The Saxon Spears

by James Calbraith

  “I didn’t think you’d trust me if I just wandered into the forest saying I wanted to join you.”

  “You’re right, I wouldn’t. In fact, I’m still not sure I do.” He takes a great gulp of mead. His cup once held communion wine. Now it’s dripping with grease. “What happened, was your Master’s villa really dissolved, leaving you destitute?”

  “Something like that.” I shrug and reach for the grouse. I chew the meat slowly, playing for time. I haven’t had long to prepare my lies.

  “I come not just in my own name,” I tell him. “There are many among the Iutes who think fondly about what you do here. We don’t want to just depend on the scraps the wealas throw us.”

  He grins. “I knew it. I told you we had Iutes here, too. They were telling me the same, but there’re too few of them to make a difference. Has Beadda sent you? Or Orpedda?”

  “I cannot say yet. Trust goes both ways,” I say. A small hunting dog, no bigger than a fox, whimpers at my feet. I throw it a scrap of the meat.

  “If you don’t trust me, why come here in the first place?”

  “It’s not about you — but those around you.” I glance around suspiciously and lean forward. “You have Londin’s spies among your men.”

  Aelle nods slowly. He gestures for the servant girl to leave us alone, with only a silent bodyguard standing behind Aelle’s chair, a grim, moustached Saxon warrior supporting himself on the head and shaft of a massive axe. I don’t remember seeing him in the battle at the Stone Bridge — but I do recognise his weapon. It’s a Frankish great axe, like the one once wielded by Fulco.

  “Don’t mind Offa,” Aelle says. “He’s one of my Hiréd, the original thirty who came with me to this forest, and has been at my side ever since. Bound to me by blood.” The Saxon grunts an agreement under his moustache. “I’ve been suspecting spies for a long time. The Britons have started to anticipate my moves too often. But I had no proof.”

  “I might give you the proof,” I say. “I’ve spent some time at the court in Londin, and among the Iutes. There’s a chance I’ll recognise some of these traitors. If you let me stay with your warband.”

  “Eirik will be most upset. He’s had high hopes for you.”

  “I believe I will serve your needs better as a member of your warband than his.”

  “I’m sure you will, Aec.” He wipes greasy hands in his tunic and stands up to embrace me. “I have lost many good men at the Stone Bridge,” he says, “but if you make good on your promises, then having you join us might more than make up for those losses.”

  “I hope I will not disappoint you, Drihten,” I say. I can see using the title tickles his pride. He grins, but lowers his head and shakes it.

  “I am no Drihten yet, Aec. Not while my father is alive, at least — and long yet may he live.”

  “Your father?” I remember him mentioning his father before, the last time we spoke.

  “You may have heard of him — even in the north.” He pauses to take a gulp of the mead. “The chief of all the Saxons in the pagus of Regins: Pefen of Treva.”

  I bid a fond farewell to Eirik, Hilla and the others — the girl gives me a grumpy nod, not meeting my eyes; the Geat leaves me with bruises on the back from where he slams me — and join Aelle’s warband in its long march back to their summer lodgings, laden with its share of spoils from the battle. It’s quite an army now, fifty men strong, and I’m one of its front guard warriors: a shield hangs over my back, and a Briton sword at my waist; an oversized helmet of bronze strips riveted together bobs on my head. The back of my tunic drips with sweat under all this load in the humid heat. My feet slip and slide inside the leather sandals. I feel as though I’ve done more marching over these past weeks than in all my previous life — and frankly, I’ve had more than enough.

  Some time after we cross the New Port highway — not far from Weland’s village, I note — Aelle, unprompted, begins to tell me the story of his and his father’s arrival in Britannia. To my surprise, it turns out the two of them have not lived long among the other Saxons in the pagus of Regins.

  “My father was a mercenary across the Narrow Sea,” says Aelle. “He fought for the Franks against Romans, and for Romans against Franks, he fought Burgundians and Bacauds… I was born in Gaul, myself, though we didn’t settle there for long.”

  It is clear that Aelle is no wild man of the forest as he once seemed. Though he recalls little from the time when he travelled the Continent with his father, his knowledge of places and events is far greater than one would expect from an illiterate pagan.

  “Father’s band was fighting a vicious Burgundian incursion into Belgica when they heard there was easier money to be found here in Britannia, guarding caravans and merchant ships… Only when we eventually got here, it turned out these were old news. Things were not as rosy in the land of Regins as were led to believe.”

  “I’ve heard some of it from Hilla,” I tell him. “Band fighting against band. Orphans fighting for scrap. Poverty turning Saxon warriors into slaves. Nobody’s ever mentioned any of it in Londin.”

  “And why would they? The wealas never suffered from it. Their caravans were still being guarded, their shipping still safe from pirates… And a steady extra income from trading Saxon slaves didn’t hurt, either.”

  “The Iutes thought the Saxons lived almost in paradise compared to what befell them on Tanet.”

  “At least they are free there.” He winces. “A Saxon would sell another Saxon into slavery — and another Saxon would then protect the merchandise on its way to the client. This was the paradise of the Regins.”

  This is all more disappointing than I’d thought it would be. I have no love for the Saxons, barely even a fondness — but I do feel the distant affinity of blood with them. I look like them, and that, in the eyes of the Britons at least, is enough to make me one of them. Once a Saxon, always a Saxon. This, more than the shared language, beliefs or the way of fighting, makes them, like the Iutes, my people. And it seems now there is nowhere in this land where my people have ever been truly welcomed, or able to live in peace — at least until they carved such land for themselves with force.

  “And then your father came,” I pick up the story when we march out the next morning, at the start of what Aelle promises to be the last leg of the journey. Our road turns north, towards the Downs — towards Londin. The ground rises and falls in hills and vales, ditches and knolls, turning the march into a long, slow slog. His new base camp is on higher, more remote ground than the hillfort where I first saw him — a sign that the Briton campaign against the bandits has, at least, forced Aelle to move with more caution than before.

  He grins and tells me of how his father first landed with his band in Anderitum, an abandoned Roman fortress, once guarding what was now a silted-up harbour. Having established a fortified camp within its walls, he set out to unite the warring bands — not to set them against the Regins, since even united, the Saxons were too few to stand against the wealas in their own land, but to demand the respect and fair treatment they deserved.

  “He only wanted what he had seen the Romans offer to their barbarian allies,” says Aelle. “Have the Britons and Saxons live as equals, side by side, as citizens of the same state. An arrangement, my father believed, both sides would benefit from.”

  This is just what Hengist wished for the Iutes, I remember.

  “I’m guessing it didn’t all work out as planned,” I say, “or you wouldn’t be here.”

  “The Saxons are no longer slaves, that much we’ve achieved,” he replies. “But not all of them trust my father enough to risk angering the wealas by joining his camp. The unity is still a distant dream — and the stronger we become, the more outside interest there is in what’s going on in the pagus of Regins. Those strange men with bronze armbands are coming to New Port more often these days, snooping around, inciting violence against anyone fair-haired they can find… Outside of Anderitum’s walls, this forest is the only place where we can
feel truly safe and free.”

  “Wortimer’s roughs,” I say. “They’re a trouble in Londin, too.”

  And it’s all your fault, I think to myself. Without the threat of Aelle’s bandits, Wortimer’s faction would never have become anywhere near as strong as it has. No, it goes further than that, I remember. It was Aelle, after all, who killed Catigern, perhaps dooming us all to continue this pointless conflict until one side vanquishes another. Does he know what the consequences of slaying Wortigern’s eldest were? Does he care?

  The memory of Catigern’s mutilated body lying in the dirt reminds me that for all his now smooth talk, Aelle is still a murderer. A plain brute. He didn’t have to attack the caravan that day. We were no threat to him. We didn’t even know he existed before his band came down upon us. He chose to fight us, who had no quarrel with him, knowing full well people would die in that attack, innocent people, like Catigern, or Master Pascent, who hadn’t hurt anyone since the days of the rebellion. Their blood is on his hands, and he’s shown no remorse — just because they were Britons. That was enough to make him not care, enough to turn them into his enemies. How does that make him any better than those who would kill him just because he was a Saxon?

  He notices my clenched fists and grim silence, and misreads the cause of my anger. He smiles and nods in agreement. “One day we’ll make them all pay,” he says.

  Yes, Aelle, I nod back quietly. One day we’ll make you all pay.

  The attack on the Stone Bridge was merely the beginning of the summer campaign. Every few days I observe another group of warriors, armed and armoured with captured Briton gear, depart the base camp for another assignment — robbing a merchant’s wagon, extorting “tax” of tar and honey from a woodsmen village, gathering intelligence from hidden outposts scattered along the Roman highways… Not all of them return in one piece. Sometimes, none come back at all. Despite these setbacks, the haul of plunder in the camp’s stores — a cluster of sunken cabins, enclosed by its own earthen wall and a ditch — already substantial by the time we arrive, grows higher each day.

  “It’s enough to feed and equip an army,” I remark to Aelle. “What are you planning to do with it all? Unless it’s another secret.”

  “It’s no secret. What we don’t use for ourselves, we’ll send back to my father, to buy food and supplies for the poor for the winter.”

  “That’s very… Christian of you,” I say. “If you don’t mind me saying.”

  He chuckles. “It’s what the Roman monks did in Armorica. That way they made sure the brigands did not attack them.” He scratches his crotch. “But there’s more to it than that. Those who we provide for are no longer dependant on the wealas money.”

  Of course. The Saxon mercenaries are the ones defending the caravans, wagons and ships of the Regins. They are the ones Aelle’s bandits have to fight to get their hands on the plunder. Soon enough, they will realise it’s better to join the outlaws rather than die to protect their masters’ wealth. Indeed, I’m surprised they haven’t all done it already, given Aelle’s successes.

  “Warrior’s honour,” says Aelle. “They swore blood oaths to guard the Regin merchants with their lives.” He looks at me as if to see if I need this explained. There’s no need. The word he used, ath, is clear enough. It is the same word Beadda’s Iutes used when swearing to protect the Briton villages. If a warrior breaks an ath he’s made before the gods, his soul will never reach Wodan’s Mead Hall. It’s almost as bad as dying a peaceful death.

  “So, have you spotted any yet?” he asks.

  “Any what?”

  “Spies,” he whispers. “I have been losing too many men lately, especially north of the Regin border. It’s almost as if the wealas know my every move.”

  “I’ll keep a look out,” I say. “It’s difficult to keep track with everyone coming and going all the time.”

  “Make sure you do. I’m planning something big soon in your neck of the woods, and I’d hate to have the entire Briton army waiting for me there.”

  I prick up my ears. An action near Ariminum is exactly something I could use to bring Aelle down for good — if I can only get the word out to the Iutes at Beaddingatun…

  “What did you have in mind?” I ask.

  He puts a finger to his lips and looks around, then chuckles. “Patience,” he says. “First we need to make sure there are none of those spies around…”

  A few mornings later, fate presents me with an opportunity to earn Aelle’s trust. A handful of young recruits is brought into the camp, much like on the day I joined Eirik’s warband. There are four of them, two adult men, a woman and a boy, all emaciated and pale: they must have been wandering the deep wood for weeks, their skins hidden from the darkening rays of the summer sun, before finding their way to the bandit camp.

  The older of the men and the woman appear related in some way, though it is not clear at first whether they are a couple of lovers or siblings. The other two have stumbled upon the others by accident in the forest, or so they say. The warrior who brought them all to the camp claims to already have tested their fighting prowess, and found them worthy of Aelle’s attention. Studying them from behind, I have my doubts, especially for the boy, his frame frail and his stature lacking confidence. He does seem somehow familiar, though. It all becomes clear once he turns around and shows his face.

  “This one,” I tell Aelle quietly.

  “Are you sure?”

  “Definitely. I’ve seen him before. He tried to get into Eirik’s band, too.”

  Poor Waerla. For the second time I am forced to stand between him and the life of an outlaw. He looks a lot worse than when I last saw him. It takes him a while to recognise me — my hair and beard have grown long and untamed, bleached golden by the sun, my skin is the colour of a roasted pig. I stare at him and shake my head slowly when Aelle isn’t looking. He stays silent.

  “Let him stay, though,” I say. “I’ll keep my eye on him. He might lead us to others in his network.”

  “Spying on a spy.” Aelle beams. “I like it.”

  He nods at the guards to release the newcomers, hand them their first weapons — long knives for the men, and a sturdy yew club for the woman — and lead them to their new lodgings.

  Later that day I approach Waerla as he waits in line for the thin rabbit stew — judging by the eagerness with which he eyes the cauldron, the first hot meal he’s had in days. I ask if he’s been hiding in the woods all this time. He shakes his head, rubbing his nose, broken where my fist landed.

  “I went begging along the highway,” he says. “From Saffron Valley to Verica’s inn. But common folk have too little to give to beggars, and the rich are afraid to open their purses in public. So I went back into the forest, to try my luck with the bandits again.”

  “Have you seen Ariminum? Or Beaddingatun?”

  “I saw fields around Beaddingatun heaving with corn, ready for harvest,” he says, his eyes gleaming. “I saw Iute women gathering straw and wicker along the river, stripped to their waists — and Iute men, training for war out on the Woad Hills. But I could not get near Ariminum. There are soldiers posted along the Londin road now, not letting anyone who looks like a Saxon or Iute get past without a permit.”

  “Soldiers? What do they look like?”

  He shrugs. “Like soldiers. How should I know?”

  “Did they have bronze armbands with the shape of an eagle?”

  “Maybe. I guess so.” The line moves forward. He leans to me and whispers. “What are you doing here, young Master? You don’t belong among these outlaws.”

  “Never mind that. I have my reasons. Remember, if anyone asks, you’ve never seen me before.”

  “Yes, young Master.”

  “And call me Aec. That’s how they know me here.”

  “Yes, young Ma — Aec.”

  The brief conversation with Waerla brings a renewed sense of urgency. With the harvest approaching, so does the deadline of my mission. Soon it will be too
late to recruit the Iutes to battle the Saxons, and a chance for them to prove their loyalty to Wortigern will be gone. The consequences would be unthinkable, both for the Iutes and Wortigern’s prestige. Worst of all, the chance of having Rhedwyn move to Londin, to my side, would be gone forever.

  Something else stirs inside me as I walk back to my tent. Hearing the names of all the old places — Woad Hills, Saffron Valley, Beaddingatun — makes me realise how much I’m missing home. I’m tired of these woods, of the marching, of the damp tents and the thin stews. Londin may not be the best place at this time of the year. Inside, the buildings are humid and stuffy and outside, everything and everyone stinks of rot and sweat. The Tamesa dries up, leaving heaps of rotting weed and refuse on the riverside. The streets run empty and the hustle of the great city dies down as everyone who can leaves for their summer cottages and villas outside the Wall. With the rich gone, so are the merchants who supply them, and the poor and the beggars who live off them. Still, I would swap the calm, fresh wilderness of Andreda for the stale, foul air of Londin in a heartbeat.

  I find Aelle the next day, sharpening the black bolts of his weapon, and confront him about his attack plans. Time’s running out, I tell him. If he wants to recruit any of the Iutes to his side for the upcoming battle, whatever its target, he needs to do it before they’re busy with the harvest — and before the nobles start returning to Londin with their guards reinforcing the ranks of the city watch.

  “I’m aware of all that, Aec,” he replies. “Don’t worry. We’re almost ready. We march out as soon as Osric’s band returns.”

  “You can tell me what your plan is now, can’t you?”

  He smiles, puts away the sharpened bolt and picks up a blunt one.

  “You’ve heard of the new military outpost on the road to Londin?”

  “I have.” I nod, and look up sharply. “You don’t plan to — that would be madness! It must be a fortress — and after Stone Bridge, it’s an obvious target. They’ll be waiting for you, safe behind its walls.”

  “And behind its walls is where I want them to stay,” he says. “The wealas depend on their walls too much. They will be trapped inside their fortress, while we’re free to roam and rob to our hearts’ content.”