Torc and Seax

Torc and Seax Chapter 3

Hi everyone! Stephen Wormwood here, thanks for clicking! Feedback and criticism is always welcome at stephenwormwood@mail.com. As always hope you enjoy reading this and please consider donating to Nifty if you can. CW for sex, violence, SA, homophobia, and transphobia.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

3

Underrealm

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

`Because everything always ends' – The Maw of the Underworld – Ulf and Weld – Annwn – Haakon's Heriot – Brynna ferch Angwyn – The Escape – Debt – "Which way is Mercia?"

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

[By a village in the Land of the English, sometime in 1062]

A quiet and hooded Wulfhere watched the stabler inspect Snotta from hoof to loins, checking his mouth and mane for mites. There was nothing to find of course. The horse was healthy, strong, and loyal. There were so few like him.

"You've got a prize beast there," said the stabler, a woollen-jawed ceorl in dung-stained breeks. He walked with a limp (probably from an old riding accident) but had a young þeow to help him raise his horses. "I can't understand why you'd want to part with him. I can't pay ya. And he'd fetch ya more'n a few shillings, I'd reckon."

Snotta whickered in his bridle as Wulfhere petted him. He avoided using his left arm. It was still too weak from the arrow shot it took. "I may come back for him someday. Until then treat him well. He likes apples. Loves a hard evening's ride. He's a good boy."

"We'll see he's well cared for," said the stabler.

Snotta neighed.

"I'm no good at goodbyes," It was no lie. Whenever he left a place, it was always in the eye of a storm. All these years of relative peace and so little had changed. "I will miss you, Snotta. Take care, boy."

Wulfhere sighed, took a step back, then put a few silver coins in the stabler's hands. He made him swear not to sell the horse in his absence (and settled a hand upon Seolforhund's hilt to buttress the point) but there was no security in promises. Money bound men more than words, he often found. Once the stabler was paid and goodbyes were done, Wulfhere adjusted his dark hood and trundled out into the muddy village footpaths surrounding the stables.

The skies were dark with rumbling clouds and the villagers raced to find shelter before they broke open. Mule-driven carts trundled by. There was a beor-hall (or something close to it) nearby, and Wulfhere was half-tempted to wait out the coming storm with a cup-full, but he didn't wish to leave Brynna out there alone in the woods for too long, and he could not risk someone seeing his face. Though East Anglia was behind them, Bedanfordscir was not a region he knew well. Local thegns and bishops could well have ties to Ceolfraed or the See of Elmham. It was not worth the risk.

Wulfhere kept his head low, walking quietly past bakers, traders, hunters, fishermen and blacksmiths, until the sights and sounds and smells of the village faded away behind him. He wandered the wet, wind-swept fields until a large copse of oak trees arose beyond a hill. And as the skies above him began to drizzle Wulfhere quickly made his way towards it. Its trees stood tightly bunched, forcing the Saxon to squeeze his way through at times, but at the heart of it he found his way to Brynna.

"You've returned," she said dourly.

`And just in time', thought he. For as soon as Wulfhere returned to their camp the black sky above cracked with thunder and breeched, casting a heavy downpour about the land. Hard rainfall pattered like hail against the leafless trees, but Brynna was clever, and had stripped two of the getelds in Uhtric Wineskin's camp before the fire destroyed them. Wulfhere helped her post one to sleep in, then helped her spread the linen of the second from the trees surrounding the tent, thus giving them two layers of protection from the rain. The geteld was too small for a fire so they kept warm by wrapping themselves in their bed furs.

"Do we have anything left to eat?" Asked Wulfhere.

Brynna nodded. There was a cloth bundle nearby. Her gentle fingers prised open the string and revealed what they yet had – two half-eaten bits of bread, two apples, three parings of hare meat, and three hard-boiled chicken eggs. Most of it was acquired from another village half a day's ride north, after they sold Uhtric's longsword, Wrecend, for silver. Selling stolen swords was dangerous since discerning eyes might divine their origins by their maker's markings, but the sword was Norman, and your common Englishman (outside of the Cyning's court) spoke nary a word of Frencisc.

They sat to eat. Mostly in silence, save for the terrible rain battering their tent. Brynna broke off bits of the bread that had not gone bad and ate those, whilst Wulfhere ate one of the eggs and two morsels of the hare meat. They shared a wineskin between them, each taking a swig before passing it back.

Wulfhere smiled sadly.

"What is it?"

"Nothing. Except..." A sigh. "I will miss Snotta, is all."

Brynna nodded. "He is a good horse. But he cannot come where we are going."

Far beyond the hill where stood the copse was erected an ancient cairn that demarked a small footpath veering between two broad hillocks that merged into a channel which ended at a cave's mouth. And within that cave's mouth led the way to the underworld. According to Brynna they were only half-a-day's walk from it. The flames told her so. And with so many dead in his wake, Wulfhere had no choice but to believe it now. Perhaps God would damn him for it. Perhaps he was already damned. And if that was the case, what difference did it make now?

He glanced at Brynna as she nibbled at the good bits of bread left, and he lost himself in her beauty, as he was wont to. Her chestnut hair had grown long and wild since Oxburh, only manageable by her bone toothed comb when she untied its braid. Her dress and shawl were dirty and torn, but her skin remained fair from her fondness of bathing. `By Christ and all his saints,' thought Wulfhere_. `Is she not beautiful?'_ And once they crossed her path beneath the crust of English earth, a new life they would begin in Lundenburh. And yet...

"...Why does this feel like the end of things?" Asked he.

Brynna frowned at him. "Because everything always ends."

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

The rain lasted throughout the night. Although Wulfhere did his best to clump soil around the tent flaps fixed into the ground, rainwater still seeped through and made it impossible to lie down and sleep. It was not until deep within the starlit hours that the heavy torrent ebbed into a light drizzle, only then did God grant them peace to sleep.

Hours passed. Then, finally, blades of light eked through the geteld's narrow flaps and fell upon the slumbering pair. Wulfhere woke first. His eyes slowly peeled open and found Brynna next to him, barely half a pace away; eyes tightly shut, lips pursed, hair tousled, her bare freckled shoulder peeking in and out of her furs with each intake of breath. Blood rushed to that cruel device between Wulfhere's legs. It grew stiff as he felt the urge to reach across the wet grass and press his lips against hers.

But he caught himself before the act. There was no time for it. There were corpses in their wake, barely a day's ride away. When Uhtric and his band of tithingsmen did not return from their hunt in the forest, Redwig Father (or perhaps even the shire reeve in Theotford, Æthelwig) would send men into the woods to locate them. Though there was a chance that the fire might throw them off, obscure the killings, make them appear as happenstance, Wulfhere did not trust that it would. Better to act as though Ceolfraed's men were still on their trail... for who really knew that they weren't.

And so Wulfhere woke the girl instead.

Brynna moaned, eyes fluttering open.

"Get dressed," said the Saxon. "We must go."

They rose and dressed. Wulfhere into his mail byrnie, gloves, war helm, and breeks; Brynna into her matted dress, slippers, and cowl. They ate a portion of their remaining food and then packed away what little of their camp there was to take – the two getelds, some twigs of firewood, a spool of rope; before leaving the copse and making their way down its hillock to the winding footpath by the cairn. Although his shoulder ached with the weight, Wulfhere carried their supplies and let Brynna lead the way.

It was as her visions foretold.

They passed the ancient cairn, a cairn stacked high as a mead hall roof and flagged with a strip of dirty red cloth, cloth flocked by the winds bearing southwest into a narrow corridor betwixt two towering hills. Brynna followed the winds and Wulfhere followed Brynna, ambling through the muddy, waterlogged path as it bent and stopped where the hillside walls melded into a third hillock within which lay the gaping cavern's mouth. Stalactites bore down from the aperture like fangs. The cold morning wilds howled through them and billowed the shivering grass at the hillsides. There were no signs of life nearby, no forgotten remnants of old encampments or temporary hovels, just the brief screeches of roosting bats.

"Give me the torch," said Brynna.

A now pensive Wulfhere shrugged off the saddlebags and fetched it for her. Brynna sat down, took two stones, and smacked them together until they produced sparks enough to light the oil-soaked wrappings about the tip of the stave. She stood up with the flaming torch, holding it as high as her shoulders, then continued into the cave's mouth. And as its flame approached them that flock of screeching bats flew out of the maw. Brynna walked in regardless. But the swordsman paused. He felt a chill creep up his spine. Watching Brynna walk into that cave was as if watching her walk into a wolf's maw.

She stopped and turned to look at him. "Wulfhere?"

"...I..."

She frowned. "...Find your courage. Follow me."

It was not his life he feared for... but his soul. For he knew that wherever that gaping mouth might lead him, God's light would not follow. And yet. Reluctantly. He found his courage. Wulfhere summoned the might of God until he found the strength to pull the saddlebags back onto his shoulders, place one foot after the other, and force himself on until he caught up with her.

Even with the torch they could only see a few steps ahead. Animal bones crunched beneath their feet as they descended into the darkness, the entrance light growing farther and farther away until it was naught but a distant mote behind their shoulders. The cave's path began to slope and bend, like a wyrm of old had burrowed its way through the very rock of the earth, while loose stones pebbled the moss-ridden cave floor as rivulets of rainwater dribbled down its mottled inclines. Patches of lichen sheeted its walls and every step, every drip, every breath echoed from them. And they walked, and walked, and walked, and walked until they were so deep beneath the world that the air felt thin. They descended into a cavernous underbelly croaking with the weight of the earth atop it, belching out subterranean gasses from black crusts of rock as creatures many-legged and screeching scurried unseen from shadow to shadow. And at its absolute bottom they came upon a tall, moss-covered statue of a cross-legged god, broad-shouldered and muscular, arms aloft and outstretched, his skull crowned with a circlet of jagged antlers.

"The Romans built it," said Brynna, casting the torch's flame about its chiselled contours. "Agents of Caeser lost in the spell of the woods. It was the Horned One who gave them succour, who revealed to them its beauty, its creatures, and its enchantments, and they came to love him. Cernunnos, they called him. They renounced Mars and Janus and Neptune, and built for him this monument, enshrining their love eternal, and binding their blood to his dominion that they might walk the woodland forever at his side."

Wulfhere swallowed the lump in his throat.

Brynna handed him the torch and retrieved something from underneath her cloak's folds, something the Saxon thought lost in the chaos of their escape from Oxburh's hall. It was Cynewise's morgengifu, the emerald-encrusted gold torc that Ceolfraed was to present to her. Instead, Brynna presented it to the Horned One and placed its glinting wealth inside the god's mossy fingers.

Wulfhere, transfixed and horrified, watched its eyes glow.

A low, guttural rumbling swept the damp floor as cracks between the stalactites wept dust. Undulating shadows formed along the cave wall and merged, folding into each other, then weaving apart, and as they peeled back beyond the shoulders of the Horned God, the cave wall was gone, and a new path lay at their feet.

Brynna took the torch back. Wulfhere kept to her side (with a cautious hand upon his sword's grip) and together they walked through the window of darkness. What laid beyond it was a riverine trench; a narrow channel flowing through the cave toward dark reaches unknown. Wet crags wrapped with moss dripped into rippling black waters, each drop echoing through the silence. There was a small boat ahead of them that was moored to a thin outcrop of rock. An oar laid inside it. And at its prow swung an old, silver tinted lanthorn.

"This is our way forward?" Said Wulfhere.

Brynna nodded. She lifted her skirts up and climbed inside, lit the lanthorn with a taper of the torch before squelching it in the river waters. The small scip wabbled as Wulfhere dropped the saddlebags inside its hull and climbed in. He cut the yoke of its moorings with a single slash of his seax, then took up the oar and swept it through the black waters, rowing forth.

Wulfhere and Brynna both looked on as the tiny vessel followed the slow river current, until the cave walls surrounding them began to widen, and behind the mossy crags and jagged stalagmites lay rows upon rows of tall, billowing rushes. Tallow tipped them. And then a sudden howling wind ripped through that tunnel. The sound hit Wulfhere's ears like a shout, he shut his eyes to it, and when he re-opened them, every single rush was lit, and the once dark cave was now flooded with light.

Brynna smiled, gazing all around as the abrupt glow clashed with the crags and outcroppings to cast dark silhouettes against the cave walls. Impish giggles and whispers surrounded them. Wulfhere shot a glance to his left, as did Brynna, as a horned man's shadow pranced along the cave walls, leaping over mountains, frolicking through the clouds.

(`...Cernunnos...') thought he.

"The forest was his domain," said Brynna, almost reading his thoughts. "Until the Children of Woden drove him into the pit, never to rise again. You see him too, don't you?"

Wulfhere frowned at the shadows. "...Witchcraft..."

Brynna frowned at him. "Ever the christ-man. Fear not, the Horned One only leads the way. What happens from here is up to you, deorling."

"What do you me-"

The Saxon stopped himself halfway through the word as he spotted a figure ahead, perched atop one of the mossy rocks jutting out of the coursing river waters. But it was not the Horned God he saw. It was a man. A towering figure of a man, armed and armoured, shield at his back, axe at the ready. His icy blue eyes burned within the silver skull of his helm. A huscarl.

Herewulf.

"No...!" Cold fear ran like a blade down Wulfhere's back. "NO! I KILLED YOU!"

The mailed axeman lumbered up from his leathered haunches and raised up his enormous axe, Hildegunnr. Not a word was spoken as he leapt screaming from the rock into the dank air and swung his weapon towards the scip, boots and steel smashing through the frail, barnacled boards of its hull. Furious sounds cut through the silence – cries of rage, snapping wood and sloshing waters – as the boat capsized and all three plunged into the waters below.

Wulfhere opened his eyes.

Bubbles and splinters everywhere. The oar floated above his head, the saddlebags beneath his feet plunged into the descending blackness as the rushlights' shimmering reflections against the surface waters grew further and further away. What was once a river was now an ocean. And off in the distance was Brynna, drifting softly through the dark waters, her long russet hair fanning out into wafting tendrils as the slippers fell from her feet and her dress floated up her thighs. Her eyes were closed. She was smiling. Bubbles trickled away from her nose.

(`BRYNNA!') thought he. He reached out to her, but she did not see him, and he could not reach her for the damned weight of his mail, helm, and sword. (`Brynna! Brynna! Damn you, girl, wake up! Reach out to me! BRYNNA!')

He kicked his feet, tried to swim into the currents to reach her, but a heavy hand snatched his leg. Wulfhere looked down. It was Herewulf, eyes blazing blue, gloved hands clawing up his body until his thickened arms snatched around his throat. Wulfhere strained against the pull, bucking his shoulders to break free, but the huscarl was too strong, too heavy. Brynna floated away. Dirty water flooded into Wulfhere's mouth as he screamed her name into a stream of bubbles and he and the huscarl plunged into the dark abyss.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

The boy loved the fields! How he loved to play in them, to chase butterflies through them, to smell its flowers and climb its trees. It was even better when the sun was out. He loved the way it prickled his skin and bronzed it over. Everyone else in his family went pink and scabby in the sun, so they did their best to avoid it, especially his sister Sigeflæd, that frail thing. But he was special – that's what he thought anyway. He thought it might be nice to be special... and so he was.

"Wulfhere!" It was his mother, Eadwyn, who called out to him. "Where are you? There're chores to be done!"

The boy smiled. She could not see him through the tall grass because he was lying down in it. He'd been fighting sticks with some of the local boys, sons of his father's tenants, but they'd all hoofed it once the church horn bellowed out, and he was all worn out. He knew there were chores to do. There were cows to milk, eggs to collect, water to fetch, thatch to bundle, there always was. But he wanted to be lazy for a time. He never got much chance to play these days.

"Wulfhere!" Yelled Eadwyn. "Come here now or Heaven help me I shall tell your father of this mischief! Come here at once! Wulfhere!"

He wanted to play before he fed the bloody pigs. That's why he dropped his stick, rolled onto his belly, and crawled about the grass on all fours until he circled around to his mother's back and leapt out of the grass and yelled "AAAAGH!" at her! Oh, how she screamed! Sigeflæd, who was with his mother, screamed too. But the boy laughed. He thought it was funny! Or at least he did until Eadwyn slapped him for it.

"You're a terrible boy!" She yelled. She comforted his sister (who by now was crying against her leg) as she pointed her finger at their homestead across the crop fields. "Go and help your father now, there is work to be done! Off with you!"

Sulkily, he did what he was told.

Wulfhere hated his mother sometimes. She was forever yelling at him, or finding some excuse to do it, always telling him to pray more and play less. Every week she encouraged his father to come to church with her at Maldmesburh and listen to Abbot Beorhtwold profess the word of the Lord, but he always said no, and so she punished Wulfhere by taking him instead. `...You'll be the good Christian your father refuses to be, won't you, Wulfhere?' She'd always say. But Wulfhere didn't want to listen to stories about God or saints or miracles. He didn't want to do chores. He wanted to do fun things. He wanted to wanted to play. He wanted to fight like his father Haakon once did.

When Wulfhere returned to the homestead he found his father chopping wood, naked as a babe from the waist up, his battle-scarred skin sparkling with sweat from the hot summer sun.

Wulfhere loved him.

Haakon – Haakon Raven's Eye – was a Dane. And theirs was a fighting race, powerful warrior men from the frozen north, skilled in hunting, sailing, and trading as well as battle. `No Saxon sword beats a Danish axe' went the saying. Wulfhere saw why. His father was the strongest man he'd ever seen. He'd seen him lift whole tree trunks and break open heavy rocks with little more than a small hammer. He was brave and he was strong. He was a huscarl, one of Old Cnut Cyning's finest warriors.

Wulfhere wanted to be just like him someday.

"Father?"

The rugged Dane paused mid-swing as his son approached him. "{...Hvorfor er din kind forslået?}" He shook his head. "{Glem det. Gå vand hestene.}"

Wulfhere nodded but did not go. Haakon frowned at him (which saddened the boy) and eked out one of the few English words he knew ("horse") then made a cupping motion next to his lips, as if `drinking' from a cup. The boy put the two together. Drink. Horse. "Oh! You want me to water the horses! Yes Papa, I will!"

There was a bucket nearby. Wulfhere took it up as he ran to the river stream that flowed near the line of trees behind their home. When he reached it, he crouched down and scooped up a bucket full of water. The fish were jumping out of the stream today, no doubt his father would have his thrall boys Ulf and Wend catch a few for them to eat that night. It was a pleasant thought (for he loved the way his mother prepared fish) but then he thought of his father, and he grew sad. Wulfhere couldn't speak Danish yet. His mother was good at it, and Sigeflæd knew enough of it to understand their father's instructions, but he couldn't grasp it, no matter how many times Eadwyn tried to teach him how. And he was ashamed of that. He wondered if Haakon was too.

The bucket was heavy and bloated now, sloshing at the rim, but the stables weren't too far from the river. (`At least I can do this right.') Thought he. And so the boy lugged the heavy bucket up the slope and over the grass until he reached the stable doors and set it down to open them. But then he heard voices. Whispering voices. Familiar voices.

"{Skynd dig!}" That was Wend's voice. "{Jarlen kommer snart...!}"

"{Lad jarlen tage sig en lort!}" And that was Ulf's. "{Jeg vil have dig!}"

They sounded desperate and breathless. Wulfhere couldn't understand what the slaves were doing in there. But the doors were open slightly, and the boy put his eye to the gap. He saw blond-haired Wend bent against the stable wall, legs spread, his breeks around his ankles. And black-haired Ulf was right up behind him, and quickly shunted his own breeks down his legs. Both their pintels were out and they were stiff and straight, like Wulfhere's was sometimes when he woke up in the morning. Ulf spat into his hand and rubbed it over his.

(`What are they... doing?') Thought Wulfhere.

He thought it might be a game or a fight they were having. They had fights before, especially when his father bought a þeowen, Aswig, to help his mother with the cooking and sewing, but she died of sickness last year. What was this? Ulf went up close to Wend, so close their hairy legs were touching, and the boy looked on in confusion as the older slave pushed his pintel inside the younger slave's bottom. Wend groaned, made a face like he was in pain, and Ulf stuck his fingers in his mouth to make him quiet as he started to ride the younger man like a horse. (`Are they fighting?') Thought Wulfhere. (`But why wasn't Wend fighting back?'). It looked like a fight. At first. But then something odd happened. Wend looked over his shoulder at Ulf with a smile... and kissed him.

Boys... weren't supposed to do that.

And then, suddenly, in some twisted way, young Wulfhere began to understand what he was seeing. Something dark, filthy, and disgusting. Something ungodly. Something evil. He knew it was evil, Abbot Beorhtwold once said so in church. But Ulf and Wend were nice boys, they helped him chop meat and wood when it was too hard for him to do, they showed him how to ride a horse and played sticks with him when the chores were done. Why were they doing evil things with each other?

The sound of slapping flesh rose over the neighing horses. Wend dug his nails into the grain as Ulf rutted at him from behind like a dog, like a horse in heat, like a drunk Wealh going at his sheep-wife on a cold night, "Ugh! Ugh! Ugh! Ugh!" they groaned until they cried out together in one final shout, kissing and panting together as they caught their breaths. Ulf wiped the sweat from his face and pulled his softening pintel out of Wend's bottom. It was clean before and now it was covered in bits of scitte and a sticky white slime like a cracked egg. Then the two of them pulled their breeks back up and went back to saddling the horses like nothing had even happened.

Wulfhere felt sick.

And then he pulled his hand out of his own breeks and found the same sticky white eggy slime all over it. And he knew, in that moment, that he had done something that God would never forgive him for.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

A drenched hand launched out of frothing waters and found purchase upon the bank. Another hand burst forth, found a damp grip, and a beaten warrior hauled himself onto the shores of a pebbled beach. He caught his breath, coughed up knots of bloody saltwater, and slumped tiredly upon a cushion of a seaweed. He stopped a moment. He gave his mind a chance to catch up to his body as the wonders of his surroundings finally poured into him, one miracle at a time. First, he heard the waves as they floated over the sea and crashed softly into the shore, the echoes of his fondest dreams. Next came the gulls, whinnying overhead, the scent of brine and sea-salt wafting in with the rising tide, and then he opened his eyes and saw clouds of the brightest, clearest white.

Wulfhere leaned upright.

Beyond the banks of that pebbled beach sprawled a crystalline sea dappled with light. And he stared at it in wonder. He watched the tide wash in, watched its white waves fall against the shales and burst into a sparkling array, and he thought to himself, `I have never seen a sight so beautiful in all my life'.

And then he thought of Brynna.

(`Brynna...!') Wulfhere tried to stand but everything ached, especially his shoulder. His body seized up, his slippery hands skidded off the wet pebbles and he fell, his mailed back slapping against the rocks. "Damn!"

That was when his mind finally remembered how much pain his body was in. His muscles ached. So did his jaw and back. And his shoulder was on fire. But he had to press on. Wulfhere grit his teeth hard then flipped himself onto his belly, caught a breath, grabbed a handful of seaweed, then slowly dragged his torso from the foamy shore until all the weedy pebbles and silt disappeared, and the tall trees and wind-blown grass took their place. Wulfhere groaned all the way to the trunk of a massive oak and there he laid his back to catch his breath. He called Brynna's name but there was no reply, save for the echo of his own voice doubling and trebling back at him. And then he looked around, beheld his surroundings again with unblinking eyes...

He was in a forest now. The ocean's tides churned in the distance. But there were closer sounds. Golden leaves shimmering and shivering as the cool sea winds flowed through the trees. The slither of snakes dancing through the grass and soil, the whippoorwills singing jollily from their perches. Twigs snapped beneath the paws of roving rose-furred foxes as three-tailed squirrels galloped across branches and silver-feathered hawks whirled about the sky.

"The sky..."

A Sky Without a Sky.

For high above his head, high over the domain of the birds where the clouds roamed and broke, between their dim expanses Wulfhere spotted the dark overhangs of solid rock, jagged crags and scything scarps where brinies of mist roved its inverted valleys and encircled its dangling peaks.

"Where am I?" Whispered he. "What is this place...?"

And then a louder sound drowned out the beautiful birdsong and swaying tides.

Hoofbeats.

Wulfhere instinctively reached for his sword, but it was gone, scabbard and all, as well as his seax. As the hoofbeats grew louder he looked to his right and saw a small herd of ivory-antlered deer fleeing wildly through the violets and russet bushes. They thundered by him, bleating and bawling as a pack of wild, white-maned, skull-headed hounds bayed for their blood. The gnashing bitches burst after the deer in a mad scramble, barking and snapping at their heels, as their master's horse galloped close behind. But the master's eyes, though wild with passion for the hunt, turned to Wulfhere, and he brought his walloping black stallion to a stop.

Wulfhere froze.

The horse whickered restlessly as the rider coaxed it closer to the battered Saxon, who looked up at him and marvelled in both awe and fright.

The rider was tall, barrel-chested, and stout-faced with a woolly-jaw and deep grey eyes as cold and piercing as the winter snow. A tousled font of silver-blonde hair cascaded upon his broad shoulders from beneath a ruby-studded gold circlet, nay, more a crown than a circlet. Beneath his crimson cloak swung the silver lioness broach that kept it in place. A sheathed broadsword and a bone-carved war horn swung from his belt. He held a spear in one hand and his horse's reins in the other.

"O Fates," snarled the horseman. "Pray tell me, what ill-begotten wretch comes here slithering through my lands? What is he? Ah! A lost Child of Christ! Why come you crawling, wretch? Which fraying strand of fate's loom cast you about this place?"

The Saxon burped seawater. "I am here... with a woman... seeking a way... to Lundenburh..."

"Poor traveller," the horseman smirked atop his gilt leather saddle. "It is not the road to England you seek. What you seek, seeks you..."

A gloved hand snatched Wulfhere's ankle and dragged him back into the bushes. He cried out to the horseman for help, but "Rwy'n dymuno lwc dda i chi, Sacsonaidd!" said he, blowing his horn, then raising his spear as he charged after his great hunting dogs, the Hounds of Annwn.

There was a root nearby. Wulfhere strained to reach it, but a forceful tug pulled him away mere moments before his fingertips clasped it. When the Saxon tried to lift himself up, he was hurled back down, his already weak back thumping into a mound of encrusted peat. His eyes broke open – and Herewulf's blazing blue orbs stared back as his huge, gloved hands snatched Wulfhere's throat and squeezed the breath from it.

"Dyrnegeligre..." Spat the huscarl. "Lǣwend! Manslaga! Þeow-cēapman...! FÆDERSWICA! I will not rest until you and that cursed bædling are made to PAY for your crimes! Do you hear me, boy? I. WILL. NOT. REST. `TIL. YOU. PAY!"

Wulfhere couldn't breathe. But there was a rock nearby. He couldn't see himself grab it, not until he swung and brought it crashing into Herewulf's rattling helm. The huscarl growled out, more of anger than pain, and toppled over just as Wulfhere found the strength to throw himself up and mount the wulfheort and SMASH the rock into his skull, again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again until the rivets of his byrnie were smattered with blood. He fell back, wheezing, eyes and nostrils flaring, salt-iron on his tongue and lips, stuffing his nose, nauseating him. Wulfhere looked at the dented helm and the shattered face spilling out into a bloody pool of knotted hair, skull fragments and brain matter.

"Brynna..." Wulfhere dropped the rock. "Brynna! BRYNNA! Where are you!?"

The weapon-less swordsman, half-alive and wracked with pain, stumbled onto his feet, up and away from the headless corpse. He screamed Brynna's name as he staggered on into the deep emerald woods, begging his body not to give up on him as he trundled forth.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

It was a cold morning in the Spring of 1036 when men wearing mail took their fists to the Raven's Eye's door and yelled for him to wake. They woke the whole household. Wulfhere (barely seven years old at the time), his twin sister Sigeflæd, the thrall boys Ulf and Weld, even the dogs. They did not rise quickly, but the men would not leave.

"Up!" They barked. "Up, lord!"

Haakon rose angrily from his bed furs, and Eadwyn quickly stepped between him and his axe. She calmed him down in the Danish tongue then opened the door, and in barrelled three helmed, mailed and sword-armed Mercian men. They were tall and battle-ready, their weapons clanking against their leathers as they strode. Armed men always meant trouble.

His sister Sigeflæd knew it too. One of the Mercians eyed her with a look she was too young to understand. She tried to hide behind their father, but Haakon yelled for Ulf and Weld to take her away. She was terrified. But Wulfhere wasn't scared. The boy took one look at his father, taller by a head than the tallest men of the shire, muscles bulging at the trim of his tunic; and felt for all the world as though nothing could ever hurt him.

The head of the Mercian band gestured first to Haakon and then to Eadwyn. The morning chill made clouds out of his breath. "Lord, Lady. We are here on orders from Leofric Eorl."

Eadwyn frowned. "What orders?"

"More than a year has passed since of the death of Cnut Cyning, God rest him. The day dawns for a new Cyning to rise. By order of Leofric Eorl three days hence every thegn and ceorl north of the river shall array to him before the gates of Maldmesburh and declare fealty to Cnut's son and heir Harold. And the household of any man duly summoned who fails to attend without just cause or grounds shall suffer its rightful heriot."

Eadwyn's frown deepened.

"{Hvad siger de?}" Barked Haakon.

His mother waited until the men excused themselves before she told him in his native tongue.

His father flew into a rage. He screamed. He swore. He threw his axe into a deer skull mounted above their door then marched out into the snow to weep.

It was only the second time Wulfhere saw his father cry; the first when word first reached them of Cnut's death.

As a boy there was much of that day that Wulfhere did not understand. Only over time did he realize that those men were not issuing a decree... they were plotting his father's death. Heriot, as Wulfhere one day learnt, was a lord's right to claim a fallen warrior's arms and armour as his own. Demanding a `heriot' off a living man was not a tax... it was a threat.

Haakon Raven's Eye was a loyal man. And as a loyal man he supported his lord's choice of heir. But his lord's choice of heir was not Harold – it was his half-brother, Harthacnut. They knew this. Leofric Eorl certainly knew it. Though the uncrowned Harthacnut was away suppressing invaders in their native Denmark – any attempt to crown Harold in his absence was in direct violation of Cnut's whims.

And the Mercians made good on their threat nine days hence, six days after Haakon Raven's Eye refused the summons.

They came at night with burning torches, sharpened spears, and whickering horses. Ten men in total. No one knew what was happening until it happened. Wulfhere awoke coughing, and when he opened his reddened eyes, he saw smoke. Thick black clouds rolling along the rushes and choking his throat. Off in the distance he heard Ulf screaming, "Fire! Fire! FIRE!" with what little English he knew as the dogs howled and the hall's rafters began to snap. A meaty hand snatched him out of his bed furs – his father's hand. He dragged the boy onto his shoulders and ran for the rear door, kicking it open with a single foot. His mother was already waiting for them upon a mare's saddle. Haakon heaved his young son into his wife's lap with a single arm as she gathered the reins into her sooty hands.

"{Hvad med Sigeflæd?}" She cried in Danish. "{Hvor er Sigeflæd?}"

Their hall was ablaze. The thatch wafting up into the black sky in thickened towers of smoke, flames raging from the stables to the pigsty where their squealing livestock roasted alive. War cries and clashes of steel echoed from the fore – Ulf and Wend fighting for their lives against the Mercians.

"{Jeg finder hende!}" Yelled the Dane as he slapped the horse's rear. "{Gå!}"

The horse bolted. Eadwyn was a poor rider, but she held on strong as the mare raced away from the flaming hall that they once called home. Wulfhere looked back with tears in his eyes as his father, eyes full of rage, mail clinking beneath his tattered tunic, took up the haft of his axe with both hands as the torch-armed Mercian riders galloped around the bower to corner him. It was the last time saw his father alive.

The next time he saw his father, he was dead, swinging from a taut noose above the icy mud of Maldmesburh market. People were encouraged to throw dung and rotten fruit at his body. They yelled that he was a traitor and spat at him. A beggar even stole his boots. And they only cut him down when he started to stink.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

"BRYNNA!" There were tears in his eyes as he thought of his father. "BRYNNA!" But why was he thinking of his father? "BRYNNA, WHERE ARE YOU?!" Why now of all times when the road to Lundenburh was at its shortest? Why?

The Saxon's eyes stung. He scrubbed the tears out of them as he struggled to put one foot after the other and keep on, pressing through the crimson-cloaked king's dense forest, onwards and further until the golden-leafed oaks began to thin and the outline of a time-forgotten weoh bore out. Wulfhere fended through the last of the trees and verged at a clearing at the very edge of the forest into a sweeping panorama of blighted earth, swirling dust and dying weeds. Between those wind-shorn lands and its mountainous roof drifted a gloaming gyre of bottomless black clouds crackling with thunder and bloated by unfallen rain.

Wulfhere's hands fell to his knees. He leaned over and caught his breath as his throat was hoarse from shouting Brynna's name. He felt minded to rest but looked up when he heard voices.

Off in the centre of the dirt plain stood a circle of towering monoliths arrayed around a central stone more than twice the height of the next, emblazoned with ancient white symbols and decorated in dangling garlands of lilac and lavender. And around that megalith stood another circle, a circle of women. Thirty of them. Barefoot, hand-in-hand, each one adorned in antlered crowns and long white dresses flowing down to their ankles. Their faces were painted white with chalk, their lips blue with woad, and their foreheads spotted black with soot. And they wailed together in a long and droning cry that reverberated throughout the plane; it was both a song of sorrow and joy, a cry of both agony and ardour.

As the circle of women sung and swayed together, an aging priestess bearing a staff of gnarled oak stood astride the megalith and beckoned to a younger woman, her small arms wrapped lovingly around a swaddled babe barely a few days born. As the mother approached the leader of the circle the leader pressed her thumb against the black spot of soot upon her forehead, then pressed that thumb onto the child's forehead, branding it with the black circle of their flock. The mother wept with joy as the priestess licked the soot from her thumb and spat it into the flames of a roaring brazier. The flames burst up high, flashing with life, casting a warm glow upon the entire circle.

"{Tân hynafol!}" Shouted the priestess. "{Dywedwch wrthym enw'r plentyn hwn!}"

Tears of joy slipped free from the mother's eyes as the sacred flame uttered the name by its smouldering breath. And she listened. "Brynna!" Said the mother, repeating it to the circle and lifting her baby up to the moon. "Brynna ferch Angwyn!"

As spoken, so appeared.

Wulfhere looked on as a pale figure emerged from the shadows, a pale barefoot figure dressed in the same antler crown and the same white dress with the same black circle upon her forehead. And there was pain in her eyes as she beheld the circle.

"Brynna!" Yelled Wulfhere. "Brynna!"

She looked to him, haunted with sorrow, then turned away and vanished behind the stone. But he was already on his feet, running for her. His legs found strength he didn't know they had and raced across the crusted earth to the mighty pillars of the stone circle, but as he ran to Brynna's stone, he turned its corner and skidded to a sudden stop. Pebbles loosed by his foot scattered into the air and plummeted hundreds of feet through it before plunging into a dark black sea stretching out from the cliffside.

Wulfhere shivered.

(`Dear God') he thought. (`Did she fall?)

He threw a glance over his shoulder to scream for the sisters of the circle to tell him where she went, but the circle was gone, the mother was gone, the baby was gone, the priestess was gone. All of it was gone... except a long, dark field of swaying grass. The moon gloomed with bone-pale light. Violent winds ripped through the sward. And a burly mailed figure marched towards him with his glinting axe Hildegunnr at the ready.

Herewulf.

"NOOOO!" Screamed Wulfhere. "WHAT ARE YOU!?!"

The huscarl broke into a run. "I AM YOUR RECKONING!"

The spine and the legs that barely held Wulfhere up enough to stand shivered with cold fear as Herewulf charged at him through the rushes and reeds, screaming in rage before pouncing into the air and vaulting toward his prey, a streak of steel swinging through the night air and skreiching past Wulfhere's ear as he dove desperately out of the way. The Saxon skidded onto his back as the axe collided with the ground and cracked it open, splitting the earth in two, waking marrow-curdling tremors that rocked the cliffside from edge to talus. Hildegunnr's blade stood lodged inside a mound of cracked, impacted rock. As Herewulf's massive arms came to pull it free, a desperate Wulfhere threw himself at the muscled huscarl by his uninjured shoulder, slamming into his back and knocking him from his feet. Hildegunnr slipped free of his gloved hands. He pitched forward. He fell.

Wulfhere, breathless, shoulders pumping with each intake, watched Herewulf slip from the cracked cliffside and hurtle through the air until his mailed body crashed into a bloody pulp against the barnacled crags jutting along the shore.

And then Brynna's soft voice beckoned to him.

"Wulfhere..." She whispered. "...Wulfhere..."

The swordsman snatched his weak shoulder and turned towards it, but it was not Brynna he found standing behind him ominously.

It was Herewulf.

Wulfhere's heart sank. "T-this... is... this can't... this can't be..."

A single gloved hand shot forth and snatched him by the throat. Wheezing and gagging, Wulfhere could only claw meekly at the powerful arm that lifted him from the ground until his boots dangled in the air, kicking at the tall grass beneath them. Thunder broke the sky, a flash of lightning burst around them, flashing through the field of bones lay hidden in the grass and stripping the courage from Wulfhere's resolve like a scrap of flayed skin. He looked down into the searing blue eyes of the huscarl, blazing like a cold inferno within the sockets of his helm, and felt nothing but terror, absolute terror.

The icy night air made visible the breath that leaked like hell-smoke from Herewulf's snarling teeth. "Vile dog! I was driven out of my order with nithing's word for slaughtering another huscarl! And why? For he DARED to lay hands upon me as you did the bædling!" The huscarl's helmed face withered and jerked and stuttered and swung back into place. "You ran from the field, you abandoned your shield-brothers, all to sate your FILTHY desires! I will deliver justice to the fallen! You will DIE!" The huscarl's helmed face withered and jerked and stuttered and swung back into place. "I know you, boy, you killed your own father! For the honour of the Raven's Eye, I will END your miserable life!" The huscarl's helmed face withered and jerked and stuttered and swung back into place. "You RAPED your mother! You MURDERED your sister! In the name of God, you must DIE!" The huscarl's helmed faced jerked and withered and stuttered and swung back into place. "DIE! DIE! DIE! DIE! DIE! DIE! DIE! DIE! DIE! DIE! DIE! DIE! DIE! DIE! DIE! DIE! DIE! DIE! DIE! DIE! DIE! DIE! DIE! DIE! DIE! DIE! DIE! DIE! DIE! DIE! DIE! DIE! DIE! DIE! DIE! DIE! DIE! DIE! DIE! DIE! DIE! DIE! DIE! DIE! DIE! DIE! DIE! DIE, DAMN YOU, DIE!"

Wulfhere's eyes welled with tears.

But through them, and their sting, he watched Brynna appear by his side, a beautiful phantom unbound from the chains of his understanding. And she was not afraid. "Wulfhere. This will not end – we cannot proceed – until you face up to what this man truly is. Find your courage. Face him. Face it!"

"...I..."

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

Abbot Beorhtwold was a cruel man. It seemed wrong to say, for he was a man of God and men of God were not meant to be cruel (or so Wulfhere once reckoned). But Abbot Beorhtwold was cruel. Very much so. When he and his mother first came to Maldmesburh on the night of his father's death, tired and sooty and frightened; he looked concerned for them. He yelled for some of his þeows to bring a bowl of water and two cloaks from his personal stores, and he brought them inside to warm themselves by a hearth. Young Wulfhere would go on to hear (in passing) that such kindness for the `poor' was unusual for the Abbot, but at the time, it was as if God himself had sent Beorhtwold for salvation.

For years to come (long after he'd forgotten his father's face) he'd remember Beorhtwold's; long, gaunt, with a gap-toothed smile surrounded by a wild, woolly beard the colour of sun-paled bone. He was kind to them. Gave them a small hut to live in just outside the abbey's vineyard. As it was well known that Maldmesburh was a place of learning, Abbot Beorhtwold swore to Eadwyn that her son would receive an education. He would learn to read, to speak properly, to learn his country's history, and most of all, learn God's Word. It was a gift most boys his age did not receive. And Eadwyn had tears in her eyes when the abbot promised this to her.

And there they lived, for a time.

His mother helped the monks and their þeows tend the vineyard in exchange for food, shelter, and protection whilst Wulfhere was instructed in reading, writing, and biblical prophecy. He was taught that the Danes were a punishment from God to scourge England of its sins. Pagans like his dead father were destined for hell and only those of Christ-faring nature, like Cnut Cyning, would be received by the arms of heaven.

And when young Wulfhere had the gall to speak well of his father, to suggest that he was an honourable man, a strong man, a kind man even, Abbot Beorhtwold took his cane and struck the boy's knuckles with it. "Speak not such nonsense," said he. "Danes are by their very nature wild and Godless. They are an ill-made, ill-tempered, and ill-thought brood of hairy cutthroats with a drunken rapture for bloodlust and Christian gold. And until they are truly and fully brought under Christ's mercy, that is all they ever will be. Leofric Eorl was right to kill your father. You and your mother are better for it. Look where it's brought you."

The Abbot did not seem so kind after that.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

Wulfhere gasped desperately as Herewulf's thick, leathered fingers clamped tighter around his throat. And every moment tightened the pressure around it. No matter how he clawed or scraped at the huscarl's arm, its taut muscles did not budge or yield.

"Do not look away, Wulfhere." Said Brynna ferch Angwyn of the sisters of the circle, who stayed steadfast at his side as the huscarl choked the very essence of life from his body. "You must not run from this – you must face it."

But then he spotted the seax dangling from Herewulf's belt. Just a pace away... below his line of sight... he could reach it... if he just reached out...

Herewulf's grip tightened again. Foam dripped down Wulfhere's lips as his head rocked back, like his neck was ready to snap. His vision was clouding, time falling away from him. But the seax... if he could only reach the seax! His fingers, weak and soil-sodden, wriggled towards the hilt of that knife.

Brynna's eyes flared. "Wulfhere..."

He seized it! He snatched the knife!

"No!" Cried Brynna. "Stop running, Saxon! Face it!"

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

There was a cool stream none too far from Maldmesburh Abbey, a stream shaded beneath a dense canopy of leaves branching out from a long row of oaks. Many of the local children, ceorl and þeow, came to play by that stream. They played sticks and threw horse chestnuts, played with worms in the wet grass, made circles and frolicked. And an embittered Wulfhere watched them all from the shadows of the oak trees as he soaked his swollen knuckles in the stream.

He couldn't stand to see children playing anymore. It reminded him of when he was a child, playing the same silly games whilst the cruel world around them made its designs against his family. He saw the spires of the abbey peaking over the hillock beyond them and that was an even less welcomed sight.

In fact, he'd grown to hate the abbey.

He hated the monks and the þeows that doted on them, hated the poor and sickly that came to its doors begging for help that would never come. He hated the novitiates that looked down on him and whispered about his father behind his back. "Son of a Pagan" they called him. And he wanted to beat them all to death with a big stick every time he heard it – but he couldn't touch them. They were the sons of great thegns and king's thegns, powerful men brought to be educated by the Monks of Maldmesburh. And what was he? The landless son of a dead Pagan, a þeow to the abbey in all but name, forced to work its fields with his mother, and never permitted to leave them. He'd had the indecency to ask one of the monks about his father's old lands this morning after prayers. When word got back to the abbot, his knuckles took twenty strokes of the cane.

Grumbling, Wulfhere glared at the scrambled reflection of his hands, bruised black and purple like rotten fruit, and wondered what foul evil he could have done for he and his family to merit such a fall from grace. But he knew. Deep down he knew. It was because of what he saw that day, that terrible evil between those two thrall boys, Ulf and Wend. He was cursed for it.

(`Damn them,') he thought. (`May they burn.')

Wulfhere took his hands from the water. They still ached, but not as badly as before. Once he brought her the water she sent him for, he would ask his mother to wrap them for him. These days he did not get to see her much. As always Eadwyn tended the vineyard whilst Wulfhere worked around the abbey with the þeows, sowing clothes, working leathers, sharpening tools, plucking chickens, kneading bread, brewing beer, making repairs, sweeping floors, dusting rafters, cleaning relics, and on and on and on. They may as well have been þeows.

But he would not sulk on it.

He was a man grown now, 12 years of age, and had long since spoken his oath to the cyning. It would not do to grumble. He was alive – if nothing else he had that, and he had a mother to take care of. Wulfhere took up his iron-banded bucket (already full and sloshing at the rim) and made his way from the shrouded stream and the playing boys, across the abbey grounds and the burial plots along the old road north that broached the Avon by a half-moulded wooden bridge, rotting away and in desperate need of repair. Wulfhere crossed the bridge, passed by goat herders and irþlings_, and made his way to the small hut his mother had called home for the past four years._

He heard voices.

Wulfhere set the bucket down by the pile of rushes near the rickety door. His mother hadn't had anyone over when she first sent him to fetch water from the stream. Who could have been there now? Wulfhere set his hand to the door to push it open and froze when he heard Abbot Beorhtwold's voice from within.

"Did you clean yourself down there as I asked?" He said sharply.

"...Y-yes, Father..." Replied Eadwyn, her voice weak and raspy.

There was a gap in the planks of the door. Wulfhere put his eye to it and looked inside. And inside he saw Abbot Beorhtwold, hands at the roped waist of his russet frocks, whilst his mother knelt before him wiping drool from her lips. The Abbot told Eadwyn, "Good. I would not wish for another of your accidents," and bade her stand. She did so, and in return he spun her around until her back was to him, driving her face into a table and bending her over flat. With giddy haste did the abbot snatch up Eadwyn's skirts and bunch them around her waist, exposing her rear nakedness. She shrieked in horror, but he did not care, warning that no one would hear her out here as he pulled up his own skirts and fished out his stiff, dripping pintel. He was in such haste he did not hear the door creak open. And as he spat into hand to stroke himself for his entry, he did not notice a young hand take up the langseax hanging by the door. He did not notice the shadow creeping up behind his back – not until it drove that langseax hilt deep between his shoulders.

"Ghk!" Croaked the Abbot of Maldmesburh, jerking suddenly, throwing a weak glance down at the single-edged knife protruding bloodily through his now broken breastbone, then staggered around on weakened, shuffling feet to see an infuriated Wulfhere standing behind him. The priest opened his mouth to speak but nothing but blood poured forth. He stumbled and fell to the floor, buttocks in the air, fingers twitching gently until they stopped. He was dead.

"W-what have you done...?" Said Eadwyn, shivering. "What have you done, Wulfhere?!"

And Wulfhere, frozen in place, stared at his hands, hands now stained with Christian blood, and admitted for all the world that he did not know.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

The seax slipped from Wulfhere's hand.

"...I can't..." He wept. "I cannot... see it again, please..."

But he felt Brynna's hand upon his.

And she smiled at him. "See it. Face it. And then... let it go."

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

That night the dusty streets of Maldmesburh were full to breeching with hundreds of angry villagers who had come from all corners to witness doom_. Once word spread like thatch-fire that their kindly Abbot Beorhtwold had been murdered by some drunken harlot in a fit of evil rage, the spear-bearers could hardly fend them off. Men and women, thegns and ceorls, Saxons and Christians all – poured into the town shouting their fury. The marketplace had been cleared of its stalls and tents, and at the centre of the clearing stood a wooden stake and lashed to that wooden stake was the fiendish heathen_ synnecge for whose blood they bayed, a weeping woman called Eadwyn.

It was customary to hold a court before deciding the fate of a criminal, and certainly so in this holy land owned by good Edward Cyning himself, but there was no time to wait for the shire reeve. The villagers were too angry, too wild, and too great in number to be controlled. The monks of Maldmesburh and a group of powerful local thegns freshly returned from a trading voyage discussed how to proceed, how to quell the crowd before they destroyed the town in their rage, and one of the thegns suggested a method of punishment he had seen in during his travels in Normandy.

Mailed men bearing the sigil of Leofric Eorl carried bunches of thatch and bundles of sticks to mount around Eadwyn's feet as the jeering crowds threw rocks and rotten fruit at her. An aging priest braved the hail of waste to speak the rites even a vile sinner like her was permitted to receive, "Accipe, carissime frater, viaticum corporis nostri Jesu Christi, quod te custodiat ab hoste maligno, protegat te, et perducat te ad vitam aeternam! Amen..."

The priest asked her something.

But she shook her head, refusing to speak.

And so the priest called for a hooded man to bring forth what he carried – a burning torch. By now a pile of kindling as high as Eadwyn's thighs was arrayed around her. The hooded man lowered his torch and set light to it, stepping away. It began as mere snapping embers at first, then tufts of smoke rose as the nascent flames spread around the pile, and the crowd's roars became more jubilant as the confused Eadwyn's eyes widened with dawning terror. She yelled things. "NO!" and "PLEASE!" and "SPARE ME!" but not a single ear heard her over the shouts and insults – nor would they have helped her if they did. There was a sudden flash beneath the thatch, and the flames suddenly roared, surging up and consuming the kindling like a feasting wolf. And then began the screams. Shrieks of sheer agony ripped out of Eadwyn's throat and rippled through the smoky night air, rising above even the roaring flames and the howling crowds surrounding them. She screamed her throat hoarse as the fire consumed her whole from toes to scalp, charring her flesh, shearing her hair, fusing hunks of cooked muscle into sloughing scraps that slowly fell from the blackened bones of a lifeless, calcifying corpse.

Cries of delight at doom justly rendered tore through the crowds. All were joyous. All except a trembling little boy looking on in tearful, wide-eyed horror as he tasted his mother's ashes upon his tongue.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

Wulfhere dropped to his knees. How many years had it been since he last allowed himself to remember? The flames. The crowd. Her screams. His guilt. That was where it all began. That cold and terrible day. That was when he lost himself. That was when he lost his way. (`Why didn't I fight?') He thought. (`Why didn't stop it? I could've stopped it! If I just told them all the truth, that it was me who killed him, I killed him, I killed the abbot! Not her! Why didn't I tell the truth? Why did I let that happen? Why was I such a craven?')

He could still taste them on his tongue, sometimes.

His mother's ashes.

Wulfhere opened his eyes and found himself inside a void as black as the pit. Darkness unfurled as far as the eye could see. Smoke and cloud wafted along its frontiers. Beneath his feet laid broken Roman paving, and around him from spot to spot, broken Roman statues, statues of Mars and Jupiter and Venus and Neptune; shattered faces, missing arms, cracked legs, rotting plinths; moss-ridden and vine-swathed. Rainwater pooled where the flagstones hollowed.

A broken realm.

And then a pale fire burst to life in front of him, swirling into existence from nothingness, and drenching him in its bone-white light. Its tongues lashed and flailed amidst the cold darkness. It brought warmth. It brought fear. It brought sadness. And it brought memories.

Wulfhere, weak and tearful, looked on into the flames as he saw himself as a red-eyed and angry boy, stealing loaves of bread from the market in Ledecestre. He recalled well the day. He'd fled Maldmesburh by foot and wandered north along the old Roman roads, each day a hair-breadth escape from wolves, bandits, and wild dogs. He was hungry, desperate. When he wound up in Ledecestre he was on death's door. And so, he stole a loaf of bread to keep himself alive. The baker chased him through the streets, but the boy escaped. And when he got hungry again, he tried it again, this time with a fruiterer. But that time luck was not with him. That time he was caught, and the fruiterer handed him over to a `friend' who threatened to chop the boy's hand off unless he helped him `capture' someone else. Someone else. That friend's name was Bolla.

The flames flickered.

Wulfhere watched on as a slightly older version of his younger self dragged a tiny scip onto a pebbled bank by its unspooled moorings. Two women, lashed and gagged, cried in the hull of it. "Quiet, you wailing wenches!" He shouted, "Quiet or you'll wake my fist!" then he pulled the two of them up and dragged them by their ropes along the beach to a shore-side outpost manned by Bolla and three of his best men. Wulfhere's partner, Aelbert, was there ahead of him to collect their pay. And in the centre of the outpost stood a wooden pen hemming in a dozen Wealh women. An older Wulfhere watched with disgust as a younger Wulfhere grinned with delight and dropped his two new captives at Bolla's leathered feet. "Too many women to sell, Bolla! Which one do we get to keep?"

The flames flickered again.

And they revealed an older Wulfhere; fully grown, bronze-bearded and muscular with the years. He rode a mighty horse named Snotta through a dense forest, hunting hounds ahead of him, his broached cloak flocking in the winds. Another horseman, Gyrth Godwineson, rode alongside him. When the dogs cornered the deer they were chasing, this Wulfhere shouted "Now, lord!" and the young Eorl of East Anglia threw his spear straight through the beast's neck. He clutched a fist in triumph, slowed Snotta to a trot, and waited for Ceolfraed and the other hearthweru to catch up to them as Gyrth chuckled with exhilaration at the day's first kill. The older Wulfhere watched the slightly younger Wulfhere smile with such brilliant pride. And he was proud that day. Proud to hunt with a son of Godwin Eorl. Proud to have a place in the household of a King's Thegn. Proud to finally reclaim some of the wealth and glory that was robbed of him by Leofric Eorl's men.

The white flame split into three.

And all three flames transformed into Wulfhere. The boy Wulfhere, a broken-hearted bread-thief. The young Wulfhere, an angry and callous slaver. And the adult Wulfhere, a proud hearth-guard to Ceolfraed Thegn. All three Wulfheres pointed at the broken man they were destined to become and all three asked in unison, "WHICH OF US IS WHO YOU TRULY ARE?"

And Wulfhere smiled, sadly. "...All of you."

All three returned to flame. All three flames returned to one. And the one flame became a man.

Herewulf.

Strong, silent. Bright blue eyes burning inside his helm, rivets of his mail byrnie glinting in the moonlight, bossed shield strapped to his back, seax dangling from his belt, his palms rested peacefully upon this powerful Danish axe, Hildegunnr. Wulfhere took to his feet and faced him. Beheld him. And then Wulfhere reached to unstrap Herewulf's helm and finally see the face beneath it.

He merely found his own face staring back at him.

Yet another Wulfhere.

"I could never be you," said he to the `huscarl'. "I could never be the huscarl my father was, nor the Christian my mother was. I can only be myself... and let God be my judge."

And then Herewulf disappeared.

Like a puff of smoke.

Never to return.

And then Brynna appeared at Wulfhere's side and rested a hand upon his shoulder. "It is over. The Horned One's trial is over."

Wulfhere slumped to his knees and thanked God.

"You have earned your passage through the underworld," said Brynna, stolidly. "What comes next is your debt to me."

The Saxon looked up at her. "What are you talking about?"

That was when he noticed the seax she had in her hand. His seax. Wulfhere paused, uncertain of her meaning, until she threw the knife down at his knees and took a few steps back along the broken, puddled flagstones. She opened her arms with an empty smile. "Kill me."

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

Snotta's hooves thundered down the forest path with that rapid gait of his. No matter what root or rock he came across the good horse leapt cleanly above them and galloped on. No horse in Oxburh was as sure-footed as he was in those woods. He and Wulfhere knew them too well. Wulfhere thanked God for giving him such a steed as he cast a glance over his shoulder. Off in the distance beyond the dense canopy of the forest, a tall black pillar of smoke climbed into the blue sky. Smaller, thinner pillars rose with it... no doubt the fire ripping through Ceolfraed's hall was spreading to the rest of his fortress as well. There was even a risk it could spread to the rest of the burh. That was regrettable.

But Wulfhere didn't care.

He had what he wanted... and Ceolfraed got what he deserved.

With Brynna at his back, her arms woven tightly around it, he pressed on until the scent of smoke was away from them and the risk of capture (at least for that night) remained small. He rode into a small dell hidden away from the forest's main riding paths and stopped there to allow Snotta a drink. He sighed, dismounted, then reached up to help Brynna down. The bædling's green wedding gown was torn, burnt and bloodied, and her neck still furnished with the gleaming torc once intended for Cynewise. But she was beautiful. By God, she was beautiful. And by God, she was all his now. Smiling, Wulfhere lifted Brynna off the saddle and brought her down into his arms.

And she slapped him.

"What have you done!?" She screamed, tearfully. "What have you done?!"

Wulfhere's gaunt cheek went red. "I saved you!"

Brynna glared at him in disbelief. "...Saved me? You did not save me, you RUINED it! You've ruined everything!"

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

"Kill me," said Brynna ferch Angwyn. "Pay your debt."

Wulfhere shook his head in disbelief. "What is going on? What is this? Why are you asking me this? Brynna!"

Her beautiful face was blank and morose as she asked it. There was no pain in her expression, no sorrow, no smirking scorn. She was serious. And when Wulfhere Haakonsson would not take up his seax to push it through her heart as she asked him to, she opened her palm between the two of them. A white flame bloomed from it. Brynna bid him watch it.

"My mother was what you Saxons would call a ƿ__i__ċċ__e," she said. "One of the last of her kind in a world overflowing with christ-men. She was dedicated to the old way, to her sisters, the Sisters of the Black Circle. But then she made the mistake so many women do. She fell in love with a man."

Wulfhere saw the face of a man in the flames; blue-eyed with flame-brown hair and wide lips. He bore an uncanny resemblance to Brynna. He held a baby in his arms as he lay next to his wife, Angwyn.

Brynna frowned. "They were happy then. Foolish and happy. But then it all turned to sand, as it was always destined to. Two bad harvests later a half-starved village went to a priest for answers. And the priest told them that my mother was responsible. He told them that her child was fathered by a demon and that its accursed eyes were the proof. They believed him... and so did my father."

Wulfhere's spine shivered as the flames showed him a woman tethered to a stake as a crowd of angry townsfolk bundled thatch and brushwood around her feet.

"He helped them," said Brynna with quiet disgust. "They drove out the Sisters of the Circle, captured her... and then they burned her. Just like they burned your mother. And my father was disgusted with me... so he left me in the care of a monastery. I escaped the second I was old enough to walk, fled to a village near the Mercian border and I made a living there as a healer... until Saxon raiders attacked us and stole me away, sold me at Scrobbesbyrigscīr to Ceolfraed, and so begin my life as a slave."

When the flames showed him the Saxon raiders that stole Brynna from her home, he flinched with disgust when he recognized Bolla's face amongst the throng.

"I was hated. I was scorned. But Ceolfraed had his uses for me. I hated it. I hated him. But his bed... his bed was the only place on this earth I was permitted to be a woman, the woman I am in my soul. When I had nothing left, I had that. And then Cynewise came..."

Wulfhere watched the flames roil over as they revealed the lady's beautiful face and Brynna's heartbroken reaction to it.

"And when she came, I lost everything," said she. "If I couldn't be a woman, even if only in Ceolfraed's bed, then what was I? Nothing. Nothing but a heathen, a þeow, a Wealh, a Dēofol, a bædling, a baeddel, whatever you ugly Saxons wished to call me. I was nothing. And when I knew that I was content to die. I wanted to die in that hall. I wanted to die as the woman I am before all of them as Ceolfraed's happy new life burned to ashes at my feet! It would have been the sweetest of deaths... and then you took it from me."

"Brynna, I-"

The flames roiled over again, and her voice darkened with them, echoing upon itself. "DID YOU ENJOY YOURSELF WHEN YOU PAWED AT ME?"

`Brynna fell limp in the swordsman's arms as he turned her about and shoved her face-first into the bear furs she'd spread out along the floor by the roaring brazier, un-belting himself and shunting his breeks to his knees. The seax and the half-skinned hare fell from the bædling's grasp. She fell silent. A course, gruff, huffing Wulfhere hiked up the lower folds of her dress, spread her out by her thighs, spat into his hand, and stroked himself slick as he guided his stiffened manhood toward the pink, wrinkled flesh of her earsðerl.'

"DID YOU CARE THAT YOU WERE HURTING ME?"

`He couldn't, even if he wanted to. For she summoned demons from within him, evil demons his poor Christ-faring soul had spent decades fighting a losing battle against. They could not be halted. They could not be stopped. Brynna gritted her teeth. Her pintel was soft, flapping desperately between her legs, but without warning it shot ropes of seed against the wooden wall. Wulfhere did not notice for he could not bear to see it – it turned his stomach – and made her kiss him instead until he drove himself thigh deep into her pink tightness and spilt himself inside her, screaming...'

"WHERE LURKS THE LOVE IN YOUR DEEDS?"

`She was all his now – the only thing he'd wanted ever since the first day he met her on the Icknield. After that it took moments, mere moments, for Brynna to ride him to his climax. Wulfhere groaned devilishly and spent himself inside her, collapsing on top of her, his breath racing with him, the sweat dripping from him, his scent staining the air...'

Wulfhere sobbed. Tears streamed his eyes as he watched himself... tormenting the woman he loved. Rutting at her like a dog, ignorant of her pain, heedless of her unhappiness. The flames ebbed away. Brynna's dress and hair, rustled aloft by the winds conjured by that flame, lowered into place.

"What do I want?" Said she, thoughts aloud. "I want to be away from men like you. I want to be at peace with my gods and ancestors. I want to see my mother again. So... end it. Let me join her. Let me rest."

He looked away. "...Brynna. I... I am... I am sorry..."

"Sorry doesn't mean anything, damn you, KILL ME!"

And then he looked at her. Truly looked at her. Not for her beauty, not for her power, not for her difference. But at her. Brynna ferch Angwyn of the Sisters of the Black Circle. She had every right to demand a death, and what better place than here, surrounded by the magic and wonders of her people. But it was not a death he could grant – not even if he wanted to.

"...Brynna. I have no right to deny you anything. But I... I cannot give you this. I can't. I won't. I can only be myself... and just once before you die... you deserve to do the same."

And he meant it. Every word. He felt the truth of himself, of his conviction then, when Brynna looked up at him with dejected hatred in her blue-green eyes, tears welling in them like crystals. She took the seax up and tried to shove it into his hands, but Wulfhere would not take it. He would not do it. He would not kill her.

Brynna bit her lip. "Wulfhere, please... I have nothing. Nothing left."

Wulfhere paused, then. He thought of Lundenburh, his dream of Lundenburh, of his beautiful new wife Brynna clad in silken dresses and marten-fur. Even now he saw it – a roaring hearth, the scent of a bubbling stew pot, a tender touch beneath their bed furs. It was his dream. And it would never be. It had no right to be. "...That isn't true," said he. "You do have people, I saw it. Your sisters, your mother's circle. There must be survivors. Find them. Re-join them. Show them what you've grown to become."

She looked unsure, doubtful. Had she never dared to dream? Never thought to wonder? Her sisters could still be out there somewhere, hiding from the world of Christ, and however little Wulfhere understood them, he knew implicitly that Brynna was better off with them than amongst his kind. His kind could never make sense of her. Her people would welcome her with open arms. And she deserved it. She deserved to have a family again.

Wulfhere tucked the seax inside his belt. He swept the tears from his eyes, then thumbed the tears from hers. He saw hope in them again. "Let this be the one act of good I do in all my life. Live, Brynna. Live. Live until life gives you a better chance."

"H-how... how am I going to do this?" She whispered. "Where would I start?"

A flame remerged behind her. It was a mere candle's tongue at first but then it grew and grew until it became a blazing pyre, flooding that shadowy realm with newfound light. Brynna and Wulfhere both turned and beheld it, as the image it revealed captivated them; grassy hills, sweeping dales, foggy glens, rocky climes, and cerulean skies. It was not Lundenburh. It was-

"Cymru," gasped Brynna. "That's my home..."

Wulfhere smiled, genuinely, for what felt like the first time in years. "Well then. `Home' is as good as any place to start."

The Saxon had spent many moons peering into Brynna's eyes and witnessed many emotions pass through them. Sadness. Anger. Hate. Dismay. Fear. But hope? Hope was unfamiliar... and deeply welcomed. It suited her, he thought, to be hopeful. And as Brynna gazed upon her homeland with nostalgic love, he felt hope too. Not for himself, but for her. The underworld had made its choice – and she heeded the call. And as she walked into the heat of the fire, the Saxon could not help but follow.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

(`So peaceful,') thought Wulfhere. (`This place...')

Such a beautiful sight he woke to. Skies of clear blue dotted with plumes of white cloud. The gold-green grassland sweeping across the hills. Shepherds drove whole flocks of sheep down winding trails to the grazing grounds. Crickets and nuthatches chirped. A warm sun prickled his skin again just like when he was a boy. Even the mountain air felt good to breath. Wēalas was a paradise. No wonder its people fought to desperately to protect it.

Wulfhere, legs crossed at the ankle, head resting atop his palms, looked up at the sky, and thought aloud that he might never see another so beautiful.

Brynna, lying next to him, scoffed. "There is beauty in every direction if you have the heart to see it." She glanced at him, smiling softly. "Where will you go?"

Wulfhere sighed at the sight of her smile. Such a small thing, it was. And it was no small thing to think – what you wouldn't steal, rape, torture, or kill to awaken to that smile every day. It was in his heart to turn to her, to look at her where their lips might meet, but resisted the temptation. He had no right. He never did. "...Somewhere I can be at peace with myself."

"I wish you well then."

He leaned up, leathers and byrnie smeared with grass stains, and uncoupled the seax from his belt. He put the weapon in Brynna's hands.

"For protection?" She asked.

"You are a free woman now," says Wulfhere. "You should always carry it."

This much Brynna understood. Danger lay ahead for them both. Nothing was ever guaranteed in this world. She received the knife with care then gave him something in return – the gold torc, Cynewise's morgengifu. It glimmered richly in the sunlight. "The Horned One has no need for gold. Only respect."

"You might need the coin if you sold it..."

"It never belonged to me," said Brynna. "Take it. Do what you want with it."

Wulfhere had some idea. He slipped the torc inside his cowhide belt pouch and wondered if Brynna knew where he intended to go. He would not tell her because it was not her burden to bear. Perhaps she might ask the flames one day. All he wanted now was for this last moment of their dark journey to be pure. Wulfhere looked to her. Brynna ferch Angwyn. And he was as enraptured with her now as he was that day he stole her from Ceolfraed's hall. Everything about her was beautiful. Her blue-green eyes, her soft pink lips, her long mane of russet hair. Everything. Still, he wanted her. Still, he yearned to seize her, run away with her, and kill anyone in his path who dared stop him, by arms or guile.

But he had no right.

This was the last he would ever see of Brynna. The last moment. And he did not wish to sully it with his darkness. He wanted his darkness to end – and end it would. And so, Wulfhere rose to his feet. He looked to the hills around him, swallowed another breath of cool mountain air and released it. Time to go. Time to die. "Which way is Mercia?"

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

Epilogue

The Traitor – The Dove – The Noose

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

[By a burh-gate-seat in the Land of the English, sometime in 1063]

Ethelwald was a simple boy, much like his father (or so his mother like to say). He liked to fish because fish was his favourite thing to eat, and he liked to fight sticks because one day he wished to wield a sword. As a pup it was the greatest fun to sneak out of the burh at night and run into the forest with his friends Wulfgeat and Adulf and make the woodland their battlefield. They took some old thatch, a bit of brushwood, and gathered some stray rocks with which they built a little `burh' together. The game was simple. One of them would be the cyning, the other two would be the eorls. And it was the eorl's job to take the burh and become the new cyning. Once they drew straws to decide who would be cyning, the three would separate for some time, then come back to wage the war. Sometimes Adulf would be cyning, and Ethelwald and Wulfgeat would attack the burh together to throw him out, then fight each other for it. Other times Ethelwald would be cyning, and he'd have to fight off first Adulf then Wulfgeat to secure his lands. But no matter what happened they always had fun.

But the good days never last.

Ethelwald was a bit older now. A bit stockier, a bit muscly. Two winters had already come and gone since he swore his oath to the cyning, and life was much changed. Wulfgeat liked girls more than he liked fighting sticks (especially since his voice changed) and poor Adulf was dead and gone nearly three years now, snapped his ankle in the river and drowned. No more games after that.

Besides, Ethelwald had work to do.

His father, Bretel, died just last year. Most of his tithing was called out to the forest to fetch a traitor from the thegn's hall, but a fire broke out and no one returned alive. Life was hard ever since. Ethelwald had to become his own father. He traded his sticks for a hoe and reaping hook. His father owned a hide of land that was his now, and he started to work it; he and his mother both (since they had no slave to help them). Not that his mother was much help, mind. She had had a vicious cough since last winter and lost her breath very easily. Recently she'd been coughing blood. The local healer woman said that that cough would take her soon, which suited Ethelwald because it was one less mouth to feed, but it did make him sad to think on it.

But Ethelwald hated farming. He hated the sowing, the ploughing, the reaping, all of it. It was boring. He wanted to fight. And so when his mother eventually did die (sometime after Candlemas) Ethelwald a schemed a device – to buy a sword, go to his thegn, offer his services, become a guardsman, and use his pay to buy some slaves to work his land for him. Simple! Problem was he didn't have enough coin for a sword. So? He decided to steal one. It didn't seem like a bad plot at the time. Hadn't he stolen `swords' from Wulfgeat and Adulf to win their old games? This weren't to be much different, surely? And these days there were lots of men returning home from the Godwinesons' war with the Wealh. Some had lost eyes, some arms, some legs. Lame folk weren't much trouble to rob. It was just a matter of finding the right man to rob. Someone on his own. Someone he could scare into keeping his mouth shut.

(`Yes,') thought Ethelwald, (`it be a good plan'.)

And he found his mark one day, wandering by his hide: a broken wretch of a man stumbling down the dirt path in worn out leathers. He looked drunk. Dark circles surrounded his tired eyes, his face was sunken and gaunt, with an unkempt brown beard straggling down to the chest of his rusted old byrnie. He wore a helm, but it was dirty and dented, and his moth-eaten cloak dragging its way through the dust behind him. He was a wreck.

But he had a sword.

A good-looking one, too. Probably Norman.

And, grinning, Ethelwald took his chance. There was a nice thick branch he'd found and kept the last time he went foraging through the forest. He went inside to fetch it, then ran around the trees east of his land to hide in the bushes alongside the dirt road just thirty paces ahead of the wanderer. Ethelwald kept still. He kept focused (just like his games with Wulfgeat and Adulf!) and then when the shambling, haggardly warrior came within striking distance of him, the boy launched out the bushes, branch outstretched to hammer the earg where he stood.

But it was bit a blur after that.

Ethelwald heard himself scream, felt his cheek burst open and burn like a salted wound, and then the world went upside down as he tasted dirt. He wheezed and panted, too stunned to think, until he heard the death-knell slurp of unsheathed steel, and the hobbling warrior's glinting sword came up underneath his throat.

Ethelwald cut a hland in his breeks.

"You," whispered the stranger in his ear, his rotted leather shoe fixed firmly upon the small of his back. "What is your name, boy?"

"M-m-my name? M-my name be Ethelwald, lord..."

The stranger chuckled, slightly. "I am not a lord, Ethelwald."

"Y-yes lord, s-sorry lord..."

"And what is your thegn's name?" Asked the stranger.

A tear fell from Ethelwald's eye into the dirt. Was he crying? He hadn't cried since Adulf died. "M-my thegn? M-m-my thegn's name be C-Ceolfraed, lord... he had a son borne to him just a few days ago, the whole burh be talkin' `bout it...!"

"And does Ceolfraed still make his home in Oxburh?"

The air stank of Ethelwald's hland. He was like a babe in arms. "Yes, lord...! T-t-the burh's none too far from here!"

"Well then, Ethelwald. I've been walking a very long time. I'm very tired, and I do not well recall these lands. Can you help me get to Oxburh? If you help me, I will forget your attempt to rob me. Well?"

"Y-yes lord, of course, lord!" Said he, and once the foot was removed from his back Ethelwald put the stranger's thin, skeletal arm around his shoulders and helped him walk the rest of the way. It was not far – the journey from Ethelwald's hide to Oxburh. And what a sight they must have made, him hobbling along with this weakened warrior, freshly returned from the fight with the Wealh...

As the sun hit its peak Ethelwald and the stranger finally found themselves approaching the burh-gate-seat of Oxburh. Local ceorls and their þeows gaped at their advance as their feet shuffled through the dry dust all the way up to the two mailed spear-bearers guarding the gate. They crossed their weapons.

"What is the meaning of this?" Barked one.

Ethelwald was weak and out of breath (for as skinny as the stranger was his clunking arms and armour made for a heavy companion), but he trembled at the sight of the guardsmen. (`I don't want no trouble with no spear-bearers!') thought he. But he was too scared to act, he could only watch as the shrivelled swordsman took a trinket from the folds of his withered cloak and hurled it at the feet of the guards.

A golden torc, it was.

"Go to your lord," he said. "And tell him the traitor has returned."

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

It was a cellar. Dark and damp with not a blade of light to see by even in this the height of summer. And it was cold somehow. It was possible that meat was once kept in that pit to cool, and fate (or necessity) had called for a repurpose. It served its new devices well. Hungry rats screeched in their little hovels. Thousands of their little scitte littered the cold stone floor beneath Wulfhere's bare feet. That did not bother him, nor the smell of their hland, or even his own, soaking up the shorn scraps of fabric clinging to his legs. The chains were a heavier burden. They were Roman in origin (for Saxons did better with rope) rusted over but strong. Fetters held him by his bony ankles and his wrists. They were tight and painful, digging into his skin, but he did not begrudge them. He begrudged nothing. All was owed.

Sometime after his capture, though he knew not the days since, he heard footsteps beyond the barred door. A familiar baritone ordered a guard to open the door. The guard obeyed, and the wooden door creaked open. And in walked the King's Thegn, Lord Ceolfraed of Oxburh, with a blazing torch in hand. Light suddenly flooded into the cellar. Dozens of screeching rats bolted for their holes and cracks as a frowning Ceolfraed lit the sconces nestled in the walls and cast a cold glare at his newfound captive.

Wulfhere looked up at him. And by God, he looked as imperious then as he did that day they first met upon the Icknield, perhaps even more so. His fur-trimmed cloak fixed by a golden boar's head broach; his slave-polished byrnie and gilt bracers; his fur-rimmed boots and his gold-studded sword belt; his great longsword Heortgryre rattling against his meaty thigh. Ceolfraed looked as lordly as ever. And for slight moment, Wulfhere almost felt subject's pride to behold him. But he soon remembered where he was... and who he was looking at.

"The winter was not kind to you," said Ceolfraed. "Eh, Wulfhere?"

"...I have been to hell and back, lord."

"And how was it?"

The younger man smiled softly. "Surprisingly peaceful."

Ceolfraed scoffed.

"You've been found guilty," said he. It was the shire reeve's court he referred to. Lord Æthelwig came to Oxburh just for his crimes. Abandonment of one's lord, the theft of a slave, murder. His verdict was swift. Death by hanging. "And you said nothing in your defence. Why?"

Wulfhere's chains rattled as he shrugged. "Because I have none. I am guilty."

A low growl rumbled from the thegn's throat. "...Where is Braden?"

"Her name is Brynna," said the captive. "...and she is somewhere safe."

Ceolfraed's eyes flashed with rage in the low light. "That slave is MY PROPERTY! Where is he?!"

"...You still think of her, don't you? Even with your lovely new wife."

There was a gold ring for each one of Ceolfraed's fingers and Wulfhere felt each of them collide with his face in a single slap. A bloody tooth shot from his lips and rattled over the floor as the King's Thegn cradled his knuckles with his free hand, tossing the torch away. It rolled and squelched inside a rain puddle leaking down from a crack in the roof.

Wulfhere cut a bloody smile. "Brynna is a dove. You did not deserve her, and neither did I. May the dove fly free..."

Ceolfraed sneered. "...You call him `she' and `her'. You've been taken in by his lyblāc, just as I was. I pity you. But I will not mourn you. Tomorrow you will swing for all beneath God's grace to see."

The thegn yelled for the guards to re-open the door.

"...A deserved death I go to," spoke Wulfhere, head lulling. "As will you."

Ceolfraed paused. "...What did you say...?"

"...I said you're going to die, Ceolfraed. Three years from now, on a hill called Senlac, with a Norman lance in your belly. You, the Godwinesons, the huscarls, the fyrds. You're all going to die. Your lands will be seized, your son disinherited, and Cynewise shut up in a nunnery. Three short years from now... you'll know the truth of my words," Wulfhere smiled again. "...I saw it in the flames."

Ceolfraed smacked him again.

And that time, he broke Wulfhere's jaw. But he could not break Wulfhere's bloody smile. And as the guards beyond unbolted the door to release the thegn, that bloody smile followed him into his nightmares.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

A baying crowd had gathered in the centre of the burh where a sturdy palisade stood, driven deep into the earth by the strongest men of the shire. Ten feet high it loomed, and at its peak, a wooden beam extended out with a worn groove in its middle, and from there swung a noose. Wulfhere knew it well – for he was one of the men who helped put it there. The joke of that was not lost on the battered swordsman as he hobbled through the streets, his iron fetters replaced with rope. A quartet of spear-bearers escorted him down the dirt path from Oxburh's hall, but they were not there to protect him – merely to keep him from running away.

It was midday. Hundreds of angry townsfolk, men and women from both Oxburh and the surrounding villages gathered about the sandy footpaths and dog-ridden alleys all chanting, "RŌDEWYRÐE! RŌDEWYRÐE! RŌDEWYRÐE! RŌDEWYRÐE!"

They had come to see doom done. But doom was an odd thing. One man's `doom' could be another man's persecution. Was it doom that bade Christ bare his own cross to his destruction? Wulfhere, half-awake and half-dead, wondered about doom as the first bit of rotten fruit struck his face. Rotten eggs came next. And apples. And potatoes. And scitte, both human and dog. Only when some of that scitte hit a spear-bearer's arm did the guards shout for calm amongst the crowds. Their torrent of missiles abated. But the jeers did not. The insults did not.

"CRAVEN!" They yelled. "MURDERER!" Yelled others. Some accused him of stealing a þeow, some accused him of stealing a þeowen. Some accused him of sorcery. Some accused him of making children disappear. Some accused him of sodomy. Some accused him of making their livestock sick. And some of those accusations were true.

This did not feel like doom.

But it did feel like what he deserved.

Wulfhere's thoughts were of his mother, crying at the heavens whilst lashed at the stake, and of his father, left to rot on the rope. Ceolfraed's men brought him to his own rope, shouting for him to climb the wooden stool beneath the rig and whilst a hangman threaded the noose with his neck. Alongside that hangman stood a priest, the sour faced Redwig Father, who spoke his last rites in the Roman tongue with carefully practiced solemnity, "Accipe, carissime frater, viaticum corporis nostri Jesu Christi, quod te custodiat ab hoste maligno, protegat te, et perducat te ad vitam aeternam. Amen. Have you anything left to say, sinner?"

Wulfhere looked to his crowd of jeering onlookers. Once upon a time they cheered with joy as he and Ceolfraed returned home from the hunt with lovely, fat fawns swinging from their saddles. And now they jeered him. But so went the fate of life and worlds. Theirs would come to a crashing halt soon enough. Castles would be raised, land scorched, thegns would become ceorls and ceorls would become serfs, and the Land of the English would never be the same. If this was what he deserved, perhaps that was what they deserved too.

Doom.

"If the earth is finished with me..." slurred Wulfhere through his broken jaw. "Then let the hellfire take me. I am done."

Redwig frowned. "Very well. God rest you, heathen."

Wulfhere shut his eyes and waited for a moment that felt like a lifetime. As the world faded into a jeering black, the stool was kicked from his feet. There was a jerk, then a struggle, then a snap, and then the rope went taut.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

END

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

·       Thanks for reading, everybody! Hope you enjoyed it, to this day I still don't know why I wrote it, I suppose the concepts of `bædling' and `bæddel' fascinated me, and the Anglo-Saxon period of English history equally so. As before your comments and criticism are always welcome at stephenwormwood@mail.com, love to hear from you.

·       If you enjoyed this, please read some of my other stories on Nifty: Wulf's Blut (gay, fantasy/sci-fi), The Harrowing of Chelsea Rice (gay, fantasy/sci-fi), The Dying Cinders (gay, fantasy/sci-fi), The Dancer of Hafiz (gay, fantasy/sci-fi), The Cornishman (gay, historical), and A Small Soul Lost (gay, fantasy/sci-fi).

·       Please see below a few MORE terms I missed!

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

[Arawn]

King of the Welsh underworld in the first branch of the Mabinogi. He makes a brief appearance in chapter 3, alongside his hunting dogs, the Hounds of Annwn. The Welsh sentence he utters to Wulfhere before his departure ("Rwy'n dymuno lwc dda i chi, Sacsonaidd!") simply means "I wish you good luck, Saxon!"

[Cernunnos]

A Celtic deity associated with stags and serpents. Often depicted with antlers and holding a torc.

[Hounds of Annwn]

Known as `Cŵn Annwn' in Welsh. They are Arawn's hunting dogs, which feature in (and trigger) the events of the first branch of the Mabinogi, Pwyll Pendefig Dyfed/Pwyll, Prince of Dyfed.

[Irþlings]

An Old English term for a ploughman or farmer.

[Synnecge]

An Old English term meaning `mistress', seemingly as an epithet.

[Woden]

The Anglo-Saxon name for the Norse God Odin.