Read Online The First Lost Tale of Mercia: Golde the Mother by Jayden Woods - Free Book Online Page A

hands
against his chest and pushed him back with all her might. He
staggered, sapphire gaze splintered by fury and sorrow. She noted
with some amusement that he had tried to grow a beard, though it
was more of a vague yellow haze over his mouth and chin.
    “You—you—you dare touch me like that? You
miserable wench, I am an ealdorman! ”
    “Not for long, by the sounds of it. And in
any case, I’ve touched you in worse ways than that, Lord
Alfric.”
    Even in their wearied and frantic state, some
of the men chuckled. Alfric looked around uncertainly, unable to
smile himself. Behind her own defiant expression, Golde gulped.
Alfric was almost always a nervous wreck, but she had never seen
him so anxious as this.
    The skies growled above them, darkening with
a fresh billow of gray clouds.
    “Won’t you invite us in?” said Alfric
miserably.
    Golde could only shake her head in disbelief
at the man who was a proud ealdorman one moment and a cowering
victim the next. “I have room for you at my table,” she said, “but
not the others. I’m afraid they’ll have to shelter in the
barn.”
    “With the pigs?” one man complained.
    “Or you can stay outside in the rain, if
you’d like.” Her blue eyes flashed at Alfric. “Follow me.”
    The ealdorman nodded to his men. “Go on then,
you spoiled sods—you’ve seen worse!”
    And so with great reluctance, Golde led
Alfric, the tentative ealdorman of Mercia, into her humble
home.
    *
    She lived in a simple shack, certainly no
grander than the average churl’s, but she had never thought of it
as impoverished until Alfric entered and curled his lip with
disgust. She noticed the poor state of the floorboards, dank with
the smell of the salted foods they’d been storing all winter in the
sunken pit below. She realized that the lodge seemed smaller inside
than it looked outside, crowded by three meager cots, a rickety
table, and an ashy brazier. The shutters over the windows squeaked
as the wind battered against them.
    With a weary huff, Alfric sank onto a stool
next to the table. “Ale,” he said.
    Biting back her anger, she rummaged through
their stores for a canister of ale. They did not have much left,
and saved it for special occasions, but she supposed this occasion
was as special as any. She grabbed a cup made of alder wood to pour
it in, though she was certain he was accustomed to smooth dishes
gilt with precious metals. This frugality, at least, seemed to miss
his attention; blindly he upturned the goblet and drank deeply,
smashing it back down with a sigh.
    “Oh Golde,” he said, blue gaze fading into
empty space. “The horrors I’ve seen!”
    She withheld her judgment as she went to stir
the pottage over the brazier. “You may tell me of them, if you
wish.”
    “They would give you nightmares.”
    She gritted her teeth and waited, certain he
would describe them, anyway. Outside, the rain began to fall with a
gentle whisper. The sound of Hunwald’s horn echoed through the
watery curtain, calling the pigs to his side. She hoped little
Eadric would stay in the barn and do as he was told. If Alfric were
to see him …
    “My fleet and I were in the River Thames,
next to Lundenburg.” Alfric’s voice was soft, delicate. She paused
mid-stir to listen to hear him over the purring rainfall. “So were
the Danes.” He shuddered.
    A soft mist drifted in through the shutters,
lifting bumps along Golde’s skin. She resumed stirring, her ears
alert.
    “You should have seen their vessels in the
river. At twilight, the prows of their ships looked like a horde of
demons. There were dragons, and bulls, ravens … their eyes seemed
to pierce the darkness and find me no matter where I hid, peering
out over the black water.”
    She wondered if he knew how ridiculous he
sounded. Apparently not. “Were you not put in command of all King
Ethelred’s fleet?” she asked.
    He did not respond, his mind too far-gone in
his grisly memories to hear her. Either that, or he