The Hallowed Isle Book Two Read online

  Outside, dusk was falling fast. Oesc splashed through the puddles to catch up with Hæthwæge, raising his arm to shield his eyes from the driving rain. It came in flurries, as if the storm clouds were being broken up by the force of the wind. Head high, her hair streaming out behind her and with every moment growing darker in the rain, the wicce strode across the yard to the eastern gate. Oesc knew her as a woman just past middle life, her shoulders rounded and her body thickened by the years. But now she looked taller, and young, and by that he understood she was already in trance.

  Below the mound that raised the village above the floods stretched a level land of wood and marsh and field, dotted and channeled by pond and stream. To the west, a little light shafted below the scudding clouds, touching the Law-Oak and the Field of Assembly where the tribal moots were held with a sickly yellow glow. In the distance he caught the pewter gleam of the sea. That last light gleamed on water that was closer as well, for from here he could see that the slow curve of the river had become a crescent grin of silver water that with every moment nibbled away more of the sodden fields. Monster-gate, they called it, but now it was not the etins who lived in the North Sea but the waters themselves that were devouring the land.

  Beyond the palisade that sheltered the workshops and the king’s hall, the long-houses of the villagers clustered closely along the slope. Oesc saw Hæthwæge disappearing between the last two and hurried to follow her. To the east stretched the home pasture, but on the west side, the marshes came nearly to the base of the mound. A narrow causeway, in this season half underwater, led through it. Picking his way carefully, Oesc followed the wisewoman. He could guess where she was heading now. In the heart of the boglands lay the dark pool where the Myrgings made their offerings under the staring eyes of the carven gods. Except at the time of sacrifice, most folk avoided it, but Oesc had gone there once or twice with Hæthwæge when she was gathering herbs.

  Though the rain had diminished, by the time he caught up with the wicce, water from swinging branches had drenched him as thoroughly as the storm. Together they pushed through the screen of alder and willow that edged the pool, and at that moment the sun set and the clouds closed in once more, as if the mists of Nibhel had overwhelmed the world.

  The wind stilled. Oesc shivered and drew closer to Hæthwæge. Reason told him that the horse whose hide and head were suspended on a framework of poles above the water was quite dead, but the water had risen, and it seemed now to be standing in the pool.

  “What is happening?” Instinctively he dropped his voice to a whisper.

  She turned, and this time she saw him, though her pupils were still dilated so that her eyes seemed to open on darkness.

  “Wait.” A tremor ran through her body. “Soon, he comes.” With trembling fingers she unwound the cloth from about the head of the spear. The smoky stone glimmered in the shadows as if it shone with its own light.

  Faint with distance, he heard a long horn-call. The raven feathers tied to the shaft fluttered in a sudden wind. Then came the hoofbeats. Men were riding on the wooden causeway that led through the marshes, he thought, but the sound grew rapidly louder. No horse could gallop safely on the rain-slick logs, nor could they cross other than in single file. What he heard now was the sound of many horses—or was it thunder? Was that the shrieking of the wind or the bitter answer of many horns?

  He could not tell, but the sound sent a chill deep into his body. He crouched at Hæthwæge’s feet, wishing he could burrow into the earth for protection. The animal heads spiked upon the offering stakes swayed frantically, and the horsehide heaved above the ruffled waters, straining toward the attenuated images of the gods.

  In the next moment the tumult he had heard approaching was upon them. The last of the light had gone; he could make out only a confusion of shadows. Was it his imagination that shaped them into skeletal horses and wild riders who brandished spears or swords, or worse still, into wælcyriges, war-hags riding slavering wolves with serpents for reins. He bit back a cry as a gust of wind sent the horsehide flapping into the air to join them.

  He cowered beneath their keening until Hæthwæge’s hand on his shoulder made him look up again. The horrors had passed. The shapes that swept above him now, limned in their own light, were of a nobler kind.

  “Behold, son of Octha, your fathers of old—Wihtgils, Witta, Wehta, and their sires before them. . . .”

  Shaking, Oesc got to his feet and raised his arm in salute. The names rolled on, but he could not hear them. All his being was focused on those luminous shadows, grim or kindly, that looked on him with a considering gaze as if deciding whether he was worthy to continue their line.

  And then, though all around them the trees still bowed to the storm, the air above the pool grew heavy with a sense of presence. Oesc remained standing, but he shut his eyes tightly. Whatever was coming now was something he was not yet ready to see. But he could not keep from hearing, though he never knew, then or thereafter, if the words had come to his mind or his ears.

  “So this is the boy—” a deep voice seemed to say.

  “Since his birth I have warded him,” Hæthwæge answered. “When will the future I foretold for him come to be?”

  “That is Verdandi’s business. But when that time comes, he will have to choose . . .”

  “What are his choices?”

  “To stay here and live long in a dying land, or to risk all across the water. . . .”

  “But the runes spoke of victory—” the wicce began. That other voice interrupted her.

  “To endure the turning of the seasons is as much a victory as death in battle. The one is the path of Ingvi, but the other is mine. If he chooses Me his name shall be remembered in a new land, and he shall sire kings.”

  “Is that your will, lord?” Now it was Hæthwæge’s voice that trembled.

  “I will what shall be, but it is not for me to choose how it shall come to pass—that lies with the boy, and with you.”

  Oesc had the abrupt sense of being the focus of attention, like a mouse trapped between a wolf’s paws. He scrunched his eyes shut even more tightly. For a moment more he was held, then the pressure was released with a hint of laughter.

  “I do not force you,” came that whisper from within, “but the Norns will force the choice upon you, my son, and soon.”

  “I have chosen you, High One, since I was young—” Hæthwæge said then.

  “It is so, nor have I ever been far away.”

  If there was more, it was not meant for Oesc’s ears. He sank down at the woman’s feet, and only afterward, when the god and those he led had passed, did he realize that his face was wet, not with rain, but with tears.

  The wood seemed very silent. Oesc stood up, wiping his eyes. Then he stiffened, hearing once more the sounds of hoofbeats and horns.

  But this was no spectral hunt—he could tell the difference now. Those were mortal horses whose hoofbeats he heard ringing on the wet logs, and mortal lungs behind those plaintive horns.

  “There are riders, Hæthwæge! Riders on the causeway!” he exclaimed. “Hurry, we must get back to the hall.”

  She nodded, shrouding the spearhead once more, and he saw her face still luminous with memory. But as she turned her awareness back to the human world the lines deepened in her skin and she became merely mortal once more.

  “So, it has begun. . . .”

  Oesc peered through the door to the great hall, which only this morning had seemed so huge and empty. Now it was filled with men clad in well-worn war-gear and battered finery, with a liberal splashing of mud over all. The folk who served the hall were bustling around them, taking wet cloaks away and bringing beakers of heated ale.

  “May Freo bring you blessings,” said their leader, accepting a horn of mead from Æbbe, the king’s widowed sister, who had ruled his household as long as Oesc could remember. He must have been handsome once, thought the boy, but now one eyelid drooped and the left side of his face was stiffened by a long scar.<
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  “But where is your neice, Æbbe? Should it not be she who gives the welcome?”

  “There is no other Lady in this hall,” said the woman, taking a step backward. “And what unholy wight has taught you my name?”

  The stranger frowned. “Did Hildeguth remarry, then? I suppose she thought I was dead—I’ve thought I was dead a few times myself, these past years!” His hand moved to touch his scar. “Have I changed so much, Æbbe, that even you don’t know me?”

  “It is my daughter who is dead,” came a harsh voice from the far end of the hall, “killed by the seed you planted in her belly, and if you had not already claimed guest-right I would drive you from my door!” Leaning on his staff, Eadguth limped forward to his high seat and took his place there.

  Oesc stared from one to the other, aware of every heartbeat that shook his chest, understanding without quite believing who the newcomer must be.

  Octha, son of Hengest . . . his father.

  Octha straightened, the muscles of his face stiffening into a battle-mask. “And the child?” he asked in a still voice. “Did it die too?”

  “Shall I tell you it died in the womb?” Eadguth spat, “or that I set it out upon the heath for the wolves?”

  “You shall tell him the truth, old man,” said Hæthwæge, gripping Oesc by the shoulder and pushing him before her into the light of the fire. “Sore though it grieved you, you have reared up his son!”

  For a moment longer the warrior’s glance clashed with that of the king. Then Octha turned, his face changing as he looked at the boy.

  “Come here—”

  With feet that did not seem his own Oesc stepped forward. Octha knelt and gripped the boy’s face between callused hands. After a moment he swallowed.

  “You have your mother’s eyes . . .”

  Oesc nodded. Hæthwæge had told him so.

  “But I see Hengest in your brow . . . What do they call you?”

  “I am Oesc, son of Octha—” His voice wavered only a little.

  “My son!”

  Powerful arms closed around him; Oesc smelled horse, and wet wool, and the strong scent of the man. It was very strange. Not so long ago, Woden had also called him son—from being fatherless he seemed suddenly over-supplied with kin. He took a deep breath as Octha let him go.

  “I am going back to Britannia, where the cows grow fat in green pastures and apples hang heavy on the bough. Will you come with me?”

  Soon, Woden had told him, he would have to choose. Oesc looked into his father’s storm-grey eyes, but when he spoke, he knew he was answering the god.

  “Yes, father, I will come.”

  Since Octha’s arrival three days had passed. The storm had moved on, but on the Field of Assembly scattered pools mirrored the blue sky. Only a few rags of cloud still clung to the southeastern heavens. As the people gathered, the green grass was being trampled to a muddy brown. But perhaps it would not matter, thought Oesc as he watched them from his place at his father’s side. If the moot voted to follow Octha over the sea, the cattle would be slaughtered or sold and there would be no need for pastureland.

  The thought awakened an anxious flutter in his belly. He knew there were other lands, for he had heard the shopes and gleemen sing of them, but Eadguth’s hall was the center of his world. Most of the Myrgings had gathered, women and children forming a larger ring around the chieftains and heads of families. He looked around him for Hæthwæge, then remembered that the wicce had told him she had no need to watch. She had already seen this wyrd when she cast the runes.

  Why did she not inform Eadguth, then, and save us all the trouble of deciding? he wondered, but as the wisewoman had often told him, you might predict the sun’s rising, but you had to wait for it to happen just the same.

  A bench had been placed for the king beneath the oak tree. His witan, the tribal elders, sat around him. Sunlight glowing through the young leaves dappled his white hair. Eadguth Gamol, they called him, Eadguth the Old, for of all the kings of the north, only Healfdene of Sillende had reigned longer.

  His other grandfather, Hengest, was old too, thought Oesc. But he ruled a confederation of war-bands, like the sea-kings of Frisia. Eadguth was bred and bound through many fathers to his kingship and his land.

  A murmur ran through the crowd as Geflaf, leader of the king’s sword-thanes, stepped forward. He raised a great silver-mounted horn to his lips and blew, and as its echoes faded, the people also became still.

  “Hear, ye chieftains and people of the Myrgings here assembled. A stranger, Octha son of Hengest, has come among us. The witan has called you to hear and consider his words.”

  “He is an Anglian of royal kin, and our enemy!” cried the chieftain of one of the older Myrging clans.

  “He is not of the kin of Offa the king-slayer, but a lesser line, and has never borne arms against us,” came the reply.

  “Our kin serve in his father’s war-band,” said one of the Jutes who had settled among the Myrgings, taking up farmsteads left vacant after the Anglian wars. “Let us hear what he has to say.”

  For a little longer the clamor continued, but eventually it became clear that the mood of the moot was in Octha’s favor.

  Another murmur arose as he stepped forward, Oesc at his side. By now, of course, everyone had heard the rumors that the mysterious father of their Lady’s son had reappeared. Oesc hung back as he realized that they were staring at him as well, but Octha’s grip was firm.

  He is using me to show them he is not an enemy, the boy realized suddenly, and allowed himself to be pulled along. For most of his short life he had been at best an embarrassment to his mother’s kin; to stand forth before the people as one with a right to honor seemed very strange. For the first time, it came to him that he too might one day be a king.

  “Men of the Myrgings!” cried Octha, “and all of you—be you Jute or Saxon or Frank, who by marriage or alliance have become part of this tribe. I come here as your ally, for it was a princess of your people who gave me my son!”

  Someone started a cheer, and Oesc felt the hot color rise in his cheeks.

  “Then why have you waited till now to claim him?” came another voice.

  “There’s many a man who goes off to war childless and returns to learn he has an heir. For ten winters I have battled in Britannia; I have slain many princes of their people, and cut down those who thought themselves the heirs of Rome. At first we fought for treasure, but now we fight for land. The British have little strength to resist us—their king is a sick man, and he has no son. The land lies undefended, ripe for the taking. To hold that earth men must till it, and so I come to you.

  “Follow me to Britannia—bring your wives and your children. Bring your axes and your ploughs.”

  “Why should we abandon the hearths of our mothers and the howes where our fathers lie?” came the cry.

  “Because this land is drowning!” responded Octha. “Look around you—the fields are blighted by bad weather and your cattle are dying. Each year more of your shores are eaten by the sea. In Britannia there are wide fields, fruitful and flourishing—good harvests of oat crops and broad barley-crops, white fields of wheat-crops and all that grows in Middle Earth.”

  “But they are not our fields. Will they bear for us if we do not know the names of the wights that dwell there?”

  “Those fields have borne fruit for all the tribes the Romans settled in that land,” said Octha. “Warriors from Iberia and Sarmatia and Gallia and other lands who took up farming after their time in the legions was done. Our cousins the Franks get good crops from the lands they have won in Gallia. Till the fields and make the offerings, and when your time comes, lay your bones in the soil. By blood and toil shall we claim Britannia and make it our own.”

  “We will go!” said one of the Jutish chieftains, a man called Hæsta. “There are men of my blood already in Hengest’s war-band. They have said that Cantuware is a land of good soil and good grazing, where the cows give milk thrice a day
at this time of year.”

  “And it breeds good fighters—” an older man spoke up, lifting an arm scarred and twisted by an old wound. “In my youth I too have been to Britannia, but all I got there was steel. It is well enough for warriors to take such chances, but I will not risk my family in a land whose native folk are awakening at last, determined to get back their own.”

  “Better to die by steel than starvation!” exclaimed another, and suddenly everyone was arguing.

  “What says Eadguth?” someone cried at last. “What is the word of the Myrging king?”

  Slowly, silence fell. When it was quite still, the thrall Cubba, who was even older than the king, assisted Eadguth to unfold his gaunt frame from the chair. The king came forward, leaning on his staff. For a few moments he looked around him, and those who had cried the loudest for emigration found it hard to meet his eyes.

  “The gods have given me long life. For more than forty winters I have been your king. . . .” His voice did not seem loud, but it carried.

  “In those years I have seen many things. I have seen five summers when the rains were so scant that the river sank down till its banks gaped like toothless jaws. That time ended. So will this. I have seen blizzards that heaped snow halfway up the walls and held us prisoner from one moon to the next. That time ended—this will too. And I have seen harvests so plentiful we had not the barns to store it all. And those times also came to an end. You cry out now like children who cannot go out to play because of the rain. And I say to you, neither will this time last.”

  He spoke slowly, a kindly grandfather chiding willful boys, and here and there a man would hang his head with a shamefaced grin.

  “A man’s mood changes, sometimes happy and sometimes sorrowful. Our holy mother earth has also her moods and changes. Will you desert her because now she is weeping? For men who have been uprooted from their homelands perhaps it is true that one land is as good as the next. But the Myrgings have been here since Mannus himself walked the earth. We are a free land and a free people, bound only to this soil.”