“Rhieienmelth is not my enemy!”
“As you say, lord. As you say.”
Chapter 6
“Master, master, there ain’t nothing like this ever happened afore at the Red Dragon.”
Oswiu woke to absolute darkness and someone pulling his arm. One hand went at once to his waist, feeling for the seax, while the other grabbed out for the man holding him. But Oswiu did not need to unsheath his seax. As suddenly as it had begun, the pulling ceased, and another voice spoke.
“If you want to keep your throat uncut, you let go and step back.”
The voice was low, clear and certain, and Oswiu knew it at once: Æthelwin. With the recognition came the realization of why everything was so dark: he slept with the bandages around his eyes.
Unseen by Oswiu, above him the innkeeper of the Red Dragon was slowly and very carefully straightening up, Æthelwin’s seax blade tight against his throat.
“I-I meant no harm, master,” Coenred said, as Æthelwin steered him backwards and away from Oswiu. “It-it’s just, your oxen have been slaughtered and your wagon broken.”
Oswiu sat up and held out his hand for someone to help Nothelm the Blind to his feet.
“Show us,” he said.
Gabbling apologies, the innkeeper led Oswiu and his small party to the stockade where the oxen had been herded to spend the night, with the wagon, stripped of all valuables, left beside the stockade ready for an early start. The sun had not risen, but dawn was far enough advanced for it to be quickly apparent that the oxen were not lying on their sides from weariness. Long, red lines ran across the animals’ throats – lines already beaded with the jewel bodies of clustering flies. As for the wagon, the spokes of its wheels had been broken, the splintered wood making the vehicle as immobile as a broken leg made a man.
“It seems someone does not want me to see again,” said Oswiu.
“And to slow us down,” said Æthelwin.
“Then we must needs speed up,” said Oswiu. “Innkeeper, I would buy horses. I can ride, if someone leads. We have silver sufficient for four horses. Do you have horses to buy?”
Before Coenred had chance to answer, a call went up.
“Master Red! Master Red!”
The innkeeper looked to the sound, and saw Behrt running from the inn.
“What is it, Behrt?”
“The horses! The horses are gone, master.”
“What? What you be talking about? Didn’t I give you word to keep watch on them last night? You telling me the horses are gone, and you not? Where were you last night?”
The boy, already red faced from running pell mell from the inn, flushed deeper.
“Oh no, you weren’t…” the innkeeper began.
“Master,” said Behrt, holding up his hands placatingly, “I didn’t mean to, only she were…”
He never got a chance to finish the sentence. The buffet knocked the words clean out of his mouth. Behrt took to his heels, with Coenred puffing and yelling after him, dodging between the houses and gardens of High Cross.
The innkeeper, no match for the spry heels of Behrt, soon returned, puffing and wheezing, to Oswiu and his men.
“I will send word to the thegn,” Coenred said. “He’ll know what to do – and mayhap he’ll have some horses you can buy, though I haven’t no longer. Oh, when I get my hands on Behrt…”
*
“I will do better than sell them to you. I will come with you.”
In an effort to make up for the wagon and oxen, Coenred had plied Oswiu and his men with food and drink while waiting for the thegn to arrive. It had not taken Brandnoth long, for his hall was not far from the village.
The thegn, cup in hand, stood in the inn. “I and enough men to ensure your safety. Never let it be said, Nothelm the Blind, that the men of Mercia are greedy. We will take you to the king, for he goes where you go, and your road lies together. With him, you may travel in safety and I may relinquish my charge. But until then, I give pledge to see you safe and with no further loss. What say you, Nothelm the Blind?”
Oswiu cast around in thought for some way to refuse the thegn.
“The king travels with many men, does he?” he asked.
“Oh, many many men. Not to mention women, whelps, dogs, horses and enough whores to keep an army off the field for a month.”
“We would not be a burden if we were to join his party?”
“Burden? He would likely never notice you.”
“In that case, I will be happy, and grateful, to accept your offer, Brandnoth. And I will ever bruit abroad that the men of Mercia are the most generous of all the men of this land.”
“Aye, right. That’s as it should be.” The thegn drained his cup. “Come, let’s get going then.”
*
The day was glorious. Oswiu could feel the warmth of the spring sun on his bandages and his hands, he could hear the songs of birds in wood and field, and he could smell the new growth as the sun stirred plant and tree into fresh life. But he could see none of it, and the blindness of his disguise wore heavily upon him.
At least the straightness of the old road made the riding easier. Brandnoth had given him an old and steady mare. She felt dependable and sturdy, and after the tedium of riding the ox wagon, the better pace the horse made was welcome. With the road so straight, his horse did not need leading. Instead, Æthelwin, Coifi and Acca took turns to ride, always a pair, with one on each side of him. Not that the mare showed any sign of wishing to leave the straight road.
Blind, Oswiu soon settled into the sound of the journey. The strike of metal on stone, the crunch of it on gravel, as the horseshoes struck sparks. He could not see the sparks, but he could smell them. Brandnoth rode his own land in his lord’s kingdom – he had no need of stealth. There had been many times when Oswiu had ridden with his horse’s hooves wrapped in cloth, to muffle the sound. Now, the troop of men – Brandnoth rode with ten retainers – and their horses made no effort at secrecy but rode loud upon the road, knowing that all would give way to the thegn.
For his part, Brandnoth was mostly content to ride at the column’s head, taking and receiving greeting whenever they passed men and women and children working in the fields that lay to either side of the road. But after a morning’s ride, Brandnoth drew his horse off the road, allowed his men to pass, then pulled in alongside Oswiu and his companions.
“What say we hear the fruit of this miracle?” he said, looking towards Acca. “Seeing as how yon scop has tongue in his head again, then he can give us song as we ride. What say you, Nothelm the Blind?”
“I say a song is poor payment for the generosity of the thegn of High Cross,” said Oswiu.
“’Tis all the payment I seek,” said Brandnoth.
“Then payment you will have.” Oswiu looked round blindly.
“I am here, lord,” said Acca, from his other side.
“You heard. Brandnoth seeks payment in song. Give it him.”
“My pleasure,” said Acca. He looked towards the thegn as he drew the lyre from where it hung over his shoulder. “And yours.” The scop’s fingers tuned and tightened the lyre as he rode, relying on his knees to hold the horse steady. The animal rode without demur, and Acca began to sing.
*
As they rode through the afternoon, Acca noticed that Coifi, his companion through many journeys and trials in the years since the death of King Edwin, was growing more nervous. The twitches and jerks that were normal to him were increasing; so much so that his horse, which had before been a placid animal more inclined to sneak snatched grabs at grass than to start, became skittish, dancing sideways upon its hooves and flaring out its nostrils as it breathed out its alarm. But Coifi went unaware of his animal’s nervousness, head bobbing to left and right. Acca, who had seen this of old, knew his friend to be seeing, to be searching for the traces of wyrd in the movement of leaf and the flight of bird, in the play of wind and light and wood.
Charged with riding as guides to Oswiu, Acca h
ad had no chance to speak alone with Coifi but, when Brandnoth dropped back to talk to Nothelm the Blind again, and with Æthelwin riding Oswiu’s other flank, Acca took the chance to fall back with Coifi.
Acca leaned to the priest, touching his arm. At the touch, Coifi started, eyes rolling wildly as he sought to find who touched him. He was looking everywhere but at the man who rode beside him.
“Coifi, it was me,” said Acca.
The priest’s faced turned slowly towards the scop and, for the first time, Acca saw the man’s age. Lines marked his face – the lines of suffering and exile, of loss and grief as much as years – but against the dusty black of his old raven-feather cloak, Coifi’s hair was beginning to turn white.
“There are other touches than yours,” said the priest, eyes still searching. “If only I can find whose fingers they belong to…” His gaze suddenly snapped back to Acca, focusing on him for the first time. “It is here,” he said. “This place, this kingdom. In Mercia, they have not abjured the ways of their fathers. The old gods still walk here; I can smell them.” Coifi looked around wildly. “Mayhap they can smell me.”
“Don’t you want to see them?”
“No!” In shock at how loudly he spoke, Coifi clapped his hands to his mouth. “No,” he continued more quietly, eyes never still but always searching, “for if I see them, then they shall surely see me.” Suddenly, he gripped Acca’s arm. “They have no mercy. I abjured them, cast fire and spear into their holy place at Goodmanham. Think on what the terrible one would do to a faithless priest, should he see me.”
“What can you do?” asked Acca. “You cannot run from the gods; the fate weavers spin your life.”
“No, not before,” said Coifi, “not before.” His voice lowered to a whisper. “But now – now I think I can. The new god hides me, and the king, King Oswald, faces Woden’s tree and fights with hand and eye before it, and the glory of his battle casts out healing. I think I can hide.” The priest looked around fearfully. “But I had not known they would walk here, in Mercia, in the day as the night.”
*
“We’ll have to camp for the night.” Brandnoth had ridden back along the column to tell Oswiu. “It’s too far to the next inn, and though there be a village or two we might reach, I’ve stayed in both and each time it took me a month of flea cracking and nit picking to clear myself of the results. I’d not deliver you to such a blood feast, and particularly when you can’t see ’em to crack ’em.” The thegn made the nails-together gesture familiar to anyone who had slept in a louse-ridden bed, even though Oswiu could not see it. “Besides, I’d have a night under the stars in this season to clear the smoke of winter halls from my lungs.”
“As you wish,” said Oswiu. He sniffed as he had seen a blind man sniff before. “It is mild and smells fair.”
“If it rains, I’ll eat my hood,” said Brandnoth.
*
“It won’t taste good,” said Oswiu, sitting with his own cloak thrown over his head to act as tent. “Wet wool never does. Besides, you’ll need it to keep the rain off.” The thegn had come to find him once the rain had set in with enough determination to prove it was not a passing shower, and had offered to carry out his promise.
“I said I’d eat my hood if it rained,” said Brandnoth. “It has.” He squatted next to Oswiu, water dripping from nose and ear and cloak. “We men of Mercia ever keep our words.”
But Oswiu raised his hand as the thegn raised hood to mouth.
“You did not say when you’d eat it.”
Brandnoth paused. “What?” he said, somewhat indistinctly, as his mouth was already full of wet wool.
“You did not say when you’d eat your hood,” said Oswiu.
“Oh.” Brandnoth’s voice suddenly sounded clearer. “That’s right. I didn’t.”
The rain continued through the early hours of the night, leaving the men beneath it sodden and tired, squatting in what patches of drier ground they could find beneath a tree or in a hastily made lean-to, but then cleared. Tatters of cloud streamed across the sky, but stars glittered between the clouds, and the men and animals settled into uncomfortable, damp sleep.
*
“Wake.”
Oswiu woke to find a hand over his mouth and the word breathed into his ear.
“Æthelwin?” he whispered.
“Yes,” said the warmaster. “There are men out there.”
“Rouse Brandnoth,” Oswiu whispered.
As the warmaster crept away, Oswiu lowered the bandages from his eyes. If they were to be attacked, he would see the faces of his attackers. In the east, the first hint of dawn was beginning to lighten the sky, but among the sleeping men, night still held dominion. Oswiu lay still, giving no sign that he was awake, but searching with eye and ear and nose for the signs that had roused his warmaster.
The first was the quiet.
In this season, the birds should sing the dawn, heralding it more loudly than Acca calling “Hwæt!” in hall, but they held silence.
The second was the stillness.
It was a stillness he’d felt before: the pregnant stillness of hiding in ambush, the waiting before blood was shed and lives were ended.
The third was the sound.
Rustle, and pause. Rustle, and longer pause. It could have been the dawn wind, ruffling leaves and grass. But dawn had not yet come, and its wind yet lingered below the horizon. These were the sounds of men moving closer, in stealth.
Moving with similar stealth, crawling over the ground so that he might not be seen by the eyes looking towards this camp, Oswiu roused Acca and Coifi.
In darkness and silence, hands reached for swords and drew blades from sheaths. Men moved, slowly rolling from back to chest, that they might the quicker spring to their feet.
Oswiu slid his seax from its sheath. Nothelm the Blind carried no sword, having given it to Æthelwin to bear on his behalf until healing came to his sight, but he had his knife. As he waited, breath misting in front of his face, Oswiu gave silent, quick thanks. It was good to see.
The attack came in a volley of screams.
Thinking the camp sleeping, the attacking men rose from their stealthy approach and attacked in noise.
Looking, listening, Oswiu saw dark shadows rising from the ground all around the camp and running at them, black blades held aloft.
But they were met, in turn, by shadows rising from the ground: men they thought to be sleeping, springing from the ground.
It was a brief but brutal battle. For his part, Oswiu held back. With only a seax as weapon, his part would be to finish off anyone who broke through the first line of defence. But, as it transpired, he had no need to wet his blade. The attackers, attacked, fled as quickly as they had come. Most escaped, running into the darkness, and Brandnoth, roaring like a bull, called his men back from blind, night-time pursuit.
“Hold, hold!” he yelled. And his men gave over their pursuit and fell back to camp. And many blades that had before glittered in the starlight were now black with blood.
“Torches! Light torches!”
Steel sparked on flint, flashing stars, and two, three, four torches were quickly lit.
Grabbing a torch, Brandnoth found the dead and the dying. None of his own men had been killed, and their wounds were minor, but in the torchlight he found three attackers, two already dead, and one dying.
Grabbing the man, Brandnoth hauled him up.
“Who sent you?”
The man coughed, spraying black.
“You’re gut cut,” said Brandnoth. “Tell me, and I’ll make it quick.”
“I-I don’t know.” The man coughed again.
The thegn held up the torch so he could see the man’s face. The man met his gaze. Brandnoth nodded once, a single, sharp movement, then slid his seax in, through the man’s armpit. The man stiffened convulsively, hands clawing for an instant, and then he relaxed.
Pulling the seax from the wound, Brandnoth cut off the brooch that held the man’s cloak
and walked over to where he had left Oswiu.
Oswiu saw him coming and remembered, just in time, to slip the bandages back over his eyes.
Brandnoth stopped. He rolled the brooch between fingers and thumb, examining it in the torchlight, then looked at Oswiu.
“This brooch came from a dead man, one of the men who attacked us,” he said. “It looks to my eyes to be fashioned in the northern style: Deira, maybe Bernicia. And the man I took it from, he has the look of the northmen. So, Nothelm the Blind, thegn of Lindsey, tell me this: why should the men of the north want you dead?”
Chapter 7
“Make way for the king! Make way for the king!”
The proclamation, grown increasingly hoarse as the day neared its end, sounded down the road of the emperors.
Riding behind the proclaimer, Penda felt some satisfaction at the news he had heard, just recently, that people were starting to call these ways that the emperors of old had made royal roads.
Foss Way and Icknield Way, Ermine Street and Watling Street: the four royal roads. And all of them ran through lands he ruled or held sway in, although the heart of his kingdom lay west of the Foss Way.
Now he rode along Watling Street. Penda grimaced as the column came to yet another halt. “Rode” was not the right word. “Crawled” better described the progress of the last two days. At this rate, it would be another two days to the estate at Shrewsbury.
“What is it now, Idmaer?” Penda gestured his steward over. Idmaer, face flushed with anger, rode back down the column to the king.
“Some stupid shepherd with more sheep than sense,” said the steward. “They’re scattered all over now, and he’s running around after them, scaring them the more.”
They were riding west, so it was easy to see how long until the sun set: at the moment, it hung four hands’ breadths above the horizon.
“Tell the shepherd to move his sheep or lose them. If we do not get moving soon, we shall have to make camp here; if we do, we shall eat mutton.”
Oswiu, King of Kings Page 8