Fire & Steel

by C. R. May

  As an eorle and a man of reputation, Ena had served his drink in a horn and he raised it now as he began.

  “Æsc, wæs hæl!”

  The men of the troop brought their cups together and thundered the reply.

  “Æsc, drinc hæl!”

  “Oswin silk-tongue, wæs hæl!”

  “Oswin silk-tongue, drinc hæl!”

  The noise trailed away and Eofer paused as he refilled his horn. As he glanced up he saw for the first time that the men who had crowded the ale hus had quietened and turned his way, charging their own cups as they awaited the name to come. The tale of Imma's death on the field beside The Crossing had swept the English army as they had driven their captives back across the border into Engeln. All knew that the duguth had had ample time to escape the treacherous assault by Jarl Heorogar and his men but had chosen to stay and die with the honour which his opponents had lacked. His sacrifice had restored the will to resist in a flagging English defence and allowed Grimwulf the chance to escape and link up with the ætheling's army, bringing swift retribution down on the Jutish king and sealing his fate.

  Eofer choked back a knot of emotion as he raised the horn and a calm descended on the room as the action was mirrored by scores of hands.

  “Imma Gold...Goldy,” he cried as he fought to keep a tremor from his voice. “Breaker of shield walls and women's hearts. My friend. Wæs hæl!”

  Tight smiles came as he said the words, and the men attempted to lift the roof from its rafters as they belted out the reply.

  “Imma Gold, drinc hæl!”

  Eofer threw back his head and drained the horn as the men in the room stamped out a beat on the floor with their boots and chanted the English war cry.

  “Ut!...Ut!...Ut!...”

  Wiping his beard on his sleeve, the eorle began to feel overcome by the emotion of the moment. Swinging his legs from the ale bench he hauled himself to his feet and made his excuses. “I am going to get some air,” he said. Slipping the purse from his belt he caught Ena's eye and tossed it across. “I pay for the ale and food under this roof tonight. Give the men anything they want.”

  As a deafening cheer rent the air, Hemming rose and followed his lord through the sea of smiling faces and out into the dusk. They paused on the road outside and hungrily sucked in the cool air, their minds clearing slowly as the heady fog of ale fumes and men left them.

  Eofer indicated the great hog-backed silhouette of Eorthdraca glowering over the town with a jerk of his head. “Come on Thrush,” he said. “Let's take a walk.”

  Hemming had picked up a gallon of ale as he moved through the Barley Mow and they took turns to gulp from the tap as they walked. The air was crisp, but it had already lost the savage bite of the northern winter and the first green shoots had appeared in the hedgerows and swards around Sleyswic. The guards at the gate smiled in welcome as they came up, their smiles broadening as Hemming passed the barrel around and shared a joke. Eofer walked through as the men wished each other good cheer, pausing before the Jutish captives as he contemplated their fate. Corralled in a vast open pen, their wyrd, he knew was upon them. Their fate was grim, and to his surprise he found that he pitied the men who had tried so hard to kill them all on the meadow beside the wreck of Wictgils' hall.

  Hemming came through the gateway and Eofer called across. “Here, Thrush. Toss me the ale.” A guard sensed what he was about to do and he took half a pace forwards before he realised the identity of the man who had appeared from the gloom. As the sentinel turned and walked slowly away, Eofer called the nearest Jute to him. “Here,” he said, “share this with your friends.”

  The man unwound his arms and reached forward, hesitant, fearing a trick, but his eyes widened as he felt the weight of the thing. “Thank you, lord,” he said, “for your kindness.” Eofer shrugged and moved away. Another voice came from the gloom. “What's to become of us, lord?” He answered without breaking his stride as the sight of the hate filled faces that had cheered on the death of his friends came back to him. “Enjoy the ale,” he said before lowering his voice to a murmur, “it will be your last.”

  Passing through the palisade they mounted the steps of King Eomær's hall and paused at the doorway. Hemming gave a soft chuckle and plucked at his lord's sleeve. “Come on Eofer,” he said with a smile, “we don't need to hear this one. We were there.”

  Broad smiles illuminated the faces of the king's gesithas as they realised the identity of the man before them and one of the guards motioned towards the great doorway with his spear. “You should be inside, lord. The scop is the best that you will hear.”

  Eofer nodded. “I know. I heard him tell this tale before, in the hall of another king.”

  The pair paused for a moment as the words of the poet echoed around the hall and their minds drifted back to that fateful fight.

  “Before he could move the lord of the Shylfings was upon him.

  Geat and Engle alike marvelled that they could witness such a thing

  as the old grey-hair, gory from his wound, fought back all the harder.

  He did not withhold the blow. The wælcyrge could wait awhile yet!

  The blade flashed down, a thunderbolt worthy of the red bearded one.

  Wulf fell, his helm divided, blooded and gory, his head bowed.

  But it was not his doom!” The scop cried out as the hall cheered.

  “For, seeing his brother down, his own kith and kin lying among the slain,

  Eofer stepped up. He did not care for his life but thrust forward where the

  fight was hardest.

  Astride his brother one blood and one bone he stood, shielding him from

  the death blow.

  Ongentheow faltered and Eofer seized his chance.

  Advancing furiously he brought blood-worm, that ancient blade,

  slashing down, smashing murderously at the royal helm, cleaving it asunder.

  There fell the king, at the head of his troop. No-man can say that the

  shepherd of the shylfings turned from the strife and sought out the

  wild-wood, looking to save his life.

  Thaet waes god cyning!”

  Two kings had fallen in battle that day and the man who had plucked the king helm of the Geats from the mud, the same man who had given him his wife, now too lay hacked into gore down in Frankland. Eofer walked away, voicing a lament as the poet carried on. “It's a pity that Oswin missed his chance to learn from the king's scop.”

  A voice answered from the shadows and Eofer smiled as he recognised it at once.

  “From what I hear of his death, Oswin is likely to be learning his craft from the word master himself in Valhall.”

  “Maybe he is supping from the mead of poetry itself,” Hemming suggested as they walked across.

  The three stood in silence for a moment as they looked out across the waters of the Sley. The moon had risen to paint the surface of the waters with its silver glow and Icel shook his head. “Such a sight,” he breathed. “That we should live at such a time!”

  Below them the masts and hulls of the English fleet slid back into shadow as high torn clouds were driven across from the West.

  “You know,” the ætheling said. “I heard that a man wagered that he could cross the Sley from bank to bank by leaping from one deck to another. That's how many ships have already answered the war-sword.”

  Eofer looked at Icel in astonishment. “A man crossed from bank to bank without getting wet?”

  Icel looked at him with a twinkle in his eye. “No, don’t be daft! They managed to fish the fool out just before he went under for the final time, but that's not the point,” he said with a smile. “He thought that he could, even if his judgement may have been slightly impaired by the amount of ale he had supped.”

  The three warriors shared a laugh as Icel passed around the cups. Points of light began to spark into life in the fields below Eorthdraca as the men of the army settled in for the night. Within a short time the land surrounding
Sleyswic mirrored the star speckled sky above.

  Icel moved between Eofer and Hemming as they drank in the sight and clapped a palm on each man's shoulder. “The army is set, the wind is in the West.”

  A thunderclap of sound carried through from the great hall doors as warriors bellowed their war cries and beat the tables with their fists. Icel's eyes flashed in the night, and a chill ran down Eofer's spine as he thought he caught the savage glare of the wolf there.

  “My father has risen to speak. Whet your blades and gather your men about you,” he growled. “We have Danes to hunt.”

  AUTHOR'S NOTE

  As far as we can tell at this distance in time, the decade which began in 520A.D appears to have been a crucial point in the birth of the nation which later came to be called England. The later kings of Wessex certainly took the arrival of Cerdic and his son Cynric as the beginning of their dynasty, but the dates given in the Anglo Saxon Chronicle, which began to be compiled during the time of Ælfred in the later 9th Century, give us a confusing picture at best. Cerdic's landing appears twice within the narrative, once in 493 and again in 514, and both descriptions are very similar. Some scholars have taken the later to be a duplication by a later scribe, but I decided to use this discrepancy to my advantage. By making Cerdic a Briton driven from his land in the civil war which followed the death of Arthur, I could easily explain this possible double entry. Cerdicsford, the name of the battle site, lies at a strategically important junction on the River Avon and it seemed perfectly possible that more than one battle could be fought here. What's more, many historians believe that the return of Cerdic happened later than the dates in the Chronicle, even as late as the early 520's. Many also believe that King Eomær of the Engles led his people to Britain during this decade. Modern scholarship is beginning to chip away at the traditional view of Anglo Saxon conquerors replacing and driving out indigenous Romano-Britons with a far more complex and, I think, likely scenario.

  Because of these discrepancies in the dating of even major events, I thought that it would be helpful to provide the timeline here within which I have set both this new series and my earlier series, Sword of Woden.

  470's: The 'king' of British Dumnonia, Riothamus, extends his control overseas to include the territory of Armorica, an area of Gaul with long-standing trade and cultural links to that part of Britain, dividing the region into Domnonee and Cornouaille to reflect the divisions found within British Dumnonia. Large numbers of settlers and troops cross the channel either to defend the area against the turmoil within Gaul or take advantage of the chaos and extend the borders of their new land of Bro Gwereg.

  500: The Battle of Mons Badonicus/Mount Badon. The Britons under Arthur defeat the Anglo Saxons in a decisive battle which, according to the British writer Gildas who claims to have been born in the same year as the great battle, ushered in a period of peace which lasted 'a generation’.

  520: The death of Arthur at the Battle of Camlann. Arthurian forces under Cerdic and others are defeated and driven into exile to Bro Gwereg. Hythcyn becomes King of Geats following a coup in Geatland. The Swedes sensing weakness invade, but are repulsed at the Battle of Sorrow Hill.

  521: A combined Geatish/English army defeats the Swedes in the fighting at Ravenswood. The English thegn, Eofer, kills the Swedish King Ongentheow and Hygelac becomes King of Geats following the death of his brother, Hythcyn.

  523: Cerdic and his son Cynric return to Britain and defeat a rival force at Cerdicsford. On the continent, the Geats under King Hygelac raid the lands of the Frisians and Francs. Following a successful summer raiding they are overtaken by a powerful Frankish army and in the ensuing battle Hygelac is killed and their fleet driven off.

  524: The migration of the English from their continental homeland of Engeln to what we now call East Anglia under the leadership of King Eomær and his son Icel.

  If not a 'Dark Age' exactly, the various histories, mostly written hundreds of years after the events themselves, are nothing if not a confused mishmash of semi-legendary figures and battles. The above time line at least gives a coherent and logical order of events within which to base my narrative, and if I am wildly out then at least it will be difficult to prove!

  In many ways the area which began as the civitas of the Belgae, and later became the kingdom of Wessex, appears central to this process. This was the area after all which appears to have been crucially important during the earlier Roman invasion and occupation of the isles. As the most 'Romanised' part of the British Isles, it would have been natural for this area to employ Germanic troops, both as læti, armed war bands, and foederati, the settlement of family groups in border areas in order to bolster their defences. This was common practice in the later years of the Empire so its use by the British authorities would be seen as 'business as usual', both by themselves and the incoming settlers. In this book the Gewisse are an example of læti, a powerful armed force placed by the British Atrebates tribe to protect their northern border and control the important trade routes of the Icknield Way and River Thames. Further south Cerdic's enemy, Natan, settled Jutes, a seafaring people, as foederati to control the area of the Solent, the southern border of their lands.

  It's becoming increasingly difficult to see the creation of Wessex as the work of Germanic settlers alone. Later kings of Wessex claimed their descent and right to rule from their relationship to Cerdic, right up to Edgar the Ætheling in 1066, and the lists of the early kings of Wessex are strewn with what can only be described as British names. Cerdic itself is a later form of the British name Caratacus, the name of the great leader of the British resistance to Rome following the invasion in the first century, and the following kings in the Wessex king list, Cynric, Ceawlin and Coel all bear British names. Cerdic Strongarm was a historical figure known within the British settlements of Bro Gwereg, and it was a nice fit with my desire to show him as a Belgic leader who was returning home to re fight a civil war at home.

  I decided to have King Eomær of Engeln leading the Engles across the North Sea from their continental homeland on present day Jutland in the year 524. This seemed to be about the midpoint of the various estimates made by later historians and fitted in well with my own time line. The Venerable Bede, a Northumbrian cleric writing in the eighth century, stated that the area which was still called Engeln in his day was emptied by the migration and through my research for this book I have come to the conclusion that this was no exaggeration. Almost any attempt to discover the history of place names on the Jutland peninsula gets no further than the later Viking Age. This allowed me licence to import names from Anglo Saxon England. Harrow is the ancient English name for a temple, Hearg, and it seemed the perfect name to use for the island which contained the famous votive site at Gudme, which I Anglicised to Godmey. On the same island the modern town of Odense takes its name from the Norse god Odin, so it was natural to change this to Wodensburh to reflect the earlier English name for the god. Like many early peoples, the English raised earthworks to mark the borders of their territory if no obvious physical feature existed or, more commonly, to link those which did. The feature which I have called Grim's Dyke in Engeln is such an earthwork, known today as the Olgerdiget. Dendrochronological dating of the oak timbers used in its construction place its origin as far back as the first century and it is commonly held to mark the earliest border between the continental Angles and the Jutes. Likewise the earthworks known as Fleama and Miceldic in Anglia are known today as Fleam Dyke and Devil's Dyke and mark an early border of the East Anglian kingdom, stretching between the wetlands of the fens to the West and the heavily forested belt to the East.

  If anything illustrates the difficulties faced by the historian in piecing together a cohesive narrative for this time, the events surrounding the conflict between the Danes and the Heathobeards is as good as any. In this tale I have largely followed the progression of events as laid out in the old English epic, Beowulf, so as to tie in neatly with the narrative in my earlier books. The po
ssibly older English poem Widsith contains the passage which I quoted on the frontispiece to this book, with Ingeld and his War-Beards being repulsed at the hall of the Danish King Hrothgar itself. The Gesta Danorum, the 'Deeds of the Danes' written in the twelfth century, contains no less than three accounts of the events and all differ to a greater or lesser degree, and there are others. The difficulties of the historian are of course a novelist's opportunity, and I grabbed at the chance for Eofer to rescue his brother and fire Heorot, the Danish hall at Hleidre of Beowulf fame, the spark which would soon flare into the war of Fire & Steel.

  Those who have read my earlier books will have already come across the exploits of Eofer and his family. Eofer first appears at his betrothal to Hygelac's daughter, Astrid, and later, along with his father Wonred and brother Wulf, he is part of a joint English/Geat expedition to Swede Land in which he kills the Swedish king, Ongentheow, the deed which leads to his nickname of king's bane. This book, Fire & Steel, is in many ways a continuation of that earlier series. In it, Beowulf kills Grendel in 521 and the series ends with the historically attested raid by the Geats to Frisia in 523. All the dates dove-tailed nicely together, allowing Eofer's rescue of his brother-in-law to follow on from the ending of the last tale in that series, Dayraven. Changing the main character from Beowulf to the Englishman, Eofer, allowed me to move the main focus of the new series from events in sixth century Scandinavia, across the North Sea to Britain at the time when the first English kingdoms were beginning to form. Eofer's kinship with the Geatish royal family will enable me to involve him and his war band in events throughout the North. There is a wealth of information contained within the Beowulf poem and the Scandinavian sagas and histories which can be brought into the story which will enable me to widen the scope of the books as they progress to encompass the whole of the northern world. Although it is unlikely that Beowulf himself actually existed, the other principal characters contained within these books certainly did. Hygelac and Heardred were kings of Geats in the early sixth century and the burial mound of King Ongentheow, the king of Swedes killed in battle by Eofer, can still be seen in Uppsala today. Another book written in England and dated to the later years of the sixth century known as the Liber Monstrorum, tells us that Hygelac’s bones were ‘of wondrous size’ and that they were still to that day ‘preserved on an island in the Rhine, where it flows into the sea, and they are exhibited as a marvel to travellers coming from afar.’ Whether these bones were the remains of King Hygelac or Beowulf, it certainly illustrates the sheer physical size of the Geat ruling class. The wars and alliances contained within the Beowulf poem were very real and removing the character Beowulf from the storyline will remove any fantasy element, grounding this later series in what facts we do know of that far-off time.