Oswiu, King of Kings

by Edoardo Albert

  “The god told me. In a dream last night. When did you know I knew?”

  “Early this day, when I rode with you.”

  “Then you hid it well. You are brave, Oswald brother. I will kill you quickly. But as you came in blindness, I will give your eyes to the god.”

  “I have come a long way to see my brother. I would look on Oswald, while I may.”

  “Look then, Nothelm the Blind, and tell me what you see.”

  Oswiu reached for the bandages wound around his head. His fingers found their end, and he began unwinding them, round and round and round, until they lay loose, looped over his shoulders, and only one final piece of cloth covered his eyes. Then he lowered that.

  Penda stood beside him, but he did not look to him.

  Oswiu stared at his brother.

  And in the torchlight, Oswald looked upon him.

  Then, slowly, Oswiu bent to that face he knew better than any other, and he kissed Oswald on the brow.

  “Ready, brother?” he whispered.

  And he heard answer in his heart.

  Oswiu turned his head. He looked upon Penda. And he smiled.

  “It’s a miracle!” he cried.

  He stood straight, turning half back towards the waiting men, and cried again, louder this time. “It’s a miracle. I can see!”

  Gasps of wonder spread among the watching men, and some began moving towards them, but Oswiu held up his hand. “Stop. Do not come closer. The power of the god still lies over me.” And Oswiu lifted his arms up and darkness fell from the tree, clad in black feathers, and alighted upon his shoulder.

  The raven, the slaughter bird. The black eyes of the Lord of the Slain.

  Further gasps and cries came from the watching men. Those who had moved closer stepped back again, in fear and awe. Only Oswiu’s own men edged closer, unseen by those watching the raven.

  The raven dipped its head and turned its black eyes on Penda.

  The king felt the cold sweat of remembered nightmares prick his skin. He could not take his eyes from the great black bird. The raven dipped its head again and cawed, its butcher’s bill clacking.

  “The power of the god calls to you, king of the Mercians.”

  Oswiu held his arm out and the raven began to walk down it, towards where Penda stood, transfixed and staring at the bird.

  “He calls to you; he calls you to him.”

  From among the waiting men, Wihtrun called out to his king and his god, “The Lord of the Slain honours the king!”

  But Penda did not hear the call. His eyes were fixed upon the bird. Oswiu held the raven out to him. It turned its head, one way then another, its black eyes upon him.

  “Take it,” whispered Oswiu. “The god would show you his favour.”

  Penda could hear the gasps and cries of his men. The slaughter bird had come down from Woden’s tree. It stood poised to place the god’s favour upon him. Though the bowel fear of dream held him, he must needs take the bird upon his arm and receive the god’s favour – even though it stepped from the arm of the man he was about to kill.

  A smile twitched Penda’s face.

  Then, after the Lord of the Slain had shown him his favour, he would give Woden a gift in turn: the man’s life.

  Penda held out his arm.

  Bran stepped onto it, his claws digging into the king’s flesh.

  Another great gasp went up from the watching men.

  The bird, its claws pricking, stepped up Penda’s arm. The king, seeing its glitter-black eye, pulled his head back and the bird stopped, clinging onto his upper arm. The memory of his dream came to him, sudden and overwhelming; of the raven approaching, stepping over corpses to where he lay buried among the dead.

  He must not blink.

  Penda stared at the slaughter bird. It turned its head, looking upon him first with one then the other glitter-black eye.

  He must not blink.

  The raven stared at him.

  Penda blinked.

  In the moment of blindness, the raven struck. With its butcher’s bill the slaughter bird plucked.

  “My eye!” Penda fell back, his hands clutching his face. The raven, prize in beak, took wing into the darkness of the great tree.

  As Penda knelt upon the ground, Oswiu pulled his brother’s head from the stake where it was set, and started running across the grove. Acca and Coifi, having inched closer while Penda’s men watched, pulled the arms from the nails that held them to the stakes, while Æthelwin, coming last, held sword against Penda’s men. But with Wihtrun crying out to sky and tree that the god had shown his favour to their king, the Mercians hovered between worship and pursuit, unsure what to do. Penda staggered back to his feet, the blood tracks dark upon his face, but he could barely see.

  “Back to the horses!” Oswiu cried.

  He went first, crashing through the grove, while behind them came the confused sounds of men unsure of what had happened to their king.

  Breaking from the grove, Oswiu saw Penda’s riders gathered uncertainly around his warmaster.

  “Attack!” Oswiu screamed. “The king’s under attack.”

  Ambush was ever a fear for riders at night. Here, in this lonely place, with the cover provided by trees and darkness, the fear was magnified, and became real with the sounds emerging from the darkness under the trees.

  Penda’s men rushed to protect him. Such was the confusion, and their haste, that they left no one to guard the horses.

  While Oswiu and Coifi gathered their own animals, Æthelwin and Acca set to the other animals, wielding seax and sword, cutting hamstrings and tethers, setting the beasts that they could not cripple to flight before running to their own mounts.

  “Now, let’s go!”

  But as his companions urged their animals into motion, Oswiu turned his own to face the grove and Woden’s tree. The first torches were beginning to emerge from the trees, but there were no horses left, and none of Penda’s men carried bows. He did not look to them. Instead, Oswiu looked to the grove and the single tree that grew at its centre, Woden’s tree.

  He gave the fist against the god, and he laughed, for life and joy and relief, and he made to turn his horse away.

  “Hold!”

  The voice rang from the trees, and Oswiu knew it.

  Penda stood there, supported by his men, his hand held to his ruined face.

  “I will kill you!” Penda screamed.

  And Oswiu laughed again.

  “Like you killed my brother? You’re more dead than he is.” He pulled his horse’s head around and set him racing down the hill, and he was followed by Penda’s curses, but they held no power over him.

  And above him, he heard the feather rattle and Bran’s call. Oswiu looked up. There, against the stars, blotting them out as it flew, he thought he saw the raven.

  “Thank you, Bran.”

  The slaughter bird coughed once, and again, its call receding. It was going.

  “Farewell.”

  The raven made no answer.

  Through the night and through the day that followed, Oswiu and his companions rode, the hooves of their beasts sparking on the emperors’ road, outrunning the news of their deeds, going faster than the men Penda set in pursuit, until they came to the Red Dragon. There, Coenred the innkeeper met them with joy at Oswiu’s sight, and with gladness sold them fresh animals, and with sorrow bade them farewell, all in the space of an hour, although he would have had them stay and tell their tales.

  But they did not rest. They rode on to the River Soar and, riding along it, hailed a boat pulling downriver, and bought passage.

  Then finally, sat on its benches, as the boat sailed into the broad channel of the Humber, they looked at each other, and the wonder of it all lit their faces.

  “We did it,” said Oswiu, taking each of his companions’ hands in turn. “By God, we did it.”

  PART 2

  Family

  Chapter 1

  “You did it. Thanks be to God, you did
it.” Acha held her son, planting his smiling features once more into her memory.

  “Don’t sound so surprised, Mother,” Oswiu laughed. “You’ll make me think it was even more desperate than I thought at the time.”

  “I prayed. I prayed so hard. Every day that you were away I knelt through all the hours of sun and most of darkness, asking God’s blessing for you and calling Oswald to fight for you in heaven as he ever did on this middle-earth. And he did.”

  “It can’t have been just you, Mother,” said Oswiu. “Such a feat – to snatch my brother from beneath Penda’s nose and to take his eye as well – must have taken the prayers of many, many people. Tell me –” and here Oswiu looked with sudden intent upon his mother – “who prayed for me?”

  “Your sister, of course. Æbbe spent near as many hours in prayer as I, and this despite her cares in the monastery you have given to her. Aidan, naturally, and his monks, although they knew nothing of why they prayed with such urgency for you at this time. The children. While you were away, the brothers finished work upon the new church here in Bamburgh, and Bishop Aidan made it holy for the mass. Your children prayed there often for your return.”

  Oswiu nodded. “And my wife?”

  Acha caught the sharpness of the words. “Not everyone is made for prayer, Oswiu. Rhieienmelth prayed for you too, in her own way.”

  “Where is she now? I had thought she would be here.”

  “Queen Rhieienmelth… chafes at being too long in one place. She grows restless. To ease her restlessness, she rode to the holy house at Coldingham with your sister, to attend to its business.”

  “It is not safe.” Oswiu shook his head. “I gave order that she should remain here while I was away. What if I had failed, and Penda had come upon you, like the wolf pack when it senses the shepherd is away?”

  “That is why she did not take the children.”

  Oswiu looked around, his glance taking in the great hall, already filling with people as news of the king’s return began to filter out to the surrounding settlements. “Where are they? I would see them.”

  “Children grow more restless even than queens. I gave leave for them to visit Aidan: they took boat to Lindisfarne two days past.” Acha smiled. “I think Aidan will be as glad to hear you have returned as they: Ahlflæd drives him to distraction.”

  “Send word to Aidan, Mother. Ask him to come with the children – I would take counsel from him.”

  “The boat sailed ere yours landed, my son. I knelt where I could see the sea, and though my eyes are old, they are patient. I saw your ship first.”

  Oswiu nodded. “Good. It must have been all the more difficult for Aidan, having to keep Ahlflæd and Œthelwald apart.”

  Acha pursed her lips. “No doubt it would have been. But Œthelwald is not with Ahlflæd and Ahlfrith. The queen took him with her when she went to Coldingham.”

  Oswiu stared at his mother. He made to ask why the queen did this, but Acha turned her eyes away; she looked to the sack that Oswiu had placed, reverently, upon the high table before speaking with his mother.

  “Is he there?” she asked, her voice dropping to a whisper.

  “Yes,” said Oswiu, his own voice growing quiet as well.

  Acha looked back to Oswiu. “Should…should I see him?”

  Oswiu nodded. “Yes,” he said. “But not here.” He took the sack from the table, lifting it carefully. “Come with me.”

  Leading his mother, Oswiu took Acha from the great hall. Some of his retainers made to follow, but Oswiu waved them away. He walked across the ward to where the new building, without roof when he had left on his long, secret journey south, now stood complete. Candlelight streamed from the open windows, their shutters pushed back, as the wind had died away with the setting of the sun, and the evening was yet mild. Through the window came the high, clear sound of voices chanting the work of the monks: calling down blessings upon this middle-earth, that all might flourish. But this being a church in the first and greatest stronghold of the Idings, blessings were called down, first and foremost, upon the king.

  Entering the church, Oswiu saw the three monks Aidan had left at Bamburgh to offer prayer kneeling before the altar. Hearing his entrance, the monks looked round from their chant and then, one by one, fell to silence. Standing, they made the courtesy to the king.

  “Leave us,” said Oswiu. “But first, close the shutters and then the door.”

  “Lord?” The first of the monks, a weather-beaten man of more than middle years, whose scars gave testimony to a life once lived more among swords and shields than prayer and chant, looked askance at the king.

  “I – I would show my mother something. It would be best if this were done where no other eye can see.”

  The monk made the courtesy. “Very well, lord.”

  As he and his two companions made their way around the church, closing the shutters, Oswiu could feel the impatience radiating from his mother – but also the trepidation.

  The monks closed the door behind them and the church became dark: only candles and tapers lit it now, throwing shifting shadows upon the rough walls.

  “Wh-where should we do this?” Acha asked, her voice even more breathlike in the quiet of the church.

  Oswiu looked around. The quiet was unnerving. He realized how very few places of silence there were for him, surrounded as he always was by people: retainers, servants, slaves, appellants. But the silence seemed to flow, in some way, from the sack he held in his hands. It was a sacred silence.

  Oswiu looked to the altar. “There,” he said.

  They walked up the nave, their feet making scarcely a sound upon the reed matting, until they reached the sanctuary.

  “Wait,” said Oswiu. He went on, to the altar. The table of sacrifice was draped in rich cloth, gold woven into purple. Oswiu placed the sack upon the altar, and then carefully untied the rope binding it and folded back the material.

  “Mother,” Oswiu said. “He is here. He is waiting for you.”

  Oswiu heard the quiet steps approaching. Then Acha stood there beside him.

  “Oswald,” she said. “My son.”

  The old queen stood dry eyed before her son. But her face was pale and her hands trembled. Acha, in memory, took out all the images of Oswald that she had fixed in her mind against the day – against this day, when she would see him without life. She saw him, in her mind, as a baby born and bawling; as a boy, walking and running and always listening to tales; as a youth, when they fled into exile, taking charge of his younger brother and sister; and as a man, when he came to her and said that he would lay aside his sword and enter, as a monk, the holy island of Iona. She remembered all these and more, for each time he had left her, she had fixed his face in her mind anew, all against this day.

  And now the day was here, and she was hollow with memories, and they were as nothing before the head of her boy, laid upon the altar.

  “W-would you leave me with him?”

  Her voice was scarce more than a whisper, but she could not have raised it higher, even if life itself demanded it.

  As Oswiu made to go, he saw his mother smooth the hair from the death wound at his brother’s temple. The sound his feet made on the rush matting as he walked down the nave was almost enough to mask the sound of his mother’s sobbing. Almost, but not quite.

  Closing the door to the church, Oswiu leaned against the wood, resting his forehead on the oak panel. It felt cool against his skin. He paused for a moment, gathering himself. It would not do for people to see him like this.

  “Daddy!” The cry echoed across the courtyard, swiftly followed by the crier. Ahlflæd was running towards him, her dress held up above her knees, to the outrage of the lady squawking behind her. With the freedom of movement that allowed, she was easily outpacing her scarlet-faced brother.

  Ahlflæd, from a good six-foot distance, launched herself at her father and made the jump with ease, such was the pace of her approach.

  “You’re back!” />
  “I’m back!”

  “She cheated!” Ahlfrith plucked at his father’s sleeve. “When the door warden told us you were back, she tripped me up just as I started running.”

  Freeing one arm, Oswiu ruffled his son’s hair. “Next time, lad, trip her first.”

  Ahlflæd, poking her head over her father’s arm, stuck her tongue out at her brother. “He’s so slow; he’ll never catch me.”

  “You…” Enraged, Ahlfrith made to leap at his sister, but Oswiu caught him up and pulled the two children together in a single embrace.

  “I’m back,” he said. And as the words sank in, he swung his children around, whirling in the courtyard of the great stronghold until they all sank in a dizzy, laughing heap onto the ground. As he lay in that heap, his children piled on top of him, with sky and rock and ramparts spinning around him, Oswiu repeated the simple, extraordinary truth.

  “I’m back!”

  *

  “Why didn’t you go with your mother?” Oswiu stood with his children upon the rampart of their stronghold. “Why didn’t you go with the queen?”

  Ahlflæd, of course, was the first to answer. She made a moue with her lips.

  “She took him with her. I told Mummy that if she took him with her, I wouldn’t come.”

  “But she has to look after your cousin,” said Oswiu. “We – I – promised we would.”

  “He’s horrid!” said Ahlfrith, clenching his fist. “If he wasn’t so much smaller than me, I’d hit him.” The boy looked up at his father hopefully. “Can I hit him, Daddy? Just a few times?”

  “No, you can’t,” said Oswiu.

  “Just once?”

  “No.”

  The boy, still not dissuaded from retribution, pointed at his sister. “What about Ahlflæd then? She can beat him up.”

  “And definitely not Ahlflæd.” Oswiu looked at his daughter, who was looking suspiciously innocent. “You haven’t?”

  “Only once. When he was really annoying.”

  “Ahlflæd.” Oswiu shook his head, but he did so in part to try to hide the smile that threatened to break through his control. “I should send you to Coldingham and have my sister look after you.”