The Edge of Light

by Joan Wolf

  “My lord.” Now it was Alfred rising to his feet. His crisp voice easily cut through the noise in the room, and quiet began to fall. Alfred looked at Cenwulf, the only thane still remaining on his feet. “If you please, my lord,” the prince said, “I should like to speak.”

  Ethelnoth watched with interest as the king’s thane from Dorset, good friend of Ethelwulf’s son Athelstan, hesitated, then sat down. That boded well, Ethelnoth thought. There was something about the boy that commanded obedience.

  “My lords.” Now Alfred was addressing the entire group. “God knows, I never sought this honor. You all do know how much I loved and revered my brother Ethelred.” The quiet voice was perfectly steady, yet somehow Ethelnoth could sense the intense emotion behind Alfred’s words. And it was true. Scarcely were two brothers ever closer than Ethelred and Alfred had been. Alfred was going on, “But Ethelred, that best and most Christian of kings, has left us and we are forced to choose another. He has asked that the responsibility fall upon me. Almost the last words he spoke to me …” For the first time there was a quiver in the perfectly controlled voice. Alfred paused, then continued, steady once again. “Almost the last words he spoke to me were: ‘It eases my mind to know that I leave Wessex in such capable hands.’

  Alfred had been looking at the parchment containing Ethelred’s will, which lay on the table before him, but now he raised his head. His eyes, darkly golden like his hair, went from face to face around the room. “I do not know if I can lead you to victory over the Danes,” he said. “But I will promise you this. I will never give up, I will never surrender. I will keep the fyrds of Wessex in the field, summer and winter, until the Danes are beaten or I am dead.” His voice was not emotional; it was cold. Cold and level and implacable. As was his face.

  For the first time all morning, the room was deathly silent. In the stillness, Ethelnoth got once more to his feet. He looked at Alfred, then at the circle of men seated on the refectory benches around him. “My lords,” he said into the quiet, “I propose the witan name Prince Alfred to be our king.”

  The silence was shattered as the entire room, with the exception of Cenwulf, rose to its feet with a roar.

  Later, when the clamor had somewhat subsided and the men were standing in groups of twos and threes talking, Osric of Hampshire came up to Ethelnoth. The two stood for a moment in silence, looking at the figure of Alfred standing in the midst of a circle of taller, heavier men.

  “Do you realize,” Osric said softly, close to his ear, “that the fate of England hangs today on the heart and brain and arm of that young man?”

  “Yes,” said Ethelnoth in a voice almost as clipped as Alfred’s. “I do.” Then, more deeply: “We must all pray that he proves himself equal to so high a task.”

  “Amen,” said Osric, as if in answer to a prayer.

  The witenagemot was held in the morning, and in the afternoon Alfred was crowned. It was a hasty ceremony, held in the abbey church, with little of the splendor that had attended the crowning of Alfred’s brothers. But the coronation was perhaps the most portentous that Wessex had ever held. If the Danish army was not turned back, this might be the last king of their own that the West Saxons would ever raise. This was the thought in everyone’s mind as they went through the all-too-familiar ceremony that would give Wessex a new king.

  Alfred’s headache started midway through the Mass. There was no warning for this one; it came on swiftly, like a herd of thundering horses, Within fifteen minutes it was in full force, hammering its agony through his temples and across his brow.

  He held steady for the whole of the ceremony. To Ethelnoth’s discerning eye, the young king looked curiously rigid, with his jaw set and his mouth shut in a hard straight line. As he left the church, Alfred was very white and carried his head in its new gold circlet stiffly, as if he went on holding it erect only by the sheer force of his will.

  Overcome, Ethelnoth thought grimly, by the sheer immensity of what he had undertaken. No wonder.

  A headache, thought Elswyth, following behind in the procession as they left the church. Then, in despair: Why were all the momentous occasions in Alfred’s life doomed to be spoiled by headaches?

  As soon as they were in the great court of the abbey, she pushed forward to her husband’s side. Relief briefly flickered on his face when he heard her voice.

  “My lords,” she said firmly, putting an arm through Alfred’s. “If you wish your new king to be strong enough to lead you, then I suggest you allow him to get some rest. He has grieved sorely for his brother.”

  A ring of startled eyes stared at her. The thanes of Wessex were not accustomed to hearing a woman issue orders.

  “Of course, my lady.” It was Ethelnoth of Somerset, she saw.

  “My wife is right. I am , . . tired.” Alfred’s voice had the hollow sound Elswyth knew, but clearly no one else suspected aught was amiss with him. “I shall speak to you later,” he finished.

  Then they were free and she was steering him firmly toward the guesthouse in which they were lodged. To the men behind, he must look perfectly upright. Only Elswyth knew how he was leaning on her for guidance. “Can you see?” she asked him in a low undertone.

  “The light …” he said. “It is hard in the outdoors.”

  “There are two steps before the guest hall,” she said. Then, raising her arm a little: “Now.”

  She got him to their room and closed the door.

  Three hours later, a rider came galloping in from Reading. Knowing that most of the West Saxons were in Wimborne, the Danes had attacked the men of Surrey who were keeping watch on them, and cut them to pieces.

  “It was a slaughter, my lord,” the messenger reported bitterly to his ealdorman. “We had no chance against them. Those of us who could run got away. I rode as fast as I could to Wimborne to bring you the news.”

  “We must tell the king,” said Ulfric of Surrey. And a grim detachment of ealdormen and king’s thanes marched out into the great court and moved in a body toward the guesthouse where Alfred was lodged.

  Elswyth stepped before them when they were halfway across the hall. “Alfred cannot be disturbed,” she said. “He is sleeping.”

  “He will be disturbed for this, my lady,” Ulfric said, and continued to walk forward.

  “I said to stop.” It was the tone of her voice more than her words that halted them in their tracks. Six pairs of male eyes stared in amazement at Alfred’s wife. She said, her Mercian drawl very evident, “What is so important that you must see my lord? If it is indeed that serious, then I will wake him for you.”

  To his own astonishment, Ulfric told her,

  “I see.” The girl’s blue eyes, for she was no more than a slip of a girl, Ethelnoth thought, flicked from face to face. They waited. “I will bring him,” she said. “Wait here.” And she turned and went into the room.

  There was an uncomfortable silence among the ealdormen. Then Ethelnoth laughed. “Never did I think to find myself faced down by a woman,” he said humorously. His words broke the tension and the rest of the men laughed as well. Then they looked at the door of the king’s room and waited.

  It did not take long. Suddenly the door opened again and Alfred was among them, fully dressed and in perfect command of himself. At least, thought Ethelnoth, he did not take long to wake.

  It was Elswyth’s face more than Alfred’s that gave away to Ethelnoth that something was wrong. She watched her husband with such fierce intensity. Just so, he thought, would a wild creature watch her ailing young. He looked again at the king.

  There were shadows like bruises under the too-dark eyes. He stood too still, and he never moved his head. Suddenly Ethelnoth realized what was wrong. Alfred was in pain.

  He remembered the rumors about an illness. So, he thought. They were true.

  Whatever the problem, however, Alfred’s brain was still functioning. Their orders were very clear. They were to call up as many men as they could and ride for the standing cross that mar
ked the crossing of the Roman roads that led south from Meretun and Reading to Winchester and to Wilton. “If they are coming for the heart of Wessex, they will take one or both of those roads,” Alfred said. “Time is imperative. Do not linger to collect the unwilling. Take what men you can find and meet me at the standing cross. I will be there tomorrow.”

  “My lord,” they said. “We will.”

  Within an hour the ealdormen had ridden out of Wimborne to collect an army for the king.

  * * *

  Chapter 21

  Two thousand men met at the standing cross the following day. Alfred had sent thanes from his own hearthband north to scout the situation in both Meretun and Reading, and the West Saxon army waited to learn what news they could of the Danes. They waited also for their supply wagons to come up.

  “They can yet get by us if they take the road direct from Reading to Winchester and bypass meeting up with their forces from Meretun,” Alfred said at the end of the first day’s wait. And he sent Ethelnoth with the men of Somerset to hold the main Winchester road while the rest of them kept guard at the crossroads of the two other roads that led into the heart of Wessex.

  After three days the scouts returned with the news that both parts of the Danish army had joined at Reading and were moving south along the main road toward Silchester. At Silchester they would have the choice of either of two roads, the one Alfred was guarding, which led toward Wilton, or the one guarded by Ethelnoth, leading to Winchester. Alfred gritted his teeth and waited. The following day further news came that the Danes were pitching camp in Silchester.

  Alfred was bitterly disappointed. He did not have the men to attack a Danish camp, and had hoped to be able to meet them out in the open, where the West Saxons had had some success in the past. The longer he had to wait, the harder it would be for him to keep his men in the field.

  He decided to march north to see if he could harry the Danes badly enough to force them to leave Silchester.

  “Every time we send out a raiding party, we lose men.” Guthrum was disgusted. The men lost in the last raid had belonged to him. “They won’t come out and fight. It’s just arrows falling from nowhere, and then nothing.”

  “They remember what happened when the men they left to guard Reading made themselves too visible,” Erlend replied. He and his uncle were lodged within one of the crumbling old Roman buildings in the ancient town, and now he plucked a few strings on his harp. Then he said, “Clearly they do not have the numbers to attack us directly.”

  “Their king is dead.” Guthrum’s blue eyes gleamed with the thought. He had been bitterly disappointed not to have slain Ethelred on the battlefield. The king’s subsequent demise from his wounds had been eminently satisfactory to the jarl.

  “Ethelred is dead,” Guthrum repeated now, “but still we know little of the succession. Heretofore the West Saxons’ strength has lain in their unity. I wonder if that unity will survive the death of Ethelred.”

  A little silence fell, and Guthrum ran his fingers through the heavy yellow bangs on his forehead. “I would give much to learn the answer to those questions,” he murmured half to himself.

  Erlend ran his fingers over his harp strings, calling up a dazzle of notes. “Would you like me to try to find out?” he asked.

  Guthrum’s head turned sharply, “You?”

  Erlend shrugged. “I can take my harp around the countryside once more.”

  Guthrum frowned with impatience. “Your little disguise will not serve us this time, Nephew. Simple country folk will not yet know what has taken place in the councils of the great.”

  Erlend’s face stiffened. The hint of scorn in his uncle’s deep voice rankled. Guthrum had not belittled his “little disguise” when he had proposed it to Halfdan last winter. Nor had he hesitated to take the credit for Erlend’s accomplishments.

  “Perhaps,” Erlend said, producing yet another elaborate shower of sound, “perhaps I can find my way into the household of one of their nobles.”

  There was a long pause. Then Guthrum said, “Your confidence has grown, youngster. It is one thing to fool the simple, another to hoodwink the great.”

  “Not so much difference,” Erlend replied. His greenish eyes flicked over Guthrum’s face. He had no illusions about the way his uncle’s mind was working. Should Erlend fail and be discovered, then Erlend would be out of Guthrum’s way. On the other hand, should Erlend succeed, then would the Danes have some useful information. And Guthrum would manage to take the credit for having such a clever kinsman.

  Guthrum smiled. His wolf smile, Erlend thought. “It is not an ill idea,” his uncle said. “Find out who has been named king, and who is opposing him.”

  “My lord …” Erlend bared his own teeth in a return grin. “I will.”

  After two weeks the only troops remaining to Alfred were his own household thanes and the thanes of the ealdormen’s hearthbands. It was May, and at home the farmers were facing their yearly problem of keeping their animals fed until the spring grass was thick enough for grazing. The fodder problem was always serious in the spring, and spring had been late in coming this year.

  Alfred himself fell back on Wilton, sending Ealdorman Osric and his men to occupy Winchester, It would be easier to feed the thanes of the hearthbands from the royal manors than it was in the field.

  It took Alfred three days to move his men to Wilton, encumbered as they were with the supply wagons, and it was at their first overnight camp near to Wodnesford that they were joined by an itinerant harper. It was Edgar who first spotted the boy lurking by the side of the road and called him into the light of the fires.

  “I’ll play you a song for some supper, my lords,” Erlend said, looking around the firelit faces with his most winning smile. He ran his fingers over the strings enticingly. He was an excellent harper.

  The West Saxons waved him closer and he took a place among them, fitted his harp into the crook of his arm, and asked simply, “What will you have?”

  “Eat first, lad,” said the thane beside him good-naturedly. “No cause to play on an empty stomach.”

  “That is so,” said someone else, and brought to Erlend a bowl of stew from the pot on the cookfire.

  “Where are you from, lad?” another man asked as Erlend began to eat. The stew was surprisingly good.

  “I am Frankish, my lord,” the boy returned.

  “What brings you to Wessex?” asked yet another. There was no suspicion in the questions, and Erlend had grown comfortable with his story over the course of the winter.

  “I had a fancy to see the world,” he answered readily. “There were ten of us at home, and no tears shed to see me go.”

  The men around the fire nodded and shrugged. So went the world. Erlend finished his stew and took up his harp. “I know some of the song of Beowulf,” he said.

  “That will do,” said the man beside him, and Erlend ran his fingers over his harp, bending his ear close to listen to each individual string. Then he raised his head and shook back his hair from his brow. He did not wear it short like the rest of the men in the Danish camp, but shoulder-length, in the style of the West Saxons.

  “ ‘Hark!’ “ he began, and ran through the notes again, “ ‘to the story of the bygone glory of the Danish kings and the doings of their princes. Of how Scyld Scefing, the dread of armies, brought hostile nations into thrall and struck grim terror into the hearts of their lords.’ “

  His voice was clearly chanted, his harp the perfect background for the stirring words. A sigh of satisfaction ran around the circle of men and they settled down more comfortably to listen.

  Erlend played for fully an hour, and all during that time men kept moving closer and closer to the fire around which he sat. When finally he put aside the harp, they paid him the tribute of silence.

  Then, “Very well sung,” said a crisp voice from the far side of the fire. It was one of the men whom they had made room for early in the song. “What is your name?”

  “E
rlend, my lord,” the boy replied. He had decided last winter he would be less likely to make a mistake if he used his own name.

  “Erlend,” said another voice. “This is not a Prankish name.”

  He had his reply ready. “My mother’s mother was from Norway, my lord.”

  “Give the boy a drink,” the man with the distinctive voice said. “He must be thirsty after such an effort.”

  “Yes, my lord!” Three men made to get up, one said, “I’ll get it,” and the others sat back down.

  A drink of ale was brought to Erlend, and as he sipped it gratefully, he looked across the fire, The flames showed him the figure he sought. That color hair looked familiar, he thought. Then, as the man rose to his feet, Erlend recognized him. He had seen that way of moving once before, on the battlefield at Ashdown. Even in full battle dress, Alfred had moved like a cat.

  Erlend finished his ale as Alfred, followed by three of his men, left the fire. The boy wiped his mouth with his sleeve, turned to the thane next to him, and asked guilelessly, “Who was that man with the golden hair?”

  The man’s firelit face broke into a smile. “Why, that was the king, my boy. That was Alfred himself.”

  “Oh.” Erlend let his eyes widen into awe. “I did not know I was playing my harp for a king!”

  Good-natured laughter rose from those who were listening. Erlend drew up his knees and propped his chin on them. He looked about fourteen sitting there, and he knew it. “I did not even know who the new king was,” he said.

  The man beside him looked surprised. “There should have been little doubt in the country about who would be chosen. Alfred is the only one to lead us in such a time of peril. Surely all of Wessex knows that.”

  “But did not King Ethelred have sons?” Erlend’s eyes were round with assumed innocence.

  “The boy is a Frank,” a voice to his left said, as if Erlend’s nationality would explain his ignorance.

  The man beside him retied his garter as he told Erlend kindly, “Ethelred’s sons are too young. Ethelred himself knew that. In his will he named Alfred, his brother, as his heir.”