Read Online The Edge of Light by Joan Wolf - Free Book Online

my saddlebag. I am going to the barn to fetch it.”
    Ethelred sat up. “You cannot go out in this storm! Send one of the thanes in the hall.” He looked closely at Alfred and frowned, “Are you feeling ill?”
    Alfred smiled crookedly. “No. But you know my stomach, Ethelred.
    Strange halls and strange foods do not agree with it. I would have the medicine by me just in case of need.” He began to walk to the door.
    “Send one of the thanes,” Ethelred said again as his brother picked up his cloak and went out into the hall.
    But Alfred ignored the thanes sitting on the hall benches and crossed the room swiftly, looking neither to the left nor to the right. He pulled the door open, flung his cloak around his shoulders, and went out into the rain.
    Lightning lit the courtyard. Alfred raised his face to the sky. The rain pounded on his skin, soaked into his hair. It felt cool and wonderful. He began to walk slowly toward the barn where the horses were stabled. Then the thunder crashed. The storm was still some distance up the valley, he thought.
    The courtyard was deserted and the barn door was closed tight. Alfred opened it and stepped inside. A horse whinnied and kicked the wood of its stall. Another horse answered. “It’s all right, my beauties,” Alfred said soothingly. “Only a storm.” He left the door open to allow some light into the dark barn and walked over to rub his chestnut’s forehead. Lightning lit the world again, illuminating the barn. The stallion snorted and threw up its head. Alfred went back to the door to look out.
    He loved storms. He had not forgotten his medicine at all, had only wanted an excuse to find someplace where he could watch the storm. Ethelred, he knew, would insist on hiding behind shuttered windows, no matter how hot. Ethelred did not like storms at all.
    As he stood there at the door, a small figure came into view, wrapped in a hooded cloak and running across the courtyard. A serving girl, Alfred thought, then raised his brows in surprise as he realized that the figure was making for his barn. The girl did not see him standing in the doorway until she was almost on top of him; then she looked up and said, “Oh!” in a startled and oddly deep voice.
    Lightning flashed again. The face under the brown hood was brilliantly illuminated: a child’s face, black-browed, with black-lashed eyes of the darkest blue Alfred had ever seen. Thunder crashed. “You had better come in,” Alfred said. “The lightning is getting closer.”
    The child came in the door after him and pushed back her hood. Two long glossy braids tumbled loose, falling straight to her waist. Alfred saw that the braids were as black as her eyebrows. “What are you doing here?” she demanded in an accent that could belong only to a Mercian noblewoman.
    They looked at each other. Then, “Sheltering from the storm,” Alfred replied, his clipped voice in sharp contrast to her deep drawl. “What are you doing here?”
    She glanced inside the barn. “I came to be with the horses. They get restless during storms.”
    “I see.” His face was perfectly grave. “Are you a groom?”
    “Of course not!” The look she gave him was scornful. Then, as if the name should explain all, “I am Elswyth.” He raised his eyebrows in elaborate mystification, and she deigned to add, “My brother is the Ealdorman of Gaini.”
    “I rather thought you might be Athulf s sister,” he replied. “One doesn’t often see black hair in Mercia.” Then, with absolute courtesy, “I am Alfred, Prince of Wessex.”
    He watched as her blue eyes widened. Lightning flashed and the thunder roared almost immediately after. Inside the barn a horse whinnied frantically. Elswyth called something soothing but did not leave the door. Instead she pulled her cloak more closely around her shoulders and turned to look out into the courtyard. Alfred suddenly realized that she had been drawn to the barn for exactly the same reason as he. Lightning