“Seventeen days,” Ceridwen answered. Every hour of them had been marked on her heart. She did not let herself sigh, but in holding it in, stifled herself just the same.
A few days after Sidroc had sailed a storm of unusual ferocity blew from the West, one that wrenched trees in full leaf from the soil they stood rooted in, and ripped the sedge thatching from peaked roofs. It knocked over boats which had been hauled ashore on the rocky beaches, canting them as if they heeled with sails unfurled in driving winds. When the storm calmed Ceridwen came down to the trading road. The newly-blue sky seemed to mock the violence that had been, and she shivered in the fresh breeze. She looked upon those boats, nearly overturned yet on dry land, and wrapped herself in her own arms, thinking on what Runulv’s ship may have faced. As she stood there she heard the door of the brew house, behind her. Rannveig came up at her side, and placed an arm around her.
She must for the sake of her children and household greet each day with hopeful cheer, busying herself with the normal demands of early Spring. She walked the forest paths with the children and little Juoksa, willow baskets in hand, to pluck tender birch leaves to boil the tonic she favoured, and which she forced on all for whom she cared. She and Helga turned out every featherbed of the hall, beat them well, darning up any faults in the ticking, and re-stuffing those whose down had crushed beyond re-fluffing. Ring had shorn the sheep at the farm and carted to her the raw fleece to be cleant, combed, and spun, a task which would busy her through Summer. Through careful husbandry Tindr and Šeará had made great increase in the fowl and geese of Tyrsborg, and Ceridwen and Helga and the cook Gunnvor numbered the chicks and goslings, and picked out those larger to be sent to the trading road for sale and barter.
Tindr was busy two days running carrying off all the Winter ash from the hall fire-pit. He shovelled it out into a drag sling, much like that he strapped to his waist to haul back the stags he took. Now the ash would be used for scrubbing, and spading into the vegetables. In his wake, the birch twig brooms held by Ceridwen and Helga and young Eirian were active sweeping up the fine powder of the burnt wood that had warmed them during the cold. Of all she did during the lengthening days of Sidroc’s absence, this was perhaps the hardest task, that of sweeping away the Winter’s ash of the fires she had sat with her husband by. These had been the warming flames they had stared into together, and held their chilled hands to until their palms tingled. They had spoken together before these fires, of children, farm, and hall, and done hand-work or carving by the grateful glow. The heat from those logs which Sidroc and Tindr had hewn and stacked was long spent, and now to sweep away and dispose of the last relics of these warming fires felt an unlooked for and additional loss.
When Rannveig determined that she had enough linen wicking for the tapers she would make, Ceridwen walked back up the hill with Eirian. The girl skipped ahead to their neighbour Alrik’s house, spotting his own daughter and running to join her, and Ceridwen continued on alone. The view of Tyrsborg’s steeply gabled roof had always filled her with quiet happiness. Now its sharpness felt a stabbing blow to her breast. Sidroc was not there. Sadness flooded her, so that her next breath was no more than a gasp. This is what being a widow will be like, her heart told her; returning to my hall, without my man. This is what Rannveig had to bear when her Dagr took ship and did not return alive…
One morning, awakening before dawn, she found her arm stretch out, into the half of her bed where Sidroc should be lying. Her fingers met no solid warmth, only more smooth and cool linen. She gave a stifled cry. She could not fully recall her dream, but knew he had been with her. She reached her hand over her head, touching the headboard into which he had carved the knot she had drawn. Then she drew her hand back, over the silver disc bracelet on her left wrist. She squeezed her eyes to shut out the pain of awakening alone.
She must rise, turn from her fears. She swung her legs onto the softness of her plush weaving and began to stand. As she did so the floor rose up to meet her. She fell back, in a wash of dizzy sickness. She reached her hand again to the headboard, her fingertips feeling the depth of the carved spiral arm of the pattern. It steadied her, and she again rose. The dizziness once more, and her mouth feeling as if she might retch.
She sat, then curled herself back into the warmth of the bedclothes, her hands coiled by her heart. It was pounding in her breast. She knew she was shaking, but she was not cold. Hope overtook her, more fully than despair had before. After the birth of her twinned children she had not been able to conceive again. It had been an unvoiced grief to her, for she welcomed the thought of more children with Sidroc. Yet she must not be greedy in her happiness, she had told herself over the years. Eirian and Yrling were hale and hearty, as good as any active young could be, and had brought both her and Sidroc joy.
But now – now with Sidroc gone, she knew she was with child again. He was gone, but had left her this.
Moving slowly but with calm assurance, she pulled on her gown and shoes. The hall was still quiet, but once out into the stable yard she found the pail of cow’s milk, faintly warm, that Tindr must have lately left. Milk, that mother’s gift of sustaining love. She took a small copper pail from Gunnvor’s stock and dipped it into the creamy stuff. Then, with the sky lightening overhead, she slipped past the spruces.
She had never visited the place of Offering without Sidroc. He made Offering for the household, and came here too alone at times, to speak to his Gods. She knew he had come here to do so before taking ship. No one would have been back since his visit, and to enter the small tree-ringed clearing after him heightened her sense of his babe growing under her heart. She walked as if called, and stood in the centre of the sacred space and lifted her head to the ever-growing light.
“Freyja,” she said aloud, “I give you thanks for this gift.” Her throat caught at her next words, those she must say, though they be uttered through her tears. “Sidroc may be even now in your hall. But he, and you, have left me his coming child.”
She bent and poured out the milk, describing a circle about her with its foaming white stream, a circle of protection at her feet.
Chapter the Twenty-fifth: Yrling’s Daughter
HRALD had returned, and six days passed since Thorfast had left them. Ashild had but another week in which to give her decision, and, as her brother kept insisting, Thorfast the same in which to make his own.
It was mid-morning, the day cool and damp, with a Sun struggling to pierce a scrim of thinly layered pearl-hued clouds. A mist hung about the air, one which neither resolved into rain nor vanished under the ever-lifting Sun. Hrald was in the treasure room with his uncle, sorting through the weaponry kept there. They had earlier spent some time with Jari, numbering all the spears standing at attention against the inner walls of the hall. Ashild was with her mother and sister up in the weaving room. Its windows gave out over a portion of the palisade, and it was because of this that Ashild heard the whistles, followed by the winding of a horn, even before her brother did.
She looked at her mother, but neither spoke. They put down their weaving tools, and Ælfwyn followed her daughter down the creaking stairs to the hall. Hrald was by now outside on the step, Asberg and Jari at his side, awaiting whatever rider was being ushered though the gates. They swung shut behind a single man, a watch-man who Hrald had posted not a week ago at Four Stones’ north-west border.
“A rider of Thorfast found us,” the man panted out. He had dropped from his horse, who was near to foundering from the hard ride. “Armies from the North are coming, coming our way, mounted and on foot, to join Haesten.”
“From Northumbria?” Asberg asked. “Is it Ofram and his men?”
The rider was shaking his head. “They do not know. But they are Danes, heading to Haesten in the South.”
“And sweeping all they can before them,” Hrald said.
“And Haesten will, I wager, send some of his own up to meet them,” Asberg offered.
If so it cou
ld be what they had feared, movement from both South and North. Hrald’s mother and sister were now at his side, and he took them in in a long glance. Burginde was in his mother’s bower house with Ealhswith and Eanflad. Both his little sister and aunt were fearful, had suffered the night-mare already. He was glad they were not standing there, seeing the alarm on the faces of those of hall and stable yard who surrounded him.
The next words were uttered by the Lady of Four Stones. Her eyes were widening at the recognition of what may lie before them, and though she kept her panic from her voice, the note of full urgency was there.
“Oundle,” she said, looking to her son. “Mother – Sigewif. We must protect Oundle.”
Oundle lay South and West, in the direct path of those coming as these armies might be.
Oundle was led by the esteemed Abbess Sigewif, peopled by nuns and monks, two priests, and devout serving folk. Hrald’s own grandmother, who had known war-time horrors, was there. And Oundle held rich treasure.
“We must split our men,” Hrald decided, looking to Asberg, “half to Oundle, half to remain here.”
They both turned, gave orders to ready the men. Shouts and whistles sounded throughout the yard. Then they headed for the treasure room. Just behind them were Ashild, and then Ælfwyn. The hall itself was already alive with serving folk, alert to new demands.
Hrald went to the flat box which held his ring-shirt. His eyes were swimming in his head as he began to gather his war-kit. Asberg too was moving about the room, opening chests.
“I will ride to Oundle,” Hrald said.
“Never,” answered his sister. He looked to her. She had followed him so quickly that her skirts were still gathered in her hands. “You must stay here, here at Four Stones.”
“Já, she is right,” their uncle agreed. “You are Jarl, you must stay here and defend your hall.”
“Asberg and I will ride to Oundle,” Ashild went on. “You and Jari here, and Uncle and I there.”
A cry came from her mother, and a sputtering denial from her uncle.
“Já, I will ride to Oundle, but you will stay here, with your mother and aunts and sister.”
Ashild’s quiet defiance sounded in each word of her answer. “You are not my father,” she told him. She turned to her mother, still white-faced from her daughter’s declaration that she would ride to defend the abbey.
“We do not even know if either enemy will stop there,” Ashild told her. “We do not know what we face. But we must send a force to Oundle. Let me ride with Uncle. I am of the family of Four Stones; your daughter, you who made Oundle what it is with your treasure.”
Ælfwyn began to protest, only to be cut short by her daughter.
“Grandmother. Sigewif. All the women consecrated there,” Ashild pressed. “Think what it will mean to see your daughter ride to them.”
Her mother spoke through her tears. “You do not know what you are saying…”
But Ashild would not relent. “Four Stones has protection enough. But the folk at Oundle –all its women. Let me ride to them. I will not allow the women there to suffer a Fate I am not prepared to suffer.”
Ælfwyn looked to her brother-in-law, and then to her son, with growing helplessness. Both men stood silent. Ælfwyn was shaking her head, and ready to speak again when her daughter took a step closer to her.
“Do not forbid me, mother,” she asked, and now her voice began to waver. “I would go with your blessing, and not your curse.”
Hrald spoke now. “Do not forbid her,” he seconded. “She will only find a way to ride after Asberg.”
His sister beamed at him for taking her part, even as her heart was racing in her chest.
Ælfwyn was staring at her, her hands now framing her temples. “I beg you not to do this,” she pleaded.
“All the women there,” Ashild repeated. “I will defend them, as a woman.”
“You are but a maid,” her mother countered.
“And many of them are but maids, though they be of all ages,” she returned. She spoke with growing strength. “I will not let them be taken and raped. And if they are, it will be my Fate as well. I share it with them.”
Her words were so dreadful to hear that she herself turned from them.
She looked now to her uncle. “Asberg, you won this hall with my father Yrling. Many of our best warriors here did the same, and are ready to fight again. I am Yrling’s daughter. They all of them know this. Much of Yrling’s treasure is held at Oundle. Let us ride together with our good men, to protect it.”
Asberg’s hands lifted before him, as if he tried to somehow contain, or even measure, the force of will issuing from the young woman standing there. Her call to protect what Yrling had won was a potent charge. The maid had drawn a straight line from her father’s prowess to the holy folk at Oundle, with her in the middle of it. She connected the glories of that dead war-lord with the need to protect what his treasure had built. Yrling had made Asberg rich; now his daughter demanded her right to protect the place where the bulk of Yrling’s wealth resided.
Asberg took this in, and did not have time to gather his thoughts to counter her words. Her mother was giving answer, reaching her own hands towards the maid who stood resolute, and with eyes shining, before them all.
“Go,” nodded Ælfwyn, her tears falling from her eyes. She tried to call down what she herself could not provide. “Blessed Mary, the Mother of God, will protect you.”
Ashild let herself be enfolded in those arms. She was still in her mother’s embrace when she spoke again.
“The horses,” she remembered, and broke from her mother to face her brother and uncle.
Hrald knew what she meant. Their wealth of horse-flesh was Four Stones’ great asset, and one that could be driven off by a determined foe. “We must protect them,” he agreed. It seemed their forces would now be split in three ways, and not just two.
“Twenty mounted men to the valley, to guard the horses,” Asberg decided, looking to his nephew.
Hrald made quick reckoning, and then nodded. There were already thirty men there, those who lived at the hall in the valley. “One hundred warriors to hold the hall,” Hrald said. “Fifty to protect the horses. And fifty to ride to Oundle.” He could only hope that fifty would suffice.
“Fifty to Oundle,” Ashild repeated. “We must bring as many spears as we can carry,” she now urged. “The men – and women there, who wish to take one up, must not be denied.” She did not foresee a nun or monk doing so, but the number of lay people who lived there should have the means to defend themselves, and those they served.
“I will ready myself,” she said, “see Mul, and pack my kit.” Her mind now buzzed with all that lay before her, but she gave each of her kin a kiss before she left to make her preparation. Her first stop was just outside the treasure room, retrieving the two lightest spears from their iron holder.
The hall was filled with folk. Æthelthryth, so unswerving in seeing to the needs of Four Stones, left the kitchen yard and found her husband. Word had come to her ears that he would ride to defend the abbey at Oundle; an honour, if a fearsome one. Their sons Ulf and Abi crowded round them, the boys begging that they be at their father’s side wherever he stood. Both lads were smaller versions of Asberg himself, yellow-haired, blue-eyed, their broad brows now darkening with dashed hope.
“You will defend Four Stones,” their father told them, placing the best face on it. He thought then to add that which would make them grow in understanding.
“If Hrald is killed, if I am killed, you are next in line, Ulf.”
His wife made gasp at this truth, one she had known, but never heard sounded. The boys looked open-mouthed at him, then at each other. They must hear it too, and so consider their value to Four Stones.
He left them then, hurrying to tell those chosen men that they would ride to Oundle’s defence. He made one additional stop, that to find Wilgot, who was at that moment at the bower
house of the Lady of Four Stones, comforting her sister and younger daughter.
Ashild did not credit her uncle with great powers of reckoning, but now Asberg bethought him that the priest would be certain to object if he knew that the elder daughter of the hall was riding to front a troop of armed warriors, even if it were to defend an abbey. Wilgot could be forceful in his own right, and might so rail against this violation of female propriety as to spook the men with threats. Asberg had been sprinkled and blessed long ago, and at Wilgot’s hands, so that he might wed Æthelthryth; it was the only way she would have him. And Asberg had nothing against the new God nor his priest. He even wore a small cross his bride had given him. But he felt the justness of Ashild’s desire, even if he did not strictly approve of its expression, and would keep her from priestly hindrance.
All within the palisade was in enough turmoil that folk knew battle was being prepared for, and Asberg determined that Wilgot need not be there to bless those men who would soon ride off to Oundle. It was a simple matter to call the priest aside, and mutter to him that dark and forbidden sacrifice had been made at the old place of Offering, and encourage Wilgot to go see for himself.
The priest’s brow clouded. A heathen horde was likely headed their way, he knew, and now his own flock was again turning to those false idols he thought he had taught them to forsake. His hand pulled at the rope tied at his waist, and he pulled up the cross of carved wood that hung there at his hem. With it in hand he squared his shoulders and made at a fast walk to the kitchen yard door, the nearest to the place of Offering.
As Asberg watched him disappear through the door he recalled something he had forgotten to admit, and so said it under his breath, not wishing to be proved a liar in any God’s eyes. “And one of the dead roosters is mine.”
Ashild stood before Mul, at the wide mouth of the opened stable doors. His young sons and many others worked within, carrying out saddles and bridles to the paddocked horses, or bringing forth those beasts stabled within which now were wanted. She would ride to Oundle, ride quickly, and need decide which of her several mounts was best suited for the task, the faster and more steady of her mares, or the white stallion Thorfast gave her.
Silver Hammer, Golden Cross Page 43
