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

by Octavia Randolph

  Gyric reached out for my hand, and I took it, and he stepped ahead as if he would go to the man. “Good Brother, I would have you witness my pledge of marriage to this Lady, for I have made her my wife in Nature, and wish our union to be blest by the Church as well.”

  The monk’s twinkling eyes were fast upon Gyric as he said this, tho’ he looked a moment at me to see if I assented. I felt the warmth upon my cheek, and smiled at the monk and nodded my head, and he turned his eyes back to Gyric and studied him with some interest.

  “I will be your witness,” agreed the monk, and his voice was as deep as he was strongly-made.

  “Good,” said Gyric, and then he turned to me and took both my hands in his so that we faced each other. He paused a moment, and began. “I, Gyric of Kilton, second son of Godwulf, proclaim this woman Ceridwen to be my wife. I pledge to honour her in word and deed, to protect her with my own body, and to care for her wants. I swear to fight her battles, and to accept her debts as my own. Nor do I make claim on any goods which are hers. All that she brings with her is rightfully and truly her own possession.”

  He stopped then, and drew me closer to him, and pressed our clasped hands to his chest. “Ceridwen, you are the woman I choose as my wife. I want no other. I seal these vows with my kiss.”

  He kissed my lips, and then I took breath and kissed the hands I held, and I pledged to him.

  “I, Ceridwen, daughter of Cerd, proclaim this man Gyric to be my husband. I swear to honour him in every way, and to be a blessing in his life, and give him no cause for sorrow.”

  My heart was brimful as I said this, and I spoke with all the fervency of my being. “Gyric, you are my husband. I want no other. And this vow I seal with my kiss.”

  We kissed again, and he held me as if he would never let go; nor did I ever wish our embrace to be broken. And as I was pressed thus against his heart, having heard him pledge, and having pledged to him, I said within myself: This is my supreme moment; the time that I shall cling to in all that comes ahead. Never shall I know happiness as great as this.

  The monk spoke, and his voice was low and kind. We turned to him, and I saw he stood with arms upraised above us.

  “I witness the pledging of this man and woman, that they have joined hands and sworn to each other. And I bless their union in the Name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Ghost.”

  We bent our heads to receive this blessing.

  “Thank you, Brother,” said Gyric, and reached for the pouch of silver he wore. He began to pull it open to reward the monk.

  “So it is you, Gyric,” replied the monk, regarding Gyric with great solemnness.

  Gyric stopped and took a small step nearer to the monk. He cocked his head as if he might hear the huge man’s words better. “How do you know me?” he asked in wonder.

  “I have known you since you were a lad, but I have not seen you for many Winters,” answered the monk.

  “Cadmar?” asked Gyric, and again moved a little closer to the monk.

  The monk’s answer was mild, and his eyes, too, seemed full of tenderness. “That was my name in the world, yes. It mattered little then, and nothing now.”

  “Cadmar,” said Gyric, and put out his hands.

  The monk took them for a moment, and with a sudden gesture enfolded Gyric in his massive arms. They embraced, and laughed together, and held each other out at arm’s length. Gyric spoke, and in his voice was awe. “My uncle has never gotten over your loss. When you left his hall, and the world, he told my mother he should never see your like again. You were always the best of his warriors.”

  Cadmar shook his shaggy head. “All that is of the world, and all that I leave gladly behind,” he answered, but I felt I saw in his bright eye some glint of pleasure that his fame in the world still lived.

  Gyric turned his face slightly, and said, “Ceridwen, you recall that my mother Modwynn was the daughter of a rich bailiff in her home shire? Her brother is now bailiff there, and keeps a fine hall, and Cadmar was amongst his thegns, and always his favourite.”

  Again the big man shook off this praise. He held Gyric by the shoulders, and peered down searchingly at his face, and the narrow linen wrap about his eyes. Then Cadmar spoke. “How come you to be here, and not with Ælfred?”

  Gyric sighed, and dropped his arms. “I was captured by Svein at Englafeld. While I awaited ransom his brother Hingvar came and burnt out my eyes.”

  Cadmar lifted his own hand to his brow, and I think ground his teeth in dismay.

  “Then I was taken to Lindisse, and would have died there had not this Lady carried me off with her.”

  Cadmar looked at me with new interest. I came up to Gyric and touched his arm, and he took my hand in his.

  “Then you are doubly blest,” answered Cadmar, “for your new wife is not only beautiful but brave.”

  No one had ever called me beautiful in front of Gyric, and the hearing of it gave me great pleasure, for Gyric turned to me of a sudden as if he had never before thought of this; and indeed, how could he? And Cadmar had said these words of praise with great strength and heartiness, so that I blushed.

  “Yes,” said Gyric; and that is all he said, but it was enough.

  Cadmar looked at both of us, and then around the little clearing. “Well,” he said with cheer, “we must make a wedding-feast, and you must stay and accept what humble comforts I can provide. Each night I spend awake in the forest, but I will return at dawn.”

  “Right willingly,” answered Gyric, and I too nodded my assent.

  “We have eggs, and loaves and other good things, Brother,” I told him. “There is no need to diminish your store.”

  He gestured to the cauldron, now bubbling at the full, and proclaiming by its odour what was inside. “And I have fish aplenty, so let us make a feast of it.”

  Cadmar brought forth from within his hut a bench and table-slab and trestle, and since it was so mild, we set up for our feast under the starry heavens. From our own packs we put out eggs, and bread, and dried apples and pears. Cadmar ladled up the fish he had boiled with new onions and cress, and so we ate. Gyric and I sat together, so close upon the bench that our bodies touched, and his arm was always around my waist. Such was our wedding-feast, in the forest hermitage of the warrior-monk, and if we had sat in the hall of the King himself, and dined from golden plates, it would not have brought me more pleasure.

  The two men spoke of many things. Cadmar did not know that Æthelred had died, and that Ælfred now reigned as King of Wessex. Indeed, he knew almost nothing of the world since he had left it, and he listened to all Gyric had to say with sober attention. Gyric spoke not only of the present, but of the past, and I learnt more of Cadmar’s fame as a fighter when he was still in the world, for Gyric recounted it from all that he had himself seen and heard. And I learnt too, what had made Cadmar turn from the world, and its glories and pains: He had fought a battle with his own two sons at his side, and watched them be killed.

  “One moment they were next to me, flanking me as we fought, and the next moment I stood ankle-deep in their blood. Gold and glory meant nothing to me from that hour, for I had lost that which cannot be reclaimed.”

  “They were young,” recalled Gyric.

  “Yes, too young. Caradoc knew sixteen Summers, and Barden, seventeen. They were hot-headed and hasty as their father, and in my pride I would take them into the thick of any battle. And at the end my pride won me their blood.”

  We were silent. As I gripped Gyric’s hand I wondered if he thought that he too had been punished for his pride. Gyric had let himself be captured to help protect Ælfred. He had always assumed that he would be ransomed; all Danes knew an atheling brought a high price. But the gold Gyric would bring meant nothing to Hingvar, who only meant to punish his own brother by spoiling the ransom on Gyric’s safe return.

  “Things do not turn out as we expect,” murmured Gyric.

  Cadmar roused himself from his thoug
hts and answered, “That is truth, and well spoken. So much the greater then to seize that which is true and lasting.”

  I knew Cadmar spoke of the joys of the Spirit, and not of this world, but Gyric nodded his head and pressed his lips into the palm of my hand.

  Chapter the Sixty-fourth: I Bind Myself to You

  WE sat there talking under the stars until the Moon slipped beneath the circle of trees.

  “It is time that I am off,” Cadmar told us. “The nights I spend within the forest, and in prayer. All that you find here, humble as it is, is yours. I will return at Sunrise, and now bid you Good-night.” He disappeared into the hut for a moment, and came out with a simple mantle over his arm, and with this little preparation for the coming night, set off.

  Gyric and I sat at the rough table, his arm still about my waist, and my hand clasped over his.

  I looked over the little clearing and said, “To think here we should find an old friend!”

  Gyric nodded. “Yes. And that such a man as he should be the one to witness our pledging. A man known to me, a man who has changed his estate so greatly. How strange life is.”

  “It does not trouble you, does it, that Cadmar has seen you?”

  He shook his head slowly. “No. He is like me, somehow. His life is not what it once was, just as my life is not. And he has my respect, and the respect of all men. I am glad, very glad, that he and not a stranger witnessed our pledges.”

  This speech filled my heart. It was the first time Gyric had spoken of his new life without cursing it.

  “Ceridwen,” he asked suddenly, and with a pained voice. “Do you know what you have done today?”

  “I know I have wed the man I desire; and I know I have never desired man before. I know that I have passed from maiden to wife, and that the passage gave me great joy; greater joy than I ever knew.”

  “I hear you say these things, and I believe them, yet I do not know why you feel them. Not about me. Not now.”

  I put my fingers to his lips. “Hush, Gyric, do not say this. Do not wound me when I am so full of happiness. Just as I am as you find me, so are you. We can do nothing to change that, but only give thanks that Fate has cast our lot together. At least, I give thanks, and always will. There is nothing else I want.”

  He grasped my hand and pulled me to him, and kissed my lips and whispered, “I want to feel you, naked under me, again.”

  I gasped, and shivered in his arms, and he held me close and kissed me.

  I did not wish to go into Cadmar’s hut; it did not seem right. So we spread our bedrolls by the fire, just as if it were our own camp, only on this night we laid the sheepskins side by side. We knelt together upon them, and Gyric pulled off his tunic, and grasped at my gown, and I untied the sash from around my waist.

  “Give me your hand,” I whispered, and he did. I took his hand in my own, and I wrapped my sash about our wrists with my other hand. So I made fast our hands for a moment, and did so with the sash upon which I had worked the pheasants; the sash which was my finest work, and which I had given, in another lifetime, at the place of Offering.

  Although I spoke not he knew what I was doing, for he said softly, “I have nothing to give to you to hold; no true token of my livelihood, for I no longer know what that will be. And as for my possessions, I have nothing here but what you have given to me.”

  All my heart was in my answer. “I too hold nothing, and give you naught but myself.”

  “You have given me everything; even restored me to life,” he breathed.

  “I bind myself to you, Gyric.”

  “I bind myself to you, Ceridwen, forever.”

  Now I only kissed him, and thus sealed our Hand-fasting. I drew off the sash from our wrists and tucked it beneath our sheepskins.

  We pulled off the rest of our clothes. Our bodies shone together in the white Moonlight, and the linen wrap around Gyric’s head seemed almost to glow. He lay me down, very gently, next to him, and began to kiss my mouth, and his hand glided over the skin of my arm and throat and breasts. Then he touched my belly and rested his hand for a moment over its soft roundness, and then his fingers touched the furry place between my thighs.

  “I do not want to hurt you,” he whispered.

  “You will not hurt me.”

  “I did, today, by the lake, because you were a maid. I want to be gentle with you.”

  I put my arms around his neck and pulled him to me, and felt him, hard and hot against my thigh. He raised himself above me, and I lifted my head a little and looked down the length of our bodies.

  “Will you touch me?” he breathed. “I want to be touched by you.”

  “Yes,” I breathed back. I reached out my hand and fingered this finest of tools, smooth and iron-hard and warm and yielding all at once. “O, Gyric, how beautiful you are. Like a young stallion.”

  He did not laugh at this, or at any other thing I said. I stroked him, and he put his head down upon my shoulder, and then found one of my breasts with his mouth. He lowered his hips to mine, and I guided all the warmth and power in my hand to my own furry wetness. He fell into me, slowly, and groaned as he did; and I too gave a little gasp as the hardness of him found my deepest part.

  “Ceridwen,” he whispered. “Wife.”

  Tears were running from my eyes, from the sharp sweetness of his body in mine, and at his naming of me.

  I clung to him, and kissed him, and as he drove into me he whispered my name over and over, and as many times as he said my name he called me Wife. Then he said, “I want to feel this forever. To move within you, to touch you like this, to give you every part of me.”

  And I had never before thought that in the act of Love a man gives of himself as fully as a woman does; but when Gyric said this, I saw that this was true, that it was as sacred and giving for him as it was for me.

  He thrust himself more deeply within me, and shuddered and groaned and slipped his arm beneath my back and held me against him. His breathing grew quiet, and he loosed his grip on me, and kissed my face and said my name over and over.

  He lay next to me, and stroked my body with long smooth strokes. He rubbed my nipples between his fingertips, and stroked my belly, and ran his hands along the inside of my thighs. Then he moved his fingers into my furry thicket, and with one finger parted the tangled hair. He ran his finger up and down the soft folds there, now slick and wet from him, and centred on the tiny warm spot in the mound above it, and touched me there where I had never touched myself. He moved away from me and slipped down my body, and suddenly his head was between my thighs and his mouth upon the tiny inflamed centre of me. He pressed his tongue against that burning dot, and nibbled with his lips around it, and tasted me completely. Then a thousand stars seemed to rain down upon me, and I felt a pleasure so great and deep that I thought I might die, and I cried aloud as hot waves of joy flowed from that tiny burning centre that Gyric held cradled with his lips and tongue.

  He lifted his head, and moved, and leaned over me, and plunged his tongue into my open mouth. And I tasted us both, man and woman, every pleasure of our bodies mingled together, salt and spice.

  “I love you, Ceridwen. My dearest wife, I love you.”

  I breathed back those words I had most longed to hear and to speak. “Gyric, I love you. I love you, I love you.”

  To have known with our bodies a small part of this Mystery was enough, was everything. We need say and do no more. He lay back, and I lay against him, my arm across his chest and my face against his. The linen wrap about his wound had moved so that I could just see the scar upon his right temple. I kissed the mark of fire, and in answer he stroked my face. I reached across for our blankets, and covered us, and fell asleep in his arms, my lips against his cheek.

  I awoke to Gyric’s voice in my ear. “The lark is singing, my love.”

  I opened my eyes. It was still dark, but it was the lark that sang out. Dawn was near. I reached up and kissed his face, and once
more pressed my bare skin against his.

  He held me for a moment and then asked, “Are you laughing, or weeping?”

  “I am laughing, because I am so happy.”

  The lark sang out again, and I knew I should rise and heat water so that we might wash. Cadmar would be coming back soon, and I did not wish to be still abed when he did.

  So we rose, tho’ it was hard to tear ourselves apart. I warmed water that we might wash ourselves, and we dressed, and did all this laughing and kissing. I combed and braided my hair, and put the comb in Gyric’s hand, and he paused for a moment; but then without turning from me he reached up and untied the wrap about his wound that he might comb his hair.

  His face was pale and fair in the early light, so that the dark hollows beneath his brow seemed the darker. I watched him steadfastly, with my heart full of joy.

  He finished combing, and then tied the wrap on again. “My hair is grown very long,” he said, touching it as it lay on his shoulder.

  “Yes,” I teased, “it is near long as mine.”

  This made him laugh, for mine fell past my waist, but he said softly, “It is that long hair that made me start kissing you by the lake.”

  He put his arm out, and enfolded me against him. As he held me thus we heard Cadmar coming through the woods, singing in a lusty voice that we might be ready for his arrival. He greeted us warmly, and tho’ I know I fell to blushing, his twinkling eye was kind as he looked upon me. We broke our fast together as the Sun rose warm and yellow above the hermitage.

  When we had finished Cadmar said, “I will not sleep for a few more hours. It is a fine morning, and you are not far from Kilton. Will you not stay the morning and fish with me?”

  Gyric thought about this, and then said, “A few more hours will not matter. We are not more than two days from Kilton now. We will stay and fish.”

  Cadmar smiled. “Good, for I know a spot where the fish are hasty.”

  This made me curious. “You mean they wish to be caught?”

  “Well, they want my worms, which is much the same. I have built a weir, and trapped them in a deep part of my stream, so that they are hungry for whatever I offer. This is why I am still fed so well,” ended Cadmar, and patted his belly.