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

  As the date approached I grew uneasy, for the Prior began to press me to choose amongst two men for my husband; for I was too great a girl, he said, to continue living there, and it was well time I was wed. Both men were ceorls, well-landed, having slaves, and houses of timber. The first was old, and had daughters older than me, and he was widowed not long ago. Him I did not like as he was miserly and begrudged his poor daughters every comfort, hating them for being girls, and wanting a new wife only to get sons upon. The second was young, but so uncouth and clumsy that even the serving-women laughed behind his back. I made so bold to scold the Prior once for wishing me upon men who could not read nor write, who signed only with the cross of St Andrew when they paid their tribute to the King. At this the Prior grew wroth, and chastised me for pride in my learning of letters, when he had taught me only for the glory of God. For I was so ignorant then that I knew not that few men of high birth could read and write as their grandsires could. Such had been the terror of the raiding Danes, that all men strove only to repel them, so that even as the invaders slaughtered the holy monks at Lindisfarne and Jarrow the sons of Mercia and Northumbria and Wessex and Anglia would forget the tools of learning and know only the tools of war.

  But if I had pride in my learning, I had more in my desire not to remain where there was naught for me but the fading memory of my father’s name. So I resolved to take my portion, and my name, which was all I had if you do not count my face, and be off.

  Chapter the Third: The Artful One

  BUT that was all a secret, and I met the woman in the glade first. She lived far outside the circle of the village, in a tumbled-down stone mill. It was never used within anyone’s memory, for the silted river was become a woods of hazel shrubs, with huge old willows barely recalling that they had once sunk their feet in flowing water. The mill was half crumbled, but the rest was kept up snug and dry, and marvellously furnished, for I went inside. Of course it was forbidden for me to go thus, and I never did - not for the forbidding of it, for I never paid that part of it much mind - but just that Fall day I found myself amongst the hazels and willows, with the old mill-house before me, and I did not turn.

  I stood no farther than fifty paces from it, hidden by the trees of the glade, which still bore their leaves, tho’ yellow and worn with age. The air was still there; passing still. No bird sang out, and the late Sun glinted off the water as if it alone was living there. Then the low door opened, and she appeared. She stood outside the door, looking over at me. So I stepped forward to show myself, and she lifted her hand.

  She was not the old hag the Prior said she was; that I could see for certain, and I came towards her, and saw she was not a hag at all, but rather pinched in the face, but somehow comely, and more than comely.

  When I had halved the distance between us, she spoke my name in a low voice without much sweetness, deep for a woman, but pleasing still.

  “Ceridwen,” she said, and her face held no expression.

  I stopped and said, too loud for the silence of the glade, “You are the Woman who practices her Art.”

  She nodded, and held out her upraised hand, and I came to her, and took it.

  We stood outside the mossy door, each looking at each. Tho’ I was but fourteen, I stood already as tall as she. Her hair was long and dark, tied up in a ribband of bright yellow that made it look the darker. Just about the temples were a few hairs gone white, very few, but there. The skin on her face and arms was beautifully pale and clear, and the blue veins in her small hands made them seem even more delicate than they were. One held the throat of her mantle closed, and the other, adorned with a ring of carved gold, still rested in my right hand.

  Then she said, “I bid you,” and slipped her hand from mine and pushed open the door. In I went, and she followed me, shutting the door behind us.

  The dimness stopped me in the centre of the room, and she took my arm and guided me to a bench with a table before it. I sat, and as my eyes grew strong again, she glided from shelf to chest, and came back with a pottery pitcher and two tiny silver beakers. One was set with white crystals, and the other worked in coils and spirals, both splendid with beauty. The pitcher was coarse and heavy, and she stood and poured out a browny liquid before sitting down. She raised her beaker, the one set all in crystals, and drank, and I lifted the other to my lips and also drank. It was mead, strong and sweet, and curiously spiced; delicious on the tongue.

  I put down my cup, and looked about the dim insides of the place, for tho’ she sat just before me, I was not bold enough to meet her eyes. The only light came from the smoke hole over the firepit which bore but the smallest of fires. I wished for more light to see the woven hangings which covered the walls, all different; and the covering of the bed, small and low, pieced together of stripes of finely woven wool, brightly coloured. On the floor was a wolf pelt of light grey, of wonderful thickness, and so large it was an island before the bed. A shelf held a rush burner of coarse iron, next to a candleholder of finely wrought bronze, and another of horn trimmed in sliver.

  At last I spoke for the funny richness of the place drove me to wish to hear my own voice.

  “Where are the men?” I asked, and finally met her eyes.

  A look like a smile but with a twisted lip came over her, but she did not look away. Again, with a voice too low she spoke. “When they come, they come only at dark.”

  I nodded my head, but I was stupid of it all. I said, “You know my name.”

  She nodded, that was all.

  I went on, “The Prior says it is an awful heathen name.”

  Now she laughed, full and rich in the throat. I smiled too, not knowing why she laughed, but liking the sound of it.

  Finally she said, “You are well treated?”

  And not knowing what else to say, I nodded and answered, “They call me Lady.”

  It was nearing dusk, and a fair way back to the Priory. She did not take my hand at parting nor ask me to stop again, but only nodded. She pulled open the heavy door, and out I walked into the fading afternoon.

  From that day on I came as I could to the glade. She was always there, and always alone. By and by we spoke more freely, and she told me how she came by her finer things, the beakers and candle holders, and linens and animal skins; which was from which man, and who they were and where they came from. In Winter I could not come as often, for that year was thick with snow and cold, which made the days I could come of more meaning to me; for my life was so without change that my visits to her became my greatest pleasure. I think, too, that she began to look for me.

  I came always in the afternoon, for in the forenoon when I had finished my reading or writing I was at work spinning, or helping the monks prepare inks or parchment. I would tell her of all these things, of how the brother in charge of the scriptorium and I would gather whitethorn twigs, and soak and pound them with the gums from apple bark for black ink, and mix the simple colours he would allow me to do: red from the alder bark, green from its spring flowers, and brown from its twigs, and make also browny-black ink from oak galls. And tho’ I helped make many a parchment from the chosen lambs, I did all my writing practice in my wax tablet, for parchment is far too precious for aught but the practised scribe. But I did have the trimmings from the quires the monks made to make tiny booklets of my own.

  She cared about the writing, and so once I brought my tablet with me, and wrote in it with my brass stylus for her to see. I wrote first the alphabet, and then my name, ‘Ceridwen daughter of Cerd’. She watched with wide eyes at this craft, and I, eager to show her more, softened the wax by the fire and spread it smooth again with the side of my stylus, so I could write again.

  “This is Latin,” I said, as I traced into the yellow wax the words ‘In principio’. “It means, ‘In the Beginning’”.

  She puzzled over the letters, and her brow furrowed. “Is it not just like what you had written first? For the marks are the same, or seem so.”

  I
thought a moment. “The marks - the alphabet - is nearly the same, but this speech, Latin, is the speech of Rome. We use much the same alphabet to record the speech of our people, tho’ with our own words.”

  She sat looking at the letters as she spoke.

  “Is this our speech if it uses not our marks? Long before the men of Iona and the Black Monks came, our people wrote with sacred signs.”

  “The runes are sacred,” I agreed; but not being able to answer her question, I finally said, “All writing is perhaps sacred.”

  Here she looked up at me and smiled. “Yes, that may be so, and it gladdens me this art is yours.”

  Sometimes when I came to the glade she spoke to me of the men, some of them well-born ceorls with rich gifts, and some simple freemen, who brought barley and vegetables and smoked pig. And once we had a true feast in the little mill house, finer by far than I had ever had at the Priory, even at Hlafmesse when the first harvest was brought in late Summer. For the night before a grand man had visited her, who had brought not only a bolt of linen but a fine dinner as well, and plenty of it, enough for them in the night, and we two in the afternoon. We ate squab and currants and drank good strong ale, and I laughed at the weight of it in my head. But she told me there was plenty of the other kind as well - men in high estate but with low minds and hearts.

  These words touched me as if I was stone, for having no knowledge of the outside world, it seemed to me that the free and grand must be so to the heart as well as the eye.

  Chapter the Fourth: Dawn Into Day

  ONE dawn I came to her to bid Fare-well. Winter had passed twice since we had first spoken, and I fell fifteen.

  Little the Prior guessed my scheme, for to steal away in the middle of the night was not what he had raised me to; but even less could I take the veil or marry, each a neat end to his trouble. A month after Yule had he delivered to me my portion, and I stood ready to depart.

  My plan was this: to strike out North, and find the Cæsar’s Road which ran East. Along this route lay lands rich with lead mines, and the athelings of the King, his very kin, owned these lands. There must be great households there, and such need many a maiden to spin, to sew, to wait, and thus care for the divers wants of the family. I was good with needle; my manner fair passing; I knew a bit of the ordering of a household; I could learn more. To some good woman in such family, kin or old nursemaid to the Lord or Lady, would I apply.

  Forty pieces of silver remained of my father’s estate, and I had thought long of the best use of them. I set down five pieces - which is what I had once heard the smith say she was worth - when I led the mare Shagg from the Priory croft-house. I had also a pigskin bag, old and creased but sturdy, and still showing the mark of painted designs of spirals upon it, which had been my father’s. Into this went my comb of carved bone, carefully wrapped since it was my favourite thing and of great worth, and my wax writing tablet. I rolled together my other linen shift, two pair of wool stockings, and my wool gown of russet colour, made gay by me with coloured thread work on the sleeves and hem. My only mantle I would wear, and tho’ it was not of the finest weave it had a hood lined with squirrel that was warm and passing soft.

  In a common hide bag I took also one small bronze cooking pot; hide food bags with barley and rye, also turnips, and a cabbage; a few pasties and loaves; a leathern flask with stopper for drink; a tinderbox with iron and flint; an old cow skin for a ground-sheet; and the two wool blankets from my bed. And for all these things I took from the Priory store I laid down five pieces of silver on the great work table in the scriptorium, where I knew no brother would come until after Lauds. And also I took a roll of hay for the first day’s feed for Shagg. Around my waist I wrapped a sash and then knotted with a leathern cord my dead father’s seax, the knife that gave its name to the Saxons; for though the blade was deeply nicked it was still precious in its silver handle and in meaning to me; and I would have need of a knife.

  Thus arrayed I stole out of the Priory before dawn on a foggy, snowless day a week after Candlemas, under a waxing late Winter Moon. I tied my bags upon the saddle and mounted Shagg, and we walked as quiet as I could make her out of the Priory yard. We passed the low hedges that marked the yard, and I looked back just once. I fancied the rooty apple trees reached toward me, their arms barren and twisted, and I crossed myself and kicked the mare, and trotted down the fen.

  The Sun was barely risen when we reached the glade. Leading Shagg I picked my way to the house of the woman. I pounded on her door, and as I did I heard my own heart pounding, for I was sore afraid that someone might be up and after me. I heard her call out, “Who be it?” and I called, “Ceridwen,” and the door opened. She stood squinting against the new light. Her dark hair was tumbled over her face, and she clasped a coverlet over her bare skin.

  I stepped inside where the dim mossy walls lay cold under their weavings, and saw she had a visitor newly gone, for the fire which had been heaped up had not yet burnt low, and two cups stood on the low table by the bed. She closed the door behind me and leaned against it, and with a little laugh said, “Glad it be you, and no one else.”

  She pushed the long hair off her brow and looked at me, and at my dress, and began to speak again. I stopped her.

  “I come to bid you Fare-well, as I am off and gone from this place.” Perhaps my teeth were chattering a bit at this; I do not know, but I saw then that I was leaving her as well, and she, my only friend.

  “Whither do you go?” she asked, and wrapped herself more tightly in the coverlet, for it was sharp cold.

  Now I know my teeth chattered, but I said only, “I am quitting this place,” for I would not confess my plan to even her.

  “Aye,” she said at last, after gazing on me. “Nothing will stay you - good!” And her voice thrilled.

  Now she moved to the table by the bed, and I moved nearer her, glad for the darkness of the room.

  “I want to say Good-bye to you, and good wishes...” I began, but could say no more.

  She held her small hand over mine, and looked into my face, so deep I closed my eyes. Then she said, “Be gone, and be well.”

  I thought to kiss her, but did not. I could not move. She slipped her hand from mine, and into my own she pressed the rough silver coin which had lain on the table.

  “Your mother still lives,” she said, and in her voice was again a thrill. “Take this, and so remember her.”

  I have learnt to be grateful for time, and the passage of it, and only wish I could put a hundred years between me and what I wish to forget. Stumbling through the woods, half-leading, half-riding Shagg, the Sun rose up that morning, and the hours passed. Not until, hungered and benumbed by cold, I found the road I sought, did I open my clenched hand, there to reveal the new-minted roughness of the silver coin given me by my mother. I looked upon it as one who has never gazed upon silver, and looked so until my eyes burned.

  I was shy of riding the road for fear of discovery. We walked as quickly as we could beside it, coming out often to be sure I had not lost it. It was slow work, for the trees were close, and in places dense with the bare vines and stalks of undergrowth. At times I thought I heard a horseman coming up the road behind or before, and so would stop, for the dry leaves and brittle twigs beneath our feet seemed to snap to betray us. But we saw no one, not even a swineherd driving his pigs into the oak groves about us.

  At last, when the Sun had dropped far down in its shallow rise, we came out of the trees. As no one had crossed our path the whole of the day, I rode on at a fair trot down the Northly Road. The road was poor and stony and hedged about with briars. My gloves were thin, and my mantle too light, but I leaned over Shagg’s neck, and the steamy heat from her head brought me some warmth. We continued on in this wise an hour or two - I never knew which, my brain being at this point as numb as my body.

  The day began to fade; the trees edged in on us, holding their shadows; and a wind rising at my back set the dead leaves to skit
tering. My mouth felt dry, but I had forgot to fill my flask before I left, so I put it out of my mind. I turned the mare off the path, for now was time to make my night’s camp. The trees were thick and the brambles more so, but a bit of the way into the wood I spied a clump of rock. Claiming this as my camp, I pulled my bags from the saddle and set about to make a fire. Iron and flint I had in my brass tinderbox, and I knelt down by the rocky ledge and began to gather bits of bark. I struck the flint to the iron again and again, but the wind ever rising blew my poor sparks everywhere but to the tinder. At last a smouldering thread of smoke arose, and with me cupping my hands about it, up shot a little licking flame. I went to Shagg and took off her saddle and bridle, and with a rope round her neck tied her to a half grown tree. Out of my food bag I took another pastie, and warmed it over the fire, scorching my fingers. I took also a handful of dried apples, most of which I gave to Shagg, for I was still athirst despite the cold, and could not swallow them.

  The night fell in, the stars torched on above us, and I spread the cow-hide on the ground by the base of rock. I wrapped myself in my blankets, my satchel as my pillow. The fire began to flicker, but I heard Shagg rustling and snorting nearby, and it gave me heart. I turned my face to Heaven, asking Our Lady to bless and forgive me.

  Chapter the Fifth: The Bride of Four Stones

  SNICK! Snap! Snick! The stars sang out in tiny voices above me. They began to swirl and tumble, down, down, onto my face. But the stars were wet - wet and cold. Up I jumped, awake at last, the dawn just coming on, the stars wet flakes of snow. I shook my head and a shower of snowflakes tumbled from my hood. The sky was as spoiled ink, cloudy with cold, gathering brighter.