Shadow on the Crown. Patricia Bracewell

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       July 1002

       Near Winchester, Hampshire

      Emma, tucked into the royal wain with Wymarc and Margot, surveyed the sun-dappled Hampshire countryside – a vista framed by draperies that had been tied back to let in light and air. The view was the only thing pleasant about this leg of the journey, for the thick cushions lining the seat beneath her did little to absorb the shock of the wagon’s jolting passage along the deeply rutted road. She could not decide which was more uncomfortable – travel aboard a heaving longship or inside a teeth-jarring wheeled box. The box, at any rate, was always dry, but the heavy, cumbersome vehicle moved so slowly behind its plodding oxen that Emma was convinced it would have been faster to walk.

      She was relieved that this long trek to the royal seat of Winchester was nearly over. They would spend tonight in an abbey, and tomorrow, escorted by a delegation of clergy and prominent citizens, she would enter the city that was to be her new home. Father Martin knew Winchester well, and he had described it as a beautiful walled town set amid folds of forest, field, and pasture in the king’s heartland of Wessex. Yet, as she looked out at all the different shades of green below a wide blue-and-white sky, she felt a pang of longing for the sea. Here there would be no shore where she could ride with the salt spray upon her face, no white cliffs, not even the call of seabirds that had sometimes filled the skies above Canterbury.

      Just then the road curved, and for a few moments she could see Æthelred mounted on the horse that had been her wedding gift to him – a dappled grey stallion that Richard had helped her choose. She had begged to be allowed to ride with the king today but had been refused for a host of reasons that his steward had tediously itemized for her. And so it was the king’s favourite, Elgiva, who rode beside him, her skirts pulled up across her knees to reveal shapely legs that her thin hose did little to hide.

      It did not surprise Emma to learn that it was Æthelred’s custom to have favourites among the ladies of the court. It was something her brother had warned might happen, and he had told her that she would be foolish to show any displeasure because of it. It was a king’s prerogative, he had said.

      Emma would have found her husband’s prerogative far easier to live with if he had chosen someone other than Elgiva for his attentions. She had learned very quickly the root cause of Elgiva’s thinly disguised contempt: the Lady of Northampton had herself hoped to wed the king and as she could not punish Æthelred for spurning her, she chose to turn her malice upon Emma, the usurper.

      There were a thousand ways to sow discord among a household of women, and Elgiva seemed determined to utilize every one. Haughty glances, unkind remarks, baseless rumours, and spiteful tales had led to a clear divide between Emma’s English and Norman attendants, and she despaired of ever finding a way to repair it. Elgiva’s blatant efforts to attract the king’s eye did not help.

      Even beyond that, though, there was something about Elgiva’s nature that troubled Emma. She could not make out if it was the careless cruelty of a spoiled child or if something darker lay concealed beneath the fair skin and fine eyes. She wondered that the king did not see it. Or perhaps he did, and that was what intrigued him the most – darkness drawn to darkness.

      For although she still knew very little about Æthelred as a man, she knew that across his soul lay a shadow that she could not fathom. He was very much afraid, this king. She had seen it at their wedding feast, and in the three months that she had shared his bed, he had been troubled by dark dreams. She had sometimes wakened in the night to find the bedchamber bright with candles and the king slowly pacing, murmuring to himself – whether prayers or curses she could not say.

      She wondered what he saw there, in the long watches of the night, but she did not have the courage to attempt to probe the dark visions in his mind – whether shadows of memory or of things yet to be. Æthelred had barred her from his private thoughts, and even from his presence, as surely as if he had built a wall between them – or built a wall around her, for she was more prisoner than wife or queen.

      She saw him only in the formal feasting in the hall or in the strained, cold silence of their bed. In Canterbury she had not been allowed to ride or hunt with him – for fear of her safety, she had been told. She was no more than a foreign hostage – mistrusted by her lord. She was watched constantly by the women who served her, and every missive she sent or received from Normandy passed first through the hands of the king.

      She woke each day dreading that some ill tidings would reach the king about her brother or about some monstrous Viking raid that could be laid to Richard’s account. And what, she wondered, would Æthelred do to his hostage then? Up to now those fears had been groundless, but the sea lanes would be open for many weeks yet, and until winter storms kept the dragon ships from venturing onto England’s shores, she, like the king, would not rest easily at night.

      She gazed out at the green land that was so beautiful and told herself that she must not despair. Yet she doubted that she would ever feel that she belonged in this place, or that she could ever care for the dark king who ruled it.

      The road curved again, and again she saw Æthelred with Elgiva beside СКАЧАТЬ