“Ecgfrith, Dunstan, go back!” he yelled at them, but the wind, backing to the north, ripped the words away from his mouth and threw the sound south, so it never reached the ears of his son. But Dunstan understood and, unsure, came to a shuffling halt.
Feeling a presence, Oswiu whipped back round.
Penda was there, standing but a few feet from sword thrust.
“I did not think you would bring your son,” Penda said. He held his hand out towards Ecgfrith. “Are you brave, boy?” he called. “Will you bring peace between us?”
“I would rather kill you,” said Ecgfrith, standing now beside his father. “But I know Daddy wants peace.”
Slowly, Penda reached up and drew his hood back.
“Your brother lived with me when he was young, your half-brother. Are you as brave as he?”
“Braver!” said Ecgfrith.
“Then come with me. You will see such an army as you have never seen before. There will be peace between our kingdoms. And your daddy shall keep his throne.”
Ecgfrith looked up uncertainly to his father. “Daddy?”
“You… you ask hostage?” Oswiu asked Penda.
Penda looked up from the boy to the man. “Yes, I ask hostage,” he said.
“But you asked gold for peace, not a hostage.”
“Now I will have both. But in return you will have a surer peace.”
“If… if I agree, this shall be under the ancient custom? You pledge no harm to Ecgfrith so long as there is peace between us?”
“Of course. I would have the ancient customs restored – in this as in other things.”
Oswiu squatted down next to his son. “Would you do this thing, Ecgfrith? I ask you of your own will, not mine. Would you do this?”
Ecgfrith stared into his father’s face. “Do you think I’m brave, Daddy?”
“I know you are.”
“I-I don’t think I am, Daddy. Not really. But if I do this, then I’ll know I’m brave. Like you.”
Oswiu looked up again at Penda. “You swear this? You give oath?”
Penda put his hand to the trunk of the ash tree. “I give pledge upon this ash tree, the tree of the world that holds the high heavens and this middle-earth and the underworlds. I give pledge upon the fate weavers and the doom singers. I give pledge upon the Lord of Battles, the Master of the Slain. I give pledge in my name and in my hand and in the eye I gave and the eye I keep.” Penda’s black eye glittered. “Satisfied?”
*
Oswiu watched his son walk away. Penda walked beside him, his hood again covering his head. As they went further, receding behind the rain curtain, he saw Penda put his hand upon the boy’s shoulder, as a father might do to his son.
The horse carrying the gold and silver followed them, pacing along beneath the Wall. One of Penda’s men had come forward to claim it from where it was tethered to the ash tree. In all things save one, Penda had done what he had said. There had been no trap. He had kept his word.
But he had taken Oswiu’s son.
Chapter 12
“If you are going to keep me prisoner, at least tell me what is happening,” Rhieienmelth said to Œthelwald. She was riding upon a wagon. Or, rather, sitting upon it. The wagon itself was not going anywhere. Like most of the wagons that carried the supplies and the loot of the great army, it was stuck in mud. The despairing wagoners were attempting to cajole, kick and whip the oxen into motion, but the animals had given up, and were accepting the blows with the same resignation with which they accepted the rain. Seeing Œthelwald ride past, she had called to him and he had pulled his horse up so that he might speak. For Œthelwald saw fit to maintain the pretence that Rhieienmelth was there as his guest and of her own will.
Œthelwald gentled his horse. The unceasing rain had unsettled it, along with all the other animals, and left it prone to sudden frights and shies.
“We are going home. Back to our kingdoms. The High King has returned with a great treasure – greater than any of the kings have seen – and he has given it with open hands to all those faithful to him; and myself not least among them. He is faithful to those who serve him, Mother of my heart. Can you not see that?”
“I see that he brought a greater treasure than any gold back with him.”
“Yes.” Œthelwald shook his head. “You would have me trust a man who gives up his own son that he might buy a season longer upon his throne?”
Rhieienmelth shook her head. “Perhaps… perhaps you are right after all. I would see for myself that the boy is well. If that be the case, then I must needs agree that the High King keeps his pledge.”
“I cannot take you now to see him,” said Œthelwald, “for I am upon an errand the High King has set for me.”
“For the sake of all the saints, can you not let me go and see on my own? Where do you think I might go in all this mud? We cannot even escape the road; think you I could escape the army?”
Œthelwald looked ahead, indecision filling his eyes.
“I would that you know the truth of this, Mother of my heart, so I will give you leave to go find the boy. The High King has given him into the care of his wife, Cynewisse. You will find him with her.” Then Œthelwald turned his horse’s head back to the front of the army – where some movement still happened – and urged it into motion.
Rhieienmelth turned to the wagon driver, who served also as her jailer. “You heard what he said?”
The man, not given to speaking, grunted.
“And farewell to you too.”
Hitching her skirts up, Rhieienmelth climbed down from the wagon, searching for some firmer piece of ground that might take her weight. She did not find it. The mud sucked her foot down and she all but fell, just catching the wheel in time. The wagon driver looked down at her, but offered no help. She tried to pull her feet free, but the mud sucked her foot back.
“Here, take this.”
Rhieienmelth almost fell as she twisted round to see who spoke, but she just managed to grab the out-thrust staff and save herself.
“Coifi!”
The old priest smiled at her over the length of ash. “If you hold, I will pull.”
Digging his feet into the firmer ground beyond the track, Coifi pulled. With the staff to hold on to, Rhieienmelth managed to get first one foot then the other free.
“Coifi, I did not know you to be here.” Then, at the words’ meaning, Rhieienmelth stopped. “Why are you here?”
But Coifi took her hand. “Come with me,” he said.
Exhausted wagoners lay everywhere beside the track, so they had to go some way across the sodden turf until they reached the small shelter of a hawthorn copse.
Having looked to see that no one else, fed up with the lack of progress, had taken shelter in the copse, Coifi told Rhieienmelth how he came to be with the great army. She would have told her story, but Coifi shook his head.
“I know how you come to be here,” he said.
“How so?”
“Wihtrun told me. The High King’s priest. He… has told me other things too.” Coifi’s head jerked round as something scuttled through the leaf mould behind them.
Rhieienmelth put her hand to Coifi’s arm, calling him back to her.
“What things has this priest told you?”
“He wishes me to join him in renewing the old ways. He would have men worship the gods as they did in the days of our fathers, and not turn to the new god, the god of your fathers, Rhieienmelth. He thinks the gods have answered his prayers and accepted his sacrifice, for Penda has cast down Oswald and Edwin, Sigeberht and Anna. I thought that enough for him and I held my peace, for one thing I have learned in my years is that the fortunes of a king may change upon a single chance: the fortune that brought to Penda the kingship over other kings shall surely turn, as it turned for Æthelfrith and Edwin and Oswald before him. But I have learned that Wihtrun would do more to earn back the favour of the gods. For this is what he told me: ‘If we would have the gods’ favour return,
then we must offer them sacrifice; true sacrifice. That which we value above all things. And what do we value above even gold? Life. To regain the gods’ favour, we must offer them life in sacrifice.’” Coifi looked at Rhieienmelth. “Penda has in his hands the life Wihtrun would sacrifice.”
“Ecgfrith?”
“Yes. The boy. And, I think, you as well, and mayhap Œthelwald too. But the boy is the important one. Ætheling. Iding. Of the blood of Oswald and Edwin.”
“Will Penda agree to such a thing?”
“Once, I would have said no. But now?” Coifi’s eyes darted after a falling drop of water. He slapped himself back to attention. “Fool. Follow every raindrop in this season and you will only find more rain.” He jerked his head back to Rhieienmelth. “Wihtrun has long whispered that the High King is Woden, the Lord of Battles, walking among us. But now I fear that Penda himself starts to believe it.”
“How long before they do this?”
“I think he would not do such a deed in this kingdom, for the monks of the Holy Island have made it holy to the new god. A blood sacrifice on such ground would redound upon the one making it. But once they are back on home soil, where men still worship the old gods… I think Wihtrun will do it then.” Coifi shook his head. “He has asked me to help.”
“Surely you will not.”
“No. But there is little time left. You must get word to Oswiu. Tell him. And tell him this also…” Coifi leaned closer to Rhieienmelth, and whispered. “The High King always goes among his army hooded, such that few ever see his face. A man dressed in like fashion might get far, for few would bar the High King’s way, and fewer still would think another might pass himself off as Penda.”
“You think someone might get to Ecgfrith in such fashion?”
“If fortune favours him greatly, yes. The boy is being kept by the king’s wife and she is ever close to Penda. There is great danger there.”
“But there is a chance.”
“A chance, yes.” Coifi looked out from the cover of the trees. It looked as if the great army was finally moving again. “But only if you can get word to Oswiu.”
“How may I escape? It is true, Œthelwald gave me leave to seek after Ecgfrith and see that he is well, but I will not be able to wander alone for long.”
“I will make a diversion for you,” said Coifi. “This evening, when we stop, when you see great confusion near to the king’s tent, that is the time to go.”
“What will you do?” asked Rhieienmelth.
Coifi smiled. “Aidan told me what to do.”
*
“Enough!”
Coifi, raven-feather cloak wrapped around his shoulders, bone rattle in his hand (although the bones in this rattle, to the watching eye, might have seemed strangely white and smooth, as if they had only lately been strung together), stood in the wide space that always seemed to open up around the king’s tent when the army pitched camp for the night. While all the others, be they kings, thegns or common fighting men, crowded together, tent pitched close to tent and men sleeping side by side, a rough circle was always left around Penda’s tent in which no other pavilion intruded – and certainly no one slept on the ground there. But now, Coifi stood in that broad though muddy space and, raising his hands up to the clouds, railed against the rain that continued to fall from them.
“Enough!” he cried again. As he shouted, tremors passed through his body in waves. “Thunor, god of thunder, I tell thee: enough! Rein in thy spite! Swallow thy pride!”
As Coifi continued to call against Thunor, men, then women and children, gathered slowly at first, but then more quickly as word spread, to see and hear what was going on outside the tent of the High King.
“Thunor, god of thunder, lord of the skies, we have seen enough of your face. You have washed this middle-earth with your tears, but cry no more, lest you wash the world away.”
Coifi twitched, looking aside as rain traced wyrd, and the flap to the king’s tent opened. The king, hooded and shadowed, stood in the shadows there but did not move or speak. His black eye glittered as he watched Coifi.
The fate weavings told Coifi a crowd had gathered. Time to make the diversion.
“Men, the All-Father has not abandoned this middle-earth!” Coifi turned from the clouds to the men gathered round. “He is here, walking among us!”
At these words, proclaimed so all might hear, a whisper passed through the watching, gathering crowd. Many had spoken quietly of such matters, but not until now had anyone said it openly before so many. And as the whispers passed through the crowd, many eyes turned to the opening of the tent, where the High King stood in shadows, watching and listening.
“Thunor, sky lord, if this be blessing upon us for the All-Father’s presence, then we have been blessed enough!”
The trembles that had been passing through Coifi’s body were growing more marked and intense. He was shaking, all of him was shaking, as he spoke.
“Thunor, Earth Shaker, if this be anger for taking the All-Father from you, know that he came to us; we did not call him.”
Suddenly, Coifi fell upon his hands and knees and swung his head from left to right, looking now at the people close clustered around him.
“No, for we had forsaken the ways of our fathers and left the worship of the All-Father. Oath-sworn, we forsook our pledge, and turned our backs upon the Father of Men. But Woden is ever merciful to his children – he comes among us, as one of us, to win us back to our old ways, to turn our feet to the paths of our fathers.”
Coifi squatted back upon his heels, heedless of the mud that squelched around his calves. He pointed, with bone rattle and hand, to the high heaven and then to the High King’s tent, where Penda stood, hooded and listening.
“Thunor, sky god, hear me! Stay your blessing, take away your clouds, for I tell you, the All-Father has not abandoned you. He is here; he is the High King. He is Penda!”
And as Coifi spoke, a light shone from the sky and cast brightness upon him. The crowd gasped, and many pointed, for the clouds that had not lifted this past month had finally split, and through the gap the sun, low in the west, shone, and its light fell upon Coifi as he kneeled in the mud before the tent of the High King and proclaimed him Woden incarnate, walking among men.
A great cry went up from the crowd, and some men wept, while others began to chant the name of their king and some to sing the name of their god, so that the two became entwined and rose as one sound into the washed-clean air.
“Penda! Woden! Penda! Woden!” The names alternated, swelling and rising, as all the men of the army gathered around the king’s tent, taking up the call and acclaiming him.
And the king, the High King, lord of the Mercians, master of the Magonsæte, made no sound, but came forth from his tent, and the sun shone upon him, although with his back to the west it did not raise the shadow beneath his hood, and he accepted, by his silence, the judgement of his people: in the flesh of their king, the All-Father walked among men.
Victory was certain. With the Lord of Battles as their lord, victory would always be certain.
*
“What’s happening?”
The boy put his eye to the gap in the tent. He could hear the chanting and shouting outside; he had seen the crowd gather and the way Coifi had collapsed, spent and shaking, upon the muddy ground as the sun appeared; he had tried to see past the king, but he had been in the way, standing in the entrance to the tent, so he had pushed apart some of the stitching in a worn seam so that he might see out.
Now, he turned back to the woman and the other man, the only other people in the tent.
“What’s happening?” he asked again. “Why are they all shouting outside? Is something wrong?”
But the woman shook her head. The man, for his part, barely heard the boy. He was gazing out at Penda with an expression of rapture.
“What’s happening then?” the boy insisted.
“Don’t worry, Ecgfrith,” said Cynewisse. “The men are ac
claiming the king, my husband, as Woden, walking among us.”
“They’re saying he’s a god?” asked Ecgfrith.
“Yes, they are,” said Cynewisse.
“Is he?” asked Ecgfrith. “Is he a god?”
Cynewisse looked past the boy, out of the tent, to the hooded figure of her husband. She had known him so long. But, it was true, there had been something different about him in these last few months, something deeper… something darker.
“I – I do not know,” she said. “Mayhap.”
But then the man, hearing her words, turned to the queen and the boy.
Wihtrun’s eyes were shining. “He is a god,” he said. “Make no mistake; he is a god indeed.”
Chapter 13
She knew the screams as soon as she heard them. A woman in labour sounds like nothing else in this middle-earth – and she had screamed like that herself. Twice.
Oswiu and his household had come down from the hills.
As the great army had moved south, carrying the spoils of the summer’s campaign and then, finally, the king’s own son, the bedraggled, dispirited household of the king of the Bernicians had trailed down the steep paths from the hills. The queen, her belly straining with child, was carried down the hillsides, but despite the jolting, still the baby did not come.
Only when she came to some sort of rest, at one of the king’s smaller estates in the shadow of the Simonside Hills, did her waters break. But the labour was long, and the midwife began to fear for the life of the queen and the child.
It had been a long, hard road to find the king. Rhieienmelth had made her escape when Coifi, in the sight of the whole army, proclaimed Penda to be Woden. She had slipped from the camp, leading a stolen horse, and then she had ridden north. But the rains of the past month had swollen all the rivers, making any crossing at the very least difficult and sometimes impossible. Moreover, she was a woman riding alone. Most of the time, Rhieienmelth chose to ride at night and lie up during the day in some lonely wood. Even so, she had only narrowly escaped the attentions of a pair of lordless men who had also seen the merits of hiding during the day in a tangled copse. On that occasion, her horse had saved her, leaping a stream the rains had turned to a small river where her pursuers’ animals hesitated and refused. Pulling the panting beast’s head round, so she could check that the men had given up the chase, Rhieienmelth gave silent thanks for all the hours she had spent hunting while living in Æbbe’s holy house.
Oswiu, King of Kings Page 51