The guards at the gates allowed them entry into the courtyard of the keep shortly after one of their numbers hurried thither into the keep ere he returned to inform the druid that he was indeed welcome in Rheged. The puzzlement which the young guard said this, amused not only the old man but the Caled, who could hardly keep from chortling nervously. He still had no wish to meet this Uhtric of Rheged.

  Leaving their horses in the packed stable, in the hands of two stable-hands who were left with stern orders to feed them and care for them as though, they were their masters’ finest steeds. Impressed by the size and strength of the horses, which rivalled those from Gallia neither youth said a word in response, beyond mumbled acquiescence.

  It was when they entered the large keep, to find the entrance near-empty, with the two having to search the mead-hall which was also empty. Hardly lit, it appeared more akin to a funerary hall than where an Ealdorman might feast.

  “What has happened to this place that it is so empty?” Wulfnoth wondered to himself.

  “Mayhaps, he has gone to one of his lesser estates or castles, one of those you told me had in such ample numbers.” Trygve proposed disliking the dark halls and hallways of this keep, more than he knew how to properly put into words.

  The gods themselves could not have built a more depressing place, he mused to himself thinking the place to be far scarier in design and nature, than even the astronomy-tree of the Elves.

  Pressing a single finger against the nearby wall, Wulfnoth was visibly distressed to find it come away with dust. The druid crossed the hall headed to the rear of it, seizing as he did so a nearby unlit torch, the brisk pace of the druid could leave none in any doubt to his poor mood. Whereupon Wulfnoth pressed the torch against the Lord’s Table, snapped together some flint taken from his belt, lighting at once the torch with a furious grimace on his face.

  Neither the guard who had acted as their escort, nor Trygve understood the reason for the fury at once. It was only, when the druid turned about to face them, his face purpling as he held up the torch to shed some light upon the banners that hung from the walls of the great sixteen meter long and twice as long in length hall that they understood. The banners were dark-red almost black, with the symbol of his house, the Rhegedian chimera-lion.

  That is to say the winged three-headed golden lion, which stood upon its hind-legs much as the Caledonian lion might have, roaring its defiance to whoever lay to the right of it. So that it faced and bellowed in the opposite direction of the lion-emblem of Caledonia.

  Trygve gasped at the sight of the moth-eaten ruined tapestries, of the great rose of the house of Rheged. What should have been the glory of the house was in fact the ultimate humiliation, given the poor condition that they were in.

  “What is this? Uhtric would never dishonour his house, in so base a fashion! Where has the rightful laird of Rheged gone?” Wulfnoth bellowed with such fury that he forgot not only himself, but the language in which he spoke.

  Trygve could tell he had made a mistake the moment, he heard the druid address the Brittian in the Caled-tongue of his own birth. Afraid as he was of the southron man, he still felt it something of an injustice not to let the man know what was being said to him. Yet to his surprise, the man had a vague understanding of the tongue, as there was a distinct lack of mystification in his eyes.

  He did not speak the tongue back yet there was no mistaking the comprehension and confidence with which he spoke to the druid. “The lord is herein the keep of his ancestors, though the question of dishonour is one I shall leave to you, brother.”

  Confused by this statement, Wulfnoth’s brow knitted together in consternation. A question hung upon his lips, but the guard had already moved to escort them from the hall, towards one of the stairs that lay at the opposite end of the hall from where Wulfnoth stood. By the left-hand wall, the stair case did not appear to be a large one, leading up then curving to the left side and then upwards, to a small landing that overlooked the mead-hall.

  It was a grand sight to be sure, though neither druid nor his traveling companion took the time to appreciate, the stony beauty of the mead-hall. Nor did their escort, for he appeared dead-set as they say, upon guiding them down the hallway that led to the balcony.

  Journeying thither into the great keep of Rheged, they were to turn soon to the right, whereupon they climbed up some more stairs leaving behind said balcony with four doors to each side of the hallway. The stairs led up to another hallway, this one had six doors to the left hand side and none to the right-hand one.

  By this time, weary of climbing steps due to his calves and feet that ached from far too many days spent galloping upon the road, Trygve wished to never see a single step again. His fondest wish in fact, at that moment was to see a bed.

  Doubtlessly the old man would only hassle him and demean him, for desiring a bed. Well that, and possibly a hot meal. As it was, he prayed that his stomach’s many growls and groans would not be heard by his friend.

  The guard though, did not escort them to a waiting dinner-table or a room wherein they could have rested peacefully until the morrow, but rather to a small dainty room. One that was remarkably less morose in spirit than what they had seen of the castle thus far.

  This place was the chamber of that most high-lady of Rheged, the Ealdorman’s wife, the lady Eadburg daughter of Alwin. The lady had in marked contrast to the rest of the castle decorated her chambers, with vivid pink drapes for the bed, along with a large deer-skin furnishing.

  The wall opposite the small room’s bed was decorated with a large tapestry, one of her grandfather the lord Ecgberht Sword-Hand of Tawnwood who had it was said, single-handedly resisted the Caleds when they invaded the lands of Rheged. The tale of Ecgberht’s exploits dated back to the reign of Mael-Martin I, the High-King who had succeeded Causantín II and who was his cousin’s son. Such was the respect that Ecgbhert won that day that he was given a sword by the Brittian king himself.

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  The tapestry depicted in colourful detail how the Caleds had invaded the land of the Brittians, driving all before them ruthlessly, until Ecgbhert himself rode out of his castle with but a few hundred men, only to strike down the High-King’s cousin Ringean, the laird of Gratnach. Notable for wearing the badge of the clan that ruled over Gratnach, the figure in question was formidably built with the emblem of the green-hart of Gratnach.

  Just as the laird stood out for the badge he wore, the figure of Ecgbhert was notable for wearing the badge upon his shoulder of Rheged, with his spear upraised as he hewed Gratnach through the throat with said weapon.

  The tapestry was remarkably well-sewn, Trygve felt fairly certain that Indulf and Daegan could have woven a finer one.

  As to the lady herself, she was a woman of some advanced years, and bore her many years with considerable dignity, plump though she was. Her blonde-hair was line with grey, her eyes dark and her face drawn with sorrow, so that she appeared in perpetual mourning. Dressed in the black of mourning with a fantastic gold necklace, armband, rings and earrings, she wore alongside her sorrow the trappings of wealth.

  Looking upon her, Trygve could only envy her, her wealth that which he had wished to possess the whole of his life, so that he could shower it upon Helga. It was as he looked upon her that, he realized how much wealth could not buy happiness.

  *****

  The lady greeted them well, and bade them sit with her, which they promptly did though with many a polite words in her directions. Smiling sadly at them she said to them, “Do indulge yourselves, I do hope you enjoy apples. We have those in plenty herein Rheged, along with peaches. All that we have is yours Brother Wulfnoth, I am so very, very glad to see you.”

  This statement appeared to be one that Wulfnoth was ill-prepared for barely masking his surprise he said to her, “I did not expect to find you so welcoming lady Eadburg. Not after all that has passed, betwixt you and I, last we met.”

  This remark did not fail to draw a short-lived laugh from her, “Aye, I was a most foolish young girl at that time.”

  “Not foolish, merely hurt,” Wulfnoth corrected her at once; speaking hastily ere he flushed red with embarrassment when again she laughed. “I only meant that, I understood why you were so rude and why you did not much like me.”

  “I had thought you quite the rogue, and was determined to dislike you for your friendship with my husband.” Eadburg murmured back, only to shake her head at the memory of herself thirty-five-years ago. “I shan’t believe how foolish I was I still think I ought to apologise for all that happened.”

  “I do not mean to be rude,” Trygve interrupted them, having not understood a single word that had passed between them, and frustrated by what he perceived to be their deliberate exclusion of him. Speaking in the sole language he could understand fully and entirely, he was to demand a full interpretation of their words, for which he was soon rewarded with a grimace from the druid.

  “Your manners, Trygve,” Wulfnoth hissed at him.

  “Oh there is no need to correct the lad,” Eadburg assured him genially, speaking the Caled tongue rather haltingly with a thick accent that, made the lyrical language sound rougher than it ought to have been.

  This was the first Trygve heard of a proper Brittian speak the tongue of the Caleds, and it was a strange thing to hear. To his mind it was an embarrassing sound. Lo, he thought to himself, a woman who sounds as though she could nary speak. He had never thought once upon a time to ever hear a woman sound rough in speech rather than lilting in her tone.

  Wulfnoth had spent so much time among the Caleds that he had lost his accent. To the contrary, he had developed a peculiar if musical accent to his Brittian, though this was a fact that Trygve remained ignorant of.

  “Oh very well,” Wulfnoth grumbled.

  Keen to avoid awkwardness, Trygve said politely to the old Earless, “Er, milady may I say that your Caled is quite impressive.”

  Pleased at his kindly words, Eadburg beamed at him in that manner that only old ladies could. Her grandmotherly warmth was the sort he was sadly a stranger to, having been far too young when his actual grandmother perished to properly remember her. Salmon’s wife Sìneag had passed shortly thereafter so that he had never come to know any elderly ladies. For that reason, at that moment he was filled with such warmth in return that, he would have gladly perished for her.

  Unaware of Trygve’s sudden metamorphosis, Wulfnoth encouraged the lady to carry on with her explanation of what had happened to Rheged. “Milady, if I may ask what has befallen your husband’s lands? What has become of Rheged’s buckler? Where is her greatest champion, who so long ago defended her from Caledonia, from Jorvik as from Norvech?”

  Trygve expected the lady to frown in response to these words.

  The lady though was not to do any such thing. In place of a frown, she bowed her head and began to weep brokenly. So fierce, so soul-shattering were the sobs that wracked the whole of her body, with her shoulders rising and falling continuously over the course of several minutes.

  Both men shifted in their chairs, discomfited for they had not foreseen that the innocuous query might shatter her so. Hardly a fragile woman, she had endured all that a woman could in her long years; she had endured betrayals, humiliations, the loss of a husband (ere her marriage to her current one) and the loss of children. Nary a tear, had been shed at those horrific losses, yet there she sat upon her chair, sobbing as brokenly as a child over the loss of a dog or beloved kitten.

  It was enough to make stone-hearts weep. Neither of the two men had stone-hearts and both of them offered her clumsy words of pity and sympathy, patting her hands and shoulders awkwardly, in a hasty attempt o sooth her woes.

  In time she recovered, though not without dabbing at her eyes with a bit of cloth she pulled from one of her long-sleeves, saying to them. “My apologies, you must think me a simple woman to react so, at such a question.”

  “Nonsense milady, such sentiments could not be farther from our thoughts,” Wulfnoth assured her, genuinely upset at her words.

  “Thank you, brother Wulfnoth, I do appreciate your geniality and goodness,” Eadburg said to him earnestly, “To answer your question, he has gone whither where all good men who go awry go.”

  “And where are the children? Where are Swiehun and Hallbj?rn?” Wulfnoth asked keen to change topics, when asked who they were by the youth to his right he explained hurriedly, “They are the sons of the Ealdorman.”

  At his question she burst into tears once more. Sobbing brokenly once more, so that neither man could wring out any further from her, she refused to be soothed. For which they passed more time comforting her, than they did much else, until it was decided that they ought to retire for the night.

  Neither of them spoke at all, as they were escorted by one of the servants to their chambers wherefore Wulfnoth was to mutter to him. They soon discovered that the rooms that were to be lent to them were small ones, with large beds with wooden frames, and wolf-fur drapes.

  “I shan’t explain it, Eadburg was once a fearsome bulldog of a woman,” He murmured stunned by how their meeting with the old matriarch had gone.

  Shrugging his shoulders helplessly, Trygve could no more explain it than he could explain why the rainclouds filled with rainwater, or why the gods did what they did. Tired from their journey, he simply muttered, “Mayhaps she has suffered such a blow that it is beyond our understanding?”

  It was with those words, they bade each other a good night and left for their respective chambers to sleep through the night.

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