Storm of Steel

by Matthew Harffy

  The Venerable Bede in his History of the English Church and People mentions that Utta, who was sent south to fetch Eanflæd, was given a flask of oil by Aidan, as the Abbot of Lindisfarena foretold that on the return journey to Bernicia by sea, they would encounter a great storm and contrary winds. He told Utta to pour the holy oil on the waves and the storm would immediately abate and they would have a pleasant and calm voyage. Bede says that this is exactly what happened, and that when Utta remembered to pour the oil onto the raging sea, it grew instantly calm. I have chosen to have the storm come upon them on their way south to the court of King Eorcenberht (a journey which, according to Bede, actually took place on land), and I have not had the oil work quite as miraculously. And certainly not instantly.

  Much of this book takes place aboard ships and while a considerable amount is known about the vessels sailed by the Norsemen a few centuries later, less is known about the ships of the Anglo-Saxons. As no Anglo-Saxon ship has been found with evidence of a mast and sail, there is much debate about whether they actually had sails or were instead rowed everywhere. A book with insights into both sides of the argument is Dark Age Naval Power by John Haywood. As well as analysis of historical evidence and archaeology, great work has also been done by E. and J. Gifford, who reconstructed a half-scale replica of the ship from the Sutton Hoo burial. They named it the Sae Wylfing and rigged it with a mast and sail and carried out a series of practical tests proving it could be navigated very effectively under sail. Both of these works, and common sense leads me to believe it is almost certain that ships from the period had sails. The Romans, whom the Saxon tribes had interacted with for centuries, used wind power, as did the people from Scandinavia a couple of hundred years later, so, despite there being no firm evidence to prove it, I think it seems highly unlikely that the Angles, Saxons and Jutes had not worked out how to rig a mast and sail in their ships.

  Beobrand’s quest in search of Ardith is pure imagination, but as mentioned in previous books, slavery was commonplace and it was not unheard of for parents to sell their children into thralldom in times of dire need, to raise funds or simply to reduce the number of mouths to feed. According to a UNICEF report from 2005, about two million children are exploited every year in the global commercial sex trade. If that is the scale of the problem in the twenty-first century, when international law and the laws of 158 countries criminalise sex trafficking, it is plausible to imagine how easy it must have been for such practices to have gone on unchecked in the seventh century. It is abhorrent to decent, well-balanced adults to comprehend the sexual exploitation of adolescents or children, but sadly, such cases are all too frequent in the news today and I am sure that such repugnant acts have always been perpetrated by a certain type of individual. If said deviants were to have power and wealth, it would be a simple thing for them to acquire access to whatever perversion they craved.

  The idea of Grimr and his motley crew comes from the fact that Saxons were notorious pirates. The Saxons (and the other northern tribes, such as the Angles and Jutes) could well be thought of as proto-Vikings, setting out in their sleek ships to plunder and pillage (and then settle) the coasts of northern Europe. The threat of Saxon piracy was so great that in the third and fourth centuries the Romans built forts along the coasts of Britain and Gaul in what would become known as the Saxon Shore to defend against the northern invaders.

  Grimr himself is a purely fictional character. His name is taken from The Færeyinga Saga (The saga of the Faroe Islands). However, the Grimr Kamban in the saga is supposedly the leader of the first Vikings from Norway to settle on the islands in the ninth century and it is by no means certain that there were people living on the Faroes in the seventh century. But while researching for this book, I read Tim Severin’s wonderful book The Brendan Voyage. In it he recounts his epic journey in a leather-skinned currach in which, along with a small crew, he travelled between Ireland and North America, thus proving that the tale of St. Brendan’s voyage could in fact be a fictionalised account of a real journey, using the different islands of the North Atlantic as stepping stones to the New World. Brendan could feasibly have made the journey in the sixth century and the islands he mentions as a paradise of sheep and birds could have been the Faroes. Of course, this means that people would have needed to have gone to the islands before then to take the sheep. Also, before the colonisation of the Faroe Islands by the Norwegian Vikings, Dicuil, an Irish monk and geographer of the eighth century, mentions monks living there. And so I decided to have Grimr hearken from the Faroe Islands. The other thing that sets him apart as different from the other men is the walrus skull helm he wears. I don’t know of any such helmet existing, but I liked the idea of the tusks framing the face of the wearer. And if you are thinking that walruses are only found further north even than the Faroes, in 2018 a walrus was photographed as far south as the Orkneys.

  As to the make-up of Grimr’s crew, we know that there were extensive trade routes throughout Europe, the Middle East and Asia, so I think it likely that a particular kind of men from all countries and backgrounds would find themselves gravitating to a piratical crew and the promise of violence and lawless plunder.

  The practice of wrecking, taking valuables from shipwrecks, was rife in the past and a way for some coastal areas to supplement their incomes. The premise behind Mantican’s band of wreckers, luring ships onto rocks with false lights, to then pick up whatever can be salvaged from the shipwrecks, is based on the legendary accounts of such activity in the south-west of Britain, where the rocky coastline, with surge tides, hidden banks and exposed cliffs, has seen numerous wrecks over the centuries. It is uncertain that the use of false lights ever really took place in the way described here or indeed at all, but it is an enduring theme of folklore of the area and makes a great story!

  Just as Britain in the seventh century was made up of many small kingdoms, what we now know as France was composed of smaller realms, each with their own people and monarchs. The kingdom that encompasses the city of Rouen (Rodomo) was Neustria. As in earlier books, where I have simplified all the tribes and kingdoms north of Bernicia, referring to them all as Picts, so here I have called all the people Beobrand encounters across the Narrow Sea as Franks. It may not be accurate, but it makes things a lot simpler.

  Much of Rouen was destroyed in the ninth century during a Viking raid, but there has been a city there, on the Seine, since Roman times. The current Rouen Cathedral (Cathédrale primatiale Notre-Dame de l’Assomption de Rouen) is built on the location of an earlier church dating back to the fourth century. It almost certainly had a different name in the seventh century, but I couldn’t find out what it was, so have chosen to use the name of today’s cathedral – Our Lady of the Assumption. Bishop Audoen (later Saint Audoen, or Ouen) was a real person and very influential in the politics of the time. It is quite possible that he attended the Council of Chalon-sur-Saône (Cabilonen) along with thirty-seven other Frankish bishops. The Council was held sometime between 643 and 652 and during it, twenty canons were agreed, including one recommending private sacramental confession with imposed penances. This was a change from the public confession before that time. The practice of private confession and tariff penances was already common among the ecclesiastical houses of Britain and would have been the norm for Coenred on Lindisfarne.

  The cheerful, gnome-like landlord, Amadeo, and his famous snails actually exist. However, they are not in Rouen, rather in Madrid, Spain, where, at the time of writing and the age of 91, Amadeo continues to run his bar, Los Caracoles, and serve up his delicious snails with a nice cold beer, or three!

  Vulmar and his palace are inventions, but there is ample evidence of Roman villas being used by later generations. Often these buildings were taken up by the church and converted into places of worship. For example, Stavelot Abbey in Belgium was founded around 650 on the domain of a former villa and the abbey of Vézelay in Burgundy had a similar genesis. Later in the century, in 698, an abbey was established at
the site of a Roman villa at Echternach, in Luxembourg near Trier. I see no reason why at least some nobles wouldn’t make use of well-preserved Roman buildings.

  By the end of this book, Beobrand’s horizons have broadened and his life has become more complicated than ever. He has acquired new family members and the population of Ubbanford continues to grow. It doesn’t seem likely that his relationship with the ambitious King Oswiu will become any more settled, particularly in the light of the presence of the new, beautiful, intelligent and headstrong queen of Bernicia.

  Oswiu’s lust for power will continue to lead Bernicia into conflict and, as one of the most powerful thegns of the kingdom, you can be certain that Beobrand will again be called upon to wield his new sword in battle alongside his faithful Black Shields.

  More intrigue, shieldwalls, betrayal and love await Beobrand as Oswiu seeks to expand his influence over the other kingdoms of Albion. But that is for another day, and other books.

  Acknowledgements

  A lot of people are needed to bring a book to publication, but there would be little point in writing at all without readers. So first and foremost, thank you, dear reader, for reading this book. I hope you have enjoyed it. If you’d like to know more about the novels and the history behind them, please connect with me on any of the usual social media platforms via www.matthewharffy.com. I love hearing from readers, so don’t be shy. And if you could take a moment to leave a review online, I would be indebted to you, as it helps people decide to give a new author a chance. Of course, the best way of spreading the word is to tell your friends and family that you have enjoyed my books.

  As always, I must thank my select group of test readers: Simon Blunsdon, Gareth Jones, Shane Smart, Emmett Carter, Alex Forbes and Graham Glendinning. Getting feedback on the first draft makes the finished product that much more polished and gives me some peace of mind when handing the manuscript over to my editor. I would have thought it would get easier with each book, but no such luck. It is wonderful having some people I can trust to give me an honest critique before letting the publishing professionals see my work.

  Thanks to Caroline Ridding, Nicolas Cheetham and all the staff at Aria and Head of Zeus. Their passion for producing fabulous books is always evident, and the finished product you are holding in your hands owes much to the professional editors, designers, typesetters, and all the others involved in the publication process.

  Thank you to Robin Wade, my ever patient and unflappable agent.

  And I have to say a big thank you to all of the people I communicate with on a daily basis on social media. I am now “friends” with many, many readers and writers from all over the world, and it certainly makes the job of writing much less lonely than it would be without the Internet.

  Extra special thanks to my great friend, Gareth Jones, for going above and beyond the role of test reader and accompanying me on a nautical research trip. We couldn’t have asked for better weather, nothing like the storms endured by Beobrand and the crew of the Brimblæd, but Gareth still ended up a rather sickly shade of green at one point.

  Thanks to Euan McNair, skipper of the Sirius, who explained the tides and prevailing winds and showed me suitable locations along the coast for some of the events in Storm of Steel. If you need to hire a small boat from Weymouth, look no further than Sirius Charters.

  Finally, thank you to my wonderful daughters, Elora and Iona, and my ever-supportive wife, Maite, for putting up with the long hours of writing, and the frequent times when I am present in body only, as my mind is lost in the Dark Ages, trying to tease apart a particularly thorny plot point. I really couldn’t do this without you.

  About the author

  MATTHEW HARFFY grew up in Northumberland where the rugged terrain, ruined castles and rocky coastline had a huge impact on him. He now lives in Wiltshire, England, with his wife and their two daughters.

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