Oswald: Return of the King

by Edoardo Albert

Looking down the slope, he saw the two lines beginning to form together. Behind them, looming over them, was the cross upon which hung Sidrac.

  A cold anger gripped Oswald’s heart.

  “Penda!”

  Oswald stepped forward, out of his line, and his voice rolled down the hill, huge in its fury.

  In answer, a man came from the line in front of him.

  “Penda, my anger lies upon your brother, for he is a traitor. Stand aside, and I will offer you no war.”

  Penda looked towards his brother’s line then back up the slope to Oswald.

  “Brothers cannot share a throne,” he answered. “Neither in Mercia nor in Northumbria.” He turned to his men. “Stand down. For now, we watch.”

  At this, Eowa sprang forward, calling over the snow to Penda.

  “Brother, you promised, when I gave myself as hostage to save you, that we would work together to bring down Oswald.”

  Penda turned towards Eowa. “We have.” He pointed up the slope to Oswald and his men. “Now fight.”

  “Quick,” Oswald said to Bassus as Penda and Eowa traded insults across the field. “If we can destroy Eowa, we might yet live.”

  “Even if we do not, let us kill Eowa this day,” said Bassus.

  Oswald swiftly grasped his warmaster’s hand. “Yes.” He nodded towards Eowa’s line. “As fast and hard as we can.”

  Bassus ran to the right wing, his armour jangling and flashing in the fractured sunlight, then, beating the rhythm, he started the men downhill.

  Fast this time, and getting faster, the pace building so that soon it would be impossible to stop.

  Oswald, in the centre, beat his spear against his shield, looking over its leather rim, searching for the point, the man, where he would hit when the shieldwalls met. With the slope taking them downhill, there would be no stopping at spear range, no jabbing at distance, seeking to bring a man down and use the opening. This was an all- or-nothing charge, a gamble that the sheer weight of running men would bear down and break Eowa’s shieldwall, pushing it open in one united blow and then turning back to kill anyone who still stood after the initial impact.

  “Lam-n-guin! Lam-n-guin! Lam-n-guin!”

  The war chant of the men of Northumbria rolled in front of them, reaching down towards the waiting, watching men.

  Oswald took a final glance at Penda and saw him standing in front of his line, leaning upon his spear, watching but not advancing. Then there was no time to look elsewhere. No time for anything but to search for the man he was going to hit, the man he was going to kill.

  “Lam-n-guin! Lam-n-guin! Lam…” The shieldwalls struck.

  *

  “Not far now, lord, not far.” The farmer waved his hand ahead, but he was looking anxiously at the man riding beside him.

  “Where?” said Oswiu. “You are not pointing at anything. Is it behind that next ridge of land? Or maybe the wood over there on the right? There is a dip beyond it.”

  “Yes, yes,” jabbered the farmer.

  “Which one?” snarled Oswiu. “You have been leading us since the sun came up, and the whole time you’ve been telling me it was just beyond the next rise, and we have not yet come to it. Where is it?”

  “There, there,” said the farmer, waving his arm, but with no more direction than before.

  Oswiu pulled the seax from its sheath at his waist and held its point to the side of the farmer’s head.

  “As I asked before, where? The ridge, or the wood?”

  The farmer licked his lips, not daring to turn his head.

  “The wood,” he said at last.

  “Good. I hope for your sake you are right. If not, I will kill you and find another guide – someone who knows where to take us.” Oswiu sheathed the seax and pointed his riders towards the snow- hooded wood at the far side of a broad valley.

  Brother Diuma rode up alongside Oswiu.

  “He is terrified,” he said, glancing ahead at the farmer jiggling along on a horse, clearly uncertain of how to stay atop the animal.

  “He should be,” said Oswiu. “If this direction proves false, I will kill him.”

  “He is only a farmer, trying to protect his family.”

  “And I’m trying to save my brother.” Oswiu turned on the monk, his face terrible. “If we are not in time…”

  He spoke as they breasted the final ridge before the long dip into the valley. With his face turned to Brother Diuma, he did not see what was immediately obvious to the monk. Brother Diuma pointed.

  “Look,” he said.

  Cutting through the snow that lay thick in the valley, heading straight to the wood, was the track made by many horses.

  “Ride!” yelled Oswiu, heeling his horse into a frantic gallop. “Ride for the High King’s life!”

  *

  “I don’t understand. What’s happening?” Acca turned to Coifi, watching beside him from the shelter of the wood. “The king is fighting Eowa? I thought he came here to save him?”

  “He did,” said Coifi.

  “But the king is fighting Eowa, and Penda is just watching.”

  “We must go to him.” Coifi turned to Acca. “Treachery.”

  Acca stared back at the battle. “No,” he said.

  “Not Eowa. He loved my songs.”

  Coifi grunted. “He probably lied about that, as he lied about everything else.” He began to get to his feet, but Acca held his arm.

  “What can we do? The two of us. We have no armour.”

  For answer, Coifi pointed to where the horses stamped and steamed, nostrils flaring at the sudden iron tang that filled the still air: blood was being spilled and they could smell it, and it excited and scared them.

  “I watched. The men guarding the horses ran to join the king when they saw that Eowa had betrayed him. If we can get to the horses, we can take some closer to the king, so he can escape.”

  Acca pulled Coifi back.

  “Do you really think the king would leave his men and ride away?”

  Coifi strained against the scop’s grip for a moment, then slumped back.

  “No,” he said. He looked at Acca. “What would you have us do then? Just watch?”

  Acca stared down at the battle. “It is my task,” he said. “To watch, to see, to give praise to the brave and to curse the coward. It is all I am fit for.” He turned to Coifi. “Pray to the gods,” he said urgently. “Pray, make sacrifice, do anything.”

  “But I have nothing to sacrifice,” said Coifi.

  “Find something, promise them something, anything.” Acca looked down at the battle. “Quickly.”

  *

  “Eowa!” Oswald circled, searching, scanning. Around him, the battle had dissolved into small groups of men grappling furiously. The first charge had broken the centre of the Mercian shieldwall. The man he had glimpsed over the edge of his shield – the man peering up at him through the steam of his own fear – he had killed, his spear sliding through the gap he left when he sought to see how far the enemy was from him, only to discover too late that they were too close for him to be looking past the shield’s edge. He had run over his thrashing body, hurdling the flailing arms and legs lest they bring him down, and, leaving the spear embedded in the man’s eye socket, he turned, drawing sword, and started striking at the suddenly unprotected flanks of the men to either side.

  The shieldwall cracked, broke apart, leaving him in the break as men peeled from the flanks, some running full tilt, others retreating more cautiously, pulling back towards Penda’s waiting, watching line.

  Oswald saw his own men fall, their blood reddening the snow, faces turned up to the sky but no longer misting the air; or gasping, grabbing at stomachs rendered, looking to him, the shock and accusation of their passing vivid in their eyes. They had not thought to die this day.

  “Eowa!” Oswald screamed the challenge, searching, looking for him.

  There, on the right wing, where Bassus struggled to roll up the remaining Mercian resistance.

&n
bsp; “Eowa!”

  Oswald ran, picking up his pace, shield tight against his left shoulder, targeting the tight knot of men that held their shields fast around their lord, turning himself into a human battering ram. The flank of Eowa’s guard was exposed to him and he struck it, his sword slashing low as he crashed among them, targeting the knees and tendons of the men straining to hold the wall.

  It collapsed. Eowa’s guard fell away, the constant pressure exerted by Bassus and his wing finally pushing them back. Some fell and, exposed upon the ground, were dispatched. Others peeled away, trying to keep shields turned towards foe, but with eyes glancing ever to the rear, moving back, back, back.

  And as his guard fled or died, Eowa was left exposed.

  “Eowa.” Oswald had no need to raise his voice now. The Mercian, hearing him, snapped round.

  Oswald stalked closer, his sword balanced in his hand, his wrist loose and supple in the way he had learned ever since his father had first placed a wooden sword in his hand when he could barely walk. His eyes did not leave Eowa, but as he approached the Mercian he knew that Æthelfrith walked beside him, chanting the list of things that he had beaten into his son during his training: eyes tight, focus wide, knees loose, wrist loose, fingers tight. So he went now, his eyes not leaving Eowa but alive to every movement to left and right, his stance low and supple, the sword seeking its target as if knowing of its own will where it should strike.

  Eowa stared at him. He licked his lips and looked past Oswald.

  “Penda! Brother!”

  All around, the battle was ending in the rattle of the death breath and the rattle of flight, armour clanking as men ran.

  “Brother!”

  Oswald stopped. He turned and looked back to where Penda waited, standing still at the centre of his shieldwall. A glance told Oswald that Penda’s line had grown; some of Eowa’s men had joined it rather than flee the field of slaughter completely.

  “Brother!”

  Penda stepped forward, but his shieldwall did not move.

  “You are king now, brother. Fight like one.”

  Oswald turned back to Eowa. The Mercian’s eyes flickered between him and Penda. He could see the fear in the way Eowa’s gaze settled nowhere, but moved constantly, as a deer driven into a gully by the hounds rolls its eyes wildly as it searches for an escape.

  “I did it for him,” Eowa gabbled, pointing past Oswald at Penda. Oswald made no answer, but advanced, his sword hunting through the air for blood, his gaze steady.

  Eowa stepped backwards, still pointing, although he pointed with a sword that he barely seemed to realize he held.

  “When you asked for me as hostage, my brother told me to work towards dividing you from your brother. He said that was the way to destroy you.”

  Oswald shook his head, as if the words were blows raining down upon him, and, seeing that, Eowa redoubled his efforts, though still he slid one foot behind the other, working his way backwards. Behind him, Bassus signalled to Oswald, but the king shook his head. Eowa was his, and his alone.

  “All these men,” he pointed around at the twisted bodies of Oswald’s men, locked in the intimacy of the death embrace with their foes, “they died because you believed me about your brother. And he believed me about you!”

  “Cursed one.” Oswald advanced upon Eowa, but the man slipped backwards faster, gabbling accusations against Oswald.

  “You call me traitor when I saw you – I saw how you wanted your brother’s wife; you wanted her for yourself, and I told him. I told him.”

  “Damned one.”

  Oswald was nigh near enough to strike at Eowa.

  “Fell one.”

  Eowa broke.

  He turned and ran, his feet crunching over the snow, tight packed beneath the battle, its virgin whiteness stained with blood and bile, and Oswald pursued him, his breath rising as he ran.

  Penda’s men hooted and called, the remaining Northumbrians, gathered around Bassus, yelled their own abuse as king pursued king over the snow fields, Eowa turning, doubling back, as desperate as a hare, Oswald as relentless as a hound, gradually pulling back the distance to his quarry.

  Eowa fell. Almost beneath the cross he had set up he stumbled and, twisting, fell, so he lay upon his back, staring up at the sky; staring up at the body tied upon the cross. His sword dropped from his hand as he fell, rolling over the snow to land at the foot of the pole upon which he had raised Sidrac.

  Oswald stepped upon him, forcing Eowa back onto the snow as he attempted to rise. His sword went to the Mercian’s throat. Eowa stared up at him, his eyes wide, and in them Oswald saw reflected the cross that he stood beneath. Slowly, keeping the point of his sword pressed into the base of Eowa’s throat so that the man might barely breathe, and certainly not speak, he turned and saw the figure above him.

  Sidrac’s head had rolled forward. His eyes, filmed in death, stared lifelessly down upon Oswald. The High King returned his gaze and then slowly nodded.

  “Yes,” he said softly, as if speaking to the one upon the cross, then he signalled to Bassus and his remaining men. “Stand with me,” he said. As they approached, their feet crunching over the snow, Oswald stepped away from Eowa. He drew his sword back from the Mercian’s neck. Eowa’s throat worked, but he did not move.

  “Get up,” said Oswald. “Get up.”

  Eowa got to his knees, then to his feet, and stood swaying in front of Oswald.

  “Go,” said Oswald. He pointed his sword towards Penda and his watching line of men. “Go to your brother.”

  Backing away from him, as soon as he was out of range Eowa turned and ran across the snow to where Penda waited, floundering through a bank of snow until he came to him.

  Penda and the men around him watched in silence as Eowa approached, gabbling, shouting for their aid, and they made no move to help him or approach him. Only when Eowa fell before him, crying his relief, his hands held out, did Penda move. He pushed his brother backwards, so he fell into the snow.

  “I hoped you would take care of this for me,” Penda shouted over the prone body of his brother to Oswald. He looked down at Eowa, lying at his feet. “But I shall have to take care of it myself.”

  “Brother…” Eowa held out his hand.

  Penda shook his head. “You above all of us should know how hard it is to trust a brother.” He looked to the man beside him in the shieldwall.

  “Kill him.”

  The man stepped forward and thrust his sword into Eowa’s stomach.

  “Faster than that.”

  Pulling the sword out, Eowa’s eyes opening wide in surprise, the warrior slid the blade in between the ribs. Eowa’s eyes opened even wider. He stared up at his brother, trying to speak, but his words were drowned in the blood that filled his lungs. He reached up, hands trembling, but Penda stepped backwards and Eowa fell upon his face. Blood flowed, snow melting beneath it, making a red-branched scarlet tree that ran, all ran away.

  Standing beneath the cross, Oswald saw Eowa fall.

  Penda stepped forward.

  “You said you would not raise hand against me, but I gave no such word myself.” He signalled along the line and the men of his shieldwall clashed spear against leather and wood, yelling their war cry.

  “Pen-da! Pen-da! Pen-da!”

  As one, they began to advance.

  “How many men have we?” Oswald asked Bassus, not taking his eyes from Penda.

  “Twenty, plus three who can barely walk.”

  Oswald looked up the slope to where the horses were picketed.

  “Do you think we can make it?”

  But before Bassus could answer, the horses started to move. Three men were leading them away, towards the line of the Mercians.

  *

  “We’ve got to stop them!” Coifi pointed at the string of horses being led away by three warriors.

  “They must have crept around the side of the battle,” said Acca.

  “Come on.” Coifi ran from the shelter of the w
ood and floundered into the deep snow outside it, his legs disappearing up to his thighs in the drifts. The horses, skittish and nervous from the smell of blood and battle, were pulling at their traces, but the men leading them knew their business and mixed soothing words with judicious tugs on the tethers tying the horses together. Coifi waded through the snow, pushing through the drift until he emerged on its further side and the thin layer upon the upper flanks of the slope. Acca, following, ran after him as they made after the horses.

  The crunch of their feet upon the snow alerted the men taking the horses to their approach. One remained at the head of the line of animals, urging them onwards, while the other two ran back along the line of horses towards them.

  Acca pointed at the nearest animal.

  “Take it,” he shouted to Coifi. “Ride it to the king. I will stop these men.”

  The priest cut the rope to the last horse and jumped upon it, pulling its head round and heading it down the slope to where Oswald and his men stood gathered around the cross.

  The scop, seeing him go, turned to the men advancing on him.

  “Stop!” he called, holding up his hand and using the voice with which he might silence a hall of drunken men.

  The men did stop, as surprised by a man facing them with but his hands and a lyre as Acca was that they had obeyed his command.

  “I am Acca, the sweet voice, the scop, the teller of tales, the maker of history, the giver of glory! Do you wish glory? Do you?” He fixed the men with his eyes. “I can give it you.” He glanced down the slope. Coifi had all but reached the king. “I will sing your names in the halls and all men will remember you – but I do not know your names. How can I give glory to the nameless? Tell me your names, and I will sing them.”

  The men glanced at each other, back to the scop, then charged.

  Acca turned and ran, dodging back towards the trees, but as he went he saw Coifi pull the horse up beside the king.

  “Take it, lord,” Coifi said, making to jump from the horse. But the king stopped him. He pointed to where Penda’s own horses stood, only many of them were already mounted.

  “I would not escape when so many are ready to pursue me.” Oswald looked at the men gathered around him. “Besides, should I live when these die?”