The Edge of Light (Warrior Kings)

by Joan Wolf

  It felt better, he told himself firmly. It was going to be all right. Ethelred was dressed and Sinulf turned next to help Alfred. He submitted to being dressed in an immaculate new shirt and saffron-colored tunic, made for him by Ethelred’s wife, Cyneburg. Cyneburg was near term with her fifth child and so had not attempted the journey into Mercia, but her kind efforts had provided Alfred with a new shirt and embroidered tunic in honor of his wedding day.

  Once both king and prince were dressed, Ethelred’s personal chaplain came in to offer morning prayers. Then it was time to leave for the church, where, at ten o’clock, Alfred and Elswyth were to be married by Ceolnoth, Archbishop of Canterbury.

  The sun was very bright as Alfred crossed the courtyard toward the small wooden church where Elswyth awaited him. The ache had returned to the back of his neck and head. He held his head as still as possible and walked lightly, trying not to jar it. Ethelred said something to him, which he did not hear, but he smiled as if in agreement. Ethelred gave him a sharp look, and then they were at the door of the church.

  Elswyth wore a deep blue overgown and a creamy white undergown, and the bridal crown was set on her flowing hair. He had never seen her hair unbound before, Alfred thought, and for a moment he almost forgot the pain in his head as he admired the shining blue-black mass that cascaded sheer to her waist. It looked too heavy a weight for her small head and slim, fragile neck to bear. Elswyth’s eyes were a darker blue than her gown and she wore her haughtiest expression. He knew immediately that she was nervous. He smiled at her and said, “Courage!”

  Her firm little chin rose, as he had known it would. “You’re late,” she said, and, as always, the huskiness of her voice surprised him.

  “They were making me beautiful for you,” he answered, and at that she grinned.

  “They have succeeded,” she said, appraising him from the tips of his soft leather shoes to the top of his neatly combed golden hair.

  “You look nice too,” he said.

  She gave him a scornful look, but took the hand he was holding out. Her fingers were cold within his grasp and he closed his hand comfortingly to reassure her. Then they were walking up the aisle together, with the eyes of the whole church upon them.

  They knelt side by side in front of Ceolnoth, who was dressed in splendid cloth-of-gold vestments, and the nuptial Mass began.

  I will be all right as long as I don’t get sick. That was the thought that Alfred kept in mind as the Mass went on and on and the pain in his head grew stronger and stronger. It had moved from his neck into his forehead and he knew he was doomed to eight hours of it. He could manage, though, as long as his stomach did not betray him. He would have to.

  Thank God he did not have a wedding night to get through!

  He made his vows in a steady voice, and Elswyth did too.

  The archbishop gave a sermon that lasted nearly an hour.

  Finally, after what seemed to Alfred an eternity, it was over. He and Elswyth were man and wife. They returned back down the aisle, hand in hand, as they had entered, and walked out of the dim church into the bright sunlit courtyard.

  The light stabbed like daggers into his head and he stumbled. “Alfred ...” It was Elswyth’s voice, pitched low and close to his ear. “Are you all right?”

  “Yes, of course.” He could not see her very clearly, the sun was too bright. He narrowed his eyes like a cat, “The church was so much darker than the courtyard,” he said.

  “We have to go to the great hall for the wedding feast.” She had taken his hand once more.

  “Yes. I know.”

  There was a crowd of people around them. He looked for Ethelred and found his brother’s familiar blond head close by. He thought, with relief, that if he needed help, he could count on Ethelred. Ethelred would know what was wrong.

  Burgred insisted that Alfred and Elswyth sit together on the high seat. Alfred did not want to, but he could not refuse the honor. They sat down and the rest of the guests crowded into the hall.

  It was very hot. The pain had begun to throb in tune with the beating of his pulse,

  Burgred made a long speech; then the food was brought in.

  The heat and the smell of the food began to turn his stomach.

  “Alfred , . .”It was Elswyth’s voice. “You are too pale. Is it one of your headaches?”

  His stomach was churning now. There was no longer any hope of hiding it. “Yes. Elswyth ... get me Ethelred. Please,”

  He sat with his eyes closed, concentrating on keeping his stomach under control. I will not be sick in front of all these people.

  “Alfred.” It was his brother’s voice, thank God. “Is it your head?”

  “Yes. Ethelred, get me out of here.”

  “All right.” Ethelred’s arm was coming around his shoulders and he allowed himself to be drawn to his feet. “There’s a door behind us, we’ll use that.”

  He made it to the courtyard before he began to retch uncontrollably. There was little in his stomach, however, as he had fasted for Communion and had eaten nothing since the previous night. Finally the spasms let up. Ethelred wiped his face with a soft cloth and said, “I’ll carry you to the hall.”

  “No!” He drew a shallow, unsteady breath. “I’ll walk.”

  He was aware of nothing but the storm of pain in his head and the reassuring presence of his brother at his side as they walked the distance from the great hall to the guest hall where they were lodged. He heard his sister’s voice saying she would send for a doctor. He wanted to tell her that a doctor would do no good, but he could not make the effort. He was afraid to upset his stomach’s equilibrium.

  He had to get away from all those eyes.

  At last they reached the safety of the hall and he could close the door of the sleeping chamber behind him. A number of people came into the room with him, but he leaned his hands on the posts of the bed and stared straight ahead. Ethelred handed him a washbasin and said, “I’ll send for some cold cloths.”

  Alfred took the basin and was sick again.

  “The feast,” he said, when he could finally speak. “I shall be all right now, Ethelred. Go back to the feast.”

  “Certainly not,” his brother said firmly. “You are too ill to be left alone.”

  All he wanted was to be left alone. He did not want to have the entire day ruined, all of Ethelswith’s hospitality ruined, because of his headache. “Please,” he said.

  “The feast does not matter.” It was Ethelswith herself, opening the door to a monk who must be her doctor.

  “It does matter. ...”

  A drawling husky voice from by the clothes chest said, “I shall return to the great hall and see that the feast continues.”

  He sat down on the bed.

  “You will return to the feast alone?” Ethelswith sounded scandalized.

  “Alfred has a headache,” Elswyth said. “That is no reason for hundreds of people to go hungry.”

  He managed to say clearly, “Thank you, Elswyth.”

  “You are most welcome,” came her reply, and then the doctor was holding a cup of medicine to his lips.

  “I can’t,” he said. “It will only make me sick again.”

  “Drink it,” said his sister. So he did, and three minutes later he was retching over the basin once more.

  * * * *

  The great hall of Tamworth was loud with speculation when Elswyth reentered some twenty minutes after Alfred’s precipitate departure. She went quietly to where Burgred was still seated beside the archbishop. He looked worried and indignant both, and she bent over to say something into his ear. He nodded, turned to speak to Ceolnoth, then stood up and offered her his hand. Quiet began to fall as the king escorted Elswyth ceremoniously to the high seat, then assumed his own accustomed place. She sat down and he remained standing.

  The hall was now perfectly quiet. Burgred spoke into the hush. “Prince Alfred has been taken ill, though not seriously,” the king said. “He sends his apologies and
bids you enjoy the feast in his absence.” Then Burgred sat down, for once in his life understanding the value of brevity.

  After a moment of continued silence, the murmur of voices began again. Servants came into the hall bearing platters of more food. Elswyth said to Burgred, “Thank you, my lord. Alfred would be most distressed should your splendid feast be spoiled due to his illness.”

  “But what is wrong with him?” Burgred asked. The indignation in his voice was clear. “He was perfectly well in church.”

  “I don’t think he was,” Elswyth replied. “He suffers from severe headaches, my lord, so severe that they overset his stomach.”

  Burgred’s fleshy face did not register any sympathy. “Alfred is too highly strung,” he told Elswyth. “I have always thought so. He should think less and eat more.”

  “Perhaps,” Elswyth said shortly.

  Burgred patted her hand. “Not a very pleasant wedding day for you, my dear.”

  She shrugged. “I am all right, my lord, It is Alfred who is suffering.”

  “Oh,” the king said, “a headache. He will get over it, my dear.” He heaped his plate full of food.

  “Yes,” said Elswyth. “I am sure he will.” She put some food on her own plate, though she was sure she would choke if she tried to eat it.

  The feast seemed to Elswyth to last forever. Ethelswith finally returned, then Ethelred, and the food kept coming in and the mead and ale kept passing around. The scop, who had composed a song in honor of the wedding, hastily substituted something else. Somehow it did not seem right to be singing a wedding song to a deserted bride.

  Elswyth sat through it all, her head bearing its bridal crown held high, her haughtiest expression firmly in place. There had been no plans for a bedding ceremony, so all she would have to get through was this interminable feast, she thought as she pretended to eat and drink and listen to the scop.

  She had sensed in the church that something was wrong. There had been a look of endurance about Alfred’s mouth, a different ring to his voice. Then, when they had got to the great hall, she had known it. His lovely golden color had gone sallow, and the look of endurance had been etched into all the bones of his face. She had prayed he would be able to get through the feast, not because it mattered to her, but because she knew it would matter a great deal to him.

  This illness humiliated him. “I am flawed,” he had said to her when she proposed marriage to him in the barn. She understood; understood that, above all, he would hate to have his weakness exposed to the world. And there could be few things more humiliating to a man than to fall ill on his wedding day. The best thing she could do for him was to carry on as if nothing important had happened. He needed that far more than he needed someone to hold his hand. And so she gritted her teeth and determined that that was what she was going to do.

  The afternoon waned and evening set in. Elswyth and Alfred had planned to spend the night at Tamworth before leaving on the morrow for Wessex, so for the moment no further plans would be disrupted. Elswyth had no way of knowing if, in fact, they would be leaving on the morrow, but for now she would carry on as if nothing unusual had occurred.

  The women left the feast when the drinking started to become rowdy;

  Elswyth withdrew in the dignified company of the queen. Ethelred had left sometime earlier, and Ethelswith said to Elswyth as the two walked down the steps that led from the great hall to the courtyard, “Ethelred tells me that these attacks customarily last about eight hours. Let us go and see whether or not Alfred is recovered.”

  The two women turned in the direction of the hall where Alfred was lodged. “I was never told about these headaches,” Ethelswith said as they walked side by side across the hard-packed dirt. She did not look pleased. “Ethelred says that Alfred has suffered them for years.”

  “I do not imagine it is something he wishes known,” Elswyth said.

  “Did you know?” And the queen looked sharply at the girl walking beside her.

  The weight of the bridal crown had been pressing into Elswyth’s scalp all afternoon and she had taken it off as soon as the hall door closed behind her. She tightened her hand around it now, hard, and answered tersely, “Yes.”

  Silence fell as the two women approached the guest hall. “Well,” Ethelswith said finally, when they were almost at the door, and there was the faintest trace of malice in her usually soft voice, “at least you will not be deprived of your wedding night. You were to have slept in your brother’s hall anyway.”

  Elswyth shot the queen a quick inimical look from out the side of her eyes, but did not reply.

  Then they were in the hall and Ethelred was coming to greet them. “How is he?” Ethelswith asked her brother.

  “Better. I left him sleeping.”

  “Thank God.” The queen’s exclamation was heartfelt. She was genuinely fond of her younger brother.

  Ethelred smiled at Elswyth. “You did the right thing by returning to the feast,” he told her.

  She nodded without speaking.

  “Come and sit down.” Ethelred gestured them to the hearth. The June night had turned cool enough for a fire and Elswyth followed brother and sister to the chairs Ethelred had indicated. The hall was quiet. Most of the West Saxon thanes were still at the feast, and the servants were upstairs in the loft room. Elswyth sat down and leaned her head against the carved high back of the chair. A bump on the carving jabbed into her and she sat up again, rubbing the spot on her head that had been poked,

  “You should have told me about these headaches,” Ethelswith was saying in an aggrieved tone of voice to her brother.

  Ethelred shrugged. “He is sensitive about them, Ethelswith. And he has had them since he was eight years old. They are a family illness, I’m told. Eahlstan says that our grandmother suffered with them also.”

  Ethelswith was frowning. “And is there nothing that can be done for them?”

  “Nothing. I have had the best doctors look at him, I assure you. He has taken every imaginable potion, gone to every imaginable shrine to pray for a cure. It is not a common illness, but it is not unknown.” Ethelred sighed. “The Lord has laid this cross upon him, my sister, and he must bear it as best he can until the Lord sees fit to lift it.”

  Ethelswith bowed her head.

  Elswyth spoke for the first time. “May I go in to him for a moment?”

  “I think he is asleep, but if you wish to reassure yourself ...” Ethelred smiled, not displeased with this evidence of concern on the part of his brother’s new bride. “Go ahead,” he said, and Elswyth rose, put her bridal crown on the seat of her chair, and went to open the door to Alfred’s room.

  The shutters had been opened at the single window and there was light enough still in the June night for her to see without a candle. She stood with her back against the closed door for a moment, looking at the bed. There was no sound. He must indeed be asleep, she thought.

  She had no idea why she had come in here. She had just felt this sudden overwhelming need to see him, to make sure he was actually here, to make sure he was safe. She moved on light feet toward the great wooden bed that took up most of the center of the room, stopped at its side, and looked down.

  He lay on his back, one arm flung over his hand, his lax fingers touching the wooden bed frame beyond the pillow. His hair fell in a tangle on the pillow and across his forehead. The ties of his shirt were open, bearing the upper part of his smooth chest to the cool evening air. Even the part of his skin that was not exposed to the sun had a faint golden hue. It was the first time she had ever seen him when he did not look immaculate, she thought, His face was peaceful. He looked very young; not at all like the clever, grown-up prince she knew. He seemed so ... vulnerable, lying there, A sudden totally unexpected surge of emotion swept through her, stopping her breath with its fierce intensity.

  The long gold-tipped lashes lifted and he was looking up into her face. For a moment he did not recognize her. Then: “Elswyth ...” He blinked and moved as if
he would sit up.

  “Hush.” She drew a steadying breath and put her hand on his shoulder to press him back. “The wretched banquet is over and I just came to see how you were faring.”

  He let her hold him against the pillow. The young, vulnerable look had quite vanished from his face. “Elswyth,” he said again. “I am so sorry ...”

  She released his shoulder and answered scornfully, “Don’t be a fool. You did not do it on purpose.”

  He raised himself a little on his elbow and, with his free hand, pushed the hair out of his eyes. “The banquet is over?”

  “Well, the men are still there. Drinking. It was a great success, even without you,”

  “I am glad.” He smiled at her crookedly. “Thank you for going alone.”

  “You already thanked me.” Her face was grave. “The headache is gone?”

  “Yes. It goes quite quickly, after about eight hours.” Suddenly the skin under his eyes looked shadowed. “I suppose everyone knows what happened?”

  “Burgred told them you were taken ill, that is all. The details are no one’s business.”

  “They will be, quite shortly. Ethelswith must have called on every person she knows who owns an herb garden.” The bitterness in his voice was faint but unmistakable.

  That fierce instinct to protect him swept through her once again. It wasn’t fair, she thought, to expose him when he was helpless with pain. “Do not worry, Alfred,” she said, not realizing how coldly ferocious she sounded, “I will see to it that they keep quiet.”

  His lashes flicked upward, and startled eyes searched her face.

  “I did not mean to wake you,” she said, and her expression did not soften. “I just wanted to see if you were indeed all right.”

  “I shall be fine,” he answered slowly. “We can leave for Wessex tomorrow as planned.”

  “If you are sure ...”

  “I am sure.”