Shadow on the Crown (12 page)

As she watched him lead the horses toward the stable, she pondered the wisdom of riding out with him again. She still did not know why he had made this overture toward her, but, dear God, she longed to escape the suffocating world within the palace walls. Why should she not attend him, if the king allowed it? She needed to forge alliances within the court. Perhaps this was a beginning.

Or perhaps, she argued with herself, it was a trap of some kind, devised to destroy her already precarious relationship with the king. How was she to tell?

She turned to follow Wymarc, who was shepherding the younger boys into the private apartments. There was no one at court, she reminded herself, whom she could truly trust, except her own people. She must remember that.

But as she made her way up the stairs, slowly, for her legs ached from their unaccustomed exercise, she was troubled by a too vivid memory of piercing blue eyes and the sudden shifting of the earth beneath her feet.

Chapter Thirteen

October 1002

Winchester, Hampshire

W
hen the evening meal had been cleared away, and the king’s household, to ward off the autumn chill, had settled themselves around the central fire, Elgiva, with Groa beside her, contemplated the gathering from an unobtrusive alcove. Normally she would have claimed a place at the king’s side to listen as his
scop
recited some thrilling tale. Tonight, though, because of her father’s imperious demands, she had to forgo her treasured seat beside the king.

She was still seething from the tongue lashing her father’s messenger had delivered earlier in the day. The thick, swaggering, self-important churl had rebuked her in her father’s name for not attending to the task he had set her.

“You were meant to be his eyes and ears,” the oaf had said, “but to judge from the news you’ve sent him, you’ve gone blind and deaf. My lord wishes to know if you’ve gone softheaded, as well.”

She’d wanted to slap the fool. She had her own affairs to tend to and little time to play at being her father’s informer. Aside from having to attend Emma whenever she snapped her fingers, she accompanied the king when he visited some shrine or hunted with a few select companions—a daily ritual while the weather held fair. How could she pay attention to the business of others when she was so caught up in her own?

But she would have to send her father something, if only to keep that oaf from haranguing her again. She glanced around the hall, taking mental note of how the members of the court had arranged themselves. The place she usually had at the king’s side had been filled by Ealdorman Godwine of Lindsey and his wife, Lady Winfled, who was chattering away like a magpie. Æthelred looked bored, and Elgiva smiled. When she sat next to him he was never bored.

She would tell her father about Godwine, of course, but the man was no threat and no particular favorite of the king’s, for that matter. As for whom the king favored the most . . . well, that was no business of her father’s. She held out her arm and gazed with admiration at the broad gold band that graced her wrist—a gift that Æthelred had presented to her only yesterday. She had spun around before him in a new gown, and he had placed the heavy bangle on her hand.
To
keep your feet on the ground,
he had said.

She wanted more than pretty presents, though. She wondered how long it would be until the king grew tired of his insipid bride and turned elsewhere for consolation. Not long, she thought. Already he visited Emma’s bed less frequently than he had in the early weeks of summer.

She made a mental note to tell her father about that. She would also tell him that Emma’s waist remained slender, cause for great speculation among the women of the court. It was whispered that if Emma remained barren, the king might be persuaded to put her aside and marry another.

She searched for the queen then and saw her seated at some distance from her husband. Æthelred’s three-year-old daughter, Wulfhilde, her thumb in her mouth, was curled in Emma’s lap, and her sisters sat nearby. Whatever Æthelred’s feelings toward his queen, Elgiva thought, his daughters had taken to her like chicks to a hen. The girls were not important, though, and not likely to interest her father.

Of far greater interest were Emma’s adult companions, and Elgiva regarded them with some surprise. She leaned a little toward Groa and whispered, “When did the Bishop of Winchester and the Abbess of Wherwell become so friendly with the queen?”

Groa, her fingers busy as always with wool and spindle, glanced at Emma.

“When she gave the bishop the relics of St. Valentinus for the New Minster,” Groa replied, “and when she endowed Wherwell with a tract from her dower lands to found a cell near Exeter.”

Elgiva did not like that news. Emma may be a prisoner, but apparently she was putting her brother’s gold to good use.

“Why did you not tell me of this before?” she chided Groa.

“Because you did not ask, my lady, and so I thought you knew.”

Elgiva wanted to shake her old nurse. It maddened her that Groa was so closemouthed. She kept her eyes and ears open, it was true, but she was so niggardly of speech that one had to prise information out of her.

“How would I know about it?” she demanded. “I have spent a great deal of time of late with the king, and I can assure you we do not discuss Emma and her endowments.” She huffed with impatience. “Who else has the queen been courting that I should know about? Tell me, even if you think it is obvious.”

“The king’s children attend the queen almost daily when she goes riding out beyond—”

“The children mean nothing,” Elgiva snapped. “What of her escort when she rides? Are they the same men every time?” Wealth and beauty were seductive, and Emma had both. At Æthelred’s court, she had observed, loyalty was often for sale.

“Lord Athelstan and his men provide her escort, along with some of Emma’s Normans,” Groa replied. “The æthelings Ecbert and Edmund sometimes ride with them as well. Indeed, the æthelings’ retainers have befriended many of the Normans.”

Elgiva felt a prick of alarm at this news. She glanced quickly around the hall and found Athelstan seated at a game board across from Emma’s man, Hugh. The Norman priest, Father Martin, was in deep, quiet conversation with the abbot of the New Minster, and as she gazed around she realized that the Normans—men and women—no longer sat in a group by themselves but were scattered among the English folk.

“How have I not noticed this?” she murmured.

“Do not fault yourself, my lady. As you say, you have been attending upon the king when he rides to the hunt. You have not seen the queen’s party ride out after your departure, nor seen them return before the hunters have come back.”

“But I do not understand how the Normans have insinuated themselves among us,” Elgiva protested.

“They have taken great pains to learn our language, and that is what has done it. Even Emma’s women speak only English now. Surely that has not escaped you.”

Elgiva scowled, stung by this, for it had indeed escaped her.

“All my thoughts have been focused on the king,” she said. “You have told me that one day I will be queen. How can that prophecy be fulfilled if I do not make myself the king’s darling?”

“You will be queen,” Groa assured her. “It has been foretold by one who has seen it.”

Not for the first time Elgiva wondered who had spun such a royal future for her. But although she had pressed the old woman for the source of her knowledge, Groa had refused to divulge it. And that was not such a bad thing, Elgiva thought, for if Groa kept the secrets of others, her own secrets would be safe with her as well.

Her eyes strayed to Athelstan again, and she saw that his gaze was fixed upon Emma. The queen looked up, met his glance, and for the space of several heartbeats some mute understanding seemed to pass between them. Then Emma blushed and looked away.

Elgiva drew a long, slow, astonished breath, hardly able to believe what she had just seen. Was it possible that Athelstan, who should have been Emma’s greatest enemy, lusted after his father’s bride? How many hours had they spent riding together, then? And what had been shared between them? More than fresh air, to be sure.

Her suspicion was like bile in her throat. If it was true, then Athelstan was yet another thing that Emma had taken that should have been hers. And it was yet one more reason why she hated the king’s Norman bride.

The Feast of St. Æthelred dawned clear and sunny. On this day the palace, the Old Minster, and all the streets surrounding the royal compound buzzed with anticipation, as royals, prelates, and townsfolk came together to celebrate the feast day of the king.

Athelstan, waiting to take his place in the solemn procession forming in the palace courtyard, watched as the lead figures in the column set out through the gate. The bishop led the way, resplendent in a red cope embroidered with golden roods, his hands adorned with ruby rings. Behind him, ten priests walked two by two, each one garbed in a green chasuble for the celebration of the Mass. They were followed by a dozen white-robed acolytes, who bore a flower-strewn litter that carried the massive golden coffer housing St. Æthelred’s relics. Following the saint, the king and queen stood ready to lead the royal family toward the minster, and behind the royal party the choir had already begun to chant a psalm.

Athelstan, in his place behind the queen, thought that she looked as lovely as he had ever seen her. Her hair was pulled modestly into a long, thick braid, barely visible through the opaque whiteness of her veil. The white of her chemise, gathered tightly at her throat and her wrists, contrasted starkly with the deep blue of the cyrtel that hugged her slim figure. She had accented her gown with nothing more than a rope of pearls that looped to her waist, and the only gold she wore was a delicate crown set with sapphires. Beside her, his father was resplendent in gold from crown to hem, to give honor to the saint whose name he bore—and to impress the crowd.

The procession made its way past throngs of silently reverent town and country folk, who had spilled into the streets to watch the parade of royals, prelates, and the stunning reliquary of the saint. Many in the crowd held crosses; others stood with wide-eyed children perched upon their shoulders.

As Athelstan entered the Old Minster it took a moment for his eyes to adjust from the brightness of the sunlight to the shadowy vastness of the church. He caught the scent of roses before he could see them. The sisters of Nunnaminster and the ladies of Emma’s court had transformed the cold stone edifice into a bower, for every altar and column wore garlands of fragrant blossoms. High above, bright silk pennons billowed from brackets on the walls.

The massive organ poured out a solemn processional that echoed over the heads of the congregation as the king led his entourage upstairs to the royal chamber near the altar. Athelstan took his place behind his father and swept his gaze over the hundreds of worshipers standing below. Many of them would have spent the night in the church to claim a choice spot from which to gaze their fill on the glittering royals. Few of the faithful, he thought, observing their upturned faces, would have their minds on their prayers today.

In truth, his own thoughts were anything but prayerful, and they were far more carnal than was politic or wise. Emma knelt just before him and a little to one side, and to be so close to her when he could neither touch her nor even speak to her was a sweet torture.

For the thousandth time he reminded himself that she was his father’s wife.

The words seemed to repeat in his head like a demented litany, but it did not matter. Yes, she was his father’s wife, but his father did not love her, did not even want her.

And, God help him, he did.

Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor’s wife.

Which commandment was that? And what about thy
father’s
wife? If you fell into that sin, was there any redemption?

He did not care, because he did not want redemption; he wanted his father’s wife, although he could never have her. She was as far beyond his reach as the moon.

Yet he loved her—a thing that still mystified him. In spite of the laws of God and of man, in spite even of his own will, he loved her. And he did not know what to do, because while his father lived he never could have her.

The service seemed to last an eternity. By the time it was over his dismal reflections on the hopelessness of his passion for Emma had driven him to near despair. The royal couple led the way out of the church, and he dutifully followed them outside, where they were met by a cheering crowd and a cacophony of bells. Forcing himself to school his eyes and his thoughts away from the queen, he noticed a movement ahead of him and to his right, like the ripple of a wind breathing across a field of wheat. Puzzled, he stared at the brightly colored crowd, and amid their hues of green and yellow and rust, he made out a lone black form moving, swift as a hawk’s shadow, toward the king.

Chapter Fourteen

October 1002

Winchester, Hampshire

T
he wild pealing of the minster bells filled the square with waves of sound as Emma, walking at the king’s side, smiled at the cheering folk who lined their route. The afternoon sun felt warm on her shoulders, and she wished that she could slow her pace and clasp some of the many hands that reached out eagerly to touch their queen. Æthelred, however, did not allow it. His firm hand at her elbow guided her briskly toward the palace gates.

She glanced at him and saw that his face wore its usual grim aspect. She did not understand it. This was his feast day. All of this rejoicing was in his honor. Could he not even smile at his subjects in return? And there had been good news this morning as well: The winds in the Narrow Sea had shifted in England’s favor. There would be no threat from plundering dragon ships now, not until the water roads opened up again in the spring.

It was welcome news to her, if not to the king. All summer she had watched and waited for Danish raiders to attack, fearing that when it happened her brother would somehow be implicated, guilty or not, and that retribution would fall upon her—guilty or not. Now she felt safe, and she walked with a lighter step, as if a heavy mourning cloak had been lifted from her shoulders.

The first inkling she had of anything amiss was the sound of a single, discordant voice that rose shrill above the clamor of the bells. There were alien curses in that cry, words that raised the fine hairs along her arms and turned her blood to ice. She searched for the source of that hideous sound, and as she did so she saw a knife flash above the heads of the nearest onlookers. Before she could even scream a warning, the king was flung headlong to the ground and Athelstan had lunged at a figure hurtling toward them from out of the crowd.

She cried out as the knife glinted again, its blade driving downward. At the same moment a handful of men-at-arms, their swords drawn, surged in front of her, jostling her backward as they formed a wall that separated her from the king and his son. Rough hands grasped her shoulders, and a cluster of king’s guards surrounded her, propelling her through the gates and into the palace yard. There was no chance to protest, no opportunity to determine what damage had been done, for her guards did not slacken their pace until they had brought her to her own chamber.

“I must go to the king,” she insisted, shaken by what she had seen and heard, terrified by what she feared. The knife had plunged toward Athelstan. Dear God, what had happened?

She made to leave the chamber, but one of the guards blocked her path.

“You will stay here, my lady,” he said firmly. “Guards will be posted in the corridor to keep you safe.” He reached for the door and shut it, cutting off her protest.

For a moment she simply stared at the place where he had been, trembling and afraid. Doubt inched like a worm under her skin and into her brain. Were the guards meant to keep her safe or to keep her from escaping?

Either way, she was a prisoner.

She began to pace, her eyes shut, trying to make sense of what she had seen, recalling with awful clarity the words that had risen above the incessant clanging of the bells. Time passed slowly, and she heard nothing except the sound of her own footsteps. It seemed like hours had slipped by before voices rang in the corridor.

She turned to the door as it opened and the king’s steward, Hubert, entered.

“What has happened?” she demanded, before he had even finished his bow. Her heart drummed in her chest as she waited for him to speak.

“The creature that raised his hand against the king has been taken,” he said.

“And Lord Athelstan?” she asked. “He is unharmed?”

He raised an eyebrow, and she realized her mistake. She should have asked after the king first. She said stiffly, “I thought I saw the ætheling take an injury.”

His thin, almost colorless mouth curled slightly in a dismissive smile.

“An insignificant wound, my lady, that has been tended. The king, I can assure you, was unhurt. He commands you to speak of the incident to no one, and he orders you to attend him at the feast in the great hall as soon as you may.”

She stared at him, not certain that she had heard him aright.

“The king would keep this secret? How?” It was not possible. There had been hundreds of people in the square.

He shrugged. “Few actually saw what happened, and measures have been taken to silence idle tongues. Those who need to know, of course, will be informed at the king’s pleasure. He trusts in your discretion.”

After a curt bow, he left her. Still shaken, she continued to pace, trying to puzzle out the king’s purpose in suppressing the incident. Was it merely that he did not want his subjects to perceive him as a victim, and therefore weak? Or was there something else in his mind? She was no closer to fathoming what that might be when Wymarc glided swiftly into the chamber.

“Why are there guards at the door?” Wymarc asked.

She did not look frightened, merely confused. So perhaps Hubert was right and what had happened in the minster square was not common knowledge.

“It is of no moment,” Emma replied, eager to deflect Wymarc’s curiosity. “All is well.”

The brown eyes studied her, then Wymarc shook her head.

“All may be well,” she said, “but you are as pale as a wraith, my lady, and you are shaking like an aspen in a fierce wind. If you will not tell me what is wrong, at least let me get you a cup of wine.”

Emma, recognizing suddenly that her legs felt as thin and weak as cattails, sank into her chair. She gratefully accepted the wine, although she had difficulty holding the cup steady, for she could not control the trembling of her hands. How she longed to escape from here, to ride Ange along the river until she reached the sea. But the king had commanded her to attend the feast, and she had to obey. Would Athelstan be there? She prayed so. Hubert had made light of the ætheling’s injury, but Hubert would say whatever the king commanded, and so she feared for Athelstan in spite of the steward’s assurances.

Her mother’s voice, emerging from some hidden corner of her mind, echoed in her head.
You must never allow anyone to see your fear.

She looked down at her shaking hands and took a deep breath, trying to reach a calm that eluded her. It was not only for Athelstan that she was afraid. The words of the attacker still rang in her ears. Few in the crowd would have heard them, and fewer still would have understood them, for the tongue that spoke them had been Danish.

“Death to the king! Death to the council!” He had shouted the words over and over. She could hear them even as she was being hustled through the palace gates.

Yet it was not the words themselves that frightened her. It was what Æthelred, who knew no Danish, was likely to do when he learned their meaning.

Æthelred presided over the feast with what he believed was creditable dignity. His sons and his house guards had dealt quickly with the villain who had tried to kill him, and those in the crowd near enough to see the attack had been bribed with silver and threats to hold their tongues. He did not want his enemies to know how close they had come to dispatching him.

Nonetheless, they had come far too close.

He ate little, for the specter of his own death gaped before him like a yawning pit. When he could bear the tension no longer, he rose to his feet and, bidding his guests to continue their revelry, pleaded weariness and left the hall. Calling for torches and candles—for he wanted no shadowy corners in his rooms tonight—he sought the solitude of his chamber.

Once there, pacing to and fro in the silence, no amount of light could wipe from his mind the image of a gleaming knife poised to strike. It was retribution, he had no doubt—recompense for the murder of a king.

Twenty-four years ago he had seen just such a blade glinting in a raised hand, a flash in the dark. No one had intervened that night; no champion had stepped forward to save a king’s life. He had watched in horror from the shadows at the top of the stairs, a scream caught in his throat as Edward fended off that first blow. But there had been so many blows after that one. Too many. Edward had been butchered at the hands of men he had trusted.

He stopped his pacing to stand before the crucifix where Christ hung in agony.

Today’s attack was a judgment upon him sent by God as punishment for that murder done at Corfe. His own hand had not wielded the weapons that killed his brother, but neither had he done all he could to prevent it. He had seen the riders coming, had seen the moonlight gleaming on their swords, and he had not had the wit to cry a warning to Edward. He had stood there, mouth agape with a cry that never left his throat.

When it was all over, he was given Edward’s crown.

Yet today, his son—who so resembled that dead king—had seen the danger and had come to a king’s aid. Athelstan might have been enthroned tonight if he had hesitated but a little. He had not. He had intervened in God’s act of retribution. But God, Æethelred knew, would not relent.

He fell to his knees before the cross, closing his eyes and bowing his head, and pleaded a silent prayer for mercy. He had made reparation. He had encouraged the cult that revered his brother as martyr and saint. He had built a shrine for Edward’s holy remains, had invested abbeys in the martyr’s name. What more could he do that he had not already done?

Yet even as he prayed, a cold dread crept over him.

“Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of—” But the psalm caught in his throat, and some force—like an invisible hand beneath his chin—compelled him to lift his head and gaze upon that familiar, tortured figure on the cross. To his horror he saw that the face gazing back at him was Edward’s face. It was Edward’s blood that poured from a dozen gaping wounds and Edward’s eyes that glared at him with unspoken accusation.

Æthelred tried to look away, to escape the relentless power that held him, but he was trapped in that pitiless gaze. His vision blurred with tears, and a cold, searing pain scored his breast once, and again. The stink of burning flesh assailed him, and he wailed in terror, because he knew that it was the stench of his own punishment come upon him, and that death—and worse than death—awaited him.

For surely in that terrible night beyond the grave lay judgment, and his brother, Edward, would be waiting.

Elgiva, striding down the passage that led toward the king’s chamber, heard Æthelred’s bitter cry and quickened her pace.

She had not been duped by his assertion that he was weary and needed rest. Something unpleasant had occurred, she was certain of it. She had seen it in the uneasy glances that passed between the king and Athelstan and had read it in Emma’s brittle, unsmiling face.

There had been whispers, too—vague rumors of some mishap on the minster green. Determined to get to the bottom of the mystery, she had slipped away from the feasting shortly after the king did. If there were some treachery afoot, her father would want to know of it.

She was nearing the king’s chamber, relieved to see a door ward posted there who knew her well, and who might be persuaded to allow her in, when she heard Æthelred cry out. The guard stared at the door, horror struck, but made no move to open it.

“Did you not hear that, fool?” Elgiva demanded. “The king calls for aid; get you inside, man!”

The guard hesitated, then rapped heavily on the door. “My lord?”

When there was no response he rapped and called again, but Elgiva shoved past him and thrust the door open.

Æthelred knelt on the stone floor with his back to them, his arms flung wide, mirroring the image of the crucifix on the wall. He gave no sign that he heard them enter but continued to face the rood as if in a trance.

The door ward stopped in his tracks, looking as though he wanted the earth to swallow him whole. Elgiva put a finger to her lips and motioned him out of the room.

Alone with the king, she regarded the kneeling Æthelred with a frown. Whatever had happened today it must have frightened him to his very soul to bring him so to his knees. She would have preferred almost any other response but this. She was used to men drinking themselves into a stupor—her father did it often enough whenever he was troubled, so she had some experience at grappling with a man’s reeling body. She was far less confident of her ability to grapple with a reeling soul.