She had seen Ælfred several times, as a maid back at Cirenceaster. That was years ago…
She stopped herself in her thinking. Rich gifts were Ælfred’s to give, and Ceric was his god-son. Right now she must go to the kitchen yard and see what could be done to make a fitting welcome feast.
She rose, took a small bronze key from the cluster at her waist, and carried the book in its box to the stout chest which held her remaining jewels. She set the gold pin in as well, vowing to wear it that night. As she was relocking the chest she heard a knock, and at almost the same time, Ashild call out, “Mother.” The door opened and her daughter stood before her.
She had the yellow pouch in her hands. She left the door open behind her, and Ælfwyn could see by her face that Ashild was not thinking of that. She crossed behind her daughter and closed it.
“What does it mean?”
Ashild had many aspects to her temperament, but fretfulness was not one of them. Yet her worry sounded in her question to her mother.
She moved the pouch in her hand, lifting it slightly. “Ceric brings me this. And that man, the bailiff – he came all the way with Ceric, to bring you a book from Ælfred.”
Her mother did not answer, but Ashild went on as if she did not expect her to.
“They are here for me,” she proclaimed. “Here to bargain for me. To make of me a Peace-weaver.”
The girl was always direct. This was so bald that Ælfwyn would have hazarded a short laugh, if her daughter’s face had not betrayed fear.
Ælfwyn went to her, took the bundle and placed it on the small table there, and then pulled Ashild to her in a long and slow embrace. She felt her daughter’s chest heave against her own, and tried to slow her breathing by the drawing of her own deep breaths. The girl smelt of the stable; that, and a whiff of the lavender flowers she liked to crush and rub through her hair.
“My dear girl,” her mother whispered. Then she stepped back, her hands on her daughter’s shoulders. She was still taller; Ashild would not reach her height, she thought. Nor would her daughter, at this moment, meet her eyes.
Ælfwyn let out another slow breath. “You have seventeen years. You are the daughter of Four Stones. Your brother will rule soon. Of course men seek your hand. This is not the first time one has shown his interest.”
“So I am right,” Ashild answered. “Ceric is here for me.” She pulled away from her mother’s hands, and looked around the room in such a way that Ælfwyn wondered if she thought Ceric was hiding in the alcove where at night Ealhswith slept, and listening to all.
Ælfwyn began to feel some concern now. “Does it displease you so much? You and Ceric are – friends. You and he – ”
“Do not, please, tell me of how we slept together as babes in your waggon,” she fired. “I have heard that tale enough.”
“Your brother loves him,” Ælfwyn tried. “And – he is Ceric of Kilton. The god-son of – ”
“I know, the King of Wessex. I know all this.”
The petulance in her tone made her mother swallow her own impatience. A gentle silence had generally been the best way to greet Ashild’s anger. The girl was kind enough, and old enough, to come to her senses in a short while. If she did not always return, with lowered chin, to beg forgiveness, at least the storm would shortly blow over.
“Ashild, I think you read much into Ceric’s gift. The ring-tunic he had made for Hrald was of great worth, and I think he wished to choose something equally so for his sister.” Ælfwyn thought of the pin she had just locked away. “He brought me a gift of gold.”
Ashild stood a moment longer, then nodded her head. Kilton, she thought; a Kingdom and a half away. And you would have me go there?
It was not something she could say; she did not wish to hear the answer.
She felt her mother’s gaze upon her. She let her eyes drop to the table and what it held.
“The gown. I must wear it tonight?”
“You must wear it at some point in his visit. Not to do so would be to slight it.” She considered the girl’s reluctance. “If you do so tonight, at the welcome feast, it would not only be appropriate, but – it would be over with, and done.”
Ashild took this in, and nodded. “Then I can lay it away.”
“Yes. Then, if it does not please you, you could lay it away.”
Ælfwyn would not point out that to do so to such a queenly gift would be a waste of its beauty and value; she did not herself think that way. Her surprise and disappointment was solely in the fact that the idea of Ceric being her suitor appeared distasteful to her daughter. They had been avid play-mates as children; did not Ashild feel she knew Ceric, and well?
The girl was once more pulling the gown from its pouch. The silk, heavy as it was, was slippery, enough so that it fell with a soft and hissing crackle from the table where she had piled it. Ælfwyn bent to pick it up; her daughter was already unpinning her own gown so she could try the new one.
It was simply sewn, with long, narrow sleeves, a round neckline, and skirts that rustled with the expanse of fabric that had been lavished therein. It was not the yellow forced from the weld plant, but a far more vibrant and richer shade. No embroidery ornamented it; the vivid hue of the golden silk was enough. Such a gown demanded only the simplest but most striking of jewels. Ælfwyn thought of all those she had given to the abbess of Oundle. But Ashild was not one to layer on baubles.
“It is long; too long,” her daughter decided, once she had dropped it over her head.
“Yes. I am taller than you. And it was once my gown,” her mother told her.
Her daughter stopped in her fussing then.
“It was yours?”
“It was. One of four gowns, all of silk, my parents had given me when I turned sixteen. I gave all of them to Ceric’s mother.”
“So they have been at Kilton all this time?”
“Yes. When I visited her there, she told me she had given two of them to her mother-in-law, the Lady of Kilton, in thanks for the way she had received her as daughter. But two she kept.”
“And Ceric has brought one of them to me.”
Ashild sat down on the bed, her new yellow skirts billowing around her. Outside a bird called, and beyond that she could hear the fainter sounds of the bustle in the kitchen yard.
“I will wear it tonight,” she told her mother, and rose to pull it off.
Hrald had taken Ceric down along the palisade to the trees in the hollow. The hall was noisy with serving folk setting up for the night, and Hrald had stopped just long enough to get his sword from the treasure room. Now they walked next the marshy wetland, trampling the grasses that rose tall along the path for want of use. They would meet no one here, and they could talk.
Ceric had been eyeing the sword Hrald had emerged from the treasure room wearing. Like all Danes, he wore it at his hip, just as Danes wore their knives hanging down from their weapon-belts.
“Which did you choose?” he asked his friend. He and Hrald had spent so much time with the trove of swords, he thought he would remember them all.
Hrald pulled it from its scabbard and handed it to Ceric. The hilt was fairly plain, two pieces of well-figured dark-veined horn held by silver rivets. The iron guard was broad and forward-curving. The crowning pommel was of iron, but well-shaped and smooth to the touch.
The blade itself was long, and the most impressive part of the whole, deeply etched in almost blue-grey rippling pattern-welding, every ripple signifying a different thin bar of steel the weapon-smith had hammered and twisted together to make the blade dance in the light.
Ceric turned it in his hand, admiring it.
“Good spring, too,” Hrald told him. A moment passed as they both watched Ceric catch the Sun with it. “My father almost took it as his own. I remember him testing it, calling it a fine blade.”
Ceric nodded, and passed it back.
“Yours,” prompted Hrald. He had taken a moment to re-sh
eath the blade.
Ceric drew it forth from the simple black scabbard hanging high on his chest. Hrald had already seen the bright gold of the hilt, proclaiming it the weapon of a king or great war-lord.
“It is the sword of Godwulf,” Ceric told him. “It was given him by King Æthelwulf.”
Hrald let a low whistle escape his lips. With all the gold it was the costliest weapon he had ever seen, or could hope to see. It exceeded the seax Ceric wore across his belly, which he knew to have been that of Merewala, who had fallen defending Four Stones.
Hrald handed it back. He sized up his friend, dressed as he was in his dark clothing, as Ceric buried the blade in its near-plain scabbard.
“A lot of show,” Hrald ribbed. “A scabbard to match would blind your enemy before you drew the blade.”
The moment it was out of his mouth he regretted it. Ceric’s father had been blinded by some Danes. It had happened years ago, but still –
“I…I did not mean that,” he stammered. “Not like that.”
Ceric had winced, but now shook his head. “Forget it. I understand.”
Weapons sheathed, they resumed their walking.
“How was it given,” Hrald asked.
“My grandmother Modwynn, the Lady of Kilton, held a symbel for my sword-bearing. She took Godwulf’s gift-stool herself, and gave it me by her own hands. She was wed by it,” he went on. “After Godwulf’s death she took the sword and kept it by for me.”
“For you?” Hrald repeated. “Of course,” he answered himself a moment later. “You are eldest.”
Hrald’s thoughts ran on. “And Edwin, your brother?”
“Godwin’s sword will be his. That and his seax.”
It was only the open-handedness of Hrald’s father that had made this possible, that the weapons of the Lord of Kilton could be carried back by Worr to be set aside for his heir. But Ceric could not quite say this. Hrald had witnessed it as well, and there was no need. Just as there was no need to mention who had killed Godwin.
“What else happened?” Hrald wanted to know.
“Men pledged to me,” Ceric recounted. “I had asked twenty to do so, and they did.”
“How…how do they do that?” Hrald asked.
“Cadmar – I have told you of him; he is a warrior, but a monk, too, and counsels my grandmother – Cadmar called out the names of the men. They came, one by one, and knelt before me. They offered me their hands – ” here Ceric pressed his palms together, as if in prayer “– and swore, by their own lives, to defend mine. I placed my hands over theirs, to accept. Our priest Dunnere blessed each of them, and me, asking in Christ’s name we be worthy of our vows.”
They both thought on this, Ceric remembering, Hrald imagining. Many of the men would have been far older than Ceric, and to have seasoned warriors kneel before you and declare their arms to be yours must have struck him with awe.
“Worr was first,” Ceric went on, “and will always be my chief man, serving as he has my father and uncle.”
Hrald could look forward to no such swearing of fealty. His father’s men had been bought with nothing more than treasure, and this he knew. It was not the only thing that bound them to him; he had heard his father refer to other Danes as his brothers often enough. And men like Asberg and Jari had been tied to his father through their actions on the field of battle, fighting shield-to-shield, providing cover, even saving each other’s lives. But the bond was personal, unvoiced. And it did not extend to Hrald, or at least no further than Asberg’s bond to him as uncle did. The men of Four Stones remained content after his father’s disappearance because they had been treated fairly by him. They had settled, wed, and without grudging let Asberg and Jari continue to maintain what his father had won, just as his mother continued to run the hall.
There had been peace, as well. Asberg and Jari had been strong enough to keep internal dissent from growing, and had no need to marshal the men to fight a common enemy from without. Sidroc’s shield upon the table reminded all of he who had been Jarl, and Hrald, sitting next to it, was his heir. But if there had been war when he was still a boy he did not know what would have happened.
“After they pledged to you?” Hrald asked now.
“Modwynn gave them all gifts of silver, or horses, to bind, and honour their pledges. To Worr she gave land. Then we drank – a lot.” He was grinning now, and Hrald was grinning too, almost as if he had been there himself and had tasted the strong mead they must have been lifting.
“She gave me gifts too. A grant of land, her property at Sceaftesburh. It was my father’s. And two new silver cups.” He did not say that this last gift looked forward to his marriage, with one cup meant to be his, the second for his wife.
Ceric looked at the still-smiling Hrald.
“How was yours given?” Ceric asked him.
“Not – not a ceremony the way you had. My mother marked the month I was born. It was fifteen years past, last harvest-tide, near St Matthew’s Day.”
“Tell me of it,” Ceric invited, just the same.
“Mother and Uncle Asberg came to me, and asked if I were ready to choose a sword from the treasure room. They both keep keys to the chest where the swords lay. Ashild was there too, but not teasing me, as she can do. Mother unlocked the chest. She said she would hold her key to it another three years, until I am eighteen.”
Ceric nodded at this, but Hrald was looking straight ahead as they walked, recalling all this; and remembering who had not been there.
The person missing from the room was his father Sidroc. If his father had been there he would have chosen a sword for his son, marked out with his warrior’s eye and experience the best weapon for Hrald. Hrald remembered sitting in the treasure room of Tyrsborg, off in Gotland, and his father speaking to him about this day, telling him he would have his pick.
The open chest held more than forty swords, lying in rows five deep, a sheep fleece between every layer. All Hrald could do was reach for the close second, the one his father would have worn if he had not selected that which he did. Because Hrald had often lifted it, it was in the first layer, on the top.
He picked up his story, moving his hand towards the sword at his side. “This one…was right there. I knew I wanted it.
“Asberg clapped me on the shoulder and praised my choice, told me it was one I would not outgrow however tall I got.” The corners of his mouth turned up, remembering this. “And he promised me this new scabbard and belt, as his gift.
“Mother kissed me, a kiss of blessing.”
He paused now, and felt Ceric was waiting to hear more. Compared to the symbel held for him his own sword-bearing seemed homely, and of no consequence. Yet something had happened, something more than choosing his sword. He decided to tell Ceric of it.
“Then Ashild made a gesture with her hand, that she wished to hold my sword herself.
“It surprised me. I waited long enough that she made a sound like a laugh.
‘My touch will not blunt it, any more than my look, or mother’s, would,’ she said.
“She was almost taunting me. She knew I did not believe that old warning, that a woman could dull a man’s weapon merely by looking on it, and so bring about his death. Why even mention it, I wondered.
“She reached her hand again, and I gave the sword over to her. Her right hand closed round the grip. She held it slightly down, then raised the blade up, straight to the roof between her and me.
“Then she spoke. ‘This is the sword with which you will defend our home,’ she said.
“She sounded almost – strange. My mother and uncle were watching her; their eyes were locked on her. I could not see her well; her face was split in two by the broad blade she held before it.
“She said something more. ‘May you never fail it.’
“She lowered the blade then, so that it just touched my brow. I jerked back a little, even though she was going slowly. I remember how cold the steel felt o
n my brow-line. I saw her face now, her eyes staring at me. She looked a stranger.
“Then she pulled the sword back. She gave another short laugh, but one with some mirth in it.”
He did not know what more he could say. That was all the ceremony he had, but somehow it had been Ashild who had made a rite of it. He had chosen the weapon, but then she made it also seem that it had somehow chosen him, as well.
Hrald knew women had power in their own way, and that they could use those powers to ruin a man; both the Saga-stories and those of the Holy Book were full of such tales. And he knew a maid had a power, just by her being still a maid. Ashild was a maid, so she had that power, and she was older than him, and she was clever and sharp-tongued, too. She saw things in her own way, and sometimes it was hard for Hrald to understand her.
That had been one such time, when she touched his sword’s blade to his forehead. It was the duty of a man’s sword not to fail him; if you felt your weapon had let you down, if you got hurt or your sword was not fast enough to protect one you tried to protect, then you killed your sword, took it to a Place of Offering and broke the blade, or bent it in two, rendering it useless forever as punishment. But when Ashild held the sword in her hand she changed that all round, and asked that he be worthy of the sword. It was almost a challenge, the way she said it, though she had kept her voice low.
He wondered what his friend thought about this. Ceric was walking on along at his side, listening, Hrald thought, with intent, but he had said nothing when he finished.
New words were rising in Hrald’s throat, and now forming on his lips: Will you wed her, he meant to ask Ceric.
But Ceric was speaking again. Hrald was able to stop his question, making just a sound as they both spoke together. Hrald nodded, yielding to Ceric.
“The shield in the hall,” Ceric noted, but said no more than this about it.
Then, “You sit in the high seat now,” he guessed.
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