by H A CULLEY
Typically the weather broke just as we prepared to leave and the rain came down in torrents. I climbed wearily into the saddle, clutching my cloak tightly around me, as we headed south east towards Durham. The Ealdorman of Jarrow marched south to join us and we arrived outside the stronghold of Durham on its steep hill with over two thousand men. Thankfully the Ealdorman of Durham accepted Æthelred as king. I wouldn’t have wanted to have to assault the place, especially in the wet. It might not be quite as impregnable as Bebbanburg, but it wasn’t far off.
At Catterick we found that the ealdorman had fled with his family, presumably to Eoforwīc. A new ealdorman was appointed and he mustered his men to swell the numbers in our growing army by another four hundred. Æthelred sent to Whitby for its ealdorman to join us and, whilst we waited, word of what had happened at Eoforwīc reached us.
The sons of the late King Ælfwald - Ælf and Ælfwine, aged ten and eight respectively - had sought sanctuary in the new minster but Osred had secretly ordered Eanbald to expel them just after the celebration of Christmas. As soon as they emerged they were seized by a crowd of men, taken down to the river and drowned. The story which then circulated was that this was done on the orders of Æthelred. It was obviously intended to turn people against him, but Osred ruled Eoforwīcand most people realised that it was a crude attempt to discredit Æthelred . The rumour persisted though.
When we reached Thirsk we were met by Osred’s army. It consisted of the men of the six shires who supported him - Eoforwīc, Beverley, Loidis, Ripon, Leyburn and Luncæster. They were more populous than the more northern shires but I counted no more than two thousand men against our three thousand. Nearly every man entitled to bear arms in the whole of Northumbria must have been gathered there. Had we fought each other the kingdom would be finished as a military power.
The morning had dawned fine and clear but clouds gathered as we moved into battle formation. By the time we were ready drops of water had started to splash my cheeks and patter on my helmet. A stream with boggy banks lay between the two armies. It was no place to try and form a shield wall. The more you pushed at the enemy the more your feet would slip and slide, gaining no purchase.
It wasn’t my place to offer advice unless it was asked for; my son was the hereræswa, but thankfully he too saw the disadvantages of the place as a battlefield. He went to talk to the king and minutes later we were withdrawing back up the slope we’d just come down to take up a new position on the ridge. Now Osred’s men would have to cross the boggy brook and struggle uphill before attacking us. They would arrive tired and have to fight uphill against superior numbers.
I was put in charge of our two hundred horsemen; something that I welcomed. I wasn’t certain that I had recovered sufficiently from Hexham to face another long fight on foot. I sat next to Æthelred and his gesith, the numbers of which he’d now expanded to thirty. As we watched, Osred and his six ealdormen rode forward and floundered through the mud and the stream before stopping at the bottom of the slope.
‘Perhaps he wants to surrender,’ Æthelred said, more in jest than in hope. ‘Come on, let’s see what he wants.’
He, I, Octa, Wulfgang and three of his gesith walked our horses down to meet him, stopping just out of arrow range of his men.
‘What do you want, Osred?’
‘I want to talk terms. There is no point in wasting the lives of Northumbrian men. That only benefits the Mercians and the Picts. You can keep Lothian but I want the rest of Northumbria.’
‘What gives you the right to demand anything? No Witan has elected you as king as they did me.’
‘These nobles chose me to succeed Ælfwald after you had arranged his murder and Eanbald crowned me in the new minster.’
Æthelred flushed with anger and I had to put a restraining hand on his sword arm as he went to draw it.
‘That’s a lie and you know it. Sigca of Hexham killed him on your orders.’
‘Not my orders, yours; and then you killed him to stop him from talking.’
‘You’re deluded,’
‘Cyning, Osred, this isn’t getting us anywhere. We all know that Sigca killed Ælfwald and he has paid for his crime. We should be talking about the future, not the past,’ I said before things got out of hand. ‘You are heavily outnumbered, Osred, and the lie of the battlefield is also in our favour. You must know you cannot win.’
‘Nothing is certain in war, Seofon, you should know that. If Æthelred is killed your people will have nothing to fight for.’
‘The same is true for your men,’ I pointed out. ‘Would you allow Æthelred to reassume the crown which is rightfully his if you are allowed to go into exile unharmed?’
I looked at Æthelred for confirmation as I said this and, thankfully, he nodded his agreement to my proposal.
‘No, I’m the crowned king, it is for me to lay down the terms under which you traitors might be permitted to live.’ He replied, getting visibly worked up.
At that moment one of his nobles, Osbald who had succeeded Sigered as Ealdorman of Eoforwīc, broke in.
‘He’s right, Cyning, we can’t hope to win today. You should take what terms you can negotiate.’
‘Traitor,’ Osred hissed at him. ‘I’ll have you executed for disloyalty.’
Ealdorman Osbald stared at him for a long moment before riding back through the boggy ground to where his men stood in line. Moments later he led all four hundred of them back through the cloying mire and up the hill. For a moment I thought that the man was mad and was going to attack our shield wall, but then I noticed that his men had their shields on their backs. They weren’t attacking, they were joining us.
Abruptly another of his ealdormen, Eardwulf of Ripon, turned his horse and followed Osbald’s example. The other four nobles looked nervously between their shrunken force and our enlarged one before one of them spoke.
‘I’m sorry, Osred. I’m joining Æthelred.’
The man who’d spoken was Sentwine of Beverley, the last of the conspirators who had put Ælfwald on the throne ten years ago.
Before he could move, Osred drew his sword and thrust it into his throat in a blind rage. Before the man had hit the ground Wulfgang had ridden forward and banged his axe against the would-be king’s helmet. The blow dented it and knocked Osred out.
‘Go back to your men and take them home.’ Æthelred told the remaining ealdormen. ‘The Witan will meet at Catterick in one month’s time to swear their oaths of fealty to me as king. No election is necessary as I never ceded my throne to Ælfwald and both he and this piece of offal,’ he said indicating the unconscious Osred, ‘were false kings.’
‘What will you do with Osred, Cyning,’ Eardwulf asked.
‘Enough kings have been killed. He’ll be tonsured and exiled, probably to Iona, if they’ll have him.’
~~~
Unfortunately Osred hadn’t learned his lesson. Two years later he landed on the coast of Luncæstershire with what was purported to be an army of Manxmen, but which was in reality a Mercian army. I learned later that Offa had offered him his men in exchange for the promise that the shire would become part of Mercia as soon as he was crowned King of Northumbria.
The campaign in 790 had been a great strain for me and I was now two years older. I knew, with a great deal of regret, that I wouldn’t be straying far from Bebbanburg from now on. My mortality was weighing heavily on my mind in any case.
My younger brother, Renweard, had died in Paris at the beginning of the year and Anarawd had gone over to replace him. I’m not ashamed to say that I missed him. I missed Æthelred and Wulfgang too. They had been a part of my life for a long time but the king rarely came to Bebbanburg now. But most of all I missed Hilda. She had died two months after Renweard. She had been my companion as well as my wife and I often found myself talking to her before I realised that she wasn’t there anymore.
Even Octa was away much of the time. As hereræswa he spent a lot of time at Eoforwīc or traveling around the kingdom wi
th the king. Of course, Cynwise and my granddaughters were still here but she thought I spoilt Osoryd and Uuffa’s daughter, Odelyn, too much. She was probably right.
Eafa had left to attend the monastery school on Lindisfarne in the summer of 790 and I couldn’t even look forward to his return to train as a warrior later this year. Octa had decided that he should go to Eoforwīc instead, where he would be mixing with sons of other nobles. There he would make friends that could be useful to him later in life; he wouldn’t do that at Bebbanburg.
As a result I grew closer to my younger son, Uuffa and on good days, when my joints didn’t ache so much, he took me hunting. It took me days to recover afterwards and Cynewise scolded me for being an old fool, but it made me feel as if I wasn’t ready for the cemetery quite yet.
During my recovery I felt well enough to embark upon a hunt and we brought back a fine stag for our larder. My feeling of euphoria vanished, however, when a messenger arrived with news of Osred’s return. Uuffa immediately started to gather the fyrd and prepare the warband to march to the muster point at Durham.
I was left in charge at Bebbanburg with a garrison of old men and boys under training as warriors; scarcely twenty all told. If by some miracle Osred won I didn’t see how I could hold the fortress if we were attacked in any strength. But at least preparing for such an eventuality gave me something to do, and it took my mind off the fact that my sons had gone off to war without me for the first time in decades.
It was September before we had news. The two sides had met at a place called Aynburg west of Durham. Yet again Osred’s men deserted him as soon as they saw the size of the host that Æthelred had brought against him. He fled but he’d been caught near Tynemouth and killed. I hoped that would be the last of the rebellions against Æthelred’s rule. Unfortunately I was destined to be disappointed.
I had expected Uuffa to return to Bebbanburg,but his men came back without him. He had gone to attend the wedding of the king to Elfflaed at Catterick. She was the daughter of Offa of Mercia and the union surprised me, especially as Offa was thought to be behind Osred’s attempt to take the crown. Perhaps he needed to placate Æthelred, who can’t have been very pleased at Offa’s interference in Northumbrian affairs. No doubt Offa realised that he’d made a mistake. He certainly didn’t want trouble in the north; he had enough of that in the south.
Raiders had landed on the coast of Dorsetshire in 789 and had killed the shire reeve. The men responsible were said to be Northmen by some or Norsemen by others. I’d heard of them before when I was in Saxony. I thought that they might be Danes, but rumour had it that these raiders came from elsewhere in Scandinavia. Other raids had occurred in the last two years against Kent, East Anglia and Essex, all of which were independent kingdoms, but they acknowledged Offa as bretwalda. Consequently he was busy trying to devise ways of countering these raids.
Wessex had supposedly acknowledged him as overlord as well and their king, Beorhtric, had married another of Offa’s daughters to cement the arrangement. Nevertheless the peace between the two kingdoms continued to be a fragile thing.
I also heard from Anarawd in Paris that Charlemagne was playing politics in England, having approached both Offa and Æthelred with offers of a treaty which included an attractive trade deal. I was glad that I no longer had to get involved in such machinations, but I did worry about what the future held for my sons and grandchildren.
Chapter Fourteen – The Coming of the Vikings
793 to 795
The year so far had been noted for its freak weather. We had unseasonably hot weather at the end of March and a snow storm in early May. Two days before this we had thunder and lightning that continued intermittently for twenty four hours. Then this morning we had a hailstorm. The superstitious were saying that the end of the world, when Christ would raise the dead, was nigh.
I didn’t believe these doom-mongers, but what happened later gave some credence to those who said that these unusual happenings presaged disaster.
I had good days and bad days. The eighth of June in 793 was one of my better days and I even managed to make it up the steps to the walkway along the top part of the palisade. I gazed out over the German Ocean thinking about the past. After a while I was conscious of someone coming to stand beside me and I smiled when I saw it was Octa. He had come on a visit with his son Eafa to see his family and to try and persuade Cynwise and Osoryd to return with them to Eoforwīc. His daughter was now nine and he thought it was high time that she was introduced to life outside Bebbanburg.
Not that it was the small settlement it used to be. Trade with the Continent had brought all manner of craftsmen to live there – jewellers, gold and silversmiths, armourers to make weapons, wood carvers and furniture makers. There was also a regular livestock market and we had recently started to export fleeces and wool yarn. There were others centres similar to Bebbanburg, but only a few were as large. It made what was to happen all the more worrying.
‘You’re feeling more like your old self today, father?’
‘Yes, thank the Lord. Such days seem to be increasingly rare, I mustn’t complain though. There’s no one who grew up with me who is still alive. Although there are days when I think that’s more of a curse than a blessing; this isn’t one of them though.’
I looked up at my eldest son. He was forty one now and the odd grey hair had started to appear in his long brown locks. Just at that moment there was a clatter as Eafa ran along the planking of the walkway. He arrived somewhat breathless beside us and pointed to the north east.
‘What’s that ship, father?’
At fifteen his eyesight was a lot better than either of ours.
‘What ship? The lookout hasn’t spotted anything,’ Octa replied.
‘That’s probably because the idiot is looking the other way,’ Eafa said impatiently. ‘Look, there’s another one now.’
‘Heardred,’ I called up to the lookout. ‘Can you see anything to the north east?’
‘No, lord. Yes, wait a minute; there’s a faint smudge on the horizon. I can’t make out any details yet though.’
It seemed that his eyesight wasn’t as good as Eafa’s either. A few minutes later he called down again.
‘I can see a second one now. The sails seem larger than they would be on a birlinn or a knarr.’
‘Larger?’
‘Yes, when our own ships appear over the horizon I can usually tell whether it’s a birlinn or a knarr by the size and shape of the sail; but at the same distance these two sails seem to be bigger.’
I was intrigued and waited impatiently for the two ships to come closer so that Eafa, who’d I’d sent up the watchtower to join the lookout, could tell me more.
‘The sails have a weird device on them,’ he shouted down a few minutes later. ‘It looks like a black bird of some sort on a dirty yellow sail. It appears as if it lying on its back with its wings outspread and feathers like long fingers hanging down.’
I looked at Octa and he shrugged his shoulders. It wasn’t a device that either of us had seen before.
‘The ships are turning in towards the coast now,’ Eafa called. ‘They are longer than any ships I’ve ever seen. There are blobs of colour all along the sides, perhaps shields?’
That surprised me. Our ships had sides which were built out at an angle so it wouldn’t have been feasible to hang shields along the gunwale. The top strakes of these strange ships had to be vertical for that to be possible.
‘They’re lowering the sails and putting out their oars. I can count fifteen, no eighteen of them.’
Eighteen a side meant at least thirty-six rowers. With sailors, ships’ boys, helmsman, captain, archers and warriors as spare rowers it probably meant a crew of fifty or more on each ship.
‘They’ve rounded the point and are heading into the beach below the monastery,’ Eafa shouted, clearly puzzled.
I wasn’t. I suddenly had a premonition that the arrival of a hundred warriors on Lindisfarne could only mean one
thing. They were pirates or raiders intent on plunder. It had been a place of pilgrimage for a hundred and fifty years as the resting place of two famous saints – Aidan and Cuthbert – not to mention other relics such as the saintly King Oswald’s head and arm. Consequently Lindisfarne had grown rich. The church was full of gold artefacts: candlesticks, the large cross on the altar, dishes and chalices; even the lectern was inlaid with gold.
Word of the monastery’s wealth must have somehow reached these strangers. No Christian would dare to pillage such a holy place so they must be pagans, perhaps the Danes that Wulfgang had spoken of? I wished he was here now. He might have been able to help identify them. Whoever they were, there was no time to lose.
‘Octa, sound the alarm. Get the warband mounted and ride as fast as you can for Lindisfarne.’
He looked at me in shock for a minute, then ran towards the steps yelling for the lookout to ring the bell in the tower. Eafa started to descend until I shouted at him to stay.
‘I need your eyes up there,’ I told him. ‘I need to know what’s happening.’
‘Heardred can tell you that, grandfather,’ he called back, continuing his descent.
‘Damn you, boy. I’m your ealdorman as well as your grandfather. Now do as you’re told. Heardred, go and saddle your horse.’
‘But, grandfather,’ he replied, ‘I need to go with my father.’
‘You’re not a trained warrior yet, boy. You’ll stay here.’
Dispiritedly he turned and slowly climbed back up to the platform. We both knew that it wasn’t his eyes I needed. He might have better sight than most, but he wouldn’t be able to make out much detail at a range of six miles. No, I was keeping him safe.
