“What is this place? Why am I here?”
“Do you not remember Fulco’s teachings? This is the Pillar of Ermun, where the gods sit in judgment,” he says and nods at me to look around. I see the other lords and ladies of the Ensi, sitting on wooden platforms in the branches: Tiw, the Lawgiver; Donar, the Hammer-wielder, Frige, Lady of the Meadows — and young Bealdur, the Prince of Warriors…
“Am I to be judged by you?” I ask.
“Is this what you asked us here for?”
“I did not ask you.”
“It is your vision.”
“It’s just another dream.”
“Your spirit is in turmoil, child,” speaks Frige. She sounds — and looks — like Lady Adelheid. I realise now who Wodan reminds me of — Master Pascent. “What is it that confuses you so?”
“I am about to be slain alongside Beadda’s warriors,” I say. “In battle with Aelle’s Saxons.”
“Don’t tell me you’re afraid of death,” says Donar. He’s holding his hammer like an axe and speaks with Fulco’s Frankish twang. “That’s not the Ash I know.”
“Of course not,” I scoff. “This isn’t my first time in battle.”
“But you are afraid of something,” asks Frige.
“I have not seen this future in the visions you’ve shown me. I did not expect to die here. I thought —”
“Every prophecy is just a possibility,” says Wodan. “Your choices are what turn these possibilities into certainties.”
“What if I’ve made a bad choice that led me here?”
“A bad choice?” Tiw the Lawmaker laughs bitterly. “All my life I’ve been making bad choices. Have I taught you nothing, boy? The only way to avoid choosing wrongly is not to choose at all.”
“And if the choice is being forced on me?”
“You’re not a child anymore,” says Wodan. “I may have once forced you to do my bidding, but those years are long gone. Your destiny is your own now.”
“Neither a Saxon nor a Roman God can help you make this choice,” says Frige.
“Is it because I am neither a Saxon nor a Roman?”
“It is because you are both,” says Tiw. “However hard I tried to turn you into a good Christian boy.”
“You are free, Ash,” says Bealdur in a gentle, priestly voice. “Free to make any choices you want. Even bad ones.”
I sense one more presence behind me. I turn to see Sib, the lady of the trees, clad in a tight-fitting green dress, her hair golden like ripened wheat.
“If I die, I will never see you again,” I say.
She looks at me with contempt. “And what makes you think I’ll want to see you, if you live?”
“But if — ”
“Enough,” says Wodan. “This has gone on long enough. Make your choice now — and live with the consequences. Or die, never knowing what could’ve been.”
He moves his arms. This makes the whole great ash tremble. I fall off, grasping at the branches as they fly past me — I fall, and fall, until…
Beadda stares at me with a mysterious smile.
“An uneasy night,” he says.
“Just a bad dream.” I yawn and rub my eyes.
“The dawn is upon us. Have you made your decision?”
A decision…
I sit up, slowly. The campfire has burned out, leaving only a smouldering pile of cinders.
“All my life…” I start, still vacillating. “…I was never sure what I was. A Saxon raised among the Britons. A Briton with Saxon blood. A foundling. A slave. A student. A priest’s brother. A veteran’s son. A bladesmith’s daughter’s lover. An asset. A curse. Ash. Fraxinus. Aec.”
I’m talking to myself — Beadda nods absentmindedly, as he puts on the helmet and straps on the sword belt. I don’t mind.
“And, truth be told, I’m not sure I will ever be able to make up my mind for good — even if we do get out of here alive…”
All around me, the Iutes are gathering from the ground, picking up their weapons, readying themselves for the final battle. I doubt any of them sees any other outcome of the coming battle than their death.
“But today — ” I look up to the eastern horizon. The first rays of the rising sun shoot through a clump of trees growing just beyond the edge of the embankment. I haven’t noticed it before, but the tallest of these trees is a mighty, grey ash. “Today, I am… a Iute.”
Beadda puts his hand on my shoulder and gives it an encouraging squeeze. He hands me my Anglian aesc.
“Then today, boy, you will die like a Iute.”
They stand in a broad half-circle at the bottom of the hill, in the crisp, bright light of the morning, ready to charge up the slope. It is as Beadda suspected — less than half of Aelle’s warband is still here, but it should be more than enough to deal with the sad remnant of the Iute force. Aelle was telling the truth. He was letting us live through the night. He could’ve vanquished us at a whim.
Aelle steps forwards and offers us one last chance to surrender and join him — or leave him alone. I see some of the Iutes glance at each other nervously. They haven’t heard of the offer from Beadda. But the Gesith spits in Aelle’s direction and orders us to draw our weapons.
There aren’t enough of us to man the rampart, so we pull back to make our stand around the graves of our fallen. Even now, I’m sure I could get out of this alive. But I have made up my mind. Whatever happens today, I’m staying with the Iutes. To the end.
The one blessing of our position is that the earthen bank is shielding us from Aelle’s black device. It must frustrate him that he can’t pick us out one by one from a distance. Once the attack starts, he disappears behind the ranks of his men, instead of leading the charge. This is disappointing — I was hoping to have another chance to kill him — but understandable. To him, this battle is just a burden. A task that, once started, needs finishing. There’s no point in him risking his life in the process.
The Saxons clamber over the wall, unperturbed. We have no bows, no javelins to hamper their attack. Only our spears and our swords. We tighten the circle. My shoulders are touching the shoulders of the Iutes to my sides, my back touches another’s back. The Saxons pick up the pace and charge the final distance with a half-hearted battle cry. Neither side feels any joy in this fight. The battle rush is gone. We all fight because we have to, because of our honour, our orders, our oaths, not because it will bring us any glory or spoils. We all sense there’s nothing here worth dying for — but we’ve long run out of options. I lock eyes with one of the bandits, letting him know I’ve chosen to take him with me to Wodan’s Hall.
I parry an incoming axe and thrust the spear forth. The Saxon before me dodges and the blade only tears through his leather tunic and muscles in his side. I draw the arm back, slashing across his stomach. I want to pull back, but the Iute behind me is in equally dire straits, and we just push against each other. The axe returns on the back-swing. I shut my eyes. I see a vision of Rhedwyn — or is it Sib, the goddess? — all in green, reaching out to me in a sweet embrace of death. The axe digs into my left shoulder…
The forest on the hill to our north erupts with a roar of a dozen throats. The Saxons pause in confusion. The newcomers rush towards us at breakneck speed, waving seaxes and long knives and lobbing darts at the Saxons’ backs. I don’t recognise them, though they appear to be dressed in a Iute manner, except they wear no armour or helmets.
“It’s Orpedda!” cries Beadda. “Orpedda’s village has come to save us!”
“How…?”
I notice a familiar frame of a boy at the back of the Iute pack, frail, but eager-looking, in a dapple-green cloak, brandishing a short knife.
Waerla?
I push the bewildered Saxon before me aside and strike at another. All around me, the Iutes rally forth with renewed strength, pressing at the enemy. Even with the reinforcements we’re still badly outnumbered, but our spirits are aflame. I see panic light up in the eyes of the man before me as I plunge the s
pear in his chest. I turn to the next, and he just drops his weapon and flees down the hill. I now have a clear way open to Waerla and the others.
But I’m too late. An axe flies through the air, thrown by some hand no less deft than Fulco’s — and hits the boy straight between the ribs, shattering his sternum. He’s propelled a foot into the air and lands on his back, motionless.
I hold his head up. Blood spurts from his chest and mouth. He coughs and splutters. The light in his eyes grows dimmer by the second.
“Waerla! What the hell did you do?”
“I brought them…” He points to the Iutes, gasping for breath. “They didn’t want to come, but I… convinced them to — help… the young Master…”
“You did well, Waerla.” I pat him on the shoulder. “You did good. The Mead Hall awaits you.”
He wheezes a last breath and his body goes limp. As I put him down gently on the ground and close his eyes, I hear a mournful wail of a horn. I know this signal from training in Eirik’s camp: it’s the call to retreat.
“No! He’s not getting away that easily.”
I leave Waerla’s corpse and, barging aside another bandit, rush towards the wailing horn. I spot Offa and his great swinging axe holding a couple of Orpedda’s men at bay. And if he’s there, then Aelle must be…
He sees me first. He puts the horn away and raises the black weapon to his eye… Then lowers it with resignation. Offa sees me, too, and prepares to charge at me with the axe, but Aelle orders him to stop. He waves at me to come closer. I approach, cautious of Offa’s axe, still raised to strike.
“Looks like you’ve outwitted me this time, Ash,” he says, nodding in the direction of Orpedda’s attack.
“I didn’t plan this,” I say. “I was ready to die on that hill today.”
“Still, in a way, I’m glad this happened. At least this gives me an excuse.”
“An excuse to do what?”
“I was thinking about what you told me yesterday,” he says. “I can’t fight all of the Iutes and all of the wealas at the same time. Not for long, anyway.”
He blows the horn again, more desperately this time.
“Tell your Iutes to stop pursuing us,” he says. Is it a pleading tone I sense? “I’ve changed my mind. We’ll go back to the forest. I’ll give you your chance.”
“A chance —” It takes me a moment to realise. “— so you think there is another way.”
“I don’t know.” He smiles. “But I’m willing to wait for a bit to find out.”
He holsters the weapon onto his back, then turns away from me and starts walking, unhurriedly, down the slope. Offa shakes his axe threateningly at me, before joining his chieftain and the rest of the Saxon army in the disorderly retreat.
~*~
The road from the Bridge to the praetorium is strewn with rose petals. A great crowd of excited townsfolk and intrigued nobles lines the route and spills into neighbouring streets. Young boys, clad in the white cloth of church novices, march in front of the incoming procession, singing a solemn hymn. As the honoured guests approach the palace, trumpets and horns announce their arrival.
Ten Iutish warriors, led by Beadda, enter the courtyard of the Governor’s palace, followed by a carriage bearing the white horse emblem of the Cants. A murmur spreads throughout the courtyard, first of mere curiosity, before culminating into an incensed buzz of scorn at the entrance steps, where, standing next to his father, Wortimer is surrounded by a retinue of his followers.
In the year that has passed since the battle, Wortimer’s faction has been growing rapidly in strength and influence at the court. Despite their ignominious retreat, Brutus and his soldiers have managed to take all the credit for defeating Aelle at Saffron Valley, and his subsequent withdrawal from Wortigern’s territory. That there have been no bandit attacks north of the Regins border since has served only to raise Wortimer’s profile among the people of Londin and surrounding settlements.
It was no use trying to convince anyone how empty Wortimer’s boasts were. Few were ready to believe the words of the pagan Iutes over those of good Christian warriors, many of them well known and respected in the city even before the war. In the end, I was forced to take Fastidius’s advice and hold my tongue, hoping that, eventually, at least some of the truth would come out.
“If you defy him openly, you risk losing everything we fought for,” Fastidius told me. “He has too many supporters. Swallow your pride and be glad of what we’ve achieved, despite their lies.”
He was, as always, correct. Try as he might, Wortimer could not twist all the facts. He could not deny that Beadda’s Iutes took part in the battle at his side and suffered heavy losses fighting the Saxons. He could not refute that it was my idea to lure Aelle out of the forest, that the detailed knowledge of his strategy and disposition of his forces was the result of my undercover work. I still had friends in the Council — not least of them, old Postumus and Deneus the oyster-trader — who could not let Wortimer get away with stealing all the glory for himself.
A full year of peace. What a change it has made. The harvests in the two Iute villages were bountiful, the markets are bustling, the travellers and merchants have returned to the highways. The people in the city, well-fed and relaxed, have grown, despite the efforts of Wortimer and his roughs, less concerned with the presence of Iutes and other strangers within its Wall. As I predicted, they are beginning to remember that their city has always welcomed newcomers who could bring her prosperity. Not many are interested to learn what happened to Aelle’s band after it disappeared in the woods. Fewer still seem to care for what fate befell their southern brethren, the Regins. Those who desire to know, are becoming aware of the reports of Saxon bands gathering in strength, uniting at a new banner in the ruins of an old fortress on the Saxon Shore — but even among them, few wish to disturb the new peace with such unconfirmed rumours. Wortimer’s soldiers — no longer mere “roughs”, but members of a now well-respected centuria — control, or claim to control, the entire length of the highway to New Port, and as long as the traffic of goods and people flows freely, only the most cautious of the Councillors deem it necessary to concern themselves with the news coming from across the southern border.
It is, ostensibly, to celebrate the passing of this year that the Iute delegation has been invited from Tanet. But that isn’t the only reason. Three of the envoys have arrived, to Fastidius’s great delight, to be baptised at the cathedral. There is talk of another settlement to be agreed upon, not far from where we fought our battle with Aelle — another abandoned villa on the eastern slopes of the hills. The fields and houses there have been ravaged by a troop of Aelle’s marauders who didn’t make it to the main battlefield. It is said the village might be named after poor Waerla, in honour of his unfortunate sacrifice.
All these reasons are important, but none so important to me as the main purpose of the visit: the arrival of Drihten Hengist’s delegate to the Council.
The carriage comes to a stop in the middle of the courtyard. I glance at the Dux.
“Councillor,” he says, and nods a permission. This is one more change from before the summer. With so many Iutes coming to live within his father’s domain and needing representation at the court, not even Wortimer could oppose my nomination any longer. The seat that Master Pascent occupied at the Council table is now, at long last, rightfully mine.
I step forwards. The long ceremonial robe tangles at my feet. I open the carriage door. She puts a graceful foot on the step and reaches for my support. She is clad in the green dress, just like I remember her; just like she’s been appearing in my dreams. A ring of silver thread gleams in her hair. I hold her slender, warm hand in mine and help her down. She lowers her head in a bashful bow, but I manage to catch the witty twinkle in her eye.
“Councillor Fraxinus,” she says in trained Latin. “It is good to see you again.”
“Hlaefdige Rhedwyn,” I reply in Iutish. “Welcome to Londin.”
An awed si
lence falls on the courtyard. I gaze around at the faces struck dumb by Rhedwyn’s beauty, until my eyes fall on Wortimer. As I watch, his until now scornful grimace transforms into a lustful, hungry stare.
✽✽✽
TO BE CONTINUED IN THE SONG OF ASH, BOOK TWO: THE SAXON KNIVES
The Saxon Spears Page 35
