“Such I have become. And this… this man said he would give me a sign to show how these things he prophesied had come about, and to that end he put his right hand upon my head.” Edwin turned and faced Guthlaf. “As the priest did today. That was the sign, the signal by whose power I was delivered from my enemies and raised high, and therefore that power belongs to the new god, not the old ones, and I would be a faithless man and king of no worth if I did not stand by my pledge, given in despair, those many years ago by the grey sea.”
Guthlaf whistled softly through his teeth. “Is that what happened? Yes, I see now.” He clicked his tongue against his teeth. “But I still think it will be difficult to persuade all the thegns to leave the ways of their fathers and follow this new religion.”
Edwin looked at his warmaster. “And you, Guthlaf? What of you? Will you follow the new god?”
“Ah, there’s a question.” Guthlaf reached for his cup, but rather than draining it he turned it between his hands before turning back to Edwin.
“Maybe,” he said. “Maybe.”
Edwin nodded. “Thank you, old friend.”
But Guthlaf shook his head. “If I abandon the ways of my fathers, it will not be for you; it will be because this new religion brings us new knowledge. Do you understand?”
“Yes, I understand.” Edwin grasped Guthlaf’s wrist. “I can ask no more, but for myself I no longer doubt that the new religion brings great knowledge. Think on the message sent to me by the pope. Could Coifi send such a message?”
Guthlaf’s answer was a snort of laughter.
“But nevertheless, Coifi is still priest to my people and if I am to persuade them to follow the new god, it would be better if Coifi were persuaded first. Should he hold silence, or even speak for the new god, it would make the great council’s decision all the easier.” Edwin pitched his voice so only Guthlaf could hear. “Go to Coifi. Find his price.”
Guthlaf nodded. “Very well.”
Chapter 21
“Why have you come seeking me, Guthlaf, son of Sigeberht?”
Coifi had not moved throughout Guthlaf’s silent approach. The priest had remained, still, beneath the great tree, squatting in its shadow, a darker shadow of raven feather and sable fur, with his face turned towards the deeply folded trunk. He might have heard Guthlaf’s approach, but he could not have seen it.
“Impressive,” said Guthlaf, stepping out of the shadows and into the dappled light under the tree. “Even after many years, you still sometimes take me by surprise, Coifi. Did the gods tell you who approached?”
“The gods?” Coifi turned to stare at Guthlaf, his skin pale against his cloak. “What do you know of the gods, son of Sigeberht?”
“I am a warrior, Coifi. I know death and killing, and the edge upon which a man stands between bravery and terror. You are the priest; it is your job to know the gods.” Guthlaf stopped outside the sanctuary that marked the sacred space around the oak. “What have they been telling you, Coifi? Did they warn you of the assassin Cwichelm sent? Have they told you of this new god from across the grey sea?”
Coifi shivered, his eyes darting about the grove, and he gave no answer.
“Did they warn you of this?” asked Guthlaf, and slowly, deliberately, he passed the line of standing, living willow poles that marked the boundary of the sacred enclosure.
Coifi gasped and made frantic shooing gestures, but Guthlaf stood his ground, although up and down his back he felt tingles of running fear, like bats’ wings in the night. To the priest, though, he gave no sign of his fear.
“Go, go,” whispered Coifi. “They must not see you here.”
“What will happen if they do?”
“It will be terrible, terrible. They will bring the kingdom down; they will kill you.”
Guthlaf looked up at the spreading arms of the oak tree and raised his own arms in answer to it.
“Here I am,” he said. “Unhallowed, I stand on sacred ground. Strike me down. Strike me, if you have the power.”
From the tree, as if in answer, a crow cawed, its harsh voice breaking the silence, and Guthlaf felt his bowels loosen in fear. Coifi looked around wildly, searching for the source of the sound, but the tree was still and there was no movement among its branches. The crow, if crow it had been, fell silent. Nothing moved. In the distance, smoke rose from the stockade around the king’s hall, but the field strips beyond the fence were bare of men and animals. It was twilight, a liminal time, and Guthlaf could feel a fear that he had not known since childhood stalking him: the terror of shadow things, of creatures of swamp and barrow and deep dark forest. When he had grown to manhood and earned the right to wield and carry a sword, those fears had left him, for sharp, bright iron seemed to his young self proof against twilight fears. But now those fears gripped him anew, as shadows lengthened and leaves rustled and something moved without speaking above him. Coifi jerked this way and that, looking desperately around for the source of the movements, but he could see nothing, and Guthlaf could not move.
For how long they remained like that, perhaps neither could say. But night drew down, and the shadows spread and combined, and fear pooled and then slowly ebbed away. The gods had seen what Guthlaf had done – there could be no doubt of that – but they had done nothing. The old warrior lowered his aching arms. Nothing had happened. He felt suddenly foolish for his fears.
“There, what of your gods, Coifi?”
The priest was still looking around, staring into the dark but seeing nothing. He shook his head.
“I – I do not know. Once, I could see the weavings of wyrd everywhere, in the rise of smoke and the fall of leaf and amid the rattle of dice. But now I see nothing: only smoke and dead leaves and dry bones. The gods have gone silent. They ignore me, although I have been their faithful servant these many years. I do not understand why.”
“The gods are old. When men grow old, they sit by the fire and mumble tales of their glory and seek no bother until it be time for eating. Maybe that is why we should follow a new god, a young god.”
“Gods are not men; they do not age and die!” Coifi stroked his hand over the rough bark of the tree, then slapped it in disgust. “But they do, it seems, grow deaf!” The priest stood up, shaking out his raven-feather cloak. “It is no wonder the king himself is set to abandon the ways of our fathers.”
“The king has called a great council of our people in a six month, at York. There the council will hear of this new god from across the grey sea and take thought as to whether we should leave the ways of our fathers and strike out upon a new path, as our fathers themselves did when they left the land of their birth and took the whale road to a new land.”
Coifi glanced around. They still stood within the boundaries of the sacred enclosure, the living brands of sprouting saplings marking the edge of the grove. With a glance to Guthlaf, indicating that he should follow, the priest left the enclosure. The warrior followed, and as he stepped out of the grove he felt a weight, the weight of unseen eyes, fall from him. Guthlaf took a breath, only now realizing how shallow his breathing had been while he stood within the sacred grove, then followed the priest as he led him down the track towards the royal enclosure.
Once they were halfway there, amid empty fields and far from any grove of listening trees, Coifi slowed so that Guthlaf could walk alongside him. They meandered towards the great hall, to any idle watcher two old friends in earnest conversation.
Chapter 22
The oars, working in unison, sculled the turbid water. Winter had been long and hard, and snow-melt still swelled the river. The first silver green flush of spring shivered through the trailing fingers of willow, but the men, who sat in lines across the boat, paid the promise of future warmth no heed. The work of rowing upstream against a fast-flowing current provided warmth and enough. Further boats followed, strung out along the river according to the water fitness of
the vessel and the strength of the rowers. Standing behind the prow, Edwin looked ahead. He knew this river, its moods and its peace, better than anywhere else. Though he had travelled far, by boat and horse and foot, yet he still looked forward to each return to this melancholy, magical place.
As he knew it would, the river swept around a bend, the bank-lining willows gave way to rush and sedge, and the old broken-down city walls of York came into view, riding high over the low mist that swirled muddily over the fields outside the walls.
“Well-wrought this wall, wyrd broke it.
The burgh broke, the battlements fell:
The work of giants withers and decays.”
Edwin chanted the words under his breath as the ruined city came closer. Clustered around its broken walls were many small wooden houses. Smoke rose from the homes, ascending in straight fingers from those dwellings that had chimneys, or seething from the thatch of the ones without. Few people cared to live within the bounds of the old city, for its ghosts walked yet among the stone buildings and tumbled walls. But the land around the city was too rich and fertile to be left to return to wilderness, so over the years many families had built shacks and houses, clustering in the areas of slightly higher ground where, even when the river was in spate, the waters did not reach.
But Edwin knew the city well. His father had come often to York when Edwin was a boy, rowing upstream on the Ouse after sailing across the wide though treacherous currents of the Humber. Indeed, Edwin remembered the wide-eyed surprise of his younger self when his father had told him to lean over the side of their boat and taste the water. He could not believe an expanse of water so broad could be sweet.
Edwin’s father, Ælla, had built a hall in York, by the river, ordering his men and the local populace to clear the ground of the old buildings that inhabited the site he had chosen. Edwin still remembered the week’s long struggle to demolish and clear the ruins that Ælla wanted moved. None of the local people and few of the men had been willing to stay within the boundaries of the old city after nightfall, but Edwin loved to roam among the ruins. No one knew for certain how many generations of men had passed since the last emperor took the grey sea road and went south into the sun, but no man living could tell of those times, nor could any be found whose grandparents remembered when the walls were whole and high, and clear-eyed soldiers kept watch from them. Sometimes, Edwin would climb up decaying staircases or scramble over stone and timber to stand again upon the walls. Strange marks cut into the stone were to be found on many of the little towers. He would often run his fingers over the marks, wondering what they meant. If there was time, he could take Paulinus up onto the walls and ask him what the stone cuttings said, for he realized now that the marks were writing.
His father’s great hall, built in wood rather than stone, stood out bright and alive, painted vividly gold and green against the grey backdrop of stone. Ælla had loved this hall more than all his others, and his son loved it too. Now, rounding the final bend of the River Ouse, Edwin saw the steeply slanting roof and upthrust timber finials, gold gleaming, and the deeply carved and painted pillars that held the roof up. The hall stood upon a raised platform of stone and earth, ensuring that even in flood the river did not wash into the building. A flotilla of boats bumped gently against the jetty, most of them gaily painted but with their sails furled. Some tents, as richly painted as sails, were set up on the level ground that surrounded the hall, although there were many more outside the city walls. Although his thegns and counsellors would come into the old ruined city to talk and listen and feast, many of them preferred to pass beyond its confines to sleep.
As they approached the jetty, the men at the front of the boat shipped their oars and made ready to make the boat fast, while the rowers to the rear kept the vessel slowly moving forward against the current. On the jetty, longshoremen stood ready with ropes to secure the king’s boat. Edwin turned around to see Æthelburh speaking with Paulinus, pointing out the flags flying from the tents around the great hall and explaining who flew these banners. The queen was carrying their daughter. The baby, for she was not yet one, slept, but her rest was fitful, and the pull upstream had been accompanied by thin wailing that could only be soothed by putting baby to breast. Osfrith and Eadfrith followed in the other boats – the brothers had drawn lots for who should accompany the horses and who should bring the stripped-down wagons and carts. Eadfrith had won, leaving Osfrith to the muck and manure of the animal boat. The horses had been as skittish as usual, despite being blinkered and hooded, and more than one of the men on board bore the bruises of kicks, while Osfrith himself had disappeared over the side when a horse had lashed out against particularly irksome flies. It had taken two men to haul a spluttering, choking, half-drowned prince back into the boat, much to Eadfrith’s amusement. Through the rest of the voyage upriver, he had kept reminding his brother of his early dip, until Osfrith, driven to distraction, caused his boat to fall so far behind that he could no longer see the rest of the party.
Now they awaited his arrival at the jetty. Edwin made his way to the hall, however, with Æthelburh, Paulinus and Guthlaf. News of the great council had spread wide, and many more people than would be attending had gathered around York, seeking news, alms, favour or simply the thrill of tales told from afar. The sick and crippled clustered around the gates to the royal enclosure, waving stumps and sores at the royal party as it passed.
Æthelburh looked in wonder and pity at them as they approached. “It is as if all the poor and crippled the length and breadth of the land have gathered at our door,” she said to Guthlaf. “What brings them here?”
“You do,” said the warmaster. “All the realm has been preparing for this council this past six month. The winter was hard, many have gone hungry and some have starved. All know, however, that there will be food and feasting here for the king and his thegns and counsellors; that all the wealth of the land was to be gathered here at the feast of Eostre. So, as dogs smelling meat gather to beg for scraps from the table, they come limping here to ask the scrapings from our feastings.”
Æthelburh, looking past the men who pushed a path through the crowd of outstretched hands, caught the eye of a woman who also held a baby to her breast. But this baby lay limp in its mother’s arms, and the woman’s eyes were dull with exhausted hope.
“We must give them food.”
Guthlaf nodded. “They can now the king has arrived. They could not do so before he had arrived, for it is his to give. I wonder how many died because we were delayed…”
As word of the king’s arrival spread, the tents outside the city emptied, and thegns and counsellors and priests and scops made their way to the king’s hall, there to give him homage and receive, in return, gifts from Edwin’s own hands. This, the first stage of a great council, went on for two days, and it was as well that their boats had been heavily laden with treasure, for by the end of that time almost all the gifts had been distributed and, in a quiet moment, Edwin had dispatched Guthlaf to the merchants moored at the quay to acquire more rings and brooches and belts and buckles – indeed, anything so long as it glittered and its metal took a mark when bitten.
But such were the treasures they had taken in the last year that no one left Edwin’s side unsatisfied, and most came away praising his open-handedness, for generosity was, with bravery and luck in battle, the truest mark of a king.
The preliminaries taken care of, Edwin gave word that the morrow would see the start of the great council. Then Edwin walked with his sons, Paulinus and Guthlaf to see the building he had ordered constructed.
It stood a little apart from the great hall, sheltered from its direct line of sight by the ruins of the greatest of the buildings of old. However, the way between the hall and the new building was still paved with stones that for the most part lay level. As they approached, they could see how far the timber building had already risen in two short days, for the wooden posts that would a
nchor it and provide support for the roof had been dug into the ground, and a start made upon the walls, so that they reached as high as a man’s chest. James, with an excited foreman beside him to relay the orders, was supervising the work, but when he saw the royal party approaching he gathered up his robes and ran to them.
“W-what do you think?” James asked.
Paulinus pursed his lips. “When will it be ready?”
“We are going as fast as we can.”
“When?”
James licked his lips. “Um, two weeks?”
Paulinus shook his head. “You may have two days.”
“Two days.” James briefly closed his eyes. He was pale and his lips moved silently.
“What is he doing?” Osfrith whispered to his brother. “He looks like Coifi when he is searching for wyrd.”
“I think he is praying,” said Eadfrith. “Yes, look,” and he pointed as the deacon marked out a cross over his body, drawing from forehead to belly to each shoulder. “They do that when they pray.”
“He’ll need his god’s help to get that finished in two days,” whispered Osfrith. “Do you know what they’re making?”
“It is a building for the new religion. Our fathers spoke to the gods outside, under trees and in groves; if the council decides, we will listen to our new god inside, under a roof.”
Osfrith nodded. “It will be drier.”
“Warmer too,” agreed Eadfrith.
They both turned to look at the shell of the building in front of them. “But not for a while, I think,” added Eadfrith, pulling his cloak more tightly around his shoulders. The wind, blowing in from the north-east, still carried winter’s lash. Leaving Paulinus behind to further encourage James and his workforce, the rest of the party headed back to the great hall, looking forward to its warmth.
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