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

  He bobbed his head and a shy smile passed quickly over his thin little face. Ælfwyn spoke not, but moved to the chest that held her purse, and took from it a silver piece. She came before the boy and held it out, but he stared at it and made no move to take it. At last I took it and pressed it into his hand.

  “This is from your mistress. She bids you take it for your good service to her.” I spoke firmly as I feared the boy might insult with his silence. He raised his eyes to Ælfwyn, and they were brimful of tears.

  I said to him, “Tell me your name,” and his lip trembled and the tears streamed down his face. At last he said, “Ecgwald.”

  “Ecgwald, will you do your mistress another service?” I asked. “Our man Osred has told us that the thegns we rode here with are staying outside the palisade of the keep. Do you go now and find them, or find one who knows where they are, and tell them that the Lady Ælfwyn wishes to see them.”

  He nodded his head so that the tears flew upon the floor. “My cousin Mul is a stable boy, and will help me find them,” he said between little hiccoughs.

  “Good,” I said. “Have you also a mother?” He nodded. “Then you will take her your coin as soon as you have found the thegns?” Again he nodded, and bobbed his head, and backed out of the chamber to run his errand.

  I set to work warming the wax and tallow mixture over the brazier so I could mould it. When it was soft I pressed it into one side of the wood frame the boy had made.

  We began to think about how the letter should run. “First it should say who wrote the letter, for they will wonder about it,” she decided.

  “No need,” I said, “for the thegns themselves will deliver it, and will tell them of me.”

  “Of course,” she said.

  “Who will read it to them?” I asked. “That will tell us something.”

  “The monks at the abbey outside Cirenceaster have in the past read to my father charters and the like. No one at my father’s burh reads, so I think such a monk will be brought to do it.”

  “Good,” I said. “Then we will begin, ‘Holy Brother, send greetings to my good and loving parents from their daughter Ælfwyn.’”

  “That is good,” Ælfwyn said, “and sounds as rich as the charters that are read to my father.”

  I laughed and said, “We will make it rich, so they know all be well, and they get pleasure from the listening.”

  “What next?”

  “Well, I think we should tell of the journey, for one is always asked how the journey went,” I said.

  “But will not the thegns tell them, as they will tell them of you?” she asked.

  “Yes,” I countered, “but I think they need to hear you say it went well, for what is well for the thegns may not be well for a maiden, and this they know.”

  “True,” she nodded, and began to laugh. “We could have met ten bandits on the road, had a flood and a drought, and if the thegns had delivered me and the waggons just the same they would say ‘All went well.’”

  After we had stopped our laughter she said, “And I want to say I have the company of the new friend who writes this, so that I will not be alone here. And that we are all well, but that the countryside is much destroyed, and the people here want for much.” She paused and looked at me. “What can I say of Yrling? Nothing yet.”

  “Say you go with good heart to do your duty. That will gladden them, for tho’ the deed be done, they will want to hear that you are well in your mind about this.”

  “Ah, I am far better in my mind than in my heart,” she said, with a long quiet sigh.

  Ælfwyn stood near me and looked down upon my work, and I strived to form each letter as perfectly as I could. The message read:

  HOLY BROTHER, send greetings to my good and loving Parents from their daughter Ælfwyn. By the Grace of God your daughter and her train travelled well and easily due to the many comforts my loving Parents provided me with. I have yet to meet my husband but go with good heart to do my duty. The folk of Lindisse are sore in want and I rejoice to think I may keep my people at home from this pass. I am well; the friend who forms these words will write again. Your obedient and loving daughter Ælfwyn.

  I read it aloud and she seemed well pleased.

  “Here,” I said, holding out the brass stylus, “make your mark by your name.” And I pointed to the last word that spelt out ‘Ælfwyn’.

  She took the stylus and held it above the wax. “What mark shall I make?” she asked.

  “Two lines crossed are good,” I said, and she scratched lightly at the brown wax. “Harder, so that they may see it,” I urged.

  “There,” she said, drawing a firm cross in the wax.

  She looked at me and then lowered her eyes. “I would like to learn to write my name, so that when we send a parchment to them I might use the name they gave me.”

  “Of course,” I said, and felt glad. “You will do that and more, for I think you will easily learn this art.”

  She smiled at me as I bound up the tablet with the cord. “This is speech that will last,” she said.

  “Yes,” I agreed, “for even after one is dust, written words stay behind.”

  Burginde spoke. “Gold always stays behind, and speaks a rich tongue too,” she said.

  I laughed at her, “Who needs gold when we have you?”

  In a few minutes we heard the light step of Ecgwald on the stair. I went out upon the landing and he hissed up, “Lady! The thegns may not come into the yard. Will I take the tablet to them?”

  Ælfwyn thought not a moment. “No,” she said to me, “For I would see them one last time. We will take it ourselves to them at the gate of the burh.”

  “The Lady comes herself,” I called down to the boy. “Go back to the thegns and tell them we are on our way.”

  He sped off, and we three put on our mantles. Burginde looked down into the yard and said, “We must have clogs, or our boots suffer, for ‘tis all over mud.”

  Ælfwyn took up the wax tablet, and I carried the clogs for we two down the wooden steps; and this was the first time since arriving that she and I had gone down the stair.

  We did not stop to look into the hall, but pulled open the heavy door. It felt strange to walk up and out by the stone steps of the sunken hall, as if we were emerging from the den of an animal. To one side of the yard stood the second waggon, its tarpaulins tightly laced. A Dane leaned against it, as a guard to its treasure. He regarded us not, and we went on.

  It was muddy in the yard, and our clogs made sucking sounds on the sodden Earth. In a knot of men at the gate we saw the thegns, and their horses, ready saddled. The Danes Toki and Sidroc stood with four others like them.

  We paused just a moment and then Ælfwyn gathered her skirt up and walked rapidly towards them.

  The thegns were facing us and nodded their heads in greeting. Of the Danes, Toki saw us first, and stepped aside to let us pass.

  “Ah, the brides of Yrling!” he smirked, and he swept his hand before him.

  Sidroc turned and looked at us, and tho’ he smiled at Toki’s jest, spoke to him in their own tongue so that Toki was still.

  Ælfwyn looked not at either of them, but in pride kept her eyes fixed upon the chief thegn. “This is the letter I send to my parents,” she said, and placed it in his hands. “Pray tell them I am well, despite the welcome I have received here.”

  He nodded again. “We leave now. I bid you well,” he said, and his voice and face were grave.

  Ælfwyn began to speak, but Toki said something to Sidroc that made him break in.

  Sidroc held out his hand. “I would see the box before you take it,” he said.

  Now the Lady turned on him. “Why? It is aught but a letter to my parents. Do you think I send back some of the treasure I have brought?” Her voice flashed with anger. “And if I did, do you think I would send so small a portion?”

  I caught my breath. The thegn looked at Ælfwyn, and then at Sidroc,
and passed the tablet to him. He undid the cord while Ælfwyn looked with all defiance at him and Toki.

  Sidroc opened the tablet, and looked at it, and as he held it on its side it was plain that tho’ he spoke well the tongue of our people, he read it not.

  He held it up that Toki might see it, and Toki squinted and scowled. Then Sidroc placed the two halves together, and tied up the tablet with the cord, and passed it to the thegn.

  Ælfwyn spoke to the thegn. “Thank you for all your good service to me. I pray my father rewards you well.”

  I too was moved to speak. “I add my thanks, and swear to serve and love this Lady as a sister.”

  I saw that there were tears in Ælfwyn’s eyes, and that she would turn away rather than let the Danes see them.

  The thegn spoke. “I bid you health,” he said, and with a nod turned to his horse, and slipped the tablet into one of his saddle bags. “Your father shall have this soon, Lady,” he said, and he and the two other thegns swung themselves into their saddles and raised their hands in Fare-well.

  Ælfwyn turned quickly away, but I stayed another moment to look after them. We walked across the yard towards the hall, but halfway Ælfwyn stopped and spoke. “I cannot return to that chamber. Let us look about us here and see what we may.”

  I was glad of this, for to spend all the day sitting without work in the chamber again awaiting Yrling was too hard.

  We looked about us, but the ugliness of the place did not present much to tempt us. As I saw yesterday, most of the buildings were low and rude, ill-designed and hastily put together; and as it was Winter, all sat upon a sea of mud and trampled straw. Only the great stable stood out, that and the blacked ruins of charred oak and tumbled stone which lay attached to Yrling’s hall.

  “I have heard from the Prior that the Danes are no builders, and now I see with my own eyes how truly he spoke,” I said as we stood looking on this.

  “They are far more skilled at destruction,” answered Ælfwyn.

  “To think they spared the stable when they took Four Stones, and let the hall burn!” added Burginde in disgust.

  “Like as not they had no choice, Burginde,” I answered. “They may be no builders, but enjoy other’s work well enough.”

  Ælfwyn turned and gazed upon the huge blacked beams. “They have not even cleared away this rubble,” she said.

  “It is kept as a trophy,” said a man’s voice, quite near. We turned to look into the scarred face of Sidroc. “For many months the head of Merewala, the Lord of Four Stones, was stuck on that pike,” he said, pointing to a tall wooden shaft with a barbed tip like that of a spear’s, “until the ravens had their fill, and the skull crumbled under their pecking. Thus did he learn of our skill at war.”

  We said nothing, for what could we say? I thought we would turn to go, but Ælfwyn stood looking at the pike and said, “He rests in honour still.”

  Now Sidroc spoke again. “Ha! You are a spirited one, Lady, and are made of good stuff, for you stand up well to the nephew of Yrling.”

  She took her eyes from the pike and looked at him. “You are his nephew?”

  He smiled. “Yes, I, and also Toki; but he is not my brother.” He looked to me. “This Lady is not your sister, but your cousin?”

  “No,” she said. “The Lady is my friend.”

  “She is a good friend, then, to come so far with you,” he said, and considered this thought with care. He looked at me again. “You are then also from Wessex.”

  “No, I have not come so far as my Lady,” I said, “for I am come from Mercia, by the river Dee.”

  “Ah,” he said with a grin. “I would like to see that place. I hear there is great wealth there.”

  I answered at once. “Then you have heard a lie, for our lands are poor and marshy, and for many years we have fought the Welsh so that no store of grain remains from year to year.”

  He narrowed his eyes at me. “Who are you?” he asked.

  “I am Ceridwen, daughter of Cerd, and my dead father was an ealdorman,” I said with firmness.

  He laughed. “You are a true shield-maiden. I will be careful of you.”

  He turned back to Ælfwyn. “Someone in this keep wrote the letter in wax for you, but I know that the monks of Lindisse are dead. Tell me who it was, for we at times have need of a man who writes.”

  It was Ælfwyn’s turn to smile. “Then I cannot help you, for I know of no such man.”

  Sidroc’s face grew hard. “I do not jest, Lady,” he said, and I would not have her go on with her sport.

  I stepped between them, tho’ my heart pounded in my breast. “My Lady speaks the truth,” I said. “She knows of no such man. I am the scribe that wrote the letter.”

  Sidroc stared at me. “You? I do not believe it,” he answered.

  “Then you do not believe the truth. I was raised by the Black Monks, and they gave me this art.”

  He smiled and said, “I believe you, shield-maiden.” He looked at Ælfwyn. “You do indeed bring rich treasure to Yrling.”

  She searched his face, and without moving her eyes from his spoke to him quietly. “She is not treasure, nor is the cream coloured pony, for it is hers outright. Will you see that this is known, nephew of Yrling?”

  A smile broke slowly over his face. “Yes, I will see that it is known.” He glanced at me. “But I would rather see her on a stallion of Yrling’s.”

  My face burned and I looked away, but I need not have, for he turned on his heel and strode off.

  Burginde opened her astonished mouth.

  “Silence, Burginde,” breathed Ælfwyn.

  We three turned and walked through the muddy straw. My face still stung. Ælfwyn spoke out loud as she walked. “We are insulted, and we are ignored,” I could hear her say.

  Still, she did not head for the hall and the meagre solace of her chamber, but continued through the yard of Four Stones.

  Chapter the Fourteenth: Dobbe’s Tale

  WE neared the stone steps which led down to the door of the hall, but we passed them and went on. The noises of many animals told us we were approaching a kitchen yard. We passed through a narrow gate, left open, and saw an empty cattle shed, and next to it a circular pig sty, with a few great swine rooting through the strawy mud. Some tattered and bedraggled hens roosted in the ruins of a fowl house.

  The bread ovens and roasting pits came in sight, and men and women worked at a long table dressing the carcass of a pig. They looked up in their stained aprons, their hands and arms blood-spattered, their eyes dull in their heads.

  A woman above middle life came forward from amongst them. Her face was worn and weather-beaten, but it creased into a recollection of a smile. Her arms trembled as if from the palsy, and she held on to the edge of the table as she stood before us. Her voice was low and gravelly, almost a croak, but she spoke our own tongue, and so it was most welcome.

  “Ladies, I bid you welcome,” she began, and untied her apron and wiped her hands and arms upon it. “We heard tell of your coming. I hope you have not been too displeased with our work so far.” Here she held her hand to the carcass on the table.

  “Indeed no,” answered Ælfwyn. “All you have sent up has been worthy fare.”

  The face of the woman creased still deeper into a smile, so that her eyes nearly vanished in the folds. Ælfwyn went on. “I am the Lady Ælfwyn, and this, my Lady Ceridwen, and this, my nurse, Burginde.”

  The woman’s head bobbed up and down at hearing our names, and those at the table looked on with open mouths. “Aye, Mistress,” croaked the woman, “call me Dobbe, and a faithful woman to you, daughter as I am of Wessex.” She then turned to a man of her own age who had been stacking wood for the roasting pits. “Eomer, fetch my keys, that I might have some ale poured out for these Ladies.”

  He wiped his hands on some straw and walked into a closed shed and returned with a clutch of keys strung on a huge iron ring. Dobbe held them but a few inches
from her face as she sorted through them. “Aye, this one,” she said, holding it fast in her hand. “Susa! Call Susa, Eomer, she is clean -” she instructed, but before he could open his mouth a young round-faced woman stepped to the door which connected to the hall. She came out and took the keys that were offered her, her eyes as round as her face.

  “Susa, open the green chest and bring cups of brass. These Ladies need ale.” Dobbe turned back to us as Susa vanished through the doorway. “I would ask you to sit, Ladies, if it were not such an indignity that Ladies should sit in a kitchen yard. Things are not as they should be.”

  “Good Dobbe, I thank you,” I said heartily, “for aught but you have greeted my Lady since we came to this place.”

  Now the woman Susa came back, balancing three brass cups of ale on a platter of wood.

  “I thank you, good woman,” said Ælfwyn, as we took up our cups. “Pray let your people proceed with their work while I speak to you.”

  We turned our backs on the bloody table and walked a few steps with Dobbe to the roasting pits. Ælfwyn put the cup to her lips and drank, and then spoke in a low voice. “Tell me, Dobbe, how is it that you are here? A woman from my own country, Wessex?”

  With no table for support, Dobbe trembled even more. “Good Lady, I have been here since before your birth. Dobbe came herself as a young girl, to a happier place.” She stopped, and did not go on.

  Ælfwyn said, “Then you have seen much.”

  “Aye, Lady, far too much, for I came in the train of Elspeth, blest be that good Lady’s memory, and came with her from Wessex, all the way from Basingas, which was her home; for she came to wed Merewala.”

  “The same that was slaughtered last year?” asked Ælfwyn.

  Dobbe nodded. “Aye, the very same; and the Dane slaughtered also his two sons.” Again she fell silent.

  I recalled the barbed iron spear tip on the tall pike, and what Sidroc had told us of it.

  Ælfwyn spoke again. “And Eomer? Is he a man of Lindisse or of Wessex?”

  Dobbe’s face creased. “He is my faithful husband, and a man of Wessex; for he too came in the train of Elspeth.”