Chapter Fourteen Cuthbert’s Counsel
Chapter Fourteen
Cuthbert’s Counsel
Bebbanburg, Kingdom of Northumbria
“The king wishes you to join him for nón-mete.”
The messenger, a thin, pock-faced lad who worked in the Great Hall, stood in the street outside Hea’s home.
Dressed in a thin tunic and breeches, the boy shivered in the pelting rain that drove into the fort from the north.
It was one of those sleety spring showers, when winter seemed intent on returning.
Hea could see the lad was soaked through.
“Very well.” She gave a brisk nod and stepped back from the door, motioning for him to follow. “First come in out of the rain—I have some pottage on the fire that should warm you up.”
The lad hesitated before shaking his head. “I can’t ... I have to get back.”
Not waiting for a response from Hea, the boy turned and fled back up the street.
Hea watched him go, frowning. Was she imagining it, or were folk acting strangely around her these days.
Her mother had always been respected in Bebbanburg, but of late Hea had sensed a change from folk inside the fort.
Only yesterday a group of lads had followed her along the Dragon’s Back, calling her a wicce. A few days before that, the woman who sold her fowl at market had refused to serve her. Hea was used to some folk being uncomfortable around her, but this was different.
That boy had looked afraid of her, and it unsettled Hea. Fear and aggression were close cousins. She could not understand why people were avoiding her these days.
Frowning, she went back inside and took the cauldron of pottage off the fire. It was almost noon now. It was later than she had realized, and she would have to hurry, or she would be late. Hea took her fur mantle off a hook from behind the door, wrapped it around her shoulders, and went out.
The rain hammered against the exposed skin of her face and hands in icy needles, the chill taking her breath away. It was hard to believe spring was upon them—in fact, the meadows around the fort were bright with snowdrops, bluebells, and crocuses.
She had thought the foul weather would keep folk indoors, but industry greeted her as she turned onto the King’s Way.
A company of warriors armed with spears passed her. Faces partially hidden under iron helms, they trudged through the mud, leather creaking. A few paces behind, two men hauled a cart piled high with limewood shields they had just collected from the armorer.
As she continued, Hea peered into Broga’s forge and saw the huge blond smith bent over an anvil, hammering out a blade.
A messy pile of freshly forged swords sat on a bench behind him.
Usually, Broga worked alone, but these days two brawny lads hammered blades at his side.
The odor of hot iron wafted out onto the street.
Sensing someone watching him, Broga glanced up, his heavy brow furrowing. Hea hastily averted her face and hurried on.
Up ahead, the red bulk of the Great Tower of Bebbanburg loomed before her. Sheets of rain lashed across the street, driving against Hea—she would be soaked by the time she reached the King’s Hall.
Splashing through puddles in the yard outside the tower, for there were too many to be avoided, Hea made her way to the stone steps leading into the hall.
The hall was already sitting down to nón-mete when Hea entered.
She stopped just inside the entrance and removed her mantle, hanging it up against the wall at the end of a row of other dripping cloaks.
Then, shaking the rain from her hair and doing her best to tidy her bedraggled appearance, Hea made her way across the wide space.
Her path to the high seat took her past huge glowing hearths.
Long tables formed a square in the center of the hall, and Hea realized today must be a special occasion, for she breathed in the rich smell of venison stew—a dish the king only put on for visitors.
As she approached the high seat, she realized who the newcomer to the hall was.
A man sat at the table upon the wooden platform: his dark greying hair shaved into a tonsure, his handsome face composed. He wore a coarse brown habit, girded at the waist with a length of rope.
Cuthbert, Prior of Lindisfarena, cut an imposing figure. Two monks had accompanied the prior from the isle of Lindisfarena—the only inhabited island in the windswept archipelago that lay just off the coast.
Queen Irmenburgh was clearly pleased to have him here, a broad smile illuminating her pale face.
Bebbanburg’s new priest, Oswald, sat to the queen’s left. He had been in discussion with Cuthbert, but on seeing the prior’s gaze shift as Hea approached, Oswald broke off, his full mouth thinning.
A slender man with black hair and bright blue eyes, Oswald had been in Bebbanburg since Yule. Although the king largely ignored him, Irmenburgh had welcomed the young man’s company. These days, Hea rarely saw the queen without Oswald at her side.
At the head of the table, the king lounged back in his carven chair, his expression hooded.
Hea took a seat farther down the table. She met Cuthbert’s eye and smiled. “Good day, prior.”
There was warmth in the prior’s eyes as he greeted her. “Wes hāl, Heahburh. It’s been years since I saw you last. How is your mother?”
Hea ducked her head, her smile fading. “She died, around a year and a half ago, prior.”
His face grew solemn. “I’m sorry to hear that, child. She was a good woman.”
Hea nodded, her vision misting. Cuthbert’s kindness made her feel tearful.
“Prior Cuthbert,” Ecgfrith spoke up then. “As always, it is a pleasure to see you.”
Hea watched the king, noting the way his tone and expression belied his words. He was not pleased to see Cuthbert at all.
Ignoring the king’s coolness, Cuthbert turned to Ecgfrith. “News reached Lindisfarena that concerned me, milord.”
“Really?” Ecgfrith took a sip from his cup of wine. “What news was that?”
“I heard that you have gathered your fyrd, the biggest army you’ve ever called to your side.”
Ecgfrith nodded. “What of it?”
“So the rumors are true then? You are marching to war against the Picts?”
Ecgfrith held the prior’s gaze, his own narrowing. “It would seem so, but surely you didn't make a special trip here just to ask me this?”
Cuthbert shook his head. His bow-shaped mouth pursed. “I came to counsel against such an act, milord,” he replied quietly. “Few have gone against the northerners and won.”
A chill silence settled across the table.
The rumble of conversation died away upon the high seat.
Hea glanced around, noting the different expressions on the faces of those present.
Ecgfrith looked vexed, while his wife’s eyes gleamed.
She was staring at Cuthbert, nodding vigorously at his words. However, the king ignored her.
Farther down the table, Rinan was frowning, his meaty hands clenched upon the table before him. The other thegns present shifted nervously in their seats. All of them sensed a battle of another kind looming.
Ecgfrith toyed with his cup before his gaze settled upon Cuthbert once more. “I find your lack of faith in the Northumbrian army disturbing, prior.”
Cuthbert gave a pained look. “It’s not that, sire.
I just question the worth of marching north to defend lands that have never truly been ours.
The world north of here is savage. Even if you win a battle against Bridei mac Beli and his horde, you won’t be able to hold back the tide against the Picts forever.
The Romans tried and failed too, remember? ”
Hea looked down at the trencher of stew before her.
She agreed wholeheartedly with the prior.
Over the past few months, she had tried repeatedly to turn Ecgfrith away from this path, but he would not be moved.
For the king, it had become a matter of pride.
Bridei’s father, Beli, had submitted to Ecgfrith, accepted him as his over-lord—why could not Bridei?
Ecgfrith’s position was clear: the King of Northumbria ruled the north, and if Bridei could not accept that, Ecgfrith had no choice but to go to war against him.
“The prior speaks wisely, sire,” Oswald spoke up then, his voice low and sure. “War with the Picts should be a last resort.”
“So you think he should stand back and let those savages defy him?” Rinan challenged from farther down the table. The young priest flushed and opened his mouth to respond. However, the king forestalled him.
“Well said, Rinan.” Ecgfrith raised his cup to his lips and took a sip. “Too long has Bridei flouted my rule. Since winter, news has reached me of numerous raiding parties into my lands. He is deliberately baiting me, goading me.”
Cuthbert frowned. “And so, you shall give him what he wants?”
Ecgfrith shook his head. “I must defend our borders, as my father would have—as any man worthy of leading must. Would you have your king act as a coward? Would you have me offer up my arse for this Pict?”
Cuthbert tensed at the king’s crudeness. But when he replied his tone was calm. “I merely ask you to think carefully before marching north to war. I feel it is folly.”
The king lowered his cup to the table with a thump. “I have heard enough, prior. Let us speak of something else.”
Cuthbert nodded, although his face was pained. He shared a glance with Oswald—one of weary resignation. Looking on, Hea felt desperation tug at her. Prior Cuthbert was highly respected, yet the king would not take his counsel. What hope was there that war could be avoided?
The meal resumed, as did the rise and fall of conversation in the hall around them.
A woman, one of the thegn’s wives, circuited the table with a ewer of wine and refilled their cups.
She was heavily pregnant, her swollen belly thrusting before her as she moved from person to person.
The sight of her reminded Hea of her own fears, just a few months earlier.
She had been terrified that her one night with Bridei would leave her with child.
Yet when her moon’s flow came a few days later, her relief had been mixed with a little sadness.
Bridei was truly out of her life now—there was nothing of him left behind in Bebbanburg.
She glided like a wraith through the valley.
Steep, craggy hills studded with grey rock rose up either side, and the sky was a hard blue strip overhead. A carpet of bloodied and broken bodies covered the bottom of the ravine. The air reeked like a slaughter pen.
Hea’s gorge rose and she stopped, her gaze sweeping over the grisly scene. There were Angles among the dead, but the Picts far outnumbered them. Dark-haired men in their prime littered the valley floor, their bare limbs smeared with blue woad, eyes staring sightlessly up at the sky.
Shuddering, a warm wind in her face, she glanced up and saw a standard fluttering in the wind above the battlefield: a red and yellow flag.
Northumbria.
Hea’s eyes flickered open.
Ecgfrith was sitting opposite, watching her intently. The moment their gazes met, he spoke. “What did you see?”
Hea drew in a shaky breath. Ecgfrith was so demanding.
He always pounced on her too soon after she reemerged from a dream state.
He did not seem to understand how much it exhausted her.
Each time she ventured into the shadow world, it cost her.
Often, she would feel jaded and weary for days afterward.
Even now, she felt as if she could lie down and sleep for days.
However, the king had no patience for that. He wanted answers.
Hea inhaled, gathering her scattered thoughts and bringing herself back to the present.
After what she had just seen she felt torn—and for the first time ever considered lying to the king.
So much death … so much pain. It was such needless bloodshed—on both sides.
Yet after a few moments, she forced herself to tell him the truth.
“I saw it, milord. I saw the battle … and I saw Northumbria victorious.”
His expression grew taut. “How do you know we were the victors?”
“I saw this kingdom’s flag flying high above the battlefield. I saw the bodies of your enemy littering a bleak valley.”
The words sounded so matter-of-fact, so cold. She did not go into details of just how harrowing that sight had been.
Meanwhile, Ecgfrith was grinning. It was a savage expression. His hazel eyes gleamed. “This is good news indeed.”
Directly after the feast with Cuthbert and his monks, Ecgfrith had demanded she retrieve her seeing drum and meet him in his alcove. Hea sensed that despite his brave face, Cuthbert’s visit had sowed a seed of doubt. He wanted some assurance that he was taking the right path.
Unfortunately, Hea had just delivered him the news he had been hoping for.
War was looming, a great storm that not even God could hold back. The Northumbrian fyrd was mighty. Just the day before, she had ventured outside the walls of Bebbanburg and seen the huge encampment gathering at the base of the fort; it now spread out in a great, dark mantle across the meadows.
She could not imagine that Bridei had managed to draw such an immense army to him.
“And the location?” Ecgfrith leaned forward eagerly. “Did your vision give an indication of where we will meet?”
Hea closed her eyes, recalling once more the grim battlefield.
This time she paid more attention to her surroundings.
A few moments later, her eyes flickered open once more.
“It is the north,” she affirmed. “The landscape is mountainous and wild, the hillsides covered with heather and gorse. It was a steep valley or a gorge of some kind. The light is bright; it appears to be early summer. I’m sorry, but there are no landmarks I can give you.
It is desolate terrain, nowhere I recognize. ”
Ecgfrith nodded briskly. “Well done. You have given me much already. I will now send Cuthbert and his monks on their way.”
Panic surged within Hea. She could not let this end here. “Sire … you don’t have to do this.”
Ecgfrith rose to his feet, his expression dismissive. “Thank you, Hea—that’ll be all.”
“Milord, I—”
The king’s gaze narrowed. “Do you doubt yourself? Are you not sure what you saw?”
Hea climbed to her feet, her pulse accelerating. “I saw your victory,” she confirmed, “but—”
Ecgfrith turned away from her. “Then that’s all I need to know. You may go now.”