Avelynn Read online

  I made to reply, but my father’s voice filled the hall.

  “What’s amiss here?” He spoke to no one in particular but to all assembled.

  A man stepped forward. He was covered in dried mud and dust, his cloak frayed and his tunic torn. “I have come with news, my lords,” he replied, looking at both my father and Alfred.

  “And who are you, friend?” my father asked.

  “My name is Aelfgar. I was the armor-bearer for King Edmund, of East Anglia. I have come to spread news of his recent murder at the hands of the pagans.” A communal gasp of shock echoed throughout the building. I looked anxiously at my father.

  My father lifted his hand for silence, and the room hushed. He walked to the dais at the far end of the hall and took his place at the head table, inviting Alfred to sit beside him. He motioned to my brother and me.

  Our position as his children granted us the right to sit on a bench just beneath and off to the right of the dais. We made our way through the crowd and sat down.

  My father nodded to Aelfgar. “Pray, continue.”

  Aelfgar straightened his shoulders and projected his voice loud enough to be heard throughout the entire hall. “Almost a fortnight ago, Ivar Ragnarsson marched with his army into East Anglia. King Edmund offered terms, but when word came that Ubbe Ragnarsson had also come with a fleet to attack by sea, there was little reason for the Viking to negotiate.”

  Like lightning crackling across the sky, a sense of unease buzzed through the crowd. Ubbe and Ivar were two of the most feared Viking kings. I looked at the smoke rising from the hearth. If I tried hard enough, could I scry in the haze a vision of the entire Heathen Army lying in wait in East Anglia?

  Aelfgar cleared his throat and spoke louder. “Our king was seized from his hall and dragged behind the pagan’s horse to the forest’s edge. He was tied to a tree, stripped, beaten, and whipped until his back was flayed open.”

  Whispers of outrage quivered through the room.

  “Ivar then brought forth his best archers. He told them to make their mark anywhere as long as they did not inflict a fatal wound. Our goodly king was entirely covered with arrows, like the bristles of a hedgehog, yet he still lived.”

  The chorus of discontent grew louder. My father raised his hand in warning. The grumbling subsided.

  “And what of King Edmund?” Alfred asked.

  The strength of Aelfgar’s voice wavered. “He was at length beheaded. Ivar left the body to rot against the tree and rode off with the king’s saintly head.”

  I cringed. To a warrior, to be buried without one’s head was to suffer the worst insult.

  “Our country is now in the hands of pirates, our farmland seized, our women raped, our children sold into slavery. Our precious monasteries and churches have been burned—all the monks and nuns brutally killed.”

  A great uproar swept through the hall.

  I chanced a look at Edward, whose blue eyes were as round as trenchers. I told myself firmly, this was naught but a tale of a distant king in another land. Surely we would be safe here. Wessex was the most powerful country in all of England, my father one of the most powerful men.

  The Great Heathen Army led by the Ragnarsson brothers Ivar, Ubbe, and Halfdan had been in England for more than four years, but not once had they attempted to overthrow Wessex. Our country was stable, King Aethelred in firm control, our people strong and unified. Wessex presented formidable opposition, which gave me hope, for the Vikings were notorious opportunists. They preyed upon the weak.

  When a hoard of Vikings had landed in East Anglia last spring, King Edmund had turned a blind eye, and the Vikings had grown fat and wealthy off his land. It was hardly surprising they came back to take what was clearly already theirs. And Northumbria was just as easy a target. The Vikings simply exploited the fact that Northumbria had been divided by political unrest for years and sallied in without so much as a fistfight—though they were fastidious in their murder of King Aelle. He was blood-eagled, a brutal form of torture in which they cut his back open, took an axe to his ribs, and threw his lungs over his shoulders to mimic the folded wings of an eagle. I shuddered. Perhaps they reserved their harshest cruelty for kings.

  The outcry from the villagers rose to a heightened pitch. My father stood. “Silence!”

  All fell quickly into acquiescence.

  “Does my brother know of this news yet?” Alfred asked.

  “Yes, my lord. I passed through Winchester and told the King of Wessex everything. He wishes to see you presently.”

  “Yes, I imagine.”

  “Avelynn.” My father’s eyes lighted on mine. “See that all the women and children in Alfred’s retinue are properly housed. We must hold council on this news.”

  “Surely you’ll want me to record the proceedings—”

  “Father Plegmund has returned and will see to the documents.”

  “But—” His expression brooked no compromise. “Of course.” I curtsied and made my way around the hall, ushering all the women and children to the door.

  I ensured that Ealhswith and my brother, Edward, were in tow and headed outdoors to battle the unseasonably chilly November wind. Those who lived in town drifted back to their homes, while the members of Alfred’s household were suitably lodged with families that would show them warmth and hospitality. When there were only the three of us left, we walked along the muddy road back to my cottage. It stood in a cluster of several outbuildings across the courtyard from the great hall.

  Despite Bertram’s age he belied all appearances and effortlessly caught up with us. Edward, seeing him approach, tried to look as inconspicuous as one of the many fence posts we had just passed.

  “Young Edward, I am to take you back to finish your studies,” Bertram said.

  Edward turned in our direction, looking for some means of rescue. “I don’t want to look at books. I want to fight Vikings.”

  Despite myself, I smiled. Visions of far-off battles and victories played across his innocent face.

  Encouraged by my expression, he picked up a stick lying on the ground and, with a flourish, swept it through the air. “I’ll slay them all with the point of my sword.”

  Bertram gave him a sharp rap to his head. “Foolish child. And how, at nine years of age, are you to take on a Viking? They would eat you for breakfast and pick their teeth with your skinny bones. Now, enough dawdling. Say good day to your sister and the lady Ealhswith.

  Edward’s shoulders drooped, but he gave a noble bow. “Good day, Avelynn. Good day, Lady Ealhswith.”

  We both dropped into low curtsies. “Good day, Master Edward,” we replied in unison.

  “Poor lad,” Ealhswith remarked, watching Edward get hauled away. “Bertram is a tough teacher.”

  “He’s not so bad. He’s just teaching Edward some humility and giving him a healthy dose of common sense.”

  We turned and walked the last few yards to my cottage. The buildings scattered about the manor were all framed with large timber beams, but the walls varied between vertical planking and wattle-and-daub panels. Wheat thatch covered every roof.

  “After you.” I held the door open for Ealhswith to enter.

  My chambermaid, Nelda, tended the fire. Squat and round with beady eyes and a long nose, she had the unfortunate luck of resembling a shrew. But despite her mousy looks, her smile was always welcoming and sincere. “M’lady.” She curtsied.

  I returned her smile. “Thank you, Nelda, that will be all for now.”

  She nodded, dropped her eyes to the floor, and scampered out.

  Catching a glimpse of my windblown hair in the polished silver mirror, I tried to smooth the long strands into some semblance of order but gave up and hung our cloaks on hooks by the door.

  “What do you think will happen with the Vikings?” I brought down an earthenware jug filled with mead and two fine silver cups from a nearby shelf.

  “Honestly, Avelynn, I’ve heard enough talk of Vikings and their brutality to l
ast me a lifetime. That’s all anyone ever talks about.” I passed her a full cup, and she took a hearty swig. “But I didn’t come all this way to speak of Vikings. Let the men work that out. I came to see my dearest friend.”

  Ealhswith was always quick to brush off anything serious. And despite my longing to know what was being discussed in council, I had been dismissed from the hall, and there was nothing I could do about it. I tightened the grip on my cup. She was right—the men would handle it.

  “Now, how are you?” She rested her cup on her lap.

  “Don’t ask.”

  “Whyever not?”

  I slumped down beside her. “According to my father, I’m to be married.”

  For a moment she just stared at me, brown eyes wide. “To whom?”

  “His name is Demas. He’s Ealhstan’s nephew.”

  “Well, you are seventeen, Avelynn.”

  If she was trying to make me feel better, she was failing miserably. Only a year older than me, Ealhswith had been married last autumn, a scant few days before her seventeenth birth day. “Maybe so, but I want to choose the man I marry, not be forced into a loveless contract like I see so many women at court endure.” I wrapped both hands around the cup, the silver cool against my palms. “My mother knew the moment she saw my father that he was the one for her. I want nothing less.”

  “I understand your longing, Avelynn. The Lord knows you are stubborn in your convictions. But you will be an old mare and completely unmarriageable if you continue to insist on this fantasy.”

  I could feel myself growing hot with indignation. I got up and went to the hearth. Nelda had set up a small iron cauldron on a tripod, and I ladled out two steaming helpings of pottage. I offered Ealhswith a loaf of bread, the blackened bottom cut away and discarded.

  When we were younger, marriage had had a luster of promise and excitement about it. Getting married was what all respectable ladies did, and it was something we looked forward to. Ealhswith and I had spent so many days daydreaming and discussing the various details of marriage—what it would be like, what our husbands would be like, what the marriage bed would be like—that we anticipated the event with innocent enthusiasm. Of course, I had my parents to provide daily examples of what a loving marriage looked like. But one day, while accompanying my father on a visit to the smith’s cottage, I witnessed the man beating his wife with an iron pan. When she could no longer raise a hand to try to stop him, he dropped the frying pan in the dirt. It landed with a hollow thud. He gestured to my father to step outside to finish their business and left her in a pool of blood—all because she burned his bread.

  I looked down at the half-eaten loaf in my hand. A few smudges of black were still evident along the sides. A lump hardened in my throat, and I coughed hard, trying to swallow it.

  Ealhswith rose to help me, but I raised my hand. “I’m fine,” I said between breaths, my eyes watering fiercely. I had lost my appetite, and set the bread down on the table.

  The worst part of that visit was that my father was powerless to stop it. The smith was entitled to beat her, for she was negligent in her duties. And when it was clear that she would never recover from her injuries, he tossed her like refuse and married another.

  That was what marriage could look like when it was a match brokered by disinterested parties, and it was not to be my fate.

  Despite being arranged, Ealhswith’s marriage was a happy one. “You’re lucky,” I said, and tilted my cup in a toast. “Alfred adores you.”

  “Yes, he does.” She smiled broadly and raised her cup in answer.

  “What’s it like being married to the king’s brother?”

  “Well, there are definite advantages. I have an entire household at my command, I’m privy to council secrets, and best of all, I get to tell my dearest friend that I am with child.”

  “How?!”

  Ealhswith laughed so hard pottage came out her nose. She dabbed her face with the sleeve of her gown. “Avelynn, don’t you know where babies come from?”

  My face flushed in embarrassment. “No. I mean, yes. I know where babies come from.”

  I knew what went on behind the bed curtain. I had seen plenty of couplings amongst the animals scattered about the village, though I was thoroughly horrified at the notion of a man doing that to me. “I meant, how did this happen? You’ve only just been married. When is the baby due?”

  “My sweet, virtuous friend, I’ve been married a full year.” She set the bowl of pottage down. “But as to how—I can’t wait till we can discuss in more graphic detail what the man does with his—”

  “Ealhswith, you are positively lewd. I assure you, I have no interest in hearing the finer details, really.”

  “Oh, Avelynn, how I miss you.” She wiped the tears of mirth from her eyes. “To answer your real question, then, the baby is due next spring.”

  I leapt up and embraced her. “I’m so happy for you. Alfred must be overjoyed.”

  “Yes, he is, though I told him he was sworn to secrecy until I spoke with you; then he may tell the whole world there will be a new addition to the royal house of Ecgberht!”

  A rap at the door interrupted our celebration. “Come in,” I answered.

  The door opened and Bertram escorted Edward in. “Avelynn, Lady Ealhswith.” He nodded in deference. “I’m sorry, Avelynn, but I must leave this willful scamp here with you.” He ruffled Edward’s sandy mop. “Your father requests my presence in council.”

  “Of course, Bertram, we’ll take good care of him.” The “him” in question was already helping himself to a bowl full of pottage and a cake of bread.

  “Mind your manners, lad,” Bertram reproved.

  “Sorry,” Edward replied, his mouth full of bread.

  “Incorrigible.” He closed the door behind him.

  “How were your studies, Edward?” Ealhswith asked.

  “Boring. I am made to sit down and read the dreadfully dull lives of saints and martyrs over and over again until I can’t see straight.”

  “I suppose what you really want to learn about is Vikings and battle, then?” I asked.

  Edward grumbled into his bowl. “I could beat Ivar, you know.” He looked up. “One day I will be a great warrior and fight by Father’s side, cutting down every Viking that crosses my path.”

  I walked to the far corner of the room and picked up a practice shield and sword. “Care to back up that claim?” I swept my sword in front of him.

  Edward spent a great deal of time in my cottage. Before our mother’s death, we had shared it with her. It was only recently that he had started sleeping in the hall with my father’s thegns.

  He jumped off the bench and grabbed his sword and shield.

  “Ealhswith will be the maiden who has been taken captive by the Viking king Ivar,” I said.

  “Oh, help me. I need someone who is strong and brave to rescue me.” Ealhswith swooned into a heap on the bench.

  “But they must get past me first,” I countered. “For I am Ivar Ragnarsson, and anyone who dares to face me will meet their end at the point of my sword.”

  “Fear not, fair maiden, I will vanquish Ivar and rescue you.”

  Edward moved fast and attacked, but I was ready and blocked the blow with my shield. Despite being thin and lanky, he was nonetheless quite strong. We were only playing with practice swords, but a solid whack from the wooden blade would leave quite a bruise if I wasn’t careful.

  I watched his efforts, genuinely impressed. He lunged and parried, turned and dodged, evading my attacks skillfully, and used his shield when necessary to press forward or block my blows. I smiled sweetly. While he had improved, I could still easily best him, but I was trying to be gracious. I was even giving him a sporting chance by fighting with my left hand. Truth be told, I had many years of battle training on him.

  Wulfric, my father’s greatest warrior and closest friend, had been my teacher ever since I learned to stand. He impressed upon me to use my natural talents to the utmost
advantage. While petite in stature, what I lacked in height, I made up for in speed and agility. However, he was not above telling me to use my feminine curves as a thorough distraction—anything to exploit a man’s weakness, he would say. But he also pushed me hard to develop strength, balance, skill, and cunning.

  The battle was fierce. Red-faced, Edward’s breath came in ragged spurts, and sweat wet his temples. His sodden hair stuck fast to his forehead. It was time for Ivar to be defeated. I waited for the next blow. Spinning on my heels, I pretended to lose my balance and gave Edward just enough time to thrust his sword toward my exposed stomach.

  “Surrender!” he yelled in triumph. “One more move and I’ll gore you through.”

  “Never. I will never surrender to a filthy Saxon.”

  “Then you will die.”

  He lunged, and I took the blade by locking it against my waist with my elbow. “Oh, great Saxon warrior, you alone have vanquished me.” Coughing and sputtering for good effect, I fell dramatically to the ground.

  Edward sauntered to Ealhswith. “I have rescued you, lady.”

  “My hero.” She bent over and kissed his cheek.

  From my vantage point on the ground, I watched as a crimson flush rose up Edward’s neck to his cheeks, painted his nose with a vibrant swath of red, and then traveled outward in earnest, turning the tips of his ears a bright pink.

  I stood, wiping all amusement from my face, and extended a strong hand to Edward. “Good battle, sir.”

  Edward beamed.

  The door to my cottage opened suddenly. On impulse, I swung around, holding the point of my wooden sword directly at the Adam’s apple of a stranger. I watched in amusement as the little lump bobbed up and down as its owner swallowed hard.

  My father stood behind, gripping the door’s iron handle like steel, his knuckles turning white. I withdrew my sword and set it against the wall beside me.

  “Avelynn, you will remember Demas of Wareham. He has come to call.”

  THREE

  I eyed Demas warily, prepared to make a considerable objection, but the look on my father’s face made it clear any attempt would be unwise, so I curtsied with all due ceremony instead.