The Edge on the Sword (18 page)

“We’ve got a long way to go before nightfall,” he told her. “We can’t wait.” Flæd looked at Red, whose restless eyes had stilled for a moment as he looked at Edward.

“A moment, Lady. Then we have to go.” He shook his head apologetically, turning back to his uneasy survey of the terrain ahead. Flæd slid down and stood before Edward. She would have thrown herself toward him, she was so relieved to see him, but he would not look at her. Flæd searched for something to say.

“We…we never read any other poems together,” she said. Edward wrinkled his face, surprised at the words, then shrugged, head still down. “Well, it’s your turn,” Flæd announced abruptly as an idea resolved itself. Edward raised his eyes, confused. “It’s your turn to take the great book and read it when Father John isn’t looking. When you come to Mercia, I will expect you to tell me a new story from it.” She made her face severe.
“I will send you straight home if you don’t.” A trace of a smile showed on Edward’s mouth for a moment, then disappeared.

“Your companions can’t wait,” he echoed the driver. Heavily she nodded, and turned back to the wagon. With ginger hands and feet, she climbed the wheel spokes to reach her seat, then turned to look at Edward once more. As the driver gave the command to move forward again, Wulf trotted up to sit beside Edward, and before the dust rose up to block her view, Flæd saw her brother raise his hand in farewell.

Edward’s gift lay untouched on Flæd’s seat as they travelled that morning along the course of the river, skirting low wooded hills. She watched, empty-eyed, as they passed between fields where yellow stubble stood sharply in the bare ground. Farmers tended little fires here and there, and Flæd tasted the bitter smoke as the wagons rumbled by.

Ethelred. She was going to see him—no, to live with him, to be his
wife
. This past week she had forced herself to look at her mother and see not the woman who protected and loved three daughters and two sons, but the queen whose life and body were bound to Alfred, King of Wessex. This meant more than sitting beside the king in the great hall, and bearing the king’s cup for his retainers to drink, Flæd had begun to acknowledge. Life and body, Flæd thought, trying to understand it. It means to share his bed, to bear him children, to know the thoughts he shares with you. Saint Juliana fought, even martyred herself, when her father tried to give her to a heathen husband, the girl found herself remembering. I always thought Juliana did it because of faith, Flæd grimaced, but maybe it was fear. Ethelred was no heathen, but when she thought of being his, her body and her life being his, she was afraid.

It had become a bright, cool day, and when the sun had moved high in the sky, Flæd finally turned her dreary face away from the countryside and took up the pouch Edward had given her. It was so light it felt empty, but when Flæd looked inside she found a single folded sheet of vellum. Carefully she spread the page out on her lap. In blotted, slightly smudged writing she found the following message:

The letters grew more blurred beneath Flæd’s gaze, and she quickly folded the note and put it away. Edward had not forsaken her, but for now the thought did not make her feel any better about leaving home.

That night Flæd sat next to Red, staring into the little fire they had made at the center of their camp. Around them the retainers and drivers were settling down for the night. The horses were picketed at the edges of the camp, or tied to the wagons which had been drawn up a short distance from the fire. Flæd was remembering the smearing of Edward’s uneven script—the ink had not yet dried when Edward hurried to fold his message. She thought of her brother running after her with his first letter, and then of the gifts from her father and mother and sisters. Clenching her jaw, she pushed back the sadness she could feel welling up. She turned to Red.

“Tell me what Mercia is like, so I will know it when we get there.”

Red poked at the fire with a charred stick. “We came into Mercia before sunset,” he told her.

Flæd looked around her, surprised enough to forget her grieving for a moment. “This is Mercia?” They had gone a little way from the river to make their camp, but had she not known better, Flæd could easily have imagined that they were in the woods just outside her own burgh. “How is Mercia different from Wessex?” she demanded.

“They’re not so different,” Red admitted. “Even their greatest kings have been like each other.” He reached into a pouch on his belt and drew out a single silver coin. He held it out for Flæd to take. “There is your father’s image. That writing on the edge names him
Rex Anglorum
—King of the English People.”

“It does,” Flæd agreed, fingering the letters.

“Another king held that title, and marked it on his money, long before your father’s father’s birth,” Red said. “Offa, King of Mercia,
Rex Anglorum
. Offa overcame the Danes, made law among Mercians and Saxons, even conferred with Charlemagne.” Red dropped his stick into the fire. “This will help you understand Mercians.” He settled back against the pile of gear behind him. “Our name,
mierce
, means ‘boundary folk.’ Alfred is king of English Mercia now, so we don’t hold our borders against him. But like Offa, we keep our borders strong against the Danes, the Welsh—anyone who would be our enemy. Alfred trusts Ethelred to do this.”

Feeling the nervous discomfort that always accompanied her thoughts of Ethelred, Flæd remembered the man’s heated discussion of the threat at his western border. Mercians were boundary folk, Red said. She began to understand Ethelred’s passionate talk in the council chamber.

Flæd looked up at the clear sky, thinking of the rainy night when she and Red had sat, like this, by a little fire. He had spoken easily to her that evening. Would he be open to her queries again, she wondered.

“Is Ethelred…a good man?” She brought out the words with difficulty. Red threw a bit of bark into the fire.

“After Burgred,” he said, “I didn’t think I’d trust another man to lead me.” He snapped another piece of bark between his fingers, then turned to look directly at her. “When they brought me back to Mercia, they took me to see the aldor-man. He said”—Red swallowed, shifting his gaze—“Ethelred said he would keep looking for my girls, and he has. He is a good man.” There was a pause as the two of them looked silently into the fire again.

“I told you once that I used to listen to poetry in the great hall, in the time when I was proud to be Burgred’s hearth-companion,” Red said unexpectedly. Flæd sat up straighter to listen. “One night the king asked the man who entertained us to recite a few maxims, like the ones your own father loves.” Flæd bobbed her head in recognition, remembering the little handbook with its words about the duty of a woman. “One of the maxims the poet chose I have never forgotten,” Red went on. “The man said, ‘The shield must be at the ready, the javelin on its shaft, the edge on the sword, and a point on the spear.’

“Those were not the most beautiful of verses,” her warder acknowledged with a twitch of his mouth, “but they said something I believe is true. All these things we use—the shield, the spear, the sword—belong in their proper places, sharpened or made strong, ready when we need them. That night I thought, ‘I am the edge on Burgred’s sword.’ I felt ready in my place, like a polished weapon, set to strike where my lord wished.”

“But then he wronged you,” Flæd said quietly.

“Yes, and that changed nothing,” Red returned, startling her with the intensity of his voice. “I became Ethelred’s trusted man, the edge on
his
sword, still ready in my place when I was needed.” Red turned to face her again. “If someone makes a choice for us, and we don’t like it—maybe we even hate it—it’s still our duty to keep ourselves sharp, or strong, to make ourselves ready for whatever task comes to us.”

The edge on the sword.
To stay sharp and strong, ready in one’s place in spite of trouble. Her warder could see that she was afraid, Flæd knew, and he was trying to help.

Red glanced around them with the wariness he had shown all day. “It will be better,” he said, almost speaking to himself now, “when you are
safe in Lunden with Ethelred.” Something in his tone told Flæd that he was thinking of a threat more ominous than her dejected spirits.

“Is there still danger from the Welsh front?” Flæd asked in a low voice.

Red sighed. “No new sign of trouble,” he answered, “but Danes don’t give up so easily, nor do Welshmen.” For a moment he prodded the fire, which was burning down to red coals. The he reached into the pile behind him and pulled out a heavy cloth sack.

“I have something for you,” he said to Flæd. “Didn’t know when to give it.” Red untied the mouth of the sack and drew out the mail shirt Flæd had worn in practice. He brought out a leather cap set with plates of metal, and a belt to go around the mail shirt which held a dagger in a plain leather sheath. “There’s a shield for you in the second wagon, and a light sword,” he said, “in case you need them.”

Flæd felt the weight of the mail shirt across her legs where Red had draped it. She drew the dagger from its sheath and tested its edge against her thumb. A hairline of blood appeared where she had touched the blade.

“You think there might be an attack,” she said, a chill running through her.

“I promised that you would reach Mercia safely,” her warder said, returning the things to the sack and placing the bundle beside her. He had done his best to ensure that she and all those with her were prepared for surprises, Flæd realized. Because Red had requested it, their party of ten retainers in addition to herself and Red was half the size of the one Ethelred had brought to their burgh—her escort travelled quick and light. Yet there were still enough fighting men to mount a defense, in spite of the fact that the king’s other advisors had not anticipated trouble on the journey.

Red got to his feet and retrieved his sword. “I have the first watch,” he said brusquely. “Sleep well, Lady.” She lay back, watching him adjust his armor and check his weapons. Safe, she thought, turning onto her side and closing her eyes, I’m safe with him.

Red’s feet made the softest of sounds crossing the flattened grass of their campsite. As he passed her, he bent down to touch her hair with his callused hand.

T
HE
SOUND
OF
BOOTED
FEET
RUNNING
TOWARD
HER
WOKE
HER
before she heard the scream.

“Quiet, Lady,” Red’s voice whispered tensely into her ear as he pulled her to a sitting position in the dark and dragged the mail shirt over her head. “Come with me.” Thrusting the helmet and dagger into her hands, he propelled her toward the wagons. Flæd heard another scream. The noise was not human, her racing mind told her. The horses on the outskirts of the camp were making the awful sounds.

As they reached the first wagon, Red grabbed his own dagger from his belt and slashed the tethers which bound Oat and Apple there. With one hand he snatched at the short strap still hanging from Apple’s halter, and with the other he gripped Flæd’s arm, pulling her closer.

“Raiders,” he hissed. “They’re coming in a half-circle”—he indicated the sweep of the attack with a gesture from the north to the south edges of their camp—“moving down the hill. Get out”—he boosted her silently onto Apple’s back—“and don’t let them see you. Watch the camp from the grove we passed at sunset. If strangers ride out, don’t come back. Go east when you can, along the river on to Lunden. A hard ride will bring you there in half a day.” For a paralyzed moment Flæd stared down at her warder. “Go now!” he insisted, jabbing her horse in the ribs.

Apple surged forward, and Oat wheeled to run with him. With her head lowered among the blowing strands of Apple’s mane, Flæd clung to the grey horse, heading for the thicket Red had ordered her to reach. Ahead of her in the darkness she could see a large black shape on the ground. The shape heaved, and another dreadful scream cut through the night. Horror-stricken, Flæd realized that she was looking at one of the camp’s horses lying at the end of its picket, its hamstrings sliced through. Nearby she could see the shadows of two men closing in on another horse as the animal jerked at its rope in terror. Almost without thinking Flæd wound her fingers tightly in Apple’s knotted mane and slipped down,
hanging on the side of her galloping horse farthest from the figures she had seen. She heard shouts in a strange language, heard the sound of men running behind her mount, and then felt her horse swerve as a rock thudded into his side. Several other rocks struck the ground around the two running horses, then nothing more.

Flæd’s arms and abdominal muscles were burning. She would have to release her grip or regain her seat in the next few strides. Biting back a groan, she pulled her torso over the horse’s back and swung a leg across. The men had disappeared behind them, and as she urged Apple to even greater speed, Flæd realized that they had been chasing her two horses out of camp, not trying to catch them. She had not been seen.

Red had told her to take cover, and crouched over Apple’s neck, Flæd could think of nothing she wanted more than a place to hide. But another idea was growing painfully inside her. He trained me, her mind repeated again and again, he trained me to fight. Through her fear she remembered days in the pasture, the balance and counterbalance of weapons, Red’s quiet voice, her muscles growing stronger. She should follow her guardian’s orders, shouldn’t she? Red had prepared and sharpened her for combat—this thought rose through her fear as the shouts of the battle rose through the night—but he had insisted that she flee this battle.