The Edge on the Sword (17 page)

Suddenly it was over. The Mercians in their defensive knot hesitated as the attackers broke off and retreated out into the darkness, and when at last they shouted their battle cries and gave chase, every enemy had vanished.

Clutching his arm, the chief aldorman called out for a torch, and went to see to his fallen men. Seven were dead, and five more wounded, though none so badly that he could not travel. Ethelred crouched down beside the youngest of the slain men—a boy, really, whose father had asked the aldorman to let him come for a view of the land. What had the raiders wanted, to make them strike down a few noblemen and then run, Ethelred wondered wrathfully. He shook his head. Only one thing was certain. A message must go to Alfred tonight to prevent Lady Æthelflæd’s journey. Heaving himself to his feet, Ethelred went to find Cenwulf.

On the wooded high ground overlooking the shattered camp, the leader of the raiding party stood, watching the members of Ethelred’s party tend to their wounded and gather their dead. Beside him stood a short, dirty man, who was also his most talented archer. There had always been a chance that the assassination of the chief aldorman might fail—the thanes of the Mercian court were seasoned fighters. But a greater prize was coming, and the only real difficulty was the messenger Ethelred would surely send.

A movement at the edge of the camp caught his eye, and he gripped the shoulder of the man waiting next to him. There, he pointed to a single horseman picking his way along the river toward them. The messenger would soon be within their range, and beyond earshot of his companions.

One arrow brought down the man. A second dropped his horse. The man on the hillside smiled. In a few days he would meet Æthelflæd of Wessex again.

“W
ATCH
,” E
ALHSWITH
WHISPERED
TO
HER
DAUGHTER
AS
THEY
stood beside the wagon. The queen glanced around to be sure that no one else was looking. From the folds of her dress, she produced the flat box which held Ethelred’s golden betrothal gifts. Swiftly she slipped it into a little hollow beneath the seat Flæd would occupy on the long ride. The box fit securely, and was almost impossible to notice in the dark cranny. Flæd nodded to show that she would remember the secret place. She had slept little, and her throat felt thick with the unhappiness of this day.

In the week since Ethelred’s departure, neither Flæd’s final lessons with her tutor nor the sessions with Red which concluded her training had kept her mind from the fact that she must truly leave her home. Ever since Flæd had learned of her own betrothal, something in her had hoped that her family might come with her to Mercia to attend the marriage ceremony. Their company on the journey would not change the fact that she was leaving them, of course, but it might have eased the separation a little. Attending the talks in her father’s chamber, however, had convinced Flæd that the family would not leave the burgh at this season. Uncertainties at the border required the king’s presence here with his main advisors. And the unwieldy number of guards and servants required to move the entire royal household would make the excursion slow, and even dangerous, for her mother and the other children. It would be best if Flæd went to Mercia alone, and quickly, with a smaller guard.

Flæd knew that these last few days and nights in the burgh were a gift from her father. He could have sent her with Ethelred, as the Mercian aldorman himself had suggested. Yet she could muster little gratitude. She could hardly bring herself to reply to the king as he explained the arrangements for her journey. Ten retainers for her guard, and Red, too, of course—yes, she had nodded to show that she would feel secure with that number of men. Two wagons for her dowry goods. They would like her to sit with the driver of the lead wagon. Would she agree to this? “I
can
ride
,” Flæd remembered saying to Ethelred in the great hall, and she had shown them all that she could. But even her father seemed to believe that she would be safest if she were neatly packed with the other gifts bound for Mercia. With a limp shrug, Flæd had agreed to this request, as well.

Now on the morning of her journey, Flæd stood beside her mother and stared miserably at the bustle of activity around her. Outside the storehouse serving men were loading the last items—heavy chests filled with silver coins—into the wagons which would travel to Mercia with the king’s daughter. As the servants finished their work, Ealhswith took Flæd’s hand, and the two of them walked away from the well-guarded dowry. Red, who had helped to load the silver, followed a little way behind.

Through the fresh morning air Flæd and her mother crossed the burgh, heading toward the king’s council chamber. Ealhswith’s calm voice continued with the list of things packed in the wagons, and Flæd kept nodding, hardly hearing, until she noticed that her mother had fallen silent. The queen halted and looked at her daughter. She stretched out a hand to finger Flæd’s neat braid.

“You are the first of our children to leave us,” Ealhswith murmured. Reaching into the leather pocket hanging from her belt, the queen drew out her ivory comb carved with sea animals. “You loved this as a child,” Ealhswith said. “It will help you remember your time in your father’s burgh, and perhaps your own child will love it someday.” With a hard, quick embrace, the queen sent Flæd on her way. “I’ll come to see you off,” she told her. “Now your father wishes to speak with you.”

In Alfred’s chambers Flæd found her father, Asser, and Father John gathered at the council table, just as she had seen them on so many spring and summer nights.

“Come sit with us,” her father invited. Flæd found a stool and pulled it up to the table. “We have something for you.” The king motioned to John, who drew out a well-bound little book and passed it across the table. Flæd picked it up, feeling the soft leather against her palm.

“A handbook,” she said, looking at her father, “like yours.”

“Open it,” Alfred suggested. Flæd lifted the cover. On the vellum of the first page bold capitals proclaimed KING ALFRED COMMANDED THAT I SHOULD BE MADE. Flæd turned to the next page and caught her breath. There before her, sewn into the new little volume, lay the opening leaf that Alfred had shown her in his own handbook so many nights before. Amid its maze of gold and color, the letter
æsc
shone out boldly. Tears filled Flæd’s eyes as she looked up at her father.

“You took it from your mother’s book,” she said, “the
æsc
from the book you won.”

“From the book I ‘learned,”’ Alfred agreed. “But you have earned your handbook with better scholarship than mine. We thought you should have a place to copy favorite passages, just as I have done in my later years. So look, we have started the collection for you. I have given you this initial—the one which begins both of our names—to remind you of the beginnings of your family’s learning.”

“Turn to the next page,” Bishop Asser advised her. “Father John and I have chosen a maxim for you from the great book of poetry. I do not think you have seen it before.”

Flæd delicately leafed past the illuminated page, and on the next newly ruled sheet she read, “A woman must shine, cherished among her people. She must be open-hearted and generous with horses and treasure. With honor she must offer the cup to her lord’s hand. She must know what is wise for both of them as rulers in the hall.”

“They will cherish you in Mercia,” Father John said, “as we have cherished you here with us. Rule well with Ethelred, Lady Æthelflæd.” Flæd looked down at the maxim once more. It had been copied out in Father John’s perfect hand.

Flæd still clutched the little book as she stood at the gate of the burgh in her travelling clothes, waiting for the wagons. The ten retainers who would travel with her had gathered on their horses. Red had joined them, reining his own horse close to the youngest of the retainers in the mounted guard. It was the sentry Dunstan, Flæd saw, the young man who had raced the yellow gelding against Ethelred last week. Flæd saw Red lean toward Dunstan to say something. She remembered hearing that the young sentry had finished the race just after Ethelred himself—he had become something of a hero for keeping his plain West Saxon mount so close upon the heels of Ethelred’s fine warhorse. It was good to have him in her party, Flæd decided forlornly. It was good to have at least two familiar faces—his and Red’s—in the group.

A flurry of movement caught Flæd’s eye, and she looked back toward the burgh to find her little sisters running ahead of their attendants. Dove charged headlong into Flæd and clung to her clothes, catching her breath.

“We brought you something,” Ælf panted, right behind Dove. “We don’t know whether in Mercia they have the same flowers and things that grow here.”

“We want to make flower crowns and stick horses with you when we come to Lunden,” Dove explained, “so we gathered some seeds just in case.” The two sisters held out a cloth bundle. “Be careful,” Dove warned.
Flæd sat down on the ground and sheltered the little package in her lap. She untied the corners of the cloth and looked down at a jumble of seedpods and two ripe bulrush heads. In the center of the collection lay a slender length of willow.

“The willow wand will grow if you plant it in the ground and give it water,” Ælf promised her. “The Grey Man told us it would.” Ælf glanced anxiously at Red, who had dismounted and now stood back against the wall, holding the reins of his horse. He nodded to assure her it was so.

Flæd hugged the little girls together. “I will find a place to grow all of these,” she told her sisters, “and I will show them to you when you come to see me.”

Gathering the little bundle together again, she stood, and saw that her mother and father had arrived at the gate while she talked with Dove and Ælf Ealhswith had brought little Æthelweard with her, and he clung to his mother’s finger as the queen and Flæd held each other. Flæd knelt down to say good-bye to the small brother who would scarcely remember her after she had gone. “Flæd,” he said, pointing at her face, and laughing when she poked his round belly through the little shift he wore. “Horse,” he said, spotting something more interesting than his sister, and tugging his mother toward the mounted retainers around the gate.

But her other brother did not appear. With an ache Flæd wondered if things had really changed so much between her and Edward. Before her betrothal Edward had always come to see her off, even if she were leaving the burgh for less than a day to visit a nearby monastery or farmstead. And now, on the morning when she would leave the burgh forever, he had not come. It was true that they had spent far less time together this summer than in the past. Busy in the council room or training with Red, Flæd had sensed that she and Edward were growing apart without knowing what to do about it. Still, I thought he would be here today, she mourned, I thought he would want to say good-bye.

Suddenly Flæd felt hopeless. Edward, a person she still counted on, had deserted her. She was already lonely, and she had yet to face the crowd of unfamiliar faces waiting for her in Mercia. Ethelred’s face would be the only one she would recognize among those strangers, and although she knew his features, she still knew very little of the man behind them.

“Where is Edward?” she asked her father.

Alfred frowned. “We could not find him,” he said. “I thought he might be with you already.” Seeing Flæd’s disappointment, he clasped her hand in his warm fingers. “Edward will visit you in Mercia,” he said. “He will want to.”

The king pointed toward the burgh to show her that the wagons were coming. “I have decided to send two friends with you to Lunden,” he said. “I think they will help you miss your home a little less.” In the harness of the lead wagon trotted Apple and Oat, groomed and shod for the journey. The wagon stopped in front of Flæd, and Oat, the near horse, leaned over to nibble at her tunic, looking for the pocket of sweets he remembered.

“Thank you,” Flæd choked, looking at Alfred as she pressed her cheek against the horse’s warm neck. So this was why her two greys had stayed unclaimed in the pasture all summer—the king had intended them for his daughter’s journey to Mercia. Flæd turned to embrace her father, fiercely, one last time. Then she climbed to her seat beside the driver, and Red moved into place beside her wagon on his horse. Today her warder wore a mail shirt over his leather tunic. A heavy iron helm covered the leather cap on his head.

“Farewell, Envoy of Ethelred,” Alfred called to him. “Bring my daughter safely to your aldorman.” Red bowed. At a signal from Alfred, the drivers spoke to their horses, and the wagons lurched forward with a creak of wooden wheels, bumping along until they fell into the ruts of the road.

“Wait!” came a shout behind them. At a run, Edward appeared behind the wagons, and came up level with them as they stopped. Red-faced and panting, he stood, bent double, with his hands on his knees. “I…was in the scriptorium,” he said between breaths,”…almost…missed you.” Edward straightened and held up a small, flat leather pouch to his sister. “Open it on the way,” he breathed, and then stepped back from the wagon. Flæd tried to scramble down from her seat, but the driver stopped her with a gentle hand.