Diarmait nodded as he absorbed the numbers, then looked to Guertepir. ‘That means four thousand of us and two thousand Saxons against Arthur. If you’re asking me, my lord, then I think we should go with Cunedda’s plan. Such would be our numerical advantage over the Saxons, it would make them think twice about any duplicity after the battle is won. And I must say to have six thousand men against Arthur has got to be better than four thousand.’
Guertepir, who had faith in Diarmait’s judgment, sighed and dragged an anxious hand down across his lips and onto his chin. ‘I didn’t think we’d even be discussing such madness,’ he said. With a contemplative frown, he drummed his fingers on the table as a silence fell upon the assembly. Eventually he looked up and turned to Diarmait. ‘The Saxon,’ he said. ‘Get the men to bring him to me now.’
CHAPTER SEVEN
Days earlier, Raedwald had sat in the smoke-filled alehouse with the youth, Wilburh, whom he had met on the sea passage from Saxony. Together they had travelled to Camulodunum, and at that moment Wilburh was the only friend Raedwald could claim to have on the isle of Britannia.
Both men were excited at the prospect of making their mark on the island; both shared a common goal: to ride with a war band and gain riches. Raedwald told Wilburh all about Egbert, and Wilburh was impressed. Egbert’s infamy was well known and his legend exaggerated. To be riding with the son of such a man, albeit a bastard son, was a source of pride for Wilburh. Together they would make a mark, he was sure of that.
As he looked at the veteran warriors and drinking men who seemed so at ease in the alehouse, Raedwald reddened as he remembered the events of the previous evening. A stocky Saxon chieftain—a man cast in the mould of many such chiefs, with his inherent arrogance and brutality—had entered the alehouse looking for men to ride with him into the forest in search of untouched villages. Raedwald gathered with the other men, most of them seasoned warriors, as Hrodgar—a man who could really whip up a crowd—held court whilst standing atop a wooden table. Thirty men agreed to ride with Hrodgar that night, all lured by his promise of gold and slaves. It was exactly the opening that Raedwald had been waiting for. He anticipated how the man would be impressed when he told him who he was … the possibility that his father might be despised having never occurred to him.
Hrodgar in particular had suffered rebuke and derision from Egbert when riding with him as a youth. But his hatred was not born from witnessing Egbert’s debauchery and excesses on the raids, because Hrodgar himself was quite capable of such conduct—no; it was the mocking and belittlement dished out by Egbert that had led to his loathing of the man.
He immediately saw the opportunity of exacting retribution on Egbert’s seed. There stood his son—a youth already bearing the haughty traits of his father.
Raedwald bristled with shame as he lived through the scene again. Hrodgar had hushed the room when Raedwald approached him with his offer of enlistment and disclosure of his parentage.
”Look what we’ve got here,” Hrodgar had shouted. “Another one of Egbert’s spunk spurts.”
The crowd had roared at this—Raedwald’s glowering response only making things worse. Many of the men approached and pawed at him, as if checking out a mule for the trail. Laughing at his soft arms and wispy beard, they declared to Hrodgar that he might go with them on the raid but only to carry the water and hold down the women. But Raedwald had committed their faces to memory, and one day they would laugh no more. Oh yes, one day they would pay for humiliating him.
For now, he would get his own men, just as his father had. He would be a leader, and show Hrodgar and the others he was his father’s son. Even now, Wilburh was out in the town looking for any youths rejected by Hrodgar; youths who would be very happy to follow the son of the legendary Egbert.
A grunting coming from a nearby curtained stall interrupted Raedwald’s unhappy musings. One of the older warriors was busy with one of the six whores who made their living at the alehouse. Again, Raedwald bristled when recalling how even the whores had laughed at him when he approached them. One had pointed at his crotch and asked if he actually had a dick down there, such was the scarcity of the bulge in his hose. He had been ready to slap the flopsie, but the innkeeper—a huge man who always made sure his girls were fit for duty—had pushed him back onto his wooden bench and threatened him with expulsion from the inn should he continue his barrage of abuse towards the woman.
The door opened, ending Raedwald’s bristling, and allowing an eddy of cold January to whisper around his feet.
Wilburh entered with three young men, all of them spare of frame and hunched against the cold. ‘Eldstan, Dudda, and Baldward,’ said Wilburh, nodding towards them in way of introduction. ‘I found them sleeping rough with some cows on a smallholding in the town.’
Raedwald looked the young men over. Their ages ranged from seventeen to twenty by the cut of them, and all looked as if they had been out in the open for several weeks. Two of them, Dudda and Baldward, looked alike—brothers Raedwald guessed. All had slicks of snot below their noses. What a sorry bunch of downbeats, thought Raedwald. They actually make Wilburh look impressive and that’s something. But Raedwald knew it was the best he could do for now, and whatever their condition he intended to leave with them and show Hrodgar and the others he was capable of leading men. He knew his reputation would soar if could successfully capture slaves and obtain gold.
Raedwald looked at the heavy looking sack grasped by Wilburh. ‘What did you barter for the jewel?’ he asked.
Wilburh paused. The man who had been busy with the whore parted the stall curtain and stepped out. Wilburh recognised him as one of the tough-looking men who had mocked Raedwald the night before. The man cast an amused glance over the group as he snatched tight his belt around his middle. ‘What a bunch of losers,’ he laughed, before moving away to the bar.
Raedwald glowered at the man’s back as he walked away. Annoyed, he nodded towards the sack. ‘Let’s look, then.’ He shot a glance at the new boys. ‘And you three—sit and make yourselves less obvious.’
As they slid onto the bench seat beside Raedwald, Wilburh emptied the contents of the sack onto the table. Three knives and two seax’s fell with a clatter before Raedwald. All were rusty; all were dulled and battered.
‘And that’s the best you could do?’ asked Raedwald, his face a mask of dismay.
‘Yes, and I had to haggle hard to get the third dagger,’ said Wilburh. ‘I got them from a smith who was about to melt them down.’
A peal of laughter rang from the bar. Raedwald saw the man who had been with the whore cast a look over his shoulder towards them as he leaned on the counter sharing a joke with the innkeeper.
‘Get them out of the way and into your belts before he sees them,’ said Raedwald, sliding the daggers to the three recruits. He took the better-looking seax, leaving the other for Wilburh.
‘Are the ponies still tethered at the end of the town,’ asked Raedwald, his voice low now.
‘Yes, and poorly guarded,’ said Wilburh.
‘Then we leave at dusk.’
‘No one said anything about stealing ponies,’ said Eldstan, at last breaking the silence of the three men. ‘We’ll be slain if we are caught with stolen ponies.’ With eyes wide with fear, Dudda, and Baldward nodded in support of Eldstan’s statement.
‘That’s why we’re leaving at dusk you dunderhead,’ said Raedwald. ‘We will be in the forest and out of sight before the ponies are missed.’
‘But they’ll know it’s us,’ said Eldstan. ‘How can we ever come back here, they’ll string us up as soon as they see us.’
‘We won’t be coming back here,’ said Raedwald, glaring at Eldstan as his limited reserves of patience drained from him. ‘We take the slaves and gold then head straight to Norwic. From there we sale home and lie low for a year before returning for more of the same.’
Eldstan frowned and looked far from convinced as he twirled his newly acquired knife in his hand. For no
w, though, he had decided it prudent to keep further opinions to himself. Dudda and Baldward also looked at their knives, their expressions mirroring Eldstan’s.
The theft of the ponies went smoothly, filling Raedwald with hope for the future of the mission. Seven hours later, after riding through the night along the good road that ran from Camulodunum to Londinium, they came to the forest edge. As the first suggestion of grey dawn smeared the eastern horizon, they took a rough track into the woods.
After two miles, the track petered out and they were left with no option but to push through the tangled undergrowth of the deeper forest. Dudda, Baldward and Eldstan were bare-legged, wearing no shoes. Already full of holes and distressed before they had even set out, their tunics were bramble-snagged and wretched. Grime smeared and skinny, their legs ran with the blood from a hundred scratches.
Raedwald and Wilburh who wore hose and boots fared little better, and when mid-morning came Raedwald decided enough was enough.
‘Look, there’s a clearing ahead!’ he shouted. ‘S’time to give the beasts a rest and have a doze.’
‘What if we’ve been followed,’ said Wilburh, giving an anxious glance over his shoulder. ‘They‘ll hang us from the trees if they come upon us now.’
‘We have seven hours on them, how can we have been followed?’ asked Raedwald, rolling his eyes in supplication. ‘Besides they’ll never find us in this forest.’
‘How much further?’ asked Eldstan. ‘I thought you said we would come upon homesteads soon.’
‘Soon means in a few days, not today, you dick,’ said Raedwald, his exasperation growing again. ‘Just get your head down in the bracken, you’ll feel better after a bit of a sleep.’
After a short rest, they pushed on through the short afternoon, and when darkness came it found them bedraggled and weary.
An uncomfortable and cold sleep through the long night did nothing to lift their spirits, and at first light they set out with a stiff reluctance deeper into the forest.
Four more days passed as they fought through the unyielding undergrowth, having brief respites whenever they came upon colonies of beech. Here the scrub was always sparse, allowing them easier passage.
It was in one of these clearings that the group sat at the end of the fifth day since leaving Camulodunum. All reclined filthy and careworn before a cooking fire—their provisions meagre, having been thrown together by Wilburh. Now all they had left was half a sack of oats.
As the porridge bubbled away, Dudda, the older of the two brothers, looked down at his feet and sulkily kicked at the forest litter. ‘I never thought I’d say this, but I had a better life back at the town. The food was shit there too, but at least we got some variety.’
Raedwald gave him a contemptuous glance as he stirred at the porridge. ‘Well you won’t be going back to the town for a while ‘cause they’ll string you up if you do, so be grateful for what you’ve got. At least you’re not starving.’
Dudda lifted his tunic to his chest to display a hollow stomach and ribs that stuck out like latticework. ‘If this isn’t starving then what is?’
Raedwald waved for Dudda to lower his tunic. ‘If you’ll just get your dick out of my face and realise that this’—he pointed to the porridge—‘is just to get us through the trip. Once we’ve taken slaves and received payment for them, you’ll have a fancy tunic and hose and boots, and as much swine and beef as you can eat.’
Baldward—Dudda’s brother—spoke now. ‘You make it sound easy. We just ride into a village and help ourselves to the children who will fetch a good price at the slave markets. Their parents will just let us take them, will they? ... I don’t think so.’ With a sceptical, ‘Huhh’ he followed his brother’s example and stared moodily into the fire.
Raedwald was aware the brothers and Eldstan were probably not killers. Had never killed before. When the time came to do it, he hoped they would deliver, but for now he knew he had to tread carefully around the matter. ‘First of all,’ he began, ‘we do not enter any villages. That would be madness; there are only five of us. No ... we find a homestead. There, we will be against fewer people, and we are armed, don’t forget that.’
‘So we just chase the parents away with our rusty daggers and swords do we?’ said Baldward, still sceptical.
‘No we overcome them and lock them in a hut,’ said Raedwald. ‘Then we put a day’s travel between us and them.’
‘And come back through this stinking forest, no doubt. Where in Woden’s name are we anyway. Does anyone actually know whether we are heading north, south, east or west?’
Raedwald, who had not the slightest idea where he was, felt his forbearance leaving him. ‘Of course I know where we are, you miserable scarecrow,’ he lied. ‘We are about to leave the forest and find a homestead.’ He slopped a gloop of porridge into a bowl and thrust it at Baldward. ‘Now if you’ve finally emptied your belly of aches, then fill it with this.’
Three days later, they were still in the forest and their food had almost gone. By now, Baldward, Dudda and Eldstan were ready to desert. Only their fear of Raedwald, and the question of where they could actually desert too, kept them with Raedwald and Wilburh.
Raedwald, by now, had become desperate and spent much of his time slashing at the undergrowth with his seax and cursing wildly at the trees around him. It was the early afternoon of their eighth day in the forest when he noticed brighter light ahead. His hope grew as the trees thinned around him and soon he rode through scrubland with fewer trees. Here, swathes of ferns grew healthy and strong in the unrestricted light of a huge glade. Beyond the glade the tree line suddenly stopped.
He turned to the others, weary but triumphant. ‘Look, we’re through it. I told you I’d get you to the other side.’
They heeled their ponies to where the trees stopped. The land before them seemed to be coarse pastureland—the sound of sheep in the distance giving credence to this. The undulating nature of the landscape before them restricted their view, but it was clear they had come to a definite end of the forest and not just some clearing in the trees.
Wilburh, who rode beside Raedwald, suddenly grabbed his shoulder and pointed to a faint track that ran through the pasture. Beyond the track, rising from the horizon, a languid curl of grey smoke spiraled into the thin January air.
Bradan’s morning, as ever, had been tough and uncompromising after labouring to grub up two deeply-rooted shrubs from his new field. Come the spring, he hoped the field would be ready to plant with barley.
Three years earlier, many of his fellow villagers had expressed their concerns when Bradan had stated his wish to live independently on the very edge of Arthur’s protectorate.
Still living with his peers in the village, he had spent every moment of his spare time travelling to and repairing a hut on an abandoned homestead six miles from the village. Here, he had laboured to clear the overgrown field that lay fallow nearby. In his second year, he had sewn his first trial crop and waited. The small harvest had been a success, and Braden guessed it would have been enough to feed his small family throughout the winter had he been resident at the homestead. Now he was confident he and his family could survive alone. His trial run over, the following year he moved permanently to the homestead with his wife and girl, along with his three sheep and two pigs.
Seren, Braden’s wife, sat outside the hut and watched the pot of Barley and roots as it bubbled over the cooking fire.
‘The sheep have done a damn good job of cropping the grass,’ said Braden as he approached Seren. On his shoulders, sat Cara, his infant daughter. He lifted her down and sat beside Seren. She handed him a wooden bowl and spoon.
A frown creased Seren’s smooth face as she ladled a measure of broth into Braden’s bowl. ‘You work too hard; you’re going to be worn down to a greasy spot before this winter’s out.’
Braden lifted his daughter upon his knee. He smiled at her as he guided a spoonful of his broth towards her open mouth. ‘I have to work hard so t
hat this little lady has a full belly.’
Cara dutifully opened her mouth to accept the broth. Braden took a spoonful himself and looked at his wife as she continued to stir the pot. As far as he was concerned, she was still the pretty girl he had married. A little older and slightly more careworn, maybe, but still, she was radiant and precious to him.
He was about to tell her to stop stirring and start eating when the grunt of a pony had him look towards the fields.
Fifty paces away, a group of five ragged youths sat on five miserable ponies. The ponies had started to feed on the rough pasture beneath them and seemed to have no intent to move any further. One by one, the five youths dismounted.
When two of them took short swords from their belts, Braden bundled Cara to his wife. His instruction to her was rapid and urgent. ‘Go into the hut and stay there until I’ve dealt with this.’ Seren wavered as she looked anxiously from Braden to the youths. ‘Please girl, get inside the hut,’ repeated Braden as his gaze flickered to the adze at his feet, thankful now he had retained the tool when returning from the fields. Seren turned towards the hut, but still she hesitated. ‘Get inside, now!’ hissed Braden as the two youths with swords, who had been involved in a heated conversation with their three companions, began to saunter towards him.
Wilburh had been the first to see the small group feeding beside the hut. Raedwald had soon joined him and inwardly rejoiced when seeing the family. He turned to look back at Baldward, Dudda and Eldstan who had spent the last two miles grumbling and bouncing uncomfortably upon their ponies.
‘There, I told you we would find folk if we continued through the forest,’ he said. ‘And these look like British folk not Saxon. So, you see, we’ve come into land that hasn’t been raided.’
Eldstan seemed less than happy now that things were ready to happen. ‘What do you propose to do now, then,’ he asked Raedwald.
Wolfbane (Historical Fiction Action Adventure Book, set in Dark Age post Roman Britain) Page 59
