A Moment in Time

'Your equal!' she persisted. She didn't know how much longer she could keep this up.

'Aye!' he half sobbed, and beneath him she returned his passion so that they moved in tandem, their bellies crushing at one another, their buttocks straining, their thighs slippery with their efforts.

Wynne felt the delicious remembered feelings of high passion beginning to catch at her. Releasing her grip on her self-control, she began to soar, following after the pleasure as it moved from plateau to plateau in search of perfect fulfillment. She could hear her own heart thumping wildly in her ears as the crisis neared for them both. Eadwine's handsome face was contorted with his raging desires and, as his passion burst, he howled a warrior's cry of victory, collapsing atop her.

Now Wynne could feel his own heart against hers. The sensation of his love juices flooding her was acute. She was but a moment behind him in ecstasy, sliding into a semiconscious state as satisfaction and delighted contentment overwhelmed her, rendering her weak with pleasure. For a long minute they lay together, and Wynne realized that she liked the weight of him upon her. There was something comforting about him; and even though this tumultuous coming together of theirs had occurred on the first anniversary of her marriage to Madoc of Powys, Wynne could feel nothing but happiness. Madoc was gone from her life as mysteriously as he had appeared in it; but in his place was a man who loved her.

She kissed the top of his head, and, looking up at her, he smiled. Wynne could not help but smile back, and in the many nights of passion that followed that first one, she came to realize that she loved him. Not with the same desperation or wild ardor as she loved Madoc, but with a quieter and deeper feeling. The autumn came and it was with joy that Wynne realized she was once again with child. Eadwine Aethelhard's child.

Her husband, for indeed she had grown to think of him as her husband, was delighted. Baldhere made wickedly bawdy remarks about his father's sexual prowess. The other women of the family were pleased for her, for it made Wynne truly one of them. Only Caddaric Aethelmaere was displeased and bitter.

'Are you certain she whelps your cub?' he demanded rudely of his father one October evening. 'These Welsh wenches are said to be loose in their ways. You spawned but two children with my mother. Why should this woman now be ripening with your seed? It could be the bastard of some stableman or cowherd, and you in your dotage, Father, preen and prance about the hall like some young stallion trumpeting an accomplishment of which you are probably not capable.'

Wynne, seated at her loom by the main fire pit, rose to her feet and moved to her husband's side. Her small hand snaked out to hit her stepson with a fierce blow. 'How dare you?' she said to him. 'How dare you insult your father so? And me as well? You do not have the right, Caddaric Aethelmaere. Your father, my husband, is more man at forty-three than you will ever be for all your women! Your mother, my God assoil her kind soul, was incapable of bearing children successfully after you and your brother were born. It happens sometimes with women. That is no reflection upon your father, who remained always faithful to her in her lifetime, else you should see familiar faces amongst the younger serfs.

'But she is dead now, and your father has taken me to be his wife. I am young, and I am fertile. I will give your father as many children as he will give me, Caddaric Aethelmaere! If you cannot keep a civil tongue in your head in future, then you may not come into our hall. I will not be insulted, nor will I allow your father to be,' Wynne finished, and then she returned to her loom.

'She is overproud, your Danish wife,' Caddaric Aethelmaere said, rubbing his cheek, amazed by the strength of her blow, which had come close to staggering him; but only, he reassured himself, because she had taken him by surprise. If he had her under him between his strong thighs, he would have had her screaming for mercy.

'Danish wife or no,' replied Eadwine, 'Wynne is my wife, and the child she carries my child, and the son she bore last spring mine by right of adoption.'

The term Danish wife that his son had used referred to the fact that their union had not yet been blessed by the clergy. It was a common practice in England among many Saxons for the men of wealth to have two or more wives at a single time if they so chose, despite the reality of the Christian religion which was now dominant in the land. The old ways died hard, and there were many reasons other than children for a man to take a wife. Powerful men married for wealth and more power, rich men for more riches; but there was always love to consider. The Danish wife was the woman a man took sometimes for the sake of love. A wife taken under canon law was usually wed for more practical purposes. The children of a Danish wife, or indeed any of a man's concubines, were considered as legitimate as the children of the wife a man wed only for the sake of power and gold. Concubines, however, had not the prestige and status of a wife or a Danish wife. A Danish wife was as respected and as honored as any other wife.

From that night on, Caddaric Aethelmaere kept a guard on his tongue where his father's marriage and his father's wife were concerned. It was not that he felt any less bitter, but Eadgyth Crookback warned him that he endangered his own inheritance with his loose tongue.

'You are now legally entitled to inherit Aelfdene Manor as your father's eldest son,' she warned him, 'but if you continue to offend Eadwine Aethelhard, it is his right to divide his lands amongst whomever he chooses, or even disinherit you entirely. He has already adopted Wynne's son, Arvel, and your stepmother will give your father a child in the spring. It could be another male child. You call your father old, but he is not. Once we women teased Wynne about her elderly husband, and she blushingly confided to us that he is a vigorous lover. He uses her each night, and sometimes more than once, my husband! He could get half-a-dozen children on her before he tires of passion, Caddaric! Continue to offend Wynne and your father and you could find yourself without a manor house and but five hides of land only when my father dies.'

So following his wife's advice, for Caddaric Aethelmaere had always respected Eadgyth Crookback's opinion, the thegn's eldest son ceased his attacks on Wynne and his father. The two men were at constant sword points, nonetheless, over the politics of the day. King Edward was more saint than ruler. The son of Emma of Normandy and Aethelred, called the 'Unready,' he had been raised in his mother's country and come to the throne only upon the death of two half brothers who numbered among his several predecessors. His wife was the daughter of the late Earl Godwin, also called Eadgyth; but the marriage was in name only, for Edward was a deeply religious man who would have entered a monastery had he not been prevented from it, being in the direct line of descent.

His celibacy, however, meant there would be no children of his union with Godwin's daughter. Edward had chosen as his heir his cousin, William the Bastard, duke of Normandy. Godwin did not approve the choice, but Godwin was now dead, and his son, Harold, took up where his father had left off. Edward was the last of Cedric's line. He would be the final king of the blood of Wessex. Royal blood did not run in Harold Godwinson's veins, and yet he aspired to Edward's throne once it became vacant.

Men like Caddaric Aethelmaere supported Harold. He was Saxon English, and the fact that royal blood did not run in his veins did not matter to them. Eadwine Aethelhard, on the other hand, believed that King Edward's choice must be honored. Besides, Eadwine had told Wynne, he did not believe that Harold could stem the tide of any invasion from the Viking north. William could. Harold would plunge England into one war or another, for men like Harold liked war. It was their business. William, on the other hand, preferred peace, although he was an excellent soldier. War cost a man his gold. Peace made a man more gold. So father and son argued back and forth nightly in a battle that neither could resolve.

Wynne enjoyed their disputes to a point, for she was learning all about English politics. She found it interesting, and wondered when Duke William claimed his inheritance someday whether he would be content to remain on the English side of Offa's Dyke, or whether he would come with his knights to invade Wales. Would Gwernach be in danger? Or St. Bride's? She often wondered how her family was getting on and hoped that one day Eadwine would