London - Edward Rutherfurd [60]
The estate that had been the home of Cerdic’s family for the last century and a half lay just below the crest of the great ridge. It consisted of a hamlet and, some way distant, a single thatched hall or farmhouse beside which were wooden outbuildings surrounding a courtyard. From these buildings the ground descended in a long, graciously wooded slope to the valley floor. This was the place known as Bocton.
The Bocton estate was extensive. There were fields, apple orchards, and productive oak woodlands. It also contained a quarry – unused since Roman times – of Kentish ragstone.
But the feature that made the place so outstanding, and which, whenever he saw it, caused Cerdic’s hard face to break into a mellow smile of deep satisfaction, was the view. For, gazing southwards from Bocton, one looked right across the huge, sweeping valley – that glorious, wooded landscape, some twenty miles across – known as the Weald of Kent. Bocton and the several estates along this long ridge shared this magnificent view, one of the finest in southern England. It was not just the house, but this huge, rich outlook over the Weald that was in his heart when Cerdic the Saxon said: “I’m home.”
But this time he had not come only to see the view. He had come to pay a visit to another estate, not far away, the following morning. The purpose of this visit he had told no one at all.
It was astonishing how quickly Offa and Ricola recovered from their ordeal. Like two puppies who had fallen into water and shaken themselves dry, the young couple had accepted their new situation and regained their spirits before they had even reached their new home.
“We won’t be slaves for long,” Offa assured his wife. “I’ll think of something.” And though Ricola was the more practical of the two, she quite believed him.
The day after their arrival Offa was sent to help the men, who were harvesting in the meadow. “You’ll work under my husband’s foreman and do whatever he tells you,” Elfgiva explained, although as her personal slave he would be at her disposal whenever she wanted him. As for Ricola, she was sent to help the women.
At the beginning the pair were too occupied to think of anything very much. All the same, Offa had time to observe, and what he saw pleased him. Unquestionably, the little trading post of Lundenwic was a delightful spot.
It was certainly not a place of great importance. The ford nearby was a useful place to cross the river, but it lay in a tribal no-man’s-land between the Saxon kingdoms of Kent and Essex, and had no other significance.
When the Saxons had finally made a small settlement there in the time of Cerdic’s father, they had ignored the great empty ruins of Londinium on the twin hills nearby; they had also, because it was rather marshy, avoided the ground by the island and ford upstream. Instead, they had chosen a pleasant spot, just halfway between the two, where the river curved and the northern bank sloped down some twenty feet to the water. Here they had built a single wharf. This landing place they now called Lundenwic: Lunden from the old Celtic and Roman name of the place, Londinos, and -wic, meaning in Anglo-Saxon “port” or, in this case, “trading post”.
Above the wooden jetty, a small group of buildings included a barn, a cattle pen, two storehouses and the homestead of Cerdic and his household, surrounded by a stout wattle fence. All these buildings, large or small, were single-storey and mostly rectangular. Their walls, made of post and plank, were