The Hallowed Isle Book Two Read Online Free Page A

he too might one day be a king.
    â€œMen of the Myrgings!” cried Octha, “and all of you—be you Jute or Saxon or Frank, who by marriage or alliance have become part of this tribe. I come here as your ally, for it was a princess of your people who gave me my son!”
    Someone started a cheer, and Oesc felt the hot color rise in his cheeks.
    â€œThen why have you waited till now to claim him?” came another voice.
    â€œThere’s many a man who goes off to war childless and returns to learn he has an heir. For ten winters I have battled in Britannia; I have slain many princes of their people, and cut down those who thought themselves the heirs of Rome. At first we fought for treasure, but now we fight for land. The British have little strength to resist us—their king is a sick man, and he has no son. The land lies undefended, ripe for the taking. To hold that earth men must till it, and so I come to you.
    â€œFollow me to Britannia—bring your wives and your children. Bring your axes and your ploughs.”
    â€œWhy should we abandon the hearths of our mothers and the howes where our fathers lie?” came the cry.
    â€œBecause this land is drowning!” responded Octha. “Look around you—the fields are blighted by bad weather and your cattle are dying. Each year more of your shores are eaten by the sea. In Britannia there are wide fields, fruitful and flourishing—good harvests of oat crops and broad barley-crops, white fields of wheat-crops and all that grows in Middle Earth.”
    â€œBut they are not our fields. Will they bear for us if we do not know the names of the wights that dwell there?”
    â€œThose fields have borne fruit for all the tribes the Romans settled in that land,” said Octha. “Warriors from Iberia and Sarmatia and Gallia and other lands who took up farming after their time in the legions was done. Our cousins the Franks get good crops from the lands they have won in Gallia. Till the fields and make the offerings, and when your time comes, lay your bones in the soil. By blood and toil shall we claim Britannia and make it our own.”
    â€œWe will go!” said one of the Jutish chieftains, a man called Hæsta. “There are men of my blood already in Hengest’s war-band. They have said that Cantuware is a land of good soil and good grazing, where the cows give milk thrice a day at this time of year.”
    â€œAnd it breeds good fighters—” an older man spoke up, lifting an arm scarred and twisted by an old wound. “In my youth I too have been to Britannia, but all I got there was steel. It is well enough for warriors to take such chances, but I will not risk my family in a land whose native folk are awakening at last, determined to get back their own.”
    â€œBetter to die by steel than starvation!” exclaimed another, and suddenly everyone was arguing.
    â€œWhat says Eadguth?” someone cried at last. “What is the word of the Myrging king?”
    Slowly, silence fell. When it was quite still, the thrall Cubba, who was even older than the king, assisted Eadguth to unfold his gaunt frame from the chair. The king came forward, leaning on his staff. For a few moments he looked around him, and those who had cried the loudest for emigration found it hard to meet his eyes.
    â€œThe gods have given me long life. For more than forty winters I have been your king. . . .” His voice did not seem loud, but it carried.
    â€œIn those years I have seen many things. I have seen five summers when the rains were so scant that the river sank down till its banks gaped like toothless jaws. That time ended. So will this. I have seen blizzards that heaped snow halfway up the walls and held us prisoner from one moon to the next. That time ended—this will too. And I have seen harvests so plentiful we had not the barns to store it all. And those times also came to an end. You cry out now