Page 63 of Tears of the Wolf
To Paega, his family’s graveyard had been a shrine to his worship of what was gone. It had been a place for him to wallow in grief until it had fermented into self-pity.
Cenric seemed to regard his family’s cairns the same as he did the forest or the mountains. They were a part of his history, but they did not bind him to it. To Cenric, the monuments seemedmore a way to bring his dead family into the present than a way to anchor him to the past.
Brynn and Cenric spent their evening walks talking for the most part. He told her of his days in the field, the state of various villages and farms around the shire, and his plans. The storehouses and palisades he wanted to build next summer, the land he wanted to clear to plant more barley.
Cenric asked Brynn about growing up as Eormenulf’s daughter, her sister, and her lost son. Cenric listened. It occurred to Brynn that Cenric showed more interest in her dead baby than Osbeorn’s father had the entire time the boy was alive.
Cenric kissed her often on those walks, making her head spin and her heart pound. But he never made advances anywhere else, not even when they were in bed.
A part of Brynn was grateful, another part of her wanted him to just take her and get it over with. A third, more confusing part of her, squalled in protest every time his kisses ended. That third part demanded to know if he would make love the way he kissed—like she was fire, and he desperately wished to burn.
But there were other things to occupy them both beyond her conflicted feelings.
Winter was fast approaching along with the festival of Blydmoth, when the young cattle and pigs would be slaughtered.
It was also the last chance for raiders to strike before winter.
Why not strike when your own fields and animals were harvested? When your neighbors had already gathered their grain into barns and their young animals into slaughter pens? When people came into the towns, easy pickings as thralls?
Brynn could do nothing about that, so she focused instead on what she could control. She tended the injured and sick. She treated agues, aches, and mended broken bones.
A week after her arrival, Cenric and his men headed to the fields for the day to cut barley. They left at first light and Brynnsent a barrel of water along with bread and cheese to the men near noon.
Now the sun drifted closer to the horizon and Brynn guessed that they should return in the next few hours. The longhouse was a flurry of activity as chickens were plucked for the evening meal, bread kneaded, and turnips, carrots, and leeks chopped and thrown into the pots.
Several of the dyrehunds waited hopefully for scraps, watching plaintively at the girls’ feet. Guin slumbered in a basket a safe distance from the fire, curled into a tiny ball of fur.
Brynn and the women of the village had spent the morning harvesting peas and collecting them into baskets. It was tiring, back-breaking work, but soon they would all be able to rest for a few months.
“Riders!” cried a youth’s voice, out of breath. “Riders approaching!” The boy burst into the longhouse.
“Riders from where?” demanded Gaitha, standing with a clutch of cabbages in her arms.
“I don’t know. But there must be fifty of them headed this way!”
“Gannon.” Brynn stepped up to the boy. He couldn’t be more than ten and had stayed behind to care for the animals kept in the stables. “How far are they?”
“Coming up the way, lady. From the direction of Olfirth’s lands.”
Cenric had mentioned Olfirth. He was a wealthy thane who had refused to swear allegiance to Cenric these past two years. He had not been outright hostile, but disrespectful.
“Perhaps it is a messenger.” Gaitha set down the cabbages and picked up a knife to begin chopping.
“No! They’re armed! Carrying spears and shields and everything!”
Brynn squeezed the boy’s shoulders. “Show me.”
Gannon raced back outside, only too happy to oblige. He led her straight back out the doors and across the small yard. Outside the longhouse, the shouts of alarm and surprise rippled up from the surrounding buildings.
Brynn followed Gannon around the corner of the stables.
“There, lady.”
Gannon had exaggerated when he’d said fifty. Brynn estimated twenty or so riders, but he had told the truth about the rest. The men rode stout, muscular horses and carried shields and spears. They trotted along the road leading toward the longhouse. They appeared to be Hyldish, but there was no reason for so many armed men to be heading this direction unannounced.
Brynn took in the sight, thinking quickly. In all her worry of foreign raiders, she hadn’t considered that perhaps she should have feared her own countrymen.
Twenty men. Armed men, but she didn’t see any archers. It wasn’t ideal, but it might be manageable.
