Shadow on the Crown (18 page)

“Let us assume, Ecbert, that you are correct. Let us assume, for the sake of argument, that the child is born and that it is a boy. Let us even imagine that the king agrees to name this child his heir. What then? Our father is not like to die any time soon, and by the time that unhappy event occurs, a great many things could have taken place to change the course of all our lives.”

Ecbert leaned forward, rested his elbows on his knees, and peered earnestly at him. “And in the years between now and that uncertain future,” he said, “you and I and all our brothers will fight and bleed to preserve this land whole from the Danes. Should we then turn around and hand it over to Emma’s son?”

“Jesu! We don’t even know that Emma will have a son!” Athelstan glared in helpless exasperation at his brother. “And what is your proposed solution to the problem of Queen Emma and her unborn children?” he demanded. “Do we drown them at birth? Or perhaps we should attempt to drown the queen before she can bear them!”

Ecbert raised empty hands, palms up.

“I have no solution!” he said irritably. “I just—God damn it! He is an old man! He has sons enough and whores enough! Why could he not keep his cock away from this queen?”

Athelstan barked a bitter laugh.

“Would you,” he asked, “if you were in his place?”
He
certainly would not.

“Some men could! Edmund could, were he wed to Emma. He hates her.”

There was some truth to that. Edmund’s dislike of Emma had been immediate and visceral, and it was based, as far as Athelstan knew, on absolutely nothing except that she was Æthelred’s queen.

“Edmund,” he said, “is a pragmatist. If it were in his interest to wed and bed a woman, he would do it, like her or not. Even Emma. And so would you.”

“Mayhap I would not bed her,” Ecbert muttered, “if I had the Lady Elgiva to distract me.”

“Truly? And you would be willing to settle for one woman when you could have two at the snap of your fingers?”

Ecbert collapsed backward on the bed and groaned. “No, I would not! I take your point, but Sweet Holy Mother, what are we to do?”

“Nothing,” Athelstan said. “There is nothing to be done. Put the child out of your head, Ecbert. When it is born, weaned, and has learned how to use a sword, then let us speak of it again.”

When Ecbert left, Athelstan prowled the chamber, his mind toying uneasily with his brother’s news. He recalled, not for the first time, the doom foretold him by the seeress at the stone circle—that the realm would never be his. She had not been able to tell him, though, who would next wear England’s crown. It lay in shadow, she had claimed.

What did that mean? That there would be many rivals for the throne? Or could it be that Æthelred’s heir was not yet born? If he were to search her out again a year hence, after the birth of Emma’s child, would the old woman’s answer be different?

He scowled. He did not truly believe what she had told him, yet the prophecy gnawed at him, as galling as the image of Emma lying white and golden in his father’s arms.

The Winchester Road, Hampshire

Elgiva held her breath as the cowled figure seated opposite her drew back the concealing hood, but she relaxed when she saw that it was Emma who gazed at her in the dim light and not some pitiless Norman henchman. As the wain lurched over the muddy, rutted road, Emma fixed stern eyes on Elgiva, and she grew uneasy again. The queen looked ill, her face drawn and cold. She clearly had something unpleasant that she wanted to say, and Elgiva wished herself anywhere but here.

“I have heard reports,” Emma said at last, “that you have found great favor with the king.”

Elgiva sat up a little straighter. This was no less than she expected, but clearly Emma was fishing. She could not know for certain of Elgiva’s trysts with the king unless Æthelred had told her. She felt a tiny shiver of misgiving. Could the king have confessed his sin to his wife?

She cleared her throat and said, “I have been blessed with some skill as a weaver of tales, my lady—for which I thank God. My stories seem to amuse the king.”

“Ah, Elgiva.” It was almost a sigh. “You are, indeed, a storyteller.” Emma folded her arms and her glance became appraising. “And you have beauty as well as talent. It is no wonder that the king values your . . . services. I hope that he rewards you to your satisfaction.”

Elgiva looked demurely down at her hands. “The king’s pleasure,” she said, “is all my reward. I seek no other.” She looked up at Emma with what she hoped was a chaste smile.

Emma smiled too, so sweetly that Elgiva almost believed it, but not quite.

“Nevertheless,” Emma said, “we all have secret longings. I wonder what it is that you desire in your deepest heart.”

Elgiva kept her face guileless and said, “I can think of nothing, my lady.”

“Can you not?” Emma’s head tilted to one side. “And yet, I am told that once you thought to be Æthelred’s queen.”

Emma’s pale green eyes all but pinned Elgiva to her seat, and Elgiva could not turn her own away. Which one of them, she wondered, would blink first?

“It was my father who put me forward for that honor,” she said. “I am innocent of any such ambition, my lady, I assure you.”

Emma raised one eloquent eyebrow.

“You need not protest your innocence to me, Elgiva,” she said. “My mind is entirely made up on that score.”

Elgiva kept her expression perfectly bland. She understood Emma’s twisted meaning well enough, but she would die before she would let Emma see it. She waited for whatever would come next.

“I wish to explain something to you today,” Emma said, brusquely, “because I want there to be a perfect understanding between us.” She leaned forward a little, so that her face was very close to Elgiva’s. “I am Æthelred’s anointed queen,” she said, pronouncing her words so carefully that her Norman accent all but disappeared. “I will never step aside, willingly or unwillingly. The king will never put another in my place. Whatever hopes you may have, lady, you will never be Æthelred’s queen.”

Elgiva felt a momentary pang of compassion for Emma, because of course the queen was mistaken. If she remained barren nothing could prevent Æthelred from putting her aside.

“My only hope, my lady, is to remain in your service and to please you,” she said. “I hope you do not doubt my loyalty to you. I pray daily for your health and for the blessings of children upon your union with the king.”

Emma gave a short laugh, cut off as the jolting of the wain flung her back against the cushions.

“Then it will please you to learn that your prayers have been answered, Elgiva, for I have, indeed, been blessed. Even now I am with child.”

It was the last thing that she had expected to hear, and for a moment she merely stared, stunned, at Æthelred’s queen. How had the Norman bitch managed to conceive? She had been shut up in her convent for months, and even before that the king had had little to do with his wife. She herself had seen to that. Pulling herself together, she bestowed a smile on Emma.

“This is wonderful news, my lady,” she said. “Indeed, I am very pleased to hear it. Who would not be?”

Emma’s eyebrow flicked up again. “A great many people, I expect,” she said, almost to herself. Then she said, “Because of the child, it will be necessary for me to make some changes in my household. I will want to have about me women who are experienced with babies and with childbirth. I am sorry to have to dismiss any of my ladies, but so it must be, in order to make room for others. As you, Elgiva, are yet a maid, I fear that you do not have the knowledge or experience that I will need in the months to come. I have already arranged it that tomorrow you will be returned to your estate in Mercia.”

The wain gave another sudden lurch, and Elgiva felt her stomach clench, although it was not from the jarring. She licked her lips to respond to Emma, but her mouth had gone dry. So this was how Emma would rid herself of a rival. The plan had much to commend it, as it was innocent, painless, and bloodless. Emma would not be responsible for whatever might happen to Elgiva when she faced her father’s wrath after such a dismissal.

Did the king know about Emma’s plan? She suspected that he did not. With Emma pregnant and the Lenten fast behind him, Æthelred would be in need of a woman, and Elgiva had no intention of being sent away from Winchester when her services, as Emma had put it, would surely be required.

“You are all kindness, my lady,” she said. “I think, however, that given your obvious lack of confidence in me, it would be best if I do not return with you to the palace. My brother Wulf, who rides today at the king’s side, owns a town house in Winchester. He will care for me until my father can come to claim me.”

For a moment, Emma looked nonplussed, and Elgiva drew some satisfaction from that. Nay, lady, she thought, you will not have it all your own way.

“As you wish,” Emma said.

It was not as Elgiva wished at all, but for now it would have to do.

They rattled along the Winchester Road, the cart jouncing them up or sideways—a reminder that the day’s journey would be long and far from smooth.

And pregnancy, Elgiva thought, contemplating Emma’s worn expression, was much the same, fraught with dangers for both mother and child. Any number of things could cause a woman to go into labor too soon and lose her child. Any number of things. The queen may have won this little skirmish, but until she gave birth to a healthy, living child, the battle between them was not yet over.

Chapter Eighteen

Easter Sunday, 1003

Winchester, Hampshire

W
hile the king was at Bath teams of workers had descended upon Winchester’s great hall, and by Easter day the massive chamber was resplendent—newly thatched and freshly painted. The carved acanthus leaves that twined sinuously around the enormous oaken columns and roof beams had been regilded so that they gleamed golden in the torchlight. Silken streamers looped overhead from pillar to pillar in clouds of gold and white. The tables had been laid for the great Easter feast, covered with linens and garlanded with flowers, and upon the royal dais the high table wore a cloth of shimmering gold.

Emma, seated next to Æthelred on Easter day, toyed with the almond-stuffed honeyed dates on her plate and wished that she had more appetite, for the meal had been lavish. Assorted cheeses, sliced eels, a terrine decorated to resemble the tower of the New Minster, and four different kinds of fish had been followed by enormous bowls of lamb stewed with leeks and pulses. Finally, golden brown peacocks, spit-roasted to perfection, their tail feathers splayed behind them in wide fans, had been ceremoniously borne to the tables.

Now, as the tables were cleared, Emma gazed out at the dazzling array of sumptuously dressed men and women. They gathered in languid groups, milling about in a kind of food-induced torpor, drinking vessels in hand while the wine and the mead continued to flow unabated. Behind Emma the king’s cupbearer, young Edward, was taking his new position quite seriously and had not spilled a single drop throughout the meal.

Her own cupbearer was Ealdorman Ælfric’s granddaughter, Hilde, a slim young beauty of eleven summers who had joined Emma’s household the day before. The girl’s mother had died of plague when Hilde was but a babe, and of her father, Ælfric’s son, the ealdorman would only say that the man was gone. Emma suspected a great sorrow there, and she did not press him. She found Hilde biddable, willing to please, and eager to learn palace ways. The girl, she thought, would do well in the royal household.

As she drank from the wine cup that Hilde replenished almost too frequently, Emma regretted that the child growing in her womb had robbed her of any pleasure she might take in food or drink. The wine, in particular—a newly arrived gift from her brother Richard—left a bitter aftertaste at the back of her throat. Nevertheless, she drank it—for she had need of the courage it bestowed.

The king’s demeanor today was solemn and forbidding—hardly the mood for a celebration of spring renewal. They had had little to say to each other during the course of the meal, and it occurred to her that it was not unlike the Easter feast of the year before, when she had dined with him as a new bride and he had glowered through the entire meal.

There were differences, though, she reminded herself, apart from her pregnancy. Today the bishop of Winchester, Ælfheah, sat on her right, and his thoughtful and intelligent conversation contrasted sharply with the king’s morose silence. And, in the crowd below her now, most of the faces were familiar. She could identify the factions that formed in little eddies around the room, and she could even guess at the topic of their conversations: They would be speculating about the child she carried.

She slipped her hand protectively across the small bulge at her belly.

She caught sight of Athelstan just then, standing with a knot of men that included his brothers Edmund and Ecbert. He seemed to feel her gaze, and he looked up and nodded to her. She smiled. As ever, her heart grew lighter at sight of him. She had missed him during her long, weary stay at Wherwell. She had missed their long rides and easy conversations, had missed the way he bent his head toward her when she spoke of Normandy, had missed the passionate intensity in his face when he spoke of his plans for the future of the realm.

She had missed him far too much during the short winter days, and in the long nights her rest had been plagued by the memory of a single kiss. Often she had knelt in the dark chapel and raged at God for binding her to the father and not to the son. Why, she had asked Him, must she bear a child that had been conceived in bitterness and fear instead of a child born from love and trust?

If God had answered her, she had not heard Him.

She bit her lip, drank again from her wine cup, and turned her gaze to the
scop
who had begun to play for the assembly. She did not dare rest her eyes or her thoughts any longer upon the king’s eldest son.

Æthelred, sated with rich food and strong drink, regarded the throng in the hall with detachment. It turned to displeasure, though, when he saw his eldest sons in huddled conversation with Ælfhelm’s brood and their northern companions. The bond that continued to exist between his sons and the Mercian nobles was likely to become troublesome if he did not find a way to break it. And what business was it that kept Ælfhelm himself in the north when he should be here at the Easter feast?

His glance fell on Elgiva then, and his displeasure grew. She was beguiling two of the Mercian lords who had lobbied in her favor during the debate over his choice of a wife—their support purchased, he suspected, by her father’s gold. Æthelred wondered how much influence Ealdorman Ælfhelm, and by extension Elgiva, had now with the northern lords. He was no fool. He recognized Elgiva’s thirst for power. It was a family trait, one that all her father’s brood shared. He could easily imagine the uses that Ælfhelm might make of his daughter as messenger, as spy—as king’s whore. She had pleased him well enough in that role, although of late his disapproving bishops had forced him to set her aside. But if she could whore for him, she could whore for someone else as well, and that might lead to alliances too dangerous to contemplate. What, he wondered, were his sons discussing with Elgiva’s kinsmen?

He would have to put a rein on the girl. He could not allow her to stray too far out of his reach—a problem just now because Emma, empowered by the child in her womb, had dismissed her. That must not stand. He could not keep Elgiva’s ambitions in check if she were not close at hand.

He would have to persuade Emma to bring the girl back. It was beneath him to meddle in the queen’s household affairs, but he had no choice. He needed Emma’s cooperation in this. Christ, he was going to have to woo his wife. How much was it going to cost him?

He took a wizened apple from the bowl before him, leaned slightly toward Emma, and said, “I would speak with you of the Lady Elgiva.”

Emma stiffened. Well, he had known it would not be easy.

Carefully, he sliced the apple, offering Emma the first piece and waiting patiently until she took it.

“Have you considered,” he asked, “why it behooves us to keep Elgiva here in Winchester?”

She bit into the fruit, and a small, thoughtful frown creased her smooth forehead.

“You fear a marriage alliance in the north,” she said softly, “that might sunder the allegiance of your northern lords.”

So she did recognize the danger. He had forgotten again how cunning she was, and that she, too, had her ways of discovering things.

“Even so,” he said quietly. He gave her another slice of apple. “Your brother wed you, I fear, to a king under siege. The Danes press upon us from the east. The chieftains from Ireland strike at our western shores to grab whatever cattle and gold they can. Warlords who answer to Alba’s king would snatch our northern borderlands all the way to Jorvik, if they could. My own nobles are restive. Their allegiances to each other are stronger than their oaths to me. Yet because my daughters are too young as yet to bind the more powerful ealdormen closer to me, I must use more,” he paused, searching for an acceptable word, “unorthodox measures to control those most likely to conspire against me.”

She looked straight at him, her expression solemn and grave.

“Whatever your political difficulties may be, my lord,” she said, “it is not seemly for you to have two women at your side. A year ago you made me your wife, yet the Lady of Northampton would claim that which should be mine.” She set down the slice of apple and wiped her fingers delicately with the edge of the tablecloth as if she were wiping her hands of Elgiva. “I have borne with that lady’s ambitions for far too long and will do so no longer. I will not have a rival in my household.”

He pondered this for a moment. Was it possible that Emma, who had never welcomed his attentions as her husband and lord, was jealous of Elgiva? He supposed that it could be so. It was possible to care little for something yet care very much that no one else should lay claim to it. Women were weak creatures, he had observed, and therefore susceptible to the most grievous of sins.

“I do not perceive Elgiva as your rival,” he said, hoping to placate her.

“It is how others perceive her that concerns me,” she replied. “Your attentions to her while you were at Bath did not go unremarked, I assure you. As your queen, soon to be the mother of your son, God willing, it is I who should be always at your side, not Elgiva.”

Æthelred, irritated, tightened his grip on apple and knife, controlling each cut with precision. Would that he could control his troublesome queen so well. When he had agreed to marry Richard’s sister he had hoped that he would find her pliable, willing to be ruled by him in all things. He had hoped for a young wife who would accept his favors gratefully and would meekly agree to all his desires.

Emma was none of these things. Yet he could not rid himself of this queen, and there were many at his court who would agree with everything that she had just said were he to give them the opportunity. The clergy, to his disgust, adored her, and the higher she rose in their esteem, the lower he fell. If anything should happen to Emma’s child, or if the Danes should attack, or the crops fail, or a plague strike, the blame would be laid upon his shoulders. They would declare it God’s punishment for his debauchery.

And so, if he wanted to maintain control over the actions of Elgiva and her kin, he was going to have to appease his queen and offer her a compromise. He did not like it, but he saw no alternative.

He placed his right hand, palm open, upon the table, and gave Emma a meaningful look. She raised a questioning eyebrow but placed her hand in his.

“I vow, my lady,” he said, curling his fingers over hers, “that at every possible public function, in the church and in the palace and in the hall, I will keep you close to my side. In return for this you must find a way to keep Elgiva close to yours.”

Emma considered the king’s words, weighing her options. Even if she agreed to his proposition, she could not know for certain that he would keep his vow. And then there was the matter of Elgiva. She had no wish to keep that lady in her household, but if she refused the king’s request there would be consequences. She knew him well enough now to recognize that, and she did not care to consider what form his reprisal might take.

So, knowing that she might be making a bargain with the devil, she nodded in agreement. She did not see that she had any other choice.

As the king raised her hand to plant a kiss upon her ring, Emma glanced out at the company below the dais. Elgiva was there, looking up at her with a cold smile that made the fine hairs on the back of her neck rise.

“Let us drink to our bargain,” she heard the king say. He called for their cups to be filled, but after they drank, Emma set her cup down and pushed it away from her.

“I am learning that your child does not care overmuch for wine, my lord,” she said.

“Then, lady,” he replied, “you must give him good English mead instead.”

Many hours later, in the dark watches of the night, Emma lay tangled in the clinging web of dream. She was riding Ange bareback along the beach at Fécamp in high summer. A hot wind blew against her face and the sun beat down hard, its heat radiating in visible waves from the white sand. Beneath her garments her body was drenched with sweat—her thighs clammy and slick with it as they pressed against the horse’s hide.

Her legs ached from her efforts to control her mount, for Ange pelted headlong in a wild, unsteady gallop, and suddenly, beneath horse and rider, the sand turned to rock. Each hoofbeat sent pain shooting from Emma’s tensed legs up through the core of her body, and the grinding agony of it grew so intense that she thought she must die. She tried to scream for help, but she could not force any sound past the fear that wrapped around her throat like a length of rope pulled tight.