The Emma of Normandy 2-book Collection: Shadow on the Crown and The Price of Blood. Patricia Bracewell
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Название: The Emma of Normandy 2-book Collection: Shadow on the Crown and The Price of Blood
Автор: Patricia Bracewell
Издательство: HarperCollins
Жанр: Приключения: прочее
isbn: 9780008134990
isbn:
Archbishop Robert counselled her regarding God’s expectations of her as queen, particularly her duties to the Church and the men and women who served it.
Judith helped her choose the attendants who would accompany her to England and assisted with the packing of all her belongings: clothes, furniture, bedding, supplies for the journey, gifts for the family and for the nobles who awaited her. It was no insignificant task. It would take three longships to transport Emma, her retainers, and her goods to Canterbury. Two more ships would carry a dozen horses bred in the Norman stables – Emma’s own gifts to the members of her new family.
It was Gunnora who, summoning her daughter to her chamber, raised the matter of the marriage bed and of Emma’s role as bedmate of a king.
‘It is your duty to be submissive to your lord, Emma,’ she said in clipped tones, as she sat facing her daughter. ‘It would be perilous for you to refuse the king your favours or to rebuke him, for your crown will be little more than an ornament at first.’
Gunnora’s expression softened then, and she cupped Emma’s cheek with her hand.
‘You are very young, my girl. That is your weakness as well as your strength. The king will cherish you for your youth and your beauty, and you must use both to gain his favour.’ She drew a deep breath and placed her hands on Emma’s shoulders. ‘Never forget that your first and most important task is to bear a son. It is your son who will be your treasure and your protector, even while he is yet a babe. It is your son who will give you power, who will bind the king to you in a way that he can be bound to no other living woman.’
In the brief moments that she was alone, Emma pondered her mother’s words. Would her child, she wondered, really be of much importance to a king who already had numerous sons and daughters? Could Æthelred of England ever be bound to her as he had been to that first wife?
It was a question she did not ask aloud, for even her mother could not know the answer.
On the night before she was to leave for England, there was no great feast held in Emma’s honour, for it was Lent and feasting was forbidden. The ducal household, though, gathered in the great hall at Fécamp, where the betrothal gifts sent by the English king had been spread out over six long tables. Among the treasures there were caskets filled with gold and silver; bolts of silk, linen, and the finest wool; silver bridles and saddles of tooled leather; fur pelts of martin, ermine, and sable; cunningly carved wooden boxes that held delicate musical pipes; necklaces studded with amethysts and emeralds; and an assortment of books magnificently bound in gold. When the gifts had been admired, Richard’s bard recited a poem about a flower that was borne on the tide from Normandy to England, where it bloomed and prospered and was loved by all.
Emma listened to the poem with dry eyes and a mild expression, for that was what was demanded of her. In her heart, though, she carried a weight of grief, uncertainty, and fear that filled her with dread and seemed to press upon her very soul.
A.D. 1002 Then, in the same Lent, came the Lady Emma, Richard’s daughter, to this land.
– The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle
April 1002
Canterbury, Kent
The voyage from Fécamp to Canterbury took five days, and every one of them was cold, wet, and miserable. The heaving of the ship and the unremitting stench of fish oil that the shipmen used to waterproof their clothes and rigging sickened Emma and her companions. It was a relief when they left the open sea and finally entered the placid waters of the River Stour. As they sailed past the wattle huts and wooden enclosures marking the outskirts of Canterbury, Emma stood at the entrance of the shelter that had been rigged midship. She gazed through a steady rain at a flat, sodden, dreary landscape. In the distance, cathedral towers seemed to pierce the forbidding clouds that hung low and grey over the city.
Beside her Lady Wymarc was muffled in the folds of a woollen cloak, and as a blast of rain hit them, she pulled Emma’s fur-lined hood up to keep the rain off her hair.
‘Do you suppose,’ Emma murmured, her heart as grey and heavy as the swollen clouds, ‘that the sun ever shines in this dismal place?’
‘To be sure, my lady,’ Wymarc replied briskly. ‘It cannot always be this wet or the English would have feathers and webbed feet.’ She placed a hand on Emma’s arm. ‘Do not lose heart, I beg you. Not now, when the worst of the voyage is behind us.’
Emma could not help but smile as she looked into the wide brown eyes that regarded her with a mixture of sympathy, pride, and excitement. Wymarc was ever one to look for the sun behind the clouds. She had an irrepressible exuberance – a quality that had not found much favour with Duchess Judith but had endeared her to Emma. The two of them were much the same age, and during the mad weeks of preparation it had been Wymarc’s unbridled enthusiasm for the adventure that lay before them that had buoyed Emma’s spirits and kept her from despair.
‘I will be grateful to leave this ship,’ Emma said, ‘but I fear that the worst is likely yet to come.’ She dreaded this first meeting with the king, and she wanted it behind her. Yet even that, she reminded herself, would not be the worst that she would have to face in the coming days. There was the bedding to get through, but she put that out of her mind for now. ‘When we go ashore, do not leave my side,’ she commanded, ‘even for a moment.’
A bridge spanned the river ahead of them and led to a wide, tower-crowned stone gateway from which banners hung, limp and dripping. Emma could see a throng of folk crowded at the tower’s foot and massed upon its parapets, waving kerchiefs and hats enthusiastically in spite of the rain. A rumble of voices floated across the water towards her in a general roar of excitement and cheers. Armed men in mail tunics and scarlet cloaks lined the path that led from the riverside to the city wall, their black shields overlapping to keep the crowd at bay.
At the water’s edge, four black-clad acolytes, oblivious to the steady downpour, held a scarlet canopy over a scarlet-robed archbishop. A knot of brightly clad noblemen, their fur-lined mantles and hoods testifying to their high rank, clustered behind the prelate, their faces turned expectantly towards the approaching ship.
‘Which of them is the king?’ Wymarc asked.
Emma scanned the men again but none of them fitted the description that Ealdorman Ælfric had given her of Æthelred – a tall, well-built man with long golden hair and a trim beard.
A little shiver of foreboding crept along her spine to mingle with the anxiety already there. Was it possible that he had not come to greet her? She recalled how her brother Richard had made the five-day journey to Bayeux to wed Judith and escort her back to Rouen, and how the count of Turenne had travelled for near a month to sue for the hand of her sister Beatrice. Æthelred, though, had sent a delegation to Normandy to bid for his bride rather than come in person. Could he not even trouble himself to meet her at the city gate?
‘I do not think that he is here,’ she murmured to Wymarc.
‘Perhaps he is waiting to greet you in great state inside the palace,’ Wymarc said, ‘or at the church. Perhaps he thinks you will not СКАЧАТЬ