by Peter Fox
Carwyn arrived in haste with a small basket, trailed by one of the twins carrying an overflowing pail of water. She swapped the bucket, and this water was much colder, having just been drawn out of the well. She inspected Saeric’s hand while it was in the water. She tutted at him. ‘This is a bad burn and will hurt,’ she said, ‘and you won’t be able to use that hand for some time. What were you thinking?’
Saeric threw her an angry look. ‘You don’t know what it’s like to be hunted,’ he said, his voice hard.
Heremund frowned back at him. ‘No one is hunting you, Saeric.’
Saeric blinked back at the giant of a man, fear flaring to anger. ‘Yes, they are!’ he snapped. ‘You don’t know them. Right now, they’re scouring the countryside, searching ever wider, and they won’t stop until they find me. He’s a powerful burgher, and I tried to kill his daughter. They’ll come here eventually, and what will you do then?’
‘Put a sword through them,’ Heremund said coldly. He stepped up to Saeric and grabbed his arm. ‘Tell me who is terrorising you,’ he demanded harshly.
‘Husband,’ Carwyn warned.
Heremund ignored his wife. ‘I can’t help you if I don’t know who seeks you!’
‘I told you, he’s a burgher with a large fyrd at his call, and I’m just a slave. They’ll hang me no matter what you say, and he’ll just as likely hang you and your family too for harbouring me.’ Saeric tried to pull away, but the smith still had his injured arm in a vice-like grip.
‘Do you honestly think they’ll still be looking after all this time? They’ll have replaced you by now.’
‘You don’t know that witch,’ the Briton said. ‘She’ll come here eventually. Enough people must know my story by now. Word will have spread about the slave with the collar and ankle irons who was taken in by Heremund the blacksmith.’
‘What witch?’ Carwyn said.
‘If you tell me their names, I will deal with them.’ Heremund interjected.
‘You’re just a blacksmith.’
‘All men have a past,’ Heremund growled, ‘and only a fool thinks he knows the whole of a person by their current means or countenance.’
‘Husband, you’re frightening him,’ Carwyn warned. ‘Let him go.’
Heremund let out a long breath, but he released Saeric’s arm.
‘This is what you’re like,’ the smith said, frustrated. He gave the impression of a flighty animal sneaking up to a bowl of scraps, looking this way and that, taking another step, then looking again, snarling at them, then darting off to hide behind the hearth, looking this way and that again. He returned to Saeric and stood with his hands on his hips. ‘I mean it: you are safe here. We won’t hurt you, and stop being so angry with us for helping you; most especially Carwyn. Why are you so frightened of her?’
‘I’m not afraid of her,’ Saeric snapped back.
‘Saeric?’ It was Carwyn. She touched his cheek. He flinched and backed away. Carwyn paused and tilted her head in thought. She reached out again, but he batted her hand away and tried to rise.
Heremund pushed him back down onto the bench.
‘It was a woman who did all this to you, wasn’t it?’ Carwyn said. ‘This witch you speak of?’
‘A woman?’ Heremund blurted, looking from his wife to Saeric, shocked. ‘The huscarl’s daughter?’
Saeric turned away, ashamed and unable to accept his weakness in allowing himself to be so humiliated, and for his part in the wickedness that had left its many indelible marks on his body and soul.
No, she has made you strong. She has prepared you for your vengeance.
Heremund let out another long breath but had no idea what to say.
Carwyn stood and moved around to kneel in front of Saeric. ‘She can no longer hurt you,’ she said in British. Saeric’s eyes widened at the sound of his mother tongue. ‘My husband is a good man. I know he’s somewhat large and can sometimes be brusque, but he is your friend. So am I.’
Saeric frowned at her, struggling to understand. ‘You’re Dumnonian?’ he asked, incredulous.
She nodded. ‘I’m afraid so, and I’m also afraid that I fell in love with this old brute, despite him being an evil Saxon with a highly questionable past.’
Heremund raised his eyebrows, but Carwyn smiled back at him.
‘But… how can you?’ Saeric asked, shocked at such a betrayal.
‘They aren’t all the work of the Devil, you know. They’re mostly normal people, like you and me.’
‘But they took our kingdom and slaughtered us. How could you?’ Saeric pushed her away and stood up, pulling his hand from the bucket. He stalked outside. Heremund moved to stop him, but Carwyn shook her head.
‘After all that he has suffered at your kind’s hands, it’s no wonder he hates me,’ she said. ‘And I am a woman.’
‘Humph,’ Heremund said. ‘No woman would be that sadistic.’ He snatched up the bucket and found Saeric sitting on the ground under the old oak tree by the brook, clutching his hand. Heremund thumped the bucket down in front of Saeric and said, ‘you need to keep your hand in the water. Either use the bucket or put it in the stream beside you.’ Then he returned to the smithy and was soon banging away.
Saeric put his hand in the bucket. The burns hurt like Hell now. He closed his eyes, trying to make sense of everything. Fifteen years ago, the Saxons were the enemy of Dumnonia, but now they are marrying one another and producing children together? Everything about the overthrow of his homeland, and then his most recent years as a slave to Eanswith, had proven to him how depraved and evil these people were. Yet Heremund was the antithesis of all that Saeric believed the Saxons to be. Which is normal then? he wondered. My subjugators and captors, or Heremund? He stood, the pain driving him back to the smithy.
Heremund looked up from his work and called Carwyn, who came and sat Saeric down to tend his burn. This time she asked his permission to apply the salve, but he still felt deeply uncomfortable with her closeness, looking at the wall as she gently rubbed ointment into the burn.
‘It will blister and hurt. I have made a herbal drink for you which will help with the pain.’
Saeric drank it and muttered his thanks, utterly bewildered by this family’s inexplicable kindness.
‘Oh, you poor young man,’ Carwyn said, and took him in her arms. He sat rigid as she hugged him. ‘I think you need lots of hugs, so I shall give you at least one every day,’ she promised, ‘so that you may come to know another side to a woman’s touch.’
Afterwards, Saeric returned to the brightly chattering waters of the brook, sitting with his back against the rough bark of the ancient oak. The sun had come out, washing the afternoon in weak, golden light.
He looked down towards the river in the valley below, utterly confused. Why are they so kind to me? I have the Devil in my soul. I am evil, unclean. His only experience with a woman had been Eanswith, and he had come to crave her attention, his body aching for her in a way that frightened him. Even thinking about her now, Saeric felt himself stirring. No! he thought, angry at his body, over which he seemed to have no control whatsoever. I have indulged in such numerous, unforgivable sins for so long that I am wicked to the core.
You gave your soul to me, remember? You are my vessel. Together we will rid our kingdom of the filth that has overrun it.
‘I could do with a hand up here.’ Heremund’s voice jolted Saeric from his reverie. His bandaged hand throbbed painfully, and he held it up to his face, momentarily disoriented. Up at the smithy, Heremund stood in his leather apron, waving at him to come up.
‘You have two hands. One will do for the bellows.’
Saeric sighed and pulled himself to his feet with his undamaged hand. His other hurt like crazy but at least it meant he had a new and different pain to take his mind off his ankle and shoulder; particularly his shoulder, which was, as Carwyn had predicted, feeling more stiff and sore by the day. He glanced down at the cumbersome wooden contraption that bound his left ankle as he
hopped back up to the workshop. Some escapee I turned out to be, he thought ruefully.
Dismal, the Devil agreed.
The smith had the wisdom to say nothing to Saeric, allowing him the space to process whatever thoughts were going through his troubled mind. Later that afternoon, Carwyn unbound his hand and checked it. She appeared satisfied, applied more salve to the badly blistered skin, then bound it in fresh bandages. She did the same for his shoulder, but was less happy about that, clucking at it and shaking her head with displeasure. Saeric remained as stiff as ever as she tended him.
‘Well at least you’re holding still,’ she said, then clucked again, peering at the wound. ‘This really won’t do.’
‘I wasn’t the one who shot the arrow,’ Saeric grumbled. ‘You make it sound like it’s my fault.’
That earned him an unsympathetic humph. ‘Well, you should try to duck next time,’ Carwyn said.
For a moment, hot anger flared, then he saw her smile and realised she was only trying to make light of what was clearly a bad wound. ‘Sorry,’ he muttered.
Carwyn sighed and moved to give him another hug, as she’d promised. He pushed her away and shook his head. ‘I am unclean,’ he said.
She frowned at him, then looked at his neck, which still bore the marks of his collar, and thus his disgrace. ‘No,’ she said in British. ‘The people who did this to you are.’
He turned away, in no mind to argue with her.
‘Come, husband, time to close up and leave our friend to some peace.’
‘Saeric,’ he said suddenly. ‘They call me Saeric.’ Eanswith had called him something different, but Saeric had vowed to himself that, for as long as he had breath in his lungs, no one would ever speak that name again.
Heremund exchanged glances with his wife. ‘Well then, so shall we,’ said the blacksmith cheerfully. He thrust out his hand. ‘Welcome, Saeric.’
Saeric automatically returned the gesture, but Heremund remembered Saeric’s injury and stopped himself crushing the other’s hand just in time. He smiled in apology and then set about packing up his things for the day.
‘You’ll close up?’ he asked Saeric, who nodded back. They left him be, and he sat on his bed, looking out beyond the hearth to the reddening sky outside.
Saeric allowed his thoughts to drift to his other reality – where he had led an altogether different life – where he was a young boy again, surrounded by family who loved him; mother, father, brothers, sisters, uncles, aunts, cousins. Where he had known only happiness and hope. Where he’d had a different name, an impossible name, yet one that remained as real to him as any by which he’d since come to be known.
Then his mind turned to yet another time and place; the strangest of all his fancies, but in some ways the most persistent: the young man on his warship. Strong, handsome, determined, sailing through a landscape of dramatic, towering mountains whose steep walls plunged straight into the waters on which he sailed. It was he who had saved Saeric when he had felt the greatest despair; who had held out his hand and led Saeric through the suffocating fog of misery, reassuring him that it would be alright; that he would come for him one day.
Saeric closed his eyes and reached out to the young man in his thoughts. To his surprise, for the briefest moment he saw him; sitting astride a magnificent horse, laughing with another equally strong and beautiful young man, who stood holding the horse’s bridle. Saeric called out to his brother, but Caelin didn’t turn, nor did he show any indication of awareness. The image vanished.
Am I mad? he wondered. Could all this be a delusion born from the extremity of my desolation? I’ve nothing to prove who I am, only vague memories and recollections of a life lost long ago. It’s probably all nonsense. He frowned, rejecting that notion. No, he thought angrily. I am he, and my brother lives. One day he will come for me, and together we will seek our vengeance. That was my vow. It is my truth. Our truth.
At that conclusion, Aneurin ap Cadwyr, crown prince of Dumnonia, lay down on the bed and stared into the rafters, scolding himself for again succumbing to doubt. It occurred to him that he should close the shutters, but his tiredness won, and he closed his eyes. Carwyn’s strong evening draught took effect, and within moments he was asleep.
9. Blacksmith’s apprentice
Scirburne, Kingdom of Wessex
Aneurin, now known as Saeric, settled into a routine. Within three weeks, his hand was right to use again, and he threw himself into his new role as blacksmith’s assistant. It was hard work, especially given his poor physical state, and he struggled to cope with the intense heat, more often than not dispensing with most of his clothes on the warmest of these early spring days. He began to take regular dips in the river after a long day’s toil by the forge, despite the still-frigid waters, but he had to abandon this newfound habit after he attracted the attention of some of the local women, who showed far too much interest in his body and, more worryingly, his many scars.
He remained afflicted by pain, both physical and mental, but he found that as the days passed by, the hurt began to dull. His shoulder responded well to Carwyn’s treatment, but his ankle continued to give him trouble. He’d grown used to the cumbersome splint, and one of Heremund’s friends had fashioned a surprisingly comfortable crutch for the former slave. Saeric became adept at hopping about the smithy and carrying out his tasks one-handed, although unsurprisingly, he occasionally dropped things. Yet Heremund remained infallibly patient with his charge, helping him when necessary with the bulkier items.
Carwyn remained faithful to her promise too and offered Saeric a hug at every meal, and Saeric had even begun to soften to her touch; the barricades finally showing signs of weakness under her quiet, consistent offerings of kindness.
But while the pain subsided, his fear of recapture did not, despite Heremund’s assurances. As week followed week without even a word of Eanswith or the search for her fugitive slave, Saeric began to relax his guard a little. And with time to reflect in peace and relative safety, his thoughts increasingly turned to how and when he should honour his vow.
You must return to reclaim what is yours, said the Devil.
I don’t have to do anything you say, Saeric thought angrily. I like it here.
No, you must join your brother and seek vengeance.
How am I going to find him? I haven’t a clue where he is. And how am I supposed to charge off to wreak vengeance when I can’t even walk?
The Devil was silent on that.
Exactly, Saeric thought. I’m better off biding my time. These people treat me fairly and kindly. I could do worse. A lot worse.
‘Ahoy! Are you with us today?’ came Heremund’s deep voice. ‘Hold this, will you?’
Saeric snapped his mind back to the smithy, blinking for a moment as he gathered his senses. He took hold of the heavy rod of iron that Heremund had thrust at him.
‘Where were you just then?’ Heremund asked. ‘Dreaming of home?’
Saeric looked back at him, surprised.
‘Oh, you were?’ Heremund said, evidently not expecting to have been right.
Saeric nodded.
Heremund set about hammering the hot end of the rod. ‘You’ve never once spoken about it,’ the smith said. ‘Little wonder, I suppose.’ He turned the rod and set about hammering the other side. ‘So where was home?’ he asked between blows.
Saeric had yet to master the peculiar start-stop conversations of the smithy. ‘Ashford,’ he lied, then had to repeat himself when he got the timing wrong and Heremund inadvertently cut him off with a ringing strike of the hammer.
‘Which one?’ the smith replied. ‘There are scores of Ashfords.’
‘It’s east of Tonetun,’ Saeric said, having no idea whether there was one there or not.
Heremund paused between blows and smiled. ‘Ah. Thinking of returning?’
Not if I can help it, Saeric thought.
Heremund smiled. ‘Don’t worry. I’m not trying to get rid of you. Truth is, I’d lik
e you to stay, if you’ve nowhere to go back to, that is.’ He stopped hammering and looked Saeric square in the eye. ‘I think that you would be surprised by how much has changed since the uprising–’
‘Invasion, you mean,’ Saeric interrupted angrily. ‘You people attacked my home and murdered everyone in it.’
‘No, not everyone,’ Heremund corrected, holding up his finger. ‘We Saxons did what we could to prevent the slaughter and looting; which wasn’t easy given your King’s disposition.’
‘He’s not my king,’ Saeric said, ‘and what’s a disposition?’
Heremund put his hand up by way of apology. ‘I didn’t mean to pick a fight, sorry. Disposition means character, temperament. Let’s just say he was in no mood for mercy.’
‘No, he wasn’t,’ Saeric said, then he dropped the iron bar and walked outside, struggling to contain the hot rage that arose at the mention of Mael. He heard Heremund swear, followed by the crunch of the smith’s footsteps as he came out after his assistant. They stopped, Heremund seemingly unsure whether to proceed or not.
‘I’m sorry Saeric,’ Heremund said from behind him. ‘I didn’t think. I’m a stupid old man. Please forgive me for being insensitive.’
Strangely, Saeric felt no antipathy towards Heremund. How can I be angry at this man who saved me? He genuinely cares about me, although God only knows why. Saeric let out a sigh and turned around, not bothering to hide his tears.
The awkward moment was interrupted by a call from the other side of the smithy. Someone was hailing Heremund, but the blacksmith hesitated, clearly unhappy about leaving things unfinished.
Two men appeared around the side of the compound, and Saeric immediately recognised them as high-ranking members of the Church. One of them, an ageing, hunched man with bow-legs and an odd squint to his eyes, bore a carefully wrapped box in his arms.
