For Lord and Land

by Matthew Harffy

  “Come, my gesithas!” bellowed Beobrand, pulling Nægling from its scabbard so that the fine patterned blade caught the lowering sun. “It seems there is killing to be done today after all!”

  Chapter 3

  Cuthbert’s lungs burnt and his legs were leaden as he struggled to keep up with the warriors who ran along the dusty track. They had left the sea and the cluster of minster buildings behind them some time ago. The land was flat, with only very shallow rises. On each side of the path grew lush cow parsley, feathery water dropworts and wild carrots. Alders and willows rose in clumps from beside the meres, streams and ponds that dotted the landscape. When he glanced over his shoulder, Cuthbert could see the glint of the Whale Road in the distance, but no sign of Cnobheresburg now. The minster had been lost to view as the land dipped down to the shore.

  “Not too much further now,” called the monk who led them. His name was Coenred, Beobrand’s friend that had seen the lord of Ubbanford rush south to rescue him from danger. Cuthbert wondered at the past the two men shared. He hoped that one day he would find such a friendship, someone he could count on to come to his aid no matter the consequences.

  Like all the others, Coenred’s face was flushed from the exertion of running, but Cuthbert cursed inwardly that he had fallen to the rear of the group. He was the youngest there and it shamed him to see Beobrand and his gesithas, encumbered by their battle gear, still able to keep up a faster pace than he. Coenred, head shaved to the crown and with long hair flowing down his neck in the way of the Christ monks, met Cuthbert’s gaze and smiled, encouraging him. Cuthbert gritted his teeth and pushed himself to greater speed. He grew level with the bulky, tattooed Dreogan and huge axe-wielding Eadgard, who both lumbered along the path. Grinning to himself, Cuthbert grunted, and with another effort, he passed them both. He would not be last.

  Moments later, Coenred halted and held up a hand to his mouth, indicating for them to be quiet. They halted in a cloud of dust. The air was hot and the men panted like hounds after a hunt. Sweat streaked their faces. The sun was low in the sky. They had not tarried for long at the beach. Saeslaga had ground to a halt on the sand close to the ship being loaded by the monks. When Beobrand and his gesithas had leapt into the shallow water and splashed ashore, the brethren had scattered, perhaps believing them to be Penda’s warriors. But Beobrand was taller than most men, and with his byrnie and great helm he was an imposing figure. Coenred had quickly recognised his old friend and rushed down to greet him. They had embraced, the monk speaking in an excited rush. What was Beobrand doing with Ferenbald? How had they come to be here? Had they been sent by Oswiu?

  Beobrand had cut him off.

  “All your questions can wait. We have come to take you to safety, but we learnt from Foillan there,” he nodded in the direction of the ship receding into the south, “that King Anna is fighting Penda nearby.”

  “Penda is south, I think,” replied Coenred. “At the great ditch.”

  Beobrand frowned. On the voyage south Cuthbert had heard the men whisper of the battle at the great ditch; how the earth had been soaked in so much blood it had turned to a quagmire. It had been a terrible battle and a dreadful defeat. When Cuthbert had asked Beobrand to tell him of his exploits there, the lord had grown surly and snapped that he did not wish to talk of things best left forgotten. It seemed he did not like to be reminded of the battle, even by his old friend Coenred, for he stiffened, shook his head and sighed.

  “So who is Anna facing?”

  “I do not know,” replied Coenred. “The king was here with his hearth-men when word came that a warband of Mercians was approaching. He ordered Foillan to pack up all of the treasures of the minster and to flee on the boats. He would hold the Mercians at Hrunaham.”

  The dour-faced warriors nodded their approval on hearing these words. Cuthbert had been in their presence long enough to know that what they admired most was bravery and honour. A king who would place himself between an enemy and his people was gōd cyning indeed. Beobrand clearly agreed.

  “We cannot flee without first seeing how the king fares,” he said. “The East Angelfolc are allies of Bernicia and I would not have it be known that I had been able to aid their king and instead headed to sea like a scared monk.”

  The monks had tried to explain the different tracks and turnings the warriors would need to follow to reach King Anna and his warband, but with the sun dipping in the west, Beobrand had shaken his head.

  “We need someone to guide us. It will be dark soon and if we are to reach the king before nightfall, we cannot risk becoming lost.”

  And so it was that they found themselves running after Coenred along the narrow paths and causeways that led through this watery land. Coenred had been at Cnobheresburg for nearly two months and liked to walk the paths of the surrounding area, so he knew the place well enough. Besides, none of the other monks seemed inclined to volunteer. They were visibly pleased when it was the Bernician who offered to lead the warriors. It was not far at all and, as they slowed where Coenred had halted near a dense stand of alder, Cuthbert half-expected to still hear the wash of the waves on the sand and the cries of the monks as they loaded the ship.

  But it was not the monks and the surf they heard. Instead, over the rustle of the wind through the trees and the wittering of sparrows and finches, came the unmistakable crash of weapons against shields and of men shouting in anger and pain. The sounds were clear, but the fighting must still be some way off, for the noise was reedy and distant.

  There was a bend in the path ahead, and the land beyond was obscured behind the alder wood.

  Beobrand ran his fingers through his thick fair hair. Like all of the men, he had removed his helm for the run and his pale blue eyes seemed to burn from his sweat-streaked, flushed face. He glanced at the setting sun, perhaps calculating how much light there was left in the day.

  “Attor. Cuthbert,” he said in a low voice. “I need your sharp eyes. Make your way through those trees and tell me what you see. I would know the numbers of friends and foe-men. And the disposition of their forces.”

  Cuthbert felt as though his chest might burst, such was the feeling of pride that filled him.

  “You can count on me, lord,” he said. A thought came to him as he pictured what they were about to do. “But should we not take Coenred with us?”

  “Why?” Beobrand snapped, clearly impatient. A distant roar of a charge drifted to them. This was followed by the sound of two walls of shields and men crashing together like waves hitting a cliff.

  “He knows King Anna and his men. If things are confused, he will be able to tell us who is friend and who is enemy.”

  Beobrand did not hesitate. He gave a terse nod.

  “Good thinking,” he said. “Coenred, are you willing to go with them for a closer look?”

  The monk looked surprised, but nodded. He gave a twisted smile. Cuthbert noticed that his face was pale now, the colour gone from his cheeks.

  “I have come this far, have I not?” said Coenred.

  The rest of the warriors scooped water from a stream that trickled beside the path while Attor led the way to the alders and slipped into the cool shadow beneath their foliage. Cuthbert wished that he had taken a moment to slake his thirst, but Attor was already hidden from view, with Coenred close behind, so Cuthbert hurried after them. The monk looked frightened to Cuthbert. Coenred’s eyes were wide and his face pallid. Cuthbert could barely breathe, such was his own excitement and fear as they stepped into the tree-gloom. Fleetingly, he wondered whether he looked as scared as Coenred.

  It took him a moment for his eyes to grow accustomed to the shadows. Attor was moving stealthily away from them, picking his way between the boles of the trees, as silent as a wraith. Cuthbert rushed to keep up, snapping twigs and trampling through ferns. Brambles and briars snagged at his kirtle and leg wraps. Attor spun around and glared at him. When Cuthbert reached him, the warrior gripped his shoulder painfully and hissed into his ear.
/>   “You will walk with care, young Cuthbert, or I will slit your throat. Then you would be silent!”

  Cuthbert felt his anger bubble up within him. What was the point of being silent when a battle raged on the other side of this small stretch of woodland? But a glance at the wicked-looking seaxes that hung from Attor’s belt and the fierceness of his glower made Cuthbert bite back his retort.

  Cautiously, they moved on. The sounds of battle were muffled by the trees and plants that tangled the ground beneath the shade of the canopy, but they were getting closer.

  Without warning, Attor pulled them both down into a crouch and then indicated that they should continue on all fours. A man shrieked with a high-pitched wail that no man should make. Cuthbert shuddered. Somewhere out there in the warm light of the setting sun, another man was sobbing, crying for his mother. Cuthbert’s gorge rose and he swallowed back the bile that burnt his throat. This was madness. He was but a boy, not a warrior. How had he been such a fool as to think he could stand shoulder to shoulder with Beobrand’s famed Black Shields? He looked over to where Coenred crawled ahead with Attor. The monk’s face was set, his jaw tight, but even he seemed to look less afraid now, more resolute than Cuthbert felt.

  Cuthbert spat the foul taste from his mouth into the leaf mould. The stink of loam, the green rich stench of the life and death of the forest, filled his nostrils. Taking a trembling breath, he pressed on to where Attor and Coenred had halted. They had lowered themselves into the undergrowth and slithered forward a little way further. Cuthbert joined them and his heart quailed at what he saw through the parted fronds of the ferns.

  They overlooked the path where it came out after curving around the woodland. Perhaps a hundred paces away, the track turned to the right. It was built up there to form a narrow earthen causeway raised from the broad expanse of water on either side. It was there that Anna had chosen to make his stand against the attackers. Cuthbert could immediately see the virtues of the location. It was narrow and an approaching force could not flank the defenders. A small number of warriors could hold a larger force at bay for some time. And this is what King Anna had done.

  But at a great cost.

  There were corpses strewn across the elevated pathway, with bodies tumbled into the reed-clogged waters and lying broken and blood-soaked on the slope.

  It was clear from their vantage point who the defenders were. They stood beneath a banner topped with what looked like a golden crown and draped with a blue standard. They were outnumbered by the enemy warband. But they had acquitted themselves well. There were many dead and injured on the other side, lying at the side of the path or sprawled down the banks of the mere. The waters lapped red, whether from the reflection of the setting sun or the blood of the fallen, Cuthbert could not tell. He could make out where the defensive line had been forced back along the causeway, leaving a scattering of death behind them.

  As he watched, the Mercian shieldwall, which must have still numbered some fifty or sixty men, roared and rushed towards the defenders. The East Angelfolc bravely stood their ground, taking the full force of the charge on their shields. Spears found flesh and men reeled back, crying out in pain and dismay. One dark-bearded Mercian took a vicious slash to his forehead and blood sheeted down his face, blinding him. He flailed about him, probing blindly with his spear towards the enemy shieldwall, before one of Anna’s men hammered a sword blade onto the top of his head. The man’s helmet was cleaved in two. Splinters of bone and gobbets of brains mingled with the blood that drenched the bearded man’s face, as he fell back to be trampled by his own shield-brothers as the Mercians shoved the East Angelfolc back, step by step.

  Cuthbert breathed through his mouth in an effort not to succumb to the roiling sensation that twisted at his stomach, but a moment later, his body convulsed and hot vomit gushed onto the earth before him.

  Cuthbert spat and wiped his sleeve against his mouth. The pool of puke gave off a vile odour that, coupled with the vision of slaughter before them, threatened to make him vomit again. Attor placed a hand on his back. Cuthbert looked at him sharply, expecting an angry rebuke, but Attor seemed to feel no ill-will towards him.

  Coenred was as pale as new curds and Cuthbert wondered whether the monk might be sick too.

  “Come,” Attor whispered. “We’ve seen enough.” Attor’s face was hard and sombre.

  He began sliding backwards, retracing their movements. Coenred followed.

  Cuthbert, holding his breath so as not to breathe in the stink of his vomit, took one last lingering look at the scene before him. He scrutinised the men fighting on the causeway. He swept his gaze across the path, the shimmering of breeze-rippled water, the swaying rushes and reeds and the smattering of drooping willows that jutted from the flooded land to the west of where the observers lay.

  Then, glad to be moving away from the steaming pool and the slaughter, he slipped back through the leaf litter and joined the others.

  When they were well within the shadows of the trees, they stood and Attor led them back to where Beobrand and the others waited. They did not move with stealth now. There was no chance that the men on the causeway would hear them. Moments later, they crashed out of the undergrowth. Beobrand and Fraomar both started and turned to face them with their swords drawn. Cuthbert noted that all the warriors had placed their helms on their heads and none of them had sat to rest. They were taut and tense, ready for battle.

  Recognising them, Beobrand sheathed his sword.

  “Tell me,” he said.

  “They’ve been fighting for some time,” Attor said. “There are perhaps three score Mercian whoresons. The East Angelfolc are being pushed back, but they have not given Penda’s men an easy time of it.”

  “King Anna yet stands?”

  “His banner is still held firm,” replied Attor. “But the Angelfolc are outnumbered at least twofold, maybe threefold. They cannot withstand much more of this.”

  “If we go to their aid, do you think we will alter the outcome?”

  Attor thought for a few heartbeats and then sighed. He shook his head.

  “The Mercians would see us coming. We would be fresh to the fight, and would kill some, I am sure. We are the Black Shields after all.” He shrugged and offered a mirthless smile at his boastful words. “But we are but eleven men.” He shrugged again. “Perhaps we would give the monks a bit more time to finish loading their ships, though by now they might already have put to sea. But in the end…” He looked pointedly at Coenred. He didn’t need to say the words. They had come to rescue the monk. If they were to all die here, Coenred would likely be killed as well.

  Beobrand stood silent, unsure how to proceed. No doubt weighing up his obligations to his friend, to his men, and to an ally king from this realm far from their home.

  At last he made his decision.

  “It sounds hopeless,” he said, his voice hollow. “I do not like to turn away from brave men, but there is nothing to be gained from us sacrificing ourselves.” The men looked sombre. None of them spoke in support of Beobrand’s words or against them. This was his decision to make, not theirs. They would follow where he led, but they did not need to be pleased about it.

  With a long sigh, Beobrand turned to face east again. His shadow stretched stark and long before him. The sun was touching the tree tops in the west and the sky was aflame with its red light.

  “Come, my gesithas,” Beobrand said, his voice lacking its usual force. “Let us take Coenred back to the ship. To safety and the sea. This is not our land. Let us head homeward.”

  Some of the warriors frowned, glancing sidelong at one another, clearly unhappy with their lord’s command. But not one of them spoke and they began to traipse after him back along the dusty track. They walked like men defeated, despite not having traded a single blow with the enemy.

  “Wait,” cried Cuthbert. He had not known he was going to speak, and his voice cracked in his throat.

  Beobrand turned to face him, a scowl on his
features beneath his great helm.

  “Cuthbert, what is it?”

  Cuthbert’s mouth was dry and sour. He coughed and spat to clear it of the foul acid taste, a bitter reminder of his weakness. His mind had been spinning as they hurried back through the trees. He pictured the two lines of warriors fighting on the raised path. In his mind’s eye he saw how the path turned first to the south around the alders and then to the west, where it became the causeway with the meres to either side. He conjured in his thoughts all that he had witnessed: the warriors, the path, the water, the plants and trees. And suddenly, with a brilliant explosion of light in his mind to rival that of the sun, he saw the way.

  “We could yet beat the Mercians, lord,” he said, and he was surprised at the strength of his own voice. He swallowed at the lump in his throat. “But it will be dangerous and we would have to hurry.”

  Beobrand stared at him, his blue eyes burning in the setting sunlight.

  “You have a plan?”

  “I do.”

  Beobrand grinned, his teeth showing like a wolf that had scented its prey.

  Chapter 4

  Beobrand shuddered. The water that lapped about his chest was chill, especially so after the warm air of the afternoon and the breathless sprint from the minster. All about him, his men waded through the dark water, holding their weapons above their heads in an effort to keep the metal free of iron-rot.

  Before slipping into the water on the far side of the path, they had briefly contemplated removing their byrnies. The iron-knit shirts would need to be cleaned thoroughly after such a dunking and none of the men relished the idea of the hard work that would be necessary.

  “If you are able to gripe about cleaning your byrnie this night,” Beobrand had said, “then you will be alive. Hard labour is not a bad price to pay for life.”

  The men had grumbled, but there was no denying the sense of their lord’s words. And despite their complaints, they had seemed pleased when he had ordered Coenred to hide beneath the trees and then told the rest of them they would follow Cuthbert’s plan. It was fraught with danger. Beobrand fretted that he was leading them to their doom, as they slid into the cold water and trudged through the deep mud behind the thick reeds, in the shadows of the towering willows. But the truth was that he was as pleased as his gesithas that they were making their way towards the battle on the causeway and not away from it. He had seen the disappointment on their faces at the decision he had made to return to the beach, to Saeslaga and to safety. He had a duty to his men. He had no wish to lead them to an almost certain death, and yet, was that not the way of the man they had sworn their oaths to? The Beobrand of Ubbanford who never backed down from danger, who would run through fire to fight his enemies and defend his own?