Edwin

by Edoardo Albert

  “On!” shouted Edwin.

  The fires in the camp were extinguished, save one, and that suddenly began to produce thick black smoke. Eyes drawn by the smoke column, Edwin saw a man loading layers of damp rushes upon the fire. His gaze followed the smoke column back up into the sky. Penda was sending a signal.

  Who to?

  Keeping his station in the centre of the shieldwall, Edwin looked around, but he could see nothing but dreary marshland to left and right, and he could not turn and look behind without stopping the line.

  They were closing the distance. It was down to one hundred and fifty yards.

  “Spears!” shouted Guthlaf, and the men hefted their short throwing spears onto their shoulders, ready to throw.

  Penda’s camp still appeared to be in confusion, men rushing around as if mad with fear, with not even the semblance of a shieldwall forming to face their charge. The only obstacle left was a ditch, fifty yards from the camp, that looked narrow enough to jump and was surely sufficiently shallow to wade through. Then launch the spears at men still too panicked to raise their shields, and follow up with swords. Penda was making it easy for him. Too easy.

  “Halt!” Edwin’s command cut through the cries and war screams. Only one or two men on the Northumbrian line kept advancing and, realizing they were alone, they backed up, looking around in the same manner as a sheep separated from its flock.

  Guthlaf ran across the front of the line to Edwin, as did Osfrith and Eadfrith.

  “Why did you order the stop?” asked Guthlaf.

  By way of answer, Edwin pointed.

  Rising up out of the ditch, plaited with rushes and reeds, was a shieldwall. Spears – long, stabbing spears – bristled from between the interlocked shields. Edwin cast his eye along the line: there were twenty-five shields in the wall. Almost as many as his entire warband. He looked beyond the shieldwall to Penda’s camp. The confusion had disappeared in an instant, replaced by men calmly forming into a second line and advancing towards the shieldwall. Another twenty-five or so. How had Penda acquired so many men? Edwin looked along his own line. They were outnumbered, but not too badly. He would have to anchor the flanks of his line, so they could not be turned by Penda’s superior numbers, but that done he should still be able to prevail. Looking at the armour and movement of the Mercians, Edwin was sure his men were the better warriors.

  Guthlaf pushed back his helmet and scratched his forehead. “This is going to be bloody,” he said.

  “Anchor the right to the watercourse,” said Edwin, pointing to the weed-choked river. “Guthlaf, take the left flank; ensure they don’t envelop us. Osfrith in the centre with me, Eadfrith on the right.”

  “Father,” said Osfrith, pointing. Edwin looked around and saw two men advancing from the shieldwall. One was Penda. The other… Edwin squinted. His eyes were not as sharp as they had once been, but there was something about the way the second man moved that seemed familiar. But his helmet covered almost all his face, and where the eyes should have been, there were only shadows.

  “Come,” Edwin said to Guthlaf. “Osfrith, Eadfrith, shape the line.”

  King and warmaster advanced until they were some fifty yards from their own line. Penda and his companion stopped a similar distance from their line. Edwin raised the brow of his helmet a little, planted the haft of his spear in the soft earth and waited.

  “Edwin.”

  The king made no answer.

  “You spotted my welcome then,” said Penda.

  Edwin stared at the Mercian but still did not reply.

  Penda glanced at the silent man beside him. Edwin’s eyes narrowed. From the way Penda held himself, he seemed nervous of his companion.

  “As you left the shieldwall, I assumed you wanted to speak,” said Penda. “I must have been mistaken.”

  “I am High King. I will speak to Cearl.”

  “King Cearl has not been well. Really, he should not have tried to come at your calling, but he insisted. Unfortunately, his sickness overcame him, and his spirit went down into the shadows.”

  Edwin stared at Penda. “You killed him.”

  The warmaster shook his head. “You would like to believe that, but I did not. The king was old. Old men die. He died. That was all there was to it.”

  “Very well,” said Edwin. “You know Cearl’s command. Your new king stands yonder. Make obeisance to him.”

  “I kept the kingdom for him for the last decade of his life, you know. If it had not been for me, the wolves would have descended and torn Mercia apart. But I kept it together. He knew I did so too. And in the end, as he gasped out his last breaths, he gave it to me, Edwin. He gave it to me.”

  Edwin laughed. “So you say, you bastard, half-born son of a slave. Do you think even the witan of your own people would believe you?” Edwin shook his head. “I have spoken enough with you, warmaster. You are no king, and I will not grant you words any longer.”

  “Then speak to my cousin,” said Penda, “for he is a king.” And the man to his right slowly raised his helmet.

  Edwin stiffened; the breath hissed through Guthlaf’s teeth.

  “Cadwallon.”

  The man removed his helmet and the new-risen sun gleamed upon his black hair and white skin.

  “When I came among your people in York and, later, when I took feast in the great hall in Tamworth, I was named Dial. Your people have no gift for language, Edwin, but you know well enough what that means, do you not?”

  “Vengeance.” Edwin’s answer was quiet. He had thrown off the shock of Cadwallon’s appearance almost at once and now, cold and clear, his mind worked through the battle chances. His gaze moved beyond Cadwallon to the men forming into a shieldwall. No more had appeared, and he could see nowhere to hide reserves. That left them still outnumbered, but not disastrously so.

  “Vengeance!” Cadwallon shouted the word across the field, so that all might hear it. “That is my name, and today I claim it. Vengeance for your betrayal, vengeance for your pledge-breaking, vengeance for your taking my God.” Cadwallon spat. “Not that God will accept you into his kingdom.”

  Edwin smiled thinly. “You do know my priest comes from the pope?”

  Cadwallon stared at Edwin, his face bleak with cold rage.

  “When I have killed you and your sons, I will descend on York and wipe out the rest of your family. Not a single child of your blood will I leave alive.”

  “You will have to defeat me before you kill me, Cadwallon. Bring your men against mine, and we shall see who walks from the slaughter field.” Edwin paused. “But then I do not see any of your men before me, old friend. No wonder. Why would men follow a defeated, beaten king?”

  “Why would they follow me? For the same reason I stand here: for vengeance.”

  While he had been speaking with Penda and Cadwallon, Edwin had been attending to the sights and sounds around him: men shifting and adjusting armour, the unnatural brittleness of the laugh at a whispered joke, the soft thudding rhythm of hooves on damp earth. He had sensed as much as heard his horses being brought up from their picket line, and at first he settled back into that knowledge as he spoke to Penda and Cadwallon. But then, at first under his notice but now insistent, came the realization that the rhythm, the sound, was wrong. It was too loud, too wide, too near.

  As Cadwallon spoke, Edwin turned and saw emerging from the line of willows one hundred, one hundred and fifty, two hundred riders, mounted on the shaggy, sturdy ponies the Britons favoured for moving through their mountain kingdoms. The beasts drew up in a rough line and the men riding them hefted short throwing spears onto their shoulders.

  “My men have followed me,” said Cadwallon. “They are here.”

  The earth, the so-solid earth, lurched and turned beneath Edwin’s feet. Blackness clawed at his vision, the dark despair of knowing that he had led his men and his sons into
a trap. Edwin looked at the men arrayed against him and knew that this day he was going to die. The acceptance settled in his heart; he had seen death through all his life and now, these last few years, death came with a hope unknown to his youth. He did not fear dying. But his sons, his boys…

  Edwin turned to Guthlaf, his warmaster, and saw there the same knowledge and the same acceptance. The warmaster made the courtesy to his king, his teeth bared in a fierce, cold smile.

  “I am warmaster. Let me make ready for war.”

  Edwin gave him leave, then turned back to Cadwallon and Penda.

  “If vengeance you seek, I offer it to you now, here. I alone to the death, and passage to the men of the defeated.”

  Cadwallon laughed. “So might a hare bargain when caught in the snare. Yes, I will fight you now, but when you are dead I will turn upon your men and your sons and kill them too.”

  Edwin glanced at Penda. “You, you claim the kingship of Mercia but remain dumb? Ha, your people will know of this.”

  “My people will know that together with Cadwallon I brought down Edwin and brought back great treasure and glory.” Penda smiled. “I think my people will be pleased to know that.”

  “Very well.” Edwin nodded sharply to Cadwallon and Penda. “War.” Then he turned and walked back to his men. And through that long walk his back crawled in anticipation of the hurled spear. But none came.

  As he walked, Edwin searched for a stratagem that might bring them from the field alive. But they were outnumbered, six to one, caught between a shieldwall and riders, backed up against the watercourse that was to have secured his right flank but now precluded any escape.

  Edwin stopped in front of his men. They waited upon his word, and he saw fear and desperate hope in their eyes, for always he, Edwin, had been able to lead them to victory. But not this day.

  Edwin knelt before his men and his sons.

  Warriors gasped, and shouted aloud. Osfrith cried, “No, father, no.” But Edwin bowed his head and the men fell into silence. Then, when all was quiet, the king raised his head, and tears streaked his face.

  “I have led you to death. I ask your pardon.”

  No man breathed a word, but one, the youngest there, a man barely out of boyhood, with tears likewise streaking his face, stepped forward and took Edwin’s hand and raised him from the ground.

  Guthlaf came and stood before Edwin.

  “Hearth lord, heart master, I shared your life; I will share your death.” The warmaster turned to the men he had drilled in war. “Ring lord, law giver, our king calls for our blood now. Will you give it for him?”

  “Yea! We will give it for him.”

  “Will you give it for him?”

  “Yea!”

  “Will you give it for him?”

  “Yea!”

  Guthlaf grinned at the men, a bare, death’s-head grin. “You all saw Cearl, dribbling and useless. You know what? You’re lucky. None of you are going to get like that.” The grin was lupine now, the smile of a hunter sighting prey. Guthlaf knew he was going to die, but he knew many men would die to bring him down. “Now, form up tight, no gaps.”

  Edwin left Guthlaf to dress the line and walked towards his sons. Cadwallon’s horsemen still sat, line abreast, in front of the trees. Cadwallon himself had gone to join them, but Penda had returned to his line, where he prepared the Mercians for battle.

  Edwin stopped before his sons. He looked into their faces, and saw again a face he had held on to for so many years, but had lost: that of Cwenburg, their mother, his wife.

  “This is something I never thought I would have to say.” Eadfrith looked from brother to father, his face a mask of grim solemnity. “Osfrith was right.” And the mask cracked into the broadest of smiles.

  Osfrith, grinning too, punched his brother’s shoulder. “Other men would admit it a bit sooner.”

  “For something so remarkable, remarkable proof is needed,” said Eadfrith.

  “Yes, like us all dying!” said Osfrith.

  “Yes, something like that,” said Eadfrith. He looked to his father, Edwin, High King, veteran of a thousand battles and a hundred wars. “Can’t see it myself, but is there a chance, father?”

  Edwin, dry mouthed, shook his head. Overlaying the young man standing before him, he saw the boy, the baby he had dandled, gurgling and laughing, in the air.

  Eadfrith nodded. “I thought not.” He looked towards the enemy lines. “But there will be less of them too.”

  “Less, but still too many.” Edwin put his hands on his sons’ shoulders. “When he is done here, Cadwallon will ride on York and kill Æthelburh and your little brother and sister. But there is a hope, a faint hope, that one or two men may make it through the battle line and bring word to the queen in time for her to escape, for Cadwallon’s hatred is directed at me. He will not leave the field until I am brought down. The longer I fight, the more chance of a message getting through to the queen.”

  “Old Bassus is the best man I have seen on a horse,” said Osfrith, “and he is wily with it. Let him get a ride, and he will most likely make it to York before any of Cadwallon’s men can catch him.”

  “I would that you two attempt to take word to the queen. Save her, and avenge me.”

  Osfrith shook his head. “If Cadwallon saw us attempting to flee, he would send half his men after us to kill us, and no word would the queen receive. Only a man unknown to him might be let go.”

  “Besides,” said Eadfrith, “you are our father. We will not leave you to fight alone.”

  “A father who led you astray.” Edwin’s voice was thin, broken.

  “No,” said Eadfrith. “A father who gave us life, glory, honour. We repay him now, right gladly, do we not, brother?”

  Osfrith put his hand on Edwin’s shoulder. “A father who brought us the hope of life in the next world, in God’s halls, as well as this. Soon we will see what lies beyond the walls of this world; we left the ways of our fathers and entered into the new religion for the hope it gave. Do we grow faint of heart at the test? Soon we will know, and if our faith be true I will sit beside you, father, in God’s great hall.”

  Then Edwin took his sons, each in turn, and kissed them, and afterwards they made the courtesy to their king and father.

  Edwin checked the disposition of the enemy. Penda’s line was dressed, finally, and beginning to advance. Cadwallon’s horsemen remained unmoving, but from the restiveness of men and beasts, Edwin judged that it would not be long before they rode.

  “We will not wait upon a time of our enemies’ choosing. We will meet them, and give such an account that Acca will sing of us all the days of his life. Bassus!” Edwin called the old retainer from his place in the line and explained what he wanted him to do.

  Bassus shook his head. “Lord, no! I cannot flee when you fight.”

  Edwin grasped his arm. “If you do not get word to the queen, she will die and my children with her. You are not fleeing. I ask you, I beg you to do this for me.”

  Bassus stared into the shadowed, haunted face of his lord. “I stood against you in the great council of our people. I will not stand against you now. If it be possible, I will get word to the queen, or rather die.”

  Edwin squeezed his arm. “Don’t die. Live! Live.”

  “If the fate singers spell and wyrd weaves, I will.”

  Edwin nodded. “You have kept to the ways of our fathers? We will take our new road, and fight and endure as long as we may, that you may get away. God keep you, Bassus.”

  “And the gods fight with you, lord.”

  Edwin smiled. “I hope they will, Bassus. I hope they will.” He turned back to face the battle line. “It would even out the odds a little.”

  While Bassus selected a companion to help him catch and mount a horse, Edwin made his final checks along the shieldwall. In the cold October li
ght, mist swirled around the men’s heads as they breathed out, some puffing like runners, others breathing so lightly that they barely seemed alive. The air itself tasted suddenly fresh and damp, wakened into life by the sun’s touch.

  Moving in front of the shieldwall, Edwin gave his final orders.

  “We advance towards the riders and the tree cover, keeping the watercourse to our left. When the riders swing out, the shieldwall will push back against the watercourse to stop the riders getting behind us. We will make Penda chase us with his line, and then, when it is close, turn and attack him. Do you understand?”

  By way of answer, the men clashed the hafts of their spears against their shields.

  Edwin, High King of Britain, unsheathed his sword and the watching men put up a yell that must have reached the clouds.

  “We stand together, we fight together, we prevail or we fall together, and this night I will feast you in my hall in York or stand beside you before God. Are you with me?”

  The answer might have pierced the very heavens.

  “Then, through fate and fear, follow me!”

  Edwin turned and, standing slightly in front of the line, started towards the waiting, watching line of horsemen. The men, in line abreast but still in loose formation so they could jog forward together, came after him, shields still slung over shoulders to allow greater speed. As he picked their pace up, from a fast walk to a slow trot, Edwin checked back over his shoulder: Penda had been caught by surprise by Edwin’s move towards the horsemen, and was struggling to form his line into loose order and send it after him. A fierce hope blazed in the king’s heart. If they could hit the line of horsemen hard and fast enough, they might break through into the line of trees. From there, men could form skirmish bands and fight their way onwards, but a successful retreat would depend on finding horses. There was little – or rather no – chance that Cadwallon would have missed the tethered horses and the men he had left to guard them. The best hope was to dismount some of Cadwallon’s riders and take their animals. First, a mount for Bassus and a defence to allow him time to get clear, then anyone else he could manage.