“I’m standing in something squishy,” said Acca.
Coifi sniffed. “I think this might be where they slaughtered supper.”
“I wish you hadn’t said that,” said Acca, squishing.
“Some light.” Oswiu, with movements so practised he had no need of light, took flint and steel from his belt, and struck, once, twice, sparks, each as bright as stars, that caught the tinder and lit it.
“Eurgh,” said Acca, looking down at what his feet had been squelching in.
“Stop!” said Coifi. “Don’t move.”
Acca froze, staring at the old priest. “What?” he said.
Coifi held up his hand. “Wait,” he said. “Wait…”
“Yes?”
Coifi shook his head. “No. Nothing. Just wanted to keep you standing in sheep guts a while longer.”
“What? You…”
As Acca stepped out of the entrails and approached the grinning priest, Oswiu held up his hand.
“Enough,” he said. “We’re here to decide what to do. Æthelwin?”
From his position at the door, the warmaster answered. “Take our horses, ride now to Woden’s tree, find Oswald’s remains and escape.”
“Penda would find us gone. Do you not think he would send men after us? I would, in my kingdom. Do you think we can escape them and reach the tree first, Æthelwin?”
“If we go now, there is a good chance.”
Oswiu shook his head. “I doubt the wisdom of this plan.” The king turned to the scop. “Acca?”
“I leave such matters to you.”
“Coifi? What do you see?”
The priest shook his head. “I know not what I see, lord. Before your brother returned, I saw victory for Osric when there was only death. Then I saw death for Eanfrith when it was too late to thwart it. My sight is vain and my counsel weak.”
“You saw my brother’s death.”
Coifi stared at Oswiu. “Yes,” he said.
“Do you see mine?”
Coifi fell silent. He looked at the young king through the shifting play of light and shadow. “Yes.”
Oswiu nodded, slowly. “How do you see it?”
“B-before a great dark tree, hung with offerings to the gods.”
“Sounds like where we’re going.”
“I-I have not seen that place with my eyes, lord. I do not know if it be where we go.”
“There can’t be that many trees hung with offerings to the gods.” Closing his eyes, Oswiu thought aloud. “If we return now, I will have failed my brother and my mother. Mother said Oswald fights for us still. Mayhap he contends with the fate weavers too. Besides, we follow a different god now, and he is not tied by the weavers, as the old gods were.”
Oswiu opened his eyes, and the flickering light caught in them. “It seems to me we live in times when all is changing, and what our fathers took as solid and secure we can no longer trust. Mayhap the fate weavers no longer hold the lives of men in their loom. Mayhap we are free, although the gods be not.” Oswiu grinned, a fierce, wolf grin, his eyes going into shadow. “I threw the dice with Penda, and won. We shall throw the dice again: we ride with him to the tree. Then, when no cure comes to me, we shall venture to stay in its space, in hope of healing, waiting for the king to leave. When he has gone, then we can take my brother, and escape.” Oswiu’s grin grew broader. “I begin to enjoy this game of masks: though I speak to Penda face to face, he remembers me not from when I spoke to him before, standing at my brother’s side.” The king looked to his three companions. “Will you follow me, then? On this final throw? If Coifi sees truly, then I lead you to your death. I will not hold you to my side by pledge and oath, but only by love.”
In answer, Coifi took the king’s hand and kissed it, then knelt. Æthelwin likewise went down on his knee. Last of all, but not less willing, Acca put knee to ground.
Squelch.
“Oh, yuck.”
*
Penda lay amid corpses – corpses piled so thick upon him that he could not move, though he alone was living among the stinking, bloody dead. His eyes, which alone he could move, searched wildly, looking, looking.
He knew it was there.
And it was.
The slaughter bird.
Picking its way over the mountain of the slain, setting its black feet on face and leg and arm, head turning this way and that as it searched for something living amid the unmoving dead.
Something like an eye.
It was a dream. Even in the dream, Penda knew it, but still the fear loosened his bowels and he felt the stinking release as he tried to fix his eyes, to stop them moving, when everything in him tried to turn his gaze towards the approaching, searching raven.
He looked. He could not help himself. He looked.
The bird stopped. It turned its head one way, away, and then, slowly, it turned its head back again. Its great, heavy butcher’s beak clacked and its black eyes found his white, staring eyes, and the slaughter bird began to pick its way towards where he lay, buried among corpses, with only his single, staring eye free.
In some low, distant part of this dream world, Penda knew how it would all end: with him screaming to waking as the slaughter bird pecked his eye from his head.
But, this time, that was not how the dream ended.
A figure, cloaked and cowled, with a staff in his hand, appeared behind the raven. The man lived and moved, though Penda could not see his face for the shadows under his hood. And the raven stopped. The slaughter bird lowered its head and coughed, then took to wing, beating the air with long, slow beats. The hooded man, stepping on the bodies that lay beneath his feet, approached the mound where Penda lay buried.
As the figure approached, Penda began to hear, in the silence of this place of the dead, one crack and then another. Each time the hooded man took a step, it was accompanied by cracks. Then he realized what it was he heard. The breaking of dead men’s bones, as the hooded man walked over their bodies.
The relief he had felt when the slaughter bird took wing drained from him. Now the fear returned, greater than before.
The hooded man came to the mound of bodies where Penda lay.
“You see not that which is before you.” The hooded man stretched out his hand. “Let me help you.”
He reached for Penda’s eye.
*
Penda woke, screaming, reaching for his eye.
He looked around, sweating, but the face of the girl, eyes wide with terror, that he saw beside him told that he saw still.
“Lord?” She began to reach to him, but Penda pushed her off.
“Get away from me.” He looked around wildly. “Cynewisse? Cynewisse?”
The queen had not needed his call; she had woken with his scream and already rushed to the king. Pulling the slave girl from the bed, she took Penda in her arms, cradling him, rocking him, as the shudders of waking were slowly spent.
“The dream,” Cynewisse said. She did not have to ask. The king slept soundly, save only when the dream, always the same dream, took him.
But Penda shook his head. He pulled back from his wife.
“It was different. There was a man – I could not see his face. He told me I saw not that which is before me and he took my eye, and gave me his.” Penda withdrew from dream memory, and looked at the queen. “But I see now. Yes, I see clearly now.”
Chapter 10
“What hear you of these wonders?”
Coifi, riding in his usual daze of discomfort, started and almost fell from his horse. They had risen with the dawn and had been riding since sunrise – far too long for his aching thighs and rhythm-drowsed mind. The fording of the River Severn, which his animal had picked its way across with all the suspicion of a mother greeting a suitor for her daughter, had wet his feet and woken his mind, but the long ride since, along the decaying remains of the emperors’ road, had lulled him to quiet.
Grabbing his horse’s mane, he pulled himself upright, then looked to see who spoke t
o him.
It was Penda’s priest.
Coifi had seen him the previous night, sat at the high table, alone and away from the queen and her women, and the other men: a man set apart. Even without the cloak – a wolf pelt with the jaw sat upon the man’s head – Coifi would have known him as a priest: his eyes turned hither and thither, sometimes rolling like a newborn’s, sometimes darting like a bird’s. They were the eyes of a man searching, always searching, for the signs of wyrd. But though Coifi had seen him, he had not sought him out, despite Penda’s wish. Now the man came to him.
“I have heard much, and seen also,” said Coifi. “For one among us, the scop, was without voice, and now can speak – and will, without ceasing, if you give him chance. As to others, I have heard tell of a king’s messenger whose horse was healed after being struck by an ælf arrow, and of a girl, paralysed, who can now walk. What tales have you heard?”
“Those, and this: a Briton, riding where King Oswald fell, saw the grass greener and more lush than anywhere else and, thinking it must have a great power on account of the blood spilled there, he gathered some of the earth in a cloth and took it with him. When, that night, he took shelter with some householders in a village, they invited him to join their feast and he hung the cloth, with the soil, upon a post in the house. But amid the feasting, the fire in the centre of the room grew too fierce, and sparks from it flew up into the ceiling and set the thatch there to fire, forcing everyone to flee the house. The fire consumed everything, save the post upon which the Briton had hung the earth from Maserfield, which remained whole and untouched by the flames.” Wihtrun looked at Coifi. “I give you the story as it was given me. What think you of it? Whence comes this power?”
“I – I do not know,” said Coifi. “Men say there was power in the High King – I have heard tell that there is a prophecy that his right hand will not know decay – and mayhap this power brings such wonders about.”
“Oswald hangs before Woden’s tree; his head and his arms. The king has taken his body, and his flag, and carries it with him.”
“Oswald’s body is here?” Coifi asked, startled.
Wihtrun looked askance at him. “Do you expect the king to set the body upon a horse? No. It is with the wagons.”
“Yes. Yes, of course.”
“Men must think it is Woden’s power by which these wonders occur. Already, too many turn away from the ways of our fathers. Northumbria, Kent, the East Angles and the East Saxons: they turn their faces to this new god. All men know how Oswald defeated Cadwallon through the power of this new god, and many turned to him as a result. But now my king, Penda, has defeated him, surely they will see there is no victory, no power in this god? Yet still they come to where Oswald’s blood flowed, to where he hangs, and seek miracles of him – as you do. You must join me in telling this: it is by the blessing of the Lord of the Slain that this dead man does such deeds.”
“It would be better if such wonders were not, than that we try to make men believe they come through the Hanged One. He is not one to give favour to a horse – or to a Briton.”
“My king knows this well. We go to see what truth there be in these wonders. But he has told me that once we have seen for ourselves, then he will take Oswald’s head and arms and burn them, and scatter the ashes in the sea, that his power be gone from this place forever and his memory be lost in the waves.”
Coifi nodded, his throat suddenly tight. “That – that is well,” he said. He felt, scrabbling at the corners of sight and mind, the first scratchings of sight, the wyrd sight that fell upon him sometimes, without warning or cause; and he fought against it. Not here, not now; gathering what shreds of pride he had left: not in front of another priest.
“If he has such great power, let him save his remains from the flames,” said Wihtrun. He looked ahead as he spoke, his gaze exultant. “When men smell the sweet smell, they will know there is no power in this new god – this god who could not give victory to his favourite – and they will return to the old ways, the ways of our fathers; the ways that gave this land to us.” He turned to look at Coifi, riding beside him. “That will be a fine day.”
Coifi nodded, not trusting himself to speak. He felt the blood rushing through his head, and the closing in of sight; sweat, cold and sticky, pierced his skin, beading his forehead and pricking his back.
Wihtrun leaned over and grasped Coifi’s arm.
“Make pledge to me. When we have burned Oswald, you will take news of his burning, and the blessing of Woden, and tell all you meet, in Mercia and Lindsey, in all the kingdoms of this land. Make pledge.”
Coifi could not shake off the man’s grip, nor the growing grip of the wyrd sight.
“I – I pledge,” he said. And the wyrd sight broke upon him, in a single vision, and he saw a man, standing upon a field of blood, surrounded by the slain, making a cross upon his body and calling blessing upon the dead: he saw Oswald, at his ending. And as suddenly as it had come upon him, the wyrd sight left, leaving him limp but still upon the horse, and Wihtrun unknowing of what he had seen, for it was the sight of a moment, though it had seemed hours.
“I – I pledge to tell the power I find,” Coifi whispered. Satisfied, Wihtrun let him go, and rode on, while Coifi sat, spent and pale, upon his horse, and wondered.
*
The column of riders made good pace. Although here, in the marches between Mercia and Powys, there were few villagers to keep and repair the emperors’ road, yet most of it remained in good enough condition for horse and rider to proceed without fear of the unexpected hole that might pitch man from animal, or break a beast’s leg. Penda rode near the column’s head, with his son alongside him, bouncing upon a pony. Following in the middle of the column, Acca could still see the king and ætheling clearly, and he told Oswiu of what he saw: the boy, sitting proud beside his father, taking as his own the courtesy the advance riders made to the king on their return from scouting ahead, while the pony trotted hard to keep pace with the long-legged horse beside it. But when the little animal began to flag, Acca saw the ætheling turn at once to whip and kick, flailing with his heels and setting to the animal with leather to such effect that he drew wheals across the animal’s haunches. This Acca did not tell the king, for the day by then had drawn up to its noon, and the king swayed upon his horse, blind and bandaged: without sight, he sank into the walking rhythm and the scop took note of his waking rest, and left him to it.
Then Acca saw Penda mark the boy’s anger at his beast, and the cuff the king gave him, which made the boy all but fall from his mount. He saw the look the boy gave his father, the rage of it, and he saw well how Penda saw the boy’s anger and laughed at it.
“Go ride with your mother.”
The king’s command carried, even down the column to where Acca rode, and the boy turned his pony away and sent it careering down the side of the column, pulling reins so hard that blood flecked the bridle foam.
Æthelwin, seeing the boy ride past, nodded to him and said to Acca, “Men say that none so threatens a throne but those born from it. Seems King Penda knows this well, and would halter the ætheling before he runs free.”
Before Acca could reply, another rider made his way back along the column.
“The king would ride with Nothelm the Blind.”
Acca nudged Oswiu to full waking. “Penda wants to ride with you.”
But when Acca and Æthelwin made to accompany Oswiu, the messenger held up his hand.
“The king would ride with Nothelm the Blind alone.”
Then, taking the reins of Oswiu’s horse, the rider led him forward.
Acca looked the question to Æthelwin, but the warmaster shrugged. Here, in the middle of a column of Penda’s men, there was nothing they could do but wait.
“Nothelm the Blind.” Penda waited for Oswiu to settle his horse beside him, matching stride with the king. “As you have no sight, I would describe to you that which lies ahead, for we are approaching Woden’s tree, where I
gave the god the head and arms of Oswald, my enemy. Or would you rather we first went to where I slew him? Many wonders, they say, have been done there: mayhap your sight’s return would be another of them.”
Oswiu made the courtesy to the king. “I will go where you wish, lord.”
“Yes,” said Penda.
The king rode in silence for a while. Oswiu, blind behind his bandages, reached out with his other senses. He heard the crunch of hooves on gravel, the movement of harness, the call of birds, and the breath of their beasts. He smelled animals, and men, and the wind blowing fresh from the west into his face. But most of all he felt for the mood of the king beside him – and could not find it. He felt his skin prickle, and knew that he was watched, but knew well that he must give no sign of it.
“A king may not be blind.”
Although he had waited upon Penda speaking, when he did again, he surprised Oswiu.
“No, lord.”
“Mayhap a thegn may retain his hall without sight – as you have – but a king must see. He must be able to look men in the face – in the eye – to tell if they be true. What say you to that, Nothelm the Blind?”
“I say to that: would that I might see again.”
“Indeed. Then I might see you face to face, I might look you in the eye and see if you be true, Nothelm the Blind.”
“Do you wish me to remove these bandages now, lord, that you might see my eyes? I will, if that is your wish.” And Oswiu reached a hand to his bandaged head.
“No. No. Keep your eyes hid. Come, I will be your eyes until sight is restored to you. We ride the old road of the emperors that runs through my kingdom: east to the narrow sea, and west through these marches and on into the kingdoms of the Britons. Ahead, though you do not see, the land rises: I see lines of hills, and their cloud blankets. There are woods at the base of the hills, though none near this road, and fields, though the land here is hard and clinging, sticking to foot and to hoof and to plough. A man may drag a crop from this land to feed his family, but the earth will take his sweat now and his bones soon. I have heard the soil of Lindsey is rich and generous.”
Oswiu, King of Kings Page 11