbe, prioress of the holy house at Coldingham; his wife, Rhieienmelth; Aidan, monk bishop of the Holy Island; and Æthelwin, his warmaster. Thegns and warriors, the men of his household and his most trusted battle leaders, sat at the near tables, ready to be called should he require them, but it was to his family that he turned most readily for counsel.
“You have heard the tale of York.” Oswiu’s gaze skated over Æthelwin, but the warmaster, inspecting his cup, gave not the slightest indication that the king might have missed out some of the details of the encounter. “I would hear what other news there is.”
The other members of the council looked to each other, then gave way to Acha, Oswiu’s mother. She looked up, her hands cradling a cup, but more to stop the slaves refilling it than to drink from it. A few strands of hair escaped the scarf she wore over her head, the hair as white as the cloth.
“You would have me speak? Very well. This is what I hear. The northern marches rest quiet. The Gododdin still render tribute, as they did when… as they did when your brother was alive. The painted people, it is rumoured, grow restless, chafing at your lordship, but their tribute too came, although it was a mean offering. Dal Riada remains faithful to its oath, but the king’s mind is occupied with matters elsewhere, raising his arm against Strathclyde or sending ship against the Uí Néill, for the little good it does him: his army spent a full six months squatting outside Dumbarton Rock, and all they got for their efforts was the sweating sickness and the insults of the men of Strathclyde when at last they sailed away. As for the kingdom of Rheged, the queen will speak.”
Acha looked to the woman sat upon the king’s right hand. Rhieienmelth seemed to stiffen at Acha’s words. The queen turned to her husband.
“Rheged is ever faithful to you, my lord.”
Oswiu nodded. “Good, good.”
“Is Rheged anything more than faithful?” The question came from Acha.
The queen looked askance, but only for a moment, then back to her husband, the king. With the slightest, most inconsequential of gestures, she laid her hand upon his. So commonplace was the contact that Oswiu bare realized it, but laid his other hand upon hers, as he had in the past.
“With the dangers that beset us, is anything more important than good faith?” asked Rhieienmelth. “Rheged is faithful, lord.”
“With the dangers that beset us, is good faith enough?” Again the question was Acha’s.
The queen, this time, did not cast her a glance, but took the king’s hand in hers and leaned to him, as so often she had in the past bent to him, at feast and in council, that she might pass him word or jest.
“My father is old, lord, and the strength of his youth is lost to him. He sits in his hall, listening to the tale of his years, but few men stay at his side, for in his service now
there is little gold and less glory. If it were not for your protection, the wolves and ravens would have fallen upon him and torn the throne from him. I would have my father live out his years and die in due time, and not be cut down upon the slaughter field like… like Oswald.” The queen bent her gaze and looked down upon their hands, linked, and whispered, “He is my father, and he was good to me, after his way.” Rhieienmelth looked up into the eyes of her husband. “Do not put him aside, as one of no more use to you, lord, but cleave to your oath and his pledge. This I beg of you.”
Oswiu patted her hand. “Have no fear. I hold my oath.”
“The queen is ever most solicitous for those placed in her care,” Acha said.
For her part, Rhieienmelth made no reaction to Acha’s remark, but looked down at her hands upon her lap, the cup of sharing set on the table before her that she might give to whomever thirsted: the picture of a queen.
“Our strongholds are secure.” Æthelwin, warmaster, held by oath to his king’s service but not, as the others at the high table, joined by blood or life friendship with the king, sat a little apart, and gave his report in like manner. “Bamburgh, as we can see, is supplied. I have received word from our other strongholds: Edinburgh also has supplies for siege, but not enough water; I sent word saying they must build and fill barrels sufficient for three months. Stirling is more ready even than here. Should Penda ride into Bernicia without warning, we should find ready refuge at any of these.” The warmaster looked carefully around at the people listening. “If he comes in strength – and I do not think he will come in any other way – we do not have the men to meet him in battle. Not since our losses at Maserfield. I counsel that we retreat to one of these three places and wait. In our strongholds, we can wait longer than he outside.”
“Have no men joined us?” asked Oswiu.
Æthelwin grimaced. “A bare handful, and them of the worst sort: lordless men, exiles, seeking roof and hearth more than battle and service. Swords flock to Penda, I hear: young men seeking gold and glory always go to the last victor, never to the next.”
Oswiu shook his head. “If we knew who would be the next victor, we would be wiser men than we are. So, Penda’s ranks swell; ours stay the same?”
The rising tone revealed the question hidden in the statement, but Æthelwin reassured the king. “Your men remain true to you, lord. Any that might have gone, putting aside oath and honour, would have gone already.”
“I have to speak.” Aidan, monk bishop, spoke, and although his voice was quiet, all stooped to hear him. “It is of Oswald.”
At the words, silence fell upon the listening people. Acha turned a face, suddenly pale, to the monk. Æbbe put palms together, eyes intent and shining. And the queen – the queen flushed, her pale white skin touched with beating blood.
And Aidan spoke, of a king’s messenger, riding through the night and lost upon the road, whose horse was struck by an ælf arrow and taken sick. He spoke of how the horse was cured of its sickness and how the messenger, riding on, found shelter at an inn where lived a paralysed girl. Aidan told of how the girl was taken to where the horse was healed and, when she woke, the ties that bound the girl’s limbs to her will were restored and she was made well.
Aidan finished his tale, and looked around at the people listening to his words.
“The place where the horse was cured and the paralytic healed was where Oswald’s blood was shed. I have heard tell that people are coming from near and far to this place, and taking with them the dust from the ground, so that where Oswald fell is become a pit, ever dug deeper, and they mix the dust with water and give it to the sick and many are thereby made well. So I have heard; and others say that people take their sick, the blind and the lame, to this place that they might be healed.” Aidan paused, suddenly, obviously, nervous.
“And they take them to another place, too. Near to where Oswald fell, some two miles or three, there is a tree, held sacred to Woden, and there I hear Penda took… took the head and arms and placed them, in sacrifice, before the tree.”
Æbbe hid her face in her hands. Her shoulders shook in silent tears. The blood that had coloured the queen’s face drained away; she became as pale as death. Oswiu, the king, gave no sign, for he had known some such fate must have befallen his brother.
But Acha gasped, with wonder and with awe, and all looked to her. And she looked to them all, and her eyes were lit with a sudden light.
“He still fights for us! Do you not see? Oswald, my son, he fights for us still; he has taken battle into the enemy’s camp, set himself before the gods of our enemy and he defeats them. He fought for us on this middle-earth; now he fights for us in heaven!” And the old queen, exile and widow for most of her life, clasped her hands together and raised them, her gaze the brighter for the tears that shimmered upon her eyes.
“We must rescue him! We must bring him home, then he might fight at our side.” Rhieienmelth spoke without thought, her gaze turned to Aidan, the bringer of this news, and she did not see the glance of her husband at her words.
“Could we?” asked Æbbe. “Now we know where he is – could we?”
“No,” said Oswiu, his voice flat. “No, we couldn’t.” He looked around at the people of his council: apart from his warmaster, they had all known and loved Oswald – perhaps too much. “It would be madness. Self-slaughter. Maserfield is deep in Mercia, near its marches with Powys. It might be possible, just, to ride that deeply into Mercia without being caught and trapped into battle; to ride out again – that would be impossible.”
“But if you are riding out again,” said Acha, “then you would have Oswald with you, wouldn’t you?”
“Yes…” said Oswiu slowly.
“If you have Oswald with you, then he will fight for you. Oswald always looked after you in this life; he will look after you from the Lord’s great hall too, riding out with angels to guard you back home.”
Oswiu shook his head. “Oswald couldn’t save himself from Penda when he was alive. Do you think he will be able to save me when he is dead?”
Acha looked straight into her son’s eyes. “Yes,” she said.
Oswiu saw the light of certainty in his mother’s face and it troubled him. But worse than the certainty was a terrible fragility, trembling behind the assent, the silence of nights of unanswered prayer, when only silence had met her heart’s cry of “Why?”
“The rest of you, you don’t think…?” The king looked around and saw, in wife and sister and mother, the sudden hope, the greater belief that he should do this thing, this mad self-slaughter. Even Aidan’s face betrayed the belief that it be possible. Only the warmaster held from such madness, but he had no sway over people or kingdom. These others, though, held the strings of the kingdom in their grasp. He could not rule without them.
“Look, I would that it had been me that died, not my brother. I know you all wish it – I wish it too. But he is dead, and I live. Would you have me dead also, on a vain and foolish hope, in a raid that can but fail?”
“You will not fail,” said Acha. “Oswald will protect you.”
“B-but how do you know that?”
“I am his mother,” she said simply. “He will not fail you.”
Oswiu stared at them, feeling as a deer at bay before hunters. Only, these hunters hunted with love and longing and desperate hope, and he was as helpless before their arrows as the stag, ringed and trapped by baying hounds. “You’d have me die to save him – and he’s already dead.”
“You will not die. Oswald will protect you.”
Oswiu stood up so suddenly that his seat rocked and all but fell. “Who would you have as king in my place when I am dead?” The king looked to his mother. “Oswald was ever with you in our exile, while I was little more than a baby: better than a husband, more than a son he was to you, and I blame you not for your love for him – I loved him too, Mother. But you –” and here Oswiu turned his gaze upon his wife – “I would have hoped my own wife would wish for
my life rather than his.”
Rhieienmelth made to speak, but Oswiu silenced her.
“No. No more. I go to think. To think what to do with a family that wish me dead.”
The king went from the hall, and silence followed him.
*
Aidan found him upon the wall, standing in the shadow so he seemed as much stone as man. Oswiu was looking out to sea, to the east, whence the sun rose and the evening wind came. The king did not look around at the monk’s approach, but he heard him.
Aidan waited.
Oswiu gave no sign.
To the north-east, the monk saw one or two lights flickering in the far distance. The Holy Island, beyond Budle Bay. The monks would be finishing the day’s work, singing the Office and calling forgiveness and blessing down on the living.
“They do not wish you dead.”
Oswiu turned to the monk. “So they would have me ride into Mercia for my good health, then.”
“A – a mother’s grief is like no other. Hold it not against her.”
“I don’t.” Oswiu shook his head. “I really don’t. You see, I understand it: given me, or Oswald, who were it best to live? My brother. See? I know that too. But God willed it otherwise.”
“Sometimes – sometimes death can bring life. Think on the Lord’s own thegns, great Peter himself, thrown down with despair at his Lord’s death and then seeing him live again: life from death, and from that life, our life.”
Oswiu shook his head. “That may be so for priests and monks, but not for warriors, not for kings. A dead king is food only for crows; he can feed his people no longer.”
“That was true of the kings of old: in Woden’s hall they give no thought to the living, but feast and fight and feast again. But that is not true of us. Our dead hold the living ever in their thought, as we hold the dead in ours. Your mother is right: Oswald fights for us still – he fights for you.”
“You’d have me do it: throw life away in this mad attempt to reclaim my brother’s remains?” Oswiu turned away and looked back to the grey sea.
Oswiu, King of Kings Page 5