Oswald: Return of the King

by Edoardo Albert

  “Even if it were true, do you truly believe that one of your men can meet so many of his?”

  Oswald looked the king of Rheged in the face.

  “Yes,” he said.

  Rhoedd shook his head in disbelief.

  Oswald laughed. “It is mad, is it not? We ride to claim a throne with fewer men than you have in your kitchen, lord. But we have other, and greater, warriors fighting for us in the fields of heaven.” The young prince patted his own horse, satisfied that it was now ready. “Besides, we will like as not have more men with us by the time we face Cadwallon.” Oswald looked to his brother. “It is time to raise our banner,” he said. “I have returned to claim what is mine – let all know.”

  From his saddle, Oswiu unrolled the long banner of purple and gold that Acha and Æbbe had woven for them, then fixed it to a pole. There was no wind in the still before dawn, and the banner hung limp from the pole, but Oswiu thrust it into the ground.

  “Will you carry it, brother?” asked Oswald.

  “Yes, of course I will carry it.” Oswiu looked to the king of Rheged. “When the men of Bernicia see this banner, they will know their king has returned, and they will follow us, hurrying to home and hearth to fetch sword and shield, then mounting horse and following behind as fast as they may. The news will spread through the land, in whisper and call, and men will listen and come to us. So, I think when the time comes to face Cadwallon, there will be more of us.”

  “There will be enough even if none heed the summons,” said Oswald.

  “No doubt, no doubt,” said Rhoedd. “But what if I supply a few more? That would not hurt, would it?” And at his signal, Princess Rhieienmelth, upon a white mare, led a group of ten warriors from where they had been waiting in the darkness within the old walls of the city.

  “They will go with you, if you would have them, for these are landless, lordless men who have come to my court seeking glory. Would you give it them?”

  The princess led them to the æthelings, and as she approached, her eyes went to them, and she saw Oswiu smile at her approach, his smile broadening as if in token of some secret knowledge on his part. But when she sought Oswald’s eyes, he dropped his gaze from her, then stared with unblinking concentration at the men who followed her.

  “This is a mighty gift,” said Oswiu, when Rhieienmelth brought her horse to a halt beside them.

  She inclined her head in response to Oswiu’s praise, then looked to Oswald. “Does this gift please you, lord?” she asked.

  But still he would not meet her eyes, instead walking past her to inspect the men who sat silently upon their horses. Oswald made his way down the line, asking each man his name, examining horse and armour, and calculating by movement and mien the effectiveness of each warrior, before returning to where Rhieienmelth now stood beside her father.

  “They will help indeed,” he said. “I thank you, king of Rheged.”

  “Don’t thank me; win for me,” said Rhoedd. “Win, so I don’t have to bend the knee to that upstart cur Cadwallon. Win, so that I can find a husband for my daughter.”

  “Father! You don’t mean…”

  “Yes,” said the king, taking Rhieienmelth’s arm and patting it. “We settled it last night. If Oswald succeeds and claims the throne, you will marry Oswiu.”

  “Os – wiu?”

  At first, Rhieienmelth’s gaze, alive with excitement, had turned to Oswald, but now she turned to her father, puzzled.

  “Yes. Oswiu.” The king looked at her, then laughed. “You didn’t think I was going to say Oswald, did you? You’re not even my eldest daughter, though you’re fair enough. You didn’t think you’d be marrying a king, did you?”

  Rhieienmelth flushed. “I-I…” she stuttered.

  Oswiu flushed too, for he had seen her gaze skip to his brother when she thought she was to marry him, then the way her face fell when she learned who was to be her husband.

  “For my part,” said Oswald, “I should have been glad, more than glad, to wed a princess so fair, if it were possible.” He glanced at Rhieienmelth, then looked away. “But it is not possible. My brother will be a fine husband to you.” He stepped back from her and looked to Oswiu. Oswald went to take his arm to lead him to his future bride, but his brother was like stone in his grasp. Oswald looked to him and saw his brother’s face, ferocious and stricken, before a mask of calm slipped over it. “Bring my wife to me then, brother,” said Oswiu.

  Oswald stepped back, uncertainty overcoming him. But before he could decide what further to do, Rhoedd stepped forward.

  “It should be her father that introduces Rhieienmelth to her future husband,” he said. And holding his daughter’s hand, he led her forward to Oswiu.

  Rhieienmelth slowly raised her eyes to his. Oswiu, seeing her beauty, felt the breath catch in his throat.

  “I – I know I am not my brother,” he said. “But will I do?”

  “Yes,” said Princess Rhieienmelth. “Yes.”

  “Of course he’ll do,” said Rhoedd, slapping his great thick hand against Oswiu’s back. “This boy is going to be the second most powerful man in the land.”

  “We must go,” said Oswald. “It is getting light.”

  In the east, across the mountains, the sky was lightening, and although the shadows still pooled thickly upon the ground, the night was drawing to its close.

  “We must not let the lovers keep you, eh?” said Rhoedd. Rhieienmelth blushed furiously. Oswiu, however, smiled and, letting go her hand, winked, before climbing lightly upon his horse. Urging it forward, he grasped the banner from where it stood in the ground and let it flow out.

  “Let all hear and know: the king has returned!” Oswiu circled the group with the purple and gold banner streaming behind him. Coming back to where Rhieienmelth stood, he bent down to her. “And his brother will come back for you,” he said.

  “Lead off, Oswiu,” called Oswald, and the young ætheling, bearing the flag of the Idings, the purple and gold of Bernicia, urged his horse forth, its hooves clattering over the stone of the old road of the emperors, and following behind came Oswald and his men.

  Rhieienmelth watched them ride away, the figures gradually diminishing in the distance until only the gold and purple of the banner might be seen, and then that too vanished.

  Safely out of sight, her father spat on the ground.

  “Pah,” he said. “Got rid of them.”

  Rhieienmelth turned to him. “But Father, you’ve promised me to Oswiu.”

  “He’ll be dead in two, three days’ time – him and all of them.” King Rhoedd of Rheged’s eyes looked at her with sudden calculation. “But telling them I’d marry you off made sure they’d leave with nothing but a promise – best we can hope is that, in dying, they kill so many of Cadwallon’s men that we can pick up the pieces. Then I’ll find you a proper husband – someone who’ll pay me real money for you.”

  “But the men you sent with them…”

  “Troublemakers! Best to get rid of them. Best to get rid of them all.”

  *

  “Giants built this.”

  Talorc the Pict looked to see where Brother Diuma was pointing. The Wall ran to their left, climbing hills and ducking into valleys, its stones gleaming in the rain that drove in from the west. At least they were riding east, so the wind and wet was at their backs, and glancing behind the Pict thought he could see the end of the storm beyond the billows of dark cloud.

  “I said, giants built this,” Brother Diuma repeated. “We have them in our own country – they raised great circles of stones there.” He indicated the Wall. “These ones were better masons though – see how they made the stone smooth, so it all fits together. The circles back home are all rough, like teeth pulled from the jaw; not soft like these. Makes me think the giants must have moulded them like butter. What do you say, Pict?”

  Talorc rode on in silence, not glancing at the warrior monk. But Brother Diuma jagged his horse over, so that Talorc had to either rein back o
r have his horse step over the rain channel that followed the road’s edges, which was now black and full with water draining from the surface. He reined the horse back.

  “I asked what you think, Pict,” said Brother Diuma.

  “I think I have never heard a man speak so much to so little account,” said Talorc, resting his hand easily upon his saddle, but with it positioned to draw sword or knife in one smooth motion.

  The monk stared at him, the rain now blowing in his face as he had turned his horse to face Talorc, flowing down his cheeks and dripping from his nose.

  “What did you say?”

  “I said, I have never heard a man speak so much to so little account. Is that clear?”

  Brother Diuma stared at him. Then his mouth twitched, and a smile, broad as the day’s rain, spread across his face.

  “And I,” he said, “have never before met a man willing to tell me that to my face. It is true, when the wind blows from the west and I feel the rain upon my back, I feel as if I am back home and I talk as I did as a child there, when they called me little gull, on account of how I would never stop squawking. Now I’m squawking again.” He drew his horse back and ushered the Pict into motion, and then rode again beside him. “My people always said you could get more conversation, and better, from a seal than a Pict. Is that true, do you think?”

  Talorc rode in silence.

  “Course, I talk a lot, especially when I am wet, cold and riding to my death. But then I reckon that’s why Abbot Ségéne sent me out from the Holy Island to do his death-making and trouble-breaking: on account of the fact he couldn’t bear to hear my talk all the day around the abbey. Mind, I kept quiet there, on the Holy Island, because the peace of the saint lies upon it and the words, they seem to dry up, even for me. But when I’m away from it, it’s like my mouth is trying to make up for lost time; I even talk when I’m asleep.”

  “I heard,” said Talorc.

  “Was I talking last night?”

  “Interminably. If we had more men, you would not have woken.” Brother Diuma laughed. “Maybe. I’m not so easy to kill – half the kings of Britain and all the kings of Ireland have tried at some time or other, and I’m still alive, while most of them are dead.”

  “Kings don’t live long.”

  “Our days are as grass, as a flower of the field we flourish, and the wind passes over and we are gone, and of our passing there is no trace.” Brother Diuma pointed again at the Wall. “But they left more than a trace, so therefore they cannot have been men, but giants, stone giants, and this like enough their bones.”

  “Bones do not make a wall across the land – they are carried away by wolves and ravens.”

  “Maybe it is one giant, and he was wading through the Irish Sea when he tripped on the land and fell, and his head went into the North Sea, and he drowned.”

  “Have you ever been to Aquae Sulis? London? Have you seen the forts the emperors of old built to guard the Narrow Sea?”

  “Have you seen islands of ice, floating in the sea?”

  The Pict turned to stare at the monk. “What has that got to do with this?”

  Brother Diuma grinned. “Nothing at all.” He turned in his seat and called behind. “Did you hear that?”

  “Yes,” came the answer in a number of voices, in tones ranging from delight to disgust.

  Brother Diuma turned back to the Pict. “I had a wager with some of your men last night that I could get you to speak more than three sentences today. I think I have won.”

  Talorc grimaced. “So you don’t think giants built the Wall?”

  “Could be,” said Brother Diuma. “Then again, it might not have been giants. It could have been the Fair Folk.”

  “The Fair Folk don’t build walls,” said Talorc.

  “How do you know?” asked Brother Diuma.

  “I – I know,” said the Pict.

  “Well, let us hope they know, and give us a good night’s sleep. Yesterday was miserable.”

  The Pict sniffed the wind. “It will be dry tonight,” he said.

  “Good. My people always said, if you want to know about the weather, ask a Pict.”

  “What else do they say about Picts?”

  “Never answer their questions.”

  Talorc glanced at the monk, grunted and turned away. Urging his horse on, he passed two plodding horses and their bedraggled riders before catching up with Oswald and Oswiu.

  The purple and gold banner trailed down its pole, clinging wetly to the wood. But even so, when they rode past farmsteads or villages, people came out to stare, and to listen with wonder and the first flush of hope as Oswiu again took up his call: “The king has returned. The king has returned. Come to him – come to Oswald, Iding, Æthelfrith son, king of Bernicia, lord of Bamburgh; bring your spears and your swords and your shields and come follow him.”

  The children would run alongside them, asking questions, calling out, while the men watched, silent-eyed and watchful, but their fingers tested the edge of knife and the point of spear.

  “We go to Heavenfield. Come to us! Come to your lord! Come to your king!”

  Even if a village was small and mean, yet still Oswiu called out the summons as they passed through it, and the faces stared up at the passing men. In some, hope was kindled, but in others all fire had gone out, and they stared, dull as ash.

  “We stop at Heavenfield?” Talorc asked Oswiu.

  “We do,” replied Oswiu. He glanced back at the following line of men. “Did he win his bet?”

  “Yes,” said Talorc. “He did.”

  “Brother Diuma could make a rock talk.”

  “I am not a rock.”

  Oswiu nodded. “Yes, so I see.”

  “I will kill him.”

  “Please do not. We do not have enough men as it is – we can’t do without you as well.”

  “But why would you miss me if Brother Diuma is dead?”

  “Because I’ve seen him fight. You would not get anywhere near him, not in a knife fight, and that is the only duel you might have while you are part of a warband.”

  “You have not seen me fight.”

  “I do not need to – I have seen you walk, and ride. You would not win in a knife fight with Diuma, but you would have mastery with sword and shield, for you weigh half as much again as him, and strength, as you know, counts more than anything else in such a contest.”

  “Then I will fight him with sword and shield.”

  “When we have won the throne you may do what you want, but not before.” Oswiu reined his horse back a little so he rode closer to the Pict. “But why would you want to? If we take the throne, my brother will give you and your men gold and glory beyond anything you have seen. Why risk that fighting a man who must give his gold and glory to his abbot?”

  Talorc stared at Oswiu. “Is that true? The monk will get no gold – none of the thick arm rings or the buckles crusted with garnets?”

  “Nothing,” said Oswiu. “Look at him – all he wears is his habit and his mail, and that is just iron.”

  The Pict turned in his saddle and stared in wonder at Brother Diuma who, seeing his stare, waved. Talorc turned back to Oswiu.

  “Why does he fight then?” he asked.

  “Because Abbot Ségéne asks him to fight. Because he is good at it. Because it is God’s will.” The ætheling pursed his lips. “Not sure which of those is the truest.”

  *

  “Will you sing for us?”

  Oswald asked this of Acca as the men gathered around the fire they had piled in the corner of the old fort. The years had pulled the roof from that corner, allowing the smoke to escape, but the Pict had been right: the rain had blown past with the evening and now stars shone through the tattered streamers of cloud, trailing into the east.

  Acca looked round at the assembled men. Only Oswald and Oswiu among them spoke the language of the Angles and the Saxons fluently – the others could mostly understand simple sentences and commands, but few could manage
anything more.

  “Lord, they will not understand,” he said.

  Oswald gestured to take in the men resting upon saddles and sitting with backs against stone, while the horses shifted restlessly at the entrance to the fort, sheltered by a rapidly repaired fence from the depredations of the wolves that howled mournfully in the hill distance.

  “They do not need to know the words to hear their music. Sing to us, Acca.”

  The bard nodded and got to his feet. Outside, the wind moved through the hills, sending its cold fingers in through stone gap and thatch break, but the fire blazed bright and the men, warmed by it, gathered tight to the flames.

  “I will tell a tale of a man who came over sea to deliver a king’s hall from the monster that plagued it, carrying off men and treasure and food, so that all life and hope was lost. I will tell a tale of a man who defeated the monster and brought hope to the people.” Acca picked up his lyre and strummed it, the six strings resonating through the stones.

  “Hwæt!”

  There had been little conversation before, but what there was died away to silence. Acca looked around at the fire-lit faces. And he began to chant.

  “Wé Gárdena in géardagum

  þéodcyninga þrym gefrúnon

  hú ðá æþelingas ellen fremedon·

  Oft Scyld Scéfing sceaþena þréatum

  monegum maégþum meodosetla oftéah

  egsode Eorle syððan aérest wearð

  féasceaft funden hé þæs frófre gebád·

  wéox under wolcnum· weorðmyndum þáh

  oð þæt him aéghwylc þára ymbsittendra

  ofer hronráde hýran scolde,

  gomban gyldan· þæt wæs gód cyning.”1

  The red, fire faces stared in silence at Acca as the sound syllables clashed through their bones and into their blood.

  “þæt wæs gód cyning,” Acca repeated the last half-line. “That was a good king.”

  And through the hours of the night Acca told the story, to men who heard its sound but knew not the words, and with the story’s end they fell into the sleep that takes men, old in war, on the eve of battle: the deep, death sleep, that lies upon them as if in preparation for the long sleep that some will take on the morrow.