The Price of Blood. Patricia Bracewell

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СКАЧАТЬ keeping watch over Edward and Robert, who seemed determined to explore every corner of the chamber. From her place at the embroidery frame under the high window, Emma watched them and smiled. Hilde had grown into a lovely young woman, her hair in its long braid the colour of honey. She was the same age as Aldyth, but she seemed years older somehow. Perhaps that was due to the responsibilities she had shouldered in the royal household, Emma thought. Or perhaps it was because she had lost both of her parents when she was so young, her mother to sickness and her father to the king’s vengeance. Hilde was smiling now, though, as Aldyth spun a wooden top before the delighted eyes of the two bairns.

      Edyth, who was seated with her sisters beside Emma, looked at the group on the floor and scowled.

      ‘Can we not get some servants to take the children so these ladies can help us with this altar cloth?’ she asked, her tone surly. ‘The design is intricate and it is likely to take us years to finish it.’

      ‘This is a gift from the royal family to Archbishop Ælfheah,’ Emma replied, ‘and therefore we should be the ones to work the embroidery.’

      She frowned at Edyth, who had been discontented with the entire world, but mostly with Emma, for some weeks now. The king’s eldest daughter was clearly gnawing on some grievance, but Emma had yet to determine in what way she was at fault.

      She saw Edyth about to make another protest, but before she could say anything one of the household slaves, a boy of about eight, raced into the chamber and straight to Emma’s side. Without waiting for permission to speak, he cried, ‘There is word from Windsor that the lords Wulfheah and Ufegeat have had their eyes put out!’

      The needle slipped from Emma’s hands, her gaze drawn immediately to where Aldyth and Hilde sat frozen, their faces ashen. They stared back at her with horror in their eyes until Aldyth collapsed forward, wailing as if she’d taken a mortal blow. Instantly Margot was at the young woman’s side, wrapping a comforting arm about her while Wymarc swept a protesting Robert from the floor.

      Emma grasped the young slave by the arms and pulled him towards her. He was new to the court, still raw and untutored, sold into slavery during the worst of the famine when his parents could no longer feed him. He had meant no harm. He had only been eager to tell her the news, but a slave who could not hold his tongue was of no use to her.

      ‘You are never to speak in my presence until I give you permission to do so, whatever the message you carry. I shall punish you if you ever burst into my chamber like that again. Do you understand?’

      He nodded, his eyes wide and frightened.

      ‘Good,’ she said, drawing him still closer. ‘Now, tell me,’ she said more gently, for his ears alone, ‘what else do you know of their fate?’ She cast another quick glance at Hilde and saw with a pang that the girl’s face was wet with tears as she clutched a whimpering Edward to her breast and stared pityingly at Aldyth. Hilde’s father had suffered this same cruel punishment, had even survived it, although he’d spent the rest of his life in exile, consumed by bitterness and hatred. Hilde had known him only in the weeks before he died – a twisted wreck of a man. This news, Emma thought, must bring back all the anguish that his young daughter had felt for him. Swallowing the hard knot of pity in her throat, Emma turned back to the boy and asked urgently, ‘Do the prisoners still live?’

      ‘I know not, my lady,’ the boy whispered, clearly frightened by the distress he’d caused.

      ‘Go and see if you can discover it,’ she said, ‘and bring me word.’

      ‘Yes, my lady,’ he said, remembering to bow before he scampered off.

      Emma drew in a long breath and stood up, considering what to do next. Aldyth still sat on the floor, wrapped in Margot’s arms and sobbing with sorrow or with terror – likely both, Emma thought. The girl certainly had good reason to be afraid. She belonged to a family that had earned the king’s enmity, and there was no telling how far Æthelred would carry his vengeance. If he should send men here to take Aldyth away, even she would not be able to stop them.

      All work on the archbishop’s altar cloth had ground to a halt. Edward was crying despite Hilde’s efforts to soothe him. Aldyth was distraught, and Edyth was frowning at her while her younger sisters stared at the weeping girl with frightened eyes.

      ‘Hilde,’ Emma said, taking Edward from her and pacing with the light, bouncing step that usually quieted him, ‘please take the younger girls outside for a walk.’ That would remove them from this turmoil and give Hilde a task that would hopefully take her mind from painful memories.

      But it was Edyth who stood up and began to herd her sisters towards the chamber door, saying, ‘I will take them.’

      ‘I wish you to stay, Edyth,’ Emma said. ‘I may need your assistance.’ Edyth was old enough now to begin to learn how to deal with a court crisis.

      ‘And I wish to go,’ Edyth said, her voice taut as the string on a bow. She paused beside Aldyth and said, ‘You should not weep for those men. They were my father’s enemies. He would not have punished them had they not deserved—’

      ‘Be silent!’ Emma said sharply. In an instant she had thrust Edward into Hilde’s arms and, drawing Edyth aside, she hissed, ‘Edyth, you must show compassion for this girl. Her cousins have been horribly punished, her uncle is dead, and whatever they may have done, she must be very frightened. She is all but a hostage because of them.’

      ‘If she has done nothing wrong,’ Edyth replied, ‘then she need not be afraid. My father will not harm her. Why do you not tell her that?’

      Emma wanted to weep with frustration. ‘I cannot tell her not to be afraid,’ she said, ‘because things are not as they should be. Everyone is frightened, tempers are raw, and I cannot speak for the actions of anyone.’ Least of all the actions of the king.

      ‘But it is your duty to defend my father,’ Edyth persisted, her face growing flushed and angry. ‘Only you will not, because you hate him.’

      Emma stared at her. Where had this come from?

      ‘You are mistaken, Edyth,’ she said coldly. ‘I do not hate the king.’

      ‘Yes, you do,’ Edyth insisted, her voice rising. ‘You hate all of us. You only care about Edward and no one else. My brother Edmund says that you will not be happy until all of us are dead.’

      Emma slapped her almost before Edyth finished speaking. The girl glared at her for an instant, then turned and fled the chamber.

      Still stunned by the poison of Edyth’s words, Emma let her go. Her heart, though, was filled with misgiving. When had Edyth begun to resent her? At the time that she and Æthelred had wed, his daughters, all of them so very young, had accepted her almost as if she were an elder sister. Whatever suspicions the king’s sons may have harboured against her, his daughters had warmed to her. Clearly that had changed, at least where Edyth was concerned.

      Had it started with Ecbert’s death, or did it go even further back, to the birth of Edward?

      She put her fingertips to her temple and rubbed them against the pressure that had begun to pulse there. Dear God, she should have expected this. She should have prepared herself to face it, for it had to come sooner or later – this chafing between them. The girl was mature enough now to understand that her prestige had been lowered when her father had wed a Norman bride and given her a crown that Edyth’s own mother had never been granted. Edward’s birth could only СКАЧАТЬ