The Edge on the Sword (11 page)

F
LÆD
SAW
LINES
OF
WORRY
AROUND
HER
FATHER’S
EYES
. “H
E
did not fail you,” she said, and stumbled with shame over her next words. “I—I…led him to believe that he did.” Wretchedly she told the story again, including her guilty part in it. The light in the room was nearly gone, and for a long time the four people who stood together in the dusk said nothing. At last Flæd spoke again. “I will ask him to stay,” she whispered miserably. “I will ask pardon of our Mercian guest.”

Alfred sat down again with a sigh. Father John began lighting the candles at the corners of the table.

“John, Asser,” her father said, and the young priest halted his task. “Our reading seems somewhat heavy tonight. Perhaps the writings of Pope Gregory would be better.”

“We will bring the
Dialogues
,” Asser said with a bow, and he and John left the room.

“Æthelflæd,” her father said when they were alone, “you have been unhappy these past weeks.” Flæd hung her head and did not reply. “Your betrothal to Ethelred displeases you.”

“I don’t want to go away”—Flæd’s face twisted with the sorrow she had fought to hide—“and leave Edward, my books—everything.” Her father pinched his brow.

“Flæd,” he said at length, “why have you been taught to read?” Sad and bewildered, Flæd looked at him. She tried to answer.

“You decreed it,” she said, her lips trembling. “You wrote, ‘All the free youth among the English people who have opportunity must be set the task of learning, until they know well how to read English writing.’ “

“But why you, Æthelflæd?” the king pressed. She could not think what else to say. “Because you were born into a position of duty,” Alfred said so sternly that Flæd shrank down further on her stool. “When you marry Ethelred, Wessex weds Mercia. What I have hoped,” he continued, taking her hands with more kindness, “is that my children would help bring back
the great English learning lost when the Danes destroyed our libraries.” Flæd sat up, trying to follow her father’s thoughts.

“I read the Chronicle,” she protested, “the lives of the saints, the Rule of Saint Benedict, and the epistles of our English abbots and bishops—everything my tutors bring me.”

“And because of this you will help Ethelred govern Mercia with wisdom, I think, and teach your people to love letters.” The king stared hard at Flæd to see that she had understood this. “You know that I have given Mercia into Ethelred’s charge,” he went on, “and that his rule protects not only Mercia but also Wessex from Danish invasion. I do not wish to offend one of Ethelred’s most trusted men.”

“My warder,” FlÆd said resentfully “wears the bands, on his neck and arm, of—”

“He is a person of honor,” her father cut her off. The candlelight played over his features as he looked at her critically. “Can you make things right between you?”

Flæd struggled to meet her father’s eye. “I want to try,” was all she could say.

The bishop and mass priest had returned, stepping softly into the room with the book the king had requested. Alfred surveyed the faces of his advisors before he spoke again.

“I will ask no further questions unless the envoy cannot be persuaded to remain with us. Speak with him tonight, Æthelflæd, and perhaps by morning all will be well.”

Father John stepped forward. “Lady, may I accompany you to evening prayer, and see you to your quarters after we have supped? We missed your daughter in the scriptorium today,” he explained to the king. “I would like to discuss her lessons.”

“Take care, John,” Asser remarked acidly. “She has become somewhat slippery.” He turned to Alfred. “Can we leave the matter to a girl?”

Alfred considered his advisor’s question, and then said to the bishop, “We will give her this night. Keep a guard with you,” he addressed the younger priest, “until she is within her own walls. The two of you may go now. Asser and I will stay a little longer with our Latin.”

Father John bowed his assent, and quietly he and Flæd left the king’s chambers with one of the royal guards. Strains of the evening psalm came to them as they approached the stone chapel where the service had already begun. John slowed as they neared the entryway. “Lady,” he said, holding out his hand to her, “our devotions will wait. Come sit with me before we go in.” He led her across the grassy yard and they seated themselves against the chapel’s outer wall, which still held some warmth from the
afternoon sun. Flæd hugged her knees and laid her cheek against the hem of her tunic, feeling the ache of tears she had been trying not to shed.

“Lady Æthelflæd,” said Father John softly beside her, “I have come to think of you as both my student and my friend.” Flæd kept her face pressed to her knees. John continued, “I wonder, in your study of the Chronicle, have you discovered the account of Burgred of Mercia?”

Flæd looked up in surprise at the unexpected question. “I do not remember that name,” she told him, her throat tight.

“Ah, well, Burgred, as you will someday read, was married to your father’s sister. He ruled Mercia as its king,” John explained, “for two and twenty winters. In the year 874 the Chronicle records King Burgred’s surrender of Mercia to the Danes. He fled to Rome,” John said gravely, “where he lived out his years and was buried at Saint Mary’s church in the English Schools.”

“It is not a happy tale,” Flæd said glumly.

“It is not,” Father John agreed, “but there is deeper misfortune than what the Chronicle tells. King Burgred was not young. He held his kingdom with the help of his best retainer—a strong thane who led the Mercian army at the borders, where the Danes learned to hate and fear him. When Burgred left his throne, this thane fought on, not knowing his king had gone, not knowing that his own family stood unprotected in the very heart of Mercia.” The priest’s voice was very quiet now. “Rumors of the king’s departure reached the thane’s men. They began to desert their commander, who would not believe the reports. The thane still fought, trapped with his dwindling army, refusing to surrender. Until the Danes brought his wife to the battlefield in fetters, and he knew his king had failed him, and he laid down his sword.”

“What happened to him?” Flæd asked, appalled.

“He was made a slave,” John said, his mellow voice now tight with anger, “and was taken north of the River Humber.” John paused a moment, then continued. “When Alfred regained English Mercia, and charged Ethelred with its custody, the chief aldorman and your father sent secret emissaries to the north. They found the thane, bought his freedom, and brought him back to the Mercian court. This man still wears the bands of slavery in memory of his king’s betrayal.” The priest looked into her face as Flæd drew a startled breath. “Your warder was Burgred’s forsaken thane.”

Dumbly Flæd stared at her tutor, who nodded to assure her of his story’s truth. “Lady,” he went on, taking her cold hand in his, “I would say a little more before we enter and pray. When your father bested the Danes one year ago, he called their leaders to feast with him, and with honor
offered them a plan for peace.” The young priest stood, drawing Æthelflæd up to stand beside him. “I do not ask what has passed between you and the Mercian,” he told her. “I have told you something of the man because I think King Alfred’s daughter will deal fairly with a person she understands.”

Flæd went with John into the softly lit church, where a priest was offering the final prayers of the service. Ælf and Dove came running to her when the liturgy had ended, the smaller girl dancing with impatience at having been still so long. Dove leaned close to her older sister as they made their way toward the kitchens. A bowl of soup cooled, untouched, in front of Flæd as she listened to the little girls tell her how they had hung their new slippers around their necks while they made mud cakes. “She” (Ælf indicated a serving woman who still looked mildly annoyed) had put an end to their game with scrubbing and scolding. “And our shoes were still perfectly clean for prayers,” Ælf said with wounded pride, lifting the dirt-caked hem of her gown to display the footwear in question.

“We thought we passed you on the way to the church,” Dove was saying, “because we saw the Grey Man”—her sisters’ name for the Mercian warder.

Ælf looked toward the place where Red usually sat. “Is the Grey Man lost?” she asked with concern.

“He’s waiting for us at our chambers,” Flæd replied, with a little feeling of dread. “We’ll find him there when we go back.”

When the sisters had finished eating, Father John and the guard accompanied them through the streets. As their door came into view he stopped. “You may go the rest of the way yourselves,” he said to them. “We will watch until you are safely there.”

Flæd took her sisters’ hands and crossed the street to the entrance, where the Mercian warder sat unmoving in the darkness. Inside she could hear the serving women preparing the room for the night. “Go to bed,” she told Ælf and Dove, urging them gently through the doorway. “I’ll come in a moment.”

Flæd stood in front of her warder, who remained motionless. She looked back at Father John, who raised his hand to her, and then turned to go. Flæd crouched down on the dusty ground facing the Mercian.

“Envoy of Ethelred of Mercia,” she said, “I have come to ask your pardon.” Flæd swallowed hard and went on. “You are an honored guest of the West Saxon king and his family, and you have broken no trust with Alfred, or with Ethelred.” Sitting before her warder with her shoulders bowed, Flæd told him how she had found the hollow atop the mound, and how she had learned to disappear from the grey horses’ backs at a gallop.
She admitted that she had hidden when he came to find her, just before the three strangers seized her.

Flæd trembled with shame as she said these things. It had been an awful choice to abuse the trust of the man who had dutifully cared for her, who had even tried to soften the burden of his watching with small acts of kindness. But it was worst of all to acknowledge that even after he had saved her, she had continued with her lie.

“Now you know how I wronged you,” she said, trying in vain to see his face. “I am even more sorry,” she quavered, “because of what you have already suffered.” Flæd paused, able to discern no reaction from her warder in the gloom. Then she told him what she had learned that night about his past.

When she had finished, there was a long silence. At last Flæd got to her feet with a deep sense of failure. “The king knows that I am to blame,” she said hopelessly. “I will be sorry to see you go.” She turned to pass through the doorway.

“Lady.” His voice stopped her, rough as broken stone in the blackness. “Before you spoke, I knew I should ask the king’s pardon, and offer my poor services again.” His voice became a grating whisper. “I couldn’t save my wife—she died a slave before they set me free. The Danes killed my son, and no one can tell me what happened to my two daughters. I don’t want,” he said with anguish in his hoarse tone, “to lose another person I have promised to protect.”

There was a rattle above them as a serving woman unfastened the shutters of a window and pushed them open. Light and children’s voices filtered tranquilly into the street. Flæd reached a hand out to the Mercian and braced herself against the doorjamb to help the large man rise.

“How could any enemy harm me,” she said, clasping his hand firmly, “as long as I stay with you?”

“T
HE
DAGGER
IS
D
ANISH
.”

“The workmanship of the hilt is very like that of the North Welsh craftsmen,” Asser announced, turning the knife to look at either side, “but something is not right….”

“Look at the blade,” Red said, taking the dagger from him and holding it in a square of light from the council chamber window. He ran his finger carefully along the knife’s short edge to the weapon’s point. “Its shape is English or Welsh, but look here.” He indicated a cloudy mark on the metal just where the blade met the hilt. Asser peered closely at the spot, and then raised his eyes to the king, concern written on his features.

“It is a craftmark,” he told Alfred, “nearly scraped away, but there nonetheless. The mark may show the form of some letter, or perhaps another kind of symbol, but this is no English or Welsh character.”

“But the men the envoy has described—their faces and their clothes—sound Welsh, perhaps, or even Mercian.”

Listening, Flæd sighed. They had been through this conversation again and again with her father’s advisors, and it always ended in confusion. No one could say for certain who the attackers had been.

“If you had brought back the body—”

“The girl’s safety was more important. We sent a cart….”

“And the body was gone. We have heard.”

Suddenly Flæd was impatient. She had sat quietly in her father’s chambers, cowed at first by the barrage of questions flung at her warder. But these men were accomplishing nothing. They had never even asked her what she saw when she was alone with her abductors.