She would not let her thoughts linger there; they touched too close to her own tangled circumstances. But as she looked upon her brother’s shield the door to the treasure room opened and he stepped out. Their eyes met at once; the first place he would look was to where he might find Dagmar, who had yet to arrive. But he smiled at his sister, and she, seeing his gladness, was forced to smile back. Her smile deepened as she became aware he had spent no little time at his own dressing. Their mother and Burginde made all of Hrald’s clothes, and lavished the attention on his tunics and leggings which might be expected. Tonight he wore a tunic of a warm brown, nearly that shade of his hair. At collar and cuffs Ælfwyn had worked interlocking chains of golden yellow wool, set off with a small curling spiral design in bright blue within each link. On his right arm he wore a broad band of hammered gold encircling his wrist. It was one of the great treasures of the hall, something his father had been awarded by Guthrum. His wearing it now for the daughter of the man who had given it had an aptness that again reminded Ashild how tight was the circuit within which their lives revolved.
Her mother appeared, with Wilgot the priest, and took their places at the high table, and Burginde, who had entered with her mistress, took her own place next to Ashild, Ealhswith at her side. The hall was loud now with the voices of the massed men and their wives and families, and the serving folk who carried the ale had begun moving amongst the tables. Then the side door was opened again, to admit Dagmar and Inkera. Ashild stood up from her bench and extended her hand to them in greeting. The eyes of most at the high table were turned to the new arrivals, and the pinkness of Dagmar’s cheek as she held her skirts in her hands and made her way to the table was both becoming and unexpected.
Everyone would be watching her, Ashild knew, and even as a King’s daughter such scrutiny could not be pleasant. Inkera on the other hand, moved with raised head, her smile as she gazed upon the ranks of tables one of almost childish delight.
Ashild would do what she could to place both sisters at ease, yet was grateful that the eating of a meal demanded its own time and attention. She herself would eat well tonight; she must. On the morrow upon awakening she would feel sick enough, and be able to take no food.
As Dagmar took her place on the bench at the woman’s table, Ælfwyn performed the task she did every night at the high table. She took ewer in hand and poured out ale for those who sat in honour with her. First was her son, Jarl of Four Stones, next Wilgot the priest, then Jari her son’s chief body-guard, then the rest of the men who had won the right by prowess of arms to claim a seat at that table. Lastly she filled her own cup. Hrald was not able to sit with Dagmar, but as he raised his cup he looked at her, and she raised hers in return.
That night after the hall had quieted, the silver cups locked away, and the bronze cups numbered and returned to their own chests, Ælfwyn retreated to her bower house. Burginde had ever slept there in an alcove, and since Ashild’s return from Turcesig a second bed had been carried in as well. Ælfwyn was tired and would welcome sleep, and one look at her daughter’s face told her Ashild would as well. Tomorrow would bring the ride to Oundle and the presentation of Dagmar to the Abbess Sigewif. It would be a long and full day, one of importance, as the Lady of Four Stones placed great stock in the wisdom and judgement of the Abbess. But before Ælfwyn kissed Ashild goodnight, she must return to a topic that she and her daughter had earlier discussed.
“I will not go to Oundle,” Ashild had told her before their guests had arrived. “I will welcome the time alone.”
“That may be,” her mother returned, “but both for my own sake and for Hrald’s I would welcome your presence there.” Her mother smiled then, and spoke what she knew was a truth. “And you know the Abbess takes special delight in you.”
Ashild had ready answer for this, and gave the slightest toss of her head as she spoke it.
“The Abbess will have her mind occupied with Dagmar and Hrald. I will stay here.”
Rather than press the point, Ælfwyn let it drop. Yet when alone she took up a quill and wrote a short message to the Abbess, entrusting it to one of Hrald’s picked men.
“Kjeld,” she told him, “I bid you take this letter to the Abbess Sigewif. Place it in her own hand, and await her answer. Do so in all haste.”
Ælfwyn had days earlier sent a letter to the Abbess, telling her of Dagmar, and alerting her that she and Hrald would be bringing that maiden to Oundle to present her. Now she found herself sending a second, far shorter missive, telling of Ashild’s reluctance to come to this meeting.
Kjeld had arrived back at Four Stones just before the evening meal, and given her the response from the Abbess. It was written on the back of Ælfwyn’s own short letter, proof of the decisive haste of that Reverend Mother’s answer. Ælfwyn now handed the letter to Ashild, who read the single line.
“It is my express desire that Ashild be present.”
The bold signature at the bottom fully conveyed the command.
“Sigewif,” Ashild repeated.
Ælfwyn would ride in a light waggon to Oundle, and offered her daughter the chance to do the same. Skilled horse-woman as she was Ashild had always scorned travelling by waggon, and did so today. Yet she checked the impatient motion of her head, and murmured, “I will ride, as long as I am able,” an admission which made her mother bestow a kiss on her daughter’s brow. “I know you will take care,” her mother whispered back.
Ashild chose her bay mare for the trip; it was her favourite mare, and she had no wish to ride the white stallion Thorfast had given her, nor could imagine doing so now, before Dagmar. Hrald was on his bay stallion, and Dagmar and Inkera on the horses they had been lent from Haward. They were decent animals, but Ashild could guess that her brother secretly wished to give Dagmar one of his own fine mares or geldings for the trip.
Burginde sat with Ælfwyn in the waggon, the reins held by one of the hall’s trusted drovers. Another thirty men surrounded them, riding in ranks of four, with Hrald, Dagmar, Inkera, and Ashild making up the riders just before the waggon, and the thirty picked men taking up position at the head and rear of this column. Asberg was not amongst this party; he had returned to Turcesig to resume his duties there. Jari rode alone, just in front of the line in which Hrald did. Two men acting as scouts rode ahead a short distance. To travel thus on Four Stones’ own lands was unheard of in Hrald’s experience, yet when he had suggested these numbers Jari had nodded in agreement. No less could be expected with the warriors of the renegade Dane Haesten ravening throughout Anglia and Wessex. All of Hrald’s men were almost as heavily armed as if they rode to war, with spears, swords, knives, and those who owned them, ring-shirts and helmets. The presence of the Jarl’s mother, sister, and he himself demanded such precaution. Add to this the two daughters of Guthrum and the numbers of their guard were fully justified.
Ashild was riding at the end of her row. Inkera, who was next her, turned often to speak with Dagmar and Hrald, allowing Ashild to fall into an almost meditative silence of her own. The stretch of pounded clay road from Four Stones to Oundle passed amongst the most pleasant of her home’s landscapes. This road, slightly arched in its middle from long wear by waggon wheels, looked like the spine it was, connecting the two places. It wended through a rolling procession of stands of oaks and beeches which rose from grasslands dotted with wildflowers. It rolled past ash trees hoary with age. These stood solitary, nodding their great boughs over bare and loamy soil they had long ago cast into shade. The passage was lightened on its way by the lithe brightness of slender birches whose leaves looked nothing so much like cut gems as the Sun hit them. Only the valley of horses gave more to pleasure the eye, thought Ashild as she took this in.
As they turned off the main road to approach Oundle, they came to the final woods they must pass, one which lined both sides of the clay they trod. It was mostly of elms, and a few ash. The trees were of good size, their canopies outspread, branches intertwining. Two of the ash trees had been
singled out for a special duty, one which Ashild herself had a share in. After the attempted assault on Oundle by a troop of Danes, she had ridden here with her step father Sidroc and uncle, Asberg. The horses they led bore the corpses of those attackers, and she had watched as those bodies were flung upon the ground and then strung up into the two ashes nearest the road. After so many months little could be left of those ghastly remains, and they were now, in Summer’s fullness, hidden by dense foliage. Yet the rotted corpses could not be cut down. They were left not only in punishment but as a kind of Offering to Odin, whose sacred tree was the ash.
She glanced to Hrald, to see if he paused to look up, but his head was turned, speaking to Dagmar on his right. Ashild was glad the ugliness was so disguised, and would draw neither Hrald’s nor Dagmar’s attention to what they passed beneath. Glancing at the two trees and then away, Ashild was strongly aware that the man she had killed was also hanging there.
As it happened Hrald was now relating a story appropriate to Ashild’s thoughts, for in answer to a question from Dagmar, he began to tell her more of the Abbess Sigewif.
“She is like no other woman I have ever met,” he began, inclining his head to where the buildings of Oundle still lay hidden by the trees. “But she has cause to be so. Her older brother was Edmund, King of Anglia.”
This was the kingdom lately ruled by Dagmar’s father, one wrenched earlier and by other hands from Edmund. It was where both Hrald and Dagmar had been born, and where Hrald knew he would spend his life.
Hrald and Ashild had heard this story recounted since childhood. Ashild listened to her brother as he shared it now with Dagmar. A large force of Danes had invaded Anglia, and after pitched battle they put the King to flight. Edmund barely escaped with his life, and was in hiding by a stream bank when he was discovered. The Danes, in celebration, got drunk on wine. They tied the King up, shot him full of arrows, then severed his head from his body. As the wine wore off, the Danes abandoned the body in shame.
Hrald was drawing to the end of the tale, the most thrilling part.
“A wolf appeared, which spent all night guarding the head of the King, sitting with the head between his front paws. In the morning the beast was found by the brothers of a nearby monastery, who had been brought the news of the King’s capture and death. The wolf would allow none but the monks to claim the head of the monarch. The brothers carried Edmund’s remains back to their monastery.
“Shortly thereafter the King came to be regarded as not only a hero, but a saint.”
The story had many qualities to spark the imaginings of young minds. The valiant King, the ignorant viciousness of his killers, the fierce and wild wolf who recognized the noble head and would relinquish it to none but holy men. They knew as well that many of those who venerated Edmund as saint were the sons and daughters of the Danes who had killed him. These had taken the Cross, become confirmed in their devotion to Christ, and saw in Edmund a worthy model of Kingship. So brutal an end had been answered by veneration, even adoration, and eventual supplication to the powers of this lost hero. Edmund’s callous murder had become a martyrdom.
Dagmar had listened with care to Hrald’s telling. “I had heard something of the King, and knew he was held in high regard after death,” she said. “But not this – not that he was now a saint.” She pondered a moment. “And the Abbess is his sister?”
This connection seemed to heighten her apprehension of meeting Sigewif, it was clear in her tone. Even the name of the Abbess was off-putting, as Sigewif meant “Victory-woman.”
“She was a child when it happened,” Hrald confirmed, “but yes. She is Edmund’s sister.”
All four of the young people were silent. They were Danes, and half-Danes, and being born as they had two and even three generations after the first predations of Angle-land, dwelt in a kind of after-land that warriors such as those who killed Edmund perhaps never dreamt of. All four of them had been christened. There was confusion, and wonder both, in such stories.
Ashild, who thought of herself as more Dane than not, and echoed this even in her clothing, had at times thought on this. Hers, like Hrald’s, was a blurred ancestry. The Danes may have killed a King and conquered his lands, but their own children went on to pray to him. She was aware of the twining process of absorption and accommodation by the conquerors; even at Four Stones it was not the folk of Lindisse who learnt to speak the Norse of Dane-mark, but the conquerors who had learnt the tongue of Lindisse. In fact, approaching this symbol of Christianity, they spoke that tongue now.
Edmund, once King and now saint, was weighing heavily on her mind as they passed into sight of the foundation ruled by his sister. Her thoughts returned to a much more recent event. There were the closed gates, before her. Here was the spot she must have reached, many horse lengths out but directly before those gates, where that spear hit her shield. She could gauge without looking back where the Dane who had thrown it stood, the Dane at whom she then flung her own spear, finding home in his young breast. The Dane whose tattered corpse now hung in that ash tree behind her.
She turned her head to the other side, where the small burial ground of Oundle lay. It was bordered by yews, as such places ever were, and she had never given it more than a glance. Today she wondered what nuns and brothers, yard and kitchen workers slept there.
The ward-men upon Oundle’s parapet needed no horn-blast nor whistled signal to recognise who neared, but they whistled out their approach nonetheless so those within the palisade might know. The great gates were slowly swung open to admit the Jarl and family of Four Stones.
The forecourt of Oundle was a large one, and as they passed through the gates, the grey stone church with its belltower stood before them. The foundation was divided into two spheres, to accommodate both its female and male inmates. The larger of the timber halls, that in which the nuns ate and slept, was to the left of the church, and to the right, the smaller hall of the monks and lay brothers. Attached to the nuns’ hall was another timber building, where the Abbess and prioress and elderly sisters kept their own small cells. The two priests who served at daily Mass had their own house, on the men’s side. A full range of outbuildings and the kitchen yard were ranged within the shelter of the palisade walls, as was the timber barn. Behind the church sat the expansive garden of herbs, flowers, fruit, and vegetables, for which Oundle was known almost as well as for its stone sanctuary. This garden was in fact two, for down its centre ran a tall wooden wall, allowing both nuns and monks privacy as they worked, prayed, or wandered within these verdant confines.
The prioress of the place, Mildgyth, was now approaching from the nuns’ hall, her hands outstretched in welcome. The escort dismounted, leading their horses to the paddock area by the barn. The men themselves, headed by Jari, would spend their time in the kitchen and work yards, and both they and their beasts would be fed and allowed to rest as the family of Four Stones went about their affairs here. Hrald gestured to the mounting blocks standing by the barn wall. He swung off his own horse and was quick to offer his hand to Dagmar and then Inkera so they might step down upon the block as he held their horses’ heads. As he did so Ashild claimed one of the blocks for her own. She was on her feet and leading her mare to the paddock when one of Oundle’s stable men approached her to take the reins. With a smile she shrugged him off; she would take her mare in herself, as did Hrald’s men.
She joined her brother and Dagmar and Inkera. Mildgyth was standing at the waggon wherein sat the Lady of Four Stones, and Dagmar’s look to Hrald seemed to ask if this was the Abbess.
“No,” he told her, with a shake of his head.
“What more can you tell me of her,” Dagmar asked. Her smooth and white brow was furrowed, and her quiet question carried a note of uncertainty.
Ashild looked at her, and recalling how the Abbess always made her feel, could not repress a slight smile. “She knows your thoughts.”
Dagmar’s lips opened. Ashild, seeing her concern, lifted her hand, and
laughed at herself. “At least she seems to know mine.”
Chapter the Second: The Riches of Oundle
PRIORESS Mildgyth led the party within the hall. At one end the slight figure of a lone nun stood by the side of a long table set with basins for the washing of hands. A side door to an inner chamber opened, and the large and imposing figure of Abbess Sigewif stepped into the hall. The Abbess wore a dark habit and sweeping white veil on her head, reaching almost to her knees in back. The cross of pale walrus ivory on her breast stood out in sharp relief from the charcoal coloured wool of her gown. The other nun, gowned in a dark habit and short veil of light grey, was quick to join her. This was Bova, lately become a consecrated nun. This young woman, whether as novice or now nun, was always present to welcome the Lady of Four Stones on her visits to Oundle. Ceridwen’s gold piece had dowered Bova, but Ælfwyn was ever her special patron here.
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