For Me Fate Wove This

by Octavia Randolph

  Just before Yule the Abbess sent message to Four Stones, asking if the Lady thereof might come for a visit. A stay would be restorative, and with Winter’s darkness at its height, she might take comfort there.

  Ælfwyn and Burginde arrived in a waggon, little Cerd upon Burginde’s lap. Thirty of Hrald’s men surrounded them. A strong fire warmed the nuns’ hall, which was full of both sisters and lay women at handwork. After their welcome, Burginde took the boy out to run in the gardens. The day was cold but dry, and Cerd was drawn by the tall shapes of twisted vines and gnarled fruit trees before him. Sigewif invited Ælfwyn into her writing chamber, kept warm by the brass braziers set upon the floor.

  They had not beheld each other since the day of Ashild’s burial. After she closed the door behind them, the Abbess spent some time looking at her. The grey eyes were searching, yet never unkind. Ælfwyn recalled Ashild’s complaints of the Abbess’ piercing gaze, and smiled to herself at the memory.

  The Lady of Four Stones had not suffered the grave after-effects of most bereaved mothers. Many women, losing a child in such a brutal way, would have been hollowed out by grief. Indeed, the lady’s countenance had scarcely changed. She was if anything softer in her loveliness. As they sat down at the table which served as writing desk to the Abbess, she remarked on this.

  Ælfwyn was forced to smile.

  “It is Cerd,” she answered. “I cry every day for Ashild. And for Ceric. Yet there is their child. Cerd is my great joy. He is so like Ashild. I feel her presence every day, through him.”

  It was Sigewif’s turn to smile. “And it is of Ashild I wish to speak.”

  Ælfwyn’s widening eyes showed her interest. The Abbess took a breath, and began.

  “Her tomb has become almost a shrine.”

  Sigewif was studying the gently parted lips of her guest, and went on.

  “Women and girls arrive, having heard of Ashild’s death on the field of battle. It is her courage that attracts them.” She cast her eyes down a moment, and added with lowered voice, “A quality that attracted us all.

  “Some say they dream of her, that she gives them heart to do their own duty. A few claim to have known healing, bodily or in their minds, from thinking of her.

  “Such claims are serious ones,” the Abbess went on. “I have recorded each one, as I must. But I have ordered all under my keeping to hold their silence, to prevent the spread of rumour and speculation.

  “Still, women keep coming. At first they were only the rich. Now cottar girls and their mothers and grandmothers come, as well.” She looked about. “It is as if… they were on pilgrimage.”

  Ælfwyn’s surprise, confusion even, showed clearly in her face. She could almost hear the ring of Ashild’s laughter.

  “But Ashild…” She hardly knew where to begin in her objections. “She was not… devout.”

  The Abbess gave a nod of her firm chin. “And Augustine of Hippo comported with whores, and fathered a child out of wedlock,” she returned, naming the great and sainted teacher and philosopher.

  “And what has Ashild to do with Augustine?” she further posed. The Abbess went on to answer her own question. “Both can yet be bearers of light for others. Even bearers of grace. Augustine lived long enough to see the error of his ways. Ashild was taken early, and we cannot guess where her particular sense of discernment and force of character might have brought her.

  “At any rate we must look beyond their Earthly failings, as indeed I hope others shall look beyond mine own.”

  The Abbess pondered this a moment. She had given great thought to what she might say to Ashild’s mother, knowing her news was much to encompass.

  “They come to Oundle with not only prayers, but with gifts,” she went on. “Flowers mostly, or some trinket dear to them. But also this.”

  There was a plain wooden box upon the table, newly made from the freshness of its hue. She opened the lid. Within lay jewellery of silver and of gold, a necklace of pearls, and several small purses which Ælfwyn could guess were filled with coins. She looked at the treasure, shaking her head in wonder.

  “It is benefaction, indeed,” the Abbess concluded. “If hearts which may have been closed now open to grace Oundle and our work here, it is proof of God’s blessing.”

  Ælfwyn was nearly too stunned to respond. That her own headstrong Ashild, seemingly undecided in her faith, should become an object of devotion and source of comfort to others almost beggared belief. Yet there was a queer and welcome beauty to it all. These were fearful times. If some found strength in thinking of her daughter, she must strive to understand it. She did the same herself.

  Sigewif, reading Ælfwyn’s face and sensing what might be her next objection, was ready with assurance.

  “We must tread carefully,” she told Ælfwyn, “or rather I must. Soon these accounts may reach the ears of our Bishop.

  “A claim of heresy, of apostasy, is a grave concern. Yet who could argue that these women have not been touched and inspired by Ashild’s example? If they find benefit and solace from their devotion, who am I – or any cleric – to gainsay it, as long as they keep foremost to God the Father, Christ His beloved son, and Mary, the Holy Mother of God?”

  Ælfwyn gave thought to who sat before her, aiding her in her bewilderment. Sigewif was perhaps uniquely suited to comprehend such mysteries. Her own brother had been declared a saint, and his murder a martyrdom, within a few short years after his death. Edmund, killed ignobly in battle, had gone from man to King, to martyr and saint. Still, Ælfwyn placed her hands to her face, considering that Ashild’s story was being repeated to those who had never known her, and her tomb become a place of visitation.

  “Come to her resting place,” the Abbess now invited. They rose and wrapped themselves in their mantles, and stepped out into the grey afternoon.

  The first thing Ælfwyn saw upon entering the church were the boughs of evergreen. They lay on the stone floor in the corner, to the right of the altar. Abbess and Ælfwyn genuflected before that altar, and went to the stone slab marking Ashild’s tomb. Ælfwyn had not seen the handsome carving of her daughter’s name, and looked long at it now. Upon it was a sprig of fresh rosemary, tied with a coloured thread.

  “From Bova,” the Abbess told her. “She comes each morning to place something fresh upon the stone.” Ælfwyn looked now to the evergreen boughs at the foot of the slab, seeing that a scrap of birch bark which bore writing was there, tied by a long twisted piece of dried grass.

  “The name of the young woman who came yesterday,” Sigewif said. “She was of cottar stock, heavy with child. She could not write, but asked Mildgyth to inscribe her name as petition, to ensure the safe delivery of her babe.”

  Ælfwyn could scarce speak. She stood above the Earthly remains of her daughter, not knowing whether to laugh or cry. Her eye moved from the slab to the wall. A spear had been attached, almost in the corner, held upright in a double iron hanger. She lifted her hand towards it, and looked back to the Abbess.

  “Yes,” confirmed Sigewif. She smiled now, as she went on. “It is her spear. I had it in my writing chamber, then decided to bring it here. Pilgrims need something to touch. Some bend down and kiss the stone. But Ashild’s spear, with which she defended Oundle, and which she carried with her on the day of her death, has special meaning. They can place their hand where her own once touched.”

  They moved next to the Mary altar at the left of the high altar, where the women of the foundation stood during devotions. It housed the large painted statue of St Mary, from which Ælfwyn’s gold and multi-gemmed bracelets and necklace given her by Yrling had hung for many years.

  Ælfwyn saw something new had been placed at the base of the statue, a box of carved silver not unknown to her, as she had also given it to Oundle.

  The Abbess put her hand on Ælfwyn’s own to say the next.

  “Within is the banner which Ashild wove and embroidered. When I watched her approach our gates, it was the first thing I saw – she
on her great horse, with the banner flying behind her. I wanted it here, as memento of that day when she came, as Judith did, to slay the tyrant oppressing her people.”

  Ælfwyn’s heart was stilled within her breast. The war-flag, soaked with her daughter’s blood, had become almost as a relic, sheltered in a box of precious metal, and laid in a place of veneration to the Mother of us all.

  The two nights spent at Oundle did indeed bring comfort. Cerd became the pet of all the sisters, and the Abbess delighted him with the gift of a handful of goose wing feathers, their quills no longer useful for ink, but made to delight a small boy who loved to tickle Burginde. On the second day his grandmother took him into the church, alone and in her arms. She almost could not speak, but tried to keep her voice light as she carried him about so that he might see the treasure it held. The spear affixed to the wall snared his eye, and his hand and arm reached for it. Ælfwyn caught her breath. She turned away, to distract him with the bronze censer by the altar curb. He would not allow it, but began to cry, pulling for what he wanted. She walked with him to the spear. His hand wrapped over the smooth wood of it at once, and he gurgled and laughed in pleasure. How alike you are, she murmured, kissing the top of his head. How alike you are.

  The morning of their leave-taking, the Abbess asked, “How fares Hrald?’

  She must tell the truth. “He goes about his daily concerns manfully, with no neglect of duty to hall or village. But he is shattered, within. I know he blames himself for her death. The only time he smiles is in the presence of Cerd. I think that he sees Ashild in him, just as I do.”

  Ælfwyn had more to say of her son. “The day after Ashild was brought here, he told me he must go to Gotland. He will sail in Spring, as soon as the seas calm. I fear his going, yet I feel his father could help him, more than any of us can. And he must take on the heart-breaking task of telling Ceridwen how Ashild died.”

  The Abbess could only nod her head at this. “The courage in your line is far greater than only of the body,” Sigewif ended.

  As the waggon rolled off, it passed another heading to the gates. It was an ox-cart, guided by a male drover who walked at the patient beast’s head. Within sat two young women, and a man who might be their father. They looked of a prosperous farm family, all dressed in the best finery they owned, and well wrapped against the cold. One of the girls had a basket of apples on her lap, the handle tied with a brightly woven ribband, clearly meant as a gift. They smiled as they reached Ælfwyn and Burginde, and their open and expectant faces made it impossible not to smile back.

  Their words reached Ælfwyn’s ears as their cart passed.

  “They have seen Ashild,” was what one said.

  Chapter the Seventeenth: Ceric of Kilton

  Kilton in Wessex

  WORR felt that no burden so great had ever been placed upon his shoulders than the safe return of Ceric to Kilton.

  They were well supplied; Hrald had given them two pack horses, loaded with food. While journeying across Anglia they might stop at random crofts to try and procure provisions, but it exposed them to greater danger. Worr was leading them in stealth on minor roads and tracks back to Wessex.

  Despite the provender Ceric would hardly eat. He seemed dazed much of the time, quietly agreeing to all Worr proposed.

  Hrald had also given them a tent, needed now that cold rains fell at night. Despite the wet Ceric would sometimes leave the scant shelter it provided. Worr might awaken alone, but hear Ceric, weeping, without. Something had broken within him, his heart, certainly, but Worr feared for his mind. It was like travelling with one badly injured, yet with no bodily wound giving testament from whence the hurt emanated. Every step away from Four Stones and Oundle took something more out of him.

  They had left Eadward’s men in such haste that Worr had no real idea of the Prince’s response to the calamity. Eadward had listened gravely to Worr’s news, and granted his petition that they be dismissed to carry Ashild’s body back to her hall. He had told Worr to return with Ceric to Kilton afterward; Ceric had been too long in the field. It would be left to the Prince to tell his father that the hope of binding the halls of Kilton and Four Stones had been sundered in unthinkable violence. In most circumstances this would have occasioned the bloodiest of reprisals.

  In Worr’s eyes, a further tragedy was that with the advent of Ceric’s son, the union of the halls had been almost fully accomplished. Eadward and Ælfred had no way to know of this child; that news must wait, and only Ceric could tell it.

  Once they reached Wessex they rode openly upon the roads, and gained speed. Still, it had taken them fifteen days to enter Kilton’s lands. The first they came across was that owned by Ceric, for they crossed into Iglea, the holding Prince Eadward had granted Ceric as reward. This property was what he had planned to give Ashild as her morgen-gyfu. Now he rode through it, staring, his head turning from side to side, as he took in the landscape of yellowing trees and ripened grasses. The horse-thegn at his side could not guess his thoughts, and Ceric could not share them.

  The road onward was well-hardened soil, little rutted. As they neared Kilton proper they began to meet watch-men and ward-corns along the way. They left these men at their posts, and only when they reached the final watch did Worr allow the men to ride ahead and signal their coming. He wanted Ceric to arrive in as quiet a manner as possible, yet must give some warning to those in the hall, all unknowing his approach was nigh.

  As they rode through the village they saw ahead a cluster of folk awaiting them. Worr spotted his wife Wilgyfu, with all three of their sons. Modwynn and Edgyth stood at the opened gate, the steward of the hall waiting by the doorway. They passed within the palisade. Stablemen came to take their weary horses. Worr took time to draw something wrapped in cloth from one of his saddle bags, the shape and length of a sheathed sword.

  Ceric walked to the two women, his haunted face telling of tragedy. Worr joined him, pained by the anxiety marking the faces of the two ladies of Kilton. Worr spoke to relieve the worst of their fears.

  “In Anglia Prince Eadward came across a battle, well advanced. They were Danes, fighting other Danes. The men of Four Stones were part of it.

  “We left Edwin with the Prince. He suffered minor hurt, only.”

  The gratitude with which these tidings were received lightened the women’s faces for only a moment.

  More news was coming, they both knew it. Modwynn gave thought where best to receive it. They could go into the hall and empty it of women and children; unlock the treasure room, as Edwin’s mother had the second key; or go to her own bower house. She made decision for the last.

  “We shall go to my bower,” she told them. It would be the most private of all these spaces, and might lend solace in the sharing of a newly revealed grief.

  Within the round bower house Modwynn’s serving women carried in basins so the men might wash face and hands. They brought both ale and mead to slake their thirst. Then, left alone, the four sat at Modwynn’s table, with its covering of watered green silk. Worr placed the shrouded sword upon the table.

  During the silence that followed, Modwynn saw that Ceric no longer wore Godwulf’s confirmation ring on the small finger of his left hand. The import of its absence grew in her mind. She placed her own hands on the table, slender and long fingered, like those of her grandson.

  Ceric seemed ready to speak, his mouth moving in that way that sought words. But he shook his head. Tears began welling in the corners of his eyes.

  Worr leant forward in his chair and began. With such news as they bore, there was little way to soften the doubled loss he must report. He could but try.

  “Kilton has been struck with two great losses. I will speak of them as they occurred.

  “Cadmar is dead, in service to Kilton. His horse reared when the one Edwin was riding was killed beneath him. Cadmar fell to the ground, and was speared by a Dane.”

  The sudden intake of breath from Modwynn was akin to a gasp. Murmured prayers
arose from the lips of both women. When they had learnt the old warrior-monk had ridden away, they need accept the danger that he might not return. Hearing of his death was nonetheless a harsh blow.

  Worr went on with the tale.

  “He lived long enough for Ceric to be with him at the moment of death. Ceric told him that Edwin, whom Cadmar had ridden to protect, was safe. He died in that knowledge. His body was carried to the forest, and covered with rock.”

  Edgyth wiped her eyes and spoke. “And he died in the love of God, Him he faithfully served, as well as Kilton.”

  Worr could not tell the next. No one could but Ceric. Worr turned his head to him.

  Ceric began, slowly. His voice, tight with grief, was raw, but he would tell all as it happened.

  “I was stacking stones over the body of Cadmar. I saw a man still on the battlefield, walking with a raven war-flag. I was angered over Cadmar’s death. I ran after the man, picked up a spear.”

  The hesitation after these first words ended in his eyelids falling closed. His head drooped. Then he drew breath, and looked at Modwynn and Edgyth with burning eyes.

  “It was Ashild.”

  A cry came from the throats of the women.

  “I killed her.” The declaration was heart-rending in the baldness of its horror. “I killed her.”

  He must go on, and excuse Ashild her presence there.

  “She was not fighting, but there to serve as messenger, should they need it. She was looking for Hrald.”

  His eyes dropped again, to his hands. He raised them to his grandmother.

  “Godwulf’s ring… she wears it now. I slipped it on her finger as I held her still-warm body.”

  Modwynn and Edgyth had taken each other’s hands, and both took hold of one hand of Ceric. This calamity defied all their hopes. Few disasters visited upon the family of Kilton approached it. They wept together in their pain and loss.

  When Modwynn could again speak her first question was of Four Stones.