by Jayne Castel
The preparations for the arrival of the Mercian army were gaining momentum. A tense, watchful atmosphere had settled upon Exning. A huge fyrd now camped outside the walls; a sea of goat-hide tents that stretched away into the distance. Annan spent his days overseeing the fabrication of weaponry and the training of his warriors. Whenever, she saw him during daylight hours, Annan was distracted, and often distant. Saewara did not blame him – he had a lot on his mind, after-all. Still, his aloofness stung slightly. It was like dealing with a stranger; a world away from the man she thought she knew.
And yet, when he joined her in their bower late, after spending the evening discussing battle tactics with his men, Annan was hers. He came to her with the same fiery passion and need that he had the first time. After making love, they lay entangled on the furs and talked at length.
They spoke of the future – of the things they would do and the plans they would make when this was all over. They spoke of their hopes and their dreams. Annan revealed that he had remained unmarried by choice, having never trusted women. Saewara revealed the grief she had felt when the healer at Tamworth pronounced her barren. Would Annan grow to resent her if she never provided him with an heir? He had shaken his head vehemently at that, assuring her that she was enough.
In daylight, it was the memory of those conversations that stopped Saewara from doubting Annan. In the hall, he kept his distance from her – and few who lived within the hall would have guessed that the king and queen now shared a bed.
Saewara dressed in a thick wealca, suitable for the day’s work, as she would be helping the other village women string bows. Although longbows and arrows were not traditionally used during battle, Annan wanted his army fully prepared. This was not to be a battle like the others, he warned his warriors as they stood one afternoon over the dirt and wooden scale model of Exning and the surrounding landscape that they had constructed in the yard outside his hall.
“If we meet them in the woods, longbows and arrows will be our best allies.”
Saewara agreed with Annan; her brother was a brilliant tactician. He would not try to take on Devil’s Dyke. Although she would never have dared voice the desire, Saewara wished that one of the longbows she was helping to make would be hers – and that she would be able to wield it in battle. However, such wishes were dreams. Annan would never let her join his fyrd; it was unthinkable. Even so, Saewara bridled at the frustration of not being able to join the bowmen in battle; few men had her aim.
The king was nowhere in sight when Saewara emerged from the bower. That did not surprise her.
She took a slice of griddle bread and a cup of hot broth from Hilda, to break her fast. Although no longer a slave, Hilda had stayed on to cook in the king’s hall for the moment. She and Saba hoped to build a hall of their own once the Mercian threat passed.
I hope it passes, Saewara thought. A chill seeped through her as she gave Hilda a brittle smile. The thought of Annan facing Penda in battle made her break out in a cold sweat. She knew that Annan was a formidable warrior; she had heard many a tale of his valor in battle. Yet, her brother was not like other men. He fought like a wrathful god – and he had never been bested.
The hall was a hive of activity, although Hereswith and her maid were ensconced in one corner, embroidering dresses as if the shadow of approaching war mattered not. Saewara felt a stab of irritation when her gaze rested on Hereswith. Her sister-in-law had flatly refused to help the other women with their preparations.
Aethelhere should take a firmer hand with you, Saewara thought before brushing crumbs off her skirts and handing Hilda back her empty cup. If the battle goes ill, you will not be so full of yourself.
The women exchanged venomous glances as Saewara made her way toward the door, before Hereswith turned back to Eldwyn and whispered something. The women burst into laughter.
Saewara ignored them and stepped outside.
Exning’s streets were thronged with men and horses. A cacophony of noise – the shouts of men and battle practice, and the clang and hiss of weaponry being forged – assaulted Saewara’s ears. Her skin prickled at the sound of it; war was close, she could sense it.
Weaving her way through the busy streets, being careful not to step on the horse dung which littered the ground, Saewara made her way to the clearing where the village women were stringing bows and attaching heads to arrow-shafts. Small mountains of arrows, fashioned out of Yew, rose around the industrious women. Saewara greeted some of the women and they called back to her warmly. She reached the group stringing hemp bowstrings to robust ash longbows and took her place among them.
Saewara picked up one of the longbows and, once again, felt a pang of frustration that she could not be of more use.
I’m lethal with a longbow and arrow – they should let me fight.
They worked hard all day, only stopping for a brief meal at noon, before continuing their labor. As they strung the longbows, the women shared stories, and one or two told epics of love and loss that had some of the listeners in tears by the end. Saewara listened in silence, enjoying her companionship with the women. Having grown up among noblewomen, who would stab another woman in the back if it suited them, it was a pleasure to be among women who enjoyed each other’s company.
As they worked, Saewara noticed that the weather was taking a turn for the worse. It had been a hot spell of weather. Yet, over the last day, the air had changed. It was now humid, with that charged feel that warns of a coming thunderstorm. Mid-afternoon, the thunder-clouds rolled in, and by the time the women were packing up their supplies and carrying them to the armory, ready for use, the first spots of rain stained the dusty streets.
Saewara was walking back to the hall when the first rumble of thunder echoed in the distance. She had just entered the hall when it boomed overhead and the storm unleashed its fury. Soon the damp, smoky air inside the hall steamed as men hung up their wet cloaks to dry near the fire pit. The sound of their voices, as they discussed their work and the preparations for battle, almost drowned out the booming thunder.
Saewara had taken Hilda’s side, helping her prepare a pottage for the evening meal, when Annan entered. He was drenched to the skin and wringing water out of his hair. It was the first time she had seen him all day. She could not help it; her gaze travelled over him, taking in the strong, muscular planes of his body, evidenced by his sodden clothes. Feeling her gaze upon him, Annan looked across the hall and their gazes fused.
Embarrassed at being caught staring in front of everyone, Saewara felt her face heat up.
To her surprise, Annan winked at her and gave her a slow smile.
Saewara felt her embarrassment turn to desire. She knew that look only too well. Breaking eye contact, Annan then crossed the hall, and disappeared behind the wall hangings, in search of dry clothes. Saewara watched him go, and resisted the impulse to go after him. They both knew what would happen if she did.
Yet, what did it matter? True, the hall would bear witness to the queen disappearing into her bower and would notice that the king and queen were absent from the hall for the rest of the night – but why keep it secret? Annan did not seem to care, why should she?
Saewara wiped her hands on a cloth and excused herself.
She was half-way across the hall when the doors blew open, bringing with it a gust of rain that made the fire gutter in its hearth. Two rain-soaked warriors rushed inside. The look on their faces made Saewara stop in her tracks.
“Where’s the king?” one of the men demanded, his gaze sweeping the hall.
“Annan!” Saewara called, trying to quell the rising panic in her breast.
Moments later, barefoot and naked to the waist, Annan emerged from his bower.
“Milord,” the warrior who had demanded the king’s presence, bowed. “The Mercians approach. Your scouts have spotted them a league southeast. They are coming through the woods as you predicted.”
Saewara watched Annan’s face harden and his eyes narrow. The fact that
he had been right about Penda’s decision to tackle them through the woods rather than the marshes, obviously gave him a little satisfaction.
Saewara’s stomach pitched toward her feet; she had sensed that war was close but had hoped to have this night with her husband, at least.
That was not to be.
The hall erupted into controlled chaos. Annan sent men out to recall the scouts patrolling the edge of the marshland to the north, before he went to dress for battle. The evening meal was forgotten. The army of the East Angles had to be mobilized, and quickly.
Saewara joined her husband in their bower – however, not for the purpose they had both hoped for earlier. They did not speak as she helped him dress. She helped him with his heavy chain mail vest before lacing leather arm guards about his forearms and upper arms. Lastly, he buckled Night Bringer around his hips. Coated in armor, his hair tied back at his nape, he looked like a different man; hard and pitiless. Saewara was glad of it. The warrior before her would bring the man she loved home, safe.
With a jolt, Saewara realized that she, indeed, did love him.
Neither of them had voiced those words but now was not the right time. He did not need to see a woman’s tears, nor to have her cling to him like a limpet. He needed her strength and, if it would bring him home, then she would give it.
Once Annan was dressed for battle, his helmet tucked under one arm, Saewara followed him out into the hall. Saba was there waiting, while Hilda finished helping him with his armor. Unlike Saewara, Hilda was not so stoic. She was in floods of tears as she handed him his lime-wood shield.
“Hush, Love.” Saba pulled Hilda against him and kissed her. “I must go now. Wait for me.”
“The fyrd is ready,” Aethelhere, his usually good-humored, boyish face tense with purpose, announced. “Your men await your command, Annan.”
A few steps behind Aethelhere stood Hereswith. She looked pale and frightened. She plucked at her husband’s sleeve but he ignored her; his gaze was riveted on his brother’s face, as was every other man’s in the hall. This was the moment they had all been waiting for. They needed their king. They needed his strength. They needed to believe that, this time, the East Angles would best the Mercians.
“And I’m ready to join them,” Annan replied, swinging his own shield onto his back. “Let’s send those curs back where they belong.”
Saewara thought he would stride from the hall then, intent on nothing but the battle ahead, but instead, he turned to her.
They stood close to one another. He was so much taller than her that Saewara had to crane her neck to meet his gaze – but meet their gazes did.
“Will you wait for me, Saewara?” he asked, unexpectedly.
She heard the sudden doubt in his voice and it stabbed her straight in the heart.
“Till the end of the world,” she whispered, “and beyond – I will wait for you Annan of the East Angles. Come back to me safe.”
Annan did not reply. Instead, he bent and kissed her, cupping her face with his hands. It was a hard, passionate kiss; the first any of the hall’s inhabitants had seen them share. Saewara’s lips stung as he pulled back. Suddenly, it was if they were alone in the hall. Saewara’s chest ached with unshed tears. There was so much she wanted to say to him, but there was no time.
Then, the moment ended.
Annan turned, his cloak billowing, and the hall erupted into movement once more.
Saewara watched, feeling as if her heart had just been ripped from her chest, as the man she loved walked from the hall and out into the stormy night.
Chapter Twenty-Three
On the Eve of Battle
“Halt!”
Penda, King of the Mercians, stopped ankle deep in muddy water, and cast his gaze around Exning Woods. The light was fading; they had travelled as far as they had dared, as thunder boomed overhead and lightening forked dangerously in between the trees.
“We make camp here,” he announced.
It was not an ideal spot, although in these woods it was difficult to find one that was. The trees clung, close to one another, as if protecting their brothers and sisters from intruders. Roots covered the ground in the higher spots and the ground turned to peaty bog whenever the forest floor sloped.
Penda stood, his hard gaze sweeping over his surroundings with calculating intensity. They were nearing Exning and he was sure that, despite his army’s best efforts to move unnoticed, a scout would have spotted them by now.
“Milord.” Aldfrid stepped up next to his king. “Should we not press on?”
Penda glanced at the ealdorman. Water streamed down Aldfrid’s broad face and dripped off his beard. This was the second time today that Aldfrid had questioned his decisions.
There better not be a third.
“We stop here,” Penda replied, his voice barely audible over the crash of thunder directly overhead. “The East Angles will meet us at dawn.”
With that, Penda turned and shoved his way past the ealdorman. Aldfrid staggered back, nearly slipping over in the mud, but wisely held his tongue. Even so, Penda could feel the warrior’s gaze upon him as he walked away.
Aldfrid had arrived back in Tamworth on foot, after his horse collapsed from exhaustion two days away from home and died, despite its rider’s best efforts to drag it to its feet. The ealdorman had brought ill tidings with him – and a boiling hatred for Annan of the East Angles that turned him foul tempered and unpredictable. Aldfrid wanted Annan’s head on a pike. He wanted the Kingdom of the East Angles to burn. He wanted vengeance at all costs.
Penda knew better than to hate his enemy.
Hate colored your judgment. It made you act from the belly, not the head. Hate made a man rush in to battle imprudently. Aldfrid would have had them floundering blind through woods they did not know, in foul weather, toward an enemy that would be lying in wait for them.
Hate turned wise men into fools.
Aldfrid had become an encumbrance of late, Penda reflected. If he survived the coming battle, the warrior would find himself out of favor once they returned to Tamworth.
Penda walked through his army, his gimlet gaze missing nothing, while his warriors made camp for the night. There was little space, or dry ground, for tents, so they merely strung up animal hide awnings between trees, to keep out the worst of the weather. They attempted to light fires with what little wood they could find that was not completely sodden.
The warriors greeted their king respectfully as he passed, but none attempted to converse with him. Their diffidence suited Penda. He did not wish to talk to anyone this evening; his thoughts were already moving forward, focusing on what would come tomorrow morning. Later, he would call his ealdormen to him and they would discuss their tactics for the coming battle. It would not be like the last confrontation with the East Angles. Then, they had met, shield-wall to shield-wall, on the wide expanse of Barrow Fields. That was the kind of warfare Penda liked; the kind he excelled in.
Taking on the enemy in the woods called for another approach.
It took Penda a long while to skirt the length and breadth of his fyrd, and it was dark when he returned to the front. Yet, the inspection had allowed him to focus his thoughts.
Annan’s blatant defiance had caught Penda by surprise; something that rarely happened.
After all Penda’s effort to break the East Angle’s spirit – to turn him into a spineless puppet who would do his bidding – Annan had shown that he was, indeed, a Wuffinga king. Penda had not been angered, by this; yet, he could not let it continue unchallenged or unpunished. Annan would know that this time there would be no mercy when the battle turned against him. The time for pledges and pacts was over; if the East Angles would not bow before the Mercians then they would have to die.
Saewara should have sent word, Penda thought – a knife blade of anger slicing through his cool façade. I told her to keep me informed. Why else does she think I married her to that Wuffinga whoreson?
Saewara had always disappoi
nted him. Even as a child, she had never done as she was told. Her husband had tried to beat it out of her but she was still as willful as ever.
This should have taught Saewara her place. Yet, according to Aldfrid, the woman was as forthright as ever, and worse still, Annan appeared to have warmed to her.
Slut, Penda gritted his teeth before forcing Saewara from his thoughts. I will take Annan alive and make you watch when I kill him.
***
“The Mercians have made camp, M’lord.” One of the scouts, a young man, barely out of boyhood, had returned to the front. His face was slick with rain, his fair hair plastered to his skull.
Behind him, lightening forked between the trees; illuminating the woodland for a moment, before it plunged once more back into darkness. It was a foul night to be out in, and at this rate they risked being hit by lightning. Still, they had little choice in the matter.
Annan nodded at the scout before glancing at where Saba stood behind him. “We shall make camp here then.”
Indeed, the Mercians were so close, he could smell the faint whiff of wood smoke from their fires. They were confident, it seemed. It did not matter to them that lighting fires would alert the East Angles to their presence.
Penda knew that Annan would not attempt an attack until dawn.
He knows his enemy, Annan thought dryly, or he thinks he does. That could be his first mistake.
Behind him, Annan heard the sounds of his fyrd setting up camp; the snap of leather awnings going up, and the rustling and clanking of weapons being set down. It would be a long, uncomfortable night, and a tense one. Yet, Annan could feel a fire kindling in his belly, mixed with the thrill of fear that every wise man feels before going into battle. He did not love war the way Penda did, but he knew that on the battlefield, only a man who gave himself entirely to the madness of war had a chance of survival. Time took on a different pace during battle. Every moment drew out, while at the same time rushing forward with violent clarity. Annan’s senses heightened in anticipation of what was to come; throwing every detail around him – every sight, smell and sound, into sharp clarity.