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:
‘You had best go forward, my lady,’ Groa urged, ‘if you wish to make your obeisance before the queen. I will lead you through the crowd.’ She held out the gift that Elgiva would present to the bride.
Elgiva took another long gulp of air and allowed Groa to help her from her perch. She cared not what her father wanted. She would not smile and fawn before this queen like the other fools here. She had heard their talk yesterday – the whispers about the beautiful young queen and her noble lineage. Emma, they said, had been named after her mother, the Frankish king’s sister, who had wed Emma’s father when the two were little more than children.
That was nothing but a skald’s tale, invented out of sunbeams and moondust and probably spread abroad by the king himself to enhance his bride’s prestige. Groa had nosed out the truth of it, and Elgiva intended to make sure that the women of the court learned the queen’s secret.
When she finally reached the canopied throne, and the steward had announced her name and titles, she made her obligatory courtesy before Emma, but she did not smile. She would not simper for this queen, although she had chosen the bridal gift with great care. She rose from her obeisance and held up the small, intricately carved ivory casket. On its lid a fierce dragon ship sailed upon an ivory sea, and along the casket’s back and sides a monster of the deep twisted and writhed.
‘I bring you a treasure from Jorvik, the capital of my father’s vast district of Northumbria,’ she said, pitching her voice so that the women all around her would be able to hear. ‘It is of Danish workmanship, and therefore a fitting tribute for our Danish queen. Your mother, I am told, is a Dane. Is this not so?’
The words echoed in the room, and Emma felt a tremor in their wake, like the tingling in the air just before a lightning bolt strikes. There was little love for the Danes in Æthelred’s England, and Emma suspected that her Danish mother had probably been kept a royal secret – until now. Few outside of Normandy would concern themselves with the marriage practices of the Norman duke who had had two wives at the same time – one a Danish heiress who brought him lands and children and the other a barren Frankish princess whom he had not wanted.
Emma looked into the dark, triumphant eyes of the girl who stood before her and saw there the same contempt that she had read in Ealdorman Ælfhelm’s face the night before. Like father, like daughter, then. She had yet to discover the source of their enmity, but she would have to begin to deal with it this very moment.
‘It is true, Lady Elgiva, that my mother was born a Dane. I, however, was born a Norman,’ she emphasized the last word, and now she stood up so that she could be seen easily, directing her next words to all the women in the hall. ‘Yesterday, when I wed your king, I was born anew before God and all the world as an English woman and an English queen.’ The room erupted in riotous applause, and Emma acknowledged it with a smile before she turned solemn eyes upon the Lady Elgiva. ‘I thank you, lady, for your gift. It symbolizes, I trust, your allegiance to me and to my husband. In token of my acknowledgement of your honoured position among my attendants, I bid you accept this ring.’
Emma slipped a gold ring from her finger and placed it in Elgiva’s palm. She doubted that the gesture would win the young woman’s friendship, never mind her allegiance. Nevertheless, she had to make the effort, for Elgiva was to be part of her retinue, and live in the queen’s quarters. It would be, she feared, akin to living with a beautiful bird that had an unfortunate tendency to bite.
Æthelred let his three eldest sons stew for several days before summoning them to his private chamber. As they had been in no hurry to attend his nuptials, he would let them wait upon his pleasure to question them about it.
He knew that they resented his queen, fearing that any son Emma might bear would have a stronger claim to the throne than their own.
Nevertheless, he was still the one wearing the crown, still the one his sons needed to placate, not the other way round. Apparently they needed to be reminded of that.
Eyeing them as they came into the room, he said not a word. Let them sweat a little while longer. Athelstan met his gaze unblinkingly, but there was an uneasy question in his eyes. Edmund, the dark one, did not dare to even lift his head. Ecbert smiled sheepishly until Æthelred’s glare wiped the idiotic grin from his face.
‘What is it that you would say to me?’ Æthelred growled, addressing Athelstan, whose uncanny resemblance to the dead Edward continued to gall him, like a constant reproach.
‘Why did you give her a crown?’ Athelstan demanded.
Edmund flinched, and well he might. The question was far too raw. Æthelred kept his temper, but only just.
‘Is it thus that you question the policy of your king, as if you were my equal? Who in Christ’s name do you think you are to do so?’
‘I am your heir,’ Athelstan replied, bristling like a hedgehog. ‘I have every right to ask such a question. You have taken a Norman bride to your bed and made her your queen. What do you expect me to do, wish you happiness? Shall I pretend that my own interests are not at stake?’
‘You have no interests beyond those that I give you,’ Æthelred thundered back at him. ‘You have no monies nor estates nor powers other than those that have been granted by me. Christ! You are too young to even have a thought in your head that does not agree with my wishes.’
‘You are wrong there, my lord. Indeed, I have many thoughts, and almost none of them, I expect, agree with your wishes.’
‘Then it should have come as no surprise to you,’ Æthelred spat, ‘that I did not seek your counsel before I made my decision to wed.’
His son flushed, his expression wounded. ‘And yet,’ he said, ‘it did surprise me. It surprised all of us. For weeks we waited for a summons from you, my lord, requesting us to attend your council. Yet it did not come. Tell me then: whose counsel did you seek? Which of your brilliant advisers encouraged you to grant a crown to a foreign bride? I warrant it was not Ealdorman Ælfhelm. He makes no secret of his belief that you are either mad or a fool.’
So, here it was. Here was what he had suspected all along. Ælfhelm had turned even his own sons against him.
‘Has Ælfhelm persuaded you, then, to his point of view?’ he demanded. ‘All of you?’ He raked them all with his glance, but no one would answer that query. Even Athelstan looked somewhat taken aback now, by his own audacious words. ‘I knew when I placed you under Ælfhelm’s leadership that he would try to twist your minds against me, but I had hoped that my sons would show more fealty to their father and king. It seems that my trust was misplaced.’
‘My lord,’ Athelstan’s tone was placating now. ‘I did not mean to—’
‘I know exactly what you meant. By word and deed you have declared yourself. Since you hold my marriage and my queen in such low esteem, you are banished from my presence and from my court. Get you to St Albans, all three of you, until I send for you again. Lord Ælfhelm has taught you to question your king. Let us see if the good brothers at the abbey can teach you patience and humility. Now get out.’
Outside the king’s chamber Athelstan halted, stunned by his own temerity and what it had wrought. He felt his brothers’ СКАЧАТЬ