The Edge of Light

by Joan Wolf

  Ethelred began to pluck at his eyebrow. “That is true, I suppose. Still, Alfred … I am not sure that we should be the ones to make the first move. Perhaps we ought to wait, see what they are going to do …”

  Alfred strove to contain his impatience. He said calmly and reasonably, “Ealdorman Ethelwulf made the first move, and see what happened.”

  “Ealdorman Ethelwulf was not attacking the whole of the Danish army!”

  Alfred’s face wore an uncharacteristically hard expression. Quite suddenly he looked ten years older. He said, “Ethelred, we must act whilst we have the fyrd out in force. Otherwise the same thing will happen that happened in Mercia. The men will begin to go back to their farms. If we wait until that happens, if we wait for the Danes to move first, then we are lost.”

  Ethelred looked for a long moment into the face of his brother. Then he said, “Perhaps you are right, Alfred. For certain, we should have listened to you at Nottingham.” He dropped his hand from his eyebrow. “All right,” he said with decision. “We will try a surprise attack upon Reading.”

  “Tomorrow?”

  “Tomorrow.” Ethelred quirked his much-abused eyebrow. “Why wait?”

  Alfred laughed and once more looked his age. He got to his feet and asked, “Shall I pass the word to the ealdormen?”

  “Yes,” said Ethelred quietly. “Do so.”

  Reading was surrounded by rivers, the Kennet to its southwest, the Thames to its north, and the Loddon to its east. On its southeastern exposure the Danes had built earthworks to protect their camp. The West Saxons came from the south, up the Roman road, along the Kennet as it wound into Reading, right to the base of the earthworks. The surprise was absolute. They fell on all the Danes who were outside the walls and slaughtered them.

  Erlend was within the camp when the cries went up from without the walls. He had been playing his harp for his uncle, who had evinced surprising interest both in Erlend’s skill and in the large number of Saxon poems that Erlend knew.

  “Name of the Raven!” swore Guthrum, his blue eyes glittering in the cold January sun. The noise from without the walls was bloodcurdling. “The bastards are attacking!”

  Within the camp all the men were running for armor and for weapons. Erlend kept beside his uncle as Guthrum mustered his men. “Fall on them like wolves!” Guthrum shouted. And, with his glittering eyes and his white teeth bared in the sunlight, he did indeed look like the wolf he invoked. Guthrum slammed his helmet down over his short hair, lifted his sword and his battleax, and made for the ramparts. His men followed, each taking his accustomed place in the fighting wedge favored by Viking warriors.

  The Viking army was extremely well-trained. That was something Erlend had noted and admired in the weeks since he had joined his uncle. Guthrum’s men had been with him for years, as had the men of most of the other kings and jarls. Most had been ships crews originally, with muscles hardened by rowing and comradeship strengthened by facing together the storms of the North Sea. There was no social distinction made in the crews of the long ships. All were warriors. And here on land, the strength, the discipline, the comradeship they had learned on the sea made them superior soldiers, brave and skilled and loyal to their leader. There was not a man among the Danes who went over the wall on this cold clear January day who did not think they would drive this upstart West Saxon army to its knees.

  And indeed the Danes were a fearful sight as they swarmed out of Reading to fall upon the West Saxons. The sun shone upon the metal of their helmets and on the gold or silver bracelets that encircled their arms and their wrists. It shone on their swords and their battleaxes and their polished byrnies. It brought out the brilliant colors in their shields, in their pennants, and in the grim banner of the Raven that floated over Halfdan, their battle leader. Their battle cries were bloodcurdling and for a moment the West Saxons swayed and began to fall back.

  Then there came a shout, a cry of “Wessex! Wessex!” and the fyrds were pressing forward again. For nearly an hour the battle raged at the gates of Reading. But the West Saxons, busily engaged in front, did not realize that Halfdan had sent a party of men under the jarl Harald to slip around to their rear and cut off their retreat to the south. It was not until the cry went up from the rear, rolling like thunder over the ranks of hard-fighting men, “We are trapped! We are trapped!” that Ethelred and Alfred realized what had happened.

  Guthrum turned to Erlend with a wolfish grin. “Harald has cut off their escape. They are hemmed in by the rivers now. We have them.”

  “God Almighty, Alfred,” Ethelred cried to his brother. “What shall we do? They have us trapped!”

  “Fight on!” Alfred answered. But even as he spoke, he could see that panic was beginning to spread among the fyrds. In a very short time the men would break and run. And once they did that, they would be cut down without mercy.

  God. Alfred forced his brain to function. He knew Reading, knew these rivers. He stood for a moment, safe within the midst of a circle Ethelred’s companion thanes, and said to his brother, “There is a ford over the Loddon at Twyford. We must fall back on Wiscelet.”

  “All right,” Ethelred turned to his thanes with the command and soon word began to pass to all the ealdormen.

  Fall back on Wiscelet. Hold together and fall back on Wiscelet. We shall cross the Loddon at Twyford.

  The army rallied to the call of its leaders. Holding together under their ealdormen, the thanes and ceorls and townsfolk who comprised the West Saxon fyrds began an orderly fighting retreat to the west. An hour later they thoroughly surprised their pursuers by fording the Loddon where the Danes did not think it could be forded. The Danes hesitated, chose not to follow, and the West Saxons were free in the world.

  * * *

  Chapter 17

  The West Saxons went north and west, toward the Ridgeway and the Downs; in winter it was essential to keep to a traversible roadway, and the Ridgeway was an all-weather track. As soon as they were safe away from Reading, Ethelred sent a rider galloping to Mercia to request that Burgred bring the Mercian fyrd to the immediate aid of Wessex. Ethelred fixed the meeting point at Lowbury Hill, the highest point on the eastern part of Ashdown, the name given by the West Saxons to this eastern line of the Berkshire Downs. Lowbury was a well-known spot, marked by its height and by an ancient earthwork from the days of the Old Ones. The Mercians should be able to find it with little trouble.

  The weather held cold but clear as the West Saxon army made its way through the deserted countryside. They had sustained hard losses and been driven from the field, but even so, their spirits were high. They had fought well and their leaders had extricated them deftly from what could have been a fatal situation. They had hurt the Danes, that was sure. The very fact that the enemy had not pursued them once they crossed the river was an indication of how badly the northmen had been hurt.

  Alfred’s thoughts reflected those of his army. They had come so close! If it had not been for their inexperience in letting the Danes get behind them . .

  Among the list of the West Saxon fallen was Ethelwulf, the Ealdorman of Berkshire who had won the field for them so bravely at Englefield. “A courageous leader,” Ethelred said when learning the news from one of the ealdorman’s hearthband thanes. “A bitter loss.”

  Most of the Saxon dead had been left behind before the walls of Reading, but Ethelwulf’s thanes had brought the ealdorman’s body across the river with them. One of the first things the army did when it reached Lowbury Hill on January 5 was bury Ethelwulf decently, with prayers said by the king’s own household priest.

  The West Saxons made camp right on the Ridgeway half a mile to the southwest of Lowbury Hill and prepared to wait for Burgred and his Mercians. Alfred also sent to his nearby manors of Wantage and Lambourn for reinforcements. Free or unfree, went the order, all able-bodied men who could carry a spear were to report to the army camp on Ashdown. By nightfall of January 7 there were several hundred more West Saxons in Ethelred’s camp.
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  The guard stationed on Lowbury Hill by day and night kept the watch toward the north, the direction from which the Mercians would come. The short winter day waned toward dusk. The West Saxons repaired their weapons and fed their bellies and waited. Finally, as the light was dimming fast, there came the sound they had all been listening for: galloping hooves from Lowbury Hill. The king and Alfred were on their feet when the scout came thundering into camp.

  “My lord! My lord!” The thane was one of Ethelred’s, young and chosen for his unusually sharp eyes. He was out of breath. It was not gladness that rang in his voice, however, but fear. “Coming up the Ridgeway, my lord! From Reading! It is not the Mercians I see. It is the Danes!”

  The West Saxon attack upon Reading had completely surprised the Danes, “They actually attacked,” said Guthrum to Erlend in astonishment as they prepared for sleep in Guthrum’s booth on the night of January 4. Guthrum’s teeth gleamed whitely in the light of the oil lamp. “Wonderful. It seems there is one English kingdom after all with stomach enough to light us.”

  “Did not East Anglia fight?” Erlend asked. Since coming to England he had done his best to acquaint himself with the course of the Danish army’s campaign.

  “Not until we left them no choice.” His uncle’s voice was full of contempt. “Nor could they keep the field against us for above fifteen minutes.”

  “These West Saxons seem strong enough,” Erlend ventured. Having been both at Englefield and at Reading, he felt he had the experience to make a judgment.

  “They let themselves be outflanked today. If it had not been for that ford …”

  Prudently Erlend kept silent. The Danish leaders were not pleased with the escape of the West Saxons across the Loddon. Halfdan’s curses had been heard round the camp when he learned what had happened.

  “They are a pack of farmers only,” said Guthrum. He leaned to blow out the lamp. “In the open, in fair battle, they could no more stand against us than did the East Anglians.”

  Silence fell. Erlend heard Guthrum turn over in the straw of his bed, preparing to sleep. “Uncle?” he asked very softly. “Will we seek a battle, then?”

  “Perhaps.” Guthrum sounded sleepy. “The war council will meet tomorrow.” Then: “Go to sleep, Nephew.”

  Erlend lay down on his own straw. He was wide-awake. He had killed a man this day. The first man he had ever killed. He had felt surprise when he saw the man go down. It had been a strange feeling, not at all the wild triumph he had thought he would feel. Then another sword had hacked at his mail-protected shoulder, and he had forgotten the man on the ground at his feet.

  From the other camp bed came the sound of Guthrum snoring. Erlend closed his eyes and the battle raged before him once again. He opened his eyes and stared into the dark. Slowly, carefully, he stretched and flexed his legs, his arms, his shoulders, his back. He was alive. Guthrum snored louder. Suddenly Erlend felt weary. He closed his eyes and this time saw only the dark. He pulled his cloak over his shoulders and then he too fell asleep.

  The Danish leaders—Halfdan, his fellow-king, Bagsac, and the jarls— met in council the following day and decided to march forth from Reading to seek battle with the West Saxons.

  “One battle won us Northumbria and one battle won us East Anglia,” Halfdan said to his war council. “My aim is to add Wessex to our holdings, I see no reason why we should not triumph again. And if we are to move, it would be well to move quickly, before the Mercians have a chance to come to the aid of the West Saxons.”

  There was not a single dissenting voice. Scouts were sent out to determine the West Saxon position, and on the morning of January 7, another bright clear cold winter day, the Danish army issued out of Reading in full battle array and marched up the Ridgeway toward Lowbury Hill, where the West Saxon army was camped.

  The West Saxon surprise was as great as the Danes’ had been when the fyrds attacked Reading. Neither the king nor his councillors had expected the Danes to leave their base camp, and the whole end of the Ridgeway toward Reading had been left open and unprotected. Most devastating of all, the West Saxons had left the ridge just to the southeast of their camp unmanned, Halfdan camped in a slight hollow behind it and immediately posted scouts on the unprotected ridge, but one thousand feet from the West Saxon camp on the Ridgeway below.

  Alfred swore bitterly when he realized what had happened. The Danes had always been so reluctant to leave their base camps! He had never dreamed they would come out into the open like this.

  “We should have occupied that ridge,” he said to Ethelred. “It is inexcusable of me to have neglected it.”

  “Too late to bemoan our mistake now,” Ethelred said. His face was drawn and grim. “We must decide immediately whether to fight on our own or try to escape in the night. If we stay, we will be facing battle tomorrow.”

  The two brothers were alone for a moment, awaiting the arrival of the ealdormen who had been called for a war council. Ethelred’s eyes were steady on his brother’s face. Ethelred wanted the two of them to decide now, Alfred realized, before the ealdormen arrived. He forced himself to push aside his fury at his own stupidity and concentrate on the problem at hand. A battle, he thought. Tomorrow. Without the Mercians.

  “The men are in high heart, Ethelred,” he said slowly. “Even if the Mercians do not come in time, I think we will be all right. Worse to run. That would surely knock the heart from the fyrds. Twice now they have fought the Danes and held their own. They have confidence. They will fight well if we fight tomorrow.”

  “I think you are right. And God knows when we shall have such an army collected again.” Ethelred’s brown eyes were clear as he looked at his younger brother. “Alfred,” he said, and stopped. Then, very carefully, still with those clear steady eyes: “Should anything befall me on the morrow, it is you who must take the kingship.”

  Alfred’s head jerked up. His face went very pale and his eyes widened and darkened. He did not answer. “I love my sons,” Ethelred went on, still in that same careful voice. “But they are still boys. Wessex needs a king who is a man.” He paused. Then, again: “It must be you.”

  Alfred’s throat moved as if he were trying to talk but could not. He wanted to protest, to tell Ethelred not to speak so, but his voice stuck in his throat. His heart was rejecting utterly what his brain knew to be true: Ethelred was mortal. Finally, after a struggle that Ethelred could clearly see, Alfred gave up trying to answer and nodded.

  Ethelred put a hand on his brother’s shoulder. Alfred covered it with his own. Then, as if the touch had released his voice, he said urgently, “Whatever happens, Ethelred, do not let yourself be taken alive!”

  His brother smiled. Wryly. “I will remember that.” He looked over Alfred’s shoulder. “Here come the ealdormen.”

  It was full dark when a single horseman, coming from the north, rode into the West Saxon camp and asked for the king. Alfred knew as soon as he saw the face of Ethelred of Hwicce that the news was not good.

  “The Welsh have risen,” the young Mercian ealdorman said to the king and his brother. “Burgred and the rest of our ealdormen are fighting on our western border. They cannot come to the aid of Wessex.”

  Ethelred and Alfred exchanged a grim look. They had resigned themselves to the fact that Burgred would not arrive before the morrow’s battle, but they had yet been counting on future assistance from the Mercians. Alfred thought of the thousands of West Saxons who had marched to Nottingham, and shut his mouth hard.

  Ethelred said to his Mercian namesake, “Thank you for bringing us this word, my lord ealdorman. “You look to have had a hard ride. Come and take some food.”

  Alfred looked at his brother’s quiet, dignified face and felt a fierce surge of love and pride.

  “I have brought you my sword as well,” the redheaded Mercian answered. From the expression on his face it was clear Ethelred of Hwicce felt bitterly humiliated by the news he had been forced to carry. “If you will accept it, of course,” he a
dded stiffly.

  “We will gladly accept your sword, my lord,” Ethelred the king replied with his gentle courtesy. “And your valorous heart as well. The fight will be on the morrow. Those are Danes you see on yonder hill.”

  “Tomorrow?” said Ethelred, startled. Then, with heartfelt fervor: “Thank God!”

  At that Alfred grinned. “It has been a long wait since Nottingham, my friend.”

  “That it has.” Young Ethelred blazed a returning grin and ran a dirty hand through his hair. “If you will just show me where I can get some food, my lord …”

  Alfred walked around the camp till quite late, talking with thanes he knew, exchanging a jest with a man here, an encouraging word with one there. The temper of the army was confident. Far from being discouraged by being driven from the field at Reading, the men seemed to be looking forward to this next encounter. This time, they told their prince, there would be no rivers with which to trap them!

  When Alfred finally returned to his own tent, he was content. The ground was frozen with the cold and the sky was a great bowl of stars overhead. The weather looked to play no part in the morrow’s encounter. The numbers of the armies were close to even. The victory would fall to whichever army fought the harder.

  Please God that army would be the West Saxons’!

  The Danes were stirring as soon as the first light began to streak the sky. The West Saxons ate their bread and cheese and watched the enemy slowly marshaling their troops into battle lines on the ridge above them. The leaders of Wessex—the king, the king’s brother, Alfred, the ealdormen, the king’s companion thanes, and the lone Mercian nobleman who had come to their assistance—met before the king’s leather tent in council of war.

  “They are forming into two columns,” said Osric, Ealdorman of Hampshire. All the men in the group turned to look once more to the ridge. The hill was divided by the Ridgeway, and on one side of the ancient track was a column flying the Raven banner of the leaders, the kings Halfdan and Bagsac. The other column was mustering under a variety of individual pennants.