Within the hall, Ælfwyn made gesture to the door behind them. Dagmar nodded, and with Burginde and her mother-in-law slipped quietly from the table. Ælfwyn picked out the treasure room door key from those at her waist, and let the three of them in. Once shut, the heavy door muffled the dying sounds of revelry, as if it all were far away. In near darkness Burginde went to the small table where iron and flint were always kept, struck out sparks into the pottery dish of waiting tinder, and lit the cresset. The room, suffused with sudden light, revealed itself.
Mindful of her own becoming Lady, Ælfwyn’s first act was to untie the ring of keys from her waist.
“Your keys,” she said, and passed them into Dagmar’s hand. As she did so she planted a kiss upon the young woman’s cheek. Besides keys to the doors of the hall and those of certain kitchen storehouses always kept locked, there were small keys to the chests in the kitchen-yard passageway which stored the bronze platters and cups and other valuables in everyday use. Most precious of all was the big key she had just turned to allow them entrance to the treasure room proper. With a smile she promised, “Tomorrow I will show you what each opens.”
“I thank you, my lady,” Dagmar murmured.
Ælfwyn had not been given the keys from Yrling until she had been his wife for three days. She had never learnt if this was purposeful or mere forgetfulness on his part, but she would not allow any such affront to her son’s wife.
Burginde was grinning like a cat who had drunk purloined cream. “This be your bed,” she crowed, pointing to that expanse of wolfskin-covered softness. But she was disappointed at the bride’s reaction, which to the nurse did not seem to register fitting awe.
“My lady’s sire took these very wolves, and her mother, she who now resides at Oundle under a veil, pieced the skins, and sewed the backing.”
At this further news Dagmar took on the desired countenance.
“And – ” Burginde went on, pulling some herbal green from underneath her apron, “’Tis valerian, for sweetness.”
She reached beneath wolf spread, sheets, and featherbeds, and thrust the sprig upon the wooden frame work.
Ælfwyn, recalling these same words from her nurse from more than twenty years ago, felt her eyes grow moist.
Early that morning a new chest had been hauled into the treasure room, and it was opened now. Over these past weeks Ælfwyn, Burginde, Eanflad, and then even Dagmar had worked at the provision of fitting linens for a bridal chamber. Under ordinary circumstances a bride of high rank would arrive at her new home with a store of household linens: sheets, towels, lengths of fabric ready to be sewn into shifts and tunics, woollens in the form of blankets and alcove curtains, throws of soft stuffs, perhaps even fur, for her bed. Her mother would have made up pillows and cushions for her daughter’s bridal bed. After what Dagmar had told Ælfwyn, she knew Guthrum’s daughter would be possessed of none of this. Rather than a fine gown or piece of jewellery she thought the best and most welcoming gift she could provide for her daughter-in-law was to make up for this want, and supply the girl with ample linens to call her own.
There seemed little more to do. Basin and water for washing sat ready, here; a stack of rolled towels of linen upon the shelf, there; and a disc of pure silver to show one’s reflection awaited upon the wall. All the goods Dagmar owned had been carried in before they left for Oundle; everything lay at hand. All was pointed out to the bride. Another kiss from Ælfwyn, a final cheering word from Burginde, and Dagmar was left alone.
As Ælfwyn crossed the threshold into the hall proper she felt how light was her waist without that ring of keys. There was her son, across the hall, standing by the side door and bidding goodnight to Asberg and her sister Æthelthryth, who for this one night would again sleep in the house Asberg had built for them.
Serving folk, fire-blackened pottery cups in hand, were snuffing out the guttering torches. Most alcove curtains had been pulled tight, and given the quantity of ale swallowed, it was no surprise that the snores of more than a few issued from behind their woollen draperies. Ælfwyn, Burginde at her side, walked to her son, and granted him a final goodnight kiss.
Within the treasure room Dagmar slid between the nubby linen of the thick sheets. She had removed her gown, over-gown, and stockings, and left them folded on the lid of the chest holding the linens. The veil of silk her mother-in-law had presented her with also lay there, in a neat roll. Her brooches and crystal strands she had set upon a shelf near the polished silver looking-disc. She placed them there by Hrald’s comb, something he reached for every day, and this small act seemed almost an intrusion into his male realm. Once in bed she pulled the wolfskin spread up to her shoulders, then freed one arm to run her hand down its furred face. She had not reacted as she should when Burginde had showed her this spread, and had need to feign surprise so neither she nor the Lady of Four Stones guessed that she had seen it before.
She caught herself at this second thought; she herself was now Lady of the place, and Ælfwyn its dowager. She squeezed her eyes closed for a moment, wishing for the dark. She knew the cresset upon the table would burn for a long while, and soon he whom she had wed would enter this room and consummate his union with her.
She felt a thrill of fear. She was not a maid, for she had given herself wholly to the man she had loved. Despite her mother’s anger, they would have wed. His name rose from her breast to her lips now, and she whispered it aloud: Vigmund. Having been driven away from Anglia by his outlawing, he was likely dead; the dulled centre of her heart could sense no trace of his living presence.
When her father had told her of his outlawing the pain of dire loss was outstripped only by a fervent desire that he somehow live and be safe. Few survived being outlawed; there was too much ease in killing a man whose death could not by law be avenged. It was akin to having a price upon one’s head. Bring the aggrieved parties, they who demanded and decreed outlaw, proof that he so marked was dead, and a reward might follow. She could not know if Vigmund lived or died, only that unwelcome as he was in this land, he could never return.
The fear she felt now was not for the marriage-debt, that act of bodily possession of man over his wife. It was the pain of yielding up, and willingly too, that part of her which she had already given. She had shared a joy with a man, and now she must be willing bed-mate to another, one other than he whom she loved. This was compounded tenfold by the pressure of need and the shame of duplicity, which clung about her like a mantle.
She heard the key in the lock. The door opened, admitting almost no light; the greater part of the hall was nearly pitch. Hrald was a tall and dark figure crossing the threshold. He spoke aloud her name as he shut the door, and she heard him slide the iron bar across it, as she had tempted him to do that rainy day. Both days had been marked by rain, she realised; the day she had offered herself and he had, out of a greater rectitude than she herself possessed, refused; and this hand-fast day, in which she must not refuse him.
He came to the bed side. The wolfskin spread was drawn up to her bare shoulders, and she had not yet plaited her hair, which streamed out upon the pillow. He pulled the cresset to the end of the table that it might cast the more light on her. His smile, looking down on her, was one of such joy that she found herself smiling back. She lifted her hand to him. He took it, and bending low, kissed the open palm of it. Then he bent the lower, and kissed her face.
She let the hand he released reach up to his shoulder. Her touch felt a beckoning, and led him to break away. He pulled off his cuff of gold, that which his father had won. His arms went round his waist and took hold of the hem of his tunic. His feet were bare and his leggings in a pile on the floor before many more moments had passed. He stood there, naked for the first time in his adult life before a woman.
He felt no shame, not even in the all too apparent eagerness of his body as it yearned towards her. With his eyes on the loveliness of her face, he reached for the wolfskin spread, and lifted it away from her waiting body. Since the day
he had first seen her, he had imagined doing just this, entering his bed with her welcoming him. Now it was real.
For a moment all he could do was look at she who was now his wife. The unbound dark hair flowing across both pillows was alone a thing exceptional. The comeliness of her face, with her downcast eyes, drew his own gaze to her breasts. The nipples were deep enough in shade to give striking contrast with her blush-tinted ivory skin. Her slender waist swelled to hips where his eyes must pause at the triangle of dark curls where her thighs met. His gaze lingered there. But he must, at this first sight of her, drink all in, and he followed the long and gracefully formed legs to her feet. He wanted almost to shout in wonder, and was at the same time nearly struck dumb by her beauty.
He let himself slide in next her, hearing a voice in his head saying, This is what you wanted, and what you waited for, now she is truly yours. His earlier self-restraint was rewarded by coming bliss.
He took her in his arms, pulled her towards him, seeking her mouth with his own. Their lips met, a long and steady pressure. He waited for her to kiss him as she had when they had first entered this room together.
Now, wed to the man who wanted her, Dagmar felt none of the desperate compulsion of that first deep kiss, when she was ready to do or say anything to ensure Hrald would accept her. She felt measured in her actions, careful and deeply conscious of every motion, every gesture and response. Mindful she must not betray her past experience, she responded to his caresses with a hesitant openness, which he read as innocence of the act of love.
Of course he expected Dagmar to be a maid; a King’s daughter would not lightly dispense of her favour. Yet there was a lack of ardour which, considering the passion with which she had then kissed him and her willingness to give herself before their witnessed hand-fast, almost confused him.
She took the lead in nothing yet seemed to welcome all his actions. Perhaps some new shyness took hold of her, for she kept her eyes closed the entire time, a surprising show of modesty in such a self-assured maid. He felt awkward, knew he must seem awkward, yet tried to touch her with gentleness despite his mounting desire.
As thrilling as was the feel of her flesh under his hands, he could not for long stroke her breasts and thighs. His own urgency to know her as wife compelled him to lift himself over her, and with his legs part her own. Looking down at her, his knees between her own, was its own culmination of his imaginings. The sensation as he lowered his hips, and his body sought and found her woman’s hollow made him close his own eyes for a long moment in near-sacred savouring.
“I make you my wife, Dagmar,” he breathed.
Her arms reached round him, and when their lips met, she opened her own and kissed him. Her tongue gently touched his own, so that he responded with a forceful thrust of his own tongue. This action, coupled with the fire in his loins, suffused him with a keenness of sense outstripping all imaginings. Its purity was such that his entire being was engulfed in the unique rapture of this moment, one which could never come again. As he moved above her, he felt a fervour both singularly distinct, and wholly connected to another.
At Hrald’s whispered words, Dagmar had one thought: If this be so, I am already wed. For an instant her body clenched, a response she could not control, as he entered her. A name rose again from the depths of her, one ingrained in her heart, summoned by what felt a violation of her self. Vigmund.
Hrald’s euphoric climax to this congress was a surrender as powerful as it was exquisite. Cradling the head of his beautiful wife in the moments afterward, kissing her face, he uttered a prayer to God that she had been delivered into his keeping. His only experience with carnal passion had been with a wanton kitchen woman, an act devoid of tenderness or affection. His new wife’s kindness and welcoming of his caresses was the revelation Burginde had promised it would be.
He pulled back and kissed her once more, and she smiled up at him. The light of the cresset fell upon her face, and he saw tears on her lashes. He thought it due to the pain of her maidenhead breaking.
It was not, only what was left of her heart.
Chapter the Seventh: Much to Protect
DAGMAR proved in every way an asset to Four Stones. As its young Lady she looked to Ælfwyn for direction and advice, consulted her on every action, gratefully accepted help when offered, and yet worked hard to assume her rightful duties, and show husband and mother-in-law that she was up to the task of running such a large keep.
She made no changes, sought no alteration in how hall or kitchen yard was run. Indeed, she was all too grateful at her good fortune, that Four Stones under the hands of she who had preceded her had been brought to such a height of functioning that no amendment was needed. Her own domestic arrangement at Headleage was the small timber house shared with her mother. It had given her almost no preparation for the running of a hall feeding and housing so many, beyond that growing need for thrift which shadowed every month following her father’s death. His royal hall there had not, she thought, been run as ably as her new home, nor were its folk as content as those she now lived amongst. Her first Sabbath at the preaching cross as Hrald’s wife she had the pleasure of seeing all smile upon her in welcome, and when later that week she accompanied Ælfwyn on her rounds in the giving of alms and in comforting the sick she felt for the first time the satisfaction of bringing some larger good to lives she could make the easier.
Ælfwyn, walking with Dagmar and Burginde on their charitable circuit, took silent pride in how her daughter-in-law responded to being shown to the neediest of her new folk. Aged men and women with eyes filmy with years reached forth their hands, wishing to touch their new Lady, and Dagmar, nothing dismayed, took the knobby hands into her own, and bestowed greeting.
Watching this, Ælfwyn remembered after her own arrival here sending to every despoiled croft a silver coin, and how, when they next saw her, the village women in their hunger and desolation had thrust their hands to her so they might touch she who had begun to relieve their want. That hard work of restoration had been her own; she had achieved it, and now had the gladsome task of turning a well-fed, productive, and happy folk into the care of she entrusted with its continuance.
Nor did Dagmar disappoint in the private sphere within the hall. Her initial reserve was replaced by a growing warmth and openness to the women of Four Stones, one which Ælfwyn thought already blossoming into true affection. She quickly befriended Ealhswith and made much of the girl, showing her new ways in which to plait her hair, allowing her to attempt the plaiting of her own far longer and thicker locks, and patiently answering her ceaseless questions about life in the royal hall of her father.
During those daily hours when Ælfwyn, her sister, and two daughters stood at loom or spinning, or sat cutting and sewing the cloth they had made, Dagmar worked alongside them, eager to improve her skills. Demand for cloth was ever great, for from the weaving room on the partial second floor of the hall issued not only all the cloth which the family of Four Stones required, but some of that needed for the men yet unmarried. Beyond the giving of arms and silver as reward for service, part of Hrald’s charge was to feed, and if needed, clothe those warriors who fought for him. Those without wife or mother to spin, weave, and sew must be supplied by the hall. And the need for bedding and linens such as sheets, towels, blankets, alcove curtains and other everyday items was constant. Thankfully Ælfwyn had help in this, as certain women of the village returned to her, spun and woven, the carded fleece and flax delivered to them.
Re-hemming a tunic of Hrald’s where the stiches had unravelled, Dagmar one afternoon confided to her mother-in-law that she could not make so fine a shirt herself. Indeed, even her new hemming was inferior to the tiny stiches laid down by his mother, who had sewn it. Ælfwyn was quick to take issue with this, assuring her that her skills were far advanced to those she had possessed when she became Lady of Four Stones.
“Starts with spinning, everything does,” interjected Burginde, without stopping in her drawing of thre
ad from her fast whirling spindle. She was standing in the middle of the floor, between Ashild at a loom, and Dagmar seated at the table with Ælfwyn. “Fine thread works up to fine cloth, and deserves steady hands and patience with shears and needle.”
No one’s spinning was as good as Burginde’s, nor could it ever be. Ashild craned her head to see the nurse move to Dagmar and in an unasked-for lesson, place the spindle in her hands. Dagmar caught Ashild casting her eyes up to the ceiling as the nurse instructed Hrald’s bride how to roll a finer thread. Both young women found themselves smiling.
As for Hrald, his happiness in his wife grew unabated. When they awoke after their bridal night, Hrald had ready his morgen-gyfu, his morning-gift, that gift a new husband presents to his bride after their first night. It became her property alone for the remainder of her days, and one she could leave in her will to anyone she wished. Hrald’s gift to Dagmar was a ring of twisted yellow gold for her finger. He wished to give her something she would wear every day, as reminder of their union. The ring was from a small store of gold housed in one of the treasure room chests, and he had selected it not only for its bright colour, but because it was unmarred. He took her left hand and began to slip it along her fourth finger.
It did not fit; it was too small.
Four Stones had no worker in precious metal. Hrald looked at the pretty thing, stopped there above her knuckle. “I will send it to Jorvik,” he told her. “The gold-workers there will fix it.” He felt abashed, yet she only smiled.
“I will wear it on a chain about my neck, until you are able,” she promised.
He could do nought but kiss her for her words.
“It is not too small a gift,” he wondered to her. He had watched how she and her sister had been drawn to the necklace and paired bracelets of gold and coloured gemstones at Oundle. His morgen-gyfu was far more modest, but he hoped she would consider it the more heartfelt.
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