by H A CULLEY
It could never last, of course. Eadbehrt came to Bebbanburg in April 756 and so we travelled up to join my father in hosting him and his retinue. Moments after he arrived we discovered that it wasn’t a social visit. He was intent on war.
~~~
In early June I was camped outside Dùn Èideann with my father and an army three thousand strong. He and I watched as King Óengus mac Fergus and two thousand Picts set up their encampment a mile away. Rotri, the new King of Strathclyde who was supposedly Óengus’ vassal, had been flexing his muscles ever since he had succeeded Tuedebur a few years previously. He had become increasingly bold and had raided into Dalriada, the area around Stirling and the Northumbrian enclave north of the Solway Firth, It was high time he was put in his place.
Unfortunately, Dalriada was in no position to deal with external aggression; it was too involved with an internal struggle for the throne. Óengus and Eadbehrt had therefore reached an agreement for a joint attack and, if necessary, to replace Rotri with someone who was less of a firebrand.
I had been less than happy to leave my wife and sons, but at least I got to see Renweard again. It had been three years since we had seen each other. He had visited my father and then Alnwic on his way back after escorting the newly restored Bishop Cynewulf back to Lindisfarne. Even Eadbehrt had to give in and release him in the face of increasing pressure from the Pope, the Archbishop of Cantwareburg, and latterly even his brother, the Archbishop of Eoforwīc.
We got drunk together that first night and I offered him the position of shire-reeve after the war was over. Reeves had been in existence for a long time and it was a general term for a managerial official. Every vill had a reeve to help the thegn and there had been a reeve at Bebbanburg for centuries. He assisted the lord on the administrative side whilst the captain of the garrison looked after its defence.
Shire-reeves were now becoming more popular. As the population within each shire grew, so did the complexities of maintaining law and order, collecting taxes and organising the fyrd. Many ealdormen now appointed shire-reeves to assist them and effectively they became their deputies.
Renweard had never married and, now that he was thirty one, I thought it was time he settled down. I loved Hilda and we discussed much more together than most married couples did, but I missed my little brother. It would be good to see more of him.
He promised he’d think about it and let me know and with that I had to be satisfied.
‘King Óengus and I have agreed that the only satisfactory outcome to this war is to get rid of Rotri. That means either killing him or deposing and exiling him. The problem is that his stronghold of Dùn Breatainn is as impregnable as that of Bebbanburg.’
His eyes flickered in my direction as he said this.
‘We are both anxious to avoid having to starve him out so any suggestions would be welcome.’
I hesitated but no-one else seemed to be about to say anything so I put forward my idea.
‘Cyning, as I understand it the fortress is built of timber and the buildings probably have straw roofs. Is that correct?’
Eadbehrt looked at Óengus, who stood beside him, and the other king nodded.
‘What’s your point, Seofon?’
‘If the weather is dry we could tie rags soaked in oil or fat to the tips of arrows and fire them into the fortress. Of course, the disadvantage is that the whole citadel could burn to the ground, but it could force them out.’
For a moment both kings looked at me as if I was mad. It was not a tactic that anyone there had heard of and I’m not even sure that I knew from where I’d got the idea. I made a mental note to ensure that I installed troughs of water inside the palisade at Alnwic so that we could douse the roofs if someone else tried it. Bebbanburg was relatively immune as it stood so high above the surrounding land that few fire arrows would travel far enough to lodge in the roofs of the buildings inside.
‘It’s worth a try,’ Óengus said thoughtfully.
Two days later the mighty host of over five thousand men set off westwards through Lothian towards the Picts’ settlement of Glaschu on the River Clyde. To avoid possible friction, the two armies travelled separately and Northumbrian forage parties obtained food for both armies whilst we were still in Lothian. When we crossed into the Land of the Picts their men took over.
It worked surprising well, though there were minor incidents, of course. A small group of my men raided a farm as we approached Glaschu, raped the women and the girls, and stole their livestock. I hung the ringleader from an oak tree beside the road for all to see and deprived the rest of their status as freemen. When we returned home they would be sold as bondsmen, and their families with them. There was no more rapine and pillaging amongst my men or my father’s.
‘You acted wisely, Seofon,’ was all he said but I felt gratified.
~~~
The two hills on which Dùn Breatainn was built loomed over the wide River Clyde and the land around it but it wasn’t that which held my attention as I sat beside the two kings, the other ealdormen and the mormaers of the Picts. It was the army massed on the lower slopes of the Kilpatrick Hills to the north of us. Rotri must have gathered every able-bodied man and boy over the age of thirteen to have fielded so many. At a rough guess, I calculated that there must be over three thousand of them.
They banged their shields with their spears and yelled insults at us as we formed up facing them. Eadbehrt had a quick conversation with Óengus and called out to my father.
‘Ulfric, gather as many housemen as you can and take them around the side of the hill where the Britons are formed up. Get behind them and charge into the back of them as soon as we engage them from the front.’
‘That hillside is full of rocks, Cyning. It’s not ground that horsemen can operate on. Can I suggest that I take some archers with us and weaken them first, then we can charge down on them on foot?’
Eadbehrt went red in the face at being contradicted, but Óengus grabbed his arm and said something to him. Whatever it was, he evidently changed his mind and nodded.
‘Very well, but be quick about it.’
My father called for me to follow him and we rounded up as many mounted men as we could. Most were the gesiths of nobles and they were unwilling to release them until my father tensely asked them to go and explain to the king why they had refused his order. They didn’t like it but they sent them with us.
It took a little time to organise everyone and for them to collect an archer to sit in front of them. Most were boys and young men, selected because they were lighter. In all we had gathered two hundred and sixty horsemen and about the same number of archers. It wasn’t many to attack over six times our number but we would have the element of surprise and, hopefully, the main body would have engaged the front ranks of the Britons by then.
We went back the way we had come. If our foes guessed what we were up to, they made no move to counter it. We cantered for a few miles and then turned north-west up a re-entrant which took us behind the hill the Britons were defending.
We rode up the reverse slope of the hill as far as we could and then dismounted, leaving our horses with ten of the youngest archers. They were busy tying reins together so that they could manage the horses as we clambered up and around the side of the hill.
When we rounded a corner we could see the nearest Britons about a hundred yards below us. We traversed the slope as quietly as we could but inevitably the odd stone was dislodged, not that it mattered; the enemy were concentrating on the army advancing towards them.
The Picts were running into the attack in their usual disorganised way but Óengus had sensibly sent them to attack the enemy’s flanks. The Northumbrians were advancing with a shield wall of warriors leading supported by seven or eight rows of the fyrd. As they closed the archers in the rear started to fire over their countrymen’s heads into the mass of Britons.
We hurriedly scrambled into position and our archers started to let loose arrow after arrow into the
Britons’ rear ranks. It was a little while before they realised their danger but, when they did, at least a third of them turned to face us and started to vent their fury at us as they climbed up towards us.
The archers kept whittling down their numbers but it was evident that the warriors amongst us would be outnumbered by at least two to one when they reached us. I glanced at what was happening below us and was pleased to see that the Britons were giving way all along their line as the shield wall continued its relentless advance and the Picts were busy fighting hand to hand battles on the flanks. As they had many more numbers, it wouldn’t be long before the Britons broke.
However, that was unlikely to help much. My father ordered us to form a shield wall and we formed a line three ranks deep, then we waited for the Britons to reach us. The archers stayed in front for as long as they dared to, bringing down several more of the enemy, before running along in front of our shield wall to form up on our flanks. From there they continued to send arrow after arrow into the mass struggling up the slope towards us.
The Britons must have been exhausted by this stage but adrenalin kept them going. We kept our shields low as our feet were the most vulnerable part of our body. I saw a Briton who can’t have been much more than twelve try to pull the bottom of my shield to one side so that he could stick his only weapon, a dagger, into my legs. I was loathe to kill a child but if I hesitated I would be incapacitated or killed and so I thrust down with my spear, striking the boy’s spine and breaking it. If he wasn’t dead he would be paralysed for life.
I stepped on his neck and wrenched my spear free but I was too slow. A giant of a man with an axe chopped at the haft and cut it in two. The thing was useless so I threw the half I still held at him and he ducked. That gave me time to thrust my shield forward, smashing the boss into his face. I heard the cartilage in his nose snap and blood poured down his ruined face – not that he was much of a looker before.
I drew my seax and slashed it at his face just as he came at me with a roar of rage and an upraised battle-axe. His blind rush at me was his undoing. My blade connected with his neck just as he was about to split my helmet and my skull in two. I sprained my wrist with the force of the blow as I half severed his head from his body. He sank to his knees on top of the paralysed boy and toppled sideways.
My father was fighting beside me and I was suddenly conscious that he was in difficulties. A boy had crawled under his shield as he fought a man with a sword and a targe and the lad had stabbed him in the patellar ligament of his right knee. I bent down and thrust my seax into the boy’s neck, but I was too late. My father’s leg collapsed and he fell against the man on the other side of him. For a moment his guard was lowered and his opponent slashed downwards.
It was a wild stroke which connected with the chain mail protecting my father’s shoulder. The sword must have been blunt because it didn’t break any of the iron links, but it slid off the byrnie and connected with my father’s forearm. Even above the noise of battle I heard the bone snap and his yell of pain.
I had to get him out of there before he was killed and so I pulled him along the ground until we reached the rear of our men. Others filled the gap in the shield wall, but I needed to get back to the fight. Desperately I looked around and called over four of the archers. They bound up the wound to his knee to staunch the bleeding and made a splint for his arm from two arrows and a bowstring.
‘Take him back to the horses. He can probably sit astride one with help. Lead him back to the baggage train and find Seward, my body servant. He’ll know what to do.’
Of course my father had his own servant but Seward was more skilled at dealing with wounds. I watched the four men carry him gingerly over the rough terrain for a minute and then, satisfied that he was in good hands, I hurried back to the fight.
The Britons were losing heart. The battle below us was all but over with more and more of the enemy fleeing for their lives and those facing us were now looking nervously over their shoulders, rather than pressing home their attack. A few at the rear turned and ran and that started the rout. By the time I regained my place in the front rank it was all over.
I was tempted to rush after my father but I was now the leader of this small army. Many were wounded and quite a few were dead. I went through them congratulating them and making sure that the wounded were tended to as best we could on the barren hillside. I sent someone back to bring some of the horses forward. If we took it slowly they could carry the bodies and those too badly hurt to walk back down the hillside.
It was only then that someone pointed out that I had a cut to my upper arm and another to my calf. I hadn’t noticed them at the time but, now that the inevitable reaction to the battle had set in, they stung like hell. The cuts weren’t deep and someone bound them with strips of cloth torn from a dead Briton’s tunic before I made my way after the others. I glanced back at the heap of bodies and marvelled at how many we’d killed. At a rough guess I’d say that there were five hundred of them. All were dead. My men had cut the throats of the injured.
~~~
I gazed up at the fortress of Dùn Breatainn and thought that it going to be as difficult to capture as Bebbanburg would be. It sat on top of two tall outcrops of rock linked by a saddle near the summit of each. The lower hill to the east was protected on three sides by tall cliffs whilst the western hill, which stood some 250 feet or so above the River Clyde, was similarly protected to three sides, except the cliffs to the south-west were shorter with a steep slope running from their base down to the mouth of the River Leven where it joined the Clyde.
The only practical route to the top lay up a steep defile between the two hills. This was protected by a tall gate between two towers with a palisade running from it up the slope to the west until it abutted the cliff face. A much shorter length of palisade linked the eastern side of the gatehouse to the cliffs on that side.
The obvious thing to do would be to burn the gatehouse down but someone had obviously thought of that and it was now built of stone. The stone was uncut and badly laid and the mortar looked as it had been applied by a child but, however badly constructed it was, it wouldn’t burn, but there was room in front of it to use a battering ram and there were plenty of trees nearby.
‘It doesn’t look as if your idea of burning them out is going to work,’ Eadbehrt said to me when I reported back what I’d seen.
I tried to ignore the fact that he seemed almost pleased about it.
‘No, Cyning, but we can attack the gate with a ram.’
‘Even if we take the gatehouse, there is a second palisade around the top of the two hills.’
‘Yes,’ I explained patiently, ‘but then we can get close enough to use fire arrows.’
‘What do you think?’ he asked Óengus.
He shrugged. ‘It’s the only sensible proposal I’ve heard so far.’
‘Right, Seofon, get your ram built but be as quick as you can. The fyrd are already asking about getting back to their fields.’
I didn’t have the knowledge to design and make a battering ram so I went to see my father. Our main camp was five hundred yards away and stretched between the Rivers Clyde and Leven. My father was recovering in his tent, his knee wound sewn up and his right forearm in a splint. He had been told to rest by the monk looking after him; an instruction he complained about constantly. His enforced inactivity hadn’t put him in the best of moods.
‘What do you want Seofon,’ he greeted me with a surly frown. ‘Come to make sure I’m doing as I’m told.’
‘No, but I’m pleased to see that you are. The more you rest, the quicker you’ll be back on your feet. No, I came to ask if you knew how to build a battering ram.’
His whole attitude changed immediately. Now he had something to occupy his mind he didn’t seem to object to being immobile. He gave me a rough idea what was required and sent his body servant to find a man called Godric, a carpenter in the Bebbanburg fyrd.
Five days later the ram was re
ady. I have to say that I was impressed. A heavy tree trunk with the thick end chopped into a point and covered in iron plates, was suspended from a stout frame by chains. The frame was mounted on four axles with eight wheels made by a wheelwright who was serving with our fyrd. It was covered by a sloping roof to which the skins from cattle had been nailed.
It stank because the latter hadn’t been treated and it weighed a lot; so much so that it took a hundred men to get it moving. However, once it was moving, it took half that number to keep it going, pushing at handles attached to the frame. Other men walked alongside it with shields raised to protect the ones doing all the work from arrows and stones launched by the defenders.
‘Well done, Seofon,’ Eadbehrt said, albeit a trifle grudgingly I thought, whilst Óengus clapped me on the back and added his congratulations.
I was a little uncomfortable at all this praise. I had merely told my men to follow the instructions of Godric and the wheelwright; besides, it hadn’t reached the gates yet, let alone battered them down. I had visions of an axle breaking under the weight and the whole thing coming to an embarrassing halt.
It didn’t. It reached the gates and the men manning the bars sticking out of the massive tree trunk at right angles pulled it back and let go. It struck the gates with a crash and the wood trembled, but the gates held. No doubt the enemy had braced horizontal timbers against them to strengthen them. However, I thought I saw a little mortar drop down from the archway above the gates.
This was something I hadn’t considered. I knew the stonework was poorly constructed; suppose the archway collapsed? It would fall on top of the ram and kill quite a few men. I voiced my concerns to the king, but he just laughed.
‘If it does, then we’ll just have to climb up the rubble and get in that way.’
‘But what about the men manning the ram?’
‘What about them? You can’t fight a war without casualties.’