Hi everyone! Stephen Wormwood here, thanks for
clicking! Feedback and criticism is always welcome at stephenwormwood@mail.com. As always hope you
enjoy reading this and please consider donating to Nifty if you can. CW for
sex, violence, SA, homophobia, and transphobia.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
3
Underrealm
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
`Because everything
always ends' – The Maw of the Underworld – Ulf and Weld – Annwn – Haakon's
Heriot – Brynna ferch Angwyn – The Escape – Debt – "Which way is
Mercia?"
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
[By a village in the Land of the English,
sometime in 1062]
A quiet and hooded
Wulfhere watched the stabler inspect Snotta from hoof to loins, checking his
mouth and mane for mites. There was nothing to find of course. The horse was
healthy, strong, and loyal. There were so few like him.
"You've got a prize
beast there," said the stabler, a woollen-jawed ceorl in dung-stained breeks.
He walked with a limp (probably from an old riding accident) but had a young þeow
to help him raise his horses. "I can't understand why you'd want to part
with him. I can't pay ya. And he'd fetch ya more'n a few shillings, I'd
reckon."
Snotta whickered in his
bridle as Wulfhere petted him. He avoided using his left arm. It was still too
weak from the arrow shot it took. "I may come back for him someday. Until then
treat him well. He likes apples. Loves a hard evening's ride. He's a good boy."
"We'll see he's well
cared for," said the stabler.
Snotta neighed.
"I'm no good at
goodbyes," It was no lie. Whenever he left a place, it was always in the eye of
a storm. All these years of relative peace and so little had changed. "I will
miss you, Snotta. Take care, boy."
Wulfhere sighed, took a
step back, then put a few silver coins in the stabler's hands. He made him
swear not to sell the horse in his absence (and settled a hand upon Seolforhund's
hilt to buttress the point) but there was no security in promises. Money bound
men more than words, he often found. Once the stabler was paid and goodbyes
were done, Wulfhere adjusted his dark hood and trundled out into the muddy
village footpaths surrounding the stables.
The skies were dark
with rumbling clouds and the villagers raced to find shelter before they broke
open. Mule-driven carts trundled by. There was a beor-hall (or something close
to it) nearby, and Wulfhere was half-tempted to wait out the coming storm with
a cup-full, but he didn't wish to leave Brynna out there alone in the woods for
too long, and he could not risk someone seeing his face. Though East Anglia was
behind them, Bedanfordscir was not a region he knew well. Local thegns
and bishops could well have ties to Ceolfraed or the See of Elmham. It was not
worth the risk.
Wulfhere kept his head
low, walking quietly past bakers, traders, hunters, fishermen and blacksmiths,
until the sights and sounds and smells of the village faded away behind him. He
wandered the wet, wind-swept fields until a large copse of oak trees arose
beyond a hill. And as the skies above him began to drizzle Wulfhere quickly
made his way towards it. Its trees stood tightly bunched, forcing the Saxon to
squeeze his way through at times, but at the heart of it he found his way to
Brynna.
"You've returned," she
said dourly.
`And just in time', thought he. For as
soon as Wulfhere returned to their camp the black sky above cracked with
thunder and breeched, casting a heavy downpour about the land. Hard rainfall
pattered like hail against the leafless trees, but Brynna was clever, and had stripped
two of the getelds in Uhtric Wineskin's camp before the fire destroyed them.
Wulfhere helped her post one to sleep in, then helped her spread the linen of
the second from the trees surrounding the tent, thus giving them two layers of
protection from the rain. The geteld was too small for a fire so they kept warm
by wrapping themselves in their bed furs.
"Do we have anything
left to eat?" Asked Wulfhere.
Brynna nodded. There
was a cloth bundle nearby. Her gentle fingers prised open the string and
revealed what they yet had – two half-eaten bits of bread, two apples, three
parings of hare meat, and three hard-boiled chicken eggs. Most of it was
acquired from another village half a day's ride north, after they sold Uhtric's
longsword, Wrecend, for silver. Selling stolen swords was dangerous
since discerning eyes might divine their origins by their maker's markings, but
the sword was Norman, and your common Englishman (outside of the Cyning's
court) spoke nary a word of Frencisc.
They sat to eat. Mostly
in silence, save for the terrible rain battering their tent. Brynna broke off
bits of the bread that had not gone bad and ate those, whilst Wulfhere ate one
of the eggs and two morsels of the hare meat. They shared a wineskin between
them, each taking a swig before passing it back.
Wulfhere smiled sadly.
"What is it?"
"Nothing. Except..." A
sigh. "I will miss Snotta, is all."
Brynna nodded. "He is a
good horse. But he cannot come where we are going."
Far beyond the hill
where stood the copse was erected an ancient cairn that demarked a small
footpath veering between two broad hillocks that merged into a channel which
ended at a cave's mouth. And within that cave's mouth led the way to the underworld.
According to Brynna they were only half-a-day's walk from it. The flames told
her so. And with so many dead in his wake, Wulfhere had no choice but to
believe it now. Perhaps God would damn him for it. Perhaps he was already
damned. And if that was the case, what difference did it make now?
He glanced at Brynna as
she nibbled at the good bits of bread left, and he lost himself in her beauty,
as he was wont to. Her chestnut hair had grown long and wild since Oxburh, only
manageable by her bone toothed comb when she untied its braid. Her dress and
shawl were dirty and torn, but her skin remained fair from her fondness of
bathing. `By Christ and all his saints,' thought Wulfhere. `Is she
not beautiful?' And once they crossed her path beneath the crust of English
earth, a new life they would begin in Lundenburh. And yet...
"...Why does this feel
like the end of things?" Asked he.
Brynna frowned at him.
"Because everything always ends."
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
The rain lasted
throughout the night. Although Wulfhere did his best to clump soil around the
tent flaps fixed into the ground, rainwater still seeped through and made it
impossible to lie down and sleep. It was not until deep within the starlit
hours that the heavy torrent ebbed into a light drizzle, only then did God
grant them peace to sleep.
Hours passed. Then,
finally, blades of light eked through the geteld's narrow flaps and fell upon
the slumbering pair. Wulfhere woke first. His eyes slowly peeled open and found
Brynna next to him, barely half a pace away; eyes tightly shut, lips pursed,
hair tousled, her bare freckled shoulder peeking in and out of her furs with
each intake of breath. Blood rushed to that cruel device between Wulfhere's
legs. It grew stiff as he felt the urge to reach across the wet grass and press
his lips against hers.
But he caught himself
before the act. There was no time for it. There were corpses in their wake,
barely a day's ride away. When Uhtric and his band of tithingsmen did not
return from their hunt in the forest, Redwig Father (or perhaps even the shire
reeve in Theotford, Æthelwig) would send men into the woods to locate them.
Though there was a chance that the fire might throw them off, obscure the
killings, make them appear as happenstance, Wulfhere did not trust that it
would. Better to act as though Ceolfraed's men were still on their trail... for
who really knew that they weren't.
And so Wulfhere woke
the girl instead.
Brynna moaned, eyes
fluttering open.
"Get dressed," said the
Saxon. "We must go."
They rose and dressed.
Wulfhere into his mail byrnie, gloves, war helm, and breeks; Brynna into her
matted dress, slippers, and cowl. They ate a portion of their remaining food
and then packed away what little of their camp there was to take – the two
getelds, some twigs of firewood, a spool of rope; before leaving the copse and making their way down its hillock to the winding
footpath by the cairn. Although his shoulder ached with the weight, Wulfhere
carried their supplies and let Brynna lead the way.
It was as her visions
foretold.
They passed the ancient
cairn, a cairn stacked high as a mead hall roof and flagged with a strip of
dirty red cloth, cloth flocked by the winds bearing southwest into a narrow
corridor betwixt two towering hills. Brynna followed the winds and Wulfhere followed
Brynna, ambling through the muddy, waterlogged path as it bent and stopped
where the hillside walls melded into a third hillock within which lay the
gaping cavern's mouth. Stalactites bore down from the aperture like fangs. The
cold morning wilds howled through them and billowed the shivering grass at the
hillsides. There were no signs of life nearby, no forgotten remnants of old
encampments or temporary hovels, just the brief screeches of roosting bats.
"Give me the torch,"
said Brynna.
A now pensive Wulfhere
shrugged off the saddlebags and fetched it for her. Brynna sat down, took two
stones, and smacked them together until they produced sparks enough to light
the oil-soaked wrappings about the tip of the stave. She stood up with the
flaming torch, holding it as high as her shoulders, then continued into the
cave's mouth. And as its flame approached them that flock of screeching bats
flew out of the maw. Brynna walked in regardless. But the swordsman paused. He
felt a chill creep up his spine. Watching Brynna walk into that cave was as if
watching her walk into a wolf's maw.
She stopped and turned
to look at him. "Wulfhere?"
"...I..."
She frowned. "...Find
your courage. Follow me."
It was not his life
he feared for... but his soul. For he knew that wherever that gaping mouth might
lead him, God's light would not follow. And yet. Reluctantly. He found his
courage. Wulfhere summoned the might of God until he found the strength to pull
the saddlebags back onto his shoulders, place one foot after the other, and force
himself on until he caught up with her.
Even with the torch
they could only see a few steps ahead. Animal bones crunched beneath their feet
as they descended into the darkness, the entrance light growing farther and
farther away until it was naught but a distant mote behind their shoulders. The
cave's path began to slope and bend, like a wyrm of old had burrowed its way
through the very rock of the earth, while loose stones pebbled the moss-ridden
cave floor as rivulets of rainwater dribbled down its mottled inclines. Patches
of lichen sheeted its walls and every step, every drip, every breath echoed
from them. And they walked, and walked, and walked, and walked until they were
so deep beneath the world that the air felt thin. They descended into a
cavernous underbelly croaking with the weight of the earth atop it, belching
out subterranean gasses from black crusts of rock as creatures many-legged and
screeching scurried unseen from shadow to shadow. And at its absolute bottom
they came upon a tall, moss-covered statue of a cross-legged god, broad-shouldered
and muscular, arms aloft and outstretched, his skull crowned with a circlet of
jagged antlers.
"The Romans built it,"
said Brynna, casting the torch's flame about its chiselled contours. "Agents of
Caeser lost in the spell of the woods. It was the Horned One who gave them
succour, who revealed to them its beauty, its creatures, and its enchantments,
and they came to love him. Cernunnos, they called him. They renounced Mars and
Janus and Neptune, and built for him this monument, enshrining their love
eternal, and binding their blood to his dominion that they might walk the
woodland forever at his side."
Wulfhere swallowed the
lump in his throat.
Brynna handed him the
torch and retrieved something from underneath her cloak's folds, something the
Saxon thought lost in the chaos of their escape from Oxburh's hall. It was Cynewise's
morgengifu, the emerald-encrusted gold torc that Ceolfraed was to present to
her. Instead, Brynna presented it to the Horned One and placed its glinting
wealth inside the god's mossy fingers.
Wulfhere, transfixed
and horrified, watched its eyes glow.
A low, guttural
rumbling swept the damp floor as cracks between the stalactites wept dust. Undulating
shadows formed along the cave wall and merged, folding into each other, then
weaving apart, and as they peeled back beyond the shoulders of the Horned God,
the cave wall was gone, and a new path lay at their feet.
Brynna took the torch
back. Wulfhere kept to her side (with a cautious hand upon his sword's grip)
and together they walked through the window of darkness. What laid beyond it
was a riverine trench; a narrow channel flowing through the cave toward dark
reaches unknown. Wet crags wrapped with moss dripped into rippling black
waters, each drop echoing through the silence. There was a small boat ahead of
them that was moored to a thin outcrop of rock. An oar laid inside it. And at
its prow swung an old, silver tinted lanthorn.
"This is our way forward?"
Said Wulfhere.
Brynna nodded. She
lifted her skirts up and climbed inside, lit the lanthorn with a taper of the
torch before squelching it in the river waters. The small scip wabbled
as Wulfhere dropped the saddlebags inside its hull and climbed in. He cut the
yoke of its moorings with a single slash of his seax, then took up the oar and
swept it through the black waters, rowing forth.
Wulfhere and Brynna
both looked on as the tiny vessel followed the slow river current, until the
cave walls surrounding them began to widen, and behind the mossy crags and
jagged stalagmites lay rows upon rows of tall, billowing rushes. Tallow tipped
them. And then a sudden howling wind ripped through that tunnel. The sound hit
Wulfhere's ears like a shout, he shut his eyes to it, and when he re-opened
them, every single rush was lit, and the once dark cave was now flooded with
light.
Brynna smiled, gazing all
around as the abrupt glow clashed with the crags and outcroppings to cast dark
silhouettes against the cave walls. Impish giggles and whispers surrounded
them. Wulfhere shot a glance to his left, as did Brynna, as a horned man's
shadow pranced along the cave walls, leaping over mountains, frolicking through
the clouds.
(`...Cernunnos...') thought
he.
"The forest was his
domain," said Brynna, almost reading his thoughts. "Until the Children of Woden
drove him into the pit, never to rise again. You see him too, don't you?"
Wulfhere frowned at the
shadows. "...Witchcraft..."
Brynna frowned at him.
"Ever the christ-man. Fear not, the Horned One only
leads the way. What happens from here is up to you, deorling."
"What do you me-"
The Saxon stopped
himself halfway through the word as he spotted a figure ahead, perched atop one
of the mossy rocks jutting out of the coursing river waters. But it was not the
Horned God he saw. It was a man. A towering figure of a man, armed and
armoured, shield at his back, axe at the ready. His icy blue eyes burned within
the silver skull of his helm. A huscarl.
Herewulf.
"No...!" Cold fear ran
like a blade down Wulfhere's back. "NO! I KILLED YOU!"
The mailed axeman
lumbered up from his leathered haunches and raised up his enormous axe, Hildegunnr.
Not a word was spoken as he leapt screaming from the rock into the dank air and
swung his weapon towards the scip, boots and steel smashing through the
frail, barnacled boards of its hull. Furious sounds cut through the silence – cries
of rage, snapping wood and sloshing waters – as the boat capsized and all three
plunged into the waters below.
Wulfhere opened his
eyes.
Bubbles and splinters
everywhere. The oar floated above his head, the saddlebags beneath his feet
plunged into the descending blackness as the rushlights' shimmering reflections
against the surface waters grew further and further away. What was once a river
was now an ocean. And off in the distance was Brynna, drifting softly through
the dark waters, her long russet hair fanning out into wafting tendrils as the
slippers fell from her feet and her dress floated up her thighs. Her eyes were
closed. She was smiling. Bubbles trickled away from her nose.
(`BRYNNA!')
thought he. He reached out to her, but she did not see him, and he could not
reach her for the damned weight of his mail, helm, and sword. (`Brynna!
Brynna! Damn you, girl, wake up! Reach out to me! BRYNNA!')
He kicked his feet,
tried to swim into the currents to reach her, but a heavy hand snatched his
leg. Wulfhere looked down. It was Herewulf, eyes blazing blue, gloved hands
clawing up his body until his thickened arms snatched around his throat. Wulfhere
strained against the pull, bucking his shoulders to break free, but the huscarl
was too strong, too heavy. Brynna floated away. Dirty water flooded into
Wulfhere's mouth as he screamed her name into a stream of bubbles and he and
the huscarl plunged into the dark abyss.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
The boy loved the
fields! How he loved to play in them, to chase butterflies through them, to
smell its flowers and climb its trees. It was even better when the sun was out.
He loved the way it prickled his skin and bronzed it over. Everyone else in his
family went pink and scabby in the sun, so they did their best to avoid it,
especially his sister Sigeflæd, that frail thing. But he was special – that's
what he thought anyway. He thought it might be nice to be special... and so he
was.
"Wulfhere!" It was his
mother, Eadwyn, who called out to him. "Where are you? There're chores to be
done!"
The boy smiled. She
could not see him through the tall grass because he was lying down in it. He'd
been fighting sticks with some of the local boys, sons of his father's tenants,
but they'd all hoofed it once the church horn bellowed out, and he was all worn
out. He knew there were chores to do. There were cows to milk, eggs to collect,
water to fetch, thatch to bundle, there always was. But he wanted to be lazy
for a time. He never got much chance to play these days.
"Wulfhere!" Yelled
Eadwyn. "Come here now or Heaven help me I shall tell your father of this
mischief! Come here at once! Wulfhere!"
He wanted to play
before he fed the bloody pigs. That's why he dropped his stick, rolled onto his
belly, and crawled about the grass on all fours until he circled around to his
mother's back and leapt out of the grass and yelled "AAAAGH!" at her! Oh, how she
screamed! Sigeflæd, who was with his mother, screamed too. But the boy laughed.
He thought it was funny! Or at least he did until Eadwyn slapped him for it.
"You're a terrible
boy!" She yelled. She comforted his sister (who by now was crying against her
leg) as she pointed her finger at their homestead across the crop fields. "Go
and help your father now, there is work to be done! Off with you!"
Sulkily, he did what he
was told.
Wulfhere hated his
mother sometimes. She was forever yelling at him, or finding some excuse to do
it, always telling him to pray more and play less. Every week she encouraged
his father to come to church with her at Maldmesburh and listen to Abbot
Beorhtwold profess the word of the Lord, but he always said no, and so she
punished Wulfhere by taking him instead. `...You'll be the good Christian your
father refuses to be, won't you, Wulfhere?' She'd always say. But Wulfhere
didn't want to listen to stories about God or saints or miracles. He didn't
want to do chores. He wanted to do fun things. He wanted to wanted to play. He
wanted to fight like his father Haakon once did.
When Wulfhere returned
to the homestead he found his father chopping wood, naked as a babe from the
waist up, his battle-scarred skin sparkling with sweat from the hot summer sun.
Wulfhere loved him.
Haakon – Haakon
Raven's Eye – was a Dane. And theirs was a fighting race, powerful warrior
men from the frozen north, skilled in hunting, sailing, and trading as well as
battle. `No Saxon sword beats a Danish axe' went the saying. Wulfhere
saw why. His father was the strongest man he'd ever seen. He'd seen him lift
whole tree trunks and break open heavy rocks with little more than a small
hammer. He was brave and he was strong. He was a huscarl, one of Old Cnut
Cyning's finest warriors.
Wulfhere wanted to be
just like him someday.
"Father?"
The rugged Dane paused
mid-swing as his son approached him. "{...Hvorfor er din kind forslået?}" He
shook his head. "{Glem det. Gå vand hestene.}"
Wulfhere nodded but did
not go. Haakon frowned at him (which saddened the boy) and eked out one of the
few English words he knew ("horse") then made a cupping motion next to his
lips, as if `drinking' from a cup. The boy put the two together. Drink. Horse.
"Oh! You want me to water the horses! Yes Papa, I will!"
There was a bucket
nearby. Wulfhere took it up as he ran to the river stream that flowed near the
line of trees behind their home. When he reached it, he crouched down and
scooped up a bucket full of water. The fish were jumping out of the stream
today, no doubt his father would have his thrall boys Ulf and Wend catch a few
for them to eat that night. It was a pleasant thought (for he loved the way his
mother prepared fish) but then he thought of his father, and he grew sad. Wulfhere
couldn't speak Danish yet. His mother was good at it, and Sigeflæd knew enough
of it to understand their father's instructions, but he couldn't grasp it, no
matter how many times Eadwyn tried to teach him how. And he was ashamed of
that. He wondered if Haakon was too.
The bucket was heavy
and bloated now, sloshing at the rim, but the stables weren't too far from the
river. (`At
least I can do this right.') Thought he. And so the boy lugged the heavy
bucket up the slope and over the grass until he reached the stable doors and
set it down to open them. But then he heard voices. Whispering voices. Familiar
voices.
"{Skynd dig!}" That was
Wend's voice. "{Jarlen kommer snart...!}"
"{Lad jarlen tage sig en lort!}" And that was Ulf's. "{Jeg vil
have dig!}"
They sounded desperate
and breathless. Wulfhere couldn't understand what the slaves were doing in
there. But the doors were open slightly, and the boy put his eye to the gap. He
saw blond-haired Wend bent against the stable wall, legs spread, his breeks
around his ankles. And black-haired Ulf was right up behind him, and quickly
shunted his own breeks down his legs. Both their pintels were out and they were
stiff and straight, like Wulfhere's was sometimes when he woke up in the
morning. Ulf spat into his hand and rubbed it over his.
(`What are they...
doing?') Thought Wulfhere.
He thought it might be
a game or a fight they were having. They had fights before, especially when his
father bought a þeowen, Aswig, to help his mother with the cooking and sewing,
but she died of sickness last year. What was this? Ulf went up close to Wend,
so close their hairy legs were touching, and the boy looked on in confusion as
the older slave pushed his pintel inside the younger slave's bottom. Wend
groaned, made a face like he was in pain, and Ulf stuck his fingers in his
mouth to make him quiet as he started to ride the younger man like a horse.
(`Are they fighting?') Thought Wulfhere. (`But why wasn't Wend fighting back?').
It looked like a fight. At first. But then something odd happened. Wend looked
over his shoulder at Ulf with a smile... and kissed him.
Boys... weren't supposed
to do that.
And then, suddenly, in
some twisted way, young Wulfhere began to understand what he was seeing.
Something dark, filthy, and disgusting. Something ungodly. Something evil. He
knew it was evil, Abbot Beorhtwold once said so in church. But Ulf and Wend
were nice boys, they helped him chop meat and wood when it was too hard for him
to do, they showed him how to ride a horse and played sticks with him when the
chores were done. Why were they doing evil things with each other?
The sound of slapping
flesh rose over the neighing horses. Wend dug his nails into the grain as Ulf
rutted at him from behind like a dog, like a horse in heat, like a drunk Wealh
going at his sheep-wife on a cold night, "Ugh! Ugh! Ugh! Ugh!" they groaned until
they cried out together in one final shout, kissing and panting together as
they caught their breaths. Ulf wiped the sweat from his face and pulled his
softening pintel out of Wend's bottom. It was clean before and now it was
covered in bits of scitte
and a sticky white slime like a cracked egg. Then the two of them pulled their
breeks back up and went back to saddling the horses like nothing had even
happened.
Wulfhere felt sick.
And then he pulled his
hand out of his own breeks and found the same sticky white eggy slime all over
it. And he knew, in that moment, that he had done something that God would
never forgive him for.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
A drenched hand
launched out of frothing waters and found purchase upon the bank. Another hand
burst forth, found a damp grip, and a beaten warrior hauled himself onto the
shores of a pebbled beach. He caught his breath, coughed up knots of bloody
saltwater, and slumped tiredly upon a cushion of a seaweed. He stopped a
moment. He gave his mind a chance to catch up to his body as the wonders of his
surroundings finally poured into him, one miracle at a time. First, he heard
the waves as they floated over the sea and crashed softly into the shore, the
echoes of his fondest dreams. Next came the gulls, whinnying overhead, the
scent of brine and sea-salt wafting in with the rising tide, and then he opened
his eyes and saw clouds of the brightest, clearest white.
Wulfhere leaned
upright.
Beyond the banks of that
pebbled beach sprawled a crystalline sea dappled with light. And he stared at
it in wonder. He watched the tide wash in, watched its white waves fall against
the shales and burst into a sparkling array, and he thought to himself, `I
have never seen a sight so beautiful in all my life'.
And then he thought of
Brynna.
(`Brynna...!') Wulfhere
tried to stand but everything ached, especially his shoulder. His body seized
up, his slippery hands skidded off the wet pebbles and he fell, his mailed back
slapping against the rocks. "Damn!"
That was when his mind
finally remembered how much pain his body was in. His muscles ached. So
did his jaw and back. And his shoulder was on fire. But he had to press on.
Wulfhere grit his teeth hard then flipped himself onto his belly, caught a
breath, grabbed a handful of seaweed, then slowly dragged his torso from the
foamy shore until all the weedy pebbles and silt disappeared, and the tall
trees and wind-blown grass took their place. Wulfhere groaned all the way to the
trunk of a massive oak and there he laid his back to catch his breath. He
called Brynna's name but there was no reply, save for the echo of his own voice
doubling and trebling back at him. And then he looked around, beheld his
surroundings again with unblinking eyes...
He was in a forest now.
The ocean's tides churned in the distance. But there were closer sounds. Golden
leaves shimmering and shivering as the cool sea winds flowed through the trees.
The slither of snakes dancing through the grass and soil, the whippoorwills
singing jollily from their perches. Twigs snapped beneath the paws of roving
rose-furred foxes as three-tailed squirrels galloped across branches and
silver-feathered hawks whirled about the sky.
"The sky..."
A Sky Without a Sky.
For high above his
head, high over the domain of the birds where the clouds roamed and broke,
between their dim expanses Wulfhere spotted the dark overhangs of solid rock,
jagged crags and scything scarps where brinies of mist
roved its inverted valleys and encircled its dangling peaks.
"Where am I?" Whispered
he. "What is this place...?"
And then a louder sound
drowned out the beautiful birdsong and swaying tides.
Hoofbeats.
Wulfhere instinctively
reached for his sword, but it was gone, scabbard and all, as well as his seax.
As the hoofbeats grew louder he looked to his right and saw a small herd of
ivory-antlered deer fleeing wildly through the violets and russet bushes. They
thundered by him, bleating and bawling as a pack of
wild, white-maned, skull-headed hounds bayed for
their blood. The gnashing bitches burst after the deer in a mad scramble,
barking and snapping at their heels, as their master's horse galloped close
behind. But the master's eyes, though wild with passion for the hunt, turned to
Wulfhere, and he brought his walloping black stallion
to a stop.
Wulfhere froze.
The horse whickered
restlessly as the rider coaxed it closer to the battered Saxon, who looked up
at him and marvelled in both awe and fright.
The rider was tall,
barrel-chested, and stout-faced with a woolly-jaw and deep grey eyes as cold
and piercing as the winter snow. A tousled font of silver-blonde hair cascaded
upon his broad shoulders from beneath a ruby-studded gold circlet, nay, more a
crown than a circlet. Beneath his crimson cloak swung the silver lioness broach
that kept it in place. A sheathed broadsword and a bone-carved war horn swung
from his belt. He held a spear in one hand and his horse's reins in the other.
"O Fates," snarled the
horseman. "Pray tell me, what ill-begotten wretch comes here slithering through
my lands? What is he? Ah! A lost Child of Christ! Why come you crawling,
wretch? Which fraying strand of fate's loom cast you about this place?"
The Saxon burped
seawater. "I am here... with a woman... seeking a way... to Lundenburh..."
"Poor traveller," the
horseman smirked atop his gilt leather saddle. "It is not the road to England
you seek. What you seek, seeks you..."
A gloved hand snatched
Wulfhere's ankle and dragged him back into the bushes. He cried out to the horseman
for help, but "Rwy'n dymuno
lwc dda i
chi, Sacsonaidd!" said he, blowing his horn, then
raising his spear as he charged after his great hunting dogs, the Hounds of
Annwn.
There was a root nearby.
Wulfhere strained to reach it, but a forceful tug pulled him away mere moments
before his fingertips clasped it. When the Saxon tried to lift himself up, he
was hurled back down, his already weak back thumping into a mound of encrusted
peat. His eyes broke open – and Herewulf's blazing blue orbs stared back as his
huge, gloved hands snatched Wulfhere's throat and squeezed the breath
from it.
"Dyrnegeligre..."
Spat the huscarl. "Lǣwend! Manslaga! Þeow-cēapman...!
FÆDERSWICA! I will not rest until you and that cursed bædling are
made to PAY for your crimes! Do you hear me, boy? I. WILL. NOT. REST. `TIL. YOU. PAY!"
Wulfhere couldn't
breathe. But there was a rock nearby. He couldn't see himself grab it, not
until he swung and brought it crashing into Herewulf's rattling helm. The
huscarl growled out, more of anger than pain, and toppled over just as Wulfhere
found the strength to throw himself up and mount the wulfheort and SMASH the
rock into his skull, again and again and again and again and again and again
and again and again until the rivets of his byrnie were smattered with blood. He
fell back, wheezing, eyes and nostrils flaring, salt-iron on his tongue and
lips, stuffing his nose, nauseating him. Wulfhere looked at the dented helm and
the shattered face spilling out into a bloody pool of knotted hair, skull
fragments and brain matter.
"Brynna..." Wulfhere
dropped the rock. "Brynna! BRYNNA! Where are you!?"
The weapon-less
swordsman, half-alive and wracked with pain, stumbled onto his feet, up and away
from the headless corpse. He screamed Brynna's name as he staggered on into the
deep emerald woods, begging his body not to give up on him as he trundled
forth.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
It was a cold morning
in the Spring of 1036 when men wearing mail took their fists to the Raven's
Eye's door and yelled for him to wake. They woke the whole household. Wulfhere
(barely seven years old at the time), his twin sister Sigeflæd, the thrall boys
Ulf and Weld, even the dogs. They did not rise quickly, but the men would not
leave.
"Up!" They barked. "Up,
lord!"
Haakon rose angrily
from his bed furs, and Eadwyn quickly stepped between him and his axe. She
calmed him down in the Danish tongue then opened the door, and in barrelled
three helmed, mailed and sword-armed Mercian men. They were tall and
battle-ready, their weapons clanking against their leathers as they strode.
Armed men always meant trouble.
His sister Sigeflæd
knew it too. One of the Mercians eyed her with a look she was too young to
understand. She tried to hide behind their father, but Haakon yelled for Ulf
and Weld to take her away. She was terrified. But Wulfhere wasn't scared. The
boy took one look at his father, taller by a head than the tallest men of the
shire, muscles bulging at the trim of his tunic; and felt for all the world as
though nothing could ever hurt him.
The head of the Mercian
band gestured first to Haakon and then to Eadwyn. The morning chill made clouds
out of his breath. "Lord, Lady. We are here on orders from Leofric Eorl."
Eadwyn frowned. "What
orders?"
"More than a year has
passed since of the death of Cnut Cyning, God rest him. The day dawns for a new
Cyning to rise. By order of Leofric Eorl three days hence every thegn and ceorl
north of the river shall array to him before the gates of Maldmesburh and
declare fealty to Cnut's son and heir Harold. And the household of any man duly
summoned who fails to attend without just cause or grounds shall suffer its
rightful heriot."
Eadwyn's frown
deepened.
"{Hvad
siger de?}" Barked Haakon.
His mother waited until
the men excused themselves before she told him in his native tongue.
His father flew into a
rage. He screamed. He swore. He threw his axe into a deer skull mounted above
their door then marched out into the snow to weep.
It was only the second
time Wulfhere saw his father cry; the first when word first reached them of
Cnut's death.
As a boy there was much of that day that
Wulfhere did not understand. Only over time did he realize that those men were
not issuing a decree... they were plotting his father's death. Heriot, as
Wulfhere one day learnt, was a lord's right to claim a fallen warrior's arms
and armour as his own. Demanding a `heriot' off a living man was not a tax... it
was a threat.
Haakon Raven's Eye was
a loyal man. And as a loyal man he supported his lord's choice of heir. But his
lord's choice of heir was not Harold – it was his half-brother, Harthacnut.
They knew this. Leofric Eorl certainly knew it. Though the uncrowned Harthacnut
was away suppressing invaders in their native Denmark – any attempt to crown
Harold in his absence was in direct violation of Cnut's whims.
And the Mercians made
good on their threat nine days hence, six days after Haakon Raven's Eye refused
the summons.
They came at night with
burning torches, sharpened spears, and whickering horses. Ten men in total. No
one knew what was happening until it happened. Wulfhere awoke coughing, and
when he opened his reddened eyes, he saw smoke. Thick black clouds rolling
along the rushes and choking his throat. Off in the distance he heard Ulf
screaming, "Fire! Fire! FIRE!" with what little English he knew as the dogs
howled and the hall's rafters began to snap. A meaty hand snatched him out of
his bed furs – his father's hand. He dragged the boy onto his shoulders and ran
for the rear door, kicking it open with a single foot. His mother was already
waiting for them upon a mare's saddle. Haakon heaved his young son into his
wife's lap with a single arm as she gathered the reins into her sooty hands.
"{Hvad
med Sigeflæd?}" She cried in Danish. "{Hvor er
Sigeflæd?}"
Their hall was ablaze.
The thatch wafting up into the black sky in thickened towers of smoke, flames
raging from the stables to the pigsty where their squealing livestock roasted
alive. War cries and clashes of steel echoed from the fore – Ulf and Wend
fighting for their lives against the Mercians.
"{Jeg finder hende!}" Yelled the Dane as he slapped the horse's rear.
"{Gå!}"
The horse bolted.
Eadwyn was a poor rider, but she held on strong as the mare raced away from the
flaming hall that they once called home. Wulfhere looked back with tears in his
eyes as his father, eyes full of rage, mail clinking beneath his tattered
tunic, took up the haft of his axe with both hands as the torch-armed Mercian
riders galloped around the bower to corner him. It was the last time saw his
father alive.
The next time he saw
his father, he was dead, swinging from a taut noose above the icy mud of
Maldmesburh market. People were encouraged to throw dung and rotten fruit at
his body. They yelled that he was a traitor and spat at him. A beggar even
stole his boots. And they only cut him down when he started to stink.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
"BRYNNA!" There were tears in his eyes as he thought
of his father. "BRYNNA!" But why was he thinking of his father? "BRYNNA, WHERE
ARE YOU?!" Why now of all times when the road to Lundenburh was at its
shortest? Why?
The Saxon's eyes stung. He scrubbed the tears
out of them as he struggled to put one foot after the other and keep on,
pressing through the crimson-cloaked king's dense forest, onwards and further
until the golden-leafed oaks began to thin and the outline of a time-forgotten weoh bore out. Wulfhere fended through the last of
the trees and verged at a clearing at the very edge of the forest into a
sweeping panorama of blighted earth, swirling dust and dying weeds. Between
those wind-shorn lands and its mountainous roof drifted a gloaming gyre of
bottomless black clouds crackling with thunder and bloated by unfallen rain.
Wulfhere's hands fell to his knees. He leaned
over and caught his breath as his throat was hoarse from shouting Brynna's
name. He felt minded to rest but looked up when he heard voices.
Off in the centre of the dirt plain stood a
circle of towering monoliths arrayed around a central stone more than twice the
height of the next, emblazoned with ancient white symbols and decorated in
dangling garlands of lilac and lavender. And around that megalith stood another
circle, a circle of women. Thirty of them. Barefoot, hand-in-hand,
each one adorned in antlered crowns and long white dresses flowing down to
their ankles. Their faces were painted white with chalk, their lips blue with
woad, and their foreheads spotted black with soot. And they wailed together in
a long and droning cry that reverberated throughout the plane; it was both a
song of sorrow and joy, a cry of both agony and ardour.
As the circle of women sung and swayed
together, an aging priestess bearing a staff of gnarled oak stood astride the
megalith and beckoned to a younger woman, her small arms wrapped lovingly
around a swaddled babe barely a few days born. As the mother approached the
leader of the circle the leader pressed her thumb against the black spot of
soot upon her forehead, then pressed that thumb onto the child's forehead,
branding it with the black circle of their flock. The mother wept with joy as
the priestess licked the soot from her thumb and spat it into the flames of a
roaring brazier. The flames burst up high, flashing with life, casting a warm
glow upon the entire circle.
"{Tân hynafol!}"
Shouted the priestess. "{Dywedwch wrthym enw'r plentyn
hwn!}"
Tears of joy slipped free from the mother's
eyes as the sacred flame uttered the name by its smouldering breath. And she
listened. "Brynna!" Said the mother, repeating it to the circle and
lifting her baby up to the moon. "Brynna ferch Angwyn!"
As spoken, so appeared.
Wulfhere looked on as a pale figure emerged
from the shadows, a pale barefoot figure dressed in the same antler crown and
the same white dress with the same black circle upon her forehead. And there
was pain in her eyes as she beheld the circle.
"Brynna!" Yelled Wulfhere. "Brynna!"
She looked to him, haunted with sorrow, then
turned away and vanished behind the stone. But he was already on his feet,
running for her. His legs found strength he didn't know they had and raced
across the crusted earth to the mighty pillars of the stone circle, but as he
ran to Brynna's stone, he turned its corner and skidded to a sudden stop.
Pebbles loosed by his foot scattered into the air and plummeted hundreds of
feet through it before plunging into a dark black sea stretching out from the
cliffside.
Wulfhere shivered.
(`Dear God') he thought. (`Did
she fall?)
He threw a glance over his shoulder to scream
for the sisters of the circle to tell him where she went, but the circle was
gone, the mother was gone, the baby was gone, the priestess was gone. All of it
was gone... except a long, dark field of swaying grass. The moon gloomed with
bone-pale light. Violent winds ripped through the sward. And a burly mailed
figure marched towards him with his glinting axe Hildegunnr at the
ready.
Herewulf.
"NOOOO!" Screamed Wulfhere. "WHAT ARE
YOU!?!"
The huscarl broke into a run. "I AM YOUR
RECKONING!"
The spine and the legs that barely held
Wulfhere up enough to stand shivered with cold fear as Herewulf charged at him
through the rushes and reeds, screaming in rage before pouncing into the air
and vaulting toward his prey, a streak of steel swinging through the night air
and skreiching past Wulfhere's ear as he dove desperately out of the way. The
Saxon skidded onto his back as the axe collided with the ground and cracked it
open, splitting the earth in two, waking marrow-curdling tremors that rocked
the cliffside from edge to talus. Hildegunnr's blade stood lodged inside
a mound of cracked, impacted rock. As Herewulf's massive arms came to pull it
free, a desperate Wulfhere threw himself at the muscled huscarl by his
uninjured shoulder, slamming into his back and knocking him from his feet. Hildegunnr
slipped free of his gloved hands. He pitched forward. He fell.
Wulfhere, breathless, shoulders pumping with
each intake, watched Herewulf slip from the cracked cliffside and hurtle
through the air until his mailed body crashed into a bloody pulp against the
barnacled crags jutting along the shore.
And then Brynna's soft voice beckoned to him.
"Wulfhere..."
She whispered. "...Wulfhere..."
The swordsman snatched his weak shoulder and
turned towards it, but it was not Brynna he found standing behind him
ominously.
It was Herewulf.
Wulfhere's heart sank. "T-this... is... this can't...
this can't be..."
A single gloved hand shot forth and snatched
him by the throat. Wheezing and gagging, Wulfhere could only claw meekly at the
powerful arm that lifted him from the ground until his boots dangled in the
air, kicking at the tall grass beneath them. Thunder broke the sky, a flash of
lightning burst around them, flashing through the field of bones lay hidden in
the grass and stripping the courage from Wulfhere's resolve like a scrap of
flayed skin. He looked down into the searing blue eyes of the huscarl, blazing
like a cold inferno within the sockets of his helm, and felt nothing but
terror, absolute terror.
The icy night air made visible the breath that
leaked like hell-smoke from Herewulf's snarling teeth. "Vile dog! I was driven
out of my order with nithing's word for slaughtering another huscarl!
And why? For he DARED to lay hands upon me as you did the bædling!" The
huscarl's helmed face withered and jerked and stuttered and swung back into
place. "You ran from the field, you abandoned your shield-brothers, all to sate
your FILTHY desires! I will deliver justice to the fallen! You will DIE!" The
huscarl's helmed face withered and jerked and stuttered and swung back into
place. "I know you, boy, you killed your own father! For the honour of the
Raven's Eye, I will END your miserable life!" The huscarl's helmed face
withered and jerked and stuttered and swung back into place. "You RAPED your
mother! You MURDERED your sister! In the name of God, you must DIE!" The
huscarl's helmed faced jerked and withered and stuttered and swung back into
place. "DIE! DIE! DIE! DIE! DIE! DIE! DIE! DIE! DIE! DIE! DIE! DIE! DIE! DIE! DIE! DIE! DIE! DIE! DIE! DIE! DIE! DIE! DIE! DIE!
DIE! DIE! DIE! DIE! DIE! DIE! DIE! DIE! DIE!
DIE! DIE! DIE! DIE! DIE! DIE! DIE! DIE! DIE! DIE! DIE! DIE!
DIE! DIE! DIE, DAMN YOU, DIE!"
Wulfhere's eyes welled with tears.
But through them, and their sting, he watched
Brynna appear by his side, a beautiful phantom unbound from the chains of his
understanding. And she was not afraid. "Wulfhere. This will not end – we cannot
proceed – until you face up to what this man truly is. Find your courage. Face
him. Face it!"
"...I..."
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
Abbot Beorhtwold was a cruel man. It
seemed wrong to say, for he was a man of God and men of God were not meant to
be cruel (or so Wulfhere once reckoned). But Abbot Beorhtwold was cruel. Very
much so. When he and his mother first came to Maldmesburh on the night of his
father's death, tired and sooty and frightened; he looked concerned for them.
He yelled for some of his þeows to bring a bowl of water and two cloaks from
his personal stores, and he brought them inside to warm themselves by a hearth.
Young Wulfhere would go on to hear (in passing) that such kindness for the `poor'
was unusual for the Abbot, but at the time, it was as if God himself had sent
Beorhtwold for salvation.
For years to come (long after he'd
forgotten his father's face) he'd remember Beorhtwold's; long, gaunt, with a
gap-toothed smile surrounded by a wild, woolly beard the colour of sun-paled
bone. He was kind to them. Gave them a small hut to live in just outside the
abbey's vineyard. As it was well known that Maldmesburh was a place of
learning, Abbot Beorhtwold swore to Eadwyn that her son would receive an education.
He would learn to read, to speak properly, to learn his country's history, and
most of all, learn God's Word. It was a gift most boys his age did not receive.
And Eadwyn had tears in her eyes when the abbot promised this to her.
And there they lived, for a time.
His mother helped the monks and their
þeows tend the vineyard in exchange for food, shelter, and protection whilst Wulfhere
was instructed in reading, writing, and biblical prophecy. He was taught that
the Danes were a punishment from God to scourge England of its sins. Pagans
like his dead father were destined for hell and only those of Christ-faring
nature, like Cnut Cyning, would be received by the arms of heaven.
And when young Wulfhere had the gall to
speak well of his father, to suggest that he was an honourable man, a strong
man, a kind man even, Abbot Beorhtwold took his cane and struck the boy's
knuckles with it. "Speak not such nonsense," said he. "Danes are by their very
nature wild and Godless. They are an ill-made, ill-tempered, and ill-thought
brood of hairy cutthroats with a drunken rapture for bloodlust and Christian
gold. And until they are truly and fully brought under Christ's mercy, that is
all they ever will be. Leofric Eorl was right to kill your father. You and your
mother are better for it. Look where it's brought you."
The Abbot did not seem so kind after
that.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
Wulfhere gasped desperately as Herewulf's thick,
leathered fingers clamped tighter around his throat. And every moment tightened
the pressure around it. No matter how he clawed or scraped at the huscarl's
arm, its taut muscles did not budge or yield.
"Do not look away, Wulfhere." Said Brynna ferch
Angwyn of the sisters of the circle, who stayed
steadfast at his side as the huscarl choked the very essence of life from his
body. "You must not run from this – you must face it."
But then he spotted the seax dangling from
Herewulf's belt. Just a pace away... below his line of sight... he could reach it...
if he just reached out...
Herewulf's grip tightened again. Foam dripped
down Wulfhere's lips as his head rocked back, like his neck was ready to snap.
His vision was clouding, time falling away from him. But the seax... if he could
only reach the seax! His fingers, weak and soil-sodden, wriggled towards the
hilt of that knife.
Brynna's eyes flared. "Wulfhere..."
He seized it! He snatched the knife!
"No!" Cried Brynna. "Stop running, Saxon! Face
it!"
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
There was a cool stream none too far
from Maldmesburh Abbey, a stream shaded beneath a dense canopy of leaves
branching out from a long row of oaks. Many of the local children, ceorl and
þeow, came to play by that stream. They played sticks and threw horse chestnuts,
played with worms in the wet grass, made circles and frolicked. And an
embittered Wulfhere watched them all from the shadows of the oak trees as he
soaked his swollen knuckles in the stream.
He couldn't stand to see children
playing anymore. It reminded him of when he was a child, playing the same silly
games whilst the cruel world around them made its designs against his family.
He saw the spires of the abbey peaking over the hillock beyond them and that
was an even less welcomed sight.
In fact, he'd grown to hate the abbey.
He hated the monks and the þeows that
doted on them, hated the poor and sickly that came to its doors begging for
help that would never come. He hated the novitiates that looked down on him and
whispered about his father behind his back. "Son of a Pagan" they called
him. And he wanted to beat them all to
death with a big stick every time he heard it – but he couldn't touch them.
They were the sons of great thegns and king's thegns, powerful men brought to
be educated by the Monks of Maldmesburh. And what was he? The landless son of a
dead Pagan, a þeow to the abbey in all but name, forced to work its fields with
his mother, and never permitted to leave them. He'd had the indecency to ask
one of the monks about his father's old lands this morning after prayers. When
word got back to the abbot, his knuckles took twenty strokes of the cane.
Grumbling, Wulfhere glared at the
scrambled reflection of his hands, bruised black and purple like rotten fruit,
and wondered what foul evil he could have done for he and his family to merit
such a fall from grace. But he knew. Deep down he knew. It was because of what
he saw that day, that terrible evil between those two thrall boys, Ulf and
Wend. He was cursed for it.
(`Damn them,') he thought. (`May they
burn.')
Wulfhere took his hands from the water.
They still ached, but not as badly as before. Once he brought her the water she
sent him for, he would ask his mother to wrap them for him. These days he did
not get to see her much. As always Eadwyn tended the vineyard whilst Wulfhere worked
around the abbey with the þeows, sowing clothes, working leathers, sharpening
tools, plucking chickens, kneading bread, brewing beer, making repairs,
sweeping floors, dusting rafters, cleaning relics, and on and on and on. They
may as well have been þeows.
But he would not sulk on it.
He was a man grown now, 12 years of age,
and had long since spoken his oath to the cyning. It would not do to grumble.
He was alive – if nothing else he had that, and he had a mother to take care
of. Wulfhere took up his iron-banded bucket (already full and sloshing at the
rim) and made his way from the shrouded stream and the playing boys, across the
abbey grounds and the burial plots along the old road north that broached the
Avon by a half-moulded wooden bridge, rotting away and in desperate need of
repair. Wulfhere crossed the bridge, passed by goat herders and irþlings, and made
his way to the small hut his mother had called home for the past four years.
He heard voices.
Wulfhere set the bucket down by the pile
of rushes near the rickety door. His mother hadn't had anyone over when she
first sent him to fetch water from the stream. Who could have been there now?
Wulfhere set his hand to the door to push it open and froze when he heard Abbot
Beorhtwold's voice from within.
"Did
you clean yourself down there as I asked?" He said sharply.
"...Y-yes,
Father..." Replied Eadwyn, her voice weak and raspy.
There was a gap in the planks of the
door. Wulfhere put his eye to it and looked inside. And inside he saw Abbot
Beorhtwold, hands at the roped waist of his russet frocks, whilst his mother
knelt before him wiping drool from her lips. The Abbot told Eadwyn, "Good. I
would not wish for another of your accidents," and bade her stand. She did so,
and in return he spun her around until her back was to him, driving her face
into a table and bending her over flat. With giddy haste did the abbot snatch
up Eadwyn's skirts and bunch them around her waist, exposing her rear nakedness.
She shrieked in horror, but he did not care, warning that no one would hear her
out here as he pulled up his own skirts and fished out his stiff, dripping
pintel. He was in such haste he did not hear the door creak open. And as he
spat into hand to stroke himself for his entry, he did not notice a young hand
take up the langseax hanging by the door. He did not notice the shadow creeping
up behind his back – not until it drove that langseax hilt deep between his
shoulders.
"Ghk!" Croaked
the Abbot of Maldmesburh, jerking suddenly, throwing a weak glance down at the single-edged
knife protruding bloodily through his now broken breastbone, then staggered
around on weakened, shuffling feet to see an infuriated Wulfhere standing
behind him. The priest opened his mouth to speak but nothing
but blood poured forth. He stumbled and fell to the floor, buttocks in the air,
fingers twitching gently until they stopped. He was dead.
"W-what have you done...?" Said Eadwyn,
shivering. "What have you done, Wulfhere?!"
And Wulfhere, frozen in place, stared at
his hands, hands now stained with Christian blood, and admitted for all the
world that he did not know.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
The seax slipped from Wulfhere's hand.
"...I can't..." He wept. "I cannot... see it again,
please..."
But he felt Brynna's hand upon his.
And she smiled at him. "See it. Face it. And
then... let it go."
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
That night the dusty streets of
Maldmesburh were full to breeching with hundreds of angry villagers who had
come from all corners to witness doom. Once word spread like thatch-fire that
their kindly Abbot Beorhtwold had been murdered by some drunken harlot in a fit
of evil rage, the spear-bearers could hardly fend them off. Men and women,
thegns and ceorls, Saxons and Christians all – poured into the town shouting
their fury. The marketplace had been cleared of its stalls and tents, and at
the centre of the clearing stood a wooden stake and lashed to that wooden stake
was the fiendish heathen synnecge for whose blood they bayed, a weeping
woman called Eadwyn.
It was customary to hold a court before
deciding the fate of a criminal, and certainly so in this holy land owned by
good Edward Cyning himself, but there was no time to wait for the shire reeve.
The villagers were too angry, too wild, and too great in number to be
controlled. The monks of Maldmesburh and a group of powerful local thegns
freshly returned from a trading voyage discussed how to proceed, how to quell
the crowd before they destroyed the town in their rage, and one of the thegns
suggested a method of punishment he had seen in during his travels in Normandy.
Mailed men bearing the sigil of Leofric Eorl
carried bunches of thatch and bundles of sticks to mount around Eadwyn's feet
as the jeering crowds threw rocks and rotten fruit at her. An aging priest
braved the hail of waste to speak the rites even a vile sinner like her was
permitted to receive, "Accipe, carissime
frater, viaticum corporis nostri Jesu Christi, quod te custodiat ab hoste maligno, protegat te, et perducat te ad vitam aeternam! Amen..."
The priest asked her something.
But she shook her head, refusing to
speak.
And so the priest called for a hooded
man to bring forth what he carried – a burning torch. By now a pile of kindling
as high as Eadwyn's thighs was arrayed around her. The hooded man lowered his
torch and set light to it, stepping away. It began as mere snapping embers at
first, then tufts of smoke rose as the nascent flames spread around the pile,
and the crowd's roars became more jubilant as the confused Eadwyn's eyes
widened with dawning terror. She yelled things. "NO!" and "PLEASE!" and "SPARE
ME!" but not a single ear heard her over the shouts and insults – nor would
they have helped her if they did. There was a sudden flash beneath the thatch,
and the flames suddenly roared, surging up and consuming the kindling like a
feasting wolf. And then began the screams. Shrieks of sheer agony ripped out of
Eadwyn's throat and rippled through the smoky night air, rising above even the
roaring flames and the howling crowds surrounding them. She screamed her throat
hoarse as the fire consumed her whole from toes to scalp, charring her flesh,
shearing her hair, fusing hunks of cooked muscle into sloughing scraps that
slowly fell from the blackened bones of a lifeless, calcifying corpse.
Cries of delight at doom justly rendered
tore through the crowds. All were joyous. All except a trembling little boy
looking on in tearful, wide-eyed horror as he tasted his mother's ashes upon
his tongue.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
Wulfhere dropped to his
knees. How many years had it been since he last allowed himself to remember?
The flames. The crowd. Her screams. His guilt. That was where it all began.
That cold and terrible day. That was when he lost himself. That was when he
lost his way. (`Why didn't I fight?') He thought. (`Why didn't stop
it? I could've stopped it! If I just told them all the truth, that it was me
who killed him, I killed him, I killed the abbot! Not her! Why didn't I tell
the truth? Why did I let that happen? Why was I such a craven?')
He could still taste them
on his tongue, sometimes.
His mother's ashes.
Wulfhere opened his
eyes and found himself inside a void as black as the pit. Darkness unfurled as
far as the eye could see. Smoke and cloud wafted along its frontiers. Beneath
his feet laid broken Roman paving, and around him from spot to spot, broken
Roman statues, statues of Mars and Jupiter and Venus and Neptune; shattered
faces, missing arms, cracked legs, rotting plinths; moss-ridden and
vine-swathed. Rainwater pooled where the flagstones hollowed.
A broken realm.
And then a pale fire
burst to life in front of him, swirling into existence from nothingness, and
drenching him in its bone-white light. Its tongues lashed and flailed amidst
the cold darkness. It brought warmth. It brought fear. It brought sadness. And
it brought memories.
Wulfhere, weak and
tearful, looked on into the flames as he saw himself as a red-eyed and angry
boy, stealing loaves of bread from the market in Ledecestre. He recalled well
the day. He'd fled Maldmesburh by foot and wandered north along the old Roman
roads, each day a hair-breadth escape from wolves, bandits, and wild dogs. He
was hungry, desperate. When he wound up in Ledecestre he was on death's door.
And so, he stole a loaf of bread to keep himself alive. The baker chased him
through the streets, but the boy escaped. And when he got hungry again, he
tried it again, this time with a fruiterer. But that time luck was not with
him. That time he was caught, and the fruiterer handed him over to a `friend'
who threatened to chop the boy's hand off unless he helped him `capture'
someone else. Someone else. That friend's name was Bolla.
The flames flickered.
Wulfhere watched on as
a slightly older version of his younger self dragged a tiny scip onto a
pebbled bank by its unspooled moorings. Two women, lashed and gagged, cried in
the hull of it. "Quiet, you wailing wenches!" He shouted, "Quiet or you'll wake
my fist!" then he pulled the two of them up and dragged them by their ropes
along the beach to a shore-side outpost manned by Bolla and three of his best
men. Wulfhere's partner, Aelbert, was there ahead of him to collect their pay.
And in the centre of the outpost stood a wooden pen hemming in a dozen Wealh
women. An older Wulfhere watched with disgust as a younger Wulfhere grinned
with delight and dropped his two new captives at Bolla's leathered feet. "Too
many women to sell, Bolla! Which one do we get to keep?"
The flames flickered
again.
And they revealed an
older Wulfhere; fully grown, bronze-bearded and muscular with the years. He
rode a mighty horse named Snotta through a dense forest, hunting hounds ahead
of him, his broached cloak flocking in the winds. Another horseman, Gyrth
Godwineson, rode alongside him. When the dogs cornered the deer they were
chasing, this Wulfhere shouted "Now, lord!" and the young Eorl of East Anglia
threw his spear straight through the beast's neck. He clutched a fist in
triumph, slowed Snotta to a trot, and waited for Ceolfraed and the other
hearthweru to catch up to them as Gyrth chuckled with exhilaration at the day's
first kill. The older Wulfhere watched the slightly younger Wulfhere smile with
such brilliant pride. And he was proud that day. Proud to hunt with a
son of Godwin Eorl. Proud to have a place in the household of a King's Thegn.
Proud to finally reclaim some of the wealth and glory that was robbed of him by
Leofric Eorl's men.
The white flame split
into three.
And all three flames
transformed into Wulfhere. The boy Wulfhere, a broken-hearted bread-thief. The
young Wulfhere, an angry and callous slaver. And the adult Wulfhere, a proud
hearth-guard to Ceolfraed Thegn. All three Wulfheres pointed at the broken man
they were destined to become and all three asked in unison, "WHICH OF US IS WHO
YOU TRULY ARE?"
And Wulfhere smiled,
sadly. "...All of you."
All three returned to
flame. All three flames returned to one. And the one flame became a man.
Herewulf.
Strong, silent. Bright
blue eyes burning inside his helm, rivets of his mail byrnie glinting in the
moonlight, bossed shield strapped to his back, seax dangling from his belt, his
palms rested peacefully upon this powerful Danish axe, Hildegunnr.
Wulfhere took to his feet and faced him. Beheld him. And then Wulfhere reached
to unstrap Herewulf's helm and finally see the face beneath it.
He merely found his own
face staring back at him.
Yet another Wulfhere.
"I could never be you,"
said he to the `huscarl'. "I could never be the huscarl my father was, nor the
Christian my mother was. I can only be myself... and let God be my judge."
And then Herewulf
disappeared.
Like a puff of smoke.
Never to return.
And then Brynna
appeared at Wulfhere's side and rested a hand upon his shoulder. "It is over.
The Horned One's trial is over."
Wulfhere slumped to his
knees and thanked God.
"You have earned your
passage through the underworld," said Brynna, stolidly. "What comes next is
your debt to me."
The Saxon looked up at
her. "What are you talking about?"
That was when he
noticed the seax she had in her hand. His seax. Wulfhere paused, uncertain of
her meaning, until she threw the knife down at his knees and took a few steps
back along the broken, puddled flagstones. She opened her arms with an empty
smile. "Kill me."
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
Snotta's hooves
thundered down the forest path with that rapid gait of his. No matter what root
or rock he came across the good horse leapt cleanly above them and galloped on.
No horse in Oxburh was as sure-footed as he was in those woods. He and Wulfhere
knew them too well. Wulfhere thanked God for giving him such a steed as he cast
a glance over his shoulder. Off in the distance beyond the dense canopy of the
forest, a tall black pillar of smoke climbed into the blue sky. Smaller,
thinner pillars rose with it... no doubt the fire ripping through Ceolfraed's
hall was spreading to the rest of his fortress as well. There was even a risk
it could spread to the rest of the burh. That was regrettable.
But Wulfhere didn't
care.
He had what he wanted...
and Ceolfraed got what he deserved.
With Brynna at his
back, her arms woven tightly around it, he pressed on until the scent of smoke
was away from them and the risk of capture (at least for that night) remained
small. He rode into a small dell hidden away from the forest's main riding paths
and stopped there to allow Snotta a drink. He sighed, dismounted, then reached
up to help Brynna down. The bædling's green wedding gown was torn, burnt and
bloodied, and her neck still furnished with the gleaming torc once intended for
Cynewise. But she was beautiful. By God, she was beautiful. And by God, she was
all his now. Smiling, Wulfhere lifted Brynna off the saddle and brought her
down into his arms.
And she slapped him.
"What have you done!?"
She screamed, tearfully. "What have you done?!"
Wulfhere's gaunt cheek
went red. "I saved you!"
Brynna glared at him in
disbelief. "...Saved me? You did not save me, you RUINED it! You've ruined
everything!"
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
"Kill me," said Brynna
ferch Angwyn. "Pay your debt."
Wulfhere shook his head
in disbelief. "What is going on? What is this? Why are you asking me this?
Brynna!"
Her beautiful face was
blank and morose as she asked it. There was no pain in her expression, no
sorrow, no smirking scorn. She was serious. And when Wulfhere Haakonsson would
not take up his seax to push it through her heart as she asked him to, she
opened her palm between the two of them. A white flame bloomed from it. Brynna
bid him watch it.
"My mother was what you
Saxons would call a ƿiċċe,"
she said. "One of the last of her kind in a world
overflowing with christ-men. She was dedicated to the
old way, to her sisters, the Sisters of the Black
Circle. But then she made the mistake so many women do. She fell in love with a
man."
Wulfhere saw the face
of a man in the flames; blue-eyed with flame-brown hair and wide lips. He bore
an uncanny resemblance to Brynna. He held a baby in his arms as he lay next to
his wife, Angwyn.
Brynna frowned. "They
were happy then. Foolish and happy. But then it all turned to sand, as it was
always destined to. Two bad harvests later a half-starved village went to a
priest for answers. And the priest told them that my mother was responsible. He
told them that her child was fathered by a demon and that its accursed eyes
were the proof. They believed him... and so did my father."
Wulfhere's spine
shivered as the flames showed him a woman tethered to a stake as a crowd of
angry townsfolk bundled thatch and brushwood around her feet.
"He helped them," said
Brynna with quiet disgust. "They drove out the Sisters
of the Circle, captured her... and then they burned her. Just like they burned
your mother. And my father was disgusted with me... so he left me in the care of
a monastery. I escaped the second I was old enough to walk, fled to a village
near the Mercian border and I made a living there as a healer... until Saxon
raiders attacked us and stole me away, sold me at Scrobbesbyrigscīr
to Ceolfraed, and so begin my life as a slave."
When the flames showed
him the Saxon raiders that stole Brynna from her home, he flinched with disgust
when he recognized Bolla's face amongst the throng.
"I was hated. I was
scorned. But Ceolfraed had his uses for me. I hated it. I hated him. But his
bed... his bed was the only place on this earth I was permitted to be a woman,
the woman I am in my soul. When I had nothing left, I had that. And then
Cynewise came..."
Wulfhere watched the
flames roil over as they revealed the lady's beautiful face and Brynna's
heartbroken reaction to it.
"And when she
came, I lost everything," said she. "If I couldn't be a woman, even if only in
Ceolfraed's bed, then what was I? Nothing. Nothing but a heathen, a þeow, a
Wealh, a Dēofol, a bædling, a baeddel, whatever you ugly Saxons wished to
call me. I was nothing. And when I knew that I was content to die. I wanted
to die in that hall. I wanted to die as the woman I am before all of them as
Ceolfraed's happy new life burned to ashes at my feet! It would have been the sweetest
of deaths... and then you took it from me."
"Brynna, I-"
The flames roiled over
again, and her voice darkened with them, echoing upon itself. "DID YOU ENJOY
YOURSELF WHEN YOU PAWED AT ME?"
`Brynna fell limp in
the swordsman's arms as he turned her about and shoved her face-first into the
bear furs she'd spread out along the floor by the roaring brazier, un-belting
himself and shunting his breeks to his knees. The seax and the half-skinned
hare fell from the bædling's grasp. She fell silent. A course, gruff, huffing
Wulfhere hiked up the lower folds of her dress, spread her out by her thighs,
spat into his hand, and stroked himself slick as he guided his stiffened
manhood toward the pink, wrinkled flesh of her earsðerl.'
"DID YOU CARE THAT YOU
WERE HURTING ME?"
`He couldn't, even if
he wanted to. For she summoned demons from within him, evil demons his poor
Christ-faring soul had spent decades fighting a losing battle against. They
could not be halted. They could not be stopped. Brynna gritted her teeth. Her
pintel was soft, flapping desperately between her legs, but without warning it
shot ropes of seed against the wooden wall. Wulfhere did not notice for he
could not bear to see it – it turned his stomach – and made her kiss him
instead until he drove himself thigh deep into her pink tightness and spilt
himself inside her, screaming...'
"WHERE LURKS THE LOVE
IN YOUR DEEDS?"
`She was all his now –
the only thing he'd wanted ever since the first day he met her on the Icknield.
After that it took moments, mere moments, for Brynna to ride him to his climax.
Wulfhere groaned devilishly and spent himself inside her, collapsing on top of
her, his breath racing with him, the sweat dripping from him, his scent
staining the air...'
Wulfhere sobbed. Tears
streamed his eyes as he watched himself... tormenting the woman he loved. Rutting
at her like a dog, ignorant of her pain, heedless of her unhappiness. The
flames ebbed away. Brynna's dress and hair, rustled aloft by the winds conjured
by that flame, lowered into place.
"What do I want?" Said
she, thoughts aloud. "I want to be away from men like you. I want to be
at peace with my gods and ancestors. I want to see my mother again. So... end it.
Let me join her. Let me rest."
He looked away.
"...Brynna. I... I am... I am sorry..."
"Sorry doesn't mean
anything, damn you, KILL ME!"
And then he looked at
her. Truly looked at her. Not for her beauty, not for her power, not for her
difference. But at her. Brynna ferch Angwyn of the Sisters
of the Black Circle. She had every right to demand a death, and what better
place than here, surrounded by the magic and wonders of her people. But it was
not a death he could grant – not even if he wanted to.
"...Brynna. I have no
right to deny you anything. But I... I cannot give you this. I can't. I won't. I
can only be myself... and just once before you die... you deserve to do the
same."
And he meant it. Every
word. He felt the truth of himself, of his conviction then, when Brynna looked
up at him with dejected hatred in her blue-green eyes, tears welling in them
like crystals. She took the seax up and tried to shove it into his hands, but
Wulfhere would not take it. He would not do it. He would not kill her.
Brynna bit her lip. "Wulfhere,
please... I have nothing. Nothing left."
Wulfhere paused, then.
He thought of Lundenburh, his dream of Lundenburh, of his beautiful new wife
Brynna clad in silken dresses and marten-fur. Even now he saw it – a roaring
hearth, the scent of a bubbling stew pot, a tender touch beneath their bed
furs. It was his dream. And it would never be. It had no right to be. "...That
isn't true," said he. "You do have people, I saw it. Your sisters, your
mother's circle. There must be survivors. Find them. Re-join them. Show them
what you've grown to become."
She looked unsure,
doubtful. Had she never dared to dream? Never thought to wonder?
Her sisters could still be out there somewhere, hiding from the world of
Christ, and however little Wulfhere understood them, he knew implicitly that
Brynna was better off with them than amongst his kind. His kind could
never make sense of her. Her people would welcome her with open arms. And she
deserved it. She deserved to have a family again.
Wulfhere tucked the
seax inside his belt. He swept the tears from his eyes, then thumbed the tears
from hers. He saw hope in them again. "Let this be the one act of good I do in
all my life. Live, Brynna. Live. Live until life gives you a better chance."
"H-how... how am I going
to do this?" She whispered. "Where would I start?"
A flame remerged behind
her. It was a mere candle's tongue at first but then it grew and grew until it
became a blazing pyre, flooding that shadowy realm with newfound light. Brynna
and Wulfhere both turned and beheld it, as the image it revealed captivated
them; grassy hills, sweeping dales, foggy glens, rocky climes, and cerulean
skies. It was not Lundenburh. It was-
"Cymru," gasped Brynna.
"That's my home..."
Wulfhere smiled,
genuinely, for what felt like the first time in years. "Well then. `Home' is as
good as any place to start."
The Saxon had spent
many moons peering into Brynna's eyes and witnessed many emotions pass through
them. Sadness. Anger. Hate. Dismay. Fear. But hope? Hope was unfamiliar... and
deeply welcomed. It suited her, he thought, to be hopeful. And as Brynna gazed
upon her homeland with nostalgic love, he felt hope too. Not for himself, but
for her. The underworld had made its choice – and she heeded the call. And as
she walked into the heat of the fire, the Saxon could not help but follow.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
(`So peaceful,') thought Wulfhere. (`This
place...')
Such a beautiful sight
he woke to. Skies of clear blue dotted with plumes of white cloud. The
gold-green grassland sweeping across the hills. Shepherds drove whole flocks of
sheep down winding trails to the grazing grounds. Crickets and nuthatches
chirped. A warm sun prickled his skin again just like when he was a boy. Even
the mountain air felt good to breath. Wēalas was a paradise. No
wonder its people fought to desperately to protect it.
Wulfhere, legs crossed
at the ankle, head resting atop his palms, looked up at the sky, and thought
aloud that he might never see another so beautiful.
Brynna, lying next to
him, scoffed. "There is beauty in every direction if you have the heart to see
it." She glanced at him, smiling softly. "Where will you go?"
Wulfhere sighed at the
sight of her smile. Such a small thing, it was. And it was no small thing to
think – what you wouldn't steal, rape, torture, or kill to awaken to that smile
every day. It was in his heart to turn to her, to look at her where their lips
might meet, but resisted the temptation. He had no right. He never did.
"...Somewhere I can be at peace with myself."
"I wish you well then."
He leaned up, leathers
and byrnie smeared with grass stains, and uncoupled the seax from his belt. He
put the weapon in Brynna's hands.
"For protection?" She
asked.
"You are a free
woman now," says Wulfhere. "You should always carry it."
This much Brynna
understood. Danger lay ahead for them both. Nothing was ever guaranteed in this
world. She received the knife with care then gave him something in return – the
gold torc, Cynewise's morgengifu. It glimmered richly in the sunlight. "The
Horned One has no need for gold. Only respect."
"You might need the
coin if you sold it..."
"It never belonged to
me," said Brynna. "Take it. Do what you want with it."
Wulfhere had
some idea. He slipped the torc inside his cowhide belt pouch and wondered if
Brynna knew where he intended to go. He would not tell her because it was not
her burden to bear. Perhaps she might ask the flames one day. All he wanted now
was for this last moment of their dark journey to be pure. Wulfhere
looked to her. Brynna ferch Angwyn. And he was as enraptured with her
now as he was that day he stole her from Ceolfraed's hall. Everything about her
was beautiful. Her blue-green eyes, her soft pink lips, her long mane of russet
hair. Everything. Still, he wanted her. Still, he yearned to
seize her, run away with her, and kill anyone in his path who dared stop him,
by arms or guile.
But he had no right.
This was the last he
would ever see of Brynna. The last moment. And he did not wish to sully it with
his darkness. He wanted his darkness to end – and end it would. And so,
Wulfhere rose to his feet. He looked to the hills around him, swallowed another
breath of cool mountain air and released it. Time to go. Time to die. "Which
way is Mercia?"
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
Epilogue
The Traitor – The Dove
– The Noose
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
[By a burh-gate-seat in
the Land of the English, sometime in 1063]
Ethelwald was a simple
boy, much like his father (or so his mother like to say). He liked to fish
because fish was his favourite thing to eat, and he liked to fight sticks
because one day he wished to wield a sword. As a pup it was the greatest fun to
sneak out of the burh at night and run into the forest with his friends
Wulfgeat and Adulf and make the woodland their battlefield. They took some old
thatch, a bit of brushwood, and gathered some stray rocks with which they built
a little `burh' together. The game was simple. One of them would be the cyning,
the other two would be the eorls. And it was the eorl's job to take the burh
and become the new cyning. Once they drew straws to decide who would be cyning,
the three would separate for some time, then come back to wage the war.
Sometimes Adulf would be cyning, and Ethelwald and Wulfgeat would attack the
burh together to throw him out, then fight each other for it. Other times
Ethelwald would be cyning, and he'd have to fight off first Adulf then Wulfgeat
to secure his lands. But no matter what happened they always had fun.
But the good days never
last.
Ethelwald was a bit
older now. A bit stockier, a bit muscly. Two winters had already come and gone
since he swore his oath to the cyning, and life was much changed. Wulfgeat
liked girls more than he liked fighting sticks (especially since his voice
changed) and poor Adulf was dead and gone nearly three years now, snapped his
ankle in the river and drowned. No more games after that.
Besides, Ethelwald had
work to do.
His father, Bretel,
died just last year. Most of his tithing was called out to the forest to fetch
a traitor from the thegn's hall, but a fire broke out and no one returned
alive. Life was hard ever since. Ethelwald had to become his own father. He
traded his sticks for a hoe and reaping hook. His father owned a hide of land
that was his now, and he started to work it; he and his mother both (since they
had no slave to help them). Not that his mother was much help, mind. She had
had a vicious cough since last winter and lost her breath very easily. Recently
she'd been coughing blood. The local healer woman said that that cough would
take her soon, which suited Ethelwald because it was one less mouth to feed,
but it did make him sad to think on it.
But Ethelwald hated
farming. He hated the sowing, the ploughing, the reaping, all of it. It was
boring. He wanted to fight. And so when his mother eventually did
die (sometime after Candlemas) Ethelwald a schemed a device – to buy a sword,
go to his thegn, offer his services, become a guardsman, and use his pay to buy
some slaves to work his land for him. Simple! Problem was he didn't have
enough coin for a sword. So? He decided to steal one. It didn't seem
like a bad plot at the time. Hadn't he stolen `swords' from Wulfgeat and Adulf
to win their old games? This weren't to be much different, surely? And these
days there were lots of men returning home from the Godwinesons' war with the
Wealh. Some had lost eyes, some arms, some legs. Lame folk weren't much trouble
to rob. It was just a matter of finding the right man to rob. Someone on his
own. Someone he could scare into keeping his mouth shut.
(`Yes,') thought Ethelwald, (`it
be a good plan'.)
And he found his mark
one day, wandering by his hide: a broken wretch of a man stumbling down the
dirt path in worn out leathers. He looked drunk. Dark circles surrounded his
tired eyes, his face was sunken and gaunt, with an unkempt brown beard
straggling down to the chest of his rusted old byrnie. He wore a helm, but it
was dirty and dented, and his moth-eaten cloak dragging its way through the
dust behind him. He was a wreck.
But he had a sword.
A good-looking one,
too. Probably Norman.
And, grinning,
Ethelwald took his chance. There was a nice thick branch he'd found and kept
the last time he went foraging through the forest. He went inside to fetch it,
then ran around the trees east of his land to hide in the bushes alongside the
dirt road just thirty paces ahead of the wanderer. Ethelwald kept still. He
kept focused (just like his games with Wulfgeat and Adulf!) and then when the shambling,
haggardly warrior came within striking distance of him, the boy launched out
the bushes, branch outstretched to hammer the earg where he stood.
But it was bit a blur
after that.
Ethelwald heard himself
scream, felt his cheek burst open and burn like a salted wound, and then the
world went upside down as he tasted dirt. He wheezed and panted, too stunned to
think, until he heard the death-knell slurp of unsheathed steel, and the
hobbling warrior's glinting sword came up underneath his throat.
Ethelwald cut a hland
in his breeks.
"You," whispered the
stranger in his ear, his rotted leather shoe fixed firmly upon the small of his
back. "What is your name, boy?"
"M-m-my name? M-my name
be Ethelwald, lord..."
The stranger chuckled,
slightly. "I am not a lord, Ethelwald."
"Y-yes lord, s-sorry
lord..."
"And what is your
thegn's name?" Asked the stranger.
A tear fell from
Ethelwald's eye into the dirt. Was he crying? He hadn't cried since Adulf died.
"M-my thegn? M-m-my thegn's name be C-Ceolfraed, lord... he had a son borne to
him just a few days ago, the whole burh be talkin'
`bout it...!"
"And does Ceolfraed
still make his home in Oxburh?"
The air stank of
Ethelwald's hland. He was like a babe in arms. "Yes, lord...! T-t-the
burh's none too far from here!"
"Well then, Ethelwald.
I've been walking a very long time. I'm very tired, and I do not well recall
these lands. Can you help me get to Oxburh? If you help me, I will forget your
attempt to rob me. Well?"
"Y-yes lord, of course,
lord!" Said he, and once the foot was removed from his back Ethelwald put the
stranger's thin, skeletal arm around his shoulders and helped him walk the rest
of the way. It was not far – the journey from Ethelwald's hide to Oxburh. And
what a sight they must have made, him hobbling along with this weakened
warrior, freshly returned from the fight with the Wealh...
As the sun hit its peak
Ethelwald and the stranger finally found themselves approaching the
burh-gate-seat of Oxburh. Local ceorls and their þeows gaped at their advance
as their feet shuffled through the dry dust all the way up to the two mailed
spear-bearers guarding the gate. They crossed their weapons.
"What is the meaning of
this?" Barked one.
Ethelwald was weak and
out of breath (for as skinny as the stranger was his clunking arms and armour
made for a heavy companion), but he trembled at the sight of the guardsmen. (`I
don't want no trouble with no spear-bearers!') thought he. But he was too
scared to act, he could only watch as the shrivelled swordsman took a trinket
from the folds of his withered cloak and hurled it at the feet of the guards.
A golden torc, it was.
"Go to your lord," he
said. "And tell him the traitor has returned."
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
It was a cellar. Dark
and damp with not a blade of light to see by even in this the height of summer.
And it was cold somehow. It was possible that meat was once kept in that pit to
cool, and fate (or necessity) had called for a repurpose. It served its new
devices well. Hungry rats screeched in their little hovels. Thousands of their
little scitte littered the cold stone floor beneath Wulfhere's bare
feet. That did not bother him, nor the smell of their hland, or even his
own, soaking up the shorn scraps of fabric clinging to his legs. The chains
were a heavier burden. They were Roman in origin (for Saxons did better with
rope) rusted over but strong. Fetters held him by his bony ankles and his
wrists. They were tight and painful, digging into his skin, but he did not
begrudge them. He begrudged nothing. All was owed.
Sometime after his
capture, though he knew not the days since, he heard footsteps beyond the
barred door. A familiar baritone ordered a guard to open the door. The guard
obeyed, and the wooden door creaked open. And in walked the King's Thegn, Lord
Ceolfraed of Oxburh, with a blazing torch in hand. Light suddenly flooded into
the cellar. Dozens of screeching rats bolted for their holes and cracks as a
frowning Ceolfraed lit the sconces nestled in the walls and cast a cold glare
at his newfound captive.
Wulfhere looked up at
him. And by God, he looked as imperious then as he did that day they first met
upon the Icknield, perhaps even more so. His fur-trimmed cloak fixed by a
golden boar's head broach; his slave-polished byrnie and gilt bracers; his
fur-rimmed boots and his gold-studded sword belt; his great longsword Heortgryre
rattling against his meaty thigh. Ceolfraed looked as lordly as ever. And for
slight moment, Wulfhere almost felt subject's pride to behold him. But he soon
remembered where he was... and who he was looking at.
"The winter was not
kind to you," said Ceolfraed. "Eh, Wulfhere?"
"...I have been to hell
and back, lord."
"And how was it?"
The younger man smiled
softly. "Surprisingly peaceful."
Ceolfraed scoffed.
"You've been found
guilty," said he. It was the shire reeve's court he referred to. Lord Æthelwig
came to Oxburh just for his crimes. Abandonment of one's lord, the
theft of a slave, murder. His verdict was swift. Death by hanging. "And
you said nothing in your defence. Why?"
Wulfhere's chains
rattled as he shrugged. "Because I have none. I am guilty."
A low growl rumbled
from the thegn's throat. "...Where is Braden?"
"Her name is Brynna,"
said the captive. "...and she is somewhere safe."
Ceolfraed's eyes
flashed with rage in the low light. "That slave is MY PROPERTY! Where is he?!"
"...You still think of
her, don't you? Even with your lovely new wife."
There was a gold ring
for each one of Ceolfraed's fingers and Wulfhere felt each of them collide with
his face in a single slap. A bloody tooth shot from his lips and rattled over
the floor as the King's Thegn cradled his knuckles with his free hand, tossing
the torch away. It rolled and squelched inside a rain puddle leaking down from
a crack in the roof.
Wulfhere cut a bloody
smile. "Brynna is a dove. You did not deserve her, and neither did I. May the
dove fly free..."
Ceolfraed sneered.
"...You call him `she' and `her'. You've been taken in by his lyblāc,
just as I was. I pity you. But I will not mourn you. Tomorrow you will swing
for all beneath God's grace to see."
The thegn yelled for
the guards to re-open the door.
"...A deserved death I go
to," spoke Wulfhere, head lulling. "As will you."
Ceolfraed paused.
"...What did you say...?"
"...I said you're
going to die, Ceolfraed. Three years from now, on a hill called Senlac,
with a Norman lance in your belly. You, the Godwinesons, the huscarls, the
fyrds. You're all going to die. Your lands will be seized, your son
disinherited, and Cynewise shut up in a nunnery. Three short years from now...
you'll know the truth of my words," Wulfhere smiled again. "...I saw it in the
flames."
Ceolfraed smacked him
again.
And that time, he broke
Wulfhere's jaw. But he could not break Wulfhere's bloody smile. And as the
guards beyond unbolted the door to release the thegn, that bloody smile
followed him into his nightmares.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
A baying crowd had
gathered in the centre of the burh where a sturdy palisade stood, driven deep
into the earth by the strongest men of the shire. Ten feet high it loomed, and
at its peak, a wooden beam extended out with a worn groove in its middle, and from
there swung a noose. Wulfhere knew it well – for he was one of the men who
helped put it there. The joke of that was not lost on the battered swordsman
as he hobbled through the streets, his iron fetters replaced with rope. A
quartet of spear-bearers escorted him down the dirt path from Oxburh's hall,
but they were not there to protect him – merely to keep him from running away.
It was midday. Hundreds
of angry townsfolk, men and women from both Oxburh and
the surrounding villages gathered about the sandy footpaths and dog-ridden
alleys all chanting, "RŌDEWYRÐE! RŌDEWYRÐE!
RŌDEWYRÐE! RŌDEWYRÐE!"
They had come to see doom
done. But doom was an odd thing. One man's `doom' could be
another man's persecution. Was it doom that bade Christ bare his own
cross to his destruction? Wulfhere, half-awake and half-dead, wondered about doom
as the first bit of rotten fruit struck his face. Rotten eggs came next. And
apples. And potatoes. And scitte, both human and dog. Only when some of
that scitte hit a spear-bearer's arm did the guards shout for calm amongst the
crowds. Their torrent of missiles abated. But the jeers did not. The insults
did not.
"CRAVEN!" They yelled.
"MURDERER!" Yelled others. Some accused him of stealing a þeow, some accused
him of stealing a þeowen. Some accused him of sorcery. Some accused him of
making children disappear. Some accused him of sodomy. Some accused him of
making their livestock sick. And some of those accusations were true.
This did not feel like doom.
But it did feel like
what he deserved.
Wulfhere's thoughts
were of his mother, crying at the heavens whilst lashed at the stake, and of
his father, left to rot on the rope. Ceolfraed's men brought him to his own
rope, shouting for him to climb the wooden stool beneath the rig and whilst a
hangman threaded the noose with his neck. Alongside that hangman stood a
priest, the sour faced Redwig Father, who spoke his last rites in the Roman
tongue with carefully practiced solemnity, "Accipe,
carissime frater, viaticum corporis nostri Jesu Christi, quod te custodiat ab hoste maligno, protegat te, et perducat te ad vitam aeternam.
Amen. Have you anything left to say, sinner?"
Wulfhere looked to his
crowd of jeering onlookers. Once upon a time they cheered with joy as he and
Ceolfraed returned home from the hunt with lovely, fat fawns swinging from
their saddles. And now they jeered him. But so went the fate of life and
worlds. Theirs would come to a crashing halt soon enough. Castles would
be raised, land scorched, thegns would become ceorls and ceorls would become
serfs, and the Land of the English would never be the same. If this was
what he deserved, perhaps that was what they deserved too.
Doom.
"If the earth is
finished with me..." slurred Wulfhere through his broken jaw. "Then let the
hellfire take me. I am done."
Redwig frowned. "Very
well. God rest you, heathen."
Wulfhere shut his eyes
and waited for a moment that felt like a lifetime. As the world faded into a
jeering black, the stool was kicked from his feet. There was a jerk, then a
struggle, then a snap, and then the rope went taut.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
END
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
·
Thanks for reading, everybody! Hope you enjoyed
it, to this day I still don't know why I wrote it, I suppose the concepts of `bædling'
and `bæddel' fascinated me, and the Anglo-Saxon
period of English history equally so. As before your comments and criticism are
always welcome at stephenwormwood@mail.com,
love to hear from you.
·
If
you enjoyed this, please read some of my other stories on Nifty: Wulf's Blut
(gay, fantasy/sci-fi), The Harrowing of Chelsea Rice (gay, fantasy/sci-fi),
The Dying Cinders (gay, fantasy/sci-fi), The Dancer of Hafiz
(gay, fantasy/sci-fi), The Cornishman (gay, historical), and A Small
Soul Lost (gay, fantasy/sci-fi).
·
Please see below a few MORE terms I missed!
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
[Arawn]
King of the Welsh underworld in the first branch
of the Mabinogi. He makes a brief appearance in chapter
3, alongside his hunting dogs, the Hounds of Annwn. The Welsh sentence he
utters to Wulfhere before his departure ("Rwy'n dymuno lwc dda
i chi, Sacsonaidd!") simply
means "I wish you good luck, Saxon!"
[Cernunnos]
A Celtic deity associated with stags and serpents.
Often depicted with antlers and holding a torc.
[Hounds of Annwn]
Known as `Cŵn
Annwn' in Welsh. They are Arawn's hunting dogs, which feature in (and trigger)
the events of the first branch of the Mabinogi, Pwyll Pendefig Dyfed/Pwyll, Prince of Dyfed.
[Irþlings]
An Old English term for a ploughman or farmer.
[Synnecge]
An Old English term meaning `mistress', seemingly
as an epithet.
[Woden]
The Anglo-Saxon name for the Norse God Odin.