The Hallowed Isle Book Two Read Online Free

little.
    â€œMy son!”
    Powerful arms closed around him; Oesc smelled horse, and wet wool, and the strong scent of the man. It was very strange. Not so long ago, Woden had also called him son—from being fatherless he seemed suddenly over-supplied with kin. He took a deep breath as Octha let him go.
    â€œI am going back to Britannia, where the cows grow fat in green pastures and apples hang heavy on the bough. Will you come with me?”
    Soon, Woden had told him, he would have to choose. Oesc looked into his father’s storm-grey eyes, but when he spoke, he knew he was answering the god.
    â€œYes, father, I will come.”

    Since Octha’s arrival three days had passed. The storm had moved on, but on the Field of Assembly scattered pools mirrored the blue sky. Only a few rags of cloud still clung to the southeastern heavens. As the people gathered, the green grass was being trampled to a muddy brown. But perhaps it would not matter, thought Oesc as he watched them from his place at his father’s side. If the moot voted to follow Octha over the sea, the cattle would be slaughtered or sold and there would be no need for pastureland.
    The thought awakened an anxious flutter in his belly. He knew there were other lands, for he had heard the shopes and gleemen sing of them, but Eadguth’s hall was the center of his world. Most of the Myrgings had gathered, women and children forming a larger ring around the chieftains and heads of families. He looked around him for Hæthwæge, then remembered that the wicce had told him she had no need to watch. She had already seen this wyrd when she cast the runes.
    Why did she not inform Eadguth, then, and save us all the trouble of deciding? he wondered, but as the wisewoman had often told him, you might predict the sun’s rising, but you had to wait for it to happen just the same.
    A bench had been placed for the king beneath the oak tree. His witan, the tribal elders, sat around him. Sunlight glowing through the young leaves dappled his white hair. Eadguth Gamol, they called him, Eadguth the Old, for of all the kings of the north, only Healfdene of Sillende had reigned longer.
    His other grandfather, Hengest, was old too, thought Oesc. But he ruled a confederation of war-bands, like the sea-kings of Frisia. Eadguth was bred and bound through many fathers to his kingship and his land.
    A murmur ran through the crowd as Geflaf, leader of the king’s sword-thanes, stepped forward. He raised a great silver-mounted horn to his lips and blew, and as its echoes faded, the people also became still.
    â€œHear, ye chieftains and people of the Myrgings here assembled. A stranger, Octha son of Hengest, has come among us. The witan has called you to hear and consider his words.”
    â€œHe is an Anglian of royal kin, and our enemy!” cried the chieftain of one of the older Myrging clans.
    â€œHe is not of the kin of Offa the king-slayer, but a lesser line, and has never borne arms against us,” came the reply.
    â€œOur kin serve in his father’s war-band,” said one of the Jutes who had settled among the Myrgings, taking up farmsteads left vacant after the Anglian wars. “Let us hear what he has to say.”
    For a little longer the clamor continued, but eventually it became clear that the mood of the moot was in Octha’s favor.
    Another murmur arose as he stepped forward, Oesc at his side. By now, of course, everyone had heard the rumors that the mysterious father of their Lady’s son had reappeared. Oesc hung back as he realized that they were staring at him as well, but Octha’s grip was firm.
    He is using me to show them he is not an enemy, the boy realized suddenly, and allowed himself to be pulled along. For most of his short life he had been at best an embarrassment to his mother’s kin; to stand forth before the people as one with a right to honor seemed very strange. For the first time, it came to him that