Edwin

by Edoardo Albert

  “I made it for you,” said the smith, “and I made right.”

  Edwin, sweat beginning to prick his forehead, brought the sword to a halt. It quivered in the air, like a horse eager to have its head.

  “Let me see how it cuts,” said the king.

  “Fetch a shield, lad.” Wældhelm sent his son off to the family house with a friendly cuff around the back of his head. The boy, expecting it, managed to dodge most of the blow, and what did land only made him stumble a little. He ran back with a raw limewood shield, edged in iron but bare of the usual leather cover.

  “This is new, green limewood,” said Wældhelm, taking hold of the shield. “It’s still so full of sap that it would grip any ordinary sword that cut into it tighter than a clam.”

  “Then a quick half-turn of the shield, and you’ve disarmed your enemy. I’ve seen it happen many a time.”

  “Probably the last thing those warriors saw was their sword disappearing,” said the smith.

  “In most cases.”

  “Try this blade. It will not suffer itself to be held by any wood, not even raw limewood.” Wældhelm propped the shield up against a sawn-off tree stump.

  Edwin looked at the smith. “You’re not going to hold it for me?”

  Wældhelm laughed. “And have you cut me in half too? No, lord, you will see the wisdom of what I do when you try the sword.”

  The king assayed the weight of the blade again, then in a single, smooth overarm chopping motion he brought it down upon the rim of the shield. It sliced clean through the iron edging hoop, transmitting scarcely a judder up into his arm, and sliced deep into the wet wood, splitting it asunder as neatly as a woodsman’s axe.

  Edwin inspected the sword, holding it up in front of his face. The intricate patterns of its forging whorled along its length, catching the eye into visual riddles as it sought to find the start and end of the pattern. He put his ear next to the sword.

  “Listening for the blood music?” asked Wældhelm. “Though I have whetted the sword, I have not yet wetted it. It will not sing yet.”

  “It is true then?”

  “The blood music? Oh aye, it is true, though the blade that makes it is rare indeed. I have known only two swords to do so.”

  “Which were they?”

  “The sword of Æthelfrith, called the Cutter, and the sword of Ida, which was lost.”

  “Æthelfrith’s sword did not sing the day we killed him.”

  “Mayhap it did, but its music was for Æthelfrith alone. Know this: a sword that sings will take its price; it gives victory, but one day it will sing the song of its wielder’s death.”

  “Everyone dies – even the gods.” Edwin held the sword in front of his face and looked it up and down. “Will this sword sing?”

  “It will sing, when it has been wetted.” Wældhelm held his hand out for the sword and Edwin reluctantly gave it back to him. “It is time I cut my son…”

  “No,” Edwin said, surprising himself and the smith. “No,” he repeated, more quietly this time, so that only Wældhelm could hear. “He is a good boy – let him run a while longer.”

  “It does no good to be soft with children, but if you command it…”

  “In this I ask, I do not command.”

  Wældhelm snorted. “A king’s request… Not many kings take kindly to their requests being refused. But if you do not want the boy cut to blood the sword, I have a slave who stole a comb from my wife; I will wet the sword on her.”

  “Should not the sword’s first blood be that of a free man rather than a slave?”

  “You might think so, lord, but the sword does not care – it is blood it wants and the sword will happily shed it all, be it slave or free man, king or bondsman.” Wældhelm turned, looking for his son, then spotted him lingering and watching the grown-ups from the doorway of the house. “Hey, lad, get your mother to bring out Gwen. It’s time I punished her for stealing.”

  Edwin was curious to see what manner of woman the smith had taken for a wife. So when two women emerged, he looked carefully at the one that followed, beating the first forth with a switch of hazel branches. She was a small woman, black of hair and blue of eye, with the quick, darting movements of a dunnock. But she wielded the switch with a furious energy, beating the crying slave girl out of the house amid a torrent of abuse for the girl’s theft of a comb. Edwin could hear at once that both women were Britons – his years at Cadfan’s court had made him fluent in their tongue. No language he knew made insult sound so poetic, and he enjoyed listening to the stream of invective the smith’s wife poured upon the slave girl. With a final flick of the hazel switch and a resounding denunciation of the girl’s malfeasance, the smith’s wife sent the slave girl onto her knees in front of Wældhelm, who stood in front of her, as massive as a bear, fingering the edge of the newly forged sword.

  Seeing it, the girl immediately burst into tears and tried to throw her arms around the smith’s knees, but Wældhelm, with one eye on his watching, toe-tapping wife, moved out of the way with surprising speed for a lame man. The slave girl tried to crawl after him but Wældhelm said, “Now, now, Gwen, you stay put, you hear.”

  The girl squatted upon her heels, her eyes red with tears, and looked beseechingly up at the smith. Edwin, noting the furious expression on Wældhelm’s wife’s face, wondered if that had been Gwen’s best course of action. The smith’s children, all of them, had crept out of the house and were now capering around the clearing in excitement.

  “I didn’t steal the comb, master; honest I didn’t. I just borrowed it so’s I could comb my hair, because I heard you say that Master Bebba was coming and if he was coming, then I thought maybe he’d have Owain with him…”

  “You’re not going to listen to the little strumpet, are you?” said the smith’s wife. “Honest, if you do, I’ll turn my switch on you.” And to Edwin’s suppressed delight the little woman began to raise the hazel twigs against her husband.

  Wældhelm raised his hands placatingly. “Nia, don’t take on so. Of course I won’t listen to her.”

  “Good.” The smith’s wife glared up at him and the huge bear of a man quailed. “Otherwise I’d be thinking you were getting ideas you shouldn’t.”

  “No, no, of course not. Definitely.”

  “Well, then. What are you going to do about her stealing my comb? It’s my favourite comb too, the one you carved for me after Deor was born.”

  Wældhelm held up the sword. “Um, well, this sword needs to be wetted and I was thinking of cutting off her hand.”

  Nia tutted angrily, while the slave girl whimpered in fear. “And what use would she be to me with only one hand, you great clumsy idiot!”

  “Her foot?”

  “And have her hopping around and falling over whenever I send her to do some work. Very clever.”

  “Er… her nose?”

  The slave girl gave a little shriek and clapped her hands to her face. Nia, on the other hand, looked thoughtful. “She’d still be able to work, true, but no. You’ve heard old Gyrth’s slave, the one without a nose: he sounds like a wet fart. We’d never get any sleep with her going on like that.”

  “Well, what then, woman?”

  Nia thought for a moment, then her eyes lit up. “Her ear. Cut off her ear – it’ll bleed well too, so the sword’ll be properly wetted. Stop snivelling, you stupid girl,” she said to the slave. “With your scarf, no one will even know it’s gone and you can still make eyes at Owain. Stop snivelling, right, or I’ll tell him to cut off your hand, like the law says.”

  Gwen the slave girl wiped her eyes with a trembling hand. “I think I’d rather you cut my hand off, mistress. If it were this one,” she held up her left hand, “I could still work.”

  Wældhelm shrugged. “Maybe I should cut them both off.”

  Edwin held up his hand. “Since the sword is to c
ome to me, I should prefer if it were first employed on a nobler task than cutting a thieving slave girl.”

  “You got anyone, lord? All I have is her, or there’s my lad…”

  “What?” said Nia, outraged. “What were you going to do?”

  “Now hold on,” said Wældhelm, holding up his hands. “You know I’m going to have to cut him some day if he’s to learn my business.”

  “Don’t you dare!” said Nia, trying to grab the boy.

  But the lad himself danced away from her embrace. “Ma, I want him to cut me. I want him to.”

  “Come here.” Nia grabbed after the boy but he skipped nimbly away.

  “Ma, I want Da to cut me. Please.”

  Wældhelm grinned broadly as the boy continued to elude his mother. “There, see Nia, he wants me to cut him – he’s ready too.”

  Nia came abruptly to a halt, breathing hard. “Very well, let him cut you. That way I can be sure of catching you in future.”

  The boy stopped his capering. “I hadn’t thought of that,” he said.

  “Just as well there’s someone around here to do the thinking,” said Nia. “I could have said the king wouldn’t want a slave wetting his new sword too.” She turned to Edwin and made the courtesy. “Have you anyone more suitable, lord?”

  Edwin smiled bleakly. “I may have. I believe Eumer is still alive. Guthlaf has had sport with him, but he is tough and lives yet. So I’ll give him to you to wet this blade, Wældhelm. It is right that the assassin’s blood should feed it first, for once it has drunk its fill of him, there will be much blood for it to drink when we ride against the West Saxons.”

  The smith looked from king to wife and back again. “Is that all settled then?”

  Edwin began to nod, then glanced at the slave girl. “You have your comb back?” he asked Nia.

  “Yes, lord, I got it back.”

  “Then give her a good beating and leave matters there. If she steals again, hang her.”

  Nia began an answer, thought better of it and made obeisance. Gwen, deciding it better not to be noticed again, abased herself.

  “Come,” said Edwin to Wældhelm. “Bring the sword. Once I hear the blood music, I will know it’s time.”

  Chapter 14

  “Eumer said the West Saxons would never kneel before me.” Edwin looked down at the man before him. “He was wrong.”

  The man began to look up. Guthlaf struck the back of his head with the pommel of his sword, sending him face down into the blood-soaked mud.

  “You look up when the king tells you to look up,” said Guthlaf.

  The man groaned. His mail shirt, and it had once been a fine shirt, was ragged, and the leather jerkin that covered it had been all but cut to pieces. Cuts covered his arms and hands, and though none were life threatening, congealing blood coated his limbs. Flies, black and blood drunk, crawled over him.

  “Get him up,” Edwin said to Guthlaf, and the warmaster set about slapping the man back into consciousness. As he did so, Edwin looked about him, swaying with weariness.

  The battlefield had become a place of slaughter. The dead lay scattered upon the rutted turf by the ford, for Edwin had come down upon the West Saxons at the only place where men could cross the River Thames on foot, and set upon them in the loop of the river there, so that the waters hemmed them in on all sides. Once the shieldwall of the West Saxons had broken, the killing had begun in earnest; men running, cut down as they fled, Eadfrith and Osfrith and their households taking to horseback and pursuing the routed West Saxons across field and into copse and wood, for the battle thirst was on them fiercely. Edwin had let them go. It had been many years since the red rage had descended upon him; too many battles, too many dead meant that he fought coldly now, without emotion. Once the battle was over, he had no desire to gallop madly after the enemy; that was for the young men, with their blood up, still thirsting for riches. Besides, he had his enemy here.

  Guthlaf hauled the swaying, semi-conscious man to his feet. Edwin signalled for his horse to be brought over and he unhooked a leather sack from the saddle.

  “Wake him,” Edwin said.

  Guthlaf relieved one of the men stripping corpses of their armour of the helmet he had acquired and, filling it from the river, he dashed the water into the man’s face. His eyes finally came into focus as he stumbled to his feet, but the warmaster could see in them the mistiness of a man waking to a reality he would much rather hide from, be it in unconsciousness or death.

  “Kneel to me, Cwichelm,” said Edwin.

  The king of the West Saxons blinked at Edwin, but he remained standing. Guthlaf kicked the back of his knees and his legs collapsed.

  “You kneel when the king tells you to kneel.”

  “Here,” said Edwin, “catch.” He lobbed the sack towards Cwichelm. “Now, open it.”

  The West Saxon began to open the sack, then dropped it with disgust.

  “Take it out,” said Edwin. “Hold it up.”

  When Cwichelm hesitated, Guthlaf cuffed him around the head. The king of the West Saxons drew the head of Eumer from the sack.

  “I fed the rest of him to the dogs,” said Edwin, “but I kept the head for you.”

  Cwichelm began to let the head down, but Edwin struck his arm back up.

  “Look at him!” he shouted. “Look at him.”

  The face and head were marked, scored with the ill use that had filled Eumer’s final days.

  “He died cursing you,” said Edwin. “He died cursing the king who betrayed him. He died as these other men are going to die: spitting your name in blood.” Edwin turned to the guards. “Bring them here.”

  The captured kings and thegns of the West Saxons were hustled towards Edwin. They were either naked or stripped to their trousers, with all the riches of their rank having been taken from them. Those who could still walk were prodded onwards at sword point; those unable to hobble were dragged.

  Edwin pointed to where Cwichelm swayed upon his knees, still holding Eumer’s head.

  “This man brought you to this,” he said. “A liar, a traitor, a deceiver. This man has made your wives widows and your children orphans. You die for him. Take his name to your graves.” Edwin drew his sword, the sword that Wældhelm had forged for him. He had heard the blood music earlier; he had heard it singing as he cut through flesh and bone and tendon. But as the battle ebbed and the enemy ran, the blood song had died. Now he would make it sing again.

  “You.” Edwin pointed at the nearest man in the group. “You first.”

  The man glanced around, then realized that it was indeed him. He paled slightly, but otherwise gave no reaction, and he limped into the gap between the group of captives and the kneeling king of the West Saxons.

  “Kneel.”

  The man, his eyes fixed upon his king, knelt.

  With a single smooth motion, the blood music already beginning to sing, Edwin brought the sword around in an arc. Bone and flesh barely slowed the blade. The man’s torso remained kneeling for a moment before it fell. The head rolled towards Cwichelm.

  “Pick it up,” Edwin said. When the king of the West Saxons did not respond, Edwin screamed, “Pick it up!”

  Such was the fury in his cry that Cwichelm, on his knees, shuffled to where the new head lay and picked it up.

  “He was a better man than you. Lay him with Eumer.” Edwin turned to the silent, waiting group of men. “You are all going to die. You are going to die because this king did not have the courage to meet me in battle, but sent an assassin to kill me by stealth. But know this: you fought well, and bravely, and your sons and wives will live. This man here, this coward, this villain, he is going to live, but know this before you die – he will live but his sons will die and his women will be slaves. Die well, then, and curse him as you go down.” Edwin waited. The captives shifted and then one of them, a man
who could barely walk, so badly cut was his leg, stumbled forward. Edwin nodded to him as he made his way forwards.

  “I will die standing.” The man spoke to Edwin, but his eyes were fixed on the kneeling, broken figure of Cwichelm.

  The blood music hissed. The man fell. Cwichelm, without being asked, scooted forward on his knees and collected the head, laying it with the first two.

  Edwin looked at the captives. There were another five men to go. Each of them met his eye steadily. Certainly there was fear there, but it was the controlled fear of acceptance. These men had seen death often enough to know that one day it would come for them. Now it was here, and Edwin was cloaked in its grey mantle.

  But he had had enough. The cold rage that had driven him through the previous days of hard riding and harder marching – that had given him a terrible clarity as he positioned his men for battle and had remained with him through fighting and slaughter – suddenly dissipated. He had for a while become death, but no more. However, the necessity remained: more men had to die so that Cwichelm and the West Saxons should be reduced to abject vassals. But he had done enough killing.

  “Guthlaf, finish the rest. Make it quick for them.”

  The warmaster looked at the king, kneeling, head down, beside the growing pile of heads.

  “Leave him,” said Edwin. “I will deal with Cwichelm, king of the West Saxons.”

  Unsheathing his sword, Guthlaf strode towards the prisoners.

  “I have seen enough death for this day,” Edwin said to Cwichelm, “but you will watch your men die.” He lifted the king’s downcast head with the tip of his sword. “Watch them.”

  Although he had his back turned on the executions, Edwin heard the hiss of sword and the drop of flesh to ground, and he saw the reaction on Cwichelm’s face, each death reducing the man further. When the last man lay dead, Edwin called for a spade and threw it upon the ground before Cwichelm.

  “Get up,” he said, “and dig your men’s graves. They deserved a better king than you; at least bury them properly.”