“What? Yes?” Acca looked round wildly, then saw Coifi. “Oh, it’s you.”
“Doom. I see the king’s doom.” The priest’s eyes rolled, threatening to turn up into trance, but he slapped himself viciously, once, twice, across the face. “No. No, I must stay,” he said, and though the words were out loud, he seemed to speak to himself, or to some presence only he could see.
“Not again,” said Acca, yawning. “Whenever the king goes forth, you always see his doom. Why don’t you get some rest like me while all the warriors are busy getting themselves pretty for battle?”
“This is different.” Coifi grasped Acca’s arm and leaned to him, his eyes wild but steady. “The sight. It came to me again. I saw it, in the fire fall, in the wave crash, in cloud and rain and the whisper of men’s voices and the call of ravens. If we let the king go, he goes to his doom. We must stop him.”
“Do you really think he’s going to listen to you any more this time than all the times previously?”
“That is why you must help me.”
“Me?”
“Yes. In truth, the king might not listen to me, but if you speak too, he will give me hearing.”
“What am I going to say to him? Coifi, who has prophesied disaster every time you’ve set forth with a warband, says that you’re going to meet your doom; but this time it’s different?”
“Yes. Say that. Say anything. He must listen. Please.”
Acca looked up at the man staring big-eyed into his face, fingers convulsively clutching his arm.
“You really mean it, don’t you?”
“Yes.”
Acca sighed. “Very well. I’ll try.” He stood up, brushing down his tunic and pulling his cloak around his shoulders. “Where is the king?”
“He is in the church.”
Acca nodded. “Let’s go.”
*
“Lord.” Oswald did not stir. And Acca, seeing him sitting thus, his eyes closed and his face clear of worry, did not speak again, but looked upon him.
Coifi nudged the scop.
Acca held finger to lips then turned back to the king.
“Lord, your pardon.”
Slowly, Oswald opened his eyes, and there was a light in them that Acca had not seen before, as of the sun at the ending of a rain- soaked day, shining through the final break of clouds before the onset of night.
“Your pardon, lord, but Coifi would speak with you. I – I know he has oft times seen doom, but – but never before have I seen him like this. Will you hear him?”
Oswald slowly rose from the stool. The solitary monk continued his chant, the Latin words, seldom heard on this rock even in the days of the emperors, for their wall lay far to the south, now spreading forth over land and out to sea every day.
“Are the poor provided for, Coifi?”
“Yes, yes, lord.”
Oswald looked at him, seeing the wildness in the priest’s eyes, the film that came over them when he saw into the windings of fate and the weavings of the fate singers.
“What would you say to me?”
Coifi stepped forward, so his face all but touched the king’s.
“Do not go,” he said. “I have seen. Thy doom lies ahead. Do not go to it, lord. Stay with us. Live.” He reached out, laying hand to Oswald’s arm. “Do not go, lord.”
Oswald laid his own hand upon Coifi’s.
“If you have seen doom, then how may I avoid it? Stay, and it will surely follow me. Go and I go without fear and in fulfilment of my pledge.”
“Then wait a while, lord. Gather more men, send for your brother; go as you went before into Mercia, at the head of many armies.”
“Then Eowa would be dead, and I would have failed in my promise to him. Besides,” and here Oswald smiled sadly at them, “kings do not live forever.”
“Lord, please, I beg you.” Coifi began to get down on his knees, but Oswald raised him up.
“You have served me well, Coifi. Do not be afraid. Should this be my doom, I will meet it. But for my part, I do not think it my end; Penda has but few men, the leavings of Cadwallon scraped from Gwynedd. It will be no great matter to defeat him and keep my pledge to Eowa. Fear more for the journey! We must hurry, so we sail tomorrow, praying no storm blows up to wreck us upon the coast before we can make the Humber. Is that what you see for me, Coifi?”
“No.” The priest shook his head. “No, that is not the doom I fear.”
“It is the doom I most fear.” Oswald stepped from the priest. “I must go.”
But Coifi stepped after him. “Take me with you. I would go as well; then if doom overtake you, I shall suffer it too.”
Oswald shook his head. “No. We must travel fast; there is neither space nor time for any save my warriors.”
“I would not hold you back, lord.”
“I know that of your will you would not do so. But with you among us, my attention would be divided, and you are not the horseman I shall need once we leave our ships and strike across country.”
“Lord…”
“No. I honour your faithfulness, but stay and pray for our return. I must go.” Oswald turned and made his way from the church.
Acca stared at Coifi as the priest looked to where the king had gone.
“You truly believe what you told him, don’t you?”
“Yes,” said the priest.
“Well, we’d better follow him then.”
Coifi, in turn, stared at the scop.
“You believe me?”
“I don’t know if I believe you. But I do know one thing: I have no intention of becoming a lordless man once again.”
*
“Whose idea was this?” Acca, his lips blue and his fingers bluer, looked out from the cape he held round his body to where Coifi sat on the other side of the boat, the wind blowing into his face as it blew against the scop’s back. The shipmaster, snarling at the weather, held station on the steering oar, his face frosted, and when he was not snarling at the weather he was swearing at the passengers who had persuaded him to take to the sea in this season through the presentation of an unfeasibly large amount of silver. Now, as the waters of the Humber swirled around the boat, he was wondering if the silver would find its final home at the bottom of the estuary.
Coifi gave no answer to Acca’s question. He accepted his position on the wind-lashed side of the boat – the master needed one of the passengers there to balance the light vessel – as he accepted the vision that had driven him in pursuit of the king. They had found the boat and the boatman not long after Oswald left with his men, and for the first part of the journey the sails of the king’s boats were visible as they rounded headlands. But the king had drawn away from them, and the winter clouds had drawn in, blowing cold from the east until all feeling had left the further reaches of Coifi’s body and he subsisted in a small core of vision, turned to the front of the boat and searching after the path taken by the king. The last glimpse they’d had of Oswald’s boats was when they rounded Spurn Head and entered the Humber. Now they followed the king upstream, riding the inflowing tide and using the easterly wind, but the squalls of rain and sleet cast curtains over the upper reaches of the estuary, hiding Oswald’s boats from their vision.
“Curse this for the game of a fool,” said the shipmaster. “I’m landing.” And he began to push the steering oar out, to bring the boat towards the nearer, southern shore.
“You will not,” said Coifi, and he got unsteadily to his feet, movement burning his limbs. He leaned out over the side of the boat, bringing its low lip perilously close to the wave tops.
“What are you doing? Get back,” cried the shipmaster.
“I will swamp this boat if you turn to shore.” The priest stared straight and level at the shipmaster as he pushed even further outwards, heeling the boat over.
“Y-you’re mad.”
Coifi leaned further.
“Right, right, we go on.” The shipmaster brought the steering oar back to the hull, and the b
oat straightened, heading up estuary after the king’s vessels. “Mad.”
Acca looked over to Coifi as the priest settled back down.
“Would you really have capsized us?” he asked.
Coifi looked to the prow of the boat.
“There,” he said, pointing.
Between the squalls, far upstream, were the sails of Oswald’s boats.
*
The messenger found Oswiu and Rhieienmelth in Carlisle. The king, Rhoedd, lay ill, and some whispered that he was dying, but for his part Oswiu would not believe the old man dead until he had been underground for at least three days. As he left the king’s room, where Rhoedd wheezed noisily but where his eyes still flicked knowingly from his daughter to his son-in-law, Oswiu revised that to a week. The old man would cheat death yet.
Coming into the hall, he saw Rhieienmelth. In truth, he spent more time with her father than she did; after a few minutes, she would jump up and pace, then a few minutes longer and she would leave, saying the children, one of their own two or Oswald’s, needed her, leaving Oswiu to hear the old man’s talk of past glories. He had come to enjoy those times, for Rhoedd was a good storyteller and he did not let the reality of war – the slips on muddy ground, the vomiting with fear, the sheer fortune of it all – get in the way of the stories he told. And in between, when Rhoedd slipped into sleep, it gave Oswiu time he barely ever had otherwise: time alone, where he might think.
He often thought now of his wife, and how she looked upon Oswald, and held him, when he had turned to her. It was always Oswald. Always. He did not have to do anything; he did not have to seek people’s love. It was given to him. Even Rhieienmelth’s. Even his wife’s.
Oswiu had not spoken of this to her. It was as it was. She could no more help it than any of the others; it was as inevitable as the sun rising. But, unspoken, it had raised a barrier between them, a barrier that had form and flesh: Æthelwald, Oswald’s son. Rhieienmelth raised him as one of her own and so, in truth, did Oswiu. Now the boy was growing, able to walk and talk and even sit upon a small pony. He had his father’s face but the temper of his mother, easily roused but swiftly abated, and he seldom asked after his father, for Rhieienmelth was his mother now and, being young, he had yet little need for his father. Already he could see his own son, a quiet boy, withdrawing from confrontations whenever Æthelwald demanded the wooden swords they played with, or to ride first when they made their way from one estate to another. Rhieienmelth treated them both as her own, showing no more favour to one than the other, but sometimes Oswiu wished he might see her favour the son of their flesh over the son of his brother.
“Oswiu.” Rhieienmelth stood as he entered the hall. “A messenger from Aidan, from the king.”
Oswiu nodded. That was how she always put it now. It was always “the king”, never “your brother” or “Oswald”. When had that changed?
He joined her, and the messenger, by the look of him a young man yet to profess his vows on the Holy Island, made courtesy to them.
“Bishop Aidan sends greetings and his blessings.”
“What news?”
“Urgent news, lord. King Oswald goes to the aid of Eowa, king of Mercia. Bishop Aidan sends message that you go also to Eowa’s aid, that you might there meet the king and help him against Penda.”
“Penda? Where is he and when did Oswald leave?”
As the messenger explained, Oswiu glanced at Rhieienmelth. She sat forward, listening, concentrating intensely, as if through the messenger’s words she might see Oswald’s presence.
“It is too late,” said Oswiu when the messenger had finished. “I would never catch him.”
“But you must go,” said Rhieienmelth. “The king has asked it.”
“Did he?” Oswiu turned to the messenger. “Does this message come from the bishop or the king?”
“The bishop, lord. But as I understand it the king did ask for you to come to him.”
Oswiu nodded. “Very well. As my brother asks, no doubt I should go, but I fear it will be in vain. We could hardly hope to get to Maserfield before he gets there, and if we are late then it will surely be over, and Penda’s head will be on a stake.”
“But you must go,” said Rhieienmelth.
“You would have me chase from one end of the country to the other at my brother’s command. But how to go. By horse from here, in this season, it would take us many days, and Oswald already has the start on us by three days. By sea – no, that would be too dangerous. And besides, once we entered the estuary of the Dee and made landfall, we would have to ride through territory the king of Gwynedd still lays claim to. That would be a perilous journey for the small party of men I could take with me.”
As Oswiu finished speaking, the door keeper of the hall entered, with a travel-stained and snow-speckled man in his train.
“Lord, a messenger from King Eowa of Mercia has arrived.”
The man pulled back his hood and, seeing him, Oswiu leapt to his feet in surprise and delight.
“Brother Diuma!”
The monk smiled in return. “It has been a long and difficult journey to find you, lord. But I have made it. And I have a message, an urgent message, from King Eowa.”
“Though we delight in seeing you, you need hardly have struggled through the winter snow to get here with it,” said Rhieienmelth, “for we received the message from Bishop Aidan. To join with the king and deliver Eowa from the siege that Penda has laid upon his hall in Maserfield.”
Brother Diuma looked to Rhieienmelth and then to Oswiu, and his face cracked as if it were a pot.
“That is not my message,” he said.
*
“Let me get this straight,” said Oswiu. “When you left Eowa two weeks ago, he was at Tamworth, and he told you to seek me out and ask that I come to him there, for he had received word that Penda had raised an army and marched upon the great hall at Tamworth?”
“Yes, yes. I do not understand,” said Brother Diuma.
“Did Eowa send other messengers, to my brother?”
“Yes, but I thought they took the same message.”
Oswiu shook his head. “They did not. We got the message Eowa sent to Oswald, but we received it through Bishop Aidan. Eowa never thought it would get to me as well.”
“But I still don’t understand,” said Brother Diuma.
“Why would he ask you to come to one place and the king to another?”
“Oh, I understand,” said Oswiu. “I understand all too well.”
“Treachery,” said Rhieienmelth.
“We go by boat,” said Oswiu. “To Maserfield. Please God we can catch him before he gets there.”
*
“There’s a reason we don’t fight in winter.” Oswald rode at the front of the column, with Bassus beside him. They had rowed as far upstream of the Trent as they could before mooring the boats with a small guard and setting off cross country on horse. Oswald looked to the warmaster alongside him. “A good reason.”
“You mean apart from the cold, the wind, the rain, the mud and,” Bassus looked up as the first flakes spun through the air, “oh, joy, the snow?”
“Yes, apart from those. The day is too short. That is why we don’t war in winter time.”
Bassus pointed ahead. The land in the distance was already being smoothed away under the snow. The sky loured darkly overhead and, if sun there was above the clouds, there was no sign of it below them, only grey and the approaching white.
“Should we make camp?” Bassus looked around. “There is nowhere here for shelter.”
“Then we ride on. We will be warmer on horse than afoot.”
“How much further is it?”
“With good weather, we would be there tomorrow. But if the snow comes, then we will have to find our way when the tracks are covered and lost. Maybe two days then.”
“That would get us to Eowa five days after his message reached us.”
“Too long,” said Oswald, “too long.”
/> “What can we do? The weather delays us.”
“Yes. It burns my heart, but there is nothing more we can do but press on.”
Standing behind Oswald, and using him as shelter from the wind, Bran gave a mournful croak.
“By the sound of it, Bran would prefer to stop too,” said Bassus.
“We will be out of the wind soon, Bran, soon,” said Oswald soothingly.
Bassus stared ahead. “Can’t see where,” he muttered.
*
“They went this way.” Coifi came back from the farmhouse shaking the snow from his hood. Behind him, from the door into the dark, smoke-wreathed interior, the farmer peered out, spear in hand, watching to make sure the strange man who called upon him in the storm left his land as promised.
Acca, snow mantling his cloak, squinted against the flakes blowing into his face.
“Where from here?”
Coifi pointed as he climbed back onto his horse. They were poor beasts, but the best they could buy when the shipmaster finally landed them, cursing his passengers from his boat.
“West,” said Coifi. “There are old trackways, but they lie under snow. He said to follow the shape of the land – that would lead us aright.”
“What does he mean by that?”
“We head towards the mountains. I suppose it would be best to follow the land where it rises.”
“And get the full benefit of the wind.” Acca paused. “Did the farmer say how long ago they passed this way?”
“This morning.”
“Was there a morning?” Acca squinted around, looking into the white of the storm. “Is this an afternoon?”
Coifi urged his reluctant horse on. “We are catching them. Come on.”
*
The landing had been as much a foundering as a landing, but Oswiu had got his men alive from the boats and, marching inland, they had bought extra horses from the local farmers, paying silver for nags barely worth slaughtering for food. Now the animals staggered beneath their riders, but at least the wind was at their back, blowing them onwards, and wherever they saw horses picketed by farms and hamlets pulled tight against the storm, they took them, leaving the weakest of their own beasts in return. A farmer might come to his door, spear in hand, but when he saw the group of armed men sitting silently on their horses, he would hold peace and take the beasts they left him, and thank his gods that they went.
Oswald: Return of the King Page 41