by H A CULLEY
‘Thank you Higbald, you’ve been very helpful.’
‘What are you going to do with me?’
‘Well, I could kill you, or I could return you to Æthelbald, but he’d execute you once he found out how helpful you’ve been.’
I paused as I watched the fear in Higbald’s eyes. For all his bravado initially, the boy was a coward at heart.
‘Or I could keep you as a slave.’
I watched as he bridled at the suggestion. He still had some pride then. To descend from noble to bondsman was unthinkable to someone of his breeding.
‘Never,’ he hissed. ‘Kill me and have done with it!’
Not a coward after all, just weak.
‘Or you could become a monk on Lindisfarne.’
He thought about that idea and slowly nodded.
‘Give me your oath that you won’t try and escape and I’ll take you there when this is over.’
‘Couldn’t I return to Lichfield? I was being educated there before my father decided that accompanying him on this campaign would be a more useful lesson than learning the scriptures.’
I shook my head. ‘You could but you’d still be at Æthelbald’s mercy. Lindisfarne is safe.’
Little did I know then how close Higbald would come to a violent end at the monastery, albeit nearly forty years later.
~~~
‘Cyning, I’m certain that the siege of Loidis is a ploy. As soon as you approach then Æthelbald will retreat into Mercia and hope that you will pursue him. If you do he’ll ambush you on ground he knows and we don’t.’
I nearly added ‘like the Picts did to King Ecgfrith seventy years ago’ but thought better of it.
‘So you advocate letting the Mercians burn my capital and then return home unmolested, do you?’ Eadbehrt sneered.
‘No, Cyning. But I think it would be prudent to cut off their line of retreat and force them to fight on land we know.’
‘Thank you for the information you managed to glean from the Mercian, Higbald, but I’ll decide what to do about it. You may go.’
I started to leave the tent but evidently the king had thought of something else.
‘One moment. Send the boy to me. I’d like to question him myself.’
‘Of course, if you wish it; but I’m certain he’s told us everything he knows.’
‘Perhaps, but my methods might not be as gentle as yours.’
‘I’ve given him my word that I’ll send him to Lindisfarne to become a novice. What do you intend to do to him?’
Eadbehrt grew red in the face.
‘That’s none of your business. Are you questioning my order?’
‘If it’s a matter of my honour, then yes. I am.’
‘Sentry!’
A nervous looking member of the king’s gesith poked his head inside the flap of the tent.
‘Yes, Cyning.’
‘Come in, don’t stand there gawping. Arrest this man.’
The sentry looked shocked, as well he might do; after all, he was my brother. In his rage it appeared the king hadn’t made the connection.
‘Er, yes, Cyning. What shall I do with him?’
‘Take him to your tent and set a guard on him.’
As Renweard came to take me out of the tent the king barked at him again.
‘Disarm him first, you fool.’
‘Oh, yes. Of course, Cyning.’
Once outside Renweard hissed at me ‘What do we do?’
‘Give me back my weapons and get a message to the other ealdormen about what’s happened. I promise I won’t abscond.’
An hour later a dozen ealdormen approached the king’s tent and asked to see him.
‘Why have you come to see me?’
I came with the others but kept out of sight at the back.
‘We want to know why you have arrested one of our number. From what we hear he gave you good advice and you over-reacted.’
The speaker was Ealdorman Fenton of Luncæstershire. After my father he was the senior noble present.
‘Don’t you dare speak to me like that! I’m your king.’
‘Elected by the Witan; in other words by us. We made you king Eadbehrt and you wouldn’t be the first king to be forced to abdicate.’
Eadbehrt recoiled in shock at being spoken too so bluntly. He was furious but he wasn’t so much of a fool that he didn’t realise that he was now treading on dangerous ground.
‘Very well. I will listen to what you have to say but Seofon defied me. I told him to produce the Mercian boy he captured so I could wring the truth out of him and he refused. That’s treason.’
‘But you were aware that Higbald was his prisoner and he’d promised the boy that he could become a monk on Lindisfarne in exchange for information?’
That wasn’t exactly what had happened but I wasn’t about to argue with that version.
‘Well, yes. I suppose so.’
‘So you were asking one of your nobles, and a highly successful military commander at that, to perjure himself?’
‘No, that’s wrong. He had sworn no binding oath to the boy, just made him a promise.’
‘You may be in the habit of breaking promises, Cyning, but most of us don’t,’ another ealdorman interjected. ‘One of Seofon’s virtues is that he takes matters of honour very seriously.’
‘This is getting blown out of all proportion. I had the wretched man arrested to give him time to think about his decision to defy me. I was confident that he’d turn the Mercian brat over to me for questioning if he thought about it for long enough.’
‘If that’s true why did you send your men to forcefully take Higbald from my custody as soon as you had me arrested?’ I broke in.
‘You! I ordered your arrest.’
‘Yes, by my own brother. You’ve been discovered to be a liar and a man without honour, Eadbehrt. I for one renounce my oath of allegiance to you as king.’
Several others joined me in denouncing the king but then the Ealdorman of Catterick spoke up.
‘We are we bickering like dogs over a bitch in heat? The Mercians are besieging Loidis a few miles from where we are and we’re tearing ourselves apart. This is madness.’
Several men nodded their heads or expressed their agreement with him. Only I, Fenton and the Lothian ealdormen remained visibly angry with the king.
‘Let us put this squabble behind us, at least until we have vanquished the Mercians’ he went on. ‘If the king will forgive Seofon, then I’m sure we can all agree to unite behind his leadership for the coming battle.’
That made sense to most but those of us who knew Eadbehrt better than the others were well aware that tonight’s challenge to his authority would not be forgotten or forgiven. Both Fenton and I were marked men. More than likely my father would also suffer through association too. I was foolish to point out that the warrior who had released me had been Renweard. He too was now in grave danger.
That night there was a commotion in the camp as Eadbehrt’s gesith sought my brother but, thankfully, by then he was on the road north towards Bebbanburg and sanctuary, taking Higbald with him.
~~~
I sighed in frustration. As I had warned the king, Æthelbald had broken off the siege as soon as we came near Loidis. He had crossed back into Mercia and, like a lemming, Eadbehrt had followed him. I had tried to warn him again of the folly of this but, now confident that he was back in command again, he had told me to shut up and not to speak in council again unless he asked for my opinion which, he sneered, was most unlikely. The ealdormen who supported me earlier looked uncomfortable but no-one said anything.
Eadbehrt asked me to stay behind after the meeting and I had a bad feeling about this.
‘You may have fooled that idiot Fenton and your friends in the North, but you don’t fool me, Seofon. You’re a traitor who seeks my throne. Your great uncle usurped the crown and his son tried to unseat me. Your family is a nest of vipers and I’ll make sure that you don’t survive the coming battle. I�
��ll deal with your father and your brother once I’ve defeated Æthelbald; it’s just a pity you won’t still be alive to see that. Now get out.’
‘Æthelbald is my cousin, did you know that? Admittedly a distant one but a cousin none the less. You are walking into his trap, Cyning, so I doubt if I’ll be the only one to die.’
A week later we reached the River Dove well inside Mercia. Æthelbald had stripped the land bare of people, livestock and crops so our army was starving by this stage. I wasn’t the only one urging the king to turn back, but he remained obstinate. The Mercian army was drawn up on the low hills to the south of the river, near a place called Newanberig. There was a crossing over the river but it was a series of stepping stones, each about a square yard in size. It must have taken them a long time for the whole army to cross. The horses could have swum over, but I had no idea how the baggage train had crossed.
Much to my surprise, the king gave me command of all the horsemen except for his own gesith and told me to find another crossing point. He would wait until I attacked the enemy from the rear and then he would lead the assault across the river. I was dubious about his plan. The river was too deep for men on foot to wade across and so it would mean fighting their way across the stepping stones. By the time they had done that my men and I would have been overwhelmed. Perhaps that was his intention.
I eventually found a ford five miles upstream and hastened to cross the river before heading inland to the low hills that bordered Lower Dovedale. When I calculated that we were near to where the two armies faced each other across the river I halted and waited for the scouts moving ahead of the column to report back.
‘Their baggage train is in a hollow behind the first line of hills, lord,’ the chief scout said. ‘The funny thing is that there are only a dozen or so carts. There should be far more for an army two or three thousand strong.’
I thanked him and led my men in an attack on the baggage carts – anything to put off the time when we rode to our deaths against the main Mercian army: except it wasn’t.
It took very little time to kill or drive off the men guarding the wagons and, as my men looted them and then set them alight, I rode forward to reconnoitre the main body. From the other side of the river the opposite bank looked full of men lined up to oppose our crossing; from the ridge behind them I could see that there was less than a thousand men in all and most of them were members of the fyrd. Only the front rank were warriors.
As I watched I saw men begin to stream over the line of hills behind our army. As I had feared, Æthelbald had lured Eadbehrt into a trap. Our army was now confined between the river and the main Mercian host; even worse, the most inexperienced members of our fyrd were at the rear and it was these men who would have to turn and face the trained killers at the forefront of the advancing enemy.
I watched with dismay but then I realised that there was something I could do.
‘Form wedge and follow me,’ I yelled and with one of my gesith beside me and my banner bearer behind me proudly holding aloft the wolf banner of my family we charged down the slope into the rear of the deception force holding the crossing.
As I changed from a canter to the gallop twenty yards before reaching the enemy I had an impression of horrified faces turning to stare at us, too stunned to move. Then, almost as one, they ran, jostling each other and pushing men over, to get out of our way.
My vision was limited by the eyeholes in the metal guard which was riveted to my helmet to protect my face above my mouth, so I could only see straight ahead without turning my head. Suddenly I saw a spearman stop when I was almost on top of him and shove the point towards my body. He was on my right side – the side unprotected by my shield – so I aimed my own spear at him.
Unfortunately his had a longer reach so all I could do was to knock the point away. As I rode past him he thrust his spear into the rump of my horse. The spearman died a second later as one of my men in the third row of the wedge lopped off his head with an axe, but the damage was done.
My stallion squealed in pain and reared up, throwing me over its hind quarters to land with a thump on the ground. For a few seconds I was winded and couldn’t move as the rest of the wedge galloped around and past me. After the last row had passed I lay there astonished. I’d fully expected to be crushed to death by the hooves of the following horses but, apart from two glancing blows to my shield and a kick to my helmet, which did no more damage than put a dent in it, I was unscathed. It was a miracle and I thanked the Lord more fervently than ever I had done before that I’d been spared; not even wounded, apart from a bruised left arm and a headache.
I scrambled to my feet and realised that I wasn’t out of danger yet. Our charge had scattered the Mercian fyrd and many of them were in full flight, but at least two hundred of them and the eighty or so warriors in their front rank had stayed and a full scale melee against my horsemen was in progress. I quickly realised that a stationary horseman surrounded by armed men on foot was very vulnerable. For a moment I stood there watching helplessly as my men were pulled from their saddles and killed. Then I spotted a horn that one of the Mercians must have discarded as he fled.
I blew three blasts as hard as I could, then kept repeating the signal. It meant withdraw and reform. Now my men laid about them with renewed vigour trying to break free from the press of the enemy. One hundred and fifty men had been in that charge and some seventy mounted men and fifteen on foot made it back to me. However, they had given a good account of themselves and the ground was strewn with Mercian dead as well.
What I couldn’t see was the river. Eadbehrt had taken one look at the Mercians streaming down the hillside to the north and had led his gesith into the river. It was too deep for men to cross safely. Although the water would come no higher than their chests, the strength of the flow would sweep them off their feet and carry them away to drown. It was a different matter for horses. They could swim, which most men couldn’t, and the king and his gesith emerged from the river a couple of hundred yards downstream.
At the same time warriors on foot were crossing via the stepping stones as quickly as they could. Of course, they were fleeing the approaching Mercians, but they encountered the very much smaller force remaining on the south side of the river when they got there. As they started to fight them I grabbed a horse off one of my men and led a second charge.
The combined attack on two fronts was too much for the two hundred or so Mercians who had remained and they were quickly routed. My only contribution was to chop down a fleeing warrior in a chain mail byrnie. Once I was satisfied that we had secured the south bank, I sounded the recall with my borrowed horn and looked around to see what was happening elsewhere.
I had expected to find the king trying to rally his men but he was nowhere to be seen. I later found out that he and his gesith had fled to the ford I’d used to cross the river and had then headed north as fast as he could go, leaving his men to fend for themselves.
A quick count showed me that I now had about three hundred men on my side of the river with others crossing all the time. Someone had obviously taken charge on the north bank after the king’s flight and they were holding off the Mercians to allow as many as possible to make it to safety on the south bank.
I watched impotently as the Mercians gained the upper hand. By the time the sun dipped below the horizon and darkness descended just over fifteen hundred men had reached me, but the rest of our once proud army had died on the north bank. Only four ealdormen, including Fenton of Luncæstershire and Æthelwold Moll of Berwic, had survived. It had been a complete and utter disaster.
Chapter Five – Aftermath
757 – 758
I had been elected as the hereræswa of the army by the four remaining ealdormen and I led our defeated army back over the Dove further upstream and then north until we eventually reached Northumbria again. The Mercians had also suffered heavy casualties and, apart from the odd minor skirmish, we arrived back at Loidis without further trouble.
Eadbehrt had taken over the town as his temporary capital as it would take a long time to re-build Eoforwīc. Of the eighteen ealdormen in Northumbria, less than half had survived. Beorhtmund had remained in Lothian just in case there was further trouble on the border and his counterpart in Cumbria stayed in the North for the same reason. Apart from me, there were a few other nobles who survived the Battle of Newanberig. They included my father, who was slowly recuperating, and Alchred of Elmet. A significant number of thegns had also been killed.
We remained at Loidis for the winter as Eadbehrt anticipated a further invasion by the Mercians. It never came and then at the start of 757 he heard that Æthelbald had been murdered by his own gesith. The story I heard was that the Mercian king had got very drunk at the feast held to celebrate his victory and had then raped the wife of the captain of his gesith. Whatever the truth of the matter, Mercia was suddenly thrown into chaos and the captain, a man called Beornred, had seized the throne.
For all his philandering, Æthelbald had never sired a child – not one that was acknowledged as his at any rate. His nearest relative was his nephew Offa, the King of Man at the time, and my father’s second cousin. As soon as he heard about his uncle’s murder, Offa started to muster allies to depose Beornred and get himself acknowledged as king by Mercia’s Witan.
News of all this filtered through to us very slowly and was accompanied by wild rumours. Eventually we heard that Offa had defeated his rival in battle and Beornred had fled into exile – some said to Ireland and others to Wessex. Whatever the exact truth, by the spring of 757 it seemed that Offa was the undisputed King of Mercia.
I had avoided contact with Eadbehrt throughout the winter and, thankfully, he had never summoned me. The Witan had met in February to discuss the vacant posts for ealdormen and to agree that the fyrd could be dispersed. Some of the new ealdormen were the sons of the dead, but many had been killed with their fathers. Others were too young to take over their father’s shires. In some cases guardians were appointed and in others the widows found themselves married to new husbands, who took over as the ealdorman. Inevitably this meant that the previous ealdormen’s children were dispossessed. It was the king’s decision, with the Witan’s advice, but I was certain that it would store up trouble for the future.