Oscar's Tale
By Chris Bishop
By Chris Bishop
Publication Date: 19th December 2023
Publisher: Historium Press
Page Length: 183 Pages
Genre: Historical Fiction
'For is it not the wish of every man that his son will achieve more in life than he did?'
The story of a Saxon boy who sets out to find and rescue his father who has been taken by Viking slavers.
Set in 877 as the people of Wessex are forced to fight not just for their very lives, but for their freedom, their religion and for their right to live as Saxons, Oscar relates all that which befalls him on his all but impossible quest. This is set against the backdrop of King Alfred’s desperate attempt to regain his kingdom which culminates in a victory at the Battle of Edington which is very much against the odds.
But this is not just a story about bloody battles and fearsome warriors, it’s about a boy struggling to live up to his father’s reputation as a warrior and trying to find his place in a turbulent and uncertain world. For that, Oscar is forced to confront many dangers, earn the respect of others far above his station and even find love – albeit the cost to him is far higher than most men would have been willing to pay.
Excerpt
My story begins very early one morning when my father shook me till I woke. He then all but pulled me from my cot whilst urging me not to make so much as a sound.
‘Get you to the woods,’ he urged, his voice hushed and fearful. ‘Take your sister and your mother with you then stay there. I’ll come for you when I can!’
‘Why? What’s happening? ‘I asked, still rubbing the sleep from my eyes.
‘Raiders!’ said my father. ‘Seth and I will see them off but first I need you to get your mother and sister away from here.’
We lived in constant fear of raiders - men who came from across the sea seeking blood, booty or slaves. Some people called them ‘‘Danes’’ or ‘‘Norsemen’’, but we knew them to be Vikings – savage, cruel men who came from the distant lands in the north bringing death and destruction to our shores. Their lust for blood was such that they spared neither man, woman nor child and thus the very mention of them was enough to terrify me as it would anyone at that time.
‘H...how many are they?’ I managed to ask.
‘I don’t yet know. It’s likely to be a small band of perhaps half a dozen which we should be able to deal with well enough - but I can’t protect you all whilst doing so. Hence you must go now or they’ll be upon us before we know it.’
My father was considerably older than my mother and had once served as part of the permanent guard at the Vill of Ealdorman AEthelred as a trained warrior. He oft times recounted tales of the battles in which he’d fought so I had no cause to doubt that he and old Seth, our farmhand, could defend our
small farmstead well enough. As I prepared to do as he’d ordered, my mother was trying to comfort my little sister, Odelia, who was much distressed. Perhaps the fear felt by us all in that moment was infectious, although I doubt that she had any inkling of what was likely to befall us.
‘Turn out the livestock as you leave,’ insisted my father thinking quickly. ‘If they’ve come for that they can round it up for themselves. Once you’ve done that, you know where to go, for I’ve shown you often enough.’
Of course, I knew the place well. It was a small clearing in the woods just beyond the field which formed part of our land - a place where we thought we would be safe enough. It was such that even if the raiders came looking for us, we’d see them coming and could move still deeper into the woods if we had to.
By then, even though Odelia was still crying, my mother had gathered up a few of our belongings and some food which she packed into a basket. Then, leading the way, I first did as my father had ordered and opened the stalls to the byre to let out our farm horse and our goats whilst my mother and sister drove both pigs from their sty and freed our few geese and chickens from their coop. That done, we hurried to the woods and from there to the small clearing where we hid as best we could, taking cover behind a thicket of scrub and thorn. I lay there on my belly peering out at the farmstead whilst my mother comforted Odelia, trying to keep her quiet lest the sound of her crying should carry on the cold early morning air.
From there I watched as my father and Seth came out from our home, both of them armed - my father with his sword and Seth with a short-handled axe which, although brutal, he had always professed to be his weapon of choice. As they waited for the raiders to show themselves, they stood back to back but kept far enough apart to avoid impeding each other’s strokes.
At first there was nothing to be seen. Then, just as I began to think that perhaps the raiders had passed us by, men slowly emerged as if from nowhere, forming a ring around both my father and Seth and preparing to close upon them. I knew at once that all was far from well, for there were many more of them than the half dozen or so my father expected.
It was difficult to count the raiders from where I lay but I reckoned that they numbered at least twenty, possibly more. They were all on foot but seemed well armed with either a spear, axe or sword. Most of them had some sort of mail vest or at least a protective leather jerkin but, despite the cold, a few of them were stripped to the waist. However clad, they were all of them a terrifying sight to behold.
‘God preserve us!’ muttered my mother when she saw them. Even as she spoke, she started to pray, desperately whispering the words under her breath as she held Odelia in her arms and gently rocked her back and forth.
At first, the raiders just stood and stared at the men who confronted them, perhaps relishing what they thought would be an easy fight. The fact that my father was wielding a sword might have been reason enough for them to be wary as only trained warriors would be likely to own one but, given their numbers, they can hardly have expected much in the way of resistance from just two men. At that point, I also offered a silent prayer beseeching God to spare us. But God must have been busy elsewhere for, despite my pleadings, the raiders closed on my father and Seth with all the ferocity of wolves ravaging two all but defenceless lambs.
In fact, what happened next was so quick and so brutal that I can scarce bring myself even to describe it. What I recall was that Seth was the first to fall having being tackled by three men at once. In the struggle which followed he was struck by the flat edge of an axe so hard that it must surely have rendered him all but senseless. As he fell to the ground, they were upon him at once, beating him and kicking him so hard that I thought him killed for certain.
Even with Seth accounted for, my father continued to fight, hacking with his sword from side to
side, forcing the raiders back. Even as he did so, others tried to take him from behind but he turned and, sweeping his blade in a wide arc, kept them all at bay. One of them risked ducking beneath his sword stroke but took a fearful wound for his trouble. As he staggered away nursing his shoulder, others quickly took his place. They then waited for my father to tire before grabbing him from behind and forcing him to the ground. I thought they would surely kill him there and then but that was not their intent. Instead, they struck him again and again until he was stunned and barely moving. Then, even as he recovered and tried to struggle to his feet once more, they quickly set about him again, three of them pinning him down whilst others bound his arms behind his back.
As they secured my father, Weasel, our wolfhound, went for one of the raiders, snarling and growling fiercely in such a way as I’d never known him do before. Without so much as a thought, the man turned and lashed out at him with an axe. I heard Weasel yelp then saw him slope off, whining and dragging his hind legs behind him. I cannot say how distressed I was to see him harmed in that way.
‘No, Oscar!’ pleaded my mother when she saw me drawing my sling from my belt. ‘There’s nothing to be done!’
I hesitated just long enough to see that she was right. After all, a sling would be useless against spears and axes. Besides, I realised that whatever I did would make no difference.
‘Your father wanted us to stay together!’ she urged. ‘Besides, there’s too many of them!’
I needed no reminder of what my father had said. Having seen enough killing to last him a lifetime, he had always been adamant that I should avoid fighting. ‘Killing won’t put food in our bellies,’ he would say. ‘Nor will it help our crops to grow.’
As I recalled those words I knew that my duty was to remain with my mother and sister. That being so, all I could do was watch as the raiders began to loot and ransack our home, seizing whatever they could find that looked to be of some use or value then either taking it, discarding it or destroying it as they saw fit.
One of them picked up my father’s sword from the ground and examined it. Swords were much prized as a weapon, their value resting not so much on their worth in terms of silver, but on the reputation of the man who had wielded it - and on that of those whose blood had soiled its blade. My father’s was a fine weapon which had once belonged to his father who had taken it in battle. It was therefore part of our family heritage and I was angry when I realised that the coward would take it for himself – something he could never have done in equal combat with such an accomplished warrior as my father, but there was nothing I could do to prevent it.
In the meantime, other raiders lit torches and began to set light to our home. They started by first burning our small cottage which, like others, was little more than a single room in which our family lived, ate and slept. With walls of timber and a roof thatched with straw, it was easy enough for them to set ablaze. They then raided our stores, stealing what little we had set aside for winter before torching the byre as well.
That done, they stood and watched for a while, cruelly jeering as our home burned. Then one of them noticed a small wooden horse on the ground, a toy which my father had made for me when I was younger. From that they knew that there were more of us living there so stood with their eyes scanning the woods where they guessed we would be hiding. Even so, they seemed ill inclined to come looking for us.
‘They’ll not come here,’ my mother assured me, more in hope than in certainty. ‘They believe the woods and forests to be the home of trolls and elves, not to mention all manner of evil spirits.’
I’d heard that said before but had to admit that those men didn’t look as though they might be swayed by superstitious nonsense but, sure enough, it seemed they were done looting and started to prepare themselves to leave.
From what I could tell, my father had wounded several of their number, one of them so seriously that they callously shared out his rings and armbands between them. That done, they gave him his battle axe to hold and sat him up against a tree as best they could. It seemed strange to me that when too sorely wounded to be moved, they should leave him to die alone rather than put him out of his misery.
Finally, they pulled both my father and Seth to their feet even though both looked to be too shaken and unsteady to stand unaided. At that they departed as silently as they’d come, forcibly dragging my father and Seth with them.
***
We couldn’t remain hidden forever but waited long enough to at least be certain that the raiders wouldn’t return before venturing back to what remained of our home. By the time we did there was nothing which could be salvaged. The flames had died down but most of the remaining timbers were blackened and still smouldering, some of them sending up showers of sparks as they collapsed into the still glowing embers. Looking around, the ground was strewn with our belongings, things they’d taken but then couldn’t be bothered to carry with them so had discarded – not just pots and pans and such like, but also our personal things such as clothes and even tools. My mother fell to her knees when she saw all that and sobbed bitterly, desperately picking through the debris hoping to find something which hadn’t been broken, spoiled or wasted.
I went first to examine the warrior they’d left behind. The only Viking I had ever seen close up before was a dead one who had been killed during a raid at a farmstead not so far from us, but this one, whilst fearfully wounded, was alive. He roared his defiance as I approached him but I could see that the wound to his upper arm had rendered him all but helpless.
He certainly looked to be fearsome enough with his face and arms painted with all manner of designs and his little black teeth filed into points. He was almost daring me to get closer, so I picked up a stout length of blackened timber and moved towards him. Even as I did so my mother called me back.
‘Oscar, just leave him!’ she scolded bitterly. ‘He’ll die of that wound soon enough. And more’s the pity, for I would have him suffer for as long as it takes for what he and his kind have done to us.’
I knew she was right as the man’s arm had been cut to the bone by my father’s sword and was bleeding freely.
At that point I noticed Weasel’s body which lay not far from there. It seemed he’d taken a cruel blow across his back and had crawled away to die, dragging his hind legs behind him and leaving a smear of blood on the ground as he did so. I couldn’t bear to leave him like that so scooped him up in my arms and carried him to a spot behind what was left of our home and there buried him. I uttered a brief prayer for him but there was no time for anything more even though the sight of his mangled body upset me greatly. Although Weasel had been very much a working dog, my father always said that I’d spoiled him by treating him like a house pet. In a way that was true as it was me who had first named him for being as artful as a weasel – even when put out for the night you’d find him by the hearth in the morning and have no idea how he’d managed to get back inside! In fact, he and I had become inseparable having spent many nights together keeping watch over our few animals when we feared wolves were about.
‘We can’t stay here,’ insisted my mother, sensing how upset I was. ‘We have kin in the settlement at Fordingwic. We’ll go there and get what help we can.’
‘What about father?’ asked Odelia.
‘He’s gone with those men,’ explained my mother.
‘But where has he gone?’ pressed Odelia. Being much younger than me, she had never before seen the results of a raid at first hand although she must have heard others speak of the dreadful destruction which usually followed such brutal attacks. All I could do was look to my mother to answer her as best she could.
‘We don’t yet know,’ she said coldly. ‘But we’ll find him, you’ll see.’ Even as she spoke she looked across at me, almost defying me to say anything more about what was likely to befall people who were taken by Viking raiders.
‘Shall I first round up our livestock?’ I offered changing the subject. ‘The raiders didn’t even bother to go looking for it.’
‘No, others will help us with that. Let’s be gone whilst we can lest the raiders’ return, although God knows there’s precious little left to interest them now – except perhaps ourselves as slaves.’
Of course, she was right. Our humble farmstead comprised of just a hide of land for which my father gave the Ealdorman a share of our produce in lieu of rent. Like all able-bodied men, he also served in the fyrd although, despite his military experience, he preferred to assist with civil duties such as mending the roads, ditches and defences rather than actually fighting. In between that, he worked all the hours he could to eke out a meagre living from the land which was mostly given over to crops to feed us plus a few goats and pigs and such like. Thus, with our home burned to the ground, our few belongings having been destroyed and with our livestock scattered, it seemed my mother was right, there was little left which would be of interest to anyone. The only thing of value left to us was our lives – and given the times in which we lived, even they weren’t worth much.
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Oscar's Tale
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Chris Bishop
Chris was born in London in 1951. After a successful career as a Chartered Surveyor, he retired to concentrate on writing, combining this with his lifelong interest in Anglo Saxon history.
His first novel, Blood and Destiny, was published in 2017 and his second, The Warrior with the Pierced Heart, in 2018, followed by The Final Reckoning in 2019 and Bloodlines in 2020. Together they form a series entitled The Shadow of the Raven, the fifth and final part of which - The Prodigal Son – was published in 2023.
Chris has also published numerous blogs about his work.
His other interests include travel, windsurfing and fly fishing.
Chris is a member of the Historical Writers Association.
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