Octavia Randolph · 2012 · sea

Ten years on Ceridwen is widowed, Gyric and their daughter carried off by fever, and she knows that when she comes back to Kilton she will be married off again to a man chosen for her. She sails for Lindisse to leave her son Ceric with Aelfwyn and Sidroc; riding back to the ship, she and Sidroc are seized by Idrisid slavers. The ship carries them out of Angle-land entirely - round the Skaw, through the Danish islands and into the Baltic proper, where a Danish drekar runs her down - and then east along the amber coast, until Sidroc, who has wanted her for twelve years, sees his chance to begin the world again.

1. 1
   Kilton

   Widowed at five-and-twenty, Ceridwen takes ship from Kilton with her son Ceric, bound for Lindisse. She knows what waits on her return: Kilton will marry her to a stranger, and she will lose the sea, the hall, and everyone in it.

2. 2
   Swanawic

   The ship works round the long Wessex coast and puts in at Swanawic, the anchorage where, four years before, a fleet of a hundred and twenty Danish ships was lost in a storm.

3. 3
   Four Stones

   Up the east coast and in by the Humber and the Trent to Four Stones, where Aelfwyn is Lady and Sidroc her husband. Ceridwen leaves Ceric with them. Riding back down to the ship with Sidroc, both are taken by Idrisid slavers, and Angle-land closes behind them for good.

4. 4
   Trading Post (Pomerani)

   The slaver ship rounds the horn of the Danish islands and is into the Baltic proper when a Danish drekar runs her down. Randolph's map marks two nameless trading posts on the southern shore; the western one stands in Pomerani at the Oder mouth, where the ninth-century emporium of Wolin lay behind its island.

5. 5
   Trading Post (Prus)

   The eastern post, on the lagoon in the land of the Prus - the amber market that King Aelfred's own Orosius names Truso, and that the voyager Wulfstan reached along this very coast. Each day carries them further from the loyalties and laws of home.

6. 6
   Gotland

   Landfall on the Baltic island of Gotland: farming, fishing and trade, and a place where they are free and unknown. Sidroc does not intend to go back. A stranger they pulled from the water stands between them, and in Angle-land they are already counted dead.