I am so very excited to announce: Since last week’s installment of “The Age of Æthelflæd: Anglo-Saxon Warrior Queen,” it has been announced that Annie Whitehead’s second novel, Alvar the Kingmaker, has been awarded the B.R.A.G. Medallion. Another well-deserved honor for this fantastic author! (And I get to add it to her bio below!)
Congratulations, Annie Whitehead!!!
Interview between author Annie Whitehead and
Ethelred, Lord of the Mercians
The author (Annie) and her character (Ethelred, Lord of the ancient kingdom of Mercia) are seated in the great hall at Worcester. He is nursing a gold cup which we assume is filled with wine, while she, having a 21st century palate, has declined to drink, finding Anglo-Saxon wine too sweet for her taste. They are discussing someone whom they both know very well – Aethelflaed, Lady of the Mercians.
Annie: I suppose the thing that binds us is that we both love and admire her?
Ethelred: I didn’t know her like you knew her, not in the early days. Where did you find out about her character, where did that come from?
Annie: It wasn’t easy. A great deal has been written about her famous father…
Ethelred: My ally, Alfred the Great.
Annie: Yes, except the historians didn’t see you so much as allies, more that you were subservient to him.
Ethelred: I wasn’t a king.
Annie: Exactly. And Alfred was a king who valued literacy. He commissioned the Anglo-Saxon Chronicles, and much was written in them about him and his reign. Less so about his daughter, and even less about her early life. But I pieced it together – In Asser’s Life of Alfred, it is implied that she grew up away from the Wessex court.
Ethelred: In Mercia. At least until the Vikings came banging on our door.
Annie: I never did find out much about your early life, but I guess that you, being older, had your part to play in fighting off those attackers.
Ethelred: I didn’t make that part easy for you, did I? And you know that I don’t like to talk about those years.
Annie: Aethelflaed’s attitude to you changed when she found out, though, didn’t it?
Ethelred: It brought us closer, yes.
Ethelred pauses. He takes a sip of his drink, and twirls the goblet in his fingers before he continues. The author knows that he is a man of few words, and that this episode is painful to recall. He changes the subject, but not to a happier story.
Ethelred: She loved another. When she wed me, her heart was with him still.
Annie: Yes.
Ethelred: You knew? Why didn’t you tell me?
Annie: I couldn’t. I wouldn’t have been doing my job as a storyteller if I had revealed everything.
Ethelred: You told the readers.
Annie: Yes, but I couldn’t tell you. Would it have made any difference? Would you still have married her?
Ethelred: Yes, I would have married her, I had to. It was a seal on the alliance. In any case, it didn’t take me long to guess. She did not have the maturity to hide her true feelings, not then. But I felt for her – it was difficult for her, I know, to love one and be wed to another. And to be sent away from her home. I admired her courage.
Annie: You were patient, and you taught her well. Surely you will take some credit for that?
Ethelred: I think that she had an enquiring mind. And she lived with a fear, that drove her actions, always. She knew that she had a duty, to her people, and to do whatever it took to keep the invaders away. How was it for you – writing her from a child to a woman? She changed a lot.
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Annie: You’re avoiding the question. Yes, she grew up. I dug deep, researched thoroughly, and put as many obstacles in her way as I could. I like to think I encouraged her to learn from her mistakes. I had a sense that I knew what sort of person she would be, based on her life experiences and her actions as an adult.
Have you heard that advice about how the time comes to put away childish things? No, of course you haven’t, that was written much after your lifetime. But that’s what she did, you know, she put away her childish notions. And she watched you, very intently. Did you ever feel her scrutiny?
Ethelred: Sometimes I caught her looking at me. I thought it would be wise to stand back, to wait for her to settle down to her new life. At times I despaired, but I had a job to do, and that distracted me. Then, when I was ready to give up hope that she could ever care for me, she came to me, offered me her support. And her love. Although, sometimes, there was doubt…
Annie: How was it for you, having to hand over the reins? You had to give a warrior’s worries to a woman.
Ethelred: Strange question. Ah well, I suppose that to you it was unlikely – yes, she was a woman, but it was the obvious choice to us in Mercia. You see, she had already done her share of fighting; she had fought to win over the people, to make them accept her, and they loved her for never giving up on them. We were a team by that point. She was the right person to lead in my stead. And she still came to me for advice, you know. Even after…
It seems like neither the author nor the character wish to think about the end of that sentence. So the author sits forward and smiles.
Annie: It was nice for me to travel with her from her childhood all the way to when she became, frankly, a tired and grumpy woman who began to lose her patience!
Ethelred: You see? You wouldn’t have got that from a man – she had such inventive ways of dealing with the enemy! I bet you had fun researching those stories?
Annie: I did, as a matter of fact. Those who did write about her furnished me with a lot of anecdotes.
Ethelred: I watched her grow, too. From quite a petulant girl, albeit with justification, to a loving and courageous woman. I can’t believe though that at first you had intended to write my story, rather than hers.
Annie: It’s true though. You were a hard one to track down. Where did you even come from? I think I should leave you to your wine – you probably have an evening of feasting and riddle-solving to look forward to – and I’ll tell the tale of how I met you and your wife in the next part of this series.
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Stay tuned as “The Age of Æthelflæd: Anglo-Saxon Warrior Queen” continues next week with author Annie Whitehead’s discussion on how she became acquainted with the Mercians and their world.
Upcoming: My review of Alvar the Kingmaker
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About the author …
Annie Whitehead is a history graduate and prize-winning author. Her first novel, To Be A Queen, is the story of Æthelflæd, daughter of Alfred the Great, who came to be known as the Lady of the Mercians. It was long-listed for the Historical Novel Society’s Indie Book of the Year 2016, and it has just been awarded a B.R.A.G. Gold Medallion.
Her new release, Alvar the Kingmaker, is a tale of intrigue, deceit, politics, love, and murder in tenth-century Mercia, and is available now. It charts the career of the earl who sacrificed personal happiness to secure the throne of England for King Edgar, and, later, Æthelred the Unready. Alvar the Kingmaker is also a B.R.A.G. Medallion honoree.
She has completed a third novel, also set in Mercia, and scheduled for publication in 2017. She has twice been a prizewinner in the Mail on Sunday Novel Writing competition, she won first prize for nonfiction in the new Writing Magazine Poetry and Prose competition, and she has had articles published in various magazines, on a wide range of topics. She is also an editor for the EHFA (English Historical Fiction Authors) blog.
Most recently, she has contributed to the anthology of short stories, 1066 Turned Upside Down, in which nine authors re-imagine the events of 1066, and which has just been awarded HNS Editors’ choice and long-listed for Book of the Year 2017. She lives in the English Lake District with her husband and has three grown-up ‘children’.
You can learn more about and follow author Annie Whitehead and her work at her website, blog, Twitter, Facebook and her Amazon author page. Click titles to purchase To Be A Queen, Alvar the Kingmaker and 1066: Turned Upside Down.
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before the second sleep 
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