The Deepening Night (The Kingdom of the East Angles Book 3) Read online

  The Deepening Night

  A Historical Romance set in Anglo-Saxon England

  Book Three

  The Kingdom of the East Angles

  Jayne Castel

  Historical romances by Jayne Castel

  The Kingdom of the East Angles series

  Night Shadows (prequel novella)

  Dark Under the Cover of Night (Book One)

  Nightfall till Daybreak (Book Two)

  The Deepening Night (Book Three)

  The Kingdom of the East Angles: The Complete Series

  The Kingdom of Mercia series

  The Breaking Dawn (Book One)

  Darkest before Dawn (Book Two)

  Dawn of Wolves (Book Three)

  All characters and situations in this publication are fictitious and any resemblance to living persons is purely coincidental.

  The Deepening Night by Jayne Castel

  Copyright © 2014 Jayne Castel. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, recording or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the author.

  Edited by Tim Burton.

  Cover photography courtesy of www.istockphotos.com.

  Cover design by vikncharlie: http://www.fiverr.com/vikncharlie

  Maps courtesy of Wikipedia.

  Saewara’s lament in the Prologue is adapted from The Lament of Deor – an Old English poem)

  Visit Jayne’s website and blog: www.jaynecastel.com

  Follow Jayne on Twitter at: @JayneCastel

  ***

  For Tim.

  Ic þe lufu.

  ***

  Contents

  Maps

  Character list for ‘The Deepening Night’

  Family Tree: Kingdom of the East Angles

  Family Tree: Kingdom of Mercia

  Prologue – The Funeral

  Chapter One – A King’s Sacrifice

  Chapter Two – The Widow’s Escape

  Chapter Three – Between Brothers

  Chapter Four – The Betrothal

  Chapter Five – Penda’s Game

  Chapter Six – The Lovers’ Dance

  Chapter Seven – In the Darkness

  Chapter Eight – The Reckoning

  Chapter Nine – A Gentle Moment

  Chapter Ten – The River Crossing

  Chapter Eleven – Homecoming

  Chapter Twelve – The Handfasting

  Chapter Thirteen – The Way of Things

  Chapter Fourteen – The Devil’s Work

  Chapter Fifteen – Hare Pie

  Chapter Sixteen – Hereswith

  Chapter Seventeen – New Beginnings

  Chapter Eighteen – The Gathering Storm

  Chapter Nineteen – Lovers and Longing

  Chapter Twenty – A Meeting in the Woods

  Chapter Twenty-One – The Undoing

  Chapter Twenty-Two – The Shadow Approaches

  Chapter Twenty-Three – On the Eve of Battle

  Chapter Twenty-Four – Saewara’s Decision

  Chapter Twenty-Five – The Captive

  Chapter Twenty-Six – The Battle of Exning Woods

  Chapter Twenty-Seven – Things Unsaid

  Epilogue: The Baptism

  Historical Note

  Other Works by Jayne Castel

  About the Author

  Character list for ‘The Deepening Night’

  Annan – King of the East Angles.

  Saewara (pronounced: Sewara) – sister of Penda, the King of Mercia.

  Aethelhere (pronounced Aythilhair) – Annan’s brother.

  Hereswith – niece of the Northumbrian King – promised to Annan.

  Eldwyn – Hereswith’s handmaid.

  Penda – King of Mercia.

  Cyneswide (pronounced: Sinswid) – Penda’s wife.

  Aldfrid (pronounced Oldfrid) – one of Penda’s most trusted ealdormen.

  Sabert (Saba) – Ealdorman and Annan’s best friend.

  Hilda – slave in Annan’s hall.

  Family Tree: Kingdom of the East Angles

  Family Tree: Kingdom of Mercia

  “Better to die on your feet than live on your knees.”

  - Emiliano Zapata

  Prologue

  The Funeral

  Tamworth, the Kingdom of Mercia – Britannia

  Spring 630 A.D.

  The croak of ravens echoed through the morning air. Their cries followed Saewara through the curling mist, mocking her. There was not a breath of wind this morning; the shrouded hillside sat in a world of its own, a lonely island in a milky sea.

  Head hung low, so that others could not see her face, Saewara followed the mourners up to the barrow where Egfrid would be entombed alongside his forefathers. Behind her, she could hear the quiet sobbing of his mother, who had been inconsolable ever since hearing the news of her eldest son’s death.

  Egfrid had been one of the king’s bravest and most formidable warriors. His death, in a border skirmish against a band of Celts just three days earlier, had shocked them all.

  The dead man lay upon a litter; his face chalk-white, his arms folded over his chest. They had dressed him in his finest clothes: a fur cloak, a fine royal blue tunic and an embossed leather breastplate. Gold rings crowded his muscular biceps, each one won for his valor and presented after battle. His long brown hair had been brushed and tied back against his nape.

  Egfrid’s wounds had been terrible; he had been slit open from sternum to bowel. It had taken the women most of the night to prepare him for burial, binding up his wounds so that he could be dressed in his finery. In the end, they had succeeded in creating the illusion that the warrior had come to a peaceful end. To look at him now, no one would have guessed at the deep lacerations beneath his clothing.

  The mourners climbed the last stretch before the barrow. Egfrid’s burial place marked the end of a line of mounds where Mercian kings and nobility lay. The last king to be buried here had been Cearl, nearly five years earlier. The last peaceful King of Mercia, he had ruled without incident for nearly two decades, before finally succumbing to illness.

  Saewara halted before the entrance to the barrow, watching as her husband’s litter was lowered before it. Beyond, the shadows loomed. Darkness stretched out toward Egfrid the Strong, beckoning him toward the afterlife.

  As his wife, Saewara was expected to sing the lament for his death. Steeling herself, she squared her shoulders and lifted her head, filling her lungs with cool, damp air. Then she sang, her voice lifting above the mourners and drifting through the encircling mist.

  Egfrid the Strong

  What great loss we suffer

  A warrior, a husband, a son

  That went away, this also may

  Sorry and longing are ours

  Exile in the cold winter

  For he no longer serves his lord

  That went away, this also may

  It is the will of fate

  That shapes all our lives

  Grief, loss and suffering

  That went away, this also may

  Saewara’s voice trailed off, while around her the eyes of many present brimmed with tears at the lament’s haunting beauty. Saewara cast her eyes down once more as Egfrid’s brothers slid his body inside the barrow and sealed the entrance.

  The mourners drifted away from the barrow, and retraced their steps down the slope. Saewara lingered on the knoll for a few moments longer, before following them. The mist was even thicker now. It created a milky shroud around the mourners, blocking the
outline of the Great Tower that rose from a grassy hill to the south. Saewara walked slowly, lost in her thoughts.

  She did not notice a tall figure fall into step next to her.

  “You played your part beautifully, Saewara – ever the actress.”

  Saewara started, and looked up at her brother’s cruelly handsome face in surprise.

  He knew her grief was feigned. She had thought Penda had gone ahead. Yet, instead he had lingered behind to speak to her.

  In the pale morning light, Penda was a striking sight. He wore a magnificent black fur cloak, clasped to his broad shoulders with gleaming amber broaches. Despite the iron crown on his head – a plain circlet with a garnet at its center – he dressed like the warrior he was. His heavy sword swung at his side as he walked, and his tall, muscular frame was encased in leather armor. His blond hair, so pale it was almost white, hung in a smooth curtain over his shoulders.

  Not for the first time, Saewara wondered at how different they were. Her brother was as tall, cold and pale as a mountain summit; in contrast to Saewara’s dark hair, small frame and fiery disposition. She was so short that the crown of her head barely reached the center of his chest. Their eldest brother, Eafa, who had died in East Anglia a few years earlier, had spent years taunting Saewara about her looks – even going as far as to say that their mother must have lain with a Celt savage to beget her, for she could not be of the same blood as Penda and him.

  “You enjoyed the lament then, brother?” she asked coolly, preferring to respond to Penda’s barbed comment with a question.

  “Yes, you have an enchanting voice.”

  Saewara did not reply. She and Penda rarely spoke these days, and he did not usually seek her out unless he had some purpose. She guessed that this was also the case now. As such, she waited for him to speak again.

  “You do not mourn him.”

  It was a statement rather than a question.

  “No,” she replied quietly. “Do you blame me?”

  Penda shrugged. “I care not what goes on between man and wife. It was a good match – or it would have been if you had given him a son.”

  Saewara looked away, slowing her step so that the mourners before her drew ahead. She did not want her mother-in-law eavesdropping on their conversation.

  “We tried, but my womb never quickened.”

  “You are barren.”

  Saewara bristled. “He had other women, you know that. None of the others bore his child either.”

  “If a marriage does not produce children ‘tis the woman’s fault, not the man’s,” Penda replied with a snarl in his voice.

  Saewara clenched her jaw and bit back an angry reply. She knew she should mind her tongue. Many thought her husband’s ready fists would have taught her meekness over the past few years. Indeed, it had made her wary of men; yet, Egfrid’s violence only served to make the rage within her grow.

  Soon, all of this will not matter, she consoled herself. Soon you will be free of this place and all the vile, scheming people who live here.

  “Yes, brother,” she managed finally. “You are right. I am barren and no good as a wife. In a few days, I will leave here and go to Bonehill, where I will take my vows. There, I will be out of your life, and no longer a thorn in your side.”

  “Bonehill?” Penda queried coolly. “I think not, dear sister. Barren or not, it would be a waste to send you off to a nunnery for the rest of your days.”

  “Hwaet?”

  Saewara lost her tightly won control for a moment. She stopped and swiveled toward her brother, her gaze sweeping up to meet his. “But there’s no point in marrying me to anyone else!”

  “You are of royal blood,” Penda reminded her with a cruel smile, locking her arm in his and forcing her to continue walking. “And too valuable to cast aside so young. I have plans for you.”

  Saewara walked on, her heart thumping against her ribs. She could not believe she was hearing this from Penda. After the sacrifice she had made for him – marrying a man all knew to be a brute – and suffering greatly as a result, this was the ultimate betrayal. She knew that Penda held no love for her – she imagined him incapable of truly loving anyone – but now he appeared to be exacting some kind of twisted vengeance upon her.

  “Who is it?” she gasped finally. “What animal will you marry me to this time?”

  “Use that tone with me again Saewara and I will strike you to the ground,” Penda replied, flatly, “sister or not.”

  Saewara shivered. Having seen what her brother was capable of, she knew he would do as he threatened.

  They walked in silence for a short distance before the king spoke once more.

  “You will marry Annan of the East Angles,” Penda informed her dispassionately. “Annan has ‘bent the knee’ to Mercia and I need to ensure that he will continue to do as he is told. You will play a role in uniting our two kingdoms in readiness for the day I take East Anglia for our own.”

  Saewara was shocked into silence.

  This was worse than she had ever anticipated. Her brief glimpse at freedom, at a life away from being a pawn in a man’s world, dissolved like smoke before her eyes. Not only would her brother barter her like a fattened sow at market, but he would give her to his enemy to further his political ambitions, without a thought to her wishes.

  She dipped her head, letting her cowl fall over her face and block out the world.

  Tears flowed, hot and bitter, down her cheeks.

  Chapter One

  A King’s Sacrifice

  Rendlaesham, the Kingdom of the East Angles - Britannia

  Ten days later…

  The sun was sinking beyond the western horizon when Annan led his men back into Rendlaesham. An ash longbow hung on his back, and his quiver was empty. A feeling of well-being suffused his exhausted limbs. A knot of warriors followed the king, their kill slung over the backs of their horses: three boars and two deer.

  The hunt had been one of the most enjoyable of Annan’s life. It had been a joy to use a bow and arrow again after a bitter winter that had kept everyone indoors; to feel the tension of the hemp bow-string as he drew it back and hear the whisper of the arrow loosing.

  The men were in high spirits, singing loudly as they rode through Rendlaesham’s gates and up through the town. Yet Annan was in a reflective, pensive mood this afternoon. He did not join in the singing, but instead let his gaze wander over his surroundings.

  Riding back into Rendlaesham never failed to make his pulse quicken.

  All of this was his.

  Despite the battle that had brought the Kingdom of the East Angles to its knees, just months earlier, the folk living here still looked to him for guidance and protection. He was one of the Wuffingas, the family that had ruled this kingdom for centuries; a family born to rule.

  Above the low-slung wattle and daub dwellings of Rendlaesham, rose the fabled ‘Golden Hall’. It was a massive wooden structure, and its thatched straw roof gleamed in the sunlight. Even now, nearly six months after taking the throne, Annan found it hard to believe that he actually lived here.

  Young boys ran out to greet the king and his men, their faces beaming when they saw the boar and deer carcasses. Annan grinned down at them, remembering how he too had run behind his father and his men, impatient for the day he would be able to join them on a hunt, and in battle.

  Annan’s grin faded at that last thought.

  Battle. It was a fact of life in the world they inhabited, and yet the reality of it was cruel. He, like those boys, had been brought up to believe that war was valor and glory. Instead, it was blood, fear and death, grieving widows and shattered lives. You could not tell a boy that though; he would never believe it.

  The king and his men clattered into the stable yard under the shadow of the Great Hall. A steep set of steps climbed up to its huge oaken doors, which were flanked by two spear-wielding warriors.

  Casting aside his gloomy thoughts about war and it consequences, Annan swung down from th
e saddle and glanced up at the majestic outline of his hall silhouetted against the darkening sky.

  “Saba – get those beasts skinned, gutted and hung,” Annan called to one of the warriors, “and I’ll have a cup of mead waiting for you by the fire when you’re done.”

  Sabert, a big, broad shouldered ealdorman with wavy, brown hair, grey eyes and a long nose that had been broken years earlier and never set properly, gave a snort in response.

  “Typical – leaving all the work to me.”

  “A king shouldn’t need to get his hands dirty,” Annan grinned, enjoying the banter that he and Saba had shared since they were boys.

  He was glad Saba had finally agreed to join him here at Rendlaesham. It had been an effort to convince him to leave Snape, where his kin resided, and Annan knew that his friend preferred the freedom of his old life. Still, in a king’s hall, surrounded by toadies, and those whose loyalty was as fickle as the wind, Annan was pleased to know he had someone he could trust by his side.

  Leaving his friend still good-naturedly grumbling, Annan rubbed down his horse, before watering and feeding it. He was making his way across toward the steps, when the doors to the Great Hall above him drew open and a tall, blond man stepped out into the golden rays of the setting sun.

  “Wes hāl, Annan!” Aethelhere shouted with a cocky grin.

  Annan waved back and watched as his younger brother approached. He descended the steps with loose-limbed grace; and as Aethelhere drew closer, Annan saw he had a mischievous glint in his eye. A look that Annan knew well.

  “You have visitors,” his brother boomed, his grin widening, before he slapped Annan on the shoulder. “It appears Edwin of Northumbria is a man of his word.”