Conqueror by Stephen Baxter

Author:Stephen Baxter
Format: mobi, epub
Tags: 01 Fantasy
ISBN: 9781101006283
Publisher: PENGUIN group
Published: 2009-11-13T18:00:00+00:00

IX

Arngrim’s party lodged with a cheerful, huge-armed English woman called Gytha. A widow, she made a living collecting scrap metal, which she sold on to the smiths, or direct to dealers like Leofgar. They were to stay here while Leofgar made his inquiries about Aebbe.

Gytha’s house was only one room, with doors in all four walls and benches around the walls, and a big hearth of reused Roman stone. The roof was just beams and planks laid over the mud walls, with thatch piled on top to keep in the warmth. When Cynewulf looked out the back he saw an open cesspit, not yards from where he would be sleeping. Gytha kept geese, and the floor of the house was slick with their dung. Pigs came wandering in too, dark, skinny, long-legged little beasts.

A narrow staircase led down to a cellar where Gytha stored her ‘scrap metal’. Cynewulf made out slit-open chain-mail, crushed helmets and broken swords, much of it splashed by brown blood. He tried not to judge Gytha over her corpse-robbing. After eighty years of the Northmen England was littered with bones, and he would be wrong to condemn a woman alone for trying to make a living. It was disturbing to think, though, that these bloody weapons and bits of broken armour would likely be forged into devices devoted to yet more killing.

Cynewulf studied Ibn Zuhr as he poked around the house. ‘I have heard you talk of the need for cleanliness. How does this make you feel?’

‘The customs of this country, and yours, are not my concern.’

‘Speak freely, man. I want to know.’

Ibn Zuhr eyed him. ‘You eliminate body waste without modesty. You do not wash after eating or after sex. You are all so filthy that sleeping next to a cess pit hardly makes a difference.’ He smiled. ‘Otherwise your country is a delight.’

During that first night, as they all huddled in heaps of blankets around the dying fire, it become apparent that Leofgar’s relationship with Gytha was more than just commerce. Arngrim laughed in the dark, and offered his friend encouragement. ‘Keep it up, Leofgar, your pipe will be pumping any moment.’

Leofgar’s noisy ploughing made it impossible for Cynewulf to sleep. What made it worse yet was that the sounds and smells of their earthy passion worked their way into Cynewulf’s head, and he grew an erection so hard it seemed to suck the very essence out of his soul. At last he reached under his blanket and, whispering prayers for forgiveness, relieved himself with a couple of brisk motions. It was an act that brought no pleasure, only shame, and in the morning he felt sure the others knew what he had done - especially Arngrim, who grinned at him as if they shared a joke.

He felt the painful shame of those moments in the dark even more later that day, when Leofgar brought home Aebbe.

She stood in Gytha’s house - she refused to sit. She wore a grimy tunic that had been torn and crudely repaired.

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