by H A CULLEY
‘All I know is that they live far to the south of us, further along the coast. Perhaps to the north east of the Danes,’ he added helpfully.
‘Do they raid as well?’
‘Yes, but I’ve heard they confine their raiding to the Baltic Sea. That’s all I know.’
I’d heard of the Baltic. It was an almost completely inland sea to the east of Denmark.
‘Well, I hope that we don’t get any more raids like that on Lindisfarne.’
Erik look as if he was uncertain whether to reply or not but in the end he said something that troubled me greatly.
‘Because Jarl Haraldr’s raid was such a success, word will spread,’ he said. ‘Soon every king and jarl seeking treasure and prestige will want to launch a raid across what you call the German Ocean.’
~~~
The boy’s words proved to be prophetic. In 794 Vikings attacked the monastery at Jarrow but this time their ealdorman’s warband was closer at hand and they drove the Vikings back into the sea. They escaped in their three longboats but returned that night. The warband was drunk after celebrating their victory and the Vikings succeeded in looting the monastery.
In 795 they rounded the north of Alba and attacked the Isle of Skye before proceeding to loot the Holy Isle of Iona and several Irish monasteries.
These events seemed far away and peace had returned once more to Bebbanburg. I had stationed part of my warband in a small fort on Lindisfarne where the monks could take shelter if there was another attack. I also made sure that at least two of my birlinns were available in Budle Bay at any one time. That said, I had doubts that they would be a match for one drekar, let alone two.
Eafa grew older but he was still very young to be my shire reeve. He made mistakes but he wasn’t afraid to admit them or to seek my advice. I grew more and more incapacitated and I could only get around now with the aid of a stick and the shoulder of a servant to lean on. I knew my days were numbered and then came the news that made death seem like a welcome release from this world.
Epilogue – The Year of Three Kings
796
When I was told that Torhtmund was waiting in the hall to see me I knew that something serious had happened. With great difficulty I got out of bed with the help of my body servant and young Erik. The Norse boy was fifteen now and had developed into a muscular youth; such a change from the scrawny boy he’d been three years before.
My body servant was no longer the faithful Seward. He had died the previous year and I had been depressed for some time by his demise. It seemed that everyone that I’d been close to had gone before me. My new servant was a Frisian slave called Bernard. He was sixteen and had been bought by Anarawd in Paris as Seward’s replacement. He was dutiful and eager to please, almost too much so. His obsequiousness made me miss Seward even more.
I hobbled into the hall and sat down in my chair with relief. Eafa was present, as was Cynewise. Osoryd had left Bebbanburg the previous year to become at novice at Coldingham, twenty miles up the coast in Lothian. It was her choice to become a nun and, although I had hoped that she would marry and unite our house with one of the other great houses of Northumbria, I didn’t try to dissuade her. Cynewise had less sense and forbade her. Of course, this only made Osoryd more determined and Cynewise never forgave me when I sided with her daughter.
‘Torhtmund, welcome. Don’t stand there, someone fetch a chair for the ealdorman, and refreshments. Have you come far?’
He nodded and then sat down.
‘From Hexham.’
‘If you’ve come to tell me that Offa of Mercia has died, I’ve already heard.’
‘No, not Offa. The king was visiting Hexham and decided to go hunting. I was with him, as was Uuffa and the ealdormen Ealdred and Wada. When we brought the stag to bay we all stepped back to let Æthelred have the honour of killing it. As he went forward those two traitors threw their spears into the kings unprotected back, killing him.’
‘No! Not again. Poor Æthelred. Why?’
‘Apparently to put Osbald on the throne.’
‘Osbald? But he has no claim to the crown. He’s only an ealdorman, not an aetheling.’
‘There’s worse news, Seofon, and I hate to be the one to bring it to you. I managed to kill Ealdred but Wada and two other men killed both Wulfgang and Uuffa before they fled.’
I had always detested people who showed too much emotion but when I heard that my other son was dead as well, I broke down and cried. To her credit Cynewise did her best to comfort me whilst Eafa stood there looking miserable and helpless. I told her to comfort her son whilst Bernard and Erik helped me back to my bed.
I lay there awake, thinking back to when Octa and Uuffa were boys and I was young Æthelred’s guardian. I had loved them all and now they were dead. I felt Wulfgang’s loss too.
It was of no comfort to hear that the usurper Osbald’s reign had lasted a mere twenty seven days. When he heard that Torhtmund and most of the other ealdormen were mustering an army to depose him he quickly abdicated and fled north to Lindisfarne, of all places.
Higbald came to see me the next day. This time I received him lying in bed. I didn’t know it then but I wouldn’t leave it again.
‘What shall I do, lord. I can’t really refuse Osbald sanctuary, but he plotted the murder of King Æthelred and he also slew Beorn, the son of King Ælfwald, by setting fire to the hut in which he’d locked him. He is doubly accursed.’
Beorn’s murder had been in 780. I didn’t understand at the time why Osbald was never called to account for it. My inclination was to suggest that Higbald hand him over to his enemies. I would gladly hang him for one. But I didn’t. There had been enough killing; the throne of Northumbria was soaked in blood.
‘I’ll send a birlinn across to you. It’ll take him to Pictland. Let him take his chances up there.’
And so it was. I lapsed into a coma a few days later but I awoke again to find Eafa, Cynewise and Anarawd by my bedside. I fancied I could see Hilda, Octa and Uuffa too but, of course that must have been my imagination.
‘Who’s the king now?’ I managed to croak, as if that mattered.
‘Eardwulf,’
It shouldn’t have come as a shock, but it did. He was another usurper. He was ever Æthelred’s enemy and I wouldn’t have been surprised if he was in on the plot to kill him.
‘May God help Northumbria then.’
I was distantly aware that Eafa had asked what I’d said, but it seemed that no one had understood my last words. I had seen ten kings come and go in the seventy two years I’d spent on this earth. It was more than enough. I was ready to depart this life.
THE LORDS OF BEBBANBURG WILL RETURN AGAIN IN
THE WOLF AND THE RAVEN
Book 7 in the Kings of Northumbria Series
AUTHORS NOTE
This story is based on the known facts, but written evidence is scarce and there is confusion in the main sources about dates, names and even relationships between family members. The main events are as depicted, even if the detail is invented. The chronology of events has sometimes been slightly altered in order to suit the story but this is, after all, a novel.
The century after the death of Osric, the last acknowledged king of the House of Æthelfrith, was a turbulent one. Ceolwulf, who followed Osric, abdicated and entered the monastery on the Holy Island of Lindisfarne as a monk in 737. His cousin, Eadbehrt, ruled for nineteen years but faced several challenges for the throne during that time. He too became a monk in 758 and he was followed by no less than ten kings over the next century or so. Two of them were deposed and then restored and three were murdered.
This novel is set during the period from Eadbehrt’s election as king in 737 to the death of Osbald – who reigned for a mere twenty seven days - and the accession of Eardwulf in 796. Unlike the previous books in the series, which are written in the third person, this tells the story through the eyes of one man – Seofon of Bebbanburg.
This period saw the decline of
the once powerful kingdom of Oswiu, who was acknowledged as overlord by the whole of the North of Great Britain, including Scotland, and even for a time, Mercia. The remarkable thing is that, whilst its military and political power declined, its cultural standing grew, especially in the fields of craftsmanship, missionary work on the Continent and scholarship.
As the eighth century drew to a close the world of the Anglo-Saxons of Northumbria was about to change. The raid by Norsemen on Lindisfarne was not the first contact with the Vikings, as they came to be called. There had been raids on Wessex. Kent and Mercia before 793, notably that of 789 when the Shire-Reeve of Dorset was killed. There may have been mercantile contacts before that because the Norse and the Danes were traders as well as raiders. Perhaps the contrast between the rich pastoral lands of England and the unproductive farmland of much of Scandinavia encouraged these raids as a precursor to settlement.
Although this lay in the future, the internecine struggle for power in Northumbria during the eighth century meant that it was unprepared militarily and politically for the large scale invasion of the Norse and the Danes when it came. Of course, the kingdoms of the south also had to struggle for survival, but survive they did. Not so Northumbria. Its last independent king was Aelle. After that there were a number of Anglo-Saxon kings who ruled as Danish puppets and several Danish kings. In 927 Æthelstan became King of the English and Northumbria became an earldom.
Charlemagne
Charlemagne, meaning Charles the Great, was born on 2 April 742 and died on 28 January 814 aged seventy one. He united most of Western Europe during his reign and the greatly expanded Frankish state that Charlemagne founded was called the Carolingian Empire, named after the dynasty of which he was a member.
Charlemagne was the oldest son of Pipin the Short and became king in 768 following his father's death, initially as co-ruler with his brother, Carloman. The latter's sudden death in unexplained circumstances in 771 left Charlemagne as the undisputed ruler of the Kingdom of the Franks. However, Carloman died in Burgundy, not Frisia as portrayed in this novel.
Charlemagne conquered Lombardy in 774, Thuringia in 774, Bavaria in 778, and Carinthia in 788. He campaigned against Saxony for twenty long years before finally subjugating it in 797.
He continued his father's policy towards the papacy and became its protector. In return Pope Leo III crowned Charlemagne as Emperor of the Romans on Christmas Day in the year 800.
Other Novels by H A Culley
The Normans Series
The Bastard’s Crown
Death in the Forest
England in Anarchy
Caging the Lyon
Seeking Jerusalem
Babylon Series
Babylon – The Concubine’s Son
Babylon – Dawn of Empire
Individual Novels
Magna Carta
Berwick (Previously published as The Sins of the Fathers)
Robert the Bruce Trilogy
The Path to the Throne
The Winter King
After Bannockburn
Constantine Trilogy
Constantine – The Battle for Rome
Crispus Ascending
Death of the Innocent
Macedon Trilogy
The Strategos
The Sacred War
Alexander
Kings of Northumbria Series
Whiteblade
Warriors of the North
Bretwalda
The Power and the Glory
The Fall of the House of Æthelfrith
About The Author
H A Culley was born in Wiltshire in 1944 and was educated at St. Edmund’s School, Canterbury and Welbeck College. After RMA Sandhurst he served as an Army officer for twenty four years, during which time he had a variety of unusual jobs. He spent his twenty first birthday in the jungles of Borneo, served with the RAF, commanded an Arab infantry unit in the Gulf for three years and was the military attaché in Beirut during the aftermath of the Lebanese Civil War.
After leaving the Army he became the bursar of a large independent school for seventeen years before moving into marketing and fundraising in the education sector. He has served on the board of two commercial companies and has been a trustee of several national and local charities. He has also been involved in two major historical projects. His last job before retiring was as the finance director and company secretary of the Institute of Development Professionals in Education.
He lives near Holy Island in Northumberland and now devotes his time to writing historical fiction.