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

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       Easter Sunday, 1003

       Winchester, Hampshire

      While the king was at Bath teams of workers had descended upon Winchester’s great hall, and by Easter day the massive chamber was resplendent – newly thatched and freshly painted. The carved acanthus leaves that twined sinuously around the enormous oaken columns and roof beams had been regilded so that they gleamed golden in the torchlight. Silken streamers looped overhead from pillar to pillar in clouds of gold and white. The tables had been laid for the great Easter feast, covered with linens and garlanded with flowers, and upon the royal dais the high table wore a cloth of shimmering gold.

      Emma, seated next to Æthelred on Easter day, toyed with the almond-stuffed honeyed dates on her plate and wished that she had more appetite, for the meal had been lavish. Assorted cheeses, sliced eels, a terrine decorated to resemble the tower of the New Minster, and four different kinds of fish had been followed by enormous bowls of lamb stewed with leeks and pulses. Finally, golden brown peacocks, spit-roasted to perfection, their tail feathers splayed behind them in wide fans, had been ceremoniously borne to the tables.

      Now, as the tables were cleared, Emma gazed out at the dazzling array of sumptuously dressed men and women. They gathered in languid groups, milling about in a kind of food-induced torpor, drinking vessels in hand while the wine and the mead continued to flow unabated. Behind Emma the king’s cupbearer, young Edward, was taking his new position quite seriously and had not spilled a single drop throughout the meal.

      Her own cupbearer was Ealdorman Ælfric’s granddaughter, Hilde, a slim young beauty of eleven summers who had joined Emma’s household the day before. The girl’s mother had died of plague when Hilde was but a babe, and of her father, Ælfric’s son, the ealdorman would only say that the man was gone. Emma suspected a great sorrow there, and she did not press him. She found Hilde biddable, willing to please, and eager to learn palace ways. The girl, she thought, would do well in the royal household.

      As she drank from the wine cup that Hilde replenished almost too frequently, Emma regretted that the child growing in her womb had robbed her of any pleasure she might take in food or drink. The wine, in particular – a newly arrived gift from her brother Richard – left a bitter aftertaste at the back of her throat. Nevertheless, she drank it – for she had need of the courage it bestowed.

      The king’s demeanour today was solemn and forbidding – hardly the mood for a celebration of spring renewal. They had had little to say to each other during the course of the meal, and it occurred to her that it was not unlike the Easter feast of the year before, when she had dined with him as a new bride and he had glowered through the entire meal.

      There were differences, though, she reminded herself, apart from her pregnancy. Today the bishop of Winchester, Ælfheah, sat on her right, and his thoughtful and intelligent conversation contrasted sharply with the king’s morose silence. And, in the crowd below her now, most of the faces were familiar. She could identify the factions that formed in little eddies around the room, and she could even guess at the topic of their conversations: they would be speculating about the child she carried.

      She slipped her hand protectively across the small bulge at her belly.

      She caught sight of Athelstan just then, standing with a knot of men that included his brothers Edmund and Ecbert. He seemed to feel her gaze, and he looked up and nodded to her. She smiled. As ever, her heart grew lighter at the sight of him. She had missed him during her long, weary stay at Wherwell. She had missed their long rides and easy conversations, had missed the way he bent his head towards her when she spoke of Normandy, had missed the passionate intensity in his face when he spoke of his plans for the future of the realm.

      She had missed him far too much during the short winter days, and in the long nights her rest had been plagued by the memory of a single kiss. Often she had knelt in the dark chapel and raged at God for binding her to the father and not to the son. Why, she had asked Him, must she bear a child that had been conceived in bitterness and fear instead of a child born from love and trust?

      If God had answered her, she had not heard Him.

      She bit her lip, drank again from her wine cup, and turned her gaze to the scop who had begun to play for the assembly. She did not dare rest her eyes or her thoughts any longer upon the king’s eldest son.

      Æthelred, sated with rich food and strong drink, regarded the throng in the hall with detachment. It turned to displeasure, though, when he saw his eldest sons in huddled conversation with Ælfhelm’s brood and their northern companions. The bond that continued to exist between his sons and the Mercian nobles was likely to become troublesome if he did not find a way to break it. And what business was it that kept Ælfhelm himself in the north when he should be here at the Easter feast?

      His glance fell on Elgiva then, and his displeasure grew. She was beguiling two of the Mercian lords who had lobbied in her favour during the debate over his choice of a wife – their support purchased, he suspected, by her father’s gold. Æthelred wondered how much influence Ealdorman Ælfhelm, and by extension Elgiva, had now with the northern lords. He was no fool. He recognized Elgiva’s thirst for power. It was a family trait, one that all her father’s brood shared. He could easily imagine the uses that Ælfhelm might make of his daughter as messenger, as spy – as king’s whore. She had pleased him well enough in that role, although of late his disapproving bishops had forced him to set her aside. But if she could whore for him, she could whore for someone else as well, and that might lead to alliances too dangerous to contemplate. What, he wondered, were his sons discussing with Elgiva’s kinsmen?

      He would have to put a rein on the girl. He could not allow her to stray too far out of his reach – a problem just now because Emma, empowered by the child in her womb, had dismissed her. That must not stand. He could not keep Elgiva’s ambitions in check if she were not close at hand.

      He would have to persuade Emma to bring the girl back. It was beneath him to meddle in the queen’s household affairs, but he had no choice. He needed Emma’s cooperation in this. Christ, he was going to have to woo his wife. How much was it going to cost him?

      He took a wizened apple from the bowl before him, leaned slightly towards Emma, and said, ‘I would speak with you of the Lady Elgiva.’

      Emma stiffened. Well, he had known it would not be easy.

      Carefully, he sliced the apple, offering Emma the first piece and waiting patiently until she took it.

      ‘Have you considered,’ he asked, ‘why it behooves us to keep Elgiva here in Winchester?’

      She bit into the fruit, and a small, thoughtful frown creased her smooth forehead.

      ‘You fear a marriage alliance in the north,’ she said softly, ‘that might sunder the allegiance of your northern СКАЧАТЬ