A hush slowly rippled over the gathered men, emanating from Cynan and Thurferth as if they were pebbles dropped into a pond of sound. Faces, pale in the shadows of the hall, turned towards them. Cynan swallowed against the dryness of his throat. He cast a glance longingly at the jugs and cups of ale on the boards, but, even if these men did not slit his throat, it would be some time before he would be able to slake his thirst.
After a moment of whispered interest in the newcomers to the hall, a tall man of about Cynan’s age stepped through the throng from the high table. Men parted for him with deference, watching him closely. The man had a full beard, and a thick mane of dark hair. He was broad of shoulder, with long, strong arms. Beneath his heavy brow shone dark, clever eyes. He moved with the smooth grace of a warrior. Stepping in front of them, he took in Cynan with an appraising eye, before turning his attention to the man beside him.
“Thurferth,” he said, “what is the meaning of this? You should have been over Dun Mallocht and halfway to my brother’s hall by now.”
“I know, Lord Sigehelm,” Thurferth said, his tone obsequious. “But I met this man on the path.”
Sigehelm raised an eyebrow.
“And who is this?” He stared at Cynan for a time before asking him, “Have we met before?”
“Perhaps,” Cynan said. “I believe I met your father at Caer Luel. After Maserfelth.”
Sigehelm frowned, clearly trying to place him.
“You rode with Beobrand’s men.”
Cynan nodded.
“I still do. I am Cynan, of the Black Shields. Perhaps your father remembers our meeting too?” Cynan cast his gaze towards the high table where he could make out a high-backed chair.
“Who is it, Sidrac?” called the old man who sat there.
Sigehelm stiffened.
“I am Sigehelm, Father,” he said.
“What? Speak up,” gnarred the grey-bearded man in the ornate chair.
Sigehelm sighed.
“Sigehelm,” he shouted, a strained expression on his handsome face. “Your firstborn son.”
Tohrwulf either did not hear Sigehelm’s answer, or chose to ignore it.
“Who is that man, Sidrac?” he asked again. “Did he ride with Urien? He looks like one of Urien’s warriors. Fearsome bunch. Wonderful horsemen.”
“No, Father. This man rides with Beobrand of Ubbanford.”
“Who? Never heard of the man.” The old lord of the hall drifted into silence. Cynan could not be sure if he remained awake or had lapsed into sleep.
“Alas,” said Sigehelm in a quiet tone, “my father remembers little these days. His body is yet strong, but his mind slips away.”
“I am sorry,” Cynan replied. “It is sad when a great man loses the fight against old age.”
“Nobody wins that battle, my friend,” said Sigehelm with a shrug. Cynan flinched at the use of the term of endearment. He instinctively liked this son of Tohrwulf, just as he had instantly loathed his younger brother. He sensed that Sigehelm was warming to him, but he could not imagine the feeling would last much longer.
“Now, what brings you here, Cynan? You are far from home. Do you bring further tidings from Oswiu King perhaps?”
“I do not. I had hoped to speak with your father about a matter of grave importance.”
Hearing the sombreness of his tone, Sigehelm held his gaze.
“Whatever was meant for my father’s ears, you can say to me.”
Cynan looked about the hall at the expectant faces. He swallowed.
“You would rather speak alone?” asked Sigehelm.
“No, lord. My words are heavy, but can be heard by all men.”
“Then speak them, that we can continue with readying the men of Rheged for war.”
Cynan took a deep breath. The commonplace smells of the hall were comforting. Sour ale, sweat, smoke, the lingering scent of bubbling pottage. He wondered for how much longer he would be allowed to breathe in the familiar aromas of the hall once he had given his news.
“I stopped your man here from riding to Sidrac’s hall,” he said, hesitating for a heartbeat. “For your brother is dead.”
Gasps and a murmur of unease and whispered outrage passed through the hall, like wind rustling a field of barley.
“How do you know this?” asked Sigehelm, his tone flat, his features unreadable.
Cynan met his hard gaze.
“It was I who slew him,” he said.
*
Sigehelm held up his hand to quell the cacophony of outraged voices that surged in the hall.
“You are as bold as your master, the lord of Ubbanford,” he said, “to ride here with the admission of my brother’s murder.” Whatever warmth there had been in Sigehelm’s tone was gone.
“It was no murder,” replied Cynan, keeping his tone level.
“So you say,” snapped Sigehelm.
“It is so.”
Sigehelm glowered at him, his eyes burning beneath shadowed brows. The hall had grown silent again now and everyone there hung on the two men’s words.
“Tell me then, Cynan of the Black Shields,” said Sigehelm, his tone clipped and as sharp as shards of flint. “Tell me what happened between my brother and you.”
“I will tell you everything. That is why I came here. It would have been easier for me to ride for my home and yet I did not. Think on that as I tell the tale of your brother’s death.”
“Speak then,” Sigehelm said, “for I would hear the story.”
“It is simple enough,” said Cynan, hoping his words would not carry the hollowness of lies. He had thought long about what he would say, discussing it with Ingwald as they rode. Simple was best, they had concluded. He had thought of fleeing north, but had dismissed the idea immediately. When Sidrac’s hall was found abandoned, along with his bloody body and the corpses of his men, doubt would fall on the men who lived thereabouts. By admitting to the killing, Cynan could turn people’s suspicion away from Leofman and his family. Now he just hoped he could convince Sigehelm of his sincerity and that the man would see sense.
Sigehelm did not move, giving no indication of his thoughts as he listened.
“I was travelling through Sidrac’s lands,” said Cynan. “We sought shelter for the night and happened upon his hall.”
“Why were you travelling through Rheged?”
“That is my affair,” replied Cynan smoothly, having anticipated the question. “I cannot speak of it without breaking my oath, which I will not do.”
Sigehelm met his stare. After a brief hesitation, he nodded.
“But know this,” continued Cynan, “my errand in these lands had no bearing on what took place between your brother and me.”
“And what did take place?”
“Your brother had the rash tongue and quick anger of youth,” Cynan said, peering into Sigehelm’s eyes for any sign that his words did not ring true.
“You say you have killed my brother and now you would insult him in his father’s hall?”
Cynan shook his head, sighing.
“I did not know Sidrac, I only shared his board for one evening, but are you willing to tell me that he was not at times foolhardy, allowing his tongue to run away with him? Particularly when he had drunk too much mead.”
Sigehelm fixed him with a hard glare.
“Go on,” he said at last.
“There is little to tell but that your brother chose the wrong man to insult that night. I offered him several chances to take back his words, but he would not do so, instead taunting me further. When he drew his sword, things happened very fast, as they tend to do when steel is freed from leather.”
There was silence in the hall. Somewhere a man coughed. A hound gnawed and crunched at a bone beneath one of the tables.
“Was it a good death?” Sigehelm asked.
Cynan remembered the hot blood gushing from Sidrac’s throat.
“It was quick.”
“And what of his men?”
Cyn
an lifted his chin proudly. He must not show on his face the turmoil of emotions that roiled within him.
“Sidrac’s ruffians were not a match for my gesithas.”
“You mean…” Sigehelm’s voice trailed off. “You… you killed them all?”
Cynan gave the slightest of shrugs.
“If a man does not seek death, he should not raise his sword against a warrior.”
“So,” said Sigehelm, stroking his beard, “there are no witnesses to these acts?”
Cynan squared his shoulders.
“I am a witness,” he said. “As are my men, who stand without the hall. They will vouch for my words.”
“I have no doubt they will,” replied Sigehelm. “But with no witnesses save your own oath-sworn men, you could have ridden from these lands. Why did you come here, and,” he said, raising a finger as if a sudden idea had occurred to him, “how did you know to come to this place?”
“Both of those questions are easy to answer,” replied Cynan. “First, I am a man of honour. I have come here to pay the weregild for your brother and his comitatus. I want no bloodfeud between our families.” He paused, trying to gauge what effect his words were having on Sigehelm, but Sidrac’s brother gave nothing away. “As to how I knew of this place,” Cynan went on, “why, Sidrac himself told me his father’s name, and it was not difficult to find where Lord Tohrwulf had his hall.”
Sigehelm listened, nodding slowly.
“I thank you for coming here,” he said. “As is customary, we will give you time to bring to us the weregild, as laid out in the dooms of the land. Our priest, Scyldsung, will know the blood-price. There will be no feud unless you do not bring to us the agreed amount by, shall we say, Blotmonath? Even with war upon us, that should give you plenty of time to find sufficient silver.”
“That is indeed a generous amount of time, but I have come ready to pay the price now.”
Sigehelm looked at him in disbelief.
“You must be a wealthy man indeed to travel with such a hoard.”
Cynan turned to the open doors of the hall. Outside, the day was the crimson hue of sunset, as if the land was viewed through a film of blood. “Brinin, Ingwald,” Cynan called, “bring in the silver.”
There was a pause, while the door wards checked the men and the sacks they carried for weapons. Those gathered inside the hall began to discuss what they had heard. The hubbub of voices quietened as Cynan’s men entered the building, each laden with a large heavy sack. At a nod from Cynan they dropped the bags at Sigehelm’s feet with a clanging crash. Brinin and Ingwald allowed their gleaming contents to spill forth. Small discs of silver, each stamped with the face of some long-forgotten king, poured from a dented silver chalice. A fine platter, engraved with symbols and pictures, tumbled from the second sack.
Sigehelm raised his eyebrows.
“All of this as weregild?” he said, his tone filled with awe.
“I will not haggle with you over the price of your kin’s life,” answered Cynan, offering up a silent prayer of thanks to Bleddyn for telling him where Sidrac had buried his wealth. Cynan had tried to give several pieces of silver to Leofman, but the old man had refused, saying the Lord and the land would provide.
Sigehelm stooped, retrieving a fine-looking belt buckle, gold with intricate whorls and swirling patterns. It was studded with garnets. One of the blood-red stones was missing and Sigehelm ran his finger over the indentation where the square of garnet should have been.
“This is a fine hoard indeed,” he said, standing and offering his hand to Cynan. They grasped forearms in the warrior grip and Sigehelm said loudly, for all to hear, “there will be no bloodfeud between our families, Cynan. I accept this weregild from you as payment for my kin’s blood that you shed.”
The hall erupted in chatter as the men crowded forward to get a glimpse of the treasure that glinted and glistened red in the light of the setting sun that spilt through the hall’s doorway.
Sigehelm did not let go of Cynan’s arm, instead pulling him forward and leaning in close.
“I recognise this buckle,” he whispered. “It belonged to my brother.”
Cynan did not move. His breath caught in his throat. So this was the moment when Sigehelm would denounce him, calling for his death.
He remembered how they had dug beneath the apple tree that Bleddyn had led them to some hundred paces from Sidrac’s hall. Most of the treasure in the sacks had come from that deep hole in the earth. But the buckle was from the belt worn by Sidrac. Cynan had stripped it from the man’s corpse, cutting the buckle free from the leather and tossing it into the sack. He should never have added the thing to what he offered as weregild. Gods, with so much treasure and to think that this buckle would be his undoing.
Sigehelm held his arm in a tight grip, staring into his eyes without blinking.
Cynan met his glare. He could not decipher Sigehelm’s expression.
“Well,” Cynan said at last in a low voice that only Sigehelm would hear, “now it is yours.”
Chapter 35
“You took your sweet time coming, Beobrand,” said Oswiu, looking up from where he sat on a stool in the centre of the leather tent. He was surrounded by men, who turned towards Beobrand as he stepped beneath the flap that hung over the tent’s entrance. “I was beginning to wonder if you had run off into the west like that Waelisc man of yours.”
It was warm in the tent and Beobrand shrugged off his cloak. The wool was still damp from the rain that had fallen that morning, but since then the sun had shone and when Beobrand and his men had ridden into the Bernician encampment to the south of Corebricg, they had found men lounging in the afternoon sun. The faces of the fyrd-men were sombre. Their frowns and dark eyes spoke of hardship; too many battles fought this season. These were men ready to return to their fields for the harvest. They had answered Oswiu’s call once more, but Beobrand sensed a growing unrest in the gathered spear-men of Bernicia that Oswiu would be wise to heed.
“I came as soon as I received your message, lord,” Beobrand replied, keeping his tone flat.
“Then perhaps I should have the messenger flogged,” said Oswiu. “He must have stopped along the way to swive every shepherdess he saw, eh?”
A couple of the men near the king chuckled.
Beobrand sighed. He knew Dryhthelm was a man of worth who had not tarried in performing his duty.
“Well, I am here now,” he said.
“God be praised,” said Oswiu. He stood, and quickly strode over to where Beobrand awaited at the doorway of the tent.
“I am pleased to see you have recovered from your illness,” said Beobrand, noting that the king displayed no signs of the limp that had plagued him when last they had met.
“I told you it would not last,” said Oswiu. “It never does. Damned painful though. Perhaps it is God reminding me of all of my sins, eh, Utta?”
The priest glowered from the far side of the enclosure.
“I can hear your confession, lord king,” he said in a weary tone, “if you would care to unburden yourself.”
“The only unburdening I need is to be free of this troublesome cousin of mine.” Oswiu picked up a cup from a small table and a young freckle-faced boy lifted a jug and filled it slowly, careful not to spill any of the liquid. Oswiu handed the cup to Beobrand with a smile. “It is good to see you,” he said, with what seemed genuine warmth. His friendly tone unnerved Beobrand more than any goading or insults. “Has that damned Waelisc cur returned?”
“No, lord,” said Beobrand, strangely settled by Oswiu’s more caustic tone. He took a sip from the cup in an effort to hide his annoyance at Oswiu’s words. Beobrand hated that the king insulted Cynan, and he loathed to be reminded of his man’s wayward actions and his clear dereliction of duty.
Beobrand started at the taste of the liquid on his tongue. He had expected mead, or perhaps ale, but this was the warm, rich, fruit-filled tartness of wine, imported from the distant and sunny lands of Frankia. Beob
rand relished the taste and scent of the wine, washing away the dust in his throat and the stench from so many gathered warriors surrounding the king’s tent. The wine was good, the flavour incongruous, transporting him to different times and places. He looked about him, taking in the wooden framed bed, the table, chests and chairs in the tent. All of these things would be loaded into carts that would slow down the warhost, Beobrand knew. Oswiu was a fine warrior, when the steel-storm began, but he did so enjoy his comforts that he travelled with as many as his servants were able to carry.
“Pity,” said Oswiu. “Despite his Waelisc blood, that man of yours is a good scrapper, I’ll give him that. How many men did you bring?”
“More than two dozen Black Shields ride with me.”
“Good, good.” Oswiu nodded, returning to his seat. “Ethelwin, we should move south now, don’t you think?”
“We are still waiting for some warbands from the west and north, but we have the numbers now, I believe,” Ethelwin said. Beobrand turned in the direction of his voice. The warmaster was standing to one side of the tent’s entrance. He nodded at Beobrand, his scarred face serious. Beside him stood Wynhelm, who offered Beobrand a tense smile of welcome.
“Indeed,” said Oswiu, “there is no time to waste. The longer we tarry here, waiting for stragglers and dawdlers, the more men flock to Oswine’s banner.”
Beobrand clenched his fist tightly around the wooden cup. He took another sip of the fine wine. He would not give Oswiu the satisfaction of seeing that his jibe at Beobrand’s supposed lack of haste had succeeded in angering him.
He glanced about the tent. Apart from the men he had already acknowledged, he spied a couple more servants. The men around Oswiu’s chair were ealdormen and thegns. Each nodded in sombre greeting to Beobrand. They all knew he was no longer in such good favour as he had once been with Oswiu’s brother, but Beobrand was still a formidable warrior, who led a powerful warband, and so they showed him respect. Beobrand was certain they spoke ill of him when he was not present, but what did he care of such things? He cared not for the buzzing words of the men who flocked around the throne like flies on a carcass. Just as long as they did not involve him in their intrigues.
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