Chapter 5, Part 1

Doubts and Intrigue

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Brunanburh, 937 A.D.

Early morning mist clung to the valley at Brunanburh, thin and colorless beneath a pale English sky. Woods rose on either side of the shallow slope, their dark edges hemming in the open ground between them. At the bottom of the valley, half-hidden beneath reeds and marsh grass, a narrow brook wound quietly through the basin.

On the northern ridge, the allied host assembled in grim precision. Ranks of Norsemen, Scots, and Strathclyde warriors flowed steadily into formation beneath snapping standards and painted crests. Lines tightened. Gaps closed. Mounted officers rode along the front correcting positions with curt gestures and shouted commands. Shields aligned edge to edge. Spears angled skyward in ordered rows.

Above them waited three kings. Olaf Guthfrithson sat tall on his horse, sharp-eyed and restless with confidence. Beside him, Constantine II watched the valley with narrowed eyes, old but still proud beneath his mail and fur-lined cloak. On the far side rode Owain, quieter than the others, his uncertainty visible in the way his gaze kept shifting across the field below, because below them, the English army did not look ready.

The English line stretched across the lower basin in visible disorder. Men moved back and forth without rhythm. Units bunched too tightly in some places and thinned dangerously in others. Officers gestured angrily. Shields shifted. Formations opened and closed again before they could settle.

At the center of the confusion, Edmund shouted himself hoarse. “Left—no, hold there! Hold!” His voice carried faintly up the slope. “Archers back! Behind the line!”

A runner sprinted away with the order. Another company shifted uncertainly. Edmund turned immediately toward another breach in the formation.

“Close it! Close the gap!”

From the ridge, it looked less like command than struggle. Olaf frowned. “What are they doing?”

Constantine squinted downhill. “Are they ceding the high ground from the outset?”

“Their archers are too close to the infantry,” Owain muttered.

Constantine gave a grim shake of the head. “They’ve given away their stand before the battle’s even begun.”

Far below, Edmund looked impossibly young against the scale of the army around him. Small. Exposed.

“That’s not Aethelstan down there,” Constantine said at last. “It’s the young aetheling. Edmund.”

Olaf let out a short breath through his nose. “Aethelstan left the assembling to his little brother?”

“Something doesn’t feel right,” Owain said quietly.

“I’m more surprised by their numbers,” Olaf replied. “Aethelstan must have struggled to raise his army. It seems his boasts were quite shallow.”

Below, Edmund ran from one knot of officers to another, pointing, correcting, repositioning men almost by hand. Edmund’s trainer and mentor, Aelfric, broad-shouldered and commanding even at a distance, supported him, trying to steady the line as it shifted around them. But from the ridge, the entire English position looked strained to the edge of collapse.

Then movement erupted behind the English crest. A horseman burst over the rise at full gallop. Even at this distance, Aethelstan was unmistakable. He thundered downhill toward Edmund, cloak snapping violently behind him. He hauled the horse to a hard stop beside his brother and immediately began shouting. The words vanished into the wind, but the meaning needed no translation.

Aethelstan pointed sharply back toward the ridge. “That’s where you belong!” A public rebuke.

Edmund took it in silence, jaw tightening once before he turned and sprinted along the line. “Back! Move them back!” he shouted. “Left flank—hold together! Archers with me!”

The orders spread unevenly down the formation. Sections of the English line began pulling backward toward firmer ground, but not cleanly. Some moved too quickly. Others hesitated. Gaps widened, then compressed again. Shields turned awkwardly as men repositioned. Soldiers glanced nervously over their shoulders.

It looked wrong. Exposed.

On the far flank, two men suddenly dropped their shields entirely and bolted for the woods. A pair of archers broke with them.

Constantine barked out a harsh laugh. “Aethelstan sees the blunder.”

“And apparently the men do too,” Olaf said.

“They’re unraveling.”

Olaf’s eyes sharpened. “We should take advantage of this.”

“Olaf—” Owain began.

“We have the numbers. We have the formation.”

Constantine grinned, sudden and feral. “Then let us slaughter them.”

Olaf raised his arm. “Forward!”

Signal horns split the morning. The allied line surged downhill. Archers engaged first, loosing as the infantry descended. Under the fire, the full weight of the charge—Vikings roaring, Scots screaming war cries, shields hammering against weapons as thousands of men thundered into the valley. Owain followed with the rest, though far less eagerly than the others.

Below, arrows began falling among the English ranks. “Form!” Edmund shouted. “Form now!” Men scrambled into place. “Shields up! Hold the gaps!”

An arrow struck a shield with a hard crack. Another buried itself in the ground beside a soldier’s foot. One Englishman cried out and collapsed clutching his throat. Another stumbled backward, blood streaming down his leg.

Still Edmund kept moving. Not fearless exactly. Not glorious. Relentless. He shoved one soldier bodily into position. Dragged another back into the line by the shoulder. “Close it!” he shouted again. “Close it!”

The allied host barreled closer. Faster. Committed now beyond recall.

And then the front ranks began to vanish. Not entirely. Not all at once. But enough. The leading Norsemen struck a stretch of black mud hidden beneath reeds and grass beside the brook. Their momentum shattered instantly. Boots slid. Shields lurched sideways. Men pitched forward face-first into the mire.

The soldiers behind them crashed blindly into the bodies ahead. Spears flew loose. Shields disappeared beneath mud. Men cursed and clawed for footing only to drag each other deeper. The charge folded inward on itself in chaos.

From the English line, Edmund yelled out, “Now!”

The response was immediate, well-rehearsed. The English front pivoted together with sudden precision. Shields locked low and tight into a dense wall across the basin. Behind them, English archers stepped forward already drawing.

“Loose!” Edmund cried out.

At that range, the arrows tore through the trapped men like knives through cloth. Another volley followed. Then another. Screams echoed across the valley as warriors struggled helplessly in the mud while shafts hammered into them from above.

On the ridge behind the allied advance, Olaf stared in dawning horror. “No.”

Constantine’s face had gone pale beneath his beard. “It was a trap.”

Owain turned sharply toward the distant tree line farther up the valley.

Then, movement exploded from the woods. A hidden English force burst from cover at full speed, pouring downhill beyond the stream where the ground remained firm. They slammed directly into the exposed flank and rear of the allied army.

“God help us,” Owain whispered.

The valley collapsed into panic. The melee that followed was brief and hideous. Men trapped in mud could not stand. Men who could stand could not form ranks quickly enough. English spears drove into the confusion while axes rose and fell in brutal rhythm. Archers continued firing into the packed mass at murderous range.

Owain understood first. “Fall back!” he shouted. “Fall back!” His Strathclyde men began withdrawing almost immediately, then broke outright into retreat.

Panic spread. “Retreat!” Constantine roared. The Scots collapsed next.

Olaf wheeled his horse furiously, shouting curses lost beneath the noise of the rout. Then even he turned away.

The allied army fled the valley in fragments. The English pursued with savage momentum, cutting men down as they ran. Order vanished. The battle became slaughter.

Edmund, with the stream between him and the pursuit, could not follow. He stood with the contingent that had withdrawn and re-formed beneath his command, comparatively untouched amid the ruin around them: mud, blood, broken shields, and bodies floating half-submerged beside the flooded brook. He stared across the valley at the destruction unfolding before him. Not triumphant. Not exhilarated. Only still.

Several hundred yards away near the edge of the basin, a small, recently constructed, wooden dam, concealed beneath reeds and churned grass, held back the brook just enough to force the water over its banks and into the soft ground below. Just enough.

* * *

The Cruck House held warmth the way a tired man held breath—carefully, and never quite enough. The fire had burned low sometime earlier, leaving only a faint ribbon of heat drifting through the room.

At the table, Arthur and Tuck sat bent over a rough wooden board with scoring pegs between two pottered cups. Small carved dice lay scattered across the surface.

Arthur shook the cup once, dramatically, then dumped the dice onto the board. He stared at them for half a heartbeat before erupting from his chair. “Yahtzee!”

Tuck lurched forward in horror. “Oh, no!” Tuck squinted suspiciously at the dice as if betrayal itself might be carved into the wood.

The door opened behind them. Saras stepped inside carrying a basket of vegetables against her hip. Cool air slipped into the room with her before the door shut again. She stopped. Her eyes moved across the table—the dice, the cups, Arthur’s grin, Tuck’s disappointment. For a moment she simply stared at them.

“What are you doing?” she asked barely hiding her irritation.

Arthur leaned back in his chair with immediate confidence. “Teaching Tuck math.”

“Math?”

“Yes, math.” He gestured toward the dice. “I had the carpenter make—”

“I have some math for you,” Saras interrupted, her tone was perfectly dry. She crossed to the table and set the basket down with enough force to make one of the dice bounce. “If we use three bundles of wood in one day,” she said, “and we currently possess no bundles of wood, how many days remain until we freeze to death?”

Silence. Arthur and Tuck exchanged a quick glance. Caught.

A KNOCK! sounded at the door.

Arthur brightened instantly. “Saved.” He pushed himself up and crossed the room before Saras could answer.

Cold air spilled inside again as he opened the door. A guard stood outside. “Master Arthur,” the man said, “the Lord Chancellor would like to see you.”

Arthur’s smile vanished almost immediately. “Right,” he said. “Thank you. I will be there shortly.”

The guard nodded once and departed.

Arthur closed the door and rested his forehead briefly against the wood before turning back toward the room. “I guess,” he said to Saras and Tuck, “I’m not saved.”

* * *

Aelfwynn moved quickly through the corridor in the Royal Manor with a folded cloth draped across her hands. Not rushing. Simply purposeful, the way everyone in the manor learned to move when surrounded by urgent matters and even more urgent people.

Voices drifted from farther ahead. Low. Concealing. She slowed instinctively.

Around the bend stood the Lord Chamberlain with a heavy ledger tucked beneath one arm. Beside him lingered Lord Ceowulf, whom Aelfwynn did not readily recognize.

Both men looked up at once when Aelfwynn appeared. For the briefest instant, surprise flickered openly across their faces. They had been standing close enough to know that the conversation between them had clearly not been meant for passing ears.

“Lady Aelfwynn,” the Lord Chamberlain said smoothly.

“My lords.” She dipped her head politely.

Lord Ceowulf did not quite meet her eyes. The silence that followed stretched a fraction too long.

Aelfwynn continued past them without changing pace, calm and measured despite the sudden tightening in her chest. She kept her gaze forward until she cleared the corner. Then she stopped. Behind her, the corridor had gone quiet. She glanced back once.

The two men remained where they were, speaking in lowered voices again.

Carefully, Aelfwynn stepped backward into the shadow beyond the turn in the passage, hidden now by the angle of the wall.

The voices sharpened slightly in the stillness. “Yes,” the Lord Chamberlain murmured. “There’s not much left.”

“I trust my portion is secured,” Lord Ceowulf replied.

“You will be satisfied.”

“When?”

“Soon. Within the fortnight.”

A pause. “And my name stays clear?”

“Yes.” The Lord Chamberlain’s voice dropped even lower. “I keep a second accounting. I’ll be gone before anyone can piece it together.” He pulled the ledger closer, causing it to creak softly beneath his arm. “By the time they look,” he said, “there will be nothing to find.”

Aelfwynn stood perfectly still. The words settled heavily inside her, one after another, fitting together too neatly to misunderstand.

Footsteps signaled the conversation’s end. The two men began moving away down the corridor, their voices fading into the distance until silence returned once more. Only then did Aelfwynn step cautiously back around the corner. The passage stood empty now. She stared after them, troubled, her fingers tightening unconsciously around the folded cloth in her hands.

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