The Edge on the Sword

by Rebecca Tingle

  Shuffling forward as if she were reluctant to choose this route, Flæd led the men across the river at a place close to the ford she and Red had used earlier that spring. As they entered the marsh where Flæd had hidden the great codex, the men exchanged words again, and Flæd thought she heard approval in their voices. I think they saw me lose Red here, she shivered. They must have been watching us all that time.

  When they reached the fallen tree, Flæd was made to sit among the roots. Her feet were lashed tightly together again, her wrists bound to the gnarled wood. They are waiting for something, she realized as her limbs began to grow numb.

  They are waiting for darkness, she understood at last, wrists and ankles throbbing with her heartbeat as the long minutes stretched into hours, and the sun sank lower and lower into the west. One abductor had settled down in front of her while the other two took turns keeping watch at the edges of the knoll. I was wrong to think of coming here, after all, she thought hopelessly. Red has not remembered.

  The man who had spoken to her in English wandered up to the giant log, his eyes fixed on Flæd. In the language the three men shared, he said something to Flæd’s guard—a question, Flæd thought. The other man responded with an ugly smile, and Flæd jerked in fright as he stood, and the two of them approached her.

  With a rush of wings, a flock of birds took flight on the outskirts of the marsh. Flæd’s captors crouched down, and the man standing at the edge of the hillock hissed out to the other two, who went to join him, running low. They huddled at the little vantage point, and Flæd wondered in vain what they could see. A jolt of hope had surged through her when the birds rose, and as soon as she was left alone, she had begun to strain futilely and painfully at the leather thongs they had used to tie her. Would a big man like her warder be able to creep secretly through the marsh as she had, even with three pairs of hostile eyes watching for him?

  “Be silent,” a familiar voice murmured in her ear. One by one Flæd felt her bonds strain and give way to a blade. “Get behind me.” She was shoved back into the hollow as Red finished freeing her and rushed out.

  Flæd could barely feel her arms and legs. She tried to get up and flopped onto her belly, her face pressing into the decayed wood underfoot. Whimpering and trying to rub life back into her limbs, Flæd heard the sounds of the struggle outside—grunts punctuated by harsh words in the foreign tongue of the three enemies, the scuffling of feet in the grass, bodies falling, a gurgling scream and more running steps, then silence.

  Three of them, and he was all alone, she thought frantically as she fought to make her limbs support her. They will come for me next! She scrabbled in the rotting wood for something to use as a weapon. There was a rock she could lift just outside the stump, she thought she remembered. Crawling on hands and knees afire with pain, Flæd inched forward into the clearing.

  Red was kneeling a short distance away from her, breathing heavily. Beside him lay one of the men who had taken Flæd. Flæd’s mouth was still dry with fear. She found she still could not stand up, so she kept crawling toward her guardian.

  “Lady.” Red got to his feet and came to her. “Are you injured?” He touched the welts the bonds had left on her arms.

  “Where are the others?” she croaked hoarsely. “There were three….”

  “Two ran. One of them was the leader, I think.” Red helped her to her feet and brought her to the form lying in the grass. Still catching his breath, he crouched down and rolled the man over. It was not the one who had spoken English to her, who seemed to be the leader, as Red had rightly guessed, Flæd could not remember which of the others this had been. He was clearly dead. “When he went down,” Red was saying, “the two others disappeared.” Flæd was shaking. She had seen the blood of slaughtered animals, but this was different.

  “What happened in the pasture?” she heard her warder ask. Flæd could not stop staring at the man on the ground. This person had bound and threatened her—for this she would have wished him punished, hurt, and shamed. But the man lay dead. She had believed her warder would protect her. She had not considered the fact that he would kill for her. Flæd was still foolishly clutching the rock she had crawled outside to find, and now she dropped it. Her warder had asked her a question. How could she ever explain what had happened?

  “I—I fell from the horse,” she rasped, putting her hand to her parched throat. “They surprised me.” Flæd turned away so that she wouldn’t have to look at her warder, or the body beside him. A man is dead because of me. She couldn’t tell Red what she had done.

  “I thought you ran away.” Red shook his head, rummaging in the litter of the camp to find a waterskin, which he brought to Flæd. “She might go to the marsh again, I told myself. So I came here. When I heard them coming, I hid. I wanted to free you sooner, Lady,” he said, sounding angry at himself as he held out a hand to steady her as she drank.

  “I hoped you-would remember this place,” Flæd mumbled guiltily. “Something frightened the birds—I thought it might be you.”

  “No. Your horses,” Red said. “I left them by the stream.” His hands were busy now searching the dead man’s clothes. He pried the dagger from the man’s hand and gave it to Flæd. “We need to go,” he told her. “The others may come back.”

  Red would not let Flæad ride alone. He mounted Apple and pulled her up behind him. At the burgh wall they sent the greys back to the herd, and Flæd stood with her head down, knowing more surely than ever that she should tell her warder what had really happened. But still she could not make her tongue say the words, and Red spoke instead.

  “Lady, I must see the king. I ask you to come with me.” His voice was hard and empty, and above the dull metal around his neck, his face was grim. Humbly Flæd nodded, and at Red’s gesture preceded him along the street toward her father’s chambers.

  They found him there with Asser and Father John. The three of them looked up from a manuscript when Flæd and the Mercian warder entered, and all stood as Alfred greeted the envoy.

  “Welcome, thane of Ethelred. The light is fading, and still we abuse our eyes with this Latin script at the end of a long day. You have spared me a difficult passage of translation which my bishop and mass priest are too polite to finish for me,” he said with a tired smile. “Please, tell us how we may be of use to you.”

  “I have been of little enough use to you,” Red said in a low voice. “King Alfred, I must surrender my duties. I do not deserve the trust you have placed in me to protect the lady Æthelflæd.” Flæd drew a sharp breath. Somehow she had expected a rebuke, not this. Alfred and his advisors exchanged looks of confusion.

  “Surely you have kept her safe—she is here with us now, well and carefully guarded. What trust have you broken?” Alfred wondered.

  “I have not kept my vow,” Red insisted. “Today she was stolen from my care.” Tersely he described Flæd’s disappearance, and the fight in the marsh. He showed them the marks on her wrists and ankles, and the tiny cut where the dagger had pressed against her throat. “I should never have lost sight of her,” he declared, his voice heavy with self-condemnation. “I ask that you release me from your service and let me go back to Mercia. Your own thanes will serve you more honorably than I have.” Red looked around him, suddenly uncertain what to say next. “I will wait at the lady’s quarters,” he said slowly. “I will keep watch this last night.”

  Alfred gazed at the man for a long moment, then nodded. “Go then and in the morning we will make a better farewell.” He watched the envoy turn and disappear through the doorway. “But I would know more of this matter,” the king said under his breath. He looked at Flæd, who stood motionless where her warder had left her. “What happened, child?” Alfred asked.

  11

  Truce

  FLÆD SAW LINES OF WORRY AROUND HER FATHER’S EYES. “HE did not fail you,” she said, and stumbled with shame over her next words. “I—I…led him to believe that he did.” Wretchedly she told the story again, including her gui
lty part in it. The light in the room was nearly gone, and for a long time the four people who stood together in the dusk said nothing. At last Flæd spoke again. “I will ask him to stay,” she whispered miserably. “I will ask pardon of our Mercian guest.”

  Alfred sat down again with a sigh. Father John began lighting the candles at the corners of the table.

  “John, Asser,” her father said, and the young priest halted his task. “Our reading seems somewhat heavy tonight. Perhaps the writings of Pope Gregory would be better.”

  “We will bring the Dialogues,” Asser said with a bow, and he and John left the room.

  “Æthelflæd,” her father said when they were alone, “you have been unhappy these past weeks.” Flæd hung her head and did not reply. “Your betrothal to Ethelred displeases you.”

  “I don’t want to go away”—Flæd’s face twisted with the sorrow she had fought to hide—“and leave Edward, my books—everything.” Her father pinched his brow.

  “Flæd,” he said at length, “why have you been taught to read?” Sad and bewildered, Flæd looked at him. She tried to answer.

  “You decreed it,” she said, her lips trembling. “You wrote, ‘All the free youth among the English people who have opportunity must be set the task of learning, until they know well how to read English writing.’ “

  “But why you, Æthelflæd?” the king pressed. She could not think what else to say. “Because you were born into a position of duty,” Alfred said so sternly that Flæd shrank down further on her stool. “When you marry Ethelred, Wessex weds Mercia. What I have hoped,” he continued, taking her hands with more kindness, “is that my children would help bring back the great English learning lost when the Danes destroyed our libraries.” Flæd sat up, trying to follow her father’s thoughts.

  “I read the Chronicle,” she protested, “the lives of the saints, the Rule of Saint Benedict, and the epistles of our English abbots and bishops—everything my tutors bring me.”

  “And because of this you will help Ethelred govern Mercia with wisdom, I think, and teach your people to love letters.” The king stared hard at Flæd to see that she had understood this. “You know that I have given Mercia into Ethelred’s charge,” he went on, “and that his rule protects not only Mercia but also Wessex from Danish invasion. I do not wish to offend one of Ethelred’s most trusted men.”

  “My warder,” FlÆd said resentfully “wears the bands, on his neck and arm, of—”

  “He is a person of honor,” her father cut her off. The candlelight played over his features as he looked at her critically. “Can you make things right between you?”

  Flæd struggled to meet her father’s eye. “I want to try,” was all she could say.

  The bishop and mass priest had returned, stepping softly into the room with the book the king had requested. Alfred surveyed the faces of his advisors before he spoke again.

  “I will ask no further questions unless the envoy cannot be persuaded to remain with us. Speak with him tonight, Æthelflæd, and perhaps by morning all will be well.”

  Father John stepped forward. “Lady, may I accompany you to evening prayer, and see you to your quarters after we have supped? We missed your daughter in the scriptorium today,” he explained to the king. “I would like to discuss her lessons.”

  “Take care, John,” Asser remarked acidly. “She has become somewhat slippery.” He turned to Alfred. “Can we leave the matter to a girl?”

  Alfred considered his advisor’s question, and then said to the bishop, “We will give her this night. Keep a guard with you,” he addressed the younger priest, “until she is within her own walls. The two of you may go now. Asser and I will stay a little longer with our Latin.”

  Father John bowed his assent, and quietly he and Flæd left the king’s chambers with one of the royal guards. Strains of the evening psalm came to them as they approached the stone chapel where the service had already begun. John slowed as they neared the entryway. “Lady,” he said, holding out his hand to her, “our devotions will wait. Come sit with me before we go in.” He led her across the grassy yard and they seated themselves against the chapel’s outer wall, which still held some warmth from the afternoon sun. Flæd hugged her knees and laid her cheek against the hem of her tunic, feeling the ache of tears she had been trying not to shed.

  “Lady Æthelflæd,” said Father John softly beside her, “I have come to think of you as both my student and my friend.” Flæd kept her face pressed to her knees. John continued, “I wonder, in your study of the Chronicle, have you discovered the account of Burgred of Mercia?”

  Flæd looked up in surprise at the unexpected question. “I do not remember that name,” she told him, her throat tight.

  “Ah, well, Burgred, as you will someday read, was married to your father’s sister. He ruled Mercia as its king,” John explained, “for two and twenty winters. In the year 874 the Chronicle records King Burgred’s surrender of Mercia to the Danes. He fled to Rome,” John said gravely, “where he lived out his years and was buried at Saint Mary’s church in the English Schools.”

  “It is not a happy tale,” Flæd said glumly.

  “It is not,” Father John agreed, “but there is deeper misfortune than what the Chronicle tells. King Burgred was not young. He held his kingdom with the help of his best retainer—a strong thane who led the Mercian army at the borders, where the Danes learned to hate and fear him. When Burgred left his throne, this thane fought on, not knowing his king had gone, not knowing that his own family stood unprotected in the very heart of Mercia.” The priest’s voice was very quiet now. “Rumors of the king’s departure reached the thane’s men. They began to desert their commander, who would not believe the reports. The thane still fought, trapped with his dwindling army, refusing to surrender. Until the Danes brought his wife to the battlefield in fetters, and he knew his king had failed him, and he laid down his sword.”

  “What happened to him?” Flæd asked, appalled.

  “He was made a slave,” John said, his mellow voice now tight with anger, “and was taken north of the River Humber.” John paused a moment, then continued. “When Alfred regained English Mercia, and charged Ethelred with its custody, the chief aldorman and your father sent secret emissaries to the north. They found the thane, bought his freedom, and brought him back to the Mercian court. This man still wears the bands of slavery in memory of his king’s betrayal.” The priest looked into her face as Flæd drew a startled breath. “Your warder was Burgred’s forsaken thane.”

  Dumbly Flæd stared at her tutor, who nodded to assure her of his story’s truth. “Lady,” he went on, taking her cold hand in his, “I would say a little more before we enter and pray. When your father bested the Danes one year ago, he called their leaders to feast with him, and with honor offered them a plan for peace.” The young priest stood, drawing Æthelflæd up to stand beside him. “I do not ask what has passed between you and the Mercian,” he told her. “I have told you something of the man because I think King Alfred’s daughter will deal fairly with a person she understands.”

  Flæd went with John into the softly lit church, where a priest was offering the final prayers of the service. Ælf and Dove came running to her when the liturgy had ended, the smaller girl dancing with impatience at having been still so long. Dove leaned close to her older sister as they made their way toward the kitchens. A bowl of soup cooled, untouched, in front of Flæd as she listened to the little girls tell her how they had hung their new slippers around their necks while they made mud cakes. “She” (Ælf indicated a serving woman who still looked mildly annoyed) had put an end to their game with scrubbing and scolding. “And our shoes were still perfectly clean for prayers,” Ælf said with wounded pride, lifting the dirt-caked hem of her gown to display the footwear in question.

  “We thought we passed you on the way to the church,” Dove was saying, “because we saw the Grey Man”—her sisters’ name for the Mercian warder.

  Ælf looked
toward the place where Red usually sat. “Is the Grey Man lost?” she asked with concern.

  “He’s waiting for us at our chambers,” Flæd replied, with a little feeling of dread. “We’ll find him there when we go back.”

  When the sisters had finished eating, Father John and the guard accompanied them through the streets. As their door came into view he stopped. “You may go the rest of the way yourselves,” he said to them. “We will watch until you are safely there.”

  Flæd took her sisters’ hands and crossed the street to the entrance, where the Mercian warder sat unmoving in the darkness. Inside she could hear the serving women preparing the room for the night. “Go to bed,” she told Ælf and Dove, urging them gently through the doorway. “I’ll come in a moment.”

  Flæd stood in front of her warder, who remained motionless. She looked back at Father John, who raised his hand to her, and then turned to go. Flæd crouched down on the dusty ground facing the Mercian.

  “Envoy of Ethelred of Mercia,” she said, “I have come to ask your pardon.” Flæd swallowed hard and went on. “You are an honored guest of the West Saxon king and his family, and you have broken no trust with Alfred, or with Ethelred.” Sitting before her warder with her shoulders bowed, Flæd told him how she had found the hollow atop the mound, and how she had learned to disappear from the grey horses’ backs at a gallop. She admitted that she had hidden when he came to find her, just before the three strangers seized her.