“They are growing better,” he said quietly.
I tied the horses by neck ropes where they could browse, and drink too. I went to work to gather up stones from the creek bed to rim our fire, and find dead wood dry enough to burn. We had much good tinder in the brass box, and mixed with the dried last year’s grasses I found, caught easily as I struck out sparks with flint and iron.
The last light was fading from the sky now. Gyric sat by the fire as I heated some of the partridge meat and some cheese on one of the stones. I looked up into the sky and said, “The Sun is setting, and I have not seen it all day.”
He raised his face a little, as if to look up. It seemed then to have been a stupid thing for me to have said, to complain of not having seen the Sun that day. I was quiet, and we ate as it grew dark around us.
We had a few day’s rations left, if we were careful. I recalled the deer that had crossed our path, and the birds that flew before us as we travelled, none of which I could catch. I hoped we would soon meet with folk from whom we could buy food, for soon we would be hungry.
Gyric said nothing, and I looked at him a long time as he sat facing the warmth of the fire. The line of his brow and nose and lips caught my eye and held it. He sat still, his lips just slightly parted. His face held much beauty, in the fineness of his features and the delicate curve of his mouth, and I gazed long upon it.
The wrap around his wound was smooth and white in the golden light. He had not had it off for one moment since he had awakened in Gwenyth’s camp. I wondered how the wound was, and how much more the charred holes would heal, and if the burn mark upon his temple would fade; but tho’ I wanted to, I could not bring myself to ask to check it. And this was not for the horror of it, for that horror was passed in me; but because I knew he did not want me, or anyone, to see it. This gave me a sudden pang that made me lower my own face and look away.
“We need to travel West as well as South,” he said, and I turned to his quiet voice.
“Why is that?” I asked, so glad he was speaking that tears had sprung into my eyes.
“We must head West for Mercia, and cross from it into Wessex. If we ride due South we will reach Anglia first, and it is now held by the Danes. It will be slower, but safer, if we ride West to Mercia.”
“We will do it then,” I said, ready to agree to anything that would help ensure our safety.
I thought of something else. “And is your home not far West in Wessex as well?”
“Yes,” he answered, “so if we make it as far as Mercia we will have lost nothing, for we can head almost straight South through Wessex.”
These last words chilled me. “Do you not think we will reach Mercia?” I found courage to ask.
He moved his head. “We will reach there,” he said, as if to reassure me. There was no heartiness in his voice, and we were both quiet.
“Gyric,” I began, eager to ask his counsel, “what shall we do when we meet up with people? For we must see or be seen by someone soon, and we will need to seek food, too.”
He did not answer right away. “You will have to make a quick judgement, each time you see someone. Cottars and bordars and suchlike folk will be glad to have your silver in exchange for food. But even they should be treated carefully. Folk are desperate, and might try to take what you have by force.”
“We will be together,” I said. “If you are at a distance behind me, they will not see your wound, and would not try anything while I went to bargain with them.”
He was silent at this, and tho’ I wondered at the wisdom of my saying it, I saw that there was truth in it. But he did not have a helmet to hide his wound, and anyone suspecting he was blinded might seize upon us both.
“As for warriors, if you spot any, stay well away. They are as likely to be Danes as Saxons.”
I knew this was true, for they dressed much alike, especially in their war-gear. “The Danes I have seen are very tall and strong,” I recalled aloud.
“Yes. Many of them are taller than we are, but I have killed my share of them.”
I said with some firmness, “I know you were a great warrior, for you fought at the side of the new King.”
He turned his head away from me at this. “I was a good fighter,” he answered softly.
I wanted to touch his arm, but I did not. Instead we sat again in silence.
“You have a seax,” he said in a low voice. “Do you know how to use it?”
“Use it?” Of course I used it all the time, to cut leather into strips, to punch holes, to cut small branches; but I knew this was not what he was asking.
“Use it against an opponent,” he went on.
I shook my head. Before I could answer he said, “There is no reason you should know; you are a woman, and one raised by churchmen, too. What is important is this: when you are smaller than your enemy you must use his strength to help you.”
I did not understand, and he slowly stood up. I stood too, and faced him. “Are you wearing it now?” he asked.
“Yes, I wear it; I have since we started,” I said, pulling it out of the sheath on my sash.
“Good. Have it with you, always. Now act as if you are going to attack me.”
I stepped back a bit and raised my arm over my head. He put his hand up and I feared he would find the naked blade. Instead he grasped my wrist.
“That is what you must not do,” he instructed, pushing my hand back with force. The seax dropped out of my fist onto the ground behind me. The strength in his hand and arm surprised me; he was almost hurting me. He let go my wrist and dropped his own hand.
“Do not raise your hand high. Any man can wrench your weapon away from you. He will not use spear or sword on you, for he will want you alive. If you are attacked from the front, let your enemy come close to you, and keep your seax low, at your waist. He will lunge at you, and use his own force to drive himself upon your blade. If he is wearing a leathern shirt, or a ring tunic, do not even try to pierce it. A wound to the thigh will disable him, and you can break and run.”
I was quiet during all this, taking it in. “Do you understand?” he asked.
“Yes, yes,” I answered, and bent to retrieve my knife.
He sat down again and I sat by him. “If you are grabbed from behind, do not try to pull away. Instead throw yourself with all your weight back against the chest of your attacker. He may lose his balance and fall to the ground, giving you your chance to run. Even tho’ you are a maid, you can outrun many men, especially if they be in battle-gear. Think of escape first, and not of killing your enemy. If he is wounded only a little you can oftentimes get away.”
He thought a while, and then spoke again. “If we are pursued on horseback, cut the reins to my gelding. Your mare will run faster unfettered.”
“I would never do that,” I said. “If we are pursued we will stay together.”
He turned his head away from me and said quietly, “You do not know what they will do to you. Me, they will simply kill.”
“I do know what they will do,” I answered. “The same as they do to all women.”
I could only remember the village women, and the daughter of Merewala. I stabbed a piece of wood into the fire.
I felt angry now, angry and sad; and we sat in silence. I did not want our conversation to end this way, nor did I think I could sleep. My eye fell upon our food pack, and I was moved to speak. “We have food for only three days or so,” I began. Gyric turned his head towards me, and I went on, “I know we must look for folk from whom we can buy food, but what if we find no one? Can we catch something?”
He considered this. “We could fish, where the water is deep enough. We would need to make a hook.”
“I have iron needles; perhaps a hook could be fashioned from one of them.”
“Good. A hook we can leave overnight while we sleep.”
“What about hares, and larger things?” I wanted to know. “The woods on either side of us must be
running with game. Could we snare them? Gwenyth and Holt did.”
He thought on this a moment, and then shook his head. “It would be hard. Snares work best when you set many of them, and then check them each morning. They are not suited for those who camp each night in a new place. Also, they must be made and set with care, and placed where animals run. It takes time, which we do not have.”
“Then we will try to fish when we can, and look for farming folk too,” I answered. I felt much better talking about all these things; to know that Gyric thought about how we should travel and how we might find food made me feel not so alone. Just to have him speak to me was important.
Chapter the Fifty-first: I Explain Myself
IN the morning the sky was still clouded over, and the slight breeze smelt like rain to come. We ate, and saddled the horses, and set out to follow the creek bed once more. Gyric was again quiet. It was, I think, easier for him to speak when night had fallen, and tho’ I did not know why, I felt this to be true.
About us were woods of larch, maple, and oak. We were always cautious, and quiet, too, as we rode along, but I felt my caution had changed within me. I no longer feared being followed from Four Stones. Many days and many miles had freed me from this fear, and Four Stones seemed in my mind far away indeed. Now I felt cautious about what strangers we might meet ahead. I hoped we would come upon some wood-cutters or charcoal-makers, and so be able to procure food and perhaps even shelter, and was thus heartened by the signs of cut trees we passed. But we could also stumble across Danes, and as we went along I wished I had more knowledge of trail-craft, and could read the story that each bent twig and trampled bit of forest floor might be telling. Gyric would know all this, I knew, for he showed by what he said that he had skill in these things; and showed too that he knew much of the birds and beasts that roamed the forests. When we stopped to walk our horses through a part that was too low with young maples for us to ride, a bird called out sharply in the forest stillness, and I asked aloud what it might be.
“A calling chaffinch,” he answered. “That is the male.”
“How many things you know about the woods,” I praised.
“Many hours of my boyhood were spent in the forests of Kilton; there and on the water,” he replied.
This was the first time he had spoken of his home, so I went on, “There are lakes there, too?”
“The biggest lake of all: the sea is there. Our hall is built hard up against it, for it sits upon a cliff, and its waters foam far beneath us.”
I looked around at the dark greens and browns of the forest and tried to picture this. “I have never seen the sea,” I admitted. The moment I said this I realised that he would never see it again, either, and I felt abashed at my careless words. But he did not remark at this, or show by any sign what he might be thinking.
For supper we ate the last of our boiled eggs and the partridges. Now we had naught but bread and cheeses and a few dried apples. I found something that looked like lamb’s lettuce, for the horses went to it at once and tore it by the roots to enjoy all of it. I nibbled on a leaf and added a handful of it to the water I boiled the partridges in.
As we ate a few rain drops began to fall, and as they gained in strength we moved away from the fire circle I had built to the shelter of the trees. We sat cross-legged upon our sheepskins under hides we had laced to the tree boughs, and between the overhanging leaves and the hides themselves were safe from all wet.
The fire sputtered and spat as it was pelted by the rain, but our food was hot and I had poured the morning’s broth into the jugs already. The smell of the damp wood smoke mingled with the rising smells of the wet trees and forest floor, and it was rich and pleasant to the nose, full of Spring and new life.
“Tell me of your father,” said Gyric, when we had finished with our meal and sat listening to the pattering of the rain through the leaves above us.
His question surprised me; my thoughts were far from my home. “His name was Cerd. He was ealdorman of the shire of Dee, from the river’s border to the Northly Road,” I began.
“So he was one of Burgred’s picked men,” replied Gyric.
I had not really thought of my father like this, but it must be true. “Yes, tho’ I myself have never seen the King,” I answered. “My father died before I was born, defending the hall he had built in the Kingdom of Gwynedd. His brother Cedd became ealdorman, and due to the fierceness of the Welsh he did not try to reclaim my father’s lands, but contented himself with his own holdings East of the river.”
“And you had no brother or sister?”
“That is right. I was alone, and Cedd had no children, so he took me as his daughter, and I lived with him in his timber hall.” This brought a smile of pleasure to my lips, and I think, into my voice.
“So Cedd took you as his own. How did you come then to live with churchmen?”
“Cedd died, and his lands were taken by the Priory to be Bookland,” I answered simply.
“Bookland? How could that happen when he had left you as his heir?”
I felt confused, and answered, “I do not know, but the Prior appealed to the King and had the lands made Bookland for the upkeep of the Priory.”
“And this was not the wish of your kinsman?”
“I am sure it was not Cedd’s wish; it was the wish of the Prior.”
“That is wrong. Without a brother or other kinsmen, the hall and land should have fallen to you. Your father and his brother both were ealdorman, and you their only issue. You were cheated out of your inheritance.” He said this with something like heat in his voice, and I could only blink my surprise.
“What happened to the ceorls and your slaves, and the hall?” he asked next.
“I do not remember. The ceorls and slaves went away, somehow. The hall,” I recalled with real sorrow, “was turned into a granary by the Prior.”
“That is bad, very bad. The men were left Lordless, which should never happen. And all the wealth in the slaves went to someone else.” He was silent, as if thinking on all this, and then said, “If there is peace again perhaps you can appeal to Burgred.” He shook his head. “It will be hard to have your land made Folkland again, and given back to you; but since you will pay far more taxes on it than the Prior does as Bookland Burgred may be ready to listen. He needs all the tribute he can gather.”
He thought a moment longer and then added, “At least the Prior should be made to pay you for what he took from you.”
I knew not what to say. “Our shire is a poor one,” I said at last, “and the Priory poor also. The Prior always seemed to give his silver away, to the relief of the poor, or in buying and freeing slaves. I do not know how he could pay me.”
“He has no right to do good works with moneys he has stolen from a maid,” Gyric countered. He turned his head to me and asked, “You were a child when this happened?”
“Yes. I lived then at the Priory, and was baptised.”
“Baptised? You were heathen?” His voice held real surprise.
“Yes. Me, and Cedd, and Cerd, too.”
“No wonder he took your lands. He felt he had the right to.”
I thought of all this, and then said, “If it was wrong to do it if I was Christian, it was wrong to do it with my being heathen too.”
He gave a sound almost like a snort, and nodded his head. “Yes, that is just, but that is not the way things work. You had no standing, or property to protect, in the eyes of the Church.”
I was not going to say the Church was wrong, so I said nothing.
Gyric went on to something else. “What did you do at the Priory? You did not take the veil, and you are well old enough to have wed.”
“That is right. Since I wanted neither there was no place for me, so I left to seek a station with a noble family.”
“The daughter of an ealdorman should not need to seek such a station, unless it is out of love.”
“It was out of love, for
when I met Ælfwyn she treated me with naught but goodness, like her own sister.” I felt a rush of sadness, remembering all this. Gyric too turned his face down.
His voice was low. “What did you do together?”
“We would spin, and weave, and all the common things such as that; and ride out for pleasure, and talk, and sing together. Also I was teaching her to write, so that she might send her own letter to her parents.”
He lifted his head to me. “You yourself can write?”
“Yes, and read, too, both of our own tongue, and some of Latin. It is the great gift that the Prior gave me.” I began to ask a stupid question, but stopped myself in time.
“I know of few women, other than my mother, who read and write,” continued Gyric.
This interested me greatly, for the only women I had heard of who had these arts were those of high rank who had taken the veil. “Your own mother reads, and writes, too?” I began to think of how much I should like to meet this woman.
“Yes. She taught us both - my brother and I.”
Gyric’s voice had changed; the tone had lowered, and I knew he thought again of what he had lost. I did not want him to sink in despair after all we had spoken of. He held a short stick in his hand, and with it traced a random design in the fleece he sat upon.
I decided to say something bold, and try to continue our speech on this topic. “Have you then books of your own? It is good even to be read to.”
“At Kilton we have many books,” he said, but with no gladness in the owning of them.
“Many?” I could not help echoing. I almost added, ‘I should like to see them,’ but it was too bold a thing to ask. It made me remember that I did not know exactly how he expected to return home. I wondered if when we got to Wessex he might find some man to travel the rest of the way with him. After all, he had never really agreed to my going the whole journey with him. Perhaps he might even ask me to leave him when we were safely past the border and into Mercia, since it was my home country. These thoughts flooded into my breast and troubled me greatly.
The Circle of Ceridwen: Book One of The Circle of Ceridwen Saga Page 39