Shadow on the Crown. Patricia Bracewell

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       25th December 1001

       Aldeborne Manor, Northamptonshire

      Elgiva of Northampton – great-granddaughter of Wulfsige the Black, granddaughter of the Lady Wulfrun of Tamworth, and only daughter of Ælfhelm, ealdorman of Northumbria – stood at her chamber window and saw with satisfaction that a heavy snow was once more piling up against her father’s manor walls. The massive drifts would keep the men indoors for several days, and that suited her purpose exactly.

      She sat down upon a stool and gestured to a servant to latch the wooden shutter against the cold. Pulling her thick woollen shawl closer about her, she tried to control her impatience as her old nurse stood behind her and used deft fingers to tame her mass of dark curls. She must look her best at tonight’s Yule feast. There were royal visitors awaiting her in the hall, and if events played out as she intended, she would soon be sharing her bed with the eldest son of the king. After that it would be a simple enough matter for her father to negotiate whatever details were necessary to arrange a royal marriage.

      She picked up a silver mirror and contemplated the perfect arch of her dark brows, then angled the disk to reflect Groa’s aged face beneath her grey linen headrail. That face was as familiar to Elgiva as her own, yet there were secrets behind the shadowy grey eyes that she had never been able to fathom.

      ‘Tell me again,’ she said, ‘about the prophecy.’

      Groa’s normally brooding expression lit up with a rare, knowing smile.

      ‘You are destined for queenship, my lady,’ she said. ‘Your children will be kings. You have but to reach out your hand and grasp what you desire.’

      Elgiva pursed her lips, studying their fullness in the mirror.

      ‘I intend to,’ she said. ‘I intend to make Athelstan desire me tonight.’ She wanted him to hunger for her body in exactly the way the priests railed against in their sermons.

      ‘How can he not?’ Groa asked. ‘You are as beautiful as you are wealthy. Even the king desired you, and you were but a child then.’

      Elgiva smiled, relishing the memory of her meeting with the king at Yuletide three years before. She had bribed a servant to help her escape from an evening of prayer in Lady Ælfgifu’s chamber, and in the dark passage outside she had unwittingly stumbled into the king. Æthelred had saved her from a fall by pulling her hard up against him, holding her there for far longer than necessary while he inquired if she was hurt. She had answered him with her most beguiling smile, had eagerly pressed her body against his as he held her close. Then, with a skill she could not help but admire, he had slipped a hand through the neckline of her cyrtel to fondle her breast. She had let him do it, of course, because he was the king, and because she had been too astonished to protest. Besides, she had liked it. Who would have guessed that a man so old could have such eloquent, liquid hands?

      She had dared to hope that he would lead her to his chamber, but it was at that interesting moment that one of his attendants had come to drag him to some meeting or other, and so her brief little tryst with Æthelred had ended.

      Angling the mirror a little lower she studied her full breasts and the necklace of thick gold that had been a gift from her brother Wulf. It had been Wulf who had told her father about her little interlude with the king. Her father, who had ever been one to strike first and ask questions later, had cuffed her so hard that her mouth and nose had bled. He would have hit her again had Groa not come between them, fingering the pagan amulet she wore at her throat and threatening him with a curse. That had stayed her father’s hand, for he was wary of Groa and her curses and potions. Still, her father had hurled filthy words at Elgiva, calling her a cunt and a whore, and he had sent her from court that very day. She still hated him for that, but she had learned a lesson. She was very careful now about what secrets she confided to her favourite brother.

      ‘I am glad,’ she said, ‘that I did not give my maidenhead to the king. It would have been a waste.’

      ‘As he already has a wife,’ Groa replied, her face in the mirror gone all grim again, ‘it would have done you little good, to be sure.’

      Well, it might have got her more lands and more money if she had become the king’s leman, but she was already one of the wealthiest women in the realm, and one of the few who owned her estates outright. Still, it would not have made her queen, and that was what she truly wanted. Groa had said she would be the mother of kings, after all, so it must mean that she was meant to wed Athelstan, who would surely take the throne when his father died.

      And for the next two weeks, Athelstan and two of his brothers would be under this roof for the Yule feast. It was perfect.

      Even better, her father was not here, although he had nearly ruined everything by insisting that she go south with him to attend the king’s Yule. He would have had her spend Christmas Day on her knees mouthing prayers with the king’s wife and her ladies. She had gulled him out of that, though, and she smiled to herself as she remembered how her father’s brow had darkened when she casually said that she hoped to become much better acquainted with the king during her time at court. He had raised a threatening hand, and she had feared that he might strike her, but Groa had whisked her out of the chamber, scolding like mad, and that had saved her. After that nothing more had been said about taking her south, and with her father and elder brother now gone, she could do as she pleased. Wulf certainly would not stop her.

      ‘I think that Lord Athelstan has a look of the king about him,’ she observed. They had the same golden hair and square, pleasing face.

      Groa snorted. ‘When I saw him in the yard this morning he had the look of a man who spends more time grooming his horse than he does himself.’

      ‘I did not ask for your opinion,’ Elgiva snapped. ‘And you are not being fair. Any man looks unkempt when he has been riding.’ Besides, there was an air about Athelstan, an unconscious swagger that she found infinitely appealing. At sixteen years old he was the heir to the throne of all England, and no one knew it better than he did.

      She had watched from the hall steps as he rode through the gate, and he had lifted his eyes to hers and snared her in an unsettling blue gaze. She had seen it then, that awareness of just exactly who and what he was. He had worn it like a mantle, and from that instant she had wanted to wrap herself in it.

      One day Athelstan would be the most powerful man in the realm, and her destiny, she was certain, must СКАЧАТЬ