The Serpent Sword by Matthew Harffy

Author:Matthew Harffy [Harffy, Matthew]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781784978822
Publisher: Head of Zeus
Published: 2016-04-26T16:00:00+00:00

13

The great hall was almost as noisy in the early morning as it had been the night before.

Beobrand winced as one of the women cleaning the hall broke into song. Her voice was not pleasing to the ear and several groans came from different parts of the hall where others had slept following the feasting.

“Well, if you don’t like my singing, be off with you,” shrieked the woman, in a voice that would easily have cut through the clamour on a battlefield. There were more groans, followed by movement, as men shook themselves awake and staggered to get away from the cacophonous crone. She laughed at their discomfiture.

“You should have thought about this morning last night.” She continued to mutter to herself about men and their lack of thought for the consequences of their actions. From time to time she let out another screeching line of song in counterpoint to her murmuring. All the while she swept, cleaned, moved furniture and told the younger women what to do.

“By all the angels in heaven, what unearthly creature from the underworld is abroad in this hall?” Leofwine sat up, all bleary eyes and dishevelled hair. His voice was hoarse from the strenuous singing he’d done to entertain all those present at the feast. The singing had paid off. Eanfrith had seen that Leofwine had talent and had asked him if he would join his retinue as the royal scop. The king was conscious that he had returned from exile after many years and that he needed all the help he could get to bolster his position. Having a singer and storyteller at one’s disposal was a great opportunity. Eanfrith of Bernicia’s exploits would be told around the hearths in the great hall and in the other royal villas as the king and his retinue travelled throughout the kingdom. All his subjects would hear of his prowess in battle and others would pick up the tales, retelling them in all corners of Bernicia and beyond.

Leofwine was overjoyed. They had only arrived in Gefrin the previous day and he had already found patronage from the king himself. His happiness had led him to a heightened amount of exuberance, which only made the king more pleased in his choice of bard. Leofwine had celebrated with abandon, but now, as the old slave woman cleaning the hall indicated, he was regretting his excesses.

He got up shakily and made his way outside.

Beobrand smiled to himself at the sight of Leofwine stumbling from the hall. He was pleased for his friend’s success, but he was not jubilant about his own prospects in the court of this new king of Bernicia. He had naively expected Eanfrith to simply accept him into his warband, as if carrying a sword at his side was proof enough of his abilities. He thought how ridiculous it was that only a few months before he had been a farm boy and now he imagined it was his right to enter the service of a king as a warrior.

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