Gods of War

by C. R. May

  Eofer sighed and looked across. He had been dreading reaching the hall for days, the whole thing had cast a dark cloud over events which should have been joyous. Even if the youth had survived, the Briton would pay a heavy price for her actions that day, despite the high esteem in which she was held.

  The king’s great hall at the new Theodford was no more than a good day’s ride from his own. The air carried a sharp bite after the mugginess of the previous few weeks, the first signs of the winter to come. Leaves were losing the waxy sheen of summer and a murmuration of starlings were washing the sky, the dark waves sweeping to and fro against a sky the colour of blood as the day drew to a close.

  Gaining the rise he put back his heels, determined to purge the poison of that day from his hearth troop as the golden Ridgeline of his own hall hove into view.

  Finn was at the crossroads, and Eofer saw at once that the news was bad. Curbing his mount, he looked down at the youth as Hemming reined in at his side: ‘dead?’

  Finn pursed his lips and nodded, the pain of the moment written in his eyes. ‘Yes, lord, two days past.’

  He nodded that he understood and guided the stallion across to the yard. The others came from the hall at the sound of his approach, but their sullen demeanour and downcast looks drew any of the joy of homecoming from the moment. He was glad then that he had asked Astrid to delay her return; the following moments would be unpleasant enough without providing his newborn with such an inauspicious homecoming.

  Spearhafoc was still slumped where he had left her, and despite the anger which the others felt towards the girl, he was pleased to see that she was unmarked. Osbeorn, Octa and Horsa came across, smiling in welcome despite the tension of the moment and he was glad of it. Eofer fixed Osbeorn with his gaze as he sought confirmation of Rand’s death, hoping against hope to receive a different answer despite the trustworthiness of Finn. ‘It’s true?’

  Osbeorn gave a curt nod. ‘His body has been prepared for the flames lord and the pyre has been built.’ He wrinkled his nose as he came across to stand at the horse’s shoulder. ‘It would be a good idea to do it tonight, lord,’ he said with a grimace. ‘He has smelt better, the leg went bad days ago. She said,’ he continued with a nod in Spearhafoc’s direction, ‘that the sap and mould from trimming the withies had dirtied the blade and let bad spirits into the wound. I had to set a watch over the body every night to keep the wolves and foxes away. The lads,’ he said with a flick of his head, ‘have been pretty spooked, standing there alone knowing that wolves and the gods know what else had been watching them only feet away in the darkness.’

  As Eofer went to dismount, Osbeorn touched his leg. ‘The girl,’ he said softly. ‘She insisted on preparing Rand’s body herself. She is pretty grief stricken about it all, and I don’t just mean because she is going to swing for it.’

  Eofer nodded that he understood as he settled back into the saddle. The evening light was slanting in from the West, throwing long shadows across the yard and turning the thatch to flame. He raised his eyes and took in the vista to the South. The Aldu was a silver serpent as it wound its way to the shroud grey sea. Below he could see the boathouse, his boathouse he smiled despite the grimness of the moment, with the long low shape of the Skua straining at her mooring rope, trailing her stern to the sea as the tide ebbed.

  He dropped his eyes and looked at the girl, and a stab of regret flickered within him as he saw how pathetic she had become, all the life and cheekiness driven from her by a moment of madness. ‘Ozzy,’ he said. ‘Take the slave ring from her neck and replace it with a rope.’ Osbeorn’s face dropped and he made to speak, but Eofer’s glare told the duguth that it would be unwise. Now that the moment had come the other members of Eofer’s youth, the girl’s hearth mates, looked downcast to a man, tearful even as they recalled the girl they had known and loved. Spearhafoc looked up then for the first time and he saw the depth of her despair, her eyes glassy pools set within pits of jet. Osbeorn handed his lord the end of the rope, and he gave it a yank as he hauled at the reins and pointed his mount’s head back to the West. ‘Come on,’ he said as the girl climbed fearfully to her feet. ‘There is no place at my hearth for mad dogs.’

  He indicated that Hemming follow on with a jerk of his head, and Eofer walked his mount back to the road without a backwards glance. As Hemming fell in beside him Eofer moved to one side and gave the rope a sharp tug. Spearhafoc staggered to his side, and Eofer kept his gaze straight ahead as he spoke to her for the first time since his return, his voice flat and unfeeling despite the sadness within. ‘Tell me why.’

  Eofer could see the girl looking up at him out of the corner of his eye, but he kept his gaze straight ahead as she began to reply. ‘He told me to stop being so blobby, lord.’ Eofer shook his head and Hemming raised a brow as his earlier suspicions seemed to have been confirmed, despite the absence of spots. ‘No, not that,’ he grimaced. ‘Why have you been so miserable since we came here?’

  Spearhafoc racked her mind as she attempted to think of a clever answer, one which may yet still give her back her life, but nothing would come so she decided to tell the truth however ridiculous it sounded. ‘It was the shepherd, lord…and his family.’ She hesitated and tried to curl her lips into a smile, but she was sure that it must have appeared as a rictus as she added with resignation and her voice dropped to a sorry whisper: ‘but mainly the shepherd.’

  Eofer and Hemming shared a look of incomprehension, and Eofer finally relented and met her gaze. ‘What, that gibbering old man? The one nobody could understand?’

  She nodded sadly. ‘He was speaking a language even older than British, lord. It was the speech they used when the Ringing Stones were built, you remember, within the great stone circle which sang for you when you struck them with iron last year. He was counting the sheep, lord,’ she explained: ‘yan, tan, tethera. You say one, two three but it means the same thing. The country folk still use it near where I come from.’ She shrugged. ‘I just felt homesick is all. I thought that it would go away, but it didn’t, it just got worse.’ Eofer could see that the Briton was attempting a smile, but the rope chafed her neck at that moment and her eyes widened into a look of fear.

  The crossroads were ahead, the aged oak patiently awaiting its victim as they walked the final few yards. All hangings were done at the place where two roads met, it was a place where spirits paused in their nocturnal wanderings. Any who had visited such a place after dark would testify to their eeriness, it was not without good reason that one of Woden’s names was Hangi. Eofer slipped from the saddle and took her hand. ‘Come on, Thrush,’ he said with a heavy heart. ‘I can’t do this alone.’

  Hemming slipped from the saddle as the girl shook at Eofer’s side. ‘Here, take this,’ he said, thrusting the hand towards him. ‘You know what to do.’

  An involuntary gasp escaped the duguth’s lips as he realised what help the thegn needed from him, and he dragged the girl’s hand up and splayed her fingers on the runnels of the trunk. Spearhafoc began to realise what was about to happen, and she gave them a look which was a mixture of gratitude, fear and despair as Eofer drew fang tooth from his belt.

  ‘Hold it firmly Thrush,’ he said. ‘The quicker this is over with, the easier it will be for us all.’

  The seax moved in, its point pricking the skin above the girl’s forefinger as Eofer felt for the joint. A heartbeat later a scream cut the air as the short sword stabbed, and within moments the fore and middle fingers of both hands lay on the grass at their feet. ‘Nobody attacks a member of my hearth troop and gets away unmarked,’ he snarled as the girl swooned, sobbing with pain and shock. ‘I suggest that you start practicing with a broom and ladle, you will never draw a bow again. Tie her on your horse, Thrush,’ he said as he opened the ground with the point of his blade, rolling the digits in with a sweep of his foot and pressing the earth flat. ‘And point her south.’

  As Eofer tore up a fistful of grass to wipe the bloodied soil from the point of h
is seax, Hemming bundled her into the saddle, slapping the horse’s rump to send it on its way. The horse seemed in no hurry despite the smell of blood which hung in the air, and Eofer called after her before she moved out of earshot. ‘Spearhafoc, never think to return. You will not be so lucky next time.’

  The small figure turned in the saddle, and as the pale face that he knew so well looked back at him he saw the moment when the girl’s pride came back to shine through her tearstained features. ‘Dwynwyn,’ she spat, as her chin raised up in defiance and the old familiar strength came into her voice. ‘My name is Dwynwyn, barbarian.’

  Afterword

  If the historical framework which contained the storyline for the previous volume in this series, Fire & Steel, could borrow from the written records which have come down to us from the former Roman lands, works by Gildas, Nennius and others, the events contained within Gods of War are set firmly within the inky blackness of the Dark Ages.

  That there was a migration from the land still known to this day as Angeln in modern Germany is undisputed, the Venerable Bede, himself a proud Angle writing in the early eighth century tells us so. In the Ecclesiastical History of the English People he writes that the Angles came to Britain from, ‘…the country known as Angulus, which lies between the provinces of the Jutes and Saxons, and is said to remain unpopulated to this day…’ The events of that migration, its timescale and the effects which it had on the surrounding peoples will almost certainly never be known. The Scandinavian and northern German societies were illiterate. Christianity, with its bookish scribes and universal dating system were unknown there; it would be several hundred years yet until the last bastions of heathenism were overcome. In this situation it is understandable that what we now consider as linear ‘normal’ history did not exist. No written records were kept, so none could come down to us today. Even within the land which became the Kingdom of the East Angles, any knowledge of earlier times was destroyed in the viking attacks of the ninth century.

  One of the primary sources for the period are of course the written accounts we collectively call the Anglo-Saxon chronicles. Begun at the end of the ninth century, almost certainly by order of King Ælfred, even these ‘primary sources’ are very sketchy regarding events which were ancient history, even to the scribes who first wrote them down. They were after all dealing with events which were as far removed from their own time as the Tudors are from our own.

  Here are the entries in the chronicle which deal with the period within which this series of novels will be set:

  A.D. 519. This year Cerdic and Cynric undertook the government

  of the West-Saxons; the same year they fought with the Britons at

  a place now called Cerdicsford. From that day have reigned the

  children of the West-Saxon kings.

  A.D. 527. This year Cerdic and Cynric fought with the Britons in

  the place that is called Cerdic’s-ley.

  A.D. 530. This year Cerdic and Cynric took the isle of Wight,

  and slew many men in Carisbrook.

  A.D. 534. This year died Cerdic, the first king of the West-

  Saxons. Cynric his son succeeded to the government, and reigned

  afterwards twenty-six winters. And they gave to their two

  nephews, Stuff and Wihtgar, the whole of the Isle of Wight.

  A.D. 538. This year the sun was eclipsed, fourteen days before

  the calends of March, from before morning until nine.

  A.D. 540. This year the sun was eclipsed on the twelfth day

  before the calends of July; and the stars showed themselves full

  nigh half an hour over nine.

  As we can see, over a period of twenty-one years very little is recorded, and none at all outside the lands which later came to be known as Wessex. As for the various kingdoms across the sea in and around the Anglian homelands, they may just have well have been on the moon.

  In many ways this volume lays the foundation, not only of those which follow, but also for the antagonism which seems to have existed between the Danes and the Angles in particular during the following centuries. At its heart seems to lie the struggle between rival lines of the Danish royal dynasty in the early sixth century, the Scyldings.

  Several accounts written hundreds of years apart deal with this time, but all are conflicting to a greater or lesser degree. There is a definite schism, with on the English side principally the poems Widsith and Beowulf, and on the other the various Scandinavian traditions typified by works such as the Gesta Danorum, Skjöldunga saga and of course Hrolf Kraki’s saga.

  Both traditions seem to take the side of opposing members of the Scylding dynasty. The older English sources, Beowulf and Widsith, concentrate on King Hrothgar and his sons. The much later Scandinavian sources follow the descendants of Hrothgar’s brother, Halga, and his son Hrothulf.

  It’s a witches’ brew of conflicting tales, our efforts to understand which are not aided by the fact that the same characters are called by different name forms in each tradition. In this as in my other books I have kept to the English spellings, which are older and closer to the original, in an effort to keep confusion to the minimum.

  Hrothulf, the killer of King Hrothgar in Gods of War, was known to the Danes as Hrolf Kraki, one of the heroes of the age, but he warrants only one fleeting mention in Beowulf. Hrothgar’s son, Hrothmund, the renegade prince in our tale, is never mention at all in the later Danish sources. However one does turn up in the king’s lists of East Anglia, and the Beowulf poem has been convincingly argued to have originated there. Wealhtheow, Hrothgar’s Queen and the mother of Hrothmund seems to have been a Wulfing, and the Wealh element of her personal name is the Germanic name for foreigner; Welsh and Walloon for the French speaking part of present day Belgium share this ancient root. She could quite easily represent a British strain within the Wulfing dynasty; it was common practice even as late as the eleventh century for foreign born women to take an Anglo-Saxon name on marriage. In the Danish tradition Hrothgar is a King in Northumbria (before the kingdom actually existed) not Denmark, but he is murdered by a young relative in a dispute over a golden ring. Could this be the reason for the interest shown in Hrothgar and his descendants in the Anglian lands? If Wealhtheow did come from the Wulfing settlements in Britain, did her son seek sanctuary there after the fall of his father? Could it even be a reason why the Danish Great Army of 865 chose East Anglia to invade rather than the lands to the south of them, Saxony and Francia? The great army was the first to arrive under the leadership of kings, and although heathen armies had begun to overwinter several years earlier, notably on the isle of Sheppey on the Kent coast, this time they had come to stay. Landing in East Anglia the Danes subdued that kingdom, followed the next spring by Northumbria and parts of Mercia, all Anglian Kingdoms. It would have been far easier to move south and settle Essex, the kingdom of the East Saxons. With bases already established on the opposite side of the estuary, this would have given the Danes control of the Thames and its rich hinterland.

  Was there a long remembered grudge against the Angles of East Anglia, by then ruled by kings who traced their descent from the Wulfings, which caused the Danes to act as they did centuries later?

  As ever when dealing with this shadowy period of our history there are more questions than answers and of course we will never now know the truth, but there does seem to be a long history of conflict between the nations. If that also included a vicious dynastic struggle, the later events could even be interpreted as ‘payback’ by the Danish vikings. History in illiterate societies was passed on by word of mouth, often in the form of verse and storytelling. The scop or skald would tailor his tale to suit the audience in much the same way as a live performer would today. The story would be interactive as the drink fuelled audience exchanged banter with the performer, who would of course expect payment for his performance from the lord who employed him. If there was a connection between the ruling dynasties in East Anglia and Denmark
it would be entirely natural for different traditions to evolve over time in this way, each glorifying the ancestors of the respective royal house. It may or may not be true, but it is certainly a possibility, and a great vehicle for a story which I found too good to pass up in the absence of any hard facts within which to anchor my tale.

  The situation in Sweden at this time was very similar, with a dead king supplanted by his brother and the old king’s sons fleeing for their lives. In this case the new King Onela does seem to have had Danish sympathies and it seems that he was later married to Yrse, daughter and unwitting wife of Halga and mother of Hrothulf (Hrolf Kraki).

  The Swedish princes Eanmund and Eadgils flee to Geatland for safety, whose king is of course the brother-in-law of our own hero, Eofer. Events there will take a turn for the worse and Eofer will be fully involved, but that conflict is for a future volume.

  The Ghost Army at Sleyswic I based on a custom which was prevalent on the steppes of what is now Russia. The Greek historian Herodotus writing in the fifth century BC, tells us that the Scythian people there used the method which I described to ring the burial mounds of their kings with a spectral guard. The image which I had as I read about this was just too evocative, and I stored it away for use in a future novel.

  If anyone is interested to read further on this period the most entertaining account is to be found within the pages of The Saga of King Hrolf Kraki. Although written down hundreds of years after the events they describe (fourteenth century Iceland no less), it is a stirring tale of men and gods with many similarities to the Beowulf story. The Penguin Classics edition contains a good introduction which goes into far greater depth concerning these connections than can realistically be discussed within a novelist’s historical afterword.