Читать книгу The Emma of Normandy 2-book Collection: Shadow on the Crown and The Price of Blood - Patricia Bracewell - Страница 34

Athelstan entered the palace grounds at the head of his small troop with the sense of satisfaction that comes at the completion of a job well done. The beacons between Winchester and the sea had been inspected and readied for the coming summer. Should the Danes attack the southern coast of Hampshire at any time in the next six months, word would reach the king at Winchester within an hour of the sighting.

In the chamber that he shared with Ecbert, Athelstan found his brother seated on his bed and his younger brother Edward kneeling on the floor at Ecbert’s feet. Edward was bent over a helmet, a scrap of wool in his hand and a bowl of melted beeswax on the floor next to him, polishing the helmet’s nose plate with an energy that was likely to wear him out within minutes.

‘What have we here?’ Athelstan asked, throwing off his wet cloak and tousling Edward’s hair. ‘Are you finally putting this troublesome brat to good use, Ecbert?’

‘I am not a troublesome brat!’ Edward protested, pausing in his task and turning an affronted face to Athelstan. ‘Since you have been gone I have been made cupbearer to the king. He says I am to have my own armour soon, and I must learn to care for it. Ecbert is letting me practise on his.’

Athelstan raised his eyebrows at this and exchanged a grin with Ecbert. The king’s hearth troops were expected to polish their own armour, a task that was tedious as well as tiring. It was something that Ecbert complained about regularly.

‘Well, that’s very generous of Ecbert,’ Athelstan said. ‘You can practise on my armour as well, if you like.’ He pulled off his helmet and byrnie, laying them across the chest that sat at the foot of his bed.

Apparently Edward did not yet find the task onerous, for he nodded happily and resumed his rubbing.

‘What other news is there?’ Athelstan asked.

‘The biggest news, next to the ascendancy of Edward Ætheling here to the post of cupbearer to the king, arrived by messenger late last night. Queen Emma, it seems, is with child.’

Athelstan paused, briefly, in the act of pulling off his muddy boots, but he did not look up.

‘Is it so?’ he grunted. The news should not surprise him. She was the king’s wife. She shared his bed. It was what she had come here to do.

He threw his boot, far too vigorously, onto the floor.

‘The royal party is making its way here even now,’ Ecbert went on, ‘for the king intends to dispense the Maundy Thursday alms to Winchester’s poor tomorrow. Edward,’ he said, ‘go and fetch Athelstan something to eat and drink. It is some little while yet until the next meal, and he must be hungry.’

‘But it is a fast day,’ Edward protested. ‘The pantry will be locked.’

‘You are the king’s cupbearer,’ Ecbert said. ‘Use your new influence to get your brother a loaf of bread and some ale, at least.’ He hoisted Edward to his feet and swatted him on the backside, and the boy scuttled out.

Ecbert waited until Edward was out of hearing range, then said, ‘You realize that this will change everything, do you not? If the queen has a son, she will want her child to inherit the throne, and she will play upon the king until he grants her that. We have no one to speak for us, no one to push our suit before the king.’

Athelstan scowled. Ecbert’s fears seemed a trifle premature.

‘What makes you think that the king will listen to Emma?’ he asked. ‘He has all but ignored her for months.’

‘If he were ignoring her, Athelstan, she would not be with child. And now that she is breeding, her influence must increase. If Emma insinuates herself and her babe next to the king, what place will there be for us?’

Athelstan pictured Emma lying curled on a bed next to his father, her body white and naked, her belly rounded with his father’s child. Shaking his head to dispel the unwanted image, he slammed the second boot to the floor.

‘Let us assume, Ecbert, that you are correct. Let us assume, for the sake of argument, that the child is born and that it is a boy. Let us even imagine that the king agrees to name this child his heir. What then? Our father is not like to die any time soon, and by the time that unhappy event occurs, a great many things could have taken place to change the course of all our lives.’

Ecbert leaned forward, rested his elbows on his knees, and peered earnestly at him. ‘And in the years between now and that uncertain future,’ he said, ‘you and I and all our brothers will fight and bleed to preserve this land whole from the Danes. Should we then turn around and hand it over to Emma’s son?’

‘Jesu! We don’t even know that Emma will have a son!’ Athelstan glared in helpless exasperation at his brother. ‘And what is your proposed solution to the problem of Queen Emma and her unborn children?’ he demanded. ‘Do we drown them at birth? Or perhaps we should attempt to drown the queen before she can bear them!’

Ecbert raised empty hands, palms up.

‘I have no solution!’ he said irritably. ‘I just – God damn it! He is an old man! He has sons enough and whores enough! Why could he not keep his cock away from this queen?’

Athelstan barked a bitter laugh.

‘Would you,’ he asked, ‘if you were in his place?’ He certainly would not.

‘Some men could! Edmund could, were he wed to Emma. He hates her.’

There was some truth to that. Edmund’s dislike of Emma had been immediate and visceral, and it was based, as far as Athelstan knew, on absolutely nothing except that she was Æthelred’s queen.

‘Edmund,’ he said, ‘is a pragmatist. If it were in his interest to wed and bed a woman, he would do it, like her or not. Even Emma. And so would you.’

‘Mayhap I would not bed her,’ Ecbert muttered, ‘if I had the Lady Elgiva to distract me.’

‘Truly? And you would be willing to settle for one woman when you could have two at the snap of your fingers?’

Ecbert collapsed backwards on the bed and groaned. ‘No, I would not! I take your point, but Sweet Holy Mother, what are we to do?’

‘Nothing,’ Athelstan said. ‘There is nothing to be done. Put the child out of your head, Ecbert. When it is born, weaned, and has learned how to use a sword, then let us speak of it again.’

When Ecbert left, Athelstan prowled the chamber, his mind toying uneasily with his brother’s news. He recalled, not for the first time, the doom foretold him by the seeress at the stone circle – that the realm would never be his. She had not been able to tell him, though, who would next wear England’s crown. It lay in shadow, she had claimed.

What did that mean? That there would be many rivals for the throne? Or could it be that Æthelred’s heir was not yet born? If he were to search her out again a year hence, after the birth of Emma’s child, would the old woman’s answer be different?

He scowled. He did not truly believe what she had told him, yet the prophecy gnawed at him, as galling as the image of Emma lying white and golden in his father’s arms.