Shadow on the Crown. Patricia Bracewell
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Название: Shadow on the Crown

Автор: Patricia Bracewell

Издательство: HarperCollins

Жанр: Историческая литература

Серия:

isbn: 9780007481750

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СКАЧАТЬ as if taking a Norman slut to wife hadn’t been enough.

      Reluctantly he pushed himself to his feet and lifted his golden goblet high, quelling the murmur of the wedding guests.

      ‘To the Lady Emma of Normandy,’ he bellowed, ‘queen of all England!’

      The company responded with cheers, and next to him, his new young queen blushed.

      As the revellers stood and raised their cups to her, Emma searched among them for her own people, but she found no familiar faces in the throng. She trusted that they would have found their way to tables somehow. Certainly there was enough food here that no one would go to bed hungry tonight. The king, she had learned, had ordered food tables set up all over the city in celebration of his nuptials, so even the poorest folk would sleep with full bellies for this one night at least. She was glad of it.

      She let her gaze wander, over the heads of the guests seated at endless rows of tables, and then along the intricately carved oak columns that marched in two rows down the length of the hall and soared upwards so high that they disappeared into darkness. This was a huge edifice, far larger than her brother’s hall at Fécamp, or even in Rouen. It had obviously been built to inspire awe, and to intimidate. It succeeded on both counts, and in its massive, dim interior she felt small and insignificant … and cold. A breeze fingered its way through the roof thatch to tease the brightly coloured banners hanging from the crossbeams. In its wake, the wall torches and the banks of thick candles danced and flared, throwing shadows that loomed menacingly and then shrank to nothing. A constant draught from somewhere behind her chilled her backside, and she regretted not wearing a second chemise beneath her gown.

      She took a sip of mead from the silver cup, which was intricately etched with a tracery of vines – one of several wedding gifts from the king, along with the two finger rings and the crown she wore. The sweet liquor burned her throat but warmed her from within, giving her the courage to consider the man seated beside her, whose brooding expression seemed a fit accompaniment to the cold, dark hall.

      She knew that he was several years younger than her brother, but he looked much older than Richard. The long golden hair that Ælfric had described to her was streaked with grey at the temples, and the king’s face was creased and seamed across the forehead and around the mouth and eyes. It struck her, as she studied him with quick, furtive glances, that he was not a happy man. Careworn, she might have said, although Father Martin’s tale of the unpunished murder of a king made her wonder if it was guilt, and not care, that had etched the lines in his face.

      On his head he wore a massive golden crown studded with gems that glinted in the firelight, and she pitied him for that. The thing looked heavy, and it must be a punishment to wear it for any length of time. His white tunic, belted at the waist, was woven of fine linen, its sleeves elaborately embroidered in bright colours. The deep blue mantle of shimmering godwebbe that he wore was lined with gold silk and clasped at one shoulder with an enormous gold brooch that was studded with rubies.

      The king, taken all in all, looked a powerful and imposing figure. Yet he would have been comely even had he been clad in coarse wool. He carried himself with a fine, noble grace in spite of the weight of that daunting crown. She could not tell from looking at him, though, if he was kind or patient, if he had a sense of humour, or if he could have killed a brother in cold blood.

      That last thought, streaking into her head just as she raised her drinking cup to her lips, made her hand tremble so that she nearly slopped the liquor onto her gown. She set the cup down until she could compose herself. For some time now she had been trying to think of something to say to her husband, but he looked so forbidding that she did not know how to begin. The story of the death of King Edward continued to trouble her, boring through her brain like an insidious worm. She could not forget it, and she could not very well ask the king if it was true that he was a kin slayer and king slayer.

      For his part, he had said not a single word to her, and she began to wonder if he even realized that she could speak his language. But surely, she thought, Ælfric must have told him that. Nevertheless, all that had passed between them so far had been ceremony, scripted in Latin, and neither one of them had strayed from their assigned words. She had been advised that she must wait for him to initiate the first conversation, and so she had done. But the king had remained dourly silent.

      Determined that she would wait no longer, she had been casting about for some topic of conversation, and now she decided to ask about his children. Some of them, at least, had attended the wedding and coronation, for she had seen a flock of gorgeously gowned youngsters, accompanied by what she presumed were nurses and tutors, in one of the side alcoves of the cathedral. She did not see any of them here, though. This was something of a surprise, for she would have expected that at the very least his older children would attend the feast.

      ‘My lord,’ she said, ‘I do not see your children here. I had hoped to meet them all today. Are they not allowed to attend the feast?’

      The king, using a large chunk of bread to fastidiously mop up the juice from a thick slice of roasted lamb, attended to his culinary duties as if she had not spoken. She had begun to despair that he would answer her at all when, still attentive to his plate, he asked, ‘Why did your brother send you instead of your elder sister? Had she no taste for the favours of an English king?’

      Emma froze, sensing in his words a danger that belied the casual tone of his voice. So it begins, she thought. Already she must dissemble, tell him enough truth to appease him but not so much that he could guess her brother’s intention to break the pledge he had made.

      ‘My sister and I,’ she said lightly, ‘do as we are commanded, whether it is our inclination or no. We do not ask for explanation, and I asked for none from my brother regarding his decision to send me here.’ In effect, this was the truth. She had asked her mother, not Richard. ‘Were I to guess, however, I would say that he feared that my sister, who suffers frequently from ill health, would not be strong enough to undertake the duties of a queen.’ She thought about what those duties would demand of her before the evening was over, and took another sip of mead.

      ‘Perhaps, then,’ said the king, ‘I should have insisted on your sister as my consort, so that I would not be saddled, as I am now, with a wife who demanded the title of queen.’

      Stung by his discourtesy and his apparent dissatisfaction with the marriage bargain he had struck, Emma could only stare at him for a moment while she caught her breath. Then she felt the weight of the circlet upon her head as well as the weight of her brother’s final words to her. You must demand the king’s respect. She roused herself to respond.

      ‘I expect my brother would have made the same demand, whichever sister he sent you. And as you did not insist upon my sister,’ she said, hiding her displeasure with a smile, ‘instead of a wife who might have been a burden to you, you have a queen who can share any burdens that fate may send you. Such is my wyrd, I think.’ She purposely used the term that Ealdorman Ælfric had taken such great pains to explain to her, hoping that it would goad her husband to courtesy, if not respect.

      Finished with his bread and gravy, the king took up his goblet, and she wondered how many times he would empty it before the night was over. Still he did not look at her but trained his eyes out over the throng of folk in the hall below them.

      ‘You are but a child,’ he murmured. ‘What can you possibly know of the burdens of …’ He stopped in mid-sentence, and his face blanched.

      Emma followed his gaze and saw that a newly arrived group of several men and a lone woman were striding now up the central aisle.

      Æthelred stared at the apparition coming towards him, at his brother’s wraith striding СКАЧАТЬ