The Edge of Light Read Free Page A

“None of the rest of us had a foster father. We all stayed at home with our own father. Why was Ethelbald sent away?”
    “When they were children, Atheistan and Ethelbald were at constant odds with each other,” Ethelred replied. “Ethelbald resented the fact that Atheistan was Father’s heir even though he was not Mother’s son but the son of a concubine. Eventually, to keep the peace, Father sent both Atheistan and Ethelbald to be fostered. That is why Ethelbald was reared by Eahlstan.”
    “Oh.” Alfred’s next question introduced a new thought, “Does Ethelbald look like me?”
    “No. He looks like our grandfather, King Egbert. Father always said that of all his children it was only Ethelbald who had inherited the famous coloring of the West Saxon royal house.”
    “I look like Mother,” Alfred said dismally.
    “You are a lucky boy to look like Mother,” Ethelred said. “She was a very lovely lady,”
    “She was a girl.”
    Ethelred’s mouth twitched. “True. But you do not look like a girl, little brother.”
    “They said in Rome that I looked like a little angel.” Alfred sounded utterly disgusted.
    Ethelred coughed. “Angels are boys,” he said after a minute.
    Alfred brightened. “That is true.”
    “Perhaps you will have a chance to see Ethelbald soon,” Ethelred said. “Father has sent a messenger to Sherborne. We must wait for the reply.”

    The answer came more quickly than anyone had expected. Four days after the king’s messenger had departed, Ethelbald himself came riding into Winchester, Alfred had been returning from Mass in the minster when the party from Sherborne arrived, and he saw his brother as Ethelbald dismounted from his great bay stallion in the courtyard.
    His first thought was that Ethelbald was big. Bigger than Ethelred. Bigger than Alfred’s father. He was bareheaded, with a blue headband holding his shoulder-length hair off his face. And his hair was the color of moonlight.
    Alfred watched with pounding heart as his brother, flanked by eight of his thanes, strode up the steps of the royal hall to the great door and disappeared.
    Two hours later, the king sent for his three youngest sons and told them of his decision.
    “Father, you’re mad!” Ethelbert was white with outrage. “You cannot give in to him like this.”
    “My mind is made up.” The king’s usually gentle face was set like granite. “I will resign the greater part of Wessex to Ethelbald and take up the rule in Kent.”
    Alfred looked worriedly from his father’s face to his brothers’, then back to his father’s again.
    “Kent and the rest of the shires won for Wessex by our grandfather are but a subkingdom. The rule of Kent is traditionally given to the heir,” Ethelbert was saying. “It will be humiliating for you to become a subking under the rule of your own son, Father!”
    Ethelwulf closed his eyes for the briefest of seconds. Alfred jumped to his feet and went to the table in the corner to pour his father a cup of mead. There was silence in the room as he carried it carefully across the floor to the king’s chair. Ethelwulf smiled at his youngest and accepted the mead.
    “Listen, my sons,” he said after he had taken a drink from the goblet, and Alfred strained to understand what had caused his father to do such a strange thing as relinquishing his kingdom. “I have been King of Wessex for nigh on eighteen years,” Ethelwulf said, “and before that I ruled Kent for my own father. For all those years I have ever done what was best for the kingdom, best for the people. We face now perhaps the greatest threat to civilization ever seen in England. The cruel and pagan Danish hordes sweep down on our coasts and harry our people, as the wolf does the unprotected sheep. It is the time for a young king; it is the time for a warrior. Ethelbald is both those things.”
    “He is a heartless, ruthless bastard.”
    Alfred stared in horror at Ethelbert. Even his brother’s lips were