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

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СКАЧАТЬ of brightly coloured birds. Emma sat to one side with Wymarc, Margot, and Father Martin – all that remained of her Norman retinue. They were eagerly sifting through a packet that had arrived from Rouen with news of the forthcoming marriage of Emma’s sister Mathilde to a Frankish count. A letter from Emma’s mother provided details, but Emma was disappointed to find no message from her sister.

      Mathilde, she thought, still harboured resentment that she had not been the one sent to wed a king. She could have wept at the cruel irony of it, but weeping was for later, when she lay alone in her cold bed and recalled the nights she had shared with her sister in their chamber at Fécamp.

      Father Martin began to read aloud what amounted to a sermon from her brother the archbishop, regarding a woman’s duty to her husband, and Emma was relieved when he was interrupted by a servant bearing news, until she heard what he had to say. A nameless Dane had been put to death that morning for crimes against the king.

      She knew what the prisoner’s crime had been, and that his life had been forfeit for raising his hand against the king. There was wild speculation, though, among the ladies of her chamber about the execution.

      Emma tried to ignore the threads of conjecture the women spun. None of them could know for certain what he had done or how close the poor mad wretch had come to murdering the king or his son.

      She caught sight of Elgiva then, who was looking at her with an arch, insolent gaze. Elgiva, at least, did know what had happened that day in the minster square. Indeed, she must know a great many things, for Elgiva was sleeping with the king.

      It was the greatest open secret within the court – that, and the fact that Æthelred had not visited the queen’s bed for many weeks.

      The tiny flicker of fear that always burned within her flared brighter as she considered the problem of the Lady of Northampton.

      If the king’s attentions to Elgiva continued to keep him from Emma’s bed, she would never conceive a child. That would matter little to Æthelred. He had sons enough; duty did not compel him to seek his wife’s embrace. Emma was the one who needed a son to guarantee her status within the court and to protect her should the king die.

      And kings did die. Rulers sickened and died for no obvious reason. It had happened to her own father. It had happened to Æthelred’s father, as well, when he was younger than Æthelred was now.

      Over the past weeks, stripped of her Norman protectors, Emma had come to realize how precarious her position really was. She had not heeded her mother’s advice. Use your youth and your beauty to garner the king’s favour, Gunnora had told her. Yet she had not merely lost the battle for the king’s favour, she had vacated the field before the battle began. The king had pushed her away, and she had gone willingly. Now it may already be too late. If she were branded as barren not even her status as queen would protect her. She would be locked away in some abbey, a bitter and disgraced bride trusting to her brother for her support.

      The king no longer sought her bed. When she had first wed him she had at least been an unknown commodity, a mystery for him to unravel. Now he had become accustomed to her, and he had found her wanting where Elgiva was not.

      She must find a way to entice Æthelred to her bed, no matter how distasteful the prospect. Yet she had not the least idea how to go about it.

      The next day it was Father Martin who entered the queen’s apartment with news. Emma and her women were seated around a frame that held a length of linen upon which a motif of flowers and vines had been drawn in lampblack. Gradually their busy fingers were transforming the black into vivid, silken colours.

      It was well past midday, and the light was fading when Emma saw the priest hesitating in the doorway. She smiled up at him, but her greeting died in her throat when she saw the agitated look on his face.

      ‘What is it?’ she asked.

      ‘News is coming in from all across the land of a great killing,’ he said, his voice taut with shock and his face stricken. ‘A massacre of Danes, at the king’s command.’

      ‘A massacre?’ Every tongue in the chamber had stilled, and Emma’s words seemed to echo in the silence.

      ‘Men, women, and children put to the sword,’ the priest said. ‘Merchants dragged from their businesses, farmers and wives taken from their homes, and all of them butchered. A monk from Oxford has brought a wretched tale of folk who sought sanctuary within a church only to have the doors chained shut and the church burned over their heads by a crowd mad with bloodlust. There were over fifty folk killed in Oxford alone, may God grant them rest.’

      Beside Emma, Elgiva spoke up even as she continued to pierce the linen with her needle.

      ‘They were the devil’s spawn,’ she said placidly, ‘and the enemies of the king. They would have murdered us in our beds if given the chance. The king was wise to strike those foes that live amongst us, before they can cause us harm.’

      Emma had dropped her needle and clasped her hands as the images of burning mothers and children filled her mind, and now she turned outraged eyes on Elgiva.

      ‘What is it,’ she asked coldly, ‘that makes them our foes? Rumour? Envy? Strange customs? A different language? What is it that they have done to deserve such a horrible death?’

      ‘They attacked the king on his feast day,’ Elgiva said. ‘The Dane who was executed yesterday tried to murder the king. It is his confederates who have been put to the sword, to prevent them from bringing an army against us.’

      Emma heard again the mad howl that had promised death and destruction. But it had come from the mouth of a single man with a broken, twisted mind, one more to be pitied than feared.

      ‘There was never any proof of an army,’ she said.

      ‘The king has no need of proof. You have not lived among us long enough, my lady, to understand the danger that the Danes are to us.’ And now her eyes met Emma’s boldly. ‘We must be wary of them, for they are strangers among us.’

      Just as you are a stranger among us. The words remained unspoken, but Emma felt their force and their threat just the same.

      She sat up late that night, disturbed by the day’s news and by the lack of Christian compassion that she had witnessed within her own household. She had sent word to the king that she was ill and had taken her supper in her chamber, for she did not think that she could bear to listen to the kind of discourse that was likely to go on at Æthelred’s table. By day’s end the murder of the Danes, even of innocent women and children, was being hailed as a great victory. Any who thought otherwise kept their thoughts to themselves.

      She was seated with only Wymarc to attend her when the king strode into the chamber. He had apparently come straight from the feast hall, for he was garbed in a short tunic of rich scarlet wool, belted in gold, and with gold rings on his arms and thick, gold chains about his neck.

      ‘Leave us,’ he said to Wymarc, who, with a long backwards glance at Emma, left the room.

      When they were alone, Æthelred helped himself to a cup of wine. Emma, watching his unsteady hand as he poured, thought that he must have had a great deal to drink already.

      ‘You are up late, my lady,’ he said.

      ‘I am unwell and cannot sleep.’

      ‘Since you СКАЧАТЬ