While the king of the West Saxons laboured, and Guthlaf and his men saw to the minor wounds of his own warriors, Edwin paced beside the river. The banks here were lined with willow, mostly crack willow, and alder. Already the river creatures that had fled into hiding with the noise and fury of battle were emerging. He watched as a grass snake twisted greenly through the water, swimming to the far bank.
Osfrith and Eadfrith and their men straggled back to the battle site – their horses laden with plundered booty: swords, helmets, armour and hack silver and gold – when their beasts were simply too laden to carry any more. The two young men rode to their father, their faces still alive with the glee of such wealth and the flush that came of battle ending and still being alive.
“We harried them through to the forest yonder,” said Osfrith, pointing at the distant line of trees that covered the rising downs to the south. “I doubt more than one man in ten escaped us.”
“It will have been more than that,” said Edwin. “It is always more. But no matter. We killed the ones we needed to kill.”
“What did you do with Cwichelm?” asked Eadfrith.
Edwin pointed. The brothers turned to see the pit and the corpses lying alongside it, and the head and shoulders of the man digging.
Eadfrith began walking towards the pile of corpses. “Which one is he?” he called back.
“He is the one digging,” said Edwin.
Eadfrith stopped, then backtracked to his father. “He’s still alive?”
“Yes,” said Edwin.
“I’ll kill him,” said Osfrith, beginning to unsheathe his sword.
“No,” said Edwin. “He lives.”
Osfrith stared at his father uncomprehendingly. “But I thought all this,” he gestured around at the battlefield, at the stripped corpses lying on the ground and the gathering carrion birds, “it was to kill him, to avenge Forthred.”
“It was to avenge Forthred and to destroy Cwichelm and the West Saxons.” Edwin pointed at the man labouring in the pit. “He is destroyed. He lives by my sufferance, and he knows it and his people know it. The power in this land now lies with me, with us; the king is ours to command – and we did not even have to buy him with treasure or a bride. All it cost me was the pleasure of spilling his blood now – and his blood is not worth the spilling. Do you begin to see?”
Osfrith still looked puzzled, but Eadfrith was grinning like a thegn who had just seen the solution to one of Acca’s riddles.
“But once we have gone, surely he will rise against us?” asked Osfrith. “Even if he should not, he killed Forthred; his blood should flow for him.”
“No, he will not rise against us, for in doing so he would lose our protection, and all the kings around him, the kings of Hwicce, of Kent, of Essex and Sussex, would smell the blood and close upon him, like hounds after a wounded hart. Cwichelm’s rule would not survive the month. No, there is no threat there, Osfrith, but what you say concerning Forthred is just. His blood calls vengeance. But I knew Forthred of old, and I know he preferred to take his vengeance cold. We will bleed this land, take its fat and make it ours, and turn its men into our men.” Edwin paused, and his sons, knowing the look of old, saw that he was weighing in his mind what to say to them. “There is another consideration: in this campaign, I put the power of the new god, the god of my wife and Kent, to the test.” Edwin looked around. “It appears his power is great. But if it be so, then I must needs take some note of what Paulinus teaches about this new god: apparently, we should want good for our foes.”
The two young men stared incredulously at their father. “What should we want?” asked Osfrith.
Edwin grimaced. “It was worse than I said. Paulinus’s exact words were: we should love our enemies and do good to those that attack us.”
Eadfrith laughed. “This is a jest, surely?”
But Edwin shook his head. “That is what I thought at first, but it is no jest. That is what we should do, according to this new god.”
“That – that is nonsense,” said Osfrith. “That means if Eumer had killed you, we should have given him food and drink and let him go?”
“No. That is what I asked Paulinus, and he said the first task of a king is justice and the second is to defend his realm. So we may punish wrongdoers and do battle with those who attack us, but still we should exercise mercy towards our enemies.”
Eadfrith stared at his father in amazement. “Woden would give no mercy to such as Cwichelm.”
“But which is more powerful? Woden or the new god?”
Eadfrith shook his head. “Surely you do not believe all this, father?”
In reply, Edwin gave a snort of laughter such as his sons had never heard before, and his skin flushed darker. “No, no, of course not. Not really. But… We have victory here, and do either of you remember a battle won so overwhelmingly, with such little cost to us and so much devastation to the enemy? I do not.”
“No, no, no,” said Eadfrith. “This is wrong. This is not the way of our fathers; this is not how we took this land and made it ours. The new god – is he not the old god of the Britons? If he is so powerful, how could we have taken this land from them?”
“I have lived a long time, Eadfrith, and I have seen the world move on. This god that Paulinus brings with him, he is the god of the Franks and the Goths and the emperors and the pope. Woden is the god of…us.”
“There are the Geats and Swedes and Danes, and the other tribes that take the sea road to trade. Their gods are like ours.”
“And they are like us as well: petty, squabbling kings of insignificant kingdoms. The emperors of old claimed sovereignty of the whole world, and Paulinus tells me that the pope has sovereignty over the next life, for his god has given him the keys of heaven.”
“What is heaven?” asked Osfrith.
Edwin shrugged. “Paulinus was not so clear about that, but it seems to be like the great hall of the gods, although in this heaven there is no fighting.”
“Who would want to go there?” said Osfrith.
Edwin looked at his sons, still young, still so eager for battle glory. They would not understand. But for himself he remembered that when Paulinus had told him of heaven, of a place of perfect peace, his heart had lifted for a moment at the hope that such a place could be. He looked down at his hands. The gore of battle and execution clung to them, but even washed they had shed so much blood. It was good that they might be clean again. That he might be clean again.
“No matter,” said Edwin. “We will speak on this later. For now, know that there is another reason I have chosen to keep Cwichelm alive. Think well on this: which kingdom abuts this land of the West Saxons?”
“Mercia!” answered Eadfrith, his eyes shining with sudden realization.
“Yes, Mercia,” said Edwin. “The only kingdom now that does not acknowledge me as overlord. The only kingdom in this land that I cannot ask to acknowledge me as lord, for Cearl its king is your grandfather, and father to Cwenburg. It would not be meet for him to bow to me, although Cearl surely knows that Northumbria is the master of him. But Cearl is old now, and Eumer brought me one item of news that I had not known, before he tried to kill me: Cearl’s last son died in battle against the men of Powys. Cearl has no heir.” Edwin looked at his sons. “Save you.”
Osfrith looked from brother to father. “Which of us takes Mercia?”
“You, as elder, shall take Northumbria, of course,” said Edwin.
“What about…” Osfrith began, then stopped, blushing.
Edwin looked at him curiously. “What is the matter?”
Osfrith shook his head. “Nothing.” But still his face flushed red.
Eadfrith grinned. “I know,” he said. “It’s the queen, isn’t it?”
Osfrith flushed redder, but having been confronted, he forced the words out. “What if, if you and the queen…”
Edwin tried not to smile. He all but succeeded. “If we have a son?”
“Yes. What then?”
“Then you will have a brave young warrior for your warband – when you are my age.” Edwin’s face grew serious. “Know this: you are my son. I stand beside you always. This will never change.” He reached out and grasped Osfrith’s shoulder. “Know this too: the queen has never tried to supplant your mother in my memory, let alone my sons. There are many who would intrigue and plot to advance their own, but she is not of that kind.” Edwin let Osfrith go. “Satisfied?”
The prince nodded, still too embarrassed to speak.
Edwin turned to Eadfrith. “As to Mercia, that shall be my gift to you.”
Eadfrith bowed to his father, then turned and clapped Osfrith on the back. “You know, this means I won’t have to kill you.”
“What?” said Osfrith. “Why would you kill me?”
“Younger son, father’s death, kingdom to divide – it happens all the time. But now, you have Northumbria, I take Mercia, and then we take the rest of the land for ourselves – you have the north, I take the south.”
Osfrith shook his head. “I still don’t understand. You wanted to kill me?”
“Of course I did not want to kill you – you are my brother, after all. But I would have had to.” Eadfrith smiled brightly. “Now I don’t.”
Osfrith looked at him suspiciously. “You are joking?”
For a moment Eadfrith remained impassive, then he dissolved into laughter. “Of course I was joking,” he wheezed in between guffaws.
Osfrith looked at his father and shrugged. There were times he did not understand his brother. Edwin, though, did not laugh. Dissension and division between his two sons had always been his greatest fear. To counter this, he had kept them with him as they grew, rather than sending them at seven or eight to a neighbouring kingdom to spend their formative years learning the skills of a warrior and forging valuable alliances. So far he had been pleased with what he had seen between his sons: the natural rivalry between brothers had been offset by the profound difference in their natures, ensuring that they seldom pitted themselves directly against each other. Eadfrith’s jesting with his brother was, in that respect, a relief – although Edwin knew his younger son to be far more capable of subterfuge than Osfrith, he doubted whether Eadfrith would joke about something that he had at any time seriously considered.
“When you have recovered from your joke, Eadfrith, tell me why this explains my keeping Cwichelm alive?”
In between the occasional juddering inbreath, Eadfrith said, “It’s easy. Cearl may want me – us – to inherit, but there will be some among his thegns who see themselves as better kings of Mercia; maybe this Penda that the assassin spoke of, or someone else. With Cwichelm as our ally in the south and Northumbria to the north, any thegn seeking to claim Cearl’s throne would find little support from the warriors of the king’s household.”
“That is correct. But be not so sure that wisdom will prevail – the ties of place are strong, and though you are in part of Mercian blood, neither of you has grown up on its soil or shared feast with its men. They may still prefer one of their own. So we shall have to introduce you to the men of Mercia, and let them see you, when we explain to Cearl who the proper heir to his kingdom should be. For now, go and see how our new ally is doing with the task I left him. For myself,” and here Edwin, suddenly drained after the exertions of the previous weeks and the bloodshed earlier, sat down upon a log, “I will rest a while.”
“Some food and water for the king,” Eadfrith called. Slaves, the camp followers who drove the wagons and attended the horses while on campaign, came running, bearing water skins and dishes filled with the pottage that they had been cooking upon wood fires.
While Edwin took food and drink, the brothers walked to the pit. Cwichelm still dug within it, for it was not yet deep enough to take the executed men.
“We are the sons of Edwin,” said Eadfrith, and the mud-smeared man in the pit stopped his labour and looked up. He barely looked human any longer, so covered in earth and blood was he, but rather a wight of swamp and marsh caught wandering in the day.
“You will kneel to us too, king of the West Saxons.”
And slowly, Cwichelm, king of the West Saxons, went down on his knees in the mud and slime at the bottom of the pit.
Chapter 15
Having sat upon a horse for three days, Osfrith’s legs were sore enough for him to voice his complaint.
“Why did we not take ship back to York? We were upon the Thames already. We could have taken all the men and horses and slaves on ships, and allowed the river to take us down to the sea, and then sailed up the coast. Instead, the insides of my legs feel as raw as chopped liver.”
“That is because you ride a horse like, well, like an Angle,” said Edwin, who sat upon his own horse as easily as a leaf upon a tree. “You sit upon it as a sack sits upon a wagon. When it comes to riding a horse, look to the Britons. They sit upon their horses so lightly it is as if man and animal were one.”
“That’s all very well for you,” grumbled Osfrith. “You lived among the Britons when you were young. All we do nowadays is kill them.”
“And take their land,” added Eadfrith.
Edwin laughed. “Would that it were so! What land they have left is barren and mountainous, the haunt of wolves and wights and terrible things. Let them keep it. It is the same with the painted people; nothing but rock and rain and wind. No, I fear the battles we will fight in future will be against our own people. The Britons are finished.”
“That’s all very well, but you still have not said why we come this way when we could have taken ship,” said Osfrith.
“That is why,” said Edwin, pointing ahead as they breasted a rise in the land.
The ground fell gently away before them into a broad plain. To the north it rose again, but in the great bowl before them the ground was clothed in thick oak forest on the sloping sides of the plain and in the flood plain with a greyer blanket of alder and willow. Cutting blue through the green were two rivers, one running east to west, the other south to north, until they met and continued north, united. At their confluence, there was a great clearing in the forest, made first by marsh and reed where the rivers ran shallow and broad, flooding out forest, and then latterly by axes, clearing and cutting for the great hall, stockade, village and fields that lay in the crook of the two rivers.
“That,” said Edwin, pointing to the east–west river, “is the Anker, and that,” to the river running from the south, “is the Tame. They run together into the Trent and that river flows north-east into the Humber. You will get your wish, Osfrith, for once our task is done we will take ship home. But this is the reason why we have come here.” Edwin pointed at the great hall set among the surrounding forest. “That is Tamworth, great hall of the Tomsætan, and the first and greastest home of the kings of Mercia.”
“Ah, that explains it,” said Eadfrith. “For the last few miles, as we were riding through the forest, I suspected there were men watching us. They would be the woodsmen, taking word to their king of our approach.”
“I did not see anything,” began Osfrith.
“Of course,” said Eadfrith.
“But I did hear movement,” continued Osfrith, “and the woods were too quiet, too still – when the birds and animals are so quiet, it means there are men afoot among the trees.” Osfrith rode his horse closer to his brother and rapped his knuckles on Eadfrith’s helmet. “You might hear some of this if you did not insist on wearing that all the time.”
“If you had won a helmet this magnificent in battle, you would wear it too,” said Eadfrith.
Osfrith held his hand up and whispered, loudly enough so that everyone could hear, “I’ve seen him sleep in it.”
Edwin left his sons to their chaffing, letting his mind drift w
ith the rhythm of the horse as it slowly descended the forest road into the vale below. As the Northumbrians came onto the flat ground, the trees thinned out. The road stood proud of the surrounding marshy land. It was a causeway, made from many thousands of logs sunk deep into the mud. It was summer, and the plain was still lush green, studded with grazing cattle and sheep, but the tussocky grass and occasional green pools foretold winter flooding. He suspected that if he should return when the days were short, he would find the causeway to be a straight, dark line through wide silver sheets of water. Edwin nodded approvingly. The Mercians had chosen a good defensive position for this royal vill.
As they drew nearer, the great hall grew larger, and the men fell silent. It was a huge structure, as large if not bigger than their own palace in Ad Gefrin, and made to seem larger by being set upon a huge platform of dug earth, walled with thick planks. The area around the platform was covered with workshops, barns, sheds and some small houses, while the whole area north of the rivers’ confluence was surrounded by deep ditches surmounted with stockades. The stockades ran along the river’s edge to the south as well, but there was a gate at the jetty. There were many small craft, rowing boats and coracles mostly, tied to the jetty, as well as two short-masted river boats. But on the near bank of the river at the end of the flood plain causeway, where the road came to the river, there was a raft waiting.
As the Northumbrians rode closer they saw the rafter pulling his craft into the middle of the stream using ropes slung across the river. There in the centre of the river he remained, holding the raft against the flow with the ropes and shading his eyes against the sun so that he might more clearly see the approaching riders.
“Who be you?” the rafter called to the Northumbrians as they reined in at the water’s edge.
Edwin nodded to Guthlaf, who urged his horse to the shallows.
The rafter, seeing the horse move closer, began to pull towards the far shore, but Guthlaf stopped when his horse’s hooves splashed into the water. The warmaster raised the tufa that he bore for the king when they travelled, lifting the winged globe upon its gilded pole.
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