The Edge of Light by Joan Wolf

Mucill’s son. He looked strong-minded, this Athulf, Alfred thought as he listened to Ethelred’s reply. God knew they needed some strong-minded men to advise Burgred. In Alfred’s experience, his brother-by-marriage was never one to look a fact in the face.
    “Thank you, my lord.” The young ealdorman’s eyes flicked from Ethelred to Alfred, then back again to Ethelred. “This is my brother, Prince Alfred,” Ethelred said promptly. “My secondarius.
    The two young men exchanged an amiable if measuring look. Then Athulf said, “If you will come with me, my lords?”
    “Bertred?” Ethelred looked around for his treasure thane.
    “I am here, my lord.” And Bertred stepped forward, carrying the gold-embroidered saddle cloth and gold brooch that were to be Ethelred’s guest gifts to his brother-by-marriage.
    Ethelred nodded with approval and gestured to the Mercian noble that he was prepared to accompany him. Alfred fell into step beside Ethelred, and Bertred followed with the gifts.
    “I am surprised that I have not met you before,” Ethelred said to the ealdorman with good humor as they left the guest hall. “I knew your father well,”
    The Mercian, who could not have been more than two-and-twenty, shrugged. “My father was so busy with affairs of the country, my lord, that it fell to me to deal with the affairs of our manors. I was not often at Tamworth.”
    Ethelred had evidently had the same thought as Alfred about the young ealdorman’s looks, for he said now in his gentle way, “You do not favor your father.”
    “No.” Athulf’s voice was a little impatient as he answered the king. Alfred thought that he must have had to answer this comment many times before. “One of my grandmothers was Welsh,” Athulf said. “My sister and I favor her. My brother is the one who has the fairness of the Mercians.”
    “Ah,” said Ethelred. Mercia had always shared a border with Wales. Unlike Wessex, however, which had for centuries successfully accommodated and absorbed the Britons within and without its borders, Mercia had ever been at odds with the Britons in Wales. In the last century, Offa had actually built a great dike in order to define that always-hostile Mercian border. Occasionally, however, there was an attempt to patch over the hostility with a marriage. Such, evidently, had been the case with Athulf’s grandparents.
    “We were much distressed in Mercia to learn of the defeat of Northumbria,” Athulf said now abruptly.
    “As were we in Wessex,” Ethelred replied, his sweaty face grim.
    “We heard that two Northumbrian kings and eight ealdormen fell,” Alfred said. “Is that true?”
    Athulf looked around Ethelred to the smaller, slimmer figure on the king’s right. “I fear that it is, my lord.” He spoke next to the king. “If the Northumbrians had been able to keep the fight out in the open, they might have had a chance. But once the Danes got within the walls of York, the Northumbrians were like lambs to the slaughter.” The Mercian’s thin dark face was bleak. “Almost all the fighting stock of the north gone in one afternoon,” he said. “It is hard to believe.”
    There was a small silence. Then, “No one expected the Danes to march north.” It was Ethelred speaking now. “Their occupation of York took the Northumbrians by surprise.”
    Athulf gave the two West Saxons a crooked grin. “That is a true word, my lord. In fact, many of us were fully expecting them to attack Wessex.”
    “From East Anglia they could have moved anywhere,” Alfred replied somberly. “North to Northumbria, inland to Mercia, or southwest to Wessex. The choice was theirs.”
    “It was the civil strife in Northumbria that attracted them,” Ethelred remarked.
    “So it would seem.” The Mercian rubbed his nose. “Aelle had just deposed Osbert, the king of eighteen years, and Aelle’s hold on the rule was not yet secure. To give the Northumbrians their due, they finally did unite to drive out