The Edge of Light (13 page)

The words were spoken to Athulf, but Alfred’s crisp voice carried and Ethelred heard him quite clearly. The boy’s milky skin flushed again, this time with a mixture of pride and pleasure.

Prince Alfred agreed with him, he thought as his steps took him farther away from the prince and Athulf. If the decision were Alfred’s, they would fight. Ethelred could see that quite clearly.

He kicked a rock at his feet. He had not expected to find such a fighting spirit lodged within the slender, almost fragile-looking person of the West Saxon prince.

Alfred, however, was as powerless as he to change the course of events here at Nottingham.

Ethelred went off to spend the afternoon throwing rocks into the river, a pastime which served not at all to alleviate his humiliation and angry frustration at his king’s unnecessary surrender.

“Stay still, Elswyth! said Eadburgh, giving a none-too-gentle tug on the black braid she was plaiting.

Elswyth’s eyes watered with the sudden sharp pain, but she made no protest. Eadburgh continued to weave threads of gold through the thick braids that were the chief adornment of any unmarried Mercian girl. “There,” she said finally, stepping away to admire her handiwork. She added, almost grudgingly, “You have lovely hair, my daughter. If only you would take better care of it!”

“Thank you, Mother,” Elswyth said tonelessly. Her chief conversation with Eadburgh this last month had consisted of Eadburgh scolding and Elswyth replying in monosyllables. Elswyth had long since discovered that any attempt at a genuine exchange of thought with her mother was a useless endeavor.

Eadburgh’s mouth thinned. She had been at Croxden for the entire winter, seeing to Elswyth’s bridal linens, and perforce mother and daughter had spent more time in each other’s company than ever before in their lives. The interlude had agreed with neither’s temper.

Eadburgh walked now to the clothes chest in the corner of the room and lifted out a cloak. It was a beautiful cloak, made of the softest wool and dyed a deep blue to match Elswyth’s eyes,

“It is too warm for a cloak,” Elswyth said.

“Every lady must wear a cloak,” came the instant reply. “It is not seemly to go forth without one.”

Elswyth curled her lip. Eadburgh’s face hardened. She laid the cloak about her daughter’s straight shoulders and fastened it with a large enameled pin. “Be sure you keep it on you,” she said.

“Yes, Mother,” Elswyth replied.

“You may send in Margit and wait for me in the hall.” As Eadburgh watched her daughter walk to the door of the sleeping room, her lips folded in a thin straight line.

Elswyth found her mother’s serving maid, then went herself to stand at the door of their hall to look out, From where she stood, the royal hall of

Tamworth was clearly visible. Though it was still light outside, torches were blazing beside the carved double doors. This night’s great feast was being given by Burgred in honor of the saving of Mercia from the Danes.

Burgred had been in Tamworth since the previous week, bringing with him news of the peace and of its terms. Elswyth had been horrified when she learned that the Saxon armies had capitulated without a fight. When she had said this to Ceolwulf, however, he had assured her that Burgred had done the best thing. “We could not have fought the Danes within Nottingham,” he said. “We would have been slaughtered trying to storm the town. You do not know how well they have fortified it, Elswyth!”

Elswyth, knowing her brother’s peaceful tendencies, was not reassured. But Athulf had remained at Nottingham, as had all the West Saxons, and so there was no one else she could ask. Until now. King Ethelred and Alfred had ridden back to Tamworth today; it was their presence which had provided the occasion for Burgred’s feast.

Elswyth leaned against the open door and looked out into the busy courtyard. Their own hall was unusually quiet; most of their thanes were still at Nottingham with Athulf. Only Ceolwulf and a few close companions had returned to Tamworth with Burgred. Athulf would be returning shortly, however, she thought. For her wedding.

Elswyth had not seen Alfred since their betrothal last Christmas. She would see him tonight, and in two weeks they would be married. Even though the evening was warm, Elswyth folded her arms as if she were chilled. Everything around her was changing, she thought desolately. The winter at Croxden with her mother had been dreadful. The Danes were still at Nottingham and unbeaten. In two weeks’ time she would be a wife. She wished, with all her heart, that she could be a child again.

The royal hall was filled when Elswyth and her mother and Ceolwulf and his thanes entered, and the heat of the fire and the press of people immediately made her cloak feel too warm. She looked around but did not see Alfred. The high seat where the two kings would sit was still empty. “We are to sit to the right of the high seat,” Ceolwulf was saying to Eadburgh. “Beside the West Saxon prince.”

Their party began to cross the open floor. They were at the great hearthplace in the center of the room when Elswyth saw Alfred coming toward her, moving with his distinctive light grace. She stopped.

“Elswyth,” Eadburgh began to say in annoyance, and then her mother too saw him.

“My lady. Elswyth.” He was in front of them now, smiling and looking from the women to Ceolwulf, then back again to Elswyth. “Your hair is all a-sparkle with gold,” he said.

Eadburgh, who had spent hours plaiting the golden thread into the thick black braids, smiled complacently.

“Mother did it,” Elswyth said. “In your honor.” She sounded as if she had been tortured.

Alfred looked from her to Eadburgh, then laughed. Elswyth, looking up into his amused golden eyes, felt as if a weight had been lifted from her chest. It was going to be all right, she thought. And smiled back, her thought as clear as crystal on her faintly flushed face.

Alfred took her hand, said, “You are to sit beside me tonight,” and began to walk with her toward the benches.

Shortly after Elswyth was seated, Burgred and Ethelred made their ceremonial entrance. Then Burgred opened the feast by speaking about the peace he had made with the Danes. Elswyth watched Alfred’s profile as they both listened to the king’s speech.

“Wiser to buy peace with geld than to buy it with men’s lives,” Burgred said, and Alfred’s perfectly straight nose seemed to her to grow thinner.

“The Danes will leave Nottingham as soon as the geld can be paid,” Burgred said, and a muscle quivered under Alfred’s smooth golden cheek. He was staring into space, Elswyth saw, and to one who was not as close to him as she, his expression would be impenetrable.

When at last Burgred had concluded and the food was being put on the tables, Elswyth said to Alfred, “But where will the Danes go?”

He offered her a dish of spiced meat and, absently, she heaped her trencher. “Wherever there is more geld for them to collect,” Alfred replied tonelessly.

She took a white roll and broke it open. “So we have bought our safety at someone else’s expense,”

He also took a roll. “You might say that.”

She scooped up some meat, put it on her roll, and took a bite. On the other side of Alfred she could see that his brother and Burgred were talking. Ceolwulf, on her other side, was engaged in conversation with the man beside him. She asked, her voice low, “Why did we not fight, Alfred? You had so many men! Surely you should have met the Danes in battle, not left them free to prey upon some other kingdom. They will most like go to East Anglia next.”

He too looked behind him and beyond her. Then he answered, his voice pitched low like hers, “Burgred did not wish to fight and your witan agreed with him.”

“I see.” She scanned his face. “And you?”

His long fingers, ringed with gold, were tearing apart the roll. He had eaten nothing as yet. “The West Saxons would have fought, but there were not enough of us without the Mercians.” He glanced beyond her to Ceolwulf. Then: “Your brother Athulf would have fought also. But we were not the voices who carried the decision,” The bitterness in his tone was faintly audible. He was not used, Elswyth thought shrewdly, to having his advice disregarded.

“Together we outnumbered them,” he said. “We should have fought.”

Elswyth watched the long, nervous fingers of her future husband shredding his roll. Then she said, slowly and thoughtfully, “When you train a horse, you must never let him see that you are afraid of him. Once he sees that, once he understands that he has only to lay back his ears and you will give in, then he is out of your control. Nor will he grow easier to deal with as time goes on.” She raised her eyes to his face and found him staring at her. The white line was around his mouth again.

“Exactly,” he said.

“Alfred …” said Ethelred on his other side, and he turned his head to answer his brother.

As the feast progressed, Elswyth noticed, without remarking upon it, that Alfred ate scarcely anything. She was her usual hungry self and consumed at least three times as much food as he, who was so much larger than she. And he was obviously preoccupied. While the scop was singing, he fell into a deep reverie and she thought he scarcely knew where he was or who was beside him.

“ ‘The gray gull wheeled about, greedy for slaughter; the candle of the sky grew dark,’ “ the scop sang, reciting the familiar Anglo-Saxon tale of the voyage of Saint Andrew to the land of Myrmidonia. “ ‘The terror of the tempest arose; the thanes grew afraid.’ “

The terror of the tempest, thought Elswyth. That was what the Danes represented. And Burgred and the Mercian nobles had been afraid. Elswyth’s dark blue gaze went to the figure of her king, sitting safe and well-fed this night on his high seat in his torchlit hall. Burgred was a fool, she thought. The Danes would despise him no less than she did. They would take his geld and go away for the winter, but they would be back. They would be fools if they did not come back; and Elswyth doubted that the Danes were fools.

For the first time the reality of the Danish threat was brought fully home to her. She had not felt it before, not even when her brothers and their men had marched away from Croxden to join the Mercian army at Tamworth. She had felt then, with serene assurance, that the armies of Mercia and Wessex would triumph in battle. Nor had she feared for her men. Elswyth herself was physically courageous. The thought of death did not frighten her, chiefly because she did not think of it.

But the thought of the Danes at Tamworth frightened her. They had taken Northumbria. If they took East Anglia, which was smaller by far than Northumbria, they would return to Mercia. And if they took Mercia, then they would turn to Wessex.

We should have fought them at Nottingham, Elswyth thought,

“ ‘God made the enemy weapons melt like wax in their hands,’ “ sang the scop. “ ‘The horrible foes could do no hurt by the strength of their swords.’ “

But it would not happen that way, Elswyth thought, her eyes on Alfred’s finally quiet hands. In the song of Saint Andrew, the heathen world was conquered by prayer and by miracle. Prayer might be efficacious in the real world also, but it would take the deeds of men to conquer the Danes. A strong leader was the miracle England needed now. And that leader was not Burgred.

Alfred’s hand stirred and moved to grasp his cup. He turned his head, found her watching him, and smiled.

It was the month for sheep shearing and Ethelred sent his remaining shire thanes and ceorls home to Wessex, keeping in Mercia only his own king’s companions and the ealdormen and their hearthbands. Half of the thanes remained camped near Nottingham, but the ealdormen and the chief thanes of the king’s household came to Tamworth to see Alfred married.

Ethelred, who was determined to see his younger brother wed with all possible honor, had sent to Canterbury for Archbishop Ceolnoth, and the wedding party was forced to wait for the archbishop’s arrival. Ethelswith prayed nightly that Ceolnoth’s journey would prosper. It was costing her a fortune to feed the King of Wessex and all his retinue. Each night in the great hall they consumed ten jars of honey, three hundred loaves of bread, twelve casks of Welsh ale, thirty of clear ale
_r
two oxen, ten geese, twenty hens, ten cheeses, a cask full of butter, five salmon, and a hundred eels. In order to supplement the food supply, she sent Burgred and his guests out hunting each day; but still the burden on her own stores was considerable.

Of all the principals concerned, Alfred was the one whose mind was least on his wedding. The thought of the Danes in Nottingham weighed like lead on his spirit. He could not rid himself of the thought that Wessex and Mercia together had thrown away a golden opportunity when they had backed down from a fight.

It bothered him also that for almost the first time in his life he was in disagreement with Ethelred. If Ethelred had asserted himself more forcefully, he could have won over the Mercians. Alfred was sure of it. And even if he could not … then should the West Saxons have taken the initiative. Enough Mercians would have followed to have made a difference.

Too late now, he thought. And even the excitement of the hunt failed to distract him from his preoccupation.

Ceolnoth arrived in Tamworth two days before Alfred’s nineteenth birthday, and Ethelswith decided it would be lucky to wait the extra day and celebrate the marriage and the birthday together. Elswyth prayed fervently at the first Mass the bishop celebrated in Tamworth that she would last two more days without slaying her mother.

“It numbs the mind to think that any human person could show such concern over crockery and linen,” she said to Alfred as they sat together at supper the evening of Ceolnoth’s arrival. “The marriage settlements and dowry were agreed over the winter. We each know what the other is getting. Surely that is all that matters.”

Alfred laughed at her grim expression. “Women are ever thus,” he said. “And I suppose someone must be concerned with crockery and linen. You can be sure that I am not.”

She looked at him. “I am not either.” She felt it was only fair to be perfectly honest. “I have ever believed in leaving that sort of thing to the serving maids.”