Chapter Text
Alfred only knew war to bring death. He never expected it to bring Ivar back to Wessex after disappearing ten years ago.
Though, Alfred supposed that Ivar's name was nearly synonymous with death now. He had heard what had happened in the Gaelic isles, of how a fearsome Viking that in stories was called Ivar-the-Boneless, conquered the lands, killing the native tribes there, and made himself king of their city Dublin and then the rest of the isle.
When Alfred heard this news some years ago, he was not surprised. The message of Dublin's conquest had come three years after Alfred was freed from the Northmen camp where he'd been held prisoner for many months. In those three years Alfred often thought about what had happened to Ivar--though Alfred often tried not to think of such thing--he wondered what hand Ivar played in Alfred's release from the Northmen camp and where Ivar might be now that the Great Heathen Army had left Wessex's shores. Alfred had not expected the answer to be Ireland, but upon hearing it he wasn't so surprised.
The Gaelic tribes were filled with fierce fighters, Alfred thought that they were the sort of warriors that Ivar would have enjoyed fighting against. When he heard of Ivar's victory over them he wasn't surprised either, neither was he surprised when he heard that Ivar was called King there.
What did surprise Alfred was that after ten years of never seeing the man, after ten years of the Ragnarsson's army being absent from Wessex, he would see Ivar waiting for him atop the hill where Alfred had meant to be meeting with the Danes who'd been waging war in Alfred's land for the past year. What surprised Alfred was how completely unprepared he felt to be facing the man again after all these years.
"Father!"
Alfred looked up from his table sharply upon hearing the voice of his oldest son enter the room. Edward was just a boy of seven, and already he looked so much like Alfred's long dead older brother that sometimes it hurt to look at him.
Alfred pushed the letter he'd been reading aside and turned in his chair to look at his son, "What are you doing here? Where is your brother and sister?"
Aethelweard, his younger son, was a year younger than Edward and often the two boys were at each other's hip, inseparable. Aethelflaed, Alfred's only daughter, was still just an infant, barely entering her second year and born in the year when the Dane's first attacked Wessex, but Edward often knew where she would be as he was already clearly protective of both his siblings. Alfred was proud of that-proud of how responsible Edward was proving himself to be.
Edward skittered into the room, but looked behind himself through the open door of the study, like he was expecting to see someone else following behind him. "Aethelweard had been following me…" his sons voice tapered off, as he shook his head, light brown curls obscuring his eyes, "I can go find him, but father, haven't you heard?"
Alfred's brow creased. Edward sounded both excited and fearful, a mood common for boys his age, but Alfred found something uncommon in his son's demeanor, which usually did not take on such boyish tones.
"What news are you speaking of?" Alfred asked, already moving away from his desk and the letter that had arrived from Mercia where the Danes had last attacked.
"The news of the Vikings," Edward said, moving towards the doorway, and waiting for Alfred to follow, "They're camped outside the gates!"
The news was not quite true. Alfred followed Edward out of the study and towards the hall where they found little Aethelweard looking out of a large open window where, across the gates of the town and over on a hill, a small camp could be seen in the distance. It was not the war camp that Alfred had been expecting to see when Edward told him that Vikings were outside their doors, but the camp was still significantly big enough that Alfred should have been informed of the presence by someone other than a seven year old boy.
Alfred grimaced as he joined Aethelweard to look out the window. He set a hand on his youngest son's shoulder and told him and Edward to find their tutor and go back to the studies they were meant to be attending and then Alfred went to look for one of his generals.
Once entering the great hall it was easy to find one. It seemed there was chaos all around Alfred merely had to pick one of the generals to find out what was happening.
"Baldwin, care to inform me why my son knew about the Northmen outside our gates before I did?"
His general swallowed thickly, old face wrinkled with displeasure. He nodded his head and Alfred called for a council meeting.
The rest of the day was spent in a meeting until Alfred knew everything he could have about the Northmen who were less than half a days journey from the ground Alfred stood on. It was the Danes, of course, but reports of who was leading the small band of them had been contradictory. Some said that it was the Dane, Guthrum, who had lead the attack on Wessex last spring, while others said it was Halfdan Ragnvaldson, another Danish commander who Alfred had defeated during an attack at Devon some time ago. Others still said that these Northmen were neither lead by either Guthrum nor Halfdan, rather it was Ivar Ragnarsson himself who lead them.
Alfred listened to his generals closely, a pinched expression on his tired face. He felt much older than his twenty-six years ought to entail. Already he was older than his brother, Aethelred had been when he had died, and in another few years Alfred would be older than his adopted father had been when he passed as well. Both had been killed by the same man who may have been making camp outside Alfred's home at this very moment. Alfred contributed the exhaustion to this.
Action had to be taken against this band of Northmen soon, before the northmen decided to take action against them instead. Most of Alfred's generals were in agreement that they ought to attack the Northmen at first light, giving them enough time to prepare their forces and mount a decent assault. Alfred though, decided to rule against this advice. He told himself that it had nothing to do with the Northman who might have been leading the encampment, rather, he said to his generals, their waiting had everything to do with gathering information and making the most informed decision possible. Alfred wasn't going to waste the lives of his soldiers on an attack that was half-planned and possibly unnecessary. If the Northmen had not attacked yet then chances are they wouldn't attack by daybreak either. Instead, Alfred ordered guards to be posted around the city gates and for caution to be taken with any travelers who might try to enter Wessex in the coming days. The council meeting ended with this tentatively being agreed upon.
Alfred escaped to his chambers before he could be cornered by anyone else who might try to convince him to attack the Northmen at daybreak. With the war with the Danes reaching new heights in the past year, changing from the occasional skirmish to a full out war, tensions were high in Wessex and many of Alfred's people were tired of waiting and ready to kill any perceivable threat. While Alfred understood this sentiment, he still thought that the best course of action would be waiting for attack rather than provoking one. Several times he had tried to arrange some sort of peace with the Danes though, and each time it had been spat upon. While Alfred no longer had qualms engaging in battle with the Danes, he still held out hope that war wasn't the only solution to their problems.
As Alfred closed the door to his chambers, he slipped the heavy golden circlet from his brow and held it loosely in his grasp. Even after all these years, it still sat uncomfortably on his head, like it never really did belong there in the first place.
Turning from the door, Alfred moved to set the crown down on a dressing table against the wall, but in the polished reflection of the mirror, he caught sight of a silhouette against his bed instead.
Alfred's breath caught, startled, "Ealhswith." He said, feeling himself relax as he saw her leaning against the wooden frame of his bed.
Alfred had married Eahlswith when he was eighteen, two years after he'd been freed from the Northmen camp. She was the daughter of a Mercian noble, and a leader of the Gaini tribe, who Alfred's father once called barely civilized, but who proved good allies during those first initial attacks by the Danes that came not soon after the Great Heathen army left Alfred's lands.
Ealhswith was not so different from the other noble women Alfred had encountered in his life, despite her Gaini heritage. Her mother had been a noble Mercian woman, but both she and Alfred had never met her, as she had died when giving birth to Eahlswith. Instead, Eahlswith had been raised by her father's people until she was of age and then she was taken in by her grandparents.
Eahlswith had the same golden brown hair as their sons, but hers fell in long straight lochs that she kept tied back in a braid or covered with a veil. Right now she had one such veils covering her hair and hanging over her shoulders as she watched Alfred come into the room.
"You're tired." She said as Alfred began taking off his heavy belt and clothes that he had to keep on at court.
Alfred nodded, not looking back at her. "Very," he answered, wondering if she was just as tired and if so, why was she in his room?
Their marriage had been very tentative at first, meaning neither of them had particularly wanted it. It had been Alfred's mother who made the suggestion of it when the Dane's first attacked, saying that Alfred was at an age where marriage could be very advantageous. Alfred, though, had no interest in marrying noble ladies, he had no interest in marriage at all. Regretfully, he would say, in those first years of marriage Alfred couldn't have been a very good husband. Not that Eahlswith ever complained.
And as for Eahlswith, she hadn't been pleased with marrying Alfred either. They did not speak to each other about such topics often, but once, a year into the marriage, shortly before Edward was conceived, Eahlswith and he had gotten intoxicated on a bottle of wine left behind after a victory celebration over the Danes.
It was not often that Alfred drank, and he imagined that it was less often that Eahlswith did, but somehow the bottle had come into their possession and both of them, in means of escaping the festivities of the victory celebration had ended up in the seldom used bathhouse that Alfred remembered vaguely from his childhood when his grandfather Ecebert was still king. It was amidst tentative drinks, turned fitful giggles, turned companionable silence that Eahlswith admitted that she had planned on joining a convent in Mercia before she was told she would be marrying Alfred. Alfred had asked if Eahlswith still wished she could have gone there and she told him that yes, she did, but that with enough time she was sure she would stop feeling that way.
Sometimes Alfred thought that Eahlswith still felt that way.
The two of them stopped sharing a room after Edward was born, and they rarely slept together at all after that. Neither of them disliked each other, and it seemed that maybe they'd even grown closer after Edward was first born, but Alfred knew well enough that Eahlswith would never love him in the way wives were supposed to love their husbands. He could not blame her for that at all-Alfred often worried that he could not love Eahlswith in the way a husband was meant to love his wife either, and it always made him think that Eahlswith deserved a much better man than he, or rather she deserved a much better life than the one Alfred could give her. Not that such things were ever spoken out loud. Alfred and Eahlswith could be friends, and unspoken, they both knew that this was enough.
"What was decided about the Northmen, then?" Eahlswith spoke tersely, and when Alfred turned he could see the tense look on her face.
Alfred finished changing into his night clothes and walked up to lean against the bed beside her, "No attack will come from us in the coming days unless the Northmen gives us reason for one."
"Their presence isn't reason enough?" Eahlswith asked, but Alfred knew that her feelings on the subject were more similar to his own than that of his generals.
"Not unless they give us reason to think that it is." Alfred sighed, thinking of his bed and how little sleep he would be getting that night. "We do not even know who is leading the camp outside the gate. It could be no one--it could be that those Northmen want farmland to settle on, or they want to join our people, or that they just want to trade goods. Not every Northmen wants war."
"I have heard that Ivar-the-Boneless leads them," Eahlswith said crossing her arms, "He wants war. Don't talk to me like I am one of the children, Alfred, I hear more than you think."
Alfred shut his eyes and tilted his chin against his chest, taking in another breath before looking up, "I'm sorry, Eahlswith, I know that you do. I've just slept so little--"
"What do you plan to do?"
"Plan?" Alfred sighed again, knowing that Ealhswith wouldn't leave him be until she got what she wanted, "I've told you our plan."
"You've told me nothing. You want to wait out Ivar-the-Boneless? Pretend that he's just some traveler looking for a place to farm--"
"My generals don't even know if its him. We don't know anything yet, that's why we're waiting."
"And if it is him?" Eahlswith asked, eyebrows raised, "How long do you think he's going to wait?"
Alfred pressed his lips together and turned away from his wife. He walked over to the side of his bed and at the bible waiting at the table beside it wondering if he had enough energy for prayer or if sleep would serve him better than council with god would.
Alfred certainly felt like he needed more council, and perhaps that was because he knew that Eahlswith was right. Eahlswith's former desire to join a convent was not the only secret shared that drunken night in the bathhouse years ago. Alfred had shared secrets of his own that he dared not share with anybody before her, many of which had to do with his time in the Northmen camp. Eahlswith knew more about Alfred than he sometimes would have liked, she knew more about Ivar than Alfred was certain the other man would have liked either.
"What would you have me do?" Alfred said, voice heavy with resignation to this conversation and the exhaustion the day gave him. He kept his back to her, still staring contemplatively at his Bible. "Do you think an attack at daybreak on an enemy we are half ignorant about is the best strategy? Do you think we should surround them in the night and set fire to their camp before they have a chance to arm a defense? Do you think the risk of provoking the Danes further is worth the innocent lives we might kill in the process?" Alfred's voice felt ragged with all the possibilities and the weight deciding them would push on his shoulders. He knew he must have sounded angry, but the heavy press of his words had more to do with the frustration Alfred felt at the circumstances of his kingdom than anything Eahlswith might have pointed out. "Eahlswith, if you think you have answers to these questions, please tell me, because I'm happy to be enlightened on which impossible scenario to decide upon? Which manner of execution would be best for these strangers?"
Eahlswith was very quiet and Alfred always thought that she was very quiet, even before he had gotten to know her. Knowing the nature of the Gaini tribesmen Alfred did not think that this was something she could have been raised to be--quiet. Sometimes Alfred wondered what those few years she spent in her grandparent's court in Mercia did to change the girl raised by what Alfred had been raised to think of as savages, into the quiet woman before him.
"I think you should invite them to court." Eahlswith said finally, after a long pause of silence that suitably made Alfred ashamed of his angry outburst. Her voice spoke so levelly and calm that Alfred didn't think that they could possibly be still speaking on the same subject.
He lifted his head up and turned to her, "Invite the Northmen into our court?" Alfred repeated the words in disbelief, "The Northmen who may very well want us dead."
Eahlswith shrugged her shoulder moving over to sit at the edge of Alfred's bed, "Or perhaps be farmers, or traders, or who knows? Maybe they'd like to join our people." Alfred's face heated as she repeated the same patronizing rhetoric he'd given to her minutes before. Eahlswith went on, "We can't very well assume they're enemies. Or perhaps, we can't very well treat them like they are enemies."
Alfred's brow furrowed, "What do you mean? You can't honestly be suggesting that we invite the Northmen into the home of our family?"
Eahlswith's lips dipped at that. He did not think she considered Wessex her home yet, even after nearly eight years living in these halls. She did not give signs to thinking this way often, but when she did Alfred felt the deep desire to put an arm around her and ask what he could possibly do to change that feeling. At the moment though, Alfred was firmly focused on what solution Eahlswith was offering that neither Alfred nor his many generals had considered.
"When the Gaini attacked Mercia many years ago, during the reign of my mother's grandfather, King Coenwulf, he invited the Gaini chief to sup with him in his halls. Coenwulf gave the best chambers to the Gaini chief, gave him the best cuts of food, the best furs to dress in, and the best servants in his hall to give to the chief to do with what he wanted." Alfred's cheeks flushed as his wife recited this, brushing over the words like she had not just suggested that a renowned holy Christian king of Mercia offered his servants up as prostitutes for a heathen chieftain. Alfred thought that this must have been a story told to Eahlswith during a time before she'd been sent to live with her grandparents. Eahlswith continued, "When the Gaini chief had spent seven nights under King Coenwulf's roof, supping in his halls, sleeping in his beds, wearing his clothes, Coenwulf told the chief that there was no reason that the other should think of each other as enemies. Rather, Coenwulf told him that they should be friends--family even, and Coenwulf told the chief that if peace could remain between these two people until his youngest granddaughter came of age then Coenwulf would marry this granddaughter to a son in the chief's clan, and that their two people could then truly become family."
Alfred took in the story thinking that it was a very nice sentiment, one that he was sure Eahlswith must have told as a bedtime story to their children at some point, but not entirely relevant to Alfred's current situation.
"I understand what you mean," Alfred ventured carefully, "But I'm not certain that this strategy is entirely realistic."
Eahlswith turned her head and glared at him, "Alfred, that is the story of my mother and father's marriage. There was peace between the Gaini and the kingdom of Mercia ever since King Coenwulf's rule, because of this strategy."
Alfred cringed, knowing he insulted his wife and knowing she had a point, while also knowing he did not agree with her still. The Northmen were nothing like the Gaini, who at least had a prior claim to the land they fought for, the Northmen were invaders, and ones who rarely wanted peace if it meant they had to conform to the Christian way of life.
"So you are suggesting that I invite a Northmen into our hall and what? Tell him if he and however many people he has outside our gates on that hill don't attack us I'll give him Aethelflaed's hand in marriage?"
The mere thought of that turned Alfred's stomach. He did not want to think of arranging a marriage for the hand of his two-year-old daughter to anyone, even if it would be years before such a marriage could take place.
Eahlswith's glare intensified, as if she was thinking the very same thing. "Of course that is not what I am suggesting. Don't be dense, Alfred, and don't pretend that it is just some Northmen outside our gates."
"We don't know for certain who is leading them." Alfred repeated for what felt like the hundredth time. The repetition of this phrase did not change Alfred's own mind of who it must be, and it didn't change Eahlswith's either.
"Invite him to our halls." Eahlswith said with a brave sort of certainty, and then dropping all pretenses continued, "Treat Ivar-the-Boneless like a friend. Show him that we are a better ally than the Danes. Convince him that it is our cause to fight for, and that there is more to gain from friendship than war."
Alfred could only shake his head. He knew all too well what friendship with Ivar-the-Boneless felt like, he knew how very impossible it was to obtain. But he also knew that Eahlswith's words rang true. If he could have Ivar's faction of the Northmen on his side against the Danes, victory would be in their grasps and Alfred's children could see something other than bloodshed in their lifetime. Edward could grow up, become a king that lived well into old age, could have the sort of life Alfred's brother was meant to have.
"Ivar cares not for peace, Eahlswith. He enjoys war--he likes killing."
"Then show him that there is a better way." Eahlswith urged, reaching over to grab one of Alfred's cold hands in hers. She squeezed his palm once before pulling away and walking towards the door, "Or at least show him that a war with the Danes would be more enjoyable than a war against us."
Alfred looked up at her before she could leave the room, his eyes searching for her steady warm brown ones that were such a safe harbor to lay in. Alfred felt as if he needed their comfort now, "You won't spend the night in here then?"
Eahlswith pressed her pale lips together and shook her head, "I'm going to the chapel to pray. I'll ask the Lord to grant you clarity of mind," she paused, "and peace."
Alfred nodded. That was probably for the best. Asking her to stay had been selfish--Eahlswith had more than done her wifely duty towards him already with their three children. Beyond that sex was only a burden to her and for Alfred, a way to forget. Anytime they lay together it seemed destructive to them both--a poison more than a remedy.
"Thank you," Alfred told her hollowly and she nodded, slipping out of the room.
Alfred moved to his bed, laying down and shutting his eyes tightly listening to her footsteps fade into the quiet until he was left alone.
Alfred found neither clarity nor peace that night, only a plan and a name. One that made him feel like a boy again, still new to the burdens of king, half desperate to join his father and brother in the afterlife, half desperate to be a better ruler than them both. Alfred felt the name on his lips-- could taste it like a passing grave, like the threat of death, like unwanted desire. Like so many things that Alfred was meant to forget long ago, and yet never quite could.
Ivar Ragnarsson was no friend, he was no ally, he was no hope of salvation for Wessex or against the Danes. Even so, Alfred already knew that his choice had been made, and in this matter at least, free will had vanished. Alfred would invite Ivar into the halls. He would make peace with the man who had long ago promised to grant Alfred death.