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

by Octavia Randolph

  “Drug the Dane that guards him,” said Burginde. She sat down upon her stool and looked up at us with a sharp eye. “If only one be guarding him, he can be drugged, and a horse be made handy outside the wall.”

  “Yes,” answered Ælfwyn, “my chestnut mare.”

  I turned on her. “It must not be your horse,” I argued. “Any horse but yours. How will it look when it is found missing? Will you have Yrling know that you set him free? I tell you, you are speaking treason against your own husband.”

  “Why should I care? Gyric is held prisoner here, and I can help him. There is war everywhere, and more is coming. I will not pretend any more that Yrling will honour the Peace he made. Why then should I not free the man I love?”

  “Hush!” ordered Burginde. “Helping him to freedom is one thing; speaking so another. The Lady be right; ‘tis much too dangerous for you to see him.” Ælfwyn cried out in anger at this, but Burginde went on in a firm and steady voice. “And seeing him serves no purpose, except mischief. Do not speak of two horses; he will go on one, and go alone.”

  “You are wrong, nurse,” she answered, and nearly spat out the words. “I will see him, if only for one moment. If I do not, I will die.”

  She paced around the room, and her mood of anger quickly passed. “What blessed Fate that Yrling is gone!” she said. “We must act now, and make the most of it.”

  I still sat at the table, and she came up to me. She touched my hand and said, “You will help me, Ceridwen, will you not? I do not think I can free him without your good thinking.”

  “Of course I will help you,” I said, and tried not to sound sulky. “But it is dangerous, and I am afraid, for myself; and even more for you.” I chose my words carefully. “Yrling cares for you - loves you - and trusts you. We must be careful to make it seem as tho’ you had nothing to do with Gyric’s escape.”

  She lowered her eyes and slowly nodded her head. “Yes, I must protect all of us. It must seem as tho’ he escapes by his own powers.” She looked over to Burginde, who sat with head cast down. “Burginde, no one knows me as you do; and so I beg you to forgive my rash words.” She stood up, and looked at both of us. “I will not make treason against Yrling, I swear to both of you; but I must help Gyric to escape. Wessex needs him. Ælfred needs him. He may even help save my own family. If by doing this I make treason against Yrling, then I will be guilty.”

  “You must not get caught, that is all,” nodded Burginde.

  “I will not,” murmured Ælfwyn, but her thoughts galloped on. “You spoke wisdom when you spoke of drugging the guard. We must do it.” She turned to Burginde. “How do we do it?”

  Burginde scratched her chin. “Your own dear mother did it once, I recall; not like this, of course, but to make a sick man sleep long so he would heal.”

  Ælfwyn raised her eyebrows and asked, “She did? How did she do it? What did she use?”

  “I do not remember,” admitted Burginde. “‘Twas long ago.”

  “Wilfrida will know,” I thought aloud.

  “Aye, Wilfrida; she be a healer,” agreed Burginde. “She has all matter of herbs hanging.”

  I crossed to the door, stopping to pick up a basket on the way. In it lay the dried ferny leaves Wilfrida had once given us. I reached instead for my leathern satchel, but tucked the leaves inside it. “I will go now, and see her.” I went to Ælfwyn and kissed her cheek. “Promise me that you will do nothing until I return. I will ride rather than walk so I may be quick.”

  “I promise,” she answered.

  “And make your ride seem as tho’ all is just as usual,” advised Burginde.

  “I will, as much as I can,” I returned.

  Mul was not about the yard, so I had to point out my mare to the Dane I found in the stable. He brought her forth, and as he saddled her I thought he looked more closely at me than at other times. But then, I was alone, and not with Ælfwyn, and so his eye might be more bold. I calmed myself and acted as if I went on any simple errand to the village, and was glad that I need not speak to him.

  I headed out along the village road, trying to walk my mare slowly as if I enjoyed the Spring Sun. Perhaps my mare felt my fear, for she whinnied and side-stepped and tossed her head noisily as we went.

  As I neared Wilfrida’s croft I began to look for her across the fields, or by the stream, for I knew she often worked there as well. But Fate blest me, and as I rode up to her hut I saw steam rising from her iron cauldrons. The stuff she stirred was inky black and smelt very foul.

  I slid off my mare, clutching my hide bag, and she came forward and regarded me. Her jaw moved; she seemed always to be chewing something. She nodded her head and said, “Lady,” as a greeting.

  “Wilfrida,” I began, and tried to slow my words and not show the fear I felt, “I have need of your wort cunning.”

  “Aye,” she answered, chewing still, and regarding me even more sharply. She glanced at the bag I held, laid down the dark paddle, and then said, “Come in, and tell me of it.”

  The hut was dark inside, tho’ she left the door open as we went in, and for a moment I just stood until I could again see. My eyes went to the single rafter overhead, and the bunches of herbs and bundles of peeled bark and dried roots that hung there.

  “I need something to make a man sleep,” I said, getting it all out at once.

  She regarded me for a moment and then asked, “Sleep ever?”

  “No,” I answered quickly. “I do not want to kill him, only to make him sleep deeply for a few hours.”

  “Hmmm,” she replied. “To sleep sound for one night?”

  “Yes, that is it; he must sleep sound for one night, and not awaken until morning.”

  “And you have his feeding in your command?”

  “Yes, food and drink both,” I answered.

  She nodded as if this were a good thing, and scanned the rafter above her, considering each bundle in its turn. She reached up and brought down a cluster of gnarled, greyish roots. She lay these upon a stool and then turned to a pile of red pottery bowls, each covered with round wooden plugs. She opened one and brought out a fistful of dried stems and leaves with prickly withered pods.

  She held up one of the grey roots in her hand. “Peel this, and grind it, and boil it with his ale, and let it cool, and then strain it fine. ‘Twill give a slight bitter taste, so strong ale, like ivy, or rough beer, be best.”

  “Cook his meal with this,” she went on, holding out the dried leaves and pods, “porridge of some sort, or browis; and when it is cooked, pull out the pods and slice them open and scrape out the sticky part within, and stir it back into his food. ‘Twill leave no taste. Give him both ale and porridge together, and he will sleep long and very deep.”

  “But he will not die?” I asked in fear.

  “No, he will not die, but only wake in the morning with a bad head.”

  “What are they?” I asked, as I could not name either one.

  “The root be cowslip, and the pods, thornapple.”

  “I need enough for two night’s worth,” I said.

  “You may take a month’s worth if you want, but do not give too much each night, or he will retch on it and wake rather than sleep.”

  “Please to show me once more how much I should use,” I asked.

  She went over it again, and then I opened my leathern bag to take them. I saw the ferns within and pulled them out. “This you gave to us when we first spoke to you, but we know not what use it has.”

  Her wrinkled lips cracked into a smile, and she said, “‘Tis for your Lady, to get a child faster. She should steep it in ale or broth and drink it for three nights before the half Moon.”

  “I thank you, Wilfrida,” I said. “I have nothing to repay your kindness with, but -”

  She spoke over me. “I will take no payment to make a Dane sleep. The other is a gift to your Lady.”

  When I started up the stairs to our chamber Ælfwyn came out on
the landing to meet me. Her face said that each moment I was gone had been hard to bear. I pulled open my satchel and showed her the roots and leaves, and told her how they must be prepared.

  “I will go now, to Dobbe, and give her these,” I said. “Will it be tonight? Do you think we can have a horse ready so soon?”

  “I have been thinking on it; I do not know,” she answered.

  “Also, he will need arms,” I remembered. “They would have taken his sword and everything. He will need whatever we can find.”

  “And kit of some kind,” chimed in Burginde. “Some food, and tinder, and so forth.”

  Ælfwyn put her hand to her brow. “He may scarcely be clothed. And he will need silver for the journey South; at least I have much silver to give him.” She turned to us and asked, “He is three day’s ride from a border. How will he ever make it?”

  “Not to think of that; that be his riddle to solve. Think instead of the horse, for that is most important,” counselled Burginde.

  I thought then that he would have only a few hours before it was discovered he was gone, and the Danes gave chase. At least Yrling would not be back for three or four nights, so the pursuit would be led by others, probably Sidroc.

  Ælfwyn must have had like thoughts, for she said, “Sidroc told me he might spend tomorrow night with the drovers moving the horses. If he does, both he and Yrling will be gone, at least for a short time.”

  “Then that be better still, and we should work to free him for tomorrow night,” said Burginde.

  “Yes, and we will have another day to find the horse and kit,” I answered. I had another thought, and turned to Ælfwyn with it. “I will go to Gyric tonight, and tell him of our plan, so he can counsel us, and so that he knows of it and can prepare himself.”

  “Yes, we will drug the guard tonight, and we will go, and I will see his face again,” murmured Ælfwyn.

  All my strength was in my answer. “You must not go; you must not be seen with him, for what if we be caught? It is one thing for me to be caught with him, but life or death perhaps, for you.”

  “What of your life?” she asked.

  “Do not worry about that; I know I am right. If I should be caught helping Gyric, Sidroc will be my judge, for Yrling is away; and Sidroc will not harm me. This I know. And if Gyric escapes, and suspicion falls on us, I will openly take the blame, for if Sidroc feels Yrling will punish me, he will run off with me, and so save me from danger.”

  She opened her mouth and looked at me. “You will do this for me?” she asked.

  “I am pledged to you, and will do anything for you; but I do it feeling my life is not in danger, but yours surely might be if you were caught.”

  For answer she embraced me, and kissed my cheek. “Only you must let me see Gyric, just one time, after you have told him of our plans. Please.”

  I could not refuse this plea; the tears were in both our eyes. “Yes,” I nodded, and then sat down and tried to think. “I will have Dobbe drug the guard tonight, and tonight I will stay in the kitchen yard and hide until the hall goes to sleep. Then I will find Gyric, and tell him, and then send some sign to you and you can come down and see him while I am certain the guard still sleeps.”

  Ælfwyn listened hard to this. “What signal will you send?”

  Burginde had the answer. “Take one of the balls of wool yarn, and cast it out the window before you go, so that we have the other end here. ‘Twill fall near the side gate if it be cast from our farthest window. Then tie it to something below, and pull upon it when she may come down.”

  “You are too clever, nurse; that is a good and quiet signal,” said Ælfwyn. “Now we must find him a horse, and kit, and have all ready for tomorrow night.”

  “We have many things for a kit right here; for we had so much in the waggon we came in,” I remembered.

  The three of us went around the room, gathering things that would be needful. Hide bags we had many of, and took the best amongst them and into it put a brass box filled with lye-soaked tinder, several flints and two good irons, two small bronze pots, bronze spoons and a spit fork, a folded deer skin that might serve as ground sheet or cover, and such like items. Ælfwyn went again to her secret silver, and drew out handfuls and handfuls of coins, and dropped them into a black leathern drawstring purse, and then went to her jewellery caskets and began plucking out rings and bracelets and pins of silver and gold. These she dropped into a pouch of red-dyed leather, and we knew it to be the one her great pearl had come in.

  Burginde watched all this, and spoke the concern I felt as well. “Do not be over-rash, for the Dane might miss some of your jewels, and be most careful not to give any of those he himself gave you.”

  “I give those I came with; that is all,” answered the Lady, but it seemed that she gave every jewel she owned. “Gyric will need them far more than me. They may buy his life on the road.”

  She paused and said, “I would never give him that which Yrling had touched.” And when she said this we hung our heads and looked away, for at that moment all the distaste she had ever felt for the Dane was new and strong within her.

  She lowered her voice and said, “Yrling will miss nothing. He does not care what I wear, as long as I am willing to take it off when he wishes.”

  Chapter the Forty-third: A Man of Wessex

  I found Dobbe in the kitchen yard and went straight to her. We stepped behind one of the large domed ovens, and I passed the herbs into her apron and told her how they must be prepared.

  “But how can we be certain the prisoner is not drugged too?” I asked her.

  “I will serve up only one platter, and one ewer of ale, to the Dane, and doubt he will ask on behalf of another,” she answered.

  I nodded. “Tonight at the end of our meal, I will slip into the yard here, and wait until the guard sleeps. Have a smock in the passageway, so that if the guard sees me, I will look as one of the kitchen women.”

  She nodded her head. “You can wait in the grain shed, ‘tis close to the cellar. I will leave food and drink there to take with you, for the poor man has had aught to eat, methinks, in days.”

  “That is good, Dobbe. Is it safe to take me there now, that I might have some idea of where I am going tonight?”

  “Aye, ‘tis a good notion, and you will see too the cellar opening and the place where the guard sits. It be a new man each night, and he stretches out and sleeps by the steps going down.”

  We moved from behind the oven, and started slowly across the yard. “Turn the loaves, Susa,” Dobbe croaked as we passed the young woman feeding the oven’s fire.

  Beyond the long work tables sat a number of small sheds, some of which I knew housed the kitchen staff, and some supplies. My eyes went to the stone base of the hall, and I saw a Dane seated on a stool, leaning back and wearing the tedium of his charge on his face. He wore no arms but his dagger-like knife, but resting behind him on the wall stood his iron-tipped ash spear. Near him lay a ramped opening leading down under the outside wall of the hall. It must have been nearly beneath the treasure room, I guessed, by looking up at the small window high in the timbers of the upper wall.

  Just across from this Dane was a small shed, and Dobbe gestured to it, and said to me in a loud and quavering voice, “That be the shed, Lady, and please to ask the Lord for timber for it; for it be ready to fall down if we do not shore it soon; ‘tis not fit to house even the rats.”

  I did not think the Dane could understand our speech, but it was wise of Dobbe nonetheless to speak so, and she stood with me outside the shed, as if she was pointing out to me all that must be done, and so I had a good chance to look about me. She pushed open the door, and we both winced at the loud creaking it made. I saw sacks of meal and sieves and worn quern stones within.

  We came out again, and for one instant my eyes met the eyes of the Dane, but he only crossed his legs and leaned back farther on his stool. I could not see much of the cellar opening, only that it
was a ramp. The rest was hidden in dimness.

  Dobbe and I parted, and I headed upstairs feeling some relief that this first part of our task was underway. Ælfwyn met me on the stairs, and touched the key ring on her sash without speaking, and we went down and crossed to the door of the treasure room and she unlocked it.

  I told her of all that I had seen, and she dropped to her knees and pressed her hands against the wide floorboards she knelt upon.

  “Gyric is here,” she whispered. “So close to me, and I will see him tonight.”

  She closed her eyes, and the look that crossed her face was of purest joy. I saw her joy, but felt only fear for what it might make her do. What if Gyric asked her to ride off with him? It would be certain death for them both, I thought; for Sidroc would follow at once, and send word to Yrling in the forest, and the Danes would hunt for them until they found them; and I did not think Yrling would show mercy to his young wife, but slay her on the spot.

  Then I recalled that Gyric had acted with reason and calm before, and had not run off with her when they had first met and loved each other, and that he must love her still and would not take her into such danger. I tried to hold to this thought, but it was hard, watching her; for the power and force of her love and desire for this man was so great that I thought that at one word from him she might gladly forfeit her life.

  She rose, and went to a chest that held the clothes of dead Merewala, and pulled forth the fine things that lay there. “Yrling will never miss these,” she said, and she set aside a mantle, and linen tunics, and leggings, and leathern leg wrappings.

  She turned and faced a long chest that held captured swords. She took up her keys as if she would open it, but I said, “You cannot touch the swords, Ælfwyn; Yrling surely has each one counted and valued; and since you hold the keys will know you took one.”

  This speech stayed her, and I went on. “It must look as much as can be that he escaped on his own, so that no one here will suffer.” I tried to say this with all the urgency that I felt, for I knew fear; where she, only love and desire.