The Edge of Light

by Joan Wolf

So he would not name Athelwold as his heir, would do nothing to placate the injured vanity of this importunate nephew, and consequently he had to face the fact that Athelwold most probably hated him. And would do everything he could to undermine Alfred’s authority.

  Elswyth did not help matters either, her husband thought now, by showing her dislike of Athelwold so openly. No hope to change that, though. Elswyth was incapable of dissimulation, was clear as water always.

  Alfred put his hand out to touch the cold and empty bed beside him. God, but he missed her!

  What would she say when she learned about Roswitha? For learn she would, Alfred was certain. Either Athelwold or Erlend would be sure to tell her. He would wager the entire royal treasury on that.

  The hound shifted his position at Alfred’s feet and snorted in his sleep. Alfred grinned at the sound. Chasing deer in his sleep, he thought. Then: No need to linger here in Southampton any longer. The ships were coming along splendidly. It was time for him to return to his wife.

  He closed his eyes and went to sleep.

  In his reflections, Alfred had done Erlend an injustice. But the king and his following had not been back at Wilton for above an hour before Athelwold told Elswyth his own version of the tale.

  Alfred was roughhousing with his children and his dogs before the hearth in the great hall when Elswyth stalked into the room. Athelwold had caught her as she was going to the kitchens to see the cook about supper, and she had turned back to the hall immediately. She stalked—there was no other word for it, Alfred thought ruefully, watching her come—to the hearth, looked down her nose at him, and said through her teeth, “I should like to speak to you, my lord. Alone.”

  Every ear in the vicinity was turned their way. Of course every thane in the room would know what this was about. Those who had not been at Southampton would have been informed by their friends within the first ten minutes of their arrival.

  “Certainly, my love,” Alfred said mildly. “Shall we go into our chamber?”

  “Me too!” said Flavia, jumping to her feet and grasping her father’s hand.

  “No,” said Elswyth in the rare voice that meant she expected absolute obedience. Both children stared openmouthed at their mother and subsided back into the pack of dogs. Elswyth stalked across the silent hall to the bedchamber door. Alfred followed, torn between amusement and annoyance. Why did Elswyth have to be so dramatic? And so publicly dramatic, at that.

  He closed the bedroom door behind him and said, “What did Athelwold tell you?”

  She spun around to face him, her blue eyes glittering, her thin nostrils pinched tight. “He told me Roswitha came to Southampton. He said you spoke to her in your sleeping chamber.”

  He nodded thoughtfully. “And did he also tell you that he was the one who had sent for her? That he did it to try to make trouble between you and me?”

  “I told you once Alfred”—she was still speaking through her teeth—”I told you that if you ever went near her again, I would kill her.”

  He stretched his shoulders and advanced further into the room. He looked from his wife to his bed, then back again to his wife. They had been parted for nearly a month. “It was not her fault,” he said. “Athelwold told her that I had sent for her.”

  “You were alone with her.” Now she was directly accusing him.

  “Elswyth, what are you so angry about?” He made a great effort to sound calm and reasonable. He did not want to quarrel with her. “Do you think I went to bed with her?”

  She didn’t, of course. They both knew that. She glared at him, and he went on, still in the same reasonable voice, “If you show yourself upset, you will only give Athelwold the reaction he hoped for.”

  His reasonableness was not having the effect he had hoped. Her chin came up. “Do not talk to me as if I were Flavia!” Her voice was beginning to rise.

  “Then stop acting like Flavia.” He was starting to get annoyed. This was certainly not the homecoming he had hoped for. “Athelwold played a stupid trick, that is all. Do not try to make more of it than it is.”

  She was quivering all over with temper. And all for no reason, Alfred thought, his own temper beginning to rise.

  “I want to know why that woman is still living at Southampton,” Elswyth said furiously.

  Alfred looked at his wife’s clenched fists. Small chance of getting her to bed in this mood, he thought. Best to leave her before things went from bad to worse.

  “I will speak to you later, when you have had a chance to recover yourself,” he said curtly, and turned to walk to the door.

  “Don’t you dare walk away from me!” she shouted at him in fury.

  He swung around. “You are behaving worse than Flavia,” he retorted, his own voice considerably louder than usual, and she grabbed a silver goblet from the small table by the brazier and threw it at his head. He ducked and it crashed into the door behind him, in the exact place where his head had been. They stared at each other, the only sound in the room their quickened breathing. Alfred didn’t know which of them was more astonished by her gesture, himself or Elswyth.

  He said, “Your aim is excellent.”

  She said, “Thank you.”

  Then, at the very same moment, they both began to laugh.

  “You are a shrew,” he said, leaving the door and crossing the room toward her. “I don’t know why I love you so much.”

  Still laughing, she moved also, her arms extended, her face upraised. They met in the middle of the room and kissed passionately. A few minutes later found them where Alfred had hoped to be all along. In bed.

  Like the rest of the men in the hall, Erlend sat in utter silence as Alfred closed his sleeping-room door behind him. Silence still reigned as all ears remained pricked in one direction only. Even the children were quiet, quenched for the moment by their mother’s unusually severe reprimand.

  For the first few minutes, nothing could be heard. Then, distinctly, came the sound of Elswyth’s raised voice. Next, astonishingly, they heard Alfred. He appeared to be shouting back. Then came sound of something crashing into the door. Finally came silence.

  The minutes ticked by. The dogs went to sleep. Flavia stood up and began to walk toward her parents’ bedroom door. Edward followed, saying, “Mama. I want Mama.”

  “Holy Mother,” said Edgar, and he swooped forward to stand before the determined duo. “Not now, sweeting,” he said to Flavia. “Your mother and father are … um … talking. They need to be alone. Come and watch me carve you a new animal.”

  Flavia’s small, extremely beautiful face set in an expression they were all too familiar with, “No,” she said. Her favorite word. Edward, faithful follower that he was, echoed her sentiments.

  “Where in hell are these children’s nursemaids?” Edgar growled, looking around the hallful of grinning thanes.

  “I’ll go look,” one offered, and left the room.

  Flavia had resumed her march toward the forbidden door. Erlend heard himself saying, “If you like, Flavia, you can play my harp.”

  The little girl stopped. “Your harp? I can touch it?”

  “Yes,” said Erlend.

  The small face lit with a radiant smile. Flavia had been itching to get her busy little hands on his harp for weeks. “Oh, Erlend!” she said. “Thank you!” And came running.

  Edward hesitated, clearly torn between the two great loves of his life, his mother and his sister. “You can touch it too, Edward,” Erlend said coaxingly, and that decided it.

  “Those children are spoiled rotten,” Erlend heard Athelwold complaining further down the hall.

  They were, of course, Erlend thought as he held his harp for Flavia to pluck its strings. She was very careful, and when the clear sound rang out, her blue-green eyes glowed with delight. Spoiled with love. Perhaps, he thought, as Edward’s too-familiar “Me too me too” rang in his ear, it was none so bad a thing.

  The king’s household did not remain long at Wilton, but moved north to the royal m
anor of Chippenham, which lay on the River Avon to the east of the Fosse Way. Chippenham looked very like Wantage manor, only bigger, Erlend thought as the king’s thanes rode into the courtyard through the stockade gate late on a chill spring afternoon.

  A young man Erlend did not recognize was waiting on the steps of the great hall to greet Alfred.

  “Great God,” said Edgar, who was sitting his horse beside Erlend. “What has happened now?”

  “Who is that?” Erlend asked.

  “Ceolwulf. Elswyth’s brother.” Edgar swung down from his saddle, his blue eyes worried. “He must have ridden down the Fosse Way from Tamworth. I doubt that he bears good news.”

  Astonishingly, however, Ceolwulf’s news from Mercia was good. The Northumbrians had risen in revolt against the puppet king the Danes had installed in York and driven him forth from the kingdom. King Egbert, along with Wulfhere, Archbishop of York, had taken refuge in Mercia with Burgred.

  “And Burgred is sheltering them?” Elswyth asked her brother incredulously as they talked before the fire in the hall amidst the bustle of arrival.

  “Did you expect him to turn away the archbishop?” Ceolwulf replied in a like tone of voice.

  “Perhaps not the archbishop,” she replied, “but certainly that traitor Egbert.”

  “I would not call him a traitor,” Ceolwulf said. The cleft in his chin, his only resemblance to his sister, dented deeper as he set his jaw. “He did what he thought best to bring peace to his country, Elswyth. Did not Christ say, ‘Blessed are the peacemakers’?”

  Elswyth opened her mouth to reply, but before she could speak, Alfred said impatiently, “Enough quarreling, you two. Ceolwulf, do you know who is leading the rebellion in Northumbria?”

  “A thane by the name of Ricsige. Apparently he has managed to unite the Northumbrians fairly effectively. They drove Egbert out of York with little trouble. Wulfhere was one of Egbert’s supporters and did not feel safe in remaining, so he accompanied the king to Mercia.”

  “What of the Danes?” Alfred asked.

  Ceolwulf shrugged. “We can hardly expect that they will be pleased.”

  “No,” Alfred replied slowly. “We cannot.”

  The Danes, in fact, were so displeased by the rebellion in Northumbria that in June they withdrew from the comforts of London and marched north to York. Erlend, who had no means of reaching his own people, learned this when Alfred did, and not before.

  Summer came and the royal household returned to Wantage. It was July when Judith’s messenger finally reached Alfred bearing the books he had requested her to obtain for him. Along with the Xenophon for Elswyth there were quarto copies of Boethius’ Consolation of Philosophy and Saint Gregory’s Pastoral Care.

  The summer weather was glorious but Alfred disappeared into his room with his books for two uninterrupted weeks. Erlend was amazed. He had known the king could read, had known the king even liked to read, hut this … fanaticism was almost beyond belief.

  “He is trying to translate the Xenophon into Anglo-Saxon, you see,” Elswyth explained to Erlend one day as they went together toward Copper’s pasture, where Elswyth was planning to ride. Erlend was bearing her bridle and saddle for her. “He says it would be too difficult for him to try to translate out loud as he reads. His Latin is not that good. So you see, that is what is taking him so long.” She cast a rueful look in Erlend’s direction. “I must confess, I am almost sorry I asked him to send for the wretched book. New books always make Alfred so glum.”

  “Glum?” Erlend echoed. “If they do not make him happy, then why does he spend so much time … ?”

  Elswyth shrugged slim shoulders. “It is a little complicated, Erlend. You see, there is a part of Alfred that would be perfectly happy sitting in a monastery all day reading books. That part of him is very frustrated by the lack of learning in the country at large. It infuriates him even to think of all the libraries, ‘those precious repositories of learning and culture’—here she comically imitated her husband’s distinctive pronunciation, and Erlend laughed—”that the Danes have burned.” She sighed and became perfectly sober. “He hates the thought that he is the king of a people who have lost their claim to be considered truly civilized. And in truth, learning in Wessex has been more devastated than learning in Mercia. I cannot read myself, but I can understand how important it is to pass the collected wisdom of mankind down from one generation to the next.” She looked at him, faintly raising her brows. “How else can this be done save by books?”

  This was not a line of thought that Erlend had ever heard expressed before, and he did not know how to reply to it. He said instead, “I find it difficult to imagine the king as a monk.”

  At that Elswyth grinned. “I said that was only a part of him. But every time Judith sends him a new book, it begins again. He works himself into a h … he makes himself ill,” she corrected herself smoothly, “trying to read the wretched thing, then he frets about the ignorance of the country. He cannot help it. It is just the way he is.”

  Erlend did not reply, and they walked for a while in silence, enjoying the feel of the warm sun beating down on their heads. Erlend thought about the information Elswyth had almost let slip from her briefly unguarded tongue.

  “He works himself into ah…” What was the word she had almost used?

  Erlend knew Alfred was occasionally ill. It had happened twice since the harper joined the king’s court. Both times Alfred had kept his room for a day, seeing no one except his wife and Brand and Edgar. The rest of the household had been subdued but not overly concerned. It happened every few months or so, Edgar had told Erlend. The king took sick. He would be better the following day. And, both times, Alfred had in fact appeared the next day, a little pale perhaps, but otherwise perfectly normal.

  No one would ever tell Erlend what the illness was. He thought that most of the thanes probably did not know. Brand certainly knew, however, and Edgar, but they would never say. Erlend had guessed it to be a stomach complaint; certainly Alfred’s careful diet would lead one to suspect that the king’s digestion was not overstrong. But Elswyth’s words would seem to suggest otherwise, would suggest that it was a nervous illness he worked himself into… . Erlend walked on in silence, his brow furrowed in thought.

  They were approaching the mare’s pasture now and Elswyth whistled. From over the little rise of ground there came an answering whinny, then the sound of drumming hooves as Copper Queen came galloping to the sound of a beloved call.

  Erlend leaned against the wattle fence and watched as Elswyth greeted her horse. The chestnut mare, he thought once again, was surely the most beautiful creature he had ever beheld. The perfection of her native conformation had only been enhanced by the kind of work that Elswyth was doing with her, and the muscles in her rump rippled under the gleaming golden chestnut hide. She was highly bred and highly strung, but to watch her go under saddle was to watch pride and power and intelligence transformed into such smooth and elegant grace that it could actually bring tears to the eyes.

  For a long time now, whenever Erlend had watched Copper Queen, he had been reminded of something, or someone, but he could never quite manage to pin the resemblance down. As soon as he focused his mind on the problem, the elusive memory would flee. It was irritating, but there seemed nothing he could do to force his reluctant mind to bring forth the image he sought.

  It was growing hot by the time Elswyth had finished with the mare, and Erlend shouldered her saddle and looked at her pink face with a flicker of concern. She looked too flushed, he thought. “Would you like to sit under that tree for a few minutes, my lady?” he asked. “You look a little warm.”

  She surprised him by agreeing. They took shelter from the sun under the full summer canopy of an ancient oak and Elswyth leaned back on her saddle and closed her eyes.

  Erlend scanned her face worriedly. He was genuinely fond of Elswyth. If ever he had a sister, he often thought, he would like her to be like Elswyth: brave and fiery and loyal
. He frowned as he studied her relaxed face. The hollows below the high cheekbones seemed deeper than usual, he thought. “Are you well, my lady?” he asked hesitantly.

  Midnight-blue eyes opened and looked at him with a glint of amusement. “I am with child,” she said. “I shall be all right directly, Erlend, I assure you.”

  He felt his own eyes stretch wide. She was with child! Name of the Raven, what was Alfred thinking of to let her go on riding? She might miscarry. He spoke before he thought, “You should not be riding if you are with child, my lady. I am surprised that the king allows it.”

  The amusement in her eyes died. “I am perfectly healthy, Harper. I have several months yet before I must curtail my riding.”

  Several months! “The king should not let you ride, my lady,” he repeated. “Suppose Copper should come down with you?”

  Elswyth’s eyes were like blue ice and Erlend suddenly realized that he had made a grave mistake. It was all right to criticize Elswyth, but she would never tolerate anyone but herself criticizing Alfred. She got to her feet and looked down her haughty nose. “Bring my saddle,” she said, her voice as cold as her eyes, and walked off briskly across the fields.

  Alfred’s intense scholarship was interrupted in early August by a minor crisis in Surrey. A delegation of men from one of the folk moots near to Dorking arrived at Wantage complaining to the king that the chief nobles in their area were fighting among each other and trampling the peasants’ cornfields underfoot in the process. Ulfric, the ealdorman whose charge it was to keep the nobles of his shire from breaking the peace, was doing nothing to stop the feud. The following day Alfred took a contingent of his own thanes and rode for Surrey. Erlend and Athelwold, as ever, went along.

  They were gone for three weeks. Not only did Alfred settle the feud and assess the necessary wergilds from all parties, but he dismissed Ulfric from his position and settled another in his stead. They remained in Surrey long enough to ascertain that Eadred, the new ealdorman, would have sufficient power to carry out his charge. It was late mid-August by the time they returned to Berkshire, and by then the household had removed to Lambourn.