As the men returned to their rituals – sharpening swords, cleaning armour, reciting prayer: the tasks they did to calm the mind and strengthen courage before the day of slaughter – Oswiu took Ahlfrith and led him to one side.
“If no sign should come from me, then think not to save me: I will be lost. Return to the queen, see to her safety, see that she is taken to her kin in Kent. After that, well…” Oswiu shrugged. “After that, you must judge. There will be little hope of defeating Penda then.”
“But did you not tell me that our hope is not confined to this life?”
Oswiu laughed. “That is when you know the son has matched the father: when he gives the father his own advice. But I do not wish for you to throw your life after mine. And even if there is a sign, think well before attacking; see if Penda sets men waiting to trap you. Watch, in particular, for ropes strung low between tents, for those will trip a horse and send the rider flying. If you come, come fast and with fire. It is a strange thing, but amid all this water, fire will be our friend: use it well.”
Ahlfrith nodded. “I will. I will set the men to binding torches, ready to put flames to the tents and wagons.”
“Good. I will watch for you.” Oswiu grasped his son’s shoulders. “Listen for me; watch for me. Come quickly if I call. Go quickly if I do not.”
“Give me your blessing, Father.” Ahlfrith bowed his head.
Oswiu laid his hands on his son’s head. “I give it; I give it right gladly. My blessing and the blessing of all the Idings.” Then Oswiu lifted his son’s head and looked into his face. “Think on this: if the day goes well, if God favours us and brings us victory, you will be a king tomorrow. For I will not suffer Œthelwald to rule further in Deira.”
“Will you kill him? He is son to your brother.”
“Though Œthelwald is blood to my blood, yet he is a traitor to us. Yes, I will kill him.” Oswiu shook his head. “But I would not spend my leave-taking talking of him.” The king embraced his son. “God’s blessing upon you. Now, I go, as David did, into the camp of my foe. Farewell.”
“Farewell, Father.”
Ahlfrith stood and watched as his father rode slowly from the camp and disappeared into the darkness.
*
Being a sentry meant being cold, wet and miserable, the young man decided. Mind, being in Penda’s army during the last month had meant being cold, wet and miserable too. Not like the summer months, when it had not rained at all, and the only peril was catching too much sun and turning as red as cooked salmon. At least they were heading home now. That made the tedium and the cold of sentry duty easier to bear.
It was always the young men, the ones yet to prove themselves in the shieldwall, who were set to sentry duty. But how could he prove himself a warrior when the enemy did nothing but run before the High King’s great army? They had run away all summer, leaving the land bare of defenders, ripe for the army’s picking. And he’d done his own fair share of picking. The young man, Hutha, fingered his belt. He had sewn the jewels he had prised from the dead man’s sword, blood-red garnets, into the belt itself, wrapping the material over the garnets and then sewing them tight. Hutha remembered the man’s face: it was wide with surprise. Stupid that, he thought. All men knew they must die, so why had it come as a surprise? The greater surprise was that he’d found the body undespoiled. But then, the man had fallen in such a way that the hedge concealed him. Maybe he’d been defending his house. If so, it had been no great hall – although, in truth, it was a finer hall than Hutha’s father’s – but men died for all sorts of mean things. It occurred to Hutha that it was a better death to die defending your hall than for the sweating sickness to take you, or the sickness that consumed the body and left it but bones and skin before life finally left it. That was how his father had died. Hutha was determined not to die the same way.
Movement.
There, in the dark outside the camp. A shadow, moving, coming closer.
“Stop. Halt!”
Hutha held out his spear, its point catching the light from one of the many fires that sputtered on wet wood and even wetter ground behind him.
The shadow did not stop, but continued to approach.
“Stop!” Hutha said again.
The shadow came closer. It moved as a cloud of darkness.
“Stop! Now!”
But the shadow moved closer, coming into the faint firelight and, as it did so, it shrank from monstrous to human size – a man hooded and cloaked, walking towards Hutha.
“Lord! I am sorry.” Hutha lifted the spear. “I did not know you had gone forth from the camp.”
The hooded figure made no answer in words, but turned its head towards the guard. Beneath the hood, Hutha saw shadow and the glitter of a single eye. Hutha stood aside as the hooded figure entered the camp. He had heard tales of how the High King went abroad, walking unseen by day and by night, and now he knew these tales to be true, for he had seen the High King go into his tent but a short while ago, before he began his stint on guard, and had not thought the king would emerge again before light. As the High King passed, Hutha made the courtesy. It was, he thought, as well that he had not been asleep when the High King returned. He had been tired and sleepy; there had been no alarms for so long that it hardly seemed worth posting sentries, for surely there were no armies to match the High King’s anywhere in this land, and Hutha had thought of propping his back against a tree and closing his eyes for a while, so that he would be sharper when he woke. Hutha turned to watch as the High King’s hooded, silent figure passed into the camp. If he had been asleep when Penda returned, he would never have had chance to prove himself as a warrior.
Hutha turned back to his guard duties. Mind, now the High King had returned, he would likely not go forth again. Hutha propped his back against an alder tree and set his spear firmly, pushing the shaft into the soft earth. Maybe he might just close his eyes for a while. After all, there wouldn’t be anyone else coming this way…
*
Oswiu pulled his cloak tighter and bowed his head. He had not thought of this, but now, on a night with no moon and clouds covering the stars, the only light came from below, from the fires sputtering all around the camp. But the light from ground-level fires rose and lit his face, where the light from sun or moon, being from above, would have served only to cast his face into deeper shadow. It was as well, then, that it was a cold night, with the wind backing north and east. No man would think it strange that the High King would pull his cloak tight and his hood down. But walking with his head bowed and his eyes low meant that he could not see clearly where he wished to go. Instead, he followed the lines of the rough paths set between the tents and wagons and sleeping men. Some, seeing him, made the courtesy, but he saw as many make the sign against the evil eye as he passed.
Penda’s men feared him.
Oswiu called from his memory the image of the camp, laid out before him, that he had seen from the hill the evening before. It spread along the northern bank of the River Winwæd, making a rough half-circle. Penda’s tent stood in the centre of the camp, apart from the other tents. Only the queen’s tent was pitched close by, the two shelters adjoining each other. From what Acca had told him, Oswiu hoped to find Ecgfrith in the queen’s tent.
But as Oswiu made his slow way through the camp, the sheer numbers of men he saw dismayed him. Even should he find and claim Ecgfrith, and Ahlfrith launch his attack, with so many men all around surely he would never be able to take Ecgfrith forth. Something much greater than a small diversion would be necessary to earn the time he needed to escape with his son.
Still, at least the fear and awe with which his men regarded Penda meant that Oswiu could make his way through the camp without having to speak to anyone. If he had been walking among his own men, he would have had to stop and speak to every second or third man. He would have been asked his opinion in some dispute over precedence, called over to tell again the tale of how he and Oswald took the kingdom from Cadwallon, or regale
d with some story of how one of the men tupped a good wife by pretending to be her husband. But here, in Penda’s camp, men shrank away from him.
Walking between the tents and round and past the forms of men lying upon the ground, Oswiu saw the signs of a weary army. They had been in the field for many months now. He saw armour left lying on damp ground next to its exhausted wearer; the iron would rust if left in such conditions, but the wearer no doubt thought that he would have chance to polish the rust from it when he returned to his own home. The plunder of his kingdom that would not fit upon the high-packed wagons lay in untidy piles all about the camp, each curled about by the men who had taken it, lying in heaps, snoring and open mouthed.
And behind the sounds of a sleeping camp there was the rush of water. As he made his way onwards, towards the centre of the camp, gaps would open between the clustered tents and he could see the dark rushing flow, pulling at the sedge and rush lining the banks of the river.
Sometimes a sentry, seeing him approach, called him to halt, but whenever they saw the hood and cloak of the High King emerging from the shadows, they stood aside and let him pass without word.
Coming upon one of the gaps that always form wherever men make camp, Oswiu paused. He was far from any camp fire and there was no one nearby, so he raised his lowered head and looked around. In the camp, amid the tents and wagons and men, it was far harder to keep his way, but he thought he saw the shifting shapes of the banners of kings ahead. From the vantage point earlier, he had seen that the kings who marched with Penda made camp near to him, forming a rough circle around a centre that was Penda’s tent.
Oswiu took a breath. The air was cold, and bit his teeth and throat. There was a change in the air. He glanced up. The wind had torn the cloud into tatters and was pulling it over the sky. Through the gaps, the first stars of the night glittered. He was glad. If he was to die tonight, he would see the stars. Perhaps, if the wind freshened further, he might see the Milky Way. Surely that was how the soul climbed to God’s high heaven. Though there were other, darker, paths for the spirit after death. The shudder and shake of it fell upon him then; the memory of the men he had killed, the memory of the man he had murdered. The Godfriend. Would God take vengeance for the murder of Oswine? Oswiu looked about, searching for some sign or sound: if he heard the sound of wind over feathers, or the cough of a raven, he would know that the bird was with him, and surely if Bran was with him then God’s favour lay upon him too. But the night was still, save for the wind, and there was no dark shape in it.
Oswald was the one who had known. He was the one who always knew what God wanted him to do. Oswiu shook his head. For him, there was ever doubt.
But he did know that his son was captive. He knew it was his task to try to free him. That he did not doubt.
Oswiu marked the path to where the banners flew thickest. That was the way. Drawing the cloak about his shoulders and pulling the hood down, he set off towards where the High King waited.
*
Was it the cold that kept him from sleeping? Œthelwald had known cold nights before and slept through them. But here, by the River Winwæd, it seemed as though the wet of the river rose through the ground and into his bones, so that he shifted and turned and could not sleep. At length, giving up on that which would not come, Œthelwald rose. Wrapping a cloak around his shoulders, he stepped from his tent. As was his custom, he first glanced to the sky. The cloud of the early night had gone, he saw; torn into shreds by the wind. It was cold, and despite his cloak, the cold lay its fingers into his flesh. Œthelwald shivered. Winter was coming. The harvest had been poor, very poor, for the summer’s heat had scorched the crops and then, when the longed-for rain finally came, it came not as saviour but as destroyer, ruining by flood what the sun had not finished through drought. There would be people starving by winter’s end, and those who could still walk would come to him, bonding themselves into slavery for food to fill their belly. He made memory to check, when he returned finally to his own halls, what stores were laid in against the winter’s dearth. They would have need of them all.
His own halls? He was already calling them that, although he had but lately come into their kingship. Œthelwald smiled to himself. He was getting used to being king. His smile broadened. In truth, he was enjoying it well. Yes, it had been a shock when Rhieienmelth had come to him, asking him to abjure his pledge to the High King, but then his heart mother had taken advantage of the uproar caused by Coifi declaring Penda to be Woden to make a quiet departure. He had made little effort to find her. After all, what could she do? A woman, alone, making her way where an army had recently passed. She would do well to survive long enough to make it back to Æbbe’s holy house.
As for what Coifi had declared, Œthelwald knew the old priest had simply said what most of the army believed. Never had he known a king held in such awe. Normally, a king must work, through word and deed, to hold men to him. But Penda had no such need. He passed in silence among his men and yet they followed him; they would follow him across the grey sea. They would follow him, Œthelwald thought, through the gates of death itself, for they feared death less than they feared their king.
For himself, though, he knew well Penda was no god. He had seen the glitter in that black eye as he looked upon Coifi abasing himself in the mud, and he had seen the spark of amusement in it. Men did not become gods – not even High Kings. If they did, his own father would still live.
The thought of his father chilled him. He felt Oswald’s shadow upon him and he sought to push the thought away, but it would not go. Rather than wait upon the shadow’s leaving, Œthelwald began to walk, head down, searching for clear ground among the tent ropes and sleeping men.
That was why he did not see that he was not alone in moving through the sleeping camp. Œthelwald all but walked into the High King.
For his part, the High King was as surprised. He rapidly stepped back, but in doing so tripped upon a rope. And in that fall, his hood flew back and Œthelwald looked into the face of the High King and saw his uncle.
He froze.
Oswiu looked up at him.
Neither spoke. Neither moved.
Slowly, Œthelwald crept his fingers towards the hilt of his sword.
Oswiu, seeing the fingers move, made no like motion. Instead, he stared up into Œthelwald’s face.
“You have the look of your father,” he said. Oswiu spoke softly, so that no others might hear, but in the silence of the camp Œthelwald heard him clearly.
Fingers resting upon the hilt of his sword, Œthelwald made no other move. He waited.
Slowly, Oswiu pushed himself back onto his feet. He pulled the hood back over his head, but he raised his face so that he might look at Œthelwald and Œthelwald look at him.
“I have come for my son,” Oswiu said. “Will you stop me?”
Œthelwald’s mouth worked. A single cry would bring the camp down upon them.
In the firelight, Oswiu searched the face before him for some trace of the brother he had lost. He shook his head.
“It is as well my brother died and did not see this, for you are no son to him.”
Œthelwald began to open his mouth.
Oswiu shook his head. “If you would do this thing, then be quick.”
Œthelwald’s hand trembled upon his sword. He stared at Oswiu, his jaw working. Abruptly, he turned away. “Fetch your son, if you are able. For my part, I will not betray you.”
Oswiu stared at the young man in front of him. He nodded, then drew the hood down. Like a wraith, he turned and moved away through the camp.
For a moment, Œthelwald watched where he went, then he too turned away. He felt the wind cold upon his face. It had turned in the night, he remembered.
Then, as if from the air above, he heard a call, the caw of the bird of slaughter. There were many tales told of Bran, the raven that had followed his father. He looked up, searching the night. There, against the stars, he thought he saw a darker shadow moving through
the sky. Œthelwald shivered and drew his cloak around his shoulders.
Making his way back to his tent, he bent down and roused his warmaster. “Wake the men quietly and have them ready.” He glanced to the horizon. The first hint of light glimmered there. “It will be a red dawn.”
*
The black wolf streamed in the wind. In the dim light cast by the embers of the night’s fires, Penda’s banner flared over the king’s tent.
Standing at the edge of the gap that separated the tents of the kings from the tent of the High King, Oswiu saw the wolf hunting the air, its jaws snapping in the wind. There were more guards here, but still they stepped back when they saw him approach. He walked quickly, for he could not know if the alarm cry would soon go up. For the moment, blood held Œthelwald silent, but he did not think it would hold him long.
He looked to the king’s tent. There was a guard outside it. A man who would know that his king slept within. But Ecgfrith was with the queen. Her tent, he saw, adjoined the king’s, but the guard had less clear sight of it. Keeping to the shadows, Oswiu moved round so that he might see the tent entrance more clearly. There was a guard there too. But standing where he stood, he would have no sight of the entrance to the king’s tent. He would not know whether the king slept within, or had gone forth into the night.
Besides, surely the guard to the tent of the queen would stand aside that the king might visit her in the night.
Oswiu was about to step forward when he suddenly thought on this: suppose the king had already gone in to be with his wife, and the guard waited without for him to finish?
There was no knowing.
Oswiu looked up, but amid the banked fires that glowed around the tents of the kings there was too much light to see the stair of stars in the sky. Under the cover of his cloak, he marked the cross over his heart, scratching it into his flesh with his thumbnail.
Then he started across the open ground.
The guard outside the queen’s tent jolted from his reverie and lowered his spear, but then seeing the shape resolve into a familiar hooded figure he stood back.
Oswiu, King of Kings Page 53