The Edge of Light (55 page)

Alfred’s dogs, hearing the raised voice, came racing out of the trees and clustered around the figure on the log. Alfred murmured a few words and scratched a few ears, and Erlend watched him, an expression of angry frustration on his face. When the king did not reply to him, just continued to soothe his dogs, Erlend said with unforgivable rudeness, “Did you hear what I just said to you?”

In one easy fluid movement Alfred was on his feet. “I heard you,” he replied mildly. He bent to pick up his book. “And how do you propose I go about saving myself?” he asked as he straightened up again.

“You must take ship to France,” Erlend said. “Collect your wife and your children and get you to safety, my lord, before Guthrum cuts your back open and spreads your ribs in an eagle’s span for Odin.”

It was brutal, Erlend thought, but brutal measures were called for.

“No,” Alfred said. His voice was perfectly quiet and perfectly final.

Erlend’s anger grew hotter as he stared at the man standing before him. Alfred was bearded now, like the rest of them, and the golden whiskers disguised somewhat the leanness of his cheeks. His hair was dirty and matted, his clothes were mud-stained and ripped from the narrow paths they rode through the marshes. The long fingers that held the leather-covered book had broken nails and were blistered with chilblains. He looked tired and dirty and cold; but somehow, Erlend did not know how, he yet managed to look like a king.

“I never before thought you were stupid,” Erlend said furiously. “Are you incapable of assessing the situation? Then let me assess it for you. You have been deserted, my lord. Which of your thanes has come flocking to your call? Which shire fyrd has even tried to rally to meet my uncle’s army in the field? Wessex is finished, my lord king! There is no need for you to die with it.”

“There are worse things than death,” Alfred said, still in that same quiet, final voice.

“Yes,” Erlend flashed in instant agreement. “Torture is worse than death. And that is what Guthrum will have waiting for you!” The golden eyes looking at him were unclouded and perfectly fearless. Erlend felt a fury such as he had never before known rip through him. “You are beaten, Alfred of Wessex,” he said viciously. “I know the sagas. There is no king who has ever been able to wrest victory from a defeat as thorough as this one.”

“I am not beaten until I am dead,” Alfred said. “And I am not dead yet, Erlend Olafson.” He turned his head away from Erlend to look toward the small spring from which they got their water, and the setting sun cast a red glow upon his bearded face. The dogs left Alfred’s feet and ran down to the spring to search out what might be there.

Erlend said, aiming for the one place he knew Alfred was vulnerable, “If you will not think of yourself, think of Elswyth and your children.”

For a long moment Alfred did not answer. Erlend suddenly thought that the king looked very alone, silhouetted there between the bleak muddy earth and the blazing red sky. Then Alfred said, “They are safe at present with the monks. If it becomes necessary, I shall get the children away to Judith in Flanders. You can rely on that.”

“And your wife?” Erlend asked tightly.

“Elswyth will never leave me. You know her well enough to know that.” Alfred’s still profile was unreadable. Then he turned. “Should something happen to me,” he said, “I want you to promise me you will see her safe. Will you do that, Erlend Olafson?”

“I …”

“I can face whatever Guthrum may have in mind for me,” Alfred said. His face was stark. “But not Elswyth. Erlend, promise me you will see her safe.”

“Nothing will happen to Elswyth,” Erlend said. “I would die for her. You know that.”

Alfred nodded and turned away, hiding the naked emotion that had been exposed much too clearly on his face.

“You will not leave yourself.” It was a statement, not a question, but Alfred answered it anyway.

“I cannot.” Alfred was intently watching his dogs. Then, clearly feeling he owed the Dane more of an explanation: “You see, I am not just a king, Erlend. I am a Christian king. And to me Guthrum represents the darkness.” Still Alfred watched his dogs as his voice went on evenly and firmly, “He is the darkness of ignorance, of cruelty, of wealth abused and power misused. He represents everything my Christian faith tells me to abhor.”

Finally Alfred turned his head and looked once more at Erlend. “I must oppose him,” he said. “While there is breath left in my body, I must oppose him.”

Erlend looked back into those steady eyes and suddenly found he did not have enough air in his lungs to speak. Silence fell while he struggled with himself. Finally: “You have nothing to oppose him with.”

He watched in stupefaction as Alfred smiled. “I have just been reading some words of the apostle Paul,” the king said. His voice was quiet. “It is a passage I have read and reread many times in these last months. Would you like to hear it?”

Erlend looked at the book in Alfred’s work-stained, ringless hands. “All right,” he said grudgingly.

The king opened the worn leather pouch, spread the page, and, after the briefest of pauses, began to read. “ ‘If you are to resist the Evil One, you must put on the armor of God. Do all that your duty requires, and hold your ground. Stand fast, with the truth as the swordbelt around your waist, justice as your coat of mail, and zeal to propagate the gospel of peace as your footgear. In all circumstances, hold Faith up before you as your shield. It will help you extinguish the fiery darts of the Evil One.’ “ Alfred began to close up the book, still reciting, obviously by heart, “ ‘Take up the helmet of salvation and the sword of the spirit, which is the Word of God.’ “

Erlend said harshly, “The East Anglian king, Edmund, he whom Guthrum spitted for the kill like an eagle, he thought the same.”

“Edmund died a martyr for Christ,” Alfred replied. He finished folding the book and looked toward Erlend. His eyes were wide and clear and absolutely dedicated. “If I must die, so be it. I will go to God, where we shall all find peace at last.”

“You are very sure of this god of yours,” Erlend said. For some reason, his whole body was beginning to shake.

“Very sure.” Alfred attached his book to his belt, and then his hand came up to touch Erlend’s shoulder. He said, “Christ came for the Danes also, Erlend. Think you of that sometimes.”

The strong thin fingers closed briefly in a gesture of encouragement and friendship, and then Alfred took his hand away. Without another word or a backward look, the king strode off in the direction of the camp.

Erlend stood stock-still and watched until the shabby figure that yet moved with such light-footed elegance was lost in the trees, Then, slowly, he put his hand on his own shoulder, over the exact place that Alfred’s fingers had touched. He was shivering all over, like a leaf in a high wind. Abruptly he sat down on the deserted log and buried his face in his shaking hands.

February was going out in a relentless deluge of icy winter rain. Balked of their day’s hunting, the thanes at Athelney clustered within the single small hall to pass the cold wet afternoon. Men lined the wall benches, feet thrust toward the warmth of the fire, fingers busy mending leather gear and tools and carving in wood. The deep rumble of male voices drowned out the sound of the rain.

The king sat among his men this afternoon, Edgar on one side of him and Brand on the other. There was no high seat in the hall at Athelney, just the simple benches. The weather had forced them to close the smoke hole in the roof, and consequently the air in the crowded room was thick with smoke.

Alfred had been sitting in silence for some time when Brand finally turned to speak to him. The king returned only an absent nod and continued to stare unseeing at the deer roasting on the fire. Nor did Alfred see the worried look Brand gave him before the thane turned back to his conversation with Erlend, who was seated on his other side.

Alfred’s preoccupation did not lift even when the dogs came in from the wet yard and shook themselves all over two of the thanes seated by the door. He did not even hear the laughter. He saw only how dirty and ragged were the men who jammed the benches, how filthy and muddy were the rushes that covered the hall floor. The stink of wet wool and leather and unwashed human flesh, of wood smoke and roasting meat, assaulted his nose.

God in heaven, he thought as his nostrils quivered in involuntary disgust, what am I going to do?

Erlend had been right yesterday, Alfred thought with deep and unusual bitterness. He was beaten. Only a fool would not be able to recognize that. Guthrum was King of Wessex. Alfred was king of twenty-four acres of swamp.

He shifted restlessly on his seat. That conversation with Erlend had kept him awake for most of the previous night, had forced him to confront his present situation squarely and evaluate it. For months now he had been living from day to day, concentrating on survival alone, with little thought of the future beyond the morrow.

Well, he had survived. The question was, for what?

The words that had kept him from sleep all night sounded once more in his brain. “Let me assess the situation for you,” Erlend had said. “You have been deserted.”

Suddenly Alfred could bear the smells of the hall no longer. He said to Brand, “I am going outside for some air,” almost leapt to his feet, and began to walk toward the hall’s single door. He was so accustomed to being watched that he scarcely noticed all the eyes that followed him as he crossed the filthy rush-strewn floor.

He closed the heavy door behind him and stood for a moment in the shelter of the wooden porch that fronted the hall. Out here the sound of the rain was clearly audible. Alfred could hear it beating like pellets onto the roof of the porch and into the mud of the courtyard. The front of the porch was not enclosed and the wind blew drops of heavy stinging rain into Alfred’s face. He threw back his head and inhaled, long and deep. The wet and icy air felt good to his suffocated lungs.

His mind went back to its bitter conversation with itself. He had spoken fine words to Erlend yesterday, he thought. Fighting words, words of fire. But words were no good unless they were backed by deeds.

I am not beaten until I am dead.

Brave words, but empty. He was beaten, all right, and this bleak desolate February afternoon, as he stood before the miserable accommodation wherein he had packed his men, he knew it.

Let me assess the situation for you. You have been deserted.

Ubbe would land on the coast, bringing new recruits to the aid of Guthrum’s already-victorious army. Thus reinforced, the Danes would be invincible.

The yard looked to be knee-deep in mud. If the weather turned cold enough to freeze, the footing would be treacherous.

Let me assess the situation for you. You have been deserted.

Where in the name of God were his ealdormen? Where were the shire fyrds? How had it been possible for Guthrum to quell Wessex without even one single battle?

Alfred frowned and moved to the very edge of the porch. There looked to be movement in the courtyard. Then, suddenly, horses appeared like ghosts out of the thick rain and mist. It took Alfred but a second to recognize one of the riders, and his heart leapt in his chest with fear and with joy. “Elswyth!” he said out loud, and jumped off the porch to run into the rain and mud of the courtyard to meet his wife.

“Is everything all right?” he asked as he set his hands about her waist to lift her down from Silken’s back. “The children?”

“Everything is fine,” she assured him, and at the sound of her husky voice his heart leapt again, this time from joy alone. They remained thus for the briefest of moments, he with his hands about her waist, she still seated on her horse, looking down into his face. She reached out to touch him briefly on his wet cheek. “I just decided I wanted to see you. So I came.”

He lifted her into his arms, and instead of setting her down in the yard, he waded back through the mud to the porch. “You are drenched,” he said as he put her on her feet. “It was mad to ride out in such weather as this,”

“I am wearing a lot of clothes,” she replied. For the first time she smiled. “Aren’t you pleased to see me?”

He stared hungrily into her rain-streaked face. There were raindrops hanging off her long black lashes and dripping from the tip of her haughty nose. Her translucent skin was flushed with rose from the cold. He bent his head and kissed her cold wet lips. Hard. “I am very glad to see you,” he said fiercely.

She smiled again and said, “You had better tell my men where to put the horses.”

He did so, and then he took her into the hall. All talking stopped as the thanes looked to see who it was coming in with the king. Then, from almost all the throats in the hall, there rose a loud shout of welcome.

Elswyth looked around the packed benches and grinned. “You stink,” she informed the hallful of her husband’s men, and they roared with delighted laughter.

The bleak and desolate afternoon was suddenly transformed. Alfred took his wife into the small cluttered bedchamber so she could remove her wet outer clothing, and ordered a measure of carefully hoarded ale for everyone in the hall.

The ale had been poured by the time the king and his wife returned to the hall, and a place had been made for Elswyth on the bench next to Alfred. Then Erlend brought out his harp.

“What would you like to hear, my lady?” he asked, running his fingers enticingly over the strings.

Alfred looked at his wife, seated so close beside him on the bench. Her damp hair was plaited into a single braid as thick as his wrist, and her cheeks were still flushed with color from her ride. She smiled at Erlend and said definitely,
“The Battle of Deorham.”

Erlend nodded, and a sigh of satisfaction went up from around the hall. The harp sounded again; then Erlend’s clear voice began to chant the words all West Saxons learned in babyhood:

Ceawlin the King
Lord among Earls
Bracelet-Bestower and
Giver of Gifts,
He with his son
Crida the Aetheling
Gaining a lifelong
Glory in battle
Slew with the sword-edge
There at Deorham
Brake the shield-wall,
Hewed the lindenwood,
Hacked the battleshield,
Coinmail, Condidan, Farinmail
Lords of the Welsh