Peada nodded. “Y-yes, Father.”
“Good. Now run off.”
As the boy made his getaway, Penda turned to see Ahlflæd inching her way back towards the queen’s tents.
“But not you.”
Ahlflæd stopped.
“I would see this girl who beats the son of the king.”
She stood, still as stone, while Penda approached her, his face shadowed under his hood. The king slowly circled Ahlflæd as she remained standing, eyes staring straight ahead.
“Do I frighten you, Oswiu daughter?”
“N-no, lord,” Ahlflæd said, her eyes fixed ahead.
“Then you are brave. Most men, grown warriors, fear me, and more since my… accident. My priest gave word that it was sign of Woden’s favour: he sent his own raven to take my eye. Now, Woden marked, I have his blessing. Now, like him, I wander one eyed, and I wear a hood, like the Hooded One. That’s what my priest says.”
Penda leaned closer. Now Ahlflæd could feel his breath, warm against her cheek.
“But, it seems to me, Oswiu daughter, that too often the gifts of the gods are like this: hard to receive. I am a simple man: gold and glory are gifts enough for me. But my priest tells me Woden has blessed me. Ah, that we might only choose which blessings we receive from the gods.”
Penda circled round, so he stood in front of Ahlflæd, forcing her to look at him.
“Hey. Hey, it’s me you should be telling off, not her.”
It was Ahlfrith. Emerging from the tent, the boy marched over towards the king and his sister. And if his heart was quaking with fear, he gave no sign of it, but came and stood beside Ahlflæd.
“It was me Peada was chasing. Ahlflæd saved me from him. So it’s me you should be telling off.”
Penda looked down at the boy, and though his eye was in shadow, his mouth lengthened into a smile.
“Oswiu is blessed with two such children as you. Would that my own son had your courage –” and here he looked at Ahlfrith – “or your brains –” and here he looked to Ahlflæd. “Tell me, Oswiu daughter, when do you return? You came with your brother, but he remains with me these next five years. When do you go back to your father’s house?”
“At the month end, lord,” said Ahlflæd.
“Good. In the time left, see what else you can teach my son. And when you return, give my greetings to your father. Tell him…” Penda’s one black eye glittered, even though it was deep in the shadow of his hood. “Tell him I shall take payment for my eye when I will.”
“Yes, lord.”
“Very well. And, boy, should my son approach you again, tell me, not your sister. Peada shall learn to fight where I tell him, and nowhere else.”
“Y-yes, lord.”
“Good.” Penda stood upright, for he had been stooping while talking to the children.
“Lord.” The call came from the hall and Penda’s attention snapped to it.
The children watched him stride across the courtyard.
“I wish you didn’t have to go,” Ahlfrith said to his sister.
“I wish you could come with me,” said Ahlflæd, “but you must stay and be brave. Remember the mission Father gave us when he asked if we would come here: to be his eyes and ears, to learn whatever we can. I have to go back in a month, but you will be here for five years; think how much you can learn in that time.”
“But five years is such a long time. I’ll be grown up when I come back.”
“I will come to see you. Every half year, someone from home will come to you. I will come with them. And then you can tell me what you’ve learned.”
Ahlfrith shook his head. “I’m not as good at it as you are, Ahlflæd. All I’ve learned is that Peada hates me. You’re the one who found out about Oswine Godfriend sending gold here, with that thegn of his… what’s-his-name.”
“Hunwald,” said Ahlflæd quietly.
“And the promise he’s given Penda, that he can ride unhindered through Deira whenever he wishes. Me, all I’ve done is try to avoid getting beaten up by the king’s son and his friends.”
“But you heard the king: Peada will have to leave you alone now. You’ll be able to do what Daddy asked: find out stuff.”
“That’s all very well for you, but I’m no good at skulking round, listening in when people are talking. All I’m good at is fighting, and I couldn’t even do that. You had to save me.”
“Don’t be stupid, Ahlfrith. One of the marks of a king is knowing when not to fight. You’ve already learned that lesson.”
“Might not be a king at all, not now. By the time I get back, Daddy’ll have a new queen. If she has a son, I bet he’ll be king.”
Ahlflæd shrugged. “Maybe. But even if he is, he’ll need someone to rule with him: the kingdom’s too big for just one king. You’ll probably end up as king of Rheged or somewhere.”
“Ew!” said Ahlfrith. “Who’d want to be king of Rheged?”
“I liked Grandad,” said Ahlflæd. “He gave me lots of pretty things.”
“That’s because all the boys like you, even when they’re old.”
“I can’t help being pretty – and a princess.”
From the hall came the sharp blast of a horn: the call to eat. “Race you!” said Ahlflæd, and she was off, hitching her dress up to her thighs, running across the courtyard.
“Hey! Not fair…” began Ahlfrith, but then he shrugged. After all, his sister never played fair. Instead, he set off after her and, this time, he very nearly caught her.
Chapter 6
“Your hair. Why you cut your hair like that?”
The question had hung unspoken for three days, but now, in a boat making its way up the east coast, it could wait no longer. Romanus, priest of God and man of the Franks, turned to the man sitting on the bench board beside him and asked the question that had remained unspoken since they first met.
For his part, the monk Utta was filling his lungs with the sea air and settling his too-long landlocked limbs into the familiar motion of boat on water. He had grown up on the islands of Dal Riada: his first memory was bobbing in his mother’s arms and seeing a gull perched upon the lip of the curragh, grabbing for the fish in the bottom of the boat.
“Why do you shave your hair into a circle?” Utta returned question for question. Such had been the way with his teachers on Iona: question on question until he was driven to tearing the hair from his head in frustration. And then, sometimes, a glorious light would burst in his mind, showing all that he had been taught from a different angle, and suddenly everything would connect.
“It is sign of the Lord,” said Romanus, pointing to his head, “in our body. He wear crown of thorns. We wear crown of hair, God’s crown, not crown of man.” He looked pointedly at Utta’s shaven forehead and wind-streaming hair. “Why you not cut hair in crown?”
“We follow the example of the Blessed Colm Cille, who founded the holy house on Iona.”
“I hear of this Colm Cille. He is barbarian?”
“No!” said Utta. “He could speak, read and write Latin.”
“Ah, that is good. No barbarian. But you barbarian.”
“Non sum barbarus. I speak Latin, and read and write Latin too.”
“Ah, my friend, why didn’t you tell me this before, rather than forcing me to speak that barbarous tongue which makes me sound as if I have rocks in my mouth?”
“It is the language of the kingdom where we sail, the tongue of the Angles, but it is not my native language either. Have you heard aught of my language, the speech of the islands?”
“There are so many tongues on this one island, I do not know if I have heard yours.”
“There are many more islands than one here: I come from the other great land, the country of scholars and saints, which the emperors of old never conquered.”
“Did the emperors ever try to conquer your land?”
“Well, no,” admitted Utta.
Romanus nodded knowingly. “There are other lands also wh
ich the emperors did not conquer: desert and rock, of no account to man or beast.”
“There are no deserts in my home land, although there are many rocks.”
“You see? Of no account to man or beast.”
Utta shook his head. “It is the land of Patrick and Colm Cille, of the seven saints of Derry and the holy ones of Dingle. It may be of no account to man or beast, but it is dear to God.”
“Pah!” said Romanus. “Hedge priests and bog monks.”
“What did you say?” Utta’s white flesh began to flush red. His fingers began to clench.
From behind them, there came the sound of slow clapping.
The two men, sat knee to knee on the boat bench, turned to see a waxed cloth raised on wooden braces and held by ropes that made some small shelter from the wind and spray and, now, the first falling of another rain squall. Looking out from the shelter, her pale hands slowly clapping together, was a woman, with fur lining the cloak she had wrapped around her against the wind, the ermine as white as her hair, and a heavy gold brooch pinning the cloak shut.
“That went well,” said the woman, her Latin as fluent as that of the two men. “I had thought to leave you to talk, that you men of God might get to know each other, and already you are fighting like a pair of dogs fighting over a bitch.”
“My lady!” said Romanus.
“Queen Æthelburh,” said Utta, not so forward in his remonstrance – but then he had only met the queen a few days before, whereas the Frank had been her priest while she was in exile in the kingdom of the Franks, and had remained her priest when she returned from exile.
“So, I take it I am the bitch these two dogs are fighting over?” This second voice was light and young, as bright as water tumbling over stones, and its owner pushed forward beside Queen Æthelburh.
The queen slipped her daughter an exasperated glance. “Leave me to deal with this, Eanflæd,” she said.
“Of course, Mother,” the princess said mildly.
But just as the queen redirected her attention to the two priests, she piped up again. “Only, when I am married, you will return to Kent, but Romanus will stay, and Utta too. Mayhap I should speak to them now – while you can still correct me, of course.”
Queen Æthelburh glowered at her daughter, but the look told that she could think of no suitable reply, so the girl came further forward, stepping over the rowing bench until she stood, swaying with the boat’s movement, behind Romanus and Utta.
The two religious stared up at her. She smiled back at them.
“I like both your hair,” Princess Eanflæd said. “Romanus’s tonsure reminds me of the Lord’s Passion – and of the sweet breads they made in the court of King Dagobert. And Utta’s…”
But Eanflæd did not get the chance to tell them what Utta’s tonsure reminded her of, for as she was about to speak, the ship’s master hailed them.
“Ware,” he cried, pointing to larboard.
There, from the west. Storm clouds, suddenly thick and dark, save when they flashed with internal lightning. And as the master pointed, and they all looked, the first thunder rolled over the boat.
Queen Æthelburh blanched when she saw the storm.
“Get to land,” she yelled at the master, but he shook his head and pointed again. All trace of the land they had been following as they sailed north had vanished, swallowed into the storm cloud; to find safe harbour, they would have to sail through the storm, and already the sea was building up, the wind lashing the waves higher, the first rain stippling the water.
The master pushed Romanus and Utta back, out of the way and into the shelter, with the queen, the princess and their ladies, while he took over at the steering oar, calling orders to his oarsmen to furl the sail and then pull into the storm. The Frank and the Briton peered out from the shelter, with the two women looking between them, trying to see when the edge of the storm would strike. But when it came, it hit like a door slamming upon the boat.
In the sudden dark of the storm, Æthelburh turned a stricken face to her daughter and took her hand, although she could spare only one, as the other was needed to hold on to the side of the boat.
“I’m sorry,” she said to Eanflæd. “This is my fault. I thought a sea passage would be safer.”
“You had your adventure when you went north to marry,” said Eanflæd. Lightning lit her face. “This is mine.”
The queen tried to match her daughter’s smile, but it was forced. Æthelburh was old now and she had seen too many of the people she loved die to think that her love, of itself, might shield against death. Only the lord of storms might save them and, releasing her daughter’s hand, she turned to him now, telling her prayers upon her fingers and in the low breath of her heart.
The rain lashed into the boat. With visibility down to a square of rain-battered sea, the master had no choice but to hold the boat’s head to the wind and listen for the deep drum roar of waves on rock, that they might tell him if he strayed too close to land. The sail rattled and flapped in the wind, moaning its wish to be free of restraint. The master fought against the wind, pulling the steering oar as an oarsman might, trying to keep the prow pointing into the wind.
But he was failing.
“Utta!” Eanflæd grabbed the monk’s arm. He was a big man and she was slight, yet still she pulled him towards her. “You told me Bishop Aidan gave you tidings of this. Do what he bid you.”
“Yes, yes,” Utta muttered, reaching under his cloak to the pouch at his belt. “Here it is.” He held up a small flask. “Bishop Aidan said to empty it on the waves when the storm came.”
“I think it has come,” said Eanflæd.
“Yes, yes.” Utta made to go out from the shelter, but the heaving of the boat tipped him backwards.
“I’ll help you.” Eanflæd gave him one hand while grabbing the gunwale with the other.
Clutching the flask in his other hand, Utta made his way out from the stern shelter, with Eanflæd following.
Water broke over them, breathtaking in its chill, but she did not leave the monk’s side.
Utta struggled with the seal, but his hands, numb and thick with cold, fumbled off the wax.
“I can’t open it,” he said.
“Hold it tight.” Her fingers were smaller, the nails sharper, and though she could feel them little more than the monk could feel his, she could see what she was doing while he held the flask tight.
She peeled the wax off, and Utta pulled the stopper from the flask. The monk looked at her, and the girl nodded.
Crying a prayer that was torn from his lips before any sound of it could reach her ear, the monk leaned over the side of the boat and emptied the contents of the flask onto the water.
And the wind calmed.
The master, feeling the change, looked up and round. To the larboard the clouds ripped, and through the tears, the sun shone. At its touch, the waves eased, the foam-flecked crests settling back into long, easy ridges. The boat settled upon the surface. The squeal and squeak of flexing wood fell into the quiet talk of vessel to its master.
From within the dripping shelter, Eanflæd heard the voice of her mother, and mother now to the holy house at Lyminge, chanting in even low tones the Great Work of her house: the Divine Office.
The girl looked at the monk. Water dripped from his nose and ears. The monk looked at the girl. Her hair hung in rat’s tails down her face.
“It worked,” he said. He brushed the water from his nose.
“Yes,” she said.
“My lady Eanflæd, it worked.”
“Yes.” Eanflæd brushed the rat’s tails from her face. Then she turned and vomited over the side of the boat. Leaning over the side, heaving, she felt a hand upon her shoulder. Anger battled with nausea. She had gone so long. Now, when the storm was over, her body betrayed her, and in full view of all. She felt the touch on her shoulder as a reproach, and turned her face from it.
“You did well, daughter.”
Eanflæd tried to
nod, but it only made her body heave once more.
“I did not know of this flask given by Bishop Aidan,” said Æthelburh. “He must be a holy man indeed, if God shows him such favour.”
“He is, he is, my lady.” The voice, and the enthusiasm, was Utta’s.
“I look forward to meeting him, then.” Queen Æthelburh put her hand on Eanflæd’s shoulder. “Up, daughter.”
Wiping her mouth clean as best she could, Eanflæd turned back inboard. She saw the rowers sitting in exhausted relief upon their benches, water still streaming from their forearms and hands, but with scarce enough strength to do more than mutter brief thanks to the god of sailors. The ship boys, two young lads who together couldn’t have weighed much more than a good side of ham, were the only ones not stunned into immobility: they were still bailing frantically.
“Have you got any more of what was in that flask?” the master asked, as Utta and Eanflæd resumed their places. “I’ll buy it from you, whatever you ask.”
“I can sell you something better,” said Utta. “And it won’t cost you anything.” And, while Eanflæd rested, the monk turned to telling the master of the mysteries. But before he could speak much on them, the queen pointed to where the land opened broad into a yawning estuary that seemed as wide as the sea.
“There,” she said. “I know where we are.” Æthelburh looked to the master. “That is Humbermouth?”
The master nodded.
“Take us into Humbermouth.”
The master shook his head. Æthelburh might be a queen both spiritual and temporal, but here on this boat he was master, and he deferred to no one. “My orders are to take thee, and the lady princess, straight to the king at Bamburgh, not stopping nowhere on the way.”
“Your first orders are to get us to him, alive and undrowned.” The queen looked around at the exhausted men and the battered boat. “If another storm strikes, will we be able to ride it?”
“If we had more of what was in that flask, we could.” The master looked to Utta, but the monk held the flask up and turned it upside down. No drop of oil fell from it. He turned back to the queen. “Then, no. But in all my days I ain’t never seen a squall like that one.”
Oswiu, King of Kings Page 17