text: Aedwen awoke to the smell of woodsmoke and for an instant she was back in Briuuetone in the dark, the fire Maethild and Godgifu had lit in the handcart spouting flames and billowing clouds of thick smoke. She sat up quickly, staring about her in fear. Where was she? It was dark, but sufficient light washed in from the entrance of the cave that she could make out the details of her surroundings well enough.
  
  The walls and ceiling were too straight to be a cave. This was no natural cavern, gouged from the rock by aeons of rainfall and the flow of underground streams. The stone surrounding her was smooth, fashioned by man.
  
  She saw Dunston then, looking much less like a warrior of legend and more like the old greybeards who sat hunched over their hearths in the long winter months. He was leaning over a small fire, feeding the flames with twigs.
  
  Glancing over at her, he smiled. He looked tired, eyes dark-rimmed and skin wan.
  
  "Ah, you're awake at last," he said. "We have much to talk about. But first, you should eat and drink. It isn't much, but better than nothing." He nodded to where a handful of cowberries glistened on a large leaf.
  
  "How?" she asked, looking from the fire, to the berries, and finally to the trout Dunston was now skewering on a slender branch, which he had sharpened for the purpose.
  
  "The land provides much, if you know where to look," he replied, with a twisted smile. "Everything seems better with a fire, and some food in your belly. It will be even better once this fish is cooked." He positioned the fish over the smoking fire and sat back, looking at her through the haze of smoke. "Drink," he said, handing her the leather flask he had taken from Raegnold at Briuuetone.
  
  She unstopped it and sipped. It was water, with the faint tang of mead and leather. Aedwen suddenly realised how thirsty she was. She took several gulps of the cool liquid before handing the vessel back to Dunston.
  
  "Eat," he said, nudging the leaf with the cowberries towards her.
  
  She picked up a small red berry, nibbling it. It was good. Her stomach grumbled. The smell of the cooking fish made her mouth flood with saliva.
  
  After she had eaten a few of the berries and Dunston had done likewise, he wiped his beard with his hand and looked at her with those penetrating ice blue eyes of his.
  
  "First thing first," he said, "what happened to Odin?"
  
  She told him of how Hunfrith's man had attacked the dog. She blinked back the tears that threatened to fall as she spoke.
  
  Dunston sighed. Picking up a stick, he busied himself poking and prodding the fire. Not wishing to intrude on the man's grief, Aedwen looked down at the berries. They were the red of blood.
  
  After a time, Dunston looked up. His eyes shone in the firelight.
  
  "Now, why did you and Gytha see fit to rescue me from that barn?"
  
  Aedwen recounted the conversation she had had with the widow; about her father meeting with Hunfrith but the reeve not mentioning it to anyone. She told him that Gytha believed Rothulf had been murdered, that he had unearthed something that had led to his death. She described how they had worried at the possibilities, going around the different reasons for the reeve's secrecy, Rothulf's drowning and her father's murder until they had become convinced that Hunfrith was somehow involved and, if that were the case, Dunston would not be safe in his custody.
  
  Dunston turned the trout, holding the branch so that the other side of the fish would cook.
  
  "So you think Hunfrith ordered your father murdered? And that he might have killed Rothulf too?"
  
  "We don't know, but it seemed possible." Aedwen felt foolish, as if Dunston were judging her words and finding them wanting. It had all seemed so plausible in the black of night.
  
  Dunston stared into the flames for a long time, his eyes pinched, looking beyond the fire. At last he nodded.
  
  "I agree. It would make sense. But why? What did Rothulf and your father know? Even if the rumours Gytha spoke of are true, why kill for that? Bastards are as common as ticks on sheep."
  
  "I know not," Aedwen said. It always came back to this. What reason could Hunfrith have for killing the old reeve and her father? "Father was but a peddler."
  
  "Peddlers travel widely," said Dunston, his voice trailing off, perhaps lost in his thoughts. "Who did he trade with?" he asked after a pause. "Did you go to the houses of any ealdormen or thegns?"
  
  She shook her head.
  
  "No. We had only been on the road for a couple of weeks. Father had little idea of how to make money at the best of times. But he was a freeman and proud. And he had always wanted to travel." She wanted to say that she wished he had not been so proud. That he had been a fool to lead them north on dangerous roads with all of their goods on one small handcart. She longed to tell him of how she wished her mother had not died; that if she yet lived, her father would never have put his plan into practice and he would still be alive. But she said none of these things. Instead, she said, "He knew nobody of import. He was not important. A nobody." She felt ashamed at the words. Disloyal. He had been her nobody. Her voice cracked.
  
  "You say he had not always been a peddler?" Dunston asked.
  
  "No, until recently, he had worked the land."
  
  Dunston nodded.
  
  "An admirable labour. What changed?"
  
  "My mother. She died." Aedwen could hear the tremor in her voice as the memory of her mother's passing rushed back, the pain as raw and sudden as a scab ripped off a graze.
  
  Dunston turned the fish again, before adding a few fresh twigs to the small blaze. His firelit face did not give away his thoughts.
  
  "I can only think of two ways to find out what your father spoke of to Hunfrith," he said after a time. "One would be to go back to Briuuetone and ask Hunfrith, but I think we can agree, that is not where we wish to be headed right now."
  
  "And the other?"
  
  "When you lose something, the best way to find it is to go back over the ground you have covered. I say we travel the route you took with your father and we speak with those he traded with. Perhaps one of the people he spoke to will give us the information we need to unravel this riddle."
  
  Aedwen could think of no better suggestion.
  
  "And then what?" she asked, wondering what Dunston hoped to do if he got to the bottom of the mystery of her father's murder.
  
  Dunston squinted at her through the wafting smoke.
  
  "If we find out why your father was killed our way will be clear," he said.
  
  "Clear?"
  
  "Of course," he said, lifting the trout and examining it to ascertain whether it was cooked. "I would rather not live out the rest of my days as a wulfeshéafod. I say we find your father's killers, and bring them to justice."
  
  Aedwen stared at Dunston. Was he like her father? A dreamer. It was easy to have ideas, but quite another to see them through. She could see from the stern set of his jaw that he spoke in earnest. And this greybeard was not her father. She had seen Dunston fight, and he had brought them here to safety, finding food where they had none. No, Dunston was nothing like her father. And yet this was madness. How could an old man and a girl find the truth of all this? They scarcely knew where to start and they were outlaws, probably hunted even as they sat here in this cave. She looked about her again at the cut stone of the walls.
  
  "Where is this place?" she asked. "I thought it was a cave, but these walls are shaped by man, not God."
  
  Dunston busied himself with the fish that he had replaced over the fire.
  
  "We are safe here," he said. "We'll rest for the remainder of the day, then set off south once again at dusk. I do not wish to meet travellers on the roads."
  
  "But where are we?"
  
  "Do you trust me?" Dunston asked, looking her squarely in the eye.
  
  She thought for a moment. He was dour and irascible, but he was strong and honest, and she was certain he meant her no harm.
  
  "Yes," she answered at last.
  
  "Then trust me when I say we are safe."
  
  "Very well, I believe you. But what is this place, if not a cavern?"
  
  Dunston let out a long breath.
  
  "It is a barrow."
  
  "A barrow…" she repeated, the word not making sense for a moment. And then, cold claws of dread scratched down her spine and she sprang to her feet. "We cannot stay here any longer," she said in a hushed whisper, as if the sound of her voice might awaken the dead that slept deep within the crevices of the ancient burial chambers.
  
  "Hush, Aedwen," Dunston said, but she noted that he did not move to impede her should she wish to leave. "I assure you that we are safer here than we would be out in the open. The day is bright and if anyone should be looking for us, they would likely find us up here on the hills."
  
  "But the dead…" she stammered.
  
  "Are long gone and still resting. They mean us no harm and I have oft slept in these places. No harm has ever befallen me."
  
  Aedwen thought of his solitary existence, with only a dog for company, a dog that was quite probably dead. How he had been imprisoned by Hunfrith and was now a wolf-head, to be shunned by all men as outside the law.
  
  He raised an eyebrow, perhaps reading the thoughts on her face.
  
  "I have slept safely many times in barrows and the dead have never disturbed me. Now, sit, the trout is done."
  
  She sat down slowly, unable to hide the fear that had now gripped her. She peered into the dark depths of the barrow, but she could not penetrate the gloom. She imagined the corpses of long dead kings lying there, listening to the echoes of the voices of the living, feeling the warmth from the fire. Smelling with dried cadaverous nostrils the delicious aroma of the sizzling fish. Did they miss being in the world of the living? Would they come crawling out of their ancient tomb, reaching for her young flesh with their skeletal, grasping fingers?
  
  She shivered, and shifted her position so that she was closer to the fire and angled to be looking into the barrow and not towards the light. She would rather one of the tithing-men of Briuuetone found her than some nameless horror from the black interior of the barrow.
  
  Dunston did not speak, and if he noticed it, he ignored her trembling fear. He placed the fish on a slab of wood he had cut to act as a trencher. With deft actions, he used the seax he had taken to pull the fish's meat from the thin bones. He offered her a piece of the trout. It was soft and succulent and tasted earthy and wholesome. The warmth of the food seeped through her, even as her skin prickled, the hairs on her arms rising as if she were cold. She could not shake the feeling that the dead were watching them, lying in wait for them to let their guard down.
  
  "Are we truly safe here?" she asked.
  
  "From the dead?" he asked.
  
  She nodded.
  
  "They will not disturb us," he said. "You know, the first time I stayed in one of these old burial mounds I was frightened too."
  
  "So why did you go inside?"
  
  "That is easy," he said with a shrug. "To remain outside would have meant my death. I had been caught in a terrible blizzard," he explained. "I was younger then, and less wise to the ways of the wild. I should have seen the signs in the sky, but by the time I realised the storm was going to catch me, it was too late to get home. Night was drawing in and the snow came down so thick I could barely see my hand in front of my face. I'd noticed one of the sacred mounds before the weather closed in, so I headed for it. They are dotted all over the land on the hills and the plains, but I'd never ventured into one before. I'd been too scared. But I knew enough about cold to know that if I stayed outside all night, I would not live to see the sunrise, so I swallowed my fear and I went inside."
  
  She watched him as she savoured the fish. He prodded the fire and the flames jumped and danced.
  
  "I trembled like a child," he said. He stared into the fire, lost to his memories. "As much from the fear of the ghosts that might inhabit the place as from the cold. And yet there was nothing for it. If I stayed outside, I would perish, so I entered the dark belly of the mound, praying all the while that the Lord would protect me."
  
  "What happened?"
  
  "Nothing." He laughed, looking up from the flames. "Eventually, I grew too tired to worry and I slept. When I awoke, the snow had stopped falling and it was day. The shelter of that barrow had saved my life and the dead did not seem to mind my intrusion." He scratched at his beard. "No evil befell me that night, but when I left, I made sure to place a silver penny in the barrow and I offered a prayer of thanks to the spirits of those who lived in this land long before you or I were born."
  
  "You prayed to the spirits? Is that not blasphemy?" she asked.
  
  "Maybe, but I don't think it does any harm to be respectful. Just in case. Whenever I've stayed in one of these old caves, I have always left a gift. And the spirits have never troubled me." He offered her a lopsided smile.
  
  Did the dead truly live on in some way, she wondered? Her mother had been dead for nearly a year, and sometimes she could almost sense her touch or hear her voice. And yet she knew that her body lay deep in the earth, wearing her favourite blue dress and the necklace her father had given her as her morgengifu. Aedwen had placed the pendant around her cold pale neck herself.
  
  "What will they do with my father?" she asked suddenly.
  
  Dunston handed her another slice of fish and pondered for a moment.
  
  "I daresay they will give him a Christian burial. They are good people in Briuuetone."
  
  Aedwen thought of Gytha and her girls, but just as quickly recalled Raegnold lashing out at Odin, and then attacking them as they fled from the barn. She was not so sure.
  
  "Godrum is a good man," said Dunston. "He will see to your father."
  
  Chewing the fish she prayed to the Blessed Virgin that Dunston was right. Her father had been foolhardy and unsuited to the life of a peddler. And he had never been a good farmer, his mind was always on something else, far off in some half-imagined fantasy of his. But despite his faults he was not a bad man and he deserved to be buried correctly. A sudden searing anger ripped through her. She was taken aback by the ferocity of the rage that engulfed her. Her father deserved a decent burial, but more than that, he had done nothing to deserve torture and death in a lonely forest glade.
  
  "I don't know how we can do it," she said, her voice trembling with the force of her emotion, "but you are right."
  
  Dunston returned her gaze, sombre and unblinking.
  
  "Right?"
  
  "We must retrace our steps and try to find the truth."
  
  Dunston's face was grim.
  
  "Whatever your father knew, someone thought it was worth killing for," he said.
  
  "Yes," Aedwen said, calm now that she had made up her mind, "and we must find out what that was and who his killers were. And then…" She faltered, unsure of the words she wanted to say.
  
  "And then?"
  
  Aedwen drew in a deep breath, conjuring up her father's guileless face in her mind's eye.
  
  "And then," she said, staring directly into Dunston's icy eyes, "we make the bastards pay."