Edwin

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Edwin Page 3

by Edoardo Albert


  “It’s…” The king’s voice dried into silence.

  The queen waited.

  Rædwald stood up and moved out of the view of the mirror. “There are some decisions a king has to make…” His voice trailed away.

  “Gold.” He tried again, weakly. “Æthelfrith’s messenger promised me three boats full of gold, and four white horses.”

  Ymma turned around. “What did he promise you before?”

  “The first time, he offered only one boat and no horses. The second time he sent to me for Edwin, he said he would pay two boats and two horses. I knew he would offer more if I said no.”

  “So, your honour and name, which you would not give up for two boats of gold and two horses, you happily give up for three boats and four horses. I see they are worth one boat and two horses. Not very much for the glory of a king.”

  Rædwald shook his head to clear the fog that was filling his mind. It had all been so clear when he had made the decision. Now Ymma was complicating it all.

  “You do not understand. It is not about the treasure…”

  “Is it fear then, my lord? Do you fear him? There would be no shame in being afraid of so great and mighty a warrior as Æthelfrith.” The comb hissed through the golden waves of Ymma’s hair, the same sound the sickle makes at harvest time shearing through the stalks of wheat.

  “No! No… I do not fear Æthelfrith. But I am wary of him, Ymma. While I have been forced to spend the past three seasons dealing with Æthelbert of Kent – successfully – so that we are now allied in blood and friendship, Æthelfrith has been busy. He has the North Angles and Middle Angles under his lordship. The Hwicce and the West Saxons are with him too. I cannot simply ride out against him.”

  The comb stopped.

  “Why not?”

  “Why not? Why not? It would be suicide, woman, suicide.”

  “Not if he didn’t know you were coming.”

  Rædwald made to answer, then stopped. “What do you mean?”

  The queen resumed her patient brushing. “I have heard the stories you men tell in the hall; how Æthelfrith has won so many battles through taking his enemies by surprise that they call him ‘Twister’ and ‘Dodger’. Would Æthelfrith win if he were taken by surprise, before he had the chance to call the North Angles and Middle Angles, the Hwicce and the West Saxons to his aid?”

  “And how am I supposed to take Æthelfrith by surprise, woman?”

  “Follow his messenger.” Ymma stopped brushing her hair and turned to face the king. “Gather your thegns, and as soon as you hear where Æthelfrith is, ride after him with all your men and attack. He will only just have heard that you have refused his messenger; he will be thinking what to do, whether to offer more or gather all his men and ride against you, but he will not have them together. The summer is almost over. The men return to the land to gather in the harvest, and only Æthelfrith’s own thegns will be with him. Fall on him, kill him, and then it will be Rædwald who will be king of the Middle Angles and South Angles, and Edwin will rule the Angles of Northumbria, but at your sufferance. You will be the greatest king in the land; you will be High King.”

  Rædwald shook his head. He knew the plan would not work – it was mad, Æthelfrith too dangerous – but he could not think of any precise detail where it fell down. In the end he said weakly, “Æthelbert might have something to say about me being the High King.”

  Ymma laughed. “He can say what he wants; you will be the king of all the Anglian kingdoms, and overlord of the Saxons. He can have the Jutish lands and his new god.”

  “Don’t mock Æthelbert’s new god, Ymma. He is powerful. That’s why I had the priests of this god bless me when I was in Canterbury; that’s why I have had an altar to him set up in our temple and one of Æthelbert’s priests to sacrifice upon it.”

  The queen shrugged, and Rædwald couldn’t help notice the way her shift slipped further from her shoulder. “Sacrifice to him, too, then. If you have this new god aiding you, as well as the old gods, then surely you will kill Æthelfrith, for he only has the old gods helping him.”

  Rædwald smiled at the thought. “True,” he mused.

  “Not that you need the extra help,” said Ymma, “for everyone says you are a greater warrior than Æthelfrith.”

  “Who says that?”

  “Ask any scop who comes with songs and news and tales of lands far and near – ask them who the greatest warrior in Britain is, and you will hear them answer: Rædwald of the East Angles.”

  “But I have heard scops sing of Æthelfrith as the greatest warrior in the land.”

  “The craftiest warrior, the most cunning, maybe, but not the greatest fighter. No man alive has an arm to match yours, my lord, nor valour so great.” Ymma twisted a strand of hair through her fingers. “Shall I tell you why I want you to fight and kill Æthelfrith, lord?” She looked up at him through her eyelashes. “It is because whenever I hear a scop singing of the power of Æthelfrith, and his majesty, I feel sick, sick to my stomach, that the glory and honour that should be yours, the mightiest, the bravest, the strongest of the kings of the English, is given to him, a liar, a betrayer, a… a twister.” Ymma now looked her husband straight in the eye, with no artifice or wile. “Will you not keep your word, lord; save your sworn friend Edwin from his enemy and then together ride out against Æthelfrith and slay him?”

  Rædwald felt the blood pounding at his temple. His vision blurred for an instant and he felt himself sway, but then his sight cleared and he saw his wife waiting upon his response, the answer of the king.

  “I will,” he said.

  Chapter 3

  “Here, come ride beside me.” Rædwald gestured Edwin forward. “What do you see?”

  Edwin paced his horse so that it walked a head behind the king’s mount. He scanned the flat land, broken by watercourses and rivers winding between trees and rush-lined banks from west to east, heading towards the great broad mouth of the Humber. To the east, land and water met, mingled and became the impenetrable marshes that surrounded most of the kingdom of Lindsey. It was a barren land, devoid of farms, with only the meanest folk scratching a living from eel fishing. The spires of smoke from their fires, used to dry the caught eels, rose up into the sky out of the marshes. From the banks of irises and reeds, Edwin glimpsed the occasional flash of movement as the marsh people kept watch on the passing riders, their faces and eyes as blank as the dark water of their homes. Water flats, sheet silver grey under the clouds, interspersed the fading green of the summer rushes and reeds. Come the winter, the land would turn as dull and brown as the marshes, and the water folk, if the ice came, would be driven inland to dig for roots and tubers that they might live.

  “I see marsh and rivers and sky, my lord, but no sign of our enemy,” said Edwin.

  Rædwald laughed, delightedly slapping his horse on the neck. The horse, accustomed to the heavy hand of its rider, did not break step.

  “You look all around, searching for Æthelfrith, but I am looking in front of my horse’s nose! There,” Rædwald pointed ahead, “what do you see there?”

  Stretching ahead of them, heading north, was the only straight line to be seen: the road. It cut across river and marsh and flat, barely deviating from the straight path north to York. It was broad enough for four horses to ride abreast. It curved downward from its centre, as smoothly as a gentle hill; the hooves of the horses thudded upon the hard stones of the road.

  “The Emperor’s Road.” Edwin nodded. “Of course.”

  “It’s only by this old road that we are able to move fast enough to catch up with Æthelfrith.” Rædwald turned round to look at the column of riding men: there were sixty of them, the thegns of his household riding behind the wolf pennant of the Wuffingas, the royal clan of the East Angles, and Edwin’s few men, distinguished by the wild boar crests on their helmets.

  It was a m
ighty army.

  Spotting his son, Rædwald called him to the front.

  Rægenhere trotted his horse up along the flank of the army, his blond hair, fair like his mother’s, glowing as brightly as the gold of his arm rings and the buckles on his cape. He took the place on the right hand of his father.

  “I wanted to show this to you as well as Edwin.” Rædwald pointed at the road. “The Emperor’s Road. Learn it well, for when Æthelfrith is dead and Edwin is king of Northumbria, it is upon this road that our armies and Edwin’s must travel if we are to bend the other kingdoms to our will.”

  “I prefer to travel by boat,” said Edwin.

  Rædwald glanced at Edwin’s stiff, upright posture. “So I see.”

  Edwin snorted with laughter. “I am not usually uncomfortable on a horse, but my own beast went lame and I am unused to this animal as yet. A boat allows you to carry more away after a battle – more gold, more horses, more slaves.”

  “You take your boats, I will take my horses. At least I don’t have to wait for the wind.”

  “If the wind fails, we row.”

  “And do all the work, like a slave.” Rædwald glanced at Edwin, but the Northumbrian stared straight ahead. Rædwald looked to his son and winked. Rægenhere stifled a laugh. He knew well this mood in his father – before battle, a terrible joy filled Rædwald. He might do anything in such a humour, from gifting a thegn the wealth of a king to insulting a warrior so vilely that he could satisfy honour only by calling the king to the duelling cloak. But this was also the time to ask the king a favour, and there was one Rægenhere was minded to ask.

  “Father,” he began, and a voice that had not yet completely broken screeched into falsetto before settling back into a man’s register. “Father, will you give me leave to lead my men into battle?”

  Rædwald looked searchingly at his son. The boy was almost a man, but in size and skill of arms he already exceeded most of the men. The thegns loved him, for his generosity, for his laughter and for the childhood that had been lived among them. They would fight, and die, for Rægenhere when the time came and Rædwald himself went to his forefathers.

  From his place on the king’s left, Edwin looked over at father and son. He remembered his own first experience of battle as a confusion of noise, fear, rage and a sudden terrible clarity as a warrior in the melee after the shieldwall had broken closed on him, and he had realized that in an instant he would live or die. The warrior had raised his arms for a killing, crushing blow with the axe, but his leading foot slipped upon a broken shield and he stumbled. Edwin had reacted without thought, the sword thrust the product of years of training. The man looked at him, his eyes wide, and Edwin stared back, both hands on the hilt of his sword as he pushed it. The warrior shook as the sword sucked the man’s soul into its iron, every muscle going into a spasm as the life left his body. Edwin remembered nothing else clearly, but that man, the first warrior he had killed, remained as vivid in his memory as Cwenburg, and he feared that his ghost would endure longer than hers, for his ghost lived in Edwin’s sword.

  Rædwald punched his son on the shoulder, a blow that would have unhorsed a poorer rider than Rægenhere. Edwin was relieved not to be on the receiving end of such affection himself, for he would surely have been sent sprawling.

  “Yes, my boy, yes. You are grown now, a man, and it is time you led other men into battle. Our scouts tell us he only has thirty men with him, so we will split into three groups and surround him. You will lead the centre.”

  Rægenhere beamed in delight at the news, a smile that made him look again the boy he had only just left behind.

  “I will command on the left and Edwin will take the right.” Rædwald looked to Edwin to make sure that he had grasped the significance of the orders. Edwin briefly nodded to indicate he understood. In the shieldwall, a warrior protected the man to his left. That made the right side of the shieldwall the point of greatest danger, for if the end man fell, it could lead to the shieldwall collapsing in confusion. Rædwald had charged Edwin with protecting the right flank. The left, where Rædwald had stationed himself, was where he intended to break Æthelfrith’s line. The centre, protected by either flank, simply had to hold. It was the simplest job in battle, and as such well suited to a first command.

  “I will give you Eadbald, Garwulf, Brid, Heca, Torhthelm and ten others. Good men, all of them, but you are their master.” Rædwald took his helmet from where it rested upon the high pommel of his saddle and held it up. It was a magnificent helmet, with engraved cheekguards and trailing mail to protect the neck. “Here, as this is your first battle, I will give you my helmet, son. It has brought me much fortune. May it do the same for you.” And he passed it to his son.

  Rægenhere took it in trembling hands, his eyes shining. This was a gift only a king could give. Few men even in a rich kingdom could afford more than a simple helmet, for the skills to make one lay beyond that of the ordinary smith.

  “Go on, try it,” said Rædwald.

  The young man placed the helmet on his head, its cheekguards hiding the fluff of his downy beard and the mail trailing over his shoulders.

  Rædwald turned in his saddle.

  “What do you say, my thegns? Is he not a true king’s son?”

  The column of men put up a cheer, while those in the vanguard drew their swords and flourished them.

  Even from behind the helmet, the brilliance of Rægenhere’s smile was enough to brighten a dull autumn morning.

  But while Rægenhere dropped back among the men to accept their back-slapping, shoulder-punching good wishes, Edwin looked ahead, scanning the horizon. His sight was sharp and long, and he saw, where the road mounted high upon a causeway through the silver stream of a shallow river, a glitter and shimmer of movement.

  They had caught Æthelfrith.

  Chapter 4

  “Quick.”

  The man pushed the boy up upon the horse before stopping to cast a quick appraising glance at the approaching group of riders. He waved to one of the battle-hardened warriors who waited, sharpening swords and knives upon whetstones or chanting prayers to the gods. “Dæglaf, go with him.”

  “But Father, I am not afraid. I want to stay with you. I want to fight.” The boy was fighting back tears, but he was losing the battle.

  “I know you are not scared, and if I didn’t have a more important task for you there’s no man alive I would rather have beside me in the shieldwall. But you must take word to your mother and brothers.” The man slapped the horse’s rump, but the boy, well trained in horsemanship, reined the animal back.

  “I can take word to them when we have won, Father.”

  Æthelfrith, king of Northumbria, looked again at the approaching riders. He only had thirty men with him. The riders, a mighty army, numbered over fifty. He could afford no weak spots in his shieldwall, nor could he spare the men necessary to guard his son during battle. There was no more time for talk.

  He looked up at his son and the bleak hardness that had won him battles the length and breadth of the country overlay his eyes.

  “Oswald, you are twelve; you are too young to fight a man’s battle.”

  The boy’s face crumpled and he lost, decisively, the battle against crying he had been waging. Turning the horse’s head he urged the animal on, over the causeway and up the Emperor’s Road, to the north.

  Æthelfrith grabbed the bridle of Dæglaf’s horse. “Get him safe,” he said to his warrior. “Get him home. Do not turn back.”

  The old warrior nodded. “I will look after him, lord.” Dæglaf had spent many hours playing with and training the boy as he grew towards manhood and he loved Oswald as his own. “May the gods protect you.”

  “They always do.” Æthelfrith grinned up at the warrior, who did him homage before urging his horse after Oswald. Æthelfrith turned towards the approaching riders and the smile dropped from
his face. “It’s the fates who worry me.”

  Æthelfrith took a deep breath, dipped briefly into the memory of his many victories, and strode forward among his men, a fierce smile upon his face. The men of his household, battle tested though they were, could count as well as their king – they knew they were at a disadvantage and no man raised a murmur at Æthelfrith sending his son away. But now, seeing the battle grin on Æthelfrith’s face, they grew bolder. The Twister had extricated them from tighter situations than this before.

  Æthelfrith scanned the watching, watchful faces. He knew each one as well as a brother. They had fought with him up and down the country, defeating every army that stood against them and reaping such plunder that one boat had sunk beneath its load as it laboured up the River Ouse. They waited for him to speak, but as they waited some eyes flicked towards the riders and he could see them count off the spears and compare them against their own numbers.

  “Are you scared?” Æthelfrith paused, looking from face to face. “Well, I’m not. Yes, there are more of them, but I know you, I know you better than your own mothers, and each one of you is worth two or three of them.”

  One of the men, Hunlaf the warmaster, stepped forward. The riders were stopping and getting ready to dismount. Horses were for riding to war, but battle was fought on foot.

  “We should cross the causeway,” Hunlaf said, “and meet them on the other side. Then only a few will be able to cross at a time, and we can kill them as they come.”

  Æthelfrith held up his hand. “A good plan, my friend, but unwise.” He turned so that he could see the dismounting riders. “See how they stumble, the confusion in their ranks?” And it was true. Rædwald’s men were milling around in some disarray as they attempted to sort out who was to remain behind guarding the horses and who was to advance. Raising his voice, so that it carried over the flat distance between the two armies, Æthelfrith said, “They are frightened of us! I smell their fear.” He turned back to his men. “If we retreat, they will think we fear them. Fight here, and they know we fear nothing and no one.”

 

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