Shadow on the Crown (25 page)

Even as she spoke he reached past her to knock at the inn door. It was opened by a boy she recognized as a servant of her brother’s. Alric, with a firm hand at her back, urged her through the doorway.

“Tell my lord that his sister wishes to speak with him,” Alric said. The boy sprang across the antechamber and disappeared behind a drapery.

“My brother is staying here?” she asked. They were standing in the screens passage of the inn, and she could hear a murmur of men’s voices from the other side of the partition.

“Your brother and his retinue are making use of this inn,” he said, pulling her to one side as a line of servants passed them with platters of bread and cold meats.

She was aware of Alric’s hand, warm on her arm, and then he moved away from her as her brother stepped through the draperies.

Wulf must have been roused from his bed. He was lacing his breecs, he wore neither tunic nor shoes, and his eyes were heavy with sleep.

“You have brought me news?” he asked. Then he frowned. “Why did you come yourself, you little fool? What if you are missed?”

“The queen will not look for me until after morning prayers, when she sits down to break her fast.”

He drew her into a chamber that was little more than an alcove, unfurnished but for a wooden chest and a rumpled bed. A pretty, dark-haired woman stared at Elgiva from the nest of bedclothes. Wulf tossed some coins to the whore and jerked his head. When she was gone, he turned to Elgiva.

“Tell me,” he said.

While he pulled on a
smoc
and tunic, she repeated her news, and when she had told him all she grabbed his sleeve.

“What are you doing here besides whoring?” she demanded. “What is it that you and my father are planning? I have done all that has been asked of me, and I am weary of working in the dark for I know not what end. Tell me what is going on.”

Wulf, scowling, shook her off. “My father does not confide in me.”

“You must know something,” she persisted.

“I have my suspicions,” he said, “and nothing more.”

“Tell me your suspicions, then.”

“I will not,” he barked. “The less you know of his schemes the safer you will be should anything go amiss.”

Dear God! These men and their secrets maddened her!

She did not let him see her irritation, though. Wulf had ever been easier to persuade with honeyed words than with curses. Besides, he had a wicked temper, easily set off, and for the first time ever Groa was not here to protect her.

“Wulf,” she said sweetly, following him as he crossed the chamber to snatch up his belt. “How am I to avoid danger if I know not where it lies?”

But her brother’s patience suddenly snapped, and he turned and cuffed her with the back of his hand before she could dodge the blow.

She cursed him as tears stung her eyes, but he paid her no heed.

“Now,” he said, grasping her arm, “you will shut your mouth and listen to me. Do not go with the queen when she leaves the city. Plead illness, faint, do whatever you have to do, but do not attend the queen. Wait for me to collect you at the fortress, be prepared for a long journey, and say nothing to anyone.”

“But what will happen when the queen returns and finds me gone?”

“That is not your concern.”

She opened her mouth to object, but he raised his hand again and she snapped her mouth shut.

He pushed her toward the door. “I have told you all you need to know! Now get back before you are missed!”

Snatching open the chamber door, he called for Alric. Moments later, ignoring her spate of questions and protests, Alric escorted her up the lane to the castle gate and left her there.

Furious at the ignoble treatment she had received, she glared after him as he strode away, but he never looked back at her. In the end she had no choice but to edge past the gatehouse guard and make her way to the hall, cursing all the men who ever lived as she went.

Chapter Twenty-three

August 1003

Exeter, Devonshire

O
n the first Monday in August the morning mist gave way to a day of heartbreaking beauty. High clouds scudded across a blue sky, blown like thistledown by a southern breeze that rippled the waters of the River Exe and danced over the canvas awnings of the market stalls. The church bells had just rung terce, the third hour after sunrise, when the queen and a small party rode out of the fortress gates and turned up the high street toward the north gate of the city wall.

Emma rode with a light heart, relishing the beauty of the day and the unlooked-for absence of Elgiva, who had complained of illness and begged to be excused. With Elgiva safely tucked up in the queen’s bedchamber, this visit to Magdalene Abbey was likely to remain a secret. Aside from herself, only Hilde and Hugh knew where their road would lead them today, which did little to appease Hugh. Emma was still smarting from the tongue-lashing he had given her when she’d revealed her decision to take Hilde to meet her father.

“You are mad to go anywhere near the refuge of a known traitor,” he had railed at her. “If the king discovers it—”

“The king will not discover it,” she had insisted. “And even should he do so, we will have stumbled upon the abbey by chance during our ride. No one in the party, aside from you, Hilde, and me, will ever know that it was our destination from the outset.”

“My lady,” Hugh had said, gentling his voice and obviously trying another tack, “if you wish Hilde to meet her father, then send the girl with me. There is no need for you to go anywhere near Magdalene.”

She had not argued with him, for he would not understand her own need to speak with Ælfgar—to try to understand what had turned Ælfhelm’s son into a traitor.

“I will take Hilde to Magdalene Abbey,” she had said, her tone final.

Hugh had thrown his hands up in frustration.

“Let me at least send a warning to the abbot. I know him, and I trust him. Perhaps he can find a way to keep your arrival at his gates from turning into a pageant that will draw gawkers from miles around.”

This morning Hugh rode at the head of their party, with Wymarc at his side. Emma, riding just behind them with Father Martin, eyed the couple speculatively. Something had flowered between Wymarc and Hugh during this sojourn in Exeter, and Emma wondered if it might bear fruit in the months to come. Had there been a handfasting between them? Probably. And if Wymarc asked to remain in Exeter when the queen’s household returned to Winchester, Emma did not know how she would bear it.

As she watched Hugh lean toward Wymarc, saying something that made her burst into laughter, Emma recalled the times that she and Athelstan had explored the paths outside of Winchester, Wymarc and Hugh riding ahead with the younger æthelings, well out of earshot. She did not know what had been said between the two of them on those occasions, but she guessed that it was similar to what had passed between herself and Athelstan. They had come to know each other’s minds and hearts. It was then that he had taught her much of what she knew about the people and the history and the policies of the kingdom. She in turn had told him of Normandy, of her brother’s ambitious plans for his duchy, and of the alliances he had forged, through his sisters, to bring them about.

No such intimacies had ever been shared between herself and the king. Their only bond had been that forged in the bedchamber, and by any standard of measure, it was a failure. Was it her youth that told against her? Would the king have sought her guidance had she been ten years older? She doubted it. Æthelred had married her for policy only, had borne his marriage to a foreign bride as he would a noxious remedy against disease. He cared nothing for her counsel nor, in the event, for her person. She had come to England expecting to play the role of peaceweaver, to be a bridge between husband and brother. Yet the only communication that she had passed from one to the other had been her brother’s outrage at the massacre of the Danes on St. Brice’s Day and Æthelred’s ominous warning to her brother regarding the alliance with Forkbeard.

How different her life would be now if Athelstan, and not his father, were king. How different this realm would be. There would have been no massacre of innocents, and folk would not now be living in terror of the Danish king’s vengeance. They would have a king who was not afraid of shadows or rumors, or of his own sons.

Their road took them through several small villages, and eventually the track crested a long rise. From there Emma could see a wooden palisade that enclosed thatched buildings, an orchard, a garden laid out in neat rows, and, rising over all, the stone bulk of a small church. Beyond the settlement, fields of golden wheat undulated in the breeze. At the far edges of the fields two lines of dark figures moved slowly forward, and the tall stalks of wheat disappeared in their wake.

“Magdalene Abbey lies ahead of us, my lady,” Hugh called out.

Emma glanced at Hilde, who rode with her eyes trained on the abbey walls, her face alight with hope. She wished now that she had found a way to speak with Hilde on this brief journey, to warn her that the upcoming interview with her father might not be all that the girl might wish.

Inside the abbey palisade they were met by two of the brothers, and Emma recognized one of them as the tall figure of the abbot who had been presented to her on the day that she had entered Exeter.

“Abbot Oswald,” she said, “I hope you will not mind if we trespass on your hospitality for a little.”

“You are most welcome, my queen,” he said, with a low bow, “but I must ask your pardon for providing such a poor reception. We began the wheat harvest today, and every pair of hands is in the fields, so that only myself and Brother Redwald here are left to wait upon you.”

And so, Emma thought, this clever abbot had emptied the abbey for her benefit so no word of her visit would escape its walls. She smiled at him, and at Brother Redwald, a short, thin fellow with a head as bald as a river stone, and who looked upon her with benevolent eyes set in a narrow face creased with age.

“I trust we shall not tax your resources too much,” she replied. “My companions,” she nodded toward Wymarc and Margot, “have a wish to explore your herbarium. As for myself, I have a mind to see the precincts where you care for the infirm.”

“Brother Redwald knows every plant in our garden,” the abbot said, “and can tell their names and uses in Latin, English, and French. The ladies will find him a willing guide.”

The little monk led the two women down a path that ran between a fruit orchard and the long stone chapel of St. Magdalene.

Emma turned to Oswald. “How fares the Lord Ælfgar?”

“He is a man uneasy in mind and in body,” he said. “This is his child?”

“This is Hilde,” Emma said, “and she is eager to meet her father. But Hilde,” Emma said, placing her hand upon the girl’s shoulder and bending toward her, “I would speak with your father before you go to him. Can you be patient for just a little longer?”

Hilde nodded and remained with Hugh, while Emma followed Abbot Oswald through the abbey’s deserted great hall, and then across a courtyard and into the guest chambers.

“I cannot promise that Ælfgar will speak coherently to you,” he said as they walked, “or at all. I do not know what you wish from him, but you must understand that, although his body is weak, his will is strong, and, I regret to say it, malicious. Whatever you hope to gain from your converse with him, he is not likely to humor you.”

“I understand,” she said. “And his physical illness? What is it, exactly?”

“He was struck by the half-dead disease some months ago. There is a weakness on the left side of his body, so that he cannot lift his arm or his hand. It need not be a death stroke. I have seen others recover from it, especially if they are determined to fight off the bad humors and so return to their lives. But Ælfgar has no wish to live. Death offers him the only release that he will ever have, and he weakens more with each day that passes.”

Emma knew this sickness. It had struck her father’s steward so that he had been unable to speak or move. In spite of all that the best physicians could do, he had died within a week.

“Is his speech impaired?”

“He can speak, but at times we cannot comprehend him.” He paused at a closed door, his hand upon the latch. “Are you ready?”

But Emma placed her hand over his. “While I speak with Ælfgar, would you do what you can to prepare Hilde for her interview with her father? You, more than anyone, can help her understand his illness and what she will be facing when she meets him.”

“I will, my lady,” he said.

“Go then,” she told him, “and I shall beard the dragon in his den.”

Ælfgar’s chamber was somewhat larger than a monk’s cell, and the hangings that draped the walls were plain and unadorned. A blind man, she reflected, had little need of visual distraction. A curtained bed faced her from the opposite wall, flanked by stools on either side, one of which held a small tray with a clay flagon and cup. A single, narrow window opening, its oak shutter flung wide, overlooked the orchard, and the summer-scented breeze filled the room with the fragrance of ripening apples.

As she stepped farther into the room, Emma could see clearly the ravaged face that lay pillowed within the shadows of the bed. The scarred eye sockets had sunk so deep that Ælfgar’s head looked skull-like, and the gray hair and beard added to the impression of one already long dead. Bolstered by pillows and wrapped in furs in spite of the pleasant warmth of the day, he gave no sign that he had heard her enter. Emma thought that for the rest of her life, the scent of apples would bring to mind the wasted face before her.

“God’s blessing upon you, Ælfgar,” she said in greeting. “I am called Emma.”

He did not answer her, and she gazed at the eyeless, lidless face in some consternation. How could one tell if such a man slept or woke?

She went over to the bed and pulled the stool close to it. It grated harshly upon the floor, and still Ælfgar did not move. Emma sat down and gazed at him. She was uncertain what to say next. It would be a fruitless conversation if she were the only one to engage in it.

“I have brought your daughter, Hilde, here to the abbey,” she said, “because she wishes to see you. But I desire some speech with you before you meet with her.” She studied the immobile face—the straight, thick, white brows above the scarred tissue that had once been his eyes, the seamed forehead and creased cheeks, the blue-white pallor of the skin, the mouth that drooped on one side in a permanent grimace. It was the face of nightmare, and her throat constricted with horror and pity. “I know that you do not wish to talk with me,” she began, and then stopped as one side of his mouth twisted into a sneer.

“Are you so vain that you think you can read what is in my mind?”

His voice sounded like stone grating upon stone, and his breathing came labored, as if a hand grasped him at the throat. But there was no mistaking his words, slurred as they were, nor the language he had used. He had spoken to her in a queer mixture of English and Danish.

Was this what the abbot had meant when he said that Ælfgar might be incoherent? To one who did not know both languages it would sound like so much guttural nonsense.

“I cannot see into your mind,” she replied in Danish. “If I could, I would have no need to speak with you at all, would I?”

Something close to a laugh emerged from the thin lips, but they did not smile.

“Does the king know that his queen speaks the language of his enemies?”

Emma did not answer him. Æthelred did not know that she could speak her mother’s tongue. She had guarded that secret from all save Athelstan.

“So, lady,” he said into the silence, “my father has told me much about you, but what I cannot grasp is what it is you want of
me
? Surely more than just to gaze upon your husband’s handiwork.”

Truly she wished that she did not have to look upon that ruined face; and the knowledge that Æthelred was responsible for such injuries was a grotesque reminder of just how brutal a king’s justice could be.

“I wish to understand why you betrayed your king and pledged yourself to Swein Forkbeard,” she said.

He grunted. “Why do you think, lady?” he asked. “I chose the better man.”

She frowned. “And how did you make that choice?” she asked. “What did you know of either man?”

“Oh, I knew Æthelred well enough,” he spat. “We were raised together, he and I, for we were nearly of an age. I am older by barely a year.”

Emma started at this. She had never thought of her husband as young, but compared to Ælfgar, with his grizzled hair and wasted face, Æthelred was vigorous and strong.

“I was fostered at King Edgar’s court,” he went on, “and there I did Æthelred’s bidding. I waited upon him, played whatever game he chose, even studied from the same books. When the ætheling was caught at some mischief, it was I who took the beating. King Edgar never knew about that; it was the queen’s doing. She would not have her darling touched.” He sneered again, an expression made even more sinister by his ruined face. “I complained to my father, but it was ever Æthelred who came first with him. When the old king died, it was my father to whom Æthelred turned for guidance. And when King Edward met his death, it was my trusting father who swore that Æthelred could have known nothing about it, even though I told him otherwise.”