Octavia Randolph · 1995 · overland

It is the year 871, and five of the seven kingdoms of Angle-land have fallen to the Danes. Ceridwen, fifteen and orphaned, rides out of her village on the Welsh border with a little silver and no plan; found half-frozen in the woods by the escort of Aelfwyn, a Saxon lord's daughter being carried north as the price of a peace, she is swept into the world of the conquerors at the captured fortress of Four Stones. When a blinded Saxon hostage is brought to the hall by night she defies both Saxon and Dane, steals him away, and rides the length of Angle-land to carry him home to Wessex.

1. 1
   Ceridwen's Village

   The village on the wild Welsh border beyond the river Dee, where Ceridwen has been raised at the priory and taught to read and write both Roman letters and runes. At fifteen she takes her small store of silver, mounts her horse and rides out alone into a snowbound winter to make her own life.

2. 2
   Four Stones

   Lost in the frozen woods, she is found by the warriors escorting Aelfwyn, sold in marriage to the Viking Yrling to buy a peace. Their road ends at Four Stones, the ruined stronghold the Danes hold in Lindisse, where Aelfwyn keeps her vow and Ceridwen learns to weigh each man on his own merits - among them Yrling's nephews Sidroc and Toki, as different as night and day, who both want her.

3. 3
   Kilton

   A midnight party of Danes brings a hostage to the hall: Gyric of Kilton, whose eyes have been burned out by Hingvar. Ceridwen steals him away and rides him down the length of Mercia and into Wessex, to his father's hall on the Somerset cliffs - carrying home a man she had never met until she saved him.