Oswiu, King of Kings

by Edoardo Albert

  Aidan blinked away the tears that threatened to blind him. “I-I cannot do that. His soul, and the souls of all his people, have been placed in my charge. They are my sheep; I cannot abandon them to the wolves.”

  “I will stop you.”

  Aidan shook his head, and the smile upon his face was the saddest smile ever seen by any man there. “How will you stop me, lord and oldest friend? If you bind me, I will escape. If you exile me, I will return. If you kill me, there will be another.”

  Oswiu stared at Aidan, and the council held the silence between them as tight as the silence when two armies first catch sight of each other.

  “Get out,” said the king. “Go. Before my patience does.”

  “Yes,” said Aidan, “I will go. But I will not abandon you, my oldest friend.”

  “Go!”

  The bishop went from the great hall.

  Oswiu sat back upon the judgement seat, collapsing in upon himself as if the sinews binding muscle to bone were suddenly cut. The council spoke no word.

  “Leave me.”

  The words were quiet but, in the silence of the hall, all heard them. One by one, the counsellors left the great hall until, at the last, the king sat there with only the queen left beside him, for Acha and Æbbe had gone after Aidan, to speak with him before he left.

  Oswiu looked up from his silence and he saw Rhieienmelth waiting upon him. His smile, when it came, was a broken thing, the faintest ghost of that smile which had crossed his face when he first saw the princess of Rheged.

  “You stay,” he said. “But you can’t help me.” And he turned his face from the queen.

  After a while, the king heard her steps, soft over the rush matting that covered the floor of the great hall, as she too left. But only sight, not hearing, could have told him of the silent tears that rolled down the queen’s face, and the king’s eyes were turned away.

  Chapter 3

  “My lady, may I speak with you?”

  Acha looked up from the nodding doze that the motion of the wagon had induced in her. The royal household was heading south. After the council, the king had no stomach to stay longer in Melrose. The steward, having settled down for a month of relative calm, suddenly found that he had to arrange for the wagons and riders and horses and oxen to be made ready, and everything packed for the long, slow journey to Maelmin.

  The warmaster rode beside Acha’s wagon. She squinted up at Æthelwin, for the sun rode behind him in the sky and she could barely see him for its glare.

  “Yes. Yes, of course,” she said.

  “It would be better where others might not hear,” said Æthelwin, nodding to the wagon driver who, by the fixity of his gaze upon the plodding oxen, indicated all too clearly that he was listening to what the warmaster was saying. “If you will, I might drive this wagon for a while.”

  “No, no,” said Acha. “I have been too long sitting. I would use my feet, before they drop off. So, if you will walk, then walk with me.” Acha indicated to the wagon driver to stop, and he pulled the reluctant beasts to a halt. Shouts came from behind, but they ceased as soon as the following wagon saw Acha climb down from the driver’s board and, grimacing, step over the ruts dug into the track and onto the sward, cropped by the flocks of sheep the shepherds moved up into the hills for the summer grazing.

  The oxen, as unwilling to start again as they had been to stop, were being whipped and yelled at by the wagoner, but such was normal for the slow journey between the king’s estates. The warmaster dismounted his horse and tethered it to Acha’s wagon before following the king’s mother.

  Climbing a hillock that lay beside the path, Acha looked along the column. Some twenty wagons stretched into the distance, most pulled by oxen, although the lead couple of wagons had horses hitched to them. Before and after the wagons rode riders, spear tips glinting, thirty or so men ahead and a similar number forming the rearguard, while smaller groups picked out paths away from the main column, on either flank, acting as watch and guard. Children skipped among the riders, being told off to return to their mothers, but they no sooner retreated than they returned, playing games with horses and riders and the dogs that ran alongside the column. The queen’s wagon was in the centre of the column, but the cloths that served, in bad weather, to protect the queen and her ladies were drawn, although the day was fine. There was, Acha knew, ill will between Oswiu and Rhieienmelth, but it was not of the sort that she had borne towards her own husband, Æthelfrith. At the very marriage feast, he had killed her father, making her brother Edwin flee into exile. In the years of their marriage, she blessed the fact that he had called upon her only rarely, preferring slaves to warm his bed and body at night. Such was not an uncommon fate for the daughters of royal families. A wry smile tugged at her lips. They were called “peace weavers”, the human, fleshly binding to heal the wounds opened by wars between the thrones: in her experience, the peace weavers more often produced fresh warriors for battle than peace between the many royal houses of this land. But there had, once and for some years, been peace between her son and his wife; she resolved to speak with Rhieienmelth when the opportunity arose, to find what had caused this rift.

  Shading her eyes, Acha looked for the royal standard and saw it, borne by the second rider of the column. There was no wind, and the summer sun was warm. The banner hung limply from its pole, but in the bright sunlight it still glowed purple and gold. The king rode behind his banner, but he rode alone. In the dark mood that had come upon him since the council, few wished to approach him save when required.

  “The king is… preoccupied.”

  Acha looked round to see that Æthelwin, the warmaster, had joined her upon the hillock.

  “Yes, you could say that,” said Acha. She looked back to the column and the solitary rider near its head. “Or you could say that he broods because that which he desires will not come into his keeping.”

  “What does the king desire, my lady? You, as his mother, must know better than any other.”

  “He desires to escape the shadow of his brother, and to honour him. He wishes to outdo him, and to bless him. He wants… he wants all to love him as they did his brother.”

  The warmaster looked steadily at the upright woman standing beside him.

  “Do you, my lady?”

  Acha was silent for a long time, her gaze turned inwards. Then she turned to Æthelwin and her face was as blank as a mask.

  “You wished to speak to me alone.”

  “Yes, my lady.”

  “Then speak. We are alone.”

  “There may be another way to win the witan of Deira to the king’s side. I-I would not speak of this but for the fact that I have seen – all have seen – a division grow up between the king and the queen…”

  *

  Oswiu looked up. The flap to his tent was moving. He had said he did not want to be disturbed save in emergency. The journey had been tedious and interrupted by wagons losing wheels and horses going lame; they had not made half the distance hoped. As a result, they had camped by the side of the track, the harassed steward finding a space broad enough and level enough to take almost all of the wagons, while the lee of a hill – topped as so many were in this part of his kingdom by the tumbledown rock fortifications of the people who once lived here – provided some shelter from the wind. His tent pitched, the king had retired into it, telling the door warden, here reduced to tent guard, to put off any local people seeking judgement from the king in a dispute with neighbour or erstwhile friend. Hearing of the king’s arrival in a district, the inhabitants would rush to him, all seeking to arrive first, that they might be first to put the case against neighbour to the king’s judgement. Sometimes, it seemed to Oswiu, he did little else but hear how so-and-so’s sheep had grazed so-and-so’s barley, and then refused recompense. For an evening of freedom, he had told the door warden to drive such suitors away, but now, despite his command, the tent flap twitched.

  “Yes, what is it?” he asked, not bothering to s
it up from where he lay.

  “Have you no other greeting for your mother?”

  Oswiu sat up. “Mother. I greet you. What do you want?”

  “Can I not want to spend time with my son?”

  “You can.” Oswiu waved to the stool beside his bed. “And you can ask me that which you desire at the same time.”

  “Do I do that so often?”

  “Everyone does. It’s what a king is for.” He patted the stool. “Sit down.”

  Acha sat down upon the stool and smoothed her dress down over her knees. She did not meet Oswiu’s eyes and, with a sudden surprise, he realized that she was nervous. He had not known his mother – daughter and wife and mother to kings – ever to be nervous before, and he wondered in his soul what matter might cause such hesitation.

  “Speak,” he said, feeling her nerves himself, for his voice cracked slightly as he spoke.

  Acha glanced at her son, and as quickly her gaze skittered away. But then Oswiu saw her back straighten and her shoulders square: she had made her choice. She would speak.

  “I have learned that there may be another way to win the witan of Deira to your side. But it will require sacrifice. Are you prepared to make a sacrifice?”

  Oswiu looked at his mother. In his eyes, the bleak knowledge of his powerlessness to achieve what he wished flickered.

  “Yes,” he whispered.

  “Deira rejects you because it does not know you. You were a child, only four, when we fled into exile, but your brother was already twelve, and known to many of the thegns of Deira, and beloved of them. Then, when we returned and your brother won the throne, he set you to watching the northern marches. Dal Riada, the Gododdin, the kingdom of Strathclyde and the king of the Picts know you, but not the men of Deira.”

  “But my father was king there, as well as my brother.”

  “Your father took the throne in blood and in treachery.”

  “He was a great king. All feared him.”

  “Yes,” said Acha. “Yes, everyone did. And so they fear you, the Twister’s son.”

  “But through you, Mother, I have more claim to the throne than Oswine.”

  “Yes, but Oswine is known to them, and beloved. You are unknown, and feared.”

  Oswiu shook his head. “Do you not think I know all this? You told me there is a way. What is this way?”

  “Great is the reverence with which the men of Deira hold the memory of Edwin, their king.”

  “But his elder sons died, killed by Cadwallon and Penda, and tale came to us that his youngest son, Wuscfrea, died among the Franks when yet a boy. Edwin had no other sons.”

  “No. But he had a daughter.” As she said these words, Acha looked carefully at her son. She saw him catch their meaning. “She is now of marriageable age, and lives with the kin of her mother in the kingdom of Kent. As with her mother, she is Christian, following the way of the Franks which the men of Kent follow too, and though many have proposed marriage, none have been accepted, for her family will take no pagan to husband; no, nor any petty king or thegn, for she is the daughter of the High King and, through her mother, descendant of Clovis, king of the Franks.”

  “I have a wife.”

  Acha’s gaze did not leave her son. “Put her aside. Take Edwin’s daughter for wife. Then, surely, the witan of Deira will hear your cause.”

  “I-I cannot.” Oswiu’s face closed upon itself and he turned away from her. “It is against God’s wish. You heard what Aidan told Oswine when he asked to put aside his wife that he might produce a son.”

  “But what if Rhieienmelth wishes to lay aside her crown so that she may serve God more fully, in holy orders?”

  “Does she?” asked Oswiu.

  “She will,” said Acha.

  The king looked on his mother and saw there the woman who had faced down the king of Dal Riada when he would have thrown them from his hall. He thought of the fire of his wife, and it flowing over the implacability of his mother, and leaving not a mark in its passing, and he knew that her words held. But there was another thought, harder to shift, although on the surface more gentle. Oswiu shook his head. “Aidan will not hear of this.”

  “Love will open a door the law might close.” Acha met her son’s gaze. “Take your brother to Aidan. Oswald wished always to lay aside his sword and be a monk. Let this be so in death if not life.”

  The king stared at his mother in wonder.

  “You would give him away? You would give Oswald to the Holy Island?”

  “Yes,” said Acha.

  “Why?”

  “To answer a question I was asked earlier.”

  Oswiu shook his head. “I-I…”

  But before he could speak further, his mother put her hand on his. “Hush.” She stood up, smoothing her skirt and adjusting her headdress.

  Oswiu looked up at Acha. “You haven’t told me her name.”

  “Her name is Eanflæd.”

  The king nodded. “Very well. Eanflæd”

  But as Acha made to leave the tent, Oswiu stopped her once more. “How did you learn of this?”

  Acha looked back to her son. “Æthelwin told me.”

  Chapter 4

  The riders, strung out along the narrow path, sank deep into their cloaks against the cold wind blowing in from over the grey sea. As the path rose and fell, the sea itself came into view and disappeared again: grey and grim it seemed, in its present mood, foam flecked and sullen, like a man at the dog end of a feast, beer mad and searching for a fight. No boats would venture passage when the sea was in such temper and, at the column’s head, Æthelwin permitted himself a brief nod that he had chosen to bring his charges to Coldingham by land rather than taking what had seemed the easier sea route. The warmaster, though, was more landsman than most of his fellows, and always happier sat upon a saddle than a rowing bench; the king had given him leave to choose the way, and he had chosen to ride. It had been a wet journey and a miserable one, for man and beast, but at least it was one they would all survive.

  Æthelwin drew back his hood enough to see more clearly ahead. There, through the wind-torn gaps in the rain curtain, he saw the huddle of whitewashed huts, clustered around a central hall. To the landward side, a high earth rampart, dug by a king of the Gododdin, protected a hill upon the promontory from landward attack; the cliffs on its flanks prevented any attack from the sea. The local people called it Colud’s Fort, although none now remembered the Colud who had had it built.

  Riding closer, Æthelwin saw that the bank was faced with an equally deep ditch surmounted with holly and hawthorn, double rowed and twisted together to make a barrier impenetrable to any animal larger than a cat. It surrounded the buildings, with only a single gate allowing admission.

  The horses, as miserable as their riders, plodded onwards, but the smell of habitation – of baking and ordure and sweat and thatch – borne along by the tearing wind, pricked the animals’ noses, and their ears, laid flat against the wind, stood and turned to where they were going. Habitation meant rest, and food, and warmth, for them as much as for their riders.

  Pulling his animal’s head round, Æthelwin headed back down the column, to the five wagons that creaked at the centre of the riders, the rain pouring off the waxed cloths raised over them. The wagoners sat streaming water from their hoods and cloaks, but the warmaster paid no attention to them. Instead, he rode around to the rear of the centre wagon and pulled at the leather flap. Tied against the wind, it hardly moved, but within someone realized that the fingers tugging it were of flesh rather than air, and pulled the flap open.

  “Tell your mistress that we shall soon be arriving at her new home.”

  The face, looking out of the wagon gloom, nodded and disappeared within. The rider was on the point of turning back into the rain and wind once more when a second face appeared at the opening.

  “Æthelwin. Is there an end to this rain? I would not first appear here out of the back of a wagon, but riding, as a queen.”

  The
warmaster pulled his horse out from the protection of the wagon and looked ahead. The rain still blew in from the sea, and there was no sign of any break to cloud or sea, for there was no telling where they joined.

  “No,” said Æthelwin, pulling his relieved horse back into the shelter of the wagon. “There is no let up to the rain so far as I can see.”

  Rhieienmelth looked up at the warmaster. “I am, until I make oath to God, still queen, warmaster. Remember that.”

  Æthelwin looked down at the queen, and his eyes were flat. For a long, wind-torn moment there was silence between them. Then a slight, sardonic smile tugged at his lips, and he made an elaborate courtesy to Rhieienmelth.

  “Of course, O queen.”

  Rhieienmelth looked again at the warmaster. The very blankness of his eyes suggested thought beyond any she had ascribed to him before.

  “If that is all, O queen…” Æthelwin began to turn his horse away.

  “Wait.” Rhieienmelth called him back.

  The warmaster turned a face so empty of expression to her it was as if the rain had washed his face away. “Yes, O queen?”