WHITEBLADE: Kings of Northumbria Book 1

by H A CULLEY

  However, Acha soon regretted her former antipathy to her sons’ lovers and looked forward to their visits. She had just turned fifty and was beginning to feel her age. Her hair, once a bright auburn, was now almost entirely grey and the wrinkles on her face were getting deeper. Her joints ached, too. However, she still held herself proudly and was determined not to die before she saw her son crowned as King of Northumbria.

  ~~~

  Unlike Oswald, Eanfrith had spent his period in exile quietly. He had married the daughter of one of the Pictish kings and they had a son, Talorgan, who didn’t follow his father when he returned to Northumbria. He was his grandfather’s heir and the boy viewed the pagan Northumbrians as barbarians. His family, along with most of the kingdom, had been converted to Christianity by Aidan. Eanfrith had also become a Christian to conform, more than through any deeply held beliefs in the teachings of Aidan.

  Once back amongst his own people, he immediately abandoned Christianity and reverted to paganism. This didn’t endear him to Cadwallon, who was a Christian. In fact, the King of Gwynedd held Eanfrith in deep contempt. Not only was the man an apostate, but he was no warrior. Instead of training to fight, he had spent his time among the Picts in idleness. His passions in life were hunting, fishing and feasting; consequently his rotund body stood out amongst his lean fellow countrymen and was another reason for Cadwallon’s dislike of the man.

  ‘Twysog, there is a messenger from Eanfrith for you.’

  The sentry had poked his head inside the door of the small room that had been constructed to give the king some privacy within the hall that had been built by the Welsh inside the ruins of the old Roman fort at Corbridge. Cadwallon regarded the man with annoyance. Twysog meant prince or chieftain and he would have preferred to be called Brenin, meaning king, but if he stood on his dignity he feared that he would look foolish. Twysog was what those who had followed him into exile had called him and they had continued to do so when he’d returned from exile and seized the throne of Gwynedd eleven years ago.

  Cadwallon divested himself of the furs on his bed and shivered as he stood up in just his under-tunic. The small room might give him privacy, but it had no fire and the snow falling outside swirled in through the gaps in the poorly made shutter that covered the small window. At least there would be a fire blazing in the central hearth of the main hall. The girl who shared his bed pulled the furs back around her naked body and snuggled down into them. He envied her.

  The king pulled on a long woollen robe and stuffed his feet into a pair of leather shoes. Pulling a fur-lined cloak around him, he followed the sentry back into the hall. He was surprised to see that Eanfrith’s messenger was little more than a boy – sixteen years old, at most.

  ‘Well, what does the King of Bernicia want with me?’ he asked in the Anglo-Saxon tongue.

  ‘Brenin, my lord Eanfrith wishes you good fortune and great health.’

  Cadwallon was pleased to be addressed in his own tongue as king, but the flowery language didn’t impress him.

  ‘Stop the drivel, boy and come to the point.’

  ‘Yes, Brenin, of course,’ the youth said nervously. He took a deep breath before continuing. ‘King Eanfrith believes that an alliance between your two great nations would be of much greater benefit to both of you than a war.’

  ‘Does he, now? Is that because he is a coward, do you think?’

  The messenger blushed. That was exactly what he and many other Bernicians, thought.

  ‘Bernicia is strong and has many allies -’ the lad began, but Cadwallon cut him off.

  ‘Who are these allies? The Picts in the North? They haven’t forgiven him for his apostasy. The Deirans? They are weak and leaderless; they can’t even agree on a king to replace Osric. Rheged? Rhun acknowledged Æthelfrith as his overlord, but Edwin ignored his obligations to support him when he was at war with Strathclyde. I don’t suppose that Rhun’s son, the present king, will be disposed to help Bernicia, do you?’

  The young messenger was silent after that. Cadwallon regarded him for a while and the youth looked him in the eye, determined not be cowed. Suddenly Cadwallon made up his mind.

  ‘You have more spirit than your king, boy. Tell him I’ll meet him here. He is to come with no more than a dozen men as escort. He has until two weeks hence to accept my offer.’

  The messenger gasped. It had taken him over a week to get to Corbridge through the December snow and it would take him just as long, if not longer, to return to Bebbanburg. There was no way that his king could reach Corbridge in less than a week.

  ‘Thank you, Brenin. However, two weeks is not long enough for me to return and for King Eanfrith to journey here. I would ask you for three weeks.’

  Cadwallon smiled. He’d known that the deadline was impossible.

  ‘Very well, boy. Three weeks it is – that’s the middle of January. We are just about to celebrate Christ’s Mass. I suppose there is no point in inviting you to stay?’

  ‘No, Brenin, but thank you. If I could have a fresh horse in exchange for mine, I’ll be on my way.’

  ‘Very well. Have a meal before you go, though.’

  The youth nodded his thanks.

  ‘And boy, I like you. Don’t come back with your king. Use exhaustion as an excuse; I doubt if it’ll be far from the truth.’

  ~~~

  Eadfrith, the captured son of the unfortunate Edwin, lay bound in the small hut where he had been dumped when Cadwallon’s army arrived at Corbridge. Like the king’s bedchamber, it was freezing cold but, unlike Cadwallon, he didn’t have a bed of furs to keep him warm. His teeth chattered and his belly kept cramping for lack of food.

  Cadwallon had kept him alive in the hope that he could install him as his vassal in Deira, but Eadfrith had refused time and time again to do what Cadwallon wanted. Each time he refused, the conditions he was kept in got worse. Now he was only fed a few scraps every other day or so and given very little water. Eadfrith knew that he couldn’t live much longer like this and started to pray for death to escape the cold, the hunger and his raging thirst.

  He was barely surviving when he was taken out of his hut in the middle of January and half carried, half dragged into the presence of Cadwallon in his hall. At first he was grateful for the heat of the fire, but then he began to wonder why he was there.

  Gradually he became more conscious of his surroundings and saw that a dozen men dressed like Northumbrians sat around the hearth in front of Cadwallon’s throne. A Welshman sat beside each of them, as they feasted on meat and a mess of grain and root vegetables mixed together in a bowl. They had been laughing and quaffing ale when he had been brought in, but gradually the hall fell silent.

  Propped up between his two guards, he heard Cadwallon speaking, but at first he couldn’t make out the words, although they were Anglo-Saxon English. Then he realised that the king was speaking about him.

  ‘- but he was too pig-headed to pay me homage and agree to become my vassal. Had he done so, he could be living comfortably in Eoforwīc now, instead of enjoying my poor hospitality.’

  Eadfrith worked his mouth to try and generate some saliva so that he could speak.

  ‘Cadwallon,’ he croaked. ‘You would have made my people slaves.’

  The words were hardly audible, even though the hall was quiet as the men listened to Cadwallon.

  ‘You spoke, worm? Come on, speak up so we can hear you.’

  ‘Water,’ croaked the wretched Deiran prince.

  He was given a bowl and he eagerly slurped it down before clearing his throat and repeating what he’d said before.

  ‘That’s true, but you would have been free. Instead of that, you will shortly die in agony, whilst I will raid Deira again after I’ve finished with Bernicia.’

  At that, King Eanfrith tried to get to his feet to protest, but the two Welshmen sitting either side of him pulled him down.

  ‘King Cadwallon, what’s the meaning of this? You invited me here to discuss peace between us and n
ow you talk of raiding my country?’

  ‘No, you assumed I’d invited you here to discuss peace. In fact, I invited you so that I could offer the same terms to you as I offered to poor Eadfrith.’

  ‘Never. An honourable peace, yes. I was even prepared to offer you a gift to take back to Gwynedd with you, but I’ll not subjugate my people to you. I’d rather die!’ he exclaimed dramatically.

  ‘Is that’s your final word?’

  ‘It is.’

  ‘Very well. Your wish is granted.’

  With that Cadwallon signalled to the men sitting beside the Bernicians and they each produced a dagger and proceeded to cut the throats of their dinner companions. The blood spurted out of the severed carotid arteries and some reached the edge of the fire, where it sizzled and gave off the odour of molten copper.

  Eadfrith was horrified and started to speak, but Cadwallon cut him off.

  ‘Kill him, too. He’s of no further use to me. Then throw all the bodies onto the midden heap. No doubt the dogs and carrion birds will be glad of the meat at this time of year.’

  ~~~

  Tidings of the treacherous way that both Eadfrith and Eanfrith had been killed reached Oswald on Arran at the beginning of April, just as he was preparing to set out. It had taken some time for word of the killings to reach Bebbanburg and then it was a month or more before a messenger could reach Arran with an invitation from the some of the nobles of Bernicia for Oswald to take the throne, if he could defeat Cadwallon.

  He sailed three days later after a tearful farewell from his mother, Keeva and their two children. He had long since freed both Keeva and her brother, Jarlath, now sixteen. Jarlath was now part of his war band and one of his closest companions. Oswiu bade an equally poignant farewell to his family and even Osguid and Oslac embraced their mother emotionally before boarding the Holy Saviour.

  A fair wind from the north-west carried them out of Brodick Bay and the four ships headed for the Mull of Kintyre, where they would meet up with the two birlinns from the Isles of Islay and Jura. It wasn’t until the next day that the latter arrived and the fleet could set sail once more. The fresh westerly wind took them around the end of Galloway and into the Solway Firth.

  They soon discovered that the wide expanse of water wasn’t all that it seemed to be when one of the birlinns from the Isles stuck fast on a sandbank. As the sun was close to setting, Oswald took the decision to anchor where they were for the night. At some stage, the tide started to come in again and just before dawn the stranded birlinn floated off the mud.

  Without a pilot Oswald came to the conclusion that they had better stay where they were until low tide revealed where the deep channel was. There had to be one because he knew that trading vessels and fishing boats sailed all the way into the River Eden. Halfway through the morning the course of the navigable channel became obvious and the small fleet set off again. However, the incoming tide slowly swallowed the seemingly endless sands until Oswald was about to call a halt again. It was Œthelwald, who was serving on the Holy Saviour as one of its ship’s boys, who spotted the line of posts from his roost up on the yardarm.

  ‘Father, there’s what looks like a line of saplings or maybe posts running inland from about half a mile ahead of us. Might they be channel markers?’

  They proved to be thin posts buried deeply into the mud, which marked the way through the estuary of the River Eden. Once past them, the river ran between pastureland and rough moorland all the way to Caer Luel, the capital of Rheged. It was late afternoon before they reached the old Roman town and Oswald told the rest of the fleet to moor beside the bank half a mile short of the town walls whilst he went ahead and spoke to Royth, the current King of Rheged.

  Oswald was greeted by closed gates set into high stone walls, manned by spearmen and archers. He tied up alongside the wharf and disembarked, taking just Osguid and Œthelwald with him. His son carried the banner of Northumbria – alternating vertical bars of gold and red – which Acha had made for him - and Osguid carried a cross on a long pole.

  ‘That’s far enough, Whiteblade. What do you want here? Have you come to invade us, as your father did in my grandfather’s time?’

  ‘I come in peace, as you can see. I bring with me only my young son and my brother, who is a monk from Iona.’

  ‘So you say, but you have an army moored downriver.’

  ‘They mean you no harm, unless you were party to the treacherous murder of my brother Eanfrith by Cadwallon.’

  ‘No, I swear not. We live in fear of an invasion from him as he overwintered not far from our border with Bernicia. He is not there any longer, however. I’m told that he has moved east.’

  ‘Then we have an enemy in common. Let me in and we can discuss it like civilised men, instead of bawling our business for everyone to hear.’

  ‘Very well. But make sure your men remain on board.’

  ‘They know. I have already told them.’

  A few minutes later, Oswald and Royth were sitting in his hall – a grand house which had been that of an important Roman until they had left Britannia for good more than two hundred years ago. The Britons, who were the race inhabiting Rheged, had done their best to repair it, but the roof was thatched instead of tiled and gaps in the stone walls were filled with wattle and daub. The hypocaust heating system didn’t work either; instead, there was a fire blazing in the middle of what had once been a rather beautiful mosaic floor.

  ‘Rheged was once part of my father’s kingdom, although ruled by its own king. I believe that the arrangement was beneficial to both of us then. It’s a pity that Edwin let the arrangement die, but I would like to restore it,’ Oswald began.

  ‘You would like me to become your sub-king, your vassal?

  ‘It’s not the way I’d have put it. You benefit because you’d have a powerful ally in your constant struggle with Strathclyde and currently against the Mercians and men of Gwynedd. I benefit because a united North can become powerful enough to keep out our enemies.’

  ‘Edwin never came to our aid and Eanfrith -’

  ‘Was a fool. I’m not him, nor am I Edwin or my father. If we become allies now and you support me against Cadwallon and Penda of Mercia, I’ll treat your enemies as my enemies from now on.’

  ‘No tribute?’

  ‘No tribute, but we meet our own war expenses, whoever is aiding who.’

  Royth still looked doubtful.

  ‘I’ll even swear an oath on Holy Relics.’

  ‘No, I believe you, but I will agree to become a part of Northumbria if you marry my daughter, Rhieinmelth. She is the last of our royal line, so, in time, you will become king when I die.’

  ‘How old is she?’

  ‘Fourteen.’

  ‘I’m thirty and I’m sure she won’t want an old man like me to bed her. However, my brother Oswiu is only eight years older than Rhieinmelth. Would marriage to him suit you?’

  Oswald had no intention of marrying Rhieinmelth, even if it meant he became the heir of Rheged. He had married once for love and now he was determined that, when he married again, it would bring with it an alliance with a great power. Rheged was scarcely that.

  ‘Bring your brother to dine with us tonight. The two young people can meet and see whether they are suited.’

  Oswald nodded. He realised that he had just betrothed his favourite brother without discussing it with him. He just hoped that the Princess Rhieinmelth was pretty.

  ~~~

  Cadwallon sat before Bebbanburg and cursed. His sixteen year old son, Cadwaladr, sat on his horse beside him and shared his father’s frustration. The latter had arrived in April with reinforcements for their attack on Bernicia. They had raped and pillaged their way across the country, but now that they had reached the mighty fortress on its basalt rock by the coast their progress had ground to a halt.

  Bernicia might be without a king, but it was still a powerful nation. Cadwallon had heard rumours that the Goddodin in the north and those nobles who lived sou
th of Bebbanburg were mustering an army and, although he now had over four hundred men, he was worried about the size of the force he might be facing. However, Bebbanburg housed the treasury and he was a greedy man.

  ‘There’s no way in, father. The palisade to the east and west runs along the top of the rock and the gates to the north and south are too strong.’

  It was a conversation they’d had before. They had stormed both sets of gates over the past two weeks and both times they had succeeded in taking the outer gates, admittedly at the cost of a lot of men, but they had then been trapped between the outer and inner gates, where they had been slaughtered. In all, sixty men had died and even if his men were willing to try again, the Mercians with him had flatly refused.

  The two rode back to their camp in silence. Cadwallon knew that his son was right and that he ought to abandon the siege, but to do so would weaken him in the eyes of his men. So far they regarded him as invincible and he shared their opinion. To just cut and run would diminish him in his own eyes, as well.

  The next morning was wet and dismal, so was the news that one of his scouts brought. He had sent out small groups of men on ponies to scour the country and find out the truth about rumours that the Bernicians were raising an army. The scouts had returned from Corbridge, which Cadwallon had retained as his base, mainly as a place where his wounded could recover.

  ‘Twysog, we bring news of Oswald, the one they call Whiteblade.’

  ‘I thought he was in exile in Dal Riada. Where is he now?’

  He knew of Oswald, but he had disregarded him as a threat. He was well aware that Oswald had established something of a reputation as a warrior serving the kings of Dal Riada, but he couldn’t see how such a man could raise an army that could be any sort of threat to him. Even after his losses at Bebbanburg, he still had nearly four hundred experienced warriors.