Killer of Kings

by Matthew Harffy

  Chapter 2

  “Your horse?” Beobrand said, immediately regretting having spoken. The Waelisc leader was toying with him surely. Trying to unnerve him.

  Gwalchmei still smiled, but his eyes showed no mirth. They were dark and cold, like the deep Northern Sea. Around them Wynhelm’s warriors were moving out. Beobrand’s gesithas had all mounted, but held back, waiting for their leader. The flames of the buildings breathed and sighed like living things, the wind fanning them to greater heat. It was hot on his face from this distance. Closer, where the gathered men and women moaned and cried it must have been unbearable. Beobrand scanned the set, impassive faces of the Waelisc warriors. The prisoners would not have to bear the pain of the heat for long. What horrors yet awaited them on this earth, Beobrand did not care to dwell on. He pushed the thoughts away.

  Edmonda’s hands were clasped at his waist. Her body trembled like a bird against his back.

  “Yes,” replied Gwalchmei, no sign of a smile in his voice, “my horse. You stole it from me at Hefenfelth.”

  Beobrand recalled the moment when the Waelisc corral had been broken and the horses routed. It had been the turning point of the battle. One animal, half-crazed with fear from the crashes of thunder, the clash of weapons and the screams of the dying, had galloped towards King Oswald. Beobrand had stopped it and the great black beast had carried him in pursuit of Cadwallon, King of Gwynedd. After the battle, Oswald had gifted the horse to Beobrand and the stallion had been a trusted companion ever since, always leading him safely through shadows and danger.

  “Taranau is his name,” Gwalchmei said, something like longing in his tone.

  Sceadugenga’s ears pricked up, and it pawed the earth with a hoof.

  “See, he remembers me,” said Gwalchmei.

  “Enough of this,” replied Beobrand. “If it was your horse once, it is so no longer. And his name,” he patted the coarse mane, “is Sceadugenga.”

  Gwalchmei spurred his mount forward a couple of paces. Beobrand could almost reach out and pull him from the saddle. He gripped his reins tightly, willing his hands not to shake.

  “Mark my words, Half-hand,” all sign of the smile had gone now and Gwalchmei’s words were clipped and sharp. “I do not have time to deal with you now. Too many of my men would have been injured or slain in a fight and I have matters of more import to attend. But heed me well. Next time we meet, I will take back what is mine, and you will pay weregild for what you have stolen from me.”

  “I shall pay you nothing.”

  “Then the next time we meet, I shall slay you.”

  “You can try, Gwalchmei. Many have tried before you, and yet I still breathe.”

  Beobrand did not await an answer from the white-cloaked Waelisc lord. He swung Sceadugenga’s head away and dug his heels into the stallion’s flanks, praying that the girl was holding on tightly. The horse, seemingly wanting to be far from its former master, jumped forward. He appeared not to notice the extra weight of Edmonda. Beobrand clung to the reins and gripped the broad back of the steed with his thighs. Attor, Dreogan, Elmer, Ceawlin and Aethelwulf spurred their own horses on. Galloping up the slope, they approached Wynhelm and his retinue.

  Behind them the fires raged.

  As they cleared the ridge, leaving the settlement behind them, Beobrand heard the first screams. He closed his ears to the sounds and rode on.

  They slowed to a canter and Coenred and Gothfraidh fell into pace with them. The monks must have waited for the warriors to return, and had not approached the burning buildings or the Waelisc.

  “What has happened, Beobrand?” asked Coenred, his voice eager and curious. “Who is this girl?” Beobrand did not answer him. He could not bring himself to talk of it so soon. Perhaps never.

  “What has happened?” Coenred repeated in breathless tones.

  Beobrand again ignored the monk and kicked Sceadugenga onwards. More wails of anguish drifted to them over the thrum of their horses’ hooves. Beobrand dug his heels in savagely, Sceadugenga was beginning to blow and would need to slow soon, but Beobrand wished to be far from this place. His hands shook now as they always did after battle. He could feel the blood of the men he had slain drying and cooling on his skin. He had killed two of them in as many heartbeats and had lost none of his own men. His charges, the monks, were safe, and he had saved one of the defenceless people from violation and likely a grisly death. Surely this was good.

  A victory.

  But as they rode away, the screams receding into a whispered memory on the rustling-leaf sound of the wind, with only the smudge of smoke in the sky to remind them of what they had seen, he could not stop feeling he had suffered a terrible defeat.

  Chapter 3

  “By Woden and all the gods, you dare defy me?” Beobrand had held back his anger at Wynhelm all that long day as they rode into the land of the East Angelfolc. But now, with the men setting up camp around him in the well-practised rhythms that came from a long journey, Beobrand allowed his ire to bubble over, like a pot of milk left too long on a hearth.

  “Lord Beobrand,” said Wynhelm, his voice calm and soothing in the face of Beobrand’s anger, “let us go to the stream and fetch water together. We can speak there.”

  Beobrand wanted nothing more than to scream his fury at Wynhelm, but he bit back his words. The older man’s soft tone made his own brash rage seem petulant and childish, which only angered Beobrand further. Snatching up two of the leather flasks they used for collecting water, he stalked off towards the stream without waiting to see whether Wynhelm followed.

  The men did not comment on Beobrand’s outburst. His gesithas knew of his temper, and had seen all too frequently what happened to those who crossed him. Wynhelm’s men did not need prompting to keep out of the way of the huge Cantware thegn as he stamped his way past them and down through the trees to the small brook. Beobrand’s anger was legendary, and they had all witnessed how he had ridden amongst the burning buildings and slain the two Waelisc who stood against him.

  Beobrand had pushed the men hard all that day, not wishing to pause in case Gwalchmei was able to call upon reinforcements and follow them. It was unlikely. He had let them leave without a fight, but there was a chance that his enmity would lead him to strike out after them, especially if more Waelisc or Mercian warriors could be gathered in pursuit. Would he risk riding across the frontier marches to the east, away from Mercia? Beobrand doubted it, but he might. The further from Mercia they rode, the safer they would be and so they rode on without pausing to eat or rest until the sun was low in the sky at their backs and there was nothing for it but to halt.

  The land they had ridden into was low, flat, and dotted with lakes, meres and waterways. As they had pressed south, with the fens to their left, they had seen no way eastward. They had thought to continue south until such a time as they could follow a road into the east. But they had not been riding long when Edmonda spoke to him.

  “If you turn from the path here, there is an old causeway, a raised path built by men long ago, that we can follow.”

  Beobrand could only see boggy land, a few stands of alder and the glint of large expanses of water. There was no sign of a path.

  “Are you sure?” he had asked.

  “Yes. It used to be a major road, such as Wæcelinga Stræt and Earninga Stræt, but it is not used now. Parts of it have fallen into the water, but it is passable and only those who live in these parts know of it.”

  Beobrand had thought for only a moment before ordering the men to ride in the direction the girl had pointed. It took them a while to find the beginnings of the built-up track. It was overgrown with brambles and nettles, but the girl had spoken true. For long stretches they rode along the dry, crumbling road, with the quivering reeds and rippled waters of the fens rolling away to north and south.

  The road would be of no use to carts or waggons. There were many sections where the stones and rubble had been washed away in long-forgotten floods and storms. At these places, t
hey sometimes needed to dismount and lead the horses, but still they made good time, putting distance between them and the Waelisc warband.

  Eventually, they had found a small thicket of rowan on a small rise, with a stream running to the south of the slope. Beobrand had ordered them to make camp, ensuring the fire was lit on the eastern side of the hillock, so that it would not be seen by any pursuers in the west.

  All the men had been subdued on the ride eastward. Beobrand wondered what they thought. He could not stop thinking of the terrified faces and pleading eyes of the people they had left behind. He had saved one girl, but would all the others be slain? Or perhaps Gwalchmei would make slaves of them. That would surely bring him more profit than their deaths.

  The memory of their screams echoed in his mind as he knelt beside the stream to fill the skins. The cool water washed over his hands. His anger lessened.

  “I am sorry,” said a quiet voice from behind him, “for speaking against you before the men, and that Waelisc bastard.” Beobrand had not heard Wynhelm approach. He covered his surprise by reaching for the second skin. He did not look up at the older thegn.

  “I am sorry,” Wynhelm repeated, “but you would have got us all killed.”

  As if a bellows had been pumped hard into a forge fire, the flames of Beobrand’s fury were rekindled. He threw down the skin with a splash, and surged to his feet.

  “That bastard was going to slay all of those people. They were defenceless… What would you have had me do? Ride by without a second glance?” Again, he heard the echo of the screams in his mind.

  “You did what you could, Beobrand. We were outnumbered. Surrounded. We could not have fought them all. What good would it have done to throw our lives away too?”

  Beobrand let out a long, shuddering breath. As quickly as his ire has burst into life, so it was now doused by the sense in Wynhelm’s words.

  Beobrand knelt once more, snatching up the discarded water skin and resumed filling it. Once it was full, he stoppered the skin. He splashed fresh water onto his face, washing some of the grime of travel away. Standing, he turned to Wynhelm, who stood by patiently.

  “It is I who should ask your pardon,” said Beobrand, feeling foolish now, a child before his elder. “I should not have charged in without a thought for those I lead.”

  Wynhelm’s mouth curled in a rare smile.

  “It is what you do. Your men love you for it.”

  Beobrand snorted.

  “They will not love me if I get them all killed.”

  “I doubt they will much care then,” said Wynhelm, now stooping to the water with his own skins. “The men and the king love you because you have luck. Or the gods smile on you. Most men would long ago have perished if they had performed the deeds you have.”

  Men often commented on Beobrand’s luck. He seldom felt it himself. To him it seemed that death stalked the land in his shadow, taking the life from those he loved. His was not the life of a lucky man.

  Uncomfortable with the praise, Beobrand turned the conversation to the question that had been gouging at his thoughts ever since they had ridden away from the Waelisc warriors.

  “Why was Gwalchmei torching Mercian homes, if he is an ally of Penda’s?”

  Wynhelm stoppered the skin and pushed himself up.

  “Now that,” he said, drying his wet hands in his hair, “is a very good question. I’ve been pondering that all day. In fact, I wonder whether we have not been tricked.”

  “Tricked? You think perhaps he is not Penda’s man?”

  “Perhaps, or mayhap he is. But you are right to question the events we witnessed. All is not as it seems. Come,” Wynhelm said, leading the way back up the slope in the gathering twilight, “let us ask one who may be able to give us answers.”

  *

  The shadows were deep and heavy by the time they got back to the camp. The fire was burning well, cracking and popping, sending sparks into the darkening sky. The trees would shelter much of the light from the road. The mood in the camp seemed to have lifted, perhaps because Beobrand had taken his brooding anger away from them for a short while. Whatever the reason, the men seemed lighter of spirit as they prepared a meagre meal and got the camp ready for the night ahead.

  “Elmer, Attor,” Beobrand said, “take the first watch. We’ll bring you some food soon.”

  The two men nodded and made their way out of the camp without comment.

  “Be wary,” Beobrand called after them, “if those Waelisc are following us, they should not see our fire, but it does not do to expect the best when considering an enemy.”

  Attor grunted something, and then they were gone, out of the circle of light from the campfire and into the thickening dusk.

  The girl, Edmonda, sat close to the fire. She stared into the dancing flames, perhaps reliving the moment when all she knew was destroyed. Her arms were wrapped tightly about her legs, her chin resting on her knees. The firelight lit her face in a ruddy glow, softening her features, making them more pleasing. She was no beauty, but something of her fragility reminded Beobrand of Reaghan, the young Waelisc woman he had left back in Ubbanford. He shook his head. Reaghan may look fragile, small of form, slim of limb, her angular face surrounded by cascades of dark brown hair, but in many ways, she was as strong as any man. He missed her.

  “Edmonda,” he said in the soft voice he saved for frightened animals. She started, then turned her face toward him. Her eyes were dark, sunken in shadow, full of despair. “Edmonda,” he said again. She did not reply, but raised her eyebrows in question.

  “Why was Gwalchmei burning your steading?”

  “Not steading,” she said, her voice hollow.

  “What then?”

  “Monastery.”

  Of course. Again, Beobrand felt foolish. It should have been clear. All those rounded up by Gwalchmei’s men had been wearing plain robes, much like those worn by Coenred and Gothfraidh.

  “But why attack the monastery?” A thought came to him. “Is it because Penda forbids the worship of the Christ in his lands?”

  “It’s true, Penda is no lover of the Christ,” she answered, “but he does not forbid His worship in the lands of Mercia.”

  “Then why send Gwalchmei to attack, if they are indeed allies.”

  “Oh, I am sure they are allies. Though I do not know if Penda sent the Waelisc to torment us. Rather I believe he has been told to scout ahead for a larger warhost.”

  The night suddenly grew colder. A wind shook the branches of the rowan, making them creak and moan. Beobrand looked at Wynhelm. The older man’s features were drawn and harsh in the fire-shadows.

  “But why burn buildings in his own kingdom? And why kill his people or…” he could not bring himself to talk of what the warriors had been doing to Edmonda.

  “He was not causing harm to his own people, lord,” Edmonda said, her tone making it clear she had thought this much was obvious to all. “The monastery is in land that is oft-disputed between Mercia and the East Angelfolc.”

  “And to which people does the monastery belong.”

  “The monastery lies in the kingdom of King Ecgric.”

  “Ecgric?”

  “He is king of the East Angelfolc.”

  “Not Sigeberht?” Beobrand asked, thinking of the strange, sombre, pious king he had met the previous summer. He had seemed more monk than king then. His hall had been a mean place where the warriors grumbled into their bowls of thin pottage. Perhaps they had turned on their lord. “I had not heard of Sigeberht’s death.”

  “Oh no,” she said, a look of surprise on her face, “Sigeberht is not dead. He has given himself to God. He prays for the souls of all the folk in the land.” Her eyes were wide in awe at the devotion of this holy king.

  Beobrand had never heard of such a thing.

  “So, the king has become a priest?”

  “Not a priest, but he is very holy. His prayers will be listened to by the Almighty.”

  “He will need more tha
n prayers if Penda is coming and is freshly allied with the Waelisc.”

  Edmonda suddenly lunged forward. She picked up a fresh log and threw it into the fire. Sparks showered. Gone was the softness of face of moments before, the dancing light now made her face a hard mask, grim with shadows.

  “I will pray that God brings his righteous punishment upon the Waelisc.”

  Not so unlike Reaghan after all. There was iron beneath that soft female flesh.

  “So, who is this Ecgric?” he asked. “And where can I find him?”

  “He is the king, lord. Kinsman of Sigeberht. He rules now, but I know not where he is.”

  Wynhelm, had remained silent, but now stepped forward into the light. Beyond the small light of the fire all was dark now.

  “I have travelled the lands of East Angeln before,” Wynhelm said. “There is a great hall to the south and east. Rendlæsham is its name. If the king is not there, we can learn of his whereabouts. It is not far from where we were headed anyway. News of the Mercian host may well precede us, but we should make haste. The king will wish to prepare the defence of the land.”

  “What of Gothfraidh and me?” said Coenred, his youthful face glowing in the red light of the flames. His head was shaved from forehead to crown, but his hair fell thick and long to his shoulders. “We have gifts for King Sigeberht from Holy Abbot Aidan and our lord king, Oswald.” He ran his long fingers nervously though his hair and Beobrand noticed how the monk’s hand fell to the finely-carved casket. The chest never left his sight and Beobrand wondered what could be so valuable that it required so many warriors to protect it. He knew it was not heavy, so it could not be gold, or silver. Gems perhaps.

  “The land is not safe, Coenred,” Beobrand said, noting the tension in the young monk’s jaw. “You ride with us. The old king can wait for his gifts.”

  Beobrand sensed that Coenred meant to argue with him. But Beobrand was done with discussions. Tiredness washed over him as he turned, without waiting for a response, and walked into the darkness.