Sarum - Edward Rutherfurd [227]
After her escapade with the Vikings at Sarum, he had been furious as well as relieved on her return, and for the rest of the journey he had ordered her to ride in one of the waggons with her mother so that she could not get up to any further mischief. At the camp, she had been duly submissive, confining herself to domestic tasks and helping the other women prepare food and look after the soldiers.
“My daughter is a little wild,” he had confessed to Alfred, “but I can control her.”
He was astonished therefore when, the evening after the mass, Aelfgifu had appeared before him and calmly announced:
“I’m coming with you to fight.”
“Impossible. You’re a woman,” he told her.
“But I’m coming anyway,” she repeated obstinately.
How dare she defy him? The whole idea was absurd.
“You’ll stay at the camp,” he thundered. “Let me hear no more of this.”
“I fight as well as any man,” she insisted.
He glowered at her. He knew that what she said was true and, secretly, he was proud of his extraordinary daughter’s prowess. But it was not seemly for a young woman to behave like this and he knew that some of the other thanes smiled at him behind his back because of her.
“It’s impossible,” he repeated, and expected that to be the end of the matter.
It was not. The very next morning, to his fury, his two sons appeared before him to plead the foolish girl’s cause.
“I’ve seen her fight,” young Aelfstan said, “and I’d sooner have her with me than most men.”
“And would you like to see her killed beside you as well?” he demanded irritably.
“No,” Aelfstan confessed, “but if she’s so determined to do it, then I’d rather she took the risk. And I’d rather we both died fighting together, if we lose, than leave her to her fate with the Vikings.”
To the thane’s surprise, his elder son Aelfric agreed.
“He has to,” Aelfstan laughed, “she’s threatened to break his arm if he doesn’t!”
He had heard enough. It was time to assert his authority.
“I’ll hear no more of this,” he ordered. “Bring her here at once. If necessary I’ll put her under guard.”
But now the two young men were looking at each other awkwardly.
“The fact is,” Aelfric confessed, “she’s already left the camp. She says she’ll follow us anyway, if you refuse,” he explained. “If you change your mind and agree, though, then we’re to let her know by leaving a sign in the woods up there,” and he gestured towards the hill nearby.
Aelfwald gazed at his son in stupefaction.
“And you didn’t stop her?”
Aelfstan grinned.
“How, father? She was already armed and we weren’t.”
The thane was lost for words. He was not sure whether he wanted to explode with fury or burst out laughing. Finally he sighed.
“I shall be the laughing stock of the whole army,” he acknowledged. “Tell her she rides.”
A few days later, they started.
The camp at Athelney was left with a light guard. As well as leaving Aelfgifu, it had also been Aelfwald’s intention to leave Port at the camp, but when the sheep farmer pleaded with him – “Let me fight at your side my lord, as I swore an oath to do; and let me avenge my wife” – he could hardly refuse. His own wife and the abbess were placed in charge of the women, and they too were armed. Even Edith proudly showed the thane a spear that she had been given, and brandished it with such ferocity that he had to turn away so as not to let her see him smile.
The valuables were loaded into Tostig’s boat so that they could be transported either back to Sarum, or if necessary, to another hiding place, and the thane ordered the former slave and his family to guard them with their lives.
As he left the camp, the last thing that Aelfwald saw was the fisherman crouched over the boat by the swollen stream, his bare feet with their long, prehensile toes gripping the bank, and his dark, narrow face concentrated on his task, oblivious to the Saxon warriors passing by. He would never know, he thought, what was passing in that curious fellow’s brain.
At first it caused some amusement to the soldiers that Thane Aelfwald was