The Edge of Light (57 page)

“Perdition, Elswyth, but I am so itchy!” Nothing could make Alfred so fretful as lack of washing.

“I hope you have not given me bugs,” she said.

“I don’t have bugs!” He stared at her in outrage.

She grinned.

“God knows what I have,” he said.

“You have the heart of a lion.” Her hand moved up his back and began to rub his neck. His eyes half-closed with pleasure. “Have you not seen Ethelnoth?” she asked.

“I saw him when first I came into Somerset. He sought me out and assured me of his loyalty. I have not sent for him since.” He sighed. “I kept waiting to hear that my other ealdormen had rallied their men.”

“No news of that rat Athelwold?”

“None that I have heard.”

“I wish Flavia and Edward had drowned him.”

“How are the imps? Are they behaving themselves at the monastery?”

“What do you think?”

He shifted a little so she could rub the muscles between neck and shoulder. “They both send you their love,” she added. “Edward wants me to bring him back a sword.”

He snorted. “And Elgiva?”

“Elgiva is such a sweet-natured child, I have no idea where we got her from, Alfred.” He chuckled. “Flavia and Edward will never include her in their games. I think it is a very good thing we are to have another child. Elgiva needs a friend.”

He sighed. “I suppose.” He did not sound convinced.

She said, “What is that I see crawling around in your hair?”

“What?”

Her voice brimmed with laughter. “I am sorry. I could not help it. You are so funny in that beard. …”

He stared at her and slowly his face began to change. “Elswyth,” he said, pronouncing her name with the clipped accent she so loved. He ran his forefinger along her cheek, tracing the high sharp bone in a light, yet utterly possessive caress. She stared up into eyes that were suddenly narrowed and intent. Hunting eyes. “You are so beautiful,” he murmured, and now his clipped voice was low and husky. “I have missed you so much.” Then his shoulders were coming over hers and he was sliding her down toward the center of the bed, so that she lay on her back under him, her hair spread out above her head like a long ebony ribbon. He began to kiss her all over, her slender throat, her proud breasts, her faintly swollen belly.

Liquid fire ignited in her veins. The quilt was still pulled above them, enclosing them in a warm, dark tent of private passion. She felt the hardness of his fingers as they caressed her breasts, her waist, her thighs. They were hard and callused, but their touch was the touch of a lover. At last he was sliding his hands under her hips, and she arched her back for him, offering up all her warm moistness for him to sheath himself in.

Giving and taking, giving and taking, they brought each other first to joy and then to heartfelt peace.

Ethelnoth was sought and found, and he and Alfred consulted for long hours in the small hall at Athelney. As a result of the discussion, Alfred informed his thanes that they would begin to build a fort right in the clearing at Athelney where the hunting lodge was located. The few buildings on the island were not protected by a palisade and ditch, nor would they hold more men than the number already jammed within. They needed shelter for the men of the Somerset fyrd, Alfred said. And stockade walls for protection should an enemy penetrate into their fastness.

It was the work of a month to throw up walls, dig a ditch, and build shelters to accommodate nearly five hundred more men at Athelney. All of Alfred’s thanes, including Erlend, worked on the job. The king himself was not above shoveling earth or hauling logs cut from the dense forest of alders that grew all over the island. “Lenten penance,” he called it, and would not let anyone else do his share of the labor.

Alfred had heeded Erlend’s warning about Ubbe and had sent word to the Ealdorman of Devon that there was likely to be a Viking landing on his coast. Ealdorman Odda had promised to do what he might to beat back such an attempt, and on March 20, Holy Thursday, Odda sent word to Alfred at Athelney that Halfdan’s brother had indeed landed in Devon.

The news was brought by a thane from the Devon fyrd, Bevan by name. It was growing dark when the Devon man crossed the narrow plank bridge Alfred’s men had thrown up across the Parret, and he found the king and most of his followers at dinner in the hall.

Alfred did not take the messenger aside into his private chamber, but instead bade him speak before all the assembled men. The hall fell very quiet as Bevan began to deliver his message. It seemed to Erlend, who was among those listening so intently, that even the dogs had ceased to chew.

“Twenty-three ships landed, my lord,” Bevan began, “Twenty-three ships and twelve hundred men. All the Danes who ravaged Dyfed so fiercely during the winter months.” The boy, for Erlend thought he could not be above the age of twenty, was looking only at Alfred, but the clear pitch of his voice betrayed his awareness of the halt of listening men behind him.

Bevan, whose looks as well as his name betokened British blood, continued, “Once we learned of their coming, Odda, our ealdorman, gathered the fyrd and occupied the old fortress of Countisbury.” Slight pause. Then, “Do you know Countisbury, my lord king?”

Alfred nodded. Bevan said, “Its ramparts are in ill repair, but its situation gives it protection on every side save the east, and Lord Odda deemed it would be the easiest fort to hold against the Danes.”

The Devon man raised his black head high. “The Danes followed us, my lord,” he said, “and we prepared for them to storm the fortress. But days went by and they did not move.” Bevan paused and Erlend thought, with a mixture of amusement and irritation, that the boy ought to be a harper, his sense of the dramatic was so sure.

Alfred waited, and the thought flashed through Erlend’s mind that it was like Alfred to allow the boy his moment in the sun. Finally Bevan spoke again. “They were going to do to us what you did to Guthrum at Exeter, my lord. Starve us out. As they would have, since Countisbury has no supply of water within its defenses.”

The hall was breathlessly silent. Alfred’s face was politely attentive, but something in it must have reached Bevan, for he hurried on with his tale. “Ealdorman Odda spoke to us, my lord, said there were but eight hundred of us to oppose twelve hundred of them, but battle with the hope of victory was preferable to slow starvation. We all agreed. On Monday of Holy Week, as the dawn was breaking, we rushed out of the fortress and fell on the Danish camp.”

Alfred was leaning forward a little in his chair. There was a faint line between his fair brows. “Yes?” he prompted as the boy paused once more.

The answer came with a ring of triumph. “We took them by surprise, my lord king. It was a complete rout. We killed their leader, Halfdan’s brother, eight hundred of his men, and forty of his personal guard. And then …” With another dramatic pause the boy reached inside his cloak. “We captured this!”

A hissing intake of breath ran all round the hall, What the Devon thane was holding, spread wide in his hands, was the feared and hated Raven banner of the Danes.

Alfred’s face was no longer unreadable. It blazed now with the same triumph that had sounded in Bevan’s voice. “Good lad!” he said. Bevan’s dark face glowed back at him.

Alfred took the banner from the Devonman’s hands and turned to face his men, who had leapt to their feet at the sight of it.

“Did you hear the news, my friends?” Alfred cried, holding the Raven banner outstretched above his head,

“We did, my lord!” his thanes roared back.

“And are we to do any less than the thanes of Devon?”

“No, my lord!” came the joyful thunder.

“In three days’ time at the church in Aller we celebrate Easter,” Alfred said, his voice a little quieter. “The feast of the resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ. And so too will we celebrate the resurrection of Wessex from the ashes of defeat.” He paused as his eyes moved from face to face around the room. “On Easter Monday, the men of Wessex go on the attack!”

The hall was pandemonium. Erlend watched as Alfred moved to stand next to the young Devon thane, and then the king signaled to Edgar.

The resurrection of Wessex, Erlend thought, watching as Edgar came to Alfred’s side. The king said something and then Edgar put a hand on the boy’s arm and began to lead him toward a bench. Alfred swung around and caught Erlend looking at him. Irresistibly, Alfred grinned.

Erlend shrugged his shoulders; then, unable to stop himself, he grinned back. Guthrum would be livid when he discovered his sea army had been thwarted once more, he thought. And quite suddenly, as he and Alfred shared that brief and private smile amidst the uproarious hall, all the conflicting loyalties that had been rending Erlend’s heart for so many long years fell quiet.

Admit it, he thought to himself. You are glad that the men of Devon have beaten Ubbe.

It was not an easy admission for him to make, but on that wet and blowy Holy Thursday afternoon, it was inescapable. He, Erlend Olafson, born a Dane, heir to one of the greatest of Danish jarldoms, was unarguably happy to learn of a Danish defeat.

Erlend had been but eighteen when first he joined the West Saxons at their camp near Wilton; today he was twenty-four. Six years it had taken for him to allow his brain to recognize what his heart had known all along.

He loved Alfred of Wessex, Loved him as a brother, a friend, a king. On this momentous afternoon, Erlend stood alone in the midst of the noisy and crowded hall, and his eyes followed Alfred as the king went among his boisterous thanes.

Never, Erlend thought, his eyes on the rough golden head as it moved from group to group, never would Alfred fail or betray the people or the kingdom that had been given into his charge. Never would he put his own needs and desires before the wants of those who stood beneath him.

Guthrum stood for an age of axes, an age of wolves. Conqueror and predator, he was Viking to his fingertips.

Alfred stood for all the things Guthrum had never honored and would never understand.

Erlend did not understand them fully either. But he was beginning to realize that he would like to learn.

On Easter Monday, Ethelnoth of Somerset came to Athelney with fifty of the thanes of his hearthband. As the day progressed, more and more thanes from the Somersetshire fyrd, along with some ceorls, crossed the rough bridge that Alfred’s men had flung up over the River Parret to give access to the island. By nightfall, nearly three hundred men were within the stockade enclosure of the fort. The king had the beginnings of his army.

To look at, Alfred’s fort at Athelney was a desolate place. The hastily erected huts of rough timber and wattle were barely adequate, and outside the ditched and palisaded defenses was a bleak landscape of swamp and mud and alder forest. The clouds had a tendency to brood low and dark over the island, and the spring rain to fall heavy and hard.

But the spirits of the men encamped within Athelney were high. There was the victory of the men of Devon at Countisbury to cheer them. And, too, this time of year, food was abundant. There were deer and game in the forest, and on the clearings and islands amidst the swamps were countless farms and pastures. This fen country was the deepest heart of Wessex, untouched as yet by the Danes, and the loyal folk of the farmsteads willingly brought wheat and milk and eggs to their ark of salvation, the king’s fort at Athelney.

Indeed, hearts all over Wessex were beginning to rise, for their king was abroad in the land. Time and again, Alfred and his men would emerge from their swamp, fall upon a party of unsuspecting Danes, slay the men and steal their horses, then withdraw back into the watery wilderness where the Danes were not able to follow.

Guthrum sat in Alfred’s royal hall at Chippenham and raged. He had spent the winter feasting at Chippenham and watching his raiding parties return laden with the booty of the rich countryside. Guthrum had thought to have Wessex pinned firmly beneath his fist. He had even begun to give some thought to portioning out the rich farmland of the country among his followers. And then, when all seemed to be accomplished, Ubbe was killed by the men of Devon, and eight hundred of his men along with him.

Guthrum had already made plans for Ubbe and his men. He had decided that when the ship army landed, he would launch a combined land-sea attack upon Alfred in Somerset. Consequently, the loss of Ubbe and his men had been a heavy blow. Further increasing Guthrum’s displeasure was the fact that once Alfred learned of the defeat of Ubbe, he had greatly increased his attacks upon Danish war bands. Alfred must guess, Guthrum thought bitterly, that without Ubbe, the Danes would not have the necessary manpower to confine the West Saxons to the marshes.

As the spring advanced, it became clearer and clearer to Guthrum that it was absolutely essential for him to capture Alfred. Time after time Guthrum sent parties into the fens of Somerset to track down the fox who was harrying his war bands, and time after time he lost men and horses in the reeds and the lagoons.

“You will have to wait until the water goes down,” Athelwold told the Danish leader one April afternoon in the hall at Chippenham. Athelwold had come to the royal manor as an uninvited visitor, to find Guthrum distinctly out of temper. “In winter and spring, the marshes are impenetrable to all but those who know them,” Alfred’s traitor nephew concluded.

“Name of the Raven,” Guthrum swore. “He has control of the whole of western Wessex from those cursed swamps. And we never know where next he will emerge! I cannot wait until the summer. Already I sense a change in the mood of the country.”

“Name me king,” Athelwold demanded eagerly, bringing up the object of his visit. “Name me king, as you promised, and you will see a change. The West Saxons will follow one of their own where they will not follow a foreigner, a Dane.”

“They bow to me because of the strength of my fist.” Guthrum’s face and voice were brutal. “You they will never follow, not while Alfred lives. Once he is dead, then I may name you king. Not before.”

Athelwold raged, but he raged in private. Like the rest of his countrymen, he went in terror of this Danish conqueror who knew little of mercy and even less of fear,