The Amber Road

by Harry Sidebottom

  ‘Big, is it not?’ Maximus said. ‘Has it changed?’

  ‘Not really.’ Ballista was glad of the interruption to his line of thinking. After all these years, he had returned to the seat of his family’s power, was looking at Gudme, the home of the gods, and in his mind he was weighing up ways to destroy the place.

  ‘It has no wall,’ Zeno said. ‘Like ancient Lacedaemon, its safety must lie in the courage of its men.’

  Ballista inclined his head at the implied compliment. ‘Yet when the Spartans took chains to enslave the men of Arcadia, they were the ones who wore them.’

  Now Zeno gracefully accepted the flattering reference from Herodotus to the courage of his ancestors.

  Ever since they had been among the Heathobards, the demeanour of the imperial envoy had changed. Perhaps, Ballista thought, Zeno had come to realize how things really lay in this embassy. With luck, Ballista would be able to spare the feelings of the Greek, and not be forced to produce the secret imperial mandata from his baggage.

  Ballista checked over the column. The five slaves were with the beasts of burden and baggage at the rear. In front of them were twenty-eight armed men on foot, Romans and Olbians mixed together. The Rugian pilot was with them, having chosen to give his oath to Ballista, rather than be left among the Heathobards. The other ten were mounted with Ballista at the front. Discounting Zeno, the eunuch Amantius and the slaves, there were thirty-seven fighting men. Drawn from different peoples, it was a respectable hearth-troop for the return of an atheling to Gudme of the Himlings.

  Things had gone better the day before, when the Warig had beached at the port of Gudme, than they had back on Hedinsey. The defence of Gudmestrand was in the hands of an older eorl called Eadwine. Ballista had half remembered him from boyhood. Eadwine had provided lodgings and a feast. They had drunk with his warriors. There had been no fights. Ballista had given an arm ring to Eadric, the son of the eorl. In the coming days, it would be important to have men well disposed to him among the leaders of the Angles. A tangible expression of Eadwine’s goodwill were their mounts and the baggage animals.

  Ballista gave the signal, and, with Zeno at his side, led them into Gudme. As they crossed the final bridge, its guard blew a long blast on his horn. An answering note came from the great hall far ahead. They went between the farms and workshops. Women and children came out to point and stare. Skilled craftsmen – workers in gold, silver and steel, bone and wood – put down their tools to watch. They climbed north up the hill to where the hall of the cyning stood, the smaller halls of his chosen warriors beyond. Like the Allfather’s Gladsheim with Valhalla beyond, Ballista thought; Gudme, where Hjar of the Himlings had re-created Asgard on Middle Earth.

  Even to one who had seen the Forum of Trajan, the scale of the hall was still not unimpressive. More than fifty paces long, the ridge of its thatch roof dominated the skyline. To those who had never left the north, it was simply the biggest building in the world.

  Ballista and the others dismounted in its lee. A large black bird regarded them from the roof. When the ravens leave Gudme, the Himlings will fall. The horses, baggage animals and slaves were taken away. The doorway was at the midpoint of the long wall. It was surmounted by the gilded prow-beast of a longship which the theoden Starkad had taken from the Heruli.

  Throwing his travel-stained black cloak back over his shoulder, Ballista adjusted the roseate brooch which held it in place. The brooch of gold and garnets had been a parting gift from his father. The cynings of the Himlings gave out few of the distinctive ornaments. Wearing one declared a man either one of the dynasty, or an important, highly favoured ally, lord of his own people. Ballista checked the gilded things on his belt: the battered bird of prey which his mother had given to him when he left the north, and the Mural Crown, the original of which he had been awarded by the emperor Philip the Arab. He took off his helmet, tucked it under his left arm, pushed back his hair.

  Zeno came and stood to one side, and a little behind. His white toga with the thin purple stripe was badly creased. It was an impractical garment in which to ride. Futilely, the envoy attempted to smooth its folds.

  ‘It looks fine,’ Ballista said. ‘Time to go.’

  Battle-Sun hanging with the dagger on his right hip, and the old, unnamed sword he had carried all the years on his left, Ballista walked into the hall of his ancestors.

  In the cavernous interior, the massively thick pairs of oak posts marched away on either side. Shields and spears hung from the roof. Isangrim, son of Starkad, cyning of the Angles, was enthroned opposite. On either side of him sat Oslac and Morcar. Many eorls and many of the duguth stood around. Off to the left were leaders of many of his allies.

  Ballista walked forward and knelt before the throne. He placed his helmet on the floor, then his hands on Isangrim’s knees. The hands that covered his were spotted with age. There was a slight tremor in one.

  Ballista looked up. His father wore a jewelled diadem around his brow. His long hair was plaited back. It was silver. His face was clean-shaven as before, but the cheeks were sunken. His father looked old, tired and careworn. The very pale-blue eyes were rheumy. Yet there was still some light in them.

  Isangrim stood. He pulled his son up with him. The old man was surprisingly strong. His arms came around in a bear hug.

  ‘Dernhelm,’ he whispered. ‘My gentle, beautiful, long-lost boy.’

  ‘Father.’

  Isangrim stepped back, let go one of Ballista’s hands, lifted the other high, turning him to face those assembled.

  ‘My son is returned.’ The voice of the cyning carried to the furthest reaches of the hall, out through the still-open doors to the crowd that had assembled. ‘The youngest, but far from the least of my sons. Dernhelm, the much-travelled. Dernhelm, whom the Romans call Ballista. Dernhelm, the Angle who defeated the Persians and who overthrew an emperor and took the throne of the Romans.’

  While the cheering continued, Isangrim gestured for Oslac to move along, so Ballista could sit beside the throne. Ballista scooped up his helmet, placed it on his knee, tried to look impassive. The cyning remained standing.

  ‘My people, our allies, the Allfather has brought the atheling Dernhelm back for the coming war. Have the duelling-ground prepared. Let us see which side the gods will favour.’

  A cloth, six paces by six, was spread on the level ground before the hall. Its edges were pinned down with sprigs of hazel. It was ringed with armed warriors.

  The Bronding had been given full war gear. The other prisoner taken at the Nerthus ceremony helped him prepare.

  One of the men assisting Morcar was bald, but Ballista recognized him as Glaum, son of Wulfmaer. Morcar had aged better than his friend. The other was very young, well short of twenty winters. It had to be Morcar’s son, Mord.

  ‘What are you doing here?’ There was no friendship in Oslac’s question.

  ‘A man has to be somewhere,’ Ballista said.

  Morcar and the Bronding stood on the cloth. Each had a sword and shield.

  The crowd was still with expectancy.

  As was right, Morcar, as the challenger, waited for the first blow.

  The Bronding leapt forward, swinging a mighty blow. It cut through the leather rim of Morcar’s shield, splitting the linden boards to near the boss. As he staggered sideways with the impact, Morcar violently twisted his shield, hoping to pull his opponent’s sword out of his hand, if not break it. The Bronding hauled his blade out and swung again. A thick wedge of wood flew from Morcar’s shield.

  ‘Stop! New shield!’ Morcar shouted.

  Convention just held. With evident reluctance, the Bronding drew back, lowered his sword point to the cloth. A warrior took Morcar’s ruined shield, handed him a new one. Like the last, it had a red cover and a spiked metal boss.

  As soon as Morcar hefted the shield, the Bronding surged in again. This time Morcar met it with his shield at a different angle. The steel merely scraped away some dyed leather and a few splinte
rs.

  The Bronding pressed home his attack. His sword moved so quickly it was as if there were three in the air. He drove Morcar this way and that. Yet every time Morcar was almost trapped in a corner, he riposted and stepped clear. Soon Morcar’s shield was so hacked he had to call for another.

  Both men stood panting as Morcar’s third and final shield was brought. Some in the crowd murmured unhappily at the passivity of their champion. Others said he was letting the Bronding wear himself out. Ballista was not sure that was the case. Defending was tiring also. More likely, Morcar was playing with his opponent’s thoughts, exhausting his hope. Again and again the Bronding attacked, but he had yet to land a blow.

  Morcar lifted the new red shield. The Bronding launched another full-blooded swing. It went differently this time. Morcar moved inside the blow, and past. His sword flicked out, caught the Bronding’s exposed left leg. A line of blood appeared.

  If Morcar had been quicker, he could have finished it then, while his opponent’s back was unguarded. The Bronding rallied. They went at it again. Now Morcar attacked – thrusting, jabbing, cutting – working his man around the cloth. In one of the exchanges Morcar nicked the Bronding’s sword arm. When the foreigner attacked, sometimes Morcar watched the blade, did not move his feet but just swayed back out of harm’s way.

  ‘Rest,’ called the Bronding.

  Morcar backed off.

  A new shield was passed to the Bronding as they paused. He nodded. They fell to again.

  The Bronding was moving heavily, but he was not done yet. He smashed a cut, rending Morcar’s shield. The Angle reeled back. His sword stayed up, but he flexed his shield arm as if it were troubling him. The Bronding saw his advantage. With renewed vigour he closed in, cutting left and right. Morcar gave ground, meeting the blows with his blade, shield arm hanging near immobile.

  With skill the Bronding took a thrust on the edge; steel rang. He rolled his wrist. Morcar’s sword was forced wide, leaving his chest open for the killing blow. Before it came, as if miraculously cured, Morcar’s shield arm whipped up. The iron spike of the boss punched into the Bronding’s face. Almost too quick to follow, Morcar sank to one knee and cut the man’s thigh open to the bone.

  The Bronding was down, curled in his pain and blood. Morcar stood over him.

  ‘Victory!’ Morcar shouted. ‘This is the will of the gods.’ He lifted his blade to the sky.

  The crown roared their approval. ‘Out! Out! Out!’

  A lone voice cut through the chanting. ‘Finish him!’

  The noise of the crowd faltered.

  Isangrim stepped on to the cloth. ‘Finish him.’

  With contemptuous ease, Morcar killed the Bronding, flicked his blood from his sword. It rained on the stained, crumpled cloth.

  ‘The gods favour our cause,’ Isangrim said. ‘The other Bronding can take the news to Unferth.’

  The cyning held up his hand to cut off the renewed celebration.

  ‘This will be a cruel war. It may be a long war. Let no one enter into it lightly. No move is to be made until it has been discussed by the Himlings and the eorls, and approved by me. Any man who endangers his companions, endangers us all, by acting without my sanction will be outlawed.’

  The Angles accepted the prudent words of their theoden with silence.

  ‘Before the war council, we must return to Hlymdale, and bury the noble Heoroweard.’

  THE ISLAND OF HEDINSEY

  Kadlin stood with Heoroweard’s family: his widow Wealtheow, his son Hathkin, his younger sister Leoba, and her own children, his nephew Aethelgar and niece Aelfwynn. It was a gentle, early summer’s day. The air smelt of recently turned soil, fresh-cut wood, and woodsmoke.

  The funeral procession emerged between the great, grassy barrow of Himling and the empty cenotaph of Hjar. Smoke rose from the treasure-fires which were always tended on top of the mounds under which the cynings lay.

  Everything had been done properly. That morning Kadlin had gone with Wealtheow to the house of the dead at the edge of the cemetery. The body had been washed and dressed, placed in the oak coffin. The physical work had been done by slaves. Heoroweard had been dreadfully cut about, and he had been dead for some time; directing their ministrations had not been easy. Wealtheow had been strong. With no hesitation, she had placed in her dead husband’s cold mouth the hacked piece of gold that would pay Heimdall, so that the watchman of the gods would allow Heoroweard passage across Bifrost to Asgard.

  Everything was ready. The grave was well furnished with expensive things from the imperium: two buckets and a ladle in bronze, two fine glass cups, one with the image of some imaginary big, spotted cat, and a wallet of coins bearing the heads of long-dead emperors. The grave goods were suitable for a warrior of the Wuffingas. They would have been quite acceptable for one of the Himlings themselves.

  Heoroweard had never cared particularly for material things. Wealtheow had added things more to his liking: a leather bag stuffed with lamb chops, flatbread and apples; next to it, a big flask of mead.

  Allfather, but Kadlin would miss her brother.

  The coffin was shouldered by ten men. Paunch-Shaker had been a big man. Behind the deceased came the cyning Isangrim, then the rest of the Himlings: Oslac, Morcar with his son, Mord, and then, a little apart, Dernhelm.

  Kadlin would not think about Dernhelm now. To do so would somehow tarnish her grief.

  The cortège reached the grave.

  Dernhelm had been Heoroweard’s friend. It was right he was here, but Kadlin wished he was not. She had not looked at him yet. What did it matter how he had changed? Her brother was dead.

  The bearers, all strong young men, were struggling to lower the coffin into the grave. The ropes tore at their palms. The coffin swayed in its descent.

  ‘Just as awkward in death,’ Wealtheow murmured.

  All the family smiled, except Leoba. Perhaps, Kadlin thought, a woman has to suppress too much to become a shield-maiden. Or it could be her sister blamed herself for not saving their brother. All at once Kadlin both pitied and envied her sister. It would be good to be a shield-maiden and take revenge on those who had set the murderers on her brother.

  The coffin was in the grave. The bearers had retrieved the ropes. The family were on one side, the spoil from the digging on the other. Isangrim, the Himlings and their followers stood at one end. The other mourners – his hearth-companions, more distant relatives, friends and, finally, free tenants – drifted around the heap of earth to the other.

  ‘Allfather, listen to the request of your descendant.’ Isangrim seemed to have shrugged off something of his age. ‘Heoroweard died a heroic death, fighting barehanded against murderous men with sharp steel in their hands. He fought to protect his loved ones and his people. He did not die like a dog in the smoke of his own hearth. No straw-death, but the death of a hero. Send the Choosers of the Slain. Let them take him to Valhalla. He was my eorl, let him become yours.’

  There was something awful about these Himlings, Kadlin thought. They naturally saw themselves as akin to the gods. A couple of clicks of the Norns’ spindles those years ago, the Wuffingas would have ruled, and the Himlings served them.

  ‘Heoroweard was …’ Isangrim moved into a lengthy speech of praise, no doubt heartfelt enough.

  There was movement in the people behind Isangrim. Two strangers were working their way to the front. Kadlin’s irritation turned to alarm when she saw the gryphon-head brooches which proclaimed them Heathobards. Allfather, not again. Not like at the Nerthus ceremony.

  The Heathobards stopped by Dernhelm. One of them whispered to him. He made a gesture that said, ‘Later.’ The Heathobard took his sleeve, spoke urgently. Dernhelm nodded. He blew a kiss to the coffin, looked at Heoroweard’s family, and bowed. For a moment his eyes met Kadlin’s. Then he turned. Followed by a shorter warrior with the end of his nose missing, Dernhelm walked away.

  Kadlin could not have been more angry. A typical Himling, putting his own conc
erns before everything, even a funeral. The same selfishness as before. He had taken her virginity, fathered her child, and left; all without caring. Now he could not even wait until the end of his friend’s funeral. If she had to speak to him at the funeral feast, she was not sure she could contain herself.

  In her fury, Kadlin had not noticed Isangrim had stopped speaking. The cyning took a gold band from his arm and dropped it into the grave. Hathkin was first of the family to make a last offering: an amber gaming piece. It was heart-rending to remember father and son sitting together playing. When it was her turn, Kadlin dropped in the bone comb Heoroweard had seldom used as a child. Her brother had always been untidy. Wealtheow was last. She gave back the ring Heoroweard had given to her.

  As they moved off to the feast, above the muted talk Kadlin could hear the awful finality of stones and soil rattling on the lid of the coffin.

  XXVI

  The Ouiadoua Bank off the Southern Shore of the Suebian Sea

  Maximus kept close behind Ballista and the Heathobard who was guiding them. It never failed to surprise him how quietly the big Angle could move in the dark. By contrast, those following behind were like a herd of bullocks. Still, the wind from the sea was loud in the trees. It would take the noise off behind them, away from the men they were approaching.

  It had been a wild thirty-six hours since the Heathobards had brought them the news. They had slipped away from Heoroweard’s funeral and ridden down to the port. While Castricius had rounded up the crew, got the Warig fitted out for the sea, Maximus had gone with Ballista to see Ceola. It had not been an easy meeting. The young duguo charged with the defence of the coast was Morcar’s man. He had been sitting drinking with his father Godwine. The old eorl was not close to Morcar, but it was evident he had no great love for Ballista either. As luck would have it, Ivar Horse-Prick was drinking with them. In the end, Horse-Prick had made them see the urgency. Isangrim would be caught up in the funeral feast for the remainder of the day. It could not be discussed in the council of the cyning until the next morning. By then the opportunity would be lost. Eorl Godwine had announced that neither he nor his son would hinder their departure. Weightily, he had pointed out the threat of outlawry they were bringing on their heads. He and his son might feel the displeasure of the cyning, but it would pass. Isangrim was a fair ruler. He had said nothing specific about those who failed to stop men who acted without his sanction.