For Lord and Land Read online

  “I will speak with my father and make him understand,” she said with a certainty that reminded Cynan of Beobrand.

  “You think I should go with her?” Cynan asked, his tone incredulous. He had thought she might try to dissuade him.

  Ardith nodded.

  “Beobrand will understand,” she said. Cynan thought that unlikely. “When I was in need of aid,” she went on, holding her gaze on Sulis, “he came for me.” She turned to look at Cynan, her eyes gleaming by the flame of the small lamp. “Would he want a man of his to turn his back on a woman in distress?”

  “You don’t understand,” Cynan said. “She was his thrall.” He glanced over at where Sulis sat in the corner. “She is the murderer of his woman.”

  Ardith’s eyes had narrowed.

  “Those are obstacles that can be surmounted.”

  Cynan had been confused.

  “You are a wealthy man,” Ardith said.

  After that the plan had quickly fallen into place. It made sense, but Cynan knew Beobrand well enough to know he would be furious at having been duped. And the women of Ubbanford would be resentful of him and Ardith. Cynan had told her as much.

  “I will deal with Rowena and the others,” Ardith said. “And with my father. I will agree with him the weregild for Reaghan’s death and the price he paid for Sulis, and vouch that you will pay him the silver on your return.”

  Thinking about the conversation now, Cynan wondered at the reception he would get if he returned. He doubted Beobrand would forgive him easily. Perhaps this was madness after all. If it had been foolish for Sulis to ride eastward, how much more foolish was it of him to ride towards danger, leaving behind an angry lord and a depleted hoard of silver?

  But Ardith’s words had pierced his guard easily enough. The truth was that he had already made his decision when Beobrand’s daughter had arrived, and her suggestion had provided him with an elegant solution and an unexpected ally.

  “Very well,” he’d said. “Agree the blood-price and the cost of Sulis’ freedom with your father.” He had turned his attention to Sulis then, who had been sitting in silence as they talked. “I will go with you to Rheged.”

  “I cannot thank you enough,” she’d said. “If I am able in the future, I will repay you.”

  He shook his head.

  “The silver is not important.” Angering his lord was though, but he did not speak the words. “I am but one man,” he said. “I am not certain what I will be able to achieve.”

  “You will not be only one man,” said a voice from the shadows beside the door. It was Brinin, Ardith’s husband, the smith. His face caught the dim light, showing the dark scar that traced his cheek. “I will go with you,” he said.

  Ardith had paled and pulled the young smith outside into the darkness. There had followed a whispered argument between the couple. Cynan snorted to remember it now. Brinin was a brave man, of that there was no doubt, and it seemed that in spite of her strong will and cold glare, Ardith did not always get her way. After the heated exchange, in which Ardith reminded Brinin that she was carrying his child, their firstborn, and that he should not seek to place himself in danger, Brinin had finally said, “So, it is all very well for you to send Cynan away to risk his life, but if I feel I should join him, I should not go? This woman is with child too. Would you want a stranger to turn his back on you, if you needed help?”

  Ardith had glowered at him then. Tears streaked her face when at last she nodded and embraced her husband.

  Ingwald had not bothered to say he would be going with Cynan too. He was his oath-sworn man. No words were needed.

  Once the decision had been taken, they had gathered up their things quickly and quietly in the darkness. Most of the people of Ubbanford were yet in the great hall on the hill and nobody stumbled upon them as they prepared to leave. They had mounted up and ridden out before the moon was at its zenith. The only person watching them go had been Ardith. She had not cried any more, but clung for a long time to Brinin, whispering urgently into his ear words that he alone could hear.

  Cynan surveyed the dark horizon ahead. He thought he remembered a stream flowing from a stand of alder that would serve well as a campsite and would shelter them from view. They trotted down a steep slope and laboured up an even sharper incline. There was no conversation now. They were all tired and Cynan wondered what the others were thinking. Were they silently berating themselves for following him on this fool’s errand? Questions swarmed his mind like angry bees. But he did not voice them. The night was wrapped about them like a shroud and his concerns would keep until the morning.

  They pressed on, but the alder wood he was expecting must have been further than he had remembered, for there was no sign of the trees for a long time. Perhaps he had been mistaken and there was no such copse. They needed to rest soon. Sulis’ head was nodding and Cynan thought he had heard Ingwald snoring in his saddle. They could not continue for much longer like this. He had begun to think they would need to make camp somewhere else, when finally he saw the moonlight picking out the swaying branches of the alders. As they grew close, he heard the rustle of the wind through the boughs and the calming burble of the water that flowed from the hills along a dark gully.

  They made their way under the shelter of the trees. Here, nobody would see them from afar. With any luck, they could sleep without being disturbed before setting out once more into the south-west. Sulis slid from her pony with a moan. Holding her lower back, she staggered into the bushes. When she returned, the men had already removed the horses’ saddles and were brushing down the animals with handfuls of dried grass. Cynan was adamant that they must do this, no matter how tired they might be.

  “We have a long way to travel on horseback,” he said.

  Ingwald did not comment. He was used to his hlaford’s insistence on care of their mounts. Brinin groaned. Perhaps he was already regretting his decision to go against Ardith, Cynan pondered.

  “If you treat your horse well, it will serve you well when needed,” Cynan said. “When you are done with that, Brinin, take them to the stream to drink.”

  “What should I do?” asked Sulis. Her face was pale in the gloom, her eyes dark. Her voice bore the weight of all that had happened to her in the last few days. She was exhausted.

  “Here,” Cynan said, passing her a blanket. “You need to rest now, so that we can ride on in the morning. We’ll keep watch.”

  She hesitated, then shook out the blanket, and, wrapping it around her, lay down in the tall, thick grasses that grew close to the trees.

  “Get some sleep,” whispered Cynan to Ingwald. “I will take the first watch.”

  Ingwald yawned.

  “Wake me when you can no longer keep your eyes open.”

  He did not wait for a reply, but stretched out in the lee of the twisted trunk of an alder. He pulled his cloak about him, shifted his position, and started to snore. Brinin came back with the horses. Cynan took the reins from him and whispered that he should rest.

  He tethered the horses beneath the trees and settled himself with his back to a broad bole. From this position he could watch the path they had followed. He listened to the night. The wind’s murmured whispers through the leaves of the trees; an owl’s hoot, far away to the south; the trickle of water over the pebbles in the stream bed. After a long time, a movement in the dark drew his attention. His hand dropped to the hilt of his seax, but a moment later he smiled. It was a fox. The animal crept close to their camp, sniffing the air. Cynan stood and the fox halted its stealthy approach, staring at him. A heartbeat later, it turned and with a bounding, unhurried run that sent its tail bobbing behind it, it vanished.

  All the while, Cynan’s head teemed with thoughts and questions, but he could come up with no answers. When his eyelids were drooping and he had caught himself on the verge of sleep more than once, he roused Ingwald silently and lay down in the warm place he had left in the crushed lush grass.

  It felt to him as though he h
ad only just closed his eyes when he was being roused by a hand shaking him. He jolted awake, looking about him, confused and groggy from sleep. The land was suffused with the wolf-pelt grey of dawn.

  “Lord,” hissed the voice of the man who had awoken him. It was Brinin. Cynan glanced about them. The horses were hulking shadows beneath the alders. Ingwald and Sulis were both asleep. The long blades of grass were wet with dew.

  “What is it?” Cynan whispered.

  The scar that ran along Brinin’s face was dark and grim in the dawn light. He was pointing into the east where the sun was lightening the sky.

  “Someone is coming.”

  Chapter 12

  Beobrand and his Black Shields rode southward on borrowed steeds. Offa and six of King Anna’s hearth-warriors travelled with them. Oswiu’s men had rescued the king and he now resided behind the protection of the walls of Bebbanburg, so Offa and the others were Anna’s gesture of goodwill to his Bernician ally. The message was clear: as East Angeln’s enemies were Bernicia’s, so Bernicia’s foes would be fought by the East Angelfolc.

  They had left at first light and Beobrand could almost feel Oswiu’s glare boring into his back as he’d watched them ride away from the palisade. Despite playing down his ailment, there was no denying that the king was in too much pain to travel, let alone fight. His frustration at his inability to lead the Bernician warhost against Oswine and the Deirans had made Oswiu even more foul-tempered than usual.

  As they had saddled the horses in the dawn, Grindan had voiced aloud what perhaps others were thinking.

  “It seems passing strange to me that after all this time seeking war with Oswine, Oswiu should now be unable to fight,” he said, tightening the cinch beneath a chestnut stallion’s belly. Eadgard nodded. He never refuted what his brother said.

  “Remember Maserfelth?” he rumbled. “No sign of Oswiu there, either.”

  “He was happy enough to be at Din Eidyn,” said Ulf, leading the stocky dun mare he had been given out into the shadowed courtyard.

  “And Cair Chaladain,” said Attor, swinging himself up lithely onto his mount’s back. “God knows he was not shy to wet his blade then.”

  He raised an eyebrow, his crude double meaning clear.

  Offa and Anna’s men readied their horses in silence, but they were listening intently.

  “Enough!” snapped Beobrand. “Oswiu is our king and he is no craven.” His men looked at him strangely, but had said no more, instead busying themselves with preparing their gear and horses.

  As they cantered south, Beobrand thought about the incident. It was true that the king had not brought the promised reinforcements to Maserfelth and many good men had died there, including Oswiu’s older brother and king at the time, Oswald. And at Cair Chaladain, Oswiu had revelled in the wanton abuse of the Pictish women after the battle had been won. Spoils of war, he said. The warriors’ due. Beobrand disdained him for that. And yet he had seen Oswiu fight at the centre of many shieldwalls. He had stood alone with him in the dark against assassins who had been sent to kill Beobrand, but had only succeeded in slaying Fordraed and starting the war with Deira. No, the king was no coward. But was that why he had spoken out in his defence?

  The truth of it was that seeing Eanflæd standing at Oswiu’s side, his arm about her waist as she led him limping back to the hall where they sat together at the high table, Beobrand had been filled with a dreadful burning jealousy. This was why he stayed away from Bebbanburg. And yet that was not all. He loathed seeing the king and queen together, for not only did it make him envious of their bond, their intimacy; the shared affection of husband and wife. He was also overcome with a cutting sense of guilt. She was not his woman and yet he yearned for her, and he knew that seeing him caused her pain too.

  His men suspected his secret, he was sure. He trusted them to keep it. And yet he could not abide them speaking out against their king when it was he who had done wrong, not Oswiu. His gesithas’ loyalty heartened him, but made him acutely aware of his own shortcomings.

  The men sensed his dark mood and did not attempt to coax him into conversation as they rode towards the Wall.

  At midday, they rested at Alnwic, a small collection of buildings where Deira Stræt crossed the River Aln. After fording the river, they had dismounted and eaten some of the provisions Oswiu’s steward, Brytnere, had given them.

  Beobrand sat beside the river, chewing on a hunk of rye bread. He found a piece of grit in the bread and spat it out into the water. A shadow fell over him and he looked up. It was Attor.

  “Don’t worry about the lad,” he said.

  Beobrand sighed.

  “Which one?” he asked.

  The slender warrior grinned and lowered himself down beside Beobrand.

  “Cuthbert,” he said. “He’s a good boy.”

  Beobrand nodded.

  “Yes, he is. And eager too!” Cuthbert had been furious when Beobrand had told him he could not ride with them.

  “Aye. He takes his duty to his oath more seriously than most, that’s for certain.” Beobrand frowned, flicking a glance at where Offa sat with his men. Attor held up his hands in apology as he saw Beobrand’s expression and realised how he might construe his words to be referring to Beobrand’s own oath that had been shattered on a warm afternoon in Ediscum in a welter of blood. “I just meant that Cuthbert is an earnest boy, that is all. Still,” he went on, meeting Beobrand’s cold gaze, “the young find being earnest so much easier than the old.”

  Beobrand chuckled without mirth.

  “Are we old then?”

  “Well, you are to be a grandfather soon, lord,” Attor smiled. “But you have a few years in you yet, I think. I have passed forty summers and I tell you, I feel those years now. When I awake on a cold morning, I can feel all the aches from injuries in battles that took place so long ago I can barely remember them.”

  “Your body remembers though.”

  “Aye, the body remembers.”

  Fleetingly, Beobrand recalled the taste of Eanflæd’s mouth, the touch of her nipple hardening under his palm. He rubbed a hand over his face. Yes, the body always remembers.

  “What do you think has happened to Cynan?” he asked, pushing aside thoughts of Eanflæd. He had left the Waelisc warrior in charge at Ubbanford and Stagga, and he could make no sense of the tidings that he had not been there to answer the king’s call.

  “I have no idea, but we will find out soon enough.” He took a long swig from his water skin, then offered it to Beobrand, who shook his head.

  “I cannot fathom it,” he said.

  “Well, one thing that my years have taught me is that there is no point in fretting over that of which we have no control. Elmer will tell us when we reach Corebricg.”

  They rode on and Beobrand was thankful to Attor. He felt less burdened with worries after their talk, even though they travelled towards war. But war was a beast he understood well. It was savage and deadly, a vicious writhing mass of steel and blood, and yet the emotions it conjured were simple. When the shieldwalls clashed, he would allow the killer within him to be unleashed and he would, for a time, have no concerns apart from the glee of bloodletting, the joy of overpowering his enemies and leading his men to victory.

  This was what made him a formidable warrior and why he was useful to Oswiu. He had accepted this, and despite the nightmares filled with the screams and agonised faces of those he had slain, he had long since admitted to himself the dark reality that he enjoyed the simplicity of the shieldwall’s storm of steel. And yet, if he took pleasure in killing, what kind of man did that make him? Of that, he was uncertain, and when the nights were long and his slaughter-filled dreams kept sleep from him, he did not much care for the man he had become.

  The day was warm, bright and long, and when they reached Morðpæð there was still plenty of light in the sky, so they pressed on, leaving behind Fordraed’s grand hall without halting. Beobrand glanced at Beircheart as they trotted past the path that led
to the hall. The bearded gesith gave no indication of his feelings. Fordraed’s widow, Edlyn, resided in the hall at Morðpæð and Beircheart had often visited her there. Beobrand knew the warrior wanted nothing more than to be wed to Rowena’s daughter, but the past made shackles for them all, it seemed. Beircheart was held back by something, perhaps guilt at how Edlyn’s husband had died, though Beobrand knew well enough that Beircheart had nothing to do with Fordraed’s demise. Or maybe it was a feeling of inadequacy that Edlyn’s mother had perpetuated. Rowena had never wanted her daughter to wed one whom she deemed to be beneath her station. Beobrand vowed that when they returned to Ubbanford, he would speak with Rowena and confront the matter. He had watched on for too long as Beircheart and Edlyn longed for each other. Gods, thought Beobrand, if he could not have the object of his desire, he would do all in his power so that his loyal gesith might do so.

  They halted for the night at the hall of one Dunna, a thin man with wispy hair and a threadbare, sweat-stained kirtle. An older man than Beobrand by at least ten years, Dunna was nervous, and never seemed comfortable. His wife, Geatfleda, was younger than Ardith. She was a true beauty, with smooth skin and expressive dark eyes. The men stared at their hostess, and Beobrand, like the rest of them, wondered at the match between the ageing thegn and this vision of youth.

  “This Dunna must be a truly wealthy man,” whispered Offa, after Geatfleda had offered them the Waes Hael cup. She moved along the line of wide-eyed warriors, each of whom accepted the vessel with obvious pleasure. “Though he does not look it.”

  Beobrand watched the young woman and the men’s reaction to her. These warriors, brave in the face of screaming enemies brandishing blades and seeking their death, were transformed to little more than blushing, abashed boys in the presence of such beauty. Beobrand watched as the slender Geatfleda glided on to Eadgard, who towered over her. He nodded at whatever words of welcome she uttered and stooped to pluck the proffered cup from her delicate hands. What must it be like to possess such power and yet remain so powerless?