by H A CULLEY
We were dismissed but Aldhun invited us to join him later on for the feast he’d organised in the king’s honour.
~~~
I had probably drunk more than I should have. The women had long since retired but tradition dictated that the men should stay until the king had left the hall. Not all those present had a bladder equal to the task and the foul stench of urine began to emanate from the corners of the hall as several men made use of the cover provided by the shadows where the candlelight didn’t reach.
I noticed with distaste that my brother was one of those who did so, not once but twice. He and I had studiously avoided each other at the feast and I was glad that, despite being the official representative of our father, the earl, he had to find lodgings in the burh. The ealdormen and senior churchmen present having been given all the available beds in the guest lodgings in the monastery itself. If I could steer clear of him at the ceremony the following day we should be able to avoid an unpleasant confrontation.
I had more dignity than Eadwulf, despite the fact that I was dying to relieve myself. At last the king rose unsteadily from his chair and made his way out of the hall, no doubt to use the monastery latrines sited at the eastern edge of the plateau. Two of his gesith followed him as he went nowhere without a bodyguard.
I might not wish to piss inside the hall but I wasn’t too proud to make use of a convenient bush in the darkness away from the hall. I breathed a sigh of contentment as I emptied my bladder but then some sixth sense warned me and I lurched sideways into a roll just as a sword cut at where my neck had been a split second earlier.
I came up into a crouch, my right hand scrabbling for my eating knife in a sheath on my belt. No one was allowed to carry weapons in the presence of the king but the knife I used to cut up my meat was four inches long and sharp. My would-be assassin had overbalanced when his sword met no resistance and staggered away from me before recovering quickly. The night was illuminated by a new moon so there was some light but my eyes had not grown accustomed to the gloom after being in the candle-lit hall, whereas my assailant had presumably been lying in wait in the darkness for some time before I’d emerged.
I was still in the couching position trying to ascertain where my attacker had gone when I heard a faint noise alerted me. His sword cut down at my unprotected head but I managed to stab blindly at my attacker’s legs before the blow landed. I was lucky and the blade sank up to the hilt in the man’s thigh. He yelped in pain and tried to move backwards. Consequently his sword missed me again.
Before he could recover I sprang to my feet and my fist connected with his jaw. He fell to the ground, dropping his sword. I scooped it up and went to strike him with it; not enough to kill him, but to wound him badly enough to incapacitate him.
Then my world went black.
When I awoke my head felt as if someone had stuck red hot irons into it and I moaned in agony. I tried to move but I couldn’t get my limbs to obey me.
‘Lie still, lord. You have a nasty cut in your scalp right down to the bone. You are lucky to be alive.’
I tried to see the speaker and, although I could see that the room was well lit, everything was a blur. Whoever was tending to me washed my face with a wet cloth and I felt marginally better. I drifted back into unconsciousness and when I woke again the room was dark.
I went to call out but all that emerged was a dry croak. My head still felt as if it was on fire and, when someone lifted it so that I could drink some water I screamed in pain. I continued to drift in and out of consciousness with occasional sips of water for what I later learned was three days. Then one morning I woke up and the unbearable pain had been replace by a dull ache. Furthermore, I could see clearly.
A tonsured head appeared and opened each eye in turn so that he could peer into them. He lifted my head and I saw that he was wearing the black habit of the Benedictine order and I correctly surmised that he was the monastery’s infirmarian, or one of them.
He seemed satisfied and gave me more water to drink before disappearing. I called out but my voice couldn’t manage more than a croak. I swallowed and tried again.
‘Where am I? What happened?’ I managed to utter this time, albeit hoarsely, but there was no one there to hear me.
An elderly monk came in and examined me and then stood aside to reveal the bishop and a tearful Ecgfrida looking down at me, concern written all over their faces.
‘We thought we’d lost you, my son,’ Aldhun said with a smile. ‘However, God has seen fit to spare you.’
‘What happened?’ I asked again, my voice a little stronger this time.
‘Someone tried to cleave your head in two with a sword. Thankfully the blade must have been blunt or rusty and your skull is thicker than most men’s,’ he explained. ‘The sword broke and that saved your life. The sentries outside the hall heard a scream and the sounds of a scuffle and came running to investigate. They saw you lying on the ground with blood seeping out of your head and raised the alarm.
‘You must have wounded your assailant and they followed a trail of blood using torches but found the man with his throat cut. He also had a knife in his thigh. He couldn’t have got that far on his own so presumably there were two of them. I can only surmise that, when the chase got too close, one killed the other, no doubt to stop him talking.’
I tried to nod but that caused a blast of pain to shoot through my head.
‘Yes, I wounded my attacker and took his sword off him. The other man must have attacked me before I could use it,’ I managed to get out slowly and in short bursts of speech.
‘Do you know who did this to you?’ Aldhun asked.
‘No, but I have a fair idea. However, I have no proof.’
‘Eadwulf,’ my wife hissed.
‘Why?’ her father asked.
‘No doubt because he heard that the king would prefer Lord Uhtred to be the next Earl of Bernicia,’ another voice said.
I couldn’t see the speaker but I recognised the voice.
‘Borg, is that you?’
‘Yes, lord,’ he said stepping into my field of vision with a smile.
I returned the smile and then lay back exhausted. Within seconds I had fallen asleep again.
~~~
It was over two months before the infirmarian pronounced me fit enough to travel. During the time that I was bedridden my muscles had wasted and I had lost quite a lot of weight. Gradually I exercised and ate, ate and exercised until my clothes no longer hung on me as if I had stolen them from a giant.
It was late September before we left to return to Duns. Leland and Ulfric were determined that my brother wouldn’t have any further chance to try and kill me and so we set off escorted by thirty mounted warriors, fully armed, with scouts riding ahead and on the flanks. Kenric wasn’t there because he’d taken half a dozen men to watch Bebbanburg from afar. If a large party of warriors left we’d have plenty of warning.
My head still throbbed at times and I wasn’t as quick as I used to be when exercising with sword and shield, but otherwise I had recovered well. Ecgfrida was determined that I’d rest until the spring to give me the chance to fully recuperate, but it wasn’t to be.
Chapter Seven – Raiders
Winter 998/999
That winter was a harsh one. The snow came early and by the end of November there was a foot of the stuff everywhere; more where blizzards had blown it into deep drifts. Travel was nigh on impossible; even hunting was difficult, and usually fruitless. I was grateful that that summer had yielded a bumper harvest and that we had managed to smoke or salt enough meat to provide some variety in my hall to the gruel and broth made with root vegetables.
As the winter wore on with no let-up in the cold weather, hungry wolves got ever bolder and more than one family in isolated farmsteads were wiped out. Humans were also starving and reports of raids by those more improvident than those living in my three villages began to emerge.
Despite the difficulties of journeying through the snow,
Ulfric’s messenger managed to reach us to say that Norham had been attacked by raiders from the north. The River Tweed had frozen and the raiders had been able to cross it, avoiding Ulfric’s hall sited above the ford, usually the only crossing point for miles.
I had just returned from a wolf hunt feeling pleased with myself as we had found a den this time and killed the majority of a large pack, with only two of the beasts escaping. We had lost one man in the fight but that seemed to me a price worth paying to get rid of the immediate menace to Duns.
‘Where are these raiders now?’ I asked the messenger once he had given me Ulfric’s message.
‘They were beaten off with heavy losses, lord, and retreated back across the Tweed.’
My suspicion was that these raiders had come from the other side of the Lammemuir Hills; in other words from the Scots enclave around Edinburgh. Since my father had been fool enough to allow King Kenneth to take control of the region south of the Firth of Forth the ealdorman, Osmond, had done little to discourage his people from raiding into Selkirkshire and Berwickshire. In fact, I suspected he secretly encouraged it despite the treaty between my father and the King of Scots.
However, my immediate problem was the marauders who had attacked Norham. According to Ulfric’s messenger, they had driven off the livestock which were being overwintered in various barns outside the village to provide everyone, including those on the isolated farmsteads, with breeding stock for the coming year. Without them there would be no calves and no lambs to sell or eat.
The messenger said that he’d seen no sign of the raiders or their plunder on his way to Duns. That road had been difficult enough for him to traverse and I couldn’t see them heading further west up over the hills. To even try would be suicidal in these conditions. No, they had probably come down the narrow coastal plain between the hills and the sea, avoiding Berwick as being too strong for them to assault, and then followed the Tweed valley west to Norham. If so, they would probably return the same way.
It had taken the messenger a day to reach me but the Scots would be moving slowly, partly because the need to dig their way through snow drifts, but also because they had to drive livestock along a narrow trail through the snow. I calculated that they would be lucky to make much more than five or six miles in the few hours between dawn and dusk at this time of year.
I gathered my warriors and loaded packhorses with food for us and fodder for the animals, ready to leave as soon as it was light the next day. By my calculations it would take the raiders the best part of three days to reach the road that ran along the coast between the villages of Ayton and Eyemouth. North of that lay an open area called Coldingham Moor and beyond that they would cross the border between the shires of Berwick and Edinburgh; effectively where England ended and Scotland began.
We needed to catch them before they reached the moor and that meant making our way along the snow blocked track between Duns and Ayton – some dozen miles of hard going.
There were places where the snow lay a mere six inches deep, which we could ride through at a slow walk; but then we would hit deep drifts and have to dismount and use our wooden shovels to clear a path. It was hard work and I detailed five at a time to clear a path until they were worn out, then another five would take over. I did my fair share and worked until the muscles in my arms and shoulders screamed in protest.
By nightfall we had reached a narrow river called Whiteadder Water, which was frozen solid just as the Tweed at Norham was. We crossed over and camped on the far bank. Even with camp fires that spat and hissed as the ice in them melted to water and then evaporated into the air, we spent a cold and uncomfortable night. It didn’t help when fresh snow started just before dawn. I had thought that it was too cold to snow but realised that it wasn’t quite as cold now. When I looked up the moon, which had been fringed with an icy halo the last time I looked, was now hidden by dark clouds.
The temperature continued to rise as the morning wore on and the snow turned to sleet. If anything that hampered our progress even more as snow turning to slush was heavier to move than powdery crystals of the stuff. I consoled myself with the thought that the thaw would be a little faster on the coast and, hopefully, would slow the raiders down even more.
We reached Ayton just as the sun sunk below the Lammermuir Hills to the west. The thane, a man named Sicga, sounded the alarm as twenty frozen and bedraggled mounted warriors emerged through what was now a mixture of sleet and rain. When he realised who it was he stood down his five household warriors and the twenty members of the fyrd who had answered his summons.
Leaving my men to warm themselves and dry their clothing by the fires in Sicga’s hall and the houses of his freemen, I continued, accompanied by Borg, to the coast road that ran from Berwick all the way to Edinburgh. It was difficult to find at night and in the prevailing conditions but, as I’d hoped, my memory served me well and the area between the low hills inland and the cliffs that dropped steeply to the rocky shoreline below was no more than two hundred yards wide.
We were leading our tired horses so when Borg, who was in front of me, fell through a melting bank of snow into a small burn no real damage was done. Had we been riding his horse would undoubtedly have broken its leg. As he got up cursing and swearing because all of his clothes were now sopping wet, I told him to be quiet. We could now hear the faint sound of lowing cattle and of men talking.
Borg was in danger of freezing to death so I sent him back to Ayton whilst I investigated. Tethering my horse, I scrambled down the side of the burn until I could see campfires below me. The burn entered the sea at a natural harbour surrounded by half a dozen fishermen’s hovels. The Scottish raiders had evidently killed the local inhabitants and were using their dwellings for shelter. Not all could fit inside and so a few were using upturned boats with one side propped up by oars against the prevailing north-easterly wind to shelter under. They had lit fires in front of these improvised shelters to cook their evening meal.
The stolen livestock had been allowed to roam free in the steep valley – no more than a wide gully really - to scrape away the slush to find what grazing they could, which wasn’t much. Suddenly I heard a noise to my left and a boy of between ten and twelve appeared slipping and sliding his way across the hillside. No doubt he, and a few others, had orders to make sure the animals didn’t escape from the gully.
I waited to see if he would see me. I didn’t want to kill a young lad but I’d have to if I was discovered. Luckily he was too intent on stamping his feet and rubbing his hands together to keep warm to pay much attention to his surroundings and a few minutes later he turned back the way he’d come.
I scrambled back up the gully, retrieved my horse, and made my way back to Ayton.
~~~
We waited in the cold and dark at the far side of the ford through Eye Water, the river that ran into the sea at Eyemouth. I prayed that my anticipation of what the Scots would do was correct.
I reasoned that, not having looted either the fishing village of Eyemouth or the rather more prosperous area around Ayton on the way out, they intended to do so on the return journey. It made sense as otherwise they would have been encumbered with livestock all the way to Norham and back again.
If I was the leader of the raiders I would send my warriors to launch a dawn attack on Ayton and the surrounding farmsteads whilst the boys, with just a few men as escort, drove the Norham livestock across the Eye Water and north-east towards Coldingham Moor.
With Sicga and his men I estimated that I probably had the same numbers as the raiders. However, only six of Sicga’s men were trained warriors; the other ten were members of the fyrd. Normally I would have regarded inexperienced freemen as a liability on an operation like this, but Sigca had chosen them at my request because they were skilled archers, albeit with hunting bows, not war bows.
Whilst I waited in ambush on the track between the ford over the Eye Water and Ayton, Sicga and his men had hidden themselves a few hundred yards from the
ford, along the track to Coldingham. His task was to kill the drovers and their escort and recover our stolen animals. Mine was to eliminate their main body.
Thankfully the sleet had stopped and the temperature continued to rise, albeit slowly. However, it wasn’t very warm lying on wet grass under a bush which dripped cold water down my neck no matter where I lay.
As the sun’s first rays turned the oily black surface of the sea into various shades of orange and yellow I heard the faint sound of ponies splashing through the ford before I caught sight of shadowy figures heading towards where we were hidden. I waited anxiously for the sound of animals being driven through the ford. If we sprung the ambush before the stolen livestock entered the trap set up by Sicga they might get away.
Just when I thought my plan was doomed to failure I heard boy’s voices faintly on the wind urging the animals into the river. A few minutes later I felt confident that all were across the river and should by now have entered Sicga’s trap.
I tapped Borg on the arm and he blew his hunting horn. By now the leading riders had passed my position and a score and half of raiders on foot were abreast of our position. We arose like wraiths out of the ground and charged forward into the enemy, attacking from all sides.
Ulfric and four of his men had swiftly mounted and now attacked the Scots leaders. Unarmoured men on ponies were no match for my armoured warriors riding much larger horses and they cut them down before they knew what was happening. The Scots on foot weren’t so easily overcome.
We were outnumbered by two to one and, despite their lack of armour and the advantage we had of surprise, they quickly recovered and resolutely defended themselves.
As I raced into the melee I was attacked by two men at once. The one to my right hacked at my head with a small axe whilst the other thrust a spear at my chest. I reacted without conscious thought, lifting my shield to deflect the spear and my sword to slice into the forearm of the axeman. He dropped the axe with a cry of pain and I forgot about him; the other tried to jab at me again but I was now too close to him to be worried about the spear.