The Earl of Mercia

by M J Porter

  “So instead you want to infiltrate as many households as you can with the charm your sons have, and use it to make loyal followers for yourself. If that’s the plan, I’d suggest you tell your sons not to beat up the son of their host,” Leofric spoke with some feeling, relieved to have said what had been plaguing him since he returned home and set eyes on his son.

  “They’re a little boisterous,” she offered with a shrug of her shoulders, and Leofric bit back his reply.

  “They need to earn the respect of boys they want to become men and support them, not rule them through fear.”

  “Hah, your son wasn’t fearful of them,” she retorted and he looked at her, really looked at her, taking in the strained cast of her mouth, her haughty eyebrows and the faintest trace of wrinkles forming around her eyes and mouth. She wasn’t quite the beauty she’d once been. Perhaps her half fulfilled wishes of her future had soured her. He almost failed to recognise the woman he’d once thought desirable in her face as she spat angrily at him.

  “How would you know? Do you know my son or do you just see him for the potential he has for the future?”

  She chose to ignore than comment.

  “Cnut wasn’t an easy child,” she countered, “he fought with his blade and his axe, he was the son of his father, another warlike man.”

  “Only because the times dictated it,” Leofric chided gently. “They need to learn to be their own men, not to live off their father’s accomplishments. Believe me, I know,” it was the turn of his own face to grimace sourly, but Ælfgifu seemed unable to heed his words of advice.

  “If they’re to rule when they’re older then they must have their father’s reputation.”

  “It rather depends on where they’re going to rule?” Leofric prodded and she glared at him, perhaps furious that he could determine her ambitions.

  “Anyway, it’s not as if they have any opposition. Harthacnut is hidden away in Denmark, being raised by his aunt, not his mother, and that means that the people of England will more readily accept my sons.”

  “How sure are you that Harthacnut remains in Denmark?” he chided, annoyed by her attitude and her inability to heed any advice he tried to give her.

  “What?” she snapped, her eyes wild with fear as she glanced over her shoulder, as though Harthacnut and Emma might ride into view at any moment.

  “Tread carefully,” he offered, reaching out to touch her shoulder and return her to the here and now.

  “Harthacnut is back in England. It seems that Cnut doesn’t share all his plans with you.” He spoke delicately, realizing that his anger would accomplish nothing, and that she was as much a victim of Cnut’s whim as he was.

  He couldn’t imagine that the last few years had been easy ones for her. She was almost powerless until her sons grew to be men. She’d probably been planning this casual visit ever since Cnut had abandoned her in favor of Emma, the better political choice, although… Well, he couldn’t deny that Cnut was also attracted to Emma physically. Ælfgifu had needed to bide her time. It can’t have been easy.

  She accepted his touch without complaint, perhaps acknowledging that they’d not made a good start to their re-acquaintance but that it could perhaps still be salvaged, if she chose her words wisely, which, of course, she didn’t.

  “Bastard,” she muttered and angrily turned away, striding back towards his home. He watched her go, and didn’t think to call her back. He understood her antagonism, but also knew that she couldn’t spend all her time mouthing obscenities about her former lover. If she was still angry with him, she needed to reconcile herself to the truth of what had happened. No one would want to have anything to do with her if she showed her frustration and rage quite so easily.

  Men needed to know that they were acting in the best interests of Cnut, and not against him. Ælfgifu would have to appreciate that or her sons would end up as outlaws without any possibility of making a play for power using the name of their father.

  He sighed. This hadn’t been the homecoming he’d been hoping for. Not that Ælfgifu left his home immediately. While she chattered away to his wife, and his son endured the rougher play of Swein and Harald throughout the long evening, Leofric watched her carefully. She was still trying to find a way to make her long-gestating plans come to fruition and he knew as he settled into his bed that night that when he woke the next morning, he’d have to contend with another altercation with her. Or perhaps worse, she’d try to be reconciliatory.

  He groaned and ignored his wife’s contrite face and simply fell asleep. Surely having two wives was Cnut’s problem, not his own.

  Chapter 9

  AD1026 Worcester/Winchester

  The next morning started far too early, and went from bad to worse, so that by the time the evening had rolled around, Leofric was once more on his horse, heading for Winchester.

  He mused on his long day, as he rode through the extended summer dusk, grateful for some time alone with his thoughts. Even Olaf was silent at his side, as he too considered what Leofric had shared with him before they’d set out for the Witan. Olaf had quickly stepped into his missing brother’s role, and the fact he’d soon see his wife and daughter was an added attraction for Olaf to travel to the queen’s home at Winchester. It was one that Leofric didn’t share.

  The morning had begun with a small meal, presided over by his wife, but during which Lady Ælfgifu had spoken of her sons in such glowing terms that Leofric had thought she was speaking of someone else’s children. Certainly as both boys had wriggled and shuffled their way through her long diatribe, he’d seen none of the patience, education or good manners that she’d spoken of. He had, and he was loath to admit it, seen a lot of their father’s heritage in them.

  The boys shared his looks. None could deny that they were members of Cnut’s powerful lineage, and Leofric pitied them. If they’d been born in Denmark they’d have benefited from their looks, their aggressiveness and none would have thought to rein in such assertiveness, but in England, sensibilities were different. War no longer dominated, not unless it was with the Welsh or the Scottish, and little of it was more than just a skirmish by over eager warriors.

  Cnut, by leaving the boys with their mother, in her stronghold of Northampton, had probably hoped that they might grow to be Englishmen, men he could trust in the future with one of his earldoms and with supporting their half-brother as king of the empire that he was forging with steel and blood. It would though, perhaps, have suited everybody more if Swein and Harald had been taken to Denmark, to fulfill their father’s responsibilities there. Then he would have had two half-Danish heirs, as well as his half-Danish and half-Norman son.

  For such a young boy, Harthacnut was more refined, his thinking clearer, than his half-brothers seemed capable of, even though he too reveled in the thrill of his warrior training. It seemed, on Leofric’s acquaintance with the boys, that Swein and Harald were far blunter. They were almost more Viking than Cnut was.

  The thought amused Leofric and also worried him. The people of England had, albeit grudgingly, accepted Cnut as their king because of his abilities, his decisiveness and his military prowess. Already, Leofric could see that these two shared those abilities. Harthacnut didn’t. Not yet. It was possible he’d learn the same characteristics, but as Leofric felt his head filled with Ælfgifu’s words, the discordant images he had in his head clashed strongly, and he was left thinking that Cnut was doing everything in the wrong order.

  It should be Swein and Harald, namesakes of their grandfather and great-grandfather who’d been sent to be raised by his sister in Denmark, not Harthacnut with his more English outlook, inherited from his Normandy mother.

  When the meal finally ended, Leofric attempted to make his escape, but Lady Ælfgifu halted him, both by saying she planned to leave that day, and also by asking to speak to him in private one more time.

  Leofric had agreed, but with some unease. Ælfgifu had been trying to impress him and his wife with her son’s skills an
d their brute strength. It hadn’t worked and yet he imagined that she expected him to have changed his thinking, to offer something other than his words of the night before. Yet, nothing had altered and yet, he had to act in a conciliatory manner. Whatever Ælfgifu was trying to achieve, Cnut would hear about it and whether he wanted his allies to support her, was something that would only become clear then.

  He didn’t like the thought that anyone would even hear of her visit to him, and yet it was obvious that they would. He’d known that his attitude toward her might well undermine his increased goodwill from Emma for bringing Harthacnut home, if Emma heard about Ælfgifu’s demands on him, and if he was at all assuring to her.

  He’d not known what to say to Ælfgifu that would placate her, and neither had he known what he’d say to mollify Cnut and Emma. He’d thought it had been difficult enough with Earl Godwine and his contrary nature, but he’d decided that he’d rather have stayed and ensured Godwine left England to join Cnut, rather than walk home into such a politically fraught nightmare at home.

  Yet her words had been conciliatory.

  “I wished to apologize for my outburst yesterday. It’s not … it’s not always easy to be the one that was left behind,” she’d said, and although the words sounded right to his ears, her posture had been wrong. She’d been saying what she thought he wanted to hear and that had annoyed him. No doubt she’d been trying to appeal to his own difficulties with the king, and his own lack of an earldom. He’d wondered how long it would take her to offer him the earldom of Mercia if she supported him, as if it was hers to gift to him.

  But neither had he been able to ignore her attempt at reunion.

  “There’s no need to apologize, Lady Ælfgifu,” he’d hoped that the use of her honorific would appease the situation quickly. But he’d been disappointed.

  “There is and we both know it,” she’d pushed, waiting for him to accept her apology. Neither could he have done so in bad grace.

  “Then my thanks for the apology. I only wished you to be aware that events had moved on apace in the king’s campaign in his homelands.” He’d tried once more.

  “You did the right thing, of course you did. I think that I’ll take my sons home with me. Reconsider the discussion I had with my husband before he left for Denmark.”

  “My lady,” he’d said, bowing his head and hoping it would all be over soon, but instead Ælfgifu had moved closer, her voice conspiratorial.

  “My husband told me to come to you, to seek your wife out. He said I could trust your family, just as he did your own father. He told me. This wasn’t my idea. Remember that Leofric, when you look back on this moment. We stand on the cusp of Cnut obtaining all he’s ever wanted, and he’ll look to reward those who stand by him and his families.”

  “Yet he knew I’d be away?” Leofric had pushed, unhappy at the implication in Ælfgifu’s words.

  “My husband knows things that you don’t,” she’d offered with a conceited lift of her head, as she’d turned to walk back the way they’d just come. It seemed that she’d been warning him just as much as he’d been cautioning her.

  Leofric had remained on the track-way. He’d not wished to speak to Ælfgifu again, or witness her bullying sons take their leave of his own.

  His head had swum with the implication of her words. And even now, riding back to Emma and Cnut’s other son, he couldn’t fathom out what sort of twisted loyalties Cnut might have to all those around him. He’d known that Cnut would use his family to achieve the height of his ambitions; just as he’d already used his second wife, Emma, Leofwine, his own father and the Church to further those ends, but how much further he’d go, Leofric simply didn’t know.

  Would he truly risk alienating Emma and Risk the possibility of her discarding her own youngest son in favor of her old sons, the men who did have a far more legitimate claim on the kingdom than Cnut’s own sons did. After all, he was a conquering king, not a hereditary one. He’d not even been able to marry one of Æthelred’s own daughters to bring some idea of hereditary rights to his son. If anything, his sons with Lady Ælfgifu, and their link to the great noble families of the Northumbrian and the northern Mercian lands, were all the legitimacy those boys would need.

  Yet he’d cast Ælfgifu aside and taken Emma instead.

  Neither were the affairs of Cnut’s earls easy to sift through either. Emma had sent for him, urgently, worried by Earl Godwine’s lack of conviction in going to meet his king, as Cnut had commanded him. She’d asked Leofric to return, as he was now doing, so that he could once more speak the words he’d been told by his king before the Witan and force Godwine’s hand, or shame him into action, for if Emma couldn’t compel her husband’s earl to act as he must, she’d not be trusted with the governance of her kingdom should Cnut leave again. He wished she’d made him speak the words before she’d allowed him to travel home, but perhaps Godwine had made some overtures to suggest he would leave and Emma had taken him at his words.

  This was a matter of political need for her, and one of pragmatism for Godwine. He wanted to stay, rule in her place and prove that he was the most loyal of Cnut’s earls because he’d remained to secure England that had faltered under Emma’s rule.

  Only England was calm under Emma’s rule, and Godwine couldn’t really use that as an excuse. Not unless he caused trouble for the queen, and that was perhaps what she feared. Her messenger, sent via his sister, had been explicated in their demands, and also in her requirement that his return be done in utmost secrecy so that he arrived back at Winchester under cover of darkness.

  She’d given him little option but to obey her directives, and Leofric was chaffing under the controlling ways of Cnut’s two wives. He was beginning to wish he’d stayed in Norway, dawdled a little so that Cnut wouldn’t have met him near Ribe and burdened him with his commands for his wife and his earl, and returning his son to England.

  He was beginning to wonder whether each and every step had been taken to test his loyalty to his king. Or had it simply been that Cnut had changed his mind about offering Ælfgifu any hope of a future where their sons held any position of power.

  He wished he could ask him outright, but knew he’d never be able to. Cnut would be offended if he failed to understand the rules of politics as he was now playing them, and would probably unfairly compare him to his father. Leofwine had always instinctively understood every look and word uttered by both Æthelred and Cnut, and many others beside.

  Not for the first time he wished he’d had the same training his father had been given, but then, there was, just as Ælfgifu was finding out, a huge difference between a man forging his way when he has nothing but his name, and one where a man had his father’s name around his ankle, weighing him down and where every decision taken would be unfavorably compared to what his father might have done in the same circumstances.

  Neither had Godgifu been helpful either. She could only see the possibilities in being an acknowledged ally of Ælfgifu. She believed that Emma had reneged on promises made to Leofwine and that she was no ally of the House of Leofwine. But then, she had known Ælfgifu all her life, and her family had firmly sided with Ælfgifu’s father in his altercation with King Æthelred that had resulted in his murder.

  It was hard to make Godgifu understand that there was a huge difference between that affiliation and the politics being enacted at the king’s court.

  “Bloody women,” Olaf, finally uttered, as they rode into the slowly dying sunlight. He’d been quiet a long time, considering their dilemma, just as Leofric had been, but Leofric, finding that Olaf’s thoughts so closely mirrored his own, laughed at his friend and the stand-in commander of his household troops.

  “Bloody women indeed,” he laughed, and then he sobered a little.

  “Your mother was a respected woman. Did she meddle in your father’s affairs?” he asked curiously. He only had experience of his own mother and the queen. His mother had been a competent and loving woman, her death a real
shock to him, and yet she’d always been ferociously loyal to his father. He didn’t think he’d ever even heard them argue. That didn’t seem to be the case within his marriage.

  “My mother knew how to make my father do what she wanted, without him even realizing,” Olaf offered, a smile of delight on his face as he remembered his father fondly. “But he was a bloody stubborn Viking who thought of nothing other than war and bloodlust. He was easy to sway. You English, you’re far more difficult to cultivate in the same way. Too bloody thoughtful, all of you!”

  Leofric absorbed that surprised that Olaf was as aware as he was of the difference between the Vikings and the English.

  “That’s why you have a Danish king now. More action, less thought,” he continued to muse and Leofric agreed, although he didn’t necessarily want to.

  He’d often considered just how Cnut had won the kingdom of England. It had been his military prowess, his unfailing determination to claim the kingdom his father had fought so hard to take, only to die soon after. But it had also been a series of events, beyond Cnut’s control, that had given him all of England, that and his own father’s determination to somehow fulfill both his vow to Æthelred and his heirs and his one to Swein and his.

  Neither had been easy men to deal with for his father, but he’d done it all the same.

  But was it also more. Had Cnut succeeded because he simply didn’t think, but instead reacted quickly to events that happened around him?

  Or was he just a bastard, as his first wife had said, a bloody lucky bastard.

  “Women are just as powerful as men, in their own right,” Olaf continued, caught up in his thoughts, and Leofric’s question.

  “But they have to be as astute as men in ensuring they get what they want?”

  “Yes, but also no. They have other powers of persuasion, or so my father always said.”

  Leofric chuckled at that. Horic had been swayed by his wife on far too many occasions for him not to be aware of what was happening, but he’d also respected her, and let her win sometimes. Even Leofric understood that.