The Edge of Light

by Joan Wolf

  “I will be very surprised if she does not, Alfred,” Ethelred replied. “Ethelbald is not the sort of man women refuse.”

  Even at eight years of age, Alfred could understand that.

  “It would be nice for Judith to stay in Wessex,” he said then. “I would miss her if she went back to France.”

  “There will be an outcry in her own country,” Ethelred said. He seemed to be talking more to himself than to Alfred. “She will be marrying without the permission of her father, and Charles the Bald will not be pleased. But we do not think Charles will have the French bishops protest the union. He will not want to alienate Wessex, Or Ethelbald, who, to give him his due, has an excellent record of fighting the Danes.”

  Alfred did not reply, just looked at his brother and tried to understand what Ethelred was saying.

  “To tell the truth, we were all shocked and horrified when Ethelbald proposed the match this morning to the witan,” Ethelred said. “It smacks of incest. But when the truth came out about Father’s marriage … well, it just makes sense, Alfred. The girl is here, she is a royal princess, she has already been crowned and anointed as Wessex’ queen, and we will keep the property and money in the country. Ethelbald could not make a better match.”

  “But,” Alfred said in a small voice, “doesn’t Ethelbald want Judith for herself?”

  Ethelred looked at him. “I am sure he does, Alfred.” He smiled. “Judith is very beautiful. How could any man not want her for herself?”

  For some reason, Ethelred’s answer did not allay Alfred’s doubts, but he did not know how to express his feelings. Then Ethelred said, “Let’s canter,” and Alfred let himself be distracted.

  It was when the brothers were returning once more to Winchester that the first pains began in Alfred’s head. The late afternoon sun was bright, and as their horses slowed to a walk Alfred felt as if the flashes of light glinting off the river were like spears piercing into his eyes.

  “Ethelred,” he said, trying to keep the panic from his voice, “I think that pain is starting again in my head.”

  “Where in your head does it hurt?” Ethelred asked sharply.

  “My eyes. And my forehead.”

  “Give me your reins,” Ethelred said. “I’ll lead the pony. You just close your eyes and sit quietly. We are almost home.”

  Alfred gave up his reins and did as he was bidden. But even behind his closed lids, the pain in his eyes was like fire. Soon the shock of his horse’s hooves hitting the ground at a simple walk was hurting his head.

  “Ethelred,” he said desperately as the walls of Winchester loomed on the horizon, “I think I am going to be sick.”

  “I’ll get you off,” he heard his brother say, and then Ethelred was standing beside his pony. He felt his brother’s big hands on his waist, lifting him effortlessly out of the saddle. As soon as Alfred’s feet were on the ground he doubled up and was sick. Ethelred’s arm came around him in support.

  “I’m sorry,” he whispered when he had finally stopped retching.

  “Don’t be foolish,” Ethelred said. He sounded almost angry, but Alfred understood that it was anger born of fear. Alfred was afraid too. He did not think he could bear that pain again.

  There was a firestorm going on in his head.

  He did not make the hall but was sick again in the courtyard. Then Ethelred lifted him into his arms and carried him into the princes’ hall, into the room they both were sharing. Ethelred laid him on the bed and sent for cold cloths.

  The agony went on and on. Alfred stiffened his body against it, but nothing he could do seemed to help. Hours passed.

  It lifted the way it had lifted the last time, suddenly and absolutely. He looked at his brother and Judith, who had also come to sit by his bed, and said, as he had said once before with the same quiet astonishment, “It’s gone.”

  “Thank God,” said Ethelred.

  Alfred touched his forehead. “Why am I getting these pains?” he asked, his darkened eyes going from one face to the next, his fingers still on his brow. “Is there something wrong inside my head?”

  “No, of course not,” Judith answered emphatically. “There is nothing wrong with your brain, Alfred.”

  “While you were lying here suffering, Alfred, Eahlstan told me that his mother, our grandmother, also had such headaches,” Ethelred said.

  “Our grandmother?” Alfred’s eyes searched his brother’s face. “The same thing?”

  “So Eahlstan says. It seems they may be hereditary.”

  “Did our grandmother die from them?”

  “No!” Ethelred looked grim. “No, Alfred. Our grandmother died of something quite different. And she lived a long life, too. Long enough to have children and grandchildren both.”

  It made Alfred feel a little better to think he was not the only person ever to suffer from such terrible headaches. And what Ethelred had said was true. His grandmother had lived to be an old woman. Her life had been normal enough. No one had ever said anything before about her having headaches.

  “Does this mean that I will go on having them?” Alfred asked, his eyes clinging to Ethelred’s face.

  “Certainly not.” Ethelred reached out to smooth the hair off Alfred’s forehead. “When once we are back to our usual way of life, I’m sure the headaches will go away. It is just that you are upset by Father’s death. As soon as Ethelbald is crowned, you and I will return to Eastdean. You will like that, won’t you?”

  “Yes,” said Alfred, but he sounded doubtful. His eyes went to Judith. “Are you going to marry Ethelbald?” he asked Judith.

  “Yes.” Her brown eyes smiled at him. “I could not refuse the chance of having you for a brother,”

  A corner of his mouth flipped up.

  She leaned down and whispered in his ear, “Ethelbald is certainly a better bargain than Sidroc the Dane,”

  The other corner of Alfred’s mouth curled.

  “You need your dogs,” said Ethelred, and at that Alfred grinned.

  “You West Saxons and your dogs,” Judith complained humorously.

  “Don’t you have dogs in France?” Ethelred asked.

  “Certainly we do, but we keep them in the kennel,” Judith replied.

  “Most West Saxons keep their dogs in the kennel also,” Ethelred acknowledged. “It is just my family that likes to keep them in the house.”

  “Alfred even sleeps with his!” Judith said with a mock shudder.

  Alfred laughed delightedly. “They keep me warm,” he said. The laugh turned into a yawn.

  “You are tired,” Ethelred said. “I think it would be best if you got some sleep.”

  “I’m not tired at all,” Alfred said, and yawned again. Ethelred and Judith laughed and rose from their chairs as one. “Good night,” Ethelred said firmly, and the two of them left the room. Alfred was asleep almost before the door had closed.

  Two weeks later, Ethelbald and Judith were married, and the day after the marriage Ethelbald was formally crowned King of Wessex. Ethelbald granted to Ethelbert the rule as subking of Kent, as he had sworn to do when Ethelwulf abdicated his rights in Wessex to his eldest son, and Ethelbert returned with his family to the southeastern shires to take up his overlordship. Alfred and Ethelred returned with him.

  Summer passed and then the autumn. The snows came, piling up on the roofs of the halls, weighing down the trees and clogging the roads. Firewood had to be brought in from the forest on sledges instead of carts. In the week before Lent began, Ethelred took a bride. Her name was Cyneburg, and Alfred liked her well enough. It was important for Ethelred to marry, he knew, as Ethelbert so far had produced only girls, and Ethelbald and Judith as yet had no children at all. The only one of Ethelwulf s sons who had as yet fathered a son was Athelstan, the eldest.

  The snows turned to rain. February ebbed away and March blew in. Lent was harder than usual for Alfred this year; he was growing and the Lenten fast left him hungrier than he ever remembered being before. He went to Wilton
to celebrate Easter with Ethelbald and Judith, and had a fine few weeks hunting with his brother, the king.

  In August there was a small Danish raid near Hythe in Kent, then another one near Maldon. A few houses were looted and burned, and six deaths were reported. Ethelred’s wife, Cyneburg, was pregnant, and Ethelred asked Alfred to pray she would give him a son. Ethelbert’s most recent child had once more been a girl. It was more than time, Ethelred said, for a boy in the family.

  Christmas came, and with it the news that Judith was also with child.

  In the midst of Lent, Cyneburg gave birth to a boy, and Ethelred was delighted. Ethelbert was holding Easter at Farnham, and Alfred went to spend the holy season with his brother, as Ethelred was preoccupied with his new role as father and Judith was nearing her own time and not feeling well.

  It was while he was at Farnham that the news came of Ethelbald’s death.

  “It was the red fever,” the messenger said grimly. “The king died within forty hours of contracting it.”

  Alfred knew about the red fever. It was a piteous thing to see. The skin went red and spotty and the fever raged fiercely. Most folk who caught it perished.

  Ethelbert, like everyone else at Farnham, was shocked at the news. No one who knew Ethelbald had ever imagined such a thing could befall him. If ever a man looked to flourish for many years, it was he.

  “How is the Lady Judith?” Alfred asked.

  “She has fallen ill also,” came the foreboding reply. “It was the Lady Judith who nursed the king while he lay ill. It seems she too has contracted the fever.”

  “I want to go to her, Ethelbert,” Alfred said. “Poor Judith. She is all alone.”

  But Ethelbert would not hear of sending his youngest brother into the contagion of Wilton, and Judith was left to suffer alone. Ethelbert had been crowned by the time they learned that though Judith herself would recover, she had lost Ethelbald’s child.

  It was June before Ethelbert and Ethelred would allow Alfred to go to Wilton to visit Judith. He was grieved to find her pale and drawn-looking and listless. He felt horribly guilty that she had been left to suffer her losses alone, and exerted himself to divert her. But nothing he did seemed to help.

  Alfred had been at Wilton for two weeks when the news came that the Danes had attacked Winchester, Alfred listened to the men in the hall and then ran to tell Judith.

  She was in the garden, sitting empty-handed on a bench, staring into space. She did that often. Too often. It worried Alfred greatly.

  “Judith,” he said now as he reached the bench and flung himself down beside her. “A messenger has just ridden in with terrible news. The Danes have attacked Winchester. They brought their ships up the Itchen and sacked the city!”

  Her blank gaze transferred itself to his face. Then she roused herself to ask, “Did no one withstand them?”

  “Osric called up the fyrd from Hampshire, and Ethelwulf, Ealdorman of Berkshire, did the same. The messenger who came here is asking for men from Wiltshire to assist as well. They are going to try to get back some of the booty before the Danes could finish loading it on their ships.” Alfred jumped to his feet again and began to pace up and down in front of Judith. “I wish I could go!”

  “No!” That seemed to reach her as nothing else had. “No, Alfred!” she repeated. “You are too young. You do not turn ten until next month.” She added, as if repeating a talisman, “You are too young.”

  “That is what the thanes said,” came Alfred’s reply. He sounded bitter.

  “Where …” Judith drew a long breath. “Where,” she tried again, “is Ethelbert? Where is … the king?”

  “In Surrey.”

  There was a silence. Alfred continued to pace up and down. Judith stared now at her lap. At last she said, very low, “It did not take them long to seize advantage of Ethelbald’s death.”

  Alfred halted. There was a little silence, then he said, “It is true that Ethelbert has not the reputation Ethelbald had as a warrior. And perhaps not the ability. But Ethelbert is no coward, Judith. He will know how to defend Wessex.”

  “I hope so.” Her voice was muffled. Her bent head hid her face.

  “Judith …” Alfred broached the question he had long been wanting to ask. “Judith, what are you going to do now?”

  “I think I must return to France,” she answered, her voice still not perfectly clear.

  He came to sit beside her once more. “If you do, will your father force you to marry again?”

  She shrugged. “I am a woman now, Alfred, not a girl, and I do not care what my father may wish.” At last she raised her head to look at him, and her large brown eyes were very somber. “If ever I marry again,” she said, “it will be my choice, and no one else’s.” She sounded as if she were making a vow.

  Alfred stared at her. “Did you … did you love Ethelbald?” he asked at last in a very small voice.

  Her face was oddly still. “Yes. I think I did.”

  Alfred said, “I think you are right; I think you should go back to France.” She turned to him in surprise; she had not expected this reaction from him. “It is too hard for you here in Wessex,” he said sadly. “There are too many memories.”

  “Yes.” Quite suddenly her voice shook. “I feel so old, Alfred. I am only eighteen, yet I feel so very old.” She squared her shoulders and rose to her feet. “Come,” she said, looking down into his upturned face, “let us see what we can learn about Winchester.”

  The men of Berkshire and Hampshire were successful in retrieving most of the loot the Danes had taken on their surprise raid on Winchester, and this time the Viking ships sailed back down the Itchen with little to show for their trouble.

  Ethelbert took up his rule and decided that the old practice of placing Kent and its associated shires under the rule of a secondary king was not a wise one. It encouraged the eastern shires to think themselves apart from Wessex, he said to Ethelred. It would be best for one king to rule over all. However, to compensate Ethelred for the loss of a kingdom, Ethelbert named his brother secondarius, or heir apparent to the throne. As Ethelbert’s wife had thus far produced only daughters, it seemed that the kingship would not be passed along through his own descendants.

  Judith returned to France, and her father, Charles the Bald, incarcerated her in his palace of Senlis for refusing to marry at his command.

  Under Ethelbert, Wessex rested in peace. No Viking ships came along the coasts or up the rivers. The three remaining sons of Ethelwulf lived together in outward harmony. If Ethelred fretted at having lost control of Kent, none knew of it.

  In Denmark, Ivar the Boneless and his brother Halfdan, two sons of one of the most famous and fierce Viking pirates known to Europe, Ragnar Lothbrok, began to gather an army. Always before this time, the Viking way in Wessex had been to attack from the sea and then return to the sea. Heretofore a Viking’s base had been his ship, and come the autumn, Viking ships had ever turned again toward home. To go a-viking was a seasonal occupation; by winter all sea pirates could count on sitting snug and warm beside their own hearths. But good land in Denmark was growing harder to find, and men returning from the sea were coming back to less and less at home. Men who went a-viking were beginning to want more than mere gold and silver for their booty. They wanted land. Such men as these, thought the sons of Ragnar Lothbrok, would be ripe for joining an army of conquest; an army which would be land-based, not sea-based; an army of permanent occupation. Like the Saxons hundreds of years before, the Danish leaders turned their eyes toward the lush, rich land of England as a likely place of settlement.

  When Ethelwulf, King of Wessex, had set forth upon his pilgrimage to Rome in the year 855, he had had five living sons: Athelstan, Ethelbald, Ethelbert, Ethelred, and Alfred. The eldest, Athelstan, had died before Ethelwulf ever set foot again on English soil. When Ethelwulf had asked his sons to swear to succeed each other should the necessity arise, Ethelbald, the new king, had been young and strong and healthy. Then Ethelbald had
died of the red fever, leaving the kingdom to the third son, Ethelbert.

  In the year 865, ten years after Ethelwulfs pilgrimage, tragedy once again struck the West Saxon royal family. Ethelbert, the reigning king, stepped on a loose nail in the stable at Winchester. It pierced through the sole of his shoe and punctured his foot. In less than a week the young king was dead.

  Once again the witan turned to the sons of Ethelwulf to choose their king. Ethelred, who once had had three brothers standing before him in the line of succession for the throne, was the one the witan named. In July he was crowned King of Wessex at the minster in Winchester.

  At the crowning ceremony, the new king officially named his brother, Alfred, secondarius, or heir, as his own son was still too young to rule.

  In the autumn of 865, the first year of Ethelred’s reign, the force that would be known throughout Wessex as the Great Army landed in East Anglia. It was led by the sons of Ragnar Lothbrok and it comprised some seven thousand men. Ivar the Boneless quartered his men upon the country and began to strip East Anglia of its horses. Come the winter, this Danish army would not return home. This time they had come to England to stay.

  * * *

  I

  THE STORM GATHERS

  A.D. 867-870

  Chapter 5

  It would storm later. The air was so heavy it seemed difficult to breathe, and the sky had that peculiar light that meant a storm was coming. The horses felt it too. Alfred’s chestnut was shying at every stray leaf.

  Good, Alfred thought. He loved storms.

  Beside him Ethelred said fretfully, “It is too hot to be traveling today.”

  Alfred turned to his brother. Poor Ethelred, he thought sympathetically. He did look uncomfortably warm. “We should be at Tamworth any moment now,” Alfred said.

  Ethelred wiped the sweat from his forehead. His fair hair was dark with sweat as well, and his tunic was stained between the shoulder blades. “You don’t look hot at all,” he said to Alfred. “How do you always manage to look so cool?”