After refilling their tankards with ale, Kristen was the first to speak. “Did I hear them aright? King Alfred actually wants some alliances made through marriages?”
Royce shrugged, not as surprised as his wife. “That is the gist of it. Three of his nobles have volunteered to sacrifice their daughters, all three ladies comely, all three richly dowered.”
Kristen let that “sacrifice” pass, knowing he had not forgiven the Danes, nor ever would forgive them, for the slaughter they had done at Wyndhurst all those years ago. “Do those dowers include land?”
“Aye.”
“God’s mercy, Royce!” she exclaimed incredulously. “Your king and his brothers before him have been fighting all these years to keep the Danes out of Wessex, and now he will justgivethem property here?”
“His reasoning is simple,” Royce explained. “Better three properties than the whole of Wessex when the Danish faction that is still greedy grows restless again. We know now that at least half of Guthrum’s army is as tired of war as we are. They want naught more than to settle on the lands they have already taken for themselves. ’Twas the other half, the young men who came late to the war and so had not gained much yet, that started up the last war.”
Which was the one that had so nearly succeeded. In fact, the Danes thought they had won, thought Alfred had died. And they werenot the only ones to think so, with the Danes so firmly entrenched at Chippenham and ravishing the countryside around it.
Royce had first joined the fray again when Alfred’s army had to chase the Danes out of Wareham in 876, then again at Exeter in 877. But after the Saxon army disbanded for the winter that year, as was the usual habit, the Danes made a surprise appearance at Alfred’s court at Chippenham, where he was enjoying the holidays, and he and his family just managed to escape. His courtiers were scattered, the Danes ravished the countryside in triumph, and word spread that Alfred had been defeated. But he had not. With a small band of men, he hid deep in the Somerset marches, building a fort there from which he harassed the Danes and planned his strategies.
Royce had received word where to meet Alfred in the spring last year, at Ecgbryhtesstane, and it was there that he, Selig, and his men joined the fight for a last bloody battle. They met the Danish army at Ethandune and put them to flight, but followed them back to their fortress, which they surrounded until the last peace was arranged soon after. It was a peace that no one really trusted; the Danes had broken it so many times in the past. Of course, this time there was a difference. This time King Guthrum of the Danes and thirty of his war leaders had been baptized in the Christian faith.
Guthrum had taken his remaining army back to Chippenham after all was settled, andhad returned to East Anglia this year, where word was they were finally settling down in this area they had long ago conquered. But there were still those who doubted there could be a lasting peace, given the experiences of the past. Yet others were hopeful now, considering it was the first time that Alfred hadn’t had to pay any Danegeld to get the Danes to depart Wessex. He had demanded hostages instead, as well as the baptisms. And there was one last difference this time. Alfred had finally acknowledged that the lands north of Wessex belonged to the Danes.
West Mercia was theirs, the people reduced to serfdom, and East Mercia under their firm control. Northumbria to the far north they had already settled, and East Anglia had been theirs from the start. It did seem, indeed, that it was time to give up the hope that they could eventually be expelled from all of the land. They were entrenched, there to stay, and Alfred was wise to recognize this fact and to take steps to assure that the existing peace would be a lasting one. Alliances through marriage was one way to do so.
“So Alfred is sending this delegation to King Guthrum,” Royce continued. “They are few enough in numbers not to appear threatening when they begin passing through Danish lands, yet large enough to keep the bishop from being robbed on the way. He is the one who will negotiate the marriages with Guthrum, and ’tishoped the three men Guthrum chooses will be high in his favor.”
“So that they will advise against war if it comes to that again?”
“Exactly,” Royce replied. “But now they will have to return to Alfred until another interpreter can be found, which could take months. And he is presently on the move, visiting his ealdormen west of here, so there could be further delay just in locating him.”
“Why delay at all,” Selig mentioned casually, “when I could take the man’s place?”
Kristen snorted at the notion, but Royce grinned, saying, “Aye, you could speak to Guthrum easily enough, but who would interpret the bishop’s words for you?”
Selig flushed slightly, having overlooked that pertinent fact. “The difficulties I am finding in communicating here are becoming a damned nuisance,” he grumbled, and said to his sister, reproachfully, “why did you never insist I learn the Saxon tongue? You got Eric and Thorall to learn it.”
Eric and Thorall were their younger brothers, and Kristen merely pointed out, “’Twas easy to get them to follow my suggestions, for they were both much smaller than I was—for a time. You never were.” To that he grunted, so she added, “Why do you want to involve yourself in this? ’Tis none of your concern.”
“This…something else.” He shrugged. “I merely have time on my hands now, with naught to do but amuse myself in your hall for the next fortnight.”
With a half-dozen women still ogling her handsome brother, she turned to her husband and said, “Mayhap ’tis not such a bad idea.”
Royce laughed. “Do you get the impression she does not like you underfoot, Selig?”
“’Tis not funny, Saxon,” she said in annoyance. “I love my brother dearly, as he well knows, but I like having my hall run smoothly, which it never does when he is about. Mayhap if you would take him out and break his nose, as I have suggested more than once—”
Royce cut in with a hoot. “You never did.”
“I should have.”
“I suppose I could go with him,” Royce said to placate her, “to stand as the second interpreter.”
“With the way you hate Danes? You would go there with one hand on your sword and the other gripping a dagger. Better I go than you, and there would be no need for a second translator, since I speak both languages.”
The narrowing of his green eyes proved Royce did not take well tothatsuggestion. Send his beautiful Kristen into a host of Danes who had just spent years pillaging and ravishing and taking for themselves whatever struck their fancy? He would put her back in chains first, even though the last time he had done so, she had made his life miserable.
All he said was, “Nay, you will not.” But his look dared her to argue about it.
Selig intervened before she thought to. “Father would skin me alive did I let you journey to East Anglia without a full armyat your back, Kris, and well you know it. Nor would you care to be parted from your children and husband that long. Both of you have better things to do, but I do not. And besides, Royce has a number of men who speak Celtic, any one of whom could stand as the second interpreter.”
“Elfmar could do that well enough, I suppose,” Royce allowed, only to point out, “But the bishop may not like things so complicated, having his words pass through two others before they reach Guthrum.”
