The Year 881

THE merchant ship to carry me to Four Stones lay at anchor off the spindly pier. I had travelled overland to Swanawic with my son Ceric to meet it, and the thegns were even now carrying aboard our hide packs and food baskets. I stood with Godwin as he eyed the ship.

"I do not trust him," Godwin said of a sudden, and I did not have to ask who it was he spoke of.

I took breath and said, "He has kept the Peace. Ælfwyn has written me about all the good works he has done in Lindisse; even to building up the nunnery at Oundle. He has been quick to adopt our ways and been just in all his dealings."

He did not answer any of this, but turned his gold-flecked eyes to me. "You must promise me that you will be - cautious with him," he asked.

I did not want to follow his path, and simply said, "I am Ælfwyn's guest, not his. It is her company, and comfort, I seek."

Ceric was just at my side and I did not want his uncle's unease to make him fearful of the Dane to whose stronghold we journeyed. I made a little gesture to him, and Godwin nodded. 

"The ship to bring you back will be at Saltfleet on St Mary's Day," he said again, naming the point on the coast of Lindisse at which we would be picked up. This was a full three months, all the best of Summer, that Ceric and I would have with Ælfwyn at Four Stones. "Make sure you are there before the tide is full. I will have upon it as your escort these four thegns and a serving woman."

This was the final time he could repeat this to me, for the thegns had finished their lading and were even now approaching us. "I thank you, Godwin," I said. He looked from the thegns to me, and I added, "For everything. And for allowing me to go."

I had to say this, for he did not want me to make this trip, and yet let me do so, and even paid out of his own silver for my passage. He rode with me across Wessex to the sea port of Swanawic, bringing with him four of his best thegns and a serving woman, who would sail with me to Lindisse. Once there Ceric and I would be met by Ælfwyn's party, and the thegns and woman return by the same ship to Swanawic and the ride home to Kilton.

He gazed on me now and said, "Be well and strong. Take joy in your friend." He moved his hand as if to encircle my wrist, and stopped himself. 

A tear was forming in my eye, and I blinked it away. I did not trust my words, and only nodded.

He looked down for a moment, and then back to my face. His voice was very low. "Do not concern yourself with other matters."

I nodded again, and he turned now to the saddle bag of his horse. He drew forth from it a carved scabbard that held an angled-bladed weapon with a silver wrapped hilt.

"Chirp," he said to Ceric, using the name he had given the boy as a babe. Ceric turned to him as he held out the shining weapon.

"You know what this is," Godwin asked of him. 

Ceric nodded, his green eyes wide in his round face. "My father's seax." 

"Yes, and it is the best in all Kilton, finer than my own. Now it is yours, and you must wear it with pride. One day you will be my pledged man, and offer the acts of this weapon to my service. For now I want you to stay alert, and obey your Lady Mother."

Godwin squatted down and undid the leathern belt that cinched Ceric's belly, and slid the scabbard upon it. Looking into the boy's eyes he buckled it around him. Ceric was speechless with awe, and finally looked up at me.

"This is a sacred trust, from the Lord of Kilton," I said to him quietly.

Ceric nodded in quick bobs of his coppery curls. He found words. "I thank you, my lord," he said in a wavering voice.

For answer his uncle grinned and tousled Ceric's hair.

It was time for us to take ship; the serving woman already aboard, the thegns waiting. Godwin lifted his arms and embraced me, his right arm strong against my back, the left so light against my wool mantle that I scarce felt it. I turned my face from his, but his lips just brushed my cheek. 

"Fare you well," I told him, and meant it truly; be well in everything. 

"And you, Ceridwen," he breathed, and released me.

We had never before taken ship, but before we were even settled in the bow Ceric was racing up and down the broad deck, climbing over lashed chests and casks of goods, petting two great coursing hounds that were on board, prodding the rowing men with questions. One of the thegns finally pulled him aside and brought him to me as the rowers took their oars. Godwin sat upon his chestnut horse at the end of the pier, and lifted his hand to us, and we lifted ours in salute. Then the merchant-steersman called out, and the ship was heaved away from the pier by the burly men upon it, and the dry oars dipped into the dark May waters.

It was mid-day, and the steersman ordered the woven sail lifted to the freshening wind. The ship lurched when it was unfurled, and my belly followed. I sat down at once upon a bench near our piled possessions. The serving woman was busy on her hands and knees, ordering our bedding and food hampers, and the thegns had joined Ceric in the stern with the steersman and merchant whose ship it was.

I took deep breaths. Gyric and Godwin had taken me many times in the little sailing boats out into the swift channel that Kilton was built above, and the brothers had laughed at my weak belly but always obliged and taken me in when the water got too rough for me. But no pleasure sailing had I done for over a year, and now the ship I was in was owned by a wealthy merchant, eager to make his next landfall. I had hoped that the great size of the ship would mean that I would feel the sea's movement less strongly. In this I was wrong, for the deck rose and fell with every roll of the white-tipped waves. I could hear Ceric's delighted whooping, and saw him jump into the air to have the deck meet him half way down, and I closed my eyes and thought of the unmoving red rock upon which Kilton lay.

The ship would be coasting, which meant that each night it would land and we would camp on shore; and it was this thought which lent me the little comfort I could take that first day. To be sea-sick is an odd misery, for those about you can be as hale and strong as they are on land, and you so weak and wretched that nothing save dry land allay your suffering. I tried with all the force I could summon to stay strong, but my weakening belly weakened too my resolve; and before the afternoon was out I was clinging to the smooth railing with my fingernails as I retched over the side of it.

Bega the serving woman wiped my brow, and gave me fresh water to rinse out my mouth, and wrapped me warmly in a wool blanket. Tho' my head ached my belly was now empty, and I sat again and leant back upon our piled packs and closed my eyes.

I felt shamed to be sick, and more shame that no one else aboard was, tho' this infirmity I would wish on no one. Bega looked a bit green at times, and I feared she too would be sick, but she swallowed it back and was not. Once while I sat there drowsing I heard Ceric swoop near and call me, and as I opened my eyes Bega caught him around the waist and sent him back again to the thegns. 

Before dusk we neared the land we had never left sight of, and the ship furled its single sail and dropped anchor. The rowing men left their oar well and some of them took up a small boat that lay upon the deck, and heaved it overboard. Into this we climbed down by a rope ladder, placing our booted feet upon the narrow slatted treads to the boat below. I almost thought I would not have strength for this, tho' a thegn go before me and behind to keep me from falling, and only the knowledge that land was but a few oar strokes away bid me go on. 

On shore I was well again almost at once, and walked up and down the empty sandy beach in the fading Sun light. Ceric was full of tales and high spirits, and when the merchant called him to run the hounds with him, left me at once to join the man. The thegns set up the sleeping tent in which Bega and I and Ceric would rest, and Bega laid and struck the fire for our meal. Beside the merchant and his rowing men there were four other men of Wessex aboard, one the reeve of Hamtun, taking ship as we were, and we clustered about our respective camps, with Ceric running between all three of them.

Bega boiled up a thick browis of barley and peas, flavoured with roast fowl, and we had still several flasks of Modwynn's fine ale from Kilton. Her face came before me as I sipped her ale, which neither her other daughter-in-law Edgyth nor I had ever been able to equal in our brewing, try as we might. I recalled that which Gyric had told me of his mother so long ago, when we travelled in danger from Four Stones to Kilton. "All she does, she does well," he said of Modwynn, and in my ten years at Kilton I had seen this myself, and loved her for it, as she loved me as daughter. She had blest my coming, and now blest too this journey I had wished to make; and I knew her open heartedness to me to be one of the great gifts in my life. The Sun was set, and I thought of what she and Edgyth and little Edwin would be doing at Kilton, as I sat upon this sandy southern shore.

After we had supped I felt so weary that I knew I must soon sleep. I called Ceric to me, who was again playing with the coursing hounds, but he wanted to spread his sheepskin bed roll upon the sand alongside those of the thegns, and so I let him. The tent they had set for me was of linen, waxed against any damp; and upon the sandy floor were laid cow hides as ground cloths, and upon these sheepskins and linen sheets and soft woollen blankets from my own bed. I crawled inside even before Bega had finished her washing up, and pulled off my gown and felt the sand firm beneath me in gratitude. 

We were up at dawn, and drank the broth that Bega had boiled the night before, and the thegns and Ceric ate too of wheaten loaves we had, but I did not for fear of soon losing them. I washed my hands and face, and used the shallow latrine the men had dug behind a line of scrub growth, and then the thegns packed everything up. One of them lifted me in his arms so I would not even wet my boots and waded into the pebbly waters to set me in the small boat, and we were rowed off to the waiting ship. A few of the merchant's men had spent their night aboard, and they steadied the rope ladder as I clambered up it, and hoisted me over the side for our day's journey.

I was sick again, but without the violence of the first day, for I had but little in me. Mostly I sat upon the bench, my back against the straked hull of the ship, and listened to the skirling sea birds as they called out in mockery, it seemed, to me. I was able to take a bit of bread, and a few gulps of water, and when I could I stood and looked across the blue seas to the green shores we skirted. We passed a burh, for I was standing then and saw its high timber buildings rising within its palisade walls, and would have asked one of the thegns which it was if I had felt steady enough to walk to them. Our King Ælfred had done much in these three years of peace with the Danes to build up the defences of Wessex, lest that peace not hold; and this burh looked to me of timbers newly hewn.

Once we sighted a ship, coming the other way, a broad beamed merchant vessel such as our own, its creamy sail bulging with the weight of the wind as its keel ploughed up the foaming seas. The men aboard ours were watchful, tho' they hailed out cheerily their greeting, and I saw the merchant at the stern unlash a chest which might hold weapons; and saw too the fresh alertness of Godwin's thegns, who made haste to pull on their ring-shirts. Then they stood, their spears gathered before them, and placed their hands on the hilts of their ready swords. But the greeting was returned, and the other ship, so laden with bales of goods that it seemed hardly a deck plank remained uncovered, passed by and was soon lost to view.

When the Sun was lowering we headed in to land, and glided by wooded shores until we reached a settlement. This was the town of Limenemutha, for it was at the mouth of the River Limen, a place large enough to have its own pier at which the ship rowed to, and where we would spend this night. The day was a fine one, and there were still folk out and about who came and looked upon us as we walked down the wooden pier. It was a place of no great size, but the river mouth gave a harbour both sheltered and deep; and here the merchant had a store-house, in which we were welcomed to pass our night. Here too the reeve of Hamtun and his three men took their leave of us, and I saw them speak to the thegns as they gathered their belongings.

There was a washing shed behind the storehouse, with much fresh water to wash with, which I welcomed, tho' Ceric lamented the sight of it. We spent the night bedded down within the stout timber walls which sheltered the merchant's wares, and I knew some of the small casks near me held beeswax, as the sweet odour lulled me to sleep.

Set aside in a special room into which he showed us were tall pottery pots of wine from Frankland. One he unstoppered, and drew forth wine as red as thinned blood from, and bid us taste from bronze cups. It was delicious, with a fragrance that swirled to the nose as I lifted my cup; and was both sweet and warm in the mouth. I readily parted with some silver to carry a pot of it to Four Stones with me as gift.

The weather stayed fair, and to my relief I was not sick the next day, nor the next, only queasy, and began to feel, as Bega had told me, that one could grow used to the sea and so overcome its sickness. But the fifth day the skies were grey and the winds high, and I was sicker than I had been the first. We camped that night upon a pebbled beach, and in the dark the rain lashed at my tent so that drops formed on the inside of the waxed linen, but we women were mostly free from wet. It was crowded in the little tent with the restless Ceric between us, and he was unhappy that the hounds had been left behind at Limenemutha, but at last we slept.

We awoke to the day of our arrival, and tho' it did not rain upon us the Sun was not as warm and bright as I had hoped, for the thegns, sleeping out as they had, were wet through. Bega went to work hotting broth as Ceric ran about upon the beach. I sat cross-legged in my linen shift upon my soft bedding, combing smooth my hair with my pear-wood comb, and tried to think which gown today to wear.

I pulled my smallest hide pack toward me. It was of leather dyed dark green, and upon its oiled surface I had with a small poker burnt designs of running plaits. Within were my two finest gowns, one of yellow silk, and one of green, both given me long ago by Ælfwyn; now gone unworn for over a year. I had brought them so I might honour her, and my visit to Four Stones, by wearing them; but chose today a wool gown of dark russet hue, for should I sicken on this last day's sailing I would rather be in wool than silk. But it was a fine gown, for not only did the russet colour rest well against my hair, but I had lavished many days of effort upon it, drawing in coloured thread-work patterns of linked spirals in brown and red.

We set out. The Sun struggled all morning to shine, without winning, but neither did more rain fall. We were coasting past East Anglia, a Kingdom now ruled by Danes, and ruled too by the chiefest of them all, for Guthrum they called their King. This whole side of Angle-land was now theirs, and as we headed North I stood and saw how the thegns of Godwin studied the shores we passed. With the great Peace signed between Ælfred and Guthrum sea travel was once again possible, for all merchant ships were to sail unimpeded from Kingdom to Kingdom. But the wariness of Kilton's thegns and the merchant-steersman, and of his rowing men at work at the oars, made me know that they feared sudden attack from renegade Danes who did not take this Peace as their own. Then too, other Danes ranged up and down along the coasts of Frankland, plundering what they could; and any of them could cross the Channel between lands and strike a merchant ship laden with fine goods.

But we saw no other ship, save a small fishing vessel, and another larger ship, well ahead of us and sailing on. The shores looked a mix of marsh and forest, and a few times we spotted burhs with palisades high and strong; and I knew that these had once been those of dead lords of Anglia, now taken by the Danes to be their own strongholds.

Ceric was quiet now; the unease of the thegns and soberness of the rowing men made him so. He came and sat by me and I wondered if Godwin had taken him aside and warned him against the man we were soon to meet. I could not hope he would have any memory of Ælfwyn; he had been a babe of less than two Summers when he had seen her. I put my arm about his shoulder and spoke anyway.

"I am thinking of how you and Ashild played together when her mother brought her to Kilton. She is just your age, and you two clung together and could not be parted."

He made a face, as boys of nine Summers will do when reminded of any affection they once bore for a girl.

I smiled and gave him a little squeeze. "And you know it was Ashild who brought us the Browny," I told him, for this tiny tortoiseshell cat was still a favourite with Ceric.

At this he nodded. "I recollect her," he said in a small voice.

"And Lady Ælfwyn has a son, too, a little younger than you, so you all can play together."

He nodded again, but the way he thrust out his lower lip told me he was fearful.

"I want my seax," he demanded of a sudden. He had been allowed these past two years to wear a small knife on his belt, but now I knew it was Gyric's weapon he called for.

"Of course," I told him, and pulled at the hide pack in which I had laid it for safekeeping. "It is yours."

He took it from my hands, and himself slid it upon his belt. It was so large on him to span the width of his narrow middle. Godwin had taken the precaution of wrapping a leathern cord about the guard, and tying it tightly around the scabbard, so the blade could not be drawn without stopping to untie it. He plucked at the cord now, but I stilled his hand.

"You know that is a Peace Band," I said. "Your Lord put it there. You must not untie it unless you feel yourself to be in true danger."

He gave a little sigh, and I added, "We are going as guests to the hall of another lord, and you must show him that the warriors of Kilton can keep the Peace."

He considered this, and thought on the fact that his mother numbered him amongst the warriors of that great burh, and nodded his head.

The morning went on, and the waves were flat enough that I did not sicken, tho' I felt queasy at times. Ceric went and stood by the thegns as they watched the green shores slipping by, and if they spoke of these lost Kingdoms to the boy I did not hear it. Bega had straightened up our hide packs and now sat with hands folded in her lap; she and the thegns would return tomorrow on this same ship and this I knew she welcomed.

When the Sun had just passed its highest point I knew we must be near, for the steersman turned his ship closer in. The shores of Lindisse were well-timbered, but we saw not one burh nor other settlement; it was an empty land upon this eastern coast. We passed a small cove, with a tall and rocky bluff ringed by shrubby growth fast by it, and rounding this came upon another cove, and the steersman cried out.

His hail was answered at once from shore, and our eyes were fixed on it as the rowing men oared in. Three or four buildings, all of timber newly cut, stood there, and a cluster of men at work upon the pebbly beach stopped in their labours and looked up at us. This was Saltfleet. A pier, half-built, rose from the lapping sea water, and around the men lay a store of fresh peeled timbers and piles of sawn planks. Further back, near the buildings, were groups of men awaiting the ship and its cargo with waggons and ox-pulled wains. In one of these groups were several horseman who clustered about a small horse-drawn waggon. These men were heavily armed, wearing in this time of Peace ring tunics on which the dull Sun shone, and carrying spears. One of them reined his horse forward, and I saw the animal to be a bay stallion, and the man upon it, Sidroc, Jarl of South Lindisse.

The sail was furled and wrapped, the oarsmen lifted their oars, and we came to rest in the shallow water. The merchant-steersman's voice rang out over our heads as the anchor dropped, and the small boat was heaved up from the deck and overboard. Ceric was at my side, one hand clutching at my skirt, the other upon the tied hilt of his seax. I bent down to him and kissed his round cheek. We would go ashore first, and I smoothed my skirt and took a breath. We made our way to the merchant, standing by the stilled steering beam, and I thanked him for the safe passage he had given us. Then one of the thegns scaled the rail of the ship and another helped me grasp the hempen ladder. I climbed down into the little boat and Ceric scampered down the ladder after me, and then the thegns lowered our three hide packs and the big pot of wine. When the four of them were aboard the boatsmen took up oars and stroked the short distance to the narrow beach, running the boat ashore with a little plashing bump.

A thegn helped me out, and I took Ceric by the hand and walked towards the group of horseman. No woman sat on the waggon board or stood with them. I lifted my face and my eyes were met by Sidroc. He swung from his horse and walked to me.

"I will kill a piglet in thanks for your safe journeying," is what he said. His flint blue eyes were fastened upon me, and the scar upon his cheek, not quite covered by his dark beard, went crooked as he smiled.

Sudden water came into my eyes, and I blinked it away. Ceric was squeezing my hand, and I bent down and said, "Ceric, this is Jarl Sidroc, the Lord of this land. My friend."

Ceric knew what a friend was; knew this term was reserved for a person not kin who had earned one's utter trust, and who had proved himself deserving of the same. Playmates could be many, but friends very few, and this he had already learnt. 

Sidroc looked down at him. "I recall you from your hall; tho' you have grown so much," he told Ceric in a mild tone. Sidroc turned back a moment to the group of horseman, and gestured with his hand. Upon the wrist glittered his silver disk bracelet. A child mounted upon a fat black pony came forward.

"This is my boy, Hrald," said Sidroc, and then looked to his son. "This is Ceric, a friend of the great warrior King Ælfred of Wessex."

Ceric's eyes, wide with his own wariness of this big man, now blinked in surprise. He looked at Hrald and added in his piping voice, "And the King is my god-father, too."

Hrald, straddling his fat pony, blinked his own surprise and grinned down at Ceric. He had his father's dark hair, but the little pointed chin spoke clearly of his mother Ælfwyn, and I laughed as I saw his eyebrows lift just as hers so often did.

"I am happy to meet you, Hrald," I told him, and my heart moved at the sweetness of his ready smile. He bobbed his head as his cheek coloured, and then looked back at his father.

"Hrald has brought you a horse to ride," Sidroc told Ceric, "or you can sit in the waggon." Hrald had turned his pony and now came back leading another, just as fat as his own, with a dappled grey coat.

At once Ceric's hand was out of my own as he moved towards the little beast. Tho' small for his age he was an expert rider, fearless and smart, and I saw nothing would please him more. He was at the grey pony's head before he recalled himself and looked for my nodded consent. He held out his hand, just as Worr, the young horse-thegn at Kilton, had taught him, so that the beast might sniff of him and learn his smell. He patted the shaggy neck, and with a grin reached up for the reins that Hrald offered.

Sidroc watched him swing up upon the saddle, and then turned back to me. "I have a mare for you," he offered, and gestured to a bay mare, very like my own, who was tied at the waggon board. "Or perhaps you wish to sit," he said, and lifted his hand to the waggon seat. The driver was a grizzled older man, a Dane from the look of him, who bobbed his head.

"I think I will choose the waggon," I told him, for in truth I did not know if I was fit enough to truly ride.

The thegns were just behind me, my packs in their arms. I turned to them. "I thank you for your fine service to me," I said, and the chiefest of them nodded. One of Sidroc's men had dismounted and stood at the rear of the small waggon, having unlaced the hide tarpaulin covering the cargo space. The thegns did not move, and Sidroc himself walked with the men to the back of the waggon. I watched them, eyeing each other, and the wordless way in which the thegns surrendered my goods. Sidroc's men still on horseback looked down upon all this, their fingers gripping their spears, but their faces unmoved. I walked to the waggon as the pot was lifted in.

"Frankish wine," I said, in what I hoped was a light tone.

Sidroc's smile grew across his face, and he nodded, but said nothing.

Across the beach the merchant was busy unlading his ship, and now stood with the well dressed men who met him there, and I saw his rowing men carry aboard chests of goods these men had brought in their ox carts. I turned now to the thegns for my final Fare-well. 

"Lady, we will return for you on St Mary's Day," said the chiefest of them, and tho' it was me he addressed it was Sidroc who his eyes held. 

"You will see us," Sidroc answered, not taking his gaze from the thegn's.

"Yes," I added in a firm voice, that they would not doubt it. "I will be here." 

We turned away from the men and Sidroc gave me a little boost onto the waggon seat. He swung upon the bay horse. He called out, and the driver snapped the reins and the waggon rolled forward as I lifted my hand a final time to the thegns.

Sidroc turned too to look back. "When the ship comes again the pier will be finished," he told me. I did not know he was building up this port, and thought of his wisdom in doing so to advance trade. And too, he would gain in riches, rightfully claiming tribute of landing rights of those merchants who put into shore there.

Now he looked ahead down the pounded road. "We will go for some hours, and stop tonight at Ælfwyn's nunnery. In the morning we will reach Four Stones."

"At Oundle?" I asked, tho' I jolted a bit at hearing him name it so, as if she herself were consecrated there. This was the foundation that ten years ago, finding herself widowed and with child, she wished to flee to. 

"Yes, Oundle," he answered, and smiled down at me. "She wants you to see it, and would have come herself, but she is much occupied making all as she wants it for your visit." He kept looking at me so that I glanced a little away. He looked up the road. "Also Ælfwyn's mother is there now."

"So she has left the world, as she had wished too," I answered. I thought some little time about this; she would not have taken the veil unless she knew Ælfwyn and her sisters to be well and truly fixed at Four Stones. Still, it must be hard to lose a woman so skilled at the running of a hall as the old mistress of Cirenceaster would be.

Finally I spoke again. "Ælfwyn will have even more to occupy her then, without her mother's help."

"There is always much to do at a place like Four Stones. But her sister, and Jari's wife too, help her." His eyes swept the few trees about us. "Also in two days begins the gathering-time, what she calls the hall-moot; and so folk from all over my lands are coming to Four Stones, and she must provide for them too."

"I am sorry to come at such a busy time," I began. Hall-moots at Kilton were held once or sometimes twice a year, and were always times of strain, both of tempers and resources. Each shire lord served as judge, and all grievances brought between his people would he listen to and rule upon. Only those few cases he could not resolve were sent to the King.

He only laughed. "All times are busy," he said. "What is important is that you are here. Gathering-time is only worse because I know however I decide I will anger some one."

I smiled and nodded my understanding. Hrald and Ceric were jogging along before us, and I could see their heads turning as they rode side by side and spoke to each other.

"It was kind of you to bring that pony for Ceric," I said to Sidroc, seeing his eyes followed them too.

"It was Hrald who made it so; he asked that it be brought for him," Sidroc answered, and I was again moved by the sweetness of this child.

I looked over to the bay stallion that Sidroc rode. It was a big horse, well muscled under the glossy red coat, and now showing a frost of white hairs on the dark muzzle. "That is your same bay," I recalled aloud.

He patted the thick arched neck. "Yes. I have many of his sons and daughters," and here his head tilted to the mare tied at the back of the waggon, "but he is still my favourite, tho' he grows older. As we all do," he added, stroking his own beard with a laugh.

In truth, Sidroc looked not a day changed from the last time I had stood before him, three years ago at Kilton. The single lock of grey at his left temple was no lighter, and he stood and moved with all the power of his thirty-three Summers. He was now, as then, richly dressed, and today wore a green linen tunic under his dark leathern one. Over this glinted a ring-shirt of linked steel. He wore dark wool leggings strapped with brown leather, and the leathern baldric slung over his left shoulder bore a sword with a shining silver pommel inlaid with gold wire. Around his waist was a weapon belt from which another sheath hung lengthways against his belly. Out of the tail of my eye I looked again at his belt. Instead of the straight knives favoured by the Danes, I saw he now carried a short angle-bladed seax, the weapon of my own people.

I wore no jewels, knew my cheek was pale, my eyes dull. The three years felt to be an hundred. I smoothed my skirt and looked ahead along the road. Meadow land was here, newly cut, for stumps of trees ready for Fall burning pocked the fresh green grass, and I thought that all this land, a full day's ride and more, was what Sidroc ruled.

It was hard for me to speak to him. I was weakened and shaky from the sail, but a weariness greater than this stilled my tongue. I was grateful for his ease in my silence as he walked his big horse steadily alongside the slow waggon. We rolled down the pounded clay road, and came upon a Cæsar's road, made of closely cut stone, and the waggon's iron rimmed wheels rang out against the grained rock.

We were not upon it long, which gladdened the boys upon their ponies, for we turned once again upon a clay road and they cantered ahead a little ways with the kinder smoothness of it under their mount's small hooves.

Sidroc had not spoken for some time, his men behind him riding silent, the old Dane next me fixed upon the manes of his team. I think I closed my eyes and let the steady motion of the waggon lull me.

"Your letter came," Sidroc said, and I turned my face to him, "brought by a priest stopping at Oundle. He rode to Four Stones with it, gave it to Ælfwyn. Now that she reads she takes such things alone. I heard her scream, went to the treasure room and found her upon the floor, holding the parchment. She was sobbing and would not talk to me. I took it from her. I saw at the bottom the word that is your name; knew you had inked the letter and still lived. But she would not stop crying. I got the priest, and ordered him to read it to me."

His words were calm and slow, recalling all of this; and now as he finished he saw the tears streaking my cheek. He did not expect an answer, and only nodded at me, and I wiped my face and thought of the letter bearing the single line which Ælfwyn had sent in return: I implore you to bring your son and come to me.