Shadow on the Crown. Patricia Bracewell
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Название: Shadow on the Crown
Автор: Patricia Bracewell
Издательство: HarperCollins
Жанр: Историческая литература
isbn: 9780007481750
isbn:
‘Are you a maid?’ he asked. That would explain why Richard had foisted this younger sister upon him. She was used goods. For all he knew she might be carrying a Norman brat in her belly.
He stared at her over the rim of his cup and saw that her entire body had flushed in response to his question.
‘I am a maid,’ she said. ‘I am also your queen, and I will not be treated like some slut from the gutter.’
He downed the wine, tossed the cup to the floor, and began to remove his garments. ‘You are queen by my pleasure,’ he said. ‘You would do well to remember it. And in the morning, when the council inspects the bed linens, we will know for a surety whether or not you are a slut from the gutter, as you so colourfully put it. Now get into the bed and let us get on with the matter at hand.’
Later, when she lay asleep at his side, Æthelred stared wide-eyed into the flames of the candles that flanked the bed. He had done his duty as king and husband in as efficient a manner as possible. The girl, to her credit, had done the same. She was no whore, if he was any judge. She had lain beneath him as unresponsive and boneless as a sleeping cat. He had expected something better, after seeing her naked before him like some Viking goddess; but she had disappointed him.
It was just as well. He wanted as little to do with her as possible – only enough to satisfy the demands of church and kingship.
He closed his eyes, and in that darkness his thoughts strayed to his dead wife. He had been but seventeen when he wed her, and she was twenty. In all the long years of their marriage he had never seen her naked. When he lay with her she had responded like a nun, tensing with repugnance at the act that she was forced to endure. Although she had never refused him, she had borne his attentions every time in virtuous silence, had likely prayed her way through each ordeal. Whenever she quickened with child she informed him immediately, with undisguised satisfaction, for while she was breeding she did not have to accommodate the carnal activity that she found so odious. She was always happiest when she was pregnant. He was content then, too, for he found his pleasure elsewhere, with women who spread their legs for him with relish.
He sat up in the bed to study the girl curled beneath the furs, her hair spilling over the pillows like silver in the candlelight. She did not seem to be repulsed by the act. He had even caught her studying his face with detached bemusement as he entered her, and it had made him wonder what was going through her mind.
It might be possible to forge a bond with her, if he took the time to do it. She was young enough and inexperienced enough to be trained as a lover. It could be quite pleasant to share his bed with her.
But that would give her some measure of power over him, and as his queen she had too much power already. He did not want a queen – did not even want a wife, curse it – yet here she was.
He lay down again, on his side, his back to the other body in the bed.
He owed this girl nothing. He would use her for his pleasure because her nakedness aroused him. He would fill her belly with a child and would order his Mass priest to beseech heaven for a daughter. Beyond that he would give her no more than what the terms of the marriage contract required of him. Her title of queen would have to satisfy her, for that and a child were all that she would get from him.
April 1002
Canterbury, Kent
On Easter Monday over one hundred women crowded into the great hall of the archbishop’s palace to greet Æthelred’s bride. Elgiva arrived late, with Groa in her wake. As she tried to make her way towards the dais, a fat matron stinking of cloves pressed hard against her, and the sharply sweet smell of the spice was almost Elgiva’s undoing. In an instant she was a child again, hiding in her mother’s clothes coffer – unable to move, scarce able to breathe, too weak to free herself, and enveloped by darkness, the scent of cloves, and a mindless panic.
That same panic clawed at her now, and she began to whimper as she tried to twist away from the stench of the spice and from the crowd that engulfed her. Sickened and faint, she pulled her own cloak against her face, but it did little to block the pungent smell of cloves. She felt her gorge rise and she thought she would be sick, but Groa took her hand and squeezed it to steady her.
‘Let us make for the wall,’ Groa said urgently. ‘You will be able to breathe there.’
Frantic and dizzy, she blindly followed Groa as the old woman doggedly elbowed her way past a score of protesting noblewomen. She felt herself growing more and more faint, but she clung to Groa’s hand, and at last they reached the wall. The next thing she knew Groa had cleared a bench of gawkers and helped her up. A blast of frigid air from a narrow window scored her face, and she drew in a long breath that was deliciously free of the stink of cloves and wet wool.
Slowly her light-headedness began to dissipate, and she rested her now throbbing head against the wall as Groa joined her on the bench to watch the proceedings taking place at the top of the room. When Elgiva saw the new queen, though, her gorge rose again. Emma, flanked by guards and attendants, sat enthroned beneath a golden canopy. Regally swathed in a deep blue mantle, her blond hair braided into two long plaits, she wore upon her head the same golden circlet that the archbishop had placed there yesterday.
‘It should have been you,’ Groa said softly.
And that was the truth of it. That bland, pasty-faced Norman witch had cheated her out of her destiny. Who would have imagined that Æthelred would take a foreign bride, and then make her a queen? It should never have happened. The king had made the wrong choice, and her father was not the only one who said so. By now even the king must realize his error. She had not missed the way his eyes had lingered on her face yesterday when she stood with his sons below the royal table. If he did not already regret his choice of bride, he surely would in time.
An endless parade of women made obeisance before the queen, presented their gifts and received tokens from the queen in return – a pin or a brooch, and always of silver. The queen, it seemed, knew how to purchase affection. Well, Emma would not purchase Elgiva’s affection, no matter how precious the gift.
Dear God! How long would she be forced to live in the queen’s household? Months, certainly. Maybe even years.
She felt ill again at the thought of having to scrape and bow before Emma, but even that, she supposed, was better than mouldering away in Northamptonshire. This queen, at least, was young – not like Æthelred’s last wife, who had been older, even, than the king.
And like it or not, she would be one of the queen’s household. Her father had made that clear when they broke their fast together this morning.
‘You must be my eyes and my ears at court,’ he had said, ‘for I journey north at week’s end until the witan gathers again in summer. I want you to make every effort to gain the trust of the queen. She is little more than a hostage for her brother’s good behaviour now, but if she gives the king a son, there is no telling what power she might wield.’
‘God forbid,’ Elgiva had murmured, ‘that she should give Æthelred a son.’
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