Saint Cuthbert Trilogy

Chapter 2-1

Uphill and down dale, we tramped and I could see why Berhtred had such muscular thighs—so his legs devoured the miles. Woe betide us if we slackened the pace, it meant a stinging cuff around the ear that set it ringing and smarting. Once was more than enough to keep a man on his toes. So, we arrived in Hexham in good time. The odours of human occupation were suffocated by a tannery on the outskirts of town. The others pulled faces and wrinkled their noses, but in my trade, I was used to the stench of those places.

“By Thunor, what is that foulness?” Edwy grimaced.

isI laughed and showed off my knowledge,

“The hides have become pelts. Look they’re tipping them into vats of dog dung and chicken droppings.” I chose my words carefully, avoiding vulgarity, to lend them greater weight.

“Why would they do that?” my friend asked.

“To open the pores in the leather.”

“It stinks to the sky!” Sibbald grumbled.

“I’ll never wear leather again,” Edwy said.

“In the end, after steeping and oiling, it comes out clean enough.”

“What do they oil it with, Aella?”

I frowned, it depended on supply,

“Well, either with fish oil or animals’ brains. It softens the leather and makes it supple.”

“In the name of Woden,” Sibbald said, “who in his right mind would be a tanner by trade?”

I laughed, and nudged him, “No tanners, and there’d be no leather; no leather, and there’re no boots, clothing, shields, and armour, tents, bottles and buckets, just to name a few things.”

“I suppose you’re right. But the townsfolk did right to set them beyond the houses and downwind at that.”

“You can’t gainsay that!” Edwy chirruped.

Chuckling, we marched on into the town, where the smells were still close to overpowering as the filth had accumulated in the streets along with scavenging crows, kites and rats flapping or scurrying in a constant whirl of movement.

Ten summers past, monks had founded an abbey near the marketplace and we caught sight of an agitated group of brown-clothed brethren around a cart with a broken wheel. The burden was well covered, but the load must have been heavy and the solid wheel had ceded at its joints.

I am practical and, feeling I could help, called a halt.

“Lord Berhtred, let us aid these poor fellows!”

“Ay, help them,” he said gruffly.

I gave orders and our lads hoisted the cart so that the wheel no longer touched the road surface. I picked up a rock and knocked out the oak peg passing through the axle.

Berhtred who had been looking on, leapt forward to lend a hand to lay the wheel on the ground. Without hammer and nails, nothing could be done to repair it.

“Hammer and nails!” I cried.

The fellows holding up the cart were beginning to suffer and two of the monks joined to help keep it suspended. Two minutes later, a wiry man with filthy long hair came running, a hammer in his hand. He pulled nails out of his tunic and handed them to me, too breathless to speak. A few well-placed nails strengthened the broken joints and in moments, Berhtred and I had the wheel back on its axle. I whacked the oak peg back into place and straightened up with a smile, calling,

“Set it down, lads, gently does it!”

With a groan, the cart settled under its load.

“It’ll see you home, brothers, until you can get a wheelwright to change it.”

“We have no money for your services, friend.”

“And I would take none,” I smiled.

He untied a string from around his waist, bearing a wooden cross.

“Then, take this. Our God will keep you safe.”

I tried to protest that I wasn’t a Christian, but he silenced me.

“Keep it with you at all times and God will protect you.”

I didn’t know about that, but I did know about amulets and their magical power. This was surely, the same thing, so I stifled my protests, turning them into thanks and wore my new charm proudly over my tunic. I watched their ox heave away the creaking cart with satisfaction and a hefty clap on the back set me arching again.

did“Well done, Aella, you’re a useful fellow to have around!”

I think that was the only praise I’d had so far from grumpy Berhtred, so it meant a lot to me. But that was nothing compared with what was to come inside the blade grinder’s workshop. There, Berhtred spotted a likely-looking youth and signalled Edwy to seize him. This he did, but at the same time, the grinder straightened from over his work and began to shout and curse.

“You leave him be, you devil’s spawn! Do you hear? That’s my boy you’ve got there!”

“Hark!” cried Berhtred, “King’s orders, he’s to come to war and you’ll obey your ruler!”

The man shook his fist and a vein stood out on his neck,

“The boy’s only ten and five winters—unhand him, I say!”

Except me, everyone was staring at the grinder’s antics. I’d noticed a greybeard in the darkened corner of the workshop behind a bench littered with tools and weapons. At least three-score summers to his wiry frame, the old man seized a knife and hurled it straight for Berhtred.

“Look out!” I yelled and raised my shield to protect our leader. With a thud, the knife embedded in the stout linden wood. I did not doubt that it would have found its target without my timely intervention. Berhtred grasped the hilt of the knife and with his massive strength freed it from deep in the shield. He examined the skilfully balanced blade, designed to fly with accuracy.

“Mmm, a handy weapon,” he feigned concentration on the knife, but in one cat-like movement before any of us realised, it was slicing through the air back whence it came. Another thud, and the blade buried to the hilt in the old man’s chest. His eyes widened, his mouth gurgled and a crimson flow issued from his lips as he sank to the floor.

“You’ve killed my grandsire!” The youth howled and struggled in Eswy’s arms. A ferocious blow to the ear from Berhtred stilled him and he wailed in pain and despair.

“You!” Berhtred pointed at the grinder. “I have changed my mind. You’ll come with us too and this brat will be your responsibility. One false move and I’ll slay him rather than look at him, understood?”

The man nodded mutely and came to embrace his weeping son. I stepped over to the dead man and pulling the knife from his chest, wiped it on his tunic and stuck it in my belt. It was too valuable a weapon to waste. Besides, I felt that I’d earned this prize. I would practise and become as proficient as Berhtred.

Berhtred, who was now beaming at me.

“Aella, I have you to thank for two reasons: first, you saved my skin; second, you taught these ragamuffins here a lesson in how we cover each other’s backs. Got that, you wastrels? If it hadn’t been for Aella’s alertness, it would’ve been me stretched out on yon floor!”

meI felt ten feet tall and like a fully-fledged warrior—even if that was overdoing it a little. But I had initiated my shield and that was more than Edwy could boast.

We scoured the town, for Berhtred was determined to procure stronger bodies for our warband than the grinder and his son provided. He made no move until he found a giant as tall as himself. He pointed him out and said, “Aella, fetch him to me!”

My heart sank. This brute was twice my size but I refused to let my comrades sense my fear for all that my knees had turned to gelatine. I strode up to him, tapped his chest with a finger and looked him in the eye. That was even worse for me, his furious grey eyes turned to flint and his broad flat-nosed face came close to mine.

“What!” he bellowed, no more than an inch from my nose.

Luckily, my companions could see me but couldn’t hear my squeaky voice, feeble with terror.

“You’d better come with me, friend,” I croaked, “see that giant over there? Well, he wants you and if you don’t come, he’ll strike your head off.”

Was that consternation on his face? I dearly hoped so. I watched the grey eyes swivel and fix Berhtred. He stared for a long moment, then turned back to me.

“Plucky little fellow, aren’t you?” He growled, slapped me on the back, something like a buffet from Berhtred, “Let’s go see what he wants, then.”

He linked arm under mine, just like a close companion, my feet hardly touching the ground, and we made straight for our leader.

“I brought him, Lord,” I said, against all evidence to the contrary—if anyone had done the bringing, it was the giant.

They were all impressed, nonetheless, and it turned out that the man had been a former warrior in the Mercian War and was glad of a chance to fight again. Berhtred was delighted to have netted himself such a specimen.

“In the shield-wall, he’ll be worth any two of you!” he trumpeted, but he beamed at me as he said it.

By mid-afternoon, we had brought our numbers to completion so that a group of two-dozen men left Hexham on the trail back to the forest. Our task had been made easier by the inclusion of three very strong men, who, once enrolled, took upon themselves the mantle of enforcers and guardians so that no thought of fleeing ever entered the head of any recruit. In any case, refusal to do the king’s bidding was tantamount to treason and would have led to death or outlawry.

Among the foot-weary, I returned to camp with my heart singing. I had acquitted myself well and Berhtred, our leader, made his approval clear. Maybe, I thought, life away from the village wasn’t so bad, after all. With our number complete, there would be no further forays other than to replenish the food store, rapidly diminishing with one hundred and sixty stomachs to satisfy.

Our mornings were filled with arms training—often we were lined up in two opposing shield-walls to experience the expenditure of strength required to hold the might of the enemy at bay. A few weeks of this, and I noticed that not just my arm muscles were bulging, but also those of Edwy. In this, he had a head start over me, from his years of humping sacks of grain and flour.

myI chose to spend my afternoons some distance from my comrades where I could practise throwing my deadly knife. I used a kerchief snagged on a tree as a target and after a few sessions, I was able to rip it in half to make a smaller target. I numbered so many hits that the cloth was shredded and not much use so that I had to beg a rag from one of our comrades. This I cut into small squares and became so skilful at throwing the knife that I took it as an affront if I missed—this happened rarely, and only if I’d driven myself too hard.

Imagine my dismay when I realised I was being spied upon. At first, I wasn’t sure, noting branches twitching, which might simply, in my mind, have been caused by a large bird. But one day, when I heard a cough suppressed and spotted a flash of yellow cloth as I approached, followed by a footfall running away, and I knew it wasn’t my imagination.