Far Traveler Read online

  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!”

  Æthelstan looked at me when Edith mentioned Mother, and I lowered my eyes.

  “Wyn,” my cousin said gently, “you remember how Lady Æthelflæd used to read with us, how she loved English poems?”

  “I remember the way she would do all our work for us if we took care not to stop her,” Gytha put in from the bench where she sat, rose-hued in the firelight.

  Despite my worries, for the first time since Mother had died, I found myself smiling at a memory of her. Æthelstan sighed.

  “Tomorrow I ride to the king’s winter court at Wintanceaster,” he told me. “But Wyn, something is bothering me. I wonder if you can help.” Suddenly I felt cold. Æthelstan’s eyes glittered, and looking at his face, I realized what a stranger he had become, despite everything we had shared.

  “I learned a riddle on my journey,” he said, “told by a scop who entertained us one evening. Do you think you could solve that traveling singer’s puzzle?” He was smiling at me, but without any warmth.

  I forced myself not to look away. “I can try,” was all I could think to say.

  Æthelstan leaned back in his chair and recited: A warrior there is in the world, wonderfully born, brought forth brightly from two dumb things. Full strong he is, but a woman may bind him. He serves whomever serves and feeds him fairly, but grimly he rewards those who let him grow up proud.

  I tried not to show my shock. Had Æthelstan heard us? Had he waited at the gate, watching and listening? No, that would have been too far away, I was sure of it. But the scrap of parchment bearing the message and the riddle! Where had I left it?

  “Fire,” I answered warily. “Fire is ‘a warrior ... brought forth brightly from two dumb things’—from stone and iron-backed steel. A woman may bind fire,” I added, still trying to appear calm, “just like Gytha, tending the hearth over there.”

  “Of course,” he said softly. “Fire is the answer. Well done, Ælfwyn.” He stood up, stretching. “But don’t I remember,” he mused as he walked to the great doorway of the hall, “that the riddles in your mother’s lessons sometimes had more than one solution? Tell me, Wyn, if you think of another.” He walked out.

  “Curse you, girl, what did you do with that note?” Dunstan exploded.

  “I’m not sure. I never thought—”

  “Well, now we know why Æthelstan came looking for us this evening. At least he doesn’t seem to understand the note, or know who sent it. If the king travels back to Eoforwic unrecognized and keeps quiet, we might still avoid trouble.”

  “The king?” I echoed him numbly. “What do you mean?”

  “The archbishop’s companion was Wilfrid, the Northumbrian king.”

  9

  A HYMN OF CÆDMON

  “‘ASH CUT,’ ”—KENELM OF LINCYLENE SCOWLED WITH EFFORT, trying to repeat his message precisely—“ ‘fish caught.’ Yes, that’s what my father told me to say.” The young thane grinned, relieved that he’d remembered the exact words.

  Dunstan glanced at me and snorted. “We asked Cuthwine if he had ash-wood spears and salt cod to spare,” he told Kenelm. “There’s no need to make a secret of numbering the stores at your fa
ther’s landhold. You can go, boy.”

  “Wait! There’s something else,” Kenelm said earnestly. “Father says, ‘My thirty stand ready.’ ”

  “What ... what does that mean?” I said nervously.

  “It means,” said Kenelm, coming even closer and lowering his voice, “that thirty men from our holding will ride to Eoforwic when you are ready to fight. I am one of them.”

  I jerked back in alarm. Dunstan seized Kenelm’s arm angrily.

  “Enough of that! We asked for an account of Cuthwine of Lincylene’s stores. Nothing more.”

  “But we heard—” A fierce look from Dunstan made Kenelm drop his voice to a whisper. “We heard that Mercia would join Eoforwic against Rægnald in the spring.”

  Dunstan was fuming. “You should know better than to say so. Tomorrow I will ride back with you to your father’s holding and speak with you both”—he gave Kenelm’s arm another shake—“about loose talk. Go rest now.”

  When Kenelm had gone, Dunstan shook his head. “No good can come of such dangerous talk.”

  “We only asked the landholders to number their stores, like you said.” I slumped back in my mother’s council chair.

  “And the thanes have drawn their own conclusions,” Dunstan said worriedly. “If King Edward hears that Mercians are gathering for battle ...”

  “But we’re not! We don’t even know how we’ll answer King Wilfrid of Eoforwic yet. A season has passed since Æthelstan came to Lunden, and we’ve heard nothing from Wessex. Must we still worry that King Edward is watching us?”

  “Yes,” said Dunstan heavily. “So tomorrow I will go to Lincylene and stop up Cuthwine’s and Kenelm’s gossiping mouths with salt cod. Back to your books, girl.”

  Dunstan was only half joking about the fish, I fretted as I ducked out of the council chamber clutching the Latin translation I’d interrupted for Kenelm. I understood these matters little, and liked them even less. But I could not forget the urgent voice of the visitor whom I had not known was Wilfrid, King of Northumbria. Please hear me, Lady!

  Still, I thought wearily, King Wilfrid had asked for help from the poorest of allies. Even Dunstan wasn’t sure what we should do. I shook my head in frustration. What was it that Pope Gregory had longed for in his Dialogues? “A scholar’s leisure,” I muttered to myself as I headed for the library. Time for reading and reflection, away from the cares of this world. That’s what I wanted, too.

  What happened next came with the sickening swiftness of a hawk stooping to kill a mouse or a sparrow. Perhaps you’ve seen it happen: with a rustle and a snatch some small living thing disappears, carried off. It’s as if it never existed at all.

  “Wyn.” Gytha appeared at the door of my little room the next morning. I looked up from my worktable and attempted to smile at her. The winter weather was coming on in earnest now, and I was well wrapped against the cold. This would be my first Christmastide without Mother, but I was trying to push away such thoughts, and to bury in constant study my recent worries about Wilfrid of Eoforwic and Uncle Edward.

  “I’ve found a hymn of Cædmon,” I told my friend. “Remember? Mother used to say his poems were miracles, gifts of God. Listen, Gytha.” I started to read out loud: “ ‘Now we must praise the heavenly kingdom’s Keeper, God’s might and His mind’s intelligence, the work of ...’”

  “You need to come see this.” Gytha seized my arm and pulled me up out of my chair.

  “Gytha!” Crossly, I grabbed up the copy of the poem I had been making. “Stop and listen to this, won’t you?”

  “Ælfwyn, look!” Gytha pushed wide the shutters and drew me to the window. The street was filling with armed men on horseback. Farther off I could hear shouts of surprise that seemed to be coming from the center of the town. “There are foot soldiers filling the marketplace,” Gytha said in a stricken voice. “Edward’s troops have come in from every city gate. The Lunden guard never thought to stop them.”

  I looked down at the mounted retainers crowding below my window. Think, I told myself, crumpling the parchment in my hand.

  “Find—find your mother. Find Edith!” I stammered at Gytha.

  “I’ll come back as fast as I can!” Gytha ran from the room.

  My head was spinning. King Edward’s men were all over Lunden. The king and his thanes were at my door. Come for me—I was certain of that. Dunstan had ridden out at dawn with Kenelm. Gytha and Edith would try to help me, but what could they do? My heart was beating so hard, I could feel it in my throat. How could I have been so stupid? I hadn’t really believed this would happen!

  “Ælfwyn!” A serving man came scurrying down the passage, calling me as he came. “Lady! King Edward commands you to come!”

  They took me to the council chamber where King Edward had seated himself in my mother’s chair with Æthelstan standing beside him. A contingent of West Saxon thanes ranged around the walls of the room. There was a thick smell of leather and horse, and of men’s bodies.

  “Ælfwyn,” the king said, fixing me with his bleak grey stare.

  Should I say something? No words would come. I dropped my eyes and saw my plain brown woolen dress, a pair of old scuffed shoes, the edge of the shawl I had thrown over my shoulders because it was a cold day and I had been sitting for a long time reading. What did Edward see? A shabby girl? A traitor?

  “It is time,” the king spoke deliberately, “for you to come to Wessex, as a guest in our court.”

  At Gleawceaster they didn’t let him take me! From the passageway I heard the shrill sound of a woman’s voice raised in argument. Two women’s voices—Edith and Gytha. The muffled sounds grew louder, lingering a moment on the other side of the door. Then they began to fade again, with an increasingly urgent pitch to each new burst of complaint. My friends were being led away.

  “Uncle, I—”

  “What does she have in her hand?” the king asked sharply. Æthelstan strode across the floor and drew from my fingers the crumpled parchment. He straightened the page and squinted at it.

  “Nothing more than a few lines of poetry,” he began, but Edward shook his head.

  “You thought her talk with that Northumbrian messenger would come to nothing, but we’ve seen otherwise,” Edward said. “Messengers from all over Mercia. Thanes arming. Give that to me.” Æthelstan gave him the page. The king glanced at it, then quietly leaned down and held its corner to the hearth fire. Trembling, I watched the parchment begin to curl. It sent up a stream of oily smoke as Edward spoke again.

  “Some of my men have gone with your serving women to collect your things. You will come with us now.”

  The king and his retainers swept out of Lunden, with my wagon bumping along in the wake of their company. Edward had commanded that Gytha alone should accompany me, and she and I rode behind drawn curtains. In my drab clothing and muffling cloak I would not have been recognized by people gawking in the streets, even if anyone had chanced to catch a glimpse of me.

  “They’re bringing Winter,” Gytha whispered into my ear. “I saw one of the king’s thanes take him from the stable.” Of course, I thought bitterly, burying my face in my arms. He was too valuable an animal to be left behind, just like me.

  10

  WINTANCEASTER

  “WHAT WOULD YOU GIVE A FRIEND WHO SAVED YOU FROM DISCUSSING Earl Aldwulf of East Anglia’s favorite sow?” I looked up and saw Gytha in the doorway. “Don’t answer that,” she said tartly. “I have a better question. You told the earl you’d be at the library, but you were nowhere to be seen, so he came to find me. We went to the refectory, the chapter house—Aldwulf was ready to trudge through the nuns’ dormitories before I convinced him that you wouldn’t have gone there.”

  “Gytha, I’m sorry.”

  “I hope you had a nice time hiding in your room”—Gytha stomped across the floor—“and I hope you have a nice time while I’m gone.” Gytha lay down on my bed and closed her eyes.

  “While you’re gone? What are you talking about?”
>
  My friend sat up. “Aldwulf told me that he wanted you to travel back with him to see his lands, and that King Edward had consented.”

  A chill ran through me. Make me go with dull, grey-headed Aldwulf? But Gytha hadn’t finished.

  “So I smiled at him and said, ‘Ælfwyn’s just come to Wintanceaster these three months. She’s had a hard time of it. Instead, take me to see your landhold, and when we come back I’ll tell Ælfwyn all about it.’ ” She shot me a wry glance. “He said yes.”

  “Gytha, I ... I never expected ...”

  “Would you rather have gone?” She asked the question almost wistfully, and for the first time I could see that she was worried about what she had done.

  In a rush I crossed the room and caught her in a tight embrace.

  Gytha rode out with Aldwulf’s party the next day, and King Edward called me to his council room.

  “You will miss your friend Gytha,” he observed, clearly wishing I had gone with Aldwulf.

  I miss everyone, I thought sadly. My mother. Edith. Dunstan. Perhaps Edith had gone back to her own landholding, now that she had no one to care for in Lunden. I still hoped and dreaded Dunstan might ride into the king’s tun to release me in the name of all Mercians.

  “Do you hear any news from Lunden?” Edward asked without warning. I jumped.

  You decide whom I may see, I thought resentfully, and who may talk with me. “No,” I muttered, “I have had no word.”

  “Well, Lunden is peaceful, at least for now,” he said. “It’s the Mercian borderlands that worry me, with Rægnald in Eoforwic.”

  Rægnald in Eoforwic. I felt as if someone had struck me a blow.

  “You hadn’t heard that,” Uncle Edward murmured after a moment.

  His pleading voice in the darkness. His hand on mine. He had needed my help and no help had come.