The Price of Blood (31 page)

“You must not blame that young woman,” Margot said.

“I do not,” Emma said, calmer now that Godiva was safe in her arms. “I blame you. How could you give her to another when you know that I need the child as much as she needs me?”

“Her need is for sustenance, my lady,” Margot said, “not necessarily for you.”

Feeling as if she’d been slapped, Emma had to bite back a bitter retort.

“Emma,” Margot said, “you are a queen in peril, in a city that is likely to be under attack very soon. You belong to all of London, not just to this child. There are many, many people who will make demands on you, and they will draw you from your daughter’s side. It is happening already. If you cannot attend her when she has need of you, your child will suffer far more than you will. I promise you, your mother did not permit you to suffer in such a way.”

Emma swallowed the knot in her throat.

“My mother was wed to a man who had need of her at his side, who sought her counsel—not one who shut her out.”

“Yet there are many in this city who welcome your counsel, and you have a duty to them,” Margot insisted, her voice gentle now. “If you do not place your daughter into the hands of someone who can provide for her every need, you will be constantly torn between caring for your babe and caring for your people.”

Emma closed her eyes. She did not want to hear this now, and especially not from Margot. She could ignore the advice of others, but Margot was the only person left to her whom she trusted utterly. And now she wanted her to be wrong.

“Leave me,” she said. “We will speak again presently.”

Alone with her daughter, Emma shifted the child to her other breast. The baby was already growing heavy with sleep. Emma could feel the tug and pull of Godiva’s mouth slow as the child slipped into a doze, a little pearl of milk forming at the corner of her mouth. She had to rouse the child to suck some more just to relieve the heaviness of her breast.

She knew that Margot spoke the truth, but she could not bring herself to make the sacrifice that was being asked of her. She had nursed Edward for a full year before the demands of her position had forced her to give him over to another, and even then it had nearly broken her heart to do it. Godiva, barely four weeks old, was at the center of her life—as she should be, for daughters belonged to their mothers in ways that sons could not.

But she had not reckoned on the arrival of a Viking fleet and the urgent demands upon her that would result from it. Overseeing the city’s response to the refugees and the sick, offering comfort to the stricken and reassurance to the despairing—these were the tasks of a queen. The Londoners would turn to her to lead them in their intercessions with God, as she had today. She must be free to move about the city, and she could not take Godiva with her.

She gazed into her daughter’s sleeping face, at the tiny bow of her mouth and the round, fat cheeks. For a moment she could only marvel at the tenderness that gripped her. She had once feared that because she had given her heart to her son, there would be no love left for another child. How wrong she had been.

She knew what was best for her daughter but, God forgive her, she could not relinquish her to another. Not yet. Not so soon.

“I cannot give you up, little one,” she whispered, grazing her finger against the soft skin of her daughter’s cheek. Then she sighed and kissed the tiny nose. “But it seems that I must learn to share you,” she said.

She would welcome that young woman as one of her attendants, and between them Godiva would have two mothers to nurse her, at least for a little while.

November 1009

Three days after the last of the Danish warships had sailed from Wight, their prows bent toward some objective that none could know for certain, Athelstan, with the king’s permission, had at last set out for London. He took with him his brother Edrid, twenty of his mounted hearth troops, and thirty Middlesex men on foot who had accompanied him from London in September. It took six days to reach the Thames Bridge, and by then he knew where the Danes had gone. Smoke hovered above the eastern horizon, and the bridge into London was choked with Kentish folk seeking refuge from the shipmen who were already raiding as far west as Greenwich.

He had sent a message ahead to London’s bishop requesting a meeting, and when he entered his hall on Æthelingstrete he found a party of city leaders waiting for him. After dispatching someone to the palace to advise the queen that he would attend her before day’s end, he turned to the men who were gathered around a trestle table in the center of the hall. He greeted each of them, gestured to them to sit, then took a place on the bench beside Bishop Ælfhun.

“When did the first ships arrive?” he asked.

“More than ten days ago,” the bishop replied. “They’ve set up camps on both sides of the Thames, and they’ve been plundering any vessels that enter the river’s mouth. We’ll see no goods from the Low Countries while the Danes squat beside the river, but our landward supply routes north, east, and south are still open.”

“Our ships are still in place on the river?” Athelstan asked.

“Yes, still moored in three lines at Earhith, and that was a good decision, my lord. They’ve met the Danish ships twice now, and turned them back both times. The main body of the land force, though, has moved to the north shore, within striking distance of London. Our defenders continue to man the walls as you instructed. We’ve added more men as newcomers enter the city but, truth be told, the number of those seeking refuge has increased our burden rather than lessened it. The queen has been meeting daily with city leaders to deal with at least some of the difficulties that we’ve been facing.”

Difficulties, Athelstan thought grimly. What a polite way of describing the provision of food and shelter, setting up a system for disposing of human and animal waste, and keeping peace among fractious countrymen in crowded conditions and wretched weather. Difficulties that, if not resolved, would lead to pestilence and death. Judging from the crowds he’d seen today trying to get into the city, the difficulties were only going to get worse.

It was well after nightfall when he set out at last for the palace. Despite the growing number of people inside London’s walls, the city was quiet due to watchmen stationed outside each church to enforce the curfew.

It was almost too quiet. It was as if the city itself was holding its breath, waiting for an axe to fall.

When he passed St. Paul’s, the voices of the brothers at prayer floated into the clear night, the Latin verses of compline echoing in the alleys around the massive stone church, and he caught snatches of the psalm.

My ravenous enemies beset me . . . crouching to the ground, they fix their gaze like lions hungry for prey.

The psalm was unfamiliar, but it seemed an appropriate choice, given the enemy camped farther downriver. He hoped that the lion was not yet ready to pounce.

Inside the palace gates a servant scurried up to take his horse. Athelstan could see light glimmering from the high windows of the queen’s apartment, and he moved in that direction but the lad stopped him.

“If you are come to see the queen, my lord, you will find her on the ramparts,” he said.

“So late?” Athelstan asked.

“It is her habit to go up to the tower each night. I think she looks at the enemy watch fires, to see how close they’ve come.”

He found Emma at the northeast corner of the wooden tower, barricaded against the cold by a heavy cloak and hood, her figure lit by a nearby torch. She was looking out over the marshes that spread beyond the city walls to the north and east as if she were held spellbound by whatever she saw in the darkness beyond.

He placed his hand over hers on the parapet, and as she grasped it in silent welcome he followed her gaze into the distance. Hundreds of fires glowed out there, pinpricks of light marking the enemy camp. They were, he guessed, less than a day’s march away. A larger blaze burned amid the smaller ones, and he studied it for a moment, trying to puzzle out what it was.

“Barking Abbey is burning,” Emma said, answering his unspoken question. “The nuns are safe, for they have been sheltering at the bishop’s estate here in the city. They brought with them everything that they could carry—books, relics, vestments—anything of value. But they could not bring it all.” She sighed. “This will be a blow to the abbess. She has been praying that they would spare her church, at least. I wonder, will anything out there be left standing when they are finished?”

There was no despair in her voice, only frustration and anger that seemed to match his own.

“We should have prevented this.” It was Eadric’s doing, all of it. Every life lost, every village ravaged could be laid at Eadric’s feet. “My father should never have allowed Thorkell and his army to return to their ships. You heard what happened at Salisbury?”

“That Eadric advised the king to avoid a battle, and that you and he nearly came to blows. Yes, that much I know. How the king and Eadric intend to rid us of this enemy I have not been able to discover.”

“I should have murdered Eadric,” he snarled, “and rid us of one enemy, at least. As for those bastards”—he jerked his chin toward the distant fires—“we have to meet them on the field of battle and come away the clear winners. But to do that our leaders must be of one mind, and right now that is impossible. We are our own worst enemies.” He took both her hands and turned her so that he could look into her face, its features sculpted in the flickering torchlight. The last time he had seen her she had been ripe with pregnancy. Now she looked drawn and tired. Stretched. Yet still she was beautiful. “How is it with you, lady?” he asked. “And with your daughter?”

“We are well enough,” she replied, then she frowned. “You spoke of Eadric; has he gone with the king to Worcester?”

Ah. So she knew where the king planned to spend the Yule. Then she must know of his youngest sister’s imminent nuptials as well.

“To witness my sister’s marriage to Ulfkytel,” he said, “yes. Surely Wulfa has asked the king to allow you to be there with her.”

“Has asked and been refused,” she replied. “The king is still angry with me, despite my efforts to appease him.” Her voice was bitter. “He asked me to intercede with my brother Richard, to request Norman help after so many of our ships were lost in the spring. I did so, but Richard very regretfully declined. He has his own more pressing concerns that demand ships and men. So I have earned the king’s displeasure once again and remain an outcast from the court. In any case, Worcester is too far away—too long and difficult a journey for my daughter. Even with an enemy army outside our walls, she is safer here.” She turned to look again at the fires burning on the horizon. “How long, do you think, before they march upon the city?”

He squinted up at the clear night sky, riddled with stars.

“If the weather holds,” he said, “it will likely be within a few days.”

“Can we beat them?”

“No,” he said, frowning at the campfires so numerous that they mirrored the stars up in the sky. “But we can keep them outside the city until they grow weary.”

“And then they will strike somewhere else, someplace less able to withstand them.”

“Unless God intervenes,” he said, “and keeps them weather-bound until the spring.”

Before the next dawn a storm blasted in from the east accompanied by lightning and thunder so biblical in their fury that Athelstan wondered if the abbess of Barking Abbey had called down the wrath of Saint Ethelberga on the men who had savaged her shrine. The storm lashed London for three days, and on the fourth day, when the rain had ceased, a nearly impenetrable fog crept up the Thames Valley to lie like a dead thing upon the river and the city. It mingled with the smoke from the city’s dwellings, making it impossible to see across even the narrowest of lanes. Londoners were accustomed to the noisome vapors, but those unfamiliar with the city had to be warned away from the river, for even the rushing sound of the water was deadened, and one careless step might lead to a watery death.

All that day the wet, cloying mist smothered London and the surrounding countryside, and if there was an army out there, it hadn’t been seen or heard. Athelstan’s scouts reported that the enemy remained in their camp near Barking. At a meeting with London’s war council, he speculated that Thorkell might not risk moving his men in the fog across the unfamiliar, sodden moor that lay between Barking Abbey and London.

“But he might send a smaller force against us under cover of the fog,” he cautioned, “to test our defenses and catch us napping. Our men on the walls must remain wary.”

In midafternoon, with Edrid at his side, Athelstan walked the ramparts between the Aldgate and the Bishopsgate. This, the council believed, was where Thorkell would focus any attack. The enemy would likely wait until the fog lifted, but there was no guarantee of that. Sentries stationed on the wall had to remain alert, no matter how exhausted they might be from long hours of keeping watch in the impenetrable mist.

Athelstan spoke a word of encouragement to each man he passed. At the same time he listened for the usual clamor of activity from the streets below. But London was hushed, for the fog muffled every sound. Even the church bells ringing the hours were muted, as if their tongues were made of clotted wool. It was not the weather alone, he knew, that had silenced England’s greatest city. The knowledge that an enemy could be but an arrow’s flight away, waiting to strike, was a burden that each citizen carried like a dead weight. Fear was as palpable as the droplets in the mist.