The coffin was carried to Aelfdene's little church and left before the altar, that the manor's serfs might pay their respects to their fallen master. The widow repaired to her chamber to wash and dress herself in clean clothing, as her garments were all bloodstained. Then Wynne returned to the church to keep a vigil before Eadwine's coffin until its burial later that afternoon. The candles flickered brightly in the little stone church as she knelt numbly by the coffin's side, barely aware of the weeping serfs and geburas who shuffled by in solemn procession.
"He must be in the ground before sunset," Caddaric said. "I'll not have him haunting Aelfdene."
"Eadwine may be dead, and you may bury him this day," Wynne said sharply, "but he still knows what is in your heart, Caddaric. It was the last thing he saw in your eyes before he died. Not sorrow or filial piety, but his son's unbridled lust for his wife. May your own death one day be even crueler."
All through the daylight hours of the December day the people of Aelfdene passed before Eadwine Aethelhard's coffin, viewing their lord a final time. When at last they had all gone, Gytha brought Arvel. Wynne arose from her kneeling position and, taking her son in her arms, showed him the dead man in his coffin.
"Da dead," Arvel said. "Gytha say." A tear rolled down his fat little cheek.
"Aye, my son. Da is dead and gone to heaven to be with our lord Jesus," Wynne replied. "We must pray for him." Then a tear slid down her cheek as well.
Arvel looked at his mother with Madoc's serious look, his face a miniature of his father's, and pronounced solemnly, "Ric is bad man. I no like! Want Da back, Mama!"
"Da cannot come back, Arvel," she patiently tried to explain, "and you must not anger the lord Caddaric in any way, my son. Da would not like it. Do you understand Mama?"
The little boy nodded his head, but Wynne could see that he did not easily comprehend the situation in which they now found themselves. Why should he? He was not quite three. She turned to Gytha.
"From this moment on, Gytha, you must keep an extra watch on Arvel. Do you understand me?" Wynne asked the girl.
"Aye, lady," Gytha replied. "I'll keep the wee laddie out of the new lord's way, never fear. We'll give him no excuse to claim displeasure of us."
They buried Eadwine Aethelhard before the early sunset came, lowering his plain wooden coffin into its grave, which had been dug next to the grave of his first wife, the lady Mildraed. Wynne had closed the coffin herself, bending over it first to give him a final kiss. His lips were cold and stiff now, totally unlike the warm and loving man she had known. Her quiet tears began to flow once again as she followed the coffin to its final resting place, watching as the rich dark dirt was shoveled over it.
"In olden times wives were sometimes buried alive with their husbands," Caddaric Aethelmaere remarked, to the horror of the others.
Wrapped in her grief, Wynne did not answer him; and when they had filled in the grave, she remained.
"Let her be!" Eadgyth hissed at her husband, whom she saw wanted to force the widow back to the hall.
"She will catch her death of cold," he protested. "I cannot have her doing herself a harm. You know I need her!"
"Wynne will do herself no hurt as long as she has Arvel and Averel to care for and love," Eadgyth told him wisely.
When Wynne finally did return to the hall, she was pale and obviously chilled. She did not stop by the fire pits to warm herself, but rather went directly to the Great Chamber, calling a house serf to follow after her. Several minutes later she reappeared, the servant in her wake, struggling with a heavy wooden chest.
"What are you doing?" Caddaric demanded.
"I am removing myself from the Great Chamber," Wynne told him. "It is now yours and Eadgyth's by right."
"You are to remain," he said.
"I will not," she told him obdurately, and turning to the servant, said, "Take my things to the pharmacea."
The servant stumbled off beneath the weight of the chest.
"You are to sleep in the Great Chamber," he repeated. "There is no room in the pharmacea for you, my sister, and her nursemaid."
"With your permission, my lord, your sister and Willa can remain in the Great Chamber. I, however, will not. I will sleep on a pallet in my pharmacea. I am the manor's healer, and it is my right to be there." She then turned, and walking across the hall, entered into the little chamber.
"She has not eaten all day nor last night either," Eadgyth fretted. "I will have Ealdraed take her a plate of food."
"If she would eat," he said coldly, "then let her come to the high board with the rest of us. She is my father's widow and has a place amongst us."
"Caddaric, I beg you," Eadgyth said gently, a pleading hand upon his arm, "let me coddle her this night only. Her grief is greater than you can imagine."
"Then you take the food to her," he said. "You must keep a strict eye upon her for me, Eadgyth, and see she remains in good health, for she will give me sons before the new year is out."
Eadgyth sadly shook her head at his words. Wynne was not like any woman that they had ever known. Neither she nor her husband's other women would have ever considered refusing Caddaric anything that he desired; but Wynne would. Eadgyth knew that the beautiful Welsh woman was probably correct in her assessment of Caddaric's sad condition. There would be no children, and when Caddaric tired of forcing himself on Wynne, what then? What would happen to her, for Eadgyth knew that being faced daily with this particular failure would be more than her husband could stand.
"God and His blessed Mother help us all," she whispered softly to herself.
In the days that followed, Eadgyth watched with growing distress as Caddaric's eyes followed Wynne whenever she came into his view. She had never seen her husband like this before, and neither had his other women. He was totally and completely obsessed by Wynne.
"What if she gives him a child?" Berangari posed the question that was in all their minds. "What will happen to us?"
"Wynne assures me that there will be no child," Eadgyth tried to reassure them. "She says that Caddaric's bout with the Swelling Sickness just before our marriage destroyed his seed."
"What if he falls in love with her in spite of it?" Dagian asked.
"Wynne despises him," little Aelf spoke up.
"Aye," Haesel agreed. "I think if it were not for her children, she would have killed herself upon the lord Eadwine's death; but she absolutely dotes upon her babies."
"He is obsessed with her no matter," Berangari said.
"We must help her until we can cure our husband of this sickness that eats at him," Eadgyth told them. "We owe her that courtesy. Wynne has never been unkind to any of us, even when lord Eadwine made her his wife. It is not her fault that Caddaric desires her. She has done nothing to encourage him. She would be content to live out her life as Eadwine's widow and the healer of Aelfdene manor, raising her children, in peace with us all."
"How can we help her, Eadgyth?" Berangari inquired.
"Let me speak to her," Eadgyth replied. "She will tell us what to do."
"He has given me the space of a single moon to mourn Eadwine," Wynne explained to Eadgyth. "Then he tells me I must come to his bed. That I will never do, Eadgyth!"
"But what will you do?"
Wynne shook her head. "I honestly do not know," she said, "but it is good to know I may rely upon you and the others in this time of my trouble."
Caddaric, however, was expecting his helpless victim to attempt to outwit him. With a cleverness she would not have believed him capable of, he waited until his women were in the bakehouse one winter's morning, exactly five weeks after his father's death. Wynne, preparing a remedy for a serf's aching head, was seized in her pharmacea and carried kicking and struggling to the Great Chamber. A gag had been stuffed into her mouth almost at once in order that her cries not be heard. Wynne was lain upon the bed that Eadwine had had made for her, her arms and legs pulled wide and fastened to the bedposts by means of hempen rope. There she was left.