Alvar the Kingmaker Read Online Free

loyally. It was a show of strength on the king’s part that succeeded only in seeming vindictive. Even while Dunstan was leaving the room, the Fairchild raised his ale cup and demanded the toast. “Be hale!”
    Alvar had no choice but to raise his own cup and his echo, “Be hale”, rang out as Dunstan passed by the Mercian benches. The abbot stopped but briefly, and stared in Alvar’s direction, eyes narrowed and nostrils flared, before gliding from the room with his head held high, as if he were glad to be leaving the stench of the Fairchild’s kingship behind him.
     
    Ramsey, East Anglia
    The afternoon shortened as the sun began to drop from the sky. The beams of reddened light forced their way through the window opening and illuminated a silk slipper, cast off and lying on its side on the floor. Its threads shone golden in the amber-coloured fading light. Outside, the peal of gentle teasing laughter told of dairy maids returning to the cook-house and tired-eyed women emerging from the weaving sheds, while a booming voice identified the reeve ordering the gate to be closed and the braziers lit. Alfreda lay on the bed, listening to the everyday sounds of folk reaching the end of their working day, as she gazed at the pretty slipper. She focused on the delicate threads of embroidery which wound around the opening of the richly adorned footwear, tracing with her gaze the trail of stitching from one side round to the other. She stared as long as she could, grateful for the distraction, then she closed her eyes and waited for the next blow, able to resist protecting with her arm, but unable to stop the instinctive curling into a ball. This time he managed only a glancing blow across the top of her thigh and, though she knew it would bruise, it would not have satisfied him. Finding sanctuary this time in her thoughts, she mused that were she a braver woman she would taunt him for his poor aim and tell him that even as a beater of women, he was a failure. For the most part, he only ever hit her body, because any marks on her face would be visible to the rest of the household, and Elwood of East Anglia would not want his famous father to discover his secret. Not that there was a man in England who wouldn’t sneer in disapproval, for it was not manly to hit a woman, but Alfreda knew that in particular her husband would hate for his father to find out.
    She dared to glance up. Elwood wrinkled his nose as he looked down at her ; his pinched nostrils were flecked with thread-veins which meandered towards his cheek bones. He lifted his chin and stared at the ceiling, as if engaged in some twisted act of invocation and, as his neck went back, his lank hair sat in untidy clumps upon the shoulders of his tunic. Pale lashes failed adequately to frame his equally pale, small eyes, so that his face was a melded mass of uneven skin tone which rendered it almost featureless. He stepped forward and she readied herself.
    But not quickly enough. His frustration at missing his target last time added power to his arm and he thumped his fist into her belly, catching her by surprise and knocking the breath from her body. There was no pain in her stomach, but her chest felt tight and she tried and failed to snatch air into her mouth. Another blow to the same part of her abdomen robbed her of all ability to breathe and as he stood up, his still-clenched hand caught the side of her face and a burning sensation shot up her nose to a point of pain in the middle of her forehead. Gasping for air, she reached a hand to her face and her fingers immediately became sticky with blood. She sank back against the pillow, relieved. He would stop now.
    Her husband stood over her, peering at her, and then he turned his back. He let out a sigh which set his shoulders shuddering, adjusted his tunic and left the bower. She waited, listening for the sound of his footsteps to diminish, and then she edged slowly off the bed and sank to her knees, holding the side of