The Circle of Ceridwen: Book One of The Circle of Ceridwen Saga

by Octavia Randolph

  “I know. But Æthelred does not have enough men to divide his forces across two borders. He can no longer aid Mercia when his own Kingdom is falling.”

  I thought of my small village, and the timber hall of my kinsman, and the life I had known there by the marshy banks of the river Dee. My father and kinsman were dead, and no ceorls remained to fight. My thoughts turned to the Priory, and the monks who lived in peace and poverty there. Who would defend them?

  “What are you thinking?” asked Sidroc.

  “Of my dead kinsmen, and of the Holy Men who raised me when I was alone.”

  “The Christian priests always have much treasure,” said Sidroc, as if he was remembering this.

  I felt close to tears. “These men do not. They are poor, and gentle, and have but little gold, and that for the Glory of God.”

  “Their God is not glorious. He is not a warrior, and does not even take a wife.”

  “I do not mean glory in that sense. I mean that the few treasures they keep are to honour God.”

  “Gold is for men, and the pleasure it brings us and our women.” His voice softened. “You yourself remark on the many good things we have. Gold and silver and fine horses and rich stuffs are for those strong enough to win them. You and your Lady now are part of us, and many such things will be yours.” He stopped, and then went on. “And you, shield-maiden, are not as the other women of this land. You are like us.”

  I did not want to hear this, and I could not find words to answer any of it. I began to move my mare ahead to join Ælfwyn. Some impatience I was feeling stopped me, and I turned to Sidroc. “Why do you not use my name?” I asked.

  I did not know if he would laugh, but he did not. “I want to, but it is hard for me to say,” he answered. “I like to hear your Lady call you by it,” he finished.

  I felt suddenly abashed that I had made him speak thus. “It is the name of a Goddess of the people of Gwynedd,” he said, after we had ridden on in silence for awhile.

  “How do you know that?” I asked, amazed that he had this knowledge of a folk so distant, and of their Gods.

  “I asked. Your Lady told me,” he replied. After a time he said, “How came you to have such a name? The Welsh are your enemies.”

  “We have often fought them, yes. But we have lived on their borders a long time, and some of them live amongst us.” I remembered the small bones and dark hair of the Artful One, and decided to tell him. “Tho’ I do not look it, my mother is of their people.”

  He nodded. “Your father captured her and did not sell her because she was beautiful.”

  This thought startled me. “I do not know,” is all I answered.

  He glanced at me and asked, “Tell me of the Goddess you are named for. Is she the shield-maiden of those people?”

  “No,” I said. “She is more the bringer of good things.”

  “Like Freyja,” he said. “Love and pleasure and glory.”

  “No,” I said slowly. “Not just the same. It is more like abundance. Ceridwen bears the Cauldron of Life.”

  “Ah,” he answered, and sounded thoughtful. “Life.” He added simply, “Then you will bear many children. That is good.”

  Chapter the Thirty-second: Hard Questions

  WE went into our room and took off our mantles and gloves and smoothed our tousled hair. Ælfwyn went over to the wicker cage and looked in at the linnet. The little bird was silent, and Ælfwyn also spoke not. I wondered if I should speak to her, or perhaps just fetch our spindles so we might work.

  I began to move towards the spindles when she said, “I do not know what I will do if Cirenceaster is attacked.” She looked at me and raised her hands in a helpless gesture. “It is too hard to believe Sidroc’s words, yet I must believe them. What will happen if another, more powerful Dane decides to fight my father?”

  I had no answer, but she sought none. “My father cannot pay another tribute such as he sent to Yrling. He is rich, but he has many people to care for.” She crossed to the table and sunk down in her chair. “Perhaps the next Dane will not be content with only treasure, but want as well the hall and lands and sheep and slaves that make up my home.”

  I yearned to speak some comfort to her, but knew none. I sat next to her and said, “Yrling will honour the Peace he made. Sidroc said that you can bear the truth, and he honoured you in saying this. I do not think he would lie to you.” Now I began to cast around for words of my own. “And Yrling is powerful. I do not think he would let any other Dane take Cirenceaster.”

  She lifted her head and asked, “Then he himself might take it?” She turned this thought over in her mind. “My father would never relinquish his lands. He would die defending them.”

  I began to say that surely Yrling would not kill her own father, but these words died in my throat. There was no reason for me to think that he would not. I felt certain that she held the same thought, and neither one of us spoke.

  In the afternoon Burginde rummaged amongst our wool sacks, feeling with her hands how much carded fleece was left.

  “And what will we be doing for wool when this fleece we brought with us is gone?” she asked, to no one in particular. “Shear the heads of the Danes and spin that?”

  But Ælfwyn took the question seriously. “Yes,” she said, “That is our next task, to find wool. Flax and retting pond we have. Sheep must be got somehow; I do not know how.”

  “Dobbe said the sheep here be all eaten,” said Burginde.

  “And gone wild into the woods,” remembered Ælfwyn. “I wonder if they could be gathered up again. The wolves could not have eaten them all.”

  “It is worth a try,” I said, and tho’ I was ignorant of the ways of sheep, I well knew that Ælfwyn was not.

  “Even if we recovered ten ewes, it would be ten less we need to buy,” she said with decision.

  Burginde stood with her arms on her hips and laughed. “Never did I think the day would come that you should question the need to buy anything! ‘Twould do your dear mother good to hear you speak thus; she was always a great one to manage and despaired at her careless daughter!”

  Ælfwyn took it in good humour. “That was before I myself was charged with providing for the needs of a household.” She eyed the sacks of fleece along the wall. “Besides, this should have been my first concern all along. I am scheming for linen, that we might have that smoothness next to our skins, when wool, which drives away the cold and will clothe even the poorest amongst us, is a hundred times more important.”

  I could but smile at her. “Since you plan for both, there will be both.”

  “I pray that may be.” The softness faded from her voice. “The better that I manage, the less lack there will be, and the more content Yrling and his men.”

  As we drank our broth next morning Ælfwyn was quiet and thoughtful. She tossed a few crumbs to the linnet, and looked at it for a long time.

  “My bird is not well,” she said. “I think it will die if it is kept here much longer.”

  The tone of her voice made Burginde and I look at each other. It was as if Ælfwyn spoke of herself and not the linnet.

  She turned to me and said, “Do you go after you eat and let it free.”

  “Yes, of course I will,” I said, as kindly as I could. “Do you want to go with me?”

  She shook her head. “No, it is of Cirenceaster; I have lost too much of what I brought.”

  “Perhaps it will fly home,” I said, trying to sound cheerful.

  “We have more need of the sweetness of its song here in this wasteland,” said Burginde.

  Ælfwyn nodded to all this and sat back down. “Where will you take it?” she asked.

  I thought about this. “I do not know. Somewhere outside the keep yard, where there are trees and shrubs, and it can shelter and be safe while it learns freedom again.”

  “That is good,” she said quietly. “Please be careful. I do not like to send you alone; perhaps Burginde shou
ld go with you.”

  “No, no; I am fine,” I answered, “and will welcome the chance to walk, and especially to do some slight service for you.”

  In the yard I headed for the small door by the gate. Once outside I walked a few paces, and then paused to look about. Ahead were the clumps of trees we had passed on our way to the place of sacrifice. Surely there I would find a good place to free the bird. I looked down at it in the wicker cage. It seemed to know it was away from the confines of our chamber, for it fluttered about and beat its wings.

  I went on past the trees, to the wooden post rising out of the sacrifice pit. A glistening black wing flapped from within the shallow pit, and a raven cawed and rose from the remains of the Offering, beating its great glossy wings and complaining at my presence. It flew into the branches of a beech not far away, and looked down upon me the whole time I was there.

  The pit was littered with bits of metal. Broken knives and bent swords and shattered helmets glinted as they lay half covered in the soft clay. Bones of many small animals, some with hide still clinging to them, were strewn about. Feathers drifted and swirled in the slight wind, and a clot of them were caught up against the base of the wooden post. I raised my eyes to the post. The image carved upon it was crude and simple, but it had in it a force that held my eyes long as I gazed upon it. It was Odin, one-eyed, all-seeing; and in each fist clutched close to his chest was gripped an unsheathed sword.

  It was much like the image of Woden before the timber hall of my kinsman Cedd. It was one of many carved images of the Gods, strong with magic, before which he and his ceorls would worship. I recalled those posts, and seemed to see them more clearly now than ever. My kinsman was now dust, and the magical images too. The Prior had pulled them down and had them burnt when he took over the hall.

  I looked again into the shallow pit. I saw in it many stories of battle and gain and loss. There was death there, in the bones and skins of the sacrificed, and there too was life. There was pride, and boasting, and thank-offerings and cries to the God for prowess and deliverance. Bare and open to the merciless view of the afternoon sky, silent and unwatched by all save the ravens, the pit revealed its truths of the men who had gathered there.

  And I gazed upon this, and stood thus clutching the linnet’s cage to my chest; and the tears started down my cheeks and dripped from my chin. I set down the wicker cage and dropped to my knees in the soft Earth, and I sobbed.

  I wept for what I had known, and what I had not known, and what had been lost. I wept for my dead father, whose face I could not remember, and for his dead brother who had raised me. I wept for the lost hall of timber, and the burnt images of the Gods. I wept for the Prior, and for the arts he had taken such pains to give me.

  I wept for Ælfwyn, for her beauty and courage, and wept, too, for the young man she had loved and would never see again. And I wept for these Danes amongst whom we now dwelt, and of whose lives we were a part. In them was cruelty and lust, and also goodness and love, and I wept the more to think of this.

  My tears fell from my eyes and watered the quickening Earth, and I stumbled to the beech tree, and lifted my wet eyes to its branches scratching the face of the sky, and called out loud and long the name of She whose name I bore. And no one’s face came before me; not my kinsman nor the Prior; no one condoned or condemned. I was alone with Her, and at that moment She was in the beech; and for that moment I felt a great lightness and joy, as if a stone had been plucked from my heart.

  I hung the cage from the lowest bough, and pried open the little door, and the linnet hopped from perch to perch and at last leapt into the air.

  And I took my sash from around my waist, the sash with the pheasants in thread-work upon it, and tied it on the bough and so made Offering; and I kissed the grey bark of that tree, and felt joy.

  Then I walked on, up the path, around the shrubs and budding trees, and back towards the keep of Four Stones.

  Chapter the Thirty-third: The Village and its Secret

  NEXT day Burginde brought up food from the kitchen. As we ate she of a sudden jumped up and flung her iron warp beater at the corner.

  “Mouse!” she cried out. “They be getting so bold they come as soon as our food does.”

  We had before this heard mice rustling in the night, and once Burginde had surprised one in the very act of escaping from our larder chest; but this was the first time one had been so bold as to enter the room in plain sight of us all.

  “We need a cat,” I said.

  “Ach!” answered Burginde, retrieving her beater from the floor. “Spooky yowling things. Near as bad as the mice.”

  “I think we should get a cat, now that the linnet is not here to suffer from it,” said Ælfwyn. “You recall the yellow one we had, Burginde, she was gentle and pleasant to stroke.”

  “And as good as catching a mouse as me,” said Burginde.

  Ælfwyn only laughed.

  “There must be cats in the stable,” I offered. “Shall we go and get one?”

  “You go and choose one,” said Ælfwyn. “I picked the yellow one, and as Grumpy says, she was no mouser.”

  So I took up my mantle and went off to the stable. I was glad to see Mul outside, holding a horse as the smith finished shoeing it. He led the horse around a few times, and the smith spoke to Mul in the tongue of the Danes, and seemed to tell him that the shoe was a good one, for Mul led the horse inside the stable.

  I followed him in. “You speak the speech of the Danes?” I asked in some wonder.

  “No Lady, not speak it, but I know now enough of it to understand what they say to me.” He paused, and shifted awkwardly. “Be you looking for your mare? I will fetch her up.”

  “No, but I am looking for something - a cat. We have mice aplenty in our chamber, and they are growing bold.”

  “Ah,” he said. “That is bad. If they are bold that means there are many, and soon you will have a swarm.”

  “Ugh. Well, we do not want that. Do you have any cats we might take?”

  “Yes, Lady, and you might have your pick, for we have a nest of kittens in the loft, and they be all yours for the taking.”

  “We will start with one, and see how it works,” I laughed. “I hope we do not need all of them.”

  He shook his head. “Swarms be bad.” He climbed the ladder and vanished into the hay loft.

  I heard scuffling, and Mul appeared, clinging to the rungs with one hand and trying to stay the furious claws of a tiny kitten with the other. It was a strange coloured little creature, speckled brown like tortoiseshell.

  “‘Twill be the best mouser of them,” Mul assured me.

  “How can you tell?” I asked.

  “It be the only one that looks like its mother, and she be the best mouser in the yard.” He kicked at a pile of rough cloth upon the stable floor. “I will put it in a sack, so you can take it without fear. ‘Twill soon tame, with you Ladies.”

  I returned to our chamber holding the sack out at arm’s length. I spilled it open unto my bed, and the kitten leapt out, spitting and dancing sideways. We three laughed so hard that we could scarcely talk, and Ælfwyn seemed pleased with my choice. She took a fragment of roast fowl and tossed it upon the floor. The kitten pounced upon the meat at once, perhaps because it seemed to fly into its view, and then finding it so savoury, devoured it.

  Ælfwyn tossed another piece to it, and said, “Well, little Browny, I feed you now to tame you, but you must work hard in clearing out mice to get more.”

  In the hall that night Ælfwyn said to Sidroc, “On the morrow we will ride out to the village so that I might speak to the women about spinning and weaving for us. We will not be gone long, but I want you to know that we will go.”

  He nodded his head and I wondered if the way Ælfwyn said this made him smile. She did not ask him for permission to go, but she was careful to tell him that she wanted to and would go. I felt how clever she was about this; she did not want to claim to
o much freedom and anger Sidroc, nor did she want to lower herself to the estate of a younger sister with no freedoms at all.

  And ride out we did. First we had to put Burginde on Shagg, which was not easy, for the nurse fairly balked at having to do so, but Ælfwyn said she would not let Burginde walk while we rode, so ride she must.

  When we three women came down, Mul had our horses tied by the mounting block.

  “Mul,” Ælfwyn said, “Does your mother still live? Is she amongst the village women?”

  He stammered, “Aye, my Lady, she be still alive, and living there.”

  “I am glad to know that, Mul, for I have need of her help, and hope in return to help her as well,” she replied. “Tell me her name, and I will seek her out.”

  “Meryth is her name, Lady,” he said, “and her croft be the one closest to the walls of Four Stones.” “Good,” answered Ælfwyn. “Then perhaps I shall speak to her first of all.”

  Mul nodded his head, and Ælfwyn took the stirrup he offered and climbed into the saddle. Mul helped me, and then Burginde up, and we set off, at a slow walk to please the nurse, through the yard.

  The morning was a fine one. Winter’s back was truly broken, and now nothing could stay the coming Spring. “Burginde,” said Ælfwyn, trying to get the nurse to ride even with her, “you will remember which women seemed the most sensible and trusting, and which could speak for the others with some authority, and so I will count on you to help me.”

  Burginde’s elbows were jostling up around her shoulders. She swayed from side to side upon Shagg’s broad back, and her ruddy face was redder than usual with the effort of keeping her seat. “Ach!” she complained. “You might count on me more if I knew my brains would not be knocked out of my head by this jolting beast!”

  But there was no time to tease her back, for we were nearly before the first of the huts. As we reined up, a woman who had been behind the hut appeared, struggling under the weight of a wooden tub which she held in her arms. A baby was strapped upon her back, and as she came upon us she nearly dropped the tub in her surprise. She was, like all the villagers, thin and ragged, and her face was pinched and faded. A few wisps of colourless hair escaped her dirty head wrap and rested on her brow. Still, she had a vigour and erectness about her, and I was glad to see that a smile of welcome and interest began to play about her face.