The Betrothed Sister

by Carol McGrath

  In that moment Thea decided that she did not like the idea of being surveyed by strangers alongside the Danish princesses, her tresses loose as if they were in a slave market. Gytha’s shortened veil was delicate and it would frame her hair to advantage. She would wear it.

  Gudrun broke into her thoughts exclaiming, ‘The princesses will never compete with you no matter how they dress this afternoon.’

  Thea dropped the veil on top of the gown. ‘I hope it does not give them any more cause to dislike me than they have already.’

  When King Sweyn had confirmed yesterday that the Russian ambassadors expected to see the recently arrived Saxon princess whom they called Gita, the Danish sisters had been openly rude, repeating that Russian princes liked Danish princesses. Danish princesses knew every household task so that they could oversee their household servants. What did Thea know of bee keeping and cheese-making, brewing and baking cakes?

  Thea had coolly replied, ‘Nothing that cannot yet be learned.’ At this retort the princesses had looked away with scowls on their faces, and she was sure she had heard one of them mutter ‘Shrew,’ beneath her breath.

  When Elizaveta had entered the sewing chamber she admired the embroidery on Thea’s napkin. The four princesses had smiled sweetly at their stepmother and nodded. Ingegerd remarked that, thanks to their help, Thea was improving her embroidery skills. Thea had bit back her angry retort. Elizaveta was blind. How could she not see through her stepdaughters’ behaviour? How could she not see that her own daughter was lying? Thea was teaching herself the colourful Danish embroidery, though any possible enthusiasm for Danish embroidery had been quelled by the Danish princesses’ cruel behaviour.

  ‘My lady, I am always delighted to learn new skills,’ she said to Queen Elizaveta with a smile playing about her mouth. The princesses had the grace to look away. Ingegerd raised a haughty eyebrow and said, ‘She learns our ways very well, Mother.’

  ‘And Thea is a lovely young lady, always gracious.’ Elizaveta frowned at her stepdaughters. ‘I am sure you can learn much from Thea too.’ Dutifully the girls nodded. ‘Yes, my lady,’ the eldest of them said, speaking for them all. Thea managed her most gracious smile at them, though she did not feel in the least courteous.

  The princesses were to demonstrate a dance for the ambassadors and they would present gifts to them. Thea knew that in this she could excel. She could outdance them all and if they were asked to play music, Padar had taught her an intricate and haunting tune on the flute. She asked her grandmother if she would present a gift too. ‘No, Thea, but I shall on your behalf and it will be a great gift. I shall present them with a relic for the Patriarch of Novgorod.’

  Thea wondered if the countess had stripped the Exeter minster of all its precious relics. When she asked, Gytha replied, ‘Only the three that I had given to the Exeter minster. I had no intention of them ending up in a Norman cathedral.’

  ‘May I comb out your hair, Lady Thea? I think it is almost dry,’ Gudrun was saying, lifting a comb from Thea’s little table.

  ‘I think you may, Gudrun. I shall sit on your stool so that you can reach.’ Thea replaced the silver and sapphire fillet and gossamer-thin silk veil carefully on her bed as Gudrun scrambled from her seat.

  The royal family attended midday prayers. When afternoon arrived, Thea felt her heart hammering against her ribs. She took a deep breath to steady her nerves. The royal princesses swept from the chapel and entered the porch that opened into the great hall, led by their governess, Lady Eleanor, a strict woman just returned from France, where she had remained all summer with her own noble family, attending her mother’s funeral, helping her younger sisters by settling two of them in a nunnery and the third into a marriage with an aging widower who kept the neighbouring lands. Her only brother was young and her father was surely dying, she told them with sadness in her eyes.

  On her timely return, order filled the sewing room. Under her strict rule the princesses behaved with decorum. The preparations for the girls’ appearance in front of the ambassadors had proceeded pleasantly. Lady Eleanor had warmed towards Thea and during the few days preceding the presentation, Thea had relaxed. ‘It’s actually enjoyable now we have Lady Eleanor with us,’ she had confided to Gudrun.

  Gudrun laughed and said to her, ‘Well, is it because the princesses have been so unkind to us or is it because you want love that you wish to win this prince, my lady?’

  She had replied solemnly, ‘I want to be loved, Gudrun, and I think I shall love him with all my heart.’ She had bitten her lip and tasted the salty flavour of blood. I can’t be sure of that though, she thought to herself. Nothing in my life has ever been sure. Those who once loved me are gone from me. I only have grandmother, maybe Gudrun and possibly Padar. How long will they remain in my life? My brothers will leave me too, but one day, I will have my own beloved companion to share my life and he will love me back.

  Lady Eleanor was flat-chested and dressed simply as became her station. She was swathed from head to foot in pale linen which did not become her pasty complexion, or what could be seen of it, because her wimple tightly framed her face, making it look grotesquely shrunken. Her gown was girdled by a silver belt from which dangled a small bunch of keys, a pair of golden scissors and a purse. Thea supposed Lady Eleanor’s presence would give the impression that her charges were serious young women, well-educated and carefully schooled in household duties, thus the purse, keys and the scissors.

  The king’s eldest daughters, Helene and Ragnhild, directly following Lady Eleanor, glided through the outer door wearing scarlet gowns that were much too elaborate and did not suit them. They wore bright emeralds, sapphires and garnets set into rings and bracelets and sewn onto the sleeve borders of their gowns. Gunnhild and Guttorm, the younger sisters, tripped in behind their sisters, their overgowns blue as was her own, but as Thea noted, they were overly decorated with garish embroidery.

  Thea walked slowly to her assigned place at the rear of the group. The princesses knew, and she knew, too, that she outshone them all in her rich blue gown with its simple pearls and her circlet of silver and sapphires. They looked her up and down; they looked away and at each other. The eldest girl remarked, ‘Pity she is so tall.’ It was as if she was not there, a ghost girl, an intruder.

  Before they passed through the tall doors into the great feasting hall, Thea removed her circlet. She set it down on a side table in the entrance porch, unpinned the gossamer-fine veil from inside one of her sleeves and carefully placed it on her head. Replacing the silver circlet, she felt her hair fall in coils below it. The effect would be remarkable. Her delicate veil would frame her perfectly symmetrical oval face and yet it would allow her russet hair to show to advantage. As she walked forward, she glanced into the surface of a silver urn and nodded.

  Guttorm turned to her and gasped rudely, ‘What are you doing?’

  Thea smiled, knowing with not a little satisfaction that she was disobeying their father. I mark myself out, she thought. I am not prepared to be herded in front of them as if I am a slave at one of the auctions these foreigners hold in their Russian ports, though she conceded to herself that at least her Uncle Sweyn never kept slaves, since the Church disapproved vigorously of the practice. Yet this was, in effect, how they were being presented to the wealthy Russian diplomats.

  Once inside the great oak doors, her eyes were drawn to her uncle, who was seated on his great carved throne, presiding over the sumptuous hall. Today he wore a tunic of purple edged with gold embroidery, as if he was an emperor from olden years. Her eyes glided to the three Russian ambassadors seated to King Sweyn’s right beside Elizaveta. Grandmother Gytha was honoured today since she had been placed at her nephew’s left hand between him and old Bishop Vilhelm. The Bishop smiled benevolently when the five girls progressed forward. He was as fat with goodwill as he was thin and small in stature. What a bizarre way Sweyn had of marketing his daughters, parading them as if they were about to enter Noah’s ark.


  With another sweeping glance Thea noted that Ingegerd and Olaf and her brothers Edmund and Godwin and those sons of Sweyn, so many of them, too many names to remember, were seated together down the side.

  All eyes followed King Sweyn’s daughters as they glided through the centre passage between two wide-set rows of leaf-painted pillars. Thea observed that while the Danes were watching their princesses, all three pairs of diplomatic eyes were looking beyond the Danish princesses at her. She took a quick breath. Sweyn was whispering into the nearest ambassador’s ear. The ambassador nodded and looked away from her.

  Lady Eleanor led them to their places below the king’s table. Behind them hung a rich tapestry with a series of graceful ships that were embroidered with stitches of gold and silver thread, stitching that was different from the gaudy embroidery she had recently worked. These stitches glinted in the candlelight like a myriad of stars. It occurred to her that the crimson, blue and greens of this hanging were intended to become a gorgeous background for the princesses’ flowing fair hair. The daughters of Denmark held their heads high. There was no giggling or smirking here as there was in the upper chamber. This was serious.

  Though it was afternoon the hall was dim and candles had been lit. That morning, the princesses had discussed this feast. They had boasted of pears from the king’s orchard, dates from southern Europe and sweetmeats, such as would usually only be served in distant realms where there was always sunshine, but which often mysteriously appeared in Sweyn’s kitchens. Glass tumblers glinted on the linen clothed table and jewelled eating knives sparkled in the soft candlelight. The princesses had napkins of linen to dab their mouths daintily after every bite and silver finger bowls set by their places so their hands remained spotless. They must appear as pristine by the end of the meal as they had at the beginning.

  The first dishes were carried to the table by servers. As the feast proceeded, Thea glanced down at her silver plate and slid her fish about it with her knife. She had no appetite. Fowl breasts and tiny pastries stuffed with soft cheese arrived on the table. These were accompanied by various dishes of beets, radishes, and beans that had been cooked soft in oil and served with herbs.

  The napkins the visitors lifted to their mouths were those that they had embroidered in the women’s chamber in the king’s house at Schleswig. She wondered if what Elizaveta was whispering into the ear of the ambassador seated by her would be, ‘My stepdaughters’ work, so fine.’

  Thea shrugged, lifted a date from a golden dish and popped it into her mouth. Ouch, it had a stone. She tried to spit it out onto her plate but failed and it landed instead on the table linen. Princess Gunnhild wrinkled up her nose. She grinned smugly. Her rude smirk quickly vanished the very moment the important, tall-hatted ambassador stared down at Thea and seemed to smile. Thea reached over the cloth and carefully lifted the errant stone between her finger and thumb and daintily placed it on her plate. When he looked away again she watched him. She thought that the diplomat looked pale and unwell. He was not eating anything. Occasionally he removed his furred hat and wiped his brow with one of the embroidered napkins.

  A small band of musicians began tuning their instruments. Soon the music struck up. The princesses were called upon to perform an elaborate slow circle dance with four of their brothers, one that Lady Eleanor and the minstrels had adapted from dances they had observed at the French court in Paris. The governess nodded at them and they rose. ‘Remove your veil,’ Ragnhild hissed at Thea through her teeth. ‘You will spoil our effect.’

  ‘I intend to remove it,’ Thea said. ‘I shall not spoil anything.’ She lifted the circlet and veil from her head, folded the veil neatly, laying it on their bench, replaced her silver circlet and glided, her head held high, from the bench to take her place before the king’s table where Edmund awaited to partner her. Grandmother’s lessons had paid off. She felt that she walked as if floating on a cloud.

  Edmund smiled, leaned over and lifted her hand. He was an accomplished dancer and she knew they stood out from the others. He was fair, very handsome and she noticed that often women looked longingly at him. ‘Ready,’ he whispered.

  ‘Yes,’ she whispered back.

  They turned to face the high table. But as they spun around again he said so low into her ear that his utterance was like the faint rustle of a soft silken mantle, ‘You are doing well, my sister. Now that we are dancing, their curiosity will be wetted, as if you are a fine wine. Was this Grandmother’s idea?’

  ‘No, and wetting appetites is not my intention. Winning a prince is,’ she whispered back, glancing sideways at the tall, elaborately hatted Russians. Did they ever wear other hats? Their robes were furred. Under them they wore embroidered baggy shirts; they probably hid sharp daggers beneath those broad belts that gathered the material into folds, even though her uncle never allowed weapons into his hall. She slipped around Edmund and around again, and as they stepped lightly she smiled at them all – her grandmother, the king, the queen, the ambassadors and old Bishop Vilhelm, whose face was as red as the embroidery on the napkin with which he persistently mopped his brow and who appeared uncomfortably smothered by his stiff decorated gown. In contrast, the Russian ambassador seated by her uncle looked ghostly pale, as if he were ailing.

  Afterwards, one by one the princesses presented their gifts to the ambassadors. These were four caskets each containing a different jewel. Thea stood back with her handsome brother watching this performance. Helene, the last princess to step forward, presented her golden casket. The tall, pallid ambassador stood to receive it, looking tired and pale as bleached linen. Suddenly he sneezed loudly. He instantly fell back onto his chair again, apparently choking. Elizaveta’s face creased with concern. She spoke to the Russian diplomat seated by her side who immediately lifted a goblet to his companion’s lips. The ambassador seemed recovered but he was gripping the arms of his chair as if he was about to collapse.

  Consternation and frowns of concern gathered on the other diplomats’ faces. The one with the tallest furred hat, seated nearest the king, leaned across Queen Elizaveta and said something to King Sweyn that she could not hear.

  Lady Eleanor nodded at Thea. She stepped forward and began to play her flute accompanied by Padar on his harp. Thea paused. Padar plucked his harp’s strings and sang a verse about love. She lifted her flute again and played the final notes of their song. From the corner of her eye she saw two pages help the ailing ambassador from his place and out through a side door. She bowed to Padar and returned to her seat.

  The evening continued as Padar recounted an old story of how long ago the Norse hero, Sigurth of Sweden, killed a dragon called Fáfnir and how Sigurth’s horse Grani cooked the dragon’s heart for him to devour. When Sigurth tasted the dragon’s blood he was miraculously able to understand the song of the birds in the trees above him. The sparrows warned him of a treacherous smith in their community. Forthwith the hero killed this smith too and by doing both these deeds he saved his people.

  Shortly after this, Lady Eleanor led the girls from the gathering. None of the princesses spoke to Thea as they hurried towards the outside staircase leading up to the women’s hall. Instead of joining them, Thea climbed a second narrow staircase up into the gabled end of the great building, far, far away from their glares and unkind remarks. She would stay away from the sewing room that evening. She would not attend Compline, the last evening service of the day to be observed in the chapel, and where, no doubt, the king and his guests would gather before retiring. Instead, she sent Gudrun down to the courtyard kitchen for a jug of watered wine and some leftovers. When the girl returned with a laden tray, Thea spoke of the afternoon’s events – the dishes she had hardly touched, the dancing and her concern for the ambassador who had collapsed during the presentation of gifts.

  Gudrun said quietly, ‘You will have impressed them all and I am sure the Russian ambassador will recover soon.’

  Feeling her appetite returned at last, Thea shared the small feast with h
er handmaiden.

  Until it was time to sleep Thea sat, dressed in her finery, by her window dreamily watching the moon rise, wondering if in one of his palaces, Prince Vladimir of Kiev, her raven-headed prince with his liquid brown eyes, was watching the moon rise too. For a while she practised her flute as Gudrun nibbled on a last chicken wing and listened.

  As the moon rode high in the sky, Gudrun helped her remove her gown and slip on her linen night shift. She allowed the girl to soothe her into drowsiness by combing out her hair. When they had both climbed into the big comfortable bed, Thea blew out their candle.

  ‘Will they choose you for the prince, my lady?’

  ‘I wish it with all my heart,’ she said thinking of the ambassador who had smiled at her. ‘Go to sleep, Gudrun.’

  She sighed as she looked at her beautiful gown now hanging from her clothing pole, its pearls gleaming in the moonlight. What if she was never able to wear it again? She longed, how she longed, for a prince’s love.

  It was two days before Thea discovered what was ailing the ambassador from Kiev. He had fallen grievously ill with a contagious disease they called the little pox, which was as deadly as it was terrible, since it spread quickly wherever it appeared. It had been fortunate that she had stayed away from the women’s room after the reception and that she had avoided prayer in the chapel that same night, otherwise she might have taken a more serious dose of the pox than she was to suffer.

  7

  At first, the pox threatened those who had been sneezed over by the ill-fated ambassador. Princess Helene sickened. The ambassador had sneezed on her as she had presented her gift. A few days later her sister Ragnhild became ill. They shared a chamber. Poor Lady Eleanor, so recently returned from France and troubles that had beset her own family, took to her bed sneezing and within days, like the unfortunate ambassador, she was covered from head to toe with white pustules.