He struggled to get free, to get away from it, but he lay among the dead, and their weight crushed him, holding him immobile. They lay in heaps about and above him, but his face was free and the raven saw him, saw the movement of his eyes, and it stepped up upon the mound of bodies, climbing towards him, its head turning but always, always, turning back to him. The raven was coming for his eyes.
He strained and pushed, but there was no movement in his limbs. The dead did not move and nor did he: only his eyes. He looked around, saw the faces as still as the bodies, eyes as thick and still as winter ice. Only his eyes moved, searching, looking, but all he saw were the bodies covering him and the raven, picking its way towards him. He tried to close his eyes, to hide them, but they would not close. The raven stalked closer, climbing the body hill, digging its feet into the arms and legs and bodies sprawled in the heap of the battle dead. It turned its head this way and that, as if looking for rivals, but there were no other animals yet on the battlefield. Not even the human scavengers, who were normally first, had arrived. Only the raven, and it was coming for him.
The raven stopped and stared down at him, cocking its head from one side to the other. He tried to turn his face away, but he could not move. All the movement he had was in his eyes, and they were locked now, helpless, staring at the bird standing above him, its thick, heavy butcher’s beak clacking, once, twice.
And then it stabbed downwards…
*
“I dreamed.”
Penda turned to the man standing silently by the bed upon which he sat. Waking, screaming, he had recovered enough, when he saw the dim light from the tapers filtering into his room, to know that he still retained his eyes. The woman, whom he had woken with his waking and who had tried to calm him, he had pushed away, unable even to remember her name.
“Get me Wihtrun.”
As she reached for him again, to comfort him, he sent her sprawling on the floor.
“Go!” he had screamed at her, and such was her terror that she did not stop to dress, but ran unclothed from the room.
Penda had sat, waiting, listening. Wihtrun did not keep him long. Penda heard him running, his feet slapping against the rushes, then slowing sharply at the door.
“Lord?”
“Shut the door.”
Now Wihtrun stood waiting, silent. Penda glanced up at him. The priest looked bare without his wolfskin about his shoulders. The woman – her name was Frithburh he remembered now – must have impressed him with the urgency of the summons for Wihtrun not to have pulled on his wolfskin cape. Without it, his shoulders appeared scrawny and weak; a runt. But the priest’s strength did not lie in his arm, nor even in his mind, but in his eyes; he could see the workings of wyrd and the spinning of the fate singers. He could walk the path of dreams where gods spoke to men.
“I dreamed.” Penda did not look at Wihtrun as he described it. He made his voice as flat as he could, seeking to drain the horror of the dream with his tone, but this was not as other dreams. No man could be king, and see what he had seen, without suffering sometimes in the dark watches of the night. Waking banished dreams. But this one did not diminish. It remained fixed and bright in memory; wherever he turned, he saw again the black button eye of the raven fixed upon him.
“What does it mean?” Penda looked up at Wihtrun. “Tell me.”
And the priest smiled.
“Each day and each night, Woden sends forth the ravens that perch upon his shoulders, Thought and Memory, and they bring to him in his hall what has transpired in the world and in men’s hearts. That he should send one of his ravens to you is honour, glory beyond any gold.”
“It pecked out my eye!” Penda was on his feet, screaming into the face of Wihtrun, but the priest did not flinch.
“How many eyes has the Lord of the Slain?”
As Penda took the priest’s shoulders to shake him, the import of the words passed through his anger, passed through his fear and entered into his heart. He did not let go, but held the priest, face to face, their noses all but touching.
“What did you say?”
“How many eyes has the Raven God?”
And Penda let go, sitting back on the bed as the import of that simple question drained the strength from his legs. For Woden had but one eye.
“The Hanged One spoke to me?”
“Yes.” Wihtrun the priest knelt beside Penda. “He has come to you; he has spoken to you. He has favoured you, lord.”
“But what does it mean?”
“When the gods speak, their words take many meanings, lord. Woden sacrificed his eye that he might drink from the well of wisdom; mayhap he requires sacrifice from you?”
Penda nodded. “That is as may be. But I am not a god – I cannot give an eye for wisdom, nor hang upon a tree for nine days. I have given him much gold and weapons and slaves in the past; what more can he want from me?”
“Something of value. Something, or someone, that you do not want to give.”
“Who is that?”
“Only you can answer that, lord. But also, there is another way to read this dream. Does not the king of the Northumbrians have a raven? And are we not hemmed in, constricted by the kingdoms around us rushing to make alliance with him? For has not news reached us that to the east the kings of the East Angles, Sigeberht and Ecgric, have made joint cause with Oswald, taking him as their overking against Mercia? And in the south, the king of the West Saxons, has he not sent to Oswald seeking alliance too? Only in the west, among the Britons, with the men of Gwynedd, do our old alliances hold firm, for they hate the slayer of their king. Is it not clear what the Lord of Battles is telling you?”
Penda stared at the floor. “It is what I have been telling myself. I have let others dissuade me. No longer.”
*
“This is not wise.” Eowa stared at his brother across the high table. “We – you – are not yet secure upon the throne, and yet you would leave our kingdom and our backs unprotected and attack Oswald. That is madness.”
Penda leaned across to Eowa. “I will tell you what is madness, brother. Madness is waiting, suffocated with fear, while your enemies draw the hobbles tight around your legs and slowly bind your arms, and then stuff your mouth with gags. That is madness. While we have been in Mercia, trying to get thegns whose mothers were slaves and whores but who fancy themselves Iclingas to accept me as king, going from one hall to another, giving gold, giving promises, Oswald has been tying the other kingdoms to his belt, until all but a few dangle from it like keys. If we do not act, and soon, he will strangle us without even trying – we’ll die like pigs.”
“We’ll die like pigs if we attack him alone, brother.”
“Not alone, Eowa, not alone. There is a new king in Gwynedd; Cadafael will march with us. And there are others among the kingdom of the Britons who remember the Twister all too well: they will be eager to strike down the Twister’s son. If we act, and soon, we can beat him.”
“The blood moon rises in but a few weeks; winter is coming.”
“Then we attack in the spring, before he is ready.”
Eowa shook his head. “I do not like this, brother. We have worked long and hard to gain this throne and held it but a short time; the Lord of Battles is fey and his favour passes to whom he will; we know not where it will lie.”
Penda smiled, his teeth showing sharp behind his lips. “Ah, but I do, brother, I do. Woden came to me in dream, and took my eye from among the piled-up slain.”
Eowa stared at him. “And you want to go into battle with Oswald after such a dream?”
“Wihtrun the priest told its meaning for me: my enemies are all around, suffocating and close.” Penda stared at his brother as another meaning of the dream occurred to him. “Very close, perhaps.”
Eowa paused as he took Penda’s meaning. “No, brother, no. I am not your enemy.”
“It is ever told in tales how two brothers, great in arms and founders of thrones, fell to each other.”
“This is not a tale, Penda.”
Penda stared at his younger brother. “Let it not become one.”
“It is the task appointed to a warmaster to speak when the king is too bold.”
“I can get another warmaster.”
“You cannot get another brother.”
There was silence between them for an instant, then Penda smiled. “That is true and it is as well. One is enough.”
“And for me too.”
“As my warmaster, go to Cadafael of Gwynedd, ride to all the kingdoms of the Britons to our west; give them gifts and promises, give them whatever they need, but let them ride with us in the spring, when the frosts still come and the willow is breaking leaf.”
“Very well, brother. I will go. But before I leave, answer me this: why do you keep Eadfrith alive? I do not understand. As long as he lives, you will not be secure upon the throne, for there will be an Iclinga for the witan to call upon, should enough thegns grow jealous of your glory. So why do you not kill him?”
“I – I cannot. Not yet.” Penda sat back and looked down at the hands he now held clasped in front of him. How many men had they killed? He could not count. More than he knew, most likely, as there were men who crawled from the battlefield whom fever and the rotting sickness later took. Sometimes, in the dark, some of their faces came to him, but in the light they cast no shadow upon him. The dead were dead, and though their ghosts might claw at him from the dark places, they had no substance: they could no more cut him than he could cut a shadow. So why could he not bring himself to dispose of Eadfrith?
“At first, there was reason: we could use him against any other king that rose in Northumbria. That stays true: Eadfrith is Yffing, of the line of the kings of Deira, and Oswald is Iding of Bernicia; there may yet be chance to use him against Oswald. But it is true; he has become a danger to me now that the witan knows he lives. Maybe that is reason enough to kill him.” Penda stared at his hands. So much killing. Death was the measure of glory and already scops sang his deeds, reciting the list of the slain and their kin. There was no glory in killing a captive, but that was not the reason he stayed his hand – he knew well enough that sometimes death must needs be dealt by knife and in silence as by sword and in battle.
“He does not fear death.” Penda looked up from his hands and to his brother. “Truly, he does not fear it. I have spoken to him, I have held knife to him and seen his heart through his eyes. He no longer fears death – but not in the way I have seen other men overcome fear, through battle madness or beer courage or the fear of fear. He does not fear death, for he no longer fears anything. I have seen this change in him over the months I have held him captive. He has gone from rage and revenge, through the hope that came when he stood against me in the witan, to a peace I do not understand. He is in my power and yet he does not fear me. I would know whence this peace comes before I kill him.”
Penda looked back at his hands. He could see that they shook. Ever so slightly. Yet they shook. With a sword his hand was still, but without, it had begun to shake.
“I need it.”
Eowa nodded. He got up. “Very well. I will make ready. But I do not understand.”
Penda stared after his brother as he left the hall.
“Neither do I,” he said.
*
“It is you.” Eadfrith looked up from where he lay shackled to the centre post of an old hut. “Why do you keep torturing yourself?”
“Torturing myself?” Penda sat down, cross-legged, in front of Eadfrith. The young man squinted against the light pouring into the hut through the door thrown wide. The king of Mercia took the seax from its sheath and stropped it on the whetstone he carried in the pouch on his belt. “I think it is you that is being tortured.”
Eadfrith tried to smile, but his lips, cracked and dry, barely moved.
“I can but endure what you deal to me. But you. You come here, again and again, like an ox scratching for an itch it cannot reach. There is nothing I can give you, no knowledge or power, so I ask you again: why do you torture yourself?”
“I do not torture myself!”
“Then why do you come to me?”
“To hurt you! To make you feel pain, to make you scream.”
Eadfrith tried again to smile, and this time he succeeded. It was a sad smile. He held out his hands, as far as the shackles would allow, towards Penda, and his hands and arms bore signs of the ill usage done to them.
“Why do you not hate me? You used to hate me. I saw it when I faced you across the duelling cloak before the witan. But now, now… ” Penda reached out and pulled Eadfrith’s head back and stared into his face. “Now. Pah!” He pushed Eadfrith’s head aside, and so little strength did the man have left that it hit against the hut pole before he could stop himself.
Penda grabbed Eadfrith again, holding him by his throat. “Tell me.”
Eadfrith, being throttled, pointed to the hand upon his throat and Penda let go.
“Tell me,” he repeated, and this time his voice was a whisper.
“If we had won, if we had taken you, then I would have been the one with the knife and you would have been the one shackled.”
“And do you not wish that?”
“I did. I dreamed of what I would do to you, of the slow ways of killing I would invent to draw out your pain. But now… No. I would not be the one with the knife; though I would rather not be the one shackled.”
“But why not?” Penda, without thought, scratched his nails over his face in the intensity of his asking, and drops of blood leaked from the skin.
“Because you are in more pain than I.”
Penda stared at Eadfrith, and his eyes clouded with hatred. He leaned towards the bound man and whispered, “Not for long.”
*
“You should give him to Woden.” Wihtrun the priest was sitting outside the hut when Penda emerged. The king of Mercia looked back into the stinking shadows whence he had emerged; Eadfrith lay slumped against his shackles, unconscious finally.
“You heard him?”
Wihtrun stood up. “Everyone heard him.” He pointed to the sky, where cloudbanks were massing in the west. “Even the gods heard him.”
“There is something in him I want. I will not give him to anyone until I have cut it out.”
The priest bent down and looked curiously into the hut. “He will not live long if his wounds are not given chance to heal.” He stood up and looked at Penda. “Nor would he make a worthy sacrifice as he is.”
“I am not sacrificing him.” Penda pointed towards the hall. “I have many slaves. Take one of them if you need a sacrifice.”
“The Tricker is not so easily tricked, nor so cheaply won over. Any man might sacrifice a slave, for he is his to do with as he pleases. But the son of a king? That is sacrifice worthy of the All-Father. That is meat to his table and matter in his sight. The Hooded One will take such a sacrifice and he will honour it, and honour you, its giver, beneath the branches of the Tree of the World, hanging your gift upon its boughs as I hang mine upon the blood oak.” Wihtrun leaned towards the king. “There are many ears about. I would speak a word with you where they may not hear.”
Penda looked around. In the compound that surrounded the hall, men were plying their crafts outside the tents and huts that sprang up like mushrooms whenever the king’s household stopped to take the render from the farms and villages of the district. The men of his household, the hearth warriors who had earned the right to eat in his hall and sleep beneath its roof, sat in the autumn sun, while others ran through sword and spear exercises, or talked, or simply slept. With Eowa having left on his mission, there was less urgency about their training, and Penda noted that he would have to appoint another man to Eowa’s role while his brother was away. But it was true; there were few corners indeed where a man might speak and not have others waggle their ears to hear.
“Where would you have me go?”
Wihtrun pointed. Standing a few hundred yards from the g
ate to the compound was a dark copse of trees.
“There?” asked Penda.
“None will follow us in there.”
“Very well.” Penda signalled to some of his nearer warriors. “But I will have men follow us to it. Let us go.”
They walked to the grove in silence, Penda’s men following close behind, but as they reached the boundaries of the grove, the king told them to wait before passing, with the priest, over the blood- marked line that separated the world of men from the world of the gods.
As the trees drew dense and dark around them, Penda slid his seax from its sheath. He felt, he sensed, eyes upon him, a watching presence, and his eyes and other senses shifted about, seeking, searching.
“He knows you come.”
“Who does?”
“The Hanged One.”
Wihtrun pointed through to the blood tree, standing alone in the centre of the grove, its boughs hung with the corpses of sacrificed animals. The air, even in this late season, buzzed with the heavy thrum of flies. Penda tasted iron in the still air. A battlefield tasted the same when the slaughter was done and the dead lay exposed and helpless.
Penda looked up at the tree. Upon it hung the fruit of the knife. Gifts to the God of Battles, supplications for his favour. It was sacred ground.
“The old ways are dying.”
Wihtrun the priest turned to Penda. “The kings of our peoples, the kings of Kent and Essex, of Northumbria and the East Angles, they are turning away from the gods of our fathers.” Tears glittered in his eyes. “It is bitter to me to hear of the sacred groves fired and the altars cast down. Why do they do this, lord? Why do they scorn the ways of old?”
“For victory.” Penda nodded as he thought further on the question. “That is why they have taken this new god, even though he is the same god as the Britons serve, from whom our fathers took this land. But now, some have won battles by his hand, and so they cleave to him, and others, unsure, look to the new ways and think on them, watching with watchful eye. That is your answer, Wihtrun. Their new god has given victory to the kings of Kent and Essex, the East Angles and Northumbria.”
“But Edwin was cast down.”
Oswald: Return of the King Page 28