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  Cynan noticed that Tatwine, Ardith’s boy, was sitting with the warriors. Gods, how the years passed. Tatwine had grown suddenly these last few months. Soon he would be old enough to carry spear and shield. He wondered what Udela would think of that.

  Domhnulla glanced in Cynan’s direction and, heeding what Bassus had said, he flashed her a broad smile that he did not feel. The grin seemed to do the trick though, for she met his gaze and smiled before lowering her eyelids and heading away down the hall in search of more drink.

  “That’s better, lad,” said Bassus, smiling as he took a swig of his ale. “Perhaps when next you seek to plough that furrow, she’ll be ripe for you.”

  “What are you two whispering about?” asked Ardith, leaning past her mother.

  Bassus blushed.

  “Nothing to concern you, little one,” he said.

  “You know I don’t like it when you call me that,” she replied. “I am a child no longer.” She placed her hand over the swell of her belly and Bassus flushed again. The young woman was flaxen-haired with piercing blue eyes which she had now fixed on her father’s old one-armed steward. There was no doubting that she was Beobrand’s daughter. That gaze could make the strongest man quail.

  “You are quite right, Ardith,” said Bassus, regaining his composure. “But you must forgive me. You are young, and to me most men, and all women, young and old, are little.” He grinned.

  She raised her cup to him in acknowledgement. She was usually quiet, but this evening she was more loquacious than normal. Perhaps it was the drink, or the joy of being with child, but Cynan thought it was something else.

  “You truly think my father will kill that poor woman?” she asked. Her eyes glimmered, like chips of ice in the firelight.

  Bassus took another draught of ale and frowned.

  “I think if Cynan here hadn’t helped me to ward off Rowena and the other ladies, Sulis would already be dead.”

  Ardith bit her lip.

  “It does not seem right,” she said at last. Cynan noticed how Udela watched her daughter, her eyes glowing with love and pride.

  “It is the law,” replied Bassus, his face clouding. “Sulis was a thrall and she fled. And when she did, she stabbed Reaghan. There is no doubt that she is a murderer.”

  “But Cynan said that such terrible things had been done to her…” She glanced at Cynan, as if she wanted him to say something in her defence, or perhaps in defence of Sulis. He said nothing. He had already said enough about Sulis.

  “What had happened to her does not change what she did. She killed Reaghan. And the truth of it is that Reaghan had shown her nothing but kindness.” To Cynan’s surprise, Bassus’ eyes welled with tears. The big man cuffed at his face and blinked repeatedly. He coughed, then, reaching for his ale, he drained his horn and waved Domhnulla over for mead.

  “But for the women to want to kill her without a trial,” Ardith said, shaking her head. “That is wrong.”

  Bassus nodded his thanks to Domhnulla and took a mouthful of the strong mead.

  “You speak true,” he said. “There is a right way to go about things, no matter what you think and even if the ends are the same.”

  “But the lady Rowena does not agree with you?”

  Bassus chuckled quietly.

  “There is much that the lady Rowena and I do not agree on. She is as strong-willed as she is beautiful, and I would have it no other way.” He looked wistfully into his drinking horn before taking another sip.

  “But to want to kill the woman,” said Ardith, “after what she told us… and in her condition.”

  Bassus sighed. When Cynan and Ingwald had managed to push the folk of Ubbanford back from Sulis, he had been shocked to see the curve of her stomach beneath her dress. Like Ardith, Sulis carried a babe within her and it was this that had both intrigued Ardith and also allowed Cynan to convince the angry women that to seek Sulis’ immediate death was wrong.

  “If you slay this woman as you wish,” he had said, “then you will not only be taking her life in payment for the murder she committed, but you will be making murderers of yourselves in the eyes of the law and before God.”

  After that, the people had backed away, grumbling and resentful. All but Rowena that was, who had still shrieked that Sulis should die without delay. Bassus had led her away and Cynan and Ingwald had secured Sulis in one of Beobrand’s barns. Ingwald remained there guarding the door. Cynan had not trusted Rowena not to return with a knife.

  “It is not so simple,” Bassus said in reply to Ardith. His broad bearded face, strong and lined from laughter over his long life, looked worn, tired and sad. “Rowena…” he started, but his voice cracked. He took a sip of mead and continued. “When Reaghan died, Rowena took it very hard. There was a time when she loathed Reaghan, but that was long ago and all the bad blood between them had been forgotten before Sulis came. When Reaghan was killed, it was as though Rowena had lost one of her own kin. Edlyn was already married and had left for Morðpæð, so Reaghan became like a daughter to Rowena. That year we lost so much. So many were killed. At Maserfelth. Here…” Bassus stared into the flames of the fire for a time, as if trying to see into the past, or perhaps to sear away the memories of all those who had gone to the afterlife. “To lose loved ones is not something that can easily be forgotten,” he said. “Or forgiven.”

  “You are right, of course,” said Ardith. Bassus nodded in mute acknowledgement and drank deeply. “Which is surely why this Sulis woman should be judged in accordance with the hurt that had been done to her.” Ardith’s cheeks were flushed and her eyes burnt with a cold fire that Cynan recognised as dangerous when seen in Beobrand’s gaze. “Is it not true that she had been abused most cruelly by the man Rowena’s daughter called husband?” asked Ardith, her tone sharp and accusing. “That he killed her son before her eyes?”

  Bassus slammed down his drinking horn, spilling the contents onto the linen cloth that Udela insisted be placed on the high table.

  “Enough, child,” he roared. “You do not know what you speak of.”

  “I am not a child,” Ardith replied, her voice clipped and cold.

  Bassus was breathless with his anger, as if he fought hard to hold it in check, like a roped horse that bucked and pulled at the halter.

  “Then do not speak like one,” he replied, calming his voice with difficulty. “Things are rarely simple.”

  “You think I do not know this?” she asked, and her words held in them the dark memories of her past. Cynan had been there in Rodomo when they had rescued Ardith. He had some inkling of the horrors she had endured. No child should have to face the monsters Ardith had encountered.

  Bassus let out a long sigh. He too knew of her past.

  “I know you are no stranger to woe, Ardith,” he said. “But these matters concern things that happened before you came to Ubbanford. You cannot understand them as we do. We were here, and you were not.”

  Ardith scowled and Cynan thought she meant to continue her argument with Bassus. He looked about the hall and realised that a hush had fallen over all those gathered there. Everybody was staring at the high table, watching the clash of opinions that had unravelled the peace of the meal. Udela placed her hand on her daughter’s arm and Ardith, perhaps thinking for the first time that she might have overstepped herself, closed her mouth. Blinking, she scanned the faces of those who watched her in the light of the hearth fire and the flicker of the rush lights. She blushed a darker shade of red in the ruddy flame-glow.

  “I am sorry, Bassus,” she said. “I meant no offence.”

  Bassus drew in a great breath. Shaking his head, he said, “You could never offend me, little one.”

  Cynan thought he detected a slight stiffening in Ardith at the use of Bassus’ term of endearment, but she merely smiled a tight smile and looked down at where her hands rested in her lap.

  Bassus gulped down a mouthful of mead. The sounds of conversation in the hall picked up again as people realised the conf
lict was over.

  “So, tell me of the difficult decision you have to make,” Bassus said.

  For a heartbeat, Cynan was unsure what he meant.

  “You said something about Eadgyth earlier,” Bassus prompted. “Is it what I think it is?”

  “Probably,” Cynan replied. His face grew hot and he supposed he blushed as red as Ardith. He again felt like a fool for not anticipating Eadgyth’s proposal. He had come here for Bassus’ counsel, so now he recounted the morning’s conversation with Acennan’s widow.

  Bassus whistled quietly.

  “And instead of giving her an answer, you fled here?” He emptied his horn of mead and signalled to Domhnulla for yet another refill. Cynan knew from experience that it would take many more hornfuls before Bassus began to slur his words. He had never known any man able to consume more drink than the one-time champion of Northumbria. Bassus thanked the Pictish thrall and waited until she had moved away before continuing. “You really are a fool when it comes to women,” he said. “You anger your bed-thrall here and offend the lady of your hall back at Stagga.”

  Cynan sighed. He did not need to be reminded of his stupidity. He was thankful that Bassus chose not to mention Sulis amongst the women who caused him to be foolish. The gods knew he had not ceased thinking about the Mercian woman since he had laid eyes on her that afternoon.

  On seeing his morose expression, Bassus rested his horn on the table and slapped Cynan on the back. The strength of the blow caused Cynan to reel in his chair. The man may be old, but he was strong! Cynan was pleased that Bassus was not his enemy.

  “Do not mope so,” Bassus said. “Your problems can be solved simply.”

  “Indeed?” Cynan could not see how.

  “Of course!” Bassus laughed. “You tup Domhnulla tonight, then you travel back to Stagga on the morrow with a clear head and tell Eadgyth you would be honoured if she would call you her husband. She is a good woman. Handsome too. You would be a fool not to marry her.”

  Cynan snorted.

  “As simple as that?” he said.

  Bassus lowered his voice to a growling rumble of barely suppressed laughter.

  “As simple as ploughing two furrows when you only have one ox,” he said, clapping Cynan on the back again.

  Cynan smiled, but his mind was in turmoil. If only it were so simple.

  “Sounds easy enough,” he said, pushing himself up from his carved chair. “I suppose I just need to be careful not to ever have the two furrows in the same field.”

  Bassus guffawed at this. Cynan stood.

  “Where are you going?” Bassus asked.

  “I need a piss, and then I am going to take some food and drink to Ingwald.” He sniffed, hesitating for a heartbeat. “And to the prisoner. A woman with child needs to eat.”

  Bassus frowned at the reminder of Reaghan’s killer.

  “Be careful, Cynan,” he said, watching him go.

  Cynan glanced back at the giant, trying to see the true meaning behind the words. He settled on the one that was easiest to respond to.

  “I think Ingwald and I can control one pregnant woman,” he said, and strode along the length of the hall, past the watchful gazes of those seated at the benches, and into the cool darkness outside.

  Chapter 8

  The trip back to the minster was a blur to Cuthbert. He was dimly aware of being carried, his head lolling against a man’s broad shoulder. He opened his eyes, but they would not focus and he could make no sense of what was around him. It was dark and he shivered against a sudden chill in the air.

  Cold. So cold.

  He trembled like a linden leaf in a storm. Could nobody place a cloak around him? Was there not a fire where he could warm himself?

  Cuthbert tried to ask these questions to the man who carried him, but the words clogged in his throat and he could not make himself understood.

  Voices. Whispers in the gloom. All about him like bats flitting in the night.

  But what did they say? He could not discern the words. After a time he wondered if he heard people speaking at all.

  There were rattles and grunts, the panting of tired men. The crunching trudge of boots in the dust.

  Cuthbert drifted into a half-sleep.

  What had happened? His memories were a tangle of briars, snagging and scratching within his mind. He could not piece together the events that had led to this moment. There were flashes of a sunset, glimmering blindingly on a polished blade. The leering grin of a stranger.

  A stabbing pain.

  Cuthbert moaned as the man who carried him stumbled. The jolt sent a searing agony lancing into his knee. Why did it hurt so? He wanted to look down, but his head felt too large and cumbersome for him to control its movement. He let it flop back against the unyielding iron links of the byrnie that encased a heavily muscled shoulder.

  After what might have been an age or a few heartbeats, a swarm of voices murmured around him. Cuthbert yet shivered, but he sensed that he was being wrapped in woollen blankets against the cold that assailed him.

  The world grew hushed and he was gently rocked as his mother had done when he was just an infant and not a spear-bearing warrior, one of Beobrand’s feared and famed Black Shields.

  Deep down he knew he was not a child any longer and his mother was long gone. And yet she was there with him and he was glad that she had come to cradle him in his pain and confusion. He wasn’t as cold now and the gentle motion of his mother’s arms carried him into a deep slumber.

  *

  When he awoke, the first thing he saw was a man’s face. It was the face of a young man, with kindly, sad eyes. The face was encircled in an aura of glowing golden light.

  Cuthbert, warm and comfortable now, was still being rocked slowly, soothingly.

  “Mother?” he said, trying to rise. He wanted to see her. It had been so long since he had last rested on her lap like this. As he moved, a sharp shock of pain speared into his left knee and he cried out.

  “Hush, Cuthbert,” said the golden man. “Let me see your wound.”

  The glowing halo made the man’s features dark, in shadow. Without waiting for a reply from Cuthbert, he bent down, pulled back the blankets that covered the young man’s legs and delicately peeled back a stained bandage that was wrapped about his knee. Removing the bandage, the man lowered his face to the wound and sniffed.

  The cold air against his skin made Cuthbert shiver, but it revived him somewhat. He attempted to bend his leg, but the sharp pain made him wince.

  “Do not move,” said the glowing man. He discarded the soiled bandage and turned to someone behind him that Cuthbert could not see. “Pass me the clean cloth.” There was a muffled response. “Yes,” he replied, “the poultice too.”

  Cuthbert lay back as the man administered to his wounded knee. First he wiped it clean with a hot wet cloth. Cuthbert cried out. The skin was swollen and tender and each touch was like a knife digging into his flesh. Next, a warm, sweet-smelling poultice was applied. This was soothing, and Cuthbert sighed. He could feel his mind drifting again as the pain subsided and the golden man wrapped a clean bandage around his leg.

  “Are you an angel?” croaked Cuthbert. He had heard the priests speak of such beings. They were said to be beautiful and kind, God’s messengers on middle earth. Perhaps God had sent an angel to cure him of his injury.

  The man smiled. Supporting Cuthbert’s head, he offered him a cup to drink from. He drank. It was cool water and he could feel it refreshing him as it trickled down his parched throat.

  “No, Cuthbert,” said the man. “I am no angel.”

  In that instant, the light of the sun reflected from the surface of the water in the cup onto the man’s face. It was Coenred, Beobrand’s friend, the monk. The bright sunlight had shone through Coenred’s long hair, turning it into a brilliant golden crown.

  “Rest now,” said Coenred. He replaced the blanket over Cuthbert and moved away, leaving him to stare up at the bright blue of the sky. Smudg
es of white clouds scudded there. A gull flitted across his vision and Cuthbert finally realised where he was. He could hear the rush of the water beneath the hull, the creak of the ship’s timbers as the billowing sail that rose high on its mast pulled the vessel across the waves.

  He could recall nothing of how they had reached the ship and knew not where they were heading, but for the moment, he was content that he was safe. The pain in his knee was replaced with the warming ache of the poultice and, despite what Coenred had said, Cuthbert could not be free of the thought that the Christ had watched over him, sending an angel to ensure he was safe from harm and to bring him back from the brink of death.

  The rolling motion of the ship, the groaning of the flexing strakes, the murmur of the men, the distant shrieks of the gulls in the sky and the nebulous memory of his mother’s touch, soothed him back into a sleep where he dreamt of men with golden crowns and great feathered wings like those of giant sea birds.

  Chapter 9

  Cynan peered into the darkness inside the barn. He had carried a small oil lamp with him, but it would take him some time to strike a spark to create a flame. He contemplated taking the prisoner outside. The night was dry and there was light enough from the moon and stars. He could hear Ingwald settling himself against the wall of the barn to eat the food Cynan had brought for him from the hall on the hill. He would have no secrets from Ingwald, he knew. Whatever he talked about tonight he would not hide the truth from his gesith, and yet somehow, it felt right that he should meet with Sulis away from view, in the gloom. Perhaps, he pondered, he shouldn’t even light the lamp, leaving them both in darkness. But even as the idea rose like a silent fish breaking the surface on the pool of his thoughts, so he rejected it. He had to see her face, stare into her eyes. It had been years and he needed to be able to ascertain the truth of her words as she spoke. And, he wondered, mayhap uncover the truth of his feelings for her.