“So you are not here – Ceric is not here – to sue for my daughter’s hand?”
She felt an almost giddy lightheadedness now it was out, as if she had asked a suitor about her own prospects. Still, that is what parents must do at times, ask the direct question.
He seemed neither startled nor amused, which is what she most feared. He shook his head.
“It was not my charge, no.” He kept looking at her, then went on, “Though in confidence I tell you Modwynn, Lady of Kilton, made clear to me that she would more than welcome such a match for her grandson.”
Her face lit. “I am so glad,” she told him, with true warmth. “You see, Ceric is the first-born of my closest friend. She and I have been apart for many years; Fate has separated, but not divided us. It was always her wish, and mine too, that our children might find love and happiness together.”
The eyes he had kept on her rapt face had lowered by the end of her speech. She felt a flush of embarrassment now, and almost wondered if her cheek had reddened.
It was not that.
His eyes rose to her, and kept her in a steady gaze, one mild, not piercing.
“You do not know who I am,” he said.
The heart within her breast seemed to tighten, and she heard herself catch her own breath. Yet she did not know the meaning of his words. Then he made it clear.
“I rode with Ælfred once, to Cirenceaster. Another rode with us. Gyric of Kilton.”
All the air had been pressed out of her; her next breath was a shallow gasp.
“My nurse, Burginde…she marked you last night, but could not recall where once she had seen you…”
“At the hall of Ælfsige of Cirenceaster,” he answered. “My people were of Defenas, and I joined Ælfred from there. We rode to Kilton, where Gyric joined us, then on to your hall.”
“Forgive me…I have no memory of you…”
She found it hard even to say this much. Many young men had arrived with Ælfred. She stared at his face, imagining it then.
“There is nothing to forgive.” His words were as mild as his gaze.
He looked a little away from her now, across the garden at some unknown point. “And no reason to recall me. Gyric was there. You saw each other.”
His eyes were still steady on whatever he fixed upon. “You saw no one else.”
“Yes,” she answered, in a whisper. “We saw no one else.” She had lowered her head.
“We spent three nights at your hall,” he went on. “On the last, our going-away feast, you wore the gown your daughter wore last night.”
Her head had further dropped, almost upon her breast. He was looking at her now, saw her eyes were closed.
He gave his head a shake, went on.
“I did not know Gyric well, had only met him then,” he told her. “When the Danes set upon us I saw him take the dragon banner from Ælfred’s hand. Ælfred had been waving it, shouting, urging us on. A group of Danes marked it. I watched Gyric take the banner, realised why. After that, I was too occupied to know what had happened. When we finally regrouped a number of us were gone. Gyric was one of them.
“There were more attacks. More pitched battles. I heard at length that Gyric had been returned to Kilton. And that you had been wed to the Dane Yrling, and come here.”
A pause. It was as if he were distilling their entire lives into a few lines, everything boiled off but the most powerful facts, the essence of their actions on this Earth.
“I wed,” he recounted. “A fine woman. She was of Defenas. She died in childbed, but left me Wilgyfu, our daughter.
“Ælfred named me bailiff seven years ago. The King’s justice has kept me busy. And he has entrusted me to carry certain gifts from time to time. I was not surprised when he called me to Witanceaster to undertake an errand. What surprised me was to whom.
“Though I have no answers for your daughter, let me say how glad I have been to once again look upon your face.”
He was gazing at her now.
Her hand rose to her brow, her fingertips resting lightly there. Ælfwyn of Cirenceaster, he had called her, when he saw her. Her flower was faded, yet his naming her that had stirred something in her breast.
A honeybee, laden with golden pollen, stole her eyes from his, tracing a jagged path in the still air over her closed Psalter. Sweetness, and stings, she thought.
They sat in silence. She had dropped her hand, and now both framed the book on the little cushion. Her chin, like her eyes, were downcast.
Her guest was standing, and spoke in lowered tones. “I will leave you with Ælfred’s gifts,” he told her, and withdrew.
After a time she stood, took up the Psalter, and went into her bower house. She locked the book and pointer away. Then she stood in the centre of the small house. Her eye fell on the shelf that held the polished disc of silver she used to look at herself.
She moved to it, took it up. It showed her the narrowness of her face. The blue eyes, still clear, had fine lines around them, and a few such lines surrounded her mouth, with its still-pink lips. Her flaxen hair was lighter than it had ever been at her hair line and temples, before it vanished under her head-wrap. She knew that brightness was due to a tiny number of strands now paling to white.
Ælfwyn of Cirenceaster. She lowered the disc, set it back upon its shelf.
Chapter the Fifth: Silver Hammer
RAEDWULF of Defenas did not return to the hall of Four Stones, or the weaving room at the end of the creaking stairs which had been given over to him. Ælfwyn and Burginde had made the narrow loft as comfortable as they could, leaving the small table well supplied with cressets should he need more light. But the looms fixed against the walls named it a work-room, an active one at that. The women of the place, perhaps his hostess herself, would have need to stand at those looms, or to take up the waiting spindles, clustered atop baskets of carded wool.
He wanted the sky above his head. To return to a room would only concentrate his thoughts, and this he did not want. He went to the stable and asked for his horse, which stood drowsing with the others in the nearby paddock. The man in charge of the place, Mul, was quick about it. Raedwulf pulled himself into his saddle and headed through the hall yard and out the opened gates. The village was small enough that he was soon in open country.
He had said more than he intended to the Lady of Four Stones. It was his role to be guarded in speech, and he had let down his guard, even if he had done nothing more than inform her they had before met. Her spoken response confirmed he had left no impress on her mind; her unspoken response proved the depth of her bond with the lost Gyric. The seriousness with which she had taken it had carried him also back to the moment, allowed him to live it once more, as she was doing. He had felt dangerously close to revealing more than he should. He reassured himself that wrapped in her memories she was not aware of his own reactions.
He turned his thoughts to the lady’s daughter. On this topic he had left even more unsaid to her mother. He had not told her, when relating his conversation with the Lady Modwynn, that she had spent some little time with him considering a match between Kilton and Four Stones.
He recalled his meeting with that lady, seated alone with her at the table in the hall of Kilton. He could see that the possibility of such a match had been something that for years had been in her grandson’s background. Not until Ceric had chosen his gift for Ashild had it come to the forefront in her mind. She did not wish him to wed at so young an age, but realised others would also pursue the daughter of Four Stones. If Ashild and her mother would have him, she would do what she could to secure the boy’s happiness.
But her thoughts on the matter could not stop there; there was much else to consider, and he had admired her candid openness in discussing the possibilities with him. Perhaps Ceric would not prove agreeable to the eldest daughter of Four Stones, her mother and their advisors. Yes, he was Ceric of Kilton. But she would bring an immense amount of treas
ure to any man she wed. Ceric would not be Lord of Kilton. First born, he would yet be second at the place. Ashild was one who could command a man who was, or would be, first.
Thus, she told the bailiff, if the maid and her people sought ties to Kilton and Wessex, her younger grandson, Edwin, could be named. He was four years younger, but another two years would see him near sixteen. If she would wait that long, the match could be made.
It was not easy for Modwynn to contemplate this option, let alone discuss it with Raedwulf. She loved Ceric and wanted his happiness, and believed that he had decided Ashild was his choice. She would do all she could to help secure the girl for him when the time came. But she must also place the interests of Kilton, and of Wessex, above those of her own, or even Ceric’s, heart. A union between Kilton and Four Stones would be of the greatest significance in assuring the continuation of the Peace. This marriage of the young of two strongholds, Saxon and Dane, would further tie the two kingdoms together. Marriage between foes was ever the surest way to prevent future bloodshed.
There was a younger maid of Four Stones, Modwynn knew, one of ten or eleven years, and thus more suited to Edwin in age. Four years at least would be needed before she could be wed. Ælfred and Wessex may not have that much time; the better option for Edwin was the elder girl, if that is what Four Stones sought. She would not, she told Raedwulf, expect Ceric, denied the elder, to wed the younger, nor would it be the most strategic match for either. It would doubly bind two houses in two kingdoms, but eliminate the possibility of an advantageous union within their own borders. She concluded by expressing the confidence of her position: If Ashild could not be had by either youth at Kilton, she would find suitable maids in Wessex for both.
He had been impressed with the breadth of her vision, the sweep of her considerations. The bailiff would be able to observe the young people, but need not do more than that. The choice, she stressed, must first be made by Ceric. He had not seen Ashild for four years. If she still proved pleasing to him, Modwynn trusted that this visit would soon be followed by a second, at which a formal offer would be presented. Perhaps Raedwulf could be persuaded to make the journey a second time, if that were the case.
The meadows surrounding Raedwulf were receding into woods, and he did not wish to come upon a watch-man. He slowed his horse.
A return to Four Stones, he thought. No, he did not think this a charge he would again undertake.
He recalled Ælfwyn’s spoken wish to him, that Ashild and Ceric might find love and happiness together. The pairing of words held meaning: one could find love, yet miss the chance at happiness with the beloved. It had happened to Ælfwyn. It had happened, as well, to him.
The next day was the Sabbath. Four Stones, as great as it was, had no church nor chapel. Ælfwyn had put much treasure to the building of the stone church at Oundle, where it would benefit its large community of nuns and brothers. Here at Four Stones she had had raised a stone preaching cross, which stood firmly anchored in the grassy sward before the palisade, off to one side of the gates. There both hall and village gathered every week to hear Wilgot preach. The family of Four Stones would then join the priest back in his timber house, where private devotions followed, including the receiving of Communion.
Ceric had been raised in a most devout hall, and was used from boyhood to attending divine service. The stone chapel at Kilton was in many ways a favourite place. He knew by heart its cool gray walls, tall pedestals upon which painted wooden statues of blue-eyed St Ninnoc and St Mary looked down, and the altar with its white linen, and silver candlesticks and cup. Perhaps the floor at Kilton’s church was most impressive to Ceric, for beneath a huge slab of polished grey stone lay his grandsire’s mortal remains. He had ever felt close to Godwulf standing at that slab, and since he had been given the great man’s weapons this bond was heightened.
Now, on the plank floor of the humble house of Wilgot he thought of Kilton, and its chapel. He stood behind Ashild during the simple Mass, kneeling and rising each time Wilgot rang his tiny brass bell. He was flanked by Hrald and Worr; the bailiff stood with Asberg and Asberg’s wife Inga. Ashild’s mother and sisters and aunt stood next Ashild, as did Burginde. They knelt and rose almost as one.
Outside, speaking to all, Wilgot had told of the Warrior Christ, that bold but gentle chieftain of men’s souls, who died, as great Kings do, for his people’s sake. Now to this much smaller group of worshipers Wilgot spoke in the Holy Tongue of Rome, most of which Ceric did not understand word for word, but discerned the meaning. He knew the priest spoke of the Resurrection and the Life.
Ceric’s hand went to his chest, touched the golden cross that lay beneath his tunic. His father had died wearing that cross, one brought from Rome and given by Ælfred himself. Incense was pouring forth from a small bronze censer, a scented haze in the air. It made his eyes smart, but he had ever liked the smell, one that served to transport his senses. His hand pressed harder against the cross of gold, his finger-tip resting on the smooth red garnet at its centre.
His head filled with the smoking incense, the soft droning of the priest, and the power of his own alive and strong and vital self. He felt the line between Godwulf and Gyric, leading to, and anchoring, him. Gold from two men, sire and grand-sire, gold heavenly and earthly: golden cross, and golden-hilted sword.
He knew his father to be good, and his grand-sire to be great. A prayer came to his lips, that he be both.
That night in the hall Raedwulf asked that he might be allowed to stay a further day. His horse would be well rested by the third day; he had gauged his fitness during his afternoon’s ride.
“So soon,” Ælfwyn had replied.
He did not know if it was surprise or disappointment he heard.
Ceric had not named the length of time he meant to stay. Hrald had pressed him to make it all the rest of the Summer, almost two months, but Ceric had shaken his head, albeit with a laugh. All expected at least a one month’s stay, after so long a journey; but none, even perhaps Ceric, knew for certain.
“Of course. You will have many demands awaiting you at Defenas,” Ælfwyn continued, in assent to Raedwulf.
A serving man was holding a platter of beef boiled with bayberries before them, and he forked some of the shredded meat onto his salver. They ate from single salvers; only those wed shared a larger one.
He wondered for a moment when she had surrendered that doubled salver. He knew little of her second marriage, that to the Jarl of South Lindisse, save that it was a union of war-time necessity. Yet the reports he had heard on Sidroc had been in the main approving. He had seen the man twice, at the blood-oath swearing by Guthrum to Ælfred, and then again at Guthrum’s surrender. The Dane had been known as a formidable warrior, but all of Guthrum’s best men had been so; one did not win and hold such a keep as this with words.
Had she given up the marriage-salver soon after Sidroc’s disappearance, or waited the legal requirement, and on the fifth anniversary at last relinquished it? Then there was the oddity of Sidroc’s living with the woman who was Ceric’s mother. And of his having killed Godwin of Kilton. There were nuances he could not hope to understand, and were not his to encompass. He knew but the barest outline of events.
The serving man had moved off. “Demands there are, always,” he answered, aware that, rested as his horse might be, some weariness showed in his words. “But I have delivered Ælfred’s gifts, discharged that duty.” He looked at her and did not keep himself from smiling.
“As pleasant as it was, I must make my start for Wessex.”
She glanced to the table at which sat the thegns. “We will make sure you are well-provisioned. You will take one or two thegns with you?”
“None,” he told her. “They are Ceric’s men. I need none of my own. I bear a safe-conduct from Ælfred, just as he does, but I expect my return to be met with the same ease as our coming.”
He read the concern in her face at this, though she answered with a si
ngle word. “Alone…?”
He only nodded in answer. Well, she thought, he had faced grave dangers in his life. Riding alone in peace time through a kingdom of the Danes would mean little.
“Will you…stop at Kilton before you return home?” She felt some boldness in asking it, as if she expected him to tell her what report he would take back to Ceric’s grandmother. She was not unaware that she herself would be included in the telling.
He was again watching her face closely, and began to smile. “I will,” he confessed. “My daughter and small grandsons are there.”
She smiled too. “Then stopping there will be the greatest of pleasures,” she nodded.
“But yes,” he went on. “I must stop at Kilton to speak to Lady Modwynn.” He glanced across his hostess at where Ceric sat next to Hrald. “Though I can tell her little about her grandson’s prospects.”
Ælfwyn found her eyes following those of Raedwulf, before looking down at her own plate.
“Yes. I am sorry. Ashild has not confided in me.” Her eyes rose to his. “Perhaps if you could stay longer…” her words trailed off, abashed at how it sounded. She decided to make of it a jest. “If you could stay longer, you would spare yourself the dangers of the road, and we could all learn more,” she said, and let herself smile.
The danger is in my staying, not my going, he thought. But he too smiled at her words.
At the end of the meal Wilgot got up to tell the story of the workers in the vineyards. The priest was less than middle height, and had grown stout over the years at Four Stones, but his voice was one which could command the hall when needed.
He told a tale from the Holy Book almost every night, and had, Ælfwyn thought, much added to his skill in doing so, making much of what was sometimes little, giving colourful voice to characters who were only described in the briefest of terms. He could even draw laughter from the tales when necessary, which Ælfwyn admired for her hall’s sake; she did not think much laughter lay within the originals.
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