The Circle of Ceridwen: Book One (excerpt from novel)

List of Characters

Ceridwen, daughter of a dead warlord of the Kingdom of Mercia, aged fifteen

Ælfwyn, a lady of Wessex residing in Lindisse, now controlled by the Danes

Yrling, a Dane

Toki, a Dane, nephew to Yrling

Sidroc, a Dane, nephew to Yrling

Gyric, son of Godwulf of Kilton in the Kingdom of Wessex

Cadmar, once a warrior of Wessex, now a monk

Godwin, Gyric’s older brother

Modwynn, Lady of Kilton, mother to Gyric and Godwin

Godwulf, Lord of Kilton, an ealdorman of Wessex, husband to Modwynn

Edgyth, wife to Godwin

Ælfred, King of Wessex

Preface

I was born in 856, a time when the Island of Britain was divided into many Kingdoms. As I was later taught, the very first people of Britain were the Old People, the small, dark-haired folk who survive in the wilds of Gwynedd and the lands North of Northumbria. Later came the raving, red-haired Lovers of Stones, who drove the Old People into the fastnesses they still occupy. Then came the many swift ships of Cæsar, and in the year 43 his warriors conquered much of Britain. The people of the Cæsars were great builders, and most learned, and for 400 years the folk of Britain prospered. Then my own people, the fair-haired and light-eyed Angles and Sax-ons, came from their marshy lands across the North Sea. My folk were fierce and war-like, and burnt the cities of the Cæsars. We lived instead off the rich Earth of Britain, for the forests ran with deer and pig, and the soil yielded up every good thing to our ploughs. We ruled almost all of Britain, and the greatest of our warriors became our Kings. But peace was rare, for these Kings fought always with each other.

Then, within our grandsire's memory, a new people began to visit our shores. They were seamen unlike any we had ever seen, and raiders so skilled they took whatever they wanted and fled

before our warriors could catch them.

These were the Danes.

The Circle of Ceridwen

Chapter the First: What I Saw and Lived

I was daughter to two men, but no woman claimed me as hers. My dead sire was an ealdorman, the chief of our shire. He had long fallen in a skirmish with the wild Welsh beyond our river Dee, and his stony lands taken by the same. I was thus alone when I was wee, and Cedd, brother of my father Cerd, took me. Cedd became ealdorman, for my father had no son, and his ceorls, his armed men, came and pledged to him, and he gave them rings and bracelets to seal their love. Cedd had also freeborn cottars and slaves to farm his land, as an ealdorman should. Cedd's wife had died in childbed with her firstborn, and he had not taken another wife. So he took me as his daughter to the hall of upright timber he had built as a young man, and I lived with him until my ninth Summer.

My mother was dead, said my kinsman; or nameless, said his serving-women; I heard both tales. Cedd became as father to me, and each night I sat at his left at the great oak table in his hall. My father's brother was tall, and in his arms was still much force and brawn, but he could no longer walk aright. Dur-ing the same skirmish where my father had been killed Cedd had been grievously wounded, and his knees still carried the scars of the spear-thrusts. In the damp Winter he would drink and drink again to dull their ache, and still throw down his cup and howl with rage at his Fate. At these times I was scarce, for he could not be comforted. But I did not fear him, for he was my kinsman, and good to me.