AETHELFLAED

I want to tell you about the night the wolves came. You need to hear the story from me, otherwise you’ll only get half-truths and a glittering spectacle of lies. Everyone has their version of what happened, but I saw the goose tame the beasts beneath the dragon sky. I saw the boar, the girl, and the bloody tides of centuries unfurl across the frost-littered meadows.

Seven and brimming with life, I stepped into Cippenham’s Great Hall that Christmastide. Festooned with greenery from tile to table, the hall puffed with pride as the scent of pine wafted down from the garlands, mingling with the hearty aroma of roasted boar and peacock and mince pie rising from below. The sun dripped gold into glasses of wine as it slunk below the treeline of the nearby forest, transmuting the red liquid into brilliant shades of garnet and crimson.

My mother insisted on the oat-hued tunic of linen, but let me choose the silken coat dress in soft shades of olive, with an intricate interlacing of birds and flowers and vines racing across each hem. My father had given me this dress and it was the most perfect thing in the world. We had no arguments about my shoes (a rather simple leather pair), but fat tears were shed over my hair. Tenderheaded from birth, I detested the comb and brush and did everything in my power to escape them, having drawn blood on more than one occasion. But with the threat of missing the evening’s festivities looming in my mother’s eyes, I submitted to the quickest plaits she could plait–one over each shoulder–before I bolted off, a colt let loose to pasture.

And oh, what a pasture! The hall thrummed with the voices of guests competing with the fiddles and drums as toasts were made and grievances forgotten. I moved among the tables as my cup was filled and refilled with water wine, and guests listened attentively to my chatter and laughing as I took a bite of this and a bite of that. I wanted to crawl inside of this moment, forever cosseted in the love of the people.

Seated at the Ealdormen’s table, tucked between my father’s favorites, they lowered the white-cloaked cake in front of me. Its crisp royal icing twinkled as the delicate sugar sculptures of stags and foxes and bears skated around the clusters of holly leaves dotting the surface. It seemed a shame that we would cut into something so beautiful, and yet I became consumed with fantasies of destruction. I yearned to crack open the icing shell and shovel fistfuls of the soft sweetness into my mouth. Lifetimes passed before I was handed a thick slice of cake and the brandy-soaked sponge at last rested on my tongue, a bite-sized morsel of bliss that belonged to me and me alone. I ate faster and faster, piling in another bite of cake without swallowing the previous one, filling my mouth with as much joy as it could hold.

But my joy curdled as the pain stunned me to stillness. I had bitten down on something hard, cracking it (and perhaps a tooth) in the process. I looked to my father for comfort, but his face was fixed downward in stern contemplation as the Bishop whispered in his ear. The tears pooled in my eyes as the table paused in their revelry and noticed my plight.

“What have ye got there? Come on now, let’s see it!” one of the Ealdormen said.

I probed with my tongue, isolating the source of my pain from its surrounding sweetness, now thick and stodgy in my throat. Spitting the cracked pea into my palm, I proffered it to the table, awash in shame for the way I had eaten and doubly so for having now spit in my hand. Silence rippled out from our table as the room leaned in, the fiddle’s reedy wail falling out of tune the final sound, and then a sudden eruption as the tallest man I had ever seen rose and announced “the Lord of Misrule has been crowned!”

“The Lord of Misrule?”

“Crowned so soon?”

“It must be!”

“Well let’s see him then!”

“Where is he?!”

“The Lord of Misrule! The Lord of Misrule!”

The murmurs ricocheted around the room, gathering strength and bursting forth in a full crescendo of shouts and cheers and syncopated clapping.

I was hoisted onto the table before I could protest, pitching side to side as I gathered my footing. I took an unsteady step and bobbed as if the tabletop were adrift on choppy waters.

“Easy there, lass!” someone called, and the room echoed with laughter.

“What is it you’ll have us do, M’lord?” said a voice from the crowd.

Unsure of what came next, in my confusion I turned to the head table. My mother sat tight-lipped, meeting my gaze with a face which revealed no secrets. Edward wiggled in her lap, slack-jawed and saucer-eyed as a string of drool stretched from his mouth to his chest. In his raised right hand he clutched a carved wooden boar, and in a swift motion smashed it into the table with delight. I looked then to my father, his face distorted by the bands of heat rising from the candles, and he gave a curt nod of assent and turned back to a man on his right, who was tugging at his arm with a frenzied insistence. This seemed odd, because mother had always said it was a crime to touch the King.

“Æthelflæd?” the Ealdorman asked quietly, placing a rough hand at the small of my back. “Would you like to come down?”

I surveyed the faces glowing up at me, feeling the pressure of hundreds of pairs of eyes looking to me for guidance, and an invisible band tightened around my chest. Inhaling a shaky breath, I shifted from one foot to the other as the silence yawned across the hall. Slowly, I realized that the misfortune of the pea had thrust this responsibility upon me, as I understood that this room was mine to command, if only for tonight. Mimicking the posture of the men I had seen in the fighting yards, I lifted my chin, set my shoulders, and shouted:

“Bow before your Lord!”

A man let out a muted snicker, and I sliced my eyes in his direction with a newfound ferocity. He stuttered and looked away, and I moved my gaze across the room, challenging anyone else to laugh at me. One by one, and then all at once, the hall did not bow, but knelt, creating the most glorious tapestry of indigos and azures and ochre, each person’s cloak or gown a thread that made us whole.

Tempted by the deferential silence, I continued:

“We are Wessex, and we will not surrender! But before we meet our foes, I command you to dance!”

The room rose at once, letting out an ale-soaked cheer. The fiddlers wasted no time in resuming their bowing as the drums laid out the rhythm for the steps. The room blossomed with the twirling of fine silks and linens as the mummers wreathed their way through the edges of the crowd.

“Here, milady,” the tallest man said, as he bent forward and offered his shoulder as a seat. His arms splayed out above his head, and he gripped my hands as we folded into the throng of merriment. His feet moved in a complicated series of steps as I bounced along, half a beat behind, beaming from my perch. As the music’s tempo picked up we began to spin, faster and faster, my plaits flying out from my head and unraveling into ribbons of hair that whipped about my face as we bound across the floor. It was through this kaleidoscope of swirling hair and laughter that I saw my family rise from the high table. By the time we completed another turn they had vanished.

The acceleration continued and pushed the gaiety into a strained and disorienting pitch. A dull panic pulsed below my ribs, and looking down I saw the mummers were among us now, their raw animal heads with ragged skin spewing jellied strands of blood and entrails onto silken shoulders. The glassy eyes of a dead horse stared up at me as a grinning boar tugged at the hem of my dress. Pushing closer and closer, the menagerie of death reached for me, trying to snatch my foot from the air as I kicked and twisted to get down. A thin trickle of sweat slipped between my shoulderblades, and I felt the blood bloom on my cheeks as strange hands hauled me to the ground. No longer the Lord of Misrule or even a Princess of Wessex, I was simply a child drenched in fear. I yanked my limbs in every direction at once and broke free. Ducking beneath tables I crawled to the exit, the mummers’ howls fading behind me.

The hallway welcomed me into her arms, shrouding me in a cowl of cool darkness as I slid to the ground and pulled my knees to my chest. I pressed my palms against the floor, willing it to transfer some of its stability to me, as the hot breath left my body in heaving gulps.

I never heard him approach. All of a sudden I was up in the air, eye-to-eye with the bulge of his nose and a snarl of yellow teeth. A scream scraped raw against the back of my throat as he shook me and told me to hush.

“It’s going to be fine. We have to get you out of here.”

Miserable and exhausted I tried to fight him anyway, my feet and fists small and unavailing as they bounced off his mail adorned chest. I squirmed and I wiggled and he would have none of it, holding me firmly to his chest. Securing my body in his left arm, he took his right and pressed my face into his cloak, smothering me in the scent of blood and lanolin. Pinned in place, the best I could do was wail silently into his shoulder as we strode through the halls.

“Put this over her” a voice said, and my eyes darted across the small rectangle that was now my field of view, searching for the source of the sound. A woolen cloak stubbled with wear was pulled over my head, pushing my hair forward and blinding me to my surroundings. The heat and the wool combined into an unbearable prickliness that spread across my skin, and the sweat along my brow affixed damp clumps of hair to my forehead. I let out huge, body-wracking sobs as we marched on, choking on the salt and snot of my own distress.

We stopped, and I felt the gentleness as he lifted the cloak and tucked the hair behind my ears. He pressed his lips to my forehead, the bristles of his beard scratchy and familiar.

“My sweet Æthelflæd, please,” he said, and I felt the stranger’s grip loosen just a fraction. My father’s face filled my world, his eyes imploring me to trust him. He squeezed my shoulder, I nodded, and then he was off, giving orders.

“We’ll meet at the clearing in the middle of the woods, near the copse of elm. Separate until then. You, with my wife and son. You, with my daughter. The rest of you, with me.”

The twilight washed over us as I looked back at the world I knew, the silhouettes of feasting revelers cruel and grotesque through the stained glass windows of the hall, their shadows shrinking until they’re extinguished by the distance placed between us. We moved steadily into the evening, our breath coming out in little puffs that melted into the night.

The regular cadence of our walk eventually drove the panic from my blood. As my eyelids began to dip I noticed the colors splashed across the sky. The blazing white body of the dragon wove among the stars and encircled the land as streamers of rose and jade radiated from its body. Its head passed the crest of the hill, revealing a field of banners snapping in the wind, as the animals emerged into the moonlight.

A white goose with a sapphire saltire emblazoned on its chest led an army of wolves across the meadow, and I looked about, trying to get someone’s attention. But it was just me in the meadow, standing alone against the horde. The wolves surrounded me, snared me with their stench of sea and death. One pressed its muzzle into my hand, its breath warm upon my palm, then took my wrist in its teeth. I pulled back only for the wolf to bite down harder, but it didn’t break the skin. I looked into its eyes and saw myself–older, harder–reflected back.

“Let me go,” I growled, and to my surprise it did.

The wolves passed, and back on the hill I saw a girl, older than me and not me, yet so much like me in every way. She stood proudly in the light of the sky dragon, her right arm across her chest and a closed fist at her left shoulder. Waves of pride coursed through me, and I made my way towards her. But the meadow stretched and heaved, and I could not close the distance. I walked at a faster clip, and saw the boar move beneath the banners behind her. The boar and I both ran for the girl. Too late, I saw the tusks drive through the girl’s spine as the blood bloomed bright on her bodice.

I must have shouted.

“I’ll put ye down already, just promise you’ll be quiet!”

I nodded my assent and once again stood in the meadow. I pulled the woolen cloak snug against the frigid air, turned away from the hill, and towards the forest, the lucid dream still sticky in my mind. My father walked up ahead, treading the border where the moonlit meadow met the forest, inked black against the sky.

I ran towards him without seeing the slick of ice glazed on a rock. I tumbled, scraping both knees and the palms of my hands, driving dirt and pebbles into the cuts as I slid across the earth. Shaken, I collected myself, then stood. I smeared two stripes of blood down the front of my dress as I brushed the debris from my hands. Wiping the hair from my face with the back of my wrist, I set my shoulders and realized I had no more tears left to cry.

The darkness devoured the dragon.

The snow began to fall.