AN INVOLUNTARY KING
A Tale of Anglo Saxon England
By Nan Hawthorne
Shield-wall Books
http://www.shield-wall.com
Smashwords Edition
Dedication
I dedicate this novel to Jim Tedford, my beloved husband of many years, for bringing my darlings back to me by first making it possible for me to read their stories again and thereafter for encouraging my writing this novel. Jim, thank you for the most precious gift. coming to love these folks as I do. Peter is right, some things do last forever.
To Josephine's and Elerde's creator, Laura Burr Delisle, who prefers I call her The Muse. We have diverged widely but oh how sweet the crossroads.
Introduction
The very fact that you are reading these words means I have accomplished what I set out to do by writing An Involuntary king. Let me explain.
My parents sent me to a one-week summer camp run by our church out the road from Juneau, Alaska, when I was twelve. By some happy chance, they asked if I could stay for the second week as they were going away. During that second week, I met a girl a year younger than I named Laura. We both loved to play act, and we and two other girls started playing Indian princess. Laura was Princess Sunshine.
Now I should explain that I almost never played female roles. I was a solid fan of Richard Greene's TV series, The Adventures of Robin Hood, and when I could rope friends into playing Robin Hood with me, I was always Robin. From an early age, I preferred the active male characters. I was more likely to play the brother when we played house. I will leave it to child psychologists to explain this. In my opinion, male characters were just more interesting. I mostly still think they are, even though many more interesting female characters are available now.
So I was the Indian brave, whose name I do not recall, who was in love with and charged with rescuing Princess Sunshine. Somehow, after only an hour or two, Indian Princess Sunshine turned into medieval English Princes Sunshine. Laura and I were both Peter O'Toole freaks, and I named the suitor of Princess Sunshine "Lawrence" in honor of his role as Lawrence of Arabia. He became King Lawrence and she was queen Sunshine. We actually held a royal wedding in the lovely chapel at camp made by a huge evergreen tree's branches. We got to dinner early so we could claim the seats of honor at the top of the "T" formed by the tables. I do not think the other campers had any idea they were attending the wedding feast of a king and queen.
What happened next was the tipping point for all of this because, when our short time together at camp was over, Laura had to go back to her town, Ketchikan, and I back to Juneau. Now this was long before the Internet, and text messaging. It was even before long distance calls were something one made casually. All we had were letters. We decided to write to each other, as Nan and Laura and as Lawrence and Josephine.
Unfortunately, to persist with the fictional correspondence there had to be a reason why the royal pair was continually separated. It became difficult to maintain this, so at some point about a year or so later we switched to "scenes", which were what we called the stories about Lawrence and Josephine. Between us, we wrote dozens of letters and then stories. The opportunity to write fiction at such a young age with a partner who shared the enthusiasm was a priceless gift to my imagination.
The enthusiasm for the stories eventually waned for Laura, but grew into an obsession for me. I was the one who developed many of the supporting characters, and I lived excitedly each day for the mail in hopes Laura would have sent me the next chapter of the story we were writing together. In the meantime, I roped friends into playing new characters. I remember sitting on a city bus in Chicago, where we had moved, feeling lonely and wishing that at the next stop Lawrence, Josephine, Shannon and Rory would get on and come sit with me.
Who did the name "Josephine" come from? Laura doubts this version of the event, but I remember when she told me she was changing Sunshine's name to Josephine after having read a novel about Napoleon's empress. It was about this same time that I decided that since the encyclopedias seemed to skip the intervening years between the Romans and Charlemagne, we should set the stories in the late 8th century, just before Charlemagne was made Holy Roman Emperor in 800 AD. Not knowing one thing about the Anglo-Saxon era in English history, and Laura not caring one way or another, we continued to set the scenes in castles and have the semi-villain Elerde of Brittany speaking French. Even when I first started rewriting the stories in 2006, they were anachronistic in the same way. The first scene showed Lawrence taking the keep's stone steps three at a time on his way to his father's counsel chamber.
Laura lost interest in the stories when she was about seventeen. For a few years, I tried to talk friends into writing with me, and I had some success. There was Linda who played Heather (Shannon's wife in the old stories) and Sean, another bard ("Sean of Connery", incidentally); Suellen who was Michael to my Samir, not in the final version, but Roddy MacDhui, Samir's lover, is); and a couple others. I had by this time created Shannon O'Neill and Rory McGuinness -- the fruit of my growing passion for Ireland after seeing Disney's The Fighting Prince of Donegal. Finally, the lack of interaction with others on the scenes meant they lapsed. After a few half-hearted attempts at continuing the writing alone, somewhere around my second year in college I put all the stories away and went on with my life.
Fast-forward a few decades. I had started an online group called "Ghostletters" and after a period of being off the group, I decided to come back. I was casting about for characters to play on the group when my husband, Jim Tedford, suggested I use my "Christenlande" (the original name for the kingdom) characters. I had lost a lot of eyesight since I was in college. I could no longer read the old stories, the inventory of which had more than doubled when Laura sent all my own stories back to me. I asked Jim as a Christmas present to put all my stories into a document I could read with the speech output software on my computer. He now knew the characters in the stories as well as or better than I did. Grateful on two counts now, I decided to play two characters, Lorin, Josephine's brother, and Juliana, the king's mistress. It was in fact a story about Juliana that led me to start rewriting the old stories. I got to the sexy point in the story only to find that part missing. It struck me that as an adult I could now write about sex from experience. I started rewriting the whole Juliana thread. I had a blast. And I decided to rewrite the entire story, from beginning to whatever end I selected from the many I had tried.
I wrote all these stories and posted them on Ghostletters. As they grew from a few to dozens, I realized I was writing a novel. It would be a novel that would have a special purpose, and that is to immortalize my characters that had meant so much to me, to give them a life independent of me. Conceivably, they would live after I was gone, and not be dissipated thought waves but something still catching people's imaginations. This is why I said at the beginning of this introduction that the very fact that you are holding this book and reading it means my purpose is fulfilled.
Whatever happened to Laura? I found her soon after I started writing the stories again. She was not sure she wanted to get involved in the project, but as we talked by email, she warmed to the subject. I gave her veto power over Josephine's characterization and actions. As a result, Josephine got more interesting and active. Partly because of that, Lawrence also got more well rounded. Our mutual favorite character always was and is Rory, the gentle, spiritual, devoted admirer of Josephine. As we talked about storylines involving Rory, it came to both of us that Rory deserved a true love of his own. Laura and I started writing a story, set some years after the end of this novel, where he realizes the folly of his spiritual love for the queen and finds and marries the woman he was meant to be with. I am afraid you will have to visit my web site (www.nanhawthorne.com) to learn more about that!
I am very proud of this book. I hope it is a ripping good read for you. I am proud of the effort I have made to make the book more authentic for the era I chose. The castles have made way for the timber walled fortresses, the knights in shining armor for the gruesome shield-wall. Lawrence and Josephine, as well as others from the old stories kept their anachronistic names for the sake of my own nostalgia, but other things and places come closer to the actuality.
Laura and I also decided that some of the old storylines were just plain wrong. We once called the stories "Faithful Forever". Read the book to see if that title was accurate, but I will tell you now, there is no Juliana in this novel.
I have included maps, a list of characters and a glossary for your use. I welcome comments and questions about this and future novels. My profound hope is that you will come to love these characters, (well, except for Gadfrid and Malcolm -- I'll leave to you whether Elerde is villain or hero), and will pass them around to friends so the fellowship can go on for years to come.
Nan Hawthorne
Bothell, Washington State
June 2008
Acknowledgements
No one could have a better supporter than my husband, Jim Tedford. In every way he encouraged, assisted, and cheerleaded this novel, putting almost as much love into it as I. He is my own personal Lawrence and Rory all wrapped up in one beloved.
I also want to thank Jack Graham and his Medieval History Club at E. B. king High School. When I needed help plotting battles, Jack and the club were there to help, becoming perhaps some of the first to throw names like "King Lawrence" around. They did a magnificent job, as these pages will attest. Jack alone is a treasure, and we enjoyed the time we spent together on battles so much we plan to co-author a novel or two in the near future.
There are many others. Lori Real Northon who taught me more than I could have imagined about Anglo-Saxon England. You will find her immortalized as Eormenthryth in these pages. I met her through a reenactment group called Regia Anglorum, and I want to single out Andrew Nicholson from that group and thank him for his tolerance and generosity.
Carla Nayland, author of "Paths of Exile" and "Ingvald's Daughter", served as inspiration and ever-patient mentor.
Of course, I have to thank Sir Timothy Berners-Lee and the others who developed the Internet and specifically the web because without it I could have done little or none of this, including contacting all the people whom I asked questions about Lincolnshire, the Rivers Welland, Trent and Humber, about Grantham and its environs, about details of Anglo Saxon life. Don't blame any of them if I get something wrong. Chalk it up to having more data than space to store it in my head.
Thanks finally to all who encouraged me and helped me, in particular Greta Marlow, another novelist who proofed this book (twice) and thinks Elerde deserves his own novel, Barbara Rogers, Brandy Purdy, a terrific author (the remarkable novel "The Confession of Piers Gaveston" and "The Boleyn Wife") and my business partner at medieval-novels.com, and Barbara Weitbrecht and the others on Ghostletters (www.ghostletters.net) who patiently read all the little stories as I crafted this book.
Author's Note
Everything in this novel is fiction. Nothing in it should be taken as historical fact. The characters are entirely figments of my and my friend Laura's imaginations and should not be regarded as representations of any person living or dead.
The information in An Involuntary king on medical treatments using herbs should not be taken as advice or instructions.
Further, as this novel represents an adaptation of stories we wrote when we were teenagers, certain elements, such as character names, are completely anachronistic and preserved as a tribute to our earlier stories. I did a great deal to make Lawrence, Josephine, and their world authentically late 8th century Saxon, but in every circumstance, storytelling and preservation of the old stories took precedence.
I am creating a web site that will include the old stories we wrote, new stories about the characters, and other tidbits for those who enjoy this novel and want more. You can find it by visiting http://www.nanhawthorne.com. You can also contact me by email through that site. And I dearly hope you will.
Nan Hawthorne
An Involuntary King
PROLOGUE
"My lord, riders approach. 'Tis the king's banner."
The young man turned to see the sunburst and sword of his father's flag. He stood waiting on the stout stone bridge over the Trenta. He was tall, like the king, and had his coloring: sandy hair, sun-tanned skin, remarkable blue eyes, and his warrior's build as well. He was clad in mail and a thick blue wool cloak. He was the ætheling, the heir to the throne of Críslicland, the kingdom that was no more.
"Peter, my son!" the lead rider of the small company of armed men called. Peter saluted him, fist to chest, and his grin broadened. He approached the stirrup of the horse that bore his father and reached up to help the older man dismount.
"I don't need that, not yet anyway." King Lawrence swung his leg over the horse and hit the ground with perhaps a little too much bravado. As they walked together back to the side of the bridge, Peter noticed his father limping. It was the old, very old, thigh wound. As the king aged, the leg troubled him increasingly.
Peter looked at his father. He was still a strongly built man with the developed shoulders, chest and arms of a man of the sword. His eyes were as piercing as ever, but there was gray in the once dark blonde beard, and wrinkles at the edges of his eyes and lips. "So, you come from Lincoln. Is it done then, Father?"
Lawrence glanced sideways at his eldest child; now well into his own adulthood. He leaned his forearms on the stone barrier of the bridge. "Aye, the treaty is signed, sealed and in the Bishop of Lincoln's hands. You are looking at earl Lawrence." He looked down at the passing water of the river.
"Regrets?" Peter asked. His tone was amused.
His father's wry smile was all the answer Peter would get. "I should be asking you that, son."
Peter sighed and looked upriver. "You know my thoughts on it all. You really had no choice. Either give it up willingly or Offa would eventually have taken it."
"Or the raiders," the older man inserted.
"Oh, I think I could have handled the raiders." He quickly added, "My liege."
"Nay, not liege any more."
Peter joined his father leaning on the bridge. "I can remember when I was terribly little looking up to you and thinking you would be king forever. But then I also thought you were king of everything."
Lawrence grinned at his profile. "Then you weren't impatiently waiting for me to die so you would be king?"
Peter laughed ruefully. "I didn't even think of that. Mother never allowed us to talk about a time when you or she would be gone. It was almost like a superstition she had."
"Not almost. It was a superstition. She would not let me talk about it either. Only once." He looked to the west and the Roman road that led from the bridge to the stronghold and town of Ratherwood.
"Was that the time you were in siege and she had been caught behind the battle lines?"
"Aye, and we had a bittersweet reunion. I thought I would never see her again. Or you and your brother and sisters." He cast down his eyes. "That was a very long time ago."
"This bridge was here then, right?" Peter stood back and surveyed the heavy stone structure.
Lawrence followed his gaze. "Aye, it was. It was built when I was a boy. Your uncle, the ætheling then, and I went with our father to be betrothed to the king of Affynshire's daughters. King Edwærd and my father first started making plans for the bridge during that visit."
Peter laughed aloud. "You were betrothed that young? How old was Mother?"
Lawrence now stood and stretched. "I don't know, don't remember. Eight, I think. She was a wild one."
Peter settled his back against the wall, his arms crossed. He loved the stories of his parents' early years. "Wild? In what way?"
The king scratched his head and considered. "Imperious, though she denied it. She was in no hurry to warm up to me. I found her in a tree and told her girls should not climb trees. It wasn't fitting for a lady."
"I remember this story. That's when she replied, 'I am a lady and I climb trees, so that means it must be fitting."
Lawrence chuckled and nodded. "She was holding...what was it? A cat? No, a coney. She dropped it and I caught it. That's when she decided she would agree to marry me."
Peter laughed and slapped his father's shoulder. "That sounds like Mother, all right." He left his hand on his father's shoulder. Looking around again, he said, "So this bridge went up after that. It must bring a lot of memories back."
Lawrence leaned to look at the river. "It does indeed." He looked over at the eastern bank. He lifted his arm to point. "I was just over there when I learned I was to go with my own father and brother to war."
"The war with Nifhmund? Your uncle?"
"Aye. That's when everything changed. When everything fell apart."
"Not this bridge," his son proclaimed, slapping his palm on the stone. "It will last forever."
Lawrence shook his head absently. "Nay, my son. Nothing lasts forever."
Peter could see his father was drifting back through more than a score of years of memory. He took a pensive position of his own, enjoying the silent companionability with his father.
Be great in act, as you have been in thought;
Let not the world see fear and sad distrust
Govern the motion of a kingly eye:
Be stirring as the time; be fire with fire;
Threaten the threatener and outface the brow
Of bragging horror: so shall inferior eyes,
That borrow their behaviors from the great,
Grow great by your example and put on
The dauntless spirit of resolution.
Away, and glister like the god of war,
When he intendeth to become the field:
Show boldness and aspiring confidence.
King John, Act 5, Scene 1
CHAPTER ONE
On the east bank of the River Trenta, a very young Lawrence gazed at the stone bridge and marveled at its construction. It was far from the first time he had sat astride his horse and examined its sturdy stone supports and smooth steady span. He remembered as he did every time he saw the bridge from any angle or distance how he had slipped while fording the same river here ten years before. He heard his father say he would discuss the building of a bridge here with the king of Affynshire, Edwærd, when he and his two sons arrived for their betrothal ceremony. Edwærd had applauded the plan. Lawrence saw the fruits of the plan: a bridge that he thought must last forever.
"Lad, have you drifted off into a reverie yet again?"
Lawrence looked as if he was startled out of sleep as he whipped his head around to see his commanding officer, Athelwick, who sat on his own horse, in full mail and helm, the latter showing only his short graying beard but not his thinning red-brown hair.
"Commander, forgive me. I was but momentarily distracted by the sight of the bridge," Lawrence explained feebly. This was not the first time Athelwick had had to rebuke him for inattention on patrol duty.
"You know what I am going to say," the officer of the king's housecarls said in an even voice.
Lawrence realized he had let his posture slump. He sat up straight with his chin up and stared straight ahead, as he answered in an earnest tone, "Aye, commander! You are going to tell me that not only might I die if I miss what I am here to watch for, but all of the men under my command could die as well." He hesitated, and then added, "and that being a king's son does not change that."
Athelwick gazed at him, and then asked, "Since you already know that, why are you behaving as if you did not?"
"Lack of self-discipline, commander," Lawrence responded. "I will not do it again, I promise."
His commander continued to gaze at him. "Do you really mean that this time, boy?"
"Aye, commander. I mean, I meant it last time as well... but I...but I..." He let his voice trail off at the hopelessness of the defense.
"To mean to and to do are two different things, Lawrence," the older man said in a kind voice. "Continue your patrol. And keep your head out of the clouds this time."
Lawrence struck his chest with a fist by way of a salute, then turned his horse and caught up to his small party of men who had stopped some distance away.
"Longing for his pretty bride?" Oswald joked.
"As shy with girls as he is? I don't think so," quipped the East Anglian Rædwald with a smirk.
The newest and youngest member of the group, Edwin of Skirbeck, was surprised. "How can you talk like that about him? He's the king's son!"
Oswald reached over to cuff him on the side of the head. "You just never mind, puppy. Be quiet and do what you are told."
Lawrence rode up to them with a shadow of his humiliation still clouding his face. He muttered, "Why we have to patrol a safe bridge I don't know."
Rædwald examined where his fingernails of his right hand would be visible without thick leather gloves. "My lord, I know not, but mayhap 'tis to keep impatient brides from crossing into Críslicland to demand their conjugal rights?"
Lawrence's cheeks held a tinge of color, but his pressed lips broke into a broad smile. He laughed, "Why, Rædwald! You didn't tell me you had a sweetheart in Cromwell!" The others laughed their approval of the young man's riposte. "Come along, you wastrels. This riverbank won't guard itself."
Athelwick saw that the commander of all of King Arneth's armies, Horsa, was coming up fast.
Horsa returned Athelwick's salute, looking after the boy as he rode away. "I saw him go all stiff when he answered you. What were you rebuking the lad for this time?"
Athelwick smiled indulgently. "The same thing-his dreaminess. He's a good soldier, and a very good fellow, he just seems to drift about somehow. No direction in life."
"That's the same as his father at that age-always thinking something over. "He sighed. "I am afraid the lad will have no time for that quite soon."
Athelwick looked up. "Why? I mean, my lord, what tidings? Has Nithmund...?"
"Aye, our good king's bad brother has finally made his latest intentions clear. He is putting about the story that Arneth was a bastard of their mother's and that he is rightful king."
"That again? No one believed it the first time he said it, why would they start believing it on the seventh time?"
Horsa shrugged. "Seven is lucky for him? I know not. All I can say is that he is a willing dupe for some very unpleasant men. That saintly woman. 'Tis a blessing she's gone to her reward and cannot hear such calumny from the mouth of her own son." Making the sign of the cross, he went on, "The king has summoned his son."
"He's to go with the army then? God grant he is ready."
Horsa was spurring his horse away as he replied, "I am sure he is."
Lawrence dashed into the great hall and quickly over to the trestle table set up for the war council, stopped short, and smoothed his clothing and hair. He waited to be invited to join the group of hard and serious looking men around his father, the king. He caught the eye of his elder brother, the ætheling Arneth, who would be king himself someday and looked every inch of the ruler in the rough. He nodded to him, and then cast his eyes over the assemblage. The men were the familiar ones; his father's most trusted advisors, as well as an honored guest, the king of Affynshire, Edwærd. He had not even realized the father of his betrothed was in the kingdom. He saw that all were solemn and worried, and he shaped his own demeanor to the atmosphere.
"Ah, my son, you are arrived," his father greeted him. "Lawrence, there are unfortunate tidings. My own brother, your uncle, has raised an army and has attacked our garrisons at the estuary of the Humber and cast abroad that he means to take the throne. My throne, and your birthright, Arneth."
The king paused, looking hard at his younger son. "Lawrence, you are a housecarl. You and your brother Arneth will join me in meeting Nithmund and quelling his ambitions."
Lawrence thrilled at being called upon to join in battle. Like other young men who learn to fight, he was frustrated with no way to use his skill with weapons and strategy other than in games and riding back and forth along a peaceful border.
"Settle down, little brother," the ætheling said. "This is not a time for rejoicing."
Lawrence colored and bowed his head respectfully at his brother's words. He stood quiet and attentive as the older men and his brother examined maps and discussed the numbers, nature, and outfitting of the force they would need to defeat the intended usurper. He tried with all his will to stifle his excitement.
Coming out of the great hall, Lawrence saw his friend, Ansovald the Frank, a diplomat's son, who had learned just moments before that he had won the right to accompany Lawrence as the young men went off to their first battle.
The two worked diligently to prepare for war, keeping their exuberance between them. There was enough to do that they could not do it all in each other's company. That was why Lawrence found himself in the stables getting his horse's tack in shape when he felt a strong hand on his shoulder. He glanced up from where he was sitting on a stool polishing his horse's bridle. It was his brother, the ætheling, Arneth. The young man's face was stern, and Lawrence awaited a rebuke. Instead, he saw the barest hint of a smile touch the edges of his brother's lips.
"Lawrence, my brother," Arneth began. "You have made our father and mother and also me so proud of you over the last year or so."
Arneth chuckled as he saw Lawrence's dumbfounded expression. "I don't blame you for looking like that. Father chided me last night for holding myself aloof from you. He told me you would be my right arm someday, the first lord in the kingdom and my most trusted, loyal thegn. I realize he is right. I think I was just... jealous of you."
"Jealous? Of me? But Arneth..."
Arneth raised a palm to stop his younger brother. "I know. I beat you every time, but you have a way about you that draws people to you, as if they sense in you strength or wit that will enclose and keep them safe. I admire that greatly. But that is not what I wanted to tell you."
Lawrence gaped unashamedly at his brother's outpouring of himself. "What is it, your grace?"
Arneth looked around for a stool and hooked one with his booted toe. He collapsed his long frame onto it. Seated, his knees were almost under his chin and had his arms been loose at his sides, they would have bent on the straw on the ground. Instead, he crossed his muscular arms on his knees and gazed at his brother over them. "Lawrence, you need to be ready."
Lawrence grinned. "I am ready! I have all my armor cleaned and in the best repair."
"That's not what I mean, Lawrence." Arneth took a deep breath. "You need to be ready. To be king."
Lawrence's mouth stayed open on his next word. He peered into Arneth's eyes, tilted his head at an angle, and then slowly shook it. "Nay," he said deliberately, "I shall not be king. That is your destiny."
"My brother, you must be ready. Anything could come of this war. Our father could be killed. I could be killed..."
Lawrence shot up to his full height from the low stool, still holding the leather bridle and the polishing cloth. "Arneth, stop it. Really, your teasing is getting to be tiresome. This is not something to joke about." His face bore a hint of anxiety as well as resentment.
Arneth gestured him to sit again. "I am not teasing. " He waited for his long-legged brother to make up his mind and sit again.
He leaned forward and put a hand on Lawrence's forearm. "My brother, it may all come to naught. It may just be battle jitters. But start thinking as if you could come out of this king. I beg you, for my sake. I need to feel I can count on you."
Lawrence looked at his brother's hand on his arm. He dropped the cloth and put his hand over his brother's. "Not that I have any valid reason to, but I promise, Arneth, I will think of that. For you."
Arneth nodded slowly. He freed his hand, clamped it down on Lawrence's shoulder and returned the usual grim look to his face. "Thank you. See to that buckle. It's loose."
The Saxon stronghold consisted of a barrier of vertical timbers as tall as two men, encircling numerous smaller outbuildings around a large timber hall. These buildings had a variety of uses, one of which was sleeping quarters for the highborn. Queen Edith had one of these, a stout hut made of timber and with furs on the floor rather than the usual rushes.
She lay covered almost to her neck in wool blankets and several furs. She trembled slightly, and her bent hands were on the covers close to her chin. Her once brilliant gold hair was lank and faded, but her blue eyes were as piercing as ever, perhaps even sparkling more with the pain she lived with day and night. The room was dark and smoky from the small brazier that heated it. Her loved ones nevertheless knew there were tears in her eyes and they were not from the smoke.
The king and his three children stood silently in the queen's chamber. "Come to me, my sons," her once musical voice came in a rasp.
Lawrence allowed Arneth to take the first step, but followed him immediately to sit at the other side of his mother's bed. Each took one of her crippled hands.
"Arneth, my first born," she said to the older boy. "Take care of your father."
Arneth said softly, "I will, Mother, I promise. And I will look after Lawrence as well."
She smiled at him, and then cast a merry look at Lawrence. "My golden one, you don't care to hear your brother speak of you as if you were still a child?"
Lawrence smiled. "Nay, but I know he means well." The two young men playfully cuffed each other across the woman's twisted form.
Edith spoke again, her smile faltering. "My golden one, come home to me. Soon, for I know not whether I will be with you much longer." The tears appeared again.
"I will be here, as will we all, and you shall dance at my wedding," Lawrence said giving her that special smile that only belonged to his mother.
Edith said, "My sons, kiss me and take your leave. Your father and I have our own goodbyes to say."
Arneth and Lawrence stood in unison, then in unison leaned to kiss one cheek each. They stepped back.
"God go with and keep you, my darlings," Edith said to her sons.
In the morning the armed procession set off on their way east for the encounter with their fates.
Lawrence stood by the well and cast an exhausted gaze around the burnt out village. He was no longer the exuberant young man champing at the bit for his first taste of battle. He was dirty, blood and smoke staining his clothes, mail and even his face.
As grim and repulsive as battle was, it was what his uncle and his soldiers had done to the villages and countryside that most appalled Lawrence. They set fire in tinder-dry woods to keep the king's army from meeting them in a position that would have been difficult to defend. The animals that could not flee fast enough were burned alive. Worse still the villages. The cottage he stood nearest was burned with the family inside. One daughter tried to escape the falling burning thatch and had been stabbed in the stomach as she ran out, her eyes streaming with the tears of fear and smoke. She had, Lawrence concluded, been too young for even the most savage men to rape. The rest of her family was still in the crumbled hut, body parts visible, but not recognizable as to whether child or parent. The heat shrank their bodies and burned away hair and clothes.
Lawrence turned away from the scene and leaned over the side of the well, cupping his hands to drink. He staggered backward when he saw the face. Another young girl, old enough to ravish, was tossed into the well after and held under to drown. Her bulging eyes stared straight up at him, her mouth fixed in a cry for help. He turned, doubled over and retched on the ground. Standing again, wiping his mouth on his sleeve, he looked about, hoping no one had seen. All he saw on the faces that looked his way was understanding. One man who was passing put up a gauntleted hand to his shoulder and squeezed, saying nothing.
Ansovald beckoned from the other side of the grisly well. Lawrence hurried over, slowing as he saw his expression. "What is it? What has happened?"
"Your father wants you. He wants to tell you himself."
Lawrence knew the arm his friend draped over his shoulder as they went to the command tent was meant to comfort a terrible grief.
His friend stayed outside as Lawrence pushed through the tent flap. Being full day the sun shone through the fabric of the tent and lit its interior. He immediately saw his father who sat on a campstool leaning forward, one hand over his eyes and the other holding a message. His brother Arneth stood with his back to Lawrence, his right arm in a sling from a blade wound on his shoulder, his head bowed. Lawrence froze.
King Arneth looked up into his younger son's face. His cheeks were damp. He raised his shoulders in a deep sigh. Looking anxiously at him, he said, "My son, your mother is dead."
Lawrence's eyes grew wide with the shock. "How?"
His brother Arneth cast an angry look around at him. Lawrence knew what that meant. They all expected Queen Edith to die soon. They prayed she could hold out until they were all home.
"She is out of pain and with her maker," the king announced mournfully. "We should rejoice that she suffers no more." He made the sign of the cross. He held out the message for Lawrence to take.
Lawrence stretched it between two hands, read it, then folded it up neatly. There was no more in it than he already knew or guessed. The steward shared that Edith died peacefully, telling the man before she slipped away that her pain was gone and she wanted to sleep.
King Arneth was a broken man after that. He seemed disinterested in the outcome of the war. It took the ætheling's coaxing to keep him from dropping into a melancholy so deep he did not stir from his tent. The young Arneth reminded his father that his own birthright was at stake. They must defeat Nifhmund or die themselves. He was comforted to see his father rally again to the task.
While his brother was encouraged by his father's new enthusiasm for battle, Lawrence thought he detected a more sinister meaning to the change. He talked it over with Ansovald.
"He seems like... well, like he wants to die. He wants to engage in battle so fierce that he loses his life."
His friend listened seriously. "You may be right, my friend. Do you think he is risking others' lives as well?"
Lawrence looked into his friend's face with his own brow furrowed with worry. "I don't think so... I don't know... well mayhap..."
"Have you talked to your brother about this?" Ansovald asked.
Lawrence shook his head. "Nay, I dare not. He would have my head."
Ansovald agreed. "Very like. I note his wound is not healing."
"It is festering. I can hardly sleep in the tent by him for the reek. He must be in a great deal of pain." Lawrence sighed. "I just don't know."
"Don't know what?" his friend queried.
"Don't know... anything. What is happening, what to say, what to do."
The king told his sons soon after that he had a message from Nifhmund saying he was holed up in Crowland Abbey. "He threatens to kill the monks if we don't grant him what he wants."
"What are his demands?" asked the ætheling with little apparent concern.
The king put his palm on his forehead and replied, "Well, at least it's not the crown."
Horsa answered for him. "Nifhmund wants a full pardon and safe conduct back to his fortress at Tetford."
In every voice, there was the sharpness of derision as they exclaimed. "The man has some balls," cried the old earl of Skirbeck, Guthlac.
"Father, we cannot allow him to harm the brothers!" Lawrence spoke up with passion. He tried not to notice the indulgent smiles of the older men around him.
But King Arneth had and returned the looks with challenging eyes. "Of course not. We shall comply with his demands within reason."
Lawrence subsided.
His father continued, "We will ride to Crowland in the morning. It is a nasty marshy place, but thankfully the spot he assigns for the parley is on the solid ground north of the fen."
The king rode at the head of the procession, flanked by his two sons. The terrain changed rapidly as they neared the fens. The area was a mixture of growth and desolation. The River Welland spread into a murky and unpredictable estuary with many tiny islands from some other time when the area was dryer. It was difficult going for the small number of mounted men but far more difficult for the warriors on foot. More than a few times a man in full armor slipped into a deceptively solid looking spot and must be pulled out by his companions before the armor's weight caused him to drown.
When at length they reached the spot that Nifhmund named, the king called for the army to stop where they could see down a slight rise to the edge of the river.
"There they are, standing on that high spot in the middle of the river," the younger Arneth called. "With the green branch to signify they come in peace."
There were two men, Nifhmund and another. Their troops were visible on the opposite bank. Lawrence thought their numbers were considerably less than he approximated a few weeks before.
Lawrence pointed down the slope. "Look, they are beckoning us. Shall I ride to learn what they want?"
King Arneth's eyes were narrowed. Slowly he said, "Nay, I will go. I can see what my brother wants. He wants to meet there." He cast a quick grin at his sons. "Neutral territory," he remarked humorously. "Alfgar, "he called to his aide-de-camp, "let's see what the blackguard has to say for himself."
The younger Arneth sat his horse and glared with malice at the men on the island.
Lawrence called, "Father, wait, there's something amiss here," but he and Alfgar were already dismounting, handing their horses' reins to soldiers, and were cautiously stepping out into the water.
The king's sons stayed mounted as they, and the soldiers on the slight incline from the river's edge, watched the king and his aide make their way without mishap to the island. There they stood in front of their counterparts, clearly exchanging discourtesies, when Nifhmund and his aide made sudden moves.
Dropping the green branch, the aide pulled his sword from the scabbard over his shoulder and, before Alfgar could react, he sliced into the man's neck where it met his shoulder. Alfgar staggered back, making room for the other man to bring his sword up into his belly. The man twisted the weapon in his guts and dragged it up towards the breastbone.
King Arneth reacted quickly to the sudden movement and drew his own sword, facing his brother. Nifhmund registered fear as Arneth took a step towards him. then the inexplicable happened. King Arneth stood up tall and let his sword arm fall to his side. Those on the bank behind him could not see his lips move in a prayer and then turn up into a grin. They could see Nifhmund's look of surprise, then of triumph. He took aim with his own sword.
"Father, nay!" the ætheling screamed and sprung his horse forward into the water. Lawrence's hand went up instinctively to stop him but to no effect.
The king lay crumpled on the ground at Nifhmund's feet, gutted like his aide. The usurper had a wild grin on his face, but it faded when he realized his nephew was riding toward him. His own aide moved forward to intercept the young man who dealt him a blow with his broadsword from his saddle that split his helm and his skull down into his brains. Arneth rode past him howling with a mix of pain and savage fury as he reached his father's killer.
Lawrence surged forward in company to come to the aid of the ætheling. There was a shout from behind them, over the edge of the low ridge. He realized all at once, why the enemy's numbers seemed decimated. Half the army was waiting to come up behind the king's men! The soldiers were forced to turn away from the combat on the island in order to face the attackers. Horsa, Lawrence saw, deftly formed the men, and turned, ready in a shield-wall. He turned back to his brother's fight.
Arneth was faltering before his father's brother, for though an able swordsman his festering shoulder wound made him weak. Lawrence urged his horse forward into the water, and as he saw that the ætheling was sore pressed, he pushed his mount to rush forward. The horse slid on the mud under its hooves and toppled sideways into the river. As Lawrence nimbly leapt off to avoid being pinned under the animal, he heard an awful scream, sounding of fury and despair.
Landing on his feet with enough force to drive his boots into the muck, he regained his balance and looked up to see with horror that his brother had fallen with his own horse onto the ground. Arneth's scream came when he struck his inflamed shoulder onto a gnarled root. He was not dead. He was stunned. Lawrence pulled his boots out of the muck and hurried, breathing hard, towards where Nifhmund was making his way around the fallen horse to the ætheling. "Nay!" Lawrence tried to scream, the anguish constricting his throat. He choked on the pain as he saw Nifhmund's sword come down just where his brother lay obscured from his view by the horse's writhing body.
Unless Nifhmund was utterly incompetent, the ætheling could not be anything but dead or dying now. Into Lawrence's mind came his brother's prophetic entreaty while they talked in the stables. "You must be ready to be king." Here he stood, alone, his father's armies hard pressed behind him on the north bank. He roared with rage and ran forward, sword drawn to take the first action in his young reign.
Nifhmund was overcome with triumph, his brother and his pup both dead at his feet. He looked up amused as he saw the lad hurry forward. He would have the blood of the younger pup as well. He took a step forward to meet him.
Before he could even lift his sword to strike, he realized he was far too close to the boy. They should have been at least a sword's length apart, but here was the pup, almost nose to nose with him, the eyes staring red hot into his own. He felt his own knees weaken. He looked down and saw it, Lawrence's sword buried up to its hilt in his belly. It must be sticking out the back. In an irrational action, he tried to look over his shoulder to see. Pain filled every part of his body. He looked back and saw Lawrence's face set in a rictus of hate and triumph. He thought he saw a tear start to spill out of one eye onto his beardless cheek. He felt his own bowels loosen. He collapsed and died.
Lawrence had to grip his sword's hilt to keep it from pulling him down with the body. He yanked it out with all his strength. It came free. He stood a moment transfixed at the sight of the dead man, came to himself and dashed over to where his brother lay dying with a terrible gash in his sternum.
"Arneth!" he cried as he fell to his knees beside him. He tore open the laces of his brother's mail and brigandine to help him breathe.
Arneth groaned and opened his eyes. Struggling to see clearly who this was hovering over him, he recognized his younger brother. "Lawrence," he gasped.
"Aye, Arneth I am here." Lawrence felt Arneth grasp his hand, bared of his gauntlet in order to manipulate the laces. Arneth's hand gripped his hard, squeezing it until it hurt.
"Lawrence," the ætheling croaked again. then he made a terrible noise in his throat and his grip relaxed. His arm dropped. He was dead.
Lawrence stared in horror. He put his head down on his brother's armored chest and wept. "This is not how it was supposed to be!" he wailed. "I can't do it. I can't be king. Arneth, I need you."
Lawrence was too stunned to hear the battle raging behind him. He only looked up from where he knelt gazing at his brother's dead face when he saw a hand reach around to gently close Arneth's staring eyes. It was Ansovald, who used the same hand to grip under Lawrence's armpit to help him stand.
"My father?" Lawrence asked dully.
"He is dead. Here, give me your sword."
Lawrence balked. "I'll take care of it." He stooped to his father's dead brother and used the man's cloak to clean the blade of blood. He realized, as he saw that plenty of blood had had time to dry and was not coming off on the cloth, that he must have knelt by his brother for much longer than he imagined. He looked up questioningly. "The battle?"
Ansovald nodded. "It is won. What few of the usurping commanders survived made it south and into East Anglia. Horsa sent a party to the abbey. The monks said Nifhmund was never even there."
Lawrence let his friend propel him by the arm back over the river channel. At the point where his horse slipped he asked, "My horse?"
"She's fine. After you jumped off, quite impressively by the way, she panicked and ran off. Edwin found her and brought her back."
Out of the water and climbing the small hill, Lawrence asked almost too quietly to hear, "Now what do I do?"
Ansovald stopped him and turned him to face himself. He put his hands on his shoulders. Looking directly into Lawrence's glazed eyes, he said, "Be a king, my friend."
They turned and topped the crest of the hill. Before them, the ground was covered with the bodies of the dead and wounded. Monks circulated among them looking to wounds. One of the priests the king brought with them went through and shrived all who could manage the sacrament. The steady low intoning of the priests and the quiet talk of the monks were matched by the moaning of wounded and dying soldiers. From time to time the low humming was fractured by a scream of pain or a man begging, for water, for his wife or mother, for supreme unction, for help, for a miracle.
The two young men stood and gazed down at the scene, numb. Horsa looked up to where they stood. He stopped his progress through the bodies and shouted in his loud, resonant voice, "The king!" He fell to one knee facing Lawrence, drew his sword and held it point skywards, close to his nose, in a show of respect and fealty.
Ansovald turned to Lawrence and knelt. Slowly, then more rapidly, all who were standing did the same. Even some of the wounded drew themselves to sitting positions, and if they lacked a sword struck their chests with their fists. Lawrence's eyes caught the movement of a few men lying on the ground struggling to lift swords into the air. The cheering started and drowned out the underlying thrum of priests and monks and moaning men.
Lawrence's first impulse was to kneel as well, it struck him, as Ansovald knelt facing him, that they were all kneeling to, saluting and cheering... him. He thought again of his brother's exhortation to be prepared to be the king. That was what Ansovald meant. Standing upon the ridge, his boots, his mail hauberk, even his face splashed and soaked in mud and his brother's blood, he had a moment of panic. The impulse came for no reason he could fathom, and Lawrence stood up straight and tall, his stance strong and his sword at his side. He firmed his jaw and grimly accepted their salutes and cheers.
Prepared or not, willing or not, he was the king.
The shock and disbelief wore off as King Lawrence and his army rode back to Lincoln at a pace determined by the dead and wounded carried in the train. Traversing a diagonal, the way along Roman roads and through fields and woodlands took them the furthest distance in the kingdom. Horsa rode on one side of him and Ansovald on the other. The three were silent. Down the line, men carried two litters with the two Arneths' corpses. A few men among the soldiers joked and sang, for the war was long and hard on them all. Lawrence, riding along with a set jaw and an angry countenance did not begrudge it to them. Occasionally Horsa or Ansovald would catch the other's eye and gesture with his chin to the king. The other would look at the unchanging frown on the young man's face and glance back up with a look of understanding and concern.
Inside Lawrence's mind was a whirlwind, like the spiral of air in a courtyard that picked up dust, leaves, anything that could be sucked into it. Grief, confusion, uncertainty, a longing to be home or at least alone, and all of it scattered around by the anger he felt. Still but a boy, he already forgot what it felt like to be young and careless.
His temper was short. It seemed as if everyone kept coming up to him, either wanting something or expressing their condolences, and all with that obsequious respect, bowing, "my liege this" and "sire that." He wanted to run away from it all. He could not be king, he should not be king and, what's more, he would not be king. He snapped at all who approached him, even Ansovald, who gave up trying to talk with him as they camped for the night. He wanted to be left alone to grieve in silence.
He did not run away. He couldn't. He had a duty to perform.
The town and fortress of Lincoln was at last before them. At the gates mothers, wives and sweethearts who had not traveled with the soldiers to take care of their menfolk waited tensely to see who would come home and who would not. As the men filed through the gate, shrieks of joy were interspersed with the eerie sound of keening. Lawrence glanced up at the vertical timber of the stronghold's ramparts knowing he could be greeted only with grief. He registered the puzzled murmuring of those who now saw but one of the three royal men who left a few months before. As he passed, there was shock in voices that greeted the bodies of the brother and father he lost. He heard more than once, "But, he is the king now? He is so young." He lowered his eyes and thought how strange that they were speaking of him. He smiled grimly. No, they were talking about a lad who left a few months ago, not about him. They didn't know him.
The new king's mourning had little time to work itself through. He was pressed into governing, or at least appearing to govern. He sat in council meetings and attempted to be heard by his councilors but found himself more tolerated than included.
"I don't know what to do," he confided in Ansovald. They are about as sure of me as I am of myself."
His friend shook his head. "Your grace, why do you think they hesitate about you?" His tone was leading.
"My age, my inexperience, the fact that I can't even grow a proper beard yet, the fact that I am only a junior officer, the fact that I am not my older brother." He scowled, "And why do you insist on calling me that?"
Ansovald sighed. "I call you that, your grace, because you are the king and that is the way one addresses a king. And to remind you that that is what you are now." He laughed at Lawrence's irritated expression. "Don't you see that your lack of confidence is as plain as the beardless chin on your face? Why should they treat you any differently than you treat yourself?"
Lawrence shook his head. "I know you are right, but...how do I develop that confidence? I have to be a king to act like a king and I don't feel like I... can be...A king."
Ansovald's reply was to pat his friend on the back and to send a confidential messenger to Ratherwood.
Behind the scenes, others were expressing Lawrence's doubts.
Lord Teoful of Stamford was vocal. "The boy is too young. He is too easily brought under the influence of others who may not have the kingdom's interests at heart. Look how he turns to foreigners for advice. That boy Ansovald whose father is the tool of Carolus, king of Franks. And Horsa, a fine soldier, I will grant, but still an East Anglian. I shouldn't be all that surprised if Edwærd brought his daughter from Affynshire to marry off to the lad, then decided to stay and rule Críslicland as well as his own kingdom."
One of Teoful's predictions came to pass in part. Indeed, Edwærd did come, summoned by Ansovald. Lawrence's pleasure in having this longtime friend of his father's arrive did not go unnoticed by his detractors.
"My lord, I welcome you to Lincoln!" Lawrence felt some of the tension drain out of him at the very sight of the older man. "I know I should have invited you to my father's and brother's funeral ceremonies, but I was in no mood for a gathering. Some of my councilors were sore wroth with me, but I demanded they follow my commands. I am the king now, after all."
Edwærd put his hands on the young man's shoulders. Looking into his face he replied, "Aye, my son, you are. But you need to exercise that control in a measured way." Seeing the frown on Lawrence's face, he quickly added, "But I am not here to lecture you. I am here to serve you."
The young king subsided. More than anything, he wanted this man to take over, to relieve him of the burden of kingship. The words that would have invited this stayed unvoiced. He could not know how much that reassured Edwærd.
In council, the call was for punishment for all those conspirators in the usurping attempt and the rebuilding of ruined villages and defenses. Lawrence asserted himself into the wrangling to insist that the fyrd, a sort of militia pulled from the ranks of able-bodied men, not bear the punishment that others with more resources and influence avoided. They were forced to fight for their local lords and chieftains and could not, should not be subject to the same harsh judgment."
"But your grace," an elderly councilor countered, "if we don't punish them who shall we have to punish? Most of the men who led them have run to East Anglia, Mercia and Northumbria!"
Lawrence scowled. "Shall a man be punished for another's sins only because that other is not present? That is not justice. We have weapons to punish those who commanded the fyrd. We can take their lands. We can ask the lords of the lands they have sought refuge in to send them back to answer for their crime."
Lord Teoful spoke up, "This is so, sire, but how can we be sure the fyrdmen will not rally again to their lord's heirs."