Paulinus and James, with Bassus helping, loaded as much of the royal gold, silver and jewels as they could find into the boat, with James making dashes to the church to bring from it the Gospel book and breviary, the crucifix and chalice, which were its greatest treasures. Then, when there was still much to do, there came word from the sentries on the road that riders were approaching.
The queen, with her women, ran to the boat. Æthelburh’s heart jolted. She could not see her children.
“Mamma!” Eanflæd popped up from her hiding place in the prow. “We’re playing hide and seek.”
“Good, good.” Æthelburh looked around. “Where’s Wuscfrea?”
“Hiding, Mamma.”
“Hiding where?”
Eanflæd looked puzzled. “If I knew that, I’d have found him Mamma.”
Æthelburh looked around wildly. “Wuscfrea! Wuscfrea, where are you? Come out. Wuscfrea!”
“Here he is.”
Æthelburh spun around to see James running down towards the river, a wriggling child tucked under his arm, with Paulinus and Bassus running beside him. He passed the boy to his mother as the queen’s maids scrambled into the boat.
“He wanted to hide in the church,” James said.
“Thank you,” said Æthelburh, hugging the squirming boy to her.
“Come, my lady,” said Bassus, reaching a hand up to her. “We must go.”
“What about you?” The queen turned to Paulinus and James, both of whom still stood upon the riverbank.
“Get in the boat,” said Paulinus.
“My lady!” Bassus looked to the outskirts of the old city. The column of riders was approaching.
The queen half stepped, half stumbled into the boat, but Bassus caught her. The crew were already casting off, unshipping oars and raising the sail.
Paulinus and James looked at each other, then at the gap opening between the boat and the bank.
“I love these people,” said James. “I will stay.”
Paulinus made to answer, but James shouted, “Go!” And the priest leaped for the boat. He almost made it too, but his feet slipped on the wet cordage around the boat and he slipped back into the river. Just as he was going under, Bassus and a crewman grabbed the priest and hauled him, wet and gasping, on board.
“Row!” ordered the ship’s master, and the men put their backs into it, and some of the queen’s women took up oars as well, pulling the boat into the safety of midstream. Paulinus picked himself up, dripping, from the gunnels of the boat in time to see James running towards the old city while the troop of riders swept towards them.
The lead rider pushed his horse into the shallows, but the boat was already well beyond his reach. Cadwallon reined his horse in and pushed his helmet back. On the boat, Æthelburh faced him.
“I am almost glad you have escaped me,” Cadwallon shouted. “I would have taken no pleasure in killing you.”
“Killing women and children – is that your mark, Cadwallon of Gwynedd?”
Cadwallon laughed, a fierce and brutal exaltation. “Oh no, lady, I only kill Edwin’s whelps.”
“You have not killed these,” said Æthelburh, holding her children about her.
“Not yet, lady, not yet.”
The current and the oars were taking the boat further and further from the rider, but Cadwallon spurred his horse on, riding along the bank.
“You are a beautiful woman, and a brave one, and Christian too. Marry me, and I will spare your children if you give them to the church.”
“I am the wife of Edwin.”
“You are the widow of Edwin.”
Æthelburh shook her head. “I will not believe that.”
“You want proof?” Cadwallon reached for the sack hanging from his saddle, then paused. “Cover your children’s eyes,” he said.
“Don’t look!” said Paulinus, but although Æthelburh folded her children to her so they could see nothing, she could not look away. She remained there, standing rigidly in the stern of the boat until the river carried her out of sight, then, trembling, her women helped her into the belly of the boat and gave her a draught of wine in an attempt to bring warmth to her pale, cold lips. She did not speak again until the boat sailed out of the Humber and took course on the whale road to the south and her brother’s kingdom. As the sun westered, the queen returned to herself and she hugged her children to herself, and kissed them, then gave them over to her ladies that they might get them to sleep, although their sleep be uneasy. Paulinus came to the queen and she looked to him, and he saw in her eyes the tears of acceptance.
“Cadwallon thought to torment me,” said Æthelburh, “but in years to come I will be glad to have seen him for that last time.”
Paulinus took the queen’s hand. It was cold. Æthelburh gripped his fingers, although she did not turn her eyes to the priest.
“Why did God let this happen?” she said. “Edwin was doing God’s will, performing God’s work. Why didn’t God protect him?”
“I don’t know,” said Paulinus. He looked from the boat at the shadowing land that he had come to all those years ago, full of the fire of faith and the certainty that he would bring that faith to the pagan peoples there. “I do not know.”
The queen squeezed his hand and they sat in silence as the sun set and the night fell.
Epilogue
The young man was working in the monastery’s gardens, digging earth, when the ship arrived on Iona. It was not the sort of work a prince normally did, but since his exile he had turned his hand to many tasks that princes did not normally do, and digging the earth for the monastery that had been his home for the past few years was far from the worst of his labours. It took a while for the messenger to find him, but when he did, he approached the young man with such noise that, instinctively, he drew his seax and held it out in front of him. But then, seeing who it was, he sheathed the knife.
“Oh, it’s you, Brother Aidan,” he said. “You know the abbot is always telling you off for running around like that. What brings you running to me?”
The monk, panting, stared at the young man as if he were seeing an entirely new man.
“What’s wrong?”
“He’s dead,” said Brother Aidan.
“Who’s dead?”
“Edwin. Edwin is dead and his sons with him.”
Oswald, prince of Bernicia, son of King Æthelfrith, wiped the dirt from his hands.
“It’s time I went home,” he said.
Historical Note
This is a true story. Well, it’s as true a story as is possible to write of events that took place some 1,400 years ago, when Britain was only just beginning to emerge from the silence of the post-Roman centuries. The last legion left Britain in AD 410, and although contact between Britain and the rest of Europe did not cease overnight, it slowly lessened as the monetary economy gave way to barter and plunder, and trade shifted its focus from the Mediterranean to the North Sea. For this was when the Angles, the Saxons, the Jutes, the northern European peoples named by Bede, arrived in Britain and set up kingdoms of their own. Even after all this time, whether this change was brought about by mass movements of people – boatloads of ruddy, blond farmer types stepping off the boat and displacing the local dark-haired Britons – or whether it was more the case of incoming warrior elites displacing – that is killing – ruling families and then taking local women to found new dynasties is still open to scholarly dispute. But what is without doubt is that Britain changed. New kingdoms arose, some so fleeting they left no whisper in the historical record, others more enduring. Town life, which was well established in the southern half of Britain, all but ceased. Life became overwhelmingly rural; ties became familial and tribal.
Religion too changed. The native Britons were largely Christian, a Christianity that owed much of its vitality to monasticism. Indeed, one of
the great heretics of early Christian history, Pelagius (c.360–c.420), was a Briton, and Patrick, in the fifth century, was the man who initiated a critical turn in Christian history, when he set out to evangelize a people who had never been part of the Roman Empire – the Irish (who were close cousins to the Britons). But the Anglo-Saxons were pagans, and they seem to have almost completely extinguished Christianity in the parts of Britain they conquered. Historical records died with the church, and the fifth and sixth centuries in Britain are a black but fruitful hole of legend, home to Arthur – if he existed – and a myriad desperate little battles known to none now.
Only as the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms began to consolidate, the smaller ones swallowed by the larger, do we start to find a firmer historical footing, round about the start of the seventh century. Our knowledge comes from two interlinked sources: the Anglo-Saxon chronicles – a tale of years, with key events recorded – and the extraordinary people-defining work of the Venerable Bede (c.673–735), the Ecclesiastical History of the English People. For the English people became Christian, and Bede, a monk of Northumbria, set out to tell that story, and in doing so he defined the English and made them into a people.
Without Bede, we would know precious little of this time. As a historian, he lays his sources carefully before the reader, telling us where and from whom he learned the information he passes on. And while there are weaknesses and biases in his history – Bede, a true Northumbrian, disliked the Mercians and gave short shrift to their kings, and he gave little credit to the Christianity of the Britons in bringing about the conversion of the Anglo-Saxons – yet he remains the father of English history and, reading him (and I heartily recommend you do), one is overwhelmingly struck by the essential kindness of the man.
It is from Bede that we learn of Edwin’s conversion, and the twistings back and forth made by the king. We hear of his mysterious conversation with a stranger outside the hall of King Rædwald, in the dark and in despair. From Bede we know of his marriage to Æthelburh, of the assassin sent by Cwichelm, of his great council and Coifi’s strange reaction to the abandonment of the old gods. It is Bede who tells us that Edwin was bretwalda – High King of Britain – and from him we learn that an alliance between Cadwallon, king of Gwynedd, and Penda of Mercia, brings Edwin down. Without Bede, we would have little more than a list of regnal dates for this period, and the odd battle year. With his history, there is enough, when allied to the recent advances in archaeology, to tell the story of this extraordinary man and his times in a way that is both compelling and, I hope, truthful.
The only change I’ve made is to alter the name of Forthred. In the Ecclesiastical History, the thegn who sacrifices himself to save Edwin is named Lilla, but to modern ears Lilla sounds so unmistakeably feminine as to wrench readers from the story. So I renamed him. Bede also tells us that Edwin conquered Anglesey. Later sources, unreliable in my judgement, relate that Edwin besieged Cadwallon on Puffin Island, a little islet to the west of Anglesey. I chose to ignore this, but a careful reading does suggest an unusual animus between Edwin and Cadwallon. I hope my explanation does neither of them a disservice. The homage rendered to Edwin by the other kings, by rowing him across the River Ouse, is recorded as being done to a later king, Athelstan. I have borrowed it for the purposes of this story.
The riddles quoted in the story, and the short extract from a poem recited by Edwin, are among the few examples of Anglo-Saxon literature to have survived the turbulence, and burnings, of the Viking incursions. They all appear in the Exeter Book, a manuscript kept at Exeter Cathedral, and one of four manuscripts that contain pretty well all that is left to us of Anglo-Saxon literature.
Finally, if you would like to learn more about this extraordinary kingdom, I recommend Northumbria: the Lost Kingdom (published by The History Press), which I co-wrote with archaeologist Paul Gething. It contains much of the recent advances in understanding brought about by the work of the Bamburgh Research Project, which Paul directs, and other archaeologists and historians working on this fascinating period in history.
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