Shadow on the Crown (42 page)

In this way the hours passed, yet the babe did not come.

Chapter Forty

December 1004

Near Saltford, Oxfordshire

I
t took Athelstan the better part of two days to reach Saltford on roads fouled by relentless, heavy rain. The light was draining from the cloud-dark sky as he approached the ridge and its standing stone, but for the moment, at least, the rain had let up. He had left his companions at Saltford, and now he dismounted and gazed once again upon the circle set in the clearing below.

A figure stood in the center of the ring, her face lifted toward his. She was swathed in a cocoon of shawls and bathed in the lurid glow of a small blaze that crackled amid the hearthstones at her feet. She did not move, merely waited, and as before, he felt that she was waiting for him.

He led his horse down the gentle slope and into the grove, tying the reins to a branch of one of the oaks that edged the clearing. He could see the brown wattle and daub walls of her croft rising out of a sea of mud on the far side, sheltered among the trees. Moss covered half of the thatching on its roof, and the dwelling looked in sore need of repair.

He stepped between two of the giant stones and into the circle, half expecting to hear a crash of thunder as he did so. But there was no sound at all, and that struck him as even more ominous.

He nodded to the woman, who gazed at him with eyes that bore no hint of welcome.

“Why have you come, king’s son?” she asked, her rough voice muffled by her wrappings. “Are you so lost that you must come to me to find your way?”

It dawned on him that this was, indeed, why he had come. He was lost. It seemed to him that numerous paths lay before him, and without some guidance he could not discover which one was the best to take.

“I think, mother,” he said, “that anyone who seeks you out must be lost, in one way or another.” He glanced at the house and shook his head. “Does no one else visit you these days? You look ill prepared for the winter cold.”

“Folk share what they can,” she said, “and this year there is little enough to go around.”

He drew a purse from his belt and held it out to her, but she made no move to take it.

“You told me once,” he said, recalling all too clearly her words on that other occasion, “that I would hold Offa’s Sword but that I had not the strength to wield a scepter. I have come now to ask you to read my future once more, to tell me if my arm has grown any in strength.”

Still she made no move to take the purse but kept her eyes focused on his. Then she pulled the shawl away from her face, and now he could see her clearly. He realized with a shock that she was not aged, as he had thought. Her cheek and brow were smooth, although her skin was dark and not Saxon fair. One of the race of Old Ones she must be then, he guessed, who dwelt in this land before the first Saxons came from across the sea. She was far nearer in age to him than he would have guessed—so much so that he thought it was perhaps a different woman. But the voice was the same. He had heard it only once, but he could not mistake it.

“If you think to bribe me to speak sweet words to you,” she said, “you will have wasted your coin. I speak only truth, for good or ill. Silver will not change it.”

“Take the silver then, lady,” Athelstan said, “and give me your truth in return. For I am at a crossroads, and I do not know which way to go. Perhaps you can help me to choose my path.”

She stretched out her hand and he dropped the purse into it. Then he took off his glove and held out his empty palm for her to read. But she merely grasped his hand with her own and looked into his eyes, as if she could look through them into his soul and read whatever was written there.

After several long moments she closed her eyes, and for a time she stood statuelike, her thin, cold fingers grasping his. When she spoke at last her voice was deep and strong, and it resonated through his blood and bones, just as before.

“You will bear both sword and shield,” she said, “but the crown and scepter will remain beyond your grasp. For whoso would hold the scepter of England must first hold the hand of England’s queen.”

Athelstan started at these words, doubt and hope warring within him all at once. He had tried to wrest the queen’s hand from his father’s grasp, and he had failed. What if he should try again? Would he succeed?

But the woman before him opened her eyes and gazed steadily into his own. He read sorrow there, and a terrible compassion.

“A bitter road lies before the sons of Æthelred,” she whispered. “All but one.”

Chapter Forty-one

December 1004

Islip, Oxfordshire

W
ithin the queen’s manor at Islip, the passing of two nights went unremarked by the queen and her attendants, for they dwelt in an endless, torch-lit twilight as Emma labored to give birth to the child that refused to be born.

For Emma it was a twilight filled with agony and increasing weariness. Supported by the women she trusted most, she walked endless miles back and forth across the room, stopping again and again to breathe through the pain that was turning her existence into one long nightmare. After what seemed an eternity to her she yearned for a release, even if it meant her own death. At last, too exhausted to walk anymore, she allowed them to lead her to the bed.

“I would see Father Martin,” she whispered to Margot, as the wave of pain began to rise again, “to shrive me of my sins.”

But Margot gripped her hand hard, as if she could, by her very clasp, bolster Emma’s strength. “Your work is not done, my lady,” she said. “Your child is coming. I will not let you despair.”

As the pain gripped her, Emma clutched the worn hand with both of her own and cried aloud. When the contraction had subsided, she dredged up a weary smile for her old nurse.

“Aye, Margot,” she said, “but I am not afraid of asking a higher power for help.”

Momentarily freed from the labor pangs, she closed her eyes. When she opened them again the priest was at her side, marking her forehead with the sign of the cross.

She grabbed his hand and gripped it as another contraction tore at her. His clasp was warm and strong, and they rode the wave together until she had reached the other side.

“I must confess a great sin,” she whispered, her throat so dry that the sound emerging from it was pitifully weak. He had to bring his ear close to her mouth to hear her.

“Peace, my lady,” he said, tracing the sign of the cross on her lips. “I have already forgiven you all your sins. There is no need to speak.”

She smiled her gratitude. She had only to beg forgiveness now from the child that she was unable to deliver, for in spite of Margot’s care and her own will, her strength was almost gone. Once more she closed her eyes, but she was pulled out of sleep again when the next wave struck.

Margot and Wymarc were at her side now, and she clutched at their hands, screaming as she felt the urge to push the pain away from her.

“Aye, you must push, my lady,” Margot croaked, in a voice as hoarse as Emma’s own. “Come! Up now!”

They drew her from the bed and placed her on the birthing stool, and from some place inside her that Emma had not known existed, she found an unlooked for well of strength. Clinging to Wymarc’s hand, she pushed at Margot’s urging. It seemed to her that time, which had stood still for so long, now flew by as, at last, with a final great effort, she pushed her child into the world. She heard a baby’s cry, and then Margot’s voice seemed to come from a great distance, pulling Emma out of the haze of exhaustion that enveloped her.

“You have a son.”

In another moment a tiny, squalling bundle was placed in her arms, and she peered through a prism of tears at this tiny miracle of a child. She had seen few newborns, but this one seemed desperately small to her. Yet he appeared lusty enough, red-faced and howling with rage at being forced into an alien world.

“Will he live?” she asked anxiously.

“He is small, to be sure,” Margot said, “but his lungs are good, and he looks well enough. His wet nurse will have him fattened up in no time, my lady.”

“No wet nurse,” Emma whispered. “I will nurse him myself.” She would not trust this son of hers to the care of any other, for all her future was wrapped up in his. He had been named the king’s heir, and his enemies were legion. It would be her task to protect him, and to prepare him for the role that would one day be his.

She grazed the baby’s head with a kiss, then she watched, enraptured, as he nuzzled her breast and began to suck.

“You are the most beautiful thing that I have ever seen,” she breathed. And she realized that she already loved him with a fierceness that threatened to overwhelm her. In the light of this love, the grim oath taking at Headington took on a different cast.

When she had been pregnant and helpless, Æthelred’s attempt to weaken all of his perceived enemies by naming this son as his heir had seemed a sword of peril pressed against her throat. Now, though, she was the mother of the only son born to Æthelred of a consecrated queen. She would have more power than she had ever looked for, and certainly more than Æthelred had intended. She had not asked for it, but the seeds of destiny had been placed in her hands. It would be her task to sow and nurture them, for her son’s sake.

“I would send a message to my brother,” she said to Wymarc. She must get word to him that she had borne a son who was heir to England’s throne. Richard would, if she asked, send her more hearth troops, men who would be loyal to her alone. “And send a message to my lord the king,” she said, “that God and the queen have given him another son.”

Chapter Forty-two

January 1005

Headington, Oxfordshire

O
n the Feast of the Epiphany, in a ceremony held at the palace of Headington, Edward Ætheling, the son of King Æthelred II and Queen Emma, made his first appearance before the royal court. The king’s hall was crowded with bishops and abbots, with the king’s most trusted thegns and their wives and children, and with several score of servants. All of them were eager to see the young queen and the child that Æthelred had named as his heir.

The Lady Elgiva, befitting her rank as the daughter of the powerful ealdorman of Northumbria, stood at a table just below the royal dais, flanked by her brothers on one side and by her father on the other. As she gazed up at the royals, she was impressed by the mummery of family unity on display. No one in the room, she was sure, could be stupid enough to believe it, but it was impressive.

The queen stood at the king’s right hand with Æthelred’s three daughters in a solemn line next to her. Edyth, the eldest at age eleven, looked boldly out at the assembled nobles, one eyebrow arched, as if she were taking the measure of each person in the hall. Ten-year-old Ælfgifu looked bored as she stifled a yawn. Seven-year-old Wulfhilde fidgeted, craning forward every so often to gaze with wonder at the baby in Emma’s arms.

On the king’s left, his six sons stood as solemnly as the king and queen, in the order of their ages and rank—Athelstan, Ecbert, Edmund, Edrid, Edwig, and Edgar. They were all of them handsome lads, each in his way. But all of the royal children, in their sober-colored, sable-trimmed finery seemed to fade into shadows cast by the queen, for Emma glittered in the torchlight like the sun.

She wore a fitted kirtle of golden godwebbe that was embroidered with silver thread and studded with gems that banded the neckline and the long, draping sleeves. The gown hugged her waist, now slim again, and molded her breasts so tightly that Elgiva realized, with a shock, that Emma must be nursing her own baby. On her head the queen wore a long, woven silk veil of a pale, shimmering yellow, and above it a delicate crown of twisted gold hung with pearls. That had been a gift from the king, Elgiva knew for a fact. He had given Emma lands as well, in addition to what he had bestowed upon his newest son. And all of it would be controlled by Emma.

Elgiva tore her eyes away from the queen’s crown and considered the child—a brat wrapped in a blanket embroidered with golden thread, and so scrawny that he looked like a poppet, asleep in his mother’s arms.

“I think,” she whispered to her father, as the rest of the assembly recited the Latin of the Lord’s Prayer, “that the elder æthelings have little to fear from this one. He looks as if the slightest breeze will send him to heaven.”

“He may be a weakling,” her father replied grimly, “but we all have a great deal to fear, for the queen has proved now that she can bear a living child—and a son, at that. If she gives Æthelred another six sons, one day we are likely to wake up and find ourselves in the midst of a royal battle for the throne. We will all of us have to choose sides then, and the last ætheling standing will win.”

“Well, surely it will not be that one,” Elgiva hissed, glancing up again at the tiny creature clasped in Emma’s arms.

“Perhaps not. But there may be other children, and even a sickly son can be used as a pawn in this royal game. Much depends on what support the queen can rally about her now. Look at her. She’s dripping gold, and not all of it came from Æthelred.”

Elgiva turned her gaze upon Emma once again. Everyone at court knew that the golden gown was Norman work, and that it had been part of a shipment that had arrived from Normandy months ago, when the queen first announced that she was with child.

“I’ll wager,” her father continued, “that Richard of Normandy is determined to see Emma’s son on England’s throne. He will likely be sending the queen more gifts, now that her child has been named Æthelred’s heir. With her brother’s gold the queen will be able to purchase the allegiance of a great many men for her son.”

“But people still blame her reeve for the attack on Exeter,” Elgiva protested. She had heard as much from the nuns at the wretched abbey where she spent her nights, and for the nuns to know of it, the matter must be discussed everywhere. “Her reputation has suffered from that. She is not so popular as before.”

“She will always be popular,” her brother Wulf leaned over to whisper, “while she is young and beautiful and the mother of the ætheling.”

Elgiva snorted. “I would rather be wed to an ætheling than be the mother of a puling babe such as that one.” She flicked her glance from Emma and the babe to where Athelstan stood on the king’s left hand. “The king’s eldest son still retains Offa’s Sword, does he not?” As long as that symbol of the king’s favor was in Athelstan’s possession, he could use it to rally his own supporters, even among those who had so recently pledged their allegiance to his baby half brother.

Now it was her father who snorted.

“Offa’s Sword may influence some, but when the time comes, it will be the strong arm of the man who wields the sword that will determine England’s next king. And you, girl, had best put all thought of marriage to an ætheling out of your mind, for Æthelred will allow none of his sons to wed while he lives. The king may be foolish, but he is not that foolish. And when you do marry, it will be to a man of my choosing, not yours.”

Elgiva bit her lip, suddenly apprehensive. If what her father said was true, then all her dreams of a throne must perish. She could not wait upon the death of Æthelred to marry. That might take years and years, and who would want her when she was too old to bear children? She feared that her father had no husband at all picked out for her. He was the ealdorman of Northumbria. The only alliance of real advantage to him would be with a king’s son, and if that option was closed to her, then nothing was left. She gave him a swift, covert glance. He would not put her in a convent, surely? She would kill herself if he should place her behind abbey walls.

She gazed again at Emma, bedecked in gold and cradling her new son in her arms, and she felt her old envy toward the queen swell and ripen. On the long list of people who would someday taste Elgiva’s revenge—a list that included her father, her brothers, and even the king and his sons—Queen Emma’s name stood at the very top.

Æthelred, standing at the center of his family upon the high dais, stifled his impatience as Wulfstan’s interminable benediction droned on. The elaborate ritual had been the archbishop’s idea—a consequence of his recent journey to Rome, where the importance of ceremony had been impressed upon him in the gilded halls of the pope. Wulfstan was correct, of course. It was important for Æthelred’s family to present a united front to the world, but surely the prayers did not have to go on for so long.

He shot a glance at the child sleeping in Emma’s arms—the only member of this family, he suspected, who was truly content. The rest were merely putting on a brave face for the benefit of the court. It was what he had demanded of them, and they had no choice but to bend to his will. He had even given instructions as to how they should dress. Let the queen and her son shine tonight. What harm could it do?

To be sure, the child that Emma had given him was a mixed blessing—a son to keep the Norman duke Richard mindful of his duty to his sister, and an heir to keep his own sons uneasy about their futures. That was well enough. But he had not anticipated Emma’s reaction to the child. His first wife had birthed her babes and handed them off to others, and then had had little more to do with them. That Emma should choose to nurse her child worried him. It bound her to her son, forged a link between them that might prove dangerous.

He would have to send the child away, to one of the great abbey schools perhaps, far from the queen’s influence and out of the reach of jealous elder brothers. Mayhap the boy would learn to pray in a manner that would elicit some response from God other than tribulation piled upon disaster.

He shot an irritated glance at the droning Wulfstan, who seemed to read it correctly, because he brought his prayers to a ringing conclusion. As the company sat down to the feast the king looked out over his gathered court with something akin to satisfaction. His people appeared content for the moment, about to fill their bellies at his board. Even Ælfhelm of Northumbria, usually so intractable and belligerent, had acquiesced to all his proposals at the
witan
sessions. The havoc wrought by the Danes in the summer and autumn would be forgotten by next spring, and this new Edward, consecrated to his martyred uncle, might yet become the symbol of England’s rebirth.

He set to his meat, but as he raised his cup to join in a toast to his queen and newborn son, he could feel his arm begin to tingle with cold while his heart gave a sudden, painful lurch. He set the cup on the table, and, looking warily into the middle distance before him, he could see the air rippling like water as his brother approached, every wound on his body gaping like a bloody mouth.

Still he torments me, he thought, clutching at his chest to still the pounding of his heart. It had been madness to believe that he could strike a bargain with the dead.

Forced to stare into his brother’s burning eyes, he silently cursed the horror that held him in thrall. The martyred Edward, he knew now, would never settle for a golden shrine, nor even for a king’s son consecrated to his service.
An eye for an eye
, the Bible said. A crown for a crown. His brother and his God demanded restitution, and nothing less. There would be no forgiveness, no peace, until he relinquished the power that should never have been his.

And that he would never do.

He would never surrender his crown—not to his sons nor to the Danish king who sought to destroy him. He would resist until his dying breath, and whatever terror his dead brother’s foul wraith might visit upon him, he would resist that as well.

He grimaced into the fetch’s glittering eyes and exulted when the thing looked away, as if beaten by his defiance.

Then he realized, with a start, that the martyred Edward had turned his countenance upon the æthelings, one by one. There was doom writ in that livid gaze, an omen of ill intent directed toward the sons of the king. Æthelred saw it, knew it for what it was, and felt his soul pierced with black despair and a bitter, burning rage.

Athelstan, having endured first the ceremony orchestrated by Wulfstan and then the ordeal of a meal in his father’s close company, left the high table as soon as was politic. He made his way to the foot of the great hall, counting on the song that his father’s
scop
had begun to keep the attention of the gathering focused away from him. He wanted to think.

The elaborate show of family solidarity that his father had demanded had chafed like a burr against his skin. He wished that he could see into his father’s mind to decipher what plans he had for his children and for his kingdom. He mistrusted his father’s foresight. And of late, he had begun to mistrust the queen.

He looked up at her, from where he stood in the shadows. Her babe had awakened, but instead of passing the child to its nurse, Emma continued to hold him. She looked, to him, like the Madonna with the newborn Christ, and the loving gaze that she turned upon her son struck Athelstan to the quick. Just so had she looked at
him
once.

But that was in the past. Whatever Emma may have felt for him had been drowned in the tidal wave of maternal love that she felt for Edward. Anyone with half an eye could see that her babe was all the world to her. What man could hope to gain ascendancy in her heart now that she had this son to love—this son who could have been his?

God help him, he loved her still. He had promised himself that he would strike her from his heart, but it seemed to him that the mother was even more desirable than the bride had been. The tenderness that few had been allowed to see was now apparent to anyone with eyes in his head.

As he watched, she grazed her child’s temple with her lips and ran her fingertips along his cheek. He saw her laugh as Edward flung his hand free of his loose swaddling to clasp her finger.