The Edge of Light (14 page)

“You would concern yourself if you needed to,” he answered carelessly.

“I suppose so.” But she doubted it.

“In truth, Elswyth”—and he sighed a little wearily—”I wish crockery and linen were all we had to worry about.”

“I know.” She took a dish of chicken from the serving man and put it before Alfred. “There is your chicken,” she said. For the last few days she had gone to the Tamworth kitchen herself to make sure there would be a plain roasted chicken for Alfred at dinnertime; she had begun to worry about his lack of appetite. He could not afford to lose weight.

He picked up a leg of the chicken, then turned to look at her. She had said nothing to him about food; the chicken had simply begun to appear at the table. “Thank you,” he said. “Spiced food does not agree with my stomach.”

She gave him a faint smile. “The Tamworth cooks are strong with the spices,” she agreed. Then: “You don’t plan to tarry long in Mercia once we are wedded, do you, Alfred?”

He began to eat the chicken. “No. The Danes are safe enough while the geld is still being collected. Why should they fight? They will profit handsomely enough without. We shall go to Wessex after we are married. There are things to be done at home.”

“Good,” she said with heartfelt approval.

He chuckled. “Poor little Elswyth. Two more days and you will be free from crockery and linen.”

She was not hungry herself this evening, so she put down her knife and rested her cheek on her hand, turning her face to watch him eat. “I never thought I actually would be pleased to be getting married,” she said in wonder.

His teeth were busy chewing but his eyes glinted with amusement. She went on, “I ever thought that leaving my home and my brothers would be the worst thing that could happen to me. But I scarcely saw my brothers all winter, and every time I took my horse out or flew my hawk or played with my dogs, there was my mother, scolding. It has been horrible!”

He put down the chicken leg, which he had stripped to the bone, “I am glad you prefer me to your mother.”

“I would prefer Ivar the Boneless to my mother,” she answered gloomily.

“I am flattered,” he said.

“I did not mean that the way it sounded,” she assured him. Then, when he cocked a quizzical eyebrow: “You know what I mean, Alfred. Don’t tease.”

There was a little silence as he picked up the next piece of chicken. She watched with satisfaction as he took a bite. He glanced at her and said, “You are not eating, Elswyth. Would you like some of this chicken?”

“No.” She shook her head. “That is for you.” She sighed. “Sitting within doors all day does not lead to a good appetite. You have been hunting.”

He regarded her in silence for a minute. “Would you like to come hunting with me tomorrow?”

Her face lit like a candle. “Could I?”

“I don’t see why not.”

Her lower lip jutted out. “My mother is why not. She will be sure to have some stupid thing for me to do to keep me from coming with you.”

He smiled faintly. “In two days’ time you will be my wife,” he said. “I think that gives me some rights in the matter.”

She smiled back at him, her dark blue eyes glowing. “Oh, Alfred, I should love to hunt tomorrow!”

“Don’t fall off your horse,” he said. “I don’t want a lame bride on Wednesday.”

Her chin rose. “I never fall off my horse.”

“Then you must be the best rider in the world.”

She said, perfectly seriously, “I believe I am.”

He shouted with laughter. When he had caught his breath, he said, “I think you are going to be good for me, Elswyth.”

“I will try to be,” she answered, utterly sober, as if she were making a solemn vow. “I like you, Alfred.”

“I like you too.” He finished his chicken wing and put the bone down. He said, his voice comically apprehensive, “Now, to talk to your mother.”

She smothered a laugh at his expression, then assumed a very innocent face as Alfred rose and went along the table to where Eadburgh was sitting. Elswyth had no doubt that he would prevail. He knew how to make people do what he wanted, she thought, She watched out of the corner of her eye as he began to talk to her mother. He gave Eadburgh his sudden quick smile, the one that changed his face from gravity to charming intimacy and back again to gravity so quickly that you were left a little breathless. Eadburgh beamed.

I shall be hunting tomorrow, Elswyth thought with complacent satisfaction, and reached for a plate of spiced mutton. All of a sudden, she was hungry.

The night before his wedding, Alfred and Ethelred sat up late together talking. The summer night was pleasantly warm, and the brothers were both comfortable in short-sleeved shirts without tunics. Neither of them felt the least desire to go to bed, and so they once again went over their plans. They had decided weeks before that after his marriage Alfred would return to Wessex, to begin to see to its defenses, whilst Ethelred would remain at Nottingham until Burgred’s Danegeld was collected and paid.

It was quiet in the hall outside Ethelred’s room; the thanes who lay on the benches were all asleep. The soft murmur of voices from the king’s sleeping chamber was not loud enough to disturb a child, let alone an adult used to sleeping amidst a crowd of other men.

“There is really very little we can do,” Alfred said at last. His thin hands moved restlessly and he added, “Except wait to see what will happen next.”

“That is so,” Ethelred agreed, but not impatiently. Waiting agreed with his temperament far more than it agreed with Alfred’s. The king continued, his face placid, “There will be business from the shire courts to see to. You will do that for me, Alfred?”

“Yes, of course.” Alfred had often deputized for his brother in the hearing of law cases that required higher judgment than the shire courts. In fact, “ALFRED, FILIUS REGIS” appeared almost as often on official documents as did “ETHELRED, REX.”

“Well, I suppose we had better get some sleep,” Alfred said finally. “Tomorrow will be a long day.” He yawned, stretched, then stripped his shirt over his head, folded it, and went to put it on the clothes chest in the corner.

Ethelred watched his brother finish undressing in silence. At last, when Alfred had sat down to take off his shoes, the king said softly, “For how long do you mean to delay the consummation of this marriage?”

Alfred looked up in surprise, He answered, as he began to untie the headband from around his forehead, “I don’t know. Until Elswyth has grown up, I suppose.”

“She is fourteen, Alfred. Full old enough to wed.”

“She is a child,” Alfred said. He raked his fingers through the long hair that, released from confinement, had fallen forward across his temples. “I can wait.”

It was then that Ethelred asked the question that had been on his mind ever since Alfred had told him of the promise he had made to Elswyth. “Alfred … what of Roswitha?”

Alfred’s hand dropped. The long green headband dangled from his fingers and touched the rush-strewn floor. He looked up at Ethelred, his fair eyebrows raised. “What do you mean, what of Roswitha?”

Ethelred chose his words with care. He knew his young brother’s reluctance to share his most private feelings, but he felt this must be said. “Once you are wed, it would be adultery to keep up with her. I don’t know if you have thought of that, Alfred. But it is so. And if you put aside Roswitha, and do not consummate your marriage to Elswyth … well … you are putting yourself into an awkward position, my brother. That is all I was thinking.”

There was silence. It was dark in the corner where Alfred was sitting; Ethelred could not see his face clearly enough to read it. In the silence, and the shadows, it suddenly seemed to Ethelred as if the figure of Roswitha had come into the room.

She was the widow of a thane from near Southampton, a thane with a small holding of five hides, and Alfred had met her two years before when he had been at Southampton on some business for Ethelred. Their liaison had scandalized no one. Alfred had been seventeen and she twenty. Neither was wedded. These things happened all the time, even in families as genuinely religious as the West Saxon royal family. Athelstan, their eldest brother, had been born out of a liaison their father, Ethelwulf, had contracted before his marriage to Ethelred’s and Alfred’s own mother, Osburgh.

Ethelred had been neither surprised nor dismayed by Alfred’s taking a woman such as Roswitha as his mistress. Such a liaison would be easy enough to break when it came time for him to marry, Ethelred had thought. But Alfred had shown evidence of an attachment for Roswitha that was deeper than Ethelred considered wise. Every time during the last two years that Ethelred had brought up the possibility of marriage, Alfred had made an excuse. Reluctantly the king had been coming to the unhappy conclusion that his brother’s love for his mistress was what was standing in the way of his marrying. And Roswitha was not of high enough birth to be an appropriate wife for a prince.

When, like a lightning bolt from the sky, Alfred had offered for Elswyth of Mercia, Ethelred had been delighted. The match was excellent; the girl was of noble blood and connected to the Mercian royal house. Then, but a few weeks before, Alfred had told Ethelred of his proposed delay in taking the girl to his bed.

Ethelred did not like that at all. As he had just said to Alfred, he thought his brother was putting himself into an impossible position. He knew Alfred, knew how deeply religious was his spirit. Alfred would consider adultery a serious sin, and once he was married, the liaison with Roswitha would be adultery. There was no gainsaying that.

But Alfred was also a healthy young male; a healthy young male who had been living with a woman for the last two years. He was not going to find continence either easy or pleasant.

“I don’t think you have thought this whole thing through, Alfred,” Ethelred said again, gently. “You will be leaving yourself without either wife or mistress. And that you will not like.”

There was continued silence from the corner. Ethelred was almost certain that Alfred had not thought of this before. His brother’s mind had been too preoccupied with the Danes to consider the ramifications of such a marriage. Nor, evidently, had Roswitha said aught to him about the future. She was a clever girl. Ethelred had always thought so.

Finally Alfred stirred. “Well,” he said, and his voice was deliberately light, “we shall see how things go. If Ivar the Boneless has aught to say, Ethelred, we shall both be too busy to worry about the women.”

Ethelred deemed it best to let the subject drop. He had made his point. “True,” he answered, and began to untie the strings of his own shirt. “It will be best for you and me to get some sleep.”

Alfred came across the room. “Let us pray,” he said, “that Burgred will not feel called upon to give a speech tomorrow.”

Ethelred laughed, as he was meant to, finished undressing, and leaned over to blow out the candle.

The day of Alfred’s wedding dawned clear and warm. Alfred slept later than usual, then opened heavy eyes to find Ethelred standing over him. “Time to get up, my boy,” his brother said boisterously. “We must be at the church in an hour.”

Alfred lay perfectly still for a minute. Then, when Ethelred had turned away, he moved his head cautiously on its pillow. There was an ominous ache in his neck and behind his ears that he did not like. He closed his eyes briefly.

Please, God, he prayed, not today.

There was the noise of men talking and moving around in the hall outside the sleeping-chamber door. Alfred sat up carefully. There was no real pain, as yet. Only an ache, a feeling of tenderness.

Perhaps it would be all right, he thought. He had not had a headache in over four months. He rubbed his neck and prayed, once more, that he would not develop one today,

Sinulf, Ethelred’s wardrobe thane, came into the room to assist the king to dress. The clothing both West Saxons were wearing for the wedding had been carefully chosen before ever they left Winchester, and as carefully packed for this moment. Alfred got out of bed, and while Ethelred dressed, he stuck his head into the bowl of water that had been laid out for washing. Then he splashed the water on his face and the back of his neck.

It felt better, he told himself firmly. It was going to be all right. Ethelred was dressed and Sinulf turned next to help Alfred. He submitted to being dressed in an immaculate new shirt and saffron-colored tunic, made for him by Ethelred’s wife, Cyneburg. Cyneburg was near term with her fifth child and so had not attempted the journey into Mercia, but her kind efforts had provided Alfred with a new shirt and embroidered tunic in honor of his wedding day.

Once both king and prince were dressed, Ethelred’s personal chaplain came in to offer morning prayers. Then it was time to leave for the church, where, at ten o’clock, Alfred and Elswyth were to be married by Ceolnoth, Archbishop of Canterbury.

The sun was very bright as Alfred crossed the courtyard toward the small wooden church where Elswyth awaited him. The ache had returned to the back of his neck and head. He held his head as still as possible and walked lightly, trying not to jar it. Ethelred said something to him, which he did not hear, but he smiled as if in agreement. Ethelred gave him a sharp look, and then they were at the door of the church.

Elswyth wore a deep blue overgown and a creamy white undergown, and the bridal crown was set on her flowing hair. He had never seen her hair unbound before, Alfred thought, and for a moment he almost forgot the pain in his head as he admired the shining blue-black mass that cascaded sheer to her waist. It looked too heavy a weight for her small head and slim, fragile neck to bear. Elswyth’s eyes were a darker blue than her gown and she wore her haughtiest expression. He knew immediately that she was nervous. He smiled at her and said, “Courage!”

Her firm little chin rose, as he had known it would. “You’re late,” she said, and, as always, the huskiness of her voice surprised him.

“They were making me beautiful for you,” he answered, and at that she grinned.

“They have succeeded,” she said, appraising him from the tips of his soft leather shoes to the top of his neatly combed golden hair.