MEMOIRS OF A NORTHUMBRIAN MESSENGER

MEMOIRS OF A NORTHUMBRIAN MESSENGER
A spin-off of a well-known story
by Sandra Dermark
5th of May 2015

Call me Ethelred. Not long ago, I was a messenger at the service of the Crown of Northumbria, in my
early twenties, and still unmarried, more plain than dashing. In those days, our young King married a foreigner, of noble manners though her past has never been revealed, and the Queen Mother left court a little while later.
The Queen Mother, the Queen Dowager, Donegild. We should start with her, since she was the one who started it all. Or were it the Scots? It was the Queen Dowager and the Scots. Hadn't the latter got over Hadrian's Wall, our king wouldn't had left his castle, court, and spouse to fight on the front. Which was not that far from the Queen Mother's holdfast.
And why her retreat to this holdfast? Well, she was a good regent, a great ruler, some subjects still loyal to her (and their number is dwindling) say even better than her son. A shieldmaiden whose husband fell upon the battlefield and left her alone, a widow with an infant child, to rule a strange land. She needed to be strong, stronger than any male enemy at court or on the field. And she grew stronger.
Raised at court as the child of servants during her regency, I had to know that. That she was an iron lady. A real child of her times and lands, not worthy of the punishment she was given.
However, now her only son and heir had come of age, and their relationship had begun to become more and more distant, detached. And perchance Donegild had already realised that she had grown old and it would be wise to retire from matters of the realm.
Now, anyway, the young Queen had a little boy, an heir, and I was sent off to the battlefield to give my Liege the news in a scroll in a knapsack. And the sunset surprised me right before Donegild's holdfast.
Again, we may blame the ruler of the past who chose to lay the foundations of the holdfast in that place (whoever he may be), aside from the Queen Dowager and the Scots. That makes three guilty parties.
Anyway, let's stop fooling around and get to the point. So I had been riding the whole day until twilight without even stopping for a second. I was completely burned out, ablaze with thirst and exertion, so they led me into the holdfast, the Queen Mother welcomes me, gives me her finest chair to sit on, gives me her hand and embraces me, "Oh, Ethelred!"
All right, and then she orders her cupbearer to fill up my tankard for me. Mead, ale, Riesling: I drained the first tankard to quench my thirst, the second tankard to feel happy, the third tankard because... why was it? For no apparent reason. Then the room is reeling, then it all turns foggy, then everything turns dark before me. Like, I can't remember what happened that night. So I wake up, the gods know when, but it was already mid-day, to Donegild shaking me up: "Ethelred! Ethelred!" My head was filled with a throbbing pain, and I could not hold my breakfast. The servants also commented that I looked pale.
So let's be honest: it was the amber nectar. Not for the first time, nor for the last time in my life did that backstabbing usurper leave me bereft of reason. Of course this is a flaw, and a fatal flaw on top of that. So that took away my reason, and I passed out. Yet soon I would discover what had been done while I was unconscious.
The next day, I reached the encampment at dusk, on the eve of battle. I was led into King Allan's pavilion and showed him the letter from the regency. As my Liege read, he turned pale as the scroll, and I shuddered as well: the young Queen had birthed, not a healthy and well-formed child, but some "misshapen imp, too hideous to be described". Having seen the newborn prince with my own eyes, I instantly knew that it was meant to be a mistake. The letter from the regency told the truth, actually. When ever... Could it have been at Donegild's holdfast?
Still, my Liege smiled and took me by the hands, staying silent yet with a sorrowful look in his eyes: "I do not care whether I have sired an imp. Keep him and my love carefully, until I return, which I expect to be soon. I hope I will be sent an heir more of my liking." That was, to cut a long story short, what he wrote on the reverse side of the scroll before sealing it, giving it to me, and riding off into the fray on the battlefield. And thus, I set off for the royal castle, in the opposite direction.
All right, Ethelred... How could you have fallen twice into the same old trap? Let's face the facts: the circumstances were the same: I was thirsty and weary, the sun was setting, the holdfast was within my reach. And yes, it was the same holdfast, the Queen Dowager's.
She welcomed me as heartily as before, gave her cupbearer the same commands, and soon I was draining a new tankard every instant. And that left me bereft of reason. Then the room is reeling, then it all turns foggy, then everything turns dark before me. Like, I can't remember what happened that night. So I wake up, the gods know when, but it was already mid-day, to Donegild shaking me up: "Ethelred! Ethelred!" My head was filled with a throbbing pain, and I could not hold my breakfast. The servants also commented that I looked pale. So why was I so ill at ease?

So let's be honest: it was the amber nectar. The first time, it had not mattered. But this was the second time in that month that the backstabbing usurper left me bereft of reason. And it was when I had to give the Regency my reply. Of course this is a flaw, and a fatal flaw on top of that. So that took away my reason, and I passed out. Yet soon I would discover what had been done while I was unconscious, and the consequences would be fatal for the whole kingdom of Northumbria.

So let's be honest: I should not had drunk until my girdle was too tight... 

The Queen Mother, the Scots, the one who raised the holdfast, and the spirit of amber nectar. That makes four culprits, and the fourth is the most insidious of them all.

So I reach the castle the next day at twilight and the Constable, the Regent, reads the letter as he shudders, turning pale and then bright red as a strawberry:

"The king commands his constable, anon,
On pain of hanging by the high justice,
That he shall suffer not, in any guise,
Custance within the kingdom to abide
Beyond three days and quarter of a tide.
"But in the ship wherein she came to strand
She and her infant son and all her gear
Shall be embarked and pushed out from the land,
And charge her that she never again come here." 

He said there was no other way but this one, to maroon the queen and the prince of our lands, and declare them personae non gratae. The penalty of death has got such an effect on servants of the realm. Once I eavesdropped him, on the second day of the fatal three, say to himself:

"Ah, woe is me
That I must be your torturer, or die
A shameful death! There is no other way." 

Everyone in our country-esque and peaceful lands, children, women, elders, wept because of the letter King Allan had sent. Yet I had seen what my Liege had written. It was a forgery that the Regent had read. A forgery which had somehow been replaced... Anyway, I was there on the docks with the rest of the court, watching the rudderless ship set sail with the young Queen and her heir, no imp at all but rather a ruddy and rosy lad, until they had disappeared beyond the horizon of the vast blue ocean. Their whereabouts are still unknown to me, yet I hope that they are still alive and well somewhere.
To return to the theme of the forged letter...
Not long after the marooning, the war came to an end and our victorious king and warlords returned in triumph to the castle. I had still connected it to the war front by bringing court ladies married to, betrothed to, or whose fathers and/or brothers were officers of the realm tidings of their male relations on the battlefield, and vice versa. Anyway, there were revels for both the victory and the peace, and it was thus that our Liege asked for his wife and child, whom he had missed throughout the war. Upon hearing these words, the Constable shuddered, turning pale, and told the truth, showing King Allan the forged letter:

"My lord, as you commanded me,
On pain of death, so have I done- in vain!"

 Then, I felt as if a large chunk of sky were about to fall right on my head. The King's soldiers seized me and thrust me into a dungeon, where they shackled me to the wall. And then, to my astonishing surprise (I would have expected something more painful), they forced a tankardful of water down my throat. Which you may see as highly ironic, given the fact that I had got into this fine mess for quaffing far stronger fare.
Then a second tankard, then a third, then... at the thirteenth cup of water, I felt about to throw it all up, but what came out was no liquid. It was my confession. A couple of warlords, the King, and the Constable stood at the dungeon grate, listening attentively to all I had to say.
They might as well have used mead or beer instead of water to make me sing... but that spoils the ironies of life.
I told them where I had spent the night, in that holdfast you have already heard of...

And thus, by dint of subtle questioning,
'Twas reasoned out from whom this harm did spring. 

The next day, the Queen Dowager was summoned to court and tied to a stake in the courtyard, where her only son, with his very own hands and sword, gracefully severed his head. I was stunned. I could not believe that she had been the villainess of the story all along. Yet I loved her, and I thought she would make a far better ruler than King Allan himself.
So I did not know to whom I was true. Was I a traitor, an accomplice of the villainess, a fool who had sold his loyalty for a draught of liquid fire, like an Esau of our times? The answer is yes. But the other answer is that I was obliged to swear allegiance to my Liege, and that swear that the Queen Dowager was the villainess, against my will. The others were the villains, and I had to flee the land for my life.
Northumbria, once my birthplace, held no longer any attractive after that chain of unexpected events and backstabbing intrigues in which I was used as a key pawn.
So here am I now, on board this foreign ship in the middle of the vast blue ocean, talking to a shieldmaiden who reminds me of Queen Donegild when she was young and strong. Now you know my story, Astrid. I may appear weak, flawed, and/or self-indulgent from the events I got a lead role in, but I am sure that you still love me. When we land on the shores of Iceland, I promise that I will reform. Don't know if such an irresponsible and indiscrete officer will ever make a good father and spouse, only the gods will tell, but at least I will try not to prostitute myself in any way, to make you, and everyone else in my new home, feel happy and pleased with me, and trust me.