Chapter 3
The attack on Oswald AD 641‘Are you not satisfied, my lord, with the blood that you’ve already shed?’ Cynewise, the Mercian queen, was looking angrily at the fighting men gathering, the horses riding in from the hills, the wagons being loaded.
Penda was standing with arms crossed on his broad chest, his eyes gleaming. This was more like it! No country would stand against this force. He had killed Edwin and purged his country of the false faith of the Nazarene god, but in his place had come another cursed Christian, Oswald of the Bernician royal line, brought up on Iona, an island of monks. There was surely not a good swordsman or axeman among them to have taught the prince how to fight. Northumbria was practically his.
Penda took a deep breath, almost smelling the wild places
