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Back to Empire on the HPe3000
... and ...
The Chief's private hall was crowded, filled with the base rumble
o angry giants. Across the passage the Great Hall itself resounded with
the noise and bustle of several dozen booming voices.
"Close that Door!" Nosnra commanded from his padded chair within
his hall, and a warrior leapt to obey.
The din inside the Great Hall surpassed that of the celebration
the night before. Huon's wife had begun a keening wail at the sight of her
dead husband, his son, only a few years short of a warriors age, sat with
his fathers sword across his bony knees and Huon's two young daughters hid
their faces, crying into their mothers skirt. Eadnoth's corpse lay upon
the high table, Nosnra had the bearers set it there by his command. Eadwig
sat nearby and held his brothers transparent bespelled hand between his
own. He made no sound, no movement but the steady rise and fall of his
vast chest, his head was bowed and his eyes were closed.
A clatter rang from across the hall. The Chiefs wife Estrith
summoned the Matron of the kitchen, an ancient giantess but one still
possessed of an indomitable spirit and wiry strength, and ordered
her to begin a second feast, but this one a celebration for the dead.
Ingigerd the old, such she had been called when Nosnra's father
Tofig hd been a babe. She had seen the sun rise upon this hilltop before
the Steading's first timber had been set. She was the eldest of the
kindred here, and perhaps eldest of all the halls and manors, huts and
hovels, eldest of all her kind that still breathed upon the Oerth.
Estrith, proud as her husband's father Tofig, blinked her eyes beneath
the stern gaze of the willful crone. Though she was mistress of the
Steading, second in power and will only to her husband, and some
would say that it was he who was not her equal but second to her forceful
will, here, among the pots and pans, among the firepits and scurrying
slaves, here she was overawed and outmatched.
Once, years ago, in a fit of temper, Estrith had struck the
insubordinate fossil, a cruel blow that might have felled a young warrior
or a small tree, but Ingigerd simply endured and shrugged away the pain.
Without a word she turned her back to the red-faced Chieftainess and
walked away. Estrith in a silent rage, shamefaced stood and suffered the
humliation of her ineffective wrath. The Matron had won and Estrith
proved the weaker of the two.
Now her orders were accepted but not obeyed, as if they were mere
suggestions and not commands. Ingigerd need only look to her underlings
and they would rush to their duties. Her dictates needed no shouts,
or threats of dire consequence, only a silent nod or gesture. Without
awareness Estrith sought to emulate Ingigerd's noble bearing, but her
unruly nature escaped her attempt at quiet dominance time and again.
The women of the steading left their places among the tables
of the Great Hall. Some gathered the young and lead them to a far corner,
others returned babes and toddlers to the relative safety of the creche
where each member of the clan was raised, mothers taking such care in
turn, many followed the Matron into the kitchen to prepare the feast
that would last till the mourning was done.
Estrith looked on in silence, arms folded across her ample bosom
and watched with unconscious envy the deference paid to this decrepit
chul, deference which rightly belonged to her alone.
* * *