Читать книгу The Price of Blood - Patricia Bracewell - Страница 20

Easter Monday, April 1006

Western Mercia

Elgiva could not remember ever being so cold. She rubbed her arms for warmth while Alric fumbled with flint and steel to light a fire. They were in a crumbling hovel of wattle and daub – a swineherd’s shelter she guessed, although she could not tell where. She had lost all sense of direction once the sun had gone down, but until then Alric had led her along narrow tracks, mostly through wide swathes of forestland. Sometimes, when they came to a clearing and she looked to her left, she could see the dyke that marked England’s border with the Wælisc kingdoms.

She edged nearer to Alric and the fire pit, away from the horses that he had insisted on bringing into the shelter with them, the two of them grooming the beasts with straw as best they could even before he would turn his hand to lighting a fire. She watched him coax the spark into life, a thick shock of brown hair falling over his eyes as he worked. What little she could see of his face, shadowed with a day-old beard, was pale and grimly set. His hands, as he fed twigs to the tiny flame, were trembling.

He was cold, too, then. Not from the night chill, though, any more than she was.

As the flames began to lick at the bits of wood and the stacked turf, he placed their saddles on the ground at the fire’s edge so that they made a kind of bench. He motioned for her to sit and she did so, wrapping her mantle about her and holding her hands to the smoky fire. She watched him take off his sword belt and lay it close. Then he sat beside her, handed her a skin of water, and from a satchel drew a half-eaten loaf and a block of cheese to share between them. She realized suddenly how thirsty she was, and she took a long drink of water.

Once, years before, she had travelled rough like this, when she and her brother Wulf had fled from Exeter with the Danes at their backs. They’d had a large group of armed men as escort then, had been well provisioned, too, for it was high summer and the land was bountiful. The Danes had been no more than a distant threat.

That had seemed like sport compared to this. She hadn’t been so afraid then.

She looked at the dry bread in her hand, but her stomach recoiled at the thought of food. She could think only of her father, and that he was dead.

Earlier, when they’d been forced to stop for a time to allow the horses to rest and graze, she had flung a question at Alric about what had happened. But he had clasped a hand over her mouth, listening for sounds of pursuit, hissing for silence. She had been frightened before, but it was worse after that, and she had swallowed all her questions.

Now, though, she had to know. However bad it had been, she had to know.

‘How was my father killed?’ She was hunched over, staring into the fire, bracing herself against whatever she was about to hear.

Beside her, Alric shifted forward as well.

‘He took an arrow in the chest.’

‘An arrow!’ She straightened, gaping at him. ‘But he was hunting. It might have been an accident.’ This could all be a misunderstanding. Her father might even still be alive. She could leave this stinking hovel in the morning and go back to Shrewsbury, discover how her father fared.

‘It was not just your father,’ he said, then took a long pull from the water skin, set it on the ground, and wiped his mouth with his sleeve. ‘It was all your father’s men, too – his falconer, his grooms, the four hearth companions, and the two retainers who rode with him. All of them dead.’

She stared at his face, sculpted into harsh angles by the firelight. No accident, then. And no chance that her father was still alive. The hope that had flickered in her mind shuddered and died, and she recalled Alric’s words in the chapel, that it had been a trap.

‘Yet you escaped,’ she whispered. ‘How?’

‘I was late to the hunt, still mead-drunk from last night’s feast. When I awoke, the others were gone, but I knew they planned to loose the falcons on the heath below Shrewsbury. So I rode that way, thinking to join the hunt. I was still in the woods when I heard the shouting and realized that something was wrong.’ He drew a breath, grimacing at whatever picture was in his mind. ‘By the time I reached the forest edge, your father and the others lay on the ground in a wide clearing with arrows in their guts. Eadric and his men were already inspecting the bodies, making sure that—’

He stopped abruptly, glanced at her, and began again.

‘It was an ambush, and Eadric must have planned the whole thing. His archers had been hidden among the trees and they turned the meadow into a killing ground.’

She imagined how it must have been – horses and men confused by the onslaught of arrows, men cursing, crying out in pain, and after that, silence. In the end, it probably hadn’t been a feathered shaft that killed her father, but a knife or a sword blade. And still she could not believe that it was true. It seemed unreal, like a tale told by a scop who would change the ending to suit her if she commanded it.

But Alric wasn’t finished.

‘The bastards never saw me,’ he spat. ‘They were too bent on stripping the bodies and keeping the hounds from—’ He cursed, then snapped his mouth shut. ‘I went back to the manor to find you. I climbed the palisade easily enough, but I would have been hard-pressed to know where to look if I hadn’t seen you going into the chapel.’

She closed her eyes. She was trembling so hard that her teeth were chattering, and she clasped her hands tight, trying to focus – not on what had happened, but on what she must do next.

‘I must get to my brothers,’ she said between shallow breaths. ‘I have to tell them what Eadric has done so they can demand a wergild. The king has to make Eadric pay for this.’

But Alric was shaking his head.

‘Nay, lady,’ he said, ‘Eadric would never have done this thing unless the king himself commanded it. Æthelred must have discovered the plots that your father was hatching with the Danes. He wanted your father dead. Eadric will be rewarded, not punished, for this day’s work.’

She felt suddenly dizzy, the walls around her spinning so that she had to drop her head to her knees to make them stop. This was Æthelred’s response to the message she had sent him. But she had never dreamed that the king would do something so savage. To cut down the premier ealdorman of England was an act that spoke of a hatred so fierce it was not likely to stop there.

And her brothers were with the king.

‘What will he do to Wulf and Ufegeat?’ she whispered.

‘If they are still alive,’ Alric said, ‘I doubt they will be so for long. You cannot help them, lady. You must look to your own safety.’

Suddenly the day’s events became too real, and she rocked forward and back, hands against her mouth to stifle the wail that was swelling in her throat. She felt Alric’s arms go round her, and she gave herself up to the terror of what she had set in motion. She had wanted her father punished, but not like this.

Why had the fool chosen to wed her to a Danish lord? It was a decision that made no sense to her, and now they must all pay for it. Even she must pay for it.

That thought made her pull away from Alric and wipe her eyes with her hands. She would not weep for her father. Had he treated her better he would still be alive, and she would not be here now.

You must look to your own safety, Alric had said. And he was right. She was still alive. And although the world around her had changed utterly, she was still who she had ever been – the daughter of Ealdorman Ælfhelm, granddaughter of Wulfrun of Tamworth, and descendant of Wulfric the Black. She had lands and she had money, and there were men who would help her if she could but get to them.

‘My father’s thegns in Northampton will protect me from the king,’ she said. ‘You must take me there.’

Alric snorted. ‘That is exactly where Eadric and the king will expect you to go. There may already be king’s guards posted at the gates of your father’s manors, and by tomorrow they will be hunting for you all over Mercia.’

Of course; her father’s estates would be watched. Likely she could not even get a message to the men who might be of most use to her. In any case, many of her father’s closest allies would be with the king at the Easter court, and so at risk themselves.

She had no way of knowing how hot the king’s vengeance would blaze, or how far. If Æthelred should find her, what would he do to her? Would he murder her as well? Or would he merely imprison her, cast her into some black cell where she could never be found? He would certainly not wed her to any of his sons.

Yet that was where her destiny lay, she was certain of it. She had been promised that she would be queen, although how she was to make that come about she could not see. Not yet.

‘I must get as far away from Æthelred as swiftly as I can. Go where he cannot reach me.’ She must find a protector – someone with men and arms who would not be afraid to use them against the king if need be.

‘Then you must go either west into the Wælisc lands,’ he said, ‘or east to the Danelaw.’

‘Not west,’ she said. ‘I would be still within reach of Eadric, and I have no kinsmen there to protect me.’ She must go into the Danelaw, then. They had little love there for Æthelred – or so her father always said. Whom could she trust, though, to resist the lure of gold if the king should put a price upon her head? She ran through the list of her father’s allies, and then she had the answer. ‘We will go to Thurbrand,’ she said, ‘to the Lord of Holderness.’

Thurbrand had never been tempted by anything that Æthelred could offer him. She had once heard her father call him an old pirate, and chide him for shunning the rewards given to those who attended the king. But Thurbrand had vowed that he wanted neither the rewards nor the responsibilities that bending the knee to Æthelred would gain. So he remained in his fastness on the edge of the Danish sea, plotting against his English enemies in Jorvik, paying lip service to the House of Cerdic, and governing his people like a half king.

‘We’ll have to take a ship, then,’ Alric said, ‘for we could not hope to make it across Mercia with the king’s men after us. At first light we’ll go to Chester. The harbour there will have any number of vessels readying to make sail, and we can buy passage aboard the first one we find.’

‘How long will it take us to get to Holderness?’

He shrugged. ‘Impossible to say. Much will depend on the weather and on how quickly we can get passage on ships bound where we wish to go. It may take us months, and if it does, what does it matter? It will do you no harm to disappear from England for a time. Let Æthelred wonder what has become of you.’

That prospect cheered her. She would be the missing piece on the game board that was England. They would probably search the abbeys for her, and the king would grow frantic when he could not find her. It was hardly recompense for her father’s murder, but it was a beginning.

‘We must get word to Thurbrand,’ she said, ‘that I am making my way there. Can it be done?’

‘Yes, but’ – he held up her hand and the gold and gems that covered each finger glittered in the firelight – ‘it may cost you some of these baubles.’

He turned her hand over and ran a fingertip across her palm, and she was astonished by her response – desire shimmering through her like summer lightning, the heat of it easing her fear. Her body remembered Alric well, it seemed, for he had pleasured her like this before, years ago, and she was sorely tempted to lose herself in the sensations that she knew he could arouse in her. But once she set her foot on that path there would be no going back, and she had no wish to knock at Thurbrand’s gate with Alric’s brat in her belly.

She clasped his hand between her palms and held it tight.

‘I am your lord now, Alric,’ she said, ‘and I expect you to serve me as you served my father.’ He could rape her if he wanted to, she supposed. She would not have the physical strength to resist him, and even if she did, where was she to run? Her father had trusted Alric, though, had been generous with him; she hoped that she could do the same. She released his hand, slipped a ring from her finger, and placed it in his palm. ‘You have done well by me today,’ she said, ‘and I give you this as a pledge of far greater favours to come. Will you protect me until we reach Holderness?’

She watched him closely, saw the cocked brow and the speculative look in his eye. Had any woman ever refused Alric’s attempt at seduction? Likely she was the first.

He nodded, and pocketed the ring.

‘I am your man, my lady,’ he said, ‘to Holderness and beyond, if need be.’

‘Good.’ She held up her hands. ‘The rest of these baubles we will use to get us there. And in Chester you will buy me a fine tunic and breecs. The king’s men will be looking for a woman and a man, not a young lord and his servant.’

They settled themselves to sleep then, on either side of the fire. For a long time, though, she lay awake, staring into the dying flames and pondering her future. If her brothers were dead, there was no man now who could command her except the king. And once she slipped free of whatever net Æthelred might throw out to snare her, she could claim her estates and marry. She could marry any man she wished.

She closed her eyes, and as she let herself drift towards sleep she wondered where Lord Athelstan was. She wondered if he realized just how valuable she could be to him.

April 1006

Near Saltford, Oxfordshire

Athelstan halted his horse beside the standing stone that pointed skyward like a gnarled finger. In the shallow valley in front of him, beyond the ring of stunted oaks, he could see the circle of stones and the figure seated at its centre, waiting.

It was not too late to turn back; not too late to make his way to London as he had intended when he left his father’s hall. Even now he did not know if he had come here of his own free will or if he had been drawn by some force that he did not understand.

He knew only that he was afraid – for himself, for the king, for England.

A succession of grim possibilities had been coursing through his mind for days now in an endless, looping string. Any move that his father made against Ælfhelm might split the kingdom. Any action that he himself might take to avert such a split would add to the suspicions his father was already nursing against him. Any hint of discord between the king, his sons, and his thegns would bring Viking raiders to their shores like wolves drawn to a bleating lamb, and that might well destroy England altogether.

Below him, the woman seated beside the fire did not look up, but she must know that he was here. He could not shake off the sensation that she had called him – that she had some answer to give him, if he could but ask the right question.

That, too, made him afraid.

Above him the sky darkened, then brightened again, as clouds drifted across the face of the sun.

The sky was of two minds, he thought, just as he was. But he’d come this far already, three days’ ride in the wrong direction.

So he swung off his horse and led it down the hill, leaving it to graze while he walked into the circle to take his place across the fire from the seeress. As they regarded each other for a long, silent moment, it crossed his mind that she had suffered some wasting sickness, for her face was thinner than he remembered, her nose as sharp and pointed as a merlin’s beak, and her skin creased with lines that had not been there two winters ago. He glanced past her, to the daub and wattle hut that was her dwelling. When last he was here he had left behind a purse of silver, but she had clearly not spent it on her comforts.

Finally she broke the silence.

‘Twice before this you have come to me, lord, and twice you left here doubting the truth of the words I spoke to you. Will this time be any different?’

How did she know that he had doubted her? Perhaps it was not such a difficult thing to divine, though. No man wished to believe in a future that was bleak.

‘Mayhap it depends on the question asked and the answer given,’ he replied.

She nodded. ‘Ask your question, then, lord, and I will give what answer I can.’

He paused, and as he looked into her eyes the question that he would pose came to him at last.

‘Is it possible for a man to change his fate?’

The black eyes flashed at him, or perhaps he was merely seeing the flames reflected there.

‘Every man’s wyrd is set, my lord, for it is the fate of every man to die. That end is inescapable.’

‘That end, yes,’ he agreed. ‘But there is far more to any man’s life than just the leaving of it. Is there only one path that a man must follow to his life’s end?’

‘One path only,’ she said. ‘Yet not every step upon that path is carved in stone.’

It seemed to him that her words were a riddle set within a maze.

‘Then how,’ he asked, ‘can anyone read a man’s future?’

She dropped her gaze from his, frowning into the fire.

‘The future of any man’s life is not a path that runs along a plain, my lord, but one that follows a trail over mountains and chasms that are hidden in mist. Sometimes, for a brief spell, the mist clears, and one who has the gift can see the way. Can you change the path? No. But no one, not even the most gifted, can perceive at a glance every valley or every mountaintop that a life will follow, nor every other life path that crosses it along the way.’ She looked into his eyes again. ‘You have not asked me about the thing that concerns you the most, I think. There is something far greater than the fate of a single life that troubles you.’

That much was true. It was not his wyrd that mattered, or his father’s. It was the fate of England that he would know.

He made no answer, but she spoke as if she had read his thought.

‘Then I will give you this answer to the question that you do not ask. Whether the thing that you desire is within your reach or not, failure is only a certainty if you do not strive to grasp what you would have.’

So. He must do whatever he could to preserve the kingdom, no matter the cost. Yet she would not promise him success, only certain failure if he did not make the attempt. What, he wondered, would be the price that he must pay?

‘And if I give you my hand now and ask you to tell me my future, what would you say to me?’

She dropped her eyes to the flames again, and her voice was a mere whisper.

‘What I would say to any man, for I have searched the fire and smoke again and again these many months, and what I see is ever the same.’

He waited for her to speak, and when she seemed disinclined to go on, he prodded her.

‘What is it?’ he demanded. ‘What is it that you see?’

She lifted her gaze to his, and he thought she tried to smile, but her eyes were filled with tears.

‘I see fire,’ she said, ‘and smoke. There is never anything else.’

April 1006

Cookham, Berkshire

The imprisonment of Ælfhelm’s sons led to angry clashes between Æthelred and his ministers. Throughout Easter Week while the council sessions continued, Emma observed the discord and the king’s response to it with growing dismay. Æthelred went nowhere without a ring of trusted warriors close about him, but the presence of armed men in the hall merely added to the tension that charged the air like lightning about to strike.

She was not present on the day that Lord Eadric of Shrewsbury strode into the hall with a dozen men at his back to report that Ealdorman Ælfhelm was dead. She heard about it soon enough, though. His bald statement set the court buzzing. The king declared that Ælfhelm had been punished for his treachery against the Crown, and immediately ordered Ælfhelm’s sons sent in chains to the fortress at Windsor. For safekeeping, he insisted.

This led to more unrest among the men of the witan. They demanded an accounting of Ælfhelm’s crimes and the crimes of his sons, but the king steadfastly refused to enumerate them. It was enough, he claimed, that he knew what they were, and even his bishops could not move him to say any more. At this Lord Æthelmær of the Western Shires grew so irate that he retired from the king’s council altogether, saying he would rather spend the rest of his life in an abbey serving God than continue paying court to an unjust king.

Emma had met with the man and tried to dissuade him from taking a step so drastic and irrevocable. He had listened to her arguments with grave respect and courtesy, but in the end she could not sway him from his decision. The next morning he had left Cookham with his sons and more than fifty warriors beside. The king never even tried to placate Æthelmær and sent no word of Godspeed, but Emma had watched the company ride away with misgiving.

And all the while there was an endless flurry of rumours about Elgiva, who seemed to have disappeared from the earth altogether. Some claimed that she was dead, but Emma gave those stories no credence. Elgiva was alive, she was certain. The Lady of Northampton had somehow slipped whatever snare Eadric had set for her, and that had merely goaded him into redoubling his efforts to capture her. He’d even sent men to the convents that were scattered throughout England – a fruitless endeavour in Emma’s opinion, despite tales that Elgiva had been seen at Polesworth, at Shaftesbury, and at Wilton. Elgiva, she knew, would never willingly place herself within the confining walls of a nunnery.

She had said as much to Wymarc as they walked together one morning beside the river. Pausing for a moment to look up, into the wide blue expanse that was uncharacteristically free of clouds, she had wondered aloud, ‘Where under this English sky is Elgiva? And what is she doing?’

‘She’s a temptress, isn’t she?’ Wymarc had replied. ‘She’ll have used her looks and her cunning to persuade some fool of a man to give her shelter.’

Emma thought that all too likely. But to whom would Elgiva turn for help?

‘Let us hope,’ she said, ‘that she has gone to ground and stays well hidden.’ Preferably outside England’s borders, where her wealth and connections would not tempt one of Æthelred’s ambitious thegns or, God forbid, an ætheling, to wed her.

Such an alliance, even now, with Ælfhelm dead and his sons imprisoned, would have its advantages. She imagined Athelstan fettered to the beautiful, scheming Elgiva – and abruptly she pushed the thought away. The king would never agree to it, and to attempt it without his blessing would mean catastrophe – father and son irrevocably divided and, far worse, a kingdom in chaos. Athelstan would never take that step.

He must not.

‘I doubt you need worry about Elgiva,’ Wymarc said. ‘She’s crafty as a cat. Toss her in the air and she’ll land on her feet every time.’

Yet Emma worried. As relieved as she was that Elgiva was no longer in her household, she had no wish to see her at the side of an ætheling or of some northern warlord, but neither did she wish her to be at the mercy of Eadric and his hounds.

When the council session ended, most of the nobles set out for their homes – fled, Emma thought – eager to get away from the king’s fierce, suspicious gaze. Two of the Mercian magnates, though, were ordered to remain. They were the brothers Siferth and Morcar, kin by marriage to Ælfhelm and the first to plead with the king on behalf of Ælfhelm’s sons. Æthelred claimed that he wished them to advise him in the search for Elgiva, but everyone knew that the men were hostages to the king’s fear of Ælfhelm’s supporters. The two men could not plot against him if they were at court, under his so-called protection.

Siferth’s young bride was Elgiva’s kinswoman, Aldyth. She was fifteen winters old, and tall for her age, quite the opposite of Elgiva, who, Emma reflected, was elfin in comparison. Everything about Aldyth was large – mouth, hands, feet, even her teeth. Yet she was not unattractive. The large eyes beneath her dark brows were beautiful, and her skin was fair and smooth. She had a lovely, wide smile – when she did smile, which had not been a frequent occurrence of late.

When Aldyth had first arrived at court, just before Easter, she had been shy and exuberant all at once. With the arrest of her cousins though, her excitement had turned very quickly to bewilderment. And when word came of her uncle’s death and Elgiva’s disappearance, her bewilderment had turned to horror and fear.

Emma had done what she could to shelter her from the rampant speculation about the fate of her cousins and from the cloud of suspicion that had settled upon her husband and his brother. It was Hilde, though, Ealdorman Ælfric’s granddaughter, who had taken charge of Aldyth, just as she had once taken charge of the king’s young daughters when she was no more than a child herself.

They sat together now, Hilde and Aldyth, on one of the fur hides that covered the floor, keeping watch over Edward and Robert, who seemed determined to explore every corner of the chamber. From her place at the embroidery frame under the high window, Emma watched them and smiled. Hilde had grown into a lovely young woman, her hair in its long braid the colour of honey. She was the same age as Aldyth, but she seemed years older somehow. Perhaps that was due to the responsibilities she had shouldered in the royal household, Emma thought. Or perhaps it was because she had lost both of her parents when she was so young, her mother to sickness and her father to the king’s vengeance. Hilde was smiling now, though, as Aldyth spun a wooden top before the delighted eyes of the two bairns.

Edyth, who was seated with her sisters beside Emma, looked at the group on the floor and scowled.

‘Can we not get some servants to take the children so these ladies can help us with this altar cloth?’ she asked, her tone surly. ‘The design is intricate and it is likely to take us years to finish it.’

‘This is a gift from the royal family to Archbishop Ælfheah,’ Emma replied, ‘and therefore we should be the ones to work the embroidery.’

She frowned at Edyth, who had been discontented with the entire world, but mostly with Emma, for some weeks now. The king’s eldest daughter was clearly gnawing on some grievance, but Emma had yet to determine in what way she was at fault.

She saw Edyth about to make another protest, but before she could say anything one of the household slaves, a boy of about eight, raced into the chamber and straight to Emma’s side. Without waiting for permission to speak, he cried, ‘There is word from Windsor that the lords Wulfheah and Ufegeat have had their eyes put out!’

The needle slipped from Emma’s hands, her gaze drawn immediately to where Aldyth and Hilde sat frozen, their faces ashen. They stared back at her with horror in their eyes until Aldyth collapsed forward, wailing as if she’d taken a mortal blow. Instantly Margot was at the young woman’s side, wrapping a comforting arm about her while Wymarc swept a protesting Robert from the floor.

Emma grasped the young slave by the arms and pulled him towards her. He was new to the court, still raw and untutored, sold into slavery during the worst of the famine when his parents could no longer feed him. He had meant no harm. He had only been eager to tell her the news, but a slave who could not hold his tongue was of no use to her.

‘You are never to speak in my presence until I give you permission to do so, whatever the message you carry. I shall punish you if you ever burst into my chamber like that again. Do you understand?’

He nodded, his eyes wide and frightened.

‘Good,’ she said, drawing him still closer. ‘Now, tell me,’ she said more gently, for his ears alone, ‘what else do you know of their fate?’ She cast another quick glance at Hilde and saw with a pang that the girl’s face was wet with tears as she clutched a whimpering Edward to her breast and stared pityingly at Aldyth. Hilde’s father had suffered this same cruel punishment, had even survived it, although he’d spent the rest of his life in exile, consumed by bitterness and hatred. Hilde had known him only in the weeks before he died – a twisted wreck of a man. This news, Emma thought, must bring back all the anguish that his young daughter had felt for him. Swallowing the hard knot of pity in her throat, Emma turned back to the boy and asked urgently, ‘Do the prisoners still live?’

‘I know not, my lady,’ the boy whispered, clearly frightened by the distress he’d caused.

‘Go and see if you can discover it,’ she said, ‘and bring me word.’

‘Yes, my lady,’ he said, remembering to bow before he scampered off.

Emma drew in a long breath and stood up, considering what to do next. Aldyth still sat on the floor, wrapped in Margot’s arms and sobbing with sorrow or with terror – likely both, Emma thought. The girl certainly had good reason to be afraid. She belonged to a family that had earned the king’s enmity, and there was no telling how far Æthelred would carry his vengeance. If he should send men here to take Aldyth away, even she would not be able to stop them.

All work on the archbishop’s altar cloth had ground to a halt. Edward was crying despite Hilde’s efforts to soothe him. Aldyth was distraught, and Edyth was frowning at her while her younger sisters stared at the weeping girl with frightened eyes.

‘Hilde,’ Emma said, taking Edward from her and pacing with the light, bouncing step that usually quieted him, ‘please take the younger girls outside for a walk.’ That would remove them from this turmoil and give Hilde a task that would hopefully take her mind from painful memories.

But it was Edyth who stood up and began to herd her sisters towards the chamber door, saying, ‘I will take them.’

‘I wish you to stay, Edyth,’ Emma said. ‘I may need your assistance.’ Edyth was old enough now to begin to learn how to deal with a court crisis.

‘And I wish to go,’ Edyth said, her voice taut as the string on a bow. She paused beside Aldyth and said, ‘You should not weep for those men. They were my father’s enemies. He would not have punished them had they not deserved—’

‘Be silent!’ Emma said sharply. In an instant she had thrust Edward into Hilde’s arms and, drawing Edyth aside, she hissed, ‘Edyth, you must show compassion for this girl. Her cousins have been horribly punished, her uncle is dead, and whatever they may have done, she must be very frightened. She is all but a hostage because of them.’

‘If she has done nothing wrong,’ Edyth replied, ‘then she need not be afraid. My father will not harm her. Why do you not tell her that?’

Emma wanted to weep with frustration. ‘I cannot tell her not to be afraid,’ she said, ‘because things are not as they should be. Everyone is frightened, tempers are raw, and I cannot speak for the actions of anyone.’ Least of all the actions of the king.

‘But it is your duty to defend my father,’ Edyth persisted, her face growing flushed and angry. ‘Only you will not, because you hate him.’

Emma stared at her. Where had this come from?

‘You are mistaken, Edyth,’ she said coldly. ‘I do not hate the king.’

‘Yes, you do,’ Edyth insisted, her voice rising. ‘You hate all of us. You only care about Edward and no one else. My brother Edmund says that you will not be happy until all of us are dead.’

Emma slapped her almost before Edyth finished speaking. The girl glared at her for an instant, then turned and fled the chamber.

Still stunned by the poison of Edyth’s words, Emma let her go. Her heart, though, was filled with misgiving. When had Edyth begun to resent her? At the time that she and Æthelred had wed, his daughters, all of them so very young, had accepted her almost as if she were an elder sister. Whatever suspicions the king’s sons may have harboured against her, his daughters had warmed to her. Clearly that had changed, at least where Edyth was concerned.

Had it started with Ecbert’s death, or did it go even further back, to the birth of Edward?

She put her fingertips to her temple and rubbed them against the pressure that had begun to pulse there. Dear God, she should have expected this. She should have prepared herself to face it, for it had to come sooner or later – this chafing between them. The girl was mature enough now to understand that her prestige had been lowered when her father had wed a Norman bride and given her a crown that Edyth’s own mother had never been granted. Edward’s birth could only have added to Edyth’s resentment. Edyth was ambitious. As she grew older, she would likely demand a role that held some influence within the court, and until she got it there would be no peace between stepmother and king’s daughter.

She looked at the others in the room – all of them upset and afraid. The younger girls were most frightened of all, she suspected, because they would not understand what tensions lay behind the little drama they had just witnessed.

She nodded to Hilde to take Edward and his half-sisters away, then she drew Aldyth to the bench along the wall and sat beside her. Even as she murmured words of consolation, though, she brooded on the king’s eldest daughter. She would have to find a way to reassure Edyth, win her over somehow; only she was at a loss as to how to go about it.

Edyth was too proud ever to admit that she could be in the wrong. She shared that trait with her father.

And was the king wrong about the guilt of Ælfhelm and his sons? Perhaps not; but the cruel measures that he had taken against them and his silence about their crimes could only breed discontent among men whose loyalty was already strained. If the summer brought dragon ships to England’s shores, would the men of England unite under their king, or would they turn to someone else to protect them?

Once more, her thoughts flew to Elgiva, who was as capable of treachery and deceit as her father and brothers. Where was she, and what kind of vengeance might she even now be plotting against the king?