The Edge of Light (31 page)

The king’s hearthband were unprepared for the savage attack that seemed to come from nowhere out of a retreating army. The enemy were falling back, seemingly beaten, and then there came this sudden mad-dog spring of some twenty Danes led by a great snarling beast of a man who felled three thanes with one swing of his bloody battleax.

Ethelred too was unprepared. But he had his sword up by the time Guthrum was on him, and though he was not the warrior the Dane was, neither was he unskilled. He staved off the killing blow by leaping to his right side, and the ax, instead of taking him in the throat, took him in the shoulder. Ethelred thrust with his own sword, and for a brief intense moment his eyes were locked with the fierce blue eyes of his attacker.

Then the men of his hearthband were closing in and the Danes were forced back. In less than three minutes the assassins had melted into the general retreat of their army and disappeared.

“My lord, you are hurt!” Blood was pouring from Ethelred’s upper arm, and now for the first time he felt the pain. “You must retire from the field,” said Bertred, and his treasure thane slipped an arm around him to bear him up. “If that wound is not attended to, you will bleed to death.”

Ethelred had begun to feel light-headed. He wet his lips. “Tell Alfred … he is in command now,” he said. Then: “Ethelm is to take command of my wing.”

“It shall be done,” said a voice. Someone else was applying a cloth to his shoulder. “Get a horse,” he heard from a very far distance. “The king cannot walk.” And then he fainted.

To Alfred and his men it seemed a miracle when the Danes began to retreat, and with wild enthusiasm they plunged after in pursuit. The West Saxons remembered well the slaughter they had done in the pursuit of the Danes after Reading, and saw no reason they could not duplicate that feat this day.

The pursuit lasted for over an hour. Alfred, when finally apprised of the news of Ethelred’s injury, had pulled his own hearthband back to the Ridgeway, and so he was not among the pursuers when the Danes finally turned.

This time the slaughter fell the other way. The West Saxons, spread out and totally unprepared, were as lambs before the slaughter of the massed Danish army. It was only when the first West Saxons came racing back into Meretun that Alfred realized what had happened.

“We must get the king away from here,” he said grimly to Ethelred’s companion thanes. They had been so confident of victory that Ethelred was still at Meretun, being tended to in a tent they had rigged. “Get on the road to the south,” Alfred said now, “and I will try to hold the Danes here at Meretun for some further time.”

And so it happened that as the frantically fleeing West Saxons came racing into Meretun, they were greeted by lines of their own men, who urged them to join. When the Danes finally made their own appearance, expecting to find the battleground empty, they were astonished to be met by a rain of arrows, and then the advancing shield wall of the West Saxon fyrds.

The final battle was not so fierce as the first one had been; both Danes and West Saxons were wearied from the chase. As dark began to fall, Alfred called his men off, and at his word the men of the fyrds turned and fled unashamedly into the growing dusk, leaving their wounded on the field. It was too dark for the Danes to follow.

They had lost, but Alfred’s final stand had given Ethelred the time he needed. As dark fell, the wounded West Saxon king was safely away and on the road that would take him back to Wilton.

The journey to Wilton exhausted Ethelred, but once he had been in his own bed for a few days it seemed he would make a good recovery. Half of the Danish army, under Halfdan, returned to Reading, while the other half remained at Meretun. Alfred took the men of the Sussex fyrd, who were still at Wilton when he returned, and went north once more to harry the Danes at Meretun as best he could. The men of Surrey he sent to relieve the guard at Reading. Both the Wiltshire and the Berkshire fyrds had done more than their fair share of the fighting this spring.

Alfred had ridden back to Wilton once more to check for himself on Ethelred’s progress, when word came from the Ealdorman of Surrey, who was in charge of his shire’s fyrd at Reading, that shiploads of reinforcements had come up the Thames to join Halfdan at Reading. Several thousand new men, the ealdorman’s thane reported grimly. And supplies as well.

Alfred swore when he learned this news. The West Saxon army was not likely to be at full strength again this spring. The ealdormen of Wiltshire and Berkshire had been blunt about their chances of being able to call up their men yet again. “There is little point in saving the country, if you are like to starve because there is no food at home,” Ethelm of Wiltshire had said bluntly. “Myself and my hearthband you will have, but the shire thanes and the ceorls … I think not.”

Alfred rode north again, determined to slay as many of the Danes at Meretun as he possibly could. It was not possible to engage in a full-scale battle; the West Saxons instead lay in cover and fell upon the Danes whenever they emerged from their base in order to raid the countryside for food and fodder.

It was Good Friday when one of Ethelred’s thanes came to find Alfred to tell him that his brother was dying.

Alfred galloped straight through from Meretun to Wilton, changing horses several times at manors along the way. Only Brand and Edgar rode with him, and the pace was too hard for conversation. But Alfred’s mind was ablaze with a wild mixture of disbelief and fear.

Dying. How could that be? Ethelred had been on the road to recovery. He was strong and young, not yet thirty-five years in age. True, the wound had been serious. But not fatal! How could he be dying?

And then the frightening thought, pushed down deep whenever it surfaced, only to resurface yet again:
If Ethelred dies then I shall be the king.

It could not be, would not be. Not Ethelred. Anguish caught at the back of his throat. Make it not true, he prayed. Dear God, dear God, dear God. Not Ethelred.

Elswyth must have been watching for him, for she came running into the courtyard as soon as his horse was in through the gate. “What has happened here?” he asked her as he vaulted to the ground. “The messenger said that Ethelred was … was …”

“He is dying, Alfred,” she answered when his voice trailed away. Her face was very pale, her blue eyes looked almost black. She put her hand on his arm and began to walk with him toward the great hall. “The wound has turned sour,” she said. “It is going all through him.”

He stopped and closed his eyes. He could feel her body close beside him. She said nothing. He opened his eyes and forced himself to walk forward. “Can nothing be done?” But he knew the answer before ever she replied. Once the poison started to spread, there was nothing that could be done.

“They have tried everything. I wanted to send for you on Wednesday, but Ethelred would not have it. Then, on Thursday, he wanted you.” Her husky voice sounded even huskier than usual.

They were in the hall now. Elswyth said, “Go in to him,” and took her hand from his arm.

Alfred nodded without speaking and crossed the floor with long strides. He paused for a moment before the door to Ethelred’s room, and the thought crossed his mind, like a shiver of doom, that this was the room in which Ethelbald had died. Then he pushed open the door and went in.

Cyneburg was sitting by the bed in the very chair that Judith had once sat in. Ethelred’s household priest was on the king’s other side, chanting prayers in a low voice. Both bedside watchers turned to the door as it opened, and when they saw who it was, both Cyneburg and the priest stood up.

Cyneburg looked from Alfred back to the man in the bed. “Here is your brother,” she said to Ethelred, her voice very gentle; then she motioned to the priest, and both walked to meet Alfred at the door. Cyneburg’s face seemed very composed. “I’ll leave you alone together,” she said to Alfred. He nodded, unable to reply, and she went out, taking the priest with her. Alfred crossed the floor and stood beside his brother’s bed.

Ethelred’s face was flushed with fever, his lips blistered and cracked. But the brown eyes knew him. “Ethelred,” Alfred said.

The feverish lips moved in a small smile. “I was beginning to fear I had waited too long to send for you.”

Alfred tried to answer, and found that his throat had completely closed down.

“I did not want to die without seeing you again,” Ethelred said.

Alfred sat in Cyneburg’s chair and bowed his head onto the edge of the bed. “Ethelred.” It seemed to be the only word he could get out. Then he felt his brother’s hand on his hair.

“You know it must be you,” Ethelred said. “I have written it in my will, Alfred. Over there.” Then, as Alfred still did not raise his head he said, “Go and get it for me.”

Alfred raised his head. His eyes were wet. “Where?” he asked huskily.

“In the small chest. Near to the treasury chest.” And Ethelred gestured painfully.

Alfred went to the chest that contained Ethelred’s important documents and found the will on top of several charters. He brought it back to the bed. Ethelred said, “I had it written into the will some months before by one of the monks in Winchester. You are to succeed me. Do you see?”

Alfred looked through the closely written script. “Yes, I see it.”

“Show that to the witan. They would choose you anyway, but it will be well to have my word and my seal.”

“I … I will try to be as good a king as you, Ethelred.” Alfred set his teeth into his lower lip. “You have ever set me the example of what a Christian king ought to be.”

The cracked and swollen lips moved once more in a smile. “You will be a better king than I, Alfred. It eases my mind to know that I leave Wessex in such capable hands.” He moved his fingers a little and Alfred’s hand shot out to grasp his brother’s. Ethelred’s skin felt hot and dry to the touch. Then Ethelred said, “You will look after my children for me.”

It was not a question, but Alfred answered it anyway. “As if they were my own.”

“I know.” Ethelred sighed and closed his eyes. “I am tired,” he said.

“Rest, my brother.” Alfred stood, then leaned over to touch his lips to the hot flushed forehead. “I have ever loved you better than any other man in the world,” he said, and his eyes once more were wet.

His brother’s eyes flickered open. “And I you,” said Ethelred. Alfred nodded, forcibly controlled his face, turned, and walked out the door.

Ethelred died as the sun was rising on Easter Sunday. He had asked to be buried at Wimborne Abbey, and arrangements were made for his body to be carried there forthwith. Most of the ealdormen would be in attendance at the funeral, as the election and coronation of the new king would take place immediately after.

It took but a day to bring Ethelred from Wilton to Wimborne. They used horses in front of the cart carrying the coffin instead of oxen. Everyone knew that Wessex could not afford to be too long without a king.

Alfred rode behind his brother’s coffin and remembered the funeral journey of his father. Ethelred had been with him then; Ethelred had always been with him. He remembered his brother’s words to him on the day his father had died. “I will take care of you, little brother,” Ethelred had said. “I will take care of you.”

Ethelred had held to his word, had been father to him as well as brother and friend. Never again would any man be as close to him as Ethelred had been; never again would he know that deep friendship of the mind and the heart and the spirit that he had known with his brother.

Always there would be this great aching void, the place that Ethelred had filled in his heart that could be filled by no one else.

Ethelred had known him, known his weaknesses as well as his strengths, known the true Alfred in a way that none of his companion thanes ever would. It was not safe to let any of the rest of them too close.

No one must ever know how bad the headaches really were.

No one must know. Not now, not when they were depending on him to be strong, when a whole nation was looking to him for its very survival.

He would be the king. It was a fearful prospect, one he had never ever expected to face. How could he have thought thus, he, the youngest of five brothers? How could he have expected that such a thing would ever befall him? And to have it happen now … when the Danes were at their throats … when they were fighting for their very lives.

Dear God, dear God, dear God. Where was he to find the wisdom to see them through this?

“Ethelred will help you.” It was Elswyth’s husky drawl echoing his thoughts in the uncanny way she often had. He turned to look at his wife, who was riding close beside him. Her eyes were fixed on his face. “He was a truly good and holy man, Alfred,” she said. “I think he must be very close to God. Ethelred will intercede for you.” Her eyes were a darker blue than the spring sky. “How can God not listen to such a voice as his?” she said.

He looked back into his wife’s gaze, and some of the weight on his heart lifted. She was right, he thought. If ever mortal man deserved to be saint, that man was Ethelred. Ethelred would help him. He nodded, unaware of the shadowy look below his eyes that was so worrying her. “Yes,” he said. “That is true.”

She smiled. Her eyes were so beautiful, he thought. Then: I am not alone, after all. I have Elswyth.

“His love will give you strength,” she said.

“Yes.”

She was right, he thought, facing front and letting his eyes rest on the tapestry-covered coffin on the cart before him. Ethelred had always given him strength.

Then, with a gut twist of anguish that no faith, however sincere, could completely relieve:
Oh Ethelred, I shall miss you so.

Cyneburg broke down during the funeral Mass. Her audible, brokenhearted sobbing made it much harder for Alfred to bear. He would have to settle some manors on Cyneburg, he thought, trying to distract himself, horribly afraid that he would break down also. Ethelred had left all the royal property in his hands. Alfred did not look forward to talking privately with Ethelred’s wife. He feared she might be bitter that the kingship had been taken from her son. Surely she had expected that the boy would succeed his father.