Edwin

by Edoardo Albert

  Guthlaf nodded at the Mercian and moved back to the far side of the duel arena. Still expressionless, Penda returned, but the men of Mercia urged him on, shouting his name – although not a few took the chance of the break to lay wagers on Guthlaf, now that they had seen his mettle.

  Guthlaf backhanded the sweat from his eyes and, before he knew it, found his right leg swept out from under him and his bottom on the floor. He stared up at the sword held in front of his eyes, and his eyes travelled along its length, up the arm holding it, to Penda’s face. The Mercian allowed himself a slight, tight smile.

  “One all.”

  Cheers rang out around the hall, while some of the more vacillating of the spectators attempted to rescind their recently placed bets on Guthlaf.

  The Northumbrian got up. He no longer had the spring and elasticity of a young man, so his getting up was more laboured than it might have been, and Guthlaf played that up, grimacing as he straightened his back and kicked a kink out of his knee joint.

  The two men resumed their positions on the cloak. Sweat was pricking through their skin and leaving tracks down the sides of their faces. Guthlaf smiled; he was enjoying the contest. It had been a while since he had faced a worthwhile opponent. Penda’s face remained blank, however.

  It was that very blankness that gave Guthlaf the clue to the next attack. Penda sprang forward, using his shield to push Guthlaf’s blade out of position while his own sword swept underneath the wood, aiming to knock Guthlaf’s leading leg from under him. But Guthlaf was not there. Anticipating the attack, he had sidestepped it and, using his own shield, he drove it against Penda’s, sending him stumbling forward and out of the ring.

  As Penda caught himself, and cheers and groans echoed around the hall, Guthlaf saw the first appearance of emotion in the Mercian. A compression in the man’s lips, a whitening of the cheeks and a tightening of the eyes. Guthlaf put the knowledge away for future use: Penda was a man whose anger burned cold. They were, in general, more dangerous than the men who burned.

  Penda walked back into the duelling ring. Guthlaf made himself ready. The hall went quiet. The Northumbrian only needed one more point for victory.

  But that point proved hard to win.

  A succession of blows traded and blocked, swords moving faster than the eye could follow, left both men sweat streaked and breathing hard, but neither was forced from the ring, or blooded, or put upon their knee. And, as happens in battle, without word they both fell back to the edge of the ring to gasp air into lungs.

  “What… do you say… to a drink?” asked Guthlaf.

  “I… say…yes,” said Penda.

  Guthlaf, too out of breath to say more, signed and a slave rushed to them with cups of beer. This time the Northumbrian drained his cup without any complaints about the quality of Mercian beer. Penda, having drunk too, called for water and splashed it over his face and hands. Seeing him, Guthlaf called for water as well, but he, to the laughter of the watching men, upended the bucket over his head. From where he was watching, Edwin stifled a smile. There had been a risk that calling a duel between the two warmasters would raise tensions between Northumbrians and Mercians, but Guthlaf was playing his part perfectly, ensuring that the contest was seen as a good-humoured trial rather than battle by proxy.

  Guthlaf squelched back into the ring. Penda followed.

  “Re – ” The word was not out of Guthlaf’s mouth when Penda swept his sword in an arc under the Northumbrian’s shield, catching the side of his knee and sending him, grunting with pain, to the ground.

  Cheers and catcalls went up from the watching men, depending on where their allegiances and their money lay. Those who had laid more on Guthlaf shouted that the attack was unfair, but Guthlaf himself merely grimaced as he used his sword to push himself back to his feet.

  Keeping a wary eye on Penda, the Northumbrian retook his battle stance.

  “Two each,” he said. “Next one wins.”

  Penda gave the slightest of nods, but his face and eyes remained impassive. Guthlaf realized that there was no reading the man in combat. He could either wait and attempt to counter whatever attack Penda made – but that strategy ran the risk of failure because of the Mercian’s great speed of hand – or he attacked himself, forcing the duel to a conclusion, one way or the other.

  Guthlaf grinned. Penda saw the warmaster’s amusement.

  “If you wonder why I smile,” said Guthlaf, “it is because this is the first duel I have fought in a long, long time where I do not know if I will win.” Guthlaf’s grin grew wider. “Thank you for that, Penda of Mercia.” And with his thanks, Guthlaf launched his attack.

  He based it on weight of blow and weight of shield, raining strikes down upon Penda one after the other, interspersed with shield thrusts, using each to push the man back, and back, and back. Every readjustment of Penda’s stance brought his rear foot closer to the edge of the arena and the sheer ferocity of the attack was beginning to crack his shield, forcing him to rotate the wood so that fresh wood took successive blows. But there was a limit to how far the shield could be turned without putting such strain on the shoulder that the shock of absorbing the blows would dislocate the joint.

  The Northumbrian expended energy prodigiously, using every ounce of his weight to force the Mercian back, but Penda defended tenaciously, economically, attempting as far as possible to hold his ground until the inevitable lull, when his opponent’s breath failed and muscles cramped, when he might launch his own counter-attack.

  With a final, lung-bursting effort, Guthlaf rained a flurry of blows, using both sword and shield, upon Penda. Any ordinary man would have fallen long since and even extraordinary ones would have been forced out of the ring by that final prodigious effort, but Penda absorbed, deflected, survived, to the accompaniment of an increasing chorus of gasps and shouts from the watching men who, realizing what they were seeing, would have cheered had they not been so absorbed by the contest.

  The storm slackened. The rain of blows lessened. No man could continue at the pace Guthlaf had set. The watching men knew that, and so did Penda. Now was his chance.

  With the pressure slightly reduced, the Mercian sidestepped, allowing Guthlaf’s last flurry of attacks to carry him forward and off balance, while he aimed a roundhouse blow to the back of Guthlaf’s head, intending to send him toppling forward and out of the ring. Of course, in battle Penda would have chosen a straight thrust to the exposed armpit or the side of the neck, but this was a duel. And Guthlaf knew this.

  Anticipating the strike to his back, Guthlaf ducked beneath it. Then, rising again, he pushed Penda’s extended arm onwards, taking the man tumbling with it over the pegged-out limits of the cloak onto the rush-strewn floor of the great hall.

  As one the spectators of the fight drew in breath, then they gave a great roar, the men of Northumbria loudest among them of course, but not a few of the Mercians, who looked to profit from Guthlaf’s victory, matched their cheer. Even those who had lost, and lost money, banged their cups upon the table and gave voice. This had been a great contest, one whose equal few in the hall had seen before, pitting two warriors at the peak of their respective strength and experience against each other.

  As the hall cheered, and Guthlaf raised his arms and turned in acknowledgement of the praise, Edwin kept his eyes upon Penda. On falling out of the ring, the Mercian had nimbly rolled back onto his feet, his sword and shield out. Edwin waited for defeat to cast its bitter cloak over Penda’s face, but even as the acclaim for Guthlaf rang out, and Penda slowly lowered shield and sword, the Northumbrian could see no trace of anger in the Mercian’s appearance. Instead, Edwin caught the slightest of nods he cast towards his own retinue of warriors, and the answering acknowledgements, before Penda put down his weapons and took one of the plain rings from his arm.

  The Mercian approached Guthlaf, still standing with arms upstretched, and handed him the ri
ng.

  “Good fight,” said Guthlaf, slapping Penda’s shoulder as he took the ring. “You are one of the best I have fought.”

  Penda took Guthlaf’s wrist and raised his arm.

  “And this man is the best I have fought! Praise him!”

  The men around the hall stood and cheered, banging cups and seax handles on the long wooden tables.

  “Praise him!” Penda pushed Guthlaf’s arm higher and renewed shouting filled the hall.

  “Praise him!” A final, tumultuous cheer rang out. Guthlaf and Penda spoke, but their words were drowned beneath the applause. Edwin watched the two men exchange arm rings, Guthlaf giving the Mercian one of his richest in exchange for the relatively plain ring Penda placed upon his arm, and then the two men returned, amid much back slapping and congratulations, to their respective places in the hall.

  Cearl rose to his feet amid the delighted hubbub of post-duel conversation.

  “Men of Mercia, my men, let what we have just witnessed be a sign and signal for the future friendship between Mercia and Northumbria. For the victor…” Cearl took a gold and garnet ring from his thumb and placed it in Guthlaf’s hand, amid further cheers. “And for Penda, my faithful servant and faithful servant to my heir when I am gone…” Cearl took a garnet-embossed arm ring from his wrist, the jewels making the eyes of a lithe hunting dog that pursued itself in an endless circle, and gave it to Penda.

  With a grunt, Guthlaf sat back down next to Edwin and reached for his cup. While Cearl commended the two warriors, Edwin leaned closer to his warmaster.

  “Well?”

  “In five years, he will have the beating of me,” said Guthlaf.

  Edwin raised an eyebrow. “So long?”

  Guthlaf grunted in laughter. “You’re right. Three.” The warmaster grimaced, then looked questioningly at Edwin. “How did the duel look to you?”

  “A close contest between two fine warriors.”

  “Too close.” Guthlaf lowered his voice. “I am not sure he did not have the beating of me.”

  “Why would he lose deliberately?”

  “You tell me.”

  The two men, king and warmaster, looked to where Penda sat among his retainers. The men were laughing and talking among themselves, seemingly unaffected by their lord’s defeat, but the Mercian sat silently in their midst. His gaze met the Northumbrians’, and he raised his cup to them. They in turn saluted him.

  “Will such a man stand aside for Eadfrith when Cearl dies?” asked Guthlaf.

  “No,” said Edwin. “But he has given Cearl no reason to doubt him, and the old king will cling to his warmaster through his remaining years. We will have to win Penda over to our service.”

  “Or kill him.”

  “Yes. Or kill him.”

  “That would be easier. And cheaper.”

  Edwin pursed his lips in thought. “The killing would not be so straightforward. We are in Mercia, and if he died while we were guests in the hall, we would not escape with our lives. Cearl no longer has the strength and authority to hand Penda over to us, and if he attempted to do so, Penda would take Mercia from him. No, we must attempt to win him.”

  “How do you do that?”

  “How do you win any warrior? Gold and glory.” Edwin laughed.

  “What’s so funny?”

  “We are neither of us young, Guthlaf. Someday I will have need of a new warmaster. You have found him for me.”

  Edwin rose from the bench and made his way round the hall to Penda. The Mercian, seeing him approach, stood up and made the courtesy. Edwin returned the greeting and took Penda’s arm, leading him to a quiet corner of the hall.

  “Pledge yourself to me and I will give you glory,” said Edwin.

  “I am Cearl’s man, professed and true,” said Penda.

  “Of course, and that is as it should be. But when the day comes and Cearl’s grandson takes the throne, know that I will make you warmaster of Mercia and Northumbria. Before our warriors, all the kings of this land will offer fealty. They will bow to us, as they did to the emperors of old.”

  Penda’s eyes narrowed and for a while he made no answer. Then he said, “That is a mighty dream.”

  Edwin gripped Penda’s forearm. “With you, it will be a true dream. As long as we are divided, we are weak. We took this land from the Britons, for their kings fought among themselves. Now we in turn fight among ourselves. If this continues, sooner or later hungry eyes will turn upon us. Do not think we are so strong that we could withstand our cousins from across the cold sea, raiding in their dragon-prowed boats. The rivers cut into the country’s heart, waiting only for a sea pirate bold enough to sail them, and he will have rich pickings. Mercia is far from the sea, but my land is wave lashed along its length, and I tell you, sea wolves there are, prowling the whale roads. Let them gather in packs and we would be hard pushed to defend what is ours. That – that is why we need unity, we need the kings of this land to bow to one king, or they will find new kings taking their thrones.”

  “You will be that king?”

  Edwin shrugged. “There is no one else.”

  Slowly, Penda nodded. “You are right. There is no one else.” The Mercian grasped Edwin’s forearm. “When the time comes I will stand with you.”

  Edwin made to remove an arm ring, but Penda stopped him. “No,” he said. “Not yet. I am Cearl’s man for now, but when the time comes I will take your rings, Edwin, king. I will take them right gladly.”

  Chapter 17

  As the boat slipped down the River Tame, Edwin and his sons stood looking back at the men gathered on the quay bidding them farewell. Despite the heat of the summer’s day, Cearl, king of the Mercians, stood wrapped in a heavy cloak. Penda was beside him. The old king had wept when his grandsons took their leave. He had held their faces in his hands and stared at them, trying to drive their images into his memory. But as he let them go, Cearl shook his head.

  “I think I will not forget, but I know that as soon as the boat has taken you from sight, your faces will fade. In time everything fades away and only shadows are left.”

  Osfrith and Eadfrith embraced their grandfather. Edwin kissed the old man’s brow. Cearl took Edwin’s hand and pressed it between his own.

  “They are good boys,” he said. “So like their mother.”

  “Yes, I know,” said Edwin. “You will not forget?”

  “I will not forget,” said Cearl.

  But standing upon the boat as the slow-flowing Tame took it downstream to the confluence with the River Trent and then the journey across country to the Humber, where flowed also the River Ouse, allowing a short pull upstream to York, Edwin’s eyes were upon the man who stood next to Cearl.

  “Can we trust him?”

  Edwin looked around.

  Eadfrith, putative king of Mercia, still had his hand raised in farewell, but it was he who had asked the question.

  “Cearl?”

  “No, not Cearl. Penda.”

  “For now, yes. He will not raise his hand against the king. But when Cearl dies?” Edwin shrugged. “In one sense, it does not matter. We have Lindsey, Elmet, Kent, the West Saxons and East Angles with us. We are masters of Man and Anglesey. The painted people of the north fear us still. The men of Strathclyde and the kingdom of Dal Riada will not take arms against us. Who else is there for Penda to ally himself with?”

  “Powys? Gwynedd?”

  “Cadwallon is defeated, even if he is not dead. No, there is no one to stand with Mercia against us. Penda is no fool. When Cearl dies, the throne will come to you.”

  “What do I do with Penda then?”

  “As king, I leave that to you.”

  Eadfrith grinned. “And as king I naturally turn to my oldest and wisest counsellor. What would you do if you were me?”

  But to Eadfrith’s surprise, his fath
er fell silent. The oars creaked in the rowlocks as the men rowed downstream. Soon the Mercians had dwindled into tiny figures almost lost against the high jutting timbers of the great hall upon its platform. Then a bend in the river carried them out of sight. The Northumbrians settled down for the journey, finding space among the coils of rope and bales of produce that filled the flat-bottomed boat. The horses, tethered and fed, stood calmly chewing in the centre of the boat, enjoying the journey.

  Edwin squatted down next to his younger son.

  “You asked what I would do.”

  Eadfrith, rousing himself from a doze, nodded.

  “Once, not long past, as soon as I had secured the kingdom I would have had Penda killed. But now…” Edwin flicked a stray stone over the side of the boat. It splashed in the river and was gone.

  “You’d let him live?”

  Edwin sighed. “It is seventeen years since your mother died, Eadfrith. Our lives are short and we are a long time dead. But maybe the priest is right. Maybe there is a new life for men who swear fealty to his new god. If that be so, then I must needs have a care before I spill men’s blood, that they might have the chance to gain this life. Besides, I have seen few, very few, warriors to match Penda. Even Guthlaf was not so good at his age. Think what you could do with his help.”

  “But would Penda be content to remain warmaster?”

  “That is up to you. A king may take the throne by force, but he remains there through love. Unless men will follow you, stand shoulder to shoulder in the shieldwall with you and sell their lives for you, you will not endure long as king, and nor should you. Ring giver, praise giver – such do the scops call kings, but I tell you truly: it is friendship and love that forges a kingdom and unites a warband.”

  Edwin stood up. The river ran smooth and slow through water meadows. Sheep and the occasional cow watched as the boat creaked past, tended by boys who shouted comments and insults and requests to the passing vessel. The men, at least those who weren’t sleeping, swapped retorts with the boys or flirted with girls drawing water from the river. This land of the Mercians was a rich land, green and fertile. Thick woods shaded the hills; the valleys, threaded with rivers, were ploughed and cleared, studded with homesteads and farms. It reminded Edwin of Deira, the kingdom of his home, the land of waters. But it was richer and fatter than Bernicia, the land of the mountain passes, Æthelfrith’s old power base. The king of this land would have much gold to distribute, many rings to give to restless young men drawn by the prospect of riches and glory.