The Emma of Normandy 2-book Collection: Shadow on the Crown and The Price of Blood. Patricia Bracewell

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       October 1002

       Winchester, Hampshire

      When the evening meal had been cleared away, and the king’s household, to ward off the autumn chill, had settled themselves around the central fire, Elgiva, with Groa beside her, contemplated the gathering from an unobtrusive alcove. Normally she would have claimed a place at the king’s side to listen as his scop recited some thrilling tale. Tonight, though, because of her father’s imperious demands, she had to forego her treasured seat beside the king.

      She was still seething from the tongue-lashing her father’s messenger had delivered earlier in the day. The thick, swaggering, self-important churl had rebuked her in her father’s name for not attending to the task he had set her.

      ‘You were meant to be his eyes and ears,’ the oaf had said, ‘but to judge from the news you’ve sent him, you’ve gone blind and deaf. My lord wishes to know if you’ve gone softheaded, as well.’

      She’d wanted to slap the fool. She had her own affairs to tend to and little time to play at being her father’s informer. Apart from having to attend Emma whenever she snapped her fingers, she accompanied the king when he visited some shrine or hunted with a few select companions – a daily ritual while the weather held fair. How could she pay attention to the business of others when she was so caught up in her own?

      But she would have to send her father something, if only to keep that oaf from haranguing her again. She glanced around the hall, taking mental note of how the members of the court had arranged themselves. The place she usually had at the king’s side had been filled by Ealdorman Godwine of Lindsey and his wife, Lady Winfled, who was chattering away like a magpie. Æthelred looked bored, and Elgiva smiled. When she sat next to him he was never bored.

      She would tell her father about Godwine, of course, but the man was no threat and no particular favourite of the king’s, for that matter. As for who the king favoured the most … well, that was no business of her father’s. She held out her arm and gazed with admiration at the broad gold band that graced her wrist – a gift that Æthelred had presented to her only yesterday. She had spun around before him in a new gown, and he had placed the heavy bangle on her hand. To keep your feet on the ground, he had said.

      She wanted more than pretty presents, though. She wondered how long it would be until the king grew tired of his insipid bride and turned elsewhere for consolation. Not long, she thought. Already he visited Emma’s bed less frequently than he had in the early weeks of summer.

      She made a mental note to tell her father about that. She would also tell him that Emma’s waist remained slender, cause for great speculation among the women of the court. It was whispered that if Emma remained barren, the king might be persuaded to put her aside and marry another.

      She searched for the queen then and saw her seated at some distance from her husband. Æthelred’s three-year-old daughter, Wulfhilde, her thumb in her mouth, was curled in Emma’s lap, and her sisters sat nearby. Whatever Æthelred’s feelings towards his queen, Elgiva thought, his daughters had taken to her like chicks to a hen. The girls were not important, though, and not likely to interest her father.

      Of far greater interest were Emma’s adult companions, and Elgiva regarded them with some surprise. She leaned a little towards Groa and whispered, ‘When did the Bishop of Winchester and the Abbess of Wherwell become so friendly with the queen?’

      Groa, her fingers busy as always with wool and spindle, glanced at Emma.

      ‘When she gave the bishop the relics of St Valentinus for the New Minster,’ Groa replied, ‘and when she endowed Wherwell with a tract from her dower lands to found a cell near Exeter.’

      Elgiva did not like that news. Emma may be a prisoner, but apparently she was putting her brother’s gold to good use.

      ‘Why did you not tell me of this before?’ she chided Groa.

      ‘Because you did not ask, my lady, and so I thought you knew.’

      Elgiva wanted to shake her old nurse. It maddened her that Groa was so close-mouthed. She kept her eyes and ears open, it was true, but she was so niggardly of speech that one had to prise information out of her.

      ‘How would I know about it?’ she demanded. ‘I have spent a great deal of time of late with the king, and I can assure you we do not discuss Emma and her endowments.’ She huffed with impatience. ‘Who else has the queen been courting that I should know about? Tell me, even if you think it is obvious.’

      ‘The king’s children attend the queen almost daily when she goes riding out beyond—’

      ‘The children mean nothing,’ Elgiva snapped. ‘What of her escort when she rides? Are they the same men every time?’ Wealth and beauty were seductive, and Emma had both. At Æthelred’s court, she had observed, loyalty was often for sale.

      ‘Lord Athelstan and his men provide her escort, along with some of Emma’s Normans,’ Groa replied. ‘The æthelings Ecbert and Edmund sometimes ride with them as well. Indeed, the æthelings’ retainers have befriended many of the Normans.’

      Elgiva felt a prick of alarm at this news. She glanced quickly around the hall and found Athelstan seated at a game board across from Emma’s man, Hugh. The Norman priest, Father Martin, was in deep, quiet conversation with the abbot of the New Minster, and as she gazed around she realized that the Normans – men and women – no longer sat in a group by themselves but were scattered among the English people.

      ‘How have I not noticed this?’ she murmured.

      ‘Do not fault yourself, my lady. As you say, you have been attending upon the king when he rides to the hunt. You have not seen the queen’s party ride out after your departure, nor seen them return before the hunters have come back.’

      ‘But I do not understand how the Normans have insinuated themselves among us,’ Elgiva protested.

      ‘They have taken great pains to learn our language, and that is what has done it. Even Emma’s women speak only English now. Surely that has not escaped you.’

      Elgiva scowled, stung by this, for it had indeed escaped her.

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