Rhoedd held his arms up for silence, and his retainers fell back into the muttering and quiet conversation that passed for quiet in hall.
“But if that was news beyond expectation, the message you then brought from Cadwallon was beyond hope: after all this tale of years, after we have fought the long defeat and seen our lands taken from us, and strangers walk our hills and lay in our halls, Arthur has returned. Beyond hope, beyond expectation, you tell us that Arthur has returned – and his new name is Cadwallon. That is, indeed, beyond our hope and our expectation – but we are glad, are we not, my men, my warriors? We are most surely glad.” And the king raised his arms to raise the acclamation once again.
“Arthur, our king of old, you tell us, calls our homage to him; he calls us to acknowledge him High King, to bend our knee to him and open our hands to him; to send him gifts of gold and silver, and warriors, bold, bright, eager for glory: all this we would do, and do gladly, for Arthur, our king of old. We will do it, and do it right gladly, for this new Arthur, this Arthur Cadwallon, when we are sure that he is indeed Arthur returned; that he has taken ship back from the Blessed Isles and returned to mortal lands to wear the crown and wield the sword. And, indeed, we are all but convinced – for as Arthur did of old, this new High King has driven our foes from the land and taken back our ancient strongholds. So we promise and pledge that we will send men, full fifty warriors, mail-clad with bright swords and linden shields, to him where he awaits, at the far end of the Emperor’s Wall. We will send the men you ask for, messenger of Cadwallon, and if he be indeed Arthur returned, then they will join with him in driving the ancient and hated foes of our people from this land. Logres will be lost no more!”
The men cheered and the messenger came and knelt before King Rhoedd of Rheged.
“Now you have given your answer, I must go at once, for my king – our king – waits upon your answer. When, lord, will your men arrive that King Cad– King Arthur may begin to drive the enemy from our land?”
“They will come quickly. Tell Cadwallon, tell Arthur, not to move – my warriors will be with him in ten days.”
The messenger made the courtesy, and throwing his hood over his head he all but ran from the hall. King Rhoedd watched him go, his eyes narrowing once the man had disappeared from sight.
“I have no king, and certainly not the son of Cadfan the False,” Rhoedd said. He looked to Oswald, sitting near him, and the grin he showed him bore not the slightest trace of the wine he had bibbed through the day. “But it does not do to tell him that, Iding.” The king gestured Oswald closer.
“The kings of Gwynedd were goatherds and shepherds when my fathers were kings. I will not bow before them and accept their bastard issue as king, not save I have no recourse.” Rhoedd took Oswald’s forearm with his thick, meat fingers and stared him fiercely in the eye. “You are my recourse. Cadwallon sits upon the Wall and he will not move now for ten days. Ride, meet him, defeat him, kill him. Speed is everything, but do not ride so fast that you overtake his messenger. And if you lose, and die, then I will say my men were on their way but could not overtake you, and I will bow on creaking knee before him and wait the time when he sleeps to slip the killing knife between his ribs. Such did Morgant when my father Urien stood poised to drive your people from Bernicia. He was the last Arthur, and he was my father: Cadwallon is not his match.”
Rhoedd squeezed the bones in Oswald’s forearm until they creaked, but the ætheling did not flinch.
“You will do this or you will die.”
“I will do this and I will not die.” And here Oswald, in turn, leaned to Rhoedd of Rheged. “And when I send word that I have cast down Cadwallon and taken the throne of Northumbria, I will send for your daughter, for Princess Rhieienmelth, that she may wed my brother Oswiu.”
The king shook his head. “You.”
“No.”
“We will make good friends to you.”
“I know. That is why I want my brother to marry your daughter.”
“It is not enough for Rhieienmelth.”
Oswald peeled Rhoedd’s fingers from his arm. “Rheged is not enough for me,” he said.
Rhoedd stared at Oswald through hooded eyes. “If I should agree, what bride price will you pay for her?”
“If I win, I will be king of Northumbria, master of the islands, overking to Lindsey and Elmet, allianced to Dal Riada and the Gododdin. If I win, you may name your bride price.”
And King Rhoedd of Rheged smiled the long, heavy-lidded smile of the gold lust.
“Then I accept your proposal, Oswald, Iding. May the alliance between Northumbria and Rheged be long and fruitful.” The king paused. “But for now it will remain words between us. The cup of its closing we will drink when Cadwallon is dead and you sit in the judgment seat at Bamburgh.”
Oswald nodded. “Very well.”
“Good, good.” The king pointed down the table. “There are others here who want to see and speak with you, ætheling.”
Seeing the king marking them out, the two men approached Rhoedd and Oswald, and made the courtesy.
The ætheling saw two men, travel-worn, their faces and bodies bearing the unmistakable signs of long journeying and short commons in skin drawn tight around skull and finger.
“Who are you?” Oswald asked. “There is about you the air and presence of the land of the mountain passes.”
The darker of the two men – and Oswald saw that beneath his travel cloak he appeared to be wearing a dark, feather mantle – looked to the fairer, but he did not return the glance. Instead, he stepped forward.
“I am Acca, renowned through the kingdoms and among the thrones as a scop of surpassing skill. I am Acca, who sang the lay of the lords of Northumbria, who told the deeds, dread deeds of battle, when Æthelfrith cut down the kings of the Old North and made himself master of Northumbria. I am Acca, who served your father and who remembers you, a boy, hanging on my words. I take it you remember me?”
Oswald stared at the man. If he had indeed been scop to his father, then he should remember him, but his memory of the days before exile were dim. He seldom sought to revisit them, and when he did it was as if he saw them through mist.
“I – I do not remember your face or bearing…” Oswald began.
“B-but you must. I am Acca – all know me.”
“It is many years since we fled Northumbria, and memory grows cold if it is not stoked. But – I think I remember your voice.”
Acca beamed. “Of course you would remember my voice. Give me but leave to sing one of the songs of Northumbria and you will surely recall better.”
Oswald held up his hand. “Later, if King Rhoedd wills, but now, I am eager for news of Northumbria. How do my people fare with Cadwallon ravaging the kingdom?”
“They fare ill, lord,” said Acca. “Cadwallon takes from all, so that his men grow fat, and what he does not take he spoils, leaving for the wolves and ravens and rats. Already I have seen the fat bellies of children with no flesh on their bones, and it is yet autumn. By the spring, many will die. It seems Cadwallon spoke truly when he said he would cast our people back into the sea or lay them to rest under the ground: the kingdom resounds with the lamentations of women and the groans of the old and the wailing of children. They wail for food and for justice against the men who steal from them, but most of all they wail for a king.” Acca paused, aware that many people around him in the king’s hall had stopped to listen, but, giving no sign that he was aware of the scrutiny, he bent his knee before Oswald.
“Will you be our king, lord? Will you return to us? Will you save your people?”
Oswald glanced around. Far too many people were looking curiously at the scene playing out at the king’s table, and even though many in Rheged did not understand the language of the Northumbrians, enough did for Oswald to be sure that news of his conversation with Acca would spread. Everything depended on speed and secrecy – he had to find some way of making Acca shut up.
Oswald l
eaned across the table. “What will buy your silence?” he asked quietly.
The scop, still on one knee, looked up alarmed. “Silence, lord?”
“You must stop speaking of me. I cannot force your silence here, in Rheged, but I will buy it.”
Acca shook his head as if he did not understand what he was hearing. “I live to sing, to riddle, to tell tales and fix memories in the hearts of men. I can no more fall silent than a bird can fail to greet the sun.”
Oswald leaned closer, dropping his voice. “How much?”
And this time, Acca leaned to him, modulating his voice so that it pitched to the same level as the background conversation in the hall, and fell away into it.
“I am a scop without a lord, a singer without a hall, a voice with no one to hear. Give me a lord, a hall and men to hear my voice, and I will keep silence.”
“You will have those, and gold, and a tale worth telling, Acca, scop to Edwin, my father’s killer.”
The scop glanced up sharply at Oswald. “Ah. You knew.”
“Yes, I knew. But my father’s killer was my uncle also, my mother’s brother, and when there is time I would hear more of him. But who is this other man who stands silent beside you? Though your face and voice are present in my memory now, I do not think I know him.”
“He is Coifi. As to what he is, I will let him explain that. It is – complicated.”
Oswald turned to the dark, intense man beside Acca. Meeting his gaze, the ætheling saw it jerk away, as if following the flight of a swift through the air.
“Who are you, Coifi, and what do you want of me?” Oswald asked.
“I – I do not want anything of you,” Coifi said, his head and eyes twitching as if searching for something that played at the corners of his vision. “I was Edwin’s priest, his rune-reader and wyrd sight, until his new wife came with her priest from across the sea. Then Edwin forsook the ways of our fathers and, as I wished to please the king, I forsook them too, casting fire and spear into the sacred grove at Goodmanham. But the new god Edwin took betrayed him, and he gave no answer to me when I sought him, so I tried to return once more to the old gods, the gods of our fathers. But they have abjured he who abjured them. I am no priest and I am no man and I am no thing, Oswald, Iding, but a clutch of black feathers and a bone rattle.” Coifi let his travel cloak fall from his shoulders and Oswald saw the raven-feather cloak, the cloak of the high priest of his people, and the rattle, juddering its white teeth as it made its clacking noise.
“Hey!” King Rhoedd slapped his hand upon the table. “I will have none of that here; we are of the Baptized in Rheged.”
Coifi turned his black eyes to the king.
“I too passed through the water and ate the salt, king of this land. I too am of the Baptized. But the new god left me as he left my lord and now I wander far from the gods and they all turn their hands against me, cursed, outcast.” And the priest of no god tore his nails down his cheeks until blood leaked from the wounds and his eyes turned up into his skull as his limbs slowly gave way beneath him.
But before he could fall, Acca took hold of the priest, holding him under the arms as he called for a slave to bring wine. Looking to Oswald, Acca said, “Lord, he has not recovered from Edwin’s death; he but needs a new lord to serve and his wit will return to him, and the wyrd sight that tells men the ways of the fate singers. Will you not take him as your priest, lord? Though he served your uncle, Coifi would be faithful to any true king of Northumbria.”
“I am of the Baptized too, Acca,” said Oswald. “Did you not know this?” Seeing the shock on the scop’s face, he added, “I see you did not. But I and my brother and my mother and my sister, we all of us are among the Baptized; I have no need for a priest of the old gods, for we follow them no more.”
“You have taken the god of the Britons?” asked Acca.
“I have taken the God of sea and storm, of life and death, Acca; the God of my hope. Beside him, Woden, Lord of the Slain, and Thunor, thunderer, all the old gods, are like the children that come to be raised in an ally’s court – mewling creatures, howling after their parents.”
Acca struggled to hold Coifi’s head upright as the slave attempted to pour wine into his mouth. “Lord, we have travelled together, through battle and hunger and cold and storm, through the death of kings and the slaughter of the innocent. I would not leave Coifi alone, lordless.”
The priest spluttered as the wine caught in the back of his throat, but the catching brought his sight slowly back.
Oswald regarded the man carefully, then turned his gaze to Acca.
“I see the love you have for your friend. Very well. Although I have no use for a priest of the old gods, from what you tell me of the hunger that stalks the people, I will have need of an almoner. Will he be that?”
Acca looked at his friend, saw the vacancy that still filled his eyes, and said, “Yes, he will.”
Coifi, coming to himself, struggled to put his feet back beneath him as the slave continued trying to pour wine into his mouth.
“Get away from me,” the priest said, pushing the slave away. He looked to Acca. “I will what?”
“Be almoner to the king of Northumbria.”
“What’s an almoner?”
“An almoner is, er… Sorry, what is an almoner, lord?”
Oswald nodded. “Why would you know? My God, when he walked this middle-earth, was a poor man and he fed the poor. He asks us, who have our bellies full, to feed the poor, and among the kings of the Britons there is a man whose job it is to do that: feed the poor. You tell me there is famine among my people.” The ætheling turned his gaze upon Coifi. “So, Coifi, priest of the old gods, faithful servant to my uncle, Edwin, will you take that office from me and serve it truly, not keeping back what is destined for the poor but giving freely and with both hands, that they may live?”
Pushing himself free of Acca’s support, Coifi faced Oswald.
“I will do that, lord,” he said. “I will be your almoner, and never take what you deliver to me to give.”
“Very well. Then if you can, find horses to ride with us, and if not, follow as you can. We leave with the light.”
As the two Northumbrians returned to their places at the far end of the table, Oswald saw Princess Rhieienmelth moving softly through the hall, passing the cup to retainers of the king. Her eyes met his, and he knew that she had been watching what had passed upon the high table, and he felt blood rush to his neck. Oswald dropped his gaze. His throat felt tight and he fumbled for his cup of wine.
Oswiu, returning from where he had been checking on their horses and preparations for the morrow, saw the glance pass between his brother and Rhieienmelth, and his eagerness to return, to see her dark beauty again, of a sudden fell away.
Again. It was always the same. Even though it was he who had defended Rhieienmelth from her father’s treatment, yet she turned her eyes to his brother, as dazzled by him as all the others were. It would not be so bad if Oswald was even trying to win her for himself – but he wasn’t.
Oswiu slid onto the bench next to Oswald.
“The horses are fed, watered, ready for harnessing.”
“Good,” said Oswald, not looking at his brother but rather playing with his seax, cutting his meat into thinner strips.
“You’ll need a wife, you know. When you have the throne,” said Oswiu.
Oswald cut his meat even thinner. “I know,” he said, still not looking at his brother.
“What about her?” Oswiu nodded down the hall. “Princess Rhieienmelth. She is fair.”
“No,” said Oswald, his voice suddenly thick. “Not her.”
“Why not?” asked Oswiu.
“Because you will marry her.”
“I – what did you say?”
“I have spoken with King Rhoedd. If we win the throne, you will marry Princess Rhieienmelth and through that marriage secure the north.”
“You didn’t think to speak to me?”
; “No.” Oswald looked to his brother. “Did you expect me to?”
“You – you might have said something.”
“I thought you would be pleased – she is very fair.”
“I know, I know, but…” Oswiu looked down the hall and saw Rhieienmelth share words with one of her father’s old retainers – one of the men too old to fight, who sat around the fire of winter, all too eager to impart their experience to young men too arrogant to know they needed it. “She is, isn’t she,” he said.
“Yes, well…” Oswald stood from the bench. “I shall take some air for now. We ride at dawn.”
As Oswald, Iding, left the hall, he felt many eyes upon his back, and many hopes upon his shoulders, and many desires within his heart, and he did not know which were the heavier.
Chapter 12
“So, you aim to defeat Cadwallon with…” King Rhoedd stepped back from Oswald’s horse and cast a calculating eye along the line. “… twenty-two men.”
Bran, perched upon Oswald’s saddle, his feathers fluffed against the night chill, croaked.
“And one raven.” Rhoedd ran his fingers through his beard. “I fear our families will never be joined.”
Oswald, checking the harness of his horse in the grey light before sunrise, patted the horse’s shaggy flank. The beast would have to ride fast and hard for the next two or three days, but there was a thick layer of muscle under the coat and its round belly bespoke that it had fed well on good grass. It would carry him, as would the other animals they had at their disposal – some brought by boat from Iona, others bought on landing – and the final few, gifts from the king of Rheged. The ætheling turned to the king.
“It will be enough,” he said.
“Even without Penda, I hear that Cadwallon has an army of near enough two hundred men – most horsed. He will have ten warriors for each of yours.”
Oswald pointed down the line of men, each preparing mount and weapons in his own way.
“Each of my men is worth many of his – it will not be as uneven as you fear.”
Oswald: Return of the King Page 16