I kept my expression neutral but, strange to say, his judgement caused a sudden thrill of excitement to run through me. I was to be an exile without hope of return, a wanderer. Offa had not demanded my allegiance, and therefore I no longer had a lord. To many in our close-knit society, this would have been a terrible sentence. There is a special term for such an outcast. I would be winelas guma, a ‘friendless man’, living without protection, prey to all who would harm or exploit him. Yet for as long as I could remember, I had wanted to travel to foreign lands and see how others lived. Here was my chance. Perhaps I would even find a place where I would feel less of an outsider and my mismatched eyes would not arouse such unease.
The court of the Frankish king was as promising a destination as I could have wished for. Even our rustic villeins had heard of Carolus. For more than a decade he had ruled Europe from the dark forests beyond the Rhine to the sunlit plains of Lombardy and west to the ocean. It was such an enormous area that there were rumours that one day he would be crowned the emperor of Europe, the first true emperor since the days of Rome. His court must surely attract all manner of exotic and unusual folk. Perhaps I would blend in with them despite my unusual appearance.
‘You have three days for the funeral rites,’ Offa grunted. With a twinge of conscience I realized that I had been thinking only of myself. My father and two brothers had been proud of their warrior heritage. They would want that I gave them a fitting burial rather than lament their passing.
‘A request,’ I said.
Offa’s chin came up as he glared at me. A scruffy and defeated youth whose life he had just spared was not expected to make requests.
‘What is it?’ His tone was truculent. For a moment I thought he was going to change his mind about my exile and order my execution instead.
‘That my personal slave goes with me,’ I said.
Once again Offa glanced towards my uncle.
‘Is this slave of any value?’
‘Hardly, my lord,’ answered Cyneric. He did not bother to keep the sneer from his face. ‘He’s a defective cripple. An out-lander who can barely string two words together.’
‘He looked after me throughout my childhood,’ I interrupted. ‘I am in his debt.’
‘And you in mine,’ said Offa coldly. ‘Take your worn-out slave with you, but he has cost you a day’s grace. The day after tomorrow you will be escorted to the coast and put on the first ship sailing for Frankia.’
Chapter Two
OSRIC, MY BODY SLAVE, had been to sea before, that I knew. My father had bought him from a travelling dealer who must have heard that the woman looking after my brother and me was refusing to touch us after she noticed something strange about our eyes. The other household servants had been equally frightened.
‘Make a good babysitter, he would. He’s quiet and gentle and, with that gammy pin, not likely to run away,’ the slaver had said as he showed off a battered-looking, scrawny man, perhaps thirty years old with skin the colour of a fallen autumn leaf. The unfortunate man had evidently been in a very bad accident, for his head was permanently canted over on a slant and his left leg broken and set so badly that it was crooked.
‘Where does he come from?’ my father had asked.
The dealer had shrugged.
‘I got him down in the west country, part exchange for a couple of brawny lasses fit for mine work. Locals found him washed up on the rocks, like a half-dead mackerel. Probably off a tin ship that wrecked.’
My father had looked doubtful.
‘Worth owning someone as hardy as that,’ the slave dealer had wheedled. ‘Any other man would have died. Besides, he doesn’t understand any speech so he won’t be taking up any wild ideas and gossip.’
My father had allowed himself to be persuaded. He’d paid a few coins and named his new slave Osric as a joke; his namesake was a rival kinglet in neighbouring Wessex, a man famously vain of his good looks.
Over the years Osric became an essential, silent member of our household. He spoke so rarely that many visitors thought he was a mute. Growing up in his care, however, I knew that he learned our language in secret. When alone with his two charges, he would talk with us, though only a few words at a time. As I grew older I came to the conclusion that he preferred to stay withdrawn, locked away in his battered body.
‘Are you afraid of the sea after what it did to you?’ I asked Osric as we had our first glimpse of the distant blue line on the horizon. We were travelling on foot, since Offa had seen no reason to provide us with horses, only a couple of Mercian armed guards plodding along behind us, out of earshot.