Great Rite

"And I disobeyed a Queen and the Goddess. Neither matters since we have saved our Kingdom. Back we go to the fort to tend our wounded and bury our dead."

I carried Edith back inside the fort. Ingrid and Helga dressed Edith's wound and put her to bed. Edith's injury was minor but she was in a state of delayed shock.

The women left with Ingrid had successfully harassed the retreating raiders with arrows. In the months since the women had first defended the walls they had been practising. Now they could shoot aimed arrows out to at least one hundred yards. They had killed at least thirty of the raiders. The spear women who had left the fort had killed fifty or more. Edith's sword cut had been the only wound the women had suffered. The women's approach had been unobserved because the raiders were facing us. The war band had killed over one hundred but twenty of our own were dead or dying.

+++

In the morning a week later I was recovering after a night with four naked wives. Edith sat up beside me. She asked that the four naked Queens should meet me as the King. After we had dressed and had breakfast I sat on the dais in the Royal Hall facing the four Queens standing in front of me. Edith was standing with a help of her broken spear shaft.

"I should be able to walk without this within a couple of days, King Alfred. We wanted to ask you what you are going to do about King's companion Ingrid. I am asking for all four Queens."

"What do you want me to do about Ingrid?"

"Do you love her, Alfred?"

"Yes."

"Then what we four Queens want is for you to make Ingrid the King's companion in more than name. We want her to be your wife and the fifth Queen."

"You're sure? All of you?"

Edith looked at the others.

"You're sure?" I asked again.

"Yes," All four of them answered firmly.

"As Alfred the man, I have to obey my four Queens. I suppose it won't make much difference if I have to obey five. That's a joke. I love Ingrid. I would be delighted to marry Ingrid and appoint her as the fifth Queen. Have you thought what her role should be?"

"Yes," Edith said. "We want her to be the King's Companion, the woman always by your side. Her responsibility will be you. All four of us love you and look after you but you and the Witan have given all of us substantial roles that take us away from you. Ingrid already is with you more often than any one of us. As fifth Queen her role is to support you..."

"...and sometimes tell you to obey," Gudrun added. "You can be your own worst enemy with your sense of duty as King. She will protect the man we love."

"With a wooden sword?" I asked.

"No. The Witan have ordered that small swords be made for all five of us. Real swords for use, not the decorative sword of kingship."

"The Witan has ordered FIVE swords including one for Ingrid?"

"Yes, Alfred." Helga replied. "FIVE swords."

"So the Witan know what you want for Ingrid?"

"Yes, Alfred," Edith said. "The Witan know and have agreed."

"It's a rebellion!" I said as I laughed. "I surrender. Please ask Ingrid to come here."

"No need," Ingrid said coming through the open door at the back of the Royal Hall and walking to join the four Queens. "I am here."

The four Queens made room for Ingrid to stand in the centre of the five. I stepped off the dais, walked towards her, and dropped to my knees in front of her.

"Ingrid, will you be my wife and a Queen?" I asked.

"Will you obey me, like you do the other Queens?" Ingrid asked.

"Yes," I replied.

"That doesn't mean much, Ingrid," Edith retorted. "He'll wriggle out of obeying by claiming he's being the King."

"That doesn't matter," Ingrid said. "It's the symbolism, not the reality. He's promised to obey me. He had already agreed to obey the Goddess. That's enough." She rested her hands lightly on my head. "Yes, Alfred, I will be your wife, and yes, King Alfred, I will be the fifth Queen."

The other four Queens surrounded me and each put a hand on my head.

Ingrid became the fifth Queen. I have the love of five women whom I'm supposed to obey. I rarely do except when all of them agree that I should. But they don't always obey me as King either. If I get annoyed with their disobedience they remind me that their disobedience saved my life.

Ingrid was like a walking cane for me. She was there all the time, and if I needed her she was propping me up and making me able to continue. I was injured several times fighting the raiders. Ingrid made sure I had time to recover by fiercely defending me. She would even insist that I should stay in bed long enough. If I objected, not only did she tell me to obey, but she had all of the Queens available to enforce her order.

The Goddess doesn't seem to mind that I don't always live up to the promises I made as a naked slave during the Great Rite. Maybe she thinks giving me five wives to obey and five Queens to coordinate is punishment enough.

Epilogue

Over the next few years we had to fight off several raiders' attacks. We were successful every time but each encounter cost us a few men. Gradually the raiders decided there were easier targets than our Kingdom.

From time to time a Queen became pregnant. As with all our women, they worked almost until they gave birth and were back on duty within hours even though the other Queens would help. I was the father of several sons and a couple of daughters.

Our Kingdom was successful in defending itself. I wanted more knowledge available so that we could learn to match the Romans' achievements. It's too much to expect in my lifetime. Raising crops and children in safety is a legacy I can live with. Appeasing the Goddess through the Great Rite was a small price to pay.

The End

Author's Notes:

As with all my stories, the whole setting, places and people are fictional.

I have assumed the era to be about 600 AD, a couple of hundred years after the Romans had left England but before St Augustine had extended Christianity beyond the immediate area of Canterbury. The fort is based on the massive remains of a Saxon Shore fort such as Porchester, Brancaster or Reculver. The kingdom is small, perhaps four or five thousand people living within a day's walk of the fort. The sea raiders were long before the Vikings but had been a problem even in Roman times.

When the Romans left much of their knowledge of workmanship and engineering was lost. I assumed that the surviving people would try to relearn those skills but would be incompetent compared with Roman specialists. Most of the population of that time would be illiterate. Reading and writing came back with Christianity but it took the real King Alfred, much later than the time of my story, to spread literacy even among a few.

I have used modern equivalents of Anglo-Saxon names, not historically accurate but easier to read than the original names of that time. The conversations are more modern than they would have been, again easier to read. Worship of the tripartite Goddess -- Maiden, Mother, Crone -- was still prevalent during the Roman occupation but it is doubtful that it applied widely in England at this time. Goddess worship continued as an underground religion for centuries. I used the Goddess because it fitted my story.

If anything is historically wrong? Blame my imagination.