by A. M. Linden
In a swift move that sent his chair clattering over behind him, Caelym stood up and went striding out of the tavern, leaving the door swinging open behind him.
Chapter 37
The Overlook
As startled as everyone else in the room, Aleswina jumped up and stammered, “Brother Cuthbert is—is—he is in a hurry to, to carry out his mission from the bishop, and—” “—and walked off without his staff and bowl!” Annwr, who’d just emerged from the kitchen, finished for her. “Bring them along, Codric.”
Aleswina grabbed the staff and bowl, along with Caelym’s shoulder bag, and ran after Annwr. When they reached the far end of town, she just caught sight of Caelym turning left before disappearing behind the three oak trees.
Fifteen years earlier, Annwr had stood by and done nothing as Rhedwyn, hot-headed fool that he was, dashed off into disaster, leaving nothing but misery in his wake. That would not happen again! Tucking her own staff under her arm and lifting her habit above her knees, she put on a burst of speed that would have earned her a trophy if she’d been competing in the foot race at the summer solstice festivities.
She caught up with Caelym just as he was coming to the last turn in the road. Without slowing, she seized hold of his right arm so that their combined momentum pulled him along after her, past the turnoff. Shifting course, she dragged him off the road and a dozen paces into a thicket of scrubby brush on the side of the ridge.
When Aleswina appeared seconds later, panting and out of breath, Annwr had Caelym on his knees and was sitting uphill from him, her heels dug into the rocky ground and her two hands clenched around his wrist.
Jerking away from her, Caelym shouted, “Let me go, or I’ll—”
“You’ll what?” Annwr shouted back. “Go charging up to a manor defended by who knows how many guards? Get yourself killed in front of your little boys’ faces? Bring the rest of the king’s army down on us? You will stop and listen to me, or—”
“Or what?” Caelym wrenched his arm out of Annwr’s grasp.
“Or I’ll curse the part of you that fathered those boys so that it won’t do you or anyone else any good ever again!”
Caelym froze where he was. “You wouldn’t!”
“I would! So, are you going to listen?”
“I am going to save my sons!”
“We are going to save your sons, but first we are going to the top of this hill, where we will look to see what we can of the manor, and we are going to make a plan so we don’t all get killed in the effort!” Annwr’s voice went from hard to soft as she looked over at Aleswina. “Are you ready for a climb, Dear Heart?”
Aleswina nodded and started to pick up the staff, bowl, and bag that she’d dropped on the ground.
“I’ll take these, Dear Heart.” Annwr picked up the bowl and her staff. “And you,” she snapped at Caelym as she pointed at his staff and satchel, “take those!”
Aleswina needed both hands to grab hold of shrubs and tree roots as she scrambled after Annwr and Caelym along a narrow, crumbling remnant of trail that went almost straight up the side of the ridge. Caelym reached the top first. Moving cautiously, he made his way through a copse of fir and cedar. Annwr crept after him, and Aleswina crept after Annwr. Coming to the rim, all three flattened themselves against the ground and looked over the edge.
Almost straight below them, the road they would have taken led to a gate in a high stone wall circling a cluster of wooden buildings. The first and biggest of the buildings was nearly as large as the convent’s main storage barn, and the four other huts might, between them, house a full contingent of guards.
“How much money did you give him?” Easing back from the edge, Annwr stood up and stared at Caelym.
Caelym pushed up onto his knees but kept looking over the cliff as he answered, “Enough to keep the boys in comfort and reward Benyon’s kin for their hospitality.” Then he fell silent, staring down at the manor as Annwr muttered, “It looks as though your trusted servant must have rewarded himself quite well.”
Caelym didn’t need Annwr’s caustic comments to see that the purse they’d sent off with the boys, though generous, could not have paid for the estate below him. All he could think was How long was Benyon robbing our treasury? Was he a traitor for all the years I was growing up? From the days he carried me on his back, neighing and pretending to be a horse, brought me plates of sweets, helped me get dressed for my first formal ritual?
Taking advantage of Caelym’s silence, Annwr told Aleswina that the women in the kitchen had said Barnard was both miserly and vindictive—and that the orphaned boys’ mother would have done them a favor if she’d taken them to the grave with her.
The look that Annwr directed at Caelym said, without words, exactly what her opinion was of the idiocy of trusting the care of children to anyone incapable of giving birth. Out loud, she confined herself to remarking that they would have to come up with a new plan since “your devoted servant” was unlikely to welcome them into his fine manor.
Recovering from his shock, Caelym was ready to offer several plans—most of which involved his getting his hands around Benyon’s throat and squeezing until the miserable traitor’s remaining eyeball popped out and rolled across the floor.
While granting that the idea had a certain primitive charm to it, Annwr pointed out the obvious problem—that even wearing the monk’s cloak, Caelym was well known to the man who had been his “trusted” servant all those years, and who would no doubt recognize him from half a league off.
Annwr’s alternative—that she should go in her disguise as a nun, ask for alms, wait until Benyon’s back was turned, and then grab the boys and run with them—was met with Caelym’s caustic rejoinder that since the man was a miser, there’d be as much chance of him offering her a handout as a pig playing a flute.
From there the debate between them became nasty—Annwr snorting, “Well, maybe, being the son of the Goddess, you could turn yourself into an eagle, swoop down, and snatch the boys up and carry them back here!” and Caelym sneering, “And maybe, being the sister of the Goddess, you could entice some helpful giant to take the roof off the house, pick up Benyon between his fingers, and squash him like a bug.”
When Annwr and Caelym had exhausted their sarcastic witticisms and became serious again, they were both forced to agree that without any way of knowing whether Benyon had guards or where he kept the boys, none of their plans had much chance of succeeding.
At this point, Aleswina surprised them (and herself) by saying that she would go and find out. “I will say . . .” She thought for a moment. “I have been sent by the monk to see whether Barnard is the man that my master is seeking.”
Annwr objected to Aleswina taking such a risk on the grounds that she was not a Druid and not related to the boys in any way. Caelym agreed, without adding out loud that the girl was too cowardly to get away with it.
Somehow Aleswina did not feel afraid.
“There’s no reason to worry. I am only going to see how the place is guarded and, if I can, to learn where the boys are kept. Then,” she finished hopefully, “Caelym can sneak in there tonight and steal them away.”
Annwr looked at Aleswina with something between concern and pride. “If you’re sure, Dear Heart,” while Caelym nodded silently, sat back under the shade of a tree at the edge of the overlook, took out his dagger, and started cleaning its blade with the hem of his monk’s cloak.
Glancing over her shoulder, Annwr saw Caelym polishing his dagger with a relish that bothered her—not because she didn’t think the treacherous, thieving Benyon shouldn’t have to answer for his wrongs, but because she’d yet to be convinced that men killing each other made anything better for anyone in the long run.
It tore at her heart to send Aleswina alone and defenseless into the villain’s stronghold, but the sun was halfway down in the western sky and sinking steadily toward the rim of blue-gray peaks on the far side of the river plain. Once night falls, she thought, there’ll be
no holding him back—and no telling what havoc he’ll wreak with nothing but stupid, blind rage to guide him. So she slipped Caelym’s bag onto Aleswina’s shoulder and, turning back to Caelym, said, “It’s agreed, then. Caelym, you keep watch from here, and Aleswina will go see how the place is guarded and where the boys stay at night so you can creep in and get them without causing a row.”
Caelym nodded absently, his eyes fixed on the door of the manor and his fingers stroking the dagger’s shining blade.
Aleswina hugged the bag under her arm and looked from Annwr to the path down to the road, and then back to Annwr.
Annwr took Aleswina by the hand. “Well then, Dear Heart, I’ll just walk with you back down to the road.” She kept her voice as calm and reassuring as if she were doing no more than seeing her off to her first trip to the market—which, in fact, was not so different from what Annwr had in mind. Once they’d slipped and slid their way back to where the trail met the road, she drew Aleswina aside to sit with her on a fallen log.
“Now, Dear Heart, I want you to be careful and to take no chances. It is enough to get inside this ‘Barnard’s’ house, look around to see what you can see, and come out safely again. But here is the pouch with our thirty-two sceattas and forty-nine penings.” After pausing to glance and make sure Caelym hadn’t snuck down the trail after them, she went on, “From what I heard said of him, this ‘Barnard’ would sell his own mother if the price was right.”
Aleswina, who tended to take everything that Annwr said literally, started to ask, “Why would we want his mo—” But she stopped and thought for a moment. Brightening as she realized that anyone who would sell his own mother would certainly sell someone else’s sons, she shifted to asking, “How much will they cost?”
It was a straightforward and practical question, and one that put an end to any doubt that Aleswina was Annwr’s child in spirit, if not by birth.
Unfortunately, Annwr did not have a straightforward answer. While she’d done her share of trading at the main market in Strothford, she’d stayed as far away as possible from the west end where slave dealers did their trade. The one time she’d been there, she’d been on sale herself and, speaking no English, had understood nothing of the bidding around her—so, despite having a better-than-fair knowledge of what to pay for woolen goods and what price to ask for her piglets and goslings, she had no idea what to pay for children.
“Barnard is a miser and will drive a hard bargain, so you must be ready to drive a harder one,” she said. “Do not act too eager to get them. Let him name his price before you name yours; if it is too high, try to bring it down with appeals to Christian charity. If you can only afford one, take the younger one; he will be cheaper, and the older one will be faster if he has to run away.”
“I will, Anna,” Aleswina said earnestly. “I’ll keep my voice low and drive a hard bargain.”
“And promise me, Dear Heart, that you’ll take no chances, and that you will come away at once if you think he suspects anything!”
“I promise.”
“All right. Off with you, then, but—”
“I’ll be careful.”
After gripping Aleswina in a last quick hug, Annwr waved her off, watched until she disappeared around the bend, and then started the long climb back up the hill, hoping that Caelym had stayed where he was supposed to be.
Chapter 38
Benyon
News that a dark, silent monk was looking for him reached Barnard, previously known as Benyon, before Caelym stood up to leave the tavern.
Maelrwn, a sheepherder who ran his flock in the pastures next to Barnard’s, was having his usual midday meal at the Spotted Hound and had followed the conversation without joining in. While Maelrwn wasn’t a particular friend of Barnard’s—and didn’t like him better than anyone else in the village did—still Barnard was a fellow Briton and possibly a covert pagan, as Maelrwn was himself, and so, acting out of clan loyalty, Maelrwn had slipped quietly out the side way. Taking a shortcut across back fields, he’d reached the manor in half the time it took to get there by the road and rapped a quick, hard rap on the door.
Relieved that it was Barnard himself and not Wilda, Aelfgar’s gossiping sister-in-law, who cracked the door open, Maelrwn whispered his warning.
Barnard blinked his eye. “A monk, looking for me? I can’t think why, unless it’s for a handout.”
It was on the tip of Maelrwn’s tongue to say, “That bishop must be falling on hard times if he’s got to send a monk all the way from Lindisfarne to Welsferth for a contribution!” but he realized there was no reason for Barnard to trust him and, come to that, no reason for him to trust Barnard. “Well, good luck then . . .” he muttered, his voice trailing off awkwardly as he stepped back away from the door.
Watching Maelrwn retreat down the path and out the gate, Barnard started to thank the Goddess that he’d answered the knock himself instead of calling for his serving woman to do it, but switched, mid-thought, to the Virgin Mary as he closed the door and leaned back against it.
Despite the scathing comments about him being bandied back and forth in the tavern, Barnard was a mild and inoffensive-looking man. His habit of cocking his head to the left to compensate for his blind side gave him a perpetually quizzical look, more in keeping with the eager-to-please servant he’d once been than the cruel, tight-fisted miser he’d become.
Barnard—or, to use his shrine name, Benyon—had worked his way up from kitchen helper to chief servant for the priests’ chambers, and for his first seven years in that position, he’d been everything that Caelym had once believed him to be—honest, dependable, and devoted to the shrine. One of the few servants who could speak English, he had been the natural choice to take trinkets made by the shrine’s metalsmith to trade for salt and spices at a village market within walking distance of valley’s hidden entrance, and the fact that he always returned with a full and accurate account of the exchange had cemented the priests’ trust in him.
In between market days, Benyon had kept up his regular duties—cleaning the priests’ chambers, fetching their ceremonial paraphernalia, and polishing the shrine’s sacred vessels. Moving from one task to the next, so much a feature of the shrine’s life that he was almost invisible, he’d listened in on the apprentice priests’ lessons and the elder priests’ otherwise private conversations.
Benyon didn’t start out to do anything wrong. He was just curious—and more than a little bored with what was largely tedious and repetitious work. It was only after he discovered the secret location where generations of priests and priestesses had deposited their golden tribute to the Goddess that he became greedy.
Of the dozens of major and minor ceremonies conducted throughout the year, the most important were the celebrations held on the summer solstice, fall equinox, winter solstice, and spring equinox. Each began with a public pageant at dawn, followed by a day of festivities that culminated in a communal feast served by the priests and priestess to the servants, artisans, and laborers in honor of their work throughout the year. Then, while the villagers were gathering up their sleepy children and going back to their cottages, and the shrines’ servants were clearing dishes and putting away the extra tables and benches, the priests and priestess withdrew to their innermost sanctum, where they prepared to perform their secret rites.
No uninitiated person was allowed to witness these most sacred of the shrine’s rituals, but one year, Benyon’s curiosity got the better of him.
On the night of the summer solstice, he followed the priest and priestess who’d been chosen to reenact the courtship of the Sun God and the Earth Goddess, and he watched from the bushes as they celebrated the world’s first conception.
On the night of the autumn equinox, he crept after the chanting line of priests and priestesses as they wound their way through twisting underground passageways down into a vast cavern where they danced in dizzying circles with the spirits of the dead.
On the night of the winter solstice
, he hid in a side chamber of the shrine’s highest tower and listened as the chief priestess led chants interceding in the lovers’ quarrel between the earth and sun and calling on the sun to return to the earth and her children.
On the night of the spring equinox, he stole behind the procession of the shrine’s highest priests, led by their chief oracle, who held a golden goblet above his head. They took a roundabout path to the lakeshore where they stepped on board a long narrow boat. The oracle stood at the front while the others took up paddles and propelled the craft silently across the black surface of the water toward the lake’s only island, a barren outcrop of jagged boulders barely visible from where Benyon lurked in the reeds.
It was gloomy and overcast, but every now and then there was a gap in the clouds and the moonlight burst through and made the polished gold chalice sparkle as if the oracle were holding a ball of fire between his hands. The first time this happened, Benyon, who’d been crouching down out in the bushes, stood up. He stared into the darkness after the twinkling spot of light until it grew smaller and then went out for the last time. For a long time, he could see nothing, but he could hear the start of a chant that rose and fell nine times over, then stopped.
At the first sight of the Druids’ boat returning across the lake, Benyon ducked back down into the underbrush. He held his breath as they disembarked and walked silently past him on their way home to the shrine. After they were safely out of sight, he stole down to the lake, eased a small boat off the dock, and paddled out to the tiny, barren island, making as little noise as he could. When he drew up the boat to the rocks, there was just enough of a ledge to climb onto for one person, much less seven Druids, unless they had mystical powers that he’d not seen in all his years of picking up after them; and if they had that much magic, he reasoned, wouldn’t they have used it make themselves richer?