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

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       Holy Week, March 1003

       Wherwell Abbey, Hampshire

      Elgiva rode on a plodding horse through a steady, drenching rain along a muddy track leading, she supposed, to Wherwell Abbey. She was miserable. It had started to rain at noontide, and now, three hours later, the waxed wool of her fur-lined cloak was sodden. Water dripped from the ends of her soaked hair, from her nose, from her elbows and fingertips. Her wet skirts clung to her legs, and she was bitterly cold. She longed to be tucked up, warm and dry, in a thick feather bed next to a blazing fire, but she had little hope that she would find such respite at the end of today’s journey. She had been to Wherwell once before, and unless things had changed greatly, she would likely be offered nothing more comfortable than a straw pallet in the nuns’ guest dormitory.

      At least they would not put her in a cell, she thought with a shudder. She had been afraid of small, dark spaces from the time she was a child – when her brother Wulf had lured her into her mother’s clothes coffer, fastened the lid, and then forgotten about her. It had been hours before she was missed and rescued, and for days after she had been wretched and ill. The very thought of spending even a single hour in a nun’s dark, tiny cell made her stomach heave.

      She glanced at Wulf, riding at her side. Where, she wondered, would he sleep tonight? He would probably find himself a pretty girl with a welcoming bed somewhere in the village. The king, riding in front of her with the bishop of Winchester, would sleep in the chamber set aside for royal visitors. Sadly for her, she would not share it, for she was one of the pleasures that the king had forsworn during this last week of Lent.

      Elgiva hated the Lenten season. The endless prayers of repentance bored her, and the Lenten rituals of bodily mortification drove her to near madness. She could understand why the priests would encourage it among the common folk. By the time Lent came around most of their winter food stores had been depleted. Urging them to fast for the sake of their souls was merely putting a good face on what they were forced to do in any case. But the king was wealthy enough to set a decent table even in the lean months, so why must his court live on a diet of boiled greens and fish?

      Their rations on this journey from Bath to Wherwell seemed to Elgiva to be especially meagre. She was hungry all the time, and the fasting did no more for her humour than did the wretched rain. Thank God that Lent was nearly done.

      The past five weeks, however, unpleasant as they had been, were not an utter waste of time. She had spent many hours at the king’s side, distracting him from the worrisome details of governance by telling him stories that she invented out of the thinnest air. She embellished tales that she had heard at her grandmother’s knee, and she made up stories about kings and battles set in strange lands peopled with terrible monsters.

      Her favourite story was that of the king whose queen was barren. In it the childless queen begged her husband to allow her to enter a convent so that she could offer prayers for the safety of his kingdom, which was under attack by invaders from the far north. And so, reluctantly, the king agreed. He sent the queen to a convent and took another wife, who fought at his side to save his people.

      She had spun this story one evening in Bath as the king sat in the hall with a score of his thegns. When the tale was finished she turned to Æthelred and arched her brows at him.

      ‘Could a king set aside a barren queen in such a way?’ she asked, feigning ignorance, for she knew the answer.

      Æthelred’s face turned thoughtful.

      ‘A king may follow his own desires where women are concerned,’ he mused. ‘The emperor Charles Magnus took five queens to wife, replacing them one after another when he wearied of them. He did not even need the excuse of barrenness to repudiate them, although several of them, I understand, were childless.’ He cocked his head at her. ‘Are you wheedling me for a crown, lady? Has your father set you on my lap to suborn me to his will?’

      His face had darkened, and she hastened to reassure him.

      ‘I wheedle you for nothing but your affection, my lord,’ she said archly. Then, glancing up at him, she sighed and said, ‘But I would not have to share your affection with anyone, if your queen should choose to enter a convent and relinquish her crown.’

      The king’s expression became thoughtful again, and she smiled to herself. She had sown the seed. With patience, luck, and some encouragement, she would make sure that it flourished.