The Edge of Light (22 page)

Elswyth, smiling with amusement, was patting the little gray’s neck. Then she turned to her husband. “Hild has a brother,” she said. “He is young, but perhaps he will be appointed. The honor has been in that family for several generations, and Mercia has more a tradition of family inheritance in these matters than you have in Wessex.”

“Her brother?” Alfred frowned in an effort of memory. “Does her brother have red hair?”

“Yes. His name is Ethelred. A good man on a horse.”

Alfred laughed. “Elswyth, you judge everyone by how well he sits a horse.”

“It is not so bad a system,” she retorted. “The way a man treats his animals can tell you much about his character.”

“I suppose that is true.” They were walking the horses slowly along the path and now Nugget stopped to rub his knee with his nose. Silken stopped also and watched the chestnut stallion with polite interest. Alfred said, “About this Ethelred. I met him at Nottingham and he was hot to fight the Danes. If he is indeed appointed in his father’s stead, that will be good news for Wessex.”

Elswyth’s delicate lips curled in a distinctly sardonic smile. “If he is hot to fight the Danes, it would be well if he kept his eagerness to himself. Burgred is not likely to be seeking an ealdorman with a lion’s heart.”

The thoughtful look returned to Alfred’s face. Nugget stopped scratching and began to walk forward once again. “That is so,” Alfred answered. He added, “Is Ethelred likely to be at this wedding?”

“He is Hild’s eldest brother. I would be surprised were he not present.”

“Good. Then can I speak to him.”

At that Elswyth grinned. “You can advise him to hold his tongue, you mean,” she said.

He laughed a little in acknowledgment. “I am always on the lookout for an ally.”

They were riding through deeper woods now, and the path had narrowed so that they were forced to go single file. Elswyth went ahead of Alfred, as Silken fretted when he was behind. Suddenly there came the sound of something rustling in the trees to their right; then an animal screamed. Silken jumped, bucked, and bolted. Nugget tried to follow, but Alfred pulled the stallion down with a ruthless hand. The sound of a horse galloping on his heels would only spur Silken onward. Elswyth disappeared into the trees. Alfred shouted over his shoulder to Brand to keep the others to a walk and trotted forward, fighting a horse that wanted to run. It was not long before he saw the figure of his wife, walking her little gray sedately back along the path in his direction. His grim face lightened and he brought his own excited horse to a halt.

“Did you enjoy the run?” he asked her as they met face-to-face on the forest path. The rest of their party were further behind, and for the moment they were alone.

She laughed. Her cheeks were flying flags of color and her brilliant eyes were blue as sapphires. “He wasn’t really frightened,” she said. “It was just a good excuse.”

He nodded. “So I thought. We had better wait a minute for the rest to catch up.”

She turned Silken and, as the path was wider here, Alfred came up beside her. The horses stood quietly, Silken very pleased with himself and Nugget resigned to the fact that he had better obey the hands holding his reins, Quite suddenly Elswyth leaned over and picked up one of those thin, surprisingly strong hands. Bending her head, she kissed the long fingers, then returned it to its original position. Alfred raised an inquiring eyebrow. “What was that for?”

“There is not another man I know who would have trusted me to control my own horse,” she said. “Even Athulf would have come galloping after me.”

“A horse on his heels would have really frightened Silken,” Alfred returned serenely.

“I know that.” She smiled at him, a faint but very intimate smile.

“You ride better than I do,” he added.

“Alfred,” she said, “I adore you.”

He grinned. “Tell me that again tonight.”

“I think we are staying in the abbey near Bordesley tonight,” she answered regretfully. “I doubt that I shall even see you.”

All the good humor abruptly left his face. “Don’t they have a guesthouse?”

“They have a house for women. The men must lodge with the monks.”

He said something under his breath. Then he looked ashamed. “The good monks have promised a lifetime of chastity to God. I suppose I should not grudge him one night.”

“We will be at Croxden on the morrow,” she said. “Then will we be lodged together.”

The sound of horses’ hooves and the jingle of bridles came floating on the air, and then their escort of thanes was coming out of the narrow path between the trees to fall in behind them. Alfred and Elswyth moved forward again, their pace decorous, their conversation impersonal.

There was not a large party gathered at Croxden for the wedding of Athulf, Ealdorman of Gaini, to Hild, daughter of the Ealdorman of Hwicce. As Alfred had noted, early spring was a difficult time to feed an increased number of people and horses. And the bride’s father’s recent demise gave good excuse for keeping the celebration small.

Eadburgh was there, of course. And Ceolwulf. And Hild’s mother. And her brothers, Ethelred and Aelfric.

Ethelred remembered Alfred well, and was eagerly looking forward to meeting the West Saxon prince again. All that had happened since the Danes’ departure from Nottingham had only confirmed Ethelred’s belief that Burgred had been wrong to let the enemy slip away. Ethelred wanted to know what Alfred’s plans were regarding the future. The Mercian nobility, even including Athulf, appeared resigned to a posture of passive waiting.

It was Ethelred, who had been on the watch for them, who first caught sight of the party from Wessex as it came through the gates of Croxden manor. He stood on the steps of the guest hall where he was lodged and watched Alfred swing down from his saddle. Ethelred had developed a case of hero worship for Alfred last year in Nottingham, and he recognized now the easy grace that had so impressed him and that he had since tried so fruitlessly to imitate. Ethelred was not slim and lean and catlike and his stocky, short-legged body had been a source of frustration to him all the winter.

The sun caught the green of Alfred’s headband and drew gleams of light from the tawny gold of his hair. He handed his horse to a groomsman and turned to his wife. Ethelred’s eyes also swung to the girl on the small gray gelding and then they opened wide.

Surely, he thought in startled confusion, surely this could not be Elswyth? True, the hair was the right color, and the horse was hers also, but …

The West Saxon thanes of Alfred’s escort were dismounting, and now Ethelred saw that Croxden’s reeve was coming down the steps of the great hall to greet the newcomers. “My lady!” he cried, and the pleasure in his voice rang loud enough for Ethelred to hear it clearly. “Welcome home.”

Alfred was laughing as he lifted the slim black-haired girl down from her saddle. Then she was saying to the reeve, who was now standing before her, “Many thanks, Offa. It is good to see you also.”

It was her voice that Ethelred recognized. There could be no mistaking that dark, almost husky drawl.

The reeve had begun to escort the prince and his wife across the courtyard, and hastily Ethelred stepped forward from within the shadow of the guest-hall door.

“Welcome to Croxden, my lord,” he said as he reached Alfred’s elbow a few paces before the steps of the great hall. The prince stopped to look at him. Ethelred held his grave expression and hope desperately that Alfred would remember him. “I have been looking forward to meeting you again,” he added.

The prince’s golden eyes, the color of which Ethelred had never seen on any other human, lighted with pleasure. “Ethelred,” he said. “I have been looking forward to meeting you also.”

Ethelred could feel the ready color rise to his cheeks. He hated the way his pale skin showed every change in his emotions. He wished his skin would tan, like …

“Greetings, Ethelred,” said Alfred’s wife. “For how long have you been here?”

Ethelred forgot his own embarrassment and stared at this beautiful girl who was, astonishingly enough, really Elswyth. He had known Elswyth for years, ever since his sister had become betrothed to her brother over four years before. They were of an age, and they had been comfortable companions on the occasions in the past when his family had visited Croxden. They had hunted together, and he had thought her braver than most boys he knew, but it had never occurred to him to find her pretty. He had been deeply surprised to learn she was to marry Alfred. He could not imagine the hoydenish Elswyth married to anyone, let alone his secret hero.

So he looked now in some confusion at the finely boned blue-eyed face of this beautiful girl who was Elswyth, It was her hair, he thought. She looked completely different without the ubiquitous braids. He was still too young to disguise his thoughts, so he blurted out before he could stop himself, “You look so different, Elswyth!”

She grinned and for a moment the gamine he had known returned. “It’s my hair,” she said, “You look the same, though, Ethelred. I’m glad you are here. Is Burgred going to name you ealdorman in your father’s stead?”

“Nothing like going straight to the point,” Alfred murmured as they all began to walk slowly toward the steps.

“I hope so,” Ethelred replied. “I have an uncle, but he is not well. My mother has spoken to the queen and she thinks it will be me. Athulf will speak for me also.” He looked at Alfred, “I am to go see the king after the wedding.”

“Ah,” said Elswyth, and she looked also at Alfred.

His lips twitched. “You and I must have a talk sometime, Ethelred,” he said. “I would very much like to see you named ealdorman. We two have much in common, I think.”

Ethelred’s hazel eyes glowed very green. “Yes, my lord.”

Suddenly Elswyth’s face changed. Ethelred’s eyes turned in the same direction as hers and he saw that Eadburgh had come out the door of the hall and was awaiting them at the top of the steps. They stopped on the step below her and their hostess said to Elswyth with regal composure, “Welcome to Croxden, my daughter.” Next Eadburgh looked at Alfred, and now she smiled graciously. “Welcome to you also, Prince.”

“Thank you, my lady,” Alfred replied in his clipped West Saxon voice. Ethelred saw how his hand lifted casually to rest on his wife’s shoulder. “We are pleased to be here to help celebrate Athulf’s marriage.”

Eadburgh was looking once more at her daughter. “You look very well, Elswyth. I am glad to see you are wearing proper clothing for a change.”

Ethelred was the only one to see how Alfred’s fingers tightened on his wife’s shoulder. There was a moment’s pause; then Elswyth said in a sweetly husky voice that brought a look of wonder to the reeve’s eyes, “Thank you, Mother. It is wonderful to see you also.”

Eadburgh looked taken aback. There was a brief silence. Then she said, “Why are we standing here on the stairs? Bring your husband into the great hall, Elswyth.”

Alfred gave his mother-by-marriage a charming smile. “Elswyth is tired, my lady. Might we be shown to our lodging instead?”

“Certainly.” Eadburgh turned to Elswyth, “I have given you your old room in the bower, Elswyth.”

“Oh, good.” her daughter lifted a glowing face to her husband. “My old room,” she said.

“The older and more familiar it is, the better Elswyth likes it,” Alfred remarked to Ethelred when he saw the boy’s face. “I comfort myself that by the time I am an aged old grandfather, she will like me very well indeed.”

Elswyth chuckled, a deep, dark, delicious sound. “Come along,” she said. “I’ll show you the way. Offa will take care of our thanes.”

Ethelred stood in silence on the top step and watched the figures of Alfred and his black-haired wife as they recrossed the courtyard toward the small hall that was the girl’s bower. Elswyth was talking, looking up into Alfred’s face, and then she slid an arm around his waist and leaned against him. Linked thus together, they walked in through the door of the bower.

“Well,” said Eadburgh, and Ethelred turned to see that he was not the only one watching. Eadburgh and Offa stood beside him. Eadburgh looked outraged; Offa looked delighted. “That girl has no sense of decorum,” Elswyth’s mother said, and pinched her lips together.

“The lord Athulf did the best he could, my lady,” Offa replied piously. “But he lacked a woman’s touch.”

Eadburgh shot her reeve a distinctly nasty look, then turned and walked away. Ethelred pretended he did not hear the unflattering comment the reeve made under his breath, and went himself to get ready for dinner.

After a week of stringent prayer and even more stringent meals, Easter came to set the household free from the penance of Lent. Then, three days after Easter, Athulf’s household priest married him to Hild. The wedding banquet was presided over by Eadburgh and Hild’s mother, the recent widow, and was not jolly. Athulf took his new bride early to bed, and the rest of the party broke up with obvious relief.

“Lucky man,” Ceolwulf remarked gloomily to Alfred as the two returned from a very perfunctory bedding rite for the newlywed pair. Then, “You also, Prince. I am the one who needs must retire to a lonely bed.”

Alfred smiled at him. This brother of Elswyth’s was just his own age, and very personable. Alfred liked him. It was hard not to like Ceolwulf. “You should get married, Ceolwulf.”

“It’s not marriage I need,” Ceolwulf returned. “It’s escape from my mother.” He gave Alfred a deliberately comical look. “Do you know how grim life has become at Croxden since Elswyth left? Life was uncomfortable enough last year, with Elswyth and my mother constantly in battle, but now things are even worse.”

“Why so?” Alfred asked absently. His mind was on Elswyth and his bed, not on Ceolwulf’s complaints.

“I don’t believe any of us realized how much this manor depended upon Elswyth,” Ceolwulf replied. There was an odd note of wonder in his voice. He looked at Alfred, his gray eyes wide. “She never seemed to do anything!” Alfred grinned and Ceolwulf went on, “My mother is certainly a more conscientious mistress. She supervises the work in the bakehouse, the weaving house, the dye house, the kitchens. Yet under Elswyth, all seemed to run better.” There was a pause; then Ceolwulf’s brows drew together. He corrected himself. “No, not better, perhaps. All was happier. The serving folk were happier and the service was more willing. These days, all we seem to have are brangles.”