The Edge of Light (32 page)

So had Alfred,

He met with Cyneburg late in the afternoon, after Ethelred had been interred within the abbey grounds. The sky was still light when he requested an interview with his sister-by-marriage and they went together into the abbey garden to talk.

“You must tell me which of the manors you would like most to live at,” Alfred said, “and I will see them made over to you by charter.”

“Thank you,” she replied, her voice expressionless.

“Cyneburg …” He looked at her helplessly. They had ever been friendly, but never close, and he felt the distance between them now most sorely, “Ethelred’s children are as dear to me as my own,” he said at last. “You must never hesitate to ask me for aught that they might need.”

They were standing facing each other before a small clump of flowering apple trees. The scent of the blossoms was sweet on the air. “I understand that the kingship must go to you, Alfred,” Cyneburg said now tonelessly. “Ethelred explained it to me and I understand. Ethelhelm is too young to take command of the country at such a perilous time. I see that. But …”

She looked at him directly for the first time since they had left the guest hall. “I want you to promise me you will name Ethelhelm as your heir,” she said.

He looked at her, his face very grave. “He is still too young, Cyneburg. If I should die in battle, it will fall to the witan to name a king who is of full age to lead the country. I cannot name a child to succeed me. Even if I did, it would not be heeded by the witan.”

“I mean …” She bit her lip. “I mean for later, for when the children are grown up.” She set her jaw and said it. “I want you to promise me you will name Ethelhelm over your Edward.”

He was surprised by the anger he felt at her request. How could she think to bind him so at such a time as this? “When the time comes to name my heir, be sure I will name the one I think is best fit to serve the country, Cyneburg,” he said. His face had a look about it that caused her to take a step back, away from him. “That is something I learned from Ethelred. And from my father. A king must ever put the good of the country above his own personal ambition.”

She looked away from him. It had seemed such a good idea when she had thought of it . , , to protect Ethelhelm’s future as best she could.

“Ethelred would be ashamed to hear his wife speaking so,” the stern, clipped voice of her brother-by-marriage said now, and tears sprang to her eyes again. She began to cry bitterly.

“I am sorry.” His arm came around her. “I did not mean to make you cry, Cyneburg. I know you are not yourself. I know how much you miss him. I … I miss him too.”

She knew he did. She knew that Alfred had truly loved Ethelred. She was ashamed, and that made her weep all the harder. She leaned against the slender body that felt so surprisingly strong. His arm tightened and she let her head fall onto his shoulder,

“Come,” he said gently. “Let me take you to your women.”

The witan met the following morning in the monks’ refectory at Wimborne. Athelred, the new Archbishop of Canterbury, was there, as were the bishops of Sherborne and Winchester, and Ealhard, the Bishop of Dorchester, too. The religious head of Wimborne was not present. Wimborne was a double monastery, housing both men and women religious, and its head was an abbess. Women were not permitted to join the councils of the witan.

The only ealdorman not present was Godfred, Ealdorman of Dorset. There were, as well, a number of the higher-ranking king’s thanes, those who had sat on the witan often before. In total, the council numbered near thirty men.

The Archbishop of Canterbury, premier cleric in the land, headed the meeting. “We are met, my lords,” he intoned solemnly after the opening prayer, “to choose a successor to our dearly loved Ethelred.” The men of the witan, all seated at the simple wooden tables whereon the monks ate their meals, looked back impassively, Alfred sat within the circle of nobles. Ethelred’s will lay on the table before him, and his eyes remained fixed on the parchment as the ponderous opening of the witan continued. Then finally the archbishop was saying, “The king has left us a will, which we by rights must hear before we proceed further.” All eyes swung to Alfred, and he picked up the parchment and rose from his bench.

He was so young, Ethelnoth of Somerset thought as he listened to the precise, perfectly pitched voice reading Ethelred’s wishes in regard to the succession. But twenty-one years old. And the task before him was staggering in its enormity. The only English kingdom with a hope of standing against the Danes was Wessex. And should Wessex fall … should it fall, then would England be no more. The Danes would control the entire island. Everything the Anglo-Saxons had done since first they landed here so many hundreds of years ago would be gone, obliterated under the heel of the pagans from the north.

It did not bear thinking of.

Not for the first time did Ethelnoth curse the loss of Ethelbald. There was a king who would have been able to face the Danes!

And yet … Alfred was a valiant youngster. Ethelnoth had seen that well at Ashdown. Nor did he shrink from making a decision. There was talk of some illness that hampered him, but Ethelnoth had never seen sign of it. And he was a prince of Wessex’ royal line. He traced his ancestry back to Cerdic and Ceawlin. If Wessex would follow any man, it would follow Alfred.

The prince had finished reading and now the archbishop was speaking again. Suddenly a man to Ethelnoth’s left was getting to his feet. “My lord bishop.” Heads swung to see who was speaking. It was Cenwulf, Ethelnoth saw, king’s thane of Dorset. “My lord,” the thane was going on, “there is another with a better claim to the kingship than Prince Alfred, and I put his name before you now.”

A hum of surprise rose from the benches. Cenwulf raised his voice above the sound. “Athelwold, son of Ethelwulfs eldest son, Athelstan, He it is whose name I place before you, my lords. This prince is full old enough to take up the kingship, as he was not when his father so untimely died.”

So, Ethelnoth thought. That was why Godfred of Dorset was not here. He had not wanted to find himself caught between two loyalties.

“How old is Athelwold?” barked the Bishop of Sherborne.

“Twenty, my lord,” Cenwulf replied strongly. “But one year behind Prince Alfred.”

Ethelnoth’s eyes went to Alfred. The prince had seated himself and was looking now at Cenwulf, his face perfectly calm, perfectly sealed.

“Athelwold has the right over Alfred,” Cenwulf was continuing. “He is the son of the eldest son of Ethelwulf. It is Athelwold whom we should name to be our next king.”

“How many battles has he fought?” It was Ethelm of Wiltshire’s harsh voice ringing out. “We have fought with Alfred all this spring. We know his mettle. He is a battle leader we can trust. Now is not the time to name an untried boy to lead Wessex.”

“Aye!”

“That is so!”

“Truly spoken!”

“My lords, my lords.” The Archbishop of Canterbury struggled to regain control of his meeting.

“Athelwold has the right!” Cenwulf shouted over the archbishop’s protesting voice.

“There is no right to the throne of Wessex.” Now Ethelnoth himself was on his feet. He looked around at the faces of his peers and saw they agreed with him. “In Wessex the right to name the king falls to the witan,” he continued, his hard gray stare now alighting on Cenwulf, who was standing just down the table from him. “It is our right and duty to name the prince of the royal line who seems to us best fit to serve the country. And I say that man is Alfred.”

A roar of approval went up from the benches.

“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.”