The dog lying at Rhieienmelth’s feet grumbled its impatience, but she quietened it with a gesture.
“Yes, I think it will work,” she said, turning to Acca. “With such a throng, there will be many slavers.”
Acca pointed to the west. “If we wait a little, there will be reason for us to seek shelter amid the tents.” After so many days of clear skies, clouds were finally massing, building up in great towers upon the horizon.
“I for one will be glad to see the end of this parched summer,” said Rhieienmelth. “As will my dogs. Won’t you, boy?” She scratched round the ears of the dog nearest her feet, who licked her hand appreciatively. “It has been too hot for them.”
“For men as well as dogs,” said Acca. “But now the harvest month is upon us, surely the heat will ease?” He looked again to the west. “After sun, rain. And much of it, I should think.”
Rhieienmelth nodded, but her attention was back with the camp. “You know what you have to do?”
“Yes. If you are sure?”
“Yes.”
“Then I know.” The scop pointed to the dogs. “What of them?”
“They will know their way home.” Squatting down among the hounds, Rhieienmelth bade them farewell, then she stood up. “Come, let’s go.”
*
From within, the camp was even noisier and more chaotic than it appeared from afar. At its edges, women, and even children, were as numerous as men, but all appeared slatternly, slovenly creatures, who scattered whenever one of the great thegns came riding past, only to slowly flow back again.
“Make way, make way!” Acca cried, pushing some of the crush aside with one hand while holding the rope in his other. Rhieienmelth, hands bound together, eyes downcast, stumbled along behind him.
“Hey! What d’you want for that one?”
The shout was loud enough to rise through the general clamour, the squeal of animals being herded, terrified and unwilling, towards butchery, the screech of metal on metal as armourers ground swords and spears, and the calls of merchants selling wares and women selling themselves. Acca tried to ignore it, but the man who had shouted could not so easily be ignored when he heaved himself up from the stool in front of his tent and stood before them.
“Her,” he said. “What d’you want for her?”
Acca looked the man up and down and shook his head. “She’s not for the likes of you,” he said.
The man put his finger on Acca’s chest. “What d’you mean, the likes of me?”
For the camp followers, and not a few of the warriors, nothing filled the day so pleasurably as a fight. No sooner had the big man put his finger to Acca’s chest than they started gathering.
Acca had an audience.
Behind him, eyes still cast down, Rhieienmelth looked slantwise for any sign of one of the kings or thegns who might know them by sight. But they were still far away from the centre of the camp, where the banners of the kings were beginning to flutter in the building breeze. Everybody could feel the change in the air, and this added to the rising excitement of the crowd.
Acca looked down at the thick finger on his chest. Then he slowly, languidly even, looked up at the man behind it. “Are all your parts so… thick?” he inquired.
Rhieienmelth heard the change in his voice, saw the way the scop had slightly pushed one hip forward. It was all she could do to keep a straight face. The watching crowd had no such constraints.
“No!” yelled one woman. “Everything else about him is small – and I should know!”
The man looked round, searching for the source of the jibe, but no sooner had he looked one way than someone else started up, until he was surrounded by laughing, pointing people.
“Tell you what,” said Acca. “We’ll swap. You take her and I’ll take… you.”
Seeing the big man’s open-mouthed shock, the crowd laughed all the harder. Acca, apparently conscious of the audience for the first time, turned to them as if in surprise. “A big fellow like this would fetch a pretty price. You didn’t think I meant…” Acca looked affectedly shocked. “Surely not!”
Various retorts suggested that was exactly what the crowd had thought.
Acca shook his head as if in disbelief. “Let’s settle it, then. To demonstrate my manhood –” the scop turned towards the big man who still stood blocking his way – “I will wrestle you.”
“What? No.” The big man held up his hands. “No!”
“Oh, yes,” said Acca. “Naked.” He took a step towards him.
That was too much for the big man. He turned and ran, pushing his way through the laughing, cat-calling crowd.
The show over, the crowd began to disperse. Rhieienmelth, sidling closer, hissed at Acca, “Move on.”
When they had left that part of the camp behind, Rhieienmelth said softly, “I don’t think I’ve ever seen a slaver like you, Acca.”
Acca did not look round, but his gait, already expansive, grew even wider. He was, Rhieienmelth saw, enjoying himself hugely.
In truth, Acca was far from being the only slaver hanging on the edges of the camp. Many had already collected three or four captives, hobbling them together and parading them around the camp looking for those who would buy. The people taken, Rhieienmelth saw, were mostly farmers and peasants, those who had not had time or speed enough to escape the advancing army, or who had thought that it would simply wash past, taking some sheep or a pig, but leaving everything else alone. That was the normal way of things, but this army was different. Most of the slaves Rhieienmelth had known at Oswald’s court, and later at Oswiu’s, were free slaves, men and women, sometimes whole families, who had given themselves into servitude at times of famine, that they might have food from the king’s table, and live. Most would someday return to the village of their birth. But those people captured in war would be taken far away and few ever returned. The men and women and children, squatting hollow eyed and waiting, their legs tied together and their arms bound, knew this all too well.
The camp grew more crowded as they approached its centre. Some channels were kept open to allow men on horseback, messengers and the like, to ride quickly to the kings, but dogs and chickens and the occasional panicking sheep continually got in their way, as did the spreading tents. As Acca tripped over yet another rope, he cursed the way each tent, when left in place for more than a day, seemed to spread ever further outwards from its original pitch, taking over the space once left for people to make their way.
“Over there,” Rhieienmelth said, pointing. Acca peered past the closely packed tents and pavilions, with their banners beginning to play out as the breeze stiffened, to where she indicated. There, the banner of the boar streamed out beside a pavilion.
“There will be men who know us there,” whispered Rhieienmelth to Acca.
But the scop shook his head. “There are men there who know Acca the scop and Rhieienmelth the, er… Rhieienmelth the Fair. But even though they look upon us, they will not see us, for now I am Acca the slaver and you are that which I am selling.” The scop saw Rhieienmelth looking at him as he spoke. “That is, they will not see us so long as you bow your head and shuffle as one without hope.” He waited. “Yes, like that.”
Taking up the rope once more, Acca started towards the pavilion of the king of Deira. Rhieienmelth struggled to keep her head bowed, even as bored men yelled after her, asking Acca for her price. But Acca just smiled and shook his head, calling out as he went that such a one was worthy of a king’s bed.
Reaching a place where the tents, backing against each other, allowed somewhere to stop and talk without being seen, Acca tugged Rhieienmelth into the space.
“What now?” he whispered to her.
“Lead me to Œthelwald’s tent,” said Rhieienmelth. “If anyone asks where you are going, say you’re taking the king a gift from Penda.”
“Keep looking down,” said Acca. “And try to walk more humbly… You walk like a queen.”
Rhieienmelth looked at him.
Rhieienmelth nodded. She took a breath, then set herself, head down, feet low. “Let us go,” she said as dully as she could.
“That’s it,” said Acca.
“Go!”
Shaking his head, the scop pulled the rope. Emerging into the space that surrounded the king’s tent Acca gave the rope a sharp tug so that Rhieienmelth stumbled and nearly fell.
“Hey! What’s that?” The sentry, who had been looking west to the gathering clouds, turned to them at the sound of Rhieienmelth struggling to keep her feet.
“A present. For the king. From Penda.”
The sentry looked Rhieienmelth up and down. “I wish Penda sent me presents like that,” he said.
“Hands off,” said Acca. “She’s for the king only.”
The sentry held up his hands. “Don’t worry. You would not see me touching something the Hooded One gave. He’d know soon enough.”
Acca looked curiously at the sentry. “Do you think so?”
The sentry leaned closer to him. “They say he’s Woden, walking among us. That’s why he knows everything: because he sends out his ravens to look into men’s minds and hearts.”
“Have you seen these ravens?” asked Acca.
“Course I have,” said the sentry. He pointed into the sky, where dark flecks circled, riding the waves of the air.
“Seems to me that whenever I’ve seen an army on the move, I’ve seen ravens following it,” said Acca.
“Not like these ravens,” said the sentry. “These ones are his.”
Acca nodded. “If you say so. Now, you’d better let me pass, or the Hooded One will want to know why you delay his gift to the king.”
The sentry stood aside. “If there’s some left over when the king’s finished…”
Acca shook his head. “No. There will be nothing for you.”
Pulling the rope, Acca led Rhieienmelth into the pavilion.
It was not as dim inside as he had expected. Panels had been lifted in the sides of the pavilion to let the light and the freshening breeze in. Œthelwald was sitting with two of his counsellors, men Acca vaguely recognized as among the most powerful thegns in Deira, but he looked up when Acca entered.
As their eyes met, Acca put off the cloak of a slaver he had been wearing and became again the scop Œthelwald had known when he was a boy.
“Acca! What are you doing here?”
“I have brought someone who wishes to see you, lord.”
Acca stepped aside and Rhieienmelth entered.
Œthelwald stood up. “You have come to me,” he said, smiling. But then he saw the rope tied around her wrists, and his eyes darkened. “Why has Acca bound you?” As he spoke, his hand went to the sword at his waist.
But Rhieienmelth shook her head. “I am bound at my own will – so that we might pass, unmarked, through this camp and come to you. For I must needs speak with you, son of my heart.”
Œthelwald gestured to the thegns. “Go. I will call you when I would speak further on these matters.”
While the men left the pavilion, Acca untied Rhieienmelth. Unbound, Rhieienmelth turned to the scop.
“Leave us to speak in peace, Acca.”
Acca nodded. “When should I return?”
“Go not far. I will call you when I have finished.”
Once the scop had left, Rhieienmelth turned to Œthelwald. “I have come, hurrying south, to tell you that the counsel I gave was false counsel. Penda sent men to take me. It was only the arrival of the king – the man I advised you against – that saved me. If you would hear me again, I counsel you to find some pretext to withdraw from Penda’s service.”
But Œthelwald shook his head. “Though I rejoice to see you, it is not so straightforward a matter to withdraw from the service of a king, and certainly not when he is yet waging war.” Œthelwald looked searchingly at Rhieienmelth. “Are you certain the men he sent were meant to take you and not, rather, to bring you here, where you would be safe? As such, I rejoice that you have come to us anyway, for you will surely be better protected staying with me here than placing your trust in my uncle.”
Rhieienmelth shook her head. “I am certain. The men Penda sent killed two of the monks and one sister of the holy house when they would not say where Æbbe was. They would have killed me if my dogs had not protected me.”
“Ah, there you have the reason. I knew there must be one. Penda sought to take Æbbe. Such a hostage would be very valuable. You say my aunt was not at the holy house? Where was she then?”
“I thank all the saints that watch over us that she had gone to Ebchester…” Rhieienmelth stared at Œthelwald, for as she said the name a flicker of satisfaction passed over his face. “You – you would not tell Penda this, would you?”
“No, no. Of course not. But I am glad you have told me, for now I can ensure her protection.”
Rhieienmelth stared at Œthelwald. “I thought that when I told you what Penda had done, what manner of king he is, you would surely know what to do.”
“You do not understand what it is to be king. Sometimes I am not surprised that my uncle chose a new queen. I am sure Eanflæd, if she be as wise as men say, would understand why I must do what I am doing.”
“Paint it as you will, it remains what it is: treachery.”
“It is not treachery!” Œthelwald beat his fist into the palm of his hand. “Treachery is to betray your rightful lord and king. But I am the rightful king of Northumbria – not my uncle, nor any of his whelps, whether he sired them on you or his new queen. Only I am the son of Oswald. Only I should be king.”
Rhieienmelth stared at Œthelwald. “You may be his son, but you are not his match.”
“I shall overmatch him. Don’t you see? When Penda casts my uncle down, he will need to find a new king for Bernicia, someone he can trust, someone the people there will follow. Who better than the son of Oswald? At a stroke, I will have become king of Northumbria, something that my uncle has not achieved – no, not though he murdered, most foully, the previous king of Deira.”
“Do you truly think Penda will make you king in Oswiu’s place?”
“He has already promised the throne to me.”
“And you believe him?”
“More than I would believe my uncle!”
Rhieienmelth shook her head. “After your mother died bringing you to birth, your father asked me to care for you as one of my own. So I did.” She looked round. “Acca! We are going.” Turning back to Œthelwald she said, “I thank you. You have cleared the mist that clouded my eyes. Now I will return whence I came.”
But Œthelwald stepped towards her. “No, dear mother of my heart. It would not be safe for you to return to the holy house, not through a land ravaged by war. You must stay here, with me.”
Rhieienmelth, alarmed despite herself, stepped back. “Acca!” she called again. “Acca, where are you?”
“Here he is.”
Acca was sent sprawling upon the floor of the tent. Standing behind him was Penda.
Chapter 10
“He has Rhieienmelth.” Acca stood before Oswiu, Ahlfrith, Eanflæd and the king’s other counsellors, head downcast.
Oswiu nodded. He forced his face to remain without expression. “Very well.”
“Did you see aught of Coifi?” asked Eanflæd.
“No,” said Acca. “But I was not kept long after they discovered us.”
“Then why has it taken you so long to come to us?” asked Oswiu. “It is, by your own account, two weeks since you left Penda’s camp.”
“I could not find you,” said Acca. “I looked where you had been, but you were not there.” He pointed to the roof of the tent. Rain drummed upon it. Not the driving rain that had finally and completely broken the long summer of drought, but the persistent, soaking rain that had followed and had kept falling every day since. “The rain had washed away all tracks. It was no
easy task to find you.”
“Nor should it be,” said Oswiu. “But why should Penda release you?”
“He had a message he wanted me to deliver to you.” The scop put his hands behind his back and the slightly abstracted air of a messenger delivering a remembered message came over his face. “‘The High King sends this message to the king of the Bernicians. Gold shall buy the return of the mother of your eldest son and daughter: all your gold.’” Acca’s eyes came back into focus. “That is what he said.”
Oswiu turned to his counsellors. Since the breaking of the drought, living upon the hills had become bleak and cold. Oswiu’s people sloshed through channels of running water and the rain sheeted down the flanks of the animals. Though there was some dryness to be found within their tents, for they were thoroughly waxed, enough rain had fallen in the last few weeks for the ground to be sodden and the dampness to rise up into them, wherever they slept. Much of the food they carried with them had spoiled too, rendered inedible by the dampness that sprouted mould upon all but the most salted meat. As for the queen, her belly was swollen with the new life within it. The midwife said the baby must surely be born within the next week or two.
“It seems to me that we will not be able to endure a winter upon these hills. Not after the thirst of the summer and the wet of this autumn.” Oswiu turned to Ahlfrith. “What word have you had back from our thegns?”
“They have sent what they will. In most cases, it was more than I thought. Taken together, there is maybe two pounds of gold and four of silver.”
Oswiu nodded. “And the men have returned with the hoards we buried ourselves at the start of our long retreat?”
“Yes,” said Ahlfrith. “Four pounds of gold and eight of silver.”
“That is a good amount. It is enough to make some among the kings think it is all and to ask for their share before returning to their homes for the winter.” He turned to Acca. “As you know where to find Penda, I will send you back to him. Tell him that we have gathered all our gold and that we are willing to give it to him, that there might be peace between us.”
Oswiu, King of Kings Page 49