The Edge of Light (Warrior Kings)

by Joan Wolf

  “Together we outnumbered them,” he said. “We should have fought.”

  Elswyth watched the long, nervous fingers of her future husband shredding his roll. Then she said, slowly and thoughtfully, “When you train a horse, you must never let him see that you are afraid of him. Once he sees that, once he understands that he has only to lay back his ears and you will give in, then he is out of your control. Nor will he grow easier to deal with as time goes on.” She raised her eyes to his face and found him staring at her. The white line was around his mouth again.

  “Exactly,” he said.

  “Alfred ...” said Ethelred on his other side, and he turned his head to answer his brother.

  As the feast progressed, Elswyth noticed, without remarking upon it, that Alfred ate scarcely anything. She was her usual hungry self and consumed at least three times as much food as he, who was so much larger than she. And he was obviously preoccupied. While the scop was singing, he fell into a deep reverie and she thought he scarcely knew where he was or who was beside him.

  “ ‘The gray gull wheeled about, greedy for slaughter; the candle of the sky grew dark,’ “ the scop sang, reciting the familiar Anglo-Saxon tale of the voyage of Saint Andrew to the land of Myrmidonia. “ ‘The terror of the tempest arose; the thanes grew afraid.’ “

  The terror of the tempest, thought Elswyth. That was what the Danes represented. And Burgred and the Mercian nobles had been afraid. Elswyth’s dark blue gaze went to the figure of her king, sitting safe and well-fed this night on his high seat in his torchlit hall. Burgred was a fool, she thought. The Danes would despise him no less than she did. They would take his geld and go away for the winter, but they would be back. They would be fools if they did not come back; and Elswyth doubted that the Danes were fools.

  For the first time the reality of the Danish threat was brought fully home to her. She had not felt it before, not even when her brothers and their men had marched away from Croxden to join the Mercian army at Tamworth. She had felt then, with serene assurance, that the armies of Mercia and Wessex would triumph in battle. Nor had she feared for her men. Elswyth herself was physically courageous. The thought of death did not frighten her, chiefly because she did not think of it.

  But the thought of the Danes at Tamworth frightened her. They had taken Northumbria. If they took East Anglia, which was smaller by far than Northumbria, they would return to Mercia. And if they took Mercia, then they would turn to Wessex.

  We should have fought them at Nottingham, Elswyth thought,

  “ ‘God made the enemy weapons melt like wax in their hands,’ “ sang the scop. “ ‘The horrible foes could do no hurt by the strength of their swords.’ “

  But it would not happen that way, Elswyth thought, her eyes on Alfred’s finally quiet hands. In the song of Saint Andrew, the heathen world was conquered by prayer and by miracle. Prayer might be efficacious in the real world also, but it would take the deeds of men to conquer the Danes. A strong leader was the miracle England needed now. And that leader was not Burgred.

  Alfred’s hand stirred and moved to grasp his cup. He turned his head, found her watching him, and smiled.

  * * * *

  It was the month for sheep shearing and Ethelred sent his remaining shire thanes and ceorls home to Wessex, keeping in Mercia only his own king’s companions and the ealdormen and their hearthbands. Half of the thanes remained camped near Nottingham, but the ealdormen and the chief thanes of the king’s household came to Tamworth to see Alfred married.

  Ethelred, who was determined to see his younger brother wed with all possible honor, had sent to Canterbury for Archbishop Ceolnoth, and the wedding party was forced to wait for the archbishop’s arrival. Ethelswith prayed nightly that Ceolnoth’s journey would prosper. It was costing her a fortune to feed the King of Wessex and all his retinue. Each night in the great hall they consumed ten jars of honey, three hundred loaves of bread, twelve casks of Welsh ale, thirty of clear aler two oxen, ten geese, twenty hens, ten cheeses, a cask full of butter, five salmon, and a hundred eels. In order to supplement the food supply, she sent Burgred and his guests out hunting each day; but still the burden on her own stores was considerable.

  Of all the principals concerned, Alfred was the one whose mind was least on his wedding. The thought of the Danes in Nottingham weighed like lead on his spirit. He could not rid himself of the thought that Wessex and Mercia together had thrown away a golden opportunity when they had backed down from a fight.

  It bothered him also that for almost the first time in his life he was in disagreement with Ethelred. If Ethelred had asserted himself more forcefully, he could have won over the Mercians. Alfred was sure of it. And even if he could not . . . then should the West Saxons have taken the initiative. Enough Mercians would have followed to have made a difference.

  Too late now, he thought. And even the excitement of the hunt failed to distract him from his preoccupation.

  * * * *

  Ceolnoth arrived in Tamworth two days before Alfred’s nineteenth birthday, and Ethelswith decided it would be lucky to wait the extra day and celebrate the marriage and the birthday together. Elswyth prayed fervently at the first Mass the bishop celebrated in Tamworth that she would last two more days without slaying her mother.

  “It numbs the mind to think that any human person could show such concern over crockery and linen,” she said to Alfred as they sat together at supper the evening of Ceolnoth’s arrival. “The marriage settlements and dowry were agreed over the winter. We each know what the other is getting. Surely that is all that matters.”

  Alfred laughed at her grim expression. “Women are ever thus,” he said. “And I suppose someone must be concerned with crockery and linen. You can be sure that I am not.”

  She looked at him. “I am not either.” She felt it was only fair to be perfectly honest. “I have ever believed in leaving that sort of thing to the serving maids.”

  “You would concern yourself if you needed to,” he answered carelessly.

  “I suppose so.” But she doubted it.

  “In truth, Elswyth”—and he sighed a little wearily—”I wish crockery and linen were all we had to worry about.”

  “I know.” She took a dish of chicken from the serving man and put it before Alfred. “There is your chicken,” she said. For the last few days she had gone to the Tamworth kitchen herself to make sure there would be a plain roasted chicken for Alfred at dinnertime; she had begun to worry about his lack of appetite. He could not afford to lose weight.

  He picked up a leg of the chicken, then turned to look at her. She had said nothing to him about food; the chicken had simply begun to appear at the table. “Thank you,” he said. “Spiced food does not agree with my stomach.”

  She gave him a faint smile. “The Tamworth cooks are strong with the spices,” she agreed. Then: “You don’t plan to tarry long in Mercia once we are wedded, do you, Alfred?”

  He began to eat the chicken. “No. The Danes are safe enough while the geld is still being collected. Why should they fight? They will profit handsomely enough without. We shall go to Wessex after we are married. There are things to be done at home.”

  “Good,” she said with heartfelt approval.

  He chuckled. “Poor little Elswyth. Two more days and you will be free from crockery and linen.”

  She was not hungry herself this evening, so she put down her knife and rested her cheek on her hand, turning her face to watch him eat. “I never thought I actually would be pleased to be getting married,” she said in wonder.

  His teeth were busy chewing but his eyes glinted with amusement. She went on, “I ever thought that leaving my home and my brothers would be the worst thing that could happen to me. But I scarcely saw my brothers all winter, and every time I took my horse out or flew my hawk or played with my dogs, there was my mother, scolding. It has been horrible!”

  He put down the chicken leg, which he had stripped to the bone, “I am glad you prefer me to yo
ur mother.”

  “I would prefer Ivar the Boneless to my mother,” she answered gloomily.

  “I am flattered,” he said.

  “I did not mean that the way it sounded,” she assured him. Then, when he cocked a quizzical eyebrow: “You know what I mean, Alfred. Don’t tease.”

  There was a little silence as he picked up the next piece of chicken. She watched with satisfaction as he took a bite. He glanced at her and said, “You are not eating, Elswyth. Would you like some of this chicken?”

  “No.” She shook her head. “That is for you.” She sighed. “Sitting within doors all day does not lead to a good appetite. You have been hunting.”

  He regarded her in silence for a minute. “Would you like to come hunting with me tomorrow?”

  Her face lit like a candle. “Could I?”

  “I don’t see why not.”

  Her lower lip jutted out. “My mother is why not. She will be sure to have some stupid thing for me to do to keep me from coming with you.”

  He smiled faintly. “In two days’ time you will be my wife,” he said. “I think that gives me some rights in the matter.”

  She smiled back at him, her dark blue eyes glowing. “Oh, Alfred, I should love to hunt tomorrow!”

  “Don’t fall off your horse,” he said. “I don’t want a lame bride on Wednesday.”

  Her chin rose. “I never fall off my horse.”

  “Then you must be the best rider in the world.”

  She said, perfectly seriously, “I believe I am.”

  He shouted with laughter. When he had caught his breath, he said, “I think you are going to be good for me, Elswyth.”

  “I will try to be,” she answered, utterly sober, as if she were making a solemn vow. “I like you, Alfred.”

  “I like you too.” He finished his chicken wing and put the bone down. He said, his voice comically apprehensive, “Now, to talk to your mother.”

  She smothered a laugh at his expression, then assumed a very innocent face as Alfred rose and went along the table to where Eadburgh was sitting. Elswyth had no doubt that he would prevail. He knew how to make people do what he wanted, she thought, She watched out of the corner of her eye as he began to talk to her mother. He gave Eadburgh his sudden quick smile, the one that changed his face from gravity to charming intimacy and back again to gravity so quickly that you were left a little breathless. Eadburgh beamed.

  I shall be hunting tomorrow, Elswyth thought with complacent satisfaction, and reached for a plate of spiced mutton. All of a sudden, she was hungry.

  * * * *

  The night before his wedding, Alfred and Ethelred sat up late together talking. The summer night was pleasantly warm, and the brothers were both comfortable in short-sleeved shirts without tunics. Neither of them felt the least desire to go to bed, and so they once again went over their plans. They had decided weeks before that after his marriage Alfred would return to Wessex, to begin to see to its defenses, whilst Ethelred would remain at Nottingham until Burgred’s Danegeld was collected and paid.

  It was quiet in the hall outside Ethelred’s room; the thanes who lay on the benches were all asleep. The soft murmur of voices from the king’s sleeping chamber was not loud enough to disturb a child, let alone an adult used to sleeping amidst a crowd of other men.

  “There is really very little we can do,” Alfred said at last. His thin hands moved restlessly and he added, “Except wait to see what will happen next.”

  “That is so,” Ethelred agreed, but not impatiently. Waiting agreed with his temperament far more than it agreed with Alfred’s. The king continued, his face placid, “There will be business from the shire courts to see to. You will do that for me, Alfred?”

  “Yes, of course.” Alfred had often deputized for his brother in the hearing of law cases that required higher judgment than the shire courts. In fact, “ALFRED, FILIUS REGIS” appeared almost as often on official documents as did “ETHELRED, REX.”

  “Well, I suppose we had better get some sleep,” Alfred said finally. “Tomorrow will be a long day.” He yawned, stretched, then stripped his shirt over his head, folded it, and went to put it on the clothes chest in the corner.

  Ethelred watched his brother finish undressing in silence. At last, when Alfred had sat down to take off his shoes, the king said softly, “For how long do you mean to delay the consummation of this marriage?”

  Alfred looked up in surprise, He answered, as he began to untie the headband from around his forehead, “I don’t know. Until Elswyth has grown up, I suppose.”

  “She is fourteen, Alfred. Full old enough to wed.”

  “She is a child,” Alfred said. He raked his fingers through the long hair that, released from confinement, had fallen forward across his temples. “I can wait.”

  It was then that Ethelred asked the question that had been on his mind ever since Alfred had told him of the promise he had made to Elswyth. “Alfred . . . what of Roswitha?”

  Alfred’s hand dropped. The long green headband dangled from his fingers and touched the rush-strewn floor. He looked up at Ethelred, his fair eyebrows raised. “What do you mean, what of Roswitha?”

  Ethelred chose his words with care. He knew his young brother’s reluctance to share his most private feelings, but he felt this must be said. “Once you are wed, it would be adultery to keep up with her. I don’t know if you have thought of that, Alfred. But it is so. And if you put aside Roswitha, and do not consummate your marriage to Elswyth . . . well . . . you are putting yourself into an awkward position, my brother. That is all I was thinking.”

  There was silence. It was dark in the corner where Alfred was sitting; Ethelred could not see his face clearly enough to read it. In the silence, and the shadows, it suddenly seemed to Ethelred as if the figure of Roswitha had come into the room.

  She was the widow of a thane from near Southampton, a thane with a small holding of five hides, and Alfred had met her two years before when he had been at Southampton on some business for Ethelred. Their liaison had scandalized no one. Alfred had been seventeen and she twenty. Neither was wedded. These things happened all the time, even in families as genuinely religious as the West Saxon royal family. Athelstan, their eldest brother, had been born out of a liaison their father, Ethelwulf, had contracted before his marriage to Ethelred’s and Alfred’s own mother, Osburgh.

  Ethelred had been neither surprised nor dismayed by Alfred’s taking a woman such as Roswitha as his mistress. Such a liaison would be easy enough to break when it came time for him to marry, Ethelred had thought. But Alfred had shown evidence of an attachment for Roswitha that was deeper than Ethelred considered wise. Every time during the last two years that Ethelred had brought up the possibility of marriage, Alfred had made an excuse. Reluctantly the king had been coming to the unhappy conclusion that his brother’s love for his mistress was what was standing in the way of his marrying. And Roswitha was not of high enough birth to be an appropriate wife for a prince.

  When, like a lightning bolt from the sky, Alfred had offered for Elswyth of Mercia, Ethelred had been delighted. The match was excellent; the girl was of noble blood and connected to the Mercian royal house. Then, but a few weeks before, Alfred had told Ethelred of his proposed delay in taking the girl to his bed.

  Ethelred did not like that at all. As he had just said to Alfred, he thought his brother was putting himself into an impossible position. He knew Alfred, knew how deeply religious was his spirit. Alfred would consider adultery a serious sin, and once he was married, the liaison with Roswitha would be adultery. There was no gainsaying that.

  But Alfred was also a healthy young male; a healthy young male who had been living with a woman for the last two years. He was not going to find continence either easy or pleasant.

  “I don’t think you have thought this whole thing through, Alfred,” Ethelred said again, gently. “You will be leaving yourself without either wife or mistress. And that you will not like.”

  There
was continued silence from the corner. Ethelred was almost certain that Alfred had not thought of this before. His brother’s mind had been too preoccupied with the Danes to consider the ramifications of such a marriage. Nor, evidently, had Roswitha said aught to him about the future. She was a clever girl. Ethelred had always thought so.

  Finally Alfred stirred. “Well,” he said, and his voice was deliberately light, “we shall see how things go. If Ivar the Boneless has aught to say, Ethelred, we shall both be too busy to worry about the women.”

  Ethelred deemed it best to let the subject drop. He had made his point. “True,” he answered, and began to untie the strings of his own shirt. “It will be best for you and me to get some sleep.”

  Alfred came across the room. “Let us pray,” he said, “that Burgred will not feel called upon to give a speech tomorrow.”

  Ethelred laughed, as he was meant to, finished undressing, and leaned over to blow out the candle.

  * * *

  Chapter 10

  The day of Alfred’s wedding dawned clear and warm. Alfred slept later than usual, then opened heavy eyes to find Ethelred standing over him. “Time to get up, my boy,” his brother said boisterously. “We must be at the church in an hour.”

  Alfred lay perfectly still for a minute. Then, when Ethelred had turned away, he moved his head cautiously on its pillow. There was an ominous ache in his neck and behind his ears that he did not like. He closed his eyes briefly.

  Please, God, he prayed, not today.

  There was the noise of men talking and moving around in the hall outside the sleeping-chamber door. Alfred sat up carefully. There was no real pain, as yet. Only an ache, a feeling of tenderness.

  Perhaps it would be all right, he thought. He had not had a headache in over four months. He rubbed his neck and prayed, once more, that he would not develop one today,

  Sinulf, Ethelred’s wardrobe thane, came into the room to assist the king to dress. The clothing both West Saxons were wearing for the wedding had been carefully chosen before ever they left Winchester, and as carefully packed for this moment. Alfred got out of bed, and while Ethelred dressed, he stuck his head into the bowl of water that had been laid out for washing. Then he splashed the water on his face and the back of his neck.