The Circle of Ceridwen: Book One of The Circle of Ceridwen Saga

by Octavia Randolph

  “Woods,” repeated Ælfwyn slowly, and looked at me. “Ah!”

  I looked back at her, searching her face for a clue to her sudden distress. Then my own light dawned, and I remembered.

  “The village men are in the woods, too,” I said. “Hiding.”

  “What if Yrling sends men tomorrow to start looking for the sheep?” she asked herself. “I did not mean to have to tell him about them so soon.”

  “Perhaps he will not start tomorrow,” I suggested. I had another thought. “Perhaps the village men have caught the sheep, or at least some of them, and live off them in the forest. If so there may be more sheep than we think, for they would have bred them up.”

  “And Yrling could get both sheep and men back at the same time,” said Ælfwyn, “so that shepherds we would not lack.”

  “And Meryth and the other women would have their husbands back.”

  “And the fields will be planted. So it could be a good thing all round. I will just need to speak to Yrling before he sends anyone out.”

  Burginde came up the steps, bumping two wooden buckets of water. Her face was furrowed and she was muttering under her breath as she came in. Her apron was splashed over with wet.

  “Oafs and louts!” she huffed as she set down the buckets. “That Yellowhair tried to fright me in the kitchen passage.”

  “Toki is drunk,” said Ælfwyn in disgust. “He is just childish enough to do such things.”

  Burginde changed her apron, and set about helping Ælfwyn select clothing to take downstairs. I slipped off my shoes and stockings and was about to pull off my gown when I heard the mewing of a cat. The landing was dim, and I could not see if Browny was there. I stepped out and listened, and thought I heard her cry again, but it was a strange, muffled cry.

  I walked down the first few steps. “Browny?” I called.

  I moved down a little farther and then heard her cry, much clearer and closer.

  A figure moved out of the shadows along the wall below, and I saw Toki, holding the kitten by its tail and smothering its cries with his other hand. Toki was grinning and said something in his own speech.

  “You are too bad, chasing Burginde and now hurting a kitten,” I scolded him. His grin looked frozen on his face; I do not think he heard anything I said. I reached out my hand, wanting him to give the kitten to me, and he took a step closer. I was halfway up the stairs and so leaned forward towards him.

  Of a sudden he dropped the struggling kitten, and lurched instead at me. His two hands shot under my skirts and grasped me around my bare ankles. I fell back on the steps, and called out, “Toki! Stop it!”

  I twisted to try to kick him in the chest, and as I did saw Ælfwyn appear on the landing above me. Then Burginde stood by her, lifting a bucket and shouting as she flung it at Toki’s head. It glanced off his forehead, dumping water all over him, and he staggered back against the wall, gasping, at the force of it.

  Men were now come into the space, drawn by the noise we made.

  Ælfwyn looked down and spoke to Toki, and she was in a rage. “To touch her is to touch me!”

  “Aye, and that be the second time he grabbed her,” sputtered Burginde.

  I began to stand up upon the stairs, wanting to get into our room. Then Sidroc pushed through the circle of Danes who stood watching and went to where Toki leaned, half-sitting, against the wall.

  He bent down and picked Toki up by grasping the collar of his leathern tunic. Toki stood, but barely, and Sidroc drew back his fist and slammed it into Toki’s face. He crumpled upon the floor, and Sidroc kicked him with great violence as he lay there. Toki groaned and made no attempt to stand or even crawl away.

  “Sidroc, he is drunk,” I said, coming down the stairs towards them. He did not look at me, only glared down at Toki as he kicked him again. None of the men made a move, and regarded this all in silence. I looked back at Ælfwyn. In her face was anger and disgust and now concern as well.

  “Stop now, Sidroc,” she said, and came down the steps herself. “You will kill him.”

  He did not regard her, but only stood over Toki as if he would kick him again. Ælfwyn came to him and said, “You will open your wound and bleed again. Stop.”

  She scanned the faces of the men around her. There in the back stood Yrling, watching with hawk-like eyes. He inclined his head, as if to say to her, Come. She looked once more at Sidroc as he stood over Toki, and then dropped her hands and passed through the men to Yrling. They turned and went into the hall together, and slowly the other men turned also and walked away.

  Toki groaned again and made some gesture to pull himself away. Blood flowed as a rivulet from his mouth and nose, and he choked as he tried to breathe. His yellow hair was clotted with red.

  Sidroc kept his face down, glaring at Toki as he tried to crawl along the wet floor. I did not want to leave them alone. I had often hated Toki, but I did not want to see him die; not by Sidroc’s anger; not when he was drunk and could not defend himself; and most of all not, as it seemed, over me.

  I went to Sidroc and made him look at me. “Please,” I said.

  I looked in Sidroc’s face, with the scar showing sharply against his cheek. I thought of all that had been, good and bad, between Sidroc and Toki; more than I could ever know, reaching back to when they were boys together. Sidroc’s anger now was only a small part of what he bore for Toki, and the reasons he forbore from killing him must be equally deep and old.

  Sidroc did not kick Toki again. He stepped back from him, and gestured to three men who still stood and watched. His voice was hoarse as he spoke to them, and in response they lifted Toki and carried him away. I went up the stairs without looking back.

  That night, in the dark, Burginde spoke before she went to sleep. “Men be queer beasts. They will kill their kin for a maid, and let him live for her, too...”

  Chapter the Thirty-ninth: No Bargains

  THEN followed two days of quiet; and we were all glad for it. Ælfwyn and Burginde and I worked at our spinning and weaving, and the life of Four Stones went on about us. Sidroc was about the hall, resting as he let his wound heal. Toki was nowhere to be seen, and Ælfwyn told me that he was mending at the camp in the valley of horses.

  As for Yrling, on the second day he unwrapped his arm, and had no need to tie it up, for the soreness had left his shoulder. The scrape on his face was healing well, and would leave no mark upon him.

  The next morning was fine, and Ælfwyn had asked Yrling if he might ride with us to the vale of flax, as we now called it between ourselves. It was a pleasure to be out, and it was clear that Yrling took pleasure, too, in seeing Ælfwyn on the chestnut mare he had given in his absence.

  As we rode along Ælfwyn spoke to him of those things she hoped to do, pointing out the retting pond and telling how easy it would be to allow it to fill again. Through the village she was silent, except to say that the women needed seed, for their store was very low.

  We neared the entry to the vale, and Yrling whistled our approach, and a whistle answered back. We rode in, and Ælfwyn and I turned to each other in gladness, for the flax shown bright green and thick everywhere upon the ground. We rode through it awhile, and Ælfwyn stressed that all that was needed was for it to be kept untrampled until high Summer. Yrling listened to all this, nodding his head, but saying little.

  We three got off our horses and walked, and then Ælfwyn gave me a little nudge as she said, “Yrling, it would be a good thing, would it not, if the village could produce more?”

  He did not answer, but shrugged his shoulders.

  “What I mean is that the village women are nearly starving -” she went on; but he cut her off.

  “That is their own fault,” he said. “They will not take up with the men.”

  Ælfwyn took a breath and tried again. “Yes, I know, and I think I know why.” Yrling looked at her sharply, and she went on at a rapid pace. “What I want to say first is that it would be good f
or us all if the village could produce more. It should be able to feed itself and us too, but we must help.”

  She went on more slowly. “We must provide seed, for wheat and barley and oats, and also give them a share in the flocks we will build, as I have already said; and try to help them build up their livestock.”

  “There is more to this bargain,” said Yrling, looking at her closely.

  She tried to smile and make light of it, but it was clear she was worried. “Yes,” she went on, “there is more to this bargain, and it is good. The reason the women will not take up with your men is that some of their husbands still live. If they could come back safely, without fear of hurt or of slavery, the village could once again prosper. And I think then the single women will wed your men.”

  Now it was out, and she stood back and looked at him with fear and hope mixed on her face.

  “They live?” he asked in some amaze. “Where? Why do they not come back?”

  “They do not come back because they fear being sold to distant lands.” Ælfwyn searched his face. “Is it not true that you have sold many of the people of Lindisse this way?”

  He nodded.

  “That is why they fear returning. But they are much more valuable to us here in the village, raising grain and tending our flocks.” She grasped upon this idea. “They will bring us more silver here than abroad; for once they are sold they can never bring you profit again. If they stay here, and work and farm, they feed themselves and us and bring us silver every year from the excess we can sell.”

  “Where are they?” he asked slowly, but the smile he wore was not unkind.

  She nearly gulped. “I will tell you; I want to tell you; but please to tell me first they have nothing to fear; and that they may come home.”

  He shook his head, and his answer was firm. “No. I will make no such bargain with my own wife.”

  She cast about, looking desperate at what she had done.

  He changed everything with his next words. “You do not have to bargain with me. That is what you do not understand.”

  Her face coloured from white to red as she asked, “Then they may come home?”

  “Yes,” he said, but his voice was stern. “And never again try to bargain with me. A wife should not play such games with her husband.”

  The blush of shame was upon her cheek, and she hung her head.

  “I am truly sorry,” she began. “I did not know what to expect, and tried only to protect the secret that the village women gave me in trust.”

  He nodded his head. His voice was softer when he spoke again. “You want to change much, and that is good, for I wish to see this place as it was once. But you must not go behind my back.”

  She lifted her head and said in a steady voice, “I promise I will not.” She lowered her eyes for just a moment and said, “The men are living in the forest North of here.”

  “They should come back,” is what he answered. “Tell the women tomorrow.”

  He smiled at her, and just touched her chin. Then he turned and looked at me. “And you, Lady, should marry soon. There is trouble enough in my hall.”

  His voice was light, but I swallowed just the same. We had stopped walking, and now began again.

  “But I need her,” said Ælfwyn, in a playful tone. She took Yrling’s arm. “She will help me more in my work if she does not wed, at least for a little while.”

  “Yes, but Sidroc will take her away when he goes,” he answered.

  “Sidroc is going?” asked Ælfwyn.

  “He will go sometime. I do not know when. But when he does, he will take his woman with him.” He looked now at me, and added, “He spoke for you, long ago.”

  “But why will he go?” she asked. “He is your nephew; will he not stay with you?”

  “He will go when he has enough treasure to do what he wants to do; or when he can gather enough men to go with him.”

  A rider came towards us from the timber hall, and Yrling got on his horse and rode to meet him. We stood, watching him ride off, thinking of all we had just heard.

  Ælfwyn turned to me. “I do not want you to go, ever,” she said.

  I found my voice and said, “I will not go. These men may not pledge to each other, but I am pledged to you, and in your service; and I will never go, lest you yourself send me away.”

  “Which will never happen,” she answered with decision. She breathed out a long sigh. “Things are better now than I had any right to expect. The village men may come home; at least that worked out right.”

  “You were very brave to speak to him as you did,” I said. “Few women would have taken the part of the village as well as you have.”

  “Do not say that; I am really ashamed. Yrling is right, there should be no bargains between husband and wife.” Then she said what I myself was thinking. “It is true I barely know him, and that he did awful things to Lindisse. But he has been nothing but good to me.”

  We climbed on our horses and walked slowly until Yrling returned to join us.

  “Toki is well,” he told us as we started out of the vale. “His face is not yet pretty again, and he says he recalls no part of the night; but he is well.” He seemed to be laughing to himself over this.

  “I recall the night well, and that he touched my friend,” said Ælfwyn seriously. “He must never do it again.”

  “I think he will remember that much,” laughed Yrling.

  The village men returned two days hence, but we did not see their coming. They came under cover of dark, and found their broken huts and unplanted crofts, and found too their wives and children who had been without them so long; and their homecoming was private to each of them. It was Burginde who told us they had come, and she had it from Dobbe, so we knew it was true. At noon we thought to go to the village, and rode out into an afternoon of warm Sun and soft breezes.

  We saw at once the presence of the men, for they were afield already, and walked the unploughed ground of the great common plots. Some women walked with them, and small children too. As we came closer we saw that the men were dressed wholly in the skins of animals, and wore no other clothing than the sheepskins and deer hides which wrapped their bodies. Women at their huts stopped in their work and raised their hands to us, their faces light with hope, and maybe, happiness; they nodded towards the field in which the men walked. One man, newly returned, and not far from the road, laughingly carried his children on his back and swung them through the air in sport. Outside another hut a young woman, great with child, worked at her meal-trough as if it were any other day; but what was different was the man who silently and sternly regarded her as she did.

  Then we saw Mul. He looked somehow older, and held a stick up for Ælfwyn to see as he spoke.

  “Ladies, the sheep are at Wilfrida’s croft, and there are these many, and I have numbered them four times.”

  Ælfwyn looked down at the stick and counted its small notches. “Forty-seven! That is very good, Mul. This then will be the first accounting of the flock.”

  Mul seemed proud, and grinned.

  “All is well at home?” Ælfwyn inquired. “Your father has returned?”

  “Aye, Lady, all is well,” he answered, and shuffled his feet. “Only he scarce knew me in the forest; I had grown so, he says.”

  “And your mother is well, and baby sister?” asked Ælfwyn pointedly.

  “Aye, aye, they all be well, and my mother today looks happier than I have seen her in my memory,” he answered.

  “Then all is truly well,” she said, and I myself felt her sigh of relief.

  Chapter the Fortieth: Unrest Within

  THE next day came four riders, Danes; and rode into the yard and spoke to Yrling. They brought a great number of horses, fifty or more, which they drove in a restless herd. That night these four Danes sat at meat with us at the head table, and the following morning were off again, driving their horses before them.

  Nor was this the on
ly visit, for more such men followed a few days later. Again they drove horses, heading South. These men had also many waggons with them, pulled by oxen, containing what I did not know. That night Yrling spoke long with them, and his face and voice told me that what he heard did not please him.

  Sidroc listened to all that was spoken, but said little himself. Before I left to go upstairs I turned to him and asked, “Why do these men bring so many horses with them, when they themselves are so few? Are they going to sell them in Anglia?”

  He turned to me as if I had roused him, and answered, “No. They take the horses overland to meet those who sail from the North.”

  “From near Jorvik?”

  “From beyond Jorvik. It is faster to sail down the coast than to ride.”

  His eyes went back to Yrling and the strange Danes.

  “Why are they sailing?” I asked, afraid of the answer.

  “They sail to war,” he said, and looked at me for a moment. “It is starting.”

  “O,” was all I could say. I looked over to where Yrling sat, clutching his cup as he listened to the riders. His piercing eyes were hooded by his brows, but no expression moved upon his face. Ælfwyn sat with downcast eyes by his side, gazing at the golden dish before her. She scarcely moved. I did not think she needed Sidroc or anyone else to tell her what I had just heard.

  “It is far from Summer,” I said, and Sidroc again turned and looked at me.

  “Yes, too far, and we have not enough men to do what Yrling wants.” His eyes were steady as he looked at me. “Do not be alarmed. Nothing will happen yet.”

  I mutely nodded and left the table.

  I did not see Ælfwyn until the morning, when Burginde prepared her bath. Her first words were, “I have told him that my family is as dear to me as my own life, and that if they were harmed I could find no happiness on this Earth.”

  She shook loose her hair from her head-dress, and pushed it away from her pale face. “I spoke to him half the night, boldly, and asked - begged - that he protect them.” She looked down at the floor. “I did not even ask for the protection of their property, only for the sparing of them.”