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

by Octavia Randolph

  Gyric must be made more comfortable, with dry, clean clothes; and I must build a fire so that we could have warm food and protection from wolves.

  I decided first to go to the stream and fetch water. I took the basin, and took also the bell, determined to ring it if it seemed safe. As I stepped into the grassland all was still before me; a few birds swooped and darted in pursuit of each other, but nothing else moved. I took the bell and rang it loudly, but just once, for the loudness of it startled me; so I held it silent in my hand.

  I moved across the greensward to the bank of the stream, and knelt down, and splashed my face with the cold water. The water was slow moving, but not deep. I watched the ripples settle, and saw my reflection form. Of a sudden two faces appeared in the water over mine, that of a man and a woman, and I jumped up and turned to face them.

  “Who are you, and how came you by that bell?” demanded the woman in a clear voice.

  She was slight, and tall, and dressed in the coarsest of clothing, but her high voice was full of command. She had golden hair, full of curls, and cut short like a boy’s, and a thin pointed face, just growing pinched. Her eyes were narrow and brilliant blue and full of distrust. I thought at once she was fey, for she had about her an odd beauty, like a little child who has suddenly grown old.

  “Meryth gave it to me, that I might find you,” I answered, and bent to pick up the bell which had tumbled out of my lap when I jumped up.

  She was quick to answer. “Meryth is well?”

  “Yes,” I assured her. “She is well, and asks that you might help me as a favour to her, for I have great need of help.”

  She eyed me carefully, looking me up and down. “You? Have need of my help? You are rich. How can I help you?”

  She did not let me answer, but went on, “Are you gotten with a child that needs ridding? Do not tell me you came all this way for that! Any woman in the village could help you. Wilfrida the Dyer will give you the herbs.”

  “No, no,” I answered. “It is not that. I travel with a young man of Wessex, who was greatly wounded by the Danes.”

  The look of distrust she wore grew even stronger. “Who are you?” she asked, but her voice was steady. I scarce knew how to speak to her; she had been a cottar in the village, yet she treated me as proudly as if she had been a Lady, and me, a shepherd’s lass.

  “I am Ceridwen, daughter of the dead Cerd, an ealdorman of Mercia, but lately I am of Four Stones. It is there I met your sister, and she said you were a powerful healer, who would help us.”

  Again she eyed my gown, my sash, my silver pins. “You live amongst the Danes,” she said, and there was contempt in her face.

  My fear and surprise was now mingling with anger. “Yes, for the Lady I serve is of Cirenceaster in Wessex, and was sold by her father to the jarl Yrling to secure peace for her homeland. The match was not her choice, but since she has been Lady there she has done many good things for the women of the village. Meryth will tell you when you see her.”

  Here she stepped forward and took the bell from my hands. She was silent, and closed her eyes briefly as she held it. She stood next to the man and I regarded them both. He was huge, like a giant, yet had a round head with the face of a little boy, with eyes and nose so small that they seemed lost on his face. Above his brown eyes was a shock of dark hair. Despite his great size I do not think he was more than fifteen or sixteen. He stood back a bit from the woman, but never took his tiny eyes from her. Like her he was dressed in the coarsest of undyed wool, rough with fringe at the edges, and was shod in shoes made from deer hide or pig hide, with the hair still upon it. Each wore a knife, tied around the waist by a strip of plain leather, and sheathed in a simple sheath of the same brown leather. Each wore mantles of undyed wool, but instead of being knotted around their necks, both were pinned with silver brooches, hers set with garnets, and his with blue stones of some kind. On her hands also were two silver rings, and as I looked on these things she drew herself up and regarded me with amusement.

  I looked at her and recalled her sister Meryth, and wished with all my heart she were there to ask for us. Yet I was alone, and must ask for myself, and for Gyric, who lay dying perhaps as we spoke. “Please help us, Gwenyth,” I asked, and thought her look softened. “I have much silver to give you,” I offered.

  She laughed. “What is your silver to me? I do not go amongst men. Holt and I live where we want. We trap our food, and carry all that we own with us.”

  I thought again. “I have other things of value to offer. Clothing, and bronze goods, and pins and brooches and rings.”

  Her face told me that these things, as well, meant nothing to her; and I said, “I do not ask for myself, but for the man who lies dying and needs your help.”

  “Take me to him,” she said at last.

  Then I realised I had not told her that she might be in danger if she aided us. “I have stolen this man away from the keep of Four Stones,” I began, “and have stolen a horse, and other things, and when the Danes discover this they will hunt for me.”

  She looked at me for one moment, and a strange smile lit her face. “Where I take you they will never find you,” she answered, but her voice and manner filled me with foreboding.

  She and her giant son turned, and shouldered packs made of basketry, brimful; and we made our way to the line of trees.

  We reached the deer track, and I went in, and then Holt came crashing behind me, and then Gwenyth. We stood in the clearing together, and Gyric lay before us.

  “He is the son of the ealdorman of Kilton, and kin to the King himself,” I told her.

  She did not take her eyes from him, but simply answered, “He is a killer, like all the rest.”

  She went to him, and bent over and drew off the linen wrap from his head. I saw her start, but she only muttered, “Ha! He will kill no more.”

  I turned my face from her, but when I looked back she was touching his brow and wrists, and then laid her head upon his chest. She rose, and spoke not to me, but to her son, who was all this time stroking the head of my bay mare and patting the black gelding.

  “Holt,” she said, and in her voice was suddenly much gentleness. “Tie these packs and our baskets to the horses, for I want you to carry this man.” She spoke slowly to him, and he stopped in what he was doing and smiled, and set to work.

  I gathered up that which I had opened, and knelt down by Gyric and brought my face close to his. “Gyric,” I said, “we will have help now, but first we must go to safety.”

  His lips moved slightly, and I folded up the linen wrap and tied it gently around his head so that it covered his eyes.

  I turned to see Gwenyth watching me. There was no look of compassion or pity on her face, nothing save the cool gaze of her narrow eyes.

  Holt lifted the saddles upon the horses for me, and tied on the packs and baskets. He went about this work slowly and carefully, with hands strong and skilful.

  Gwenyth called to him, and he lumbered over and stood before her. She pointed to Gyric, and Holt bent over and picked him up. Gyric was slight and not tall, and Holt carried him in his huge arms as if he were a child. We set off along the deer track and out to the stream, Gwenyth leading, then Holt, and then me and the horses.

  On the grass Gwenyth said, “Holt, we are going to our high home.”

  “High home, high home,” he echoed, and nodded his head. We walked through the stream and out across the meadowlands beyond.

  Gwenyth began to hum an odd tune, and held her hands down at her sides and a little behind her as she walked. She waved her fingers as she went, each in its turn, and kept on with her humming.

  We were heading for the woods before us, and had walked some little way when I began to turn to check that no one followed us.

  “Do not turn around,” instructed Gwenyth in a quiet voice.

  “Why?” I asked, wanting to turn even more.

  “Because,” she answered, and her voice was
now a sing-song, “I am closing the door behind us, and your look will open it.”

  I did not say anything, and I did not look back.

  Chapter the Forty-sixth: I Want You to Live

  WE followed a creek into the woods, walking in its thin skim of water. The bed of it was sandy and we left no tracks.

  We went on and on. The creek rose up with the land, and still we walked for what seemed a long time. It was dim the moment we entered the forest, for on this side were many dark fir trees rising up on either side of the water.

  The creek widened, and grew stony, and it was harder walking. We came to a place where bright green moss grew as the thickest carpet on one side of the creek, and at this place Holt turned and came out of the water. Up a narrow path we went, and then we were at an open place, but bordered all around by heaps of rounded rock. In it were a few things of wood: a table, a bench, a rude shelter of split logs, covered over with cut rushes. There was a small firepit, and a bronze cauldron hung over it from a tripod of rusted iron.

  Holt went and stood in the centre of this place, and turned to us and said, “High home,” in a singing voice, and smiled a foolish and happy smile.

  Gwenyth walked to the table and gestured that Holt should put down Gyric upon it. He did, very gently, and Gwenyth turned to me and said, “The creek flows here too; the horses can drink now.”

  She filled a bucket and carried it to the cauldron. I went to where Gyric lay, and pulled his mantle closer around him. It was a green mantle from the dead Merewala, embellished all over with spirals of gold wire, and thickly trimmed with miniver fur. I had fastened it with a large silver pin from the pouch I carried, and the richness of the cloak was a bitter jest on the battered body of him who it enfolded.

  “I will only undo what you do,” said Gwenyth in a quiet voice.

  I looked at her, not understanding.

  “The mantle,” she explained. “I am only going to take it off.”

  Gwenyth motioned me to the firepit, and went to the little shelter and came back with an armful of split wood. I laid the fire, glad that I could do something useful, and struck out sparks onto my lye-soaked shavings. They caught almost at once, and I fed the smouldering flame. She moved back to Gyric, and I went and stood on the other side of him. The first thing she did was draw off the wrap over his eyes, and as she did so I know I flinched. She looked long into the blackened sockets, and even pressed her fingers along the sides of them, which made Gyric twist his head and utter a low wail. She took her hands away, and then drew off his mantle. “Help me pull his clothes off,” she said. She lifted one arm over his head, so we could pull his linen tunic off, but he groaned so loudly that she stopped and placed her arms along the sides of his chest. “It must be done quick,” she said, and she slipped her arms under his waist and lifted him slightly, and I grasped the hem of his tunic and pulled it off as smoothly as I could.

  His bare chest and shoulders and belly bore a number of dark purplish welts. She ran her hands down his body from under his arms to his waist, and he groaned again.

  “They broke his ribs when they beat him,” she said, and then stood back and considered this. “If he bleeds inside he will die for sure.”

  I bit my lip at this new sign of the cruel usage of the Danes. Why beat a man they had already blinded?

  Now she was pulling at his filthy leggings, and I turned my head and mumbled, “I have clean things for him,” and made as if I would go fetch them.

  But Gwenyth saw my blush, and said in a mocking tone, “O, you tender maid, that never saw a man.”

  Tears stung my cheeks as I moved towards the packs. As I dug in them, pulling out the clothes of Merewala, I looked up to see Gwenyth standing before me.

  “Take this,” she said, thrusting a small basket at me, “and fill it with the smallest birch leaves you can pick.”

  The basket was quickly filled, and I returned to find Gwenyth squatting by the fire, working over a basin. Gyric was lying under a wool coverlet; the new tunic and leggings lay on the bench nearby.

  I held out the basket of leaves, and Gwenyth glanced up from what she was doing. “Crush them,” she said, indicating a small mortar amongst the things that surrounded her. “We will boil them for a drink for him.”

  “I have both broth and ale, if they are useful,” I said.

  She thought a moment, then said, “Boil them in your broth.”

  She went back to her work, which was peeling a number of roots into small shavings. I added handfuls of the bruised birch leaves to the pot, and set it on the edge of the firepit stones to heat.

  Gwenyth ladled steaming water out of the cauldron and into the basin that held the peeled roots. “‘Tis betony; ‘twill be a rinse for his wound,” she said as she stirred it around. “The wound is clean; the poker seared it so the flesh does not rot around it, and there is no maggot to be plucked out, tho’ he was uncared for. Still, the rinse may help it.”

  I made bold to ask her, “You said it would be bad if he bled inside. Do you think he does?”

  She did not look at me but went on with her stirring. “That I do not know. He may; he was badly beaten.” She turned and regarded him as he lay upon the table. “This may be why he speaks not. He suffered pain from the poker, great pain; but tho’ he has no fever, ‘tis as if he has been out of his head.”

  I rose and went to him, and stood silently by his side.

  “He is all over lice, but I will do nothing about it now. First we will see if he lives through the night,” she said.

  “He is so pale,” I said.

  “Could be from his great weakness, and he will mend of it when he drinks; or because he bleeds inside and is dying now as you watch him,” said Gwenyth, without lifting her eyes.

  I swallowed hard, and went to the packs and drew forth the sheepskin and coverlets we had lest Gwenyth want them. I came back with them, and saw Gyric’s old clothing on the ground.

  “They are crawling,” said Gwenyth. “Better boil them now.”

  I picked them up and dropped them into the cauldron. Gwenyth rose and stood by Gyric with the basin in one hand and a strip of cloth in another. She dipped the cloth into the basin and dabbed at the charred holes beneath his brow with it. It was hard for me to look on Gyric, but harder still to bear the moaning and muffled cries which came from him as she did this. I went to his other side, and took his hand in mine and said, “Gyric, we seek only to help you.” The warm water from the cloth dribbled down into his blackened eye sockets. He moaned, and I grasped his hand harder and said to him, “We will not hurt you, Gyric.” Tears were in my eyes; I felt one tiny part of his terror and pain; and that tiny part made me feel as tho’ my heart would break for him.

  She finished and said, “Bring the broth.”

  It was beginning to simmer, and the birch leaves floated on the top of it in a solid green skim. I brought it and a small wooden spoon to Gwenyth.

  She tasted it and nodded. I went to Gyric’s head and raised it in my hands, and she held the spoon to his mouth. He did not take it, but she let it drip in slowly, and he swallowed. We gave him many spoonfuls this way, and finally laid his head down.

  The Sun was dropping fast now, and the shadows grew long in the little camp. We built up the fire again, and as we did Holt came over and began looking through the basket packs.

  My body was sore from riding all night and from lack of sleep. My shoes were still wet and I unlaced them and laid them near the fire to dry. I was hungry and thirsty, and Holt and Gwenyth must be too. I went and brought my food bag and opened it. I said, “I have roast fowl, and eggs, and bread,” and began taking these things out of the pack and setting them upon the bench.

  Gwenyth emptied a small pouch next to mine. There was some roast meat, what I could not tell, and as if in answer she said, “‘Tis hare; we set many snares and they feed us well.” She also set down a few small wrinkled apples, which surprised me. She must keep a cool root cella
r somewhere to have apples this late in Spring.

  Both she and Holt went first for the bread, which they fairly devoured. I thought it must be one of the things they would truly miss, living as they did. Since they must eat hare all the time, I ate of it, and let them eat the roast fowl I had brought. The eggs too, they enjoyed, and ate with relish. They must gather wild eggs on their travels, but such a supply could not be depended upon. The look on Gwenyth’s face as she ate her egg told me a long time had passed since she had lived near tame hens.

  I ate an apple, cutting it in sections with my seax. It was still sweet and even juicy inside. I opened the jug that held the ale and passed it to Gwenyth. She took one swallow, and then passed it back to me, saying, “‘Tis good stuff; but save it for him,” meaning Gyric.

  Ale, too, the common drink of all, would be something they would never have in their wandering lives, and her refusing it for the sake of Gyric was a kindness I did not expect. I watched her as she ate. She wore a sharp look upon her face, and her clothes were coarse, and years had passed since her first youth; but anyone could see why she would have caught the eye of Merewala. I looked again upon the large silver pin which held her wool mantle. She had this, and the pin set with blue stones which her son wore, and the two rings of silver upon her hands. This was all that remained, save the boy himself, of the days when she was the Lord’s favourite. And as I thought of this, and the hardship she must have known, I thought how great was her pride to keep these four jewels which adorned their rags unsold after all these years.

  As I thought these things she lifted her eyes to me, and I found myself lowering my own under her searching gaze.

  She rose and went to Gyric and gestured to me to bring more of the birch broth. We fed him again, but this time he would not take so much of it.