Читать книгу The Emma of Normandy 2-book Collection: Shadow on the Crown and The Price of Blood - Patricia Bracewell - Страница 29

The wild pealing of the minster bells filled the square with waves of sound as Emma, walking at the king’s side, smiled at the cheering folk who lined their route. The afternoon sun felt warm on her shoulders, and she wished that she could slow her pace and clasp some of the many hands that reached out eagerly to touch their queen. Æthelred, however, did not allow it. His firm hand at her elbow guided her briskly towards the palace gates.

She glanced at him and saw that his face wore its usual grim aspect. She did not understand it. This was his feast day. All of this rejoicing was in his honour. Could he not even smile at his subjects in return? And there had been good news this morning as well: the winds in the Narrow Sea had shifted in England’s favour. There would be no threat from plundering dragon ships now, not until the water roads opened up again in the spring.

It was welcome news to her, if not to the king. All summer she had watched and waited for Danish raiders to attack, fearing that when it happened her brother would somehow be implicated, guilty or not, and that retribution would fall upon her – guilty or not. Now she felt safe, and she walked with a lighter step, as if a heavy mourning cloak had been lifted from her shoulders.

The first inkling she had of anything amiss was the sound of a single, discordant voice that rose shrill above the clamour of the bells. There were alien curses in that cry, words that raised the fine hairs along her arms and turned her blood to ice. She searched for the source of that hideous sound, and as she did so she saw a knife flash above the heads of the nearest onlookers. Before she could even scream a warning, the king was flung headlong to the ground and Athelstan had lunged at a figure hurtling towards them from out of the crowd.

She cried out as the knife glinted again, its blade driving downwards. At the same moment a handful of men-at-arms, their swords drawn, surged in front of her, jostling her backwards as they formed a wall that separated her from the king and his son. Rough hands grasped her shoulders, and a cluster of king’s guards surrounded her, propelling her through the gates and into the palace yard. There was no chance to protest, no opportunity to determine what damage had been done, for her guards did not slacken their pace until they had brought her to her own chamber.

‘I must go to the king,’ she insisted, shaken by what she had seen and heard, terrified by what she feared. The knife had plunged towards Athelstan. Dear God, what had happened?

She made to leave the chamber, but one of the guards blocked her path.

‘You will stay here, my lady,’ he said firmly. ‘Guards will be posted in the corridor to keep you safe.’ He reached for the door and shut it, cutting off her protest.

For a moment she simply stared at the place where he had been, trembling and afraid. Doubt inched like a worm under her skin and into her brain. Were the guards meant to keep her safe or to keep her from escaping?

Either way, she was a prisoner.

She began to pace, her eyes shut, trying to make sense of what she had seen, recalling with awful clarity the words that had risen above the incessant clanging of the bells. Time passed slowly, and she heard nothing except the sound of her own footsteps. It seemed like hours had slipped by before voices rang in the corridor.

She turned to the door as it opened and the king’s steward, Hubert, entered.

‘What has happened?’ she demanded, before he had even finished his bow. Her heart drummed in her chest as she waited for him to speak.

‘The creature that raised his hand against the king has been taken,’ he said.

‘And Lord Athelstan?’ she asked. ‘He is unharmed?’

He raised an eyebrow, and she realized her mistake. She should have asked after the king first. She said stiffly, ‘I thought I saw the ætheling take an injury.’

His thin, almost colourless mouth curled slightly in a dismissive smile.

‘An insignificant wound, my lady, that has been tended. The king, I can assure you, was unhurt. He commands you to speak of the incident to no one, and he orders you to attend him at the feast in the great hall as soon as you may.’

She stared at him, not certain that she had heard him aright.

‘The king would keep this secret? How?’ It was not possible. There had been hundreds of people in the square.

He shrugged. ‘Few actually saw what happened, and measures have been taken to silence idle tongues. Those who need to know, of course, will be informed at the king’s pleasure. He trusts in your discretion.’

After a curt bow, he left her. Still shaken, she continued to pace, trying to puzzle out the king’s purpose in suppressing the incident. Was it merely that he did not want his subjects to perceive him as a victim, and therefore weak? Or was there something else in his mind? She was no closer to fathoming what that might be when Wymarc glided swiftly into the chamber.

‘Why are there guards at the door?’ Wymarc asked.

She did not look frightened, merely confused. So perhaps Hubert was right and what had happened in the minster square was not common knowledge.

‘It is of no moment,’ Emma replied, eager to deflect Wymarc’s curiosity. ‘All is well.’

The brown eyes studied her, then Wymarc shook her head.

‘All may be well,’ she said, ‘but you are as pale as a wraith, my lady, and you are shaking like an aspen in a fierce wind. If you will not tell me what is wrong, at least let me get you a cup of wine.’

Emma, recognizing suddenly that her legs felt as thin and weak as reeds, sank into her chair. She gratefully accepted the wine, although she had difficulty holding the cup steady, for she could not control the trembling of her hands. How she longed to escape from here, to ride Ange along the river until she reached the sea. But the king had commanded her to attend the feast, and she had to obey. Would Athelstan be there? She prayed so. Hubert had made light of the ætheling’s injury, but Hubert would say whatever the king commanded, and so she feared for Athelstan in spite of the steward’s assurances.

Her mother’s voice, emerging from some hidden corner of her mind, echoed in her head. You must never allow anyone to see your fear.

She looked down at her shaking hands and took a deep breath, trying to reach a calm that eluded her. It was not only for Athelstan that she was afraid. The words of the attacker still rang in her ears. Few in the crowd would have heard them, and fewer still would have understood them, for the tongue that spoke them had been Danish.

‘Death to the king! Death to the council!’ He had shouted the words over and over. She could hear them even as she was being hustled through the palace gates.

Yet it was not the words themselves that frightened her. It was what Æthelred, who knew no Danish, was likely to do when he learned their meaning.

Æthelred presided over the feast with what he believed was creditable dignity. His sons and his house guards had dealt quickly with the villain who had tried to kill him, and those in the crowd near enough to see the attack had been bribed with silver and threats to hold their tongues. He did not want his enemies to know how close they had come to dispatching him.

Nonetheless, they had come far too close.

He ate little, for the spectre of his own death gaped before him like a yawning pit. When he could bear the tension no longer, he rose to his feet and, bidding his guests to continue their revelry, pleaded weariness and left the hall. Calling for torches and candles – for he wanted no shadowy corners in his rooms tonight – he sought the solitude of his chamber.

Once there, pacing to and fro in the silence, no amount of light could wipe from his mind the image of a gleaming knife poised to strike. It was retribution, he had no doubt – recompense for the murder of a king.

Twenty-four years ago he had seen just such a blade glinting in a raised hand, a flash in the dark. No one had intervened that night; no champion had stepped forward to save a king’s life. He had watched in horror from the shadows at the top of the stairs, a scream caught in his throat as Edward fended off that first blow. But there had been so many blows after that one. Too many. Edward had been butchered at the hands of men he had trusted.

He stopped his pacing to stand before the crucifix where Christ hung in agony.

Today’s attack was a judgement upon him sent by God as punishment for that murder done at Corfe. His own hand had not wielded the weapons that killed his brother, but neither had he done all he could to prevent it. He had seen the riders coming, had seen the moonlight gleaming on their swords, and he had not had the wit to cry a warning to Edward. He had stood there, mouth agape with a cry that never left his throat.

When it was all over, he was given Edward’s crown.

Yet today, his son – who so resembled that dead king – had seen the danger and had come to a king’s aid. Athelstan might have been enthroned tonight if he had hesitated but a little. He had not. He had intervened in God’s act of retribution. But God, Æthelred knew, would not relent.

He fell to his knees before the cross, closing his eyes and bowing his head, and pleaded a silent prayer for mercy. He had made reparation. He had encouraged the cult that revered his brother as martyr and saint. He had built a shrine for Edward’s holy remains, had invested abbeys in the martyr’s name. What more could he do that he had not already done?

Yet even as he prayed, a cold dread crept over him.

‘Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of—’ But the psalm caught in his throat, and some force – like an invisible hand beneath his chin – compelled him to lift his head and gaze upon that familiar, tortured figure on the cross. To his horror he saw that the face gazing back at him was Edward’s face. It was Edward’s blood that poured from a dozen gaping wounds and Edward’s eyes that glared at him with unspoken accusation.

Æthelred tried to look away, to escape the relentless power that held him, but he was trapped in that pitiless gaze. His vision blurred with tears, and a cold, searing pain scored his breast once, and again. The stink of burning flesh assailed him, and he wailed in terror, because he knew that it was the stench of his own punishment come upon him, and that death – and worse than death – awaited him.

For surely in that terrible night beyond the grave lay judgement, and his brother, Edward, would be waiting.

Elgiva, striding down the passage that led towards the king’s chamber, heard Æthelred’s bitter cry and quickened her pace.

She had not been duped by his assertion that he was weary and needed rest. Something unpleasant had occurred, she was certain of it. She had seen it in the uneasy glances that passed between the king and Athelstan and had read it in Emma’s brittle, unsmiling face.

There had been whispers, too – vague rumours of some mishap on the minster green. Determined to get to the bottom of the mystery, she had slipped away from the feasting shortly after the king did. If there were some treachery afoot, her father would want to know of it.

She was nearing the king’s chamber, relieved to see a door ward posted there who knew her well, and who might be persuaded to allow her in, when she heard Æthelred cry out. The guard stared at the door, horror struck, but made no move to open it.

‘Did you not hear that, fool?’ Elgiva demanded. ‘The king calls for aid; get you inside, man!’

The guard hesitated, then rapped heavily on the door. ‘My lord?’

When there was no response he rapped and called again, but Elgiva shoved past him and thrust the door open.

Æthelred knelt on the stone floor with his back to them, his arms flung wide, mirroring the image of the crucifix on the wall. He gave no sign that he heard them enter but continued to face the rood as if in a trance.

The door ward stopped in his tracks, looking as though he wanted the earth to swallow him whole. Elgiva put a finger to her lips and motioned him out of the room.

Alone with the king, she regarded the kneeling Æthelred with a frown. Whatever had happened today it must have frightened him to his very soul to bring him so to his knees. She would have preferred almost any other response but this. She was used to men drinking themselves into a stupor – her father did it often enough whenever he was troubled, so she had some experience at grappling with a man’s reeling body. She was far less confident of her ability to grapple with a reeling soul.

Silently cursing men and their foibles, she knelt at the king’s side and, not knowing what else to do, she spread her arms wide. She did not know what prayer Æthelred sent heavenward, but hers was a heartfelt plea that she would not have to kneel here for very long.

After a time she glanced at the king’s face and saw, with mild disgust, that it was wet with tears. Embarrassed at the sight of such unmanly emotion, she began to gingerly pat his back, as she might a weeping child.

‘My lord,’ she whispered, hardly knowing what it was that she said, ‘you must not despair.’ She groped for some reassuring words and snatched frantically at something the bishop had said in today’s interminable sermon. ‘Our Saviour hears and answers the prayers of even the humblest wretches who put their faith and trust in Him. How much greater will His compassion and love be for the king who holds all our care in his hands?’

At first he made no response, and she wondered if he was indeed in a trance and had not heard her. After some moments, though, he eased his rigid stance, sitting back upon his heels and dropping his face into his hands. Gratefully, she too relaxed.

‘God has no compassion for me,’ he murmured. ‘He has allowed the devil’s servant to smite me.’

She could make little sense out of that except that whatever had happened, he seemed to believe it had been orchestrated by God Himself. That was a sin of pride if ever there was one. She suppressed a snort at Æthelred’s vanity.

‘Tell me what happened today,’ she whispered. ‘You may find that it eases your mind to speak of it,’ she said hopefully. ‘Come, my lord king. Will you not tell me?’

She would have liked nothing better than to rise from her knees and escort him to the plush comfort of his royal bed, but to attempt it might shatter the delicate spell that, for the moment, bound them. Instead she continued to stroke his back and shoulders, to ease her fingers along his neck and scalp. She saw the rise and fall of his chest as he heaved a great sigh, and he began to unburden his heart.

She listened to his account, struck by the audacity of the attack. The creature with the knife must have been insane, for surely he could not have expected to escape with his life. Only a madman would attempt such an enterprise.

‘He was sent by heaven to punish me,’ Æthelred said, his gaze once more fixed on the figure of Christ on the cross. ‘He did not succeed, but others will follow.’

She closed her eyes. What sin blackened Æthelred’s soul that he anticipated such fierce, divine retribution? That would, indeed, be a secret worth knowing. She opened her eyes and considered the man beside her. His face was white and waxy with exhaustion, like a man who had been a long time ill. He was weak, this king, and she felt nothing for him but scorn. Yet, she reminded herself, all men were weak.

And he was still a king.

She scooted forward and turned so that she could gaze into his face.

‘But my lord king,’ she whispered, ‘do not you see that this may be not a judgement sent upon you, but a warning to you? Even if God allowed this devil to pursue you, he did not succeed. Your son protected you, and surely that, too, was the work of God.’

She had his attention. The creases on his brow deepened into a frown, and she could tell that he was digesting her words. She pressed her advantage.

‘You are right to pray, my lord, and you must pray for guidance. As you have said, this man may be just the leading edge of some greater, more terrible wave about to break upon us. Do not you see that you must rouse yourself to fight this scourge?’ She groped for something appropriately biblical. ‘You must be the David, my lord, who conquers Goliath. You must be the Sampson who destroys the Philistines. Be a king who is ruled by your courage and your passion, not by your remorse for acts that cannot be undone.’

She held her breath. What if she had gone too far? Would he spurn her for presuming to tell him what he should do?

She looked into his eyes and saw a sudden flicker of heat there, but it was not the heat of anger or desperation. Encouraged, she leaned forward and gently grazed her tongue against his lower lip, and he responded by pulling her fiercely against him.

The coupling that followed was swift and rough. It gave her no pleasure, but she did not care. She had at last made her way into the arms of a king. She had roused him from his torpor, and surely he would reward her accordingly. Groa had predicted a royal destiny for her, and now she was certain that, before very long, all that she deserved would be within her grasp.

Emma slept little the night of St Æthelred’s feast, for the Danish curses howled by the king’s assailant continued to echo inside her head. In the morning she asked to speak with Æthelred, and when she was denied, she grew uneasy. Why would he not admit her? Was he afraid of all things Danish now, including a queen whose mother had Danish blood?

Throughout the day she tried to discover what was taking place in the king’s apartments, but she could glean nothing, and her apprehension grew. She felt as helpless as a mouse in a box, bereft of light and sound. She dared not speak to anyone about what had happened in the minster yard, for the king had forbidden it. She dared not even set her fears down in a letter to her brother, lest it should be intercepted.

In the afternoon, weary from an endless chain of questions that her mind continued to spin, she went alone into the palace garden in search of respite. All she could do was pace, a victim to doubt and misgiving.

She decided that she must find some way to speak with Athelstan. There was no one else to whom she could confide her fears, and surely he would know what was in the mind of the king. She longed to see him, to speak with him and draw comfort from his counsel.

She longed for a great many things, she thought, that she could not have.

Then she saw Athelstan enter the garden and approach her through the lengthening afternoon shadows, and it was as if some good angel had taken pity on her.

‘I hoped to find you here,’ he said, his voice urgent. He drew her into the small, sheltered copse in the garden’s furthest corner.

‘Tell me what is happening,’ she begged. ‘I have been able to learn nothing, and I am afraid of what the king may be planning.’

But he ignored her question to ask his own.

‘You know what he said, don’t you?’ His eyes searched her face. ‘The man wielding the knife, you understood him.’

She remembered her mother’s advice, to keep secret her knowledge of the Danish tongue. It will not endear you to your new lord, and may breed mistrust.

When she made no reply Athelstan answered his own question.

‘Of course you understood him,’ he said. ‘Your mother is Danish. Jesu!’ He ran a frantic hand through his hair. ‘Does the king know?’

‘Only Margot knows,’ she said, ‘and now you.’

He drew in a breath and released it.

‘Keep your knowledge of Danish secret, lady,’ he said. ‘Guard it carefully, do you hear me?’

‘What is happening?’ she asked again.

‘The man who attacked the king is mad,’ he said, ‘his wits as shattered as broken glass. I have said as much to my father, but he will not listen. He is convinced that his throne is imperilled by Danish enemies within the realm, and he is taking steps to thwart them. There is to be no Christmas court. Tomorrow the younger children will go to the manor at Cookham, while I am ordered to Headington with Edmund and Ecbert. My father wants us scattered, so that we are less of a target.’ He grimaced. ‘There is more – and worse, I fear.’

She said nothing, waiting for the next blow.

‘He does not trust your Norman retainers,’ he said. ‘They are all to leave the court. Hugh will go to Exeter to act as reeve there for your dower lands. Your hearth guards are to accompany him, and your women as well, save one or two. You will be confined to the palace – to keep you safe.’

He had confirmed her worst fears. They would leave Winchester, all of them, while she remained here, a prisoner at the mercy of the king. She would be powerless and friendless, suspected of some imagined infamy.

She felt him grasp her shoulders as if to steady her, and she looked up into the now familiar blue eyes.

‘How soon?’ she asked.

‘Within the week.’

She closed her eyes. How would she bear it? Without her own people about her, the winter ahead loomed long, lonely, and frightening.

Without Athelstan, the days would be endless.

‘Emma,’ his voice was urgent again, and she opened her eyes to meet his. ‘I cannot be certain that this is all of it.’ He frowned, his expression grave. ‘There is a darkness in my father’s mind that I do not understand. You must promise me that you will be wary of him, that you will give him no excuse to cause you more grief. Promise me.’

She was aware, suddenly, of the silence in the garden. Even the birds had fled, and for the first time, she realized, they were alone, without children or servants or attendants. There were no eyes to observe them, no tongues to interpret every gesture and expression.

She lifted her hand to caress his cheek, with its rough, close-cropped beard.

‘I promise to be careful.’ She held her breath as he turned his head to press his lips against her palm. The tenderness of that touch made her heart dance with joy and her soul quail with terror. ‘You must go,’ she urged, ‘before someone comes. I pray God will keep you safe.’

‘Do you? I pray for something else – something that is a sin even to think about.’

His hands tightened on her shoulders and he kissed her – a bruising kiss that was as fierce and angry and desperate as a curse. An instant later he was gone and she was left alone with her fear, with the prospect of the dark, lonely winter that lay ahead, and with a heart broken by hopeless yearning.

One week after his feast day, the king summoned a select group of trusted councillors to a late-night meeting. The small chamber, wreathed in broad banks of candles, glowed with light, while the rest of the palace, and most of the people within it, slumbered in darkness. Half a dozen more candles burned amid a riot of drinking cups and pitchers of wine on the long table in the centre of the room.

Æthelred, seated at the table’s head, watched the men file in. He read the apprehension on their faces as they glanced nervously at the clerks behind him, who recorded the name of each man who entered. He had given no hint as to the purpose of the council. They would find out soon enough.

He bid the men seat themselves, and as servants moved among them to fill their cups, the mood in the chamber lightened appreciably. He drank little himself but watched, satisfied, as cups were emptied and refilled. Sober reflection was not what he required of these men tonight.

Finally he motioned for the servants to leave the room, all but the clerks whose duty it was to record what was said here, and what would be decided.

‘We are here,’ he said solemnly, fingering his beard, ‘to resolve the issue of the Danes who dwell within our borders. First I wish to discover the magnitude of the problem. What can you tell me?’

They needed little encouragement, for he had chosen these men with care. Each one had numerous tales of outrage to relate – incidents of stolen cattle, plundered churches, raped women, and all of it the work of renegade Danes. As the stories were told and the wine drunk, the anger around the table rose until it spilled out in curses and calls for revenge.

Æthelred let them vent their outrage unhindered. He had already made up his mind about what must be done. The creature that had accosted him in the minster square was merely a symptom of a much larger disease. England was littered with bands of restless Viking mercenaries, seasoned warriors with no allegiance to anyone but their own leaders and the gold that was paid them. They had been of use to him once. Now, having proved that they could not be trusted, they remained in the land like a contagion. Men like Pallig, with too little to occupy them and no ties of loyalty to control them, were cankers that sickened his realm. He had no choice but to cut them out before they formed an army and destroyed him.

At the far end of the table, Eadric of Shrewsbury described the theft of a herd of horses and the torching of a barn, and then slammed his fist against the board.

‘My lord, these men live among us, but they remain outside the law,’ he said. ‘They answer to no one. We fear, and rightly, the men of the dragon ships who steal our food, our goods, and our women. But we should fear even more the like-minded devils that dwell among us who do not have to cross the Danish sea to murder us.’

Æthelred nodded as cries of assent rumbled around the table. It was time for the final act. He signalled to the door ward, and then he said, above the din, ‘My lords, I have myself been the victim of these godless men. They have gone so far as to raise their hands against your king.’ There were shouts of shock and outrage, and before they could die down he cried, ‘The foreign devil that would have slain me stands there!’

He pointed to the ragged, black-clothed figure that stood in the doorway between two guards. The creature’s reddened, malevolent eyes searched the room, and when they found Æthelred the monster howled like an animal that scents his prey. Straining against his bonds, hands outstretched as he tried in vain to hurl himself at the king, he shouted the Danish curses that had been the only words to escape his lips from the moment he was taken.

The men seated around the table were struck dumb. The abbot made the sign of the cross.

Æthelred, assured that his prisoner had had the desired impact, gestured to the guards to remove him.

‘You see the kind of vermin that we face,’ he said. ‘His words touch all of us, I warn you, for he threatens death to me and to my council and promises that the Danes will take England for themselves.’

More shouts of protest and anger greeted this announcement, and Abbot Kenulf, seated next to Eadric, rose to his feet.

‘These are not Christian men,’ he said, in a voice that resonated with spiritual authority. ‘Men such as this worship pagan gods and practise pagan ways. They have sprouted among us like cockles among the wheat, and we must rid ourselves of their foul contagion before it grows too strong.’

The shouting began again, and Æthelred raised a hand to quell it.

‘What you say is true, abbot, but the task must be carried out with care and with secrecy. If they suspect that we are preparing to move against them, they will meet us with force.’ And it was all too likely, he thought, that the Danes would win such a fight. ‘It is why I have called you together tonight in such secrecy. I propose to send messengers to my reeves in every town and village where such men dwell. My men will bear writs branding this man and all men like him as traitors to the crown. On a day that I shall name, all across this land they will be arrested and put to the sword. Are we agreed?’

Eadric slammed the table again and shouted, ‘Aye, my lord! You have my support!’

In a moment, the rest had followed suit, and Æthelred nodded, satisfied. His prisoner, mad though he clearly was, had played his part well.

Æthelred turned to the clerk nearest him.

‘How soon can this thing be done?’ he asked.

The clerk pursed his lips, considering.

‘We will need at least fourteen days to prepare the writs, my lord,’ he said, ‘and several days after that to deliver them.’ He ran his finger down the page of one of the books that lay open before him on the table, then looked up at Æthelred. ‘Friday 13th November,’ he said. ‘St Brice’s Day.’

Æthelred nodded his approval. On St Brice’s Day he would be rid of the enemies who troubled his days and tortured his nights.

He dismissed the councillors and went to his bed – and to the embraces of the Lady Elgiva – well pleased with the night’s work.