The Last Light of the Sun (64 page)

In the same way, he thought, as the night outside began to turn (a ruffle of wind entering the room) towards morning and whatever it might bring—in the selfsame way
no man could ever hope to understand why losses came, heart’s grief, what was taken away.

Waiting for sunrise, lying alone as he had these long years, he remembered love and remembered her dying, and could see, in the eye of his mind, the grave overlooking the western sea behind his chapel and his home. You lived in the world, you tasted sorrow and joy, and it was the way of the Cyngael to be aware of both.

Another breeze, entering the room. Dawn wind. He would be going home soon. He would sit with her, and look out upon the sea. Morning was coming, the god’s return. Almost time to rise and go to prayer. The bed was very soft. Almost time, but the darkness not quite lifted, light still to come, he could linger a little with memory. It was necessary, it was allowed.

END IT
with the ending of a night.

I know not, I,

What the men together say,

How lovers, lovers die

And youth passes away.

Cannot understand

Love that mortal bears

For native, native land

—All lands are theirs.

Why at grave they grieve

For one voice and face,

And not, and not receive

Another in its place.

I, above the cone

Of the circling night

Flying, never have known

More or lesser light.

Sorrow it is they call

This cup: whence my lip,

Woe’s me, never in all

My endless days must sip.

—
C. S. LEWIS

L
aura, as always: calmly confident from the days when I was first charting the sea lanes of this journey, and remaining so when I cast off and shoals (and monsters) appeared that hadn’t been on the charts.

Charts can take one only so far in a novel, but in a work of this sort, drawing upon very specific periods and motifs of the past, it is folly to embark without them, and I have had the benefit of some exceptional cartographers (if I may be indulged in a continuing metaphor). There are too many to be named here, but some must surely be noted.

On the Vikings, I owe much to the elegant and stylish synthesis of Gwyn Jones, and to the work of Peter Sawyer, R. I. Page, Jenny Jochens, and Thomas A. Dubois. I have drawn upon many different commentaries on and translations of the Sagas, but my admiration for the epic renderings of Lee M. Hollander is very great.

Histories of the North are caught up in agendas today (as is so much of the past), and clear thinking and personal notes became a necessary aid. I am grateful to Paul Bibire for answers, suggestions, and steering me to sources. Kristen Pederson provided a score of articles and essays, principally on the role of women in the Viking world, and offered glosses on many of them. Max Vinner of the Viking Ship Museum at Roskilde kindly answered my questions.

For the Anglo-Saxons, I found Richard Abels invaluable on Alfred the Great. Peter Hunter Blair, Stephen Pollington (on leechcraft and warcraft), Michael Swanton’s version of the
Chronicles,
and the splendidly detailed work of Anne Hagen on Anglo-Saxon food and drink were variously and considerably of use. So were works written or edited by Richard Fletcher, Ronald Hutton, James Campbell, Simon Keynes, and Michael Lapidge, and the verse translations of Michael Alexander.

With respect to the Welsh, and the Celtic spirit more generally, I must mention Wendy Davies, John Davies, Alwyn and Brinley Rees, Charles Thomas, John T. Koch, Peter Beresford Ellis (on the role of women), the verse translations and notes of Joseph P. Clancy, and the classic, unruffled overview of Nora Chadwick. I am deeply grateful to Jeffrey Huntsman for permission to use his translation of the epigraph, and for generously sending me alternative variants and commentary. The poem that concludes the book is from
The Pilgrim’s Regress,
copyright C.S. Lewis Pte. Ltd., 1933, and is used here with their kind permission.

On a more personal level, I owe gratitude to Darren Nash, Tim Binding, Laura Anne Gilman, Jennifer Heddle, and Barbara Berson—a panoply of editors—for enthusiam en route and when I was done. Catherine Marjoribanks brings more wit and sensitivity to the role of copy editor than an author has a right to expect. My brother Rex is still the first and perhaps the most acute of my readers. Linda McKnight, Anthea Morton-Saner, and Nicole Winstanley remain friends as much as agents, greatly valued in both regards.

For many years, when asked where my website was, I would paraphrase Cato the Elder, the Roman statesman. “I would rather people asked,” I’d reply, “where Kay’s website is, than
why
Kay has a website.” Cato, famously,
said that about the absence of statues honouring him in Rome. A while ago the markedly intelligent and insistent Deborah Meghnagi persuaded me that it was time for a statue online (as it were), and I gave her permission to devise and launch
brightweavings.com
. I am deeply grateful for all she’s done (and continues to do) with that site, and I remain impressed and touched by the generous and witty community evolving there.