For answer Burginde slapped her again, leaving a reddened cheek. “Your silver! It was never your silver!”
The woman was truly afright now; Burginde had more than twice her years, but there was real strength in her arms and hands. All knew she was beloved of the Lady of Four Stones, and had her ear as no one else. Milburga stood before the nurse and began to blubber.
Burginde would have none of it, but let her anger spew forth.
“You wicked-hearted whore! You cry for the silver and nothing more, and take triumph in what you have done. I should wring your neck like the fatted fowl you are. If you so much as look at Master Hrald again I will have you cast from this hall. Out into the village you will go, with nothing more than what you wear upon your back. You will be forced to beg, and I will make sure all decent woman know of your lewdness. See how they will like that!”
Milburga’s hands now rose to her face. Tears streaked her crimson cheeks, and her nose ran as she snuffled.
Burginde could not bear to look at the woman any longer. “Go back to your work now,” she ordered. “If my Lady hears of this, I will do worse than cast you out!”
Back in the hall Burginde made straight for the iron-strapped door of the treasure room. She tapped on its wooden planks, and brought her mouth close to the lock-edge.
“Master Hrald, you open this door to me,” she hissed.
It took a moment, but the door opened. She stepped inside.
Hrald’s face looked flushed and ashen, at once and the same time. She stood before him, looking up at his furrowed brow. She opened her fist before him, showing him the coin.
“You dropped this, down a trash pit,” she told him.
His eyes closed, and his chin turned away.
“Does Mother know?”
“She does not, nor will she ever, if that hussy understood me.”
He bowed his head. Burginde placed the silver on the edge of the nearest chest, and went on.
“She be a bad enough woman without turning her into a whore. Go tell Wilgot what you have been doing. You’ll not sit at table with your mother until then.”
He yearned to tell her the whole story, and could not. He must protect Gunnulf; no one could know. His lips were dry and he licked them, trying to buy time to order his thoughts.
“You need say nothing,” she went on. “Go to Wilgot now. And take him that coin, for the village poor.”
She was ready to go. Hrald seemed unable to speak, or even look her in the eye. She loved him almost as a son, had been the one to swaddle him, took turns rocking him when he cried from teething-pains, watched him suffer with the loss of his father. She would say one more thing, and did so, quietly.
“With your wife – a maid that you love – ‘twill be the sweetest joy you have ever known.”
She touched his hand with her own, and turned and left.
The door to the priest’s house was open. Before he approached the threshold Hrald heard the sound of pounding from within. His figure filled the door frame, making Wilgot look up from where he stood at his work table over a thick wooden bowl. Wilgot’s slightly stooped back made his girth look the plumper, and his dark cassock was bunched at the waist where his cross hung. A mallet was in the priest’s hands, as he was crushing oak galls for the making of ink.
“I…have known a woman,” was what Hrald said.
Wilgot blinked. He wiped his hands, gestured Hrald to sit. The priest crossed himself, then sat as well, his face turned away from Hrald, his head lowered.
“What kind of woman?”
“One of the serving women.”
Wilgot paused a moment before going on.
“Was force used?”
Hrald made a sound, an exhalation of breath. “No, no. She…”
But the priest was nodding his head. “I see.
“Are you truly contrite?”
“I am.” Hrald could answer no other way; there had been so little enjoyment in the encounter.
Wilgot went on, mumbling, having Hrald repeat prayers with him. Hrald gave him the piece of silver, asked that it be given to the poor as an offering. At last he released him.
He left Wilgot’s door, only to see Gunnulf walking with Onund and two other men, heading to the hall; it was nearly time to sup. Gunnulf slowed, said something to Onund, dropped back to join Hrald.
Gunnulf’s head tilted towards the priest’s house. Hrald looked at him steadily, seeing the fear behind Gunnulf’s eyes.
“Nai,” he told his friend. “I was there for something else. No one will know. Ever.”
But Hrald remained troubled. In the morning he announced he would go to Oundle for a few days’ stay. He had once or twice made the journey without his mother; all knew he enjoyed the hushed nature of the place, and he had since boyhood looked forward to a day or two living amongst the monks, a few of whom were great favourites with him. And, he told his mother, he felt moved to make a donation to the abbey, in his own name.
This would be the first such he had given.
“Would you not have me there, to see the pleasure in Sigewif’s face?” Ælfwyn asked.
She was proud of his decision to do so, and wished to join him.
“I would rather she see it was from me,” he countered.
Ælfwyn considered this. Hrald was thoughtful, like his father. He had given some time to his decision, both to go, and to take a gift. It was a man’s act, and she would let him take it.
She kissed him. He had seemed almost unwell the night before; now she knew it was his thinking on this that had caused it.
He reasoned that he need only ten men with him; unlike Thorfast he would not ride heading a long train. As he told her and his uncle, “I am not kin to Guthrum, and have no need to look over my shoulder at another heir.”
He need not ask Ashild if she would accompany him; he had understood long ago that one or the other of them must always be at Four Stones. She would not leave, if he must, and the obverse was true. Their hall, filled as it was with warriors, was too important to be left unwatched by the children of Four Stones. As he gathered his kit he reflected that no one else saw that; no one realised this unspoken pact between him and his older sister.
At any other time Gunnulf would of course have ridden with Hrald; they were fast friends. But this time Gunnulf did not step forward, begin at once to gather his trappings. He heard Hrald was going and asked Asberg for the patrol by the valley of horses.
Hrald rode side by side with Jari the whole of the dusty trail, the chosen ten behind them. He was glad to get away from Four Stones, and glad for Jari’s stoic company. He was not heading to Oundle to have time to think, or make decision. There was nothing to decide. Two things had happened, in rapid report, and he must live with them.
He winced every time he thought of the risk Gunnulf had taken. Another man might have killed him, then and there, and faced no penalty for doing so once he had spoken. Ceric would always be his closest friend, but Gunnulf, near at hand, was one he had gladly spent his hours with. He had tamed, and raced horses with Gunnulf; beat, and been beaten by him in wrestling; laughed and gamed with him. They sparred together, for years now, and he felt Gunnulf as good as any untested fighter; he took risks, just as he did on horseback; but he was fast and daring in his blows.
That Gunnulf had wanted him in that way shocked him. It had taken that same daring, a kind of wild courage, for Gunnulf to show him that want. That courage, and what lay behind it, made him shudder, just as the thought of Gunnulf burning in Hell made him shudder.
Jari was riding just next to Hrald, watchful as ever. Hrald could not imagine Jari knew this of his younger brother. He let himself wonder for a moment what Jari might do if he found out. He could not guess, and he did not like to think of it.
As far as the woman, the sickness he felt at that was one he tried to shrug off. Burginde was right; when he wed, the knowledge of his wife’s body would be a sweetness he could fi
nally taste. He would have almost his pick of the comeliest, and richest, maids in Anglia; Asberg and Jari and any number of other men had told him so, and he knew from watching the faces of the newly-wed men about the keep of the pleasures to come.
Wilgot had absolved him, given him penance and told him to sin no more. As much as he felt the urgings of his body he would keep away from Milburga and her like, at least as long as he could. He could wed in a year or two and then those urgings would be met.
He had brought to the foundation at Oundle a small wooden chest filled with two hundred pieces of silver. Sigewif received it with the dignity she accorded every gift, large or small. She clasped Hrald’s hand; he was always surprised at how large a hand hers was, and what strength lay in it. As she did, her eyes, grey and clear as water drops, searched his face. He thought his own would be forced away, but they were not. He could hold her gaze. She did not challenge him. She read whatever she read in his face, accepted it, acknowledged him.
“Use it as you will,” he told her. He knew many gifts came with special requests appended; he would put no conditions on his.
The abbess thought a moment. Her nuns and novitiates had come with sums of silver, whatever their families could afford. It had been set aside, sometimes at birth, as dower-fee, and though at Oundle they wed Christ and not a man it had been planned for all their lives. Most of the monks had no such start. Nearly all the wealth of the place was held on the female side. Two hundred silver pieces would assure every monk there comfort in their final years.
She told him this. He listened with care. It held meaning to be used this way, made his gift more valuable and real.
Later that day he asked that he might see Bova. This meant as well the granting of speech to her. Sigewif consented. Bova would be at her brewing shed after Sext, or mid-day prayer.
He had on past visits asked Sparrow to tell him of his father, wishing to fill in those years before he and Ceric had landed with Godwin of Kilton. She had been fearful of Sidroc a long time; it was easier for her to speak of the Lady Ceridwen, she who had redeemed and fed and clothed her, or of Tindr, who had led her out of the forest.
Today he did not ask Sparrow for any stories. He had been thinking of his father on the ride to the abbey, wondering what he would have done at his age. He could not guess, but for the sake of all at Tyrsborg he wanted to spend time with she who had lived there.
He found her standing under the roof of the open-walled brewing shed, a doubled row of brown-glazed crocks lined up on the sturdy work table. She was stirring one of them with a wooden paddle. The height of the lip of the crock meant she need stand on a low stool to reach with her spoon.
“I am brewster now,” she said, brown eyes darting up over her shy smile. “Sister is content to sit and help sort the brewing herbs.” She turned her head to the square table sitting under the roof of the shed. The old nun sat doing just that, a green and grey mass of leafy stems before her.
Bova handed him a pottery cup, bid him dip and taste that which she had just finished. It was brewed with fermented rowan berries, deep and ruddy, a favourite brew for Hrald, and he praised it.
They spoke a few moments more. He had taken his leave when he turned back.
“Bova,” he asked. “Will you pray for me.”
Her lips parted slightly, but she nodded her head. “I will pray for you, Hrald, and all whom you love.”
The third day he left. Hrald had lived three days with the monks of Oundle, rising when they did, eating and working with them. As honoured guest he sat at meat with Sigewif in the woman’s hall his first night, but other than that his hours were spent amongst the men. Except for the oft-imposed silence it was much like a hall of warriors in some ways.
They were no more than an hour gone from Oundle, moving at an easy walk, when a cloud of dust ahead of them proclaimed fast-moving horses’ hooves. Such haste meant only ill tidings, and Hrald’s small troop reined up as they readied themselves. He had not his new ring-tunic with him, none of the men did; but they all had helmets, and pulled them from their saddle-bags. Hrald’s had been gift of his uncle, and this was the first time he had donned it with any expectation of need.
They slung their shields round to their chests, untied their throwing spears, and transferred the reins into their left hands. Jari, as a Tyr-hand, stayed at Hrald’s near side, and ordered the ten with them to form two lines of five in front and behind. Then they waited, blocking the road, their horses dancing beneath them in sudden anticipation.
It was a single rider.
He slowed his canter only a little as he neared, which told them he was friendly. He wore no helmet, given his speed, but had a spear at the ready. He pulled up before them, his horse’s hind legs folding under its haunches as it lurched to a stop.
“Hrald of Four Stones,” called the rider. “The Gods and Jesus Christ are with me. I ride to Oundle, and then to Four Stones, to see you.”
They knew the man. It was a messenger from Agmund, Guthrum’s eldest son, who ruled the southern-most reaches of Anglia. This messenger had once been to Four Stones, a warrior in Agmund’s train.
Hrald pulled off his helmet.
“Agmund sends you greeting,” went on the man, nearly as winded as his horse. “Danes from Frankland have landed at Apulder, two hundred fifty ships of them. They have horses and are making camp there.”
Apulder was across the southern border, in Wessex, a direct insult to that Kingdom, and threat to Anglia.
Two hundred fifty ships, the men of Four Stones were thinking. The waters would be dotted with their long-ships. Such a fleet was unheard of; it meant the joining of many war-chiefs together. With that number they could only be glad these strange Danes carried their horses with them, thus limiting the number of warriors to crowd their decks.
Being raised inland and in a time of relative peace, Hrald had never seen a single war-ship. He knew from drawings and the words of the men of their beauty, and their speed. His head quickly filled with an image of the onslaught. The image formed had little to do with the word Beauty.
“Who leads them?” demanded Jari.
“That we have not yet learned. But they have found little plunder along the coasts of Frankland, and now try their hands here. And they are heathen.”
The man had given a nod of his head, as if towards the abbey that lay at the end of the road.
All raiders knew the treasure that lay within the walls of churches, convents and monasteries. Only the halls of the richest war-lords could compete with the silver, gems, and even gold that Christians harboured. And Hrald had just further enriched one such holy place with silver of his own.
“What news of Ælfred?” Hrald asked.
“He is in the West, from what we know, but by now his riders would have come to him.”
Jari looked to Hrald, then nodded his head at Agmund’s man. The King would find this fresh affront to be just that, an outrage to his well-tended borders. Yet Ælfred rarely acted recklessly; he would watch and wait as he gathered his men. A sufficient force under his command might drive him in an attempt to reclaim all that had been given over to the Danes. Suddenly there were two threats to the Peace.
“Agmund has our thanks,” Jari said.
Hrald had been doing quick reckoning in his head. The place they had just left must be protected. “Stay,” he told the messenger, “and nine of us will ride with you to Oundle.”
He turned to the men he led, chose the best rider amongst them “You, Aki, ride back to Four Stones. Tell them what we have heard. The rest of you return to Oundle. Jari and I ride now for Thorfast; he may know more. Either way we will send word back to Oundle within three days.”
Jari was looking at the nine who would remain. “Set and keep watch, three at a time. There are men enough there to help you, and some of the monks are warriors still beneath their cassocks.”
Hrald and Jari were in fact the first to bring the news to Thorfast. He
was at his new holdings at Turcesig, and listened with careful attention.
“Two hundred fifty ships,” he repeated, as they sat over ale in his timber hall. Women had been weaving and spinning within, and had been shooed out so that the three were now alone. The doors were opened for brightness, but as Hrald lifted his face to the heavy timber rafters the roof was lost in gloom.
The hall was large, and fine by any standards, high ceilinged, thickly thatched, pocketed with sleeping alcoves along much of both long sides, and with a fire-pit ringed with square-cut stones. Thorfast’s younger brother Haward was at the keep they had grown up in; Thorfast at this grander one which Guthrum had left him in his will. Once on Thorfast’s lands Hrald and Jari had been met by a mounted patrol of five men and escorted to their young war-chief. They rode through palisade gates into a keep of full alertness, men actively sparring, honing blades, flinging spears at gashed wooden targets. Once Asberg heard the news Four Stones would be much the same.
“Who will come forward to lead them?” their host wondered aloud. Of his cousins, Guthrum’s sons, he did not think even the eldest, Agmund, could amass enough men and treasure to take command.
The three sat, discussing this, Hrald wishing Asberg were with him.
A serving woman poured out more ale, and Thorfast reflected on how this landing would shape his life in this new hall. News of such great import served to compress time itself; since his uncle’s death he, and all war-chiefs, had been preparing for possible action; now this seemed inevitable. Things which he had planned for the future would be required to be undertaken, now.
Silence had fallen upon the three of them, each deep in their own thoughts. Thorfast broke it with a quiet declaration.
“I would have Ashild for my wife,” he said. He was looking straight at Hrald.
Jari made a sound of surprise, but of approval, too. It was sudden by any reckoning, and the maid’s uncle and mother were not present to hear this.
Hrald gave a slow exhalation of breath.
“She has been spoken for.”
Silver Hammer, Golden Cross Page 22
