On these occasions the Saxons always eat as fast as they can, for plentiful food is not a rare treat to them, and they are anxious to get on to the serious drinking. In half an hour the wooden platters were empty; Roman slaves passed round the tables, slopping beer into any empty horn they could reach, and a poet tried to make himself heard above the noise of Germans drinking and boasting with their mouths full. It was always on these occasions that I felt myself farthest from my own people, contrasting the noise, the squalor, and the stench, with the elegant supper parties in my father’s house at Anderida. After another hour the poet had shouted himself hoarse, and most of the feasters had said all they wanted to say; there was a lull in the proceedings, and the King sitting at the far end of the hall banged on the table with his gold-mounted drinking-horn.
This was a signal for any petitioners to present their complaints. It is an old custom among the Jutes that any subject can speak face to face with the King when he has eaten and drunk, and is at leisure. In old King Hengist’s time this was a valued privilege, for he was just and good-tempered, and Germans thought him merciful; but not many people cared to try it with King Oisc, who was subject to blinding fits of rage, and thought it a sign of strong-mindedness never to alter a decision, even when it had been given in anger. For all his wish to found an imitation of a Roman city he was a cruel man, and he enjoyed watching executions carried out in his presence.
So to-night no one rose from his place in the hall to ask for the King’s justice, and he was about to give the signal to begin drinking again when Gertrude entered through the door at the far end of the hall. Of course the Germans keep their virgins, and those whom they hope are virgins, away from these drunken and riotous feasts; and on this occasion even the married women were at home, though they sometimes come to parties. So all heads were turned to look at Gertrude, and some people muttered that it was just like her conceit to come butting in on a purely masculine function.
Everyone was staring at her, but if I made a sudden dash for the door they would spot me very quickly, and I should not have time to get to the horse I needed; also, of course, there was the outside chance that King Oisc would not be angry after all. I pretended to find a fragment of food between my teeth, and put most of my hand inside my mouth, as these barbarians frequently do; but secretly I stuck a finger deep into my throat, so that I could make myself vomit at will. Then I could leave the room without exciting remark; there was a trough along the inside of the wall where all relieved themselves, but even the comrades preferred that those who wanted to be sick should do it outside.
The hall was long, and there was a certain amount of noise, though the King had ordered silence. I could not hear what Gertrude said, but she seemed to be trying to brazen things out. She stood there proudly, with her back straight and her burdened belly sticking out, and no doubt she told the King how lucky he was to have such a wonderful nephew on the way. Oisc did not take long to make up his mind; he gave a sudden roar of rage, and two captains who were sitting at his table sprang up and caught hold of the unfortunate woman. I did not wait to see any more; I pushed with my finger, retched over the table, and made my way, gagging, to the door. It may have looked odd to take out my sword and shield when I was only leaving for a few minutes, but my neighbours said nothing.
I never set eyes on that tiresome woman again; years later I had the curiosity to inquire what exactly had happened to her, and I was told that Oisc made her into a Bloody Eagle on the spot. This is a Saxon way of inflicting a painful death, and consists in cutting the victim’s ribs loose from the backbone, and pulling them outwards and forwards, so that the body looks rather like a bird with wings outspread; it is a horribly messy thing to do, especially in a dining-hall, but actually the culprit does not suffer for very long.
Of course everybody stayed in the hall to watch the execution, and then they must have sat on arguing as to who had dared to seduce the King’s sister; it would not have taken a sober man long to guess that I was responsible, but then none of them were outstandingly sober. Anyway, I had climbed the rickety city wall, and saddled my horse, before I heard the commotion of the pursuit. I galloped due north; they all knew I was a man of the Forest and that I had never left Britain, and they would expect me to strike inland.
The southern shore of the Thames estuary is a maze of marshes and mud-flats. When I reached it I tethered my horse, and sat down to wait for daylight. I had already made up my mind to cross the sea; if I went back to the Romans I would sooner or later be charged with fratricide, and Oisc would get hold of me if I lingered among the German settlements of the east coast; but in the homeland of the Saxons I ought to be safe from the King of the Kent-folk. As soon as light showed in the east I began to walk along the beach, leading my horse, and soon came to the hut of a Saxon fisherman.
The inmates were still asleep; I suppose they also had been celebrating the feast. I tied my horse, and then burst in the door, sword in hand. The man of the house jumped in front of his children; all Saxons are prepared for death by violence every minute of their lives, and he did not give way to hysterics as a colonus would have done; I was able to argue with him and spare his life.
‘Good morning,’ I said pleasantly. ‘I have very urgent business in Germany just now, and I rather fancy that King Oisc would not like me to leave his Kingdom. In short, I want a boat, small enough to manage single-handed. Now I can either kill you and take your boat, or you can give it to me peaceably, and I will let you have this excellent horse in exchange. Which is it to be?’
He was a calm and sensible man; very soon he was helping me to haul out a sturdy little fishing-boat, with a sail and a pair of oars. The fact that he was taking the stolen horse in exchange would ensure that he kept his mouth shut about the whole affair, and there was every chance that King Oisc would never learn that I had fled the country.
December is the wrong time of year to go sailing, and a single-handed voyage is always a strain. But in fact my journey to the home of the Saxons was not nearly as bad as the crossing of the Forest I had achieved after the defeat of Count Ambrosius. The tide carried me out of the estuary of the Thames, while I kept steerage-way with an occasional stroke of the oars; once in the open sea I hoisted the little sail and a strong westerly wind took me the way I wanted to go. On the third morning I sighted a low sandy coast. I could see the many mouths of a great river a few miles to the south, and I knew that there must be villages, and even towns, over there; but I wanted to land unobserved, so I steered northwards and ran my boat aground in a little creek among empty dunes. I drank some very nasty water from a brackish marsh, then scraped a burrow between two high dunes, and slept soundly for the whole of that day and the next night.
In the morning I set out to find a chieftain’s hall to winter in. At bottom I have always been a civilized man, accustomed to dwelling among my fellows, and though I like a little privacy I am never happy for long as a solitary outlaw. I felt lonely, and wanted to chat, even with a thick-headed German.
If this was the homeland of the Saxons I was not surprised that they should brave the perils of the Ocean, and the assembled armies of all the Kings of Britain, to win other farms at the point of the sword. The tide was creeping in through many little gaps in the belt of dunes, and it looked as though the whole land was turned into swamp twice daily. The crops they could raise in their sodden fields must be scanty in the extreme, and the floors of their huts always muddy. I could see no cottages scattered separately, such as the Kent-folk use, but in the distance was a low ridge, and huddled on it a cluster of thatched roofs; a small village would suit me best as a stopping-place, where I could learn something about the political organization of the country; I trudged wearily towards it.
I slung my shield on my back to show that I came in peace, and shouted at the top of my voice as soon as I was within earshot. Presently three spearmen came down to meet me. I undid my sword-belt, laid down my weapons, and sat on the ground until they came up; they had n
o excuse for treating me as an enemy, and like most farmers they were men of peace. Of course their language was just the same as my old nurse Ursula’s, and they were quite willing to listen to my story. I had got over the most difficult obstacle in entering a strange land; many peaceful travellers are killed because the first men they meet are suspicious warriors, who strike without waiting for an explanation.
I told them quite a good tale, with enough truth in it to seem plausible; I had obviously come from Britain, not only because of the direction of my approach, but because my jewellery could have been made in no other country than Kent. I said that I had been one of the first children born there, when Hengist was still living in peace with the Romans, and that I had served in the royal comitatus all my life; I had done very well in the raids, as they could see from my apparel, and I intended to be a professional pirate in future; I had only left King Oisc, who had the highest regard for me, because he had spent the whole of last summer at peace, and I was tired of such a pusillanimous leader. They all grunted to one another when they heard that I had crossed the Ocean by myself; it was obvious that I must have fled secretly, but I was not going to do their village any harm, and it was none of their business. In the end, after I had mentioned that I was in a position to offer them suitable gifts in return for a few days’food and lodging, they said I might stay in their village until I found a better place; but they warned me that the sea had so encroached on their fields that they were short of food, and could not take in any more permanent settlers. (This business of giving presents is rather a burden in Germany; no free German will ever sell you anything, for fear of being regarded as a covetous merchant; but they all expect a substantial gift in return for the simplest service, and it works out more expensive in the end than if they allowed you to pay your way.)
The headman put a hut at my disposal, an old woman came in each morning to cook my food, and they all did their utmost to give me a comfortable time. But I did not enjoy my rest, for now I was among the really untouched aboriginal Germans, and my Roman upbringing has unfitted me for such savagery. The comitatus of the Kent-folk were a set of noisy and uncouth ruffians, but they were after all well-born nobles according to German ideas; here I was among the lowest class of German peasant, and their bestial ignorance, filth, and grossness were quite indescribable. There were no warriors in the village, for any young man of spirit left to seek his fortune abroad when he was old enough to bear arms.
On my second day I had a long talk with the headman, a shrewd old peasant whose wisdom was so revered that he had nothing to do all day long but sit in the sun, while others looked after his swine. He told me there were a great many Kings among the confederation of the Saxons (for it is a confederation rather than a race), since any Woden-born noble had a good claim to a throne; it was easy to gather a war-band, and those who could not win a territory at home took their men abroad rather than submit to another ruler. I mentioned that I was Woden-born myself, and he grunted that any warrior with armlets like mine would be, and then at once told me I would get no recruits in his village. It is curious that I have never heard a German doubt a stranger who claimed to be Woden-born, though some of them are more impressed by the claim than others.
I then asked him who were the Kings reigning at present in the homeland of the noble Saxons; but of that he was entirely ignorant, for none of them had been in the neighbourhood to bother him lately. He had heard the name of one chieftain who lived not far away, though he believed this man had never taken the title of King; he was called Aella, and he had spent much of his youth in Britain. Now he was said to be recruiting a war-band, though as it was his first venture not many well-known heroes had come to his hall. This was very interesting. I had heard about Aella when I myself was in Kent; he had the reputation of a cunning though cautious leader, and he had been second-in-command to Hengist at the great defeat of Count Ambrosius, when Oisc was away in the north. Men said that he might have seized the throne on Hengist’s death, if he had not previously gone off to Germany in a huff over some question of the division of the spoil. I made up my mind at once that here was the leader for me.
After five days I left the village, whose name, if it had one, I never got to know. I don’t think my health would have endured a longer stay; lice and bugs always spoil my sleep, and though the old woman who looked after me frequently hunted through my head, I think she enjoyed the chase and would not destroy the stock entirely.
The headman gave me bread for the journey, and directions how to find the hall of the noble Aella. The country was extremely peaceful, for it was too poor to attract plunderers, and on the evening of the second day I reached my destination without incident. Aella’s hall was a long narrow timber building, constructed without the use of iron nails or mortar; but the roof was of shingles instead of thatch, which distinguished it from a granary. A flimsy stockade of thorns enclosed it at a little distance, more to mark out the boundaries of Aella’s peace than as a serious defence, and a spearman was stationed in the opening. He seemed quite pleased to see me, and actually smiled as he asked my business, which is not at all the German custom. I told him the truth, though not all of it, saying that I was a Woden-born warrior who had served in the comitatus of Kent, and was now seeking a new employer. He answered that the noble Aella had just sat down to supper, and that I was welcome to enter.
‘But there is one rule here that you must obey,’ he continued. ‘That new King of the Kent-folk once tried to get my lord murdered, and now all strangers have to leave their weapons here with me. Please don’t take it as an insult; the rule is the same for all, and many noble Germans have submitted to it with good grace. In any case, you will find the comrades a very quiet and decent set of men, and they will be sober at this time of the evening. If the noble Aella accepts you into his war-band, you can come straight back here for your sword.’
This was not the usual German welcome to strangers. As a rule these people are moderately hospitable; they never turn away a guest, and seldom murder him unless there is a good reason for it. But their sentries consider it right to be as surly as possible. This comitatus seemed to show a more friendly spirit.
I unbuckled my swordbelt and left my weapons with the guard; though he allowed me to keep my seaxknife, which is the badge of a free man, and without which I would not have been properly dressed. I even gave him my helmet, and entered the hall bare-headed, to show that I was willing to do more than was asked of me.
Inside, the hall was painted a cheerful red and lit by a trench of blazing fire running down the middle; in the aisles formed by the wooden roof-pillars were long boards for the comrades, and the high table was set across the far end. As I walked up beside the fire I was struck by the low buzz of talk from the company; it sounded as though everyone was chatting pleasantly to his neighbour, instead of boasting at the top of his voice as they did in Cantwaraburh. This was the first real German hall I had been into as opposed to the makeshift that Hengist had fitted up in the remains of a Roman building, and it seemed to be a more friendly place than I had expected.
Aella was a middle-aged man, very splendidly dressed with abundance of Kentish jewellery. Of course a noble who was gathering a war-band must look as rich as possible, to show prospective recruits how good he is at gathering spoil; but his brooches and collars were arranged with taste, and his whole appearance would not have disgraced a Roman supper party. He smiled at me when I reached the table, and waited for me to speak first; I told him what I had already told the sentry. When I had finished he positively beamed at me, and actually swallowed the food in his mouth before answering, a thing I have never seen done by any other German.
‘Young man, you seem to be just what I am looking for,’ he said. ‘I am gathering a war-band for an expedition to Britain when the next sailing season comes round. I have picked a first-rate crowd of comrades; but very few of them have ever been overseas before, and we could do with a trustworthy guide. I have a prejudice against the comitatus o
f Kent, who cheated me shamefully in the division of the spoil; but you must have joined them recently, or I would remember your face. And I don’t imagine things went very smoothly when you left, or you would not have fled alone at this time of year. However, you can tell me all about that later, if you feel like it, of course; I am not inquisitive about the past life of my comrades. Now just put your hand on this collar of mine, which is engraved with runes and intensely magical, and swear to be a faithful comrade to me and my friends, and the enemy of my enemies; then you can get your weapons and sit down to supper. I must remember to call you cousin, since Woden is your ancestor and mine.’
The whole atmosphere of this new comitatus was quite strange to me. The only Germans I had known had been the mercenaries of Count Ambrosius, poor and unsuccessful spearmen whom all other barbarians despised, and the comrades of King Oisc, whose conquests had gone to their heads, so that they prided themselves on being savage and tough. This new war-band took its tone from its leader; Aella was the son of a high-ranking officer of Roman foederati, and had been brought up to use civil manners and polite speech. Furthermore, most of the comrades were untried warriors; they had nothing to boast about, and there was no tradition that they should show their courage by fighting among themselves. Altogether they were quite pleasant companions, and I began to understand what the ancient writer Tacitus had been able to see in the Germans, which had always puzzled me in the past. They are utter savages, of course, but they can be trained into quite good imitations of civilized men, if their leaders set a good example.
I settled down among these pleasant comrades. At the back of my mind was still the hankering after complete independence that has been the guiding motive of my life, but I was beginning to be resigned to the thought that I might never achieve it. In the last two years I had been unlucky in my dealings with those near and dear to me, and an unvarnished account of my past life would not attract the best type of follower if I set up on my own. Of course, I had to kill my brother when he set about depriving me of my rightful spoil; all the same other people, hearing about it without knowing all the circumstances, might think I was to blame; fratricide has as ugly a sound in Germany as in Britain.
Conscience of the King Page 12
