He glanced at Mairin with her wonderful hair, and those perfect features on that flawless skin. For a moment he contemplated challenging the cleric’s authority, then decided against it. He had not lived this long and prospered in his business by being an emotional fool. With a deep sigh of regret he allowed logic to prevail within him as it did in all his dealings. She was lovely, and she would have brought him a fortune in Byzantium. She was not, however, worth destroying a lifetime of hard work, which was what it would come to should he persist in attempting to retain her.
“If the noble thegn will step this way,” Fren said loudly and unctuously, “I will take his coppers, and we will finalize the sale of the child.”
With murmurs of disappointment the crowd began to melt away. The short drama was over. Eager to be rid of Aldwine Athelsbeorn and Bishop Wulfstan, Fren scribbled a bill of sale for the Saxon, took his copper pennies, and unlocking the collar from around Mairin’s neck said, “She is now yours, noble thegn. Take her and depart.” Then he laughed ruefully. “You have made a better bargain than you possibly know. The Irish giant is her personal guardian, but then he will tell you. If your desire for the child is an honest one you have gained a man-at-arms as well. If, however, your desire is an unholy one, the giant will undoubtedly kill you.”
Aldwine Athelsbeorn looked at Dagda, and said but one word, “Come.” Then in the company of the bishop he strode off down the street, and away from the marketplace.
Safe in Dagda’s arms Mairin finally spoke. “What is it? Where are we going?” She could see Fren behind them sifting some coppers from one hand to another while he regretfully watched their departure.
Dagda explained to his small mistress what had happened, and the little girl nodded her understanding. “Then I belong to this Saxon now,” she said.
“He is a good man, this Aldwine Athelsbeorn. I can see it in his eyes,” replied Dagda. “He will take you home to his wife. You will be safe if his wife likes you. If she cannot overcome her own grief, and your presence distresses her, I will work for the thegn until our debt is paid. Then we will depart for Ireland to find your mother’s family.”
“Am I still a slave?”
“Saxons do not hold with slavery any longer, my little lady. You may trust that you were free from the moment the thegn paid Fren his coppers.” He chuckled. “I do not think this is quite the fate the lady Blanche envisioned for you. It restores my faith that God has seen to your safety in the guise of the thegn.”
“What is this thegn, Dagda? Is he a noble like my father?”
Dagda thought a moment. “Yes,” he said, “thegns could be called nobles. They are freemen with large holdings of land. They may also possess other forms of wealth. From the richness of his clothing, his cultured speech, and the fine brooch he wears, I suspect that Aldwine Athelsbeorn is a wealthy man, and perhaps more educated than most. Certainly he must have some influence, for this bishop was willing to aid him.”
They followed the Saxon and Bishop Wulfstan through the streets, along the riverbank, and had Dagda not been such a big man himself he would have been hard put to keep up with them. Finally they entered a small well-kept two-story house. The building was set next to an orchard on the edge of the city itself. Two well-dressed servants hurried to escort them into the hall of the house where a fire burned taking the chill from the damp afternoon.
“Sit down, sit down,” the thegn said to the bishop, and to Dagda. Then he looked to his servants. “Bring wine,” he said quietly, and he turned to Dagda. “Tell us the child’s story, but first I would know your name.”
“I am called Dagda mac Scolaighe. Once I was a warrior to be feared, but the priests brought me to Christ, and a king in Ulster gave me his child, Maire Tir Connell, to raise. My lady Maire wed when she was fifteen to a Breton nobleman, Ciaran St. Ronan. Shortly after she bore their child she died, but before her death she put my lady Mairin into my keeping as her father had once done with her. After several years my lord remarried to a woman who hated my small mistress, and when lord St. Ronan died of the injuries he suffered in an accident, this wicked creature sold my little lady to the slaver Fren.”
“Why?” The question was put to him by Bishop Wulfstan.
“The lady Blanche was expecting her own child. She feared if it were a female then it would be my mistress, of course, who would be the heiress to Landerneau, her father’s estate. By ridding herself of her dead husband’s elder child she opened the way for her own. She did not even wait to learn the sex of her own child. There was no one to protect my lady Mairin but me, and what power would a poor man have over a nobleman’s widow? None of my lord’s family was left to oppose her actions. Landerneau is remote, and so who would protest the child’s disappearance?” Dagda had deliberately left out the fact that Blanche St. Ronan had managed to have Mairin declared a bastard by the bishop of St. Brieuc. Churchmen were notorious for sticking together in a situation although this bishop Wulfstan did not look like a man to be fooled. Still the man was a stranger as far as Dagda was concerned, and he couldn’t be too careful with his lady’s reputation. It was unlikely they would ever be involved with the lady Blanche and her uncle again. He had Mairin to protect. His story was a simple and plausible one. It was not unheard-of for a second wife to try to rid herself of children from the first marriage.
Bishop Wulfstan nodded with understanding. “This Blanche St. Ronan does not sound like an admirable woman,” he noted with great understatement. “You have done a good thing, Aldwine, my friend. I think this child will prove a solace to your wife’s grief. Eada is a good and gentle woman. The child’s story will touch her heart.” He looked at Mairin. “Why does the child not speak, Dagda? She does not look simple.”
A small smile touched the corners of Dagda’s mouth. “I have learned the English tongue because I fought the English at one time, but my lady Mairin, although born in Ireland, has lived most of her short life in Brittany, and speaks only Breton or Norman French. She is intelligent, however, and will learn quickly.”
Aldwine Athelsbeorn looked at Mairin, and smiled his gentle smile. She was probably the loveliest thing he had ever seen. Holding out his hand to her he said in careful Norman French, “Come to me, my child. Do you understand me?”
“Aye, my lord,” said Mairin, and she slipped from Dagda’s lap, and walked over to the Saxon thegn.
“Mairin,” he said reflectively. “It is not a Breton name.”
“No, my lord, it is not,” replied the child. “It is an Irish name. I was named for my mother, Maire. Mairin means little Maire in my mother’s native tongue. May I have some wine? I am very thirsty.”
He offered the child his cup, and she sipped eagerly from it, smiling up at him as she handed it back. “I am going to take you home with me to my wife,” he told her.
She nodded. “Dagda has explained to me that your own daughter died this spring past. What was her name?”
“It was Edyth.”
“Was she pretty? How old was she? What did she die of?” The questions tumbled forth from Mairin’s mouth.
“Her mother and I thought she was pretty,” he answered her. “She died of a spring sickness. She would have been six this summer. How old are you, Mairin?”
“I will be six on Samhein,” she said proudly. “They say I am wise beyond my years. Where do you live? I hope not in this awful city!”
“Samhein?” He looked puzzled.
“All Hallows’ Eve, October 31st,” supplied Bishop Wulfstan, who now also spoke Norman French.
“I was born at the precise moment of sunset as the fires were lit,” said Mairin proudly. “Dagda says it means I am blessed by the old ones. He says my head was like a flame pushing out into the world from between my mother’s legs.”
“God has indeed blessed you, my child,” said the bishop, an amused look upon his face. He suspected his friend Aldwine had taken on more than he knew with this bright and beautiful fairy child. Reaching out the bishop patted Mairin’s
head and continued. “God gave you the good Dagda to look after you, and brought my old friend Aldwine Athelsbeorn to your rescue. You will be glad to know that he does not live here in London but in the countryside.”
“My home is called Aelfleah,” said Aldwine Athelsbeorn. “It lies in a hidden valley between the Wye and the Severn rivers on the edge of The Forest.”
“Aelfleah,” said Mairin, feeling the strange word with her tongue. “Aelfleah. What does it mean, my lord?”
“Fairy’s Meadow,” came the reply.
“Is Aelfleah a Saxon word, my lord?”
“Yes, my child, it is. I think it fortunate that the first word of our language that you have learned is the name of the place which is to be your new home.”
Mairin nodded at him, a serious look upon her child’s face. Then she said, “Please, my lord, do you think that your lady wife will really like me? My stepmother did not like me for she was jealous of me. What of your other children? Will they like me?”
“My Eada cannot fail but like you, my child, and as for the rest of my family, there is only our son, Brand. Saxon families are usually large, but neither my wife nor I came from big families; and now there are none of them left but we three. No,” he amended, “we four, for you, my little Mairin, shall take the place of the daughter we lost.” Then reaching out Aldwine Athelsbeorn took the child upon his lap, and kissed her gently upon the forehead.
For the first time in many months Mairin felt safe. She had adored her handsome father, and for most of her life he had loved and spoiled her, but after his marriage to the lady Blanche everything had changed. Seeing his bride’s ill-concealed dislike of his little daughter the Sieur de Landerneau had attempted to placate his new wife by lessening his attentions to the child of his first marriage, and increasing his attentions to Blanche. He had believed that if he could reassure Blanche her jealousy toward Mairin would cease. He had not been aware of the evil in his new wife’s character.
The little girl, of course, had not understood, and had been frightened by this withdrawal of affection. Now suddenly here was someone who offered her the love she had lost. Looking up into the Saxon’s face, Mairin touched his cheek with a delicate touch gently stroking the thegn’s rough beard with her little fingers. Then she smiled at him, and seeing her face transformed Aldwine Athelsbeorn drew his breath in sharply with wonder.
Bishop Wulfstan chuckled. “I think you may have taken on more than even you anticipate, my friend. A face like that could one day gain you an earl for a son-in-law. Do not be in any hurry to match her lest you lose your advantage.”
The servants brought them food, and the child ate hungrily for she had not eaten since the night before when they had been fed a cold gruel and some hard brown bread. This food was hot. A succulent capon that was so tender it fell from its bones. Her even white teeth tore at the meat, yanking it off the leg. She next ate freshly caught prawns that had been boiled with herbs, the taste of the sea contrasting strongly with the slices from a joint of rare beef that was also served. Warm, newly baked bread, a sharp, hard cheese, and sweet apples, the first of the season, completed the meal. Content, she had fallen asleep in the thegn’s lap, and Aldwine Athelsbeorn had smiled with pleasure.
Early the next morning they departed London for Aelfleah, which was a good four days’ ride from London. Bishop Wulfstan traveled with them for he was returning to his seat at Worcester which although it lay another day’s journey from Aelfleah was in the same direction. They traveled west and had the good fortune to encounter fine weather the entire way. The roads over which they traveled had been built, Aldwine explained to Mairin, hundreds of years before by a people called the Romans.
Mairin nodded at his words. She was but half-listening. She was far more concerned with Aelfleah which was to be her new home if the lady Eada liked her. She put her mind to concentrating on that for she had learned early that she could will something to happen if she really wanted it. She also had concerns more important to her than some long-dead roadbuilders called Romans.
“Is this forest you spoke of nearby, my lord?” she questioned him.
“Yes, my child,” he answered her, “but you must be careful for it is a deep and dense wood. I would not have you lost.”
“I am not afraid of a forest,” she answered him. “My home is, was,” she corrected herself, “in the Argoat, an impenetrable and thick place of enchantment that has been there since the dawn of time. The forest is my friend. Old Catell, the wisewoman of our region, was teaching me of herbs and healing. She says I have the gift, and I do! I can see things that other people cannot,” she boasted with her child’s pride.
“Can you see how much my Eada and I will love you?” he asked her.
Mairin, who had been riding ahead of Aldwine Athelsbeorn upon his horse, leaned back against the Saxon, and tilted her head up to look into his blue eyes with her own deep violet ones. Mairin instinctively knew that this man would indeed love her with the unquestioning love of a father. In that instant she knew that she had found a place of refuge. “Would you really be my father?” she asked him softly, not quite able to believe her good luck.
He nodded gravely. “Yes, Mairin, I would.”
“I will not forget my real father,” she warned him.
“I would not expect you to, my child.”
“I think you will be a good father to me,” she said, and the matter was settled between them then and there.
Gently he kissed the top of her small head. As he raised his own head up his eyes met those of Dagda, who smiled, his glance one of approval. Aldwine Athelsbeorn smiled back, realizing that for the first time in many months he was truly happy. There was not a day that would go by in his life that he would not regret Edyth’s loss. God was good, however, for he had given him Mairin. She needed him every bit as much as he needed her and he said a silent prayer that his wife would concur with him for he did not think now that he could part with this fairy child who had so suddenly and unexpectedly burst into his life.
At the thought of Eada his heart quickened its pace for he loved her as he was certain no man could love a woman. He was the last of his own family having lost both his brothers—the elder of a wasting sickness, the younger to the sea. His only sister had died in a childbirth that had also taken his father’s only grandchild. It had therefore been his duty to find a wife as quickly as possible, his father had argued. A dutiful son, he had immediately set out to look over the marriageable daughters of the neighboring thegns who had not already been promised elsewhere.
He fell in love the first time he saw Eada in her father’s hall, and he could not believe his good fortune that she was not promised to someone else, someone of importance. Particularly in light of the fact that her mother was a cousin of Earl Leofric’s wife, Godiva. Eada’s father, Daelwine, believed that his daughters should have some say in their choice of a husband. Although many had come to woo Eada, none had pleased her.
But if he had been instantly taken with her, Eada was equally enamored of him. Pleased by what they considered their daughter’s sensible choice, Daelwine and his wife, Fearn, agreed to the match. It was celebrated with much rejoicing on the part of both families.
Before Aldwine’s father died he had witnessed the birth of his first living grandchild, a boy called Brand, who was now ten years of age. Eada, who had so easily conceived Brand, bore but one more child four years later. Their daughter, Edyth. Still it had been a happy marriage, and thinking of his wife with her dark red hair, and her milk-white skin, Aldwine’s loins quickened. It would be good to get home. The wind was coming from the north as they rode, its chill reminding him of the coming winter and the delightful games he and his wife played beneath the furs within their bed.
Just after the noon hour of the fourth day of their journey from London they reached Aelfleah. Warned of her husband’s impending arrival by an advance rider, the lady Eada awaited her lord before the manor house. Her soft gray eyes widened with curiosity as
she saw the small figure upon the saddle before her husband. Then those gentle eyes filled with quick tears for Aldwine used to carry Edyth before him in that same manner. She swallowed back her sadness. It was not seemly to greet her returning lord with the sound of weeping. She turned her glance to the huge stranger who also rode with her husband, and was that not Bishop Wulfstan? Devil take the outrider that he had neglected to warn her of that!
Her mind tumbled over the simple preparations she had made for dinner. They would have to broil a brace of rabbits in addition to what she had already ordered prepared, as well as a haunch of venison. There was yet time to send a boy to the millstream to catch a trout or two. The bishop was as good a trencherman as her husband, and the giant who rode with them did not look like he stinted himself at the table either! Blessed St. Cuthbert! Would there be enough bread? Had Byrd, the baker, baked today?
Aldwine Athelsbeorn slid easily from his horse’s back, and enfolded his wife into his arms. Feeling her plump warmth made him realize all over again how much he had missed her, and so he kissed her greedily. For a moment Eada snuggled happily in his arms, and then with a laugh she struggled free of his embrace. Her pretty face was flushed with obvious pleasure. It was the first time Mairin could even remember having seen a married couple show such affection. Her father and the lady Blanche had always appeared quite formal with each other.
“Fie, my lord!” Eada scolded him lovingly. “What will his grace think of such behavior?”
“His grace,” replied Bishop Wulfstan, dismounting his horse, “wishes that all married couples loved each other as truly as you two do. It does my heart good to see such a warmth in a cold world.”
Now Eada turned her glance to Mairin. “And what this, my lord? Who is this pretty child you bring to Aelfleah?”
“I bought her from a particularly unpleasant slave merchant who had high hopes of taking her to Byzantium and selling her for less-than-wholesome purposes,” replied Aldwine Athelsbeorn. “He was reluctant to part with her, but with the good bishop’s intercession the slaver saw the error of his ways, and I was able to rescue the child.”
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