“It is. I place you and your men in the service of Oswald, Iding, ætheling of Northumbria, from this day until he releases you, God takes you or I call you. Do you understand?”
Brother Diuma bowed his head.
“Very well,” said Abbot Ségéne. “But I must lay one further condition upon you. You are to tell no one that you are monks of the Holy Island, in the service of Colm Cille. You must seem as the other men that follow Oswald in this venture: lordless, landless men, seeking fortune and glory and gold. Do you understand?”
“I understand,” said Brother Diuma. He stood up. “We must needs change our clothes then.” He rubbed his hand over the stubble of hair that had begun to grow back over the front of his head, where the monks that traced their lineage back to Patrick and David and the ancient saints of Britain shaved their hair. “And wear hats.”
“Yes,” said the abbot. “Now prepare your brothers. You leave with the tide’s turning.”
As Brother Diuma signalled his small group to follow, Oswiu turned to his brother and held up his hands. First, five splayed fingers, then ten, then two.
“Seventeen men. Is that enough? I have heard tell that Cadwallon’s army is as much as two hundred men, most horsed.”
Oswald held up another finger. “You forgot one, and that the most important: Colm Cille.”
“But the saint, being in a box, is not going to wield sword for us.”
“He will do better than wield sword: he will fire hearts and strengthen souls; he will give courage and endurance and the capacity to choose true. That is worth more than any number of men.”
“I hope so, brother; I hope so. For the saint will have to stand surety for the Uí Neíll and Dal Riada, for those of our own men who came with us into exile and whom we gave into the service of the kings of Strathclyde and Rheged.”
Abbot Ségéne touched Oswiu lightly on the shoulder. “The saint has never failed us – he will not fail you.”
“But just in case, you’re making sure your help is hidden, so if Cadwallon wins you can bless him High King of Britain with a straight face and no fear of a dagger being slipped between your ribs!”
The abbot’s face grew stiff, but he made no answer.
Oswald touched his brother’s arm. “Abbot Ségéne has already given us so much. You cannot expect him to risk everything on this one throw of the stones.”
“Why not?” said Oswiu. “We are.”
“Because the abbot must see to the care of the Holy Island…”
“And we to the lives of our people!”
Oswald shook his head. “I understand what you are saying, but let us not take our leave of the Holy Island in hot words and bad blood, brother.”
Oswiu closed his eyes. A shudder passed through his body as he breathed in, trying to calm his heart. As he did so, he heard footsteps, running footsteps, coming towards them, and he opened his eyes to see Brother Aidan, robe gathered up around his knees, rushing towards them.
“Father Abbot, send me with them,” he said, skidding to a halt and taking in the three men with his supplication. “Please.”
Abbot Ségéne shook his head. “You are no warrior, Brother Aidan, and the monks I send with Oswald know how to wield a sword better than they know how to sharpen a pen.”
“But they will need someone to tend them, someone to cook, to feed the horses.”
“Speed too they will need, more than anything, and you are no horseman, Brother Aidan.”
“Then I will run alongside them.”
“Then they will call you the king’s hound – would you wish to be called a dog in song?”
“Men have been called worse, Father Abbot.”
Abbot Ségéne nodded. “That is true, Brother Aidan.” He stood in silent thought for a moment, then shook his head. “My decision stands.”
“But…”
Abbot Ségéne shook his head. “No more, Brother Aidan. When your father gave you into my keeping, he did so in the knowledge that you were his only child, and I undertook to keep you here safe, preserving his blood. By releasing you, I would be going back on my pledge.”
“But…”
This time Abbot Ségéne said no word, but merely raised an eyebrow. Brother Aidan turned a beseeching gaze to Oswald.
“Will you not speak for me?”
Oswald went to his friend. “We go to kill, or be killed, old friend. That is no task for you.”
“If you die, I would die alongside you.”
“I know you would. But I would that you live.” Oswald put his hands upon Aidan’s shoulders and looked into his face. “I give my mother and my sister into your keeping. Will you look after them when we are gone, and be as a son to them, should we die?”
“You know I will, Oswald.”
“Then I am well content.” Oswald leaned forward and kissed Aidan’s brow. “Pray for us.”
“Without cease or end.”
Oswald smiled. “Thank you, my friend.” He turned to Abbot Ségéne. “We are ready.”
“Go, with my blessing.” The abbot raised his right hand, and in the gesture so familiar from the Great Work of the community he drew it down to the nadir, then to the extended arms of the cross whose shape he redrew whenever he laid his blessing down upon people and place.
“In nomine Domini, et Filii, et Spiritus Sancti. Amen.”
Chapter 11
“My father near enough drove the Idings back into the sea whence they came. Now you come over sea, from the Holy Island no less, to seek my aid in claiming back the throne of Northumbria.” The king, seated upon the judgment seat, ran his fingers through his beard. “Though I have not heard the priests tell of it, I think God must jest with us sometimes.”
“What is jest for one may be insult for another, King Rhoedd.” Oswald, standing before the high throne of the king of Rheged in his stronghold at Carlisle, held out his hand in token of friendship. “In the years of my exile I have sailed with the men of Dal Riada, in cattle raid and war party; I have ridden with the Uí Neíll as they warred with the men of Ulster and Connacht…”
The king of Rheged snorted with suppressed laughter. “I hear that it was not only horses that were ridden when you stayed among the Uí Neíll.”
Standing at his brother’s side, Oswiu flushed at the jibe, but gave no other answer. For his part, only the whitening of his knuckles betrayed Oswald’s anger at the king’s all-too-accurate insult, but Rhoedd had held the throne of Rheged for many years – he saw the bone show under flesh.
“But it is a fair chance, if chance it be, that brings you to Carlisle at this time. It is late in the season to hazard the coasts of Strathclyde, but the wind has stayed fair and I hear tell from the portsmen that your curraghs came ashore with little damage and more horses than you have men. And a great black bird.” The king stroked fingers through his curling beard once more. “A strange party indeed to bring before me. But I have stranger ones with me, waiting upon my answer, and I would hear what you have to say of them before I hear the rest of what you have to say to me, Oswald, Iding, the Whiteblade. Oh yes, I have heard of you, and from mouths that bring strange tales to my ears. Now we will eat together, but you,” and here King Rhoedd pointed at Oswiu, “you will keep your rutting ways for the Uí Neíll. We will eat and you will hear and I will hear and then I will decide. What say you, Oswald, Iding?”
Oswald took a breath. As he did so a young woman, her hair covered with a rich scarf, approached the judgment seat and whispered to the king. Although the words were too quiet for him to hear, the way the maid glanced at them as she spoke suggested to Oswald that his party of men featured in her words. The maid looked once more, then as rapidly away, her face flushing slightly at the eye touch.
King Rhoedd stroked the maid’s forearm, then put a finger under her chin and lifted her face so that the light caught her beauty. He looked to the brothers standing in front of him. “This is why I told you to keep your rutting for the Uí Neíll. This is my daughter Rhieie
nmelth. Is she not fair?” And he lifted her head further, so that the girl must need raise her eyes to the æthelings standing before the judgment seat.
The brothers glanced at each other, then, as elder, Oswald spoke.
“Rhieienmelth, maiden of Rheged, you are indeed fair,” he said, and then he made the courtesy to her.
“Her mother bore me nine children, and six sons, before the tenth took her in his birth,” said the king, “and Rhieienmelth has her mother’s hips. She will make a king a fine wife. But I will not have her worth lessened by some overeager ætheling who should be out tupping slaves and whores.”
King Rhoedd took her head in his large, thick fingers and, not without resistance on Rhieienmelth’s part, turned her face this way and that so the brothers might see her the better.
“A king though. A king would be a worthy husband to Rhieienmelth.”
“She is not a horse.”
King Rhoedd’s glance, as sharp as a bone needle, swung to the speaker. “What did you say?”
“She is not a horse.” Oswiu took a half-step forwards. “We turn a horse’s head that the buyer might see its teeth and eyes, inspect the line of its jaw and the slope of its brow. But your daughter is not a horse.”
“You are right. She is not worth as much to me as a good horse – not until she marries. Then she will be the price of five white mares. What say you to that, ætheling?”
Rhieienmelth, her head free of her father’s strong fingers, nevertheless turned her face to Oswiu, and he saw her glance for the first time.
“I say to you not five hundred white mares would I accept for such beauty.”
King Rhoedd held the young man’s gaze for a tense, trembling moment, then slapped his hand to his thigh, the thick fingers making the sound of flesh cleaved upon the butcher’s block.
“With a tongue like that, the Uí Neíll must have been easy meat for you! I was like that too in my youth, when my blood was hot and my words warm. In the hall they say it’s a man’s arm that gets a girl into bed, but I say it’s a man’s tongue. Come, we will feast tonight and you will tell me of the girls you’ve known, and Rhieienmelth will serve us. But hands off, you hear.”
Oswiu lifted those hands. “Or you’ll cut them off?”
The king laughed, slapping his thigh with the same dead-meat thud.
“How did you guess?”
The king was still laughing as they left his presence, the æthelings both conscious of Rhieienmelth’s gaze following them as they withdrew.
“How did you do it?” Oswald asked from the side of his mouth as they went, conscious of the king’s men laying sprawled around the hall or sitting on stools at table, bent over games of stones.
“You’re asking me how I did it? You never ask me how I did it!”
“That’s because I’m usually the one who does it. But this time you did. So how did you do it?”
“Oh, it was nothing. Just a bit of talking, banter – you know how it is.”
“No.”
“Pardon?”
“No, I don’t know how it is. Tell me.”
Safely out of earshot, Oswiu stopped and turned to his brother.
“Look, I take it you want me to be honest?”
“Yes.”
“It was an accident. I got cross about the way he was moving her around, like she was an animal.” Oswiu’s eyes grew slightly distant as he remembered. “I have never seen such beauty, and he was treating her as if she was a piece of horseflesh to be put on display. It made me angry.”
Elder brother stared searchingly at younger brother.
“It wasn’t like that,” Oswiu protested.
“I did not say it was.”
“It was just – I did not like how he was putting her on display. Like I said, it made me angry.”
“Maybe you should get angry more often. At one point, I thought he was going to sell us all to slavers. Now we will get some idea of what’s going on. Not the help I had looked for, but better than I had feared. Come, let’s tell the men. At least we’ll eat well today.”
*
Princess Rhieienmelth brought the drinking cup around the hall as the men sat eating and drinking, moving with the practised ease of a woman trained and accomplished in the art of raising warriors’ spirits, while at the same time giving nothing of herself as hostage to slander. But to Oswald’s eye, she lingered a moment longer with his brother than she did elsewhere, and her eyes met his more frankly over the upturned cup than they did with the other men gathered in the hall. Oswald glanced at their host. If he had noticed, it was likely that King Rhoedd had seen too. But the king was engaged in serious consideration of his cups, draining one after the other – wine, rich and red, come via the trading ships that plied their way up and down the Irish Sea, from the kingdom of the Britons across the Narrow Sea where some had fled in the chaotic days after the emperors, when his forefathers took the whale road to these islands.
As he too drank, Oswald took thought on the dark-haired princess who moved with swan grace around the hall. King Rhoedd’s stronghold was the Roman city of Carlisle. Its walls still stood, high and complete, and the king’s hall was the emperor’s fort, a building of stone, cold and draught-ridden to Oswald’s mind, but magnificent with age in a way that no wood building, prey as they were to the yellow flame fire, could be. As the king had said in his greeting, Rheged and Bernicia were enemies of old: kingdom of Britons and kingdom of Angles. But he and his brother had found refuge and friendship among the Britons; more importantly, they had found the truth of the belief the Britons professed.
As Oswald turned his cup between his fingers, seeing the light spread and catch through the thin-ground horn, he thought on alliances, and enemies, and marriage – and the wayward habits of hot-blooded brothers. Marriage would cool Oswiu’s blood and, watching the way the princess and the ætheling weaved around each other, the elaborate game of glance and look away, the idea grew in the watching: before he left this court, he would propose an alliance between Rheged and Northumbria, to be cemented through the marriage of his brother and Princess Rhieienmelth.
But as the idea formed in his mind, it jabbed him in his loins. For he saw Rhieienmelth and knew she was beautiful, and he desired her too. Coldly, though, the calculations of power and wealth and prestige flowed through his mind: Rheged had once been great under King Rhoedd’s father, Urien, but then he was assassinated, and Æthelfrith’s, and then Edwin’s, power had waxed, while the ancient kingdom of the Britons had waned. As king of Northumbria – should he claim the throne – he must needs wed the daughter of a more powerful throne: one of the kingdoms of the Angles or the Saxons could provide a wife. But by marrying his brother to the daughter of the king of Rheged he would make much of his northern border secure. Oswald gazed at Rhieienmelth, and for a moment she caught his regard, unveiled, and she glowed with it, but then he veiled his eyes and hid his thoughts, and she, unsure, turned her face away from him.
Oswald stared into his cup, dragging his eyes away from the woman he had decided would one day be his brother’s wife. The decision was made.
Rising above the hubbub of conversation, many-accented and many-tongued, King Rhoedd’s bard chanted, telling the tale of the king’s ancestors through the generations, singing him back to men who had walked this land before the emperors came across the sea and whose descendants still ruled this corner of it even now, when the emperors had long departed. It was called the tale of names, and in all the halls of the Britons and the Picts and the Gaels, the tale of names was told before any other tale of the evening. The tale of the names of the kingdom of Rheged was long indeed, and Oswald let the sound of them wash over him as light through breeze-blown leaves. He looked around the hall, its walls hung with tapestries and cloth – by their appearance taken long ago from beds and boats – in an effort to keep the sharp west wind reaching its fingers through the gaps where frost’s fingers had prised the mortar.
Pulling his cloak around his shoulders
, Oswald reflected that the effort had failed. But he was not alone in feeling the wind cold. Other men sat half-hooded, which was the limit that a man might cover himself at king feast, further along the table. One played at the food set in front of him as if it was of no interest, but the other two cut into their meat with gusto, slicing lamb from bone, skewering it upon their seaxes and taking it with teeth. Seaxes. They were no Britons then. Oswald bent his ear towards them, but they ate without conversation.
“I promised to give answer tonight, and so I will.”
King Rhoedd stood up, swaying, his eyes unfocused as they scanned the hall for the man he sought. Oswald expected the king’s gaze to alight on him, but the king’s eyes moved on, until they came to the man sitting half-hooded and uneating at the table’s end.
“Messenger of Cadwallon, stand.”
The man stood up, pushing his hood back, and Oswald saw a man dark haired and dark eyed, with white skin save for the scars that marked face and forearm.
“Messenger of Cadwallon, you brought word from the king of Gwynedd, welcome word, that he had cast down the king of the enemies of our people of old, Edwin of Northumbria, and that he had killed the unworthy men who pretended to take that throne, and that he, Cadwallon, now sat upon the throne in the ancient stronghold of Bamburgh, impregnable, indomitable. We applaud that word – we applaud it!”
And King Rhoedd of Rheged raised his men in great acclaim, so that their cheers resounded from the stone walls of his hall. Oswald saw that the other two men, who had been eating so hungrily, sat back from the table at the cheer, but did not join it. Rather they gazed warily around, as one might who finds he has taken shelter among thieves and brigands.
Oswald: Return of the King Page 15