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

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СКАЧАТЬ on the boy, ‘has asked the bishop and all the clergy in London to offer prayers for his recovery. Do you hear that, Edward? All of London is praying for you now.’

      She, too, had prayed for Edward, but her prayers had sprung from a bitter heart, and God had not answered her.

      ‘Perhaps God will listen to them,’ she said. ‘He has not listened to me.’ The rage that had lain coiled within her, suppressed in silence and in bitter tears, sprang suddenly to life. ‘Why is God so cruel?’ she demanded, fisting her hands and beating them impotently against her knees. She longed to weep, but she would not give God the satisfaction. ‘Why does He punish innocent children for the sins of others?’

      Athelstan heard the despair in her voice, and it smote his heart. She was his father’s wife, and for that reason he had schooled himself to look upon her with a stern regard that showed neither pity nor compassion. He could not do so now. Her anguished eyes, bruised with weariness, were fixed upon Edward, but he guessed that she must be thinking as well of the babe that she had lost. If God was cruel, then Emma was as much a victim of His cruelty as poor Edward. She had lost her own child, and now she lived in fear of losing a son that she had embraced as her own.

      He searched for words that would give her consolation, but what did he know of the mind of God? He was a warrior, not a priest. His duty was to fight, and it was up to the priests to sort things out with the Lord. Yet how was anyone to fight and win against the will of the Almighty? How was one even to recognize God’s hand at work in the world when there was so much darkness and misery?

      Emma, though, needed consolation, however clumsy it might be.

      ‘We are God’s instruments for vengeance or for mercy, are we not?’ he asked gently. ‘So if you would look for the hand of God in Edward’s illness,’ he took hold of her hand, and held it before her, ‘look to the hands that have given him relief from pain and have tended him with a mother’s care.’

      It did not content her, though. She shook her head, drew her hand from his, and gently ministered again to Edward. His brother’s thin face was no longer flushed but eerily pale now in the flickering light.

      What if Edward should die? He had never thought much about death, in spite of the hundreds of sermons he had heard detailing man’s ultimate fate in the most harrowing terms. Even now he could not reconcile himself to the prospect of a world without Edward, for he was but a boy. It seemed impossible that he should die. Yet children, even the children of kings, did die. His own father was the only one of three brothers to survive to manhood.

      Unbidden, the words of the seeress at Warwick sprang into his mind. She had predicted that he would not inherit his father’s kingdom. He could not fathom such an outcome – unless he were to die before his father did. Was that what she had been trying to tell him? Was that to be God’s will – his destiny as well as Edward’s?

      He scrubbed his face briskly with his hands, trying to rid his mind of such morbid thoughts. At the same moment, Emma gave a small cry. When he looked he saw her leaning forward, her palms pressed against Edward’s breast.

      ‘What is it?’ he demanded, tense with foreboding.

      ‘I don’t know,’ she cried. ‘Something has happened. Margot!’

      In an instant the old Norman dame appeared from out of the shadows and shooed them away from the bed. She bent over Edward, setting her ear against his mouth, then touching his neck with her fingers. Athelstan held his breath.

      Dear God. Had his mortal thoughts somehow beckoned Death to his brother’s side?

      When the old nurse called for a servant and turned to Emma, placing her hands on the queen’s shoulders, he felt a chill run from his spine to his fingertips. He closed his eyes, and through a fog of despair and grief he heard the old woman rattle something in a burst of Norman French. Although he could not comprehend her words, he knew that Edward must be dead.

      He drew in a heavy breath and opened his eyes to find Emma before him, her face lit with joy and relief. She took his hand.

      ‘The fever has broken, my lord,’ she said. ‘God has answered our prayers at last.’

      He looked past her to where Edward lay profoundly asleep, oblivious to the women who now went about the task of changing his damp, tumbled linens.

      ‘Can it be true?’ he asked, hardly daring to believe it. ‘Could the tide of his illness turn so swiftly?’

      ‘He is far from well yet,’ Emma murmured, ‘but Margot says that now he should begin to mend.’ She smiled, but her eyes were filled with tears. ‘Perhaps he heard you when you spoke to him, and it was your voice that drew him back to us. He would do anything for you. You are his hero; did you know that?’

      He shook his head, wondering what else Emma knew about Edward that he did not. She still gripped his hands, and for his part, he had no wish to let her go. He wanted to pull her close and enfold her in his arms as if he had the right to do so. But he did not have that right, and the awareness of it tortured him so that he loosed her hands and frowned at her.

      ‘Edward’s recovery is none of my doing,’ he said. ‘It was your care that saved him, and so I will tell my father.’ He glanced again at the bed. ‘I will leave for London in the morning. May I visit him again before I go?’

      ‘Of course,’ she said, ‘but I cannot promise that he will be awake when you come. Can you not send a messenger to your father? It will do Edward good to have you here for a time, however brief it may be.’

      ‘I cannot stay. The king would have me return to London tomorrow.’ He saw that his curt reply had wounded her, but he could think of no way to dull the sharp edge of duty that must always lie like a sword between them.

      ‘Of course, my lord,’ she said stiffly. ‘I will bid you good night then.’

      He nodded to her and walked quickly from the room. He was sorely tempted to stay, and that would be a grave error indeed.

      In the moments after Athelstan left, Emma felt as cold and empty as a bell that has lost its tongue. She longed to follow him, to crawl into his arms and feel their warmth and strength, to feel the comfort of his touch once more. But there was no place for her in Athelstan’s arms, for he was not her lord nor ever would be.

      A moment later Margot was at her side, urging her to lie down and sleep, but there was something else that she must do first. She wrapped her shawl close around her, called for a light bearer, and made her way behind him through several passages to the tiny private chapel that had been set up by Æthelred’s first wife. Emma did not like this place, for it was little more than a barren closet with nothing about it to offer comfort to a weary soul. Nevertheless, tonight she slipped inside and dropped to her knees before the altar. She whispered a prayer of thanksgiving for the gift of Edward’s life, and she asked God’s forgiveness for her doubts and her sins. She offered Him a promise as well. She would no longer shirk her duties as Æthelred’s wife and queen, and she would shut her heart to temptation.

      

       June 1003

       Winchester, Hampshire СКАЧАТЬ