by H A CULLEY
I smashed the boss of my shield into his face and, whilst he was blinded by the pain of a broken nose, I slashed my sword down onto his shoulder. He fell to the ground and a quick thrust of the point of my sword into his throat put him out of his misery.
Suddenly I felt a sharp stab of pain in my calf and I realised that my other opponent, far from being put out of action by the deep wound to his forearm, had dragged his dagger from its sheath and stuck it into me from his prone position on the blood soaked ground.
Another quick jab with my sword at his neck made sure that he was really out of the fight and I hastily checked my calf. Thankfully my thick leather boots had prevented the dagger from doing more that give me a shallow cut and I sought out my next adversary.
It was only then that I saw Borg lying on the ground with a bloody wound to his head. A huge Scotsman wielding a two-handed battle axe was standing over him and was just about to administer the coup de grace when I chopped sideways into his bull-like neck with all the strength I could muster. I had expected to see his head topple from his body but, to my amazement, the blade stuck less than halfway through.
With a roar he turned to face me, wrenching my sword out of my hand. He raised his axe and instinctively I lifted my shield to block the blow without any real expectation that it would do more than slow it before it fell apart. I braced myself, but the blow never came. Suddenly the light went out of his eyes and he toppled sideways, crashing into the ground.
I rushed to Borg’s side to try and stem the flow of blood from his head wound but it had stopped of its own accord when his heart had stopped beating. I felt inordinately sad that the captured Norse boy, who had turned out to be one of my closest companions, was dead. Normally I could steel my heart against feeling emotion for the death of one I knew well, at least until I had the time to grieve, but for some reason Borg’s death deeply affected me.
I got to my feet slowly, telling myself to get a grip; I still had a fight to win. However, when I looked around, it was all over. A few of the raiders had got away but most were dead or wounded. The latter soon joined the others in death. Our losses were comparatively light; in addition to Borg three other warriors had been killed and four more were wounded. Their wounds weren’t serious and hopefully they would make a full recovery.
Sicga had suffered no casualties, but then his had been the easy part. His archers had taken care of the four warriors with the livestock and then the ten boys herding them had either surrendered without a fight or had fled into the snow covered hills. I didn’t give much for their chances of survival. Although a thaw had started, it would take a long time before all the snow melted. They would die of hunger or the cold; that is if the wolves didn’t get them first.
Six boys had been taken prisoner and I let Sicga keep all but one. He wasn’t a Scot; he was an Angle – the son of Ealdorman Osmond. It proved that the raid had Osmond’s blessing. No doubt his people had suffered this winter but it was the first indication that he was prepared to break the unofficial truce between Scottish Lothian and the part still ruled by my father. My hope was that his son, Hacca, would prove to be a valuable hostage against Osmond’s future good behaviour.
We borrowed a cart from Sigca to take our dead to the monastery at Coldingham for Christian burial. The dead Scotsmen – plus a few Lothian Angles who appeared to have sided with the Scots - were thrown into the sea from the top of the nearby cliffs.
Chapter Eight – Lothian Under Threat
Summer 1000
My hope of persuading Ealdorman Osmond to respect the border proved to be a vain one. During the latter part of that wretched winter he had fallen ill and died. I offered to free the fifteen year old Hacca so that he could succeed him, intending to extract the boy’s oath not to raid our territory before I did so, but instead of allowing Hacca to inherit, Malcolm persuaded King Kenneth to appoint Malcom’s bastard son, Angus, as ealdorman instead.
As soon as Angus had taken possession of the fortress on the rock high above the town of Edinburgh, he set about replacing the existing Anglian thanes with Scots, some of whom were of Pictish descent but the majority were Britons from Strathclyde.
This was a worrying trend because the western part of Angus’ shire joined Strathclyde at Stirling and it meant that what remained of Bernician Lothian was now under a co-ordinated threat from both the north and the west.
The border between Selkirkshire in the east and Strathclyde in the west had always been ill-defined but, as the area was largely unpopulated uplands which stretched for some thirty miles between the two, it didn’t used to matter very much. Now we learned that Owain ap Dyfnwal, King of Strathclyde and nominally Kenneth’s vassal, had been surreptitiously settling these uplands for several years so that he could lay claim to the area as far as Ettrick Forest. That brought the eastern edge of his kingdom to within a few miles from the burh of Hawick in Selkirkshire and not that far from Selkirk itself.
The two ealdorman of Anglian Lothian had approached my father for help to counter the growing threat. They had in mind a pre-emptive attack on the Britons who had settled in the west but Waltheof did nothing, other than reply urging caution.
In early June Gosric, the Ealdorman of Selkirkshire, called a meeting to discuss the threat to us. Iuwine of Berwickshire and most of the thirty odd thanes from the two shires attended. Although they were officially my deputies, I took Ulfric of Norham and Kenric of Carham with me, along with a small escort. I also took Hacca.
The meeting was held in the monastery of Melrose, partly because its refectory was large enough as a venue and partly because it was more or less central. After the abbot had celebrated mass and blessed our deliberations Gosric outlined the threat, something which most of us were only too well aware of. Iuwine followed on by saying that our task was to discuss what action we should take to deal with the growing threat to our continued existence.
After he’d finished speaking he invited anyone who wished to do so to take the floor. To my surprise Hacca was first on his feet, although he had no right to speak as he was neither ealdorman nor thane. However, both Gosric and Iuwine seemed eager to hear what he had to say.
‘I am not the only Angle to have been dispossessed by the encroaching Scots,’ he began. ‘There are fifteen thanes and perhaps sixty of their loyal household warriors who have been forced off their land and who now live as outlaws in the Pentland, Moorfoot and Lammemuir Hills. It is not to be borne.’
His young voice had grown more excited as he spoke and I managed to catch his eye in an effort to tell him to take a more measured tone. Whether he understood my look or not, he continued more calmly.
‘We need to make contact with these men and invite them to join our army. Seventy five trained warriors who have a serious grievance against Angus mac Malcolm in particular and the Scots in general would be a valuable addition to our army.’
‘You speak as if we have already decided to go to war with Angus, boy,’ an elderly thane I didn’t recognise called out from the back of the chamber.
‘No, but does anyone here not see the encroachment from the west and the growing power of the Scots south of the Firth of Forth as menacing? All I’m saying is that we need to prepare to resist any further inroads into the two shires and my father’s former thanes will join us, provided we can make contact with them.’
‘What the lad says makes sense to me,’ Sicga of Ayton said, getting to his feet as Hacca sat down. ‘However, we have other matters that need to be resolved. The Scots warriors are ill disciplined but they are all trained as fighters from young boys. Our fyrd are farmers who carry a spear if they possess one but have little idea how to use it. How many men can we muster in total? Perhaps seven hundred in total if everyone between the ages of fourteen and forty five attends the muster. Of these no more than two hundred are proper warriors. Yes, the seventy five that Hacca mentions would be very helpful, but our main problem is the woeful state of training of the fyrd.’
‘What is your so
lution, Sicga?’ Gosric asked.
‘With no disrespect to you, lord, or to Ealdorman Iuwine, we need someone who can organise the training of the fyrd and has the military skills to lead us effectively. Only then do we have any chance of defeating an invasion.’
‘I take no offence. I am nearly fifty and too old to do as you suggest,’ Gosric said with a smile. ‘My sons came to me late in life and are too young and inexperienced.’
He stopped and looked at Iuwine, raising a questioning eyebrow. His fellow ealdorman was young, but he was a few years older than me. However, he didn’t have a reputation as a warrior or a commander. Had he not been an ealdorman I suspected he would have chosen to become a monk or a priest.
‘You have someone in mind?’ Iuwine asked, ignoring the unspoken question in Gosric’s expression.
‘Yes, lord. I saw first-hand how Thane Uhtred of Duns defeated a large band of raiders despite the fact that we were outnumbered. They were practically annihilated and, although we did lose men in the fight, their losses were four or five times ours.’
‘I can support what Sicga says,’ Hacca put in. ‘I was there, albeit on the losing side.’
That raised a chuckle from quite a few of those present. The upshot of the meeting was that I was elected as Bretwalda of Lothian. I was pleased, of course, but I had no illusions as to the difficulties of my task. In contrast, most there seemed to think that their troubles were over, having shouldered me with them. They weren’t, of course, they were only just beginning.
~~~
My problems were threefold. I needed to make contact with the disposed thanes of the shire of Edinburgh and persuade them to join us without reward, except food and shelter; I needed to provide armour and weapons for the fyrd; and I needed to train them. Because they were farmers in the main, although some freemen were fishermen or artisans, they resented anything which took them away from providing for them and their families. Most of them took the attitude that life was hard enough without devoting time to learning the art of fighting.
I decided to tackle the first task without delay. There had to be a certain urgency to it. If the dispossessed thanes and their oath-sworn warriors were raiding local farmsteads in order to survive it wouldn’t be long before Angus decided he needed to hunt them down.
Three days later I said goodbye to Ecgfrida and Aldred and set off with Hacca, Leland, my body servant, Cædmon, and four of my household warriors for the Lammermuir Hills.
My northernmost farmstead was at Longformacus in the foothills. Beyond that lay uplands that covered an area of some twenty miles by ten miles before you reached the first of the villages in the shire of Edinburgh. The boundary between it and Berwickshire was ill defined but I suspected that our quarry lay in the north-western part of the hills. From there they had a variety of places they could attack. The south-eastern hills were far less populated.
We stayed at Longformacus on the first night and then climbed up into the trackless waste above the hamlet. We saw nothing all day except some sheep and a boy with two large dogs who guarded them. The weather had started out fine but clouds soon scudded in from the east. By early in the afternoon the sky had turned dark grey and the wind had picked up. It was obvious that we were in for a wild night and I began to think about where best to seek shelter.
I thought that there was little hope of finding a building but I reasoned that the shepherd boy must live somewhere. Although he was the only person we’d seen, there were bound to be others somewhere as we’d seen several flocks on distant hillsides. Then as the big, fat raindrops began to fall, Hacca spotted a hovel below us beside a small river that he said was called the Whiteadder. It was the same river as the one we’d camped by the previous year, just before we’d captured Hacca, but now we were much further upstream.
As we neared the hovel the wind lashed rain in our faces and it became difficult to see much. Nevertheless, somehow I knew that the place was deserted. I half expected to find the dead bodies of the family who’d lived here, but there was nothing. The cauldron hanging above the dead fire still had a vegetable stew in it but it had started to go mouldy. It was obvious that the outlaws we sought had been here; the fate of the occupants was less evident.
We stabled the horses in a lean-to attached to the hovel and fed them from the bags of fodder we had brought with us. Normally we’d have allowed them to graze, but not in this weather. Cædmon emptied the cauldron outside and scrubbed it clean before lighting a fire and preparing a stew made with some dried venison from his pannier and root vegetables growing in a patch outside. I cursed the weather. Leland was a good tracker but any trail that the outlaws had left would be destroyed by the rain.
The next morning dawned bright and clear. The only sign of last night’s storm was the puddles of water lying here and there.
‘Any idea where outlaws are likely to hide?’ I asked Hacca as we saddled our mounts.
‘I doubt if they’ll use anywhere out in the open as a base,’ he replied. ‘It might be worth going to Monynut Forest. That would give them cover from view as well as providing timber for huts.’
‘Where is this forest?’
‘I’ve never been there but I seem to recall being told that it lies between two small rivers that flow under a ridge that runs between Bransley Hill and Heart Law.’
‘Do you know where they are?’
‘To the north of here, I think.’
I glanced at the sun as it climbed into the sky in the east and judged where due north must lie. There was a ridge that ran north-west to south-east in that direction so we set off to climb it. When we reached the top we could see that the wide valley below us was covered in trees. It had to be Monynut Forest. However, it stretched for miles in all directions and to search it would take forever.
Suddenly Leland pointed to the far hillside. Looking to where he was indicating I saw that it was dotted with sheep. We’d seen others before, of course, but not in this density. There were cows as well. It was further confirmation that we had come to the right place to find the outlawed thanes. I surmised that they had gathered in the local population, with their livestock, as well as raiding further afield. It would explain the deserted hovel below us.
I was about to descend towards the forest when Hacca drew my attention to the north-western end of the forest. It was a good four or five miles from where we sat but I could just make out movement.
‘Your eyes are better than mine, Hacca, what can you make out?’
At twenty nine I was hardly an old man but Hacca was half my age and I knew he had the eyes of a hawk.
‘It looks like three men on horseback in the lead, then perhaps a dozen mounted on ponies. One is carrying a banner, but I can’t make out any detail. Then they’re followed by a score of men wearing byrnies; at least I think they are. The sun is glinting off their torsos. Then there is a mass of men behind them, capering excitedly.’
‘How many?’
‘In total? Perhaps a hundred.’
More than enough to deal with a score of outlaws, even if they are all trained warriors, I thought gloomily. We had arrived too late.
‘We should have brought more men,’ Hacca said, almost weeping. ‘Can’t we do something?’
‘What? Throw our lives away in a futile gesture of support? What good would that do?’
Just then I saw small figures emerge from the wood and start to drive the livestock up the slope and over the ridge towards the coast. Angus’ Scots, for it had to be them, ignored the boys and continued on into the trees.
As we watched impotently people emerged from the forest. Some wore byrnies and helmets but they included men in normal tunics, women and even children. They headed south-east over the moorland towards where one of the small rivers joined the Whiteadder. Beyond that I knew that there was a small hamlet and I smiled to myself. The hamlet lay in Berwickshire and therefore out of Angus’ jurisdiction.
‘Come on,’ I yelled, digging my heels into my horse’s flanks and
cantering off along the ridge.
My men were taken by surprise but quickly set off after me. The ridge slowly descended and a short while later my horse splashed through the shallow waters of the narrow river and on down the east bank of the Whiteadder until I reached the hamlet. There I halted, my horse blowing hard with exertion, and waited until the first of the fugitives came into sight.
‘Come on,’ I yelled. ‘Get behind us.’
The leading men halted uncertainly and glanced behind them.
‘Lord Hacca is with us. You are in Berwickshire now; you’re safe.’
That seemed to do the trick and the group started to move again. The last of the women and children had just reached the hamlet behind us when a group of mounted warriors came across the stream and headed towards us. Most carried spears and they levelled them, seemingly about to charge us.
Two of my warriors were archers and they had dismounted and drew back their bows as the Scots charged us.
‘Kill the leaders’ horses,’ I said quietly.
The first two arrows brought two of the three horses down and the next two took care of the third horse and the pony bearing a man carrying a banner. The latter was blue with a golden dragon embroidered on it – the emblem of the Kings of Scotland. I knew then that Angus, the bastard son of Malcolm of the House of Alpin, must be present. All four riders sprawled in the dust and the one horse that wasn’t dead cried pitifully in agony. I held my hand up and yelled for the rest to halt.
‘You are in Berwickshire and, unless you want to provoke a war, you must go back whence you came.’
One of the three riders got to his feet and held his side for a moment, evidently badly winded. He snatched up a gleaming steel helmet with a gold band around the rim and jammed it back onto his head.