Shadow on the Crown (41 page)

“That is ludicrous!” Athelstan protested. “Your arguments cancel each other out. You cannot insist that the queen is positioning her unborn child to take the throne at the same time that you have her brother pledging her widow’s hand to some foreign power whose first act would be to murder her child. And you imagine that she is planning all of this while her husband yet lives and she is queen in England.”

Ecbert shrugged. “We are merely suggesting possibilities,” he said. “Yes, they may seem ludicrous, but far more unlikely events have determined the disposition of a crown. Who would have guessed when our father was born that he would one day sit upon the throne? He was the third son of a young, healthy king. Yet our father went from third son to second son to king in but a few brief years.”

“Emma’s son, should she even bear a son,” he said, “will have seven grown brothers ahead of him.”

“Six,” Ecbert said. “You forget. Edward is already dead.”

Athelstan flinched. Edward’s death was still a raw wound.

“If the declaration that our father made last night stands,” Edmund insisted, “Emma’s child will have first claim to the crown, before any of us.”

“With no real supporters at hand beyond a widowed queen,” Athelstan repeated, “other than your imagined Norman puppets somewhere in the north.”

“What of the ealdorman Ælfric?” Edmund asked. “He would surely feel compelled to honor the oath he made last night, and there must be others who would follow his lead.”

Athelstan gazed out at the river and at the ship that would, in a moment, round a bend and disappear from view. How deep did Ælfric’s loyalty run? Was he bound more to the king now, or to Emma?

“Men keep oaths,” he said, “only so long as they benefit from doing so. What benefit would there be to Æthelred’s thegns to place a babe upon the throne? England needs a strong king, one who would protect its shores from the ravages of the Danes.”

“Then why would our father demand our oaths in favor of Emma’s child,” Ecbert demanded, “unless it was at the urging of the queen?” He shook his head. “I have seen him look at her. He does not love her, so it cannot be for love. I think she has bewitched him.”

“Whatever the motivation behind it,” Edmund said, keeping his voice low as they turned to make their way back toward the palace, “this oath makes it difficult for you, Athelstan, to gather support in any bid you might make for the throne. You would not find it easy to rally men to your banner.”

“That is my thought as well,” Athelstan said, “and I warrant that we need look no further than that for last night’s oath taking. The king mistrusts me, and I know not how to win back his esteem. Still, as long as I possess Offa’s Sword, I can lay claim to the throne. If need be I shall wield that sword against anyone who threatens England, even if it is the king himself.”

As they reached the gate to the palisade, a steady rain began to beat against the already waterlogged earth. Athelstan barely noticed it. His mind had raced back to the words of the seeress at the ancient stone circle.

Sword you may wield, but the scepter will remain forever out of your reach.

He had indeed been granted the Sword of Offa, as she had said, but many things had changed since that winter day when she had read his future. Could not his fate have changed as well?

It seemed suddenly imperative that he find out. There were men in the south willing to fight for him now, if he should reach for the throne. His brothers, too, would back him, in spite of the oaths that they had sworn to Emma’s child. But if Emma should bear a daughter, if the Danes should strike in the spring so that all England rallied behind the king, if he could regain his father’s trust, then there would be no need for rebellion. In the fullness of time the scepter would fall into his hands without his having to wield a sword to attain it.

When he took leave of his brothers he strode toward his lodging, but he was already determined that within the hour, he must set out along the king’s road toward Saltford.

As the oarsmen maneuvered the
Trinitas
away from the quay, Emma did not glance back toward the receding shore. No one there would be sorry to see her go, and she felt only relief at this departure, for she was eager to leave Headington and all its ill will behind her.

The churning river, though—its brown water swirling and frothing around the ship’s hull—gave her little reason to think that her brief voyage would be either easy or pleasant. The swell was running fast against them, and in the distance she could see a dark veil streaming from the clouds to the horizon. Likely they would be in for a soaking before long.

She was seated in a tent midship that might have kept her dry if she had been willing to close the flap in front of her. But her cloak was already slick with mist and river spray, and she could not bear to travel blind, especially aboard a ship. Better to be cold and wet than suffocated and sick. Margot seemed unperturbed by the motion of the vessel, for she had braced herself in the protective lee of their makeshift shelter and already seemed to have fallen into a doze.

Emma drew her cloak closer about her as the swift current grabbed the stern and the vessel gave a sudden lurch. The babe within her kicked, as if protesting this new mode of travel, and Emma saw her belly ripple as the child squirmed. Her back ached, had been aching all morning, and in spite of the brisk wind she felt heavy and torpid. She adjusted her seat on the bench, trying to ease into the rhythm of the ship, but it was impossible, for the vessel merely rocked and shuddered. The oarsmen struggled against the river, cursing it and the wind, using sheer brute strength to maneuver the craft against the swell.

A sharper twinge of pain in her back forced her to adjust her position on the cushions once more. In the corner, Margot began to snore softly in spite of the surging of the craft.

She lost all track of time as she peered out at the landscape gliding past. A line of ash trees rose out of the water on either side, for the river had spread far past its natural banks. The fenlands, she thought, must look like this. It was a watery world, and the ground that should have been winter-brown glittered wet in the sullen light for as far as she could see. She might have found it beautiful if it did not presage famine and hunger by spring.

“Sweet Virgin,” she whispered, the beginning of a prayer for mercy. But before she could continue, the ship, which had begun to move smoothly forward with each stroke of the oars, rose, and then sharply fell, as if some unseen hand had lifted the prow out of the water and then dropped it. Her stomach pitched at the unexpected motion, and nausea gripped her by the throat. Margot woke with a start, crossed herself, and settled back to sleep again.

Emma swallowed hard, willing her stomach to behave. She tried again to adjust her body to the rhythm of the oar strokes, but she had little success. The ship bucked and heaved, struggling as if it fought a living, writhing creature. Something scraped the hull with a loud, grating noise that brought her heart into her throat, and then the ship hit the curtain of rain—a slantwise, needling spray that made her flinch.

The pain in her back grew savage, turning into a fierce cramping that shot down through her belly and caused her to gasp and double over. She felt a wetness between her thighs, and she remembered that other time, when she woke to find herself slick with blood. It was happening again. Dear God, it was happening again.

She cried aloud with pain and fear, and instantly Margot’s hand was at her elbow.

“What is it?” she demanded.

“I am bleeding,” Emma whispered on a sob. “I am losing the baby, just like before.”

But Margot was already rooting frantically among the cushions beneath Emma’s cloak.

“Nay, my lady, it is not blood. It is your waters that have broken. The child is coming.”

Emma clasped Margot’s sleeve and clenched her teeth against the pain that gripped her.

“But it is too soon,” she protested.

“Aye, well,” Margot murmured, “God has determined otherwise.”

Emma’s ear, attuned from childhood to every nuance of the old woman’s voice, caught the note of anxiety that she wasn’t meant to hear. It planted a hard kernel of fear in her heart. As the pain eased a bit she drew breath to ask a question, but Margot’s hands had begun to move along the mound of her belly, as if she were communicating with the child through some tactile alchemy.

“The babe is still too high.” She pursed her lips and looked hard at Emma, her brown eyes sharp. “I’ll not lie to you, my lady. You have hard work ahead of you to push this child out. We must trust that the Virgin will aid you, and thank God that you are young and strong.”

Strong! She did not feel strong. She felt weak and afraid. She wanted Wymarc and Hilde about her, wanted to be safe within the shelter of thick walls. How was she to do this thing on a ship, in freezing cold and rain, surrounded by rough men? All of it was wrong.

Margot had turned to pull the curtains to shut out the rain, and Emma would have objected, but another contraction clawed at her and she closed her eyes, concentrating on enduring the grinding pain inside of her.

“Why does it hurt so much, so soon?” she demanded through gritted teeth while that kernel of fear grew and blossomed inside of her. “Wymarc’s pangs did not start like this.”

“Every birth is different,” Margot said. “Wymarc was ripe and the birth passage wide when her waters came. You have not been so lucky.” She began to massage Emma’s back. “Rest between the pains, child. You will need all your strength before we are done.”

Emma felt panic rising within her as the contraction peaked. She wanted to stop the pain, to turn away from this ordeal. It was too hard. God had turned against her, and she knew, with a dread certainty, that she was going to fail. The baby would die, and she would die with it.

“I am afraid,” she cried, clutching at Margot’s hand.

“Of course you are afraid,” Margot soothed. “Every woman is afraid when her time is upon her. But you must remember who you are.” She took Emma’s face between her hands and gave her a hard, fierce look. “You are the daughter of Richard of Normandy. You are the queen of all England. You have Viking blood in your veins, child. Will you allow your fear to defeat you?”

Emma looked into the brown eyes that she had trusted all her life, and she found no anxiety there now, only determination. Margot spoke the truth. She had to remember who she was and why she had been chosen for this task. If she allowed her fear to overcome her, she would fail in her duty as queen, in her duty as daughter, and, worst of all, she would fail her child. She could not do that again. She could not allow another child of hers to die, not without a fight. If
she
should die, so be it. But she would not let this child wither inside her.

“Tell me what I must do.”

“You must walk to move the babe into position, but you cannot do it here. As soon as we get to Islip—”

“I will not wait until I get to Islip,” Emma said. “Now! I want to walk now.” The sooner she started walking, the sooner this child would be born. She was still fearful of what lay ahead of her, but she wanted it over as soon as could be.

“You cannot walk in the rain on a deck all awash with water!” Margot protested. “You need not even fall overboard to drown in this.”

“This is not the open sea,” Emma said, heaving herself to her feet and clinging to a post for support, “and I cannot sit still. The pain will be easier to bear if I am moving, will it not? Bid Lord Ælfric come to help me.”

“But my lady—”

“I have to move, Margot!” she cried, as another wave began to engulf her. “Get Ælfric, I beg you!”

For the next hour, with one hand clinging to Ælfric’s strong, steady arm and the other grasping the yard with its furled sail, Emma walked six unsteady steps forward along the heaving deck, then six steps back. The rain stung her face, and her sodden cloak and wet skirts hampered her movements. Whenever the wave of a contraction rose so high that her knees buckled with the pain, she stopped to lean against the solid bulk of the ealdorman. She bore each wave in silent agony, for she had been reminded that she was England’s queen, and she knew her duty. No man would hear her cry out, not even the seamen who glanced uneasily at her as they plied their oars. She focused her mind inward, and like an animal that bites off a paw to escape from a snare, she endured the pain and the cold, the rain and the movement of the ship. Everything outside of her own body disappeared as she labored to bring forth her child.

At last the craft docked at Islip, and with Margot and Ælfric assisting her, she trudged through thick mud up to the manor, although she took little notice of its sheltering walls. She was stripped of her wet garments and wrapped in thick, warm linens, and would have been put into a bed but that she refused to lie down. She walked, driven by the relentless pain that bullied her. Sometimes, in the brief intervals of relief, she rested in the arms of Margot or one of the other attendants, snatching a few moments of sleep. Sometimes she dropped to the pelts that had been hastily scattered on the wooden floor, crouching on her hands and knees like a beast until the urge to pace dragged her to her feet again.