The Edge of Light Read Online Free PDF Page A

to be buried.
    Alfred rode beside Ethelred as their horses plodded stoically forward and, like the rest of the funeral party, he huddled in his cloak and under his hood. In order to reach Winchester they had to pass through the Weald, one of England’s greatest forests, but even the trees failed to give the riders protection from the driving rain.
    His father was dead. He would never see Ethelwulf again, never again hear Ethelwulf call him a gift from God, and smile that warm and loving smile… ,
    Tears welled in Alfred’s eyes and mixed with the rain on his cheeks. His head hurt and his stomach churned.
    Before him, he saw Judith raise her hand to pull her hood more closely over her head.
    What would happen to Judith now that his father was dead? He had heard Ethelbert and Ethelred talking about her the night their father had died, They had said that now her husband was dead, Judith would have to go back to France.
    He did not want Judith to go back to France.
    He did not want his father to be dead.
    A sob rose in his throat and he choked it back down. He would not cry. He was eight years old, almost a man. He would bear his losses like a man. Bravely, like Ethelred.
    He wished his head did not hurt so much.

    Ethelred endured the wet and the cold in stoic silence and, like Alfred, considered the future.
    The death of the gentle Ethelwulf would change little in Wessex. Ethelbald would be formally crowned, and Ethelbert would be named secondarius and take up the rule in Kent in Ethelwulfs stead.
    Judith would be sent back to her father in France. Doubtless Charles would have her married off within the year to further some other of his dynastic or financial schemes. Ethelred, who had a kind heart, felt a twinge of pity for the young girl who had been his father’s wife, Poor lass. But there was no place for her now in Wessex.
    As they were riding in through the gates of Winchester, the rain abruptly ceased. Ethelred turned to Alfred, who had been silent for quite some time, to say something heartening. He stopped when he saw the child’s face. “What is wrong?” he asked sharply.
    “Ethelred …” Alfred’s face, the skin of which was always faintly golden even in winter, looked very pale in the gray light. “My head hurts,” he said.
    Ethelred frowned and leaned over to put a hand on his brother’s brow. He was cold, not hot, “Where does it hurt?” he asked.
    “Here.” Alfred pointed to his forehead.
    “You are probably tired,” Ethelred said comfortingly, “This has been a difficult journey for you. Once you are warm and fed, you will feel better,”
    Alfred gave him a shadowy smile, but as he walked beside him to the princes’ hall, Ethelred noticed that Alfred held his head very still. Ethelred made him get into bed in one of the hall’s private sleeping rooms, where it would be quiet, and told him to rest.
    An hour later Alfred was in excruciating pain. Ethelred sat by his bed and held his hand and prayed that he would be all right. “It’s as if a hammer is beating and beating and beating …” the child whispered. He stared up at his brother and at Judith, who had come to stand beside Ethelred’s chair. “Am I going to die?” His eyes were very dark; his eye sockets looked bruised.
    “Of course you’re not going to die!” Judith was the one to answer. She spoke in Saxon and she sounded appalled. Alfred’s heavy, pain-filled eyes turned to Ethelred.
    “No, Alfred,” he said, and strove to make his voice matter-of-fact and calm. “You are not going to die.”
    “But when is it going to stop?”
    “I don’t know. Soon.” God, it had to stop soon. “Here,” Ethelred said, taking a cold cloth from Judith and holding it to Alfred’s forehead. “This will help.”
    The headache lifted, almost miraculously, an hour later. One minute Alfred was suffering and the next he looked at Ethelred out of dazed and wondering eyes and said, “It is gone.”
    “Gone?”
    “Yes. No more