London - Edward Rutherfurd [72]
Cerdic watched calmly. After the disaster of the Mass it had taken all his powers to persuade the furious bishop not to leave at once. Finally, however, deeming it best for his cause, Mellitus had agreed to delay his onward journey a few hours and to perform this important ceremony for these pagan youths.
“I dare say,” he remarked with a smile to his priests, “that we shall be called upon to baptize worse fellows than these before long.”
As Cerdic saw them emerge dripping from the water, he had another reason for quiet satisfaction. The rage he had thrown at his sons when they returned to the trading post had proved effective. He had reasserted his authority. Without another word about hunting, they had gone meekly to their baptism.
Only one person was absent from the scene.
Elfgiva had remained alone in the hall, silently weeping.
By the next day, everybody knew. A groom had been sent down into Kent with a message: the master wished to claim his new bride. The Lady Elfgiva was to be cast aside. Despite the long weeks of tension between master and mistress, the entire household reeled from the shock. Yet nobody dared say a word. Cerdic went about looking silent but grim. Elfgiva, tall and very pale, moved through the days with a stately dignity that no one liked to invade. Some wondered if she would stay there in defiance of Cerdic. Others thought she would return to East Anglia.
Yet for Elfgiva the most painful aspect of the business was not the rejection, or even the humiliation of her position. It was not what had happened, but what did not happen.
For as she waited for her sons to protect her, or at least to protest, there was only silence.
True, the three eldest came to her, each in turn. They commiserated: they suggested that perhaps, if she converted, there might be a reconciliation. But even this they said without conviction. “The fact is,” she murmured to herself, as she stood staring at the river one day, “they fear their father more than they love me. And I do believe they probably love hunting slightly more than they love their own mother.”
Except for Wistan. When he had come to talk to her, the sixteen-year-old had broken down with grief. He had been so upset with his father that she had had to urge him for her sake not to enrage Cerdic further by attacking him.
“But you can’t just accept this,” he protested.
“You don’t understand.”
“Well, I can’t,” he vowed, and would say no more.
Three days after this conversation, Cerdic, walking along the lane from Thorney, was not entirely surprised to see young Wistan standing in his path awaiting him.
Assuming a grim expression, the merchant walked towards him with scarcely a nod, expecting to freeze the boy into silence. But Wistan stood his ground and spoke firmly.
“Father, I must talk to you.”
“Well I don’t need to talk to you, so get out of the way.” It was said with the cold authority that made most men tremble, but bravely the boy moved to bar his path.
“It’s Mother,” he said. “You can’t treat her like this.”
Cerdic was a burly man. Not only that, he had force of character and all the tricks of authority. When he chose, he could be very frightening indeed. Now, he glowered at his son and fairly bellowed.
“That is a matter for us, not for you. Be quiet!”
“No, Father, I can’t.”
“You can and you will. Out of the way!” And using his far greater weight he knocked the boy aside and strode furiously down the lane, his eyes blazing with fury.
But that boy’s the best of the lot, he thought to himself secretly as he marched along.
It did not change his view about Elfgiva, however.
Four days after he had left, the groom Cerdic had sent to Kent returned with the reply from the girl’s father. Cerdic’s new bride would be delivered to him at Bocton, two weeks after the midwinter feast of Yule.
It had always been the habit of Cerdic and Elfgiva to return to the Bocton estate well before the great Saxon Yuletide celebrations, but on receiving this news, the merchant