However, ghosts withered if they were not tied to a place. Edwin had moved so much over the years since Cwenburg’s death that he feared eventually she would not be able to find him any more. Then she would be left to wander into the twilight and be lost. So the occasions when he saw her again each became more precious than the last.
As quickly as it came, the memory left him, and Edwin could not stay in the smoky room any longer. He stepped out into the king’s hall and stood listening. The meagre light of the few tapers that still burned flickered on the walls, and shadows moved over the hangings dangling from the ceiling. A breath of air made its way between the high pillars that supported the roof, and touched Edwin’s cheek. He looked around for movement, but there was none. The benches and tables for the evening’s meal had been pushed back against the walls. The king’s men, those who were unmarried, mostly lay upon the benches, their breath a melding of snores and whispers that formed the constant night noise in any king’s hall throughout the land. A restless dog whimpered in its sleep, kicking in a dream, then settled. The lingering smell of wood smoke mingled with the last scent of charred pork and the sour-sweet tang of spilled mead and the malt undertow of beer.
It was all so familiar to Edwin – he had seen and smelled and heard the same in every hall he had stayed in over his years of exile. Even when he had gone among the Britons, staying with Cadfan the King of Gwynedd, the sights and sounds and smells of the king’s hall had been much the same, although there was one difference: the smoke the king’s priests sent up as part of their rituals and prayers. That had been thick in Cadfan’s hall, a cloying, lingering taste in the back of his throat and upon his clothes. The priests of the Angles and the Saxons and the Jutes used no such incense in the halls of their kings, but they prayed to different gods.
The air in the hall was too rank, too suffused with the smell of men and food and dogs. Edwin headed towards the hall’s great door and the clean night air.
The door was barred. Edwin poked the man slumped against it with his foot and he jolted awake, hand dropping to his sword belt, but then pausing when his eyes focused on Edwin.
“Warden, open the door. I have need of air.”
The warden clambered to his feet and levered the bar back, its weight made as nothing by pivots upon the back of the door.
“Your man, he needs air after a single horn.” The warden pushed the door open enough for a man to slide through the gap. Edwin did not move. The warden sighed and pushed the door open further. Still Edwin did not move. The warden shrugged, grabbed the heavy wood and walked it all the way round so that it stood fully open, in a manner appropriate for a king’s exit.
Edwin walked through the door. He might be a king in exile, but he was still a king, and honour was his due.
The warden took up his station by the open door. “Will you be long, lord?”
Edwin looked at him. The warden straightened. Alone among the men in the hall he wore a sword at his belt, as befitted his station as door warden. Torchlight, guttering weakly from the hall, glittered on his belt and buckles – gold inlaid with garnets, Edwin noted, of the finest workmanship. Rædwald was an open-handed king, giving great gifts to those who served him.
“The night is not old, warden. You have scarce begun your duties. See that the door is open for me when I return.”
The warden appeared to sigh, but he had the wit to ensure that he made no sound. Edwin walked out into the night.
He continued walking down the gentle hill towards the foreshore. Rædwald’s hall lay in sight of the sea, on one of the mounds that rose from the sea marshes and swamps that made the land of the East Angles a liminal place, neither land nor water, but shifting and solid beneath the feet and under the eye. Edwin followed the sound of the waves lapping on the beach, and soon he saw lines of white, lit by moonlight, as the waves drew in and curled onto the sand. The wind carried the salt tang of the sea, and for a while he retreated into memory, recalling how his father had taught him to rig a boat and sail it across the breeze. But he shook himself back into the present with a shiver. A cold finger from the frost giants of the north came over the water and ran across his face, a first hint of the winter to come. Edwin heard and felt the scrape of sand against his feet and stopped. The king’s hall was but a promise of light, a glow beyond the hilltop behind him. His head rocked back and Edwin looked up at the stars.
He wondered, and wandered, among them. There was the Bear, stalking north, and the Bear Cub, creeping away in fear from the terrible still point in the sky. Edwin remembered his fear as a child when he heard a scop singing of the day when the Bear finally caught the North Star after its long, patient stalk. Then the Bear ate the star, and the sky fell, as a tent falls when its pole is removed. But the Bear had not moved in Edwin’s life, and his years had provided more urgent fears than the sky falling in.
The Milky Way, the long cape that Woden had thrown across the sky as he tried to climb the World Tree to reach the North Star, glowed from horizon to horizon. The scops said that wyrd toppled Woden as he reached up to grasp the star, bringing him down, down, down through the air, and his fall was so great that he had made the hole into which the sea flowed around the island of Britain. Edwin sometimes wondered why Woden had used a cape for climbing and not a rope, when everyone knew that wool, though generally strong, could sometimes tear through. But the gods were silent on the reasons for their actions.
The sea hissed on the sand. The sound drew him. What Forthred had said was true; they could embark on a boat, take sail across the sea to the cousins of his people, the Scyldings, the Geats and the Frisians, and be assured of the welcome due an exiled king bringing a small but battle-hardened retinue of warriors with him. Any king would welcome the addition of Edwin, his sons and his retainers to his own forces, and once he had fled across the sea there would be no further reason for Æthelfrith to pursue him. And should his service go well, it would be rewarded with gold, and land, and power. Although his kingdom had been stolen from him in these islands, he could win another overseas, as his own forefathers had done when they left the land of their birth on the windswept peninsula of Angeln and taken the whale road to Britain. Edwin smiled. The land his forefathers had settled was no less windswept than the one they had left. He could allow those winds to carry him back to his ancestral home; he could return across the sea and leave these islands behind.
Edwin stared out over the incoming wave. If Rædwald handed him over to Æthelfrith, alive or as a corpse, his sons would be part of the gift. It was too dangerous to leave them alive, with an obligation to wreak blood vengeance. But if he went over the sea, his sons would live. He might live to see his grandchildren.
The wave hissed over the sand as it withdrew. Edwin shook his head. He might live to lose the strength of his arm, the wind from his lungs and the wit from his head, like those old warriors who did not stray far from the warmth of the fire, but grabbed any young man passing to regale them with tales of battles long ago fought and enemies years dead. It did not do for a king to grow old. Edwin smiled bleakly. Just as well then that kings did not grow old.
The sound came to him over the sigh of water on sand and wind through trees. A hiss, the sound of sand being displaced and sliding downwards. The sound of movement. Edwin’s hand went immediately to his waist, but his sword was not there. No man might carry a sword in Rædwald’s hall, save the king himself and the door warden. Edwin slid his seax from its sheath, taking care that the long knife – as much a part of a man as his tongue – made no sound as he drew it. Crouching, so that he would not be silhouetted against the white of the breaking waves behind him, Edwin listened. It made sense, if Rædwald had decided to hand him over to Æthelfrith, that the king should send one of his men to kill him now, in the silence and the dark, away from his sons and followers. There would be knives ready for Osfrith and Eadfrith, waiting upon the return of the assassin. Then their blood would flow, hi
s line would be extinguished, and Æthelfrith could rule untrammelled.
But he was not going to die, not here, not now. Edwin slowed his breathing, bringing his suddenly racing heart back under control. With the sound of his own blood no longer blocking his ears, he concentrated all his attention into hearing. And smell.
He caught it then – a hint of the close, throat clutching smoke that had filled the halls of Cadfan of Gwynedd. For a moment Edwin wondered why a killer should smell of incense, but the thought was driven out by the rustle of marram grass. There. The killer had moved south, to make sure he could not be seen against the fires of the king’s hall. He had circled round and was approaching along the line of the dunes. Keeping watch, Edwin crouched low and felt with his hand. The ground to his right was hard-packed thick sand. He could move across it without setting off any sand slips. Holding the seax between his teeth, arms and legs wide to spread his weight, Edwin inched to his right. A glance showed a darker shadow – a valley between the sand hills that would provide cover. Edwin slid towards it, eyes scanning for any movement. He had been outside for many minutes and his eyes were night bright, seeing by starlight.
A pebble, half buried in the sand, shifted beneath his foot and then scuttled down the sand hill, its passage as loud in the silence as an oath. Edwin froze. Even in the open it was hard to see a man at night if he kept absolutely still. But it was too much to hope the assassin had not heard the sound. Noise, however, gave only an approximate location. Sight was needed for murder. Edwin knew he needed to be first to see his opponent if he was to have any chance of killing a man armed and ready.
There. A shadow, darker than the rest, between the dunes. Did it move? He watched, eyes narrowed, but his other senses spread wide lest he be taken unawares through his own concentration.
Yes, it moved. It was coming towards him. Edwin took the seax in his hand, covering it with his other arm in case it should catch the glitter of a star and throw it to the man who stalked him. His breathing was low, not even a whisper, his head as clear as the sky and his heart calm. This was the peace before killing, the peace his father had taught him.
The killer came slowly, steadily onwards, and as he approached, Edwin saw that he was cloaked and hooded. No sign of his face could be seen under the cowl. Edwin knew the fighting styles of Rædwald’s thegns well. If he could see the face, he would know how to fight him. The man was closer now, within fifty yards, but there was something strange about his approach. He walked without concealment, taking the broad path between the dunes while letting his feet crunch over the sand. This was the approach of an executioner, not an assassin. Surely none of Rædwald’s men were such fools as to approach him thus, without stealth, if they meant to kill him?
A diversion? Edwin sent his other senses questing, in the air and through the ground, but he could discern no other approach.
The man was closer now and though he still could not see his face, Edwin saw that he was not carrying a sword, nor a shield. The starlight made no glitter on the pole the man dug into the sand as he walked and, unless he had blacked out the head, that meant he carried a staff, not a spear. Edwin’s brow creased. It was not unknown for an assassin to bludgeon a man to death, but a staff was as likely to break on a head as to break a head. Nor did the man have the build of someone who habitually used a cudgel, for he appeared tall but lean, rather than having the bulk of bone and muscle and blood required of a man who wielded his strength as his main weapon.
The man was near now, but set on a course that would take him across the shadows in which Edwin hid. At his closest, he would come within five feet. Edwin fingered the seax, keeping his wrist loose. A knife held in a tight wrist could too easily be jarred out of the hand if it struck armour or bone. He could slip out of the shadows and slide the seax into the man’s armpit, where even if the blade missed the heart the man would die from blood loss within minutes.
Edwin waited, still, poised. The assassin closed. Ten feet. Nine. Eight.
The assassin stopped.
Beneath the cowl, the head turned.
Edwin tensed, ready to spring.
The man reached up and lifted the cowl from his head. He turned his face towards Edwin, but although it was uncovered, the night still concealed his features.
“My lord.”
Edwin stood, sliding up from his crouch as smoothly as a cat. The seax glittered in the starlight.
“What do you want of me?”
“I know well why you stand outside the king’s hall through the dark of the night.” The man’s voice was deep and strong, with the resonance of a scop, but his words carried a strange accent, unlike any Edwin had heard before.
“Who are you?”
“I know why you stand vigil by the sea through the darkest watches of the night, alone and troubled in mind, my lord. I know the evil that threatens you, the betrayer who will hand you over to your enemies, and I ask you this: what reward would you give the man who can save you from evil? What would you do for the man who persuades King Rædwald to remain in his honour and not hand you over to your enemies?” As the man spoke, his voice grew lower, quieter, but Edwin could still hear it clearly, for all other sound had faded from the world. “What reward would you give that man?”
Edwin – a tall man – looked up into the face of his questioner. “For such a deliverance, I would give whatever was in my power to give.”
The dark man grasped his staff, planting it more firmly in the ground, but he made no move to approach closer.
“And what if that man prophesied, and prophesied in truth, that you would become king, putting down your enemies in their pride? And that you would ascend to a greater power than any of your fathers, a greater power than any king in these islands has wielded since the days of the emperors?”
Edwin could not tear his gaze from the shadowed eyes of the cloaked man. Who was he? Was he a god?
“If such things came to pass, I would give more generously than any king – gold, and jewels, and horses.”
The stranger inclined his head. “And if this man unknown to you, who spoke in truth revealing the paths of the future and the glory that awaits, also brought guidance for life and salvation, knowledge unrevealed to your fathers and forefathers, would you follow his counsel and obey his advice?”
Edwin fell silent. The stranger waited for his answer.
“If such a man exists, who by his counsel can deliver me from my enemies and raise me to the throne, then assuredly I would follow his advice and wait upon his counsel.”
The cloaked man bowed his head. His lips moved, and Edwin heard the murmur of words in a language unknown to him. Then he raised his head and stepped towards the king. Placing his hand upon Edwin’s head, he said, “Remember this. Remember well this sign I place upon your head. When you receive this sign again, remember our conversation and remember your promise.”
The cloaked man stepped back and raised his cowl to cover his head.
“Who are you?” asked Edwin. “Are you a god?”
The man, his face now lost again in shadow, turned away.
“Remember the sign,” he said, and walked into the shadows.
Not daring to move, Edwin watched as the stranger merged into the night. Woden, the All-Father, wore a hood when he wandered the world. Edwin shivered. It was late summer and the night was not cold, but he shivered, in awe and fear and, most dreadful of all, in hope.
Chapter 2
“My lord, my king, my – may the gods forgive me – husband, I do not believe I can bear the dishonour of being known as a queen who feasts a guest one day and then hands him over to his enemy the next.” Ymma, queen of the East Angles, mother of the princes Rægenhere and Eorpwald, sat upon a stool brushing her hair. Rædwald, king of the East Angles, watched her in silence. The tapers in the royal bedroom burned evenly, their flames rising straight, for the tapestries that hung from
the walls stopped the night breezes doing more than raising a whisper.
The queen ran the finely toothed bone comb through her golden hair. Rædwald watched, as he always watched when Ymma brushed her hair, for never had he seen gold more flowing, although he had won in battle gold from the kings and emperors of lands far, far away.
After adjusting the polished metal that reflected her image, Ymma continued with her brushing, running the tines through her hair from the scalp all the way down to her waist. Rædwald’s eyes devoured the sight, for only he among men saw the queen with her hair unbound, falling freely as far as her hips, a golden train finer than any he could give her. His concubines, the pick of the women taken in battle and raid, were all dark, black of hair and dark of eye, but his wife was golden.
“So, tell me again, how has Æthelfrith’s man persuaded you to surrender honour and renown, and to give up your friend and guest to the Twister?” The queen did not turn to look at him, for in adjusting the metal she had brought her husband into view.
Rædwald ran his finger and thumb over his moustache and brought them together on his chin. He knew Ymma could see him, and his face grew hot under her gaze. He fiddled some more with his moustache. He did not know how to answer. For the answer, in truth, was fear. And although the fear was wrapped in gold and buttered with jewels, nevertheless it lay at the marrow and in the blood of his decision.
“Well?”
The king scratched the underside of his chin. He coughed, a weak sound even to his own ears.
Ymma stopped brushing. She sat waiting, her back turned to him, the white skin of her right shoulder revealed as her shift slid down her arm.
Edwin Page 2