The Edge of Light (33 page)

To his own astonishment, Ulfric told her,

“I see.” The girl’s blue eyes, for she was no more than a slip of a girl, Ethelnoth thought, flicked from face to face. They waited. “I will bring him,” she said. “Wait here.” And she turned and went into the room.

There was an uncomfortable silence among the ealdormen. Then Ethelnoth laughed. “Never did I think to find myself faced down by a woman,” he said humorously. His words broke the tension and the rest of the men laughed as well. Then they looked at the door of the king’s room and waited.

It did not take long. Suddenly the door opened again and Alfred was among them, fully dressed and in perfect command of himself. At least, thought Ethelnoth, he did not take long to wake.

It was Elswyth’s face more than Alfred’s that gave away to Ethelnoth that something was wrong. She watched her husband with such fierce intensity. Just so, he thought, would a wild creature watch her ailing young. He looked again at the king.

There were shadows like bruises under the too-dark eyes. He stood too still, and he never moved his head. Suddenly Ethelnoth realized what was wrong. Alfred was in pain.

He remembered the rumors about an illness. So, he thought. They were true.

Whatever the problem, however, Alfred’s brain was still functioning. Their orders were very clear. They were to call up as many men as they could and ride for the standing cross that marked the crossing of the Roman roads that led south from Meretun and Reading to Winchester and to Wilton. “If they are coming for the heart of Wessex, they will take one or both of those roads,” Alfred said. “Time is imperative. Do not linger to collect the unwilling. Take what men you can find and meet me at the standing cross. I will be there tomorrow.”

“My lord,” they said. “We will.”

Within an hour the ealdormen had ridden out of Wimborne to collect an army for the king.

Two thousand men met at the standing cross the following day. Alfred had sent thanes from his own hearthband north to scout the situation in both Meretun and Reading, and the West Saxon army waited to learn what news they could of the Danes. They waited also for their supply wagons to come up.

“They can yet get by us if they take the road direct from Reading to Winchester and bypass meeting up with their forces from Meretun,” Alfred said at the end of the first day’s wait. And he sent Ethelnoth with the men of Somerset to hold the main Winchester road while the rest of them kept guard at the crossroads of the two other roads that led into the heart of Wessex.

After three days the scouts returned with the news that both parts of the Danish army had joined at Reading and were moving south along the main road toward Silchester. At Silchester they would have the choice of either of two roads, the one Alfred was guarding, which led toward Wilton, or the one guarded by Ethelnoth, leading to Winchester. Alfred gritted his teeth and waited. The following day further news came that the Danes were pitching camp in Silchester.

Alfred was bitterly disappointed. He did not have the men to attack a Danish camp, and had hoped to be able to meet them out in the open, where the West Saxons had had some success in the past. The longer he had to wait, the harder it would be for him to keep his men in the field.

He decided to march north to see if he could harry the Danes badly enough to force them to leave Silchester.

“Every time we send out a raiding party, we lose men.” Guthrum was disgusted. The men lost in the last raid had belonged to him. “They won’t come out and fight. It’s just arrows falling from nowhere, and then nothing.”

“They remember what happened when the men they left to guard Reading made themselves too visible,” Erlend replied. He and his uncle were lodged within one of the crumbling old Roman buildings in the ancient town, and now he plucked a few strings on his harp. Then he said, “Clearly they do not have the numbers to attack us directly.”

“Their king is dead.” Guthrum’s blue eyes gleamed with the thought. He had been bitterly disappointed not to have slain Ethelred on the battlefield. The king’s subsequent demise from his wounds had been eminently satisfactory to the jarl.

“Ethelred is dead,” Guthrum repeated now, “but still we know little of the succession. Heretofore the West Saxons’ strength has lain in their unity. I wonder if that unity will survive the death of Ethelred.”

A little silence fell, and Guthrum ran his fingers through the heavy yellow bangs on his forehead. “I would give much to learn the answer to those questions,” he murmured half to himself.

Erlend ran his fingers over his harp strings, calling up a dazzle of notes. “Would you like me to try to find out?” he asked.

Guthrum’s head turned sharply, “You?”

Erlend shrugged. “I can take my harp around the countryside once more.”

Guthrum frowned with impatience. “Your little disguise will not serve us this time, Nephew. Simple country folk will not yet know what has taken place in the councils of the great.”

Erlend’s face stiffened. The hint of scorn in his uncle’s deep voice rankled. Guthrum had not belittled his “little disguise” when he had proposed it to Halfdan last winter. Nor had he hesitated to take the credit for Erlend’s accomplishments.

“Perhaps,” Erlend said, producing yet another elaborate shower of sound, “perhaps I can find my way into the household of one of their nobles.”

There was a long pause. Then Guthrum said, “Your confidence has grown, youngster. It is one thing to fool the simple, another to hoodwink the great.”

“Not so much difference,” Erlend replied. His greenish eyes flicked over Guthrum’s face. He had no illusions about the way his uncle’s mind was working. Should Erlend fail and be discovered, then Erlend would be out of Guthrum’s way. On the other hand, should Erlend succeed, then would the Danes have some useful information. And Guthrum would manage to take the credit for having such a clever kinsman.

Guthrum smiled. His wolf smile, Erlend thought. “It is not an ill idea,” his uncle said. “Find out who has been named king, and who is opposing him.”

“My lord …” Erlend bared his own teeth in a return grin. “I will.”

After two weeks the only troops remaining to Alfred were his own household thanes and the thanes of the ealdormen’s hearthbands. It was May, and at home the farmers were facing their yearly problem of keeping their animals fed until the spring grass was thick enough for grazing. The fodder problem was always serious in the spring, and spring had been late in coming this year.

Alfred himself fell back on Wilton, sending Ealdorman Osric and his men to occupy Winchester, It would be easier to feed the thanes of the hearthbands from the royal manors than it was in the field.

It took Alfred three days to move his men to Wilton, encumbered as they were with the supply wagons, and it was at their first overnight camp near to Wodnesford that they were joined by an itinerant harper. It was Edgar who first spotted the boy lurking by the side of the road and called him into the light of the fires.

“I’ll play you a song for some supper, my lords,” Erlend said, looking around the firelit faces with his most winning smile. He ran his fingers over the strings enticingly. He was an excellent harper.

The West Saxons waved him closer and he took a place among them, fitted his harp into the crook of his arm, and asked simply, “What will you have?”

“Eat first, lad,” said the thane beside him good-naturedly. “No cause to play on an empty stomach.”

“That is so,” said someone else, and brought to Erlend a bowl of stew from the pot on the cookfire.

“Where are you from, lad?” another man asked as Erlend began to eat. The stew was surprisingly good.

“I am Frankish, my lord,” the boy returned.

“What brings you to Wessex?” asked yet another. There was no suspicion in the questions, and Erlend had grown comfortable with his story over the course of the winter.

“I had a fancy to see the world,” he answered readily. “There were ten of us at home, and no tears shed to see me go.”

The men around the fire nodded and shrugged. So went the world. Erlend finished his stew and took up his harp. “I know some of the song of
Beowulf,”
he said.

“That will do,” said the man beside him, and Erlend ran his fingers over his harp, bending his ear close to listen to each individual string. Then he raised his head and shook back his hair from his brow. He did not wear it short like the rest of the men in the Danish camp, but shoulder-length, in the style of the West Saxons.

“ ‘Hark!’ “ he began, and ran through the notes again, “ ‘to the story of the bygone glory of the Danish kings and the doings of their princes. Of how Scyld Scefing, the dread of armies, brought hostile nations into thrall and struck grim terror into the hearts of their lords.’ “

His voice was clearly chanted, his harp the perfect background for the stirring words. A sigh of satisfaction ran around the circle of men and they settled down more comfortably to listen.

Erlend played for fully an hour, and all during that time men kept moving closer and closer to the fire around which he sat. When finally he put aside the harp, they paid him the tribute of silence.

Then, “Very well sung,” said a crisp voice from the far side of the fire. It was one of the men whom they had made room for early in the song. “What is your name?”

“Erlend, my lord,” the boy replied. He had decided last winter he would be less likely to make a mistake if he used his own name.

“Erlend,” said another voice. “This is not a Prankish name.”

He had his reply ready. “My mother’s mother was from Norway, my lord.”

“Give the boy a drink,” the man with the distinctive voice said. “He must be thirsty after such an effort.”

“Yes, my lord!” Three men made to get up, one said, “I’ll get it,” and the others sat back down.

A drink of ale was brought to Erlend, and as he sipped it gratefully, he looked across the fire, The flames showed him the figure he sought. That color hair looked familiar, he thought. Then, as the man rose to his feet, Erlend recognized him. He had seen that way of moving once before, on the battlefield at Ashdown. Even in full battle dress, Alfred had moved like a cat.

Erlend finished his ale as Alfred, followed by three of his men, left the fire. The boy wiped his mouth with his sleeve, turned to the thane next to him, and asked guilelessly, “Who was that man with the golden hair?”

The man’s firelit face broke into a smile. “Why, that was the king, my boy. That was Alfred himself.”

“Oh.” Erlend let his eyes widen into awe. “I did not know I was playing my harp for a king!”

Good-natured laughter rose from those who were listening. Erlend drew up his knees and propped his chin on them. He looked about fourteen sitting there, and he knew it. “I did not even know who the new king was,” he said.

The man beside him looked surprised. “There should have been little doubt in the country about who would be chosen. Alfred is the only one to lead us in such a time of peril. Surely all of Wessex knows that.”

“But did not King Ethelred have sons?” Erlend’s eyes were round with assumed innocence.

“The boy is a Frank,” a voice to his left said, as if Erlend’s nationality would explain his ignorance.

The man beside him retied his garter as he told Erlend kindly, “Ethelred’s sons are too young. Ethelred himself knew that. In his will he named Alfred, his brother, as his heir.”

“He did?” Erlend did not have to feign surprise. This emotion was genuine. “That was … selfless of him,” he said. “Few kings would choose to bypass their own direct descendants.”

“The royal house of Wessex is not like other kingly houses,” came the proud reply from somewhere down the circle. “Your Frankish princes would cut each other’s throats before they would assist each other. The house of Cerdic is not like that. They are for the country first. All of Wessex does know that.”

Erlend’s neighbor added, “And all of Wessex does know the love and the trust King Ethelred had for his brother. Alfred was the only choice in such a time as this.”

Erlend listened hard but there was not the hint of a dissenting voice in the group. The young Dane lay down to sleep in the midst of the West Saxon thanes and mulled over what he had learned.

If what the thanes had said was true, then truly the house of Cerdic was singular among the race of men. But these were Alfred’s own men, Erlend thought. As were the folk at Lambourn, who had given him a previous report of the relationship between Ethelred and his brother. Erlend strongly doubted that things in Wessex were as unified as these thanes would have him think. It was not in the nature of man to be, as one of the thanes had said, “for the country first.” Erlend had no doubt that he lived in an age of wolves. Now that Wessex’ crowned king was dead, the wolves would be out and snarling over the kingdom he had left.

Erlend decided he would stay with the army for a little longer, to see just who the wolves turned out to be.

The Saxon army was up early the following morning, but to Erlend, who was accustomed to the speed with which the Danes could move, Alfred’s men seemed ponderously slow. It was the lack of horses, he supposed as he marched along in the midst of the fyrd, his harp over his shoulder, listening to the talk about him. An army that traveled by foot was considerably slower than an army that traveled on horseback, he thought. The only men on horseback among the Saxons were the king, his immediate companion thanes, and the ealdormen. In contrast, every Danish soldier was mounted. The East Anglian horses they had acquired upon landing in England had proved invaluable.

A distinct advantage for the Danes, Erlend thought, they could outrun the Saxons anytime they chose. A useful piece of information for him to pass on to Halfdan and Guthrum when he returned to camp.

The rows of thanes moved slowly down the thinly graveled Roman road, and Erlend’s green eyes flicked from line to line of the marching men, counting numbers. Not nearly the number that had fought at Ashdown, he thought. But all the men seemed well-accoutred, and carried swords as well as spears, the sure sign of the upper class. The farmers, apparently, had gone home,