Chapter 2 Cenric
Cenric
Cenric’s life was perfect.
He was alderman of Ombra like his father and grandfather before him. He had thanes and warriors who were loyal to him and had proven their loyalty in blood. His flocks and herds were flourishing, his fields were planted, and his longstanding rivalry with Olfirth was at last resolved.
Cenric had a beautiful, powerful wife who made him feel he could do anything. Since Brynn, all Ombra had begun to flourish. His estate ran smoother, and his people were healthier. Conflicts that had once seemed unavoidable had been mediated away.
Riding back to his longhouse with Brynn at his side, Cenric felt he could have fought any enemy, scaled any mountain. Their marriage had been unexpected, a falling of the sticks in the right places, but proof that destiny could be kind.
Their group rode into sight of the longhouse in late afternoon, as the sun was sinking toward the mountains.
As their horses crested the hill overlooking their home, all appeared as it should. The bleating of lambs echoed from the fields. Smoke curled lazily from the chimneys of houses and people milled here and there about their business.
“Cenric,” Brynn gasped, the alarm in her voice breaking the peace of the moment.
“What’s wrong?”
“Ships.” Brynn pointed.
Guin perched on the front of Brynn’s saddle, head cocked in the same direction. She sniffed at the air, her entire body rigid. She must be picking up Brynn’s tension.
Cenric squinted and sure enough, there were two ships pulled ashore along the riverbank. Two ships that had not been there before and couldn’t belong to any of his people.
“Valdari?” That was always Brynn’s first assumption. She still saw his mother’s people as enemies, not that he blamed her.
Cenric shook his head. “I can’t tell from this distance.”
Brynn glanced at Cenric. “I was promised a remote and isolated land, husband.”
“It’s not a raid.” Edric stood in the stirrups of his own horse, craning his neck to see. “The alarms haven’t been raised.” The small thane sounded almost disappointed.
Raiding season was about to be in full swing, but raiders would have come under cover of night. They didn’t usually drag their boat ashore in full view of the sun.
“Let’s see what this is about.” Cenric kicked his horse forward and onward to the longhouse, the main residence of his estate.
Brynn steered her horse closer to his, just enough that he noticed. She was protective, this wife of his. He did not feel he needed it, but he didn’t entirely mind it, either.
They drew up in the stable yard, the space between the front of the house and the entrance to the stables. Chickens scurried out of their path and dogs barked.
Friends! Snapper rushed to greet Ash, Thorn, and the other dogs.
Cenric home! The other dyrehunds chorused. Cenric! Brynn!
Stable boys rushed to meet them and take their horses.
Gannon, one of the younger boys, was the first to reach Cenric. “Valdari, lord!”
“Who leads them? Did they give a name?” He didn’t see the red sails of his cousin’s ship.
“Berdun, lord. He said he’s here to see you.” Gannon was breathless, as if he had been fighting to keep everything contained until now.
Brynn dismounted and set Guin down. The little dyrehund leapt to greet the other dogs. Brynn watched Cenric, waving for silence when several of the household girls clustered around her.
“Berdun?” Edric cast a look to Cenric. “Haven’t seen that old whoreson in years.”
Gaitha dismounted her own horse, leveling a hard look at her husband. “Friend of yours?”
“We know him,” Edric answered noncommittally. “He’s one of Ovrek’s men.”
At the name of the Valdari king, Brynn stepped to Cenric’s side. She squeezed his arm. “Cenric?”
He hated the worry in her voice. Cenric covered her hand with his. “If they were going to attack, they would have done it already. I’ll talk to Berdun and tell you why he’s here.”
Brynn’s fingers tightened and he thought she might argue, but she said, “Be safe.”
Cenric kissed her forehead. “I’ll tell you everything he says when I return.”
Brynn released his arm, though he knew anxiety still radiated through her.
Brynn was a strange creature. He had seen her keep her cool in battle and remain calm in the face of armed thanes.
She wore composure like a hauberk and serenity like a helm.
But her armor always cracked when she looked at him.
“I’ll be as safe with them as I was with Olfirth,” Cenric promised. He headed down toward the river. “Edric, with me.”
Brynn didn’t follow or protest further, but she remained in the stable yard, watching.
Thorn, the oldest dyrehund in Ombra, nosed at Brynn’s hand, drawing her attention down. He wagged his tail, his one remaining eye fixed on her. Like Olfirth, Thorn was another grizzled warrior with a soft spot for Brynn.
Cenric tried to quash the nagging sense of unease in the back of his mind, yet it lingered.
Shortly after gifts had come for no reason, one of Ovrek’s most trusted men came to visit. Cenric wouldn’t have been concerned if not for Brynn’s worrying these past days. She had predicted Ovrek wanted something, and she was rarely wrong.
Edric turned serious as they walked down the hill toward the village. “It looks like Lady Brynn was right.”
Cenric shot him a glare.
“Don’t look at me like that. Gaitha overhears things.”
“You and your wife gossip too much.”
“It’s not gossiping if it’s your wife,” Edric countered.
The longships drew closer. The newcomers rose at their approach. It appeared to be a small crew of less than twenty men across two ships. They were obviously Valdari from their thick woolen clothes and the rings in their beards.
Cenric! Snapper trotted after him, running in lazy circles. Friends? He cocked his head at the strange ships, tail wagging.
Ash and a few of the younger dogs followed, though the strangers seemed to be less novel for them. They must have already had time to investigate.
“Where is Berdun?” Cenric called, speaking Valdari
A man with a wide leather girdle around his waist stepped forward to meet them. He was thicker than the last time Cenric had seen him, but mostly the same.
Berdun took a moment, but then his eyes widened. “Cenric? I didn’t recognize you without your beard.”
Berdun probably meant nothing by it, but Cenric felt a twinge of something at the words. He wasn’t clean-shaven, few men this far north were, but he kept it trimmed after the style of Hylden. He used to have braids and rings, but it had made his Hyldish subjects uneasy.
“Alderman, yes?” Berdun bowed to Cenric, acknowledging his superior station.
Cenric reached out and clasped the other man’s forearm to show he was unarmed. “It’s good to see you, Berdun.”
“I still can’t believe you’re an alderman.” Berdun surveyed Cenric and the surrounding village as if this was a marvel worthy of legend.
“My brothers were courteous enough to die,” Cenric said drily.
Berdun chuckled at that, then glanced to the thane at Cenric’s side. “Edric? Not as skinny as you once were.”
“I have a lord who feeds me well.” Edric smiled tightly as he spoke the words in Valdari.
Ovrek had promised freedom to any thralls who turned against his enemies. Edric had taken him up on the offer.
Edric had been more skeleton than boy when Cenric had first met him. The Valdari who’d kept Edric as a thrall had thought to make him obey by starving him and when that hadn’t worked, had tried beatings.
Edric had laughed hysterically the day he’d stumbled into Ovrek’s camp, covered in blood and bruises.
They’d all thought him mad, especially when he’d brandished the head of his former master.
Edric had killed his master by using the gate of a sheep pen to trap him against the wall, then sawed through the man’s neck bit by bit with his own eating knife.
To hear Edric tell the story, his master had screamed and fought, but none of the other thralls had helped him—or Edric, for that matter.
When Ovrek’s army had taken his late master’s farm and Ovrek had offered him the chance to free the other thralls, Edric had declined.
He said they hadn’t helped him when he’d been starved and beaten, so why should Edric help them?
Those men and women had remained thralls.
“It’s good to see you, Berdun,” Cenric said. “But why are you here? I’m surprised Ovrek can spare you these days.”
Berdun exhaled. “Ovrek would invite you to visit him in Istra, to be his guest for the Althing.”
The Althing was the largest gathering of people in Valdar.
It was a time for disputes to be settled, justice prescribed, and laws decided.
Since most of the islands’ inhabitants were gathered in one place for a week or more, it was also peak trading season.
Whether it was walrus ivory from the farthest northern reaches, woven cloth, newly captured thralls, smoked reindeer, or precious stones from across the sea and beyond, one could trade for it at the Althing.
Raids increased in the weeks immediately before the Althing as men tried to acquire goods to trade.
Cenric’s great-grandfather had once been chosen as the Lawspeaker, a fact of pride in his mother’s family. His great-grandfather had memorized all eighty-six laws of Valdar in those days and had recited them annually for the gathered crowds.
Since Ovrek had taken over Valdar and declared his word as the only law, it had become more of an annual festival.
The Althing had always been held in a great cleared field around Istra and its harbor, so Istra was where the first king of Valdar had established his capital. It was the largest city in Valdar and had nearly one thousand residents when Cenric had seen it last.
“The Althing?” Edric balked at that.
Under different circumstances, Cenric might not have thought anything of this. He might even have been flattered, but Brynn’s warnings rippled across his mind.
Berdun must have misinterpreted Cenric’s silence. “For old times’ sake.”