The village of Girdlestone hardly counted as a citadel. Consisting of the cluster of stone and timber buildings that Caelym and Annwr had seen from the opposite ridge, along with a few dozen cottages and farmsteads spread out along the valley floor, its usual population (depending on recent births and deaths) hovered around a hundred. This number more than tripled when it played host to the increasingly popular Girdle-stone Fair.
Living on a side spur off the only passible wagon road between Atheldom and Derthwald—and beyond Derthwald through the high mountain passes to the western coast—the inhabitants of Girdlestone were more used to strangers coming and going than most rural villagers. Far from objecting to the raucous mix of visitors that descended on their otherwise quiet hamlet, they’d come to depend on the brief but reliable economic boom afforded by the fair. They helped the traveling players unload their carts and set up their tents, put out their own wares to sell alongside the visiting vendors, and told anyone who asked that the best place to stay was at Ealfrid’s Inn at the east end of the village.
Annwr had been to fairs in Derthwald put on by much the same set of traveling players and felt sure that even as oddly assorted a group as theirs would not stand out in the crowd so long as Caelym contained his compulsion to show off. Busy with finding the right size tunics for the boys and bartering with vendors over what their goods were actually worth, she failed to notice when he suddenly turned down a different row of stalls and wandered off on his own.
As he made his way through the bustling crowd, Caelym nodded absently at the fairgoers who approached him, and recited random bits from Aleswina’s psalms as they dropped tribute into his bowl. As the coins mounted up, a new idea took shape in his mind. Well aware that Annwr had purposely not given him any of their hoard, because she had no trust in his ability to do the bartering for which she had so praised Aleswina, he now saw the opportunity to prove himself as capable of conducting business as any Saxon princess.
Casting around for something to buy that Annwr wouldn’t have thought of, he saw a stall nearby selling hunting and battle gear, from child-size toys to massive lances meant to bring down wild boars. Impressed by the rows of bows and arrows and the shelves of knives for flaying anything from a mouse to a bear, he ventured, for the first time in his life, to exchange money for things. With no clear notion of what the various coins in his bowl were worth, he simply held the bowl out to the arrow smith and pointed to what he wanted.
Among the varied but mostly good-humored fairgoers there were a few—either more intensely devout or more thoroughly gullible— who put together the mysterious monk’s otherworldly good looks and floating, graceful walk with his blithe indifference to the world around him and began to whisper that they were seeing an angel in disguise. As the rumor spread through the crowd, more and more of the faithful added their coins to Caelym’s plate and told him their names as they did, hoping to have someone to speak in their favor at the entrance to the Gates of Heaven when the time came.
Hlother, the arrow smith and armorer, was neither devout nor gullible, but he knew that most of his customers were one or the other, and he knew an opportunity when it looked him in the face. Ostentatiously adding a handful of coins to Caelym’s bowl, he took the well-made hunter’s bow and the two smaller boys’ training bows off the pegs that he’d pointed to, added extra arrows to the matching quivers, and commended the sainted brother on his choice in a voice loud enough to be heard a dozen stalls away. As Caelym strode off, Hlother turned back to deal with the throng of customers lining up to get the bows and arrows that were good enough for an angel.
Emboldened by his success, Caelym turned down another row, following the sound of flutes, and found a stall selling musical instruments. He walked away with a splendid little harp and a still fuller begging bowl.
Preoccupied with composing a saga of how he’d entered the enemy’s camp, deceived them all, and escaped unscathed with armloads of booty, Caelym did not at first notice that he’d acquired a bevy of wide-eyed admirers whispering to each other about miracles and visions. But as the prickling sense of being followed brought him back to the present, he started paying attention.
Much of the mumbling about seraphim and cherubim made no sense to him but when a voice broke through the rest, insisting, “Well, he’s no ordinary monk,” it was time to take evasive action. Turning back into the crowd, he darted first one way and then another through the confused, milling throng before ducking into a narrow alleyway between a line of sheds and animal pens. He emerged from the other end with his hood pulled down over his face and the bows, arrows, harp, and bowl of coins tucked under his cloak.
With Aleswina and the boys helping, Annwr had managed to find a place under a tree to stack their goods and supplies. As she heaped up her morning’s purchases, she decided they’d have to make arrangements for a room at the local inn where they could get packed up and organized away from the curious stares of passersby. Having that settled in her mind, she looked around to see where Caelym was just as he popped around a corner, grinning like Rhedwyn just returned from a successful cattle raid. Refusing to reward whatever foolish nonsense he’d been up to with any remark at all, she snapped at him to add his toys to the rest of their goods while she figured out what to do next.
“What about our toys?” Arddwn demanded.
The boys had, by any reasonable standard, been exceptionally good. They’d hardly whined at all about standing still to get their new clothes fitted, stayed where they were supposed to stay, and helped to carry things that didn’t seem nearly so exciting now that all the sounds and smells of the fair called to them from the other side of the stands. Annwr smiled at them and said, “You have been very good boys! You’ve helped me get all the things we need for our travels and you have not gone off and gotten lost or done anything foolish”—here she cast a sharp glance at Caelym—“so now you have earned your reward. Codric will go with you to the fun part of the fair. He will get you some treats to eat and take you to watch a puppet show and see the jugglers, and you may each pick out one toy, and if”—here she looked at the child-sized bows and arrows Caelym had under his arm—“it is not anything sharp or dangerous, Codric will buy it for you.”
“I will—” Caelym finally managed to say, getting exactly two words in edgewise before Annwr finished for him, “Brother Cuthbert will help me carry our new things to the inn, and we will take a room there so we can sleep in nice warm beds tonight. After he and I have arranged for our room and put our things away, we will come and find you and see the toy you have each chosen.”
After a final reminder for the boys to stay with “Codric” and not to speak to anyone else, Annwr handed Aleswina the coin pouch and waved them off.
By the time Caelym rejoined them, Annwr had managed to get everything except his satchel and a last basket of provisions stuffed into their new packs. She’d also gotten directions to the local inn, which she’d been assured was a clean place where you could count on getting beds with blankets that were washed two or even three times a year.
Of course Caelym had to argue, fussing that it was too dangerous to risk taking a room in a Saxon tavern and that they should be off into the hills before anyone started asking why an old woman, a young monk, and three boys, their clothes in tatters and with a single small bag between them, should have pouches of silver and gold sufficient to buy up half the goods on the market. This from a man who’d gone traipsing through the crowds dropping who knew what hints about his real identity!
Aware that their conversation was beginning to attract attention, Annwr gave Caelym a stifling look before saying in a voice loud enough to be overheard by anyone passing by, “I am a well-endowed widow taking my orphaned grandsons to live with kin on the western coast before retiring to a Celtic convent. We were traveling on a boat that sank, taking all of our baggage with it, save for the small satchel holding the last of my worldly possessions. As you, along with your serving boy, are on a mission from the bishop that takes you to the coast as well, you have in Christian goodness and charity agreed to see us safely to our destination!” After the loiterers had moved on to attend to their own business, she lowered her voice to a softer tone—as if she were calming a cranky child—and reassured him that the inn was run by a man of mixed parentage, as much a Briton as a Saxon.
“Splendid,” muttered Caelym. “He can betray us in two languages.”
“Only if we talk too much!”
With that, Annwr shouldered her own pack and collected the basket and the boys’ bags, leaving Caelym to grapple with the rest as she trudged up the roadway toward Ealfrid’s Inn.