A Different 1016

10:33 PM, October 17 1016 AD
The English war camp at Rochford, south of Ashingdon, Essex


“Ah, the Ealdorman of Mierce.[1] Just who I was looking for at this late hour, my lords.”

Eadric son of Æthelric, who his few friends and many envious rivals alike called ‘Streona’[2], knew something was wrong as soon as he heard those words. Eadmund, second king of the English to bear that name and called the ‘Ironside’ by the men for his courage, was sitting in a simple oaken chair behind his war table, hands steepled and steel-colored eyes set in an equally steely glare aimed directly at none other than Eadric himself. Around him, his guards already had their hands on their swords and a grim sense of purpose in their gaze, and all the great ealdormen and thegns[3] of the realm had fanned out across the tent to look on the newcomer with open hostility as well. Some had crossed their arms, others whispered to their neighbors, and still others seemed just about ready to draw their own blades as well, but no matter what they were doing, Eadric could see that not one seemed remotely happy to see him.

“Does something trouble you, my king? It must, and it must be something grave, if you feel the need to call a war council this late instead of resting for the battle tomorrow.” Eadric replied unctuously, trying to bite back the rising sense of panic that had flown from his stomach up into his throat and made him want to vomit the night’s pork out in front of his assembled peers. Does he already know about my plans for tomorrow? Oh God, he must, there’s no other reason he’d look so prepared to kill me already…

“A grave matter indeed.” Eadmund said darkly. “I regret to inform you that there is a traitor in our midst, an honor-less rat born in a cesspit who thought to inform the accursed Northmen of our army’s progress and who plans even now to deliver me into their hands when we meet them on the field of battle to-morrow.”

“Such a cur deserves to die, surely.” Eadric nodded along, thanking God above that the fires burning in the royal pavilion’s hearth weren’t bright enough to illuminate the sweat beginning to trickle down his cheeks. At least, he didn’t think so. “Who is it, great king? Name him, and I swear I will be the first to bury a sword in his guts in your name.” Don’t say it was me, I was so careful! Did I not take every precaution, do my damndest to cover up my tracks?! Where did I slip up?

“Suicide is a sin, Lord Eadric, so as a man who fears the Almighty I shall have to turn down your oath. And I must say, you are nowhere near as convincing now as you were, when not frightened and with a horn of mead in hand.” Came the stern reprimand, and Eadric knew then and there that it was all over.

“What proof is there that I would betray you, noble sire? I – I am married to your sister Ealdgyth! I would never betray my own blood! Forgive me for my impudence, sire, but do you not think you are mistaken – “ Eadric was rambling now, as desperate as a cornered rat, searching for any verbal avenue that he could take to dissuade his liege from the completely truthful belief that he was plotting to abandon the English army to the Danes on the morrow and thus to keep his own head. There were no such avenues, and some part of him knew it, but the ealdorman was not the kind of gambler who'd give up before exhausting every single remotely possible chance he thought he had.

But, no answer came to dignify his efforts. No words, at least, from the king or his loyal vassals. Instead a thud was the royal party’s answer to the Ealdorman of the Mercians: a bag, heavy and wet, had been thrown by one of the guards at his feet. With trembling fingers he opened it, and visibly recoiled at the sight of his messenger’s maimed and blinded head. The messenger tasked with delivering his reports on the rest of the English army to Cnut, King of the Danes, no less. “I…I...” Eadric began hoarsely, but the king now deigned to cut him short with words of his own. How did they catch Ælfgar? He was my most cunning and fleet-footed servant!

“Give it up, ‘good’-brother. A blind man could see the fear and guilt in your eyes.” Eadmund's voice was filled with contempt, did not bellow or scream or otherwise openly rage at the betrayal, which Eadric found odd and unnerving: the man called ‘Ironside’ was a formidable warrior on the battlefield, always roaring commands and curses and victory-cries at the top of his lungs as he tore into his foes. Until this moment, he did not know weak Ethelred’s son was capable of cold rage too. “Some of the ceorl[4] sentries found your man returning atop an exhausted horse early this morning, trying to slip by them under cover of fog before the sun had risen. He was so tired, and so rattled from the duties you assigned him, that he couldn’t keep his story straight before them and my thegns.”

“Suffice to say, one thing led to another, and he was eventually ‘persuaded’ to reveal what he’d been up to. He told me you’ve been sending him to the Danish camp at midnight and expecting him to return to us by morning, feeding them information on our movements, and starting these last few weeks, that you’d also been telling Cnut you’d withdraw the Mercian contingent at a critical moment in tomorrow’s battle. It appears I was right to suspect you’d turn on me, ever since I made the mistake of accepting you back into my good graces six months ago.” The king crossed his arms and leaned back in his chair, his anger clearly so great that it had burnt out his usually tempestuous nature and was now being expressed with a chilly grimness. Other ealdormen, such as Ulfcytel of East Anglia, were smugly looking on the fall of one of their great rivals as it unfolded before them.

“He was mista – I – I assure you that you are mistaken, my king.” Eadric answered, the panic now in his voice as he awkwardly tried to step back and turn his head to get a look at the exit, only to see that a pair of guards in iron scales had blocked his path to the tent-flap. He repeatedly raised and lowered his hands in a placating gesture, but it did not remove an ounce of the cold venom in Eadmund’s stare. “I would never betray England, I swear it!”

“The oaths you swear are clearly worth less than the life of a Dane. But for the love I bear my sister, I promise you that if you yield without a fuss now, I’ll only take your head and be done with it. Guards, seize this traitor.” Eadmund commanded, sounding more bored than enraged – like he was commanding the men to pull the wings off of a fly that had landed in his dessert. Eadric, for his part, was weighing his options: he could run, but even if he somehow got out of this tent full of soldiers and warlords hellbent on skinning him alive, he figured there were at least five hundred more men between him and the exit of the English camp, including more than a few archers. He could submit himself to Eadmund’s mercy and lose his head, assuming the King didn’t change his mind and condemn him to die in some more brutal fashion for his treachery. Or…

Drawing his sword, the ealdorman suddenly rushed forward with a cry, intent on vaulting over the war table and driving steel into his liege’s heart or dying in the attempt. His fleeting dream of amassing greater wealth and power under the Danes had dissipated; all he dared to hope for now was a better death than a humiliating public execution at the unforgiving Ironside’s hands, or being shot to death by his guards as he tried to flee the camp.

For his part, Eadmund remained completely still as the maddened traitor bolted right for him, and did not even blink as one of his thegns stepped in Streona’s path with his shield up. Steel met oak, leaving a deep mark on the white dragon on scarlet that had been painted over the guardsman’s shield, but the man behind it was unharmed. As Eadric drew back for another blow, another thegn buried an ax in his back, and he fell to the ground with a scream. In truth, the King was not all that interested in watching the impromptu execution; he was already pondering a replacement to lead the Mercian contingent into battle tomorrow (and to serve as Ealdorman of Mercia should he emerge victorious against Cnut), a man whose loyalty was not in question.

Still. It was rather difficult to ignore the sight and sounds of your treasonous brother-in-law being hacked to death by your true supporters. And Eadmund remembered that his feeble father never did have the stomach to watch executions he himself ordered. So, to set a better example than old Ethelred, he remained in his seat and watched on with steely resolve as more and more of his retainers and lords fell upon the viper who’d been sitting in his lap, hacking and slashing until it was certain to all that Eadric Streona no longer moved.

-------------------Notes-------------------

[1] An ealdorman was a high-ranking magistrate in pre-Danish and pre-Norman Saxon England, roughly equivalent to the post-Danish earls or continental counts.

[2] 'The Grasper'.

[3] As a term, 'thegn' was used to describe both retainers of high birth and a social class of lesser nobles below the Athelings (members of the royal family) and ealdormen.

[4] A free peasant in Anglo-Saxon England.
 
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