“These priests – I do not think it matters which god they serve. They are all more concerned with how close they sit to the king at the high table than anything else.”
“Really? I could hardly ever persuade Aidan to sit at the high table with me,” said Oswiu.
Peada’s eyes suddenly focused on the king, and in that instant Oswiu knew what it must be like to stand opposite the Red Hand in the shieldwall. It would take a brave man not to flinch.
“Then, by his reluctance, did you not bring this Aidan to a place of even higher honour than before?”
“You did not know him,” said Oswiu. “He sought no such honour.”
But Peada shook his head. “All men seek advantage, whether it be in battle or bed.” He leered at the king. “Let us finish this, that I may the quicker take my wife to bed.”
Oswiu nodded. He could not help but glance to the door of the hall. His daughter waited without, to hear whether marriage terms were settled; whether this man before him would be her husband. He had seen her when he went into the hall, her face white and set, like that of a man about to go into battle for the first time, setting his courage against that which was to come. And he remembered Ahlflæd as a girl, forever racing her brother across the courtyard and alongside the wagons as the royal household made its slow way from one estate to another. Forever racing and forever winning, her tongue stuck out in triumph as her panting, angry brother followed her to the finish, then skipping out of the way as he tried to pull her down. He remembered her, a woman, standing on the wall at Bamburgh and calling all eyes upon her as she challenged the men fighting beneath her to stop. There were few like his daughter. She was as a horse from the morning of the world.
Oswiu looked across the table at the man before him. Could he really marry his daughter to the Red Hand?
He got up.
Peada looked up at him, eyes finally bleary with wine. “Where… where are you going?” he asked.
Oswiu pointed at the drained cups on the table. “What goes in must come out,” he said.
Peada nodded, then held his cup out to a slave. “It’s empty.”
While the servant refilled the cup, Oswiu hurried to the door.
“Let him through, door warden,” Peada yelled after Oswiu, “or your king will piss his trousers.”
As the door warden stood aside, attempting to hide a grin, Oswiu grabbed him. “Where is my daughter? Where is Princess Ahlflæd?”
The warden, startled from the joke, pointed north, to where the Wall ran across the ridgetops as they slid down towards the sea twelve miles to the east. “She took the path to the Wall, lord.”
“How long hence? You did not let her go forth alone, did you?”
“Not long, lord. Soon after you went into the hall to speak with the Red Hand. I would have sent men with her, but she would have none – the Princess Ahlflæd is a difficult one to shift, lord. I – I could have come in and told you. But I thought you would not wish to be disturbed while you spoke with the Red Hand. Did I do wrong?”
“Yes, but I have no blame for you. She is the least biddable child I have known, ever fixed upon doing her will. She would not change from it, not if all the people of this middle-earth bid her. You could only have stopped her by laying hands on her, and that you may not do.” Oswiu glanced back into the hall.
“Go in to the Red Hand. Tell him Oswiu, the king, must needs remain without a while longer, and when he asks why, let him know, without saying, that it is the wine that has told upon me, and that which was within has come out by the way it went in. He will be pleased with that. Then see that he is given to drink, to his fill and more. I will return as soon as I may.”
While the door warden went in with his message, Oswiu looked for sign of his daughter. He saw her, picking her way through grass and gorse and rock towards the Wall. The king shook his head. Even this close to a royal hall, it was still not wise for a woman to walk alone.
“Ahlflæd.” He called to her, and again. “Ahlflæd!”
She gave no sign of hearing, but began, by the steps cut into it, to climb upon the Wall. In some few places along its length, the Wall had broken, worn down by wind and frost and rain, or else by attacks from the people north of the Wall, when the emperor’s soldiers still manned it; but for most of its length it cut straight and intact across the land, as unyielding as a blood oath.
Oswiu saw his daughter standing upon it now, her back turned to him, looking to the north. The king did not call to her again. If she had not heard him the first time, he did not want to risk her hearing him the second time and making off along the broad path atop the Wall. Should Ahlflæd decide she would not speak with her father, it would be an easy matter for her to outpace him along the Wall.
Climbing the steps onto the walkway, the king at once felt the wind’s lash. Steadying himself, he marvelled at the ease with which Ahlflæd faced the wind, as if it were no more than a breeze.
“Ahlflæd.”
Now she heard him. She turned to her father. Her face was white and pale, like wind ice.
“I love the wind,” she said. “One day, such a wind will rise that it will blow all before it and leave everything scoured and clean, like the new tide.”
“I would speak with you,” said Oswiu.
“Speak, then,” said Ahlflæd. “I will hear.”
“It is very windy here.”
“The wind will bring your words to me.”
“Or blow them away.”
Ahlflæd smiled. “Mayhap. But then, if that be so, they were never destined for my ear.”
“I have made the terms. He agreed to all that I asked: you may have a priest, and gold, and ladies to serve. Is there aught else you wish?”
Ahlflæd made no answer, but stared into the wind.
Oswiu nodded and drew his cloak around his shoulders. He turned and looked south, down to the river, and east, towards the sea.
“Though it be my right, as father and as king, to find fit husband for you, Ahlflæd, yet I would tell you this: if it be not in your heart to marry Peada, then I will send him forth without you. For you are too precious for me to sell for my advantage and for the kingdom’s. Tell me but nay, and the Red Hand will not be joined to yours.”
Then Ahlflæd turned her face to her father. “Standing in the shieldwall, waiting for battle, were you to hear me say to you, ‘Tell me but nay and you may stand aside,’ would you? I know that you would not. It is the part of women in this middle-earth to weave together kingdoms in our bodies and on our beds, to requite war with desire, to make peace with the children we breed. That is our part, and I gave my word; I pledged myself to Peada. I would not have the world know me faithless, Father. If he has made terms, then I will go with him and be his bride, and keep his hand from being raised against you.” Ahlflæd turned back into the wind. Its cold fingers rubbed the tears from her eyes. “But it is hard.”
Oswiu stepped to his daughter and put his hand on her arm. “Know this: I will always receive you. Should there be cause for you someday to leave him, I will take you and I will keep you, even if all the armies of this land pursue you. Do you understand?”
Ahlflæd laid her hand upon her father’s. “Do not worry, Father. If you can stand in the shieldwall, I can marry.”
Oswiu looked into his daughter’s face. “I hope I have not failed you.”
Ahlflæd laughed, the sound as sudden and unexpected as thunder on a clear day. “How could you have failed me, when you have sought to bring about that which I gave oath to do? But tell me, Father: how did you bring Peada here? I am glad you did, for I feared that I would have to go to Mercia to marry him, having only my women with me.”
“Peada came here because he does this without his father’s knowledge or his consent. In marrying you, and in baptism, the Red Hand has pledged not to raise his hand against me – and that will strike deep into his father’s guts.” Oswiu joined his laughter to his daughter’s. “I would give much gold to be present when Penda hears that his son
is wed to you and allied to me. But Penda has raised his son high and made him strong: he is king to the Middle Angles now, and it would be a grave matter should Penda seek to bring his son to heel; such a war would tear Mercia apart. So, I judge, with this marriage we will have bought peace between us and him, for I do not think Penda would risk war with me while leaving his great halls unguarded, their bellies lying bare ready to be ripped open by the Red Hand. No, with you wed to the Red Hand, Penda will not go to war with us.”
“Then marriage to Peada will be worthwhile,” said Ahlflæd.
“Thank you, my daughter. I will return to the hall and finish the terms.” Oswiu turned to face the wind himself. “This will help. I made Peada think I went forth because the drink was too much for me. Let the wind blow just a while longer and I will look pale enough to pass as a man who has been throwing up.”
“Better you do as Aidan did, and stand in the sea in November.”
“As well it is not November!”
“As well you are not Aidan.” Ahlflæd kissed her father. “I will marry Peada, Father, for you and for the kingdom.”
“I know. But, you know, I would have married your mother even were she not a princess of Rheged. Æthelwin poisoned my mind against her, and then I had need of the alliance with Kent, else I would not have put her aside. But she was, for the most part, a good wife to me.”
“And you?”
Oswiu looked the question to Ahlflæd.
“Were you a good husband to her?”
The king gazed into memory. “Yes, I think so. For the most part.”
“Well, that is good to hear.”
Oswiu looked to his daughter, unsure whether she spoke true or forked, but she looked blandly back at him and gave no answer.
Finally she said, “It were best you go back, Father, and make my marriage come about. If it were done, it were best done quickly. I will be here, speaking with the wind.”
*
The Red Hand was baptized in the River Tyne. Abbot Finan had some of his monks dig into the bank, making a low shelf where he could sit up to his waist in water without being pulled downstream by the current. Then, with other monks roped together, standing as pillars out into the stream, Abbot Finan invited Peada, dressed in a white cloth, to step down into the river.
His men were gathered on the river’s edge. Oswiu, as sponsor, sat upon the judgement seat, itself brought down to the river for this day, and watched as the Red Hand stepped into the Tyne. His face tightened as the cold water bit, but Oswiu was impressed that he did not, even by so small a sign as a grimace, give sign of the water’s chill. The monks, of course, were used to it, using sea and river to numb the flesh and contest its mastery over the body.
Finan began to intone the words of baptism, the Latin phrases sounding clear over the water, while he put his hand to Peada’s forehead. Then – and it always came as a surprise to Oswiu, although he knew well what was to happen – Finan pushed Peada, setting hand to his forehead and driving him down, down, down under the water, and holding him there. He held him under water long enough for some of Peada’s men to stir and lay hands upon sword hilt.
Abbot Finan kept Peada under water for longer the second time. This time, some of his men stepped forward, while others began to slide their swords from their sheaths. But when the Red Hand came to the surface again, gasping but without hurt, they stepped back and slid swords back into sheaths.
Finan kept Peada under the water longest the third time.
Watching from the judgement seat, Oswiu began to lean forward to see what was going on. Through the water, he saw Peada’s face staring up at him, eyes open and wide. It seemed he pushed against the abbot’s hand, and though the Red Hand was a big man, with the strength that accompanied such a size, yet all the Mercian’s strength seemed of no account. Try as he might, Peada could not push Finan’s arm away and rise to the surface.
Then, finally, when Peada’s men were poised to draw sword and leap into the river, Finan pulled the Red Hand from the water.
Peada stood up, the river streaming from face and hair and body, coughing and gasping and, for a moment, unable to speak.
Then, when breath had returned to his body, he turned upon the abbot and said, “What was that all about?”
“You are clean now,” said Finan.
“I know I’m clean – you didn’t have to drown me to clean me.”
The abbot looked calmly at the man before him. “I think I did.”
The Red Hand slapped his hand onto the surface of the water, sending spray flying. “It is done.” He looked to his men. “Those of you who want to follow me, get in. But you’d better hold your breath!”
Most of the men, faithful to their lord, followed him into the river, although it was notable how none of them were held under water for as long as Peada had been.
As his men followed him, dripping, back up to the hall, Peada asked the abbot, “You can marry us now?”
The abbot shook his head. “There is the baptism feast. You have been washed clean in Christ’s blood, Peada, son of Penda. Now is the time to rejoice, to refrain from the flesh and to turn your eyes towards the eternal kingdom that awaits you.”
“I’ve been washed clean in the Tyne. It was cold and you nearly drowned me. I’ve done all that was asked of me. I want my wife. I want her now.” Peada stared ahead, to where Ahlflæd walked with her father. “I have waited long enough. I will not wait longer.”
Finan looked to the grim-faced man staring hungrily ahead of him. “I will see what the king says.”
*
The marriage feast had been long. Whenever one of the men called out to the high table that the groom should take his bride, Ahlflæd had called for a further song, or a new riddle, or for the horn to be refilled that she might, for this day taking the place of Queen Eanflæd, pass among the men and offer the horn to each one to drink his fill. By the end, Acca was reduced to signing to the steward that he had no more riddles to sing and then, in desperation, slashing a finger across his throat to show that his voice was going. More men slept than sang, and at the high table Peada, the Red Hand, rose to his feet and, though he swayed, he stood. Ahlflæd looked at the men around her, most with their heads laying upon the table. She looked at her own father, swaying in his seat, his eyes turned to her in bleary half smile, half sympathy. She looked to Eanflæd, the queen, who nodded to her. It was time. There was no more value in delay.
Ahlflæd held her hand out to the Red Hand.
Peada took it.
Those men still awake sent up a cheer.
Ahlflæd looked at her husband, at his eyes heavy with desire, at the hand that grabbed hers, and though she would have spoken, no words came to her.
“Are… are you ready?” It was Peada who spoke, and his voice was gentle, but Ahlflæd did not hear it.
“Yes,” she said, turning away towards the chamber that awaited their nuptials. “Let’s be finished with it.”
So she did not see the blank, animal hurt that passed over Peada’s face, as dumb and unspoken as a donkey belaboured by its master.
In the bed chamber, when they were alone and Ahlflæd stood before Peada, she turned her gaze away while he disrobed. Nor did she look to him as he uncovered her. Only then, when for a long time she stood before him without him touching her, did she look to him, and she saw him staring.
Peada had drunk many, many cups of wine and mead. His jaw hung slack, and his eyes were wide. It was wonder that he felt, and awe, at the knowledge that that which he needed was there, standing before him, and had come to him freely and of her own will.
But Ahlflæd, thinking him to stare witlessly, said, “Know you not what to do? I would this to be quick done with.”
Peada felt the wonder wither and in its place he felt the old red anger flare. As he stepped towards the woman who had become his wife and his queen he said, “Oh, I know what to do with you.”
Chapter 2
Wihtrun, priest of Woden, spi
rit walker among the dead, held the squirming, struggling goat down with his knee while he tried to open the animal’s throat to his knife. The animal, already panicked by the iron tang of blood that hung about the sacred grove, had begun to kick the moment Wihtrun had pulled it past the series of painted and carved poles that marked out that which belonged to the gods from the realm of men. It had taken all his strength, and cost him a number of bruises and scratches from the animal’s sharp little hooves, to wrestle it to the ground, but still it would not lie still.
The sweat pricked Wihtrun’s face, and his eyes as well, as he strained to pull the animal’s head back. The goat, feeling its throat being exposed, bleated its fear, but in doing so it relaxed its struggles just enough for Wihtrun to pin it down firmly and, with a swift, single draw, pull his knife across its throat.
The throat blood, the hot life blood, spurted from the goat’s neck, spraying over the sky stone, the dark, pitted lump of rock that had fallen from the upper heavens in the days of Wihtrun’s father as a gift from the gods to the men of this middle-earth. Wihtrun’s father had told him how, when it first came to middle-earth, it had been hot with sun fire, the whole rock glowing from within as if a great candle burned inside it. Only slowly had the candle dimmed and then gone out, but in the days of its burning, many sacrifices had been made upon the sky stone, the thrown blood sizzling upon the stone, some disappearing into its crevices, the rest twisting upon its surface as oil upon water. Many were the questions Wihtrun’s father had asked the sky stone in the days of its burning, and as many were answered, for it made clear the ways of wyrd and the weavings of the fate singers. But as the sky stone cooled, its answers grew more opaque, becoming as dense as the rock itself, embedded on a shallow rise above the river. Now, in Wihtrun’s days, the sky stone spoke rarely. But when it did speak, it told of great matters: of the fall of kingdoms and the death of kings; of battles beneath the earth and war in heaven.
Wihtrun had come to the grove as the afternoon drew down towards evening, leading the goat by its halter. He had left the king’s hall behind, further upriver, hidden by stands of willow and alder. For the priest would have words with the gods, and in particular with the Lord of Hosts, the Gallows’ God, and he would have the words alone.
Oswiu, King of Kings Page 40