“Has she, for instance, been weaned?”
“Oh yes, of course she has been weaned.”
“Then has she begun to bleed?”
“No, not as yet.”
“Does she have adult teeth then?”
“Oh yes, some adult teeth.”
“But not all?”
“Probably not.”
“I see. Then most likely she is about so high?” And Edwin held his hand about three feet from the ground.
“Yes, that is about right,” said Eumer. “But of course her age does not affect her marriage portion. That will be great indeed.”
“I was going to come on to that. This marriage portion: will it be payable on betrothal, or upon the consummation of the marriage?”
Eumer’s eyes narrowed slightly. He stared straight at Edwin, then lowered his gaze.
“Upon consummation of the marriage.”
“But of course I will be sworn into eternal alliance with Cwichelm of the West Saxons from their betrothal.”
Eumer made no reply.
Edwin nodded. “And then what would happen if, after ten years, when this princess is old enough to marry, Cwichelm of the West Saxons should find another husband for her? I would have given ten years’ alliance to him and received nothing in return.”
“There is his sister’s son – hostage to you. His blood and life would be forfeit should my king break his pledge to you.”
“I usually find it difficult to execute a boy who has been my guest and as a son to me, no matter how grave the offence of the oathbreaker. Besides, I hear that Cwichelm has eight sisters and more sister sons than he can count. A faithless king – although I am sure Cwichelm is not such a one – might not miss one among so many.”
Eumer’s lips grew pale. “I did not come here to hear my king insulted and his generous offer of alliance, friendship and marriage traduced.”
But Edwin answered in a voice that was like the whisper of frost in the night.
“And I did not expect to be insulted in my own hall by the messenger of the petty king of a paltry kingdom.”
Eumer began to answer in blood and heat, and then stopped. He passed a hand over his mouth, as if sealing the words in, and the flush of anger that reddened his face dropped away.
“My king, Cwichelm of the West Saxons, earnestly seeks your friendship and alliance, and he sent me here to achieve that. Tell me then, as you reject his offer, what must my king do to earn your friendship and alliance?”
Edwin stared at the messenger with hooded eyes. “Do you know what we are?” he asked eventually.
“Lord?”
“We are all petty kings of paltry kingdoms. We fight like dogs over scraps thrown from the tables of the Franks and the Goths, and the leavings of the Romans of the East. We squabble among ourselves while the Britons plot to push us back into the sea and, from the north, the painted people, the Picts, raid us and burn what they cannot carry off. You come offering great treasure: five horses, one hundred pounds of gold and two hundred of silver, but the very servants of the emperors of old knew such riches! Now we scrabble for the leavings like rats in a bag and all our valour is spent on staving off our fellow kings – for a while, until ill chance and wyrd bring us down and raise a new king in our place.” Edwin gestured a servant to bring his standard over.
“You see this?” Edwin stood and took the strange device from the servant. “This is the tufa. See, it is round like this middle-earth, and it bears four boars’ heads, looking to the four corners of the earth, as did the emperors of old. Tell Cwichelm of the West Saxons that he will have my friendship when he swears loyalty and honour to me. For I am High King of these islands, and those who do not bow before the tufa will be broken by it.”
Eumer stared up at the tufa, wide eyed, then looked to Edwin. “You aim to bring all the kings of the Saxons, the Jutes and the Angles under your rule?”
“Yes.”
The messenger inclined his head. “I will give word to my king.”
“When the Saxons, the Jutes and the Angles acknowledge me as High King, then we shall call on the Britons, the Picts, the Scots and the men of Strathclyde to do so as well. For this is one island and it should have one king – and such a king would be a mighty king, able to stand as equal to the king of the Franks and even the emperor of the Romans.”
The messenger stared at the king, his eyes wide. “Your ambition is so great?”
“Yes. But tell your king that this is no desire for glory and wealth on my part. Only if we achieve unity in these islands will we be secure. If we do not, then in time new raiders will come and we will be as the Britons were: dispossessed and pushed into the corners of our own land. For after all, our forefathers came here first as guests, hired warriors in the game of war between the contending kings of the Britons. Think you not that others wait beyond the seas, watching this rich land with greedy eyes? Would you give it them?”
“Who are these raiders you speak of?”
“The West Saxons live far from the sea. But for the Northumbrians, the sea is road and home. Many strange, wonderful and terrible things are cast upon the beach after a storm, and some of these are men, come to us over the waves with wares to sell and questing, calculating eyes. I have seen them, Eumer, standing before me with furs and amber in their hands but guile in their hearts, taking stock of our strength and our weaknesses. They will come, believe you me, they will come.”
Eumer, his eyes now as hard and clear as new ice, nodded. “My king will hear of this.”
“Very well. Take Cwichelm our demand, and return with his reply. Then we will talk of betrothals and marriage portions; not before. But you said you have news as well. I would hear that now.”
Eumer looked around the hall. “There are two stories I must tell, king. The first shall no doubt soon be known to all men in these islands, but it concerns you greatly. However, as for the second… it may best be told in secret.”
“Speak on the first. As for the second, that shall wait.”
“Very well.” Despite his assurance that all would soon know his first item of news, Eumer lowered his voice. “There is a new warrior among the men of Mercia: Penda. He has won many battles for his king – even defeating my own lord, Cwichelm, and wresting from him lordship of the land of the Hwicce. Although he is not related to Cearl, the king of Mercia, he takes the air of a man destined to be king, for the last of Cearl’s own sons died recently, in battle against the men of Powys. Penda is descended, on his mother’s side, from the Britons and he has sworn friendship to some of the kings of the Britons, notably Cadwallon of Gwynedd.”
Edwin, who had been staring into the fire as he heard the news, looked over, startled despite himself, at Eumer when he heard that name.
“We left Cadwallon for dead, cast upon the seas.”
“The sea did not take him, but carried him to Ireland, where he raised a new army from among his relatives there.”
Edwin hissed air through his teeth. Forthred smacked fist into hand. “We should have killed him when we had him, lord.”
“His god is more powerful than I believed.” Edwin stared into the distance, calculating numbers and alliances. “You say Cadwallon has allied himself with this Penda of Mercia?”
“Yes,” said Eumer.
“But Cearl still rules there, does he not?”
“Yes, Cearl still rules Mercia.”
“Then Cadwallon will gain little from this alliance, for Cearl is my friend and exile father of old; he gave me his daughter, Cwenburg, in marriage when I lived with the Mercians, and Osfrith and Eadfrith are her sons.”
“Our land abuts that of the Mercians, and we hear many rumours and tales from that people. It may be that Cearl will not rule Mercia much longer – Penda is gathering men to him, for he gives great gifts as freely as any king and not a season passes with
out war, from which more treasures flow.”
Edwin and his sons and counsellors exchanged looks. Osfrith made to ask a question and then fell silent. Eadfrith, however, grinned. “We defeated Cadwallon before, father. We can do so again.”
“No doubt, but I do not like this talk of alliance between Gwynedd and Mercia. If Cadwallon has returned, then Anglesey will be hard to hold.”
“That may not be much of a disadvantage, lord,” said Forthred. “Its render has always been difficult to collect, and the ships bringing it vulnerable to Scots and Pictish pirates.”
“That may be so. But I would not that Cadwallon had its wealth to call on, for with it he may buy alliances that would not be given otherwise. We will see what the new season brings.” Edwin turned to Eumer. “What of your second item of news?”
The messenger glanced around the hall. “Unless the king knows every man here and can swear to his probity, it may be better if I tell him this news in private.”
“I keep no secrets from my sons, nor Forthred my friend and advisor.”
“Of course not. But can all here be trusted as these are? Some, at least, owe allegiance to other kings and different lands.”
“Speak you of the men of Kent that accompanied my wife?”
Eumer’s silence gave answer.
“They have proved faithful in all things.”
“But surely there are others here, maybe even one of those men you spoke of from over the sea. It would be wise for such as them not to hear what I have to say.”
Edwin scanned the hall. Most of the men were near as familiar as his own sons, but it was true there were some visitors: traders and merchants, a thegn from the East Anglians and one or two travellers from across the waves, made welcome for their tales and their news as much as for their wares.
“Very well. Come, sit beside me. Those who should hear are all around; those who should not are beyond hearing.”
Eumer thrust his forearm against his chest in acknowledgement of the honour Edwin did him. The king looked to Forthred.
“Come, join us too. I would hear your opinion of this news.”
So Forthred followed Eumer as he made his way around the length of the high table. As usual, Forthred had drunk little and his head was clear. Following Eumer, he noted without thinking the way the West Saxon held his right arm stiffly by the side of his body. It looked as though an old muscle wound hampered the arm’s movement. But then as Eumer approached the place where Edwin sat talking with his sons, Forthred saw his arm dip beneath the folds of his cloak, moving easily and freely. The thegn moved closer, and then he saw Eumer raise his hand and in it was a dagger, double edged and coated with a thick, viscous paste. Poison.
Forthred saw all this in an instant, and knew that Eumer meant to assassinate Edwin, and that there was no one within range to stop him. Edwin and his sons had their backs turned and the king’s bodyguards stood too far away. There was only him, and his hand went for the seax at his belt only to find the loops empty. The seax was where he had left it, on the table.
There was no longer time to think. As Eumer stabbed downwards with all his might, Forthred threw himself forward, grabbing for the knife arm and putting himself between assassin and king. But the rushes beneath his feet shifted, throwing him slightly off balance as he jumped, and his grab missed. Time, as it had done so often in battle, slowed down. Forthred saw everything with absolute clarity: the black knife descending, the fierce concentration in Eumer’s eyes, the sewn pocket in his tunic that had concealed the dagger. And the slow down in time allowed a mind that had been tutored since infancy in the calculation of angles of blow and degrees of deflection to see that the only remaining shield between Edwin and the knife was Forthred’s own body. Thought and action were simultaneous. Forthred twisted round and up, bringing himself between knife and king. He reached up as he fell backwards, landing upon Edwin’s shoulders, trying to gouge Eumer’s eyes, but the knife fell faster and it struck Forthred, piercing his side with a blow like a club, and he felt it go deep, deep through flesh and muscle, sliding between bones, and out through his back and into the back of the king. Forthred reached palsied, strengthless arms up, trying to push Eumer back, but the assassin put all his weight onto the dagger, driving it further through the thegn and into the king.
Edwin, crushed beneath his thegn and with Eumer putting all his weight into the blade, struggled to push himself aside. Yells, shouts, alarms rang out throughout the hall. Osfrith and Eadfrith hurled themselves at Eumer and pulled him off the king, but neither was armed and the assassin, regaining his balance, held the black knife in front of them.
“Come on,” he said, moving it back and forth like a questing snake, “come on, try me.”
Before either brother could move, one of Edwin’s bodyguards hurled himself at Eumer, sword upraised, but the assassin moved easily aside and jabbed the knife into the man’s neck. There, for an instant, it stuck fast. Osfrith and Eadfrith leapt as one, the elder breaking the assassin’s hold on his blade, the younger slamming into him and knocking him down. Osfrith followed, wresting the man’s arm behind his back, pushing it up and up as Eadfrith throttled him.
“Stop!” Edwin stood swaying above them, his shoulder red with blood. “I want him alive.”
Eumer thrashed in their grasp. Eadfrith squeezed the air out of his throat until the assassin went limp. Then taking some rope the brothers swiftly and securely bound the man. Edwin, clutching his shoulder, staggered to where Forthred lay upon the table, staring up at the ceiling. The king looked down into the face of his old friend but it had become as wax, stiff and unmoving. Wyrd had done for him and the fate singers had cut the thread of his life.
Edwin felt his legs give way. The world was going dim, indistinct around the edges, and in the decreasing part of his mind that was still functioning clearly he knew loss of blood would soon take him down into unconsciousness and then death.
“Eadfrith,” he croaked. “Help me.”
The young man sprang to his father, swept the table clear and lay him out upon it. Guthlaf, the warmaster and a man most experienced at dressing battle wounds, ran over, ripping cloth as he came. They cut the tunic from Edwin’s back and Guthlaf pressed the wound shut with pads of cloth. Edwin lay upon the table, his mind drifting into mists of forgetting, but just as he was about to be lost in the fog, he focused on Forthred, also lying sprawled on the table, and anger and revenge cleared the mist away. He would not die until he had seen Forthred’s killer dead, and the king who had sent him destroyed.
“Press this down,” Guthlaf told Eadfrith, moving his hands onto the cloth pads. While he did so, the warmaster removed an oyster-shaped fungus from a pouch on his belt, together with a fine bone needle and finer thread. Seeing Eadfrith’s question, Guthlaf said, “Birch fungus. It will help close the wound, and its virtues stop the black rot.” The warmaster cut thin slices from the fungus with his seax and laid them out next to Edwin on the table. He quickly looked up from his work. “Osfrith, bring me clean linen, clean water and a hot iron. But first, find me the knife.”
Osfrith cast around until he found the double-edged blade on the floor, kicked away under the table. He handed it gingerly to Guthlaf, making sure to keep his fingers clear of the black coating that covered the twin cutting edges. “Poison?” he asked Guthlaf.
The warmaster sniffed it and grimaced. “Poison,” he confirmed. “I hope the bleeding has washed most of it from the wound.”
The clean linen found, Guthlaf eased Eadfrith to one side. “When I say, remove the pad. Osfrith, stand ready with the iron and the linen.”
Edwin lay face down upon the table.
“Remove the pad.”
The wound began to bleed again. Guthlaf, lips pursed in concentration, washed away the caked and drying blood, then held out his hand for the hot iron.
“Hold him down if he moves.”
; Eadfrith and Osfrith laid hands on their father. The warmaster, his thick, scarred fingers moving as surely as those of a weaver, took the iron and pushed it into the wound. Despite his sons holding him, Edwin jerked as the muscles in his body spasmed.
“Hold him!” Guthlaf grunted.
The brothers renewed their efforts, pushing down with their whole weight, and the air was quickly scented with the sickly sweet smell of burning human flesh. But the cauterizing took only a few moments – Guthlaf sought rather to burn out the poison than burn the wound closed. He dropped the iron, and with swift, sure movements stitched the lips of the wound closed. Osfrith and Eadfrith continued to hold their father, but he was no longer struggling. So still did he become that Osfrith, who could not see his face, asked Eadfrith, “Does he yet live?”
“Yes, he lives,” said Eadfrith.
The wound stitched, Guthlaf laid the strips of birch fungus atop it in a cross-hatch pattern. And as he worked, he taught.
“The best place to find this fungus is on dead or dying birch trees. Cut it from the tree whole; it keeps well. For wounds, cut thin strips from the fungus, lay them over the wound as I am doing here, and then bind the wound tight. The virtue of this fungus lies in it helping to stop the black and green rots setting into the wound. Keep the fungus on the wound until it is healed.”
Guthlaf finished binding the wound and tied off the linen bandages. He nodded to the two young men who, as gently as possible, lifted Edwin up from where he lay face down on the table.
“The king should rest,” said Guthlaf.
“No,” said Edwin, “not yet.” But his voice was a whisper of its usual strength and his face as pale as a winter sky.
The brothers looked at each other over the head of their father, then Eadfrith began, “But, father…”
The king, his face deathly pale, began to sweat. “My blood burns.”
“The knife was poisoned,” said Guthlaf.
The king looked up at the warmaster with blurring eyes. “Did you burn it out?”
“As much as possible. But some is in your blood.”
Edwin Page 15