Tonight the King looked at the cometa alone. Whether it be herald of good or ill, it held beauty. His thoughts filled his head, just as the white light of the star filled his eyes. If portent of evil, there was much to foreshadow it. Guthrum’s death had fractured any sense of surety regarding the vast portion of the island under Danelaw. He thought of his son Eadward, riding even now from Saxon burh to burh, exhorting the lords thereof, gauging the readiness of each keep’s men to fight. He rode thus as son of Rex Anglorum – lord of all Angles and Saxons not under Danish rule.
Ælfred shifted where he stood, put one booted foot upon a squared stone used as measuring-base. When he became a King he was one of four Anglo-Saxon monarchs of four Anglo-Saxon Kingdoms. His own brother-in-law, Burgred, King of Mercia, had been driven out. Now he alone stood, the rest of Angle-land ceded to the Danes. His hair of golden brown had paled with age. The bowel ailment which had sapped his strength in youth has become less frequent with the years; God had blessed him with a malady to keep him humble, yet spared him from debility, allowing him to reign. His life as King had been a never-ending round of out-thinking and out-maneuvering a foe greater, yet not more determined, than he. Ever on the move from hall to hall, shire to shire, showing himself to his people, strengthening the bonds between crown and Saxon war-chiefs. Always building new burhs a day’s walk from where the most scattered of his folk lived, so that they might reach shelter during attack.
In the stolen hours of night he laboured to bring the hard-won wisdom of the ancients into his own tongue, so that other men could find there the same comforts he had found. Preserving and extending the beauty of poetry was near as vital as those of the tenets of philosophy and law. The love of Wisdom must be as strong as bodily love, he believed. Thou must put thy bare body towards it, if thou wilt experience it. Ruling, war, and study; all demanded effort. He was now three and forty, and growing weary. He had a worthy son, but he could himself not yet rest.
This great star recalled to his mind the three Irish monks who had been brought to Witanceaster last year. They had set to sea in their round ox-hide boat, a coracle like unto a tiny island itself, a boat without oars, trusting God to guide them where they would be most needed. They had landed in Wessex. Their unlikely arrival was not perhaps unlike that of the cometa. He hoped this flaming star would prove as benign.
The star was as bright at Four Stones as it was in Wessex. In the keep at Lindisse men furtively sought the place of Offering and made sacrifice. Some did so in shame, falling back upon their old Gods, creeping at dusk to spill the blood of rooster or goose to show Thor his mighty hammer might be needed still to smash this star to harmless sparks. Others were open, even brazen, dragging goats to the overgrown trench and burying their knives into the beasts’ throats. The wooden figure of one-eyed Odin had crumbled to a shapeless shaft; these men bellowed now their promises to rebuild it.
More were steadfast in their new Christian faith. Wilgot offered special prayers. It was true Christ’s birth was heralded by such a star – its reappearance could mean his second coming, and the end of the world, he pondered aloud. He would exhort repentance and fasting, threaten those who soiled their hands with heathen sacrifice the punishment of being dispelled from the Church. Not until Sigewif sent word from Oundle that the cometa had been met there with songs of praise for the glories of Heaven did the priest of Four Stones relent in his doom-saying.
One near-dawn three stood alone in the bower garden at Four Stones, gazing up at the star.
“It is beautiful,” Hrald said, breaking their silence. His eyes were fastened upon it, and he felt his whole being drawn towards the ball of light.
“Perhaps it is the souls of Earth’s beloved dead, returning to show themselves to us,” mused Ælfwyn. Her voice was soft, and grave, as a prayer.
Both her older children answered her, a caught breath from Hrald, a soft exclamation from Ashild.
“If that is so,” her daughter whispered, “how kind the Fates that snip men’s lives soon.”
“Begu,” murmured Ceric.
She turned in her sleep, her face covered by a tangle of fine, curling yellow hair.
“I must leave now. But the great star will be there. Come look at it with me.”
She smiled and took his outstretched hand. He was already dressed; she felt it a kindness to wake her before he left. She pulled her mantle from the wooden peg that held it. It was lined with the pelts of martin Ceric had brought her, just as they had earlier drunk from two fine bronze cups, also gifts of his hand.
One cresset still burned upon her low table, and as soon as he unbolted her door the star could be seen, guiding them as they made their way the few steps to her wattle fence. Freed from the thick overhang of her thatched roof they could look at open sky.
They held their faces up to the star, saying nothing. Ceric thought of the distance spanning him and that shining torch; greater than he could number, or conceive. Yet the star was here too, part of his night.
It shines on Four Stones, he thought of a sudden. His lashes dropped over his eyes a moment, thinking of one who might be looking up at that bright orb as he was. Then Begu clasped his arm with her hand, bringing him back to Kilton.
He covered that hand with his own, gave it a squeeze, and took his leave. His horse ambled through the darkness; the path was smooth. Soon, even in the dimness, he could make out the forms of houses sitting in other crofts. There was no need for haste, or pretence of secrecy. For several months now he had spent a night or two a week in the house where Begu lived. No one spoke of it, but he felt certain that all who might care must know of it. He was discreet, leaving Kilton’s great hall after it had quieted, rising silently and making his way to the paddock where waited his horse. He returned, without fail, before cock-crow. The hours between were given up to the delights to be found in a woman’s bed.
It was Worr who had brought him to Begu. But it had been Modwynn, Lady of Kilton, who had spoken to Worr.
When her grandson had returned from Lindisse he had told her he meant to claim Ashild of Four Stones as his wife. She did not hide her warm approval, but bid him keep the news private until he could return to fetch her. Anglia was in uncertain state, and travel there would likely entail not only a large train of thegns, but the help of both Ælfred and whatever war-lord might emerge as most powerful amongst the Danes. The fact that no open fighting had yet taken place in Anglia reassured Wessex that the Peace would be still honoured. Still, claiming the maid would take time and care in preparation.
This decided, Ceric felt Ashild to be his. That certainty gave a destination to his near future, a goal he had sought now within grasp. It committed him and freed him at the same time. Thinking of Ashild, of their first wedded night together, spurred him to think of other women. He would not, clumsily, and with reddened cheek, lead his bride to the bed in the bower house that would be given over to him. The thought of Ashild, trying to still her smile, lips pressed together to keep from laughing, was enough to move him to action. He had told her brother he would have a woman when he returned to Kilton. Once home he determined to act.
Ceric had long been raised to understand that the sisters and daughters of Kilton’s thegns were in a class unto themselves. Their brothers and fathers were the pledged men of the Lord of Kilton. He and his brother Edwin would treat them with the respect due such a bond. Marriage between them and the daughters of even the richest and most esteemed of the warriors was highly unlikely, and in the case of the hall of Kilton, with but two male heirs, impossible. As winsome and comely as many of the maids were, they were destined for the sons of other thegns, both here at Kilton, and in other burhs. Ceric and his brother would seek brides from amongst the great families of Wessex, and in Ceric’s case, the Kingdom of Anglia.
But in the village of Kilton, there were maids in plenty. Ceric had seen them, and sometimes played amongst them, since he had been a toddling boy. After he returned from his long Summer at
Four Stones, at the age of nine, he spent less time with the village children. His uncle, Godwin, had kept him much at his side, and his training at arms was begun. And he had returned a sad and sober child, grieving the loss of his mother. Yet as the years wore on the maids were there, smiling up at him when he rode by on his pony, and then his horse; bringing him freshly-plucked green bracts at the Mid-Summer festival, even taking his hand and dancing with him through the heat blasting from the huge fire. He saw their bodies grow and thicken into those of blooming womanhood, breasts ripening under thin woollen gowns, hips defined by a sash pulled snugly around supple waists.
At this deep harvest time, on St Mathew’s Day, was held a gathering festival. Apple picking was at its height, and pears too were heaped up in abundance, withy baskets of them sticky from their running juices. It was custom that the cooks of the hall serve a meal to all the village, to honour, and thank their labours for the year, and to celebrate this final harvesting. Hand-carts and ox-carts were rolled out through Kilton’s great gates, laden with casks of foaming ale, cauldrons of herb-scented barley browis, meat and fowl pies encased in buttered pastry, baskets of newly-gathered walnuts, and numberless loaves of crusty wheaten bread, kneaded from flour of a fineness the villagers rarely knew. This bounty was unpacked on trestle tables set fast by the orchards on the red clay road to the keep. Under boughs heavy with clustered fruit, all gathered to eat their fill.
The family and thegns of Kilton came on horseback and by waggon to join in, and sat where they would amongst those whose sweat had brought to bear all the good things they had eaten this past year, and sat as well with the careful shepherds, men and women both, who watched over the flocks whose spun fleece adorned their bodies. Dunnere the priest was there, and any passing monk or lay-brother whose path had brought him near the place. Thus those who fought, those who tilled, and those who prayed sat down together to feast.
Modwynn always made much of this occasion, sitting at first at one table, then the next, as the food was ladled out, so that she might speak with as many of her folk as she could, taking a this-year’s babe into her ready arms, as she had last year’s; asking after the health of any man or woman too old or feeble to sit thus at meat; consoling those who had lost parent or child in the preceding year. Edgyth, her daughter-in-law, did the same, and both women were loved for it. The young men of the hall of Kilton sat likewise, moving from trestle to trestle. Edwin was but thirteen and shy, which the deference given him as the future Lord of Kilton only deepened. Ceric relished the day.
All were in high spirits. The harvest had been good, the day a fine one, and he was flush with the richness that happy possibility provides. He wore a new linen tunic, embellished by his aunt with coloured thread-work at neck and hem, and circling the hem of each sleeve as well. The linen was that green which made his own eyes the deeper, and his coppery hair more golden. The thread-work Edgyth had lavished was in richer green, and a blue so deep to be almost midnight. Accustomed as he was to darker clothing he felt a brilliant bird, and was surprised at how it further heightened his mood.
As he moved from table to table, Ceric found not a few village maids hastily making way for him, and had to hide his laughter at one, who by her vigorous movement unwittingly pushed a younger sister off the end of her bench.
His aunt saw it too, and had to stifle her own smile, both at the maid’s action and the handsome form of her nephew who had occasioned it. Edgyth was glad Ceric accepted the green tunic; he wore too often the drab hues Godwin had favoured as he grew older. She had in fact taken the tunic from her dead husband’s clothes chest. He had never worn it; it had not been finished at his death, and she had amended it to fit Ceric’s form. She had two wooden chests of fine clothing, awaiting Ceric and Edwin when they grew large enough.
Her steady grey eyes went to Edwin, sitting at another table in the tunic of sky-blue she had sewn for his slight form. This too she had spent days over, joining with fine needle and tiny stitches each seam, drawing coloured threads in a riot of spirals and running hounds and stags upon the hem. There was satisfaction in such work, and in the care invested in the making of something of beauty to clothe the body of a loved one. Modwynn, who she admired more than any mortal man or woman, had taught her to see her needle-work this way, as a gift of time and love beyond value. Whether swaddling blanket or binding sheet, all cloth bore the stamp of those who spun the thread, wove the fabric, cut and sewed the finished item. For a learned woman needle-craft was but another expression of art and love. In her sorrowful widow-hood Edgyth had embraced this. Her Latin was as good as that of Dunnere, her hand at writing, better. She had learnt the skill of herbal healing amongst the famed nuns at Glastonburh, so that here at Kilton her leech-craft was unequalled. But it was this most womanly of arts that gave her deepest pleasure.
Modwynn, Lady of Kilton, rose from where she sat. She and Edgyth and Edwin would soon take their leave, allow the groaning trestles and the casks of ale sitting at the end of each to make gay the party until well after dusk. Ceric, she thought, would choose to remain; he was standing now himself, laughing with a group of maids and youths, some of the village, some of the hall. She saw his eye shift from the young man he jested with to follow the passage of a pretty brown-haired village girl as she strolled before them.
Modwynn looked to Cadmar, seated at another table, who nodded back. The faithful warrior-monk would stay until Ceric turned for the hall. She looked then to Worr, seated with his young wife Wilgyfu, one son suckling in her arms, the second wobbling on chubby legs round the trunks of the pear trees. Worr rose and came to her, and Modwynn asked that he absent himself a short while to escort her and Edgyth and Edwin back within the palisade of Kilton.
Once within the gates she spoke in private to the horse-thegn. She had seen Worr watching Ceric as well, and did not stay her concern.
“Worr,” she began. Her voice was as calm and low as it ever was, but carried with it the strength of its import. “Ceric must avoid entangling himself with any village maid.” She paused, a moment only, before correcting herself. “Or rather – the potential results of such entanglements.”
The horse-thegn’s open face changed not at her words. He gave but a nod, and a word of assent. She had no need to say more.
On one certain day each Winter, an old woman of the village would creep into the hall. She would look into the face of Modwynn, and stay unblinking while the Lady of Kilton placed three coins of silver into her withered palm. This aged woman was the mother of a girl long dead, whose new-born babe had also died. The horse-thegn of Kilton had seen this woman, and knew her story.
Worr returned to the fruit groves, drank and ate more, all the time enjoying the company of his wife and sons. After a time he stood and signalled to Ceric. Waggons were loading, carting now-empty baskets, pans and pots. He put his family on one of them, then went to Ceric. He had drunk not a little ale, and was not happy when Worr told him they must go; the young were about to kindle a fire at the far end of the apple trees, and he would join in. Worr shook his head, and Ceric followed him back to Kilton.
In the morning, after all within the hall had broken their fast, Worr spoke to Ceric. “Ride with me,” he said.
Ceric looked his question to his friend, who gave but a nod of his head in answer. They took their horses from the yard paddock and set off. Their path led through the village, then branched off, away from the main road where the St Matthew’s Feast had been held.
Ceric just waited. The day was another fine one, cool enough this morning for a mantle, but the Sun lifting overhead foretold a day of almost Summer warmth. They had passed one of the common wheat fields when Worr spoke again.
“Do not touch the village girls, Ceric,” was what he said.
Ceric was so surprised his mouth opened, but he did not answer. He turned his head away, looking down the trackway their horses walked upon.
“Your uncle had a son, at your age,” Worr told him.
/> Ceric jerked his chin back to Worr. He knew Godwin had not wed until he was in his twenties.
“A natural son, with a young woman of the village,” Worr went on.
He was stunned. He had a cousin he had never met? But no.
“The babe died, and the mother too,” Worr explained. “So it came to nought.”
Ceric tried to take it in. Godwin had had a true heir, one of his own flesh and blood. But the boy had died.
“That is why it is important to think before acting in these matters,” Worr summed.
He was not done.
“I know you would not risk it with a thegn’s daughter. But do not demean yourself with a cottar girl. No good can come of it.”
Ceric’s head was filled with what he had been told about his uncle, and filled too with the warning issued by Worr.
Ceric swallowed. A hawfinch flitted over the leaning spikes of chaff left after the wheat-harvest, rising and falling with its straggling waves.
“It is simple for you,” he returned. “You have a wife.”
Worr gave out with a sound of assent. Then he spoke again.
“There is a woman you can safely see. We are going there now, you can look at her. If she is pleasing, you can choose to see her.”
“What woman?”
“Her name is Begu. You will have seen her at times, but she does not come often to the greater village. She is not of Kilton; she came here from further up the coast. Her husband used to fish there. The farm that is now hers fell to him, and he brought her here.”
Silver Hammer, Golden Cross Page 19
