In the shadow dark of twilight, as the night crawled over the day, the blood of the goat splashed darkly onto the stone. Colour had been sucked from the world. Only darkness remained.
The animal jerked towards its death, then lay still. Wihtrun, aching from its kicks and butts, slowly got to his feet and, pulling his wolf cloak tighter around his shoulders, lay the wolf’s head over his own. He was an animal with two heads now, man and wolf, and both smelled of the blood trickling down the stone.
Wihtrun, crouching, circled around the sky stone, eyes searching over the pitted surface as the night shadows grew, pooling out from the pits where shadow lingered through the day, spreading over the whole stone. He traced the movement of the dark with his finger, seeing how it felt its way towards the animal’s blood.
The sacrifice was accepted.
Wihtrun howled.
The wolf upon his head howled too, its empty eyes staring up at the night, its jaw snapping open.
Then silence.
The gods listened.
Wihtrun spoke. “Tell me. Tell me what I must do. Men turn away from the ways of our fathers. They turn from you. If you would have the sweet smell of sacrifice, if you would have the songs of scops and the praise of kings, then tell me what to do. The king’s own son, the Red Hand, turns from you and gives leave to the priests of this new god to pass among his people, pulling them under the water and turning them from the ways of our fathers. Even the High King lets these priests speak to his people, and some turn from you. Would you not have the fire bringing the rich fat to your tables? Would you not hear the scops sing your praises and tell your deeds? Have you turned your face from us? Why? What have we done?” Wihtrun’s voice trailed away.
“What have we done?” he said again. And the night, in its silence, gave him answer.
Wihtrun fell to his knees in front of the sky stone. He sat back upon his haunches and the starlight glittered upon his cheeks, shining from the tears that trailed down them.
Then, from behind the sky stone – or mayhap it stepped from the stone itself – a figure emerged, hooded and dark, with staff in hand and shadow face.
“L-lord?” Wihtrun stuttered. “Is it you?”
But the hooded figure gave no answer.
Wihtrun made obeisance, hiding his eyes lest they see that which mortal men should not see.
“Lord, I will bring your people back to your ways. I will hold them to the ways of our fathers. Give us only your aid upon the field of slaughter and we shall send you up such an offering of the slain that has not been known since the days of Icel himself. Then men will turn from this new god and send up the fat meat in sacrifice, and the sweet smoke shall fill your halls. Lord, scatter our enemies, strike down the god that would take men’s hearts from you, that they may know it is you who sends favour and victory in this middle-earth. Lord, help me. Lord. Lord?”
Wihtrun turned his head to listen, but he could hear no sound. He looked at the dark earth, not daring to turn his head, but he heard nothing more. Then, finally, when the rain long promised began to fall, he turned his head and looked towards the sky stone. There was no one there. Wihtrun went to where he had seen the hooded figure. He bent down and felt the damp ground with his fingers. There were marks there, the marks of feet, but he could not remember if he had already stepped this way when he had first come to the sacred grove. But he searched further over the ground and, by touch, found further marks that seemed to head along the river towards the hall.
“My king,” he whispered. “Beware.”
*
Penda woke. He stared up at the wooden beams above him. Of all the men who slept within his hall, he alone had a chamber to himself, separated by wooden screens and hangings from the hall itself. The rest of the men slept where they might, upon floor or bench or cloak. Only when a man had done great service did the king grant him rights to land and a hall of his own, on pain that he come when summoned. Then a man might take a wife and make children of his own. But in the king’s hall, the king could take wife and make children. Penda had made many such, some with Cynewisse, others with slave girls. But they all slept now. Penda made his way from his chamber, leaving a girl asleep there, into the hall. No one stirred. Even the dogs did not twitch in their sleep.
Then Penda heard the silence.
There was none of the soft hiss of breath that came from many men sleeping. The hall was silent, and it was the silence of death.
Penda bent down to the nearest man and touched him. But at his touch, the man rolled from the bench and lay upon the floor, his throat, and the great wound there, exposed.
Then Penda saw the dark stains upon floor and table and wall, and knew them for what they were, and he knew why there was no sound of breath in his hall.
But there was another sound. The sound of the door to the hall. The sound of it opening.
Penda looked towards the door and saw a figure there, hooded and cloaked. The figure stood with its back to the hall, for it was opening the door. Then, without backward look, the figure went out from the hall.
The figure stood outside the door. It did not turn to him as he approached, but it knew he came. Oh yes, it knew he was there.
Of their own will – or by the will of the hooded figure – Penda’s legs stopped, and he stood upon the threshold of his hall, neither within nor without.
The hooded figure pointed, and to Penda’s eyes it was as if his hall stood upon a high mountain, for it seemed all the realms of this middle-earth were laid out before him.
Then the hooded figure turned to him and, though he would not see, yet Penda could not turn his gaze away.
Reaching up, the hooded figure slowly drew back the hood that covered his head. The face that regarded him was his own.
The single eye stared at him.
Then the figure held out his hand. “I will have your eye,” he said, and the voice was Penda’s own.
And Penda felt his own hands rise to his face; he felt his own fingers push in behind eyelid and under socket and he began to scream…
The scream woke him. Penda, the High King, woke soaked in sweat but in his own bed, and the girl beside him stirred in her sleep and reached for him, but he pushed her away. He stared up at the ceiling. Through the horror of the dream, he remembered the sight of all the realms of this middle-earth laid out before him, as if in promise. And Penda, waking, dreamed.
*
Penda rolled the dice between his fingers. He felt them warm under his touch, for the dice were like living things. Holding them between thumb and fingers, he moved them round his hand, clicking them together.
The men before him could hear the clicking, but they did not know where it came from. As they stumbled over their embassy, it seemed as if every time the dice clicked, one or other of them would fall over their words or forget the next part of the message they had rehearsed.
For their part, the two men, thegns of the East Saxons, shifted under the king’s dark stare. Riding to Mercia, they had heard tales of how no man could long endure the king’s regard. They had scoffed at the tales, told in whispers at the inns where they stopped along the way, but now, standing in front of Penda, they learned in the discomfort of their hearts and the unease of their minds that it was true.
“So, you would kill your king.” Penda stared at the two shifting, uncomfortable thegns. For an hour or more the two men had circled round the idea, telling the High King of their troubles with Sigeberht, king of the East Saxons, of how the whispers against him in the witan grew, but in that time they had not said that which was in their hearts.
But Penda had seen what they desired and spoke it, an idea terrible and proud. “You would kill your king, because he forgives his enemies and overlooks those who insult him.” Penda, in one sentence, said what they had taken half the morning to speak. “A strange king, indeed, who accepts insults and does not kill his foes. But then, does Sigeberht not simply do that which he is enjoined to do by his new god – and yours? For i
f your king has left the ways of our fathers and adopted the new religion, then surely you have too?” Penda regarded the two thegns with his single eye. But what made them even more uncomfortable was the sense that he looked on them with both eyes, even though one was gone. “Well?”
The two thegns, brothers, shifted under that unwinking gaze. They exchanged glances, and the elder, Swithhelm, spoke.
“It is true, we have gone into the water and taken the salt. But that which the king does is madness. One thegn, an evil, low character, raided the king’s estate at Bradwell – where he has made a holy house – and took from there his cattle and also the gold and silver plate Sigeberht would have given to the monks of the holy house when he came again to Bradwell. But when the king rode after this thegn, and brought him into the field, the thegn sued for peace, saying he had raided in error, thinking the estate belonged to another. We were there, we knew this thegn lied – and so did the king. Yet Sigeberht forgave him, and embraced him, and let him go. This he does with all who wrong him, until all men laugh at us, saying the East Saxons, having a fool for a king, must be fools themselves. But when we speak to the king, telling him he must strike down his enemies, he tells us that if a man strike him on one cheek then he should offer that man the other to strike as well.” Swithhelm shook his head. “This is madness, lord – a madness of which the king will not be dissuaded.”
The thegn looked to his brother, who nodded for him to continue. “But if the king will not be dissuaded, then he must be removed. Will you aid us in that, lord?”
“And who shall take Sigeberht’s place on the throne, should he be… removed?” asked Penda.
“I will,” said Swithhelm. “And if, in striking, I am struck down, then my brother Swithfrith will rule.”
“To whom will you, as king of the East Saxons, offer allegiance?”
The two thegns made the courtesy to Penda. “To the High King.”
“Very well.” Penda sat back upon his judgement seat. “You may tell the witan of the East Saxons that you have my support. Go back, and do what you intend – and do it swiftly. For once you have struck down Sigeberht, then I will strike the throne that neighbours you, else Anna, king of the East Angles, would march against you.”
The thegns made the courtesy again. Penda held out his arm, a thick gold ring upon it. It was a ring of great cunning, made of strands of gold woven together to make running hares and hounds, and mustering the hares a hooded figure. Such was its beauty that any other king would have made sure that all might see the ring upon his forearm, but Penda kept it hidden. Only now, holding out his arm, did the sleeve slip back and the ring appear.
The two thegns approached the judgement seat and each put a hand to the ring.
Penda looked from one man to the other. He said nothing.
Then, throat cracking, first Swithhelm and then his brother swore oaths, binding themselves to that which they had declared – the killing of the king – and allegiance to Penda.
*
“Tell me, priest, the meaning of a dream.”
Penda rode with Wihtrun around the bounds of his estate at Repton. He had called the priest to him in the hall but, seeing the jostle of people seeking the king’s justice, he had taken the priest outside. Some of the petitioners had followed, trailing behind king and priest at a respectful distance, but others had remained in the hall, waiting by the judgement seat for the king’s return. Wihtrun, waiting on the reason for the summons, had walked with Penda across the compound to the stables. There, taking horse, the king had ordered a horse made ready for the priest as well, and the two men had ridden through the gate and begun to circle the long fence and ditch that marked out the king’s compound from the village beyond.
“For that is the task appointed to a priest: to see the workings of wyrd and make its ways clear to the king.”
Wihtrun pushed his horse closer to the king’s, so he could better hear Penda’s words. The wind had risen, and tattered clouds ran above the two riders, bearing tale of the hills that had torn the rain from their grasp, but the wind also grabbed at the king’s words, pulling them out of the priest’s hearing.
“If you tell me your dream, lord, I will interpret it,” said Wihtrun.
So Penda, the king, told the priest of how he woke, in dream, in his hall with all the men about him dead; of how the hooded man had called him from his hall and shown him all the kingdoms of the land laid out before him and then asked of him his eye. Penda told the priest of how he had given it.
The dream told, Penda drew back his hood so that he rode bare-headed. The wind ran through his hair, and Wihtrun saw that the age frost lay now upon his lord.
The king pulled up his horse and looked out over the land.
“All this I rule,” said Penda. “And beyond the bounds of my realm, other kings bow to me, for I am the king of kings, and they are beholden to me, save those who still think alliance with the Bernician the surer safeguard to their throne. And I have been content with that. But now, it seems to me this dream promised me something more: all the lands of this middle-earth were laid out before me as a table is laid out at feast. At the price of my eye.” Penda turned his black eye upon Wihtrun. “Riddle me this, priest. How may a blind man rule even the smallest kingdom, let alone all the lands of middle-earth? The price to pay makes the gift beyond receiving. Is this one of the Deceiver’s wiles: to give with the one hand while taking with the other? It is what I think. But you are priest, and tasked with telling the meaning of the gods. So tell me the meaning of this.”
Wihtrun nodded. “Very well, lord. I will give it thought and give answer when Woden has made his will clear to me.”
“Oh, no,” said Penda. “I will have answer now, or never. If Woden wishes me to act, then let him tell me clearly or not at all. If you cannot tell me the meaning of this dream ere we return to the hall, then the dream shall be as those other night phantoms: something to be dismissed by the sun’s rising. Do you understand?”
“Yes, lord.” Wihtrun looked back to the distant hall. “When shall we return?”
“You wish to know how long you have?” Penda pointed to a hillock, some two miles further, that commanded far views of the surrounding land. “We will ride there, for I would take a view of the land hereabouts, and then return. If Woden’s words are so twisted that you may not tease out their meaning in that time, then I would have none of them.” Penda glanced at Wihtrun and his black eye glittered. “Mayhap this new god speaks the more clearly to his people; mayhap he would speak clearly to me as well, for I am weary of the hints of the hooded one. If he would speak to me, let him speak plainly, as one king to another, not in dream riddles.”
“Do kings always speak plainly to each other?” asked Wihtrun, greatly daring, but so shaken by his lord’s hint that he might abjure the old gods that he spoke what was in his heart. “Such has not been my experience.”
Penda laughed. “Truly, it has not been mine either. Kings speak unto kings with all the truth of a farmer telling his harvest to my gatherers. But are the gods no more than men who know not death? I would that Woden be greater than that. So, tell me his meaning, priest. I have given you time and enough to search it out.”
With that, Penda urged his horse into a canter towards the distant hillock, the animal’s hooves beating a muffled rhythm upon the earth. Wihtrun, no great horseman, followed as he might, but in truth his mind was ever upon the king’s dream, turning it in search of its truth.
Penda drove his sweating animal up the side of the hillock, then pulled it to rest at its rounded top. A barrow, long and ridged, rose from the top of the hillock. Its mouth, dark and open, was turned to the east. Penda dismounted and walked to its entrance. The barrow breathed out darkness.
“Lord, stay!”
Turning, Penda saw Wihtrun dismounting from his horse and rushing towards him.
“Lord, this barrow is wraith haunted! Do not enter it.”
Penda nodded and stepped back. “Such it se
emed to me. But there is little danger in coming here on a clear day, for I would not cede, even to a wraith, such a prospect of my kingdom.” The king swept his hand around, taking in all the wide prospect laid out before them from atop this hillock. “From here, even a single rider may not hide from the clear-sighted. I wonder: is this how our middle-earth appears to the gods from their high hall?”
Wihtrun made to answer, but Penda signalled for silence. “It matters not. Tell me, Wihtrun, have you answer yet?”
The priest shook his head. “Lord, you said I would have until we returned to the hall to think on it.”
“There is no need.” Penda looked out over his realm. “I have seen that which Woden asks for myself.” The king turned to the priest. “The Receiver of Sacrifice asks sacrifice of me, that much is clear. But a blind king is no king. That also is clear. In taking my eye, in dream, Woden tells me that he will give all the lands of middle-earth to me in return for that which I most value. The Wealthy One would have my most precious treasure in sacrifice.”
Wihtrun nodded. “Yes, lord. I think you must be right. But what is your most precious treasure? You have many rich jewels, and gold, and buckles and arm rings most cunningly wrought.”
Penda shook his head. “No, it is not that sort of treasure that Woden asks of me.”
Wihtrun pointed to the king’s side. “A man may not be king without a sword – and that is the sword you took from Edwin. I have heard tell there is no finer blade in all the kingdoms. Is it that?”
Penda put his hand upon the pommel of the sword, but he did not draw it. “This sword sings when it drinks blood. I have heard its music. But no, this is not my greatest treasure.”
Wihtrun blanched. “Surely, lord, Woden does not ask your son of you in sacrifice?”
Penda gave a harsh laugh. “I would hardly call Peada my greatest treasure. Such a sacrifice is no sacrifice at all.”
Oswiu, King of Kings Page 41