“Where stand I, Father? Now you have got a son with the daughter of King Edwin. Is he more throne-worthy than I?”
“Ahlfrith.” Oswiu reached out a hand to his son, putting it on his shoulder, but the boy – the young man – gave no sign that it was there.
“I would know your answer, Father.”
“Ecgfrith is yet bare more than a babe. There is no question, should I die, who would be king after me.”
“That may be true now, Father. But what of the years to come, when my brother is grown to manhood? What then?”
“God alone knows that, Ahlfrith. We know not even if he will live to manhood, let alone what sort of man he will be. Do not fill your head with such thoughts, when such things may never come to pass.”
“You told me once, Father, that a king must be ready for whatever may come. I would be ready for what may come.”
“I told you that?” Oswiu saw the memory in his son’s face. “I see I did. And it is true. But it is not the whole truth. For now, I would be happy my son has returned to me, and returned to me a man. Will you not allow me this joy on our first meeting?” And the king held out his arms to his son.
Ahlfrith shook his head. “Father,” he said. But he allowed himself to be embraced, and he smiled at the cheer the men – his own and his father’s – put up as they watched, from a respectful distance, this first meeting after many years of king and ætheling. But as they embraced, he whispered to the king, “I would have answer, Father.”
For his part, Oswiu, while he struck Ahlfrith’s back – marvelling at the strength of muscle he felt beneath his hand – answered in whisper too. “But wait a little while, Ahlfrith, and I will give answer. For there will be land, and enough, for you to rule, and your brother too.” Oswiu pulled back from the embrace and held his son again. “I can feel the strength in you. Now,” the king smiled, “let me see it in earnest.” Oswiu gestured to the men he had brought with him, watching and waiting by the tents set up around the inn. “Think you they are too many for a welcome party?”
Ahlfrith looked, with sudden keen interest, at the watching men his father had brought, his gaze then shifting to the horses, grazing within a hawthorn fence.
“They are ready for war,” he said, turning back to his father. “Or… or a raid.”
“Yes,” said Oswiu. “Yes. I know you and your men have ridden far, but we will not be riding far from here, and I would have you join us – on your return, I would have you command us!”
“Where do we…” Ahlfrith stopped, as memory of where he was told him answer to his question before he could ask it. “Deira. Of course. I heard tell, at Penda’s court, of the raids you make into Deira, reaping a harvest of gold and silver from the thegns of King Oswine, until his messengers all but beg Penda to come to his aid.”
“Yes, Deira,” said Oswiu. “But we raid always, and only, the thegns who support the usurper on his throne, that they may come to know that their king has not the strength to protect them. Then, finally, they will give thought to my claim.”
“I heard the messengers Oswine sends to Penda. Though they clothe their pleading with gold, pleading it is. But I do not think Penda would want Oswine to lose the throne – and for sure not to an Iding.”
“In the end, Penda will have no say in the matter, for a king cannot be everywhere, and if Oswine has not the support of his thegns, he cannot long rule. Cut by cut, I am sawing away Oswine’s support. In the end, it must fail.”
“Judging by the poor tribute he sends to Penda, it has already weakened. And should he fall, then you will need someone to rule Deira in your name, won’t you, Father? For as you said, a king cannot be everywhere.”
“That is true. He would have to be someone the witan of Deira would accept – and I could trust.”
“I can think of one not far from here,” Ahlfrith smiled. “Tell me, whom do we raid? My men and I have spent too long hunting boar; it is time we hunted glory.”
“Oswine has a kinsman, a cousin: Trumhere by name. He has a hall in the north of Deira, but I’ve had word that he goes to the strand market at Whitby, along with most of the thegns of Deira, for the winds have been kind, and brought many merchants north across the narrow sea. A few old retainers, too weary to attempt the ride, remain to guard his hall. He will return to find it ash.”
“But if you have word of the whereabouts of Oswine, why do we not strike at him? This is a mean raid, with little glory.”
“Mayhap little glory, but there will be some gold and it serves us well. You are young, and you still think war is as the scops sing. Know this, son: war is more often raids like this, where the foe is an old retainer, so crippled by age he can bare lift a sword, and witless servants, throwing turds then running away when you turn an eye upon them. No songs in it, little glory: but they serve. They serve to keep the men trained; they serve to get gold and to give it; they serve to wear away a king’s fortune and give men licence to whisper on his luck.” Oswiu gestured over towards his waiting men. “Æthelwin, my warmaster, has spent the summer raiding deep into Deira, and I with him when it were possible to do so. Now, you will join us, ere we return to our own lands.”
Ahlfrith pointed towards the inn, its painted sign creaking as the wind blew it upon the bough that supported it. “I will join you, and right gladly, but I have heard from many a traveller of the beer they brew at the Perch Inn, and it has been a long and thirsty ride…”
Oswiu laughed, and clapped his son on the shoulder. “Of a surety we will drink first, drink to your return, and set off tomorrow – with light hearts but sore heads, I fancy.”
*
The smoke told them where to go. Æthelwin, riding ahead, saw it first – a thin morning column, rising into the still dawn air. A fire set to warm away the night chill, but piled with wood not left long enough to dry. The warmaster, seeing it, held up his hand and the three men around him, alert to his gesture, pulled their horses to a silent stop.
“There,” Æthelwin said, breath steaming from his mouth, and he pointed north-west, to where the trail, hoof marked from the passing of sheep going up from their winter pastures to the high moors, climbed up into the wold. The path wound into the trees and was soon lost to sight, but the smoke, rising from further into the wood, told its tale: the thegn’s hall was set there, sheltered and hidden by the trees, but betrayed by the carelessness of its stewards. The warmaster selected one of his men, and sent him back along the trail to take word to the king – and the king’s son. While the man rode off, Æthelwin led his remaining companions to the edge of the wold. Scraggly hawthorn and blackthorn marked its margins, the bushes trailing away down the slopes. The warmaster dismounted and hitched his horse to a may tree, making sure it was out of sight should any wandering servant be dispatched from the hall down the path. While Æthelwin awaited the king’s arrival, he sent his two companions on to scout closer to the hall. They were yet to return when the king arrived with his son and the raiding party. Seeing the riders coming up the trail, Æthelwin swung out from his cover – he had climbed into the crook of a twisted crab apple, the better to see and be concealed – and went to meet them.
“Lord.”
Oswiu reined back his horse and squinted down at the warmaster. “Æthelwin.” The king winced as he spoke. The early morning ride had not eased his head.
Æthelwin pointed to where the smoke column rose from out of its nest of trees. The king looked to where the warmaster pointed, but the brightness of the morning sun, slanting in from the east, sent sparks across his eyes and arrows through his head.
“I have sent two men to scout,” said Æthelwin. “They have not come back yet.”
“Why wait?” Ahlfrith rode up beside them. “Even if this thegn were here with all his men, he could not stand against us.”
Oswiu looked blearily at his son. The boy – the man – showed no sign of the night’s drinking, and was as clear eyed in the morn as he had been when they met the day before. For his part,
the king felt as if a dwarf was beating a hammer against his head, while another was attempting to scrape up his eyeballs and a third was digging over his tongue. Ah, youth. Ahlfrith was young, full of vigour and strength, while he was already more than thirty-five years old.
“Why wait, Father?” Ahlfrith repeated, looking at the king.
“We wait to give my head chance to stop ringing,” said Oswiu.
Ahlfrith laughed. “You enjoyed the beer last night?”
“Last night, yes; today, no.”
“Let me go on then, Father.” Before Oswiu could answer, Ahlfrith held up his hand. “I’ll take Æthelwin with me, to look after me.”
Oswiu began again to shake his head, but this time the warmaster spoke. “I can take Ahlfrith to scout further; then wait upon you before we attack.” Æthelwin looked up at the king. “Have you the head for this yet?”
“In truth, no.” Even those few words felt as if they were splitting Oswiu’s head apart. “Go, then, but wait on me before you do aught. Do you understand?”
Oswiu looked to his son as he made this reply, and it was received with the broadest of smiles.
“Of course I understand, Father,” said Ahlfrith, and already he was beginning to wheel his horse round towards the path into the wold.
“Your sister is waiting for you,” Oswiu called after his son. “She will be angry if you are reckless.”
Ahlfrith half turned in his saddle to look back. “I won’t be,” he said.
Oswiu sat upon his horse, head throbbing, watching his son, with the warmaster and a few men, disappear among the trees.
He held out his hand.
“Give me more of that beer,” he said. The keeper of the Perch Inn had filled their skins before they set out in the dark hour before dawn. Some said that only beer could heal what beer had wrought. Not having any other cure to hand – save time, and there was too little of that – he would try the beer.
*
“We should dismount here.” The warmaster signalled to Ahlfrith, and the young man pulled his horse to a stop. Leaving two of the men to watch the horses, Ahlfrith and Æthelwin took the remaining four with them along the path, ears and eyes alert, but swords yet sheathed, although hands stood ready to draw them. Unless the enemy was in sight, it were better to make this sort of stealthy approach with blades sheathed, for naked metal might ring on armour or spark on stone. Deep into the wold now, the trees were higher but further spaced, with less cover growing between the trunks, and that mostly holly and yew.
Ahlfrith signalled Æthelwin to his side.
“Where are your men? They should have come back by now.”
The warmaster nodded. “I will go ahead, off path.” He pointed off to the left.
Ahlfrith nodded. “I’ll go right.”
“You should stay here.”
Ahlfrith shook his head. “No. Leave two men here, to cover the path. I’ll take one with me, you the other. Work your way towards the hall, staying under cover. Call like a tawny owl when you’re in place: two calls, pause, then one. I’ll answer the same way.”
“I would wish you to return to the king,” said Æthelwin.
“Miss everything for my father’s hangover?” Ahlfrith grinned and shook his head. “I think not.”
The ætheling gestured Æthelwin on and, shaking his head, the warmaster did as he was commanded, disappearing, so far as the cover allowed, off the path to the left. Ahlfrith, with one of the men following silently behind, made his own way into the wold.
There had been rain recently and the leaf litter, which lay thickly piled up in the lee of fallen trees and in unexpected hollows, barely crackled beneath his tread. More dangerous were the twigs, buried under the decaying oak leaves, that cracked as his weight came upon them. After the second such crack had caused him to stiffen in sudden alarm, listening and looking for reaction, Ahlfrith had stopped and taken off his shoes, tying them into his belt. Now, as he went, he felt the ground with his feet, moving twigs and branches out of the way with his toes, while he searched for the next cover. The retainer, Gadd, following behind, was an older warrior, disinclined to stoop too low or to scurry too fast but, to Ahlfrith’s annoyance, he made not a sound, nor did he disturb so much as a leaf as he followed.
But while Gadd made no sound, the wold itself was filled with noise: birds, May-voiced, filled the wood with song, while the trees themselves all but creaked from the speed of their growing, sending up new branches to the light as they spread their fresh green leaves below the sky. The early chill was long gone, and plumes of sunlight spread out under the canopy, lighting the gloomy stands of holly and yew that skulked beneath the high branches of the oak.
Through the song, Ahlfrith heard movement, leaves shifting, scuffling over earth, and he held his hand out to Gadd, pointing whereaways the sound came. Gadd signed his hearing, and moved to circle round, but before he could get far, a pig emerged blinking from a thick stand of hazel, and stood, snout tracking right and left, as it looked for what it smelled.
A pig foraging in the wood meant they must be getting close to the thegn’s hall. Ahlfrith signalled Gadd on, keeping a chain apart. As such, they were close enough to come to the aid of the other, if needed, but far enough apart for one to see what might be concealed from the other.
There. Through the trees. A clearing and a suggestion of a building. The hall. Gadd signalled that he had seen it too. Together, but still a chain apart, they began to worm their way through the final stands of holly and yew, into the thicker clumps of may thorn and blackthorn and hazel that grew along the edge of the wold.
As another thorn pricked through his cloak, Ahlfrith thought, fleetingly, that at least with holly the pricks did not go deep. If he should step, bare footed, upon a may thorn it would be the work of a man to keep from crying out. For a moment he thought of stopping to put on his shoes. Ahlfrith shook his head. He was a man, blooded in hunt and raid. If he stood on a thorn, he would bear the pain without a cry.
Crouching low, then moving into a crawl, Ahlfrith wormed his way on, through the cover of the thorn bushes, until the space opened up before him. He peered through the clumps of coarse grass and thistle that matted the sunward side of the thorn bushes and saw the clearing, cut from the wold, that held at its heart the hall of Oswine’s thegn. The building itself stood at the centre of the clearing, high roofed but not so large – such a hall could hold no more than two score men, he thought. Around the hall were clustered a few small houses, round walled and low roofed. Outside one, willow frames were set for the drying and curing of meat, while a spinning wheel and many teasel heads stood outside another, alongside a pile of raw wool, ready for teasing out and spinning. It was what he had seen around many a hall, through Bernicia and during his time in Mercia.
But there was something here that he had not seen before. No people. No women sat outside the spinning house, gossiping while they pulled the teasel heads through the wool. There was no butcher skinning carcasses. There weren’t even any dogs skulking around. There was no one at all.
Ahlfrith looked to his right. Gadd signed that he was circling further round to see if there was anybody concealed and waiting. Signalling for him to go ahead, Ahlfrith started creeping left, keeping within the scraggly hedge of thorn and hazel. While he went, he listened for the owl’s screech that would tell him the warmaster had reached the edge of the clearing, but all he could hear was the chorus of birds singing.
But as he moved, the front of the hall came slowly into view. There were people there. Not many. Ahlfrith peered through the grass. Five. And two. Tied to the great pillars that supported the roof and, in this hall, were set outside the main body of the hall, under the eaves.
“Hey!”
The shout came to him, distinct but faint, over the clearing from the small group of people clustered at the front of the hall.
“Hey, I know you’re out there. We’ve got your men. If you want them to live, come out.”
Closer now, Ahl
frith could see that the people holding his father’s men were wielding bows, while one held a spear; there wasn’t a sword among them.
Farmers, servants, slaves, maybe, left to mind the hall while its lord was away. Though they had, by some chance, managed to capture the two men Æthelwin had sent out as scouts, they would be tasting fear right now, eyes searching left and right, not knowing how many others were out there in the wold, ready to emerge. The right thing, the sensible thing, would be to wait: to send word back to his father to bring up the rest of the men and ride them along the trail and into the clearing. Then, the spark of spear point and the rattle of harness, the sight of war shields hitched over shoulders, and swords ready to be unsheathed, would tell even the most faithful of servants and the bravest of slaves that this fight could not be won; better to let the men they had captured go, and hope in the mercy of the men waiting silently upon their horses. That would be the sensible thing to do.
Ahlfrith stood up.
He stepped out of the wold, holding his hands up, so all could see he was not carrying his sword, that it remained sheathed at his waist.
At the movement, the people at the hall started, some pointing wildly, while the two bowmen, who had arrows fletched, swung between pointing their arrows at him and keeping them trained upon the captives.
“They are my men,” Ahlfrith said, starting to walk, still with his hands in clear sight, towards the hall. “I would that you do not harm them.”
“Keep – keep back!”
The voice, Ahlfrith realized, was higher than he had first heard, and as he approached, he saw why. Standing out in front of the group was a boy of maybe twelve years, and the others, holding arrows and seaxes and the two men captive, were two more boys and, by the looks of them, two simpletons, older and bigger but with few wits.
Oswiu, King of Kings Page 23