Читать книгу The Emma of Normandy 2-book Collection: Shadow on the Crown and The Price of Blood - Patricia Bracewell - Страница 28

When 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 forego 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. Apart 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 favourite of the king’s, for that matter. As for who the king favoured 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 towards 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 towards 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 close-mouthed. 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 people.

‘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 towards 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 honour 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 worshippers 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 neighbour’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 coloured 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, towards the king.