The Edge on the Sword (6 page)

Then, with a chill, Flæd understood what it must be. Her eyes flicked to the man’s neck. Yes. Another narrow metal band showed just above the neckline of his heavy leather overtunic. The man wore tokens of slavery.

Disbelief mingled with affront rushed through Flæd’s mind. There were slaves among the royal household’s servants, as there were in most social circles of the West Saxon kingdom. But rarely were they trusted with the care of very important people. Hadn’t her father valued her safety any more than this?

Flæd shut her eyes. I don’t understand, she thought miserably. Maybe Father will explain later. Too many things had wounded her today, and she had little strength left for this last indignity. I need to be like a stone, like ice, Flæd told herself doggedly. Edward has someone else now, that’s good. I thought he should. And maybe the new teacher already knows I’m going away. Why should he spend much time with a student who will be leaving soon? It wasn’t a happy feeling, the numbness that began to replace her hurt, but numbness was all she wanted right now.

The knife scraped on dirt and leather—a mineral, monotonous sound. Flæd lay back on her bed and turned her face away from the doorway where the man sat working over his boot. A few seconds later she spoke over her shoulder.

“What is your name?”

The man looked up at his charge, huddled in her patch of sunlight.

“Red,” he said gruffly, and looked away.

“W
HERE
WERE
YOU
AT
THE
EVENING
SERVICE
,
FLÆD
?” Æthelgifu demanded. “You haven’t been there for two nights in a row.”

“I was here. I didn’t feel well.” Stonily Flæd drew a long gown of rust-colored wool over her head, but she felt the ice inside her begin to soften a little. She knew her sister wanted her to share in her earnest prayers each evening, but she was sure that thin Dove also appreciated the warmth of a larger body kneeling beside her in the frigid chapel.

“You said you would help me make a stick horse today!” Ælfthryth accused, wriggling away from a woman who struggled to put a comb to the little girl’s wild blond hair. “You said you would!”

“I did say that, little elf.” Now Flæd’s composure was melting away in earnest. She imagined herself for a moment making the toy for Ælf to ride, fastening dry grass along a green stick of willow to make a mane, with a tuft of long rushes at the other end for a tail—all under the watchful eye of her warder, the man named Red. Flæd hugged the little girl to hide the dismay she suddenly felt. “Tomorrow, I promise, if the rain stays away, well make you a willow horse.”

“Do you know who the guest will be tonight?” Dove asked. “I’ve asked everyone, and no one seems to know.”

“The only new person around is that man on our doorstep,” Ælf said loudly, and then clapped both hands over her mouth. The man outside could certainly hear through the cloth draped across the doorway. “Who is he, Flæd?” she whispered.

“Hush, little one,” Flæd said sadly, turning away from the serving women’s curious glances. “We’ll talk about that another time.”

Ælf was cornered by the woman with the comb, and Dove was led away to see if a blue gown Flæd used to wear might fit better than the ones she kept outgrowing. Flæd combed out her own hair with nervous fingers and bound it neatly again into a single braid. At her shoulder she pinned the silver brooch, wishing she could just stay in this room tonight, wishing
she could curl up on her bed again and try not to think or feel. “Come,” she forced herself to say to her sisters as she retrieved her cloak from the bed. “I mustn’t be late.”

The three girls and their attendant women set out for the hall. Tonight the lowest-ranking servants and laborers would tend their masters’ homes, but everyone else would come to feast with the king and his family. A few townspeople still hurried along the street as the royal sisters walked between the shuttered houses. Some of them noticed the silent, bulky guardian following close behind the little company of women and girls.

The great hall was one of the burgh’s newest buildings. It was built of the same yellow stone quarried to make the burgh’s first church with its adjoining scriptorium, and the partly finished ramparts around the settlement. Eventually the royal family would have a great house of stone as well, but for now Alfred sent all the new blocks to finish the protective wall. The hall was a place of luxury in the heart of the young burgh, with rich cloth-hung walls and a vast open hearth. Heavy beams spanned the high ceilings, where smoke swirled far above the folk gathered at the benches and tables which filled the room. Torchlight and rushlight brightened a guest’s view from the entrance all the way to the king’s seat at the opposite end of the hall. When he feasted here with his townspeople, Alfred occupied a tall-backed oaken chair carved with twin dragons which wove in and out of each other’s coils and then swallowed their own tails. A smoothly polished red gem formed the gleaming eye of each beast.

Noise and warmth rushed to greet the sisters as they entered the hall and walked between the crowded tables toward their father’s seat. At the end of the hall the sisters turned aside with their serving women to take their usual places on a bench where Edward, little Æthelweard (held on a servant’s lap), and Father John were already seated. With a wave Alfred indicated that Flæd should take the empty seat beside him and Ealhswith. The blood surged in Flæd’s cheeks as she walked to join her parents at the raised table.

Luckily, the noisy feasters spared little attention for Flæd. This late winter meal of meat, of round barley loaves, of honey collected in autumn, and of sharply aged cheeses was welcome to the townspeople tired of dull winter fare.

Soon Ealhswith rose and with both hands took from Alfred a broad silver cup of mead. Flæd watched her mother circle the high table where the king’s closest retainers and advisors sat, ceremoniously offering the cup to each guest with words of greeting and thanks. Flæd tried to catch Edward’s eye, but found him in conversation with the young priest John,
who was offering a sliver of meat to Wulf beneath their table. With a pang Flæd turned back to her meal.

“Dear friends of my hearth, and people of this burgh,” Alfred called out, rising from his seat. The hall quieted as the king drew breath to continue, and Flæd quickly dropped her eyes, wishing she could hide somewhere. “I welcome you to our hall, to share this meat and bread.”

“And mead!” someone shouted out to general laughter, in which Alfred joined.

“You have had your share of it, I think,” the king called back. After more laughter the people stilled again. “Many of you, I know, are wondering whom we honor tonight. The first of our honored guests does not boast of his own deeds, although many know his worth. This man asks to be known simply as the envoy. He comes to us from the hearth of Ethelred, my aldorman in Mercia. The envoy would not join us at the high table, but I ask him to accept the cup from Queen Ealhswith, and be welcomed by us today.”

Alfred looked toward the far reaches of the hall, where a man stepped from the shadows by the door and came forward to stand near the foot of the king’s table. It was Flæd’s guardian, still wearing the plain leather clothing which had dried on his back after the rain. Honored guest? Envoy? Flæd felt more bewildered than ever by her new protector. Ealhswith held out the cup, and with a glint of the slave ring on his arm, the man took it from her, drank, and quietly withdrew.

“This envoy has come from Mercia with a message,” Alfred continued. “His lord Ethelred has noticed that I have amassed a fine hoard of daughters. I have kept them close to me, Aldorman Ethelred says, like a dragon brooding over his gold.” Some laughter again. “But as our maxims tell us, ‘The head must influence the hand.’ The envoy’s message explains that his lord Ethelred of Mercia wishes to marry my daughter Æthelflæd”—there was a low sound of appreciation from the gathered folk. “So,” Alfred said with a glance at Flæd, “I am asked to share my child, to give her in marriage to the man who holds Mercia for the West Saxon kingdom Aldorman Ethelred knows he has asked for a great gift, and he sends his own tribute.”

Three serving men of the king’s household stepped forward and held up before the crowd a flexible ring of gold which would fit closely around a noblewoman’s neck, a belt of linked golden rings like the one Ealhswith wore, and a delicate, twisted band of gold meant to encircle a royal woman’s brow. The servants laid them, one by one, in front of Flæd.

“Ethelred has fashioned rich gifts for his bride,” Alfred said. “This is shrewd, for she will carry them back to him as ornaments worn by the far greater prize of a noble wife.”

Shouts of approval greeted Alfred’s speech, and he turned to his daughter, who sat staring at the gifts on the table before her. “The second guest we honor tonight is Æthelflæd, whose marriage will bind English Mercia all the more closely to the West Saxons.” There was cheering in the hall, and Flæd turned to find her mother beside her with the silver cup.

“Drink, Flæd,” she said softly, “and be honored.” Flæd took the heavy vessel in her hands. She looked at her mother, remembering how yesterday Ealhswith had tried to forewarn her of the king’s news. There were her two sisters, pointing at Flæd and chattering eagerly to the women beside them.
They don’t really understand yet But Edward.
…Edward sat with lowered head, twisting his fingers in Wulf’s fur.
Edward can see what this must mean.
Finally she caught Alfred’s keen gaze—her father was waiting. Flæd brought the cup to her lips and tasted the mead, sweet and stinging on her tongue.

The noise from the hall carried through the burgh to the half-finished outer wall, where the drenched sentries grumbled at their bad luck. Beyond their sight, at the far end of the meadow, a horse newly freed from a bridle shook its head and began trotting around the lake. It would join the herd again unnoticed after its brief absence, and the two new horses which followed close after it would likely graze undiscovered among the other bays and browns of the roving band. Three muffled figures, dusty from a swift journey, watched the horses go, then disappeared noiselessly into the wood.

Æ
THELFLÆD
WAS
CRAWLING
ON
HER
BELLY
THROUGH
THE
MUD
. Brown clay-filled earth sucked at her hands as she pulled herself along. Her clothing clung to her like an eel’s skin, and even her face and hair were the color of the marsh. Above the wetland grasses last year’s bulrushes waved frowsy heads, molting brown fuzz in the sunshine. Here and there a blackbird lit upon a stalk to snatch at the fluff for nest lining, bending the bulrush and then catapulting back into the sky as the stem sprang upright. Flæd moved slowly, careful not to disturb the rising and landing of the birds.

It had taken all her effort to come this far today and find herself alone. Several days earlier, spring planting had sent everyone into the fields, including Father John, who was bound with the members of his order to lend a hand with plowing and sowing. As soon as they found themselves released from lessons, Flæd and Edward had gone to the woods together for the first time in many weeks.

That had been an awkward excursion. The brother and sister had kept to the best-known paths, shying away from trails which were private to the two of them and frequently looking back at the large man who stumped along a little distance behind. They had ended up at the riverbank, sitting glumly on a driftwood branch while Wulf trotted up and down the water’s edge.

What can we say to each other, Flæd had fretted. The Mercian crouched a few paces off—close enough to hear any word she uttered. It distressed her that Edward had never yet mentioned her betrothal, but how could she speak plainly of Ethelred, of the wrenching fear she felt each time she thought of leaving her home and family, while her warder was listening? He was Ethelred’s man, she knew, and the thought had sealed her lips.

Even after this unsatisfying walk, Flæd had been sure that she and Edward would go to the wood again the next day, but when she asked him, Edward refused to meet her eye.

“It wouldn’t be just us,” he mumbled. Stung, Flæd glanced toward her warder. “I’m sorry, Flæd,” Edward said, pleading now. “It’s not the same. I’m going with Father John.” Flæd was heartbroken.

In her chamber that night she wondered what else Ethelred of Mercia would take from her before she even left the burgh, before she ever met him. She would not leave for two more seasons, but already her betrothal had pushed her brother away I will lose nothing more, she thought, staring at her open window as an idea glimmered inside her.

This morning she had walked to the deserted scriptorium alone except for her guardian, who took up his usual position at the entrance. As her warder gazed out into the sunlit street, Flæd stepped back into the shadows. She put one foot on the sill of the window and levered herself up until she could reach the high place where the great poetic codex rested on its side, atop a pile of other books. Quickly, before Red could see, she slung the heavy book under one arm and crouched back at the corner of the open window, whose shutters had been pushed back to let in the warm spring air. She glanced down to find the street empty, as she had hoped, then swiftly maneuvered her body outside and dropped the short distance to the ground.