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. During 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.

In early Fall when the woods ran with game, Cedd would mount his best and boldest horse and ride out at dawn with his ceorls, their horses stamping, bits jingling, and return at dusk laughing and shouting with stag or boar to fill the firepit. The men would join together in the timber hall, and place at rest against the wall their iron-tipped, barbed spears. The torches in their iron stands would blaze out, casting their light upon the gold rings and silver bracelets and arm-rings the men wore, and the light glittered also from bronze cup to cup. The hall would fill with the smells of smoke and the singeing of meat, and the sounds of the spitting fat flying into the coals. My kinsman, his ceorls about him, would tell of the hunt just run, and of the hunt before, and of the hunt of many seasons past. And tho’ child as I was, I would sit blinking in the brilliant torch light and feel that the Gods had blest no place so much as this snug warm hall.

At other times Cedd would lift me up upon his saddle, and we would ride out to the trackway that bordered his lands, and skirt the grove and river marshes that made up the boundaries. These were my favourite times, sitting before him, gladsome and proud; his thick strong arm about me. Beyond his lands lay the village, and so came my first memory of it, seeing from over the horse’s mane the round huts of willow wattle and daub with their bushy thatch.

In the village centre stood the stone preaching cross where the Prior spoke to the villagers. The cross was old, older than Cedd’s memory, and had on both sides figures carved in the runes of our people. One side told stories of the Holy Book, of which I was yet ignorant. The other bore a tale of the hero Weland, weapon-smith of the Gods, which I knew well. Cedd would stop and point out the marks to me, and tell me again the tale of the great warrior, and in this way did I first learn the runes.

Beyond the village lay the Priory of the Black Monks, as we called the raven-clothed Benedictines. Sometimes on our ride we would come across the Prior himself. Cedd would call out to him, laughing, and in reply the grave thin-lipped Prior would turn and look up. He would sometimes speak to Cedd, gesturing to me as he did, but my father’s brother would only laugh the more and turn our horse and trot off.

But the time came when Cedd did not ride out to hunt, and stayed in his hall. He walked about but little, and grasped at his chest and throat in pain. Came the day when he did not rise from his pallet, and his ceorls went to him and did not leave. For two days the hall was filled with his groans, and I was kept away. All grew quiet, and at noon I was at last brought to him. Tho’ it was high Summer, the firepit was bright with flame, for the ceorls had brought Cedd’s pallet before it, that he might be kept warm. There I looked upon the face of my kinsman for the last time. His breath came in gasping sighs, and his staring eyes looked far beyond the hall. His brow was damp, and his hand when I touched it, cold. Thus we sat, the ceorls and a serving woman and I, until the room grew still of Cedd’s breathing; and as the dusk came on, the life left him. I was led away, dry-eyed but hollow within.

Then it was night, but there was no sleep in the house, for all through the dark hours I heard the voices of the ceorls and the movement of the serving people. At dawn the ceorls rode out to the grove, and cleared the heart of it of trees, and with the help of the cottars rolled stones the size of sheep into a circle. Within this circle they laid a mass of charcoal, and then cut boughs from every tree which grew in the grove, save lady willow; from oak, beech, elder, and apple was the needfire built.

Then at dusk a wain was driven, pulled by a horse and carrying the body of Cedd. And the ceorls came after it, bearing torches which they thrust into the ground to make a circle of light against the darkening sky. They carried off the body of Cedd from the wain, and as they lifted the pallet I saw my kinsman wore his ring shirt and fine helmet, and that across his chest was placed his sword, for he had no son to wield it and learn its name and ways. The ceorls lay the pallet upon the pyre, and placed by my kinsman’s side his round shield of alder wood, and his iron-tipped ash spear. They placed also at his side bronze drinking cups. I stood watching this with the serving women, and behind us were the slaves that were Cedd’s, and beyond them the gathering cottars of the village.

The chiefest of the ceorls lit a new oil torch and turned to face the pyre, and held the torch uplifted in salute. Then did he walk about the needfire, thrusting the torch between the branches. Smoke came, and more smoke, and there was no sound save the sudden crying of a rook watching in an oak tree. I raised my head to his call, and then of an instant did the flames spring forth from the needfire, licking at the pallet in its hunger. The flames burnt with brilliant light against the Summer night sky, and the ash of the sacred fire mixed with the ash of the dead. Then the ceorls began to walk in circle around the pyre, chanting the praises of he who was dead, and they did not cease praising my kinsman until the ashes were cold with the dawn.

For a little time after that I lived alone at the hall with the serving people. Then the Prior made appeal to the King that my kinsman’s land, which was Folkland, and held in Cedd’s own right, should now be made Bookland and given to the Priory for its maintenance. And it was made so, and the ceorls went away, and the household dispersed, and the hall that was once bright with fire and the voices of men was turned into a granary for the Prior. And the Prior took me to live with him in that, my ninth Summer, and I was baptised.