When they reached the hall again, Wynne saw that Eadwine Aethelhard and his family were already seated at the high board. She stood silently at the opposite end of the hall waiting, and finally the thegn, an amused look in his eyes, called to her. "Come, Wynne, and sit by me. Baldhere, give up your place and move down that Wynne may sit next to me."

"You would seat a slave at our table, Father? Have you gone mad?" demanded Caddaric angrily of his parent, his eyes all the while undressing Wynne as she came toward them.

"It is my table, my son," Eadwine Aethelhard said quietly, "and, aye, I would seat Wynne by my side. She has found favor in my eyes."

"By spreading her legs for you?" Caddaric replied insultingly. "Any whore would do that for you, Father."

Before the thegn might answer his son, Wynne said sweetly, "If I had spread my legs for you, Caddaric Aethelmaere, would that have made it all quite different? In future you will speak to me with respect. I have done nothing to merit your disrespect. You will also speak to your father with respect, for he is the lord of Aelfdene, and a good lord." With a swish of her skirts she seated herself at the high board.

"What is happening here?" Caddaric's voice was tight with his inability to wield any authority. "This woman has been here but a day, and you not only seat her at our table, I have heard that you have given her a place of her own. This Welsh witch has ensorceled you, Father!"

The thegn's booming laughter rang out, filling the hall with his merriment. "Caddaric, Caddaric! Your fears are groundless. As I have previously said, I bought Wynne because for the first time in many years I was stirred by a woman's beauty and I felt desire. If that is bewitchment, then surely all men have succumbed to such bewitchment at one time or another. As for the place your gossips have told you that I gave her, it is the small storeroom at the end of the hall. Wynne is a healer, and this afternoon I saw evidence of her skill when she tended to an injured serf child. We have not had a healer at Aelfdene in many years. I am. grateful for her skill, which will be of value to the manor. A healer needs a place in which to have a pharmacea. Even you, my son, must understand that Wynne's skills may prove useless unless she can prepare and store her medicines, ointments, and lotions."

"I still think you set this slave above her station," grumbled Caddaric.

"And I think, my son, that you presume too much in my hall," his father replied with a warning tone. "Wynne is here because I wish her here. If you cannot treat her with respect, Caddaric, then you will no longer be welcome at my board."

For a time there was an uncomfortable silence. Aeldra Swanneck had a slightly disapproving twitch about her mouth, but she remained silent. Although she hoped that Aelfdene would one day belong to her infant son, Boc, she and Baldhere would eventually inherit her father's manor and leave here. For now this business with the new slave woman did not concern her. Eadgyth Crookback's eyes remained upon her plate, although she but picked at her food. Caddaric had been virtually unapproachable since yesterday when he had first seen the Welsh woman. He had been positively vicious with his four women last night in his frustration over losing the new slave to his father. Eadgyth had never seen him so filled with lust, and the knowledge that the object of his lust was now in his father's bed proved almost too much for him.

Eadgyth Crookback knew her husband well. He was a good warrior but a weak man. When they had wed, she knew that he took her only for her dowry of two and a half hides of land. Her father, no fool, had known his daughter's attraction was in her possessions. He had, in an effort to protect her further, promised that when he died, Eadgyth would inherit an additional two and a half hides of land. This bequest could only be effected if Eadgyth still lived. If she had predeceased him, then everything would go to his eldest son. With an additional two and a half hides of land, Caddaric Aethelmaere could attain the status of thegn in his own right. She knew how desperately he desired to be his own man. As her father was elderly, there was hope that Caddaric would attain his heart's desire sooner than he would inherit from his own father, who was in excellent health.

Eadgyth Crookback was by nature a sweet woman, but like her father, she was no fool. She had made her husband feel so comfortable with her that he had, to his own surprise, become her friend, and friends they remained even after ten years of marriage. Knowing her own physical weaknesses, she had encouraged him to take other women, even helping him to choose them, that her household not be unduly upset. As Caddaric gave her his respect and affection, so did his four lesser women, for it was impossible not to like Eadgyth Crookback. The Welsh girl, Wynne, had changed everything, however. She had never seen Caddaric so driven, and as she feared for him, so she feared for them all.

When the meal was finished, the women gathered about one of the fire pits gossiping, and Aeldra said to Wynne, "My daughter Willa has a cough. Can you give me something for her? If I cannot stop it, she will pass it on to her sisters, Beadu and Goda, and then the baby will get it. He is only six months old." She tried to keep the fear from her voice.

"Are there any cherry trees in the vicinity?" Wynne asked.

"Aye," replied Aeldra Swanneck. "Ealdraed can show you."

"Then I will be able to prepare something for your children, but it will take several days until it is at full strength and will do any good," Wynne told her. "Try and keep your daughter Willa from the others."

Aeldra nodded. "I will," she said.

"What about the lotion for my skin?" Berangari demanded.

"First I must set up my pharmacea," Wynne told her, "and gather all the ingredients that I will need. I have not half enough yet. Be patient," and she smiled at Berangari. "I will not forget you."

A pretty young girl with flaxen braids asked shyly, "Can you give me something so that my bowels will flow again? Between the child I carry and that, I am bloated and most uncomfortable.

Wynne looked at the girl. "What is your name?" she said.

"I am Denu, Baldhere Armstrong's lesser woman," came the reply.

"When is your child due?"

"In May, I believe," Denu answered.

"I can give you something," Wynne told her, thinking that Denu was already overlarge for a girl only a few months gone with child. Still, Denu looked healthy.

"I think it is a fortunate thing that you have come among us, Wynne," Eadgyth Crookback said quietly. "Not anyone can be a healer, I know. It is a rare and special talent."

"My mother and my grandmother taught me," Wynne told them. "My husband, Madoc, is a healer, and," she added wickedly, "a sorcerer of some renown. If I can find one amongst you who shows an ability toward the healing arts, I will teach her, that you are not without a healer when I leave.

The women about her looked distinctly uncomfortable at her words. The Welsh woman was a slave, and yet she neither behaved nor spoke like a slave. It was not unusual for captives who had been born free to become slaves. They had never heard of a slave, freeborn or otherwise, who would not accept his lot in life. The women of Aelfdene were so sheltered that it did not occur to them that such a fate could easily be theirs. They were basically simple women whose lives revolved entirely about their men and their home life. Having said what they wanted to say to Wynne, the wives and lesser women drifted nervously away into another part of the hall, leaving Wynne alone.

"You frighten them," Baldhere Armstrang said as he moved to her side. "You frighten them, and you intrigue both my father and my elder brother."

"And you?" Wynne replied. "I know I neither intrigue nor frighten you."

He smiled, and she thought he looked rather more like his father than did Caddaric. "Nay, I am neither intrigued nor frightened. I am fascinated. There is magic about you, lady. Who are you really?"

"There is no magic to me, Baldhere Armstrang, for if there was, I should not be here at this moment. I should be home at Raven's Rock with my husband."

"What is Raven's Rock?" he asked her. "Is it a manor like Aelfdene?"

"Raven's Rock is a castle. It sits upon the spine of a dark mountain between two valleys. It is the ancestral home of the princes of Powys-Wenwynwyn, who currently owe their fealty to Gruffydd ap Llywelyn, our king, who was my father's cousin," Wynne told him quietly. "Those princes of Powys are famed for their magic."

"If your husband is a man of magic, lady, then why has he not found you before now?" Baldhere Armstrang asked her most disconcertingly.

Before she might consider the answer to that question, Aeldra Swanneck was by her husband's side.

"I would return to our hall," she said sharply. "It is late, and I am tired." She did not deign to acknowledge Wynne now. The woman was a slave, whatever her manner, and besides, she did not need her at this moment. The elixir had been promised and that was enough.

"Good night, Baldhere Armstrang," Wynne told him, responding in kind, for she would not allow Aeldra Swanneck the upper hand. The woman had all the indications of being a bully, and Wynne did not intend to allow herself to be bullied by any of them. Turning away from the couple, she moved up the staircase to the privacy of the Great Chamber. There she found old Ealdraed awaiting her. "I want a bath," Wynne said.

"Are you mad?" Ealdraed replied. " Tis November, and it is night as well!"

"I am not used to being unwashed for so long a period of time," Wynne told her. "It is my custom to bathe almost every day. Since my abduction, I have only had one bath, in an icy stream."

"Foolishness! Foolishness!" grumbled Ealdraed.

"Have you a tub that could be brought up to this chamber?" Wynne persisted. "And I will need some hot water as well."

Ealdraed's brown eyes rolled in her head but, though she muttered balefully beneath her breath, she disappeared back down the staircase from the Great Chamber into the hall. Smiling to herself, Wynne began to look through the bolts of fabric that had been brought from Eadwine Aethelhard's storeroom that she might select some materials for her gowns. There were linens and silks and wools and brocatelles; all of good quality and in many colors. Eadwine Aethelhard obviously did not stint himself or his family.

Three additional gowns would be enough, she decided, to take her through the winter and into the spring, when her child would be born. Under tunics of yellow, red-orange, and deep green. Tunic dresses of indigo-blue, green-blue, and purple. All the under tunics and tunic dresses would be interchangeable with each other and with the gown she was now wearing. The under tunics would be silk; the purple and indigo-blue tunic dresses a soft, light wool; the green-blue tunic dress would be of an elegant brocatelle, upon which she would embroider gold thread and beads. Wynne also appropriated a small bolt of soft, natural-colored linen with which she could make her chemises and gowns for her newborn child.

Ealdraed returned grumbling, followed by several young boys, two of whom struggled beneath the bulky weight of a large oak tub; they were trailed by several others, each carrying steaming buckets of water.

"Well?" Ealdraed demanded irritably. "Where do you want it?"

"I think," Wynne said thoughtfully, "that we should set it down where it is to remain. There," she pointed, "in that corner."

"It's to remain?" Ealdraed sounded scandalized.

"Of course," Wynne replied calmly. "Why should the boys have to drag that awkward thing up the stairs each day when there is more than enough room here for it? Now only the water need be brought and afterward removed."

"Put it there!" Ealdraed snapped at the grinning lads. "Then dump yer buckets and get you gone!"

Wynne smiled sweetly at the old lady and said, "I have chosen the materials from which to make my gowns. We can begin tomorrow after I have returned from searching for herbs for my pharmacea. Have you brought me some soap?"

"Aye, I've brought you soap," Ealdraed said, and shooed the remaining boys down the stairs. "Noisy scamps," she groused.

Wynne swiftly removed her clothing and pinned up her braid, saying as she did, "This chemise is torn, for I took a strip from it to bandage the child's hand. I will use the material to make clothing for my son." She stepped into the tub and quickly seated herself. "Ahhhh!" she sighed gustily. "How good that warm water feels! Give me the soap and leave the toweling. I am capable of bathing myself."