The Price of Blood (20 page)

Emma lay curled upon her bed beneath a thick woolen coverlet—awake but resting. Beside her, Edward was bunched on his tummy, fast asleep, his rump in the air and his face all but hidden by silky blond curls. For the moment it was just the two of them, cocooned together as if there were no one else in the world.

Outside the manor walls a fog hung wet and heavy, as it had for the past week, caught like a spider’s web among the branches of the surrounding elms that gave this place its name. The mist colored every hour of daylight the same pale gray, and it seemed to her that time itself had been arrested—sun and moon forever stilled.

She had miscarried again. It was the second time since Edward’s birth that her womb had emptied itself of its tiny burden almost as soon as she had realized it was there. The event had not been so painful as the first time, but the emptiness beneath her heart was like a wound that would not heal.

Next to her Edward stirred a little, and as she looked at him—so defenseless as he slept—her love for him swelled until love and loss overwhelmed her, and her eyes filled with tears.

What if something should happen to this son of hers? How would she continue to live? The priests advised her to petition the Almighty to keep Edward safe; but although she offered prayers to God and gifts to His Church, she did not trust the Lord in this. It seemed to her that He was far too careless when it came to children. Should she ever lose Edward, only another child would bind her to this earth. So she begged the Virgin daily for another babe. Yet with each failed pregnancy, she felt more closely tied to her son and more desperate for another child, for she knew that she could not keep Edward with her forever. Children never stayed.

She closed her eyes, recalling the dashing, sixteen-year-old Edgar, and the moment when Athelstan had entered his father’s hall bringing news of his brother’s death. He had knelt at the king’s feet, his face gray with grief as he told the wretched tale of Edgar’s headlong plummet down Corfe Hill, and she had wanted to take him in her arms, to offer him the solace that he so clearly needed. But even to say a small measure of what was in her heart would have revealed too much. It had taken every reserve of strength she had to remain motionless and silent at the king’s side, and when Athelstan’s eyes strayed, just once, to hers, the pain she saw there had made her weep, not for Edgar, but for Athelstan.

Æthelred, though, had heaped abuse upon his son, cursing him, blaming him for what seemed to her could only have been an accident—an act of that all too careless God. Athelstan had knelt there, impassive and silent, accepting the blame, head bowed under the torrent of anger and condemnation. She had been forced to listen, mute and miserable, and only too aware that anything she might say would make matters worse.

When the king had run out of words and ordered Athelstan from the chamber she had longed to follow him, to offer some consolation that might offset the bitterness of his father’s accusations; but her duty was to the king, and he had need of her. He had mourned then as a king mourns—angry, offended by fate, raging at God. He had threatened to tear down the buildings at Corfe and burn the village to the ground, swearing that because his brother and now his son had met violent deaths there, the place must be accursed.

She had listened to his fury, silently pitying him, for she knew that his words sprang from a terrible dread. Of the seven sons of Æthelred’s first marriage, Edgar was the third to die. It was not Corfe that was accursed, but the king and his sons—or so the rumors went. The whispers could be heard in the dark corners of the king’s halls and, she supposed, in market squares and in villages all across the land. News of this death would only add fuel to the ominous mutterings. Æthelred himself believed them, and she saw the fear of it gnawing at him. Some days were worse than others, for he would start and stare into space, transfixed, as if he could read some horrible future there. He was like a bird caught in a snare, struggling blindly against an inexorable fate. He was afraid of what the deaths of his sons portended, she guessed; afraid that the royal line of Cerdic would fade into oblivion.

It had crossed her mind that day to tell him that she was with child, but some good angel had kept her silent. Instead she had prayed for poor Edgar and wept for Athelstan, and when her husband sought to deny his own mortality in the dark hours of the night, she had given him her body—an act of compassion, for once, rather than odious duty.

The next morning when father and son had left together for the great abbey at Ely to pray for Edgar’s soul, Æthelred had been unaware that she was with child. Nor, in the days that followed, did she send him word that she had miscarried. He would have seen it as further proof of God’s disfavor—that his seed withered even in the womb.

On the bed beside her, Edward heaved a little sigh and woke, snuggling close to plant baby kisses on her mouth and chin. Their idyll was curtailed, though, when his nurse entered the chamber and announced that Father Martin had arrived from Northumbria and begged an audience. Edward was carted off to be fed and cosseted while Emma sent for Margot to help her dress, assuring her that after three days of rest she was fit enough to speak with the priest.

“He will have news of Ælfa and Hilde,” she said as Margot, protesting that she should not stir herself yet, brought her a blue woolen cyrtel.

It had been nearly a year since Father Martin and Hilde had been among the party that had escorted twelve-year-old Ælfa to her new husband’s lands in the north. Poor Ælfa. On the day of her wedding feast she had tried to hide her fear, but it had been obvious to Emma that the girl was terrified of her new husband—hardly surprising, given that Uhtred was a fierce man and a warrior with, as far as she could tell, no hint of tenderness in his nature. In the days leading up to the ceremony she had tried to counsel Ælfa, but Edyth, for many months in complete control of her younger sister and newly wed herself, had usurped that task. All Emma’s efforts to speak with Ælfa were rejected, and she could only watch the nuptials with foreboding.

The next day, when Ælfa had appeared beside her new husband, she had looked wan and listless. Something had deserted her in the night—some spark of youthful hope had fled and left but a husk behind. There had been no opportunity to speak with her, though, for the party left immediately for the north. Emma was consoled by the fact that Hilde, who had attended the king’s daughters for years, would be one of Ælfa’s household. Hilde would surely be a help to the girl, and a confidante if she needed one.

Father Martin had traveled with them, ostensibly to make pilgrimage to the shrines in the north, but also to listen, to watch, and to gather news of anything that might be of particular interest to Emma. His messages, though, had been scarce and, when they did arrive, all too brief. Now she was eager to speak with the priest, for Hilde had sent word that Ælfa had given birth to a daughter, and Emma wished to know more.

When he entered the chamber she offered him wine and urged him to a seat on the bench close beside her. He looked well, in spite of what must have been a long, weary journey down the length of England. He had taken the time to exchange his traveling clothes for a tunic of finely woven black wool, plain but for the cross that hung from a silver chain about his neck. The intervening months since she had seen him last, she observed, had taken a toll. There were a few streaks of white in the straight gray hair that lay, flat and thin, upon his head, and his clean-shaven face looked more weathered than she remembered. When he had sipped some wine and assured her that he had been well fed in the kitchens, she asked him about Ælfa.

Father Martin pursed his lips, gathering his thoughts before he responded.

“The birth was difficult,” he said at last. “Hilde believes that the girl will never have another child.”

Emma exchanged a glance with Margot, who shook her head and sighed. Emma knew what Margot did not say, for it was what she herself believed. Ælfa had been too young to wed, too young and too small to bear a child.

“And Uhtred?” she asked. “Is he gentle with her?”

Father Martin hesitated, then said, “Ælfa is content with her lot. She loves the child dearly, and Uhtred is often away.”

He had sidestepped her question, but she did not press him. His silence told her as much as any words could convey.

He went on to speak of the fortress that was now Ælfa’s home, a forbidding place almost completely surrounded by a churning sea, forlorn and windswept but, according to the priest, with a kind of fierce beauty. He spoke of the folk who lived in the north, and of how in their minds Uhtred was more their king than Æthelred, for Uhtred’s ancestors had ruled Northumbria for as long as Æthelred’s forebears had ruled in Wessex. Their kin ties were to the lord they knew, not some monarch in the distant south who, even if he were to appear among them, would be eyed with suspicion.

Emma pondered this for a moment, recalling her own father’s annual sojourns through Normandy to see his people and to be seen by them—something that Æthelred had never done. “The king is making a grave error,” she said softly, half to herself. “The people of England must know and recognize their ruler, else how can he inspire their loyalty and trust?”

“You are right, of course,” the priest said, “yet the king’s father, Edgar, instituted a system of governance that has worked well now for many decades. As long as his administrators are capable and loyal, the farther reaches of the kingdom can be governed from anywhere—from the palaces at Calne or Winchester or London, it does not matter.”

“If,” she said, “the administrators are loyal.” Ealdorman Ælfhelm had forfeited his life because of his treachery. It had been two years since Ælfhelm’s death, yet the tension that his murder had stirred among the elite of England had not abated. From what she had seen and felt at the council sessions it had only increased, even among the nobles of the southern shires.

Father Martin nodded gravely, then set his cup aside and looked at her speculatively, his face creased with concern. “My lady, I think that I may have found a trace of Elgiva in Holderness,” he said, “but I could not follow the rumors to their source, and so I cannot be sure if there is anything there at all.”

Emma leaned forward a little. She would be glad to learn that Elgiva was alive, although she was not, by any means, eager to see her return to court.

“Go on,” she said.

“Before I made my way south, I lingered for several days at the abbey in Beverley. There I heard tell of an apparition—a dark-haired woman—that first appeared in the wastelands near the sea some two years ago.”

Two years ago. When Ælfhelm had been killed, and Elgiva had disappeared with no trace.

“An apparition?” she echoed. “Has no one spoken to this phantom then?”

It was perhaps no more than a fanciful tale, but such tales were sometimes rooted in fact.

“Not that anyone will admit to. She has only been seen from a distance, and never in daylight. The story is that she is under a spell, and that at dawn she turns into a black swan that nests in the meres on the eastern edge of Holderness.” He raised a skeptical brow.

“And you think it may be Elgiva that is hiding there, in the wilderness?” She tried to imagine Ælfhelm’s daughter biding in some nameless village on the edge of England, living like an anchorite or a wild woman, but the image would not come. Elgiva was too fond of luxury, and far too proud of her lineage to submit to such a life.

“I tried to look into the matter,” Father Martin went on. “When I left Beverley I rode toward the coast, but I didn’t get far—turned back at the very first village I came to by a band of armed riders. They wore no badges, so I do not know who they answered to, but they were following orders from someone, I’m certain. They were pleasant enough. No threats exactly—just friendly advice.” He smiled ruefully. “They told me that there were brigands abroad, and if I rode any farther east I’d likely be murdered or, if I was lucky, robbed of my horse and belongings and left to find my way to shelter, naked and on foot. They were so concerned for my welfare that they escorted me back to Beverley and well along the southern road. When I asked them about the dark-haired phantom, they scoffed. They said it was a mad tale spun by one of the local women who had too fond a taste for ale.”

“That is far more believable than a spellbound swan,” Emma observed.

“But not, I think, the truth,” Father Martin said. “My lady, I later learned that the Lord of Holderness is a man named Thurbrand. He governs his people much like an ealdorman, but although he pays mouth homage to Æthelred, it seems that he has little love for the king. He has even less regard for his new ealdorman, Uhtred, for their families have quarreled over land and power and cattle for generations.” His brown eyes fixed on hers and he continued, “Thurbrand, I understand, was ever a friend to Elgiva’s father.”

Emma was silent for a moment, studying the priest and considering his words.

“So it could be,” she said at last, “that this Thurbrand is indeed harboring Elgiva.” Not in some wild refuge, then, but in the hall of a great lord.

“I think it could be,” he said. “The question is, what’s to be done?”

What, indeed, was to be done? Every action or inaction had its consequences. Elgiva’s father and brothers had paid for their treachery with their lives, but her properties remained untouched. They were administered by her kin in the expectation that she would one day return, an heiress and an obedient subject of the king. Perhaps, when enough time had passed, that was exactly what Elgiva would do. She had once been the king’s darling, and Emma suspected that he might not be indifferent to Elgiva’s charms should she set out to beguile him again.

But the king was not the only one to consider. Ealdorman Eadric had the king’s ear now, more so than any other subject in the realm. If Eadric should discover Elgiva’s hiding place, he would certainly use her in some way for his own purposes. Or he might quietly kill her.

She had little love for Elgiva, for the woman had ever been her enemy and rival. But she had no desire to see her fall into Eadric’s hands. If Elgiva had indeed taken refuge with this Thurbrand, why betray her? Whose purpose would it serve? Not her own, as far as she could see.