The Hallowed Isle Book Two Page 17

  Clean, warm, and dry at last, Betiver considered the captive Anglian lords. It made him shiver even now to remember what a near thing the battle had been. A score of times during that dreadful morning he had been sure they were beaten. But whenever he could stop to draw breath long enough to consider surrender he had seen that Artor was still fighting, and gritted his teeth, and kept on. He was not ashamed at his own grim satisfaction—now it was he who was dressed like a prince, and the Anglians who were gashed and grimy. However the reversal of fortune did not seem to have daunted their pride.

  “Look at Icel!” exclaimed Gualchmai. “Lounging at his ease, as if he still held this hall! You would think he’d be showing a wee bit of apprehension. Did he never hear about the Night of the Long Knives?”

  “He trusts to Artor’s honor, and besides, that atrocity was the work of Hengest’s Saxons. They may all look like the same kind of barbarian to us, but to Icel, his folk are as different from the other tribes as, say, your Votadini are from the Picts who are their neighbors.”

  “Hmph. Well, I won’t deny the Picts have come to us at times for husbands for their princesses. But their sons are raised by their uncles, and mother’s milk is stronger than father’s blood.”

  Betiver lifted a hand to silence him. Artor stood in the doorway, drawing men’s eyes and stilling their tongues. He too had taken advantage of Lindum’s baths, and had dressed in a Roman tunic of saffron-dyed linen with bands of purple silk coming down over the shoulders to the hem and patches bearing eagles worked in gold. His mantle, also edged in goldwork, was of a red so deep it was almost purple, and he wore a Roman diadem upon his brow. Cai, behind him, was actually wearing a toga. Gualchmai whistled softly and grinned.

  “Is it the emperor himself who’s come to call on us? I hope Icel is impressed.”

  There had been a flicker of appreciation in Icel’s grey eyes, but his face showed no emotion at all. That clothing had certainly never made the muddy journey from Londinium. Betiver, wondering which rich merchant had provided it, fought to keep his own face still. Icel had sought to impress them as a folk-king, lord of a mighty people, but Artor was meeting him as the heir of Rome.

  Moving with conscious dignity, Artor seated himself on the carved chair on the dais, and Betiver and Gualchmai took their places with Cai behind him. Icel and two of his surviving chieftains, still in the grubby tunics they had worn beneath their mail, had been given low benches on the floor.

  “You fought well,” said Artor, “but your gods have given you into my hand.”

  “Woden betrayed us,” muttered one of the chieftains. “Nine stallions we gave him, and yet he did not give victory.”

  “But many of your warriors earned a place in his house-guard,” said Artor, who had learned something of the German religion when Oesc was his captive. Icel responded with a rather wintry smile.

  “Woden will take care of his own. My care is for the living. What is your will for those who are your prisoners?”

  “Kill them,” muttered Cataur, “as they slaughtered our men.”

  Most of those who had survived the battle, thought Betiver, belonged to Icel’s houseguard, who had made a fortress of flesh around their king. If he had fallen, they would not have survived him, and only Icel’s order could have made them lay down their arms. He leaned close to Gualchmai. “He doesn’t ask about himself—”

  Gualchmai snorted derisively. “He knows the high king cannot afford to let him go.”

  But Artor was leaning on the acanthus-carved arm of his chair, resting his chin on his hand, and frowning.

  “What would you have me do?”

  The question disturbed Icel’s composure at last. “What do you mean?”

  “You are their king—what did your people seek on these shores?”

  “Land! Land that will not wash away in the winter rains!”

  Artor raised one eyebrow, indicating with a turn of the head the flooded wastes outside the town, and someone laughed. But Icel was shaking his head.

  “Oh yes, this land floods, but the water will go away again and leave it all the richer. We can ditch and dam and make good fields. The river is not so greedy as the sea.”

  “The Romans did not have that craft—”

  Icel’s lips twitched again. “The Romans built like etins, great works of pride and power that forced earth to their will. Our farmers are content to work with willow wands and mud and coax our Mother to be kind.”

  Artor’s gaze moved slowly around the faded frescoes of the old basilica, and the worn mosaics on the floor, and he sighed.

  “The Romans were mighty indeed, but they are gone, and the land remains,” he said then. “And save for your folk, there are now none left to till that soil.”

  Something flickered in Icel’s gaze at the words, but he kept his features still. Cataur’s face began to darken dangerously.

  “Many men of my blood have died,” Artor went on, “but my duty is to the living also. To leave this place a wasteland and its shores desolate will serve no one. But I am high king, and any who would dwell here must go under my yoke.” He frowned at Icel. “If I give you your lives, will you and your folk take oath to me, to hold these coasts and defend them in my name? As the Romans gave districts to the Franks and Burgunds and Visigoths, I will give the Lindenses lands to you, saving only Lindum itself, which I judge my own people better able to garrison.”

  As the Vor-Tigernus gave land to Hengest . . . thought Betiver grimly, and look what that led to! But Hengest’s men had been a rag-tag of mercenaries and masterless men, not a nation. It was the same agreement Artor had made with Oesc, in the end, and that seemed to be working well.

  There was a short silence. “What guarantees . . . would you require?” the Anglian king said then.

  “That you shall swear never again to take arms against me or my heirs, to defend these lands against all others, and to send a levy of warriors at my call. You shall pay a yearly tribute, its size contingent upon the size of your harvest, and in cases affecting men not of your people, be judged by my laws. I further require that you give up all looted goods and treasure, that one son from each of your noble families shall be sent as hostage to dwell among the youths of my household, and that all warriors who are not of your tribe shall remain my prisoners.”

  Cataur surged forward, and Gualchmai moved to stand between him and the dais. “My lord, you cannot do this! He’s a Saxon . . .”

  “An Anglian,” Artor corrected coldly, “and I am your king—”

  “Not if you betray us!” Cataur exclaimed, his hands twitching as if he reached for someone’s throat. But Gwyhir and Aggarban had come to stand beside their brother, and Morgause’s three sons made a formidable barrier. “You’ll regret this day!” Still sputtering, Cataur whirled and strode from the room. Gualchmai started after him, but Artor waved him back.

  It took a few minutes for the murmur of comment to die down. But despite the fact that there were those on both sides who like Cataur would obviously rather have kept on fighting, it was a fair offer. Indeed, it was more than generous, especially when the alternative was to be slaughtered like a sheep, without even a sword in one’s hand. Icel must have hoped for something like this, even if he had not dared to expect it.

  Icel got to his feet, his eyes still fixed on Artor. “I am the folk-lord, and I stand for my people before the gods. But for all things that belong to this land and the Britons I will give my oath to you.”

  Artor gestured to one of the guards. “Unloose his bonds.” He looked back at Icel. “As you keep faith with me, so shall I with you, for the sake of Britannia.”

  A little past sunset three weeks after Oesc returned from his ill-fated hunting trip, the hounds who ran loose around his hall began barking furiously. Oesc, who had been drinking to ease the ache in his arm and trying not to think about Rigana, sat up, and Wulfhere rose to his feet, reaching for the spear that leaned against the door.

  “Who comes to the hall of Oesc the
king?”

  “One who carried him on his saddlebow when he was a boy, came the gruff answer, “and I have not made my way across half Britannia, beset by enemies, to be challenged in Hengest’s hall!” Taking advantage of Wulfhere’s astonishment, the newcomer shouldered past him and into the light of the fire. Two other men came after him, looking about them nervously.

  Oesc leaned forward, striving to see behind the dirt and the dried blood and the wild grey-streaked hair.

  “Is it Baldulf?” he asked, coming down from his high seat and opening his arms. “It must be! You stink too badly to be aught but a mortal man! Old friend, what has happened to bring you to my door like—” He shook his head, seeking words.

  “Like a fugitive?” Baldulf sank down upon a bench, took the horn of ale the thrall-woman offered and drank it down. “That’s what I am, boy—fleeing a lost battlefield and the wrath of your young high king.”

  “You were in the north—” Oesc said, “were you with Icel?”

  Baldulf grunted. “I was safe enough in my dale, until that smooth-talking Anglian sent messages around seeking allies in his campaign against Lindum. All went well for a time, but Artor came at last, and brought Icel to battle. Lad, I was lucky to survive that day, and luckier still not to be captured. The Anglians have taken oath to Artor, but the other prisoners were killed. If I never see another marsh I shall count myself happy!” He shuddered reminiscently and held out his horn to be refilled with ale.

  “I won’t give you up to him, if that’s what you were wondering,” said Oesc, “but I can’t keep you here.”

  “Nor would I stay—help me to a ship and I’ll be over the water to the Frisian lands.” He took another drink and reached out for a hunk of the bread which had been set before him. “There may be no Anglians left to replace those Icel lost, but there are still fighters on the coast who might be willing to try their luck in Britannia. Two men only survived from my warband—” He gestured towards his followers, who were being fed at a table by the door. “But I’ll soon raise another. The Britons have not heard the last of me!”

  Oesc nodded bemusedly. Listening to Baldulf was like stepping back into another time, to the days when Hengest and his father tore at Britannia like wolves. Things were different now. He understood why Icel had accepted Artor’s peace. Now Britannia was his land, too. After a moment he realized that Baldulf had asked him a question.

  “Come with you? No—all that I want is here—” He shook his head, smiling.

  “All? What about a plump wife to warm your bed, and fair-haired children about your knee? Shall I look for the daughter of a Frisian chieftain, or maybe a Frankish princess, to be your queen?”

  Oesc stared at him, all his frustration focusing suddenly into a single need. “I do need a wife,” he said then, “but not a woman from across the sea. I must marry into this land if my heirs are to hold it. . . .”

  Suddenly Rigana’s face filled his vision. Tomorrow, he thought, he would ride to the hut on the Downs. After that first encounter he had not touched her, but one way or another, he knew that she would be his queen.

  IX

  ALLIANCES

  A.D. 494

  TORCHES HAD BEEN SET INTO THE CRUMBLING CITY WALL AND upon the green height of Hengest’s mound. They flickered with pale fire in the last light of the soft summer day. The space before the mound had been cleared and spread with rushes to accommodate the tables for the wedding feast. The King’s Hall had not room enough for so many, and in any case, this close to Midsummer it was far too warm to huddle indoors.

  The sound of Andulf’s chanting floated on the wind. He was old now, and his voice no longer as resonant as it once had been, but he still had the trick of pitching it to carry across the field.

  “Hail the heir of high-born heroes—

  Son of the Saxons who first to these shores;

  West over whale-road, borne by the wind,

  The old land left, new lives to fashion—”

  Oesc, who had gone to consult with his steward about serving more mead, surveyed the scene and smiled. Two dozen tables rayed out in a semicircle from his own, where Rigana, draped in crimson silk and hung with gold, awaited him. Her features were half-hidden by the fall of her veil, but his pulse leaped at the sight of her all the same. In the month since he had brought her home to Cantuwaraburh, he had discovered that he could always sense her presence, and his pulse quickened at the mere brush of her hand.

  But he had, in addition, a very different reason for feeling satisfaction. The Cantuware chieftains, nodding approvingly as Andulf began to recite Oesc’s ancestry, had all turned out with their sworn men, but that, he had expected. It was their duty to witness the wedding of their lord to the woman who would give him his heir. But Ceretic had brought his West Saxons, and Aelle, his hair now entirely white but his frame still well-muscled, had journeyed up from the south coast to attend the celebration, and that was an honor on which Oesc had not dared to depend.

  And beside Rigana, where her father, had he been living, would have had his place, sat Artor the High King, who had made time between campaigning against the Anglians and dealing with the new threat from Irish raiders in Demetia to come. He almost looked the part of a father, thought Oesc, watching them. In the past year or so Artor had broadened out—not with fat, but with the muscle that comes from wearing armor for long hours over an extended campaign. In Artor’s eyes Oesc could still recognize the boy he had first faced across a battlefield sixteen years before, but the body was now emphatically that of a man, and a king.

  It was with enthusiasm that Artor had accepted Oesc’s invitation to stand for the family of the bride at the wedding. More eagerness, to tell the truth, than Rigana had shown when she heard about it. To be sure, it was Vitalinus the Vor-Tigernus who had given away her grandfather’s princedom, not Uthir, but even though there was now no man of that line fit to hold Cantium, Rigana blamed the House of Ambrosius for not having won it back to British rule, and Artor for confirming Oesc as its lord.

  It was no use to point out that if the Saxons had never come, she would most likely have been married off young to some lord living elsewhere in Britannia, whereas now she would be queen in her own country. Oesc was coming to understand the bride he had brought home from the hills. Courageous she was, as well as passionate, but logic was not one of her virtues.

  “In wisdom he weds a noble woman,” sang Andulf.

  “Daughter of drightens, radiant as day.

  Bold is her heart, as bright her beauty,

  Lady who links the lord to the land.”

  Surely that must please her, thought Oesc. Artor had signed the marriage contract on her behalf, and now he was slicing meat from the joint that had been set before them, and as he transferred slices to her platter, she smiled. Should that make him uneasy, wondered Oesc?

  Watching them, he saw in Rigana’s face no coquetry, but it seemed to him that there was something wistful in Artor’s eyes. The question of the high king’s marriage had been often discussed, but although many maidens had been proposed for the honor, there had never been time, it seemed, for him to court one of them. But if Artor had found love of a more casual kind, no one had heard about it.

  Oesc did not think the high king could have had a mistress in secret, but he was not a cold man. When he came to love, it would be deeply.

  It is not my bride I should fear for, Oesc thought then, but my king.

  He saw Ceretic’s daughter Alfgifu approaching, bearing the great silver-mounted aurochs horn filled with mead. Andulf struck a last chord and finished his song.

  Oesc strode quickly back to take his place at Rigana’s side as Artor accepted the horn.

  “It is my honor to be the first to offer a toast for the couple who sit before you. Any marriage is a harbinger of hope, for thus the race is renewed. But this wedding, more than most, gives me hope for the future, for the groom, who was once my enemy, has become a friend and ally, and the bride, a woman of my own peopl
e, is a living link between the old royal line and the new. It is always something of a miracle that two creatures so different as male and female can live in harmony—” He paused for the murmur of laughter. “But if Oesc and Rigana can do so, then there is hope that Britons and Saxons can live in peace as well.

  “This, then, is my wish for the bridal couple—that as they join their lives, our peoples may be linked as well, and if they do not always manage to live in perfect accord—” again, he waited for the laughter “—then I wish that their differences may be quickly resolved, and that from their union new life shall spring!”

  He turned the horn carefully so that its tip pointed down, and raised it to his lips, taking a long draught without spilling a drop. Then he handed it back to Alfgifu, who bore it to Aelle, and then to Ceretic and the other chieftains.

  The other blessings were more conventional, with a heavy emphasis on the breeding of strong sons. Oesc scarcely heard them. His beating pulse reminded him that soon the feast would be finished, and it would be time to make Rigana his wife in fact as well as name.

  When the toasts were completed, the women led Rigana off to the hall to be prepared for bed. As their singing faded, the sound of men’s laughter grew louder as the male guests were released from such bonds of propriety as they had observed so far.

  “Drink deep, my lord,” said Wulfhere, refilling his horn.

  Oesc took it and drank, fighting not to cough as he realized that this was not the mild ale mead they had been drinking, but a brew whose heavy sweetness did not quite hide its strength. He swallowed, feeling his head swim as the fire began to burn in his belly, and handed the horn back to the other man.

  “That’s fine stuff, but I’d best go easy or I’ll be no use to my bride—”

  “You’ll be no use either if you cannot relax,” said Ceretic with a grin, offering his own horn. “Drink up, man!”