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

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      The spring weather held fair and mild, and on the downs of Wessex the sheep and cattle grazed on thick new grass. In the forests along the river bluebells carpeted the ground with blossoms, and it seemed that there was a kind of blessing upon the land. When storm clouds did come they shed their bounty upon the earth during the night, while the days were awash with sunlight. So April slipped away, and when southerly winds brought no sign of dragon ships from the harsh northern lands, folk began to hope that this year Æthelred’s realm might be free of fire and pillage.

      For Emma, though, the beautiful spring days were almost intolerable. It seemed to her that she alone lived within a dark cloud. Her body had recovered quickly from the trial of miscarriage, but her spirit remained burdened with the pain of her loss. Each day she woke with a sense of despair and foreboding that she could not escape – a lassitude that bound her like a snare. She took little interest in the things that should have demanded her attention. Pleas for direction from Hugh in Exeter went unheeded; missives from her mother and her brothers went unanswered. She kept mostly to her chambers, imprisoned now by her own will rather than Æthelred’s. Even the children could not draw her out of her lethargy. She could no longer join in their play or be their confidante and comforter. Instead it was Hilde who, hardly more than a child herself, supervised their care.

      Occasionally she would catch a glimpse of Athelstan in the midst of his brothers and retainers, and sometimes his eyes met hers before he looked away. His face, in those brief encounters, was always solemn, and if there was any silent meaning in his grave expression, she could not read it. He never attempted to speak to her or send her any message, and it was as if the companionship that had once existed between them belonged to another life. The child that she had carried for so short a time, she believed, lay like an invisible wall between them, and that only added to her despair.

      She rarely saw the king, except at the evening meal in the great hall when she took her place beside him at the high table. True to her promise to him, she placed Elgiva beside her there. If Emma noticed that Elgiva seemed not so content with her favoured position as before – for the king’s attentions to that lady had cooled considerably – Emma gave no sign. Her heart ached with such longing for the child she had lost that she paid little heed to the tempers and trials of the other members of the king’s court. She responded listlessly to the king’s inquiries about her health and dreaded his return to her bed, knowing that it must happen soon. As spring lengthened towards summer, Æthelred sent his own leech to examine her, and in spite of Margot’s protests, the man bled her, then pronounced her well enough to attend to her lord’s needs.

      That evening Emma prepared herself for a visit from the king, but to her surprise and relief, he did not come. Instead, he sent word that the court would move to London within the week, and that she must prepare for the journey. It was a command, she knew, yet she did not see how she could obey it. She sent word to Æthelred that she did not yet feel strong enough to make such an arduous journey and begged to be allowed to remain in Winchester. Then she waited in an agony of suspense for his response. She had couched it as a request, but how Æthelred would interpret it would depend upon his mood at the time.

      His response, when it came, was scrawled on a wax tablet. She had to study it for some time before she could decipher it.

       I will grant this request, but push me no further. For too long have you neglected the duties owed to your king. My patience is nearly at an end.

      So she had bought herself a little time – perhaps a month, but no more. She must content herself with that.

      Almost as soon as the king and his court departed, the spring weather turned from sunshine to grim, unrelenting rain. Under its spell the mood in the queen’s apartments became as sombre and listless as Emma herself, and she could not rouse herself to change it. Elgiva, apparently irritated that the king had left her behind, was sullen and ill-tempered, using her tongue to lash anyone who crossed her. Servants whispered of a malignant spirit that had cursed the queen and so caused the death of her unborn child. Alarmed by the rumours, Wymarc insisted that Emma wear every piece of amber jewellery that she owned, for amber was a talisman against evil. Margot, too, sought to break the spell that held the queen, placing rosemary under Emma’s pillow to give her pleasant dreams. Yet the shadow of hopelessness that seemed to enfold Emma like a shroud refused to lift.

      In the end it was young Edward who drew Emma from her despair. An ague had kept him from accompanying his father to London, and a week or so after the king’s departure, the boy’s condition worsened. Emma ordered a servant to carry Edward into her own chamber, where she and Margot could tend him, and suddenly her days had a purpose and a meaning. Hour after hour she sat at Edward’s bedside, placing cool cloths upon his fevered skin, coaxing spoonfuls of Margot’s willow bark infusion past his chapped lips, lulling the restless boy to sleep with stories of Normandy. But Edward’s condition did not improve, and Emma’s heart ached at his suffering. She sent a messenger to London, advising the king that Edward’s illness was grave; then she waited, daily anticipating Æthelred’s return.

      It was late one May evening that a royal party arrived within the palace grounds. The king, Emma surmised, had come at last. She glanced towards the shadowy corner where Margot, who would keep the long night watch, sat dozing. All of her other attendants were abed, and she saw no reason to summon them. The king’s staff would see to his immediate needs, and it may be some time yet before he came to find his son.

      Edward lay shirtless beneath the bed linens, and Emma repeatedly bathed his face and upper body with cool water in an effort to banish the fever that held him in restless dreams. His hair had been cut short so they could tend him more easily, and he looked far younger than his eleven summers. He moaned in his sleep, and as Emma took his hot hand in hers, a servant slipped into the room to whisper that Lord Athelstan was asking to see his brother.

      She started at this, but in a moment her heart lifted, as if some great weight she had been carrying had suddenly slipped away. She bade the servant escort the ætheling into the chamber, then she tried to ignore the trembling of her limbs as she waited for him in the near darkness. There were a thousand things that she longed to say to Athelstan. Every day the pile of words that remained unspoken between them grew higher and broader. Yet the words she would speak were utterly forbidden, and so she must remain forever mute. Just to have him near, though, would be some consolation.

      She rose as he entered the room, and in the dim candlelight she drank in the sight of him – the thatch of bright hair, the startlingly dark eyebrows, the wide mouth, the beard the colour of raw honey, the solemn blue eyes.

      He paused in front of her, and as their glances met she read there the same gravity – cold and distant – with which he had greeted her ever since her return to court. It chilled her like a winter wind.

      He gestured for her to sit and, drawing a stool next to her chair, took his place beside her.

      ‘My father received your message but matters keep him in London, and he sent me to learn how Edward is faring.’ Awkwardly, he touched Edward’s cheek with the back of his hand. ‘Jesu, he is so hot.’

      ‘I am frightened for him,’ she whispered, studying Edward’s face, as she had for days, looking for some sign of improvement. She did not find it. Flushed with fever, his nose thin and pinched with lack of nourishment, he barely resembled the brown-faced boy who had ridden with them along the Itchen the summer before. ‘My sister suffered from agues all her life, but I cannot remember that she was ever as sick as this. Edward complains of pains in his arms and legs, and of a scalding in his throat. Nothing we do eases him.’

      She glanced at Athelstan and saw a shadow cross his face. Her words had alerted him to his brother’s danger, and it pained her to be the one to deliver such evil tidings. Yet it was better that he know now СКАЧАТЬ