The Chosen Queen (8 page)

Edyth bit her lip. There was a manic look in Meghan’s shadowed eyes and her normally immaculate hair was creeping out of her headdress in wild wisps. Edyth hadn’t realised how
tightly her mother must have been holding herself together on the long ride west, nor how close she was to losing control now.

‘All will be well,’ she soothed. ‘Don’t fret, Mama. I was just trying to be nice to the king so he does not send us away. You don’t want to be sent away, do you?
Not now. Not with us all so tired.’

She put out a tentative hand to touch Meghan’s arm and felt her mother stagger, then Meghan’s arms flew round her.

‘You are right, Edyth. Of course you are right. You’re a clever girl, far cleverer than me, I know that. Your father knows it too.’

‘Nonsense, Mama.’

‘Nay, Edie, if we are to speak the truth let’s do it properly. You are a clever girl and you will be a clever woman but not if you let yourself be bedded now, even by a
king.’

‘I will be careful,’ Edyth promised. ‘I will be very careful, Mama.’

Nazeing, June 1055

Svana looked up from the letter and frowned. It was a sweet missive but something about it disturbed her. Tucking it into the pocket attached to her belt, she let herself out
of her bower and into the central farmyard. Outside, she put up a hand as if to catch the love Edyth claimed to have sent on the breeze and clasped it to her breast. She liked the girl. She had
fire and curiosity. She was open to the world and that, Svana hoped, would gain her great riches in her life. But it also made her very vulnerable.

She strode forward, clucking absently to the chickens that massed around her, and out into the grasslands beyond. Her eyes scanned the flat pastures for Harold. He had escaped court duties for
three precious weeks to be with her and the children and she sent up a prayer of thanks that he was here to consult on Edyth’s letter. Having inherited her lands many years ago, Svana had
long been used to commanding her farm and her people, but this was different. Something about the young lady of Mercia had touched her heart. The girl’s bright, fierce approach to life
reminded her keenly of her younger self, though at fourteen she had been safely sequestered on her family farm, not adrift in a foreign court. Svana was worried for Edyth, worried for them all. For
this wasn’t just Edyth’s innocence at stake, but a potentially volatile political situation and for that she needed her husband.

‘Everything in order, milady?’

She turned to see Joseph, the farm’s hugely capable steward and her maid Elaine’s husband of many years. They had both been invaluable to her as she’d learned to run this farm
and now he stood, cap deferentially doffed but eyes bright with enquiry. She encouraged her servants to deal openly with her, despising the long chains of spurious respect with which so many lords
seemed to tangle up their affairs, and she met his eye directly.

‘Everything is well. I was just looking for Harold.’

‘The earl rode out with his falcon some time back, milady, and I believe he took young Godwin with him. Said it was time he started his training.’

Svana smiled. Harold had mentioned something of the sort to their eldest last night and she was pleased to see he’d stuck to his word. Godwin would be beside himself with delight; she just
hoped he managed to stay calm. Harold was a patient man, but a man all the same, and if his son did not show due deference to the birds that were his passion, there would be trouble.

‘I might ride out and join them,’ she said. ‘Which way did they travel?’

‘Over to Old Hooky.’ Joseph pointed to the little copse just visible on the horizon. ‘Apparently the birds like it there.’

Svana stiffed a smile at his tone. Her steward loved all God’s creatures but there was no doubt that he preferred them with their feet – preferably four of them – firmly on the
ground.

‘Thank you, Joseph.’

‘I’ll fetch Spirit for you.’

He rushed off to the stables for her horse and Svana watched him go with a fond smile. She could never live at court where all was jostling for petty power and privileges. Harold would like her
with him in the king’s entourage more often, but it crushed her soul to travel endlessly, living forever in pavilions, and eating every night in a great hall with suspicious lords and ladies.
Harold did not like it much more than she, but he had been brought up to it by the great politician Earl Godwin, their own son’s namesake, so he was more at ease at court. And he could always
come here to recover.

In her turn, she would like Harold here more often but they had learned to compromise. Most people thought their marriage strange, nay, thought
her
strange for not following her
highborn husband everywhere he went. The women in particular resented her for inheriting her father’s lands, a privilege only granted in the freethinking Eastern Danelaw. Elsewhere women
could hold dower lands, gifted to them within their lifetime, but they were rarely on single estates. Svana sometimes thought the court ladies saw her farmlands as a personal slight and did not
seem to understand how keenly she felt the precious duties of an estate that had been in her family for nigh on a century. They often griped about her lack of commitment to Harold and some had even
tried to lure him away from her; she knew because he laughed about it with her.

‘I am yours,’ he would whisper, when the lights were blown out and their bodies were entwined beneath the sheets. ‘I am yours forever, not because a priest tells me so but
because my heart does.’

‘
Dear Harold
,’ she thought. She knew he, too, found her ‘eastern ways’ strange at times. The Danelaw had been separated out from his Wessex heartlands by a noble
treaty between the great King Alfred and the invading Vikings nearly two hundred years ago and had kept its own laws ever since. Svana treasured the independence they gave her as a woman and also
as a free spirit beneath God’s skies. She was as good a Christian as any in England but Roman bonds choked her and she preferred a more natural worship. Harold, a staunch traditionalist, did
not truly understand her opposition to priests and she was, therefore, even more touched that he had been happy to marry her beneath the skies.

Now she sent up a murmured prayer towards the soft clouds above as Joseph brought up her dappled grey, Spirit, and handed her into the saddle. Smiling her thanks, she kicked the horse into a
canter and headed up the hill towards the copse, giving Spirit her head and enjoying the feel of the wind through her hair. At the top her heart leaped as she caught a glimpse of Harold’s new
orange tunic amongst the foliage.

‘Harold!’ she called but he did not hear her and suddenly she was glad of it, for it offered her the chance to watch him unseen.

He was bending solicitously over seven-year-old Godwin who stood, solemnly rigid, his arms outstretched and every fibre of his being tuned into his father. Harold brought his prized falcon,
Artemis, down towards him and Svana found herself holding her breath as his broad arm met his son’s. For a moment everything seemed to still and then, with studied nonchalance, the bird
hopped across from man to boy. Instantly Harold moved his other hand to steady Godwin but the child did not falter and even from a distance Svana saw Harold’s shoulders roll back and sensed
his smile.

She clicked Spirit forward and Godwin, his hearing sharper than his father’s, turned and saw her. His hand flickered as if to wave, but he resisted and Svana felt tears well ridiculously
in her eyes at the sight of her baby so grown up.

‘See, my lady,’ Harold called, ‘how fine a falconer our son is.’

‘I see,’ Svana agreed, slipping off Spirit and throwing the reins over a branch. ‘I had not realised he was such a man already.’

Godwin held his arm even stiffer, though his face was turning pink with the effort. Harold bent again to take Artemis back and, released, the young boy ran to Svana.

‘I did it, Mama. I did it all by myself.’

‘You did, Winnie, you did.’

He pulled back.

‘Nay, Mama, you should not call me that now. It is a baby name.’

‘But you
are
my baby.’

‘No.’ Godwin shook his head firmly then considered. ‘Well, maybe sometimes.’

‘Bedtimes?’ Svana suggested.

‘Bedtimes,’ he agreed, kissing her before remembering himself again and struggling to be put down. ‘But it isn’t bedtime yet and I am busy with Papa.’

Svana let him go.

‘I’m afraid I need to speak to Papa, Godwin, just for a moment.’

Harold stepped swiftly forward.

‘Maybe you could fetch Artemis’ hood and jesses, son? That would be very helpful.’

‘Yes, Papa.’

Godwin raced over to Avery to fetch the falconer’s kit and Harold caught Svana around the waist and kissed her.

‘All well?’

She looked up into his eyes, a soft, dark blue, ringed with a delicious amber you could see only if you were close – very close.

‘Very well,’ she said, kissing him. ‘It’s so lovely having you here, but Harold, I’ve had a letter.’

‘Not from the king?’

‘No. No, you are safe yet. From Edyth.’

‘Edyth Alfgarsdottir? That’s good. How is she?
Where
is she?’

‘At Rhuddlan with King Griffin.’

‘Ye gods!’ Harold rolled his eyes. ‘I don’t suppose we should be surprised. Alfgar’s had his eye on the Red Devil for years. I suppose this means we must shore up
defences in the west.’

Svana batted at his arm.

‘Stop your politicking for one moment, will you, and think of Edyth.’

‘Why? Is she in trouble?’

‘I’m not sure. She writes that the king dances with her.’

‘I’ll wager he does. Word is that man . . . Oh. Oh, I see.’

‘She’s fourteen, Harold.’

‘Plenty old enough to be wed, my love.’

‘In the eyes of the law, maybe, but in truth she is yet a child.’

‘And a curious one at that, but her mother is there, Svana.’

‘I suppose that should count for something.’

‘You doubt the Lady Meghan’s influence over her daughter?’

‘No.’

Harold laughed.

‘We’re not at court now, sweeting. This is me, remember?’

Svana reached up and kissed him.

‘It is you,’ she agreed softly, ‘and I am glad of it, but I would say nothing bad of Lady Meghan. She is just, perhaps, a little weak.’

‘A fair assessment,’ Harold agreed, ‘but a protective mother all the same and Lord Alfgar will not want his daughter de-flowered. If nothing else it would greatly lessen her
value at court.’

‘Harold!’

‘Well, it would. Come now, my love, what would you have me do?’

Svana shook herself.

‘I know not. Just, well . . . the sooner Alfgar is pardoned and back in East Anglia the better for his daughter.’

‘If not for England.’

‘Alfgar does well enough as an earl.’

‘Praise indeed.’

‘Please, Harold – for the girl.’

‘Very well. I’ll talk to the king and I’ll send forces to Hereford. Griffin will look to attack, I’m sure, and once he does we can meet them and peace can be
arranged.’

‘Could we not just arrange peace now?’

Harold laughed.

‘It does not work that way, Svana.’

‘Why not?’

‘Why not? I don’t know. There needs to be a show of force, I suppose, so both sides can be judged.’

‘My fighting man,’ Svana breathed softly, an allusion to the emblem he bore so proudly on his cloak and shield.

Her own was a laden vine and she much preferred its delicacy to Harold’s tough, dark figure but she believed everyone had the right to be their own person and she had to remember that
now.