Dark Under the Cover of Night

  “I know you must think me a stupid woman,” Raedwyn said finally. “My father did overprotect me and my mother taught me to have an independent spirit. I am unused to being told what to do and I’m afraid it’s made me foolhardy.”

  Caelin turned to face her and a pained expression passed across his features before he shook his head.

  “We both know you’re not stupid Raedwyn,” he said softly. “I only said that in anger. You’re foolhardy perhaps, but certainly not stupid.”

  He sighed then and ran a hand over his face. Raedwyn could feel the tension emanating from him. “You’re a survivor Raedwyn. Your father would be proud. I’m just sorry you had to be involved in this bloody feud.”

  Caelin got abruptly to his feet and stretched, shattering the fragile connection between them.

  “Come Raedwyn, the day wanes and we still have a distance to travel.” He reached down and grasped her hand, pulling her up next to him. The feel of Caelin’s hand in hers made Raedwyn’s stomach arch upwards as if she had just jumped off a cliff. She let go of him, her palm still tingling from his touch and strode off ahead.

  “Raedwyn!” Caelin called after her.

  Composing herself, Raedwyn turned coolly back towards him.

  “What?”

  “You’re going the wrong way.”

  Caelin smiled then, his aquiline features softening as he did so. He pointed to the right of where Raedwyn stood. “We are traveling in that direction.”

  ***

  The weather worsened as the day progressed. The drizzle increased to a steady, drumming rain. It had been a wet summer, and with each hour that passed Raedwyn cursed the rotten weather that plagued her homeland. Her cloak and skirts were sodden, dragging her down as she walked. Finally, she was so wet it did not matter if she got any more soaked, so she pushed back her hood and let the rain sluice down over her face and hair. She turned her face up to it and found the steady tattoo of raindrops on her skin oddly relaxing. Raedwyn glanced over her shoulder at Caelin and saw he too had pushed his hood back. The rain had plastered his long dark hair against his skull. He blinked water out of his eyes and gave her a half-smile.

  “Enjoying yourself?”

  Raedwyn threw Caelin a sour look and turned her back on him. She had never felt so uncomfortable. She was completely soaked. The coarse material chafed against her skin and her boots squelched with each step.

  The light began to fade in late afternoon, earlier than usual owing to the bad weather, and Raedwyn wondered how much farther they would have to travel before Ceolwulf’s camp hove into sight. Then, so suddenly that it made Raedwyn squint and shield her eyes against the glare, the rain stopped and shafts of sunlight pierced through the cloud, warming her face. Raedwyn realized then that it was not as late in the day as she had supposed. The bad weather had cast a shadow over the world. The surrounding trees sparkled in the late afternoon sun and steam rose off the ground, creating an ethereal mist that curled like witch’s hair through the trees.

  Moments later, the trees fell back and Raedwyn walked out onto the edge of wide, flat, open land. Clumps of brambles and black thorn punctuated the featureless heath that eventually stretched to a flat horizon.

  Raedwyn turned to Caelin with a frown.

  “Where are we?”

  Caelin stopped beside her and looked around, making sure they were alone.

  “The woodland ends here. To the north stretches open country. Uffid Heath is directly north-west. Your father should be making camp at the far northern edge of the Heath as we speak.”

  Raedwyn stared at him, her frown deepening. “Why have you brought me here?”

  Caelin took a deep breath before answering. “You are free to go Raedwyn. You must hurry for my father’s men will still be searching this area for you.”

  “You’re letting me go?” Raedwyn breathed, scarcely believing him. “But why?”

  Caelin smiled. It was an expression tinged with many emotions, all of them bittersweet.

  “I have tried to fight against it Raedwyn,” he said, his smile slipping slightly, “but in the end you got the best of me. I cannot take you back to my father for I know it would be signing your death warrant to do so, and I cannot have your death on my conscience.”

  Raedwyn stared at him, stunned, before speaking.

  “Your father will kill you for setting me free.”

  “Only if he knows I found you,” Caelin replied, impatience creeping into his voice. “If I come back empty handed he will be none the wiser. Now go Raedwyn, before I change my mind. Travel swiftly towards the horizon.”

  He pointed towards to the north-west. “It will be nightfall in a couple of hours. Hopefully you should reach your father before then.”

  Raedwyn continued to watch Caelin before she stepped forward and gently kissed him on the lips. Her mouth tingled as she pulled away from him.

  “Thank you Caelin,” she said softly.

  He nodded curtly and backed away from her, his gaze shuttered. “Go!”

  Raedwyn clumsily pulled her sodden hood up over her head while Caelin moved back inside the trees; a shadowy, cloaked figure watching her.

  Raedwyn turned, not daring to look back at him. She wrapped her cloak around her and struck out northeast across the heath.

  Under the sheltering boughs of the forest, Caelin watched until Raedwyn’s cloaked form was nothing but a speck in the distance. When Raedwyn had vanished from sight, Caelin tore his gaze away from the far horizon and pulled up his hood. With one last glance at the now empty heathland stretching behind him, Caelin disappeared into the trees.

  ***

  It was almost dark when Raedwyn spotted the tents in the distance. Her legs ached and her feet dragged heavily, but she managed to break into a run. Two warriors guarding the far edge of the encampment saw her approaching and strode out to meet her, weapons at the ready. As she drew closer, Raedwyn pushed back her hood and they gasped in recognition.

  “Raedwyn!”

  A surge of relief flooded over Raedwyn – Ceolwulf could no longer reach her. She still could not believe that Caelin had released her. Raedwyn gave the guards an exhausted smile and let them lead her towards the encampment.

  “Raedwyn!” Raedwald, King of the East Angles, enfolded his daughter in a bear hug that nearly suffocated her. Raedwyn finally extricated herself from his embrace and saw tears brimming in her father’s eyes. Watching him, Raedwyn found she could not speak for a moment, and when she did, her own eyes overflowed with tears as she hugged her father again, burying her face in his chest.

  “Yes father, I escaped them.”

  “Did they hurt you?” Raedwald’s voice hardened. “Did any of Ceolwulf’s thugs defile you, Raedwyn?”

  Shocked by the brutality of the question, Raedwyn drew back and met Raedwald’s suddenly cold, hard gaze without flinching. “No father.”

  Naked relief flooded across the king’s face.

  “How did you manage to escape?” Eorpwald, his face shining, stepped forward to greet his sister. Raedwyn awkwardly hugged her older brother, realizing as she did so that she had not embraced Eorpwald since they were children. Eorpwald seemed genuinely pleased to see her and Raedwyn realized with a pang that she had always been overly hard on him. Since childhood, she had made unfavorable comparisons between her two brothers, and that had been unfair to Eorpwald.

  Raedwyn took a deep breath before answering her brother. Then she told them of her capture, of Cynric’s death, of Ceolwulf’s settlement deep within the woodland, and of her escape from Ceolwulf’s hall. The only elements of the story she left out were Caelin, and her wandering off, lost, in the wrong direction. In her story she made it appear that she had lost her way before finding it again, slipped past those tracking her and made her way to where her father camped.

  She did not mention Caelin once.

  Raedwald’s chest puffed out in pride at the conclusion of her tale.

  “You are indeed of Wuffinga
descent, dear Raedwyn.” He grinned at her, the lines of care and grief on his face smoothing out a little. Since her abduction, he had aged a decade in just a handful of days. His once blond hair was now nearly completely gray and there were deep grooves either side of his nose and pouches under his eyes. “You have made your father a proud man this day.”

  A fire pit roared inside her father’s tent and Raedwyn seated herself next to it. She removed her wet cloak and hung it up to dry. Her gown was sodden, dirty, and ripped about the hem from trudging through brambles and spiky undergrowth. However, she had no other clothing to change into. She took off her boots and put them to dry by the fire. Plump wood pigeons were roasting on a spit and Raedwyn slowly felt days of accumulated tension fade from her as she sat quietly sipping a clay mug of mead and listening to her father, brother, uncle Eni and cousins Annan, Aethelhere and Aethelwold.

  They spoke of the upcoming battle, of tactics and of Ceolwulf’s most likely method of attack. Raedwyn realized, listening to the Wuffinga men, that Ceolwulf and his rabble would be hard pushed to defeat her father and his fyrd. Raedwyn focused on her father as he concluded their discussion.

  “I want Raedwyn well away from here long before the battle begins,” Raedwald instructed the others. “Let her rest a little here and then I want an escort of warriors to take her back to Rendlaesham.”

  “What of the reinforcements?” Annan spoke up. “Should they still await your orders?”

  “Now that there is no risk to Raedwyn, send word they are to join us at the rear just after sunrise,” Raedwald ordered.

  “You have more warriors waiting father?” Raedwyn asked, remembering Ceolwulf’s demand that Raedwald bring two-hundred spears and no more, otherwise her life would be forfeit.

  “Ceolwulf should know better than to dictate to me,” Raedwald replied, his blue eyes like two chips of ice. “Another two hundred spears await two leagues north of here. They have my order to attack after the battle is underway.”

  Raedwyn was secretly aghast at this news. Her father had risked her life in defying Ceolwulf. He had taken a dangerous gamble, for Ceolwulf would have scouts out making sure Raedwald was sticking to the terms they had agreed upon. Raedwyn’s escape would have distracted them but, had she not created a diversion, it was likely they would have discovered the king’s deceit.

  Did Raedwald not realize that Ceolwulf would have then slit her throat without compunction? Raedwyn looked upon her own father with new eyes, aware for the first time of what a formidable opponent he was. Ceolwulf was a man not easily crossed but then neither was Raedwald. As all those bred to rule, he would crush those who opposed him without hesitation or remorse. Raedwald was older now and tired of war but life’s hardships had not worn him down as Ceolwulf supposed. Raedwald had an inner core of iron and Ceolwulf had vastly underestimated his ruthlessness.

  If the men had noticed Raedwyn’s discomfort, they showed no sign, so absorbed were they in talk of tomorrow’s battle. Raedwyn took a sip of mead and forced it down her now constricted throat.

  Two hundred outlaws would not withstand Raedwald’s fyrd of double that. Four hundred men was only a small part of the fyrd of warriors Raedwald could have called to fight for him. Raedwald’s kingdom was now vast and, knowing this, Ceolwulf had been strict with his terms. So sure was he of Raedwald’s word, he would not suspect a trick.

  Raedwyn was not sorry for Ceolwulf. He was an arrogant, callous brute who had selfishly involved others in his blood feud. However, Caelin – quiet, enigmatic Caelin with dark eyes and the patrician features of a Roman centurion – whose whole life had been dedicated to his father’s grudge, would die on Uffid Heath the following morning.

  When the wood pigeons were roasted, Eni plucked them from the spit and distributed them with chunks of bread, and boiled wild onions. Raedwyn was faint from hunger but her thoughts had given her a nervous stomach.

  She forced herself to eat the meal placed before her. It was delicious food but it felt dry and tasteless in Raedwyn’s mouth.

  ***

  Raedwyn was in a deep, exhausted sleep when Eorpwald gently shook her awake. Raedwyn groaned and swiped at him before turning over and burying herself under a nest of furs.

  Eorpwald smiled and pulled back the furs.

  “Some things never change dear sister. Come Raedwyn, it’s but a short while before dawn. You must leave now.”

  Raedwyn sat up and blinked like a sleepy, angry owl.

  “It’s almost dawn already?”

  Moving stiffly, Raedwyn pulled on her still damp boots and cloak and followed Eorpwald out of the tent. The rain of the day before had completely cleared, leaving a wide, star dusted sky above. The ground was still spongy from the rain, and the damp, chill air penetrated through Raedwyn’s clothing. She shivered and squelched across to where her father stood waiting with her horse. An escort of warriors was mounted nearby, heavily armored and armed.

  Raedwyn looked into her father’s face, shadowed in the darkness and felt a sudden jolt of fear for him and Eorpwald.

  “May Woden protect you tomorrow father.” She threw herself into Raedwald’s arms and hugged him tightly.

  “Wyrd will dictate who lives and dies when the sun rises,” Raedwald replied bluntly, “although it’s not us that’ll need Woden’s protection. Ceolwulf abducted my daughter and murdered my son-in-law. May it be Woden’s ravens that peck out that traitor’s eyes as he lies dead on the field of battle!”

  Raedwyn did not answer her father. Raedwald’s view of the world, like most Anglo-Saxon warriors, was fatalistic. Death was a way of life. In a world dominated by blood feuds and wars, death in battle was the best end a man could hope for. Even Woden, father of all gods, could not protect a man from wyrd – fate. Raedwald lived by the motto: wyrd bið ful ãræd – fate is all.

  Raedwyn gave Eorpwald a hurried hug. Never a garrulous man at most times, Eorpwald was silent and reflective as he embraced his sister. Despite her worry for the fate of her father and brother, Raedwyn was eager to get away from the encampment.

  War was indeed a man’s domain. Raedwyn did not like to see the hardness in her father’s demeanor. Battle brought out an entirely different side in Raedwald, and it was a side that she feared. She preferred the laughing, kind man; a loving husband and father, adored by all who knew him, to this cold, fatalistic warrior, who was now as bent on retribution as Ceolwulf.

  The dun mare waited patiently as Eorpwald cupped his hands under Raedwyn’s foot and boosted her up into the saddle. Impulsively, Raedwyn reached down and squeezed her brother’s hand before he stepped away. Eorpwald gave a quick, hard squeeze back and a moment of silent understanding passed between them. Then Eorpwald moved back to stand next to his father. Eni, Annan, Aethelhere and Aethelwold looked on from behind the king, and Raedwyn waved good-bye to them before her escort closed in on her. A ring of shields now surrounded Raedwyn, obscuring her from view.

  The knot of riders trotted out of the encampment and joined the darkness. Raedwyn’s escort was silent and watchful. From under heavy helms, the warriors’ eyes scanned the shadowed heath for any sign of ambush.

  Raedwyn settled deep into the saddle as the mare broke into a canter. As she rode, Raedwyn looked east where the first blush of dawn stained the sky, and tried not to think of what she had left behind.

  Chapter Seven

 

  Ceolwulf’s army rode out onto Uffid Heath a short while before dawn broke across the land. Under the veil of darkness, horses emerged from the edge of the woodland and moved across the damp heath to where the battle would take place. The horses were impatient, sensing their riders’ tension. They snorted and stamped their feet; their bits jangling and nostrils flaring. Their hooves sunk into the soft earth, making soft sucking noises as they walked.

  Caelin rode out front, next to his father. He could still feel Ceolwulf’s fury, radiating out from him like heat from a roaring fire. The girl had eluded them. Ceolwulf’s only ba
rgaining tool had gone.

  Morale had dropped among the men; without Raedwyn they knew Raedwald would not fight fair. If the girl had reached him already, Raedwald would have sent for reinforcements. If the king was not greeted by his daughter the following morning he would suspect foul play and his rage would be blistering. Either way, Ceolwulf’s tightly woven plan was unraveling rapidly.

  Caelin would have wagered that Raedwyn had reached her father’s encampment safely, but he would not share this information with Ceolwulf. When Caelin and the other trackers had returned empty-handed after two days searching in the woods, Ceolwulf had railed at their incompetence. How could a cosseted young woman with no weapons, provisions or survival skills, manage to elude some of the most skilled huntsmen in Britannia? Ceolwulf had been particularly vicious with his son who was an expert tracker and yet had still failed him.

  Glancing across at his father’s profile, as hard as granite in his iron helm, Caelin remembered the vicious rebuke his father had given him upon his return. He had not risen to his father’s anger, despite the provocation. He had not wanted the last words between them to be angry before battle. He had stood silently before his father while Ceolwulf raged. No one dared try to calm him. Finally, Ceolwulf’s anger had spent itself, but instead of dissolving, the icy rage had burned inwards. This morning, Ceolwulf had barked orders at his men and refused to talk with any of them of the looming battle. He had not spoken a word to Caelin since losing his temper with him.

  A pale morning mist snaked across the damp ground as the sun rose to their right. Shafts of light peeked over the eastern horizon and suddenly the sky was streaked with amber, orange and gold against the washed out blue of the coming day. Caelin watched the sunrise, knowing it was likely to be his last. The knowledge made this spectacular dawn all the more poignant. Caelin thought of Raedwyn briefly then. She had indeed bewitched him for he could hardly believe that he had let her go free. He had nothing in return, besides a parting kiss – but knowing his father as he did, Caelin was sure Raedwyn would not have survived Ceolwulf’s vengeance. She was too beautiful, too proud and too vibrantly alive to die at the whim of a man driven mad by a world he could not control.