Lord 0f The North Wind (The Kingdom 0f Northumbria Book 3)

by Jayne Castel

  Osana smiled, hoping the expression would mask her nervousness. “I couldn’t sleep and thought a walk in the orchard might soothe me. Then I saw I wasn’t the only one still up.”

  Aldfrith stretched, a rueful smile creeping across his face. “I sometimes have trouble sleeping.”

  “So, it’s not Prior Cuthbert’s visit?”

  His gaze widened at her directness, and Osana resisted the urge to bite her lip. Raedwulf had always chastised her for speaking boldly. She had not wanted to anger the king; she was just curious to understand the man who wore the crown. In just her short time at Bebbanburg, he had become a fascination to her. He seemed both wise and insecure, resolute and lost.

  “Aye,” he huffed out his response after a pause. “Cuthbert was only giving me wise counsel, but he doesn’t understand me. I’m not my father … or my brother.”

  Osana raised an eyebrow. “I think he’ll be grateful you’re not.” News had reached Hagustaldes of how Cuthbert had begged Ecgfrith not to go to war against the Pictish warlord Bridei mac Beli. The king had ignored him at his peril. “Yours is a peaceful reign … is that not better for the kingdom?”

  Aldfrith raked a hand through his short blond hair. “I don’t have the right character to rule. I’m a scholar … that’s all I ever wanted from life.”

  Osana moved over to the hearth and warmed her chilled fingers over the dancing flames. She was aware of Aldfrith’s gaze tracking her. He was still standing by his desk.

  “I like this room,” she murmured, glancing around at the pitted stone walls, where two clay cressets burned. A wooden shelf above the king’s writing table held two leather-bound volumes. Osana’s gaze widened. “Are those books?”

  Aldfrith’s mouth quirked. “Aye … a parting gift from the monks on Iona. Would you like to see one?”

  Osana nodded. She had heard that monks knew their letters and spent long days creating beautifully illustrated pages.

  Aldfrith retrieved one of the volumes and handed it to her. It was heavy, and she opened it with trepidation, careful not to damage the spine. Her breath caught as she slowly leafed through the vellum sheets: intricate drawings of the lives of saints, accompanied by columns of beautiful calligraphy.

  “How I wish I could read,” she whispered.

  “I can teach you.”

  Osana’s head snapped up. Only monks, scholars, and a handful of nuns could actually read. “You would?”

  He gave her a slow smile, one that made her belly flutter. “Aye … how about tomorrow afternoon for your first lesson.”

  Cuthbert did not look well at all the following morning.

  His face was pale, his eyes watery, as he nursed a cup of weak broth. He would touch no food, not even a piece of dry bread.

  “Shall I send for a healer, Father?” Oswald asked. He had been watching the prior with an anxious gaze ever since Cuthbert had shuffled from his alcove.

  Cuthbert shook his head. “There’s no need. No healer can help me now.”

  At the head of the table, Aldfrith stiffened. The desolate look in the prior’s eyes alarmed him. Cuthbert spoke as a doomed man.

  Seeing his expression, Cuthbert’s small pursed mouth curved. “Don’t look so horrified, Lord Aldfrith,” he said quietly. “From the day we’re born, we’re all dying … some of us just know our time is near.”

  The admission made Oswald suck in his breath and caused the two monks who had accompanied Cuthbert to exchange nervous glances.

  Aldfrith leaned toward the prior, frowning. “Maybe you should remain at Bebbanburg until the weather warms. You’d be more comfortable here.”

  Cuthbert shook his head, resolute. “The Farne Isles are where my heart belongs, and where I wish to die. I will return to Lindisfarena and end my days there.”

  There was no fear in the man’s voice, no self-pity, just a gentle acceptance and a dignity that moved Aldfrith. He hoped when his own end neared, he could show such strength. “I’m sorry about yesterday, Father,” he said after a pause, suddenly regretting he had been so harsh with a dying man. “I know your counsel was well-meant.”

  Cuthbert’s gaze held his. “Aye … but that doesn’t mean you will take it.”

  Aldfrith responded with a wry smile. “My mother once said I’ve the stubbornness of an ox.”

  The prior’s smile widened. “A trait you no doubt inherited from your father. Do you remember Oswiu?”

  Aldfrith’s smile faded. “He left when I was a babe. I have no memory of him at all.”

  “You have his presence, his quiet strength,” Cuthbert observed. “He too was a man who knew his own mind. Yet you are different to him in many ways.”

  “He was a warrior, I’m a scholar,” Aldfrith replied, surprised that bitterness rose within him as he spoke. “We are as different as the sun and the moon.”

  Cuthbert shook his head and raised his cup of broth to his lips. Aldfrith noted that his hands were trembling. “There is more to being king than being able to wield a sword, Aldfrith.”

  Despite Aldfrith’s insistence that he stay on longer in Bebbanburg, Cuthbert took his leave mid-morning. Leaning heavily on a cane, he shuffled from the hall, flanked by his escorts. Aldfrith and his men followed close behind. In the yard outside the tower, the prior climbed upon a small cart, and they rumbled out of the inner perimeter, following the King’s Way to the low gate.

  Folk lined the thoroughfare to greet Cuthbert as he passed, craning forward to catch a glimpse of the man who had become legend across Britannia. They called out to the king too, their faces alight with smiles. Aldfrith smiled back, acknowledging the folk of Bebbanburg with a wave.

  They had nearly reached the low gate when they met a group of travelers entering the fort. Aldfrith’s heart sank when he recognized the tall, rawboned figure perched atop a horse, a cluster of servants riding behind him.

  Wilfrid.

  The bishop rode toward them before swinging down from his horse. He then moved over to where the prior had stopped, and knelt before him.

  “Father … I heard you were here and came as soon as I could.”

  Cuthbert favored the bishop with a tired smile. “There was really no need, Father Wilfrid. As you can see, my visit was too brief to warrant you traveling all this way.”

  Wilfrid’s heavy features creased in concern as he rose to his feet. “You’re unwell?”

  Cuthbert nodded. “Aye, and returning home to rest.”

  The bishop gestured to his servants, indicating that they should continue up to the Great Tower without him. “Then I will accompany you, Father.”

  Watching the deference with which the bishop spoke to Cuthbert, Aldfrith gritted his teeth. Wilfrid rarely spoke to him using such a gentle tone.

  A damp wind blew in from the sea as the small procession made its way down the sloping causeway and along a path through the dunes to the beach. The tide was in, and a small boat awaited on the shore. Seabirds wheeled overhead, their cries mixing with the roar of the surf.

  Cerdic and three other warriors pushed the boat onto the edge of the waves, while Aldfrith, Oswald, and the bishop helped Cuthbert and his companions climb in.

  “God speed, father.” Wilfrid grasped hold of Cuthbert’s hand and squeezed. The bishop’s dark gaze gleamed, and he looked on the verge of tears.

  “Farewell, Wilfrid,” Cuthbert replied, his voice raspy from the effort it had taken him to climb off the cart and into the boat. The prior’s gaze then shifted to Aldfrith. “I wish you well, milord. God bless you … and your reign.”

  Aldfrith nodded, suddenly choked up. There was something about Cuthbert’s gaze when it fixed upon you that made you feel as if the man were looking into your soul, flaying it bare. It felt as if Cuthbert had seen him, even the things he took such great pains to hide. He saw, and understood.

  “Farewell, Father,” he answered. “Thank you for granting us this one, last, visit.”

  They pushed the boat out into the waves, wading in deep, before gu
iding it through the surf. The water was freezing, its chill penetrating layers of leather and fur in an instant. Aldfrith and the others were gasping from the cold as they waded back to shore.

  Squelching up onto the sandy beach, Aldfrith turned, his gaze following the small craft that bobbed in the surf as one of the monks picked up the oars and steered it left. The isle of Lindisfarena was but a short journey, just beyond the headland to the north. At low tide travelers could skirt the coast north before walking out across the sandflats to the isle. However, the prior was too weak to make the journey on foot.

  The group of men upon the beach stood and watched till Cuthbert and the monks were out of sight. Then they turned and made their way back to the fort. Bebbanburg rose above them upon a great rocky outcrop, its palisades bristling against the pale sky.

  “The prior is not long for this world,” Bishop Wilfrid announced, falling in step next to Aldfrith. “Someone will need to take his place at the monastery. The monks will need a new leader … someone with a deep piety … someone who understands Cuthbert’s work.”

  Aldfrith cast him a sharp glance. “The prior isn’t dead yet, Father.”

  The bishop’s mouth thinned. The grief he had shown when bidding the prior goodbye had gone. The Wilfrid that Aldfrith had come to know well had returned. “I’m aware of that, sire. I’m just acknowledging the fact that Lindisfarena will soon need a new leader.”

  And that would be you?

  Aldfrith did not voice the question out loud. Yet they both knew that was what Wilfrid was implying. Aldfrith’s gaze narrowed. “Cuthbert worships God in the manner of the north … does that not bother you?”

  Wilfrid’s nostrils flared. “Not overly … but that is why the monastery at Lindisfarena could do with my influence.”

  Aldfrith clenched his jaw, forcing himself not to reply. If Wilfrid wanted to become prior of Lindisfarena, he would need the king’s permission. And as things stood, Wilfrid would be the last man he would choose.

  Perhaps sensing his king’s mood, the bishop fell silent. It was only when they were climbing the causeway to the low gate that Wilfrid spoke once more. “Did Cuthbert speak to you about that widow’s presence in your hall?” he asked quietly, as if he was wary of Aldfrith’s men overhearing them.

  Aldfrith tensed, realization dawning. “You sent word to him about Lady Osana?”

  Wilfrid nodded, not remotely cowed by the king’s glare. “She is a corrupting influence, milord. You should send her away.”

  “Lady Osana is a good woman,” Aldfrith replied. “I see no corruption in her. She only wishes to be useful, to find her place in the world.”

  Bishop Wilfrid favored him with a pained look. “Has she cast the wool over your eyes so easily, sire? The woman watches you; she meets your eye too boldly. She is a temptress who covets a place at your side. She wishes to become your consort and control you with lust and wiles. Cast her out of Bebbanburg, and find yourself a gentle virgin to wed.”

  “Enough,” Aldfrith snapped, his patience finally giving out. “You forget your place. The widow Osana has done nothing to merit such accusations. Do not speak to me of this again.”

  With that, Aldfrith strode forward, leaving the bishop behind. Fury boiled up within him; he clenched his fists at his sides. Wilfrid’s words were outrageous, ridiculous. And yet they also bothered him.

  Temptress. Consort. Lust and wiles.

  I shouldn’t have offered to teach her to read … what was I thinking?

  The wistfulness on her face the night before, the light in her eyes as she had pored over the page of that book, had made him speak without thinking. It was something he was getting into the habit of doing when it came to Osana. He gazed into her eyes and lost his wits. The loss of control concerned him; it reminded him of a past he had spent many years trying to forget.

  Wilfrid was wrong, Osana was not the problem. He was. He could not spend time alone with her, could not risk opening his heart to her.

  I shall have to cancel that lesson.

  Chapter Seventeen

  Learning Letters

  OSANA GRIPPED THE quill tightly and moved it across the sheet of vellum:

  O S A N A

  Leaning back, she surveyed her work, her gaze roaming over the spidery script.

  “Is that really my name?”

  “Aye.”

  She glanced up, her attention shifting to where Aldfrith sat beside her at the table. He had remained silent while she laboriously copied the letters he had written out for her. His expression was solemn; in fact, he had been in an odd, distracted mood since she had arrived at his annex for her lesson.

  He had not smiled once and avoided her gaze.

  “But they’re just marks on vellum. Do they really have meaning?”

  The corner of his mouth twitched then, the beginning of a smile. “Each letter has a sound. Look at the word you’ve just written … let’s sound out each letter.” He reached out, the sleeve of his tunic brushing her hand as he did so, his finger resting under the first letter of her name. “Repeat after me.”

  Osana did as bid, sounding out each letter. When she had done so a handful of times, Aldfrith sat back, nodding in satisfaction. “Now run each of those letters together … what do you get?”

  Osana frowned, looking back at the sheet of vellum. “Ooosaanaa.”

  His mouth quirked once more. “Well done. Once you learn the sound of each letter of the alphabet, and what they sound like when grouped together in words, you can read anything.”

  Osana traced her name with a fingertip, pride thrumming through her. “It’s like magic,” she murmured.

  “No, it’s much easier to understand than that. One day many folk will be able to read and write.” Aldfrith gestured to his two precious leather-bound volumes on the shelf above them. “And there will be many books filled with histories.”

  Osana’s gaze traveled from the shelf down to the desk once more, her gaze alighting upon a messily stacked pile of vellum full of Aldfrith’s slanted writing. She then glanced back at him. “Are you writing a book?”

  He actually did smile then, the expression illuminating his face. “Those are just scribbles … ideas … thoughts. I don’t think anyone besides me would be interested in them.”

  Osana huffed. “I would … can you read something to me?”

  Aldfrith went still, his smile fading. “I’m sure you wouldn’t find it interesting.”

  “How do you know that?” Osana reached out and plucked the first sheet of vellum off the pile. “I’d very much like to know what you write.”

  Aldfrith took the sheet, although his expression was now guarded. “Very well, although I hope you don’t find it too dry.” He looked down at the piece of paper, his gaze narrowing. “These are just my musings on life.”

  Osana did not reply, instead waiting for him to begin. She wondered at his reluctance to read to her; was he really that insecure?

  Eventually, after a long pause, Aldfrith began to read.

  “Generosity engenders wealth.

  Willingness creates one who gives.

  Good sense results in fair form.

  Lechery leads to disgrace.

  Foolishness results in crudity.

  Repression results in greater repression.

  Hatred engenders reproach.

  Abandonment results in slander,

  Reluctance leads to reliance on conjecture.

  Love begets words.

  Humility wins good favor.”

  He had a beautiful voice, its low timbre sliding over the words like a caress. Osana listened quietly, and when Aldfrith finished, she smiled. “Love begets words … I like that.”

  Aldfrith replaced the sheet with the others. Was she imagining it, or did a slight blush stain his cheeks. “Thank you.”

  “So these are maxims for life?”

  “As I see them, aye.”

  Osana paused, biting at her lower lip before speaking once more. “You must be very
sure of your beliefs, of the nature of folk, to write so confidently.”

  He inclined his head. “What do you mean?”

  “Is life really that easy to summarize? Surely things are more complex than that. For example, not all generous men become wealthy. Not all letches end up disgraced.”

  Aldfrith stiffened. “You think I’ve over simplified?”

  “No,” Osana replied quickly, regretting her candor now that she could see she had offended him. “I just think the older I get, the harder it is to make such statements about life. It seems that when I think I understand something, the world makes a mockery of me.”

  She saw him straighten up further, and with a sinking feeling realized she was just digging herself into a great hole. She was beginning to wish she had not spoken so frankly.

  “Man should seek truths about life,” he replied coolly. “It gives us something to aspire to.”

  “I’m aware of that,” she answered, sharpness now entering her voice. She did not enjoy being patronized. Raedwulf used to do so if ever she voiced an opinion that did not relate to the running of the household. “All I was saying is that we should be wary of reducing our existence to a list of maxims. They could easily become a cage.”

  A heavy silence followed her words, the easy companionship during the lesson now forgotten. Disappointment flooded through Osana; she had so enjoyed this afternoon. She was sorry she had offended the king, but even sorrier that he was so easily wounded.

  “I should go,” she murmured, pushing back her stool. “Lora will need help with her chores.”

  She rose to her feet, with the intention of stepping around Argus’s sleeping form, but instead, her skirt caught on the stool, and she stumbled. Osana reached out for something to steady her but missed the edge of the desk with her hand.

  A heartbeat later she tumbled onto Aldfrith’s lap.