The Chosen Queen (31 page)

Edyth folded the letter carefully and laid it on her lap. It was a beautiful autumn day and the leaves were dancing around the elegant compound at Coventry but Svana’s
words chilled her like the sharpest winter wind.

‘Come now, boys, harder. Parry and thrust and, ow! Excellent, Ewan, excellent!’

She looked up. Morcar was clutching his thigh dramatically where his eldest nephew, now a cornstalk of a nine-year-old, had just inflicted a killer blow with his wooden training sword. Morgan,
not to be outdone, was charging wildly at his Uncle Edwin.

‘Go on, Morgan,’ Ewan encouraged, ‘pretend he’s a Norman – slaughter him!’

Edyth shivered and ran her fingers over Svana’s letter. It was true that her friend had ever been cautious of risk but more and more Edyth felt she was the one in the right. Watching her
precious boys training in the safety of the compound at Coventry was all very well but if the Normans truly were to invade they would all need their shields.

As the falconer came to claim the boys for their next lesson, Morcar joined her, still ruefully rubbing his thigh.

‘Your sons are tough fighters.’

‘As was their father, God bless him.’

‘You miss him still?’

‘I miss him. I miss my life as queen. Above all else, I miss knowing who my enemies are.’

‘You seem melancholy, sister.’ He looked at the vellum in her lap. ‘Who has poisoned your spirits?’

Edyth sighed.

‘’Tis Svana. She frets for Harold as the king sickens and for us too.’ She grabbed Morcar’s arm. ‘She says there is trouble in Northumbria, Marc, and that we should
look to our borders. I should talk to Edwin.’

She made to rise but he stopped her.

‘Edwin knows.’

Something in his bearing, a sudden uncharacteristic solemnity, caught at Edyth’s breath.

‘What do you mean, Marc? Has something happened?’

Morcar shifted and beckoned Edwin over.

‘There is trouble in Northumbria,’ he admitted. ‘Earl Torr demanded a huge tax this harvest time and many voices are being raised against him, especially in York. It could be
dangerous.’

‘Hardrada?’

‘It’s a possibility,’ Edwin agreed, joining them, ‘but I think the troubles are more local at the moment.’

‘What do you mean?’ Edyth looked from one brother to the other. ‘Why won’t you tell me?’

‘You need not be troubled, Edyth,’ Edwin said. ‘You have your children.’

‘And that stops me understanding the wider world, does it? Stops me having an interest in the England they will grow up in?’ The two men looked awkwardly at each other and Edyth
stamped in frustration. ‘I’ve been a queen, Edwin. I’ve run a country. I’ve stood up and spoken to hostile crowds. I don’t need to be sheltered.’

‘I think she deserves to know,’ Morcar said. ‘It will be inescapable soon.’

‘What will?’ Edyth roared but both brothers had turned away, fixing on the watchtower where the guards were having a furious conversation with someone beyond.

‘Perhaps, indeed,’ Edwin said quietly, ‘it is inescapable already.’

He strode across the compound and took the watchtower steps two at a time, appearing in the window opening above them.

‘Let them in,’ he commanded the guards, then to the men beyond: ‘Welcome in peace.’

‘Marc,’ Edyth said sharply, as they hurried across, ‘what’s going on?’

The gates were opening and three men – lords, judging by their fine cloaks – were riding in, flanked by guards. As they saw Morcar they dismounted and dropped to their knees before
him.

‘Lord Morcar, we come with news. Rebels have taken York and driven the errant earl’s men away. They have taken the treasury and declared Earl Torr outlaw for crimes against his
people. We come to beseech you to stand as Earl of Northumbria in his place and to offer our arms in support of your claim.’

Edyth could hardly believe it. The people of the north had cast out their own ruler and wanted Morcar in his place? She looked to her brother, standing tall and handsome before the men as if
such supplication was nothing more than his due, and realised this was no surprise to him. Svana had been right to warn her but her letter had come too late for Edyth to do anything about it.

‘Morcar, it’s dangerous,’ she choked out. ‘To stand against an earl is to stand against the king.’

‘Not the king,’ Morcar said calmly. ‘I am loyal to King Edward. We are all loyal to King Edward. We simply want our voice heard.’

We? Our? Morcar spoke with assurance and certainty and it was clear that he had been their leader, albeit from afar, for a long time before this moment. The men were not beseeching his support
but confirming it.

‘I accept,’ Morcar said now and raised the three lords. ‘Come, you need refreshment and I need news. There is not a moment to waste.’

Edyth dared not sit with the men at table though she hovered with her mother and grandmother, overseeing their service and listening intently to all they had to say. The rebels
were many and their numbers growing all the time. Messengers had ridden not just through Northumbria but Mercia too, and all over the north villagers were mustering against Earl Torr.

‘Torr will be furious,’ Edyth whispered to Godiva.

‘He should have thought of that sooner,’ was her tart reply.

‘Quite right,’ Meghan agreed. ‘An earl owes a duty of care to his people. Alfgar always said so, God bless him. That wretched Godwinson has neglected his duty and now he pays
the price. Morcar will make a wonderful earl.’

‘But Torr will not take it lying down. He will fight.’

‘With what army? His men stand against him.’

‘The king will call out the fyrd.’

‘And set Englishman against Englishman? Now, with him so weak and his precious abbey due for consecration and his mortal soul wavering in the balance? Do you truly think so,
Edyth?’

Edyth looked down. The fyrd – troops of men provided by the petty lords and villages as their dues to the king – could be summoned at any time but Meghan was right that only a madman
would call them to civil conflict. So what now? Svana had said Harold was with Torr in Wiltshire. He would have to face the news at his brother’s side. What would he do? What
could
he do? And what could
she
do to ease the way for them all?

She thought of Griffin and his life of fighting rebellions. Factions had torn Wales apart making it so, so easy for her husband’s hard-won country to be taken by a foreign enemy. That
could not be allowed to happen to England and she had an idea how to ensure it did not. Slipping away from the men she headed for the stables. It was time Môrgwynt had a decent ride out; it
would not hurt her either. Svana might crave safety but Edyth, Lord help her, tired of it far too easily for her own good.

Wiltshire, October 1065

H
arold was up at dawn, striding across the compound of Torr’s luxurious new hunting lodge at Britford. The minstrels had played late
last night in the elegant great hall – later than either King Edward or Harold had been able to stand – and he feared his brother would be slow out of bed. He strode restlessly into the
hawkhouse. The weather was perfect for hawking, crisp and fresh with a light breeze to tempt the birds to wing, and if he had to be stuck here with Torr then he planned to make the most of it.

Harold moved to his own hawk, Artemis, chucking softly under his tongue to rouse her. A few more days here and he would ask leave of the king to ride to Nazeing. Edward was enjoying his hunting
and was in far better health now so there was time before the Yuletide court for him to return to Svana. He needed to arrange Godwin’s education. Joseph had seen him well trained but the boy
would turn eighteen soon and should join a full military household. Perhaps he should see Edmund placed too? He had been far too soft with them and it would do them no good when they came out into
the world beyond their mother’s rich pastures. He grimaced and reached for Artemis’s hood but a clatter of hooves in the yard beyond made him pause.

‘Who can this be?’ he asked the bird but, still hooded, she did not even turn her head. ‘Just a moment more,’ Harold promised her and went to the door of the
hawkhouse.

Two messengers were dismounting and talking urgently to the guards.

‘Can I help you?’

They turned and scuttled over, dropping into low, nervous bows before him.

‘We bring news, my lord – grave news.’

Harold’s mind raced. King Edward was here so it could not be him.

‘Invaders?’

‘Oh no, my lord.’ The messengers looked briefly relieved, then drew themselves together. ‘Rebellion.’

‘Rebellion?! Here, in England?’

‘Yes, my lord, in the north. The rebels have taken York and claim the earldom of Northumbria for their own man.’

Harold glanced to the window of Torr’s bower but the shutters were firmly bolted and he was doubtless not alone within.

‘Tell me more,’ he said uneasily.

‘They are a strong force, my lord, and well organised. They have ejected Earl Torr’s guard and seized the treasury. They are marching south, collecting men everywhere they go –
Lincoln, Nottingham, Leicester. They are heading, even now, for Oxford.’

‘So close?’

‘They have declared Earl Torr outlaw and have taken, in his place, Lord Morcar of Mercia.’

‘Marc? Good God, he’s but a lad.’

‘A very popular lad, my lord, beg your pardon.’

The messenger dipped his head, horrified at his own daring, but Harold patted his shoulder. He needed frank opinions right now.

‘How many follow him?’

‘It looks like about five thousand and they say there are Welshmen marching too – top soldiers, my lord, not just peasants with pitchforks.’

‘Welshmen?’

Harold closed his eyes; there was only one person who could raise Welshmen. How dared she? He’d thought she was his friend, thought she was on his side, thought she cared. ‘
We
will bring Mercia
,’ she had promised him back in Bosham when he had been fool enough to ask her to marry him. Well, she had brought Mercia indeed but in anger and in opposition. Was she
laughing at his gullibility now as she marched her dead husband’s troops on his family? Sickened, Harold looked again to his brother’s bower. What had his loose living brought upon
them? Their conversation from the previous evening echoed through his mind.

‘God, Harold, you’ve become such a bore,’ Torr had accused him when he’d risen to retire not long after the king. ‘You should make the most of the riches around
you.’

‘Perhaps, but such excess is wrong, Torr. An earl should rule wisely, not greedily.’

‘Like you, brother? You are not greedy? At least I’m only after women – you’re the one wanting a crown.’

‘That’s not true,’ Harold had replied, stung. ‘The king orders me to serve.’

‘Only because you are forever there to order. Besides, it’s easy for you, isn’t it? Edward likes it in Wessex; you don’t catch him riding to hunt in
Northumbria.’

‘Maybe,’ Harold had shot back, ‘if you built a palace like this one he would. Garth or Lane are seldom out of their earldoms and they are far less experienced than you. You
neglect your people, Torr, and it’s wrong.’

‘Wrong? You’re obsessed with wrong. Live a little, Harold.’ He’d clicked his fingers for wine. ‘Come, brother, let’s not argue. The king has gone to bed and
we can have some fun at last.’

‘Torr!’

‘What? Oh come on, Harold, don’t say you were enjoying the old dote’s company?’

‘Ssh,’ Harold had hissed. ‘Show some respect – he’s the king.’

‘He is and an old dote too. We barely caught anything today with him riding so slowly.’

‘He’s been unwell.’

‘So let him snooze on his throne and we’ll all be better off.’

‘Torr, please – this is treason.’

‘Hardly! Come on, Harry, I’ve done my duty. I’ve ridden at the king’s pace all day and talked abbeys all evening. Now I think I deserve some fun.’

‘You always think that.’

‘And I am always right. You deserve it too, Harold, you just don’t know how to find it.’

Harold groaned at the memory now. Torr, it seemed, had finally lived too much and for once Harold hoped he’d enjoyed his night of lechery for it seemed that this crisp dawn had brought an
end to all his careless fun.

The rebels gathered on the hillside just beyond Torr’s hunting compound later that morning, orderly and controlled – not a rabble but a sharp and worryingly
intelligent force. King Edward wandered out of his chamber and regarded them curiously over the fencing, much as he might look into the royal nursery. Harold rushed to escort him to his throne,
which had been lifted onto the centre of a hastily erected dais to receive the rebel delegation.

‘Waste of a beautiful morning,’ Edward muttered as Harold handed him up.

‘This is serious, Sire,’ Harold warned but Edward just grunted and ran a careless finger along the sparkling length of his sceptre, a beautiful, jewel-encrusted rod symbolising his
right to pass judgement on his subjects.

‘We cannot afford civil war,’ Harold pressed. ‘You are hailed all over Europe for your peaceful rule and with your abbey due for consecration we must surely keep that
peace.’