The old priest crouched down by the stream. His finger moved over the water, so near the surface it seemed it must surely touch it, yet never breaking the liquid’s thin skin.
“When I was a priest, I sent many, many offerings to the gods.”
Wihtrun crouched down next to the old priest.
“Woden has blessed the High King; he has marked him, he has visited him in dreams. He calls him to bring our people back to the ways of our fathers; the All-Father calls us back to him. Coifi, Woden calls you back to him. Will you not answer?”
The finger that had hovered above the water slipped into the stream. The water divided around it, then flowed together again.
“Wyrd flows,” said Coifi. “It flows around us and through us and over us.” He lifted his finger from the stream and watched the drops of water fall back whence they came. “Would you have me make a dam?”
“I would have your help. I would have the old gods honoured, as they were in our fathers’ day. I would have the ways we brought with us over the whale road continue. I would smell the smoke of sacrifice rise from the sacred groves. I would have all things renewed, Coifi.”
At that last sentence, the old priest looked sharply at the man squatting beside him.
“As would I,” Coifi said.
“Then remember, should I call on you again, that you too wish all renewed, and that the king, the High King, would have it so as well. Remember, and all the honour due to you will be restored, and much more besides.” Wihtrun stood up.
Coifi looked up at him. “I – I will remember…”
The memory of their previous meeting played out in an instant in Wihtrun’s mind. Coifi’s sharp glance told him the old priest remembered too. But now he pulled his gaze back to the king.
Oswiu looked at him. “Give the message you were sent to give.”
“The message is this: the High King, Penda, king of Mercia, lord of the Magonsæte and the Tomsæte, will grant you mercy and the continued rule of this kingdom, should you pay him homage as High King and render him such tribute as is fitting for so great a king.”
Oswiu looked in silence at Wihtrun. The priest waited, feeling his skin begin to colour under the scrutiny. But still the king said nothing.
Finally, Oswiu spoke. “No more?”
Wihtrun shook his head, puzzled at what he heard. “Lord?”
“I said: is there no more to your message? You said no less when you came to me before, and now you come again with the same message and think me to make a different answer. Why? I am on this rock; you are below. You may not come against me here. So why should I give a different answer to before?”
Now it was the messenger’s turn to stare at the king.
“Have you not seen what we have lain before your stronghold? The timbers and roofs and thatch of every house from many miles around. Whole woods we have made your people fell and carry here. There has scarce been a drop of rain this past month. Should the High King deign to set fire to this pyre, it will send up such a flame that you will be burned from your stronghold, flushed out like a boar from the marshes. But the High King is merciful. Render him the homage that is his due and he will forgive your offence and turn his face from your insult. For you have caused the High King much hurt over the years. But he will forgo the vengeance that is his right if you will but swear to him and render him some small tribute in token of your pledge.”
Oswiu looked at the messenger. “What is this small tribute that the king of Mercia asks?”
“That you stop all attacks upon his friend Oswine, called the Godfriend, king of Deira, and on Oswine’s thegns and realm and people.”
“I have seen from my walls the banner of Deira flying among the ancient enemies of my people and I wonder: are not the men of Deira ashamed to camp alongside those who killed their king? But no matter. That is for Deira to decide. Is there any other tribute the king of Mercia asks of me?”
“As pledge and token of your good faith, and as promise of future peace between his kingdom and yours, he will marry his son Peada to your daughter Ahlflæd.” As he gave this final condition, Wihtrun looked to the young woman standing beside the king, and he saw the look of mingled disgust and horror that passed over her face before she regained control.
“Anything else?” asked Oswiu.
“No,” said Wihtrun. “That is all the High King asks of you.”
“Very well.” The king paused, as if absorbed in thought. While Oswiu’s gaze turned inwards, Wihtrun glanced at Coifi. The old priest still rocked upon his heels, but at Wihtrun’s glance their gazes met, and it seemed to Wihtrun that Coifi gave answer to his unspoken question. But with so many eyes upon him he could not long look at Coifi, and he turned his gaze back to the king.
“Give the king of Mercia this answer. He shall have nothing from me: not treasure, nor pledge, nor daughter. And tell him this also: if he lingers here, he will lose the other eye from his head. Now go.”
Before Wihtrun could make any answer, the warmaster pulled the cloth up over his eyes and, more roughly, led him back the way he had come, sending him forth from the gate, still blindfolded, by means of a foot pushed into the small of his back that sent him tumbling down the path. If it were not for the sand that had blown up in dunes around the stronghold, he might well have cracked his skull in the fall. As it was, Wihtrun lay winded and unmoving for some minutes where finally he came to rest.
Sitting up, the priest opened his eyes. His vision, blurred at first, slowly cleared. He was looking out over the long line of waves to the islands crouched low over the sea. And there, on the nearest island, he saw him again. The distant figure, standing on the edge of the low cliff, silhouetted against the sky. Surely, from that distance, the watching man could not see him? But he was certain that the man was looking at him.
Making again the sign against the evil eye, Wihtrun scrambled to his feet.
Time to give the king his answer.
*
“Burn it.”
Penda turned and looked at the great rock, with walls rising from the edge of its plateau, walls of stone but topped with wood. The rock, all but sheer, rose from the level coastal plain and his army swirled around its base as impotently as a wave. But Penda had, in the weeks he had been camped here, stood upon the beach and watched stones that had seemed immovable gradually washed away, as first the withdrawing waves sucked the sand from beneath them, then rocked them, forwards and backwards, until finally they were pulled free. Now he would do the same to this stronghold that Oswiu thought so impregnable.
Penda gave the signal. From the waiting lines of men, torchbearers ran forward, throwing their brands into the wax-soaked tinder stuffed into the bottom of the pyre. From the ramparts high above, arrows rained down to little effect. There were too many men, too few archers, to stop the fire taking hold. The defenders had had no more success when they had tried to stop Penda building the pyre in the first place: Penda had merely pushed the local people into the job of laying the timber in place while his own men remained safely out of bowshot.
Indeed, the best defence had come from the man who was camped alongside him, and whose pleas had persuaded Penda to go to war: Oswine.
Two nights before, the Godfriend had come to him in his tent…
“Oswine.” Penda sat up.
To the Godfriend’s eyes it had seemed the Mercian was sleeping, but Penda merely lay in silence, searching the darkness above his head for answer to the problem of bringing Oswiu down from his stronghold and into battle. Away from the talk of men, in dark silence, Penda thought, and pondered, and did not sleep.
“High King.” Oswine made the courtesy. The Godfriend stood at the entrance to the tent with his warmaster, Hunwald, beside him.
“I have never known a man come to seek me at such an hour, lest he wished to ask something of me, or there be bad news from some quarter. For what reason do you come to me, king of Deira?”
Oswine looked at the High King sitting upon the pile
d skins that made his bed. Penda had a way of pausing before he said “king”, which made it clear he was king by Penda’s sufferance.
“I have no war with the people of Bernicia. Yet you break their homes and spoil their crops, so that even when we leave, hunger will stalk this land. I would ask you to leave off the war you wage against the people here.”
Penda shook his head. “They are like weeds, these peasants. Cut one down and three will sprout in his place. If they were mine, I would husband them. However, they are not mine, but his. Let him come down and protect them. But then, what need has Oswiu to protect them when you seek to do so on his behalf?”
“I don’t seek to protect them, but to help us. To win this kingdom, it were better we made its people love us than hate us: to see that we shall protect them and ease their burdens, not use them as dogs and then throw them from the hall.”
“I am not here to win this kingdom,” said Penda. “I am here to destroy it.”
At these words, Oswine stared at the High King as if seeing him for the first time. “I will have no part of this.”
“You already have.”
“A man may push another under the river, but let him up before he has drowned.”
“Then that man is a fool. Are you a fool, Godfriend?”
Oswine continued to stare at the High King, a vein pulsing at his temple.
“A fool?” he said at last. “Only a fool would wait so long to ask what is done in his name. Yes, I am a fool, but one no longer.” Oswine turned to go. “Come, Hunwald,” he said. “I will be a fool no more.” The Godfriend walked from the tent. But before his warmaster followed, Hunwald looked to Penda. And though he spoke no word, by his face he told the story: this was no doing of his. Then he followed his king.
The men of Deira had ridden from the camp the next day.
Now, as a hundred fires bloomed in the base of the great pyre, Penda looked to his son.
“With Deira gone, there will be the more for us.”
Peada, the Red Hand, was looking at the conflagration taking hold in the base of the bone-dry pyre. Fire burned in his eyes too and he was breathing in short gasps; by the sound of him, his father might have expected him to be tupping some slave girl rather than watching a fire take hold. And such was the young man’s fascination with the fire that Penda had to repeat the comment to get him to hear.
“What?” Peada Red Hand turned uncertain, wandering eyes to his father. But even as he spoke, he looked back to the flames.
“Is it not time you went?”
Peada looked round again, his eyes stupid with fire lust, and only slowly did they clear.
“Oh, yes,” he said.
“Then you can claim the prize I promised you.”
“Ahlflæd.” The Red Hand’s eyes glazed again, but with a different lust. Then, snapping back into life, he set off, summoning the men he’d picked to join him. Penda watched him go, heading round the rock to where the rest of his men were waiting.
“Wihtrun, go with him.”
The priest, who had been standing, as was his wont, near the king, nodded and set off after Peada. He did not need to ask why Penda sent him after his son: he knew the High King expected him to observe and report.
With the fire rising, all the attention of the defenders would be on putting out fires in their defences. Already, tall streams of sparks and embers were flying upwards and, caught by the west wind they’d been waiting for, were being blown onto the wooden top level of the walls and over them, into the stronghold, there to set flame to the tinder-dry thatch and wattle-and-daub walls. When the defenders were completely taken up with fighting fires, then Peada would launch his attack on the gate, breaking it down with axes and storming into the stronghold, while sending some of the more agile men to scale the walls.
*
“What do the gods say?” The Red Hand turned to the priest standing beside him. “Will we have victory today?”
Wihtrun started at the question. He had been staring up at the stronghold. The path to the gate wound up the side of the rock, the gate itself being halfway up. But it was the halo of flames and smoke, rising above the rock, that had taken his eyes and his attention.
“What did you say?” the priest asked, dragging his sight away.
“Do the gods say we will have victory today?” Peada repeated.
“Yes,” said Wihtrun. “Yes, of course.”
The Red Hand looked at him, his already narrow eyes narrowing further. “I did not see you cast the runes.”
“There are other ways of telling the will of the gods,” said Wihtrun. “Ways of which you have no knowledge.”
“You’re sure?”
“Yes. I’m sure.” Wihtrun put all the reassurance he could into his answer and, satisfied, the Red Hand grunted and turned back to staring at the fire glow. With Peada’s gaze turned away, the priest relaxed. In truth, he had cast no runes for this day, nor sought guidance of the gods, for the High King had not asked for such tidings. Even if he had, Wihtrun knew well enough that when men waited to attack, the assurance of victory was what they needed to hear rather than doubts as to the meaning of thrown runes. Even if the runes had told, without doubt, of defeat, he would not have told Peada that – not now, when their course was set.
Looking up, he saw the yellow flare of new fires breaking out along the length of the ramparts above them. The defenders would be desperately trying to put out each fire before a new blaze had the chance to take hold, running from one to another with thick cloths to smother and slopping buckets of water to throw. There would barely be a man left on watch.
The Red Hand agreed. He gestured sharply to the men spread out around him to start moving. They rose from where they had been hiding in among the tussocks of marram grass and red fescue, and began scrambling upwards, converging on the gate.
But as the men climbed, Peada waited.
“Aren’t we going with them?” Wihtrun asked.
The Red Hand turned a wolf smile on him. “Of course. But I want my sword to drink blood, not hammer on wood. Let them breach the gate, then I will be through it. Besides, I must needs see the others have received my command.”
“What others?”
Peada pointed south with his gaze, down to the further end of the rock. “There,” he said. “They have. They are climbing.”
Turning, Wihtrun saw a small party of men scrambling up the side of the rock.
“If we cannot break the gate, at least we will hold their attention. Those are allies of my father, Britons from Gwynedd. They climb like goats. If we can but stop the defenders dropping rocks on them, they will get over the wall and in.” The Red Hand looked back to the gate. Already the foremost men had got there and, under cover of shields held aloft, were beginning to rain axe blows against the wood. From the ramparts above, only a few arrows flew, striking hedgehog spikes into the shields but getting through to wound only one or two men.
“But I think we will break the gate,” Peada said, and he turned his wolf grin again to the priest. “And then you will see why men call me Red Hand.”
“I have heard tales…” said Wihtrun.
“Tales are not the same as seeing with your own eyes.” Peada glanced back to the gate. Already, the wood was beginning to splinter and crack under the weight of the unceasing rhythm of axe blows, for his retainers had formed a roof over the axe men, their round shields overlapping like the feathers of a duck.
“Come, let us go up,” said the Red Hand. “The door will break soon; I would not miss its opening.” Without waiting, Peada started up the path towards the gate.
Wihtrun made to follow him, but as he put foot to path, he felt the weightless touch of sight. Someone was watching him. He stopped, with his foot barely touching the path, and turned, with all the care of a fox, to see whence the watching came. The priest scanned the narrow beach, but it was bare. The fishing boats that would have lain on it before, awaiting the tide to carry them out to the rich fishing waters around
the Farne Islands, were all gone, their hulls piled up on the far side of Bamburgh rock and feeding the flames.
His gaze went out to sea, skimming over the waves advancing on the land, but only ducks, grey and black, broke up the green and grey, bobbing atop the waves. Following the lure of the horizon, Wihtrun’s gaze was drawn outwards, over the sea, to the islands.
There. On the nearest island, on Inner Farne. There was a man there, standing upon the island’s cliffs, birds wheeling around him in a great choir, while the man looked upon the land and the doings of men there.
Wihtrun, with trembling hands, made to sketch the sign against the evil eye, but before he could complete the sign, his hands fell to shaking uncontrollably such that they could make no sign of warding at all. But if hands might not protect against the magic worked from afar, words might suffice. The priest began to pronounce a charm, a powerful protection against the workings of witches and the glamours of the ælf folk.
But the words turned to ash in his mouth. Wihtrun felt his tongue become so dry that it could no longer speak. He tried to call a warning to Peada, the Red Hand, but no sound came from his mouth. Using all his strength, Wihtrun turned his head, slowly, slowly, away from the sea.
The priest began to scramble upwards. In his urgency, he grabbed handfuls of marram grass, unmindful of the cuts the sharp blades of the grass made on his fingers. As he went, he felt the gaze of the man upon the island beating upon his back, but he would not turn and look at him. Wihtrun feared that if he did, he would never look away again.
But he was nearly there. He could see Peada waiting with the best of his men, ready for the call that the gate was down and the stronghold was lying open. Scrambling up the last few feet, the priest saw that the defenders were few indeed, for barely more than two score arrows stuck into the raised shields of the warriors defending the axe men, and only a handful of men had fallen. Even the fallen, at least those who still lived, urged their comrades on, yelling for each splintering axe cut.
Making his way to Peada, Wihtrun laid hold of his shoulder. “Lord, there is magic being worked against us, great magic,” he said.
Oswiu, King of Kings Page 31