Wineleas wonsælig mon genimeð him wulfas to geferan.
A friendless, unfortunate man takes wolves as his companions, Maxims I, Exeter Book.
The first thing Ceolbert noticed upon exiting the church was the silence.
Where were the sounds of battle, the cries of the dying soldiers? Why could he not hear the crackling of the wood burning as the town was set afire? Where were the panicked citizens screaming in fear and scrambling away from laughing pagan warriors?
No, everything was quiet, too quiet, and the city of Repton was all but deserted. There was no sign of damage upon any building, no hungry flames set to devour the whole of town. The livestock remained caged in their pens, anxious but unharmed. As the soldier guided Ceolbert through the empty, muddied streets, the only soul they met was a stray dog wandering on his lonesome; the beast fled when Ceolbert tried to approach it, giving a little whine of fear.
The soldier remained grim and silent as he led Ceolbert to the longhouse. Here the eerie silence was finally broken; a group of burly warriors were prowling the grounds, speaking loudly in a language Ceolbert had never heard, their words often intersected with laughter. The Danes, he thought, heart hammering in his chest. He'd never laid eyes upon the infamous barbarians. Their beards were as long and wild as their thick manes of hair, and decorated with adornments made of gold and silver and even bone. Their skins bore complex patterns of ink; Ceolbert was reminded of the Pictish tribes to the north, who often painted their bodies with woad. Indeed, those invaders from across the sea seemed as fearsome as the descendants of the warriors who had so fiercely resisted against Rome's might.
Ceolbert shrank under their stares. These men acted with the insolence of conquerors, laughing raucously and leering at the Saxon soldiers guarding the entrance of the longhouse. One warrior was even whistling an off-key tune as he took a piss in view of all. Ceolbert thought of the refugees' dreadful stories, and of Leofrith's dire warnings. If these tales were true, then he was surrounded by rapists and killers.
And Father brought them here.
Why had Ceolwulf brought them here?
Ceolbert stepped inside. Only a few men stood in the vast space of the meadhall; more of his father's soldiers, looking warily at their Dane counterparts. Two of the pagan warriors were speaking with Ceolwulf, not far from the man's seat. Another Dane was lounging in the thegn's throne, idly carving something in the wood with the point of his knife.
That man snapped his gaze upward when he heard the sound of Ceolbert's footfalls. Ceolbert stopped in his tracks, pinned down under that stare. The Dane did not resemble any of his countrymen; he wore no beard, and half of his hair was shorn off, to better show the twisted scar running along the side of his head. His eyes were pale, very pale—and they scrutinized Ceolbert with an intensity that sent chills down his back. By now, he was old enough to understand what that stare meant.
The Dane was sizing him up—and finding Ceolbert utterly lacking.
The man snorted, leaning back into the throne. Ceolwulf frowned at the gesture, following the Dane's gaze; his face grew white as bone when he noticed Ceolbert simply standing there, hands folded behind his back.
"Father!" Ceolbert called, making his way toward the man.
In response, Ceolwulf reached to grab him by the shoulders. "No, no, no…" he whispered. "Lad, you shouldn't be—" He stopped abruptly, glancing behind him. The two men with whom he had been speaking stood still and silent, their arms crossed over their chests. The third Dane was smirking. Ceolwulf dropped his voice to add, almost harshly, "Why are you here?"
"The people at the church were starting to get worried," Ceolbert said, unsettled by the intensity of his father's reaction, "I needed to find you so—"
The two Danes exchanged some words. Ceolbert focused on the sounds, frowning a little; was it his imagination or could he almost… understand them? The pronunciation was off, but many of the words leaving their mouth seemed familiar. He had half-expected the Dane language to be unintelligible to his ears, much like the Briton or Irish tongues.
The man sitting on the throne stood up. His pale eyes gleamed. "Fæder? Close enough to Faðir, isn't it?" Ceolbert noticed with some trepidation that he'd spoken in the Saxon language. "So that's the precious fruit of your loins, eh, Ceolwulf?"
Ceolbert's father tightened his hold on his shoulders. It took Ceolwulf some time to release his son and turn to face the three men. "Yes," he said, hoarsely. "This is my son."
"Well met, lad," said one of the other Danes. He was tall and broad-shouldered, with a close-cropped beard and black hair shaved at the sides. He shared a certain resemblance with his companion, who had the same pale eyes, but a thicker mane of hair and a denser, greying beard.
"W-Well met," Ceolbert replied, floored by the absurdity of the situation. Why was he exchanging polite greetings with the men who had invaded and ravaged his kingdom? They'll burn our churches, sell our children as slaves, rape our women. How haunted Leofrith had looked while saying those words; it was evident he had seen those atrocities with his own eyes. Ceolbert thought of Repton's citizens, praying fervently for salvation as they hid in the church. His father's people had no idea that their own lord had brought the enemy inside their walls.
"Hm," said the scarred Dane, jumping out of his seat. He narrowed his eyes to inspect Ceolbert more closely. "I don't remember seeing the lad on the battlements with the other soldiers. Don't tell me you had your whelp squirrelled away somewhere while the rest of your men courted glorious death?"
"That's inconsequential, Ivarr," said the oldest of the three men, in the Saxon language. "The thegn has an erfingi—an heir. His succession is assured. That's all we need to know."
The one called Ivarr cocked his head to the side. He started to circle Ceolbert and his father. "An heir? What good is an heir if you keep him hidden with your women like he's still some snotty bed-wetter?"
The taller, broad-shouldered Dane said something. Ceolbert thought he recognized a word. Ungr. Was that the same as the Saxon geong—young?
"Beardless he might be," Ivarr countered, "he's older than I was when I first killed a man." He smirked, pale eyes fixing on Ceolbert once more. "Do you want to know how I did it, little lord? Do you want to know how I killed that man?"
"Lord, I think—" Ceolwulf interjected.
The oldest Dane snapped at the one named Ivarr. The scarred man simply shrugged, still smirking insolently. Another word jumped to Ceolbert's ears. Bróðir. Surely that meant the same as broþor, the Saxon word for brother? Were these men siblings, then?
I need to learn their language, Ceolbert thought. His father was obviously angling for a partnership with the Danes—but the people of Repton would be treated as slaves, not as allies, as long as their leaders remained ignorant of the tongue of the invaders. Knowledge was power—and one could not learn if they did not know how to speak.
Ceolbert gathered all of his courage to address the one named Ivarr. "You speak our language well. I'm surprised."
"Boy," Ivarr scoffed, "you were but a squirt in your mother's cunt, and I'd already been raiding these lands for a decade. Of course I speak your Saxon tongue."
Ceolbert opened and closed his mouth in quick succession. "You were a scout in your youth. They sent you ahead of a raid, so you'd gather information. You had to blend in. That's why you learned our language."
Ivarr laughed in response, the sudden, loud sound making Ceolbert flinch. The man said a few words in the Dane language to his brother, who simply shrugged. Ceolwulf continued to watch them warily; he seemed to have aged ten years in the span of only a few hours.
"At least he's not slow of wit," said the oldest of the three brothers.
"Yes, well, that would be detrimental to your schemes, wouldn't it?" Ivarr added with a smirk.
What does this even mean? Ceolbert wondered, feeling even colder at these words. "I…" he began, licking dry lips, "I don't understand… what it is that you—"
"Oh, so you wish to know what was the price of your father's honour?" Ivarr said, eyes gleaming once more. "Why a proud Christian lord whored himself to us godless barbarians? You see, my dear brother Halfdan offered him a nice slave collar in the shape of a crown. One that will pass to you when your old man croaks." Ivarr's smirk grew in wickedness. "You're a ǫðlingr now, boy. Or, as you Saxons say, an æþeling."
Ceolbert felt the blood leaving his cheeks. His head was swimming. "But… that's impossible, that's—" Burgred had two sons, and they would inherit their father's crown, Ceolbert was simply—Ceolbert was a thegn's son, he was nothing at all, he was meant to follow in his father's footsteps and live and die in obscurity, a footnote in the history books, Ceolbert could not be a prince, he was no one—
"And now thanks to your father, the whole of your kingdom will want your head on a pike, lad!" Ivarr added, with cheerfulness that bordered on the vicious. "Congratulations!"
Soon, a blanket of snow covered the lands. Fear and resentment held the city in a tight grip as the Danes wintered in Repton; the barbarian invaders were going through already scarce resources at an alarming rate, and many came to Ceolbert's father claiming that they would surely face starvation before the end of winter. Ceolwulf remained resolute: the Danes were here to stay. They had come to Mercia for land to till, not for plunder and glory. Peace with these new neighbours was the only viable option, the thegn argued. King Burgred, in his unwillingness to observe this truce, would only bring further doom upon Mercia.
The petitioners knew better than to challenge these assertions, but Ceolbert could hear them whispering behind his father's back. A disgrace to his line, they called him, a coward, a traitor. Ceolbert was shocked they would say such things in the open. No greater insult could be visited upon a Saxon man; in the olden days before they had found civilization, Ceolwulf could have silenced those tongues forever and called it justice.
When the snows began to thaw, the Danes prepared for war. To Ceolwulf's great dismay, more warriors flocked under the Ragnarssons' Raven banner, coming from a wide variety of allied clans. In spite of his father's misgivings, Ceolbert helped with these war preparations, in no small part because he proved the only Saxon adept enough with the Dane language to serve as an interpreter, having spent the last few moons learning the subtlety of their tongue and culture.
Some things were easier to understand: the word for warrior, drengr, closely resembled the Saxon drenġ, and the term for army, herr, was almost the same as the one employed by Ceolbert's people, here. In some cases, a literal translation could not be applied; insults and idioms, for one, brought no end of challenges to Ceolbert's burgeoning lingual skills.
Still, that was the only way he had found to keep tensions from rising between the residents of Repton and the occupying Dane forces. Already, many fights had erupted, including one that had resulted in the death of two Christian men and the maiming of a third in the city's port. Another misunderstanding of the sort, and Ceolbert's father could have a riot on his hands. The man could not risk it, especially before what was sure to be a long and harsh campaign.
A long and harsh campaign where they would fight against their own countrymen.
When the roads allowed it, Halfdan Ragnarsson returned north to Jorvik, handing over the war efforts to his younger brothers. Ubba proved to be an effective commander. Ivarr, however…
"Why do we need to stock up so much supplies?" the man drawled, throwing a knife at a beam, yanking it back, and flinging it again. He had—reluctantly—accompanied Ubba and Ceolbert to inspect the weapons and provisions gathered by Ceolwulf's men in a granary outside of town. There were now many deep notches in the old wood of the pillar. "It's a waste of time, and we all know it. We could have launched the assault long ago. I could be taking a piss in the royal chamber pot in Tamworth right now. Instead we're stuck here, limp cocks in hand."
"Many wars have been lost because of a broken supply line," Ceolbert said, quill tapping against his piece of parchment. "This will surely be a long campaign, longer than the forty days expected for a fyrd, and so—"
Ivarr smirked, twirling the knife in his hand. "We've been waging war longer than you've been drawing breath, boy. You know as well as I do how we've managed to get past this little hurdle before…"
Goosebumps prickled down Ceolbert's back at the implication. He swallowed nervously "But—"
"That's not the deal we had with the thegn, Ivarr," Ubba said. "The people won't back his claim if we tear through the countryside."
"You're as naïve as Ceolwulf's whelp if you think the men aren't eager for a little plundering," Ivarr replied. His knife sped through the air, wedging itself deep into the wooden pillar. Ceolbert tried not to imagine what the blade would have done to living flesh. "But what do I know? I'm not the great military strategist you are, brother. I'm just here to kill things."
Ceolbert frowned, considering his words. The Danes were formidable warriors, certainly, but they were raiders first and foremost. They would not last long against a well-supplied, highly-trained military force like a Roman legion. Perhaps if the kingdoms of England had been more unified in the fight against the northern invaders—if they had built a permanent army instead of relying upon a coalition of peasant fyrds, then—
—no, there was no use dwelling on these what-ifs. The Danes were here, Repton was under their control, and through his father's actions they had become Ceolbert's allies, in war and in peace.
(…perhaps one day he would be able to think these words without wanting to vomit from shame and fear.)
"Then spare me your opinion," Ubba scoffed, "if you can't think of anything other than wetting your blade."
"Ah, brother," Ivarr said with a sly grin, "what would our dear puppet say if he heard you spew such filth around the precious ears of his little ǫðlingr?"
Ceolbert's ears grew warm, and he pointedly looked away; he had not caught the innuendo, still unused to the subtleties of the Dane language. Ivarr's twisted grin—and insistent gaze—were not helping.
Ubba laughed. "You ugly lug, you think of two things, and two things only! Gods, let us be off! I tire of these preparations. Perhaps you're right: we've spent too much time without the fury of battle warming the blood in our veins." He motioned over to Ceolbert. "Come, lad. It is time to meet your father and finally get this war going."
The brothers had set up a war camp inside the city walls. Ceolbert was a frequent visitor of the area; the Ragnarssons often used his understanding of the Saxon and Dane languages to resolve petty conflicts between their warriors and his father's men. The atmosphere felt different than usual today. Where before there would have been laughter and song aplenty there was silence now, as the warriors—the drengir—prepared for battle. Ceolbert stole glances toward them, genuinely curious about the process. Did the Danes observe religious rituals before going to war? Perhaps they offered bloody sacrifices to their gods, as Ceolbert's ancestors once did. Odin and Tyr and Thor and Frigg… these names seemed so familiar to his ears, almost as if they came from a half-remembered memory. Ceolbert itched to ask the Danes more about their pantheon, to know if some connection existed between their gods and the false deities once worshipped by the barbarian tribes who had founded the Anglian and Saxon kingdoms.
They found Ceolwulf already standing beside a table covered in battle maps. The man looked weary as ever, deep bags encircling his eyes. Ceolbert nearly reached for him, almost as if he wanted to give him a reassuring pat on the shoulder—but he stopped the gesture halfway. His father shied from his touch these days, and all but shunned his company. Why? a small part of Ceolbert wished he could ask. Was he such a disappointment as an heir that the man simply preferred to ignore his existence?
Of course Ceolbert never voiced that worry out loud; only a little boy, cowed and unsure, would have done so. Ceolbert doubted the likes of Leofrith—of Ivarr Ragnarsson—would have ever let themselves be troubled by such childish concerns. As they had said, he was a man now, barely a few winters younger than the great Alexander of Macedon when he'd inherited his father's crown. Ceolbert would simply endure, and those fears would evaporate in time, leaving him as strong and unyielding as stone.
"Good day, Father," Ceolbert said, taking the man out of his contemplation. He handed over the rolled piece of parchment, but Ceolwulf made no move to take it. "I've made a list of everything the headsmen of the surrounding towns have gathered. The blacksmith finished hammering more spear heads this morning, and one of the Jarls brought enough spare shields for—"
"Gods, enough with the prattle!" exclaimed Ivarr. "I'm liable to go mad if I hear but one more mention of a barrel of brined herring! It's time to beat on the drums of war, and to call Odin's sword-maidens with the song of blood and steel!"
Ceolwulf glanced nervously at Ivarr, before taking the parchment from Ceolbert's hand. "Thank you, lad. Your efforts are appreciated."
"We've enough supplies to last for a moon's time," Ubba said, and Ivarr gave a visible roll of the eyes at these words. "All our efforts should be directed toward taking Tamworth. It would be better to cut a direct path to the capital and strike before Burgred strengthen his position."
"I agree," said Ceolwulf. "We cannot drag this out. The longer Burgred resists, the more my people will suffer. If we gain control of Tamworth before the end of spring, then farmers can return to their fields, and no one will have to starve this next winter."
"Good," said Ubba. "Ivarr and I will lead the troops. Stay here in Repton. You're a wanted man across Mercia. Burgred will pay a king's bounty for your head."
Ceolwulf licked dry lips, evading Ubba's keen gaze. Ceolbert remembered whispers in darkened corners of the meadhall, and he thought of people snickering behind their lord's back. Coward, the word still rung in his ears.
"Y-Yes," the man said, "that is… that is quite reasonable…"
"And, of course, we'll take your little fawn along," Ivarr said, quite conversionally.
Ceolwulf's face drained of blood, and he whipped his head to meet the man's mirror-pale eyes in a now-rare display of heightened emotion. Ceolbert's own heart thumped in his ears. It was as if he could not quite parse Ivarr's rather simple words. We'll take your little fawn along… That could not mean what Ceolbert thought it was supposed to mean, could it?
"Wh-What?" Ceolwulf sputtered. "Why would that be necessary?"
Ivarr clapped Ceolbert's back, and the latter flinched at the sudden, unexpected touch. "Isn't he your heir? In our culture, no drengr worth his salt would pledge their axe to an unblooded princeling. I'm doing him a favour, that's all."
A hostage. Of course that was what they meant to make out of Ceolbert. It was a sound strategy. If their roles had been reversed, it would have been expected of Ceolwulf to take a hostage of his own to ensure cooperation from the Danes.
A hostage… Ceolbert forced himself to stand straight-backed, willing his face into an impassive mask. In contrast, his father could not stop shaking; it was surprising that he would dare show such weakness in front of their Dane overlords. This act would have shamed their proud ancestors. The Anglian tribes who had conquered Mercia from the Britons had valued bravery most of all, and the annals were filled with the names of warrior-kings such as Penda and Offa. Of course, the first had also butchered the saintly King Oswald of Northumbria in a sacrifice to old Woden, while the second had cut a bloody path through England in an attempt to unify all of its kingdoms. These models of Saxon virility were more akin to the Ragnarssons and their ilk, Ceolbert thought. No wonder so many thought the Danes a resurgence of England's own pagan past…
"You keep him here," Ivarr continued, "with your women and your wailing urchins, and all you'll make of the boy is an argr—"
"Ivarr, that's enough," Ubba snapped.
Argr. Another word that Ceolbert did not know. But from Ivarr's tone—and grin—it was easy to understand what it meant. Ceolbert's ears burned again, from shame, but also anger.
Ivarr's gaze was fixed on him with unsettling intensity. The man was waiting intently for his reaction. Would Ceolbert measure up? Or would he fail miserably instead? So many men had scrutinized Ceolbert in the same manner. Through Ivarr's gaze, Ceolbert could almost feel the eyes of Penda, of Offa, of all the savage, godless men who had begotten his line. What are you? he could almost hear their sneering words. Are you a man? Or a lesser being?
Ceolwulf was looking at him as well. Two paths seemed to open before Ceolbert, one where men like Ivarr thrived, and bravery was impossible to tell apart from cruelty; and another where Ceolbert's father stood, safe in the trappings of a civilization made bright by the light of Christ's teachings.
Two paths—one leading to the past, and one steering Ceolbert toward what he once thought was the future. It made no sense to consider the first. And yet…
And yet safety seemed half a lie in a world where living ghosts could emerge from the mists of history to throw down your walls and slaughter your people.
Ceolbert met back these moon-pale eyes without flinching—but he hid his hands behind his back. He did not want Ivarr to know that they were shaking. Ivarr seemed pleased, almost obscenely so.
Are you the wolf? that grin seemed to say. Or its prey?
"I will ride to war beside you, lord," Ceolbert said, "if only to bring this bloodshed to an end and prove myself worthy of the title you've bestowed me."
At this declaration, his father let out a long, shuddering sigh. Ceolbert did not know—could not know—but with those words the weave of the wyrd wound tightly around him, cruel fate ensnaring him surely as a hunter's net would have done.
