Oswald: Return of the King

by Edoardo Albert

“Yes.”

  “Have you…?”

  “No. Not yet.”

  “There is time. Do not worry about it, brother. Many a marriage starts as a long betrothal.”

  “We are already wed.”

  “Well, we wouldn’t have the produce or the ally otherwise, would we?”

  “No.” Oswald shook his head. “She is not what I expected.”

  “I am fortunate. I married Rhieienmelth.”

  “Yes.” Oswald turned and looked back into the hall where Rhieienmelth now sat beside his wife. Cyniburh was talking excitedly to her sister-in-law and to his eyes it looked as if a mother spoke with her daughter. Rhieienmelth felt his gaze and looked to him. Oswald looked away.

  “It is the Easter feast in a week. I have asked Aidan to join us for it.”

  “My mouth waters already, brother. It has been six weeks without meat.”

  “Do you abstain in other ways too?”

  “What? Oh, no. Should I?”

  “Perhaps.”

  “I might try next year. But it will be hard to persuade Rhieienmelth.” In his arms, the baby shifted. “He wants his mother.” Oswiu nodded towards the high table. A man had joined the conversation between the two women. “You have made a place for Eowa with us.”

  “Yes. Now his brother has betrayed him, he may prove most useful should we need to find a new king in Mercia.”

  “Penda should have known better. You should never betray a brother.”

  Oswald looked at him. “Yes,” he said.

  *

  Through the night, they held vigil. The longest night, when heaven and hell fought over this middle-earth, and the prayers of the faithful battered at the gates of hell, that he who had been carried away might break them from within. Then the morning came, and light, and the doors of the church were thrown open and Aidan emerged, leading the throng in song and chant and bells.

  The fast had been long and hard. The feast awaiting them was sumptuous, the accumulated produce of three of the king’s estates brought to the palace at Ad Gefrin, where the kitchens had been busy through the hours of vigil, baking and cooking but never tasting, no – not till the sun rose and the Son rose.

  Now they took their place in hall, processing in behind Aidan, and sat ready upon bench and stool, while silver plates were brought in, carrying all the finest food that the kitchens could make and the hunters, fishermen, farmers and trappers of the king’s estates could produce.

  But as Oswald sat down at table, Coifi came to him and took his hand.

  “The poor are without,” he said. “It was a bad harvest and a hard, hard winter. They wait beyond the stockade, by the gate, babes scarce able to lift head to mothers’ breast, and nothing to suck there if they could.”

  “Have you nothing to give them, Coifi?”

  “I have given all you gave over to me, lord, keeping none for myself. But it is not enough.”

  Oswald glanced around the hall. The food was still being brought in.

  “Take me to them,” he said. He looked to Aidan. “Come with us.”

  As they walked across the compound, Oswald drew his cloak about his shoulders against the wind that blew around the Hill of the Goats that stood above the palace. Snow still stood upon its summit, smoothing the rough stones that ringed the hill, the tumbledown fortifications of a long-forgotten king. The other hills, marching into the Cheviots, were also mantled white, and even in the valleys snow remained in those places where the sun came late, or not at all at this time of year.

  They came to the gate to the compound, through which the cattle and sheep and goats, the render of the hill folk, were herded to the huge enclosure running down to the River Glen. The door warden, wrapped against the cold and dozing in front of a brazier, snapped awake when he saw who it was approached.

  “Open the gate,” said Coifi.

  “There are even more without now,” said the door warden. “More have come since hearing that you are giving food and drink.” He glanced at the king and the bishop. “It might not be safe without guard.”

  “They are my people,” said Oswald. “If I cannot walk among them without guard, then I am no worthy king. Open the gate.”

  “If you are sure, lord.”

  “I am sure.”

  The door warden opened the gate. As it began to swing open, a low murmur rose, growing louder as the gate revealed the men standing behind it. Outside, squatting or laying upon ground churned by the wagons that had brought Oswald and his household to Ad Gefrin, were people, in some cases whole families through three or four generations, in other cases all that were left after the privations of winter and harvest failure. Children, big bellied with the skin stretched so tight over their skulls it looked as if it would burst; mothers holding babes, beyond crying, to dugs that held no milk; fathers, eyes blank with the failure to provide for their families and fighting the desperate need to grab what food could be found for themselves.

  “Bring them in.” Oswald turned to the door warden. “Bring them in. And never let me hear again that the starving were left outside my gates.” He turned to Coifi. “Go to the kitchens. Tell them to bring food to these people: better pottage or porridge, something simple for the moment; rich food would be too much for them.”

  Coifi began to nod, but then his eyes began to roll back into his head.

  “Oh no you don’t,” said Oswald, slapping a hand across the almoner’s cheek. “You cannot fall into trance now.”

  Coifi shook his head, his eyes slowly coming back to rest on Oswald. “You stopped it,” he said. “You stopped the god taking me.”

  “You are needed here, Coifi, here and now.” Oswald pointed at the crowd of starving people. “They need you.”

  Slowly, Coifi turned his gaze to the people, the families slowly dragging themselves from the mud, and he nodded.

  “Yes, lord. Yes, you are right.” He turned back to Oswald. “I did not think anyone could stop a god when he wished to take me, but you have.”

  “Yes, yes.” Oswald pointed. “The kitchens.”

  “Yes, lord.” Coifi smiled. “At once.” And pulling his raven- feather cloak tight round his shoulders, the almoner ran towards the kitchens.

  “I will help you here,” said Aidan. And with the door warden they brought into the compound those who were grown too weak to walk themselves, carrying them to the kitchens where slaves were already beginning to put up tents for the people entering.

  Many a hand reached to Oswald and Aidan as they brought the people in, seeking by a single touch the blessing of king or bishop. Seeing his mercy, and the provisions of his table, some families asked Oswald that he might accept them as slaves, but for the moment he refused.

  “Eat what you will for now. Then when you have grown strong, if you still wish me to take you as slave I will think on it,” he told them, and the lure of the food rushed them on.

  When all were within the compound, Oswald and Aidan finally returned to the Easter feast in the hall.

  “We were beginning to wonder if you would ever come back,” said Rhieienmelth. They had come together for this Easter feast, the households of king and his brother joining as they had not for a while. Since the subjection of the Gododdin, Oswiu had taken to making the circuit of the northern marches of the kingdom, while Oswald visited the royal estates of Deira and Bernicia south of the River Tweed.

  “I was busy,” said Oswald, taking his place at the high table.

  “We missed you.”

  But Oswald did not hear Rhieienmelth. His mind was still full with the memory of the starving people he had helped into the compound, and even the flashing eyes of his sister-in-law, sparkling with their customary mischief, could not claim his attention. He looked down the hall at the mouths opened to receive the rich food brought by boat from lands where the sun held greater sway, or brought as tribute by hunters or fishermen who had taken unusual prey: the porpoise and the crane, defeathered, stuffed and then refeathered into a semblance of life, made
centrepieces to the display of food, while silver and gold glittered in the plates that bore the food into the hall; he looked and he was filled with a profound disgust.

  Reaching in front of him, he took his plate and tipped the food from it onto the table, then lifting the plate above his head he stood.

  All around, the feasters slowly grew quiet, as eyes turned towards their king.

  “We eat on silver.” Oswald turned the plate in his hand, looking for a moment at the intricate design worked into it. “We eat on silver, while outside mothers have no milk in their dugs for their babies, and fathers offer their whole families to me as slaves if I will give them to eat. We eat on silver.” Oswald turned the plate in his hands. He shook his head. “Wood will do for me.” He signed a slave to him. “Take this to Coifi. Tell him to cut it up and distribute the silver to the people here.”

  At this, many of the people in the hall did likewise, sweeping food onto table or bread, and handing silver plate to slaves to pass to Coifi.

  “Do you do this every Easter?” Cyniburh asked, wide-eyed.

  Rhieienmelth, in the middle of handing her own dish to a slave, laughed. “Thankfully, no, or we would have no plates to eat upon.”

  Oswald grimaced. “Maybe it were best we did.” He looked to Aidan. “What say you?”

  The bishop reached over and took Oswald’s hand, the one that had given the silver plate to be broken up for the poor.

  “I say may this hand never wither with age.”

  Oswald laughed. “What about the rest of me?”

  Aidan smiled back. “Yes, of course. The rest too.”

  “Well, as the time is meet for announcements, I have something to say as well.” Oswiu stood up and went to stand behind Rhieienmelth.

  “My wife is with child again.”

  He looked, beaming, at his brother, only to see Oswald’s face fall.

  “What is wrong? I thought you would be pleased.”

  “I am. Yes, of course I am.” Oswald smiled at his brother.

  “Will you give Rhieienmelth your blessing?”

  Oswald glanced at his sister-in-law, then looked back to his brother. “I give it you both, with all my heart.”

  “This will be number two; it is time you had children, brother, or I will have no choice but to take the throne after you!”

  “Yes,” said Oswald. He glanced at Cyniburh. She had grown much this past year. “Maybe it is time.”

  As if in answer, Cyniburh took the infant Ahlfrith from Rhieienmelth and held him, the baby settling upon her as she craned her head over his. Oswald looked away, his gaze settling upon Aidan.

  “It is good to have you with us again, old friend. It has been near a year since last we sat down to eat together.” Oswald paused.

  “I miss your counsel. Now Oswiu sees to the northern marches and you remain upon the Holy Island, I make the round of judgment alone.”

  “Alone, apart from the forty men of your household who accompany you, and your wife, and scop, and almoner and steward, and wagoners and armourers, and hunters and farriers. Alone apart from them.”

  Oswald smiled, but there was a sadness to his smile. “You chide me justly, old friend. But these are all the companions of my new life, my life as king. The companions of my old life, when I was Oswald and might have been a monk, those companions have left me.”

  “You have Bran.” The monk pointed to the bird, sitting upon a post that had been set for him behind the king, with a ledge where food from the feast might be set for him. The bird, busy with some of the crane, still turned a black eye in his direction when he heard his name spoken, but paid Aidan no further heed.

  “Yes, I have Bran.” The king swivelled and held to the raven a slice of tender meat. The bird inspected it, then took it delicately in a beak that could split bone, and tossed it into the air before swallowing it. He turned back to Aidan. “But I miss my other friends.”

  Aidan nodded. “There were other reasons, beside not thinking myself worthy, for me not wanting to be bishop. If I were still simply a monk, then I might, with the permission of my abbot, accompany you. But now my office and its duties stands between us, and whatever the love I bear for you, yet I must set it against the responsibilities I have to my community, and to the people we serve.” Aidan sighed. “I remember Abbot Ségéne telling me how much of his time was taken with matters of this world, with settling the payment for cows and the disputes of farmers, with the jealousies of monks and the vagaries of the harvest, and I did not believe him, for all I saw was his great holiness. But now I know it to be true; even this all-too-brief time I spend with you a voice whispers to me that when I return, there will be matters to settle that will have grown great that I might have nipped if I had been there. That is the lot of kings and bishops, my old friend. We must be ever about our work, and in the end the only aid we may call upon is that of our Lord, for no one else can share our burden.”

  Oswald looked at him. A smile cracked at his lips, growing wider. Aidan, seeing it, smiled also, as the shared understanding between them grew. The smile grew into a great shout of laughter that went from Oswald to Aidan, setting the monk to laughter too.

  “That…that was so pompous,” Oswald said between hiccoughs of laughter.

  “N-not so p-pompous as the lonely king,” gasped Aidan.

  As king and bishop held each other up, lest the helplessness of their mirth bring them to the ground, Eowa turned to Acca. The scop was eating with a singular ill grace, for he had been told that his stories and songs would not be wanted at the great feast of the new god.

  “What do you think they are laughing about?” Eowa asked.

  “How would I know?” Acca picked at a piece of porpoise. “I’m sick of fish.”

  “Maybe they laugh at the silver they give away.” Eowa pointed to where the plates, some even of gold, were being hacked into small pieces.

  “A great jest. And now I eat from the table.” Acca picked up his cup. “With a wooden cup for my wine.”

  “It is a great jest indeed, for I know of no other kingdom so wealthy that its king might give such riches to the poor, rather than to his retainers and thegns.”

  Acca looked round at Eowa. “What about your brother? Mercia is rich.”

  “Not this rich.” Eowa shook his head. “Not this rich at all.”

  *

  “So you say your god said it is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter his hall?” Penda leaned across the table to Brother Diuma. “What is a camel? Is it like a fly?”

  “No, no. It is an animal of hot lands, of dry lands where no rain falls and people may die for having no water to drink.”

  Penda glanced upwards, where the slating rain drummed upon the roof of his hall. “Not like here then?”

  “No, not at all like here. I have heard there are other animals in these lands that are so fearsome to look upon that a single glance will turn a man to stone, while others spit poison or turn a man’s wits to water.”

  “I would see such beasts – though not the one that turns men to stone! But still, you have not told me of this camel beast.”

  “Like all the creatures of these hot lands, it is strange and wondrous, somewhat like a cow, but with a great hill upon its back which it fills with water when it finds to drink, and then can go for a year and a day without further drink.”

  “But how big is it? It must be small if it can pass through a needle.”

  “No, it is large, as big as an ox, maybe even bigger.”

  Penda scratched his beard. “So how could this camel beast get through a needle?”

  Brother Diuma beamed. “It cannot! That is the point. No more can a rich man enter God’s hall than a camel pass through the eye of a needle.”

  Penda shook his head. “This makes no sense. Does not your god give gifts of gold and victory to those who sacrifice to him? If he does, then why would he give these gifts and then not take the men he gave them to into his h
all when they die?”

  “God gives victory to whom he will, but he gives his kingdom to the poor,” said Brother Diuma.

  “I am rich.” Penda indicated his hall and the bored men making conversation or playing dice while they waited for the interminable rain to end. “I am rich and I am generous, giving gifts of gold to my men. How can I give gold if I do not have it?”

  “Think on the dragon. It is rich, rich beyond compare: gold hoarder, treasure miser, the worm sits upon its hoard and gives gold to none, but slays any who come to try to take of it. Be not of that nature, cold and dragonish, but generous and open-handed, giving not only to your retainers and your thegns, but to the poor; then you will receive greater reward than any king.”

  “Ask any of my men: I am generous. But the poor? There are so many, if I gave to them it would be as if I poured my gold into Moseley Bog. That is stupid. And I am not a stupid man.” Penda stood up. “Still, these are interesting matters whereof you speak, and I would hear more.” He looked down at the monk. “It is as well for you that your talk is good, Diuma, or I would have sent you back long ago to your masters. Think you not that I know you pass word back to Northumbria?”

  Brother Diuma stood up, and he was as tall as Penda. “While I am in your kingdom, I serve you and pass no account of your doings back home. Yes, I have received messages, but always I have told you of their coming, and most often those messages come from your brother. Should I not receive them?”

  “My brother. From what I hear, he has become Oswald’s faithful hound. You tell him, when next he sends a message, that Penda knows well what he does.” The king stared at the monk. “You hear that? Make sure you send that message to him and the others who sent you.” Penda turned away. “Now, Wihtrun, come.” He gestured the priest to him. “This man has been telling me nonsense: that the gods prefer the poor, when it is only sense that they give favour to those they favour.”

  “It is the weaving of the fate singers, lord,” said Wihtrun. “And the working of wyrd.”

  “I hope the gifts I give you for the gods, the animals for sacrifice, bring favour too; else why bother?” Penda pointed to the arm ring Wihtrun bore. “I give you gifts, you give me service; surely it is as such with the gods?”