Brothers of the Sword by Peter Gibbons

Author:Peter Gibbons [Gibbons, Peter]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Boldwood Books

14

Offa and the fyrd of Essex awaited Beornoth at the ancient moot mound outside of the town of Celmersford. It was a hill topped by a white speckled standing stone as tall as a man. On the ride north, Aelfwine told Beornoth that the place had been a rallying point for armies going back to the days before the Rome folk came to the lands of the Britons. The mound itself was said to house the barrow of an old king, buried with slaves and treasure and protected by a wyrd woven through with ancient sorcery. Beornoth and his hundred men reached the mound to find Offa, Godric and the rest of Byrhtnoth’s hearth troop there with more men than Beornoth could count. Makeshift camps littered the fields around the standing stone, with cloaks held up with branches, more elaborate tents of cloth, and men sleeping out in the warm summer air.

‘Must be close to a thousand men,’ said Leofsunu of Sturmer, scratching at his balding head in wonder.

‘Enough to stand and fight, enough for a battle,’ said Wulfhere.

Aelfwine and Thered formed the men into a long column and led them to an empty field beyond the mound. It was a pasture filled with too many sour-faced sheep and cows huddling together. The massing army of Essex had driven the animals off their grazing pastures and into one small field full of yellow-flowered weeds. Beornoth ordered Wulfhere, Thered and Leofsunu to set up somewhere for the men to sleep and to find some food whilst he went with Aelfwine to find Offa. The two thegns left their mounts with Cwicca at the cow field and picked their way through the massed gathering of the farmers and villagers of Essex. Men drank ale and played at knucklebones. They baked bread in the ashes of their campfires and stirred thin broths in small cauldrons or upturned helmets.

They found Offa at the base of the standing stone. The old thegn stood with his brawny arms folded across his chest, shouting at a group of ruddy-faced men in jerkins. Offa spotted Beornoth and Aelfwine through the press of men and waved a greeting. Beornoth was a head taller than any of the fyrd men in the group, and they parted to let him through, hundreds of eyes staring up at him. Beornoth’s byrnie and cloak brushed against the soft wool of their tunics as he wove his way between them; many bowed their heads to the warrior and thegn and others just stared with mouths agape.

‘Trouble?’ said Beornoth.

‘Pain in the bloody arse,’ said Offa. The fyrd men slipped away from the gathering now that Aelfwine and Beornoth had arrived to support Offa. Their mail and weapons marked them out as leaders and men to be feared. ‘Not enough food, nowhere for men to sleep, nowhere safe to shit, nothing to make tents from. A bloody mess.’

‘You have done well to gather so many, Offa. It’s always this way. That's why the ealdorman waited to call out the fyrd.

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