The Price of Blood (26 page)

He described a meeting at Corfe the previous autumn between the æthelings and Wulfnoth—a private council arranged by Edmund. It occurred to her that if it had never taken place, Edgar would still be alive and Wulfnoth would still be in England. The king’s great fleet would not lie at the bottom of the Narrow Sea.

Edmund, it seemed to her, had much to answer for, but she did not speak her thoughts aloud. Although she believed Edmund to be her enemy, even she had to admit that the consequences of that meeting were far from what he had intended.

Athelstan went on. “I think that somehow Eadric learned of Wulfnoth’s visit to us at Corfe. Eadric could not know what was said, but he must have suspected that Wulfnoth was planning a move against him. It would not matter to Eadric that I refused to agree to the plan. The meeting itself suited his purpose—to accuse Wulfnoth of treachery and so rid himself of an outspoken enemy.” He shook his head, frowning. “It’s another indication of Eadric’s growing power, that he has spies even among my servants.”

Even, perhaps, among the æthelings, she thought. She sifted through her memories of Athelstan’s youngest brothers. She had seen little of them in the first years of her marriage, for Edrid and Edwig had been youths then, fostered away from court. Even now she saw them only rarely, at high feast days. Edrid, the more likable of the two, had some of Athelstan’s charm, although she suspected he did not have his eldest brother’s self-confidence. Edwig, though, had earned a reputation for casual cruelty.

It would not surprise her to learn that he had thrown in his lot with Eadric.

“Yet none of this,” she observed, “explains why the king placed his trust in Eadric in the first place. Can your father not see that Eadric’s counsel is rooted in a thirst for power?”

“In that, Eadric is no different from any other of the king’s thegns,” Athelstan said thoughtfully. “I think that, as is his custom, my father has somehow tested Eadric’s abilities and loyalty, and Eadric passed the test. The king does not fear his ambition, and so he trusts him in ways that he does not trust his own sons.”

Or his queen, Emma thought. Æthelred would not allow her even to raise their son. She was meant only to bear royal children, not to influence them. That would be Eadric’s counsel to the king and no doubt Edmund’s as well, for he had never trusted her. In their minds she would ever be a hostile queen, a Norman and the pawn of her brother. Their own ambitions prevented them from even imagining that she might want nothing more than to give her son the skills that he would need to manage a kingdom, to ready him for whatever role God ordained for him.

It was something she could not hope to accomplish if she and her son were barred from the king’s presence. How long, she wondered, must they endure such an exile?

The babe within her moved, reminding her that she was an expectant mother as well as a wife and a queen. She must find a way to reconcile all her roles, but for now her duties as child bearer must come first. Athelstan had assured her that Edward would be safe in East Anglia, and for now she would be content with that. But once this child was born, she must find a way to bring Edward back to her side and, for good or ill, insinuate herself again into the inner circle that advised the king.

She glanced again at Athelstan. He, too, must find his way to the king’s side; and he must learn to accept that Æthelred would always, always stand between them.

Chapter Eighteen

July 1009

Holderness

T
he shadows were long as Elgiva rode with Tyra, Catla, and a handful of hearth men along a muddy track toward her holding at Redmere. She had been away since yestermorn, and now, as the palisade came into view, she wondered if her husband had at last found his way to her hall.

It had been five days since Catla, seeking shelter from the storm of shipmen who had descended upon Thurbrand’s manor, had brought word of Cnut’s return to Holderness.

“The hall is crowded with men,” Catla had complained. “It’s no fit place for women or children, so Thurbrand has given me leave to come to you.”

Elgiva had snorted at this. She’d rather have two shiploads of men underfoot than the mewling Catla and her brace of brats. She had tried to send them straight back home, but for once Catla had proved surprisingly obstinate.

“I can help you make ready for your husband’s arrival,” she had pleaded. “Surely he will come tomorrow, and there is much to be done.”

Reluctantly, Elgiva had allowed her to stay. She had consulted briefly with Alric before dispatching him to Jorvik until she should send for him again. Then she and Catla between them had supervised a flurry of baking, roasting, and brewing, had set women to scouring the bench hall and men to mucking out the stables.

Cnut, however, did not come on the morrow, nor the two days after—apparently preferring Thurbrand’s company to hers, Elgiva thought resentfully. Never mind that she had been awaiting his return to England for two years. Never mind that it was she, not Thurbrand, who had sent Alric to her father’s allies to stir up hostility toward King Æthelred and his bloody-handed henchman, Eadric. Never mind that Cnut had neglected his duties as a husband so that she had no son while, as if to spite her, that rabbity Catla had given birth to two boys as disgustingly hairy as their father.

So, determined that she would not endure another agonizing day of watching for her husband’s appearance at her gate, she had left Redmere. She had ridden north, to the village of Rodestan, where, Catla had assured her, she would see a great wonder.

“In the center of a clearing there is a tall stone,” Catla had said, “placed there by giants who once ruled this land.”

Tyra had pursed her lips at hearing this.

“Not giants, my lady,” she said, “but men. The Old Ones, who are no more than memory to us now, raised such stones to honor their gods.”

Elgiva had wondered how it was that Tyra was so certain of this, for when she saw the great stone for herself she was far more inclined to believe Catla’s tale of giants. A single shaft, as thick as a man could measure with his arms outspread, and as wide across as three brawny men placed side by side, pointed high into the sky. Curious, she had walked up to the thing and into the shadow it cast. Immediately she felt chilled, as if she’d walked into a bank of snow. She backed away, seeking the sunlight again, certain that there was something here beyond her understanding.

Tyra, though, had stood long in that shadow, her hand upon the stone, as if drawing power from it, her head cocked as if listening.

Elgiva had watched her and wondered what it was that the Sámi woman heard and felt. Did she pray to the Old Ones as Christians prayed to their saints? Was there knowledge trapped within the stone that Tyra pulled into herself somehow?

Could such a skill be taught?

One day she would ask those questions, when she and Tyra were quite alone. Now, though, she led her company toward her steading over the uneven, marshy terrain, following paths that had become familiar to her in nearly three years of exile from England’s heartland.

How she hated this place, Holderness. She yearned to go home, to Mercia and the low hills of Northamptonshire, to escape from this wretched world that seemed to hold nothing but water, sky, and the scattered farms of men who called Thurbrand lord. Perhaps soon she could do so. Perhaps Cnut’s arrival meant that Swein’s conquest of England had begun.

Long before she reached the manor gate a lookout, one of her own men, hailed her. Cnut and a small retinue, he said, had arrived midday. Elgiva smiled. So, Cnut had come looking for her and had been forced to wait. She hoped it made him impatient and ill tempered, because it was just what he deserved.

Delighted with this small victory she drew a deep breath to dispel the tension and ill humor that knotted her stomach. She needed Cnut. She needed his ships and his army and his protection. And she knew from experience that it was far easier to manage a man with smiles than with scowls.

Once inside the palisade she dismounted and handed her reins to a groom. As she did so, her husband, ale cup in hand, stepped through the door of the hall and stood beneath the eave, showing not the least sign of impatience. Their eyes met and held, and the swift, unexpected rush of desire she felt as she gazed at him unsettled her. It was as if her body, unbidden, responded to some memory of his touch. For a moment she could not move, but could only stare at him.

Cnut seemed more formidable than she remembered. His thin frame had filled out, and his shoulders seemed broader beneath the fabric of his scyrte and tunic. His thick red hair was neatly trimmed, and a smudge of coppery beard shadowed his face. In place of a cloak he wore a gray wolf pelt around his shoulders, and there was gold at his neck and wrists.

His black eyes, the crescent of skin beneath them dark with weariness, never left hers, but he said nothing. He seemed to be waiting for her to make the first move. Yes, Cnut would do that, mindful of his status as Swein’s son. So she forced her limbs into action, dropping into a deep reverence before him and greeting him in his native tongue.

“My heart,” she said, “is gladdened at the sight of you, husband.”

She smiled at him and saw one eyebrow quirk up, his face registering both surprise and approval as he reached for her hands to draw her upright.

“Much as I wish to believe that, lady,” he said, his voice low, “after so many months away from your side I hesitate to take from you even what is rightfully mine.”

“You wrong me by doing so, my lord,” she said and, standing on her toes and grasping the wolf pelt to draw his head down to hers, she kissed him full on the mouth. He responded by flinging his cup away and pulling her close against him and returning her kiss with gratifying urgency.

The men about them whistled and howled, and Cnut murmured against her ear, “Where is your bed?” She laughed and pointed toward the sleep house, where even now she saw her servants herding out Catla’s squalling children. Cnut slipped an arm beneath her knees and swept her up, across the dooryard and into the chamber where a fire crackled on the hearthstones and the bed curtains yawned wide. He kicked the door shut and laid her on the bed. Then, heedless of garments, stockings, and boots that kept them from touching skin to skin, he took her with the same impatience that she remembered from their wedding night, devouring her the way a starving man wolfs down bread.

When the passion was spent, all too quickly it seemed to her, she tugged off his boots, tunic, and trousers. Then she stood before him and slowly divested herself of every scrap of her own clothing until he was aroused again. This time they pleasured each other slowly and, she thought with satisfaction, most thoroughly.

Sated at last she lay beside him, her head nestled against his shoulder, an arm and a leg draped across his naked frame, and a thousand questions running through her mind.

“Why did you stay away so long?” she chided him. “We could have spent many days and nights like this if you had but returned to me. What kept you from my side?”

He drew her close and murmured, “I could not come any sooner. Surely you must have known that.”

“I knew only that you were across the sea. Is Swein’s hall at Roskilde so far away that in two long years you could not find your way to my bed?” She had no idea where Roskilde was, or even where Denmark was, except that they were beyond an expanse of water that was not so vast that a man could not cross it if he was minded to do so.

“Would you have me give you an accounting?” he asked, with just the slightest edge in his voice. “I was at Roskilde for only a few weeks. Then I went to one of my father’s fortresses for a year. After that I went to Wendland and spent a season raiding in the Baltic with a band of Jomsvikings. This past winter I was with them in Wolin. And yes, they are all a great distance from here. I had little news of England and almost no word of how it was with you.” He paused and drew a breath. “Only that you had given me no son.”

She heard the accusation in his words and, stung, she snapped, “I might have given you a son by now, my lord, had you but come to me. Were there so many women to service you in your fortresses that you had no need of your wife? How many brats did you leave in your ships’ wake?”

His eased his arms from her to tuck his hands beneath his head, and immediately she felt the subtle distance he’d placed between them. Realizing her mistake and silently cursing herself for a fool she pushed her irritation aside.

“But you have come now,” she said, “and you have brought warriors to conquer Æthelred’s northern shires, have you not? Where are the rest of your men? You will need a massive army to subdue Mercia and Northumbria no matter how well trained your followers. Surely Swein will be bringing a great force for this.”

He studied her in silence for a moment, then sat up, swinging his legs over the side of the bed so that his back was turned to her. “My father is in Denmark,” he growled. “I have come here to see my wife, to get her with child so that when I have a son I can better sway the Mercians and Northumbrians to my side. The conquest of England will take planning and patience if it is to succeed. All of that takes time. Elgiva, you know this.”

“But now is the moment to strike!” she insisted. She sat up among the bedclothes, and kneeling behind him she wrapped her arms about his neck and whispered, “England is weak and her fleet destroyed. Have you not heard that news?”

“I have heard, and it makes no difference,” he said grimly. “England is not yet weak enough! There are still many who will take up arms against an invading force, and the firm hold that the king and his sons have on Mercia and the north will not easily be loosened.”

“There are also many men in Mercia who will turn against their king,” she assured him. “They will welcome you.”

“You cannot be certain of that.”

“I can, for some have already made pledges to me.”

He turned, alert and frowning, to grasp her by the arms. “Who has? Who knows that you are here?”