Shadow on the Crown (38 page)

He glanced toward the shadows beyond the bier, sensing his brother—that other Edward—lurking in the gloom there like a great brooding bird of prey. Christ, how he hated the thing! It stank of the grave, sickly sweet beneath the candles’ honeyed fragrance. It carried the stench of his own eternal damnation.

Fear of that specter’s malice clawed at him. His skin was clammy with it, yet even as his spirit quailed, he was consumed by a bitter rage. What business did his brother’s fetch have here beside the lifeless form of a child who was innocent of any crime? Had the dead king, who had never sired a son, come to revel in a father’s grief? Was he drawn to the scent of corruption?

Or had the murdered Edward come to lay claim to the soul of this boy who bore his name?

He grimaced into the murky darkness, and as the familiar painful heaviness blossomed in his chest, he sank to his knees, felled by the combined weight of dread and pain. He closed his eyes, his brain dulled and clouded. Yet he struggled against the torpor that enveloped him, searching for some way to quiet forever his brother’s restless spirit. Was it possible to strike a bargain with the dead? Could he offer his brother some boon in return for respite from this endless, creeping horror?

He flicked a dry tongue across parched lips, and he reached out a hand to clasp the simple wooden rood that stood beside the bier. “I will grant you a son,” he whispered, “another Edward, consecrated to you. He will be your heir, your ætheling. I swear it by the Cross of our Savior. Will you not be content with that, and leave me to rule in peace?”

He held his breath, searching the darkness for some sign that this vow would free him from his brother’s implacable vengeance, but the shadow was gone, the fetid smell of decay had disappeared, and he could hear nothing but the mournful chanting of the nuns.

He drew a breath and looked one last time upon the face of his dead son, and he envied Edward, for he had gone to God an innocent. He had never known suspicion or fear, and he had never been riddled with the burrowing worms of jealousy and hate.

Out of respect for the king’s family, Archbishop Wulfstan delayed his arrival in Winchester by some weeks, and when he did appear the celebrations were subdued. He spent a full month at the king’s court, for his departure was hindered by the rain that continued throughout the spring and now seemed to threaten the summer months as well. There was concern far and wide that the harvest would be meager, and ever on people’s minds was the fear that the Vikings would return to divest them of what little they had.

At last, in early June, and in spite of the filthy weather, the archbishop prepared to set out for Jorvik. Accompanied by a dozen clerics, by fifty of his own armed retainers, and by the three eldest sons of the king and their retinues of armed companions, his escort was fit for a prince of the church who was arguably the most influential ecclesiastic in all England.

Athelstan, who would ride at the head of the archbishop’s train, waited with his brothers in a drenching rain for the order to set out. He was eager to be away from the cloying intimacy of the Winchester court, eager to meet with the men of the northern shires. He wished to measure the temper and allegiance of the folk in Northumbria in particular, toward his father as well as toward Wulfstan, their new spiritual leader.

The entire company waited upon the archbishop now, who stood with the king and queen beneath a canopy on the steps of the great hall as he prepared to take his leave. Athelstan, his eyes drawn inexorably to the queen, watched as Archbishop Wulfstan raised his hands in blessing above the heads of the royal couple. Emma was gowned in black, for since Exeter she wore no color else. The darkness of her raiment today, though, only served to accentuate the bright gold of the thick bracelets at her wrists—gifts, he had no doubt, from his father, in anticipation of the birth of her child.

No official announcement had been made as yet, and certainly no casual observer would be able to ascertain from looking at her that Emma was quick with child. She was still tall and remarkably slim, and so fair that she seemed lit from within. No, it was the attitude of the king toward her that spoke to the queen’s condition. Even now Æthelred stood with his hand supporting her arm, laying claim to her as if she were a long-held possession that he had suddenly found to be of some worth. Indeed, Athelstan had noticed the change in his father’s behavior toward the queen from that very moment in the minster when she had sought to comfort him for Edward’s death by announcing that she would soon replace the child that he had lost.

Sometime in the winter, with God’s blessing, Emma would at last attain her heart’s desire. How many times, he wondered, had she sought her husband’s foul embrace to achieve that? She had made no secret of her nightly visits to the king’s great bed. Athelstan himself had seen her, more than once, as she padded down the narrow corridor outside the king’s door, pale as a ghost in the dark watches of the night.

It maddened him to think of it, yet he could not put it out of his mind. Distance and time must work that miracle for him. As for his own plans, for the moment he would follow the advice that Emma herself had given him not so long ago. He would be patient, he would plan, and he would do whatever he must to win his father’s trust, even as he prepared himself to someday rule the kingdom. His father could not live forever.

A.D. 1004
This year came Swein with his fleet to Norwich, plundering and burning the whole town. . . . The enemy came to Thetford within three weeks after they had plundered Norwich; and, remaining there one night, they spoiled and burned the town.

—The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle

Chapter Thirty-seven

September 1004

Aldeborne Manor, Northamptonshire

A
cold draft fingered the hem of Elgiva’s woolen gown as she stood before her father, nervous and expectant. For weeks now there had been nothing but bad news on the wind—foul weather, poor harvests, and tales of Danish savagery on the eastern coast. She had been witless with fear, for her father’s wooden palisade seemed to her a pitiful defense against Danish broadaxes. The gruesome stories coming out of East Anglia, of towns burned and English folk driven in chains to Viking ships, had recalled that black day in Exeter so clearly that she could smell the smoke from the burning and hear again the shrill, panicked screams.

Surely her father would send her away now, far from the reach of another Danish army that, if rumors were true, was coming straight toward them.

He looked at her with reddened eyes, and she noticed then the flagon and the half-empty goblet on the table at his side. Whatever he had to say to her, he had needed to fortify himself with strong drink in order to do it. She held her breath and waited.

“I have news of your queen,” he drawled, “of your Lady Emma.”

This was not what she had expected. What news could there be of Emma? She was with the king and the court, safely tucked up in one of the royal
burhs
, no doubt, far from any Danish threat.

“Well?” she said.

“She will soon give our king another brat for his collection. This time, though, it will be a Norman brat.” He reached for his cup and waved it at her. “If its brothers have any sense, they will kill it before it can walk.”

She glared at him. Such news might have tormented her once, but it was meaningless now.

“Why should I care about the queen or her brat?” she snapped. “Before the year is out I will likely be dead at the hands of some filthy Dane.”

He threw her a bemused look.

“Are you so afraid of them?” he asked. “You need not be.”

“Why not?” she demanded. “Do you not fear them?”

He waved his cup at her again, brushing away her question. “The fens will swallow them long before they can reach us.”

His slurred assurances, though, did not quiet her fear.

Over the next few weeks, as the enemy drew nearer, Elgiva’s fear grew. It became her constant companion, especially in the dark, malignant nights when she woke from nightmares that were filled with blood and fire, and were haunted by the face of Groa, her mouth open in a silent scream.

Finally, word reached them in October of a great battle between the Danes and a force of East Anglians. The defenders had suffered great losses, but they had driven the Danish army from the land at last. For now.

Elgiva could learn little more than that, for her father was niggardly with his news. For a more detailed account she had to wait until November when, to her surprise and elation, Athelstan and his eldest brothers arrived at their gates seeking a night’s lodging as they journeyed south from Jorvik toward Oxfordshire.

As they dined on roast boar and a pottage of pulses and vegetables, Elgiva studied the æthelings. They had been sorely tested since last they came within this hall, yet the misfortunes of war, and even the death of their young brother, seemed to have left them unscathed.

Athelstan still wore an air of command, far more striking now than before. Even her father and brothers seemed somehow diminished in his presence, as if they instinctively recognized a quality of leadership in him beyond what his position as heir to the crown conferred upon him.

Edmund, she decided, was much the same. He had always been a changeling child, far darker than his brothers and with no look of Æthelred about him at all. His skin was still swarthy and his beard dark.

It was Ecbert who had changed the most, but she was not certain that it augured improvement. Sporting a fair, somewhat scrawny beard, he had lost his quick smile and puppylike enthusiasm. There was a sober thoughtfulness in his mien now that she found worrisome. She still harbored thoughts of wedding him, and he would suit her purposes far better if he did not think too much.

Athelstan’s voice, responding to some question of her father’s, drew her attention.

“It was Swein Forkbeard who led the attack on Norwich and Thetford,” he said. “He could not resist the lure of the mints and their silver.”

“Think you he knew of the mints?” her father asked casually, his attention focused on his meat.

“Consider the towns that Forkbeard has targeted,” Athelstan said. “Norwich and Thetford this year, Exeter, Dorchester, Wilton, and Salisbury last summer. All of them sites of my father’s mints. Forkbeard knew exactly which towns would yield the most treasure. The question is, how did he know?”

He sat back in his chair and looked at the ealdorman. Elgiva, watching the two men, felt a subtle change take place in the mood at the table. She saw that a pulse had begun to beat at her father’s temple, and she knew from long experience what it signified—tension, distress, anger. Danger. Next to her Wulf stiffened, his gaze flashing back and forth from his father to Athelstan. The knuckles of the hand that held his small knife were white.

“Forkbeard,” her father said slowly, his eyes focused on Athelstan now, “is a hero to many in the Danelaw. They are more Danish than English there, and Forkbeard’s exploits are woven into most of the tales sung in every hall north of the Humber. Many men living in Northumbria, or even Mercia, would gladly supply him with any information that he might desire about English silver. Your father’s new archbishop at Jorvik will have his hands full coaxing that brood, most of them Viking spawn, into submission to the king’s laws.”

“The archbishop will need assistance with that, to be sure.” It was Ecbert who spoke now, measuring out his words slowly, as if he chose them with great care. “You, as Northumbria’s ealdorman, will be in an excellent position to offer him aid. Has not your son, Ufegeat, been hard at work there, making himself well-known among the landholders, and even the freemen? Can we assume that he is laying the foundation for their allegiance to Wessex in the event that Forkbeard should ever challenge my father for his crown?”

Elgiva’s heart began to race. She had not been able to learn what her brother was about in Jorvik. Yet again she wondered what schemes her father and brothers were weaving.

“My son is there by my orders, yes,” her father said lightly, “testing the wind, you might say. When the moment comes”—his eyes flashed at Athelstan—“assuming that it does come, we will need to know whom we can trust. Some men, I fear, may need persuading.”

Athelstan had kept his gaze fixed on the ealdorman, watching for some sign of discomposure, but he could see nothing. The man was as impossible to read as the blank face of a boulder. Ecbert had played his part well, his words suggesting links between the family of Ælfhelm and the Northumbrian men sympathetic to Forkbeard, and still the old man had given nothing away.

It was possible that there were no links, but Athelstan had heard and seen enough during his stay in Jorvik to make him doubt that. All three of them had sensed it—that sudden silence fraught with menace whenever they walked into a gathering of men. The silence would last only moments, but the menace lingered like a foul smell.

Jorvik was a city rife with secrets, filled with men of uncertain allegiance. It was the likeliest place to find men who might aid Forkbeard, as someone had certainly aided him when he abducted the queen last summer. Men in the north were restive, and this man, Ælfhelm, bore a grudge against the king, however expertly he might conceal it. Ælfhelm had gambled that the king would wed his daughter, an alliance that would increase his own prestige and influence. When the king wed Emma instead, and then took Elgiva to his bed, Ælfhelm made no protest. He must have imagined that he would be rewarded for his generosity, but the king had done the unthinkable. He had taken the girl and given nothing in return. She was granted no status as either wife or concubine, and Ælfhelm’s gamble had brought him nothing.

How Archbishop Wulfstan must have raged at the king for his dallying with Elgiva! Athelstan wished he could have been there to hear it. He had thought little about it at the time. In Jorvik, though, the archbishop had warned him that Ælfhelm might seek revenge, and had explained why. Athelstan had realized only then the depth of the enmity between his father and this man, and slowly events had begun to fall into place.

Someone in the queen’s company at Exeter had kept Forkbeard informed about the queen’s movements. That could have been Elgiva, or her handmaid Groa. Someone supplied the Danish king and his retainers with horses, had hidden them and fed them and housed them. Ælfhelm had two sons who could have arranged such matters while their father remained at court. Many things pointed to Ælfhelm and his family as supporters of Forkbeard, yet Athelstan could not accuse any of them of disloyalty to the king, nor could he point to any specific act of treachery. He could prove nothing. He would have to wait.

He nodded to Ælfhelm.

“You are correct that some men will need to be reminded of their oaths to their rightful king. It would be wise, I think, to assist you in that by forging stronger ties between the House of Wessex and the Ealdorman of Northumbria. I will speak to my father.”

He purposely gave no hint as to how such ties might be forged. Let Ælfhelm think there may be a marriage offer forthcoming. If nothing else, it might prevent him from taking any precipitous step in Forkbeard’s direction. Dangling the prospect of a marriage alliance might buy them a little time. He might even convince his father to make some conciliatory gesture toward Ælfhelm.

He turned to Elgiva and smiled.

“I hope that you will accompany your father to the Christmas
witan
in Oxfordshire next month,” he said, loud enough that Ælfhelm could hear him.

She turned to him with an uncertain smile.

“I hope for it as well,” she said, “for I have been kept under lock and key here all summer because of the Danish threat. Still, I do not know if my father will give me leave to go.”

There was only a hint of dissatisfaction in the gentle lilt of her voice, and she wore the demure expression of a submissive daughter. Athelstan had to stifle a laugh, for Elgiva was as submissive as a wildcat, and every man at the table knew it.

“Then my brothers and I must hope,” he said, “that your father will brighten our Yule feast by bringing his most beautiful treasure with him.”

The girl cast a glance at her father, and Athelstan, too, looked at the ealdorman to see if he would respond. But Ælfhelm’s visage remained as dark and unreadable as the sea.