Dark Under the Cover of Night (The Kingdom of the East Angles Book 1)

by Jayne Castel

  A light flickered at the end of the stalls and she found him there, asleep on the hay. A small torch, chained to the wall above him, guttered on the verge of extinguishing itself.

  Caelin lay on his side. Upon creeping closer, Raedwyn saw he held a heavy piece of wood against his stomach while he slept. Wise, she thought, since he was not safe here. The torchlight and shadows played across his features as he slept. Raedwyn watched her father’s slave with interest.

  Caelin’s mouth had swollen. Raedwald could have killed him for daring to defend her honor. Careful not to wake him, Raedwyn knelt and placed the meat, bread and jug of mead on the hay near Caelin, so he would have food to break his fast tomorrow morning. Then, extinguishing the torch, Raedwyn left Caelin to sleep and crept back the way she had come.

  Once again out in the snow, Raedwyn intently surveyed her surroundings. Her instincts were sharp, as they had been the evening she had escaped from Ceolwulf. With her family in turmoil, Caelin was not the only one in danger here. Certain there was no one peering at her from the shadows she made her way back up towards the Great Hall. Half way up, the stairs forked and Raedwyn took the right path.

  Ahead, loomed the shadow of the three buildings that housed the barracks, store and workshop. Raedwyn rarely ventured here. Her father’s warriors slept in the barracks and as such it was not a place she had ever visited – Raedwald would have had her whipped if she had dared. She had played in the store house and workshop as a child but had been discouraged from continuing to do so once her girlhood ended.

  Raedwyn checked the workshop first but found it ice-cold and empty. Next door, the store house was a considerably larger building. Just after harvest, their winter store of food packed it to bursting, although now with Yule nearly upon them, it had emptied slightly. Raedwyn pushed back her hood as she stepped inside. Clay cressets filled with oil burnt near the entrance and cast a dim light over the interior. It was considerably warmer than the workshop. Peering beyond the stacks of barrels and sacks, Raedwyn caught sight, in the shadowy recesses of the building, of a figure seated upon a pile of sacks of grain.

  “Mōder?”

  There was a lengthy silence before a woman answered.

  “Leave me Raedwyn.” Seaxwyn’s voice struck Raedwyn as if her mother had just slapped her.

  For a moment, Raedwyn just stood there. The force in Seaxwyn’s voice almost made her obey, but a resolve not to let more things remain unsaid, forced her to stand her ground.

  “Leave me!” Seaxwyn’s voice caught and Raedwyn realized her mother was crying.

  “Eorpwald told me everything mother,” Raedwyn said and waited for Seaxwyn’s reply. When none was forthcoming, she continued. “I just want you to know I understand why you couldn’t say anything. You and father hid the truth from me so well that if Ceolwulf hadn’t resurfaced I would never have known what had happened. You managed to be happy together despite everything. Some things are best buried and I’m sorry that when you defended me father threw the past in your face.”

  Raedwyn broke off, near to tears, and waited for Seaxwyn to reply. When the queen did not, she understood her mother had meant her words. She did not want company tonight. Raedwyn did not blame her. She doubted things between the king and queen would ever be quite right again – and it was partly her fault. She opened her mouth to say more but no suitable words would come. Feeling sadness wrap around her like a heavy cloak, Raedwyn turned and left the storehouse.

  Outside, it had stopped snowing and the clouds parted revealing an inky, star strewn sky. From here, Raedwyn could see the fires of the rest of the town huddled in the shallow valley below the Great Hall. She stood there awhile watching the sleeping town, until her feet ached with cold, before she crunched through pristine snow back to her father’s hall.

  Chapter Twelve

  Yule arrived with yet another wintry blast of snow and ice. Raedwyn had always loved Yule, especially in milder winters when she and her kin would join the people of Rendlaesham outdoors in the celebrations. However, this mid-winter solstice she could not dredge up much enthusiasm. The winter’s chill had crept into her father’s hall since that fateful evening. Despite the roaring hearth in the center of the Great Hall, the atmosphere within the timber walls was frosty. The queen spent most of her time weaving in her bower while the king sulked. Everyone, including the servants, was unsmiling and on-edge, as if they expected hostilities to re-erupt at any time.

  Raedwyn remembered happy occasions on past years. Apart from the special food they would prepare and enjoy, one of Raedwyn’s favorite traditions at Yuletide was placing cakes in the boughs of the oldest apple trees in the orchards outside Rendlaesham. They would sacrifice animals under the trees and let their blood soak into the earth to give thanks for the fruit. The sacrifice also ensured that the trees produced abundant fruit in the future.

  Boughs of mistletoe and holly festooned the town and, in the center of Rendlaesham, a great bonfire burned on Yule Eve. The Yule bonfire gave renewed life and power to the sun, ensuring its rebirth so that the darkest part of the winter would be over and they could all look forward to gradually lengthening days and the approach of spring. The townsfolk began building the Yule bonfire with oak and pine branches two moon-cycles before the mid-winter solstice.

  As Yule approached, Raedwyn helped the servants prepare the Yule delicacies. Most of the cakes they prepared were round and golden, like the sun, and served warm. Raedwyn helped the other women bake huge batches of hot seedcakes, spiced buns, and sour plum or apple cakes sweetened with honey. Chestnuts popped and snapped in the hearth, filling the frosty air with their sweet aroma. Big pots of mulled, spiced mead simmered over fires before servants ladled it into earthen mugs; a welcome remedy for numb lips and fingers.

  On the morning of Yule Eve, Raedwyn awoke early, as was her habit, and dressed in her best winter dress; an embroidered blue gown with a heavy, floor length woolen tunic and long, tight sleeves underneath. She pulled fur-lined boots onto her feet and fastened her finest rabbit fur cloak to her shoulders with the two matching amber brooches Cynric had given her as her ‘morning gift’. Raedwyn had not touched the brooches since the day of the ambush but they were so beautiful it had seemed a pity never to wear them.

  Raedwyn pulled on gold bracelets and clasped a gold, jewel-encrusted circlet around her neck. She left her hair loose and emerged from her bower to find her mother at her distaff, seated on the raised dais at the end of the hall, while her father and two of his ealdormen chatted with Eni and her cousins near the fire pit. Eorpwald was playing Hnefatafl with one of his father’s thegns while, around them, servants scurried like squirrels late stocking their winter store.

  The smell of roasting chestnuts and honeyed seed cake mingled with that of the enormous boar roasting on a spit. Raedwald had selected the boar especially for Yule. They had sacrificed it that morning. The scent was heavenly and Raedwyn’s mouth watered. She took a drink of water, feeling as she did so, someone’s gaze upon her. The thegn who played Hnefatafl with Eorpwald was staring brazenly at her. He was the same one who had stared at her on the night she had learned of her mother’s deceit. Like then, Raedwyn chose to ignore him.

  Raedwyn was helping herself to a seed cake when Caelin appeared, swathed in furs and weighed down by a load of logs for the fire pit. Raedwyn felt an unexpected jolt at seeing him. She had deliberately not sought Caelin out, even if she had found him in her thoughts more often than she wished. The king and his men ignored Caelin as he made his way over to the stack of logs against one wall. Raedwyn’s gaze tracked him, like a moth irresistibly drawn to a flame, even at its own peril. Should her father see her watching his most reviled slave, she knew he would punish them both, but even this knowledge could not prevent her.

  Feeling her gaze upon him, Caelin returned Raedwyn’s gaze for a moment. He gave her a fleeting, slightly mocking smile, before he started to stack the logs.

  Someone else had noticed their exchange. The thegn excused him
self from playing Hnefatafl with Eorpwald and let another take his place, before sauntering over to the fire pit. There, he retrieved some roast chestnuts and placed them in a small basket.

  “Here, M’lady,” he said solicitously, placing himself in front of Raedwyn and blocking her view of Caelin. “Would it please you if I peeled these?”

  “No thank you,” Raedwyn replied icily, taking the basket from him with ill-grace. “I shall peel them myself.”

  The thegn smiled, as if her rudeness had no effect on him. “You look especially fair today, M’lady.” His gaze dropped to the circlet she wore around her neck, then to the swell of her bosom under her dress, before his voice softened to almost a whisper. “I look forward to the celebrations this eve, I hope to dance with you.”

  Scowling, Raedwyn picked up a chestnut and peeled off the blackened skin. The chestnut was still red hot; she could not eat it yet. She felt like stuffing one into this man’s mouth – anything to prevent him from irritating her further. By the time the thegn had finished whispering compliments and trying to gaze longingly into her eyes, Caelin had finished stacking wood and had left the hall. The thegn then strolled back to rejoin Eorpwald for another game of Hnefatafl, a triumphant smile lingering on his lips.

  Irritated, Raedwyn ate her chestnuts and let her gaze travel around the interior of the Great Hall. Its lushly decorated interior was even more splendid with the mid-winter solstice festivities. Boughs of holly and mistletoe hung from the rafters. Oil infused with rosemary and pine burned in clay cressets. Raedwyn’s kin were all dressed as richly as she was. Seaxwyn was dripping in gold and gemstones. She had piled her hair onto her head, revealing her long, shapely neck. Raedwald too looked handsome in his finery, although Raedwyn noted that her father’s hair was now nearly completely gray and his skin had lost the ruddy bloom he had possessed as a younger man.

  Relations between the king and queen were still frosty and they both remained cool and detached towards their only daughter. If it had not been for Eorpwald, Eni and her cousins, Raedwyn might have felt as if she were living in a house full of strangers.

  Finishing her chestnuts, Raedwyn made her way outside. She had been so used to seeing low cloud and either driving sleet or snow, that the bright sunlight that greeted Raedwyn made her squint. The snow still lay thick on the ground but the sky beyond the horizon was limpid blue and unmarred by even a single cloud.

  Raedwyn sighed in pleasure at the feel of the sun on her skin. She turned her face up to its warmth and closed her eyes. If the weather remained like this it would be pleasant to venture outside after dark to watch the Yule Bonfire burn and celebrate Mother Night; the first eve of the twelve days of Yule.

  ***

  Ealdormen, thegns, ceorls, and the king and his kin filled the Great Hall for the Yule feast. They banqueted on roast boar and onions followed by sour plum cakes. The feasters downed the rich food with copious quantities of warmed mead. Once night fell, the revelers left Raedwald’s Hall. They crunched through the snow, down into the center of Rendlaesham and lit the vast bonfire that the townsfolk had spent the last two months building. There the music and dancing began. Someone began playing a bone whistle, and its haunting notes carried far across Rendlaesham.

  Raedwald and Seaxwyn made an appearance, as was customary on Mother Night, and made a show of togetherness. They stood side-by-side and even held hands at one stage, but Raedwyn saw that they barely spoke to each other. The bonfire crackled, sending tongues of flame licking up into the night sky, before the king finally took up his lyre and began to sing.

  Raedwald was a gifted musician and singer. Raedwyn recalled many a winter’s eve when she would curl up like a puppy at her father’s feet near the fire pit and listen to the soothing lilt of his baritone as he sung heroic lays and sad songs of lost love. Despite his bluff exterior, Raedwald was a man of hidden depths that he rarely revealed, except to those closest to him. However, when he sang, Raedwald exposed his soul for all to see. As it was this eve.

  The king drew a bow sweetly across the strings of the small wooden lyre and began to sing. He sang of battle, he sang of bloodshed and loss, of brotherhood and valor, and finally, of treachery and reckoning. Raedwyn listened, feeling the fine hairs on the back of her neck prickle. Raedwald’s voice and that of the lyre rose in harmony while around him, some people sang, while others danced.

  Eanfled and Alric had attended the Yule bonfire. Raedwyn thought her friend had never looked more beautiful or serene as she danced with her beloved. Eanfled’s pregnancy was now starting to show but she moved with the same grace as ever. Finally, breathless, Eanfled sought out Raedwyn while Alric went to find himself a cup of mead.

  “Your father’s voice is so beautiful!” Eanfled exclaimed. “I love to hear him sing!”

  “So do I,” Raedwyn admitted, “although his choice of theme these days is a bit repetitive for my liking.”

  Eanfled nodded. Raedwyn had told her of the secret her family had kept for the past sixteen years. For the second time in only a few months, Eanfled had been struck dumb by Raedwyn’s news – only this time they could find no humor in it.

  “Are they still not speaking then?” Eanfled asked, glancing over at where Seaxwyn was conversing with the wife of one of the king’s ealdormen. “They seem happy enough this eve.”

  “Yes, at least they are not still at war,” Raedwyn admitted. “He forgave her once – perhaps he will again and things will go back to the way they were, in time.”

  At that moment, Raedwyn’s admirer – the amorous thegn – appeared in front of them.

  “I promised you we would have our dance Raedwyn the Fair.” The man’s teeth flashed against his tawny beard. “And I am a man of my word!”

  Raedwyn’s heart sank, and she would have refused him if Eanfled, completely misreading Raedwyn’s pained expression as one of shyness, had not pushed her into his arms.

  “Go on Raedwyn – you have not yet danced!”

  Needing no further encouragement, the thegn grasped hold of Raedwyn’s arm and swung her round into the whirling dancers.

  “My name is Osric,” the thegn introduced himself, before he crushed her foot under his, “and I have long awaited this day.”

  Raedwyn grimaced and tried to keep her feet clear of him. She was relieved when the dance forced him to fling her away from him and twirl her around him.

  “I must confess,” he breathed into her ear when he pulled her close once more. “I was disappointed when Raedwald married you off to Cynric. I wanted you for my own.”

  There was a lull in the music, as the king finished his epic lay and took a long draught of mead. Raedwyn stepped back from Osric who was eyeing her like a hungry wolf.

  “I must accompany my mother back to the hall,” she said, hurriedly glancing over at Seaxwyn. The queen looked tired and drained at the conclusion of the king’s song. Raedwald’s lay of treachery and retribution had exhausted her.

  “Do not tarry.” Osric let his gaze trail down Raedwyn’s body. “I want plenty more dances before this night ends.” As if to make his point all the clearer, he squeezed her bottom as she turned away.

  Seaxwyn was visibly relieved when Raedwyn offered to take her back to the Great Hall. The king had begun another song, this one even angrier and more heart-wrenching than the last. The strains of his voice died away as the two women made their way through the snowy streets. It was a clear night and the full moon lit their way. They walked in silence for a spell, each immersed in their own thoughts before Seaxwyn spoke.

  “You must hate me as your brother does.”

  Raedwyn was taken aback.

  “You are wrong, mother” she replied when she had recovered. “Neither I nor Eorpwald hate you.”

  The silence drew out between them for a short while before Seaxwyn spoke again. “I thought your father would never forgive me all those years ago, and I was so grateful when he did. I realized how blessed I was. Ironically, we were even happier together after that, for
we no longer took the other for granted.”

  “If Ceolwulf had not returned you would have remained happy together,” Raedwyn replied sadly. “Father seems so altered. He has no proof against me but he continues to believe I gave myself to Ceolwulf and his men. He is so bitter, so angry. Nothing I say will make any difference.”

  Seaxwyn nodded and Raedwyn saw in the cold, silver light of the moon, that her mother’s cheeks were wet with tears. Raedwyn put her arm around her mother’s waist and hugged her tightly as they walked. Before them loomed the Great Hall and soon they were swallowed within its shadow.

  Inside the hall it was deserted. The hearth still burned, and after putting some logs on the fire, Raedwyn began to remove her cloak.

  “What are you doing Raedwyn?” Seaxwyn, who had removed her own cloak and sat by the fire pit warming her hands, raised her eyebrows at her daughter. “Mother Night has only just begun and you are young. Don’t stay here with your old mother. Dance, enjoy yourself!”

  “You sound like Eanfled,” Raedwyn replied sourly. “Frankly, it was a relief to get away from that annoying Osric!”

  Seaxwyn laughed then and upon hearing her, Raedwyn realized it was the first time she had heard her mother laugh in a while.

  “He won’t be able to get up to much mischief in a crowd.” Seaxwyn reminded her daughter, “and besides I so rarely have solitude that I wish just to sit here by the fire and enjoy the silence.”

  “I can see I’m not wanted,” Raedwyn grumbled. She placed a kiss on her mother’s cold cheek and refastened her cloak. “I shall leave you in peace.”

  Raedwyn left the Great Hall and realized, as she stepped outside into the crisp night air, that she felt a little lighter of heart. Her conversation with Seaxwyn had reforged the link between them that Raedwyn had thought lost, and she felt less alone after speaking to her mother.

  Raedwyn walked slowly down the steps, away from the hall, taking care not to slip and hurt her ankle again. It had just healed, although it could be tender at the end of the day. Raedwyn was in no hurry to return to the bonfire, to Osric’s pawing and her father’s heart-wrenching songs. She walked slowly across the stable-yard towards the gates and hesitated.