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

Чтение книги онлайн.

СКАЧАТЬ forgotten again how cunning she was, and that she, too, had her ways of discovering things.

      ‘Even so,’ he said quietly. He gave her another slice of apple. ‘Your brother wed you, I fear, to a king under siege. The Danes press upon us from the east. The chieftains from Ireland strike at our western shores to grab whatever cattle and gold they can. Warlords who answer to Alba’s king would snatch our northern borderlands all the way to Jorvik, if they could. My own nobles are restive. Their allegiances to each other are stronger than their oaths to me. Yet because my daughters are too young as yet to bind the more powerful ealdormen closer to me, I must use more,’ he paused, searching for an acceptable word, ‘unorthodox measures to control those most likely to conspire against me.’

      She looked straight at him, her expression solemn and grave.

      ‘Whatever your political difficulties may be, my lord,’ she said, ‘it is not seemly for you to have two women at your side. A year ago you made me your wife, yet the Lady of Northampton would claim that which should be mine.’ She set down the slice of apple and wiped her fingers delicately with the edge of the tablecloth as if she were wiping her hands of Elgiva. ‘I have borne with that lady’s ambitions for far too long and will do so no longer. I will not have a rival in my household.’

      He pondered this for a moment. Was it possible that Emma, who had never welcomed his attentions as her husband and lord, was jealous of Elgiva? He supposed that it could be so. It was possible to care little for something yet care very much that no one else should lay claim to it. Women were weak creatures, he had observed, and therefore susceptible to the most grievous of sins.

      ‘I do not perceive Elgiva as your rival,’ he said, hoping to placate her.

      ‘It is how others perceive her that concerns me,’ she replied. ‘Your attentions to her while you were at Bath did not go unremarked, I assure you. As your queen, soon to be the mother of your son, God willing, it is I who should be always at your side, not Elgiva.’

      Æthelred, irritated, tightened his grip on apple and knife, controlling each cut with precision. Would that he could control his troublesome queen so well. When he had agreed to marry Richard’s sister he had hoped that he would find her pliable, willing to be ruled by him in all things. He had hoped for a young wife who would accept his favours gratefully and would meekly agree to all his desires.

      Emma was none of these things. Yet he could not rid himself of this queen, and there were many at his court who would agree with everything that she had just said were he to give them the opportunity. The clergy, to his disgust, adored her, and the higher she rose in their esteem, the lower he fell. If anything should happen to Emma’s child, or if the Danes should attack, or the crops fail, or a plague strike, the blame would be laid upon his shoulders. They would declare it God’s punishment for his debauchery.

      And so, if he wanted to maintain control over the actions of Elgiva and her kin, he was going to have to appease his queen and offer her a compromise. He did not like it, but he saw no alternative.

      He placed his right hand, palm open, upon the table, and gave Emma a meaningful look. She raised a questioning eyebrow but placed her hand in his.

      ‘I vow, my lady,’ he said, curling his fingers over hers, ‘that at every possible public function, in the church and in the palace and in the hall, I will keep you close to my side. In return for this you must find a way to keep Elgiva close to yours.’

      Emma considered the king’s words, weighing her options. Even if she agreed to his proposition, she could not know for certain that he would keep his vow. And then there was the matter of Elgiva. She had no wish to keep that lady in her household, but if she refused the king’s request there would be consequences. She knew him well enough now to recognize that, and she did not care to consider what form his reprisal might take.

      So, knowing that she might be making a bargain with the devil, she nodded in agreement. She did not see that she had any other choice.

      As the king raised her hand to plant a kiss upon her ring, Emma glanced out at the company below the dais. Elgiva was there, looking up at her with a cold smile that made the fine hairs on the back of her neck rise.

      ‘Let us drink to our bargain,’ she heard the king say. He called for their cups to be filled, but after they drank, Emma set her cup down and pushed it away from her.

      ‘I am learning that your child does not care overmuch for wine, my lord,’ she said.

      ‘Then, lady,’ he replied, ‘you must give him good English mead instead.’

      Many hours later, in the dark watches of the night, Emma lay tangled in the clinging web of dream. She was riding Ange bareback along the beach at Fécamp in high summer. A hot wind blew against her face and the sun beat down hard, its heat radiating in visible waves from the white sand. Beneath her garments her body was drenched with sweat – her thighs clammy and slick with it as they pressed against the horse’s hide.

      Her legs ached from her efforts to control her mount, for Ange pelted headlong in a wild, unsteady gallop, and suddenly, beneath horse and rider, the sand turned to rock. Each hoofbeat sent pain shooting from Emma’s tensed legs up through the core of her body, and the grinding agony of it grew so intense that she thought she must die. She tried to scream for help, but she could not force any sound past the fear that wrapped around her throat like a length of rope pulled tight.

      Some tiny corner of her mind recognized the stuff of nightmare, and with an effort of will she opened her eyes. The darkness of her curtained bed replaced the burning brightness of her dream, but the searing waves of pain still clawed at her, and the scream of anguish that had stuck in her throat loosened at last and tore free.

      Instinctively she drew herself into a tight ball around her womb. The child was coming too soon. She screamed for Margot, and then felt the covers ripped from her. Strong hands grasped her shoulders, and Margot was there, calling her name – her voice commanding and her face hard.

      ‘You must push, Emma! You cannot save the child. Do you hear me? There is nothing you can do to save the child. It belongs to God already. Now you must save yourself. If you want to live, you must push!’

      Afterwards she would remember it as part of the nightmare – the pungent smell of blood and the crescendos of pain that crested and broke and crested inside her womb over and over. With Wymarc on the bed behind her for support and Margot reaching between her bloody, naked thighs, she braced herself against them, straining and pushing until she had freed her body of the tiny burden that it had borne for so little a time.

      Released from the worst of the pain, but aching and empty, Emma lay desolate as her women tended her. It was only when she saw Wymarc take up the tiny bundle and carry it towards the door that she roused herself.

      ‘Wait,’ she called. She would not have her babe disposed of like so much night soil. ‘Send for Father Martin. I want him to bless the child.’ It could not be baptized, but she could send it to God with a blessing. ‘In the morning we shall bury it in the minster garden.’

      It was such a little thing, this child, with no one to protect it but her. And she had failed at the one task that she had been given.

      She turned to Margot, her vision blurring with tears that she wiped away with the back of a hand. ‘What did I do wrong?’ she asked. ‘What did I do to hurt the babe?’

      Margot sat at the edge of the bed and took her hand. ‘You did nothing,’ she said gently. ‘Do not blame yourself.’

      ‘But СКАЧАТЬ