Shadow on the Crown

For Lloyd, Andrew, and Alan

The English Court, 1001–1005

Æthelred II, Anglo-Saxon king of England

Children of the English king, in birth order:

Athelstan

Ecbert

Edmund

Edrid

Edwig

Edward

Edgar

Edyth

Ælfgifu (Ælfa)

Wulfhilde (Wulfa)

Mathilda

Leading Nobles and Ecclesiastics

Ælfhelm, ealdorman of Northumbria

Ufegeat, his son

Wulfheah, his son (Wulf)

Elgiva, his daughter

Ælfric, ealdorman of Hampshire

Ælfgar, his son

Hilde, his granddaughter

Ælfheah, bishop of Winchester

Godwine, ealdorman of Lindsey

Leofwine, ealdorman of Western Mercia

Wulfstan, archbishop of Jorvik and bishop of Worcester

The Norman Court, 1001–1005

Richard II, duke of Normandy

Robert, archbishop of Rouen, brother of the duke

Judith, duchess of Normandy

Gunnora, dowager duchess of Normandy

Mathilde, sister of the duke

Emma, sister of the duke

The Danish Royals

Swein Forkbeard, king of Denmark

Harald, his son

Cnut, his son

Glossary

Ætheling:
literally,
throne worthy.
All of the legitimate sons of the Anglo-Saxon kings were referred to as æthelings.

Ague:
any sickness with a high fever

Augur:
to predict from signs or omens

Braies:
French term for trousers, made of linen

Breecs:
Anglo-Saxon term for trousers

Burh:
an Anglo-Saxon fort

Byrnie:
a mail tunic

Ceap:
the market, or high street

Chasuble:
an ecclesiastical vestment, a sleeveless mantle covering body and shoulders, often elaborately embroidered, worn over a long, white tunic during the celebration of the Mass

Chausses:
French term for hose, or long stockings

Cope:
an ecclesiastical vestment, often of silk and elaborately embroidered; it resembled a long cloak

Culver:
Anglo-Saxon term for pigeon

Cyrtel:
a woman’s gown

Danelaw:
an area of England that roughly comprises Yorkshire, East Anglia, and central and eastern Mercia where successive waves of Scandinavians settled throughout the ninth and tenth centuries

Ealdorman:
a high-ranking noble appointed by the king to govern a province in the king’s name. He led troops, levied taxes, and administered justice. It was a political position usually conferred upon members of powerful families.

Fyrd:
an armed force that was raised at the command of the king or an ealdorman, usually in response to a Viking threat

Gafol:
the tribute paid to an enemy army to purchase peace

Geld:
a tax levied by the king, who used the money to pay the tribute extorted by Viking raiders

Godwebbe:
precious cloth, frequently purple, normally of silk; probably shot-silk taffeta

Handfasting:
a marriage or betrothal; a sign of a committed relationship with no religious ceremony or exchange of property

Headrail:
a veil, often worn with a circlet or band, kept in place with pins

Hearth troops:
warriors who made up the household guard of the king or a great lord

Herepath:
a military road

Hird:
the army of the Northmen; the enemies of the English

Host:
army

Kalends
:
the first day of the month in the ancient Roman calendar, which always fell on a new moon

Leech/leechcraft:
a physician; the practice of the healing art

Leman:
lover; from Old French

Pennons:
banners

Pulses:
dried peas and beans

Reeve:
a man with administrative responsibilities utilized by royals, bishops, and nobles to oversee towns, villages, and large estates

Rood:
the cross on which Christ was crucified

Scarp:
a steep slope formed by the fracturing of the earth’s crust

Scop:
storyteller; harper

Screens passage:
a vestibule just inside the entrance to a great hall or similar chamber, created by movable screens that blocked the wind from gusting into the hall when the doors were opened

Seax:
knife

Sending:
an unpleasant or evil creature sent by someone with magical powers to warn, punish, or take revenge on a person; from Old Norse

Skald:
poet or storyteller

Tafl:
a popular board game in early medieval England and Scandinavia with some similarities to modern-day chess

Thegn:
literally “one who serves another”; a title that marks a personal relationship; the leading ones served the king himself; a member of the highest rank in Anglo-Saxon society; a landholder with specified obligations to his lord

Wain:
a wagon or cart

Wergild:
literally “man payment”; the value set on a person’s life

Witan:
“wise men”; the king’s council

Wyrd:
fate or destiny

A.D. 979
In this year was King Edward slain at even-tide, at Corfe-gate, on the fifteenth before the kalends of April, and he was buried at Werham without any royal honors. Nor was a worse deed than this done since men came to Britain. . . . Æthelred was consecrated king. In this same year a bloody sky was often seen, most clearly at midnight, like fire in the form of misty beams. As dawn approached, it glided away.

—The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle

Prologue

Eve of St. Hilda’s Feast, November 1001

Near Saltford, Oxfordshire

S
he made a circuit of the clearing among the oaks, three times round and three times back, whispering spells of protection. There had been a portent in the night: a curtain of red light had shimmered and danced across the midnight sky like scarlet silk flung against the stars. Once, in the year before her birth, such a light had marked a royal death. Now it surely marked another, and although her magic could not banish death, she wove the spells to ward disaster from the realm.

When her task was done she fed the fire that burned in the center of the ancient stone ring, and sitting down beside it, she waited for the one who came in search of prophecy. Before the sun had moved a finger’s width across the sky, the figure of a woman, cloaked and veiled, stood atop the rise, her hand upon the sentinel stone. Slowly she followed the path down through the trees and into the giants’ dance until she, too, took her place beside the fire, with silver in her palm.

“I would know my lady’s fate,” she said.

The silver went from hand to hand, and against her will, the seer glimpsed a heart, broken and barren, that loved with a dark and twisted love. But the silver had been given, and at her nod, a lock of hair was laid upon the flames. She searched for visions in the fire, and they tumbled and roiled until they hurt her eyes and scored her heart.

“Your lady will be bound to a mighty lord,” she said at last, “and her children will be kings.”

But because of the darkness in that heart across the fire, she said nothing of the other, of the lady who would journey from afar, and of the two life threads so knotted and tangled that they could not be pulled asunder for a lifetime or forever. She did not speak of the green land that would burn to ash in the days to come, or of the innocents who would die, all for the price of a throne.

There would be portents in the sky again tonight, she knew, and high above her the stars would weep blood.