by M J Porter
Leofric stayed with Harthacnut, mainly because the queen had sent no one else to escort him, and throughout the afternoon his own men staggered from their sleep and joined in with the display, or stood and jeered from the sidelines at the grown men, although never at Harthacnut.
Leofric laughed at the devious tactics the Danish men employed and then held his breath with trepidation as Harthacnut took his own place amongst the smaller of the men, his sword blunt but heavy, and his small byrnie reaching far below his knees. Others might have thought he looked comical, but the harsh glare of his eyes seeking out any who tried to smirk at his appearance, so closely reminded everyone of his father, that no one spoke against him, although as he beat back his first opponent, the jeering did return to the training space and the lad’s face turned from angry and daring to delighted and pleased.
Leofric kept a close watch for any sign that Godwine was leaving Winchester, but no horses were saddled near the stables and no provisions brought through the gate of the king’s residence. He knew that inside the queen and Godwine had probably spent the afternoon quarreling, or fuming at each other’s stubbornness and he was dismayed when Godwine sought him out late in the afternoon. He’d hoped he’d not be called upon to replay the king’s words in his presence.
It seemed that Harthacnut had suffered no serious worries about his journey to England and his energy was far surpassing even the more brutal of the household warriors. As more and more of the young men and seasoned warriors excused themselves to slump on the floor and drink vast quantities of ale to quench their thirst, Harthacnut remained focused and keen to learn anything he could, from anyone who’d teach him.
Godwine’s voice at his ear recalled Leofric to the problems of the court and he turned in surprise to look at the earl. It wasn’t often that he had any individual contact with Godwine, yet it was equally obvious that the man was keeping a close eye on him.
“The queen tells me that Cnut was clear in his instructions.” Godwine’s voice was low and secretive, and Leofric didn’t like the implication behind it at all.
“The queen speaks the truth,” Leofric acknowledged, turning his gaze back to the young prince, and hoping that would be the end of it. Sadly it wasn’t.
“So you failed to avert a war and now I have to go and fight it in your place,” Godwine goaded, his words clipped and angry.
“Olaf Haraldsson and Anund Jakob have their mind as firmly set on war as Cnut does. There was nothing that could be done and at least I brought back the king’s treasure without having lost any of it. There was no need to waste it on Olaf when he was already about to head out to rendezvous with Anund Jakob.”
“Did you even try and reason with Olaf Haraldsson?” Godwine hissed angrily, and Leofric, more than annoyed by the insinuations in his words, turned to glare at the earl.
“Olaf Haraldsson was only in Trondheim to gather the rest of his men, the ships had already left and he was to travel overland to meet with Anund Jakob and his ship-army in Skåne. It was too late. There was nothing to be done. For fuck sake man, if they didn’t want war, they wouldn’t have bloody well killed Thorkell. Everyone knows how much he meant to the king.”
His ire roused, he glared at Earl Godwine, expecting an apology or an admission that it was unfair to question him, but all he received was a heated gaze and the sight of the man’s stiff back walking away from him.
Leofric watched him, his anger simmering. How dared Godwine question him? What did he have to gain by incorrectly relaying the king’s wishes? What did Godwine gain by failing to heed the king’s instructions, and what was it that he was so bloody scared of?
When they’d gone to fight for Cnut against the initial attacks against Denmark and the Jomsvikings, they’d barely engaged in war, but had managed to repel the attack they had faced in Hedeby. Yes, Leofric had earned the king’s thanks for his actions, but then he’d been sent home and Earl Godwine had been able to stay and grow his reputation throughout the rest of the altercations.
Would he not wish to do so again? How else could he do so without supporting the king fully?
Leofric suddenly realized that being back in England was no safer than being on the high seas. There was no surety of supporters or of patrons. He’d need to meander his own way between the factions and self-interest at the king’s court, just as his father had done in the past.
He hardly felt as though he had the will to do so, until Harthacnut ran to his side, his face muddy and sweaty, but a grin of delight all over it.
“Can I come again tomorrow?” he demanded and Leofric met the amused smirk of Brothor.
“If your mother agrees to it,” he offered, bowing to the boy and moving away quickly. Leofric was incensed once more that Godwine had interrupted his observations on the lad’s training, but he’d seen enough to know that Harthacnut was going to be a formidable warrior, just like his father and grandfather had been. He wondered just what that might do to the dynamics of the English court?
Chapter 8
AD1026 Worcester
With permission from the queen, and aware that Earl Godwine was still angrily refusing to carry out the king’s instructions, Leofric finally returned home. He’d already sent word to Orkning’s wife of her husband’s delayed return. He wished he could go himself, but Orkning’s family lived on the coast, too far away from Worcester for him to be able to travel there quickly.
He was met joyously but also with some nervousness, and he’d barely walked through the door of his hall when he realized why. He’d wanted to show his wife his new sword but instead he hastily covered it on his saddle, hoping his men would know to keep it out of sight.
He had a visitor, or rather his wife did, and it was one to make his already difficult balancing act that little bit more difficult.
Lady Ælfgifu was a beautiful woman. She always had been and he couldn’t deny that he’d been jealous when Cnut had married her, or admiring of the audacity of his plan to gain acceptance in the northern and central parts of England where King Æthelred had lost many loyal supporters because of his reliance on the rapacious Ealdorman Eadric.
Yet, his marriage to her had been short-lived; his need for a strong queen, one who already held the hearts of his English subjects, had made him turn to Emma, and away from Ælfgifu. Yet, in the years since, he’d not fully abandoned her, and even now she held her own virtual court in Northampton, her home, and the men and women of Northumbria and the Eastern Mercian lands, had no qualms at treating her with a great deal of respect. It was a situation that was largely ignored at Emma’s court, but many within Mercia acknowledged it.
To have her in his house now was problematic. Queen Emma had made it clear that she was keen to favor him again, Earl Godwin that he wasn’t, and the king, trying to keep the peace between his former and current wife, rarely made any public statement about his own intentions. It seemed that his wife was becoming so impatient with their situation that she was prepared to entertain Lady Ælfgifu and whatever it was that she was currently scheming to be involved in.
Yet, she was still the king’s first wife, the mother of his eldest sons. She did have power and no one had been specifically told to ignore her, it was simply a matter of expediency to do if you relied on Queen Emma’s good graces.
He held his grimace in check. He could be polite to her, see exactly what her intentions were and then make a decision after he’d heard her out. Earl Godwine could make of it what he wanted, if he heard about it, and it wasn’t the king who’d be angered, but rather Emma.
“My lady,” he offered with a smile of welcome. Whatever difficulties she presented to him, he could be pleasant and pleased to see her. It wasn’t as if he needed to pretend to either of those emotions. He’d known her for a very long time.
“My lord,” she retorted, her eyes keen and searching his face. Her breathing was a little fast and he realized that she wished to know how her husband fared in his battle and that she was worried about him. The emotion was more rampant tha
n any that Emma would allow to show on her own face in public. Her years of marriage to Æthelred had given her an almost unreadable expression.
“The king is well, or he was when I left him near Ribe. He journey’s to intercept Anund Jakob and Olaf Haraldsson. I returned to England at his command.” Ælfgifu relaxed imperceptibly at the news and Leofric congratulated himself on his bland words. He’d made no reference to Emma or Harthacnut in his little recap of events.
“The news pleases me,” Ælfgifu uttered, before changing her demeanor and the flow of the conversation abruptly.
“Your wife has kindly given me shelter for the last few nights. I plan to visit those loyal to my sons and their king.” She frowned faintly as she spoke. Her words were as clever as Leofric’s own and he nodded as though they spoke of small matters, and not the possibility of building a faction for her eldest son to counter the power of Emma’s own son. She’d probably not been happy to learn that Harthacnut was back in England or that Leofric had been instrumental in bringing him home, but she’d recovered from her surprise quickly.
“Swein and Harald are well?” Leofric asked, delighted when his own son rushed to greet him in his great hall, his games forgotten about. His son was small for his age, but agile on his feet and a quick thinker. As he waited for the queen to reply, he examined his son, noticing the faint bruise on his chin and the slight chip on his front tooth. He turned to meet his wife’s eyes and she shrugged as though it was a normal occurrence, even though it wasn’t.
“A childhood accident, nothing to worry about,” she said softly, brokering no further questions with her no-nonsense tone, and it was then that Leofric realized that both Swein and Harald had accompanied their mother on her journey. This made it even more difficult for him to determine what he should do.
The boys trailed inside the hall, their faces streaked with mud and filth and sweat. It was obvious that the three boys had been engaged in a boisterous game and that Ælfgar had come off the worst of the three. Leofric suppressed a sigh of irritation with his wife and with the whole situation.
He’d just wanted to come home, not walk from one highly fraught political game straight into another. Yet Ælfgifu smiled at his words, pleased no doubt that he remembered their names.
“Their father is proud of them. He found the time to visit with them before he travelled to Denmark,” that both surprised and worried Leofric. It seemed that whatever they’d spoken about during that meeting, Ælfgifu was keen to use it as a means of justifying what she was now doing.
Leofric wondered if that had truly been the king’s intentions or if another ambitious woman was simply angling to make her sons powerful men when they were grown.
Not that Leofric couldn’t sympathize with Ælfgifu. Cnut’s treatment of her had been poor, offering her a queen ship and then, when all the hard work was done, and the battle won, gifting it to another woman, simply because she could bring him the stability he thought he needed after his murdering of Eadric and Northman.
In the process he’d been lucky that Ælfgifu had retreated from the mind’s eye quite so quickly and with little fuss. It seemed that her intentions might have been turned to a future goal, and that Cnut might share that viewpoint with her.
“The king didn’t mention his meeting with you, but then, we only spoke briefly. He had war on his mind.”
Leofric didn’t miss the flash of fury in Ælfgifu’s eyes but she covered it quickly and turned her attention to her sons, issuing a string of instructions for them to wash and change before dinner. It seemed that Ælfgifu had brought her own inner circle of women with her, and Leofric began to appreciate that this was far, far more than just a casual visit. Ælfgifu meant to show her sons off as they grew into men and win for them the sort of support she thought that the sons of a king should have.
He met his wife’s open expression again, amazed at her fierce resolve to show no emotion on her face. He wouldn’t know what she thought of the boys until they spent some time alone. Aware that Ælfgifu was watching him expectantly, he decided to hear her out first and deal with the aftermath later.
“A walk my lady?” he asked courteously, “I’ve been riding all day and need to do something to ease my backs and legs.”
She allowed him to lead her outdoors, her hand resting on his arm, and once outside the hall he looked about for some sort of inspiration. Where could he take her where they wouldn’t be overheard? His hall was a swirl of activity, men and women busy about their tasks during the warm summer’s day. He eyed his men who were seeing to the needs of the horses critically, and happy that the animals were being given what they needed, indicated that they should walk out onto the open track-way that lead to and from his hall and which he’d just ridden down.
The hall wasn’t as large as his father’s long time home in Deerhurst, but with his father’s death, he’d felt it was time to lay claim to another home, one where he wouldn’t have felt as though he was constantly being watched by Earl Eilifr and Earl Hakon, the men who’d replaced his father as earls in Mercia. He was proud of his home, but missed Deerhurst. When the king finally rewarded him with the title of earl, he planned on returning to Deerhurst permanently. Although when that would be, he little knew.
“I apologize if my visit is unexpected,” Ælfgifu began as they stepped onto the track-way, the mud hard-cracked in places in the summer heat.
“There’s no need to express regret, I imagine my own appearance here was perhaps a surprise to you as well and that you expected me to be away for much of the summer on the king’s business.”
Leofric had the satisfaction of seeing the confirmation of his words in a swift play of emotions over her face, and he began to appreciate that she was trying to act stealthily, perhaps bring some of the more prominent Mercian families into her obit through the wives of the men. It was an intriguing and devious idea.
“I did expect you to be fighting with the king, yes,” she offered and there was some censure in her voice, perhaps for his failure to support the man she still cared deeply for, the father of her children.
He considered that before he spoke again. Cnut had been cruel to her, and yet she probably still wanted him as a husband. Perhaps he should give her more credit for her tactics than he had done. She could have acted in an underhand manner and worked to discredit the queen and her son, instead she simply wanted to counter their influence.
“The King sent me home to inform the queen and Earl Godwine of his intentions. Anund Jakob and Olaf Haraldsson have no interest in a peace and Cnut wants his revenge for the death of Thorkell and the other infringements they’ve made on lands he considers a part of his Empire.”
The use of the word ‘empire’ caused her to suck in a deep breath, and again he was left wondering what it was that Cnut had spoken to his first wife about. Had he made her promises as well? What sort of political intrigue was he about to be caught up in again?
“He spoke to me of his ambitions,” she said, walking around a pile of horse manure in the middle of the track-way with a slight wrinkle of disgust on his face. The summer heat was bringing a heady mixture of smells their way on the gentle breeze and he almost wished he’d stayed inside to have their conversation.
“And did you speak of your own?” he interjected and she used the horse manure as a distraction to turn her face away from him. Still, he could tell that she’d flushed in some embarrassment at having her motives uncovered so easily.
“I think you spend too much time at the Witan, Sheriff Leofric,” she said, with asperity, “it seems that you see conspiracy where none exists.”
Leofric couldn’t help it, he laughed at the outrage in her voice and stopped to stare at her.
“I think you spend too little time there if you don’t expect your motives to be so easily discerned. Surely, you’ve had the same conversations with the other ‘allies’ you’ve tried to cultivate on your little summer trip?”
Now she looked angry but Leofric didn’t regret his wo
rds. He’d not asked to be embroiled in whatever it was that Lady Ælfgifu was trying to do, but neither had he turned his back on her ambitions. But she would need to comport herself far more cleverly if she was to accomplish what she wanted.
She walked ahead, and Leofric let her go, let her have time to decide what she wanted to do next. He was in no rush. He was trying to push her; determine if she came alone or under the instructions of his king. He needed to know if she acted in isolation or if she had his support. It would affect what his own actions were but he doubted she’d tell him if she came at Cnut’s insistence.
Cnut had his eye on much more than just England and Denmark, and Leofric understood the raw ambition of the man. He’d do anything to get what he wanted.
Still, they walked on in silence and Leofric had almost forgotten that he wasn’t unaccompanied when she spoke again.
“My sons are the king’s as well. Promises have been made on their behalf, but they need the prospect of having their own allies, to build their own following. I have supporters because of who my father was and what Æthelred did to my brothers. They’ve been loyal all these years, and they give their allegiance to Cnut because I demand it from them. They’ll support my sons when the time comes, but to make it more than just a north/south divide, they need their own faction, men or boys that they’ve recruited themselves.”
“They’ll never have the opportunities that their father had.” She spoke plainly but with feeling and Leofric found it strange to think of the battles that Cnut had engaged in as opportunities, but Ælfgifu was right to think so, and really, her thoughts were little different from his own when he considered his father’s own opportunities.
Their small world had changed when Cnut became king. If he were successful in expanding his empire at the expense of Anund Jakob and Olaf Haraldsson, there would be peace throughout his kingdom. That would hamper the efforts of even more men who wanted to use their military prowess as a means of coming to the attention of the king.