Far Traveler (4 page)

“Quiet!” Mother's command cut through Edith's tirade.

I cowered back against a wall. It was a shock to hear Edith speak this way—to openly call me my mother's heir, although it was true that King Edward had all but let my mother rule Mercia for years.

With a swift motion of her hand Mother sent Dunstan to close the doors. Edith stood, twisting a pair of Mother's riding gloves in her hands. “Do not forget that, like Aldwulf, I am the king's ally,” Mother said severely when the doors were shut. “Of course I am also your friend,” she continued in a more temperate tone, placing a hand on Edith's shoulder, “and I tell you that I think we can trust my brother. The West Saxon kings have not done so badly by Mercia.”

Edith smiled grimly. “It was Mercia's great gain when your father gave you in marriage to his chief aldorman, Ethelred,” she admitted, “and Mercia's thanes welcomed your marriage. No wonder,” she added with a note of pride, “for your mother, Ealhswith, was a Mercian, born and reared.”

“Ealhswith was Edward's mother, too,” Mother said in a soft voice.

Edith pursed her lips. “Your father, Alfred, gave a ruler back to Mercia,” she repeated stubbornly, “when he let the Mercians choose you for their leader after Ethelred's passing. Now Edward wants to take your heir away.”

Mother looked at me and saw how I was trembling. “To be taken, or to be given,” she said, and I heard anger mixed with sorrow in her voice, “neither feels just.” She took the gloves from Edith, then stooped to look me straight in the eye. “I will be gone for a week, no more,” she promised. I squeezed my eyes shut as she kissed first my forehead and then both of my cheeks, the way she had done ever since I was a small girl. With a thudding of boots, she and Dunstan were gone.

“Do you want to go back to your room, Wyn?” Gytha asked, hovering over me. I didn't answer.

Yes, and something else felt nearly as bad: to be left behind, first by Æthelstan, and now by Mother, the people I loved most.

IT WAS GYTHA WHO INSISTED THAT WE GO TO THE STABLES.

“Is it true that for two days you haven't even attended your lessons?” she demanded, hands planted on her hips as she stood in my doorway. “Aldwulf is coming tomorrow, Wyn. You can't just hide.” She came and crouched beside me where I sat on the bed. “We're going out.”

She made me ride Winter, led by a groom on a steady grey gelding. Gytha, no great rider herself, kept careful pace beside us on an old black mare.

“We'll go to the northern wall,” she said as the three of us moved sedately along the street. “We can climb to the guardpost and have them show us which way the party from East Anglia will come.”

I swayed limply atop my horse. This was not like my last trip on Winter's back, I thought with a pang, remembering Æthelstan's yellow hair blowing around my face....

Suddenly I had to gather up my loose reins as Winter snorted, crowding the gelding in front of him.

“He doesn't like being behind old Scyld here,” the stableman warned, leaning sideways to keep Winter away from the grey's heels. “Knows he could outrun the lot of us.”

And leave me sprawled in the dust.
“My mother,” I muttered to Winter, “gave you to a rider who won't even let you stretch your legs.” It was all so useless, I thought with a burst of anger—this beautiful horse, my years of study, the security I'd always felt in our household—how would any of that fit in my life to come?

“Come with me, Ælfwyn,” Gytha said, dismounting. We had reached the terraced stone and earth defenses where a changing guard kept constant watch. I slid down from Winter's back and, leaving him with the groom, followed Gytha up the stairs to the guards' shelter.

It was windy atop the wall, and even on this mild day so close to the beginning of summer, I wished for a cloak to shield me from the chill. High clouds rolled across the sky, and I squinted at the shadows they threw across the countryside and tried to follow the guard's gesture.

“There,” he told Gytha in answer to her inquiry. “That's the road a party from East Anglia would take.” The little ribbon of earth between the fields disappeared over a rise, and I stared at it, thinking about the man who would come that way tomorrow, bringing guards and highborn fighters loyal to him, and perhaps even wagons of fine goods to trade in Lunden, and gifts for the Lady of the Mercians.

And for her daughter—that was how these exchanges worked, wasn't it? I wondered wretchedly what Aldwulf would do when he found Lady Æthelflæd away, and only her tongue-tied daughter at the Lunden court to greet him.

“What's that?” Gytha's voice broke through my thoughts. She was pointing at something in the northwest, a plume of dust rising from another road, coming closer.

“A rider,” pronounced the guard, squinting at the little figure, “alone. He'll kill that horse, the way he's coming!” And indeed, as we watched, the horse stumbled and nearly threw his rider. They were very close now, and when the horse faltered again, the man reined to a halt. Leaping to the ground, he began running for the gate.

“Best get back into the
tun,
” the guard told us shortly. “It's Bertwald!” he shouted out to the other guards before we had a chance to begin our descent. I froze. Bertwald was one of the thanes who had gone with Mother to Tameworthig.

“The lady!” I heard Bertwald's hoarse cry. “I need a healer for Lady Æthelflæd! Tell the lady's daughter!”

With a cry I pushed past Gytha and ran down the steps. I reached the gate as the guards helped the exhausted messenger pass through.

“Bring a healer,” the man gasped again. “The lady's daughter needs to know.”

“Know what?” I clutched at him. “What's happened?”

“Your mother lies ill at Tameworthig,” Bertwald choked out. “Dunstan sent me to fetch her own healer from Lunden. He said you must come to Tameworthig, too.”

“Come on, Wyn!” Gytha tore me away from the group and started running toward our horses. After one frozen moment, I pounded after her.

 

All the rest of that day and through the night our enclosed wagon bumped along rutted roads. An extra pair of horses and two changes of teams in settlements along the way lent us speed, carrying us through the black hours when we normally would have camped. I clung to my wooden bench, shoulders sore from striking against the walls, head aching. Gytha sat beside me, and the healer Dunstan had wanted rode outside with the drivers. Bertwald had only been able to tell us that Mother had taken ill before they reached Tameworthig, and that she lay abed when Dunstan sent him to Lunden.

“He told me to bring you back with no delay,” Bertwald had said.

No delay.
The sun went down and the wagon got so dark I could no longer see Gytha's worried face. I did not sleep that night. When the light crept into the sky, I climbed out to sit beside the driver.

The sun had passed its midday height when we finally came to Tameworthig. As soon as we had passed the outer walls of the fortress, I jumped down and tried to run. But after the long ride my shaking legs would not hold me. The wagon creaked to a halt and I swayed, clinging to its side as people shouted and came toward us.

“Ælfwyn,” a familiar voice said close to my ear, and I felt a mail-clad arm clasp my waist. “Have you not stopped for food or rest?” With effort I looked around to see Dunstan's weathered features. I shook my head, my throat too dry for words. “Come into the guardroom,” he said quietly. “There is a little wine.” Dunstan began to draw me away from the gathering crowd.

“Mother,” I grated.

“Come inside, Ælfwyn.” Dunstan was half dragging me now on my useless legs. I dug my fingers into the iron rings of his mail shirt.

Dunstan stopped. Slowly he eased me down and crouched in front of me.

“The fever took her, girl,” he said with grief on his scarred old face.

Silence. The crowd drew up around us—I could feel them come—but I heard no sound from their feet, and the only voice in my ears was Dunstan's.
The fever took her.
Dunstan was still looking at me, trying to see how I would bear the news. “Tomorrow,” he said at last, bowing his head, “we will bury her here, at Tameworthig.”

Still I could not speak. I stared at him, but the images in my mind were of my mother's ink-stained hands, her quick smile, her slender form in the doorway of my chamber, calling me to a lesson, bidding me sleep peacefully.

“Please,” I whispered finally, “where is she.”

 

Dunstan brought me to the entrance of the high-timbered room where Mother lay. Leaving him, I limped across the floor to the empty chair beside the bed. A little breeze made the candle there drip and almost gutter.

I sat down, but when I tried to look at Mother's face, I had to turn away. Her beloved features had suddenly grown strange—I could not find her in them.

“She was riding with us to take the thanes' pledges at Ligeraceaster,” Dunstan said dully from behind me. “She was making us laugh, baiting the men who complained of the damp in the marshes. On one winter campaign, she told them, King Alfred himself had to hide in the icy fens wearing rags and begging for food. ...”

Dunstan shook his head, abandoning the story. “The next day,” he finished hoarsely, “before we reached Tameworthig, Lady Æthelflæd took ill with fever and delirium—a sickness from the marsh, some said. ...” His words trailed off.

“Wyn. Oh, Wyn!”

On the threshold stood Gytha, travel-stained and anxious in the lowering dusk. Dropping the bundle she carried, she came and put her arms around me, but I could not yield to such comfort.

“We should have come faster.” I choked out the bitter words. “Brought her healer more quickly—maybe he could have helped! I should have been here when she ...”
When she died
—I could not bring myself to say it.

“Ælfwyn,” Gytha said, touching my face, “your mother—” Her voice caught as she looked at Mother's still form. “You mustn't blame yourself because she's gone.” When I did not respond, she held me tighter. “Wyn, you are not to blame.”

Blindly, I struggled free of Gytha's embrace. I reached out to take one of Mother's hands, which lay upon her breast. I knew how that hand was callused from the way she gripped her stylus or quill when she wrote, from the reins of her horses, and from the grip of her sword. Now the familiar fingers were cold and still.

Dunstan was muttering to Gytha. “... have to leave her with you ... more riders coming ... by dawn we expect them both ...”

Mother's hand lay stiff and quiet in mine, and there was no solace, even in prayer.

“QUIET, BOY. SHE LIES JUST INSIDE.”

“I don't think she'll hear. She hasn't slept for two days, Dunstan told me.”

I opened my eyes to the dim light of early morning. A thin woolen blanket covered me.
Mother.
I've lost her, I remembered with a rush of sorrow, and I buried my face in the bedding Gytha had laid for me on the floor of Mother's chamber.

“... not the first time I've heard these reasons of yours, but Ælfwyn is my cousin, your niece! And surely Dunstan will disagree.”

I half sat up. I knew that voice—it was Æthelstan, sounding weary and sorrowful.

“Dunstan is a Wessex man, and his lady was our closest ally. His loyalty lies with me.”

That was my uncle Edward. The two of them were arguing just outside the wall. I wanted to run to my cousin, but instead I made myself lie still, listening.

“What about Ælfwyn?” Æthelstan responded in a tense whisper. “I doubt that her removal to Wessex will seem right to Dunstan, or to any of the Mercians I know. This is not the best time to speak of Aldwulf and marriage. ...” Their voices faded as they walked farther on.

Removal to Wessex, and then marriage. This is what would happen to me especially now that Mother was gone. Shakily, I pushed aside the blanket and felt for my shoes.

“All right, Wyn?” Gytha whispered from across the room. “It's the king. And Æthelstan.”

“Come for ... for Mother,” was all I could manage.
And to take me away—wasn't that what I'd heard?

The two of us crept to the doorway and looked out. Not far from our threshold stood the king, still arguing with Æthelstan in a low voice. Æthelstan's hair was longer, his face was browned from his weeks of riding with the king, and his pale eyes looked red. They had ridden through the night, as we had the day before, I guessed. Æthelstan's shoulders sagged.
He will give me whatever comfort he can.
I tried not to think about the discussion I'd overheard, tried to forget the anxious tone of my cousin's words.

“Ælfwyn.” The king had seen us, and Æthelstan shut his mouth with a snap. Together they came toward us. “Your mother lies inside, girl?” Uncle Edward asked quietly as Æthelstan clasped my hand in his.

Sadness choked me, and I could only grip my cousin's hand and nod. Edward stepped past me into the room.

For a long moment he stood still, staring at the bier. At last he rubbed a hand over his face and spoke.

“I have come to receive the allegiance of the thanes of Ligeraceaster and Lincylene, as my sister would have done, as well as the pledges of all Mercians at Tameworthig. Afterward we will take Æthelflæd to Gleawceaster for burial at the new minster.” He turned to Gytha. “Gather Ælfwyn's things together,” he said brusquely. “Tell your wagon driver to harness his horses.”