To celebrate Her Majesty, Queen Elizabeth II's Platinum Jubilee Discovering Diamonds is hosting a series of excerpts or articles written by our wonderful review team. For our author reviewers: the theme is an excerpt from one of their novels portraying royalty - or an equivalent leader-type character. For our non-writer reviewers: a favourite monarch and/or novel about Royalty... In other words, an enjoyable mix of entertainment to acknowledge Queen Elizabeth II's longest reign in British history! 70 years!
God Bless you Ma'am.
(say ma'am to rhyme with 'jam' not 'farm')
(Alvar may be a kingmaker, but he is also a champion of Alfreda who, once wed to a violent man, and now widowed and alone at court, seeks protection and, more importantly, help to get back her children. Here we find her staring at Alvar, but also thinking about the charismatic young king, Edgar, who might just be able to help her, if she can but play her cards right and respond to his admiring glances and overtures...)
How to choose between these two men: one, valiant and loyal, harsh on the battlefield, gentle and shy off it and the other, confident, arrogant, and insistent that she should have whatever she desired and that he should, too. She raised her face to the sun once more and wondered how she might contrive to have them both. Why not, if she was, as they seemed to think, so desirable? She was frequently aware, nowadays, that men were looking at her; it was so much more pleasant than the foreboding that had dogged her moods when she was still wed.
It had been some time since she had given any thought to Elwood. Whenever she thought back to the dark house in London, it was only to be grateful for the one moment of premeditation that found her arriving at the open air folk-moot on the high ground at St Paul’s, being recognised as a noblewoman because of her choice of fine dress, and being directed to the court where she was immediately welcomed as a woman of quality. Abbot Athelwold became her champion, and, now that he had been promoted to the bishopric of Winchester, his heightened status elevated her own. Only he and Edgar knew of her past; servants lowered their eyes not because they were sorry for her but because they were in awe, and she no longer cared to befriend them, for their opinions no longer mattered. They knew naught of her except that she was a grand lady, and losing her shackles of shame left her feeling exhilarated. Now she was free to move, and to enjoy her wealth, status and beauty.
She heard a familiar voice and her reverie exploded, leaving only shards of bitter memories. Brandon’s unmistakeable whiny voice carried on the breeze, and Alfreda sat up to listen.
“Lord Bishop, I came all this way straight from burying my father to speak to the king, and now I am told he has gone back to the hall. Must I chase him all day?”
Alfreda, squinting against the sun, studied Bishop Oswald, and thought that he looked even more sour than usual.
He said, “Never mind that. We have work to do. You are bereaved; your father was a great man, but it is time to make you a greater one. With my help, you will outshine your father. With your help, I can…”
A gust of wind fluttered Alfreda’s veil, and the rustling, so close to her ears, prevented her from hearing the rest of Oswald’s speech. They began to walk towards her and she stood up, heart hammering somewhere near her throat. There was one aspect of her previous life which pained her still, and she must grasp this opportunity. As they approached, she took a step forward and touched Brandon’s arm. “My lord, I was sorry to hear of the death of the Half-king. You are newly returned from East Anglia. Have you any news of my children?”
Brandon looked at first startled, and then, disgusted. He kept his chin up, but looked down at her hand until she took it away. Brushing his sleeve as if she had smeared it with mud from the river bed, he said, “Lady, when I was there I saw only my kin, those who share my blood, those who mourn. I do not recall that you ever mourned my brother. If you do not think of yourself as his widow, then how can his children be yours?”
He walked on and Oswald followed, pausing briefly to bring his face uncomfortably close to hers. His lips drew back as he inhaled and she shrank back, convinced that he was about to hiss at her. But he passed by without speaking, and she turned to look at the pair of them as they walked away. Once the momentary fear subsided it left only a burning hatred. She had only two desires; somehow to see her children again, and to exact revenge. Alvar might well turn out to be the man that she would always love, but it was only the king who could help her now. And she knew what she had to do.
She followed the courtiers as they wandered from the water’s edge and back to Edgar’s house. The men had not gone inside and it was evident that they were making plans to leave. The king’s thegns had been mustered in the yard, and Lord Alvar and his friend were inspecting their war gear, running their thumbs across spear points and taking hold of shields, banging on them with the flat of their hands. Satisfied, they ordered the men into an extempore shield wall, lining up a few of the men who had travelled with them from the north into an opposing wall. Lord Alvar brought his arm up, held it aloft, and then brought it down as a cue for the two lines to advance. They met in the middle of the yard with a clash as the metal shield bosses collided. There was a plethora of loud grunts and plenty of shoving, but both walls held, with neither giving ground. Alvar gave the signal for them to ease off.
Edgar wandered over to Lord Alvar and whispered in his ear. Edgar stepped back, and draped his arm casually over Brandon’s shoulder. Alvar spoke to the king’s thegns and glanced around the yard. He spied his target and beckoned to a small boy, who came forward shyly and stood in front of the great lord, hands clasped behind his back, and his shoe tracing lines in the dirt. Alvar lifted his own shield from his shoulder, bent down, and handed it to the youngster. He showed him how to hold it by grasping the leather strap and keeping the shield across the body. He unsheathed the hand-seax from his knife belt and placed the blade into the boy’s other hand, and then he gestured towards the shield wall where the king’s thegns were standing in tight formation. The little boy nodded, perhaps with a little trepidation, for his teeth were clamped on his bottom lip. He stood for a moment, as if assessing the enormity of his task. He tucked his head down and set off at a run, hurtling across the yard and aiming for the central section of the wall. At the moment of impact, to a man, the king’s thegns fell backwards, the wall collapsed, and the little boy emerged triumphant. The crowd whooped and cheered and laughed, and the boy beamed with pride. Alfreda tried to swallow away the lump in her throat. The boy was about the same age as her eldest son. She turned away but her path was blocked by Bishop Oswald.
Pointing to Edgar, he said, “It will do you no good to speak to the king about your children. See how Edgar loves our Lord Brandon.”
Alfreda made as if to shoulder him aside, and he stepped back. She made her way over to where the king was standing, still with his arm around his foster-brother.
Edgar was addressing his men. “We need to ride north with the lords Alvar and Beorn. Right now, they think that you can be bested by a child. Let us show these northern lords how you really fight. We leave at dawn.”
His words were met with cheers, and the sound of spears thumping against shields.
Edgar turned, saw Alfreda approaching, and smiled. “Now, I think, they are ready for a fight.”
Alfreda knew that Oswald had followed her; she could hear the swish of his robes as he walked. Did he think she was so stupid as to petition the king immediately? She would get her children back, yes, but she would find another way.
“My lord,” she said, “I saw the ships that you are building. Already they look as if they would scare away the mightiest Viking. Will you have them painted the same way as the dragon boats?”
Over her shoulder, Oswald hissed his irritation, muttering about ignorant women who did not know that the blue paint on the Viking ships was derived from a colour that came from Arabia and was very costly. To the king he said, “Lord, women know little about such things, which is how it should be.”
Edgar slipped his arm from Brandon’s shoulders, and turned towards Alfreda. He said, “Not at all. I had been wondering how we might paint our ships so that they are as fearsome as the Viking long ships. The lady has reminded me that I must now give it some thought.”
He smiled, and even though his answer had been directed more at Oswald, she was gratified to note that his gaze had never wandered from her face.
Edgar continued to stare into her eyes as he said, “My lords, let us go within and take our fill of food and drink, for tomorrow we ride hard.”
He swept his arm forward, said, “Shall we?” and directed her to the hall.
Buy Link: Alvar the Kingmaker
About the author:
Annie is a writer, historian, and elected member of the Royal Historical Society, and has written four award-winning novels set in Anglo-Saxon England. She has contributed to fiction and nonfiction anthologies and written for various magazines, including Cumbria Magazine and This England. She has twice been a prize winner in the Mail on Sunday Novel Writing Competition, and won First Prize in the 2012 New Writer Magazine's Prose and Poetry Competition. She was a finalist in the 2015 Tom Howard Prize for non-fiction, and was shortlisted for the Exeter Story Prize and Trisha Ashley Award 2021. She is senior reviewer at Discovering Diamonds. She was the winner of the inaugural Historical Writers’ Association/Dorothy Dunnett Prize 2017 and is now a judge for that same competition. She has also been a judge for the HNS (Historical Novel Society) Short Story Competition. Her nonfiction books are published by Amberley Books and Pen & Sword Books. She has recently signed a contract to contribute to a new history of English kings, to be published by Hodder & Stoughton in 2023. Alvar the Kingmaker is the recipient of an IndieBRAG Medallion, and was Chill with a Book's Book of the Month.
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Power play at work here in royal circles! What an intriguing excerpt.
ReplyDeleteThanks very much :-)
DeleteThat Oswald! Ugh!
ReplyDelete:-) Nasty, self-serving...! Great character to write though!
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