Amber Treasure, The Read Online Free

Firebrand, slaying his
foes: and a great longing to be like him came over me.

Chapter Three
    The Warrior’s Way
    Early on a cold
morning, a few days after Lilla’s visit, I was summoned to the path in front of
the Villa. Here a cart was being loaded with produce from the farm. Jars of
preserved fruit sealed with honey were stacked next to barrels of smoked meat.
Dried vegetables in pots were also added, along with sacks of flour milled on
the Villa. Two large cheeses and a good number of jars of beer completed the
collection.
     It was time to take the Feorm to
Lord Wallace in Market Wicstun. The Feorm was the due and payment Father made
to his superior lord. In turn, Wallace would pass on to the King a portion of
what came to him. The estates of the more senior nobles and that of the King
relied on this obligation. In exchange, the King and his lords offered security
and the protection of their swords against any enemies.
    Once the cart had been fully
loaded, Cuthwine backed our oxen between the shafts and our party gathered for
the journey. My father was going, as was my brother, along with two men from
the village. I would not be much use unloading the cart, but I think my father
felt that it was time for my education in our traditions to begin.
    It was half a day’s journey to
Wicstun – oxen are ponderous creatures and travel but slowly - and we reached
it when the sun was high overhead, warming us on this clear, but frosty,
morning.
    Wicstun had several score houses,
two alehouses along with a blacksmith and other workshops. Looking back it
seems funny to me - now that I have been to the great cities of Eoforwic,
Ceaster and Lunden - that Wicstun seemed such a huge place. Yet, back then, it
was with wide eyes that I stumbled along behind the cart.
    We stopped outside the largest
building in the town. This was the hall of Lord Wallace who was the most
important noble in the south of Deira, made even more influential with the
proximity of the temples and the royal estates at Godnundingham, just an hour
or two further away to the northeast.
    My father went inside and came
out with an older man with grey streaks in his beard. He was a little shorter
than my father, but somewhat larger in the belly. He walked over and patted me
on the head and then smiled.
    “So, this is Cerdic then, Cenred:
another fine son and a credit to you and Hrodwyn. Ah, I see you have a good Feorm
for me again this year. Even with the drought and those blasted locusts earlier
this summer, you have not failed me.”
    “We have good land and good men
to work it, my Lord,” my father replied.
    “Well, let’s get it inside then,”
Wallace shouted over his shoulder to his servants and then, quietly to my
father, he added, “the usual delivery for Eanfled, I take it?”
    My father glanced at me before
replying in a rather gruff voice, “As always, my Lord.”
    Wallace nodded and they passed me
to supervise the unloading of the cart, leaving me wondering what they were
talking about. Who was Eanfled?
    It did not take long to unload
the cart, but I noticed that they had left two sacks of provisions at the back
of it. When I pointed this out to Cuthwine, he told me not to mind them as they
were not part of the Feorm.
    “What are they for then?” I asked.
    “I said don’t mind them!” he
snapped back at me.
    Father then took us to the
blacksmith to order some nails and have some tools made that our own smithy
could not manage. The blacksmith was a bald-headed man with hugely muscular
arms, which strained and bulged as he hammered a rod of steel. He was making a
sword: alternately heating the metal in the forge, hammering it on the anvil
and plunging it into water, throwing up a cloud of steam and smoke.
    As my father entered, the man
nodded at him then put the sword and hammer down on the anvil. The two of them,
along with my older brother, went over to the corner to examine some nails. The
sword was still glowing and it drew me towards it as