Oswald: Return of the King

by Edoardo Albert

  “You don’t know my brother as I do,” said Eowa. “He will not die if he might live. Let him ride forth with those men who hold to him, and go into exile, and he will stand aside.”

  “But would you have your brother an exile? Penda is an enemy to be wary of.”

  Eowa smiled grimly. “Who said he would reach exile?”

  Oswald shook his head. “If I had given word, I would not break it.”

  “Nor would I have thee break it; for the pledge of the High King is sacred indeed. But the men of Mercia, the thegns taking me as king, they will not have made pledge in this matter.” Eowa looked to Sidrac. “I think it would be as well to leave no vengeance to be taken in this matter. What say you, old friend?”

  The warrior held out his hand, and Eowa grasped it.

  “I will have men ready to pursue him once he has passed through the High King’s lines,” said Sidrac.

  “He will head west, to Gwynedd. They are yet his allies, and would offer him exile.”

  “We will overtake him in the forest of the Wreocensæte. Not many men love Penda; there will be few riding with him on the iron road to exile.”

  Oswald held up his hand. “I would not hear this. I will give my pledge to Penda that he may have safe passage. If you would plot against him, do it not where I can hear, that my pledge be not tainted.”

  Eowa looked at him in surprise. “You have heard already.”

  “No more. Maybe it were better we let Penda go into exile.”

  “If that is what you wish, lord?”

  Oswald paused in thought. “Yes,” he said. “It is what I wish.”

  Eowa looked searchingly at the High King. “Very well,” he said. “Sidrac, give pledge to my brother that he may pass unharmed through our lines and ride into exile.” He looked to Oswald for confirmation, then added, “Tell him he has until the sun breaks through the clouds to leave.”

  *

  The gates of the royal compound swung open as the first light of the sun to break through the clouds’ defences streamed out over the plain of Tamworth. Through the gates, the great hall appeared, high upon its platform, the crossed beams of its roof making great gold-painted horns upon the sky. Without the gates, making a passage for those who would exit, stood two lines of warriors, the men of Northumbria to one side, the men of Wessex and the East Saxons and the East Angles upon the other, armed and shielded and glittering in the rain-washed light.

  In the midst of his line, with the horses picketed close behind, stood Oswald, with Bassus to one side and Eowa upon the other. As the gates opened, the water-swelled wood creaking on its hinges, they turned to see what, and who, would emerge.

  There, seated upon a horse with a guard of but a handful of men, was Penda, once warmaster then king in Mercia. The sun, shining from the west, cast deep shadows over his face. Behind Penda, arranged in a great half-circle in the compound, stood the witan of Mercia, faces blank and hard as they expelled their king.

  Penda did not look back. Heeling his horse into motion, he rode forth, out of the gates, the few men remaining true to him following in line behind. He looked neither left nor right, but rode between the lines of warriors. They watched in silence, the only sound the hoof-fall of the horses and the stamp and snort of the tethered animals behind their own lines.

  Riding level with Oswald, Penda drew his horse to a stop. He turned to look, but his gaze, heavy with hatred, settled not upon Oswald, but went to his brother Eowa.

  “I will kill you,” he said.

  “You should have done so before. Brother.”

  “I will not make the mistake again.” Penda glanced at Oswald. “I hope you trust your brother; then I know you shall fall.”

  “Get hence, while my pledge holds my patience.”

  Penda looked to his brother again. “How long, think you, until I come for you? Count the days, brother, count the days.”

  Then Penda heeled his horse, and it broke into a canter and then gallop; he and his men swept away, heading west, towards the distant line of hills that marked the marches of the kingdom and the land of his exile.

  Taking his horse, Oswald mounted it and rode to the gates of the compound, but did not enter. Within, through the open gates, he saw the men of the witan, Sidrac among them, looking out upon him with all the tension of traditional enemies laying their stronghold and their lives open to their foes.

  “Men of Mercia,” he called. “Men of Mercia, come forth and greet your king. A man known to you, a man most throne-worthy, a man who brings you my friendship. Men of Mercia, come forth and bow before your king!”

  And they came, some carrying the judgment seat of the kings, and they made courtesy to Eowa and placed the judgment seat before him and sat him upon it, while the acclaim they raised to him resounded over the plain even to the surrounding hills.

  Chapter 7

  The marram grass, brown tipped after its season of growth, whipped in the wind as Oswald climbed the steps from the beach to his stronghold atop the great rock at Bamburgh. The waves broke white against the Farne Islands, and fugitive birds flew past, seeking shelter from the coming storm. Oswald pulled his cloak around his shoulders and his hood down over his head. He was weary, and his head was bowed as he came to the top of the steps and the gate into the stronghold.

  “Welcome, lord.”

  Oswald bare raised his head in acknowledgment before continuing the weary climb upwards to the plateau atop the rock, circled with walls and these surmounted by wooden pilings.

  He entered the hall. Slaves, alerted to his arrival, rushed to raise fires and light tapers against the early winter gloom. The few men in the hall rose to greet him.

  Coifi, squatting by the embers of the fire the slaves kept burning through all seasons, rose, pulling his raven-feather cloak tight about him to seal in the heat he had embraced. Acca, wrapped in a blanket and with a cup of hot ale beside him on the table, wiped a hand across red eyes and redder nose, and rose as well.

  “Where is everyone?” Oswald stopped, looking around the hall.

  “You – you sent them to their halls, lord,” said Coifi.

  Oswald stopped in thought. “Yes. I did.”

  “Dould dyou wand me to ding for dyou?” Acca asked, his voice thick with phlegm.

  “No.” Oswald went to warm himself by the fire. He held his hands to the flames and rubbed them together. “I can’t get warm,” he said.

  “There is wine, lord,” said Coifi.

  “Yes. A cup of warm wine.” Oswald sat down while Coifi went to fetch the wine. He gave it to him and watched as Oswald drank. “Do you need aught for the poor?” Oswald put his hands inside his cloak, holding them to his sides, that they might warm there.

  “No, I have all they need; it was a good harvest this year and there is little hunger as yet.” Coifi’s head jerked sideways as he peered into the red heart of the fire. “But – but winter is coming.” His head snapped to the ceiling, where coils of smoke roiled among the rafters. “It will be a bitter season.”

  “Dow are dyour mudder and dister?” asked Acca.

  “They are well.” Oswald looked into the fire. “Would that they were with me. But they have the house in Coldingham to set properly under their rule. And my mother grows old; frost whites her hair and she would remain in one place, not wandering the kingdom as I do.” The High King returned to the silence of the fire, brooding upon its depths.

  “Dhen I am dell, I will ding of your dlory, lord,” said AccaI have a dew dong.”

  “He has sung it to me already, lord,” added Coifi. “Many times. It is very fine. A song for the king whose rule stretches over all this land. From Kent in the south to the painted peoples in the north, all acknowledge you as king.”

  “Dore dan the demperors!” exclaimed Acca.

  “More than the emperors…” Oswald looked up from the fire. “The emperors have gone from this land, and all they have left lies in ruins.”

  The scop and the almoner who was once a pri
est looked at each other. The king was in a dark and fey mood, and there was no one present to lift him from it.

  “Des?” said Acca, eventually.

  “All that they raised up, emperors over the whole world, moulders and decays, and I strive to emulate them who were as far above me in might as the Cheviot is above this rock where we sit. I would do better, much better, laying this aside and seeking a kingdom that does not fall to ruin. Seeking after the kingdom that Sigeberht laid aside his throne for…”

  *

  “… and you know what happened to Sigeberht.” Aidan took his friend’s hands in his own. They sat in the bare whiteness of his cell on the Holy Island.

  “But that was Penda. I have dealt with him. Eowa has the throne now.” Oswald looked up into Aidan’s face. “Tell me I have not read the signs aright. My wife is dead. I have secured the kingdom, I have given you land and more to found houses throughout the realm, that the people might hear the news of life and live by it. My mother and sister raise further houses, and set rule over them. My brother… my brother rules the marches and I see him rarely now; but he will rule well. He has had much practice.”

  “There is one you haven’t spoken of. What of your son?”

  “My son. My brother raises my son, and he has pledged to take him as his own.”

  Aidan squeezed Oswald’s hands tighter. “That I do not understand. Why did you give him so young? You could have had him by your side – it was no great matter to find a wet nurse to care for him.”

  Oswald pulled his hands from Aidan’s grasp. “I – I could not see him. He had too much of Cyniburh about him. So I gave him into another’s hands, that grief be removed from me.” The king looked out of the window. The abbot’s cell did not rate the luxury of a shutter, Aidan closing the small window against wind and rain with a square of sacking tied to the inside wall.

  “I desired my brother’s wife with a great desire, and I fear her heart was moved towards me as well. Lest in my grief I turn too much towards her, I gave into her keeping my son, knowing that she would keep him for me, as token of me, but knowing also that so long as she held him, I would not seek her out. But doing that, I have lost those that were dearest to me: my brother and Rhieienmelth.”

  The king barked out a laugh, short and bitter. “My scop sings of my glory, greater than any king of this land, but in my glory the only friend I found was a hostage, the brother of my bitterest enemy, and now even he has gone. I have set him to rule in Mercia and, setting the kingdom to peace, put myself alone.” Oswald turned back to Aidan. “Would you have me know no peace, old friend?”

  The bishop of Lindisfarne stood up. “When you came to us on the Holy Isle, you were young, wild. Abbot Ségéne, seeing you, said you were like a young hawk, and he set to teaching you, to training you, that when he set you to fly, you would fly high. He turned you loose, he set you to fly, and you have indeed flown high… But at what cost! No, I would not deny you the peace you desire, my old friend, and I believe you would find it here.”

  But Oswald shook his head. “I cannot stay here. Not within sight of Bamburgh, seeming ever a reproof to my brother and a temptation to those who would whisper against him. No, if I go, I must return whence I came, to Iona and the holy house there. Do you think the abbot would take me?”

  Aidan smiled. “Not if you took Bran with you.”

  “He alone of my friends has remained ever with me. I could not put him aside now.”

  “There are other houses, deep inland, where a man might go and be forgotten by all the outside world.”

  “That is what I would wish. To go and be forgotten by men.”

  Aidan nodded. “I know whereof you speak. I would lay aside the bishop’s staff and be done with farmers’ complaints and fishermen’s fears and the jealousies of monks. But some burdens may not be cast aside.”

  “I have made the way smooth for my brother. There is no reason he cannot be king after me – the witan of Bernicia will certainly accept him; I judge the witan of Deira would acclaim him too.”

  “Bernicia, yes. Deira, I am not so sure. There are other æthelings yet in Deira the witan may turn to; Oswine for one. He is loved by many there, and your brother is seldom seen south of the Tweed.”

  “Even more reason I should lay aside the throne, that Oswiu might claim it before Oswine has chance to further stake claim to the throne in Deira.”

  “Have you asked him?”

  “Asked who?”

  “Oswiu. Have you asked your brother if he would be king?”

  “No.”

  Aidan smiled. “Don’t you think you should?”

  “No one asked me.”

  “If I remember right, you were asked many times and you did your best not to be king.”

  “Much use did it do me.”

  “Then let us send messengers to Oswiu; let us ask if he would be king, and then decide. What say you?”

  Oswald fell silent. Standing at the little window, he looked out over the short-cropped grass around the monastery to the sea and beyond, where his stronghold sat at junction of earth and sea and sky.

  “There’s a ship coming,” he said. It ran across the white-topped waves, sail recklessly spread despite the high sea. “It’s in a hurry.”

  *

  “My lord, King Eowa sends word.” Bassus, chest heaving from his sprint up the beach to the monastery, stood in front of Oswald and Aidan.

  “‘King’ Eowa. It still sounds strange to hear that.” Oswald nodded towards the sea, now whipping to a storm. “You came fast, Bassus, outrunning the storm. It must be urgent.”

  “It is, lord. Penda has raised an army from his allies in Gwynedd and, taking Eowa by surprise, holds him besieged in his hall at Maserfield in the shadow of Selattyn Hill on the banks of the River Morda. He begs you to come to his aid, to come quickly, for he has not the men to hold for long in such a place.”

  “The fool!” Oswald pounded fist into palm. “He thought himself secure. How many men has he?”

  “The messenger said but thirty.”

  “And Penda?”

  “Not many more. Fifty or so.”

  “That is enough. How many days to get here?”

  “The messenger took boat as soon as he might, and the winds have been strong. Three days.”

  “How many days did Eowa say he could hold?”

  “A week to ten days.”

  “Then we have at most seven days, at worst four to reach him.”

  Aidan held out his hand and took Oswald’s arm. “Are you sure you should go to him?”

  “He is pledged to me and I to him.” Oswald smiled ruefully. “And I am yet king.”

  Aidan squeezed Oswald’s arm more tightly. “Send to Oswiu. Send to your brother: call him with you.”

  Oswald shook his head. “There is no time. Besides, he has been upon the marches these past two years. Why would he come?”

  “He is your brother.”

  “He is a king in all but name. Why should he come? After this is over, I will give him the name too.”

  “Send for him. You were going to send to ask if he would be king. Send message also to ride with you to Maserfield.”

  “I cannot wait for him. But yes, ask him, if he would, to come after me.” Oswald stopped. “It would be good to ride with him again.” He shook his head, as if trying to shake it free of doubt. “I do not think he will come.”

  “He will.” Aidan squeezed his arm. “He will.”

  Oswald smiled sadly, then unpeeled the fingers from his arm. “Maybe he will, but there is no time to wait for him. Send him after me, Aidan.” Oswald’s smile turned to the warmth of memory. “Tell him: when we were young I always had to clear up his mess. This time I am clearing up my own.”

  *

  The courtyard of the stronghold seethed with activity: men sharpening swords and spears on whetstones, grooms rubbing down horses and cleaning harnesses, slaves storing food and the supplies necessary for a swift, lightly provisioned e
xpedition. In the great hall, Oswald turned to Bassus. He had returned from the Holy Island but an hour ago, his boat racing the storm wind over the white-capped waves, and set all his household preparing to go to the aid of Eowa.

  “Send word to every thegn within a day’s journey to bring the men they can, horsed and armed, to be here for the first tide tomorrow. We sail then, and will not wait.”

  “We will miss a lot of men from such haste,” said Bassus. “Can we not wait another day?”

  “No.” Oswald pointed around the hall, where his most experienced warriors sat upon benches, backs to tables and swords over knees, oiling blades and stropping them to their finest cutting edges. “We have enough men here, but any who can join us by tomorrow will be welcome. They must be ready to travel fast and hard though. We sail down the coast, take the Humber and then row as far upstream on the River Trent as we can, before cutting west to the River Morda and following that to Eowa’s hall. If the weather holds, and no storms come, we can make the journey in two days. If the weather breaks, and winter storms may come at any time, it will take us a week or longer. I cannot wait.”

  “Very well. I will go and send messengers.”

  Oswald nodded. “Thank you, Bassus. You have been a good warmaster to me.”

  The warrior held his step for a moment. “And so I will remain, lord.”

  “Yes. Yes, of course.”

  As the warmaster set to his duties, Oswald went from the hall to the church that Edwin had begun and he had had completed within the stronghold. Going in, he found it empty save for a young monk who had been detailed from the Holy Island to match in the king’s stronghold the Great Work the community of monks did on Lindisfarne. The monk sprang from his knees when he saw Oswald, but the king waved him back to his task.

  “Stay,” he said. “I would pray also.”

  And taking a stool, Oswald sat with his hands upturned upon his knees, and slowly found the peace that often came to him in prayer.

  *

  “Acca.” Coifi tapped the scop on the shoulder, waking him from a doze.