lager, it is “Wife Beater”. The French never could make a decent brew.’
Jamie took a look at the can in the old man’s begrimed hand. ‘That is Stella Artois and it is Belgian.’
‘Walloonish: which is French by any other name. So: Arthur.’ Grimm, despite his comments, took another deep draught of lager before belching. ‘It was a good time to be in security and protection, and Art and his franchisees made a lot of money supplying fighting men to help the Wealas keep the Picts and Irish out. Normally Art worked through the franchisees, but sometimes he went and put himself about a bit, just for the amusement. It was on one of those trips that the seeds for a later problem were sewn. He had contracted to Hengest’s two boys, Esc and Octha, to sail round the north of the island, burning, ravaging and pillaging as they went. Oh, yes, and gathering souvenirs to take back to their wives of course, though Esc had problems explaining why the pretty handmaiden he gave his wife as a present was pregnant and after the boy was born the girl insisted on calling her brat Eskie, but I digress.’ Another deep throated drink caused Grim to splutter and cough. Clearing his throat, he continued. ‘It being a good summer, Art went with them, taking some Goths along on a sightseeing holiday. Quite the businessman, our Cerdic the Artful, for he had actually managed to get the Goths to pay him for the pleasure of going on the trip. Not only that, he collected wages for them from the Wealas, saying that the Goths were essential backup crew!’ A quick munch on the wilting hamburger was followed by a final swig of beer that emptied the can. ‘After picking over the Picts, Art, Octha, and Esc, with his handmaiden, based themselves on Mons, a big island facing Ireland. From there they raided the east coast of Ireland burning the villages from whence the raiders came. Having done that they then expelled all the Irish immigrants who had settled along the north coast of what is now Wales. I know what you are thinking: “They argued over the plunder”, or “They argued over the percentage Art wanted for the franchise.” Wrong, that came later. What upset Art was that, once he left to return to the South Hampton to sort out some shipbuilding, Esc and Octha renamed the island Anglesey, after their folk. For although many of their men were Jutes and Friesians, they themselves were Angles.’
‘So?’ Jamie had a quick look towards the pits, only to see his father engaged in conversation with a couple of the riders.
‘Leofwine? You are listening aren’t you?’ Grimm started on another can of lager whilst awaiting an answer.
‘Yes Grimm.’
‘Well, pay attention then and try to think back to what I said at the beginning.’
‘That was a week ago, old man.’
‘Was it? Time flies. So I will remind you: Arthur is Cerdic and Cerdic is the great grandson of Weldig and he was one of the Myringas, a group of my folk who lived to the south of the Angles and north of the Swæfe, by the River Eider in what is now Germany. Long before Art’s time, the great Angle king, Offa, when still a young man, had fought a holmgang duel against two of the sons of the Myringa King. He killed them both and then set a new border between the two folk which disadvantaged the Myringas. What made it worse was that, young as he was, Offa had been a sword-sworn friend of the dead Myringa princes’ grandfather. Unfortunately he had accidentally been involved in the old man’s death and now the death of the grandsons: such is the Web of Wyrd.’
‘I suppose you, Grimm, had a hand in this discord?’
The old man smiled: ‘Wyrd sometimes needs a helping hand.’
‘I guess so.’ Jamie pulled a Mars Bar from his pocket.
Grimm snatched it in the same hand as had the crushed remains of the hamburger oozing through his fingers. ‘You are so kind remembering to bring me a tribute. Now,’ Grimm sucked the pulped hamburger remains from his fingers and licked his lips. ‘Like good wine, hamburgers improve with age. Right, now, history lesson: this may have been a long time before Art, but the affair had caused a lot of bad blood between the two folk, and English memories are long. The trouble, of course, the Anglecyn (English to you) would never have thought of moving to Britain if I had let things rest easy between them and their neighbours. I have always had plans for the English, even with a dash of mongrel blood in their veins. But naming the island of Mons Anglesey rather than Saxonsey was only the start. You have remembered, Leofwine, that Arthur – that is, Cerdic – was of the Saxon kin? Right: to continue: the boys Esc and Octha kept forgetting to pay their percentage of the turnover to Art. Then, when Art started to expand his shipping business inland, rather than keeping it as just coastal shipping, things started to get nasty.’
‘Very entrepreneurial.’
‘Very what? All these foreign words people use these days.’ Grimm drank, another empty can hit the ground, and a replacement was prised from the plastic web that held it. ‘He was very good at new ideas was our Arthur, especially when it meant it increased his wealth. Now you need to know that the River Thames was the main key to Art’s new business plan. He could use that route to get the goods, with their security guards of course, up into the midlands and the west where they could be easily ported across to other rivers and thus all over the place. The trouble was the Angle-led Jutes based in Kent: they controlled the easiest route into the river, via the Wensum channel that cut the Isle of Thanet off from the mainland. They also held the south bank of the Thames all the way to the rapids at Teddington where the tide finally stops running.’
‘Thanet, the island that is no longer an island.’
‘Yes: we met there only a short while ago.’
‘Over two years ago, getting on for three.’
‘Was it? I thought it was only last week. Oh well.’ Grimm gave a black-toothed smile that was supposed to be friendly, but in fact looked intimidating. ‘If you say so young æþeling.’ Grimm gave another reassuring smile that didn’t quite work. ‘Now Art had thought that, as Esc and Octha were business partners in the security branch, they would be happy with his ships sailing up the Thames. But they considered it a separate business and demanded a fat levy on Art’s ships using their waterways. If I had been around I am sure I could have sorted something out, but I was busy on the other bank of the Thames. I was trying to get the Swæfe, who the Brits called the East Saxons, to concentrate their war bands on the Wealas, rather than raiding the Angles to their north. By the time my pet birds Huggin and Munnin had brought me the news of the dispute between the Kentingas and Arthur with his West Saxon and Gothic subcontractors, it was all on, with Jutes raiding Saxons and Saxons raiding Jutes and Angles.’
Jamie turned to look at the pits and used the opportunity to sneak a second Mars Bar out of his pocket. He peeled back the wrapper and took a bite before turning to face Grimm again. ‘Not a nice situation, Grimm.’
‘No it was not.’ Grimm consoled himself with more lager, making a choice to not comment on the brown chocolate stain on Jamie’s teeth. ‘The Brits were laughing up their sleeves, seeing the Ge-men wiping each other out. I told young Art to forget the fat contracts with the Wealas, make peace with the other Ge-men, then strike together against the Brits. That way the whole country could belong to the Ge-man folk. Once that had happened, who cared if the various kin folk fought over who got what. I had just started to make him see sense, when the birds told me about what had happened with the Swæfe. All my talk about the Ge-men not fighting each other had sunk in with the Swæfe. The problem was they saw Cerdic as a collaborator. You see the Brits only ever called him Arthur, and claimed him for one of their own. So the Swæfe joined with the Angles of the North Folk and the South Folk and the Kentingas to close the whole River Thames to Art.’
‘Having many names must be confusing.’
‘Oh it is, it is. Some days I can’t recall if I am Arthur or Martha.’
‘Or Albert or Grimm?’
The old man gave the youth a hard long stare with his one eye. Having seen Jamie become suitably embarrassed, Grimm continued: ‘Have you finished? I can continue, can I? Hmm?’
Jamie nodded his agreement.
&nbs
p; Grimm coughed and stared into the distance before he deigned to continue. ‘Yes, well, Art wasn’t having that sort of behaviour from his subbies, so he formally cancelled his franchise concessions and subcontracts with the East Saxons, the North and South Folk, and the Kentingas. He then called those subbies he thought still loyal to the round table that sat in the grounds of the alehouse in the South Hampton. Whilst they were gathering, he conned the Wealas into financing the whole deal on the basis that he could stop English expansion. With men and money in place he started planning his next move.’
‘I bet you didn’t like that.’
‘No I didn’t like the way things were shaping up as it looked as if all my plans to change Britain into England were going to be destroyed. To sort things out I called a gathering on a hill at Badon where there was an old hill fort. The North and South Folk came, the Swaefe came and so did the Kentingas, but there was no sign of Cerdic. Eventually Cerdic came, but he came as Arthur and he had an army at his back, which he then used to besiege us. I hadn’t got to hear about his plans as he had taken the cunning move of feeding Huggin and Munnin raw meat soaked in mead. By the time the stupid birds got to me, with their heads feeling as if they had been crushed