Far Traveler (6 page)

I read aloud, following Grimbald's finger:

My voice trailed off. I could read no farther.

“Ælfwyn”—Grimbald's fingers closed over mine—“this will pass, too.”

I kept coming to study after that morning. Somehow it was possible to leave my bed, to leave my room, knowing I was going to lessons with Grimbald just as I had for so many years. But in my time away from the classroom, I wondered what would happen to Mercia and to myself. I had never given much attention to the governing of my mother's lands, but I knew she had ruled Mercia with the widespread approval of her people. She had been both just and courageous. She had ridden with her army, sometimes even carrying a sword, which she knew how to use. I could never do what she had done, no matter how much Edith and others hoped I might be my mother's heir. It was only a matter of time before King Edward found his own use for me, and I dreaded the day he would “remember Mercia.”

At the height of summer a message did come for me from beyond Mercia, but it was not the summons from King Edward I had been expecting.

A guard brought me the battered piece of parchment, saying that a monk (a Benedictine, they had guessed by his humble dress) had appeared at the north gate asking for the lady's daughter. Thanking and dismissing the guard, I opened the creased page and read:

Wrinkling my brow, I read the note again, and then a third time. Here was a strange, riddling message, one that greeted me in my mother's name. The riddle's first and last lines were written in good Latin, and the rest in English, as if the author knew that Æthelflæd's daughter was something of a scholar, as if the writer could trust me to puzzle out the sense of the words.... I folded the note, and went to find Dunstan.

 

“A night meeting. I don't like it,” Edith said as she helped me secure the leather armor Dunstan had said I must wear beneath my tunic.

“Dunstan said he would take me just outside the
tun,”
I responded, “where we will quickly have defenders if we need them.”

“But the two of you are going alone?”

“Dunstan says that two riders will likely go unnoticed tonight. They called themselves friends,” I added.

“Yes, well, perhaps you will pass through a Lunden gate without much notice, but that won't help if you are set upon outside the walls by these ‘friends.' Your mother studied war both in books and from the back of a horse while she was still a girl,” snapped Edith, “but you, you scribble and moon about. Reading poetry with Grimbald and my Gytha has not prepared you for fighting.” She smoothed my clothes. “You can't even ride well, Ælfwyn.”

I hung my head. Edith was saying aloud all the things I had thought myself.

“I can stay on a horse,” I muttered. “Maybe I can begin to learn to ride the way my mother did.”

“Your mother learned her earliest lessons at the cost of my father's life, and almost at the cost of her own,” Edith said sadly. “Take Lady Æthelflæd's dagger with you tonight.”

 

Dunstan's eyes widened when he met me outside the stable.

“You rode Winter?” he said under his breath. “Do you think that pale animal won't turn heads as he goes?”

“There are other white horses in Lunden,” I mumbled as my heart sank. I had screwed up my courage to ride Winter tonight, but I hadn't considered his light coat. With a sigh Dunstan tugged my hood farther over my face and we set off.

“Mmff.” I stifled a yelp as the hilt of my mother's knife dug into my side beneath my armor. I shifted in the saddle, trying awkwardly to find the rhythm of Winter's trot. Winter was still too spirited for my poor skills, but I had wanted to bring my mother's gift horse with me. Stupid girl.

We made our way through the streets without attracting particular notice. But the guards at the north gate recognized us, greeted us by name, and waved us through.

“What did I tell you?” Dunstan groused. Nothing was going well so far. But I thought I knew the answer to the riddle, at least.

“Do you see what you thought you might, girl?” Dunstan asked, circling back to ride beside me.

“Not yet.” I peered out into the dusky countryside. The breeze that blew across the fields from the river Lea brought the scent of wet earth, and of leaves and straw from the fields.

Dunstan looked back over his shoulder to the wall, which would soon be out of sight if we continued to ride. “ ‘Look north,' it said,” he growled. “If we go much farther we'll be alongside the river, too far from the gate to call for help. I want to take you back, Ælfwyn. Even at this distance, an attack ...”

“Wait. Look there,” I replied in a small voice. Somewhere out in front of us—nearly at the riverbank, I thought—there was a spark of light. “Please,” I said, “that's the place. I know it is.”

“It isn't safe.” Dunstan shook his head. He was in no trusting mood.

“But the riddle—the answer is there.” We had almost reached the riverbank. There, on a patch of earth scraped down to the bare ground, burned a lone campfire. Across the river two riders were descending from a cut in the steep bank. As they got closer I could see that the first man wore a shirt of ring mail, an iron-banded helmet, and a sword. His companion wore no armor and his feet, I saw with surprise, were bare. They stopped their horses in front of us.

“She comes to us on a horse as pale as a dove,” said the barefoot man with no prelude. “A good sign.” He spoke in a flat northern accent, and I could see now that he wore clerical garb—the rough robe of a monk of low rank. The man's tonsured head glowed in the dusk as he turned to his companion. “Those are her mother's eyes, don't you think? Lighter hair like the father. But brow, eyes, chin ... yes, Æthelflæd's face.”

The other man said nothing, only quieted his horse. He kept his right hand near his sword, I noticed. Dunstan's hand also rested upon his thigh, ready to grip his weapon.

It seemed that it was up to me to speak next. “Fire,” I began hesitantly, “I mean,
fire
was the answer to your riddle.”

“Indeed,” the monk replied with a little bow and a smile on his sun-weathered face.
“The warrior brought forth from two dumb things.”

“Two dumb things
—those would be the stone and metal that make a spark,” I said in a soft voice, and the monk nodded again from the back of his horse.

“A woman may bind fire—on her hearth, and in her rushlamps and candles,” he continued. “And if he grows up too proud, too bright, well”—he pointed at the campfire—“you see how careful we were to keep our fire small.”

Dunstan shuffled impatiently. “This game,” he said, “I've had enough of it. Why did you call Ælfwyn here?” The monk smiled again.

“Your retainer does not recognize me,” he responded, “but I have met Dunstan before.” Dunstan's eyes narrowed. “You visited me with Lady Æthelflæd, at Eoforwic ... ,” the cleric prompted. My retainer looked harder at the man's face, then drew in his breath sharply.

“Archbishop!” Hastily, Dunstan dropped his head in a bow of his own.
Archbishop?
I dipped my own head, confused.

“My lord archbishop,” I said, resolving to trust Dunstan's eyes, and struggling to compose my thoughts, “welcome to Mercia, welcome to Lunden. Please, come under the roof of my house. We will have a feast in our hall to honor you. ...”

“It is better,” the archbishop replied, “that heaven be our roof tonight, Lady, and that only God, who knows all, should hear our secrets. We have serious matters to discuss,” he said as he settled himself on the ground. His guard and Dunstan sat down, too.

“You remember our talk in Eoforwic with Lady Æthelflæd,” the archbishop began, “five years back, when we spoke of a threat from Northumbria's northeastern coast? We can now put a name to that enemy. He is called Rægnald—a Norseman who draws nearer to Eoforwic with every skirmish,” he said, looking from Dunstan to me. “Rægnald wishes to rule Northumbria, to take the throne at Eoforwic.”

The archbishop's thane shifted restlessly, and by the firelight his face showed wounded pride and belligerence. The archbishop went on:

“The present King of Northumbria and his thanes and jarls are prepared to fight, but as your mother knew, my own holdings are sadly diminished after years of fighting and negotiating with the Danes. Lady Æthelflæd built two fortresses to protect her Northumbrian border, and to guard against invasion from the Danes—one at Eddisbury, and one at Runcorn. Just before she died,” he said, watching me, “we wrote to her asking for further support for English people north of the Humber. Indeed, we proposed an armed alliance against this Rægnald, who is an enemy of English people and Danes alike. Now she is gone, and we have come to you.”

To me? What did he think I could do?

“My mother was the Lady of the Mercians,” I replied slowly, “but I have no authority. Edward is the king. It is my uncle who should receive your petition.” The thane gave a loud snort, and the archbishop quieted him with the first sharp look I had seen upon his peaceable face.

“Lady Ælfwyn,” said the archbishop very carefully, “Northumbria seeks an alliance with Mercia alone, not with Wessex.”

“It's no use,” the thane interrupted, pulling off his helmet impatiently. “She speaks for Edward already.” Surprised, I stared at the man's strong face and saw the muscles of his jaw working angrily beneath his close-cropped black beard. The archbishop laid a warning hand on his shoulder.

“My mother was King Edward's ally and true friend,” I said, pulling my cloak closer around me.

“She was,” the archbishop replied in a quiet voice, “but we knew her as the ruler of Mercia.”

I found myself beginning to feel angry. These men, these two
strangers,
came begging and accusing at once, confusing me. I did not understand them, and I felt sure I could not help them. I stood up.

“You must ask King Edward,” I repeated. “Dunstan, we should go.”

“Lady Ælfwyn, please hear me!” The thane scrambled to his feet and stepped in front of me. “Please!” He drew a breath, running a hand through his dark hair.

“We English and Danes in Northumbria have learned to live together. The English observe the laws the Danes have laid down. The Danes respect the church, and allow English people a voice in government. The Northumbrian king ... was born of an English mother and a Danish jarl. Lady Æthelflæd understood the balance we try to keep in Northumbria. She respected it. But King Edward of Wessex”—the thane shook his head—“with his armies and his hunger for new land, cares nothing for any of this. He will swallow up Eoforwic and seize as much of Northumbria for himself as he can if we invite him across our border to fight Rægnald. Maybe the English in Northumbria will benefit from this, but the Danes, who are our neighbors and sometimes our kinsmen? He will take everything they have. Everything theirs will suddenly be his.”

A chill went through me. Everything they had. This man could not guess how well I understood such a threat.

I took a deep breath and let it out. “What exactly do you want me to ...”

“Ælfwyn?”

I twisted in astonishment at the shout. From the shadow of the gate behind us rode my cousin Æthelstan.
“Æthelstan will visit Mercia to bring us news of your welfare. ...”
Nearly three moons had waxed and waned since King Edward had said those words. My cousin was trotting up to me now.

“Æthelstan,” I said weakly. “You've come to Lunden.”

“Just arrived,” my cousin said with a white smile of greeting. “I rode to the hall to find the meal finished and all of you gone. I looked for you first in your rooms, then your mother's rooms—finally a slave at the stable told me you'd ridden out with Dunstan, and the guard at the gate showed me where you'd gone. Winter shines like a harvest moon, Wyn. You weren't hard to see.”

How long had he been watching us? I wondered with sudden dread. I glanced toward Dunstan and the other men—but the strangers were gone. I turned quickly back to my cousin. What had he seen?

“Welcome to Lunden,” I said in a small voice.

 

That night in the hall Æthelstan stretched out his legs toward the fire that burned in the great hearth.

“It's good not to wear boots,” he said, flexing his feet in the soft leather shoes we had given him. “There's been no easy living for anyone in my father's army these last months.”

“We haven't had news of a battle,” Dunstan grunted without turning his head, his eyes reflecting the flames in front of him.

“No, we wouldn't have,” Edith said, amused. “Æthelstan has been telling me how all day Edward's men move stone and wood, to finish Lady Æthelflæd's fortresses at Thelwæl and Mameceaster, just as the lady herself planned. Imagine,” she snorted, “West Saxon fighting men turned laborers to complete the lady's work!”