Chapter Nine
Go in Peace
FOLK ALWAYS SAID that the dead looked as if they were sleeping, but Raedwulf did not.
Osana stood inside the alcove where she had helped prepare her husband’s body for burial and stared down at Raedwulf’s face.
Raedwulf looked grimmer than he had in life, his features still bearing the grimace of agony he had worn in his final moments. His skin was waxy and bloodless, his unruly mane of blond hair combed neatly over his shoulders.
He looked like what he was—dead.
Osana drew in a deep breath and cast a glance across at where her sister-by-marriage, Edlyn, sat at the back of the alcove. The woman was weeping again, her green eyes glistening, her small mouth pursed in grief.
Osana watched Edlyn for a long moment, studying her. The woman’s upset at Raedwulf’s death surprised her. Edlyn was usually so cold and aloof.
Was she in love with Raedwulf?
The thought came, unwanted and unbidden.
Osana’s chest tightened. She had no proof, yet her female instinct stirred.
She remembered Edlyn favoring Raedwulf with a coy smile at Yule and dancing with him once during midsummer festivities.
But for the rest of the time, she had kept her distance, playing the part of doting and submissive wife to Raedwulf’s younger brother, Deogol.
Osana had no proof, but suddenly she knew with a surety that shocked her.
How long?
Did it matter? Was she even jealous? Jealous no—made a fool of, yes.
Seized by the urge to fly across the annex, grab a fistful of that thick auburn hair, and slam Edlyn’s head against the wall, Osana looked away. Struggling to control herself, she heaved in a deep breath.
It was the last in a long line of insults she had suffered over the years.
Osana was not sure she could bear it.
The wail of a horn reached them then, muffled by the thick wooden walls of the ealdorman’s hall.
Osana straightened her spine and smoothed out the skirts of her long dark gown.
“The king has arrived,” she said breaking the long silence between the two women. “It’s time.”
Edlyn glanced up, her features tightening. It was almost as if she had forgotten that Osana was there. Not bothering to answer, she nodded and rose to her feet.
Raedwulf’s men had built him a pyre upon a longboat. It sat on the muddy banks of the Tyne, awaiting the ceremony that would begin Raedwulf’s journey to the afterlife.
A light rain fell as the crowd of mourners gathered on the riverbank.
It was a still afternoon and the light was dimming, warning them all that winter was coming.
The days had started to shorten. The harvest was now behind them, and there was a nip to the air which had not been present days earlier.
Osana pulled up her hood, drawing it forward so it obscured as much of her face as possible.
She had not wept since Raedwulf’s death, and although she wore a strained expression, she knew it would not be enough. The folk of Hagustaldes expected to see the ealdorman’s widow grieve.
Eyes downcast, Osana blinked furiously, wishing she could summon tears to appease them all. She did not hate her husband, and she had not wished him dead—yet it was impossible to cry when she felt nothing but emptiness inside her.
A procession of warriors approached the longboat, crossing the water meadow from the town’s walls.
The leaders carried a bier where Raedwulf lay, dressed in his finest doeskin breeches, a long tunic hemmed with gold, and a fur mantle.
His hands were clasped over his broad chest, holding his sword in place.
The armrings he had earned over the years glinted in the watery afternoon light.
The terrible wound to his belly—which had taken days to kill him—had been bound and covered.
The procession arrived at the water’s edge, and the men lifted the bier onto the longboat before fanning out around it.
At the back of the group, Osana spied the king.
Two years had passed since she had last seen him, and he looked different. He still wore his blond hair shorter than most men, and was clean-shaven, but his face was sterner than she remembered. It made him look older, more of a king and less of a philosopher.
She had forgotten how tall he was. He stood almost a foot taller than some of the men surrounding him and even taller than the lanky, dark-robed figure that followed two steps behind him.
Bishop Wilfrid had accompanied the king’s party from Bebbanburg even though Hagustaldes had its own bishop.
Bishop Godwin was a small, fey-looking fellow who now hovered on the edge of the mourners and who, Osana had assumed, would lead the funeral ceremony.
However, Osana’s gaze did not linger upon Bishop Wilfrid. Like two years earlier, she found her attention drawn back to Aldfrith. His presence—different from the loud, arrogant warriors she had grown up with—had a magnetic quality, an aura of calm strength that captivated her.
Careful.
Osana snapped her gaze away and glanced right to find Edlyn watching her under hooded lids. Her sister by marriage wore a thoughtful expression, her green eyes sharp.
Heart pounding, Osana dropped her gaze once more. Why did she feel so guilty? She had done nothing wrong. Edlyn did not know that Osana had thought often about Aldfrith upon her return to Hagustaldes, that he had intruded on her thoughts far too often for a long while afterward.
Still, this was not the place to stare like a besotted maid—not when her husband lay dead just a few yards away.
Bishop Wilfrid left the king’s side and made his way up to the water’s edge. His sharp-featured face was screwed up in a scowl, and Osana wondered if the bishop disapproved of this style of funeral.
It was too close to the old ways—to the funeral pyres of their elders when folk worshipped Woden, Thunor, Freya, and their kin. Amongst the high born those ways were no longer followed, although common folk still paid tribute to the old gods at festivals and the four solstices during the year.
Raedwulf had been baptized, yet he had never been a good Christian—worshipping in name only.
Unlike Osana, who had been brought up in a pious household, Raedwulf’s father had been proudly pagan.
In the agony-filled days before his death, Raedwulf had insisted he would burn upon a longboat, as his father had.
Godwin ventured forward, his head bowed, and approached Bishop Wilfrid. They spoke together on the water’s edge, a brief exchange in low voices that did not carry. Bishop Godwin appeared cowed by the older man’s presence, although his thin face flushed as he spoke to Wilfrid.
Surprised, Osana realized they were arguing.
Wilfrid barked something sharp at Godwin, and the younger man moved back, hunching his shoulders. Then, an affronted look upon his face, Godwin shuffled off to rejoin the crowd of mourners.
Osana frowned. She did not know what exactly had passed between the two bishops, yet Wilfrid was out of line. It seemed that he had insisted on carrying out the ceremony.
Osana glanced across at the king, wondering if he would step in. Yet although Aldfrith wore a displeased expression, he did not.
Standing before the longboat, Bishop Wilfrid stooped down, his fingers scooping up a handful of mud. Then he spoke, his deep, gravelly voice echoing through the stillness.
“Here lies Raedwulf, son of Eorpwald, Ealdorman of Hagustaldes. Strong in life and proud in death—God watches over you.” The bishop paused here, letting his words settle before he resumed his prayer.
“The Lord is our Light and our salvation … our strength. Our hearts shall not fear death, for there is a time to be born and a time to die.”
The bishop let the mud drop from his fingers, his gaze fixed upon Raedwulf’s corpse.
“And so we commit this warrior’s body to the water, the earth, so it may be cleansed by fire. Earth to earth, ashes to ashes, dust to dust.”
Osana listened, her chest constricting. She had to admit that Wilfrid was a far better speaker than poor Godwin. His voice was powerful, full of conviction.
Wilfrid stepped back then, turned, and nodded to the king. Aldfrith left the edge of the crowd and approached the riverbank. Then he removed a jeweled seax from his belt and placed the ornate fighting dagger upon the bier, next to Raedwulf. He then murmured something and bowed his head.
A few moments later Aldfrith turned, his heavy fur mantle billowing, and strode back toward the crowd, toward where Osana stood a few feet in front of the other mourners.
For an instant, their gazes met, and then he nodded. It was now Osana’s turn to pay her last respects. Feeling the weight of the crowd’s stares upon her, she walked down to the longboat. Standing before it, she reached up and removed the single bronze armring she wore upon her left arm.
It had been Raedwulf’s morgen gifu—morning gift—all those years ago.
She remembered him giving it to her, as she stirred in the furs on the morning after their handfasting.
She had felt queasy, for she had consumed far more mead than she was used to the night before.
Yet her gaze had misted when her handsome young husband had knelt before her and handed her the armring.
It symbolized the bond between them, but it would go with Raedwulf to his watery grave.
Osana placed the armring upon the bier, her gaze resting one last time upon her dead husband’s face.
She felt nothing but a yawning chasm of emptiness.
“Go in peace, Raedwulf,” she whispered before stepping back from the boat.
A heartbeat later her husband’s men, his brother Deogol among them, brushed past her and waded into the water, pulling the longboat away from the banks. They heaved the craft into the current of the Tyne before returning to the shore.
Then Deogol took up his longbow and lit the end from a brazier that burned upon the shore. Her brother-by-marriage was a skilled bowman, the best in Hagustaldes. It was fitting that he would send Raedwulf off.
Silence settled upon the riverbank, the rain falling in a fine mist around them. Deogol drew his bowstring back, his brow furrowing in concentration as he marked his target. The longboat was drifting lazily out toward where the current flowed more swiftly.
The fiery arrow flew, arching high into the air and dropping onto the pile of dry straw encircling Raedwulf’s body. A long pause followed, and then the dry tinder ignited with a whoosh.
Osana watched it. She was vaguely aware that the king stood near her, as did Deogol, but she paid neither of them any mind. Instead, her gaze remained upon the flames that now roared high into the misty air.
Fourteen years she had been wedded to that man, and now she was a widow. Osana had been lonely through most of her marriage. She never felt understood by her husband. His liking for other women had driven a wedge between them, as had her barren womb, but he had been her rock in a hostile world.
Without him, she was truly alone.