by H A CULLEY
As we had agreed, the boy got to his feet, much to the surprise of everyone who had expected me to speak on his behalf as his guardian. We had rehearsed what he would say and how to respond to those who questioned him, of course.
‘I’m the only son of King Æthelwold and Queen Æthelthryth and, as such, the last of the line of Æthelfrith, the first king of a united Northumbria. I am well aware that some doubts surround my father’s lineage. Yes, he was a bastard, the product of the detested Osred raping a novice nun, but neither he nor I are anything like my wretched grandfather.
‘I have been brought up for the past nine years by Ealdorman Seofon, an honourable and loyal man who was shamefully treated by King Alchred. I’ve been tutored by a scholar from the Monastery of Saint-Germain-des-Prés in Paris and have met the famous Charlemagne. I mention this, not to boast, but to demonstrate that I have had a wide and varied upbringing and, despite my years, I do not think like a little boy.
‘I have yet to start my formal training as a warrior, but I practice daily with members of my gesith and I have started to learn about strategy and military tactics from the former hereræswa, Seofon of Bebbanburg; a man whose reputation you all know. But what you may not know is that he conquered Frisia for Charlemagne and defeated the Saxons of Bremen, the son of whose eorl is now the faithful leader of my gesith.’
To call me the conqueror of Frisia, or even to imply that I defeated the Eorl of Bremen in battle, was stretching the truth more than a little, but it sounded impressive and what these people needed now was a war-leader.
‘If I am chosen to be your king I know I will need regents to help me until I am fourteen, or even sixteen. If the choice were mine I would ask the archbishop to be my spiritual teacher and tutor in administration and the Ealdorman of Bebbanburg to lead my army and continue my education in warfare.’
I was proud of Æthelred. Not only had he delivered what we had rehearsed perfectly, even embroidering it skilfully when it came to my prowess, but he had sounded like a king, despite his high pitched voice. Wulfgang clapped him on the shoulder and Æthelred blushed as they exchanged a smile.
My relief was short lived. The Bishop of Hexham got to his feet next and unsurprisingly he was in the camp of Sicga. Despite the fact that his candidate had been ruled ineligible he went on the attack.
‘You say that Æthelfrith was your ancestor, descended in the male line, but what proof do we have of that?’
The boy looked floored by the question and so I got to my feet.
‘If I may, perhaps I can answer that. Those of you who were present at the Witan when Æthelwold Moll was elected will know that irrefutable proof was presented at that time. If you doubt my word, bishop, you only have to look in the records.’
‘Thank you Lord Seofon. I was present and I can confirm that is correct,’ Cynewulf said with a smile and his fellow bishop sat down looking annoyed.
Both Godwyn and Wynstan stood to confirm their support for Æthelred provided I was confirmed as hereræswa. The next man on his feet was the archbishop and I held my breath.
‘Much as I dislike Seofon personally,’ he began, ‘I can see that a combination of Æthelred the Ætheling as king and Seofon as hereræswa will give us the strong leadership Northumbria so badly needs at this time. However, I cannot accept a king who is suspected of being a catamite. I refer to rumours about his relationship to the captain of his gesith...’
He got no further. A furious Æthelred leaped to his feet and, ignoring Cynewulf’s instruction to sit down he launched into the archbishop.
‘Who says such a thing?’ he demanded. ‘How dare you call me a catamite? Yes, Wulfgang and I are close, but to suggest that our association is anything other than blameless is not only untrue but it is a slur on my character that demands satisfaction. Let anyone here who believes such a slander stand now and my champion will fight him to the death in defence of my honour.’
The vehemence with which Æthelred reacted to what the archbishop had said cannot have been fabricated. It was plain to all that the rumours about the two boys were untrue. Not only had the exchange cleared the air about Æthelred and Wulfgang, but it had also shown the putative king as a strong character, despite his young age. What had been a potentially damaging situation had been set on its head and it had significantly helped Æthelred’s candidature.
‘Very well,’ Æthelred said after a pause. ‘Archbishop, you should be more careful about what you say. You wouldn’t be the first bishop to be imprisoned.’
That struck home as Cynewulf himself had been incarcerated by King Eadbehrt decades earlier. There was a deathly silence as Æthelred sat down, his face still grim and suffused with anger. After a minute or two Cynewulf invited the archbishop to continue. He slowly got to his feet and faced Æthelred.
‘I apologise if I have offended you, Æthelred, but I was merely raising a matter that troubled everyone here. However, I’m grateful to you for making it perfectly clear that the stories that have been circulating are no more than scurrilous lies.’
It was well said but the archbishop still appeared to be somewhat shaken by the boy’s vehement reaction. He took a deep breath before continuing.
‘Like many here I suspect, I worry that we might be giving Seofon too much power as he is the boy’s guardian as well, but I see no alternative but to make him joint regent with me, if you will have us. However, I suggest that I should become the king’s guardian until such time as the Witan grants him full powers as our monarch.’
‘No, that’s not acceptable to me,’ Æthelred said, rising to his feet again. ‘I don’t remember my own parents and Seofon and the Lady Hilda have been mother and father to me for as long as I can recall. They will move to Eoforwīc with me. Renweard is the shire reeve of Islandshire; he can look after things there.’
‘The whelp speaks as if he is already king,’ one of the ealdormen, a man I didn’t recognise, said with a sneer.
‘And you are?’ Æthelred asked.
‘Sentwine of Beverley,’ he replied, flushing with annoyance at not being recognised.
‘One of Alchred’s appointees,’ I whispered to Æthelred.
‘I should tread carefully Sentwine. If I am elected by the Witan I would know who my friends are and who are my foes.’
That wasn’t something I had coached the boy in and I was very proud of the way he’d handled himself today. His warning, coupled with his earlier outburst, certainly gave others who were thinking of challenging him pause for thought.
‘Does anyone else wish to say anything?’ Bishop Cynewulf asked.
Beorhtmund stood up and I wondered what the man I had thought of as a friend until today would say.
‘I wish to endorse Æthelred the Ætheling as our king and to support both the nominations of Seofon to be hereræswa and for him and Archbishop Ethelbert to be joint regents. I also think that Seofon and Hilda should remain as the king’s legal guardians until he is fourteen.’
He sat down and smirked at me. I smiled back, more in relief than anything. However, one thing I had learned from today was that powerful men did not have friends, they had allies if they were lucky.
~~~
My first task as hereræswa was to retake Caer Luel and drive the Britons of Strathclyde out of northern Cumbria. I settled my wife and household in Eoforwīc in time for Christmas and as soon as the weather improved I set off for the muster point for the army – Hexham. It was not only a convenient base for operations in Cumbria but it would put Sicga to the expense of feeding the king and his household whilst they remained as his guests. It was some way from Caer Luel but the route there was easy; all we had to do was to follow the valley of the South Tyne River.
I sent Uuffa and Anarawd ahead to the border with an escort of twenty horsemen to reconnoitre the area.
‘We went all the way along the river as far as the confluence with the River Irthing and saw no sign of any enemy,’ my son told me two days later.
Where the two rivers m
et was on the boundary between Cumbria and Bernicia, although the division between them wasn’t always clearly delineated.
‘The local thegn hasn’t had any problems with raids from Cumbia,’ he went on, ‘so I suspect that they are concentrated around Caer Luel and the settlements nearby.’
‘Good. Thank you. Nearly everyone who I’m expecting has now sent contingents so we’ll move out along the valley tomorrow. We’ll camp there in two days’ time. In the meantime I want you to cross into Cumbria and see if you can find out what’s happening at Caer Luel, but don’t get caught. Quite apart from the fact that I want you back safe and sound, I don’t want the enemy to know we’re in the area.’
It was twenty miles to Cumbria and large armies on foot don’t cover more than about ten miles a day, even when the going was good. We set off on a cold but bright day in early March. The normally muddy road was still crisp with frost as I rode ahead of the main body with my horsemen at a steady walk whilst we waited for Uuffa and Alwyn to report back. It was mid-morning the next day before Alwyn appeared on his own. By then we had reached the campsite for the second night at the confluence between the South Tyne and the River Irthing on the border between the two shires.
‘Uuffa and the scouts are keeping an eye on Caer Luel. Everything seems normal so far. Farmers are coming in to the market as usual and there’s some traffic along the river out towards the Solway Firth.’
‘What about the settlements between here and there?’
It’s difficult to tell without talking to the occupants, but one or two have been burnt down. The rest appear to be functioning as normal, but I suspect that the original inhabitants are now slaves and the new owners are Britons.’
I went out of the encampment to think. So far only my horsemen had arrived, the rest would camp down river when they arrived. One of the advantages of being there first was you got the clean water.
The banks were gravel, rather than mud and bog, with grass and bushes rising up to low hills. I climbed to the top of one and looked out along the valley. I could see in the distance that the valley narrowed with tree covered slopes coming down to the river. The going tomorrow wouldn’t be as easy and the army would, of necessity, be more strung out. That would make it more vulnerable if the Britons knew we were there.
I sat down to think. I was uneasy about the apparent normality of Caer Luel and the surrounding countryside. Of course I hoped that the Britons would be unaware of our approach but it would be a miracle if we could assemble an army and march towards them without Eugein, or whoever he’d left in charge, hearing about it. The more I thought about it the more I began to smell a rat.
I was only dragged from my reverie when a spot of water hit my cheek, soon followed by several more. The blue sky dotted with fluffy white clouds had vanished and grey clouds were scudding in from the west as the wind picked up. My guess was that we were in for a stormy night and I was glad my tent and those of my mounted warband were already erected.
It started to rain in earnest and the sky grew even darker as the first of the main body arrived. They tried to find what little shelter there was as they waited for the baggage train to arrive with their leather tents. By the time everyone had them erected they were soaked to the skin and those who had chain mail would have to get rid of the rust as well as dry out as best they might.
I was also sopping wet as I eventually made my way back down the hill from my observation point, still having no plan for recapturing Cumbria. My servant, Seward, chastised me, saying that I would catch a fever, as he stripped me, got me dry and gave me clean, dry clothes. They were something that few others would have with them.
The storm passed in the night and the next morning dawned bright and clear. I decided to delay that day’s march by a few hours so that everybody could dry their clothes. We had posted sentries, of course, and I had sent scouts out to warn us of any enemy approach so the men felt free to wash in the river whilst their clothes dried.
It also gave me the opportunity to call a war council. Every ealdorman except those from Beverley, Luncæster and Loidis were present. They had stayed behind with their warbands and fyrds just in case Offa decided to take advantage of the situation. The Bishops of Lindisfarne and Hexham and a number of priests and monks had also accompanied the army, the latter mainly to deal with the wounded, and the archbishop joined us as joint-regent.
Æthelred stood on a makeshift dais so that he could see everyone and I turned to him now.
‘Cyning, I am uneasy about the very normality of northern Cumbria,’ I began, ‘I suspect that we are being drawn into a trap. I have no evidence of this, merely an intuition. I had expected our foes to have heard of the muster at Hexham and to be preparing to meet us in battle.’
‘What do you suggest, Seofon. That we sit here and wait to see what happens?’
‘No, not at all.’
I was slightly annoyed by the boy’s response. It seemed to imply that I was bereft of ideas.
‘However, I do think we need to scout further into the hills to the north of the river. If I was Eugein I would try and trap us between his army and the river. If he attacks us on the march we could be in serious trouble. I propose to send scouts into the hills whilst we construct a defensive position here, just in case. That does mean a delay in our advance which, if my suspicions prove unfounded, may well mean that the enemy have a little more time to make preparations to resist us. I would like to hear what others think.’
‘It seems to me that we risk little by staying here whilst we learn more of the enemy dispositions,’ Godwyn said. ‘Once we reach the coastal plain around Caer Luel the enemy will know of our presence in any case.’
Others thought that we should press on and strike whilst we had the element of surprise, dismissing my suspicions as fanciful. Sicga even came close to suggesting that I was a coward.
‘To even suggest that Seofon’s proposal is anything other than prudent shows what a fool you are, Sicga,’ Beorhtmund said, making the other man put his hand on his sword before the archbishop interrupted.
‘To start calling each other names is less than helpful. I am far from a military man but it seems to me that we need as much information about the Britons as possible. I would remind you that previous kings have led their armies to annihilation because they walked blindly into a trap.’
That swung opinion in my favour. I had no intention of doing anything other than what my common sense told me, but I did need to take this disparate group of nobles with me. Division rather than unity had been Northumbria’s curse for decades and we were the weaker for it.
By mid-morning my scouts were ready and I sent them out in three groups of twenty, all mounted, under the command of Octa, Uuffa and Anarawd. My choice of the latter surprised everyone except those who knew him. To those who queried my decision I merely said that he had served me as an agent on the Continent. No-one would connect him with the Bleddyn who was suspected of murdering King Oswulf sixteen years previously.
It was Anarawd who found the Strathclyde army. He estimated their numbers at three thousand, rather more than the two and a half thousand I had with me, but a fifth of my men were trained warriors whereas few of the enemy host would be. They were camped all along a small valley two miles north of the River Eden, which ran west from the confluence with the South Tyne and the Irthing to Caer Luel and on into the Solway Firth. Now I knew where they were I could turn their ambush into a trap of my own.
~~~
At dawn the next day I watched as a few men in the valley below me got up, stretched and went to relieve their bladders. The move into position at night had been difficult, but in the end only a handful had got lost. Now we were ready. I signalled to the man just below the skyline and he waved my wolf’s head banner to and fro. It was the signal for the attack to begin.
I mounted my horse and led a hundred and fifty horsemen in a charge down the hillside into the Strathclyde camp. At the same time seven hundred warriors formed a shiel
d wall to prevent escape from the entrance to the valley. I had divided the fyrd into two groups, one commanded by Octa and one by Beorhtmund. They now swarmed down both the opposite slope and the one behind me.
Another hundred men under Uuffa had moved into position at the head of the valley to cut off escape that way. I’d left Anarawd with the king, Wulfgang and the ten other companions who formed his gesith to watch from the top of the hill from where I’d led the charge. The clergymen had joined this little group too, which added the archbishop’s bodyguard of thirty warriors as additional protection. I felt that it would be enough. That didn’t prove to be the case but I didn’t find that out until later.
I had opted for an axe with a long handle rather than a spear which could only be used to kill one man before I’d have to let go of it. I brought the sharp axe head down on a man who was trying ineffectually to get out of my way instead of fighting me. The Britons were scattered and disorganised. As we cantered through their camp my axe became coated with gore as I chopped down man after man. Then I was through the camp and I pulled my horse to a halt as Octa’s men ran past me, eager to join in the slaughter.
I rode a little way up the opposite slope so that I could get a better view of what was going on. My horsemen gathered around me and I was pleased to see that I hadn’t lost more than a handful. Then I saw something that chilled my blood.
Someone had spotted the yellow and red banner of Northumbria and that of the Archbishop of Eoforwīc flying amongst the group with Æthelred. A large group of Britons had fought their way clear of Beorhtmund’s men, who were now busy fighting those still in the encampment, and they were clambering up the hillside towards the king. I estimated their numbers at several hundreds, many times more than those with Æthelred and Archbishop Ethelbert.
‘Follow me at the gallop,’ I yelled, digging my spurs into my mount’s flanks so sharply that it reared up slightly before tearing off back through the camp, scattering friend and foe alike.