The Emma of Normandy 2-book Collection: Shadow on the Crown and The Price of Blood. Patricia Bracewell
afternoon shadows, and it was as if some good angel had taken pity on her.
‘I hoped to find you here,’ he said, his voice urgent. He drew her into the small, sheltered copse in the garden’s furthest corner.
‘Tell me what is happening,’ she begged. ‘I have been able to learn nothing, and I am afraid of what the king may be planning.’
But he ignored her question to ask his own.
‘You know what he said, don’t you?’ His eyes searched her face. ‘The man wielding the knife, you understood him.’
She remembered her mother’s advice, to keep secret her knowledge of the Danish tongue. It will not endear you to your new lord, and may breed mistrust.
When she made no reply Athelstan answered his own question.
‘Of course you understood him,’ he said. ‘Your mother is Danish. Jesu!’ He ran a frantic hand through his hair. ‘Does the king know?’
‘Only Margot knows,’ she said, ‘and now you.’
He drew in a breath and released it.
‘Keep your knowledge of Danish secret, lady,’ he said. ‘Guard it carefully, do you hear me?’
‘What is happening?’ she asked again.
‘The man who attacked the king is mad,’ he said, ‘his wits as shattered as broken glass. I have said as much to my father, but he will not listen. He is convinced that his throne is imperilled by Danish enemies within the realm, and he is taking steps to thwart them. There is to be no Christmas court. Tomorrow the younger children will go to the manor at Cookham, while I am ordered to Headington with Edmund and Ecbert. My father wants us scattered, so that we are less of a target.’ He grimaced. ‘There is more – and worse, I fear.’
She said nothing, waiting for the next blow.
‘He does not trust your Norman retainers,’ he said. ‘They are all to leave the court. Hugh will go to Exeter to act as reeve there for your dower lands. Your hearth guards are to accompany him, and your women as well, save one or two. You will be confined to the palace – to keep you safe.’
He had confirmed her worst fears. They would leave Winchester, all of them, while she remained here, a prisoner at the mercy of the king. She would be powerless and friendless, suspected of some imagined infamy.
She felt him grasp her shoulders as if to steady her, and she looked up into the now familiar blue eyes.
‘How soon?’ she asked.
‘Within the week.’
She closed her eyes. How would she bear it? Without her own people about her, the winter ahead loomed long, lonely, and frightening.
Without Athelstan, the days would be endless.
‘Emma,’ his voice was urgent again, and she opened her eyes to meet his. ‘I cannot be certain that this is all of it.’ He frowned, his expression grave. ‘There is a darkness in my father’s mind that I do not understand. You must promise me that you will be wary of him, that you will give him no excuse to cause you more grief. Promise me.’
She was aware, suddenly, of the silence in the garden. Even the birds had fled, and for the first time, she realized, they were alone, without children or servants or attendants. There were no eyes to observe them, no tongues to interpret every gesture and expression.
She lifted her hand to caress his cheek, with its rough, close-cropped beard.
‘I promise to be careful.’ She held her breath as he turned his head to press his lips against her palm. The tenderness of that touch made her heart dance with joy and her soul quail with terror. ‘You must go,’ she urged, ‘before someone comes. I pray God will keep you safe.’
‘Do you? I pray for something else – something that is a sin even to think about.’
His hands tightened on her shoulders and he kissed her – a bruising kiss that was as fierce and angry and desperate as a curse. An instant later he was gone and she was left alone with her fear, with the prospect of the dark, lonely winter that lay ahead, and with a heart broken by hopeless yearning.
One week after his feast day, the king summoned a select group of trusted councillors to a late-night meeting. The small chamber, wreathed in broad banks of candles, glowed with light, while the rest of the palace, and most of the people within it, slumbered in darkness. Half a dozen more candles burned amid a riot of drinking cups and pitchers of wine on the long table in the centre of the room.
Æthelred, seated at the table’s head, watched the men file in. He read the apprehension on their faces as they glanced nervously at the clerks behind him, who recorded the name of each man who entered. He had given no hint as to the purpose of the council. They would find out soon enough.
He bid the men seat themselves, and as servants moved among them to fill their cups, the mood in the chamber lightened appreciably. He drank little himself but watched, satisfied, as cups were emptied and refilled. Sober reflection was not what he required of these men tonight.
Finally he motioned for the servants to leave the room, all but the clerks whose duty it was to record what was said here, and what would be decided.
‘We are here,’ he said solemnly, fingering his beard, ‘to resolve the issue of the Danes who dwell within our borders. First I wish to discover the magnitude of the problem. What can you tell me?’
They needed little encouragement, for he had chosen these men with care. Each one had numerous tales of outrage to relate – incidents of stolen cattle, plundered churches, raped women, and all of it the work of renegade Danes. As the stories were told and the wine drunk, the anger around the table rose until it spilled out in curses and calls for revenge.
Æthelred let them vent their outrage unhindered. He had already made up his mind about what must be done. The creature that had accosted him in the minster square was merely a symptom of a much larger disease. England was littered with bands of restless Viking mercenaries, seasoned warriors with no allegiance to anyone but their own leaders and the gold that was paid them. They had been of use to him once. Now, having proved that they could not be trusted, they remained in the land like a contagion. Men like Pallig, with too little to occupy them and no ties of loyalty to control them, were cankers that sickened his realm. He had no choice but to cut them out before they formed an army and destroyed him.
At the far end of the table, Eadric of Shrewsbury described the theft of a herd of horses and the torching of a barn, and then slammed his fist against the board.
‘My lord, these men live among us, but they remain outside the law,’ he said. ‘They answer to no one. We fear, and rightly, the men of the dragon ships who steal our food, our goods, and our women. But we should fear even more the like-minded devils that dwell among us who do not have to cross the Danish sea to murder us.’
Æthelred nodded as cries of assent rumbled around the table. It was time for the final act. He signalled to the door ward, and then he said, above the din, ‘My lords, I have myself been the victim of these godless men. They have gone so far as to raise their hands against your king.’ There were shouts of shock and outrage, and before they could die down he cried, ‘The foreign devil that would have slain me stands there!’
He pointed to the ragged, black-clothed figure that stood in the doorway between two guards. The creature’s reddened, malevolent eyes searched the room, and when they found Æthelred the monster howled like an animal that scents his prey. Straining against his bonds, hands outstretched as he tried in vain to hurl himself at the king, he shouted the Danish curses that had been the only words to escape his lips from the moment he was taken.
The men seated around the table were struck dumb. The abbot made the sign of the cross.
Æthelred, assured that his prisoner had had