The Hallowed Isle Book Two (25 page)

Suddenly his joy demanded action. The ford was barely an hour away, and then he would see his wife and child, but he did not want to wait so long. The horse's ears twitched as he lifted the rein.

“Wulfhere, that nag of yours is plodding like a plowhorse. I have a mind to reach Aegele's ford by noon. Do you think you can match me?”

“I'll come there before you!” Wulfhere's eyes kindled.

“Do it and I'll give you the Frankish swordmount that Hæsta gifted me.”

“And you shall have your pick of Prick-Ear's next litter if you win—” Wulfhere returned. The other men shook their heads indulgently, but they reined their mounts out of the way as with a shout their young king and his friend set their horses careering up the path.

Bent over the grey mare's neck, gulping in air strained through her flying mane, it was not until Oesc began to cough that he realized the air smelled of smoke—not the smoke of a hearthfire, or soapmaking or the burning of brush or any of the other uses of fire about a farm, but the acrid reek of a big fire, of burning timbers and smoldering straw. He had smelled it too often to mistake, when he was at war.

He straightened, shifting his weight back and hauling on the reins. For a moment the mare fought him, then she pulled up, plunging, just as Wulfhere thundered around the bend behind him.

“What is it? Is your horse—” he began. Then he too caught the scent the wind was bringing and his face changed.

“Go back and bring up the warriors,” Oesc said softly. “Leave the baggage ponies to follow as best they can.”

“But my lord—”

“I've done scouting. I'll go slowly and take care not to be seen.”

Oesc waited until the clatter of Wulfhere's departure faded and the forest grew quiet around him. He could hear neither shouting nor hoofbeats, but the burning must be close for the reek to be so strong. Perhaps Aegele was only burning brush, he told himself, and the men would get a good laugh at his fear. Then a shift in the wind brought him a whiff of roasting flesh, and the mare lurched forward at the touch of his heel.

He slowed again as he started down the slope towards the ford, but now he could hear ravens calling to their kindred. They would not do so unless the fighting was done.

It was strange, some odd, detached part of his mind observed as he rode into the farmyard, how clearly he could still read the signs, though it was nearly ten years since last he had ridden to war.

The attackers had hit the farm without warning. The women had been dyeing cloth. Two squares of blue flapped damply from the rack, but the pot had been overthrown, its contents mixing with the blood on the ground. One of the thrall women lay beside it, her head crushed, her hand still gripping the wooden bat she had been using to stir the pot. But her skirts modestly covered her thighs.

Where is Rigana?
Oesc forced the yammering voice within him to be still.

The raiders had not raped or even pillaged—cattle still lowed from the byre. But the hoofprints had already told him that these folk were riding good Roman-bred horses, not the shaggy hill ponies that outlaws would use. He found two more thralls by the byre, and then one of Aegele's men with a sword still in his hand. Outlaws would not have left the weapon, and the strokes that had killed the man had a military precision. This was not robbery, but a raid, conducted by trained warriors with a military objective in mind.

My wife and my son! Dead, or hostages?
Once more he shut the voice away.

Methodically Oesc worked his way around the buildings. More men lay with their throats cut in addition to their wounds. The attackers had left no one living to tell the tale. Aegele himself lay just inside the ruins of his house, with his wife beside him. His body was partly burned, but the golden band that marked him as a thane was still on his arm.

Hæthwæge was with them. Could her magic have hidden Rigana and the child
?

He left the mare standing and made his way up the path to the shrine. The devastation that had hit the farm had not touched it—more reason for that cold, evaluating part of his mind that kept his rage at bay to conclude British warriors had done this thing. He saw signs of a scuffle in the dirt before the shrine. Blood had been drawn—dark drops speckled the ground.

A breath of wind lifted his hair and chilled the sweat on his brow. He went inside.

The lamps were cold, but a bunch of summer asters, barely wilted, still lay on the stone, and beside it, a baby's teething bone.

“Lady—” he whispered, “they came to serve you. Could you not have protected them?”

Water murmured musically from below, the same song as it had sung for Celt and Roman, and for those who came before.
I
am here as I have always been
. . . it whispered,
be still, and know . . .

But Oesc could not listen. In his ears a furious wind was rising, sweeping both patience and reason away. A swift step took him back to the doorway and the devastated farm below. Wulfhere and his men were just riding in. But he scarcely saw them.

“Rigana . . .” he whispered. The roar of the wind grew louder, though no leaf stirred. “
Rigana
. . . .” Reason was reft away in a great shout that shattered the silence as her name became a berserker's wordless cry. Still shouting, Oesc ran down the hill.

For the next four days they followed the raiders. Messengers galloped off to raise the fyrd while Oesc and his best trackers kept on the trail. It was not difficult. The British had hit other steadings on their way into Cantuware, but in Rigana, they realized they had a prize beyond all booty and were losing no time in getting her away from the Saxon lands. North to Durobrivae led the trail, and then straight west along the old Roman road.

To those they passed, the attackers were no more than an echo of hoofbeats, a rumor in the night. But as word spread through the countryside, folk came from the places they had hit on their way in. By the time Oesc reached the borders of his own lands, his fyrd was over a hundred strong. But the British were a day ahead of them. They had left the road before it reached Londinium and headed cross-country, following minor paths that the Saxons did not know.

Clearly they meant to avoid Venta Belgarum as they had Londinium, but still their way led westward.

A week after Rigana had been taken, Oesc halted his war-band at the edge of the British border. Their quarry had gone west and south into Dumnonia, where Oesc had not the force to follow them. But by then he knew whom he was chasing. The warriors who had captured his wife and child belonged to Cataur, prince of the Cornovii and enemy of the Saxon kind.

“What will you do?” asked Wulfhere, his face gaunted by a week of hard riding.

Oesc looked around him. “Beric—” he gestured to a redheaded lad on a roan pony. “Your mother was British, and you speak the tongue well. I will write a message in the Latin tongue, which you must take to Artor. I believe he is in Demetia—the Irish have been raiding again. It is time to hold him to his oath. Rigana and the baby are only valuable as hostages if they are alive. I have to believe that Cataur will take care of her. But he will have to give her up to his king.”

“And if he does not?”

Oesc could feel his own features stiffening into a mask of rage. “If Artor does not get her back for me, then my own oaths to him are also void. I will go to my own kind, to Ceretic and Aelle, and together we shall make such a war of vengeance as will drive the British into the sea!”

A
BRISK WIND WAS BLOWING UP FROM THE
C
HANNEL, BRINGING
with it the scent of the sea. Oesc took a deep breath, and for a moment he was sixteen years old and on his way to the battle of Portus Adurni once more.
And at the end of it 1 was Artor's prisoner,
he fought down rage as that old sorrow amplified the new. Cataur still held Rigana and his son.

Struggling for calm, he told himself that this was the same war that his grandfather had begun, the war to make Britannia Angle-land. His alliance with Artor had been an interruption, that was all. The thought should have given him comfort, but the angry knot in his belly still throbbed.

“My lord, you must eat—” said Hæsta, pushing the wooden platter of swine-flesh toward him. Around the table of the kings were others for the eorls and the thanes and lesser warriors, and behind them the rush mats where their warriors were sitting, chunks of meat and bread before them and drinking horns in their hands.

Oesc ignored it. “Has there been any word from Beric?”

The thane shook his head. For a moon they had waited, while the news of Rigana's abduction spread as though carried by the wind. Had Beric found the high king? Had he even gotten through?

Artor
—
Artor
—his heart called.
Why did you never answer me
?

Perhaps the king was unwilling to go against one of his greatest princes. Perhaps he had not the power to force Cataur to give up his prize.

I would have held to my oath to life's end! It is you who have broken faith with me
. . . .

The wind shifted, and Oesc smelled the sweetness of curing grass. It was a moon past midsummer, and all over Britannia men were getting in the hay. The cornfields were ripening, the barley hanging down its head and the green emmer wheat turning gold. Who would harvest them, he wondered, once the Saxons had set the south aflame with war? The men they had sent directly to Cataur had returned with the message that Rigana was his guest, and would remain safe and comfortable so long as Oesc prevented his neighbors from attacking the Dumnonian lands. But if Cataur wanted peace, his own action had destroyed it. Wherever men spoke the Saxon tongue they were calling for revenge.

If Artor, who was acknowledged high king of the Britons, could not rule his princes, it was certain that Oesc could not control the Saxons, over whom he had no lordship at all. It was Ceretic, scenting the excuse that he had been seeking since Portus Adurni, who had summoned the tribes to gather here.

“Oesc, what are you doing?” Hæsta grasped his arm and Oesc realized that he had risen to his feet, his hand on his sword. He looked around him, blinking.

This army was already greater than the one that had challenged Artor eighteen years ago; each day more were coming in. A new generation of warriors had come to manhood, born in this land. They laughed as they ate, boasting of new conquests. His own men of Cantuware, with the West Saxons led by Ceretic and the South Saxons of Aelle, made a formidable alliance. In addition to the kingsmen, from the lands to the east of Londinium had come the Sunnings and the Mennings, the Geddings and Gillings, and more—warriors from a gaggle of clans who were oathsworn to no overlord.

Once more the wind changed. Now the scents were of horses and leather and roasted meat. Two thralls came past, pulling a cart with a vat of ale. Oesc held out his horn to be refilled and sat down. He took a long swallow, willing his racing heart to slow. For the others, avenging Oesc's loss was only the excuse for a campaign. Their beds were not empty, their children's first words would not be in the British tongue.

Gradually the muted roar of men's voices stilled and he realized that Ceretic was standing. His voice rang across the field as he spoke to the kings and chieftains, chanting names and lineage, bidding them welcome. He knew them all, and their exploits as well. Even as Oesc twitched with impatience, he realized how long Ceretic had been preparing for this day.

“And so, we are come together—” he cried. “Against this army, the Britons will never be able to stand. All that remains is to say who will lead us against this foe!”

“Ceretic! Ceretic hail!” shouted his thanes.

But Hæsta had jumped to his feet as well. “Oesc son of Octha should be our leader! It is his wife who was taken, and he's the heir of Hengest, who brought us to this land!”

“He has not led men in battle—” came the rejoinder.

“But will Ceretic give up his lordship when the war is over? He wants to rule us all!”

“Oesc will be too rash against Cataur and too weak against Artor—”

The meadow erupted in disputation. The British had grown powerful because they all obeyed one high king. Who, Oesc wondered, could command the allegiance of the proud-stomached, hot-headed, independent-minded, warriors who were gathered here?

Oesc kept silent as the arguments went on. He wanted his wife back, but did he want to rule?
Artor won his kingship at the age of fifteen by pulling a God-Sword out of a stone. Shall I attempt the same trick with the Spear
?

He smiled grimly, remembering how even his own house-guard had grown pale when they realized just what the long, swaddled bundle he had taken from Hæthwæge's hut contained. At the time it had seemed right to bring it, but he knew that the Spear was not a token of sovereignty, even though it belonged to the god of kings. Whatever use he might make of it on this campaign, it would not make him Drighten of all the Saxon kind.

Oesc was not sure that anyone could claim that title here. The British were accustomed to overkings and emperors, but no Caesar had ever united the peoples of Germania. It seemed to him sometimes that to do so would be to pervert their very nature. German war-leaders who developed Imperial ambitions always seemed to come to a bad end.

Voices grew louder as tempers frayed. At this rate, the Saxon alliance would not last long enough to bring the Britons to battle. At the other end of the table Aelle was frowning, as if he had heard it all before.

Curse them all!
thought Oesc. Rage roared in his ears. Suddenly he was on his feet; when no one seemed to notice, he leaped to the tabletop. Platters danced and food flew, but he kept his footing. Pitching his voice as Andulf had taught him, he cried out—
”Hold!