It had been a surprise to see Edlyn the night before. When the girl had entered the hall, all those seated at the boards had fallen silent. It was the first time Rowena’s daughter had accepted one of the weekly invitations and at first Reaghan had feared Edlyn came to make mischief. She had treated her so despicably since the death of Sunniva that merely seeing her had made Reaghan sweat. And yet they had been as friends once and part of Reaghan still yearned for the whispered conversations about everything and nothing that they had shared whenever she had been able to sneak away from her chores.
Her heart had leapt to see Edlyn, and Reaghan had welcomed her into the hall. Edlyn had accepted the Waes Hael bowl from Reaghan and joined her at the high table. For a time, it had seemed all the bitterness had been forgotten. Perhaps she had grown tired of blaming Reaghan for things that were in no way hers to control. But soon, Reaghan had seen Edlyn’s frequent glances to Beircheart and she had known the true reason for the girl’s sudden change of heart.
She sighed. She could not blame Edlyn for being interested in the young gesith. He was handsome and strong, quick to smile and popular with all. But she had worried when the two had left the hall together when the night was still young. The riddling had scarcely begun when the couple slipped from the hall into the night. She hoped Edlyn was clever enough to control Beircheart. Reaghan frowned as she recalled the terrible pain of the year before when she had rid herself of the child that grew within her. She would not wish that suffering on Edlyn, however much the girl had tormented her of late. Edlyn was really a girl no longer, she mused, but a young woman. Perhaps she would soften now in her approach to Reaghan. Perhaps they could even be friends once more.
She hoped so. She would love to be able to confide in someone. She knew she could never speak openly with Maida or the other women. And if not with the women, who then? Bassus? She smiled at the thought. The gruff warrior was a constant presence in the hall and often walked with her. He was clearly protective and tried his best to be good company, she knew. But he was a man, and an old one at that. She was thankful for his loyalty to her, and he made her feel safe. Despite the loss of his arm, he was yet formidable, huge of stature and grim of face. A good man. But he could never be a true friend to her any more than Maida could.
Octa, who had continued to crawl after Maida’s daughter, suddenly stopped beside the tree stump that Elmer used for chopping firewood. He reached out his tiny hands, his face a mask of grim concentration, and heaved himself to his feet. He stood like that for a moment, unmoving, watching the little girl with a keen intent. His feather-like fair hair drifted around his ears. Bysen slowly stepped towards him, holding the horse outstretched before her.
“Do you want this, Octa?” she asked, her giggle of excitement bubbling in her words.
Octa did not move.
The girl stepped closer, tempting him with the toy. Still, the infant did not respond, instead staring at her with a frown.
“Come on, little man,” she said, “you can get it.”
Reaghan could see the girl was going to snatch it out of his reach as soon as he moved. She hated to see him teased thus, but he must learn. So, she watched, wondering where Bassus was. Just the previous day they had been talking together about when Octa would take his first steps and now it looked as if the moment may have come.
The girl edged even closer, so that the wooden horse was a mere hand’s breadth from Octa’s face. Then, without warning, Octa jumped forward. The girl made to move the horse up and away from him, but he ignored the prize. Instead, he wrapped his stubby fingers into the girl’s peplos, flinging his whole body weight into her. He was not a small boy, having inherited his father’s bulk and height, and the girl tumbled to the grass with a shriek. As soon as they hit the earth, Octa climbed over her and, taking the carved horse in both of his hands, he seized her wrist in his teeth and bit down hard. She screamed again, but let go of the toy.
Without a second glance, Octa rolled away from the weeping girl and sat up to examine the spoils of his victory.
Despite herself, Reaghan smiled broadly. Gods, but he was Beobrand’s son alright. She could imagine how Bassus would receive the news of Octa’s conquest. It would bring a smirk to his face, she was sure. The giant was still sombre for much of the time, but since the weather had improved, he had seemed more content. He more frequently drilled the warriors in the ways of combat, and she had on occasion caught him humming to himself when he thought there was nobody to see his happiness. He would be overjoyed with the tale of Octa besting a girl four times his age. He doted on the boy.
Maida shuffled out of the hut, wiping her hands on a rag.
“What is it now, child?” she asked, her tone tired.
The girl sobbed and spluttered her way through the story of how Octa had knocked her from her feet and then bitten her. Her face was streaked in tears and snot. Maida turned to Reaghan to see if she had understood. Reaghan confirmed the child’s story, careful not to smile now.
Maida looked down at where Octa now played quietly with the horse. She scooped up her daughter, setting her on her feet and wiping her face with the rag that was still in her hand.
“Well, Bysen,” she said in a firm tone, “it seems to me you got what you deserved. You have been teasing Octa with that horse for an age. You don’t like it when your brothers tease you, do you?”
Incensed at the truth of her mother’s words, Bysen let out a piercing scream of defiance and anger and fled behind the hut, hiding her misery from the world. Maida shook her head and sighed.
On the ground, Octa ignored the screaming and continued studying the slender curve of the wooden horse’s neck and legs.
“So like his father, isn’t he?” Maida said, not looking at Reaghan.
Reaghan felt a pang in her belly, the memory of her pain and loss still there. Much as Bassus said he yet felt the arm that had been removed.
“Aye, he is. Scared of nothing and always ready to fight.”
Maida sighed and shook her head again.
“Only a fool fears nothing and Beobrand is no fool. But he does not shy from a fight. That is true.” She frowned then and peered up at the slowly gathering clouds in the hot sky. “I wonder where they are. They have been gone a long while.”
“Yes,” Reaghan said, unsure what to say. Maida’s anxiety was plain. “I hope they return soon.”
They stood in silence then, each lost in her own thoughts. Reaghan thought of Beobrand as she had seen him when he had come to rescue her from Nathair’s hall. He was fearsome in battle, huge and terrifying. Danger and death seemed to stalk him.
“I have prayed to Danu and her children,” she said at last. “I left some good cheese and mead for them in the glade in the forest. Odelyna says spirits dwell there.”
Maida turned to stare at her.
“And what did you wish for?”
“That the men would come back to us.”
Maida nodded. Was there really anything else to pray for?
“That is a good wish, Reaghan,” said the older woman, her voice soft. “A good wish.”
Reaghan said nothing, content to relish the closeness to Maida and the warmth in the older woman’s tone.
Again she looked up at the sky. A raven flapped slowly overhead, flying southward. She followed the bird’s path with her gaze. Where would it fly? Would it see Beobrand, Elmer and the others on its travels? She hoped that if it spied them as it looked down at middle earth it would find them hale and safe.
Reaghan felt the scratch of fear run claws down her back and she shivered.
Hale and safe. And heading homeward.
Chapter 22
Beobrand’s eyes stung and he could barely see. But he could not pause even for a heartbeat to wipe away the blood and sweat that mingled on his face and ran into his eyes. The fighting was as fierce as any he had ever encountered. His heartbeat roared in his ears as he hacked Hrunting down into a man’s head. The blade sang as it cut through the man’s
leather cap, his hair, scalp and skull. More slaughter-sweat sprayed in the hot air, as Beobrand wrenched the sword free of the man’s brains and turned to the larger, grey-haired man who took the dead man’s place. The man made to step over the twitching form of his fallen comrade, but before he could find his footing Beobrand rammed Hrunting into his mouth. Teeth shattered around the man’s choking scream. He too collapsed before the onslaught of Beobrand’s sword.
Beobrand’s muscles screamed, but he ignored them and continued the butcher’s work of slaughter. He no longer thought of what he was at. His instincts kept him alive and his savage sword-play added to the harvest of man-flesh that was heaped before him and his gesithas. All the long days of practice, coupled with his natural speed, strength and ability with a blade, made him seem to those who watched as mighty as Tiw himself. If the god of war had stepped onto the field of battle, surely he would be such as this: a giant of a man, in fine war harness, great helm gleaming, the serpent-skin patterned blade of his sword drinking deeply of his enemies’ blood.
Dreogan and Attor at his sides were no less fearsome to behold. All three of them were blood-drenched, their blades deadly, their shields strong. Men cowered away from them, as they pushed further into the ditch. The ground was a swamp of blood, piss and spilt guts, the stink of it catching in their throats. Their feet squelched, the mud sucking at their shoes. But that was better than when they trampled over the pliant, uneven, mottled corpse-flesh of those already slain.
The battle-din was terrible. The crash and thump of linden-boards, the screams of the dying, the anvil-clang of blade on blade. This was the true music of the sword-song. It was a thing to fill men with fear and awe. Here in the churning clamour of the battle’s maw, men found their true worth. Many were frozen with a terror so strong that they were scythed down like barley. Others fought with grim determination to survive; kill or be slain.
A few found they were born to the bloody blade-work.
Beobrand felt his heart swell with pride as Dreogan and Attor stepped forward with him, slaying all who stood before them. There was no shieldwall now, just confusion and death. He had lost sight of Elmer, Ceawlin and Aethelwulf soon after they had slipped and slid down the slope into the ditch. They had followed him, of that he was certain. He had seen them coming down just behind Dreogan and Attor. Wynhelm and his men had followed too, but now he had no idea where any of them were in this chaos.
He stumbled as the chest of the corpse he stood on shifted. For a moment he was off balance, and Dreogan and Attor leapt forward to ensure his flanks were not left exposed. He hoped he had not led them all to their deaths, but he could no more contain the desire for vengeance that burnt within him, than he could put out a forge fire by spitting. It burnt too hot. Nothing would extinguish this fire except for Wybert’s lifeblood.
A young man, wispy moustaches dark against his fish-belly pallid face, came toward Beobrand then with a short axe held high. The blade was newly sharpened and it glimmered in the bright light of the sun. The axe looked new, as if it had never been used. The battle lust was upon Beobrand now, and it felt to him that all his opponents moved as if underwater. Too slowly the man brought down the axe. Beobrand caught it on his shield with ease, so that the blade snagged on the board’s rim. Beobrand stepped back, yanking his shield hard, pulling the man’s axe and extending his arm as he clung to the haft. Then, with a twist of his body, Beobrand swung Hrunting down into the outstretched arm. The blade bit deeply. The man yelped and released the axe, which fell to be lost in the corpse-mire beneath them. Without pause, Beobrand pushed forward, and once again Hrunting came down on the man’s bleeding arm. His enemy was lost now to the pain and the fear, lowering his shield, his face slack with dismay and disbelief. Beobrand drove Hrunting’s point into his armpit, lifted the hilt and shoved the blade fully into the man’s body. The man juddered and slid from the steel and was quickly indistinguishable from the other bodies that littered the great dyke’s floor.
Through the thronging mass of Penda’s host before him Beobrand glimpsed the flame-red beard of Grimbold’s giant. He was not thirty paces away and Wybert was sure to be by his side. He must reach him.
“There,” he yelled, “Wybert is there. He is mine!”
His mind was full of blood and death now, and nothing else mattered to him. He made to strike forward, trusting that Dreogan and Attor would lend their skill and weight to his attack, helping their lord to fight through the amassed ranks to the subject of his vengeance. But before he moved, a tremor ran through the fighting men. It was almost as if they had all sighed at the same moment. A strange hush and stillness fell on them, and men stood blinking in the hot sun, battered and confused.
Battles are strange things. It is almost as if they take on a life of their own, quite separate from the individual lives of those men who fight and die in them. Sometimes battles seem to pause, or shift in some unexplained way. Beobrand thought this was the case now. He took the opportunity presented by the lull to wipe the sweat-blood mix from his forehead, wincing as his fingers grazed the swollen bruise where the stone had struck and the helm now pressed. He was suddenly aware of the dull ache that throbbed in his skull.
Men all around him panted, dragging in great gulps of the foetid air, glad of any pause in the fray that allowed them a moment’s respite from the continued hammering of blade and shield. But this was no lull in combat without explanation. A moaning rumbled through the East Angelfolc and Beobrand watched as faces turned to stare back up to the top of the earthwork where their shieldwall had held strong until King Ecgric had led them down into this bloody brawl.
Beobrand took a step back and followed their gaze.
He clenched his teeth and a groan escaped him at what he beheld there.
Against the pale sky, the rood that Sigeberht had erected before the battle was surrounded by Mercian warriors who had somehow found their way up the steep slope of the ditch. Beside the cross, they held aloft the wolf standard of Penda. The sight of Penda’s battle banner on the eastern side of the great ditch would be enough to sow seeds of despair into the hearts of the East Angelfolc. And yet it was not the wolf tails dangling in the soft breeze that brought the prickle of tears to Beobrand’s eyes or that made his heart twist in his chest.
No, it was the sight of what now adorned the Christ rood. On the crossbeams there now hung a red-splashed white robe that could only belong to the erstwhile king of this land. And atop the cross, skewered upon the spear-tip there, was the fine-featured head of Sigeberht, tongue lolling, gore dripping from the neck.
*
A great roar rose up from Penda’s host when they saw the grisly spectacle of Sigeberht’s head and robe mimicking the tale of the Christ who was nailed to a tree. The Christ was said to have risen from the dead three days after his murder. Beobrand gave a last look at the blind, staring eyes of Sigeberht, and turned back to face the Mercians and Waelisc. He was unsure whether he would live to see the sun rise tomorrow. The gods alone knew what would transpire in three days hence. But he was quite sure that it was not Sigeberht’s wyrd to rise and place his royal head once more upon his lordly shoulders. No. Sigeberht was gone and Beobrand felt a wrenching pang at his part in bringing him to this place.
But there was no time for regrets. Penda’s host surged forward with a renewed energy and Beobrand found himself pushed back, once more on the defensive. And now without the benefit of the stronger position on higher ground. Attor and Dreogan locked shields with his and together they shuffled back, forced back towards the foot of the eastern slope by the reinvigorated Mercian host. They stumbled and slipped as they retreated, the bodies beneath them a squelching mass of meat, blood and bones. The Mercians came on with new-found strength now. Even over the blood-shit stench of death they could scent victory and they came with mouths agape like wolves.
So this was how it would end. They would be overrun here by Penda’s wolves and this ditch would become their grave. Beobrand let out a scream of rage
. He would not die before he saw the life leave Wybert’s eyes. By all the gods, he would not be slain here, so close to the object of his vengeance.
Woden, All-Father, do not allow death to take me now. I must have my revenge!
Without warning, Elmer, Ceawlin and Aethelwulf were once more at his side. Wynhelm and his men drew close too and together they quickly formed a shieldwall. Beobrand laughed to see the Northumbrians. Woden had heard his plea. Perhaps he too wished to see blood spilt in vengeance. Yet surely there was enough blood shed here to slake the thirst of Woden and all the gods.
The laughter died on his lips as Penda’s host engulfed them, like a great wave crashing over a boulder. All was chaos then. A tumult of screaming, biting blades and shoving shields. Relying on his strength and speed, Beobrand ducked beneath his shield and lashed out with Hrunting beneath the shield rim. He felt the blade connect with flesh, but whether of a living foe-man or one of the countless corpses, he could not tell. He leaned on his shield with all his weight, digging his toes into the blood-marsh. His mouth was full of the salty tang of blood. The taste of death.
And they were pushed back. Step by step they were moving further from the giant and Wybert. Further from the object of his hatred. He screamed again, dropping his shoulder into the shield and shoving hard, but the weight of the enemy host was too much. To his left, one of Wynhelm’s gesithas fell in a welter of blood, his shield shattered by a great axe.
Closer to him, a spear slipped between the shields and pierced Ceawlin’s belly. The steel spear-head buried in the short man’s flesh and his eyes widened in pain. Beobrand watched in dismay as his gesith, dour, mead-loving Ceawlin, threw aside his shield and pushed towards the spearman who would soon be his killer, for none could survive such a thrust. The spear drove further into Ceawlin’s body and still he went on. The face of the Mercian who gripped the spear was full of awe, as his enemy refused to die and instead pulled himself with his left hand along the spear’s length. Ceawlin shuddered then, and blood bubbled between his clenched teeth. The back of his byrnie bulged and Beobrand knew that the spear had broken through Ceawlin’s back and was now held fast by the rings of his battle-shirt. With a roar loud enough to be heard over the battle-din, Ceawlin pushed himself forward, using his legs for power. His enemy watched in disbelief as the Northumbrian, who should now be dead, forced the haft of the spear to slip backward through his sweat-slick grasp. The Mercian’s face still wore the expression of amazement as Ceawlin, all the while bellowing like a bull, chopped his sword’s blade into the man’s neck. Blood fountained and both Ceawlin and the Mercian fell to the ground, gasping their last breaths.
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