Storm of Steel

by Matthew Harffy

  The men grumbled, and trudged reluctantly back to the expanse of grass they had been using for their bouts. Cynan nodded and raised his wooden sword in salute to Beobrand.

  “You did well,” Beobrand said. Cynan grinned and jogged after the rest of the men. The Waelisc warrior’s confidence was galling, but there was no doubt of his skill. Or of his loyalty.

  The avenue of box trees and statues was once more peaceful, a haven of scattered shadows, the languid whisper of wind in the leaves, and the impassive gazes of men who passed no judgement on the lives of those who walked beneath them.

  Beobrand looked down at his hands. They were trembling. Clenching his fists to halt their tremor, he spoke to Udela at last. Eanflæd was looking on eagerly, expectantly awaiting to hear what tidings could have brought this woman from Hithe in such a hurried frenzy. Beobrand was just as keen to know, but he had a sinking feeling that he would not like what news Udela had brought with her.

  “Well,” he said, his voice sharp, “what brings you to Cantwareburh?”

  Udela did not react at his harsh tone. She smoothed her skirts and returned his gaze.

  “I heard you had come here, from the north,” she replied. “When I learnt this I thought perhaps God had sent you to aid me.” She spoke with a measured tone, as if she had long thought of this moment, but there was an urgency to her every word, her every movement. It seemed to Beobrand she was willing herself to speak slowly, to use each word carefully as one might pull stones from a dam, scared that with each new stone, the pressure would prove too much and the dam would burst, letting out a torrent.

  Beobrand’s sense of unease grew. Eanflæd said nothing, but her eyes were wide as she listened.

  “And why would God send me? What has happened that you would rush here and risk being struck down by the wardens of Eorcenberht’s hall to see me?”

  “I knew not where else to turn. I thought that if anyone could help me, it would be the great Beobrand.” Was there a tinge of sarcasm in her words? Beobrand recalled mistaking her for a would-be attacker and striking her face. He was certain of few things, but that he was not great was one of them.

  “But help you with what? Is it Scrydan?” He searched her face for signs, bruises. Much can happen in six years.

  “No, not Scrydan.” Udela’s words caught in her throat as she stifled a sob. “It is Ardith.”

  Ardith. Udela’s daughter. Beobrand remembered the pretty, stern, fair-haired girl.

  “What has happened to Ardith?” he asked.

  “She is gone.”

  “Gone?”

  “Taken.” Again the sob.

  “Speak clearly, woman,” Beobrand said. “Who took her?”

  Udela took a steadying breath, willing herself to be calm with obvious effort. Eanflæd shot Beobrand an angry glance. He ignored her. It seemed something terrible had happened. He would know what.

  “I don’t know who they were,” Udela said. “They came in ships. Brought things to trade and were gone with the next tide. They took Ardith with them.”

  “You were there?”

  “No, I was away at my sister, Inga’s, at Tenet Waraden. Ardith was with her father.”

  “And yet you are here.” Beobrand frowned. He felt nothing but disdain for his former friend, Scrydan.

  Udela lowered her gaze. “He told me you would turn me away. Or not see me at all.”

  “What did he say happened on the beach?”

  “That they took a liking to my girl and snatched her into their boats.” Seeing the expression on Beobrand’s face, Udela continued, “I know what you think of him. No man is without flaws, but Scrydan fought for her. His face was battered and bruised and he has wept ever since I have returned from Inga’s.”

  “And he is now searching for your daughter? Has he set sail after these men?”

  Again she looked to the ground.

  “No,” she said, her voice small.

  “And you are here,” he said. “To find a man who will search for her. For one who will bring her back to you?”

  “Yes,” she said, and met his gaze. Her eyes were red-rimmed and full of woe. “He told me I was a fool to come. That you would never see me, and certainly not agree to seek out Ardith. But I told him he was wrong.”

  “I am sorry that this thing has happened. I remember Ardith and I am sure she is a fine young woman now. But she might have been taken anywhere in Albion. Or even to Hibernia or the gods know where. I cannot go searching for every girl who gets taken by slavers.” Even as he said the words, he regretted his harsh tone. But it was the truth and she must hear it. Better to be told the truth than to be given false hope. She stared at him now, her mouth working, but she uttered no words. Tears traced lines through the dirt of her face. “I am oath-sworn,” he continued. “Even if I wished to do this thing you ask, I am bound by my oath to my lord.”

  “Scrydan said you would not help, but I told him he was wrong. Because,” she said, rubbing the tears away roughly with the back of her hand, “I know something that he does not.”

  “What is that?” Eanflæd spoke for the first time.

  Udela turned to the slender beauty. She made to speak, but no sound came.

  “Do not be afraid,” Eanflæd said in a gentle voice. “You can speak freely here, Udela, wife of Scrydan.”

  Udela gave her the slightest of nods and swallowed.

  “Ardith is Beobrand’s daughter,” she said.

  Chapter 11

  Eanflæd took Udela under her wing; the youthful, slender princess caring for the older, dishevelled and distraught mother as if it were the most natural thing in the world. They shared few words after Udela’s revelation. Beobrand’s mind spun as if he had been struck a blow to the head, and Udela’s veil of calm finally ripped apart. She began to weep, angry at herself as she cuffed the tears from her face, apologising all the while to Eanflæd and her gemæcce as they led her away. Eanflæd looked towards Beobrand then. He said nothing, but her expression pained him. She was disappointed in him.

  Bassus approached him shortly after. Beobrand told him haltingly of the tidings Udela had brought.

  “By Tiw’s cock,” Bassus said, “is it true, lad?”

  Beobrand did not answer, a look was enough. He remembered the night he had lain with Udela. It was not an experience worth pondering, it had been over quickly, a momentary elation rapidly replaced by guilt and regret. But no man forgets his first woman.

  Bassus cursed again and left him alone, only to return a short while later with a flask of the steward’s good wine. Beobrand snatched the flask eagerly and took a long pull.

  “You wish to talk?” Bassus asked.

  Beobrand shook his head.

  “No. I’ll walk awhile.”

  “Someone should be with you.”

  “I am safe here. I would be alone.”

  Taking the flask of wine with him, he wandered along the path between the box trees and their carved guardians, the empty eyes of the statues mocking him. The crack and snap of the wooden practice blades and the grunts and shouts of the men receded as he drew further away from the sparring gesithas. He rounded a corner, taking him around the far side of the barn where the Northumbrian warriors were being housed. There he found a slab of masonry, a door lintel perhaps from a previous structure that no longer stood. Whether by chance or design it was placed in such a way as to capture the thin autumn sun as it sank into the west. He sat, gazing absently at the smoke drifting up in a haze from the buildings of Cantwareburh. He sipped the wine and shivered. The stone beneath him was cold, the sun not warm enough to heat it. The tranquil solitude of the place contrasted with the maelstrom of thoughts that flapped and fluttered in his thought-cage like so many ravens after a great battle.

  A daughter! Could it truly be so? In his memory’s eye he saw Ardith as she had been when last he had seen her. Fair hair bouncing as she ran, the serious expression and sombre determination in those piercing blue eyes. He took a swig of wine. His stomach
threatened to rebel, a sudden queasiness gripping him. He was not sure if it was the drink that caused the feeling or his certain knowledge that he had another child. A girl. A half-sister to Octa.

  If she yet lived.

  Gods knew where she was. Beobrand shuddered again, this time not from the cold of the seat. By Woden and all the gods, he had abandoned his daughter. First, to a life with that miserable whoreson Scrydan, and now to a fate as a slave, taken from her home. Terrified. Abused. He thought of Reaghan and the sadness and fear that had always been a part of her, like a snaggle-toothed pike lurking expectantly beneath the still surface of a dark river ready to strike the instant a hand trailed in the water. Reaghan had been stolen from her family many years before. She could scarcely remember them, but such scars were never truly healed.

  The thought of Ardith, his own kin, suffering at the hands of rough men, filled him with a terrible, impotent rage. Beobrand drank more wine, feeling it now blurring the jagged edges of his thoughts. He spat. Closing his eyes, he leant back and sighed. He’d thought he was done with Hithe forever, but it seemed his birthplace kept pulling him back with its secrets and his own blood.

  A soft crunch of a footfall on the path’s dry leaves alerted him to someone approaching. Opening his eyes he saw the familiar figure of Coenred. The young monk tentatively stepped closer and Beobrand sighed again.

  “Shouldn’t you be praying?” he asked.

  Coenred sat beside Beobrand on the stone slab.

  “Utta gave me permission to come and speak with you.”

  Beobrand closed his eyes once more. Perhaps Coenred would leave him be.

  “I don’t want to talk.”

  “Bassus thought you needed a friend to speak to.”

  “Did he indeed?” said Beobrand, his eyes snapping open. “I told him I wanted to be alone.”

  “He merely worries about you, Beo,” Coenred said, his tone soft, soothing. They had known each other a long time and Beobrand could not maintain his anger at the monk for more than a short while.

  He took another draught of wine.

  “What did he tell you?” he asked.

  “Nothing, save that you had received bad tidings. If you would like to unburden yourself, I would hear of what ails you. Gothfraidh always used to say ‘A shared pain is halved, a shared joy is doubled.’”

  Beobrand let out a long, ragged breath. Perhaps it would help to speak to Coenred. He was a good listener and Beobrand trusted him completely. They had been through so much together since they had first met all those years before in the small monastery of Engelmynster. The mention of old Gothfraidh, who had been slain during the attack on Ubbanford the year before, was a harsh reminder of how much Coenred had suffered through knowing him.

  Taking a deep breath, Beobrand told his friend of what he had learnt from Udela. Coenred waited patiently until he was finished, face sombre, hands clasped in his lap. When Beobrand had concluded his tale Coenred, usually so eager to speak, sat silently. After a time he reached over with his slender hand and plucked the wine flask from Beobrand’s grasp. The young monk took a deep swallow and then returned the vessel with a rueful smile.

  “What are you going to do?”

  “What can I do?” asked Beobrand, his voice desolate. “I have abandoned my daughter and now she is lost.”

  “Those words do not sound like those spoken by my friend, Beobrand of Ubbanford. No matter the obstacles placed before him, he has never shied away from doing what is right.”

  “I am no craven, Coenred, as well you know.” Beobrand’s voice took on the hard edge of steel. “I am not scared for myself. But I have failed my children. They are the only kin I have and I have failed them both.”

  Beobrand took another sip of the wine and then passed the flask back to Coenred. After the merest hesitation, Coenred took it and drank again.

  “You cannot be blamed for what has happened to Ardith, Beobrand. You knew nothing of her blood ties to you. And you have not failed Octa.”

  “He is with Oswiu’s household. He is not safe there.”

  Coenred pondered this for a moment, frowning.

  “Surely Octa is safe enough with the king,” he said. “No harm will befall him.”

  “My son will be safe for as long as I keep my oath to my lord.” Beobrand took the flask from Coenred, lifted it to his lips and drained the last of its contents.

  Coenred said, “All men know that your oath is like iron. You will not break it, so Octa is safe.”

  “But if I do that which Oswiu has ordered, I must turn my back on Udela. If I return to Bernicia with Eanflæd, who will search for Ardith? The man she thinks of as her father is a nithing. Scrydan will do nothing and with every passing moment her trail grows colder. It may already be too late to ever find her. I cannot bear the thought of merely walking away and leaving Ardith to her wyrd.”

  Coenred turned to face Beobrand, his face serious, eyes fervent.

  “It seems to me that in everything God has a purpose,” he said. “It was the Almighty that saw to it that you were here, in Cantwareburh, at the very time that your daughter was taken. I do not believe the Lord sent you here to know more torment and to do nothing. If I know how you will respond, so does our Heavenly Father who knows everything. He knows it is your nature to seek justice.” Coenred took a deep breath and ran his slim fingers through the hair that grew long and lush at the back of his head. “You have never turned away from me when I have been in danger. I do not believe you are able to turn away from a friend whose life is at risk.”

  Beobrand frowned.

  “I did not protect Dalston.” For an instant he recalled the splash of red and the pallid, terrified face as the monk had disappeared beneath the slate-dark waves.

  Coenred sighed. He took a deep breath and wiped a hand over his features.

  “You are but a man, Beo. Even you cannot save everybody.”

  Coenred’s words stabbed like a seax blade. Anger suddenly sparked within Beobrand. The faces of so many dead crowded his dreams.

  “I do not need you to remind me of all those I have lost. Too often have I failed to protect those in my care. Those I love.”

  “And yet you have saved my life several times. And there are many alive today who would be dead if not for the strength of your shield, your skill with a sword. You are but a man, Beobrand. But one born to help others. I believe this is God’s purpose for you. You wield a sword better than any other warrior I have witnessed, and without your sword many more lives would have been lost. You are God’s instrument. The Lord’s weapon on middle earth.”

  This talk of gods unnerved Beobrand. Oswald had said similar to him before.

  A solitary crow flapped overhead. Beobrand recalled ravens croaking in delight at the bloodshed before the Great Wall. Blood that he had spilt in the name of Woden. He shivered.

  “Even if it is as you say, and the gods know that I would follow Udela to Hithe to find out what has happened to our daughter, if I do so, I will have defied Oswiu. I cannot set myself on the path of saving a daughter I do not know whilst placing my only son into danger.” He spat, his mouth sour now from the wine. “Oswiu is not a forgiving man.”

  Coenred’s brow furrowed as he thought on the problem.

  After a time he said, “Perhaps there is a way.”

  “I can see none.”

  “You must trust in the Lord.”

  Beobrand snorted. He thought that if the gods watched him, they would enjoy the chaos and confusion.

  “I do not hold out much hope. I can see no clear way forward. And I do not think your god cares for the likes of me.”

  As if in answer to his comment, Eanflæd swept around the corner. Her face was flushed and her eyes twinkled.

  “I have been thinking of your situation,” she said, her voice breathless, as if she had been running, “and I believe I have a solution.”

  Coenred smirked at the princess’s sudden arrival. The young monk raised an eyebrow and looked at Be
obrand.

  “You were saying?” he said.

  Beobrand shook his head in disbelief. Above them, more crows flew overhead, their croaking calls like harsh chuckles of mirthless laughter.

  “Well then, Eanflæd, daughter of Edwin,” Beobrand said. “Let’s hear this plan of yours.”

  Chapter 12

  Ardith’s face was dripping wet. Her cheeks stung from the chill wind as it cooled the tears and sea spray that mingled there. The prow of the ship lifted over a white-flecked wave and then plunged down the other side, sending up another great sheet of water. The sea splashed over Ardith in a torrent, drenching her. Her bedraggled hair was whipped about her face by the strength of the breeze, and yet she was unable to push the damp strands away, for to do so she would need to loosen her grip on the stay that she clung to, and she feared that if she did that, she would lose her hold on the ship and be flung from the pitching deck into the dark, frigid waters of the Narrow Sea. Like most of the people of Hithe, Ardith could swim, but she knew that she would never be able to remain afloat long enough for the ships to swing around to search for her. Even if she could swim for long enough, they would have a hard time finding her in this rough sea of foam-flecked waves. And, given how cold it was, with the promise of snow in the air, she thought she would surely die long before the pirates would be able to rescue her.

  On the first day after she had been carried aboard, she had thought about throwing herself into the sea, to end her life before she should know more misery. And yet, although she cowered and shook and wept where she had lain, huddled in the stern of the ship all that long day, she had not acted to cut short her pain in the most final of ways. As that first day had grown dim with the setting of the sun through the watery clouds that lay low on the horizon, Grimr, the leader of the pirates, had brought her a bowl of thin stew that one of the sailors had cooked on a smoky fire that smouldered on the ballast rocks in the belly of the ship. The pirate captain had not spoken, merely passing the food to her with his gnarled hands, nodding when she had taken the bowl from him and had begun to spoon the pottage into her mouth. It had been watery, with stringy pieces of grey meat, the flesh of hapless gulls that the sailors caught with lines trailing from the ship. But Ardith had been ravenous and the stew was warm. As she’d swallowed the food, she had resolved that she would not succumb to the dark thoughts of death that had assailed her.