The Edge of Light

by Joan Wolf

  All of a sudden Elswyth grinned. “You don’t spend enough time in the kitchen. I, on the other hand, pass many a pleasant hour there. You would be surprised what you can learn in the kitchen.”

  He did not smile back. “I shall speak to Brand after supper,” he said. “I shall deal with Godric, Elswyth. You may rest secure that he will have no further chance to starve my folk here at Lambourn.” There was an oddly still look on his face that Elswyth did not mistake for mercy.

  “I knew you would be angry, Alfred,” she said with approval. Then: “Will you please eat something!”

  He nodded and picked up a slice of ham. Elswyth turned to speak to the priest who was on her other side, and Alfred dutifully chewed his meat. It tasted like ashes in his mouth. At his right hand, out of the corner of his eye, he could see Godric quaffing his cup of ale.

  A rogue, Alfred thought. Why did I not see it before?

  He answered himself: Because Godric’s birth was noble, he ran a well-maintained manor, and his accounts were always in order. Alfred had never thought to look at the leanness of his servants.

  He was bitterly angry and bitterly shamed. It had taken Elswyth but two weeks to see what was at hand. And she had dealt with it, without his authority and with surprising competence.

  He looked once more at his child-wife as she sat talking to Father Odo. Within the month, he thought, she would be fifteen. And felt again the slender body that had slid so naturally along his when he had lifted her down from her horse. As if she could feel his eyes, she turned her head away from the priest to look at him. Her pure skin had the faintly glistening texture of fine pearls. Her braided hair was so black it shone blue in the light from the torch. He looked at her expressive mouth, at the cleft in her small firm chin. She leaned forward and said something to him about the scop.

  “Yes,” he said. “Of course.”

  She looked over his head, searching for the harper.

  He remembered once again the feel of her slim pliant body against his; it was not a child’s body anymore.

  Brand had seen the close conversation between Alfred and Elswyth at supper and so was not surprised when he was summoned to speak to Alfred in the prince’s sleeping chamber after supper was concluded. Godric, he saw, had also made an attempt to speak to Alfred but had been rudely ignored.

  Alfred was rarely rude. Godric was looking extremely worried as Brand went to the door of the prince’s room and knocked.

  “Come!”

  Brand entered to find Alfred squatting on his heels, looking carefully into a wolfhound’s ears. “This should have some ointment put into it,” the prince said; then he stood up. The dog immediately jumped onto the bed and stretched out, chin on paws.

  “You have some information for me, I believe,” Alfred said.

  “Yes, my lord.” Brand spoke steadily. What he had to tell his prince was not pleasant, and by the time he had finished he could see that Alfred was in a temper.

  “And this has been going on for some time?” Alfred asked.

  “For years, my lord.”

  “Did you manage to discover why no one thought to report this theft to me?” The words were bitten off with all the precision of icy rage.

  “My lord, they were all afraid of Godric. He is of high birth, cousin to the Ealdorman of Wiltshire. Who were they to speak against him? He ever said that what he did, he did at your command.”

  “You are saying that my people of Lambourn thought that they were being starved on my orders?”

  “No, my lord!” Brand had never seen Alfred look like this. His palms began to grow moist. “But you are rarely here. And Godric is here all the time …”

  “What of Father Odo?”

  “He is old, and …”

  “And ineffectual.”

  “Well,” said Brand unhappily. “Yes.”

  “If we have a trial, will oath-takers come forward to speak against Godric?”

  Brand’s hazel eyes widened. “A trial, my lord?”

  “That is what I said.”

  Brand rubbed his palms against his wool trouser legs. “I am sure the local shire thanes would come forward, my lord. If they knew such action would not displease you.”

  “You may tell them that it would not displease me.” The look on Alfred’s face was so implacable that Brand felt a tremor of fear.

  “Yes, my lord,” he said.

  “I will speak to Godric tomorrow,” said Alfred. “Then you may speak to the shire thanes.”

  “Yes, my lord,” Brand said again.

  “You may go.”

  “Yes, my lord.” And Brand turned thankfully to the door, leaving Alfred alone with his dog.

  Godric went the following day to his interview with Alfred, a very determined look upon his face. When he left the prince’s room his face was ashen. Alfred put him under guard and had the hysterical Lady Ada removed from the hall.

  “Selling the prince’s foodstuff for his own profit!” Edgar said to Brand, his blue eyes wide with horror. “It is hard to believe.”

  “It is not so unusual, Edgar,” said Brand, who was a shire thane’s son. “Particularly in a royal household which is bereft of its lord for most of the year. Godric’s mistake was that he was too greedy. And the Lady Elswyth too astute.”

  “I saw the prince earlier,” said Edgar. “Never have I known him to be this angry. Usually he is so good-natured.”

  Blue and hazel eyes met. “I know,” said Brand. “Betrayal is an ugly thing.”

  The two young men had gone outside ostensibly to practice their sword-play, but neither of them had made a move to lift his sword. Edgar said now, “If the prince brings Godric to law, who will testify to the truth of his word?”

  In Anglo-Saxon law, the defendant was not required to produce evidence about the facts of the dispute, but to bring before the court men who would swear that the oath taken by the defendant was pure. If the requisite number of oath-helpers was produced before the court, and the oath taken in full, the case was at an end.

  Brand lifted eloquent eyebrows, “Who will stand up for a man who has betrayed his lord?”

  “No one,” Edgar answered.

  “If the prince does indeed bring Godric to trial,” said Brand, “Godric will die.”

  In Anglo-Saxon society, loyalty to one’s lord was paramount. As Brand had said, once Alfred moved to bring Godric to trial, the conclusion was foregone. Godric had broken that loyalty and so Godric must die. If there were some who were surprised that Alfred had dealt so harshly with a man of such high rank as Godric, still no one dared to criticize.

  “For all his good nature, the prince is not a man to cross,” said Edgar. And that sentiment was generally agreed to.

  It was Elswyth who knew that Godric’s great sin had not been his own enrichment at Alfred’s expense, but the starving of the manor folk.

  “Most reeves cheat,” she said to Alfred practically. “One must expect that. But this was something beyond.”

  “Yes,” said Alfred grimly. “It was.”

  It was the day after the sentence had been carried out. Lady Ada had long since been sent away in hysterics to the manor of her brother. Elswyth and Alfred were riding together out toward White Horse Vale and now Elswyth said, “I think you should have hanged him.” Hanging was the punishment for a commoner; a noble died by the sword. Alfred had given Godric the honor due to his rank.

  “Dead is dead,” Alfred answered. “Justice is one thing, vengeance another.”

  “I am for vengeance,” she said, and for the first time in a week Alfred smiled.

  “My little champion of the poor and the downtrodden,” he said. Then: “What do you want for your birthday?”

  Her reply was instant. “I want that chestnut filly.”

  At that he began to laugh. “Never say Elswyth does not know her own mind.”

  She was delighted to see this lighter mood and smiled back at him. “You know the one I mean, Alfred. The three-year-old you have in th
e far meadow.”

  “I certainly do know the one you mean. Nugget’s filly out of Emma. The one with the beautiful gaits.”

  “That trot!” said Elswyth in ecstasy. “She floats.” She said coaxingly, “I could make her into something extraordinary, Alfred. I know I could.”

  “She is very hot-tempered.”

  “I know. Put one of your heavy-handed thanes on her and she’d go wild.”

  Alfred said mildly, “I did not breed her for my thanes.”

  “You want her for yourself.” Elswyth’s eyes were blindingly blue as they scanned his face. “I did not know that, Alfred. Then of course you must keep her.” She added with lavish generosity, “After all, you were the one who bred her,”

  A gust of wind whipped across the open turf. Elswyth’s long black braids were too thick to be disturbed by the wind, though the hair at her temples stirred. Alfred smiled at his wife’s small ardent face. “Birthday blessing to you, Elswyth. She is yours.”

  The blue eyes glowed impossibly bluer. “Do you mean it? She is really mine?”

  He nodded, watching as the delicate color warmed the pearly curve of her cheeks.

  “It’s not that I don’t love Silken,” she said, as if to apologize to her little gray for a lack of loyalty. “I will always love Silken. But that filly … that filly is something special.”

  “Yes,” said Alfred, his eyes still on that crystal-clear face. “I am beginning to think that she is.”

  Elswyth patted the dappled gray neck of her gelding, smoothed his mane, and gave Alfred a slanting look from under long thick lashes. “I’ll race you to the trees,” she said, and shot forward, going from walk to full gallop in just two strides.

  His stallion overtook her just before the line of birches and they both pulled their mounts to a halt, laughing at each other in mutual satisfaction.

  “I am so glad you have come home, Alfred,” she said. “I missed you.”

  Actually, Elswyth had been surprised by how much she missed Alfred while he was away at Southampton. He had not suggested that she accompany him, and in truth she had been perfectly content to remain at Lambourn while he traveled south on his brother’s business. However, as the weeks wore on and he did not return, his absence had weighed on her more and more heavily.

  It was not that she was unused to being left alone, if a manor full of thanes and serving folk could be called alone. There had been numerous occasions during her growing-up years in Mercia when she had been the only family member to remain at a manor. She had rather enjoyed those times, with no one to gainsay her wishes, no one to tell her what she ought or ought not to do. She knew all the folk who dwelled on all her family’s manors, and was perfectly content riding out with the huntsmen, helping the houndsmen in the kennels, visiting in the kitchen or the smithy, and in general doing as she chose to do when she chose to do it.

  There was no reason, therefore, why life at Lambourn should be any different for her from life in Mercia before the intervention of her mother. True, Elswyth did not know the folk of Lambourn very well, and she was ever one who liked best what she knew. But she was mistress here, could do as she pleased, and for certain, after she had thwarted Godric, the folk of Lambourn liked Elswyth; indeed, they could scarcely do enough for her.

  But as the weeks went by, and Alfred did not return, she felt a growing discontent. She missed him. She missed having him there to share things with, to laugh with. She missed being able to look at him. She loved to look at him, loved even to touch him. He was so beautifully golden and smooth. In general, Elswyth rarely touched another person, and hated to be touched herself. She had ever saved all her love for her animals. But Alfred was different. Right from the first time she had met him, in the barn at Tamworth in the middle of a storm, she had known that Alfred was different.

  So she was delighted to have him return to Lambourn, although she was sorry to have to greet him with the news of his dishonest reeve. She would have dealt fully with Godric herself if she had been able, and spared Alfred the trouble, but she had not had the authority.

  The next reeve, she thought with satisfaction, would be more careful.

  It took most of November to find and to install a new reeve for Lambourn. The duties of the reeve of a royal estate were extensive and could not be trusted to just any man who had the proper noble birth. Besides running the estate of Lambourn, Alfred’s new reeve would officiate at the Local Assembly or folk-moot, regulate traders in the area, exact fines and dues, witness property deals, trace stolen cattle, and fight along with the fyrd. It was an office of great responsibility and great trust, which was why the betrayal of such trust was so grave a matter.

  Alfred finally settled upon a third son of the Ealdorman of Berkshire, in which shire Lambourn was set, and the arrangement seemed to please all concerned. Ulf settled into Lambourn with relative ease, and by the time Alfred and Elswyth left to pass Christmas at Dorchester, the new reeve had the manor well in hand to begin the winter months.

  * * *

  Chapter 13

  Since his wedding Alfred had had but one headache, and that shortly before he left for Southampton. He had another the day before they were due to leave for Dorchester, but still they left on schedule. Alfred refused even to consider delaying their departure for an extra day.

  The journey to Dorchester was very slow, mainly due to the oxen-drawn covered wagons that carried Alfred’s contribution to Ethelred’s Christmas feast: great barrels of ale, mead, and honey as well as salt meat and fish to supplement the gifts of the hunt and the pasture at Dorchester. Elswyth kept Silken beside Alfred’s Nugget for most of the way. The big stallion and the small gelding had learned to get along together surprisingly well. Alfred was also taking his three favorite dogs to Dorchester, and they ran eagerly beside the horses, making forays into the woods whenever they became too bored with the road.

  The party stayed overnight at several abbeys along the way, and for the first time Elswyth had a chance to behold what years of Danish raiding had done to many of the famous religious houses of Wessex. Mercia, being without a coast, had not seen its abbeys kindle to the torch of the pagans as had Wessex and Northumbria.

  Alfred and Elswyth also stayed one night in the royal city of Winchester, then traveled west to Wilton, where they passed another night. The Roman road that went south from Wilton would take them directly to the royal city and manor of Dorchester, where the West Saxon kings traditionally celebrated Christmas.

  Elswyth was particularly pleased to be going to Dorchester because it lay near to the sea. Alfred had been astonished when she told him she had never seen the sea. So much of Wessex was bordered by the sea that it was a part of life he took very much for granted. He had learned to swim almost before he could walk, and from youth had been able to handle the small craft the West Saxons used for fishing. But to Elswyth, child of Mercia, the sea was a foreign element, and she was wild to see it.

  Ethelred and Cyneburg had been at Dorchester above a week when Alfred’s party finally arrived. The sky was still light and the men were still at the hunt, so it was left to Cyneburg to greet her brother-by-marriage and his new wife.

  Elswyth watched as Alfred exchanged the kiss of peace with his brother’s wife. Cyneburg was soft and round and pretty; the exact sort of woman Elswyth would have expected Ethelred to marry. Then Alfred was turning to present his wife to his brother’s wife, and Elswyth stepped forward politely.

  “I am pleased to greet you at last, Elswyth,” Cyneburg said. Her tone was gentle, but the light blue eyes that looked into Elswyth’s face were sharply assessing. “I was sorry not to be able to attend your wedding,”

  “I was sorry also,” Elswyth replied. Her husky drawling voice was carefully courteous. She looked back into Cyneburg’s eyes and waited for her to say something else. When Cyneburg did not speak again, Elswyth added, “I am happy to be here.”

  “And we are happy to have you.”

  Another silence fell. Elswyth felt a f
lash of annoyance. Why did the woman look at her so strangely? Did she have dirt on her face? But she withheld the sharp remark that hovered on the tip of her tongue. Elswyth had determined to make friends with Cyneburg. She knew how fond Alfred was of Ethelred, and she knew he would be displeased if she did not get on with Ethelred’s wife. So she strove to look pleasant, and racked her brain for something to say.

  Into the silence there came the sound of a baby crying. Elswyth, who had never before shown any interest in children, spoke with sudden inspiration. “I should love to see your new baby, my lady.”

  Cyneburg’s pretty face lighted to beauty. “Would you? Come along, then, and you shall see him right this minute. No, not you, Alfred.” Cyneburg made a playful show of waving Alfred away. “Elswyth and I need some time to get acquainted. Isn’t that so, Elswyth?”

  Elswyth murmured a dutiful yes and trailed off after Ethelred’s wife, so obviously determined to admire Cyneburg’s child that Alfred hoped, half-humorously, that she wouldn’t overdo it. He watched his wife’s slim straight shoulders as she marched after Cyneburg, and it was not until the door had closed behind her that he turned to go into the courtyard to see to his thanes.

  Alfred was always given the princes’ hall at Dorchester, and even though it was the secondary hall, it was larger than the great hall at Lambourn. There were two separate sleeping chambers; Alfred took one and gave Elswyth the other. The thanes of Alfred’s hearthband slept on the hall benches, as they always did. The clutter accumulated and the dogs roamed wherever they wished. Elswyth felt immediately at home.

  Elswyth had admired Cyneburg’s baby lavishly, which made her an instant favorite with Ethelred’s wife. Elswyth then added to her good repute by spending the whole afternoon of Christmas Eve playing a board game with Ethelred’s eldest son, Ethelhelm, who was confined to bed with a cough.

  “It was fun,” she said to Alfred when he commended her for her nobility. Her blue eyes glinted wickedly, “I taught him how to cheat when next he plays with his father. Ethelred will not know what happened to him.”