The Cross and the Curse (Bernicia Chronicles Book 2)

by Matthew Harffy

  Beobrand stepped quickly to his right, at the same time swinging Hrunting in a deadly arc to the left. The blade connected with the attacker's face, cleaving through jaw and nose. Bone smashed. Blood and brains splattered. The knife skittered harmlessly over the rings of Beobrand's byrnie. He hardly felt the glancing blow.

  He looked down at the twitching corpse and the ruined face. It was a small figure, but with rounded hips and breasts that were all too evident under the night dress. It was a young woman who lay at his feet.

  Another woman dead.

  How many more would he see perish in his lifetime. He had already seen more than his share. His gorge rose. She had only been protecting her home. Perhaps Broden was her man.

  What had he become? All he had wanted was to bring back Reaghan.

  Reaghan!

  He ran towards the hall. Oblivious of everything else. The flames were a yellow and red wall that reached the dome of the sky itself. He could not get close to the blaze. His eyebrows and hair began to singe.

  A creaking, groan emanated from the structure. Was that a scream he could hear? Could there still be someone living inside that bonfire? Then, with an almost animal roar, the roof beams collapsed. Flames and sparks sprayed into the sky like a message to the gods. The heat intensified. His face began to blister. Nobody could survive in that.

  He staggered back. Away from the flames and the burning pain of his failure.

  Tears burnt from his cheeks as they fell. He had lost Reaghan as he had lost all the others. Edita. Rheda. His mother. Cathryn. And Sunniva. Sweet, beautiful, brave, Sunniva.

  If he could just have saved the Waelisc girl. Just one. But it seemed his wyrd was to always fail. He could kill, but he could not prevent those he loved from dying.

  A sudden searing agony in his right leg brought his thoughts screaming back from where they wandered. He looked down but for a moment he was unable to understand what he was seeing. Something bright white was protruding from his right calf. A feather. The fletchings of an arrow. He had been shot and the arrow had passed clean though the large muscle below the knee.

  Looking in the direction the arrow had come from he saw Torran, thin face twisted with fury, lit by the flames of his destroyed home. He was placing another arrow on the string of his bow, but he had no time to draw and loose. For Attor had seen him too and was rushing at him spitting a cascade of insults as he ran.

  Torran stared at Beobrand for a moment, his baleful eyes full of loathing. He hesitated. Attor would be upon him in moments.

  "I will kill you, Beobrand of Ubbanford," Torran screamed, before turning and fleeing into the darkness that shrouded the land to the north. Attor sped after him and both were swallowed by the night.

  The flames still raged in the hall and some of the other buildings had begun to burn, whether from stray sparks or put to the torch by his gesithas, Beobrand did not know. All about him lay corpses and destruction. Those villagers who yet lived had fled. All this death and he had not saved her. How the gods must be laughing. His eyes were drawn to the woman he had slain. He shuddered as he recalled the destruction of her face. The image was etched into his mind and he would never forget it. So it was as he had feared. He had become just such a killer as Hengist.

  Acennan came to Beobrand's side. Ceawlin joined them. They stared into the crackling, roaring doom of Nathair's hall in silence for a time.

  "Lean on me," Acennan said, then winced as Beobrand put pressure on his broken bone. "But take a care."

  "I have failed," said Beobrand, his voice as desolate as a winter wind.

  "I don't know," Acennan said, a smile playing at his lips, "you seem to have done a good job of destroying this place."

  Beobrand frowned. He was in no mood for Acennan's humour.

  "I preferred it when you were not speaking to me."

  In answer, Acennan merely pointed. From behind the hall came Elmer and Garr. Beobrand's heart surged to see them both alive. It must count for something that all of his gesithas had lived through the night. He had not led them here to their deaths. Then he noticed that Elmer was carrying something. At first, in the flickering light of the flames he thought it might be a child, but then, as they drew closer, he recognised the long unruly hair and the slender curve of the neck.

  Beobrand took faltering, stiff-legged steps towards Elmer. Jolts of pain shot through his leg where the arrow yet protruded. He ignored the pain. His left arm screamed in protest at being raised, but he reached out and lifted Reaghan from Elmer's grasp. He felt her living warmth against his chest and let out a sigh.

  He knew not how she was alive, but suddenly the night was not so dark.

  Reaghan lived. And Beobrand had not failed.

  CHAPTER 33

  The sun rose dim and dismal in the grey morning. Its rays failed to penetrate the thick fug of morning mist and smoke that curled around the settlement, instead lighting the scene with a diffuse dreamlike glow.

  "That is the best I can do," said Ceawlin. He surveyed the bindings he had wrapped around Beobrand's arm and leg. Blood was already seeping through, but more slowly now. He had let it run freely from the arrow wound for a time to flush out dirt and any ill magic. Now that it was bound tightly, it throbbed constantly, but the pain was less acute than it had been.

  Beobrand had sat silently as Ceawlin ministered to him. His face was pale, but a serenity had descended on him after the combat. Briefly his hands had shaken and sickness had churned his guts. But he had breathed deeply and drunk some cool water from the stream and the feeling had subsided, as it always did.

  Reaghan was nuzzled against his chest, her head turned away from the world, hair falling over her face. She had not spoken since her rescue, but she seemed unharmed.

  Around them, his gesithas moved through the dead and the buildings, taking anything they could find of worth. There was not much. The hall still smoldered and there would be nothing worth taking, unless Nathair had silver or gold, which would survive the fire. Still, they could not stay here. They had won, but they were battered and Torran had escaped. If he managed to elude Attor and rally the villagers, Beobrand and his small warband could be overrun.

  Beobrand looked at the bones of the hall. Flames still licked at the pillars. Smoke billowed. He could scarcely believe that Reaghan had not perished inside. He cursed himself silently for putting into action a plan that had almost seen her burnt alive. Elmer had recounted what had happened, as they'd bound their wounds and cleared the ash from their throats with water.

  Torran and some of the other warriors had broken a hole in the rear wall of the hall. They'd rushed out, but were waylaid by Elmer and Garr, who fought them. They had slain one man and Garr had taken a nasty slash to his head which did not stop bleeding for so long that they began to fear he would lose all his blood and turn into a ghost before their eyes. Torran and his warriors had fled. It was then that Elmer had noticed Reaghan. She had crept out of the hole into the cool night. The girl had fainted away then, and he had feared her dead, or dying.

  Beobrand gave her a gentle squeeze with his right arm. Her shoulders were tiny. She trembled under his embrace, but he felt her arms tighten around him.

  "Hail," came a voice from the smoky fog. The men lifted weapons. Elmer and Ceawlin stepped towards the voice. They needn't have feared. The shadowy form that walked from the mist was Attor.

  "By the gods," said Acennan, "you look as tired as a dog who has smelt a bitch the other side of the world and run all the way to find her."

  Attor could barely raise a smile. He took a cup of water from Acennan and drank his fill. "I was chasing no bitch. Though Torran does run like a wolf. I lost him. He's a fast one."

  Beobrand broke his silence. "I am glad to see you return whole, Attor. We have been waiting for you." Then, to all of his warband, "Ready the horses and collect what you wish to carry. We are moving out."

  Acennan helped Beobrand to his feet.

  "You saved my life, Beobrand," he said. "Again."r />
  "And you saved mine. Back at Dor. If you had not fought with me, delayed me from my quest, I would be a corpse now. And an oath-breaker." He sighed, remembering how he had punched Acennan in the lightning-glimmer of the storm. He had been stupid with drink, but that was no excuse. "And I only repaid you with violence."

  Acennan's mouth twisted into a crooked smile.

  "Do not worry about that. You hit like a girl anyway."

  Beobrand did not smile.

  "I will repay you, Acennan. I will be a good lord. A good friend, if you'll still call me that."

  Acennan did not reply. Beobrand's heart twisted. Perhaps there was no room for friendship now. Had he beaten it out of their relationship, the way a smith beats impurities from hot iron?

  Elmer fetched the horses. Beobrand's leg and arm impeded him from climbing onto Sceadugenga's back, but with the help of a log to stand on and Elmer's steadying hands, he managed to pull himself into the saddle. Elmer helped Acennan up to the mare. Then he lifted Reaghan up to Beobrand as easily as if she had been one of his children. She squirmed to find a comfortable position, and then buried her head once more in his cloak, hiding her face from the day.

  From his new vantage point, Beobrand looked down at the corpses, still and broken clumps of cloth and flesh, wreathed in mist in the dawn light. His eyes lingered on the remains of the woman he had killed. The sight of her smashed face sprang into his mind unbidden. He shivered. Reaghan tightened her thin arms around him, as if she could protect him from his fears.

  "What have I done, Acennan? What have I become? Am I no different from Hengist?"

  Acennan scratched at dried blood on his cheek and surveyed the destruction around them.

  "You are a warrior and you are a leader of men, Beobrand. It is no easy thing."

  Beobrand recalled Oswald's words.

  "I am no great man," he said.

  Acennan snorted. "I never said you were. But you are no normal man. You lead and men follow." He swept his uninjured arm to encompass the village. "Even when you lead them into fire and death."

  "Well, that is a good thing, I suppose," said Beobrand.

  Acennan shook his head and looked at Beobrand sadly. "I am not so sure. I think perhaps it is a curse."

  "Maybe it is my wyrd to be cursed."

  For a moment he was sure he could hear Nelda's words echoing in that dank cave on Muile.

  Acennan suddenly smiled. "Well, if such is your wyrd, you will not be alone, for the thread of my wyrd is woven with yours."

  Beobrand nodded.

  "Thank you, my friend. In some things at least, I am lucky."

  He swung Sceadugenga's head towards the forest path, and Ubbanford.

  Then, raising his voice, for all his gesithas to hear, he said, "Let's go home."

  HISTORICAL NOTE

  This is a work of fiction. It is historical fiction, not a history book. If I have to choose between history and story, story wins every time. I try very hard to stick to what is known from primary sources and archaeology and never knowingly include anachronisms in my writing. But when something is not known for certain, then I think it is fair game for a novelist to make something up, and that is where things get really fun. The excitement in writing a story set close to 1,400 years ago, is that the details are scant, leaving lots of room for my imagination to run rampant.

  Beobrand and his close friends and enemies are all fictional, but many of the events and people that appear in this novel are real.

  Cadwallon was defeated at the Battle of Hefenfelth (Heavenfield) and the king was slain at a place called Denisesburn. The exact circumstances of his defeat are not known, but primary sources (Bede and Adomnán), do talk of King Oswald attacking at night, following a dream vision from Saint Columba. Before the battle, Oswald had a cross erected and made his outnumbered warhost pray to God. They were victorious, and one would imagine that would be a pretty good selling point for the new religion. Victory when facing overwhelming odds against a foe who has already killed three kings (Edwin, Eanfrith and Osric) in the last year would be hard to argue against.

  The importance of this battle should not be underestimated, despite it not being well-known to modern audiences. This defeat of Cadwallon's amassed native Britons (Waelisc, the Old English for 'foreigners', leading to the name of the Welsh in modern English) at Hefenfelth, paved the way for the total domination of England by the Anglo-Saxons.

  Oswald was a devout Christian, having grown up in exile under the protection of the kings of Dál Riata on the island of Hii (Iona). He saw in Lindisfarne the chance to mirror the holy island of the west coast in his own eastern kingdom and so sent for a bishop. The first bishop of Lindisfarne is not named by Bede, but later chroniclers name him as Cormán. The fact that he returned to Hii is described by Bede, who says the bishop "reported to his superiors that he had been unable to teach anything to the nation to whom they had sent him because they were an uncivilized people of an obstinate and barbarous temperament". I chose to have his acts a little more deviant than merely being unable to teach the people of Bernicia. I apologise to the memory of the man.

  The next, and much more successful and widely-known, Bishop of Lindisfarne is Aidan, and he will appear in later stories.

  There are several mentions of different months in the book. Each month in the Anglo-Saxon year had a name that reflected the main events of that month. Blotmonath (Blood month) is November, when the animals that cannot be fed through winter are slaughtered. Solmonath (Soil, or mud month) is February. The climate in Northern Europe would certainly explain that name. Travel in winter, with heavy rain and most roads being simple earth tracks, would have been extremely difficult and taxing. One can easily imagine trudging through the cloying mud of rain-drenched paths without the protection of modern waterproof clothing or boots. Hreðmonath, is March and is the month in which sacrifices were made to the goddess Hreða, though little is known about her.

  Sacrifice is a running theme in this story. Sacrifices of all kinds would be made to gods to appease them, to secure a good harvest, to improve the weather conditions, anything they could think of. Belief in gods and spirits was not questioned and the greater the sacrifice you could give to a god, the more likely they were to smile upon you and answer your prayers. Human sacrifice was probably not widespread, but there is certainly evidence that it did occur. This makes the idea of Christianity very attractive, with its god whose son was sacrificed so that mankind could live forever. In a world where sacrifice was very real and sometimes horrific, the promise of never needing to sacrifice again, must have grabbed the attention of the populace. Add to this monks and priests who were more educated in areas such as medicine, therefore helping the communities they served, and it is not difficult to see why Christianity won the battle for hearts and minds.

  Of course, the old religion thrived in villages and far-flung areas for many centuries, so it goes without saying that at this time, when Christianity was just beginning to gain a foothold in Britain again after the Romans left centuries before, that there would have been many clashes between advocates of the two religions. Bede tells the tale of Edwin's pagan priest, Coifi arguing with the Italian Christian priest, Paulinus. Coifi eventually capitulated and accepted Christianity, even going so far as to defile the grove of trees where he worshipped the old gods by throwing a spear into the sacred tree. This was the inspiration for the confrontation between Paulinus and Nelda, though here the outcome and the destruction of the sacred tree is more dramatic!

  Historical data concerning death in childbirth is not available for this far back in history, but pregnancy and childbirth have always been dangerous. There are developing countries now, in the twenty-first century, where one in seven women will die in pregnancy or childbirth! That is a hideous statistic, but one that lends credence to a young, healthy woman dying of pregnancy and childbirth-related medical issues in seventh century Britain. Birth must have been a time of wonder, but also of fear and uncertainty. A child
would bring joy and another pair of hands to help in the fields, at the loom and the hearth, even in the shieldwall, but it also brought another mouth to feed and the danger to the mother's health.

  There has been a lot of discussion over the years about the exact nature of the Anglo-Saxon conquest of Britain. It was once commonly believed that they came over from the continent in droves of ships and took the land by force, pushing all those who stood against them back into the west and settling the land they conquered. Later research makes it seem much more likely that the actual number of settlers was reasonably small. It appears obvious to me that the Angles, Jutes and Saxons who settled in the eastern edges of Britain took power from the native Britons by force of arms and superior strength, weapon technology and, perhaps, fighting ability. But once they had established themselves as rulers, they would allow the locals to continue tending the land as they had always done, as long as they paid tribute and didn't cause too much trouble. So it is against this picture of a multi-ethnic Britain, with different races and tribes cohabiting, that we find Bernicia ruled by an Anglo-Saxon king, but with many subjects who must have considered themselves of older native stock, whether Picts in the north, or Britons.

  If we look at modern societies with different ethnic and religious groups living together, we can see the tensions that can quickly arise. I believe that one of the challenges for a king of Northumbria at this time would have been to keep the peace within his own borders between his thegns and those of differing backgrounds. Of course, this would be coupled with wishing to maintain peace with powerful neighbours, such as Penda.

  The meeting with Penda described in this book is fictional. However, the leaders of the different kingdoms of Albion created pacts and alliances and Oswald had a lot to deal with without having to worry about Penda. Penda at this time is the warlord star of Mercia and his power is on the rise. He has already sided with Cadwallon and killed Edwin, the over-king, or Bretwalda of the Anglo-Saxons, showing the scale of his ambition. The truce between Oswald and Penda as I describe it will not last for long, and the future of the two kings will be intertwined, just as Beobrand's wyrd is linked to the royal families of Bernicia.