Shadow on the Crown (23 page)

Swiftly Æthelred rose to his feet, and pitching his voice so that it could be heard in every corner of the hall, he answered Athelstan’s challenge.

“I will not send my sons, nor any man’s sons, on such an ill-considered, perilous venture. The hazards far outweigh any gains, and it is not to be thought of, now or ever.” He fixed Athelstan with a contemptuous look that brooked no argument. “There’s an end to it.”

He stalked from the dais, desperate to escape curious eyes and to shake off the clammy chill that enveloped him now like a fog. He knew, even without seeing it, that a shadow followed in his wake. Edward would show him no mercy, but God help him, the retribution that his brother demanded was far too high. He would not pay it, let his brother’s bloodied shade do what he would.

Athelstan stared, thunderstruck, at his father’s retreating back. The king had asked for no considered opinions but had treated his suggestion with contempt.

And when, he asked himself, had it ever been otherwise? His father had always dismissed his counsel. Even the king’s gift of the Sword of Offa had been an attempt to placate him, as if he were a mewling babe who could be silenced with a toy.

He turned from the empty throne and elbowed his way through the crowded hall, with Ecbert and Edmund at his heels.

“What are you going to do?” Ecbert demanded.

“Now that the king has humiliated me in front of the entire court?” he asked. “I am going to leave, of course. What other choice do I have?”

Ecbert moved quickly to plant himself directly in Athelstan’s path.

“You cannot leave the court without his permission!” he protested.

“Watch me,” Athelstan said, shoving his brother aside.

“Surely you don’t propose to fire the Danish fleet all by yourself.” This from Edmund.

Athelstan barked a laugh. “Without a sealed writ from the king I am powerless to raise the ships. No, Swein’s fleet is safe from me. I will wait for word of Armageddon at my estate at Norton.” His lands lay within a half day’s ride of Exeter, and if, God forbid, the Danish force should strike there, he could at the very least spirit Emma out of danger.

Suddenly he found Edmund once again blocking his way.

“Stay away from her,” his brother said in a low voice, his face dark with warning. “She is not worth the risk that you are taking.”

There was no need to ask whom he meant. Edmund despised Emma, and if anything should happen to her, he would likely rejoice, not mourn.

In that instant Athelstan felt his tenuous hold on his rage—against his father, against the Danes, against God Himself—give way. He lunged for Edmund’s throat but almost immediately found his arms pinned from behind.

“Stop it!” Ecbert hissed in his ear. “We’re on your side, you fool. You risk losing your properties and titles if you leave.”

“If the Danes attack,” Athelstan said, shrugging out of his brother’s grasp, “the king will have far more to worry about than a son who disobeyed him by going off to confront the enemy.”

He stalked away from his brothers. Already he had wasted precious time trying to persuade his father to make the first strike against Forkbeard. With midsummer less than a week away, and the Danish fleet perhaps already poised to sail across the Narrow Sea, there was little time to lose. He could make it to Exeter in five days with swift horses. His sense of foreboding, of some calamity about to befall all of them, was stronger than ever. Whatever was to come he would face it at Emma’s side, or die trying to reach her.

Middleton, Dorset

It was the Lord’s Day, and in St. Catherine’s Church on the ridge above Middleton Abbey, Emma knelt before the small altar. The Mass was done, yet she lingered to pray alone for a time in the solemn quiet of the chapel. Early morning light streamed, honey colored, through the thick yellow pane of the window set into the wall behind the altar, and the sweet, heavy fragrance of incense hung in the air, masking, for the moment, the odor of damp that clung to the lime-washed walls and rush-strewn earthen floor.

When Emma had finished her prayers she stood up and turned to find that Ealdorman Ælfric, too, had lingered in the chapel. He rose when she did, bowing to her with grave dignity.

“My lady,” he said softly, “may I speak with you a little?”

“What is it, my lord?” she asked, seating herself upon one of the benches that lined the chapel walls. She signaled to Wymarc, who had been waiting near the church door, and in a moment Emma and Ælfric were alone together in the quiet of the little chapel. “Pray, sit down,” she said to the old man.

He lowered himself onto the bench next to her, his wrinkled brow even more furrowed than usual. Tall and gaunt, grizzled and gray, he reminded Emma somewhat of her father. There was the same gentleness in his face whenever his eyes lit upon her, and the same kind of genial smile of affection. Her childhood memories of her father had become so entwined with this man that she could not help but look upon him with the same regard that a daughter might.

He gazed at her gravely, large hands clasped together upon the folds of his brown cloak.

“Do you know aught of my son, my lady?” he asked.

“Your son?” she said, surprised by the question. “No, my lord. Only what you told me at Wherwell . . . that you lost him some time after Hilde’s mother died.”

“Lost him, aye,” he said, nodding. “That is true enough. Yet it is not the entire truth.”

This did not surprise her. She had often been forced to settle for half-truths at the king’s court. She said nothing, though, merely watched the old man as he looked down at the strong, sinewy hands in his lap. When he trained his dark eyes upon her again he said, “My son is lost, although not dead.”

He told her a piteous tale, then, of a headstrong son who after the death of his young wife had left his baby daughter in his parents’ care and, in spite of his father’s protests, disappeared from all their knowledge.

“We thought that he, too, had died, perhaps even among the many who lost their lives in the battle against the Danes at Maldon in ninety-one. Then, the year after Maldon, when Swein Forkbeard struck in Kent, the king called out the
fyrd
to meet the enemy, and I was to lead the ships that would cut off the Danes’ retreat after the battle.” He paused, grazing a hand across his brow as if he would wipe out the memories there. “The night before we would have set our trap, as our host camped on the Thames bank, my son appeared at my tent, hale and healthy. To me it was as if Lazarus had come back from the dead, for I had thought Ælfgar buried in the fens at Maldon. To this day I do not know if any of what he told me that night—of his capture by Danish shipmen and his repeated efforts to escape—was truth or lie. I did not bind him in chains, for I did not know then that he was Forkbeard’s man, body and soul.” He gazed at her, his eyes bleak with grief. “It is said that the Danish king has a power in his gaze that captures and holds men’s hearts. I think it must be true.”

Emma recalled the power and calculation she had read in Swein Forkbeard’s eyes. She could not speak to how it might affect the hearts of his followers. Swein had inspired her only with fear.

Ælfric again took up his tale. “My son slipped away again in the night, and although I followed with a party to capture him, by dawn he had alerted the enemy of our intentions, and their fleet had sailed. Only one dragon ship was set aflame. All its crew was slain but for one man—the traitor, Ælfgar. My son.”

Emma swallowed, forced to ask the question although she dreaded to hear the answer. “What was his punishment?”

“The king, for the love he bore me, gave me my son’s life. But they gouged out his eyes and left him all but dead. For ten years now he has been cared for by the brothers at Magdalene Abbey near Exeter, but in all that time I have not seen him, for fear of incurring the king’s displeasure.” He paused, and his eyes, when they captured hers, gleamed with unshed tears. “I would see my son again, my lady, reunite him with his daughter if he should will it. Hilde knows nothing of her father’s treachery, but she must learn of it soon. I would rather that she heard it from me than from any other. And when she knows the truth”—he looked at her with pleading eyes—“she will need comfort, I think.”

Emma though of Hilde, who had often sat with young Edward during his illness, telling him stories to distract him from his pain.

“I will stand by Hilde,” she said, “and offer her whatever counsel she may need.”

The old man did not speak, but kissed her hand. As Emma watched him leave, she pondered his willingness to risk his king’s displeasure in seeking out a faithless son, whose actions had cast infamy on his father’s name.

If the king’s sons should commit some rash, misguided deed, she doubted that they would find their father so willing to forgive.

Chapter Twenty-one

June 1003

Exeter, Devonshire

W
hen Queen Emma of England entered the royal
burh
of Exeter on Midsummer’s Day, Athelstan watched the event from a lookout atop the city wall. The day was bright with sun, and as Emma approached the group of nobles waiting for her at the southern gate, all the church bells of Exeter began to peal, and a roar went up from the crowds that had come to watch.

Athelstan guessed that nothing like it had been seen in Exeter within living memory. Not since the days of King Athelstan, near eighty years before, would such an array of priests, soldiers, noblemen, and courtly ladies have made its way through the gates of the city’s Roman wall, past the minster, to the fortress on the hill. The bishops of Crediton and Sherborne, rivaling each other in capes of scarlet silk, rode at the queen’s side. Behind her, Ealdorman Ælfric’s heavily polished mail tunic and helmet outshone not only the glitter of the prelates’ garb, but even the gleam reflected from their shining tonsures.

Athelstan barely noticed them, for his eyes were fixed upon Emma, in her cyrtel of shimmering blue godwebbe. Her mantle was of a deeper blue, trimmed with white silk, and clasped at her right shoulder by a broach of gold inlaid with pearls. On her head she wore a delicate silk veil bound in place by a thin circlet of beaten gold. Perched atop her great white horse she looked stunning. It seemed to him that anyone who saw her must love her.

Yet even as he watched the queen make her slow way through the streets of Exeter, he did not for a moment forget the threat of Swein Forkbeard and his dragon ships. From where he stood Athelstan could see the River Exe as it flowed past the city walls toward the Narrow Sea. Ever and again his eyes strayed to the southeast, where a signal beacon was perched atop a hill crowned by the remains of a fort built by a people long vanished. Should Danish ships be sighted on the horizon the beacon would be lit in warning. But no trace of warning flare blazed on the hill. Athelstan relaxed ever so slightly.

His two companions, garbed as he was in fine, gray, knee-length woolen cloaks that covered their mail tunics, had been in his service from the time that they were boys together. He nodded to them to remain on watch, and he left them, making his way through the press of people and down from the wall. He skirted the crowds that flooded Ceap Street in the wake of the queen’s procession, following the wall to the western gate, where his mount waited in the care of an old man who preferred the weight of silver pennies in his purse to the sight of a queen.

Athelstan mounted his horse and urged it out of the gate and away from Exeter, and from Emma. He had toyed with the idea of trying to see her at once, to be waiting for her at Hugh’s side when her reeve welcomed her to the fortress at the top of the town. He had much to say to her, for they had parted badly and it had been his doing. She would grant him pardon, he was certain, were he to ask it. But this was neither the time nor the place to ask for pardon. He would have to be patient, for today she belonged to others—to the thegns and their ladies, to the bishops, to those who sought a boon from the white hand of the Lady. He would not seek a public audience with her. He had learned from his last, disastrous interview with the king that such a thing would be unwise. He must bide his time, and wait for an opportunity to speak with her alone.

And when they met, what would he say to her, beyond the words that he would use to beg for forgiveness? Would he tell her all that was in his heart? No, for it would be cruel to burden her with that. Did she not already have enough to bear? A husband who used her badly, a babe miscarried, and the fear of whatever horror the Danes might bring.

Would he burden her, too, with words of love? Already today the folk of Exeter had hailed her, cheering for their Lady Queen, smitten by the very sight of her. No, she did not need the burden of his love. He could offer his service, though. He would be the queen’s man, if she would but let him. He would guard her and protect her, come what may, and ask for naught in return.

He spurred his horse northward toward his holdings at Norton. Soon, though, he would return and make his pledge to her, if she would have him.

Several days later, beneath a dismal sky, Emma stood upon the ramparts of the fortress that would be her home for the next two months. She would have preferred a chamber in St. Nicholas’s Priory on the edge of town, but Athelstan’s dire warning about the Danes had convinced her to be prudent. Here, atop this enormous bloodred rock, she would be protected by timber, stone, and sheer height from any danger. Except a high wind, she told herself wryly, as the thin silk of her headrail swirled around her face.

She pushed back the veil and studied the view before her. The city itself was surrounded by hills, and to the south the River Exe wound its way through them. From the city gate that faced the river the long Ceap Street, crowded with shops and lodgings, ran toward her in a straight line. On one side of the Ceap the walls of the minster rose above houses roofed with thatch, the red stone of the church sharply outlined against the green of the close and the fields that surrounded it.

From her vantage point she could just make out three of the great gates set into the city’s high Roman walls. The fourth gate, Northgate, lay behind her, and, according to Hugh, once the gates were closed there was only one other way into the city—a secret door, its precise location known to only a few.
La posterle,
Hugh had called it, explaining that the door led to a tunnel that burrowed beneath the city walls. In case of an attack upon Exeter, defenders from the
burh
could slip out through
la posterle
to spring upon the enemy from behind. Its most recent use though, Hugh had said with a grin, had been by the former reeve who would slip through the hidden passage at night to visit his mistress in Northgate. Those forays had ceased when he returned to the
burh
one night to find his wife waiting for him beside
la posterle
with a switch in her hand, to the great amusement of the castle guards.

It occurred to Emma that it could hardly be a secret door if even the reeve’s wife knew of it. Nevertheless, she had been given a tour of the entire fortress, and she had not been able to spot the tunnel’s entrance.

She made her way past the guard who stood gazing stolidly toward the sea, and she paused to look down the wooden steps into the fortress yard. It was a stark contrast to the tranquil, royal enclave of Winchester. This was no palace, safely enfolded by the Hampshire downs and graced with the luxuries that the wealth of sixty years of peace and prosperity could provide. This was a fortress on the edge of Æthelred’s kingdom, and there was little here of comfort or beauty, cleanliness or quiet. The enclosure below churned with soldiers, servants, horses, carts, and a never-ending line of tradesmen who came and went through a small door next to the main gate. Hugh had made his own quarters available for her use, and the high stone hall with its thatched roof sheltered not only Emma and her women, but its undercroft harbored a chicken coop, a small sheep pen, a dwindling store of grain, and assorted families of resident vermin that she preferred not to think about. Presumably, it hid the entrance to that secret tunnel as well.

She stepped carefully along the rocky path that led to the hall and climbed the stairs to its timbered door. Wymarc waited there for her, a pair of clean leather slippers in her hands and such a bright expression on her face that Emma had to smile. Hugh was responsible for Wymarc’s joy, she was certain. She had been witness to their reunion and to the looks of suppressed longing that neither had been able to disguise. She’d sent the two of them off on a trumped-up errand, just to give them some moments alone together, and Wymarc had been glowing like the moon ever since.

Emma was about to broach the topic of Wymarc’s feelings for Hugh when a shout went up from the guard at the fortress gate. The massive bulk of the outer gate swung wide, and a group of horsemen rode in, but Emma saw only the man at the head of the troop.

There was nothing in his garb to mark him as the eldest ætheling and the heir to the throne, for he was dressed simply, cloaked in fine gray wool, his head crowned with only the golden sheen of his hair. Yet there was no mistaking the air of authority that proclaimed to anyone who saw him that this was a son of the royal blood.

So Athelstan had come, as she had known that he would. She wished with all her heart that he had not. She was not prepared to see him, for she could not feign indifference to him any more than Wymarc could pretend indifference to Hugh. She suspected that every word she spoke, every action, every glance was observed and noted. If she were to allow Athelstan into her presence, how long would it be before the king heard of it?

Æthelred and his sons were already at odds—had been since the day of her marriage. As peaceweaver was it not her duty to mend the rents in the fabric of the kingdom, reconcile father to son if she could? Yet if the king were to harbor suspicions about her feelings for Athelstan, her efforts would only sow more discord between them.

She would have to send Athelstan away, and she must do it in such a way that he would not attempt to see her again.

“Find Hugh,” she said to Wymarc.

Athelstan placed both his hands upon the table in front of him and glowered at Emma’s reeve. As the king’s eldest son, he was not used to being thwarted, and he did not much like it. Beyond that, he had come to consider Hugh a friend and had not expected this man, of all men, to stand in the way of his desire.

“How can you know that the queen will not see me?” he demanded. “You have not even sent her word that I am here.”

“She knows well that you are here. She has bid me tell you that, as she is certain that you have brought her greetings from the king, she thanks you for your courtesy. She hopes that you will comprehend the heavy matters that prevent her from granting you an audience with her, and she requires that any message you bear from your father be delivered through me. She asks me as well to urge you, upon your present return to Winchester, to bear the greetings of a loving and obedient wife to your father the king.”

With an effort, Athelstan reined in his temper. He and Hugh had shared ale together in the king’s hall and had told bawdy jokes to each other in the long hours of the night watch in the palace yard at Winchester. Hugh’s face was wont to reflect his every thought, and the fact that right now it was as blank as a pool of still water told Athelstan a great deal. For the moment, Hugh was nothing but the queen’s mouthpiece. He would say only what he had been ordered to say, and nothing that Athelstan could do, short of violence, would change that. In the great hall of her dower city, the orders of the queen overruled even those of the king’s heir.

Hugh’s formal greeting was meant for everyone within earshot to hear, yet Athelstan perceived a hidden message that washed over him like icy water. Emma greeted him not as a friend but as the wife of the king. That in itself was a wall placed between them as thick as the fortress walls of Exeter itself. She wanted to hear no pledges from him. At least, not in public, he told himself. And for reasons that he could only guess at, she was not willing to risk seeing him in private.

Was she afraid of what he might say to her? Or was she fearful of what others might say about her? When he entered the hall he had taken careful note of those present. The room was not overly large. Perhaps three of them could fit within the great hall at Winchester. There were maybe thirty people milling about, and the conversations that had reached his ears as a loud buzz when he first stepped through the doorway had dropped, almost immediately upon his entrance, to a low hum.

The great hall was ever a breeding ground for rumor and gossip. Anything he said here was likely to be repeated, perhaps even into the ear of the king. He cared nothing for that, for himself, but he had to consider Emma. Clearly she wanted him to be gone, to return immediately to Winchester. Had his father threatened her in some way? Was the king, indeed, fearful of losing the wife he did not want to the son he did not heed? His father was ever one to misjudge where danger lay, a king who started at shadows. Nevertheless, he himself must be mindful of the queen. He would have to frame his response to her with the same care that she had used in couching her message to him.