Edlyn had stared at her, pure hatred in her glare, eyes brimming with tears.
“Hitting me will not make me love you!” she had screamed. And then she had gone.
Into the warm evening. Off to Sunniva’s hall. To share drink and meat with Reaghan, the erstwhile slave. And maybe to share her body with Beircheart…
By all the gods, who did the girl think she was? Did she truly believe life would be different for her? That she would not grow old as the years passed like an eye-blink? Her beauty too would fade along with her self-belief. How many girls had believed they were special before now? That they would marry for love and that they would not need to live within the confines of the world of their parents?
Rowena had reached the clearing Nelda had told her of. West of Ubbanford, some distance from the path, there was a glade. A huge alder had fallen in some long-forgotten storm, leaving an area where willow saplings now grew. A stream trickled at the edge of the clearing, from the hills to the south to flow into the Tuidi to the north.
It was dark under the trees and a shiver of fear ran along Rowena’s back.
There was no sign of the cunning woman. What had she thought, coming here as the sun set? It would be full night soon and she would need to make her way back through the snagging brambles without the aid of sun or torchlight.
Perhaps Nelda had not even remained in the vicinity of Ubbanford. It was possible. Who could understand the ways of such women? Rowena shuddered again, now growing angry at herself for her foolish belief that the strange woman would indeed help her. Mayhap she was as stupid as her daughter.
Away in the forest gloom, an animal shrieked, and then was suddenly silent. The leaves above her sighed as a breeze caressed the treetops.
Rowena’s hand fell to the hilt of her husband’s seax. She had hung it from her belt before leaving Ubbanford and was glad of its solid reassurance now.
“I told you before,” said a voice from directly behind her, “you will not be needing your blade against me.”
Rowena barely stifled a scream. She spun around to see Nelda, standing in the centre of the glade. She had made no sound as she approached. Rowena again felt the fingers of fear trace a line down her spine.
Like a dark forest spirit, the jackdaw, Huginn, flapped from the tree-gloom to land on Nelda’s shoulder. Nelda reached up a long-fingered hand and stroked the bird’s black feathers. It cocked its head and glowered at Rowena with one white-rimmed eye.
The unblinking eye unnerved Rowena, almost as much as Nelda’s silent appearance. The bird had a malevolent look about it. Rowena pulled her gaze from the jackdaw to look at Nelda. The woman’s hair shaded her face in the gloaming, but her scars were still visible, distorting the shadows, twisting and pulling at her mouth and cheek. Rowena willed herself not to shudder. Was she mad to come here, alone into the forest?
No. She had made up her mind about this. She had accepted Nelda into her hall, and had sought out her counsel now. For good or ill, the die was cast.
Nelda looked at her appraisingly, as if she could peer into her very soul.
“I see the time has come for action,” she said, her voice sensuous and sibilant in the gathering dark. “What has happened?”
Rowena swallowed. Her decision had been made.
In an angry rush, she told of Edlyn’s words to her, how she had slapped the girl and her fears that her daughter would ruin herself with Beircheart.
“Ah, the rashness of youth,” whispered Nelda, running her finger the length of Huginn’s back, “would that we could bottle it up, for it would be a heady brew.”
“What should I do?” asked Rowena. “I cannot bear the thought of losing her.” The fear that her daughter might go away, leaving her all alone coiled and twisted deep within her. “But she must marry well. Not some lowly gesith, without hall or gift-stool. She must marry a thegn.”
Nelda nodded, and the jackdaw mirrored her movement, bobbing its head from its perch on her shoulder.
“Of course, you are right,” she said. “You want what is best for your remaining child, what mother would not?” For an instant the darkness seemed to gather about Nelda, her face was hidden but for the flash of white from her teeth and eyes. “You could take her away. To Bebbanburg or Eoferwic. There you might find a suitable thegn or ealdorman…” Rowena said nothing. She knew as much, but was fearful of the day when she would need to make the trip.
“And yet,” continued Nelda, “perhaps there is a thegn closer to home who could marry Edlyn. A young man. A man of renown.”
The cunning woman’s words settled on Rowena like a cool drizzle.
“You speak of Beobrand?”
“He is a lord. He has wealth. Men flock to his warband.”
Rowena weighed Nelda’s words. They had the heft of truth to them. And yet something snagged at her thoughts.
“You would help Beobrand? He is your enemy.”
“I would help you, Rowena. And your daughter. Besides,” she said, finally tiring of Huginn and shooing him from her shoulder in a sudden flap of wings, “a lady married to a lord inherits from him, does she not? Beobrand will not live forever.”
Darkness engulfed them now and the clearing felt colder than it had only moments before. Despite herself, Rowena shivered.
“But Beobrand is with Reaghan,” she said, surprised at how small her voice sounded in the dark.
“So he is. The freed thrall. But they are not hand-fasted, are they?” Rowena shook her head in the gloom. She could barely make out Nelda’s form now. The witch would not be able to see her movements. And yet Nelda continued as if she had seen the shake of Rowena’s head. “No. They are not wed. And your daughter is smitten with a gesith. So, there are two things we must do, if we are to ensure Edlyn and Beobrand will marry.”
“What things?” asked Rowena, scared to hear the words Nelda would speak in the black of the night. Far away, an owl screeched in the forest.
“You must put an end to this thing with Edlyn and Beircheart. Your daughter must not beget a child of the warrior, for no man would take such a girl to wife. You must watch her, Rowena. Like a hawk.”
Anger bubbled up inside Rowena. How dare this witch speak thus of her daughter? She was no common slut to flatten the hay in a barn with a handsome man with a spear and a smile. And then she recalled how Edlyn had talked to her this very evening. Perhaps the girl was mad, but she would not be the first woman to open her legs and live to regret it nine months later. Rowena swallowed her angry retorts.
“And the second thing?”
“Why, nobody enjoys being lonely. Beobrand less than most. And he is but a man. He needs a woman at his side.”
Far away, the owl screeched again. Rowena wished she had stayed in her hall with her anger and her loneliness. She had come too far now to flee, but she feared the words Nelda would say next.
When Nelda remained silent, Rowena prompted her.
“The second thing?”
It seemed to Rowena that Nelda had become lost in a reverie of her own, for now she appeared to start, as if disturbed from deep thought.
“Oh, that is simple,” she said, and despite the all-enveloping darkness of the forest that hid her features, the twisted smile in her voice was plain to hear. “Reaghan the thrall will have to die, of course.”
Chapter 26
“Tales of your battle-fame have reached us even here in Hithe,” said Alwin, before emptying his cup of ale. He refilled his cup and offered the jug to Beobrand, who shook his head. Alwin’s ale was good, strong with just the right hint of bitterness, but Beobrand had drunk enough already at Folca’s hall. He sipped from the drinking horn that Alwin had pushed into his hand shortly after they had entered the small house. The hut was warm; the fire on the hearth nothing more than embers that winked in the darkness, but the night was not cold.
“The scops like to spin the longest tales from the thinnest of threads,” Beobrand said.
From the furthest corner of the hut came a s
nort. Alwin’s father lay there. They had thought him sleeping, but now he croaked from the dark.
“Any fool can kill. Why do all tales speak of feeding the ravens and soaking the land in slaughter-sweat?” He coughed. “Tending the land, growing good crops to feed your folk, that is what tales should be about.”
“Nobody wants to hear about the life of a farmer,” snapped Alwin.
The old man hoomed in the back of his throat and then was quiet again.
“There is honour in farming,” said Beobrand. “Your father speaks true.”
“Then why did you not stay here?” asked Alwin.
Beobrand pursed his lips in the darkness. Alwin had always been direct and honest and he had speared Beobrand squarely with his question.
“You know why,” Beobrand answered, and they both fell silent, each lost in his thoughts.
Beobrand took another sip of ale and pondered how his life had changed so much since the last time he had spoken to Alwin. As boys, they had both dreamt of joining a lord’s gesithas. They had played at fighting with sticks, imagining the glory of the shieldwall. Now Beobrand’s memories were full of blood and death.
And ghosts.
“Listen to Beobrand,” said another voice from the darkness, “there is nothing wrong with being a farmer.” This was Andswaru, Alwin’s wife. A comely enough girl. She’d always liked Alwin, but had never so much as smiled in Beobrand’s direction when they had all played together. When they had come in from the night, she had fussed for a while, pouring the ale and bringing stools near the fire so that the old friends could talk. Then, with a scowl at Beobrand and a warning to her husband to not get drunk and wake the baby, she had retired to the rear of the house. Beobrand had wondered if she’d fallen asleep behind the partition that hung there, but it appeared she was listening intently to their conversation.
“Hush, woman,” Alwin said with a shake of his head at Beobrand and a comical raising of his eyebrows. In the expression Beobrand recalled Alwin’s sense of mischief. He was never far from a jest and together with their friend Scrydan, the three of them had wreaked havoc on the people of Hithe as youngsters. Only a few short years had passed, but it was hard to imagine them as they had once been, so serious and grown had they become, heavy with responsibility.
“So, you are now the master of the farm?” asked Beobrand.
From the gloom, Alwin’s father snorted with derision.
“Aye,” said Alwin, pouring himself yet more ale. “Father’s back ails him sorely, especially on cold days, but he yet comes with me to the field.”
“I know every stone and clod of earth in that parcel of land,” his father said.
Alwin ignored him.
“And you and Andswaru have a child?”
“A son. Swithun. He’ll sleep through anything, praise the Lord. Even my old man’s jabbering,” he said, directing this last into the darkness. “He’ll be two years old this midwinter.”
“I give you joy of him,” said Beobrand. “Children are a blessing.” He took a draught of ale, his mind summoning the round face of Octa.
“Do you have children, Beobrand?” asked Andswaru.
“A boy. Not much younger than yours.”
“You are wed then?” an eagerness had crept into her voice now, as is the way with womenfolk when they talk of kin; of births and weddings.
Beobrand let out a long breath.
“I was,” he said, his tone hollow. “She died.”
Silence then. They all knew how closely death walked in the shadow of men and women alike.
“You said you had come from Cantwareburh,” said Alwin, breaking the awkwardness that had fallen over them. “How came you to that place?”
“I travelled with some men of the Christ. Bishop Felix and his brethren.” He chose not to talk of the battle at the ditch. Instead, he told of how they had travelled by boat from Gipeswic to Sandwic and then inland to Cantwareburh. He did not wish to recount how he had fled from battle, leaving his men to their fate.
“I had forgotten how grand Cantwareburh is,” Beobrand said. He preferred the open hills, forests and cliffs of Bernicia, but Cantwareburh had always excited him with its ancient walls and the constant bustle of the countless people who dwelt in the shadow of the newly-erected church building and King Eadbald’s great hall. Of course, when he had visited as a boy with his father or Uncle Selwyn, he had never set foot in the lord king’s hall. Arriving now as a thegn of Northumbria and escort of Bishop Felix, Beobrand had been welcomed as if he were royalty himself.
He looked around the gloomy confines of the small, single-roomed house in which he now sat. He had visited Alwin’s house so many times throughout his childhood. It was almost as familiar to him as his own family home had been. Again, he was struck by the strangeness of his life. Not two days before he had been dining with the king of Cantware. Just earlier this evening he had been drinking the ale of the lord of Hithe. And now he sat on a worn stool in a cramped hut on the edge of the settlement.
He knew where he felt most at home.
“What is he like?” Alwin interrupted his tale.
“Who?”
“The king. Eadbald.” There was awe in Alwin’s voice.
“Oh, much like any other king,” answered Beobrand.
Alwin guffawed at that, thinking that Beobrand jested, as they had when they were both boys.
“It was in Eadbald’s hall that I heard tell of my uncle,” Beobrand continued.
He still could scarce believe who had borne the tidings of his uncle’s sickness. He had all but forgotten the girl, but when she had spoken his name from the darkness, the memories of his first night in Bernicia had enveloped him, bringing back the raw sorrow he had felt at the loss of his brother. All his kin had gone. He had been so alone.
Years later, standing in the shadows of Eadbald’s hall, having fled to escape the difficult questions about the battle of the East Angelfolc against Penda, he wondered whether anything had truly changed. He had felt cursed when this girl had found him crying in the stables of Bebbanburg. That curse still hung over him. Or maybe it was a new curse, screamed in the darkness of a cave on Muile, or from the windswept ramparts of Din Eidyn.
Mayhap something had changed.
She had found him sobbing in Bebbanburg. He was dry-eyed now, despite the pain that ravaged him at the loss of his men.
“Eanflæd,” he had said, and turned to look at the princess.
She was yet a child, but had grown willowy. Her eyes had gleamed in the light of the torches and her long hair had caught the flickering flames like burnished gold. She had been like an apparition of a young Sunniva standing before him. At the sight of her, his heart had clenched and tears had pricked his eyes. The flood of dark memories had threatened to unman him, but he had blinked back the tears and swallowed hard.
“Edwin’s daughter, we are well met.”
“I knew we would meet again one day,” she had said in her soft voice. Sounds of conversation and laughter had drifted from the great hall and again Beobrand had been reminded of that night in Bebbanburg.
“You did?” he had asked, feeling foolish before this wisp of a girl.
She’d offered him a radiant smile.
“Yes. I remembered what father had said about you. That you would one day be a great warrior. It seems he was right.”
Beobrand had felt himself flush in the darkness.
“I am no great warrior,” he had said, remorse jagged within him. Great warriors do not run from battle.
“You are yet alive,” she had said, and her words cut him like a seax blade. She had the right of it; he should have died in that bloody quagmire of the great dyke. “Many are those who lie dead in the path behind us.” It was true. He had killed countless enemies, and lost many kin and friends. Yet perhaps she’d referred to her own dead, for she too had known much sorrow in her short life; her father, uncle and brothers killed at the battle of Elmet. And more recently, the news had come of the death
of her younger brother and nephew in the court of King Dagobert of Frankia. “You live, so I say you are great, or perhaps blessed by God. I have heard tell of your exploits. The scops sing tales in which you are the hero.”
“I truly am no hero.”
“That is not for you to decide, Beobrand.”
For a time they had stood there in silence, each studying the other as if trying to understand what they saw before them.
“I heard your name mentioned just the other day,” she’d said at last.
Beobrand had frowned, wondering what saga the tale-tellers had spun.
“It was not in a song or a tale,” she had said, as if she could hear his very thoughts. “They spoke of your kinsman. I was at Liminge, where my mother now resides. On the coast. She has built a monastery there for the glory of God.”
“My kinsman?” Beobrand cared nothing for Ethelburga’s monastery.
“Your uncle. He is taken ill and is not long for this world.”
“Selwyn is the last of my kin here.”
“Then it would seem the Lord God has brought you here with a purpose. You can go bid your kin farewell from this earth. I think that might make the parting less painful.” Her tone had grown wistful. She had been far from all her kinsmen when they had died.
They had talked no further, for the girl’s gemæcce sought her out then. The young woman had cast Beobrand a killing glower and shooed the princess away.
Eanflæd had turned, her golden locks glimmering in the gloom.
“Godspeed,” she had said. “Until we meet again, Beobrand.”
But he had not seen her again. And the next morning he had asked Eadbald’s leave to travel to Hithe, to visit his ailing uncle.
“Your uncle is much changed,” Alwin said, his voice suddenly sombre.
“I have heard his remaining days on middle earth are few now.”
Alwin nodded in the gloom.
“You will find much has changed here,” Alwin said, his face clouding in the ember-licked darkness.
Killer of Kings Page 18