Chapter 2
Chapter Two
A Royal Handfasting
Bebbanburg, Kingdom of Northumbria
Britannia (England)
Three months later …
“I hear the bride is a great beauty.”
Osana inclined her head toward her husband and raised a delicate eyebrow. “Where did you hear that?”
Raedwulf, Ealdorman of Hagustaldes, favored his wife with an indulgent look. “Men talk in the mead hall, my sweeting. Some hail from Wessex and have seen Princess Cuthburh in the flesh. They say she’s slender as a willow reed, with hair the color of sea foam and eyes the blue of a summer’s morn.”
Osana ground her jaw and feigned disinterest. “Men in their cups are known to exaggerate,” she pointed out. “She may be plain and mousy for all you know.”
Raedwulf chuckled. “We shall soon see for ourselves, wife.” He gave Osana another patronizing look. “No need to be jealous. You’re still a handsome woman … even if you’re past your prime.”
Osana dug her heels into the furry sides of her palfrey, sending it on ahead. Raedwulf’s laughter rang out behind her, and she inhaled deeply to quell the ire rising within her.
They rode the last stretch toward Bebbanburg, the great northern stronghold bristling against the eastern horizon and a flat, blue-grey expanse of sea.
The sight of its bulk—wooden palisades and four huge guard towers at each corner—filled Osana with relief.
Finally, three days on the road with her husband had come to an end.
The road leading east cut through a patchwork of tilled fields, where cottars toiled under the late afternoon sun.
It had been a hot summer, the warmest Osana could remember, and the sun had tanned the peasants’ skin golden.
A crisp, salt-laced breeze blew in from the sea, a welcome respite from the day’s heat.
“Come now, no need to take offense, wife.”
Raedwulf had ridden up alongside her once more.
The grin on his handsome face only served to make her anger continue to simmer, reminding Osana why she rarely conversed with her husband these days.
Perhaps she was over-sensitive, or maybe she imagined it, but it seemed as every word he spoke to her of late was a barely concealed barb at her failure as a wife.
Twenty-eight winters old … and barren.
They had been wed twelve years now, but she had never given him a child.
Osana wanted to blame Raedwulf, but she knew he had sired at least three bastard children in Hagustaldes, all to local wenches. No—the fault lay with her.
What good was a wife if she could not bear a man sons?
“I’m not angry,” Osana lied before she met his eye, “or jealous. It’s just that you make me feel old and useless at times.”
The humor drained from Raedwulf’s face. At thirty-five winters he was still a virile, comely man: big and broad-shouldered with a mane of golden hair and a short beard.
She had been captivated when she had first seen him.
He had been the ealdorman’s eldest son, a brash, cocky warrior who had won her heart without even trying.
Perhaps she had been too easy to impress. Or maybe it was the fact that she had loved the aura of danger and unpredictability in him.
“I was only teasing,” he said after a moment. “You are so prickly these days.”
Osana inhaled deeply. Her husband had all the subtlety and grace of a charging boar.
They had reached the foot of the causeway now, and the fort rose overhead blocking out the sky.
“It’s my fault,” Raedwulf continued, the good humor returning to his voice. “I’ve been away too often of late securing our borders. I’ve clearly been neglecting my wife.” He flashed her a rakish grin. “Tonight, after the handfasting, I shall give you the humping you so obviously need.”
Osana shot him a look of mute disbelief.
How typical of him to think that a night in the furs would cure the tension between them.
Her husband was a lusty man and a demanding lover.
In the early years of their marriage, when she had still found him exciting, she had enjoyed their lovemaking.
Yet these days, when she lay under him, she felt numb.
Afterward she was merely relieved it was over.
Unable to summon a response, she turned away from Raedwulf and urged her palfrey forward. They clattered up the final distance to the causeway, under the low gate, and into Bebbanburg.
“Are all the ealdormen here?”
“Aye, sire.”
Aldfrith, King of Northumbria, turned to his personal guard, Cerdic. Tall and broad, with brown hair cropped close to his scalp, the warrior met his eye.
“I’ve heard their rumblings of discontent,” Aldfrith continued. “Have a word with them before the ceremony … reassure each man that I will be holding a council tomorrow morning. If they have any concerns about the security of Northumbria, they are to raise them then.”
Cerdic nodded. The warrior said little but observed much, a useful trait in an advisor.
Aldfrith had much to thank the man for, as over the past months Cerdic had provided invaluable guidance, especially when it came to dealing with the ealdormen.
“Wise tactic, sire … they are bound to cause trouble after the ceremony otherwise.”
Aldfrith’s mouth thinned. “Aye … that was my concern too.”
He had only been king a short while, but already his ealdormen—the men who oversaw tracts of his kingdom in his stead—had become demanding.
“Your betrothed awaits, sire.” Bishop Wilfrid’s strident voice interrupted Aldfrith and his captain. “Lord Aldfrith … they are ready for you now.”
The king tensed. Aldfrith. He still had trouble getting used to that name.
It had wiped away his old life, his old identity.
It did not belong to him. Aldfrith cast his gaze over his shoulder at where a tall angular man with a haughty face and intense dark eyes stood.
Irritation flickered within him. Ever since his arrival at Bebbanburg, the bishop had become a persistent, and unwelcome, second shadow.
With a nod to the king, and to the bishop, Cerdic exited the alcove, leaving Aldfrith and Wilfrid alone.
Aldfrith grimaced. “I don’t know why I couldn’t meet her first, Father Wilfrid.”
“There was no time,” the bishop replied. “Now that the princess has arrived from Wessex, you must be wed.”
“Aye.” Aldfrith adjusted the wolfskin cloak about his shoulders that had once belonged to his father and glanced down at the amber brooch fastening it. “But I’d have preferred to get to know her first.”
Wilfrid favored him with a patronizing smile. “Cuthburh is a charming and beautiful young woman … but better still she comes from nobility and is exceedingly pious. She will make an excellent wife for you, milord. She will be a good influence.”
Aldfrith did not miss the sting in those last words.
He knew the bishop disapproved of the new king’s upbringing in the north, his time spent with the monks on Iona.
Only a day earlier, he had given the priest Oswald a tongue-lashing for the wording of the prayer he had spoken before supper.
They worshipped the same God as he did, but Wilfrid looked down his nose at the manner in which those of the north followed Christianity.
“Very well.” Aldfrith brushed past the bishop and made for the heavy hanging that sheltered him from the rest of the hall.
Beyond he could hear the rise and fall of excited voices—folk from all over Northumbria had traveled here for his handfasting.
He was about to be at the center of a public spectacle. “Let’s get this over with.”
“There he is!” The woman beside Osana hissed in her ear. “The new king … isn’t he handsome?”
Osana gave the woman, whose breath smelled of onion, a polite smile and glanced over at where the king had just stopped before the heah-setl—the high seat.
Her gaze settled upon him. She had to admit the woman was right. She had not expected Aldfrith of Northumbria to be handsome—for both his half-brother, Ecgfrith, and his father, Oswiu, had been too sharp-featured and sly-faced to be named so.
Yet the new king was taller than both of his dead kin, and better looking than either of them, with short, ash-blond hair and sensitively drawn features. Folk were calling him ‘the philosopher king’, for before coming here, he had lived a hermit’s life upon some distant isle.
Osana’s gaze lingered upon the new king. She had expected a pale, weedy man of middling years, yet the man before her was no older than her and held himself with unconscious masculine grace as he stood awaiting his bride.
Aware she was staring, but not caring as everyone here was observing the king keenly, she took in his rich dress: the deep blue of his tunic that matched his eyes, and the fine gold edging.
He wore a magnificent wolfskin cloak about his broad shoulders, and doeskin breeches clad long, athletic legs.
Osana could not envisage this man bent over a table, scribbling upon vellum.
“He doesn’t look like a scholar.” The onion-breathed woman was back, echoing Osana’s own thoughts. “He’s so tall and strong. I wonder if the rumors are true though … that he’s never had a woman.”
That got Osana’s attention. She swiveled around, eyes wide. “Really?”
Delighted the ealdorman of Hagustaldes’s wife was finally giving her some attention, the woman—presumably the wife of one of the king’s thegns—grinned. “Aye—I’d like to be the one to show him the way of the furs … a fine-looking man like that. Wouldn’t you?”
Feeling her face warm, Osana turned back to see a slender figure sheathed in rose and gold glide across the floor toward the king.
Cuthburh of Wessex had arrived.
Raedwulf, damn him, had been right—she really was a beauty. Pale skinned and delicate-featured, Princess Cuthburh looked radiant with her white-blonde hair spilling over her slender shoulders.
Osana’s thoughts shifted back then to the question posed by the woman beside her.
Truthfully, her answer was no—she had no wish to show Aldfrith how to bed a woman.
As attractive as the new king was, she could not think of anything she would like less.
She had a husband with the sexual drive of a ram and did not welcome the thought of any man touching her these days.
Sometimes she wished Raedwulf would never lay a hand on her again.
Her husband met her eye now and grinned. “I told you so,” he mouthed before winking at her.
Osana cast him an exasperated look and shifted her attention back to where the princess had just stopped at Aldfrith’s side. Their gazes met, and the king smiled.
Osana’s chest constricted then, as she remembered her own handfasting.
How nervous she had been and how handsome Raedwulf.
The feasting and revelry had lasted late into the night before Raedwulf had carried her off to the furs and claimed her as his.
It had hurt, as her mother had warned her it would, but she had found that first night wondrous, exciting. How she wished she still felt that way.
Osana’s vision blurred as she continued to watch the couple.
They stood surrounded by the grandeur of the Great Hall of Bebbanburg: walls of red stone, a high ceiling, and flickering oil-filled cressets. Shields, axes, and swords hung from the pitted walls, all trophies from past victories and campaigns.
A tall, spare man with hawkish features and a receding hairline, dressed in fine purple robes, an iron cross around his neck, stood before Aldfrith and Cuthburh.
This must be Bishop Wilfrid, newly returned from exile, Osana reflected.
She had heard tales about this man. The stories went that King Ecgfrith had banished him from Northumbria after the bishop had helped Ecgfrith’s first wife run away to a convent.
However, with Ecgfrith’s death a few months earlier, Wilfrid had returned to the north, where he had taken up residence at Inhrypum, a town to the south of Bebbanburg.
The bishop’s voice droned on while he began the ceremony, outlining the responsibilities of man and wife. He wrapped a ribbon around the couple’s joined hands as he spoke.
Osana blinked rapidly. She was far too sentimental at these gatherings; she always got weepy at handfastings. Ridiculous really, when her own marriage had not turned out as she had hoped.
Yet her reaction surprised her, for it showed that there was still a tiny part of her remaining that believed in love. She believed there could be a happy union between man and wife, only that belief was not for her, but for others.