The Second Lost Tale of Mercia: Ethelred the King (2 page)

He donned a soft fur-trimmed cloak, which
always made him feel regal. He walked to the door and took a deep
breath. Perhaps it went against his mother’s wishes to leave now,
but so what? As Edward had said, what did a woman like her
understand? Feeling emboldened, he pulled open the door and strode
into the halls.

Something strange seemed to be amiss in the
Corfe-Gate stronghold, something he could not fully describe. The
servants dared to meet his eyes, then looked away with darting
glances. They shuffled about on their feet and did not gossip to
each other as usual. Something else was strange, as well. Normally
the stronghold was surrounded with royal soldiers, reeves, and
hearth companions of all the noblemen and women. But he noticed
that many familiar faces, especially those of his mother’s
retainers, were missing from their usual posts.

Briefly he wandered out to the stables,
curious whether Edward and his men had returned yet from the hunt,
for the sun was sinking behind the hills. Edward and his men had
not yet returned, he found; but even more surprisingly, a great
many more horses were gone than Edward had taken with him. A large
number of soldiers had gone somewhere. But where?

Puzzled and distraught, Ethelred remembered
the ache in his belly, and decided this needed fixing first of all.
He headed for the dining hall, hoping to find some manner of food
there. A cloud of smoke wafting through the hall doors assured him
that he must have the right idea. But to his astonishment, his
mother and several lords sat at the table, huddled closely in
heated conversation, and not a single plate of food could be found
amongst them. The smoke came only from a blazing hearth-fire.

Alfryth spotted him from afar, and motioned
to the men to cease speaking.“Ethelred,” she hissed.“I told you to
stay in your room!”

He tried to think of something clever and
bold to say, but as he stared at the intimidating faces of the
war-leaders and clergymen sitting at the table, he found his words
lacking.“But I am hungry!”

Alfryth put on a smile, though it was so
forced and fake that in a way it was worse than a scowl.“That’s
true, my boy, a growing man certainly needs his food.”

It amazed Ethelred how differently his mother
treated him when in the company of other people than when he and
she were alone together. He realized that this had always been the
case, but it was more noticeable today than ever. He wondered
whether something had changed, or whether he was simply growing
more perceptive.

Soon his mother was upon him, her sharp nails
digging into his arm as she led him outside. The wind battered
against them, cool with the coming night.“Ethelred, you are such a
little child!” She hissed this to him as soon as they were out of
the noblemen’s hearing range.

He felt as if he was on the verge of
understanding something now that he never had before, and this
feeling gave him confidence. He stared back at his mother with all
the defiance he could muster.“If you want me to act like more than
a child, then you should tell me what’s going on!”

She leaned back, the knots of her face
untwisting as her eyebrows lifted with surprise. She was silent a
moment. Then, exasperated, she declared,“Not today, Ethelred; of
all days, not today! You will be plenty involved soon enough, of
that I promise you.”

“What do you mean, soon enough?”

“For God’s sake, Ethelred, not now! Go away,
fill your little belly in the kitchens if you must!”

She hurried back inside, and when she was
gone, Ethelred remained standing awhile, huffing with anger. He
could not comprehend all the emotions roiling through him. Suddenly
he felt as if he hated his mother, though he didn’t know why, and
he silently prayed to God for forgiveness.

Then, having stood still long enough with his
eyes pointed to the horizon, he discerned a shape approaching. It
was a lone rider, charging through the gap in the hills at full
speed; and as he rounded a certain slope, Ethelred was astonished
to glimpse the gleam of a crown on his head.

“Edward!” he cried.

He ran down the slope to meet his brother,
little fists bobbing at his sides, heart pounding in his chest. He
did not even know why he ran with such urgency and yelled Edward’s
name so loudly.

Perhaps, if he had not, things would have
happened differently.

It had frustrated Ethelred that so many
events of the day had developed beyond his comprehension, and that
he felt some great significance hanging in the air, but he could
not even guess what it was. It filled him with pride that now, he
was at the forefront of this new event. Several dozen soldiers
peeked from the stronghold to see what all the fuss was about, but
Ethelred was far ahead of them. He was the first to reach the king,
who slouched strangely in his saddle, and whose brow twinkled with
sweat in the fading sunlight.

“Hail, Ethelred,” said King Edward
cheerfully, though his voice rasped. Spittle dripped from his
stallion’s mouth, the hooves of which stomped dangerously close to
Ethelred’s feet.“Have you anything to drink?”

“I ...” Ethelred patted his tunic uselessly.
He had nothing. He had not even eaten his own night meal, after
all.“I am sorry, Edward, I don’t.” He glanced back to the
stronghold, the sharp stones of which cast angry lines against the
sky from this direction, and watched as a few men marched out of
it. Someone else would provide water, surely, so he hurried to more
important concerns while he could.“What happened to your hearth
companions?”

“I’m … not sure.” Edward wiped his brow,
though it continued to drip.“I don’t know what disbanded us.
Something must have frightened them, for they disappeared suddenly
… but I would have noticed the tracks of a bear, or wolf. It’s,
ridiculous, isn’t it? A king searching for his own hearth
companions!” He laughed, but no humor was in his voice.

Ethelred considered this.“We can get my
mother’s men to find them!” He thought he was being helpful, but
Edward frowned. Then Ethelred remembered that most of his mother’s
men had been missing, anyway. He frowned as well.

“I think not, little brother.” Ethelred began
to understand his discomfort when a few soldiers from the
stronghold reached the king’s horse and surrounded it. Edward
surprised everyone by kicking a man solidly in the face who dared
seize the horse’s reins. The servant fell back with a cry,
clutching a bleeding nose.“Away, you filthy churls. Who has some
ale? That’s all I need.”

“We’ll fetch it for you,” said a man, and
Ethelred recognized him as one of his mother’s retainers named
Osrid, large and strapping. He looked the part of a soldier though
he wore none of the usual fittings, except perhaps for the
unusually large dirk strapped to his belt. Ethelred was glad to see
him go.

“Away!” Edward was continuing to kick at the
men lingering around him. At last they all backed off, but Edward
drew his sword nonetheless, a dangerous look in his eyes. His horse
pranced about uneasily, churning the rocky earth under its hooves,
twisting its neck and snorting. Ethelred found the situation very
strange and confusing. Everyone was silent as they waited, hearing
little but Edward’s snorting horse, and the hollow sound of the
wind through the hills. Ethelred thought he could even hear the
soft crashing of the waves upon the distant shore.

Everyone but Ethelred seemed to be expecting
something. Expecting what?

With some relief, he recognized Alfryth’s
shape coming down the hillside. She held a large goblet in her
slender, ringed fingers. Edward watched her approach with a scowl,
though the look on Alfryth’s face beneath the fluttering veil was
unusually sweet. She actually seemed happy to provide the king with
this refreshment. Ethelred wished she would walk faster, for it
seemed as if a great deal of time passed before she reached them,
at which point the air seemed to thrum tangibly with tension.

“Has the game eluded you?” said the queen
mother, pausing with the goblet outstretched. Meanwhile, her
servant Osrid kept walking, moving around the horse.

Edward did not answer at first, only flashed
his teeth as he put away his sword. Then he leaned over to grab the
goblet.“The hunt is still on, Lady, and it will not stop until
I—AAAGH!”

The sound that came from the king’s mouth was
so terrible, it would ring in Ethelred’s ears for decades to come.
Edward drew back, limbs flailing, clutching his side near his back.
The goblet fell to the earth, clinking against the stones and
splashing water on the horse’s hooves. The horse reared, twisting
about, and revealed a shape darting quickly from behind it.

The shape was Osrid’s, and he held a bloody
dagger.

“EDWARD!”

Arms fell upon Ethelred as if from the
darkness, for night had fallen quickly and the world seemed full of
shadows, reaching and grasping at him.“Edward!” he cried again.
Hands pulled him back as he struggled, yet he could still hear his
half-brother’s moans, and he saw the horse’s thrashing shape,
another black mass against the dim red world. It neighed, hooves
slicing the sky, and wheeled about. Ethelred gave another great
heave to push himself above his captors, looking for Edward as the
horse ran away. The king drooped in the saddle, still clinging
there whether by determination or some fated mechanism, his auburn
hair streaming behind him like the blood pouring from his
stab-wound.

Then Ethelred’s eyes were blinded by his own
tears, and a roar like thunder from his own pulse deafened him as
he was dragged away. His sorrow and rage filled him up, and he was
conscious of nothing else.

*

In his room a meal was waiting for him, but
he could not bring himself to eat it. He ran to the window,
underneath which his mother had posted guards, and he sagged
against the wall, peering uselessly into the gray horizon. Edward
was nowhere to be seen.

Edward was dead.

He had stopped crying for a short while,
somewhere in the midst of his struggling and attempting to escape
while his mother’s hearth companions dragged him away and closed
him in his room. Now the terrible truth struck him again, and it
petrified him. For a moment he was too stunned to even start crying
again. Ethelred had not seen Edward die, but he knew without a
doubt that he was dead, at least by now. Alfryith would see to
it.

Though he still could not move, a shudder
shook him. He could hardly believe his mother’s cruelty and
evilness. She may not have held the knife that stabbed Edward in
the side, but she surely orchestrated its movement. He felt so
confused and foolish for not seeing her intention before. Was he,
in a way, to blame? He knew Alfryth did not like Edward, and wanted
her own son on the throne instead, but he never thought she would
do something like this to get her way. Had he unknowingly helped
her?

The door opened, and Ethelred shrank against
the wall, cowering. There in the doorway stood Alfryth, but his
mother looked different to him than she ever had before. Perhaps
this was because he now saw her for who she truly was. Perhaps it
was because she had freed her head of its veil and wimple, and some
of her long chestnut hair fell freely around her face and
shoulders. Her skin seemed more flawless than ever, glowing with
triumph and power; her dark eyes blazed with energy.

And yet, at the sight of Ethelred cowering,
her expression soured again.

“Ethelred. My son.”

She turned and motioned to the retainers with
a flick of her wrist, and they closed the doors behind her.

The dimly enclosed space now looked, to
Ethelred, a great deal like how he imagined hell. The moonlight
through the window provided a pale white glow to some corners of
the room, but the rest of the chamber was filled with glaring
orange candlelight and writhing, flickering shadows. Such shadows
moved over the sharp angles of his mother’s face as she stared at
him, and the sight of her livid face filled Ethelred with both
terror and rage.

“How could you?” he cried. The sobs returned
to his throat like so many rising bubbles.“My brother. Poor Edward.
He was always so kind to us. He could have been cruel. He could
have been but he—”

“SILENCE!” Alfryth reached out suddenly,
slender arm uncoiling from the heavy folds of her sleeve like a
snake, and grabbed a candle. Fortunately, the force of her throw
caused the flame to gush out before striking Ethelred’s bed.“You
are a
king
now! That is worth the
death of one man; it is worth the death of hundreds of men! Worth
it, at least, if you are a
good
king, and not a sniveling
spoiled child. So stop your worthless crying!"

Her words moved him, but only for a movement.
True, he would be a king now. He would rise up to fill Edward’s
shoes. But would he be any better than Edward? He simply didn’t
understand.“But Edward was a good king. What am I to do
differently?”

“Oh
stop
asking questions!” She
stormed closer, grabbing another candle and lifting it high.
Ethelred flinched, expecting her to throw it again. But it was
worse than that this time. She swung it down, and the hot waxy end
struck Ethelred’s tunic, the flame flaring then snuffing out
against the cloth. Ethelred yelled and curled up, shielding himself
with the flesh of his back and the thin fabric of his cloak as she
struck him again, and again, and again.

The candle snapped apart eventually, and she
dropped it with a sickening thud. Her heaving breath roared in the
silence. He uncurled slightly, trembling from head to foot. His
back ached, and he knew he would have bruises. But he was no longer
crying. His eyes were dry now, his gaze strangely vacant. Alfryth
might not have noticed, for he could not bring himself to look at
her; if she did notice she said nothing.