Shadow on the Crown (26 page)

Emma’s heart lurched. Here was something she had dreaded and feared.

“Aelthered was just a child,” she whispered. “Surely he would not have been part of the plot to kill Edward.”

“Ah, but he knew about it. Had he so wished he could have found a way to warn Edward. But he did nothing, because he feared his mother. He confessed as much to me, after it was all too late. And so Æthelred was crowned king, and thus he learned the price of a crown. He learned the price of everything, that one, for he is cunning when it comes to silver. Did he not purchase my own father’s love and loyalty with gifts of land and power? Has he not bought peace from the Northmen, again and again? But he is accursed, as are all who follow him. Aye, Æthelred purchased himself a crown, but that does not make him a true king.”

She closed her eyes. Æthelred may indeed be cursed, but unlike Ælfgar, she could not bring herself to lay the blame for the murder of a king at the feet of a child. Nor did she trust Ælfgar in his assessment of his own father. She knew Ælfric as a man of honor and generosity. Yes, he was loyal to Æthelred, but it was out of honor, not greed. And she had witnessed his love and grief for Ælfgar with her own eyes.

She looked again at the wretched face before her, and she could not blame him for his hatred. Æthelred had done this to him, and in pleading for his son’s life, Ælfric had condemned him to a living death.

“If Æthelred was no true king, then why did you fight for him at Maldon?” she asked.

“I did not fight for Æthelred; it was Byrhtnoth’s banner that we followed into battle. A great warrior that man was, and a leader of men. Yet the king should have been there. It should have been Æthelred whose body they hacked to pieces until the water below the causeway ran with his blood. The king was young and vigorous, with but twenty-four summers to his life’s tally. Yet he sent an old man to face the Viking onslaught.” The right half of his mouth twisted again. “Æthelred ever held his own life too dear to risk it in battle.”

Emma said nothing, but she shook her head. Ælfgar’s loathing for Æthelred made him ignore the realities of kingship. If it had been the king who had been killed at Maldon, what would have happened to the realm? In that year Æthelred’s eldest son could have been no more than a babe. If an infant had been placed upon the throne, the turmoil of a dozen years before that had led to King Edward’s murder would have begun all over again. Whatever Æthelred’s sins, and they were probably many, failure to wield a sword at Maldon was not one of them.

“Tell me what you know of Swein,” she asked, for that was truly what she wished to hear.

“You would know your enemy, would you?” he asked, his voice weakening with the effort to speak. “Then you are wise, Emma, queen of England, for one so young.”

He paused, breathing heavily, and she placed her hand upon the useless, crippled claw that lay upon the furs.

“I have wearied you,” she said. “Forgive me. Rest a while, and we will speak again later.”

“Nay, I would tell you what you wish to know, for my daughter’s fate lies in your hands.” He drew in a heavy breath. “I sailed with Swein and fought beside him, and I know him for a fearless, able leader who combines courage with honor. He understands men, and he knows how to rule them.” He paused to gather breath again. “What’s more, Swein turns to his nobles for counsel and weighs their words before he acts. Unlike King Æthelred, who listens to no one.”

That criticism of Æthelred rang true. She would be the last person to deny it.

“Is King Swein,” she asked slowly, “as ruthless as Æthelred?” She had already formed her own opinion about that. Swein had won his crown in a fierce battle against his own father. But she wanted to hear Ælfgar’s reply.

“Every king is ruthless. It is the only way to rule. But Swein tempers it with justice. And for that reason, lady, he will not rest until his sister and those Danes who died by Æthelred’s command on St. Brice’s Day have been avenged. All in England will live to regret that foul deed.” He lifted his good hand, index finger raised. “Mark me. Swein will sweep across this land like a storm of fire, destroying all who oppose him until he wears England’s crown. And one thing more you should know: There will be many in the north of England who curse Æthelred and will welcome Swein.” He dropped his hand and struggled to breathe.

Emma felt as if Death himself had spoken to her. She stared at the face upon the pillow, the mouth a rictus now as he gasped for breath. Was he right that Swein would be welcomed by folk in the north? If that were true, then if Swein loosed his armies upon England, the forces of two ruthless kings would face each other, and this land would be awash with blood.

She rose, went around the bed, and poured water from the flagon into the cup. She would have held it to his mouth, but when he sensed her beside him, he took the cup himself.

“Because I am Æthelred’s queen,” she said softly, gazing bleakly toward the light that streamed through the window, “those who curse the king will curse me as well.” She was oath-bound to him; there was no escape, no matter what the future held.

“If you are wise, lady, you will get back to your brother’s land while you still may. And when you go, take my daughter with you, for she will find no safety here.”

“You would have me be an oath breaker?” she asked.

“Why not? You will be just one among many, I warrant.”

Why not?

Because, she told herself, I am a queen. And to break my pledges to my king, whatever his weaknesses and sins, would destroy my honor and make my life, like this one, a living death.

The sun was well past its highest point in the sky when the queen’s party set out for Exeter, accompanied by Brother Redwald, who promised to show Margot a patch of betony where she could replenish her dwindling supply. Father Martin and Hilde elected to remain at the abbey, for Hilde wished to stay with her father until the queen was ready to return to Winchester.

As they rode, Emma’s mind ran upon all that Ælfgar had told her. He had spoken what he believed to be the truth, but how clear was Ælfgar’s vision, warped as it was by his loathing of Æthelred? That enmity was so palpable that she felt it still, like a caustic upon her skin. He had nursed it for ten years, until it had all but consumed him. And Æthelred, she thought, must be consumed by fear of enemies such as Ælfgar.

How many enemies were there?

Surely Swein of Denmark was one of them, and he was just as ruthless as Æthelred of England. Ælfgar’s insistence that Swein would not rest until he had taken England’s crown for his own was something she could well believe, and in light of it, she weighed Ælfgar’s advice.
Return to your brother now,
he had told her. Yet she could not abandon England. On the day of her wedding and coronation she had been given two rings: one bound her to the king and the other bound her to England, and to her duties as queen. She could not, in honor, forsake them.

For now she could only hope that Ælfgar was wrong in his estimation of Swein’s might. That Swein would come she had no doubt. Athelstan, too, had said that it was merely a matter of time, and she had the uneasy feeling that time was running out. Still, it would take a great deal of wealth, of men and arms and ships, to wrest a throne from England’s king. Had Swein so much wealth? Silver had, indeed, flowed from the towns and abbeys of England to Danish longships and so across the northern seas, but it would take a great deal of it to launch so ambitious an enterprise.

Or perhaps, she thought, it would take only the promise of silver. Swein had but to swear to his followers that great wealth awaited them at the end of the ships’ road, and they would willingly follow him.

Lost in such dismal thoughts she paid little heed to the road and the passing miles. They were well beyond the abbey lands when Brother Redwald halted the company in a narrow valley between two hills. Ahead the road curved sharply to the left, and out of sight.

“The patch of betony lies on the far side of this hill,” Brother Redwald said, nodding to the hill on their right. A narrow track, only just visible through a break in the thick hedgerow that lined the road, led up the slope.

“Go with him then,” Emma said to Margot and Wymarc, “and gather your precious crop.” She looked behind her to where, some little way back, the branches of oaks formed a canopy over the lane and provided some shelter from the sun. “We shall await you in the shade there.”

As the little monk and the two women urged their horses onto the track, Emma and the others turned back to the relief of the shade. The queen dismounted, and Hugh signed to the six guards to dismount as well. As Emma walked, stretching her legs, he handed her a flask of water.

“I fear,” he said, “that your interview with Hilde’s father was not a happy one.”

She took a long pull from the flask and returned it to him. She did not wish to speak of Ælfgar’s dire predictions. The weight of responsibility for the folk who had accompanied her from Normandy suddenly felt heavy upon her shoulders. How was she to protect them from Swein’s fury when he struck against this land like a hammer upon an anvil? No one, she thought, would be spared. It seemed hard to her that she should have to face such a fate. And the question that raised itself now was whether her brother had suspected that such an event would occur.
You have the strength,
her mother had said. Was the coming conflict the reason why she and not her sister had been chosen to wed Æthelred?

“I thought,” she said to Hugh, “when I was sent to this land to be its queen that I was coming as an offering of peace. I begin to fear that I was sent as sacrifice, and that my brother knew it.”

She felt Hugh’s eyes upon her, as if he were trying to read what was in her mind.

“Ælfgar spoke to you of Swein, did he not?”

She nodded, her eyes focused on the trees whose branches arched overhead, shutting out the sky.

“No man, my queen, can read the future, I think,” he said. “Not Ælfgar, not your brother, not my lord Athelstan, not even the bishops who warned us of apocalypse some while back, and who were proved so wrong in their reckoning. The true prophet says
be not afraid
, and to his word we must cling. After,” he said with a wry smile, “we have made certain that our city walls are strong and our swords are sharp.”

His smile disappeared suddenly, and he raised a hand. Emma heard then the sound that he had already caught—men and horses coming toward them but hidden from their view by the sharp bend in the lane ahead and the thickets that edged the road.

“To horse, my lady,” Hugh said, swiftly helping her to mount.

The guards, too, sprang to their saddles, and even as they surrounded Emma with drawn swords, a cart pulled by two horses and escorted by mounted riders, two in front and two behind, rounded the base of the hill and came briskly toward them, their speed assisted by the downward slope of the road. The foremost rider, a tall, dark-haired man in a green cloak, called out to his companions and reached for the bridle of one of the cart horses to halt them just at the entrance to the tunnel-like patch of shade where Hugh stood, his sword a bright shimmer in his right hand.

“My lord,” the lead rider said to Hugh. “What’s amiss? We are honest folk, not ruffians that you need draw your sword. Rarely do we meet anyone along here. It is lucky that you have no cart yourself or we should all be in a fine fix.” He pursed his mouth, studying the width of the lane. “I fear we cannot go back, but if you string your mounts in single file along the side of the lane, I think you could get by us. Shall we try it?”

Hugh studied the problem for a moment, eyeing the road and the width of the cart. It seemed to Emma that there was little else they could do, for at this spot the hedgerows were too thick to allow the horses to break through in order to clear the road, and the last crossroads that she remembered was a good way behind them. The cart, which looked to be heavily laden, its mounded cargo covered by leather tarps, its wheels firmly embedded in the ruts of the lane, could go in only one direction—forward. Hugh, apparently coming to the same conclusion, nodded.

Emma’s hearth troops sheathed their swords, and Hugh led them to the side of the narrow lane. Emma, nudging Ange into line behind Hugh’s roan, noticed that none of the men in the other party had given her the merest glance but kept their eyes focused on her guards. This struck her as odd, for she was used to being stared at by the country folk as if she were some divine apparition from heaven. Still, she was dressed plainly today, she told herself, dismissing her apprehension as she edged her horse carefully past the wagon and then the horsemen. She had nearly cleared the last outrider when he reached out and snatched her reins. He tugged hard, almost pulling the reins from her hands, and she shouted in surprise and fright.

Ange reared, but the man hung on, and Emma could not get her mount free of him. She saw Hugh draw his sword and come back to aid her. Then, as her mount reared again, dancing and turning in terror, Emma saw three armed men erupt from beneath the tarps of the wagon. They set upon her Norman guards, who, caught between the wagon and the hedgerow, were unable to maneuver their horses.