The Edge of Light

by Joan Wolf

  “I don’t think he would be happy in Denmark,” Elswyth said. “Of all that fierce crew you have had baptized, Erlend is the only one with the soul of a Christian.”

  “I know. I invited him to remain in Wessex if he wished.”

  “That was nice.”

  “Elswyth …”

  “Mmm?” She tilted her face up to look at him, and her long hair streamed across his arm like an ebony mantle.

  “I told Guthrum you were very good in bed,” he said.

  Her eyes narrowed to mere slits. Even half-hidden and dimly lit, they still looked blue. “You didn’t,” she returned.

  A faint smile came across his eyebrows and eyes. “How do you know?”

  “You are only saying that to pay me back for telling you you had bugs in your hair.”

  He grinned.

  “But I love you anyway,” she said, her voice at its huskiest, her long slim fingers running now over his torso, loving the lean-muscled feel of him, loving the smoothness of his skin, its lovely golden color.

  “God, Elswyth. I missed you so much.” He slid down in the bed, carefully drawing her with him, conscious always of the child she carried within.

  “I missed you too,” she whispered.

  He turned on his side and drew her against him, not wanting to put his weight on her in any way. She wound her arms about his neck and responded with a torrid kiss. He made love to her with his own special mixture of fierceness and gentleness and they went to sleep wrapped in each other’s arms.

  For twelve days the Danes remained feasting with Alfred at Wedmore. The king spared no expense to honor his guests. As an Anglo-Saxon, Alfred understood well the heroic dimensions of kingship that would impress the Danes. The king must be generous, a bracelet-giver, a sword-giver, a praise-giver. The king must entertain his followers with hunting by day and feasting and harping in his hall by night. The king’s band of retainers must offer comradeship and faithfulness to the brave and the true of heart.

  All these things Alfred understood; indeed, they were as much a part of his heritage as was his Christian faith. So he knew well how to entertain Guthrum and his followers, how to bind the Danes to him with ties of friendship and respect. Alfred did not waste his time or his money during the twelve days he kept the Danes with him at Wedmore.

  Such were Erlend’s thoughts as he sat at the supper board on the last night of the Danes’ stay at Wedmore, pretending to listen to one of Guthrum’s jarls reliving the day’s hunt. The serving folk were clearing away the supper dishes and Erlend’s eyes followed a particularly pretty girl as she piled platters on top of each other and then went toward the door. The girl went out and Erlend next turned his eyes toward the high seat, even as he made noises of acknowledgment to the garrulous jarl beside him.

  Guthrum and Alfred sat side by side on the high seat this night, as they had on every other night of Guthrum’s stay at Wedmore. Elswyth sat at the trestle table directly to Alfred’s left, having gracefully relinquished her accustomed place to the Dane.

  Guthrum and Alfred were talking together. Guthrum’s Saxon had greatly improved during his stay at Wedmore, and the two kings seemed to be conversing with little difficulty.

  It amused and somewhat awed Erlend to see his powerful uncle so under the sway of Alfred of Wessex. Guthrum was convinced that the West Saxon king possessed strong magic. Perhaps he did, Erlend thought now. Alfred certainly cast a spell on men. He had cast one on Erlend, that was for certain.

  The serving folk had finished with the supper dishes and now the hum of talk in the hall began to die down as Alfred rose to his feet. Erlend looked around the crowded hall, blazingly lit by torches burning every few feet along the tapestry-hung walls, The smell of food still lingered in the air, rising with the smoke toward the smoke hole in the roof. The fire was burning steadily in the central hearth, throwing light from the center of the room to meet with the light from the torches on the walls.

  The king began to speak, and Erlend’s eyes swung instantly back toward the high seat.

  Alfred began by honoring Guthrum’s prowess in the hunt that day and expressing his belief in the friendship that now bound the two kings together as brothers. A small sound from the door drew Erlend’s attention, and he turned to see the serving girl he had noticed earlier slipping back into the hall to listen to the king, Nor was she alone; a crowd of serving folk had come with her and they all clustered quietly by the door.

  She was really very pretty, Erlend thought, noticing the burnished copper of her hair. She had no eyes for him, however. All of her attention was on the king. Slowly Erlend turned his eyes back to Alfred.

  “When all is well in the land,” Alfred was saying, “praise for that goes to the king. But no man can show any skill, or exercise or control any power, without tools and materials. I will tell you now what are a king’s materials, the tools with which he must govern. They are a land well-peopled with men of prayer”—here Alfred looked toward his priest—”men of war”— the golden eyes went around the circle of thanes—”and men of work” —now the king looked gravely at the cluster of serving folk at the door. Erlend had thought he was the only one to notice them come in.

  The room was perfectly quiet, as it always was when Alfred spoke. The copper-haired serving girl’s face was lit as brightly as one of the torches that flamed on the walls, How was it, Erlend wondered, that no matter how large the group, when you listened to Alfred you always had the distinct feeling that he was speaking directly to you?

  “Without these tools,” Alfred was continuing, “no king can do his work. Furthermore, besides these tools, the king must have material. By that I mean he must have provision for the three classes to live on: land, gifts, weapons, meat, ale, clothes, and whatever else they may need. Without these the king cannot preserve the tools, and without the tools he cannot accomplish anything that he ought to do.”

  This is why I love him, Erlend thought as he watched Alfred standing there before his people. Easy to be generous with gifts of gold. All good leaders knew how to do that. Gold was one thing, but sharing fame, sharing credit, that was something else. That was the test of true generosity. And to go so far as to include the lowest minions in the land! Men of work.

  Erlend looked once again toward the serving folk at the door. Some of the men there might even have been at Ethandun, he thought. It had not been just the upper class or the landed ceorls who had filled the valley near Egbert’s Stone on that auspicious Whitsunday afternoon. Large numbers of working folk from the various manors had come as well, carrying their borrowed spears, ready to give their lives for Alfred, their king.

  Alfred had finished his remarks and now was turning to ask Guthrum something.

  Wessex would survive, Erlend thought, suddenly knowing it in his blood and in his bones. This single English kingdom had managed to stand alone against the Danes; and it would continue to do so in the future. The men of prayer, the men of war, and the men of work, united under one great king, would keep Wessex, and hence England, free, and Christian, and Anglo-Saxon for future generations to know.

  Guthrum was getting to his feet. Erlend felt a flash of surprise. His uncle must indeed be growing confident of his Saxon.

  The Dane stood there for a moment, as silence fell once again around the hall.

  He looked splendid, Erlend thought as he beheld his uncle’s tall, broad-shouldered form. The yellow hair, still thick, though now lightly touched with gray, gleamed in the light of the wall torches. The sensuous mouth was unusually grave. In the absolute silence, Guthrum raised his cup.

  “To Alfred,” he said in perfectly comprehensible Saxon, “the most feared by his enemies and loved by his friends of any man in England.”

  There was a moment of stunned silence.

  Good for you, Uncle, Erlend thought.

  Then the hall erupted with cheers.

  Before she retired to bed, Elswyth sought out Erlend. “We go to Wantage within the next few days,” she said to
the Dane. “I hope you are coming with us.”

  Erlend looked into Elswyth’s haughty face. Guthrum, he knew, had not known what to make of Alfred’s beautiful wife. She fitted into no category of woman that the Viking had ever come across before.

  “I do not know, my lady,” he returned now. He added honestly, “I do not know what I should do.”

  “You think you should return to Denmark,” said Elswyth. “But think you, Erlend, what will you do if once you win back Nasgaard?”

  “Find me a wife like you and settle down to live like a lord,” he replied promptly.

  “You would be miserable with a wife like me,” Elswyth said. “You need a nice sweet girl who will let you protect her.”

  Erlend was half-annoyed and half-amused. “You think you would be too much of a handful for me to hold on my rein?”

  “I would lead you around as if you had a ring through your nose,” Elswyth replied bluntly. “You would not enjoy that at all.”

  Erlend recalled that Brand had once said much the same thing. He said now to Alfred’s strong-minded wife, “Then I will live like a lord in Nasgaard with a sweet and biddable wife to smile at me by day and warm my bed by night.”

  “Better find a nice West Saxon girl and stay with us,” Elswyth recommended. “You will be lonesome in Denmark. No one there thinks like you do.”

  Erlend stared at her, “How do you mean that?”

  “I mean that you have been too long with Alfred. You have become too Christian, Erlend. Stay in Wessex, and Alfred will give you a manor of your own.”

  “I don’t know …” Erlend said again.

  “I do,” came the arrogant reply. Then she bit her lip. “It is bad enough that Edgar is gone. It will be horrible if you go too.”

  Erlend’s heart, which had lain heavy in his breast all week, miraculously began to lighten. “You would miss me?”

  “I would miss you. Flavia would miss you. Alfred would miss you most of all. And what is more, Erlend”—her blue eyes met his straight on—”you would miss us.”

  “I know I would,” he replied.

  “Your returning to Denmark would be like my returning to Mercia,” Elswyth said. “There is nothing there for me anymore. My heart is here in Wessex. As is yours.”

  Erlend’s face was very pale, his green eyes very bright. He said nothing.

  The haughty Mercian nose lifted. The midnight eyes glittered. “Do not be a fool, Erlend,” said Elswyth, Lady of Wessex. “Stay here with those who love you.”

  Erlend’s face suddenly split into a radiant smile. “Well, yes,” he said, “I suppose I will.”

  Elswyth nodded her black head and gave him an approving smile.

  “Thank God,” she said. “Now I will have someone to help me with the horses.”

  Erlend threw back his head and shouted with laughter.

  Erlend of Wessex, he thought as he watched Alfred’s wife walking back across the floor to the high seat. It had a nice sound to it. He wondered if the copper-haired serving girl was married.

  * * *

  Afterword

  I suppose it was inevitable that I should end my trilogy of Dark Ages England, which began with Arthur, with a book about Alfred the Great. For Alfred holds in real history the place which romance gives to Arthur. Indeed, if one is a true believer in the myth that Arthur will return when England needs him most, then one might even say that Alfred is Arthur reincarnated.

  In eleven centuries of English monarchy, only one king has ever been called “the great,” and that king is Alfred. The main events of the story I have told in this novel are true. Alone among English kingdoms, Wessex was successful in resisting the Danes. The years that followed Guthrum’s treaty with Alfred at Wedmore saw more fighting, true, but no Danish army ever successfully invaded Wessex again. It is because of Alfred, and his courageous leadership, that England did not become a mere colony of Denmark, but preserved its Anglo-Saxon culture and its Anglo-Saxon tongue.

  But it is not just as a war leader that Alfred is remembered, In the years of sporadic peace that followed the Treaty of Wedmore, Alfred struggled to bring back a remnant of learning to his devastated land. The educational system of Anglo-Saxon England had been founded on the great monasteries, and these had been devastated by the Danes, leaving Wessex in a state of absolute poverty in regard to learning.

  Latin was known only to a few, and the samples we have of it from Alfred’s time are of poor quality. Most priests probably knew only the rote words of the Mass. As Alfred himself wrote in the preface to his translation of the Pastoral Care: “So general was its decay in England that there were very few on this side of the Humber who could understand their rituals in English or translate a letter from Latin into English; and I believe there were not many beyond the Humber. There were so few that I cannot remember a single one south of the Thames when I came to the throne.”

  When you consider the state of Wessex at this period of history, in constant readiness for war, tackling the building of a series of fortified burghs that would be the foundation of many future cities, it is nothing short of astonishing that the king should turn his mind and his energies to something as seemingly unimportant as the circulation of books.

  That he did so is one of the things that makes Alfred so extraordinary. He understood that a nation needs more than mere freedom; it needs a soul as well. And so he embarked upon his great series of translations from the Latin, transcribing into Anglo-Saxon that handful of books that he felt it was “most needful for men to know.”

  In the words of Michael Wood, “To embark on such a systematic program of instruction at such a time was the act of a remarkable man, practical, resolute, and ruthless: he took on himself not only the strain of defense but also concern for the future lives of his subjects. That is why, alone among English kings, he is ‘the Great,’ and why he has rightly never lost the esteem of the English-speaking world.”

  The bare facts of Alfred’s struggle against the Danes are recounted both in The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle and in Bishop Asser’s Life of King Alfred. Little is known of his personal life, save that he suffered extremely from some mysterious illness (which I have made migraine headaches). Asser says nothing about Alfred’s wife, Ealhswith, except for giving the date of their marriage. Alfred’s will, however, gives a clue as to the king’s feelings for his wife.

  The king begins his bequests, as is proper, with those to “Edward, my elder son.” The will continues with the list of property he wishes to go to, “My younger son … my eldest daughter … my middle daughter … my youngest daughter.” Then comes, “And to Ealhswith the estate at Lambourn and at Wantage and at Ethandun.”

  Not “my wife,” but the very personal use of her name. And to her he gave his favorite estates; Wantage, where he was born; Lambourn, the estate nearest to Ashdown, where he had his first great victory over the Danes; and Ethandun, where he triumphed over Guthrum and in so doing saved Wessex.

  England was also fortunate in Alfred’s successors. His daughter Ethelflaed (Flavia) married Ethelred of Mercia and, upon his death, ruled that country as the Lady of the Mercians. She, working hand-in-glove with her brother Edward, brought to completion Alfred’s great plan of fortified burghs. By 916 a line of fortresses from Essex to the Mersey, eleven of them built or repaired by Ethelflaed, sixteen by Edward, menaced the Danes, who hurled themselves against them in vain. History has probably never seen a more successful brother-and-sister act than the one performed between 911 and 918 by Alfred’s two eldest children.

  Upon Ethelflaed’s death, Edward effectively added Mercia to the crown of Wessex. Edward, known to history as “the Elder,” was an extraordinarily competent king, and at his death in 924, Scandinavian England was once again under English rule as far north as the Humber.

  It was Edward’s son, however, who truly brought all the Danish-occupied lands of England under the rule of the Wessex monarchy. At the battle of Brunanburgh, Athelstan defeated Olaf the Dane and became effective
ly the first true King of England.

  One further note on Alfred’s children. One of his daughters married Baldwin, Count of Flanders, thus cementing a friendship between England and Flanders that would last for many years. This Baldwin was the son of Judith of France and Baldwin “Iron-Arm,” the warrior she eloped with from her father’s palace of Senlis.

  One of the main difficulties I encountered in the writing of this book was the names. Half of all Anglo-Saxon names seem to start with the preface “Ethel,” and to a modern reader it can get very confusing. I helped the reader as best I could by modernizing Ealhswith to Elswyth, calling Alfred’s eldest daughter Flavia instead of Ethelflaed, and changing some of the historical Ethelreds and Ethelwulfs to other, more recognizable names. I also provided a list of characters at the beginning of the book to assist readers who may have lost their way.

  The poem The Battle of Deorham is a reworking of Tennyson’s rendition of The Battle of Brunanburh. Other poetry in the book is from the Anglo-Saxon poems Judith, The Voyage of Saint Andrew, and, of course, Beowulf.

  I am appending a list of the sources I used to write this book for any readers who may be interested.

  Sources Consulted

  Original Sources

  Asser’s Life of King Alfred, ed. W.H. Stevenson, Oxford, 1959.

  The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, ed. J.A. Giles, London, 1912.

  Secondary Sources

  Burne, A. H. Battlefields of England, London, 1950.

  Duckett, Eleanor S. Alfred the Great and His England, London, 1957.

  Finberg, H.P.R. The Formation of England 550-1042, London, 1974.

  Helm, P. J. Alfred the Great, New York, 1965.

  Hodgkin, R. H. A History of the Anglo-Saxons, Vol. II, London, 1935.

  Kirby, D. P. The Making of Early England, New York, 1967.

  Plummer, Charles. The Life and Times of Alfred the Great, Oxford, 1902.

  Stenton, Sir Frank, Anglo-Saxon England, Oxford, 1947.