The Price of Blood (46 page)

He waited for no response from her, but stalked back toward the hall. She was left with his harsh words echoing in her mind, adding the weight of his fears to the dread she already carried in her heart. She stood there for a long time, bathed in moonlight, chilled by the cold and by something far worse as she pondered not only what Athelstan had said, but everything that had passed in the king’s great hall. Ælfheah’s words, especially, came back to her with sudden clarity, and a name flickered into her mind that she had not heard for many years.

Cnut.

He had been a youth with fiery hair and his father’s black eyes, no more than fourteen winters old, she guessed, when she had struggled to break free from him on a shingled beach awash with moonlight. Athelstan had come to her aid then, but she had never revealed, even to him, that her captor was King Swein’s son. Had she done so, Cnut would surely have been delivered into Æthelred’s hands; and because she could not be certain of his fate after that, she had kept silent.

What delusion had been in her mind that night? Had she believed that an act of mercy on her part might work some change in Cnut, who had been England’s enemy from the moment he was born? Had she truly been that foolish?

The worst folly appears in the guise of wisdom and valor
,
Ælfheah had warned. It seemed to her that those words pertained far more to her than to Athelstan. An act that she had believed courageous and merciful had in fact been the greatest of follies. Cnut was now a man and a warrior, and he was come again to prey upon the English. Who could say what horrors the people of England would face—had already faced—because of a choice that she had made on that lonely beach when she had thought herself to be so merciful and wise?

Chapter Twenty-Nine

January 1011

Redmere, Holderness

“I
t was not some enemy’s hall that they plundered and destroyed in Northamptonshire! It was mine!” Elgiva, still enraged by news that had reached her a month before, stalked back and forth in front of Alric. She had kept her fury bottled inside for weeks, and it was a relief to loose it at last. “I am Cnut’s wife and so the daughter of their king. My holdings should have remained untouched by those hounds!”

“The raid was at night, my lady, and none of them could have known that the hall belonged to the wife—”

“They should have known! My steward opened the gates and submitted to them, and then they gutted him! Explain that!”

Alric shrugged and she wanted to slap him.

“Likely they were drunk,” he said.

“Drunk? Of course they were drunk. They were besotted with lust for rape and murder. I’ve seen such things with my own eyes.” Had seen it, and had tried for years to wipe it from her memory. Even now it came back to her—the glint of sunlight on steel, and butchered flesh where once there had been a woman. She cursed.

“It was Hemming’s men who plundered your lands,” Alric protested. “He makes no attempt to control them—merely sets them loose, like wolves, and lets them slake their bloodlust on anyone in their path.”

She turned on him, still furious, for were not all men ravening beasts—Danes, English, Normans, all of them? Not a one of them was any better than his fellows.

“And what did my husband, who so prizes discipline, do when he learned of this?”

“He could do nothing, lady. Nothing. Hemming is Thorkell’s brother. The three of them are warlords, and they do not berate each other or their men for ravaging enemy lands.”

“I am not the enemy!” The argument had come round to the beginning again. She threw herself into a chair, exhausted. Disgusted.

“Cnut does not trust Hemming,” Alric offered. “He would like to be rid of him and all his shipmen. Thorkell won’t hear of it, though, and there’s an end to it.”

No, that was not the end. If Cnut would do nothing about Hemming, then she would.

“Where is this Hemming now?” she asked. Cnut was at Thurbrand’s steading, and Alric had brought word that he would be with her on the morrow. “Is he with Cnut?”

“No. He and his brother stayed in the south, enjoying the comforts of the bishop’s palace in Rochester. You will not, I fear, have the pleasure of meeting Hemming.”

“I would find it no pleasure, I promise you,” she said, “but I thank you for what you have told me. You have given me much to consider.” Hemming did not know it, but he had sparked a blood feud between them. She would make him pay for ravaging her lands, although it would not be anytime soon. She must be patient, but when she took her revenge she would enjoy it all the more for the wait.

Two weeks later Elgiva lay awake in the near darkness, unable to sleep, sifting through a wilderness of thoughts and impressions. The presence of Cnut and two shiploads of Danes had thrown her entire household into a frenzy that had never ebbed. During the daylight hours she had scarce had a moment alone with her husband. Thurbrand had summoned men to meet with him from as far away as Lincoln, and Cnut had ordered her to keep to her own quarters.

“Your presence in Holderness must remain secret,” he had told her. “I do not wish to wake one morning and find an English army at our gates.”

“The king’s army has had little success of late,” she reminded him, “and Wessex is far away.” And, she hoped, Æthelred believed her dead.

“Northumbria is far too close, though,” he argued, “and Uhtred would welcome an excuse to pillage Holderness. He is like a sleeping bear and, as you know, an old enemy of Thurbrand’s. It would be unwise to rouse him.”

And so, although she did not like it, she had kept to her quarters and away from the private councils conducted in the hall. At night, though—and the nights were long and sweet—she had Cnut to herself.

She turned on her side to look at him. He, too, was sleepless, his face pale in the dim firelight, his gaze pinned to the roof beams, oblivious to her.

She did not like it when any man was oblivious to her.

She sat up, pulled the thick fur covering from the foot of the bed, and wrapped herself in it before leaving Cnut’s side. As she had hoped, her withdrawal from the bed had caught his attention.

“What are you doing?” he asked.

“I’m pouring us some wine. Something is troubling you, and if you will not speak of it to me, at least the wine will make us both drowsy.”

She poured two cups from a jug that she had set there earlier in the evening, still untouched because their bed play had distracted them. They’d been too drunk on each other to bother with wine, for this was their last night together. On the morrow he would sail south again, to Rochester and his fleet.

As she returned to the bed he sat up, and she admired the lean beauty of him and the way the firelight turned his hair and beard to copper. Their sons would be beautiful. This time when he left her, he would leave a boy child growing in her womb. She was certain of it.

She handed him the cup and watched for his reaction as he drank.

He looked at the cup, then at her.

“I’ve never tasted wine like this. What have you done to it?”

“Tyra and I have been mixing honey and herbs into the wine,” she explained. And unknown to Tyra, she had been using some of the methods that she had learned from the Sámi woman for certain purposes of her own. She tasted the wine. “This is our best effort so far, I think. Honey, ginger, and cinnamon.” And nutmeg, to make a man more potent, but she saw no need to mention that. The spices had been costly, but she hoped they would be worth the price. “Do you like it?”

He brought the cup to his lips, his eyes on hers, swallowed, and nodded.

“I like it well,” he said.

She smiled, pleased, and handed him her cup to hold as she crawled back onto the bed beside him.

“It has magical qualities,” she said. “After one cup you will unburden yourself of all your troubles, and then your wife will take you into her arms and make you forget them.”

“You need no spells or magic to learn what troubles me,” he said. “You need only ask.”

She settled herself, cross-legged, beside him, the fur around her naked shoulders and the wine cup in both hands.

“Is it something about King Æthelred’s second gafol offer that concerns you? Surely you did not expect him to immediately agree to your demand for forty-eight thousand pounds, did you?”

He frowned and looked into his cup, thoughtful.

“Æthelred thinks to play a game with us, thinks to outwit Thorkell. He is mistaken. The English king has lost already, although he does not yet know it.”

The words sounded like one of Tyra’s prophecies, and they made Elgiva shiver.

“He has offered you thirty thousand pounds,” she said. “Are you saying you will not accept it?”

“No, of course we will not. They have given us until Easter to make our reply, but I think we will not wait that long.”

“So you will tell them no and demand—what?”

He leaned over and kissed her ear. “That is a secret.”

She ran a finger around the rim of her silver cup, not looking at him, not wishing him to see her displeasure. Second only to men ignoring her, she disliked it when they kept secrets from her. But she would not pursue it. She wanted no quarrels tonight. She must keep him here in her bed so that he would leave her with a son.

“Will you tell me what is troubling you, then?” she asked.

He drained his cup and put it aside.

“I find that I am yoked to a madman,” he said, resting back against the pillows and clasping his hands behind his head, “and I cannot seem to disentangle myself.”

“Hemming, you mean.” She bit her lip. She must not rail at him about the burning of her hall as she had railed at Alric. It was hard, though, to keep the words from spilling out.

“Hemming is a man of little wit and even less judgment,” he said. “He and Thorkell have the same blood in their veins, yet one is the exact opposite of the other. Thorkell is everything that Hemming is not, but he will not listen to a word against his brother. Believe me, we have argued about Hemming more times than I care to list.”

“My lord,” she said, “you must find a way to rid yourself of this Hemming.” She peered into his face, waiting for him to look at her, and when he did she continued. “If the limb of a tree is diseased, you have to cut it off, or so Tyra has instructed me. If you are not ruthless with Hemming, you put your entire venture at risk.”

“That is my greatest fear,” he agreed, “that Hemming will make some foolish move that will shatter my father’s plan for England’s conquest—about which Hemming knows nothing. Yet for now, I need him. And aside from that, we have sworn oaths to each other. If I break my oath, commit some treachery against him, I will lose all standing, even among my own men. And Thorkell would surely seek revenge for his brother’s sake. No, it is not to be thought of. Still,” he said, frowning, “I am uneasy about Hemming.”

“Do you fear that he may turn against you? Surely not! You are Swein’s son. If he should strike . . .” She stopped, for was not Hemming’s ravaging of her lands a blow against Cnut, albeit a subtle one?

As if he read her mind, Cnut took her hand and kissed it.

“The burning of your hall was a blunder, not a planned strike.” He frowned. “It is an excellent example, though, of Hemming’s witless leadership. Had Thorkell or I or even Alric been near, it would never have happened. I can do nothing about it now, but someday, I vow, I will build you a palace where your great hall once stood.”

He slipped her cup from her hand and tossed it to the floor. Gathering her into his arms, he kissed her deeply, his fingers moving purposefully to her breasts and to her woman’s parts. But if the sweet wine and the touch of skin on skin had driven Hemming from his mind, it had not worked so on her. She was bound by no oath, and she had a score to settle.

The next morning, early, Elgiva went in search of Alric. When she found him, she drew him aside, away from the crowd of shipmen in the hall and into one of the curtained alcoves, where they were hidden from prying eyes.

“Something must be done about Hemming,” she whispered. “Cnut wishes to be rid of him, but he can do nothing because they are oath bound.” She arched an eyebrow at him. She was taking a risk now, but she did not think it was a very great one. “I am not bound by any oath, and I would repay Hemming for his assault upon my hall. I need help, though. Are you willing?”