The Edge of Light

by Joan Wolf

  He said nothing, just looked at her out of those brilliant golden eyes. She added cunningly, “Nor will you wish to have to explain why it is you do not wish to marry.”

  There was a long pause. Then, “You are diabolical,” he said. He sounded as if he were out of breath.

  She straightened her back and said with passionate intensity, “I would far rather marry you and your headaches than Edred.”

  Another pause fell, this one of a slightly different quality from the one before. This time it was Elswyth who held her breath. He was not looking at her. Finally, “Are you sure?” he asked. Then, with difficulty: “I wonder sometimes what will happen if the headaches become worse, start to happen every week, every day.” His mouth was shadowed by that white line once more. “I could go mad with them, Elswyth. You do not know.”

  “Alfred,” she said, “Edred’s teeth are yellow.”

  The line disappeared and his face lit with amusement. “They are. Rather like a horse’s.”

  They began to laugh at the same instant, as they had the last time they had met together in this barn. Then he said, a little breathlessly, “All right, little Elswyth. I shall see if Athulf will not accept me in place of Edred.”

  She heaved a great sigh of relief and he put his hand over hers where it lay, palm-up, on the hay between them. It was the first time he had ever touched her. His hand was thin and sinewy, adorned with golden rings, and she closed her fingers around it instantly. He stood up and pulled her to stand beside him.

  “One more thing,” he said, and now he was deadly sober.

  “Yes?” She looked up at him, her eyes on a level with his nice, firmly modeled mouth,

  “Do not worry about sleeping in my bed. Like my father, I think fourteen is too young for that sort of thing. I will wait.”

  Her smile was radiant. “Oh Alfred, thank you!”

  “You are most welcome.” His voice was rather ruefully amused. “Come along. I will try to see Athulf before dinner.” He opened the barn door and they stood for a moment in the doorway, their arms touching. It had begun to snow.

  “Put up your hood,” Alfred said. And she, who hated being told what to do, promptly obeyed. She was so happy, she thought she could have hugged him.

  “You go first,” she said, suddenly circumspect, “It will not do for us to be seen leaving the barn together.”

  He laughed, showing nice white teeth, gave one of her long black braids a gentle tweak, and went out into the snow, his own head uncovered. He had a cat’s assured, almost arrogant grace, Elswyth thought with satisfaction, watching him cross the courtyard in the lightly falling snow. He would get Athulf s approval, she was sure of it. There was that about Alfred that would always cause men to fall in with his demands. If she had to marry someone, and it seemed that she did, she could not have chosen better.

  She settled her hood more snugly over her hair and went out herself into the snow.

  * * *

  Chapter 8

  Athulf had come into his hall only minutes before Alfred arrived seeking him. Elswyth’s brother seemed delighted to see the West Saxon prince, and seated his guest in one of the high-backed chairs that were set near to the fire. Athulf’s hall thanes sat along the wall benches, talking and carving with wood or repairing leather, and the two young men were left to speak together in private.

  “This business of the Danes is extremely serious,” Athulf remarked to Alfred once they both had cups of ale in their hands. “Burgred deludes himself if he thinks they will come no further south than Nottingham.” He added, with a swift sideways look at Alfred, “I thank God that Wessex will join with us in this campaign. The West Saxons have had far more experience fighting the Danes than have we Mercians.”

  “As I said in the witan, this is a time for all Christian men to stand together,” Alfred answered. He ran his right index finger around the rim of his silver cup and added carefully, “I was … surprised … that Burgred had made no plans himself for defending Nottingham.”

  “We have grown soft in Mercia since the days of our capitulation to your grandfather, Prince,” Athulf answered. His voice sounded bitter. “A conquered people lose their initiative.”

  Alfred was surprised at the bitterness and turned to look into Athulf’s thin dark face. “Mercia has ever kept its own king,” he said to Elswyth’s brother slowly. “Egbert was Bretwalda, true, but he never tried to make Mercia a part of Wessex.”

  “We swore allegiance to Wessex. We were taught to look to Wessex for leadership. It is not fair to complain now, Prince, about what Wessex itself has wrought.”

  A small silence fell. Alfred looked from Athulf’s taut profile back to his own ale cup and understood that the Mercian was deeply humiliated by his country’s lack of initiative. “Perhaps you are right,” Alfred said mildly, and took a sip of his ale.

  Another silence fell. Then Athulf recollected his duty as host and cleared his throat. “But you did not come here to listen to my reproaches,” he said to his guest, and managed a rueful smile. “How may I serve you, Prince?”

  “I want to marry your sister,” Alfred said.

  Athulf’s blue eyes opened so wide that it was comical. Alfred’s eyes narrowed in concealed amusement. “I can offer a handsome marriage portion,” he added.

  “You wish to marry Elswyth?”

  “Why not?” Alfred settled his shoulders more comfortably against the carved back of his chair. “She is a very desirable match.”

  “Of course she is,” Athulf agreed hastily, aware that he had blundered. “Her birth is among the highest in Mercia. And she will have a rich dowry.”

  “That is nice,” Alfred said.

  Athulf was beginning to recover himself. Alfred watched him from under partially lowered lashes. “I am afraid, Prince,” Athulf said hesitatingly, “that Elswyth is already promised.”

  “Has there been a formal betrothal?”

  “No.”

  “Then there is no promise,” Alfred said.

  “Well, there is an informal … agreement.”

  Alfred shrugged the shoulders that were propped so easily against the dark chair back. “Break it.”

  “I … It will not be easy.” Athulf rubbed his nose and stared into the fire.

  Alfred said, “Tell Edred she does not like him, that he is too old, that she prefers to marry me.”

  Once more Athulf’s eyes flew to the prince and stretched wide. “You have been talking to Elswyth?” he asked. Almost accused.

  “Of course I have been talking to Elswyth.” Abruptly all the amusement left Alfred’s eyes. “God knows what she will do if you force her to marry Edred, Athulf. She fears him, is repulsed by him.” His fully opened eyes glittered in the firelight. “Elswyth is not the sort to make the best of an unpleasant situation,” he added. “She is one who will rebel.”

  “I know.” Athulf’s face was gloomy. “She has ever been thus. And she has been badly spoiled. My mother ever stayed with my father at court, and left her to me and to Ceolwulf.”

  “And so she was allowed to go her own way.”

  “All too often,” Athulf agreed ruefully. “But she cannot continue thus, Prince. She is almost a woman.”

  The fire flared up suddenly as part of the huge log burning there cracked and fell. “Girl or woman, she is still Elswyth,” Alfred said. “She will always be Elswyth. And she will do better with me than she will with Edred.”

  Athulf looked at Alfred’s fire-gilded face. “Did she say she would marry you?”

  “She asked me to marry her,” Alfred answered, and humor quivered beneath the surface gravity of his voice.

  “Oh, my God,” Athulf groaned. “Only Elswyth would dare do such a thing.”

  “I like her,” Alfred said. “I think we understand each other.”

  Athulf’s dark, haughty face, also illuminated by the flaring fire, became very serious. “Prince,” he said almost reluctantly, “I must ask you to think again before I give you an answer. You h
old a great position in Wessex, you are secondarius, your brother’s heir. You are deeply respected among your people; that is apparent immediately to all who do meet you. It is not impossible that someday you might be king.” Athulf’s arrogant aquiline nose looked pinched as he said, “I cannot see Elswyth filling the sort of position you would expect your wife to fill.” Then he added with despair, “Every time you needed her, she would be out galloping her horse across the Downs.”

  At that, Alfred laughed. Then, sobering, he assured Athulf, “My brother, thank God, is young and healthy. And he has a son who will be able to succeed him in a few years’ time. My position is not like to change, nor would I wish it to do so. My wife need be no finer than the lady of any ordinary thane, and that, Elswyth can be.” He added with amusement, “She has pride enough to be queen, that is certain.”

  “All too certain,” Athulf said. And breathed hard through his nose.

  “Well, my lord, what is your answer?” Alfred did not sound as if he were in any doubt, and there was certainly no tension in his shoulders or in the relaxed hands that held his cup, but his expression was courteous.

  “It is yes, of course. You must know you are a better match than Edred. And, more important, Elswyth apparently likes you.” Athulf rubbed his nose, looked at Alfred, and said wryly, “I have not been liking myself much lately.”

  Alfred gave his future brother his quick, charming smile. “She is not an easy charge, that I can see.”

  “Well, she will shortly be your charge,” Athulf retorted. “For which blessing I thank the good Lord.”

  Alfred set his barely touched cup of ale on the arm of his chair and leaned a little forward, as if to rise. “We will wait until after the battle with the Danes for the marriage,” he said, still poised to rise from his chair.

  “There is no need to wait for so long,” Athulf assured him, but Alfred was shaking his head.

  “If I died in battle it would not matter, that is true. But I have a deep objection to saddling a young girl with a man who is maimed. We will wait.”

  Athulf’s face altered. “I had not thought of that.”

  “It is not something I dwell upon either,” Alfred said lightly, “but in this case it has some bearing. Elswyth and I will marry after we have settled with the Danes.”

  “Very well,” said Athulf. The two men stood up at the same time and regarded each other with approval. “I shall be honored to be your brother,” the Mercian said.

  “I too,” Alfred replied. Athulf’s dark face lit with a smile, altogether banishing the haughty look it wore in repose. Alfred put a hand upon the other’s shoulder, then turned toward the door. “I must go and change before the banquet.”

  Athulf walked with him to the hall door, and when both men looked outside, they saw that it was snowing hard. “Good,” remarked Athulf with satisfaction. “The more it snows, the less likely the Danes will be to raid the countryside.”

  “I pray they stay in Nottingham until the spring,” Alfred said, and his voice was very clipped. “It is our great chance, Athulf, to catch them with both our armies at full strength.”

  “I know,” Athulf said.

  Alfred hesitated. Then: “I wish I could be sure that Burgred sees that.”

  “Burgred has a witan,” Athulf answered grimly. “You may rely on us.”

  Alfred’s hand closed for a minute on Athulf’s arm; then the prince was gone into the swirl of snow.

  Alfred returned to Wessex. Ethelred summoned another witan, and word was sent out across the country that the fyrds of all the shires were to muster in March, to move to Nottingham to meet the Danes.

  There was no standing army in Wessex. The closest thing the country had to a permanent fighting force was the circle of companions who formed the king’s bodyguard. These king’s companions lived in the king’s hall, were supported by the king’s revenues, and to all intents and purposes were professional soldiers. Each ealdorman also had a hearthband of thanes who were sworn to serve him and who lived in his hall and at his expense. These two groups of thanes formed the fighting elite of the West Saxon army.

  When an ealdorman called out the fyrd of his shire, however, he called upon other men besides his own hearthband. Chief, he called upon the shire thanes.

  A shire thane lived upon his own manor, which had to be at least five hides of land in size and could be considerably larger. Though a shire thane did not live in the ealdorman’s hall, still he was pledged to fight for the ealdorman of his shire when called upon. Each shire thane was further required to furnish to the fyrd an additional man for every five hides of land he possessed over and above the original five hides. Most often these extra men were ceorls, who owed loyalty to the shire thane whom they represented. It was the shire thane’s responsibility to see that all his representatives were equipped with spear and byrnie and had been given basic training in the use of arms. The towns of Wessex were also assessed in hides and the townsmen were required to send for service in the fyrd a representative for each five hides of land the town was assessed.

  These, then, were the kinds of men who had defended Wessex from the Danes for the past fifty years. The defense had in general been successful. Because the fyrds were local, they had the advantage of being able to gather quickly, and over the years, because the same men answered the call time and again, the thanes, ceorls, and townsmen who formed the shire militias had turned into decently equipped and experienced men-at-arms.

  So in March, when the fyrds of Wessex mustered in response to their ealdormen’s summonses, these were the men who gathered to march to Nottingham. There was not a man present, however, who did not realize that the army that awaited them in Nottingham was of a very different caliber from the raiding parties they had encountered in the past.

  It was a hard time of year to take a farmer from his land, Alfred thought as the massed fyrds of Wessex moved slowly along the old Roman road known as the Fosse Way, north into Mercia. There were some four thousand men marching along this most westerly of all the great Roman roads this day, and most of them, shire thanes and ceorls, were landowners whose fields were in need of the plow if seed were to be sown this spring. It was going to be possible to keep together an army of this size only for a relatively brief period of time.

  This was a thought that had been troubling Alfred for the last six weeks. The West Saxon men were mainly farmers who were used to scattering immediately after a fight to return to their homes and their fields and their animals. The Danes, on the other hand, were a professional army, joined together in the name of conquest, and living off the fruits of their plunder. The Danes would not scatter after a battle, of that Alfred was quite certain.

  We must defeat them at Nottingham, he thought, and not for the first time. Alfred’s stallion arched his gleaming chestnut neck in the chill damp air and snorted at the slow pace he was being forced to keep. The king’s companions and the ealdormen were all mounted, but most of the men of the West Saxon fyrds were on foot, and the pace was suited to them and to the supply wagons drawn by slow-moving oxen.

  It took a week to march from Chippenham, where they had mustered, to Tamworth. At Tamworth the fyrds of Wessex joined up with the Mercian army, and from thence they moved together to Nottingham, where they massed on the right bank of the Trent and looked across the river at high cliffs lined with the flashing arms of Danish warriors. Unlike the Northumbrians, Burgred and Ethelred had not been lucky enough to catch the Danes outside their fortifications.

  The Danish fortifications at Nottingham were formidable indeed. The Viking army had thrown up earthworks on all sides of Nottingham that were not protected by the river and the cliffs, and though they were outnumbered by the combined Mercian and West Saxon force, the Danes remained snug and safe within their barriers and showed no signs of issuing forth for battle.

  The days went by. Alfred could see signs of restlessness growing among the fyrds. The weather was warming. At home the heifers and cows would be calving and wor
k in the dairy would be under way. The pigs too would have littered, and as men clustered around their cook fires at Nottingham, eating their army rations, visions of roast suckling pig were dancing in more minds than one.

  They could not afford to sit here on the riverbank and do nothing!

  “What can we do?” Ethelred asked reasonably when Alfred expressed this thought to him for perhaps the dozenth time in one day. “It would be folly to attack the camp. You heard what happened to the Northumbrians once they got within the walls of York. If we are to fight the Danes, it must be out in the open.”

  “But they are not coming out in the open, Ethelred!” Alfred’s voice was harsh with frustration.

  “They will when they get hungry enough,” came Ethelred’s placid reply.

  “By the time they are hungry enough, all our men will have gone home,” said Alfred. And that evening he took a picked band of his own companions and rode south along the Trent to spy out the possibilities of crossing the river somewhere north of Repton.

  “If we can get a party of men across to surprise the Danes from the south, then perhaps the rest of the army can successfully attack from the west,” Alfred explained to Edgar, the young thane who was one of those companions closest to him.

  “It is worth a try, my lord,” Edgar replied promptly. Like Alfred, Edgar was young and frustrated by the inaction of the last two weeks.

  Ten of them stole out of camp in the dark that night. Alfred had not told even Ethelred of his plans. To Alfred’s disappointment, Ethelred had been deferring to Burgred’s leadership ever since the armies of Wessex and Mercia had first merged. Alfred could understand Ethelred’s reasoning, could even see some sense in it. As his one conversation with Athulf had shown him, the Mercians were extremely sensitive about Wessex’ past overlordship. Still the fact remained that Burgred was too timid and indecisive to ever prove an effective leader. It was best, Alfred decided, to take action on his own authority.