The Cross and the Curse (Bernicia Chronicles Book 2) (3 page)

She seemed to sense he was preparing for more violence and she shook her head, almost imperceptibly. He could not bear to make her unhappy. He swallowed down the angry words he wished to shout.

"You have my pardon, Athelstan. It was the mead that spoke your words for you."

Athelstan smiled ruefully and rubbed his crotch, still struggling to remain upright. "I wish you had realised that before crushing my balls."

The tension vanished from the hall. A few men chortled.

Athelstan collapsed back onto the bench and reached for the mead horn once more.

"You have an interesting way of making friends, Beobrand." Acennan guffawed and slapped Beobrand's shoulder. Acennan was considerably shorter than the young man from Cantware. He had a round face that was quick to smile, but he was a warrior to be reckoned with. They had stood shoulder to shoulder in the shieldwall, and there was nobody Beobrand would trust more in a battle. Beobrand looked at his friend's face. Acennan's nose still bore the scars from the beating he had received at Beobrand's hands when they had first met.

Acennan had been drunk and had threatened Beobrand. He had lived to regret his actions. For a time afterwards there had been animosity between them. But shared experiences had led them to a mutual respect, which had become the bond of friendship. Shield brothers. Beobrand smiled back at Acennan, the cold wind blowing off of the North Sea stinging his eyes and making them water.

"Well, it worked for us, didn't it?" Beobrand said.

"True. After you showed me you were not too useless in a fight," Acennan retorted with a grin.

Wyrd was impossible to fathom. If anyone had told Beobrand he would be friends with the stocky warrior after their first meeting in Gefrin, he would have thought them mad.

They were standing on the eastern palisade of Bebbanburg, the slate sea stretching into the distance. The brooding shadows of the islands to the south could just be made out. In the other direction lay the larger island of Lindisfarena. Now protected by the waves on all sides, but at low tide, it would once again be accessible from the mainland of Bernicia.

The two friends often stood here. Sometimes they talked. Many times Acennan joked. Frequently they just enjoyed each other's company. The fortress was bustling and noisy. It still housed all of the survivors from Gefrin, in addition to King Oswald's retinue and those stewards, thralls and servants who had remained after King Edwin's death. It was overcrowded and the wall was one of the few places where peace was a possibility, even if just for a few moments.

"You are lucky Scand stepped in when he did," said Acennan. "That Athelstan is not someone to cross by all accounts. You'll have to watch your back."

Beobrand pictured the old warrior touching Sunniva and suppressed a shudder. "I know. But I could not just stand by and watch him."

"Your temper will get you killed one day."

"Well, so far, it doesn't seem to do me much harm."

Acennan touched his nose gently. "No, it doesn't do you much harm." He hawked and spat over the palisade. The wind caught his spittle and flung it back towards them. A gull wheeled close, trying to snatch the morsel from the air.

"I suppose my nose looks better now. Like a real warrior. I was too handsome before." Acennan laughed.

Beobrand grunted. He was in no mood for jesting. The confrontation with Athelstan was still fresh in his mind. His hand ached where he had cracked the scabs on his fingers. He was still angry. Tense with contained violence.

"How long till we march south?" he asked.

"Not long now," answered Acennan. "I know Oswald says we should wait for the warbands from the north to come, but I cannot see how we can tarry much longer. Cadwallon is not idle. With each day that passes, more settlements are destroyed. More Angelfolc put to the sword or enslaved."

King Oswald had sent messengers north in search of aid from Gartnait, the king of the Picts. But no news had returned yet. The warriors trained, but each day they grew more restless. News came almost daily of death and destruction at the hands of the Waelisc host in the south. Oswald would not be able to afford to keep this many men at Bebbanburg indefinitely. Supplies were already running low, but with the threat of Cadwallon's force harrying the populace of Northumbria, he couldn't disband the warriors.

Beobrand said, "Do you think we can raise enough men to beat Cadwallon?"

"Only the gods can know. But we've been outnumbered before and we are still here."

Beobrand remembered the clamour and terror of the shieldwall. The twists of wyrd that had allowed them to escape with their lives.

"Facing the Waelisc once on equal terms would be a welcome change," he said.

"Aye, but who wants an easy life, eh Beobrand?" Acennan snorted and slapped his friend on the back. "Our tale will be that much greater in the telling when we face Cadwallon once more against greater numbers and crush him in the field."

Beobrand wondered whether there would be anyone left in Bernicia to tell their tale, but he kept his doubts to himself. He had spotted something out on the Whale Road, still far to the north, but heading towards them.

It was a ship. Riding the waves swiftly on the stiff breeze.

The two warriors fell silent for a while, watching the vessel approach. Sea birds careened in its wake. The sleek bark came on quickly, sail full and straining at the mast and stays. They watched as the ship rounded Lindisfarena and sailed towards the moorings on the beach below Bebbanburg.

"Perhaps Oswald's calls have been answered," said Acennan. "That ship looks full of men."

The hall was crammed with people. Oswald was going to speak and everyone in Bebbanburg wished to hear his words. The men were keen to learn whether they would march. They wanted to be on the move. Some longed for battle. For glory and slaughter. Others secretly prayed they would be spared the shieldwall. But all were tired of the confines of the fortress. The women were thin-lipped and tense. They knew the lives of their men rested in the hands of this new king, returned from exile after many years. Their lives had been thrown into disarray in the last year. The peace of King Edwin's reign had ended abruptly at the battle of Elmet far to the south. Many good men, husbands, sons and fathers, had perished that day. In the months that followed there had been a welter of blood-letting throughout the land at the hands of Cadwallon and the accursed native Waelisc. No family had been untouched by the slew of violence, which had culminated in the destruction of the royal steading of Gefrin and the murder of Oswald's brother, Eanfrith.

Now war and death once more threatened their land and the men would march. It was their duty. The women wished there was some other way to protect their homes. But they knew of none.

The hall's beams were soot-darkened. A fug of smoke and sweat made the atmosphere hazy. The rush lights guttered. The hearth fire blazed. Those near the flames were sweltering and drenched, but unable to move away, such was the crowding in the room.

Beobrand, with Sunniva and Acennan on either side, stood at the end of the hall, far from the high table where the king and nobles sat. They watched as King Oswald, slim and pale, yet with a commanding presence, raised himself from his seat and spread his arms over the crowd that thronged the hall. His long chestnut hair was brushed back from his forehead, framing intelligent eyes and prominent cheekbones.

Slowly the chatter died down. Oswald stood there, arms outstretched for a long while. The tension in the room built. The watchers leaned forward expectantly. All talk ceased.

Silence.

At last, the king spoke. But not in the declaiming tones of a warlord or a scop recounting a tale of battle-play. Instead he spoke in a hushed voice. The audience shuffled forward in an attempt to better hear the words of the man who could decide how the weft of their wyrd was woven. Many held their breath.

"Men and women of Bernicia. The good Lord God has answered our prayers. King Gartnait, brother of Finola, has responded to my appeal for aid and sent some of his finest warriors to bolster our numbers against the heathen Cadwallon."

Finola, widow of Oswald's brother, Eanfrith, sat demurely to Oswald's left. After Sunniva, thought Beobrand, she was the next most beautiful woman in the hall. She was pale, fragile of build, with a long river of flame-red hair washing down her back. She sat immobile, resigned it seemed, to be used as a strategic piece in the deadly game of tafl played by kings. There was no love between the Angelfolc of Bernicia and the Picts. Eanfrith had married her to secure an allegiance, and now Oswald was taking advantage. Perhaps she, and her young son Talorcan, were little more than hostages of noble birth. Behind Finola, the silver-bearded Scand stepped forward, and placed a reassuring hand on her shoulder. She reached up and tenderly patted the old thegn's hand.

Oswald paid no heed to Finola or Scand.

"We will march. The fyrd has been summoned once more to protect the land."

Sunniva's small warm hand found Beobrand's. He clasped it with a reassuring squeeze. He remembered being in this same hall only a year before. King Edwin had sent for the fyrd then too, and promised to rid the land of Cadwallon. How many would come to this new king's call? But even if all heeded the summons, after the previous year of bloodshed and battle, there were fewer men able to take up shield and spear in defence of the realm.

The Pictish reinforcements were welcome, but Beobrand and Acennan had counted only a couple of dozen men in the ship that afternoon. They had both stood shield to shield against Cadwallon's host before and it looked increasingly likely they would once again be outnumbered by the Waelisc. If they survived the upcoming battle, their tale would be great indeed.

Oswald continued: "I have prayed and the Lord has told me we will prevail over our enemies. I have been exiled these many years from this fine land of Bernicia and I will not allow anyone else to stand between me and my birthright. Many of you stood by me through those years," his gaze swept the room and he met the eye of several warriors, his closest retinue, his comitatus. "Your loyalty to me, your bravery in the battles in Hibernia and your faith in the one true Lord will now be repaid. I will be a good king. None of you shall want." Some of the men stamped their feet or clapped their hands.

"To those of you who know me less well I say, 'Keep faith with me and God, and you will have your reward, both in this life and the next'. We will march into battle under the shadow of the Holy rood and we shall sweep the pagan Waelisc before us."

Acennan nudged Beobrand and whispered, "If he can fight as well as he talks, we'll have nothing to worry about."

"Why must you leave so soon? It is not right. You are barely healed." Sunniva could hear the tinge of despair creeping into her voice. She tried to keep her anguish to herself, but it was ready to burst forth, like a banked forge blown by a bellows back into roaring, searing life.

"You know I must go. I can do nothing else," answered Beobrand. His tone was coloured by his exasperation with the conversation. They had been skirting around it for days, but since Oswald's announcement, Sunniva could ignore it no longer.

"I know," she said quietly. She leaned back against the wall and closed her eyes. They were seated on the ground in their makeshift quarters in the corner of the store building that had been given to Scand for his men and their families. Like all of Bebbanburg, it was overcrowded and noisy, but they had done what they could. Sunniva had crafted a partition from cloaks and withies that provided a semblance of privacy, though they were well aware that it did nothing to conceal sound. There could be no secrets in the cramped building.

All of their possessions lay piled as neatly as she could manage in the small space between the withy-cloak barriers and the outside wall. Each night they lay together, whispering, kissing, exploring each other's bodies. They clung together in the dark, neither wishing to let go for fear of being lost. In those moments when they coupled in the gloom, breathing each other's breath, she could almost forget the reality of their life. She was content in those nighttime moments. Happy to hide from the world in this small home-space she had made for them.

But in the light of day, she remembered all too keenly her mother and father's passing. Her mother had succumbed to a coughing fever the previous winter. Her father, Strang, smith of Gefrin, had been savagely murdered. Beobrand had avenged his death and had come back to her. He was all she had now. Only weeks before he had been on the edge of death and the memories of the vigil at his bedside haunted her dreams. And now he was marching south to war. Against a superior force. And the worst thing of all was that he looked pleased.

Sunniva opened her eyes and looked at Beobrand. His eyes glimmered in the glow of the rush-light that burnt in a small earthenware holder on the ground. The shadows distorted his face, making his features hard.

"Why can't we just leave?" she implored him. "We could find someone in need of our skills. I could smith and you have your sword. There is always need for strong men."

Beobrand sighed. "You have said it yourself. I have my sword. What use is a strong arm and a fine blade, if it is not used? I am Scand's man now. We are oath-sworn to Oswald. I cannot break my oath." He reached out and stroked her cheek with his fingertips. "You would not love me if I were an oath-breaker."