The Price of Blood

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The Price of Blood Page 1

by Patricia Bracewell




  Also by Patricia Bracewell

  Shadow on the Crown

  VIKING

  Published by the Penguin Group

  Penguin Group (USA) LLC

  375 Hudson Street

  New York, New York 10014

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  First published by Viking Penguin, a member of Penguin Group (USA) LLC, 2015

  Copyright © 2015 by Patricia Bracewell

  Penguin supports copyright. Copyright fuels creativity, encourages diverse voices, promotes free speech, and creates a vibrant culture. Thank you for buying an authorized edition of this book and for complying with copyright laws by not reproducing, scanning, or distributing any part of it in any form without permission. You are supporting writers and allowing Penguin to continue to publish books for every reader.

  Excerpt from Gesta regum Anglorum—The History of the English Kings by William of Malmesbury, edited and translated by R.A.B. Mynors, R. M. Thomson and M. Winterbottom, Volume 1 (1998). By permission of Oxford University Press.

  Map illustration by Matt Brown

  LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOGING-IN-PUBLICATION DATA

  Bracewell, Patricia, 1950–

  The price of blood : a novel / Patricia Bracewell.

  pages; cm

  ISBN 978-0-698-16452-9

  1. Emma, Queen, consort of Canute I, King of England, –1052—Fiction. 2. Ethelred II, King of England, 968?–1016—Fiction. 3. Great Britain—History—Ethelred II, 979–1016—Fiction. 4. Queens—Great Britain—Fiction. 5. Normans—Great Britain—Fiction. I. Title.

  PS3602.R323P75 2015

  813'.6—dc23 2014038484

  Version_1

  Contents

  Also by Patricia Bracewell

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Dedication

  Dramatis Personae

  Glossary

  Maps

  Epigraph

  Prologue

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Chapter Thirty

  Chapter Thirty-One

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  Chapter Thirty-Five

  Chapter Thirty-Six

  Chapter Thirty-Seven

  Author’s Note

  Acknowledgments

  For Ron and Dot

  Who share my earliest memories

  Dramatis Personae

  *Indicates a Fictional Character

  Anglo-Saxon England, 1006–1012

  Royal Family

  Æthelred II, King of England

  Emma, Queen of England

  Children of the English king, in birth order:

  Athelstan

  Ecbert

  Edmund

  Edrid

  Edwig

  Edgar

  Edyth

  Ælfgifu (Ælfa)

  Wulfhilde (Wulfa)

  Mathilda

  Edward

  Emma’s Household

  Aldyth, niece of Ealdorman Ælfhelm

  Elgiva, daughter of Ealdorman Ælfhelm

  *Father Martin

  *Hilde, granddaughter of Ealdorman Ælfric

  *Margot

  Wymarc

  Robert, Wymarc’s son

  Leading Ecclesiastics

  Ælfheah, Archbishop of Canterbury

  Ælfhun, Bishop of London

  Wulfstan, Bishop of Worcester, Archbishop of Jorvik

  Leading Nobles

  Ælfhelm, Ealdorman of Northumbria

  Ufegeat, his son

  Wulfheah, his son (Wulf)

  *Alric, his retainer

  Ælfric, Ealdorman of Hampshire

  Godwine, Ealdorman of Lindsey

  Leofwine, Ealdorman of Western Mercia

  Eadric of Shrewsbury

  Godwin, Wulfnoth’s son

  Morcar of the Five Boroughs

  Siferth of the Five Boroughs

  Thurbrand of Holderness

  Ulfkytel of East Anglia

  Uhtred of Northumberland

  Wulfnoth of Sussex

  Normandy

  Duke Richard II, Emma’s brother

  Duchess Judith

  Dowager Duchess Gunnora, Emma’s mother

  Robert, Archbishop of Rouen, Emma’s brother

  The Danes

  Swein Forkbeard, King of Denmark

  Harald, his son

  Cnut, his son

  Hemming

  Thorkell

  Tostig

  Glossary

  Ætheling: literally, throne-worthy. All of the legitimate sons of the Anglo-Saxon kings were referred to as æthelings.

  Ague: any sickness with a high fever

  Breecs: Anglo-Saxon term for trousers

  Burh: an Anglo-Saxon fort

  Burn: a small stream

  Ceap: the market street

  Cemes: a long linen undergarment for men

  Ceorl: a freeman, neither noble nor slave; peasant

  Chasuble: an ecclesiastical vestment, a sleeveless mantle covering body and shoulders, often elaborately embroidered, worn over a long, white tunic

  Cyrtel: a woman’s gown

  Danelaw: an area of England that roughly comprises Yorkshire, East Anglia, and central and eastern Mercia, where successive waves of Scandinavians settled throughout the ninth and tenth centuries

  Ealdorman: a high-ranking noble appointed by the king to govern a province in the king’s name. He led troops, levied taxes, and administered justice. It was a political position usually conferred upon members of powerful families.

  Eyas: a falcon chick, taken from the nest for training

  Five Boroughs: a region in Mercia made up of Leicester, Nottingham, Derby, Stamford, and Lincoln, it exercised significant political influence in late Anglo-Saxon England

  : literally flesh street; outdoor meat market

  Fyrd: an armed force that was raised at the command of the king or an ealdorman, usually in response to a Viking threat

  Gafol: the tribute paid to an enemy army to purchase peace

  Garth: a small piece of enclosed ground used as a yard, garden, or paddock

  Geld: a tax levied by the king, who used the money to pay the tribute extorted by Viking raiders

  Gerningakona: Old Norse term for a woman who practices magic

  Godwebbe: precious cloth, freq
uently purple, normally of silk; probably shot-silk taffeta

  Haga: a fenced enclosure; a dwelling in town

  Handfasting: a marriage or betrothal; a sign of a committed relationship with no religious ceremony or exchange of property

  Headrail: a veil, often worn with a circlet or band, kept in place with pins

  Hearth troops: warriors who made up the household guard of royals and great lords

  Hibernia: Latin name for Ireland

  Hide: an Anglo-Saxon land reckoning for the purpose of assessing taxes

  Hird: the army of the Northmen; the enemies of the English

  Host: army

  Hythe: Old English term for a wharf or pier

  Leech: a physician

  Lindsey: the district of eastern England between the River Witham and the Humber, in the northern part of Lincolnshire

  Mantling: in falconry, the action of a bird spreading its wings and arching over its prey to hide it

  Mere: a lake or pond

  Murrain: a disease of domestic animals

  Nithing: a pejorative term in Norse and Old English meaning “abject wretch”

  Reeve: a man with administrative responsibilities utilized by royals, bishops, and nobles to oversee towns, villages, and large estates

  Rood: the cross on which Christ was crucified

  Sámi: a culture indigenous to Norway, believed to have prophetic skills

  Scop: storyteller; harper

  Screens passage: a vestibule just inside the entrance to a great hall or similar chamber, created by movable screens that blocked the wind from gusting into the hall when the doors were opened

  Scyrte: a short garment worn by men; shirt

  Seel: to sew shut the eyes of a falcon for training

  Sennight: a week

  Skald: poet or storyteller

  Smoc: a shirt or undergarment

  Thegn: literally one who serves another; a title that marks a personal relationship; the leading ones served the king himself; a member of the highest rank in Anglo-Saxon society; a landholder with specified obligations to his lord

  Thrall: a slave

  Wain: a wagon or cart

  Wergild: literally man payment; the value set on a person’s life

  Witan: wise men; the king’s council

  Wyrd: fate or destiny

  In the Year of our Lord 979 Æthelred, son of Edgar . . . came to the throne . . . His life is said to have been cruel at the outset, pitiable in mid-course, and disgraceful in its ending. . . .

  He was hounded by the shade of his brother, demanding terribly the price of blood. Who could count how often he summoned his army, how often he ordered ships to be built, how often he called his nobles together from every quarter, and nothing ever came of it?

  The evil could not be lulled to rest . . . for enemies were always sprouting out of Denmark like a hydra’s heads, and nowhere was it possible to take precautions . . .

  —The History of the English Kings

  William of Malmesbury

  Twelfth Century

  Prologue

  Shrove Tuesday, March 1006

  Calne, Wiltshire

  Æthelred knelt, his head clutched in his hands, bowed beneath the weight of his crown and his sins. Somewhere above, the vesper bells rang to mark the call to evening prayer, and at the very moment of their tolling he felt his limbs tremble, convulsed by a force beyond his control.

  The familiar, hated lethargy settled over him, and though he strove to keep his head down and his eyes shut, a will far stronger than his own pulled his gaze upward. The air before him thickened and turned as black and rippling as the windswept surface of a mere. Pain gnawed at his chest, and he shivered with cold and apprehension as the world around him vanished. Sounds, too, faded to nothing and he knew only the cold, the pain, and the flickering darkness before him that stretched and grew into the shape of a man.

  Or what had been a man once. Wounds gaped like a dozen mouths at throat and breast, gore streaked the shredded garments crimson, and the menacing face wore Death’s gruesome pallor. His murdered brother’s shade drew toward him, an exhalation from the gates of heaven or the mouth of hell—he could not say which. Not a word passed its lips, but he sensed a malevolence that flowed from the dead to the living, and he shrank back in fear and loathing.

  Yet he could not look away. For long moments the vision held him in thrall until, as it began to fade, he became aware of another figure—of a shadow behind the shadow. Dark, indistinct, shrouded in gloom, it hovered briefly in the thickened air and then, like the other, it was gone.

  Released from the spell, he could hear once again the pealing of the vesper bells and the murmur of voices at prayer, could smell the honeyed scent of candles and, beneath it, the rank stench of his own sweat. The golden head dropped once more into cupped hands, but now it was heavy with fear and tormented by a terrible foreboding.

  A.D. 1006 This year Ælfheah was consecrated Archbishop; Wulfheah and Ufegeat were deprived of sight; Ealdorman Ælfhelm was slain . . .

  —The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle

  Chapter One

  March 1006

  Near Calne, Wiltshire

  Queen Emma checked her white mare as it crested a hill above the vast royal estate where the king had settled for the Lenten season. Behind her a company of thirty men, women, and children, all of them heavily cloaked against a biting wind, rested their mounts after the long climb. In front of her, in the middle distance below the hill, the slate roof and high, gilded gables of the king’s great hall dwarfed the buildings and palisade that encircled it. The hall marked their journey’s end, and Emma looked on it with relief, for it was late in the day and her people were weary.

  As she studied the road ahead, a single shaft of sunlight broke through the clouds massed in folds across the sky to slant a golden light upon the fields below. The furrowed land shimmered under a thin film of green—new shoots that promised a good harvest in the months to come, if only God would be merciful.

  But God, Emma thought, seemed to have turned His face against England. For two years now, promising springs had been followed by rain-plagued summers so that food and fodder were scarce. This past winter, Famine and Death had stalked the land, and if the coming season’s yield was not bountiful, yet more of the poorest in the realm would die.

  She had done what she could, distributing alms to those she could reach and adding her voice to the faithful’s desperate pleas for God’s mercy. Now, as the golden light lingered on the green vale below, she prayed that her latest assault on heaven—the pilgrimage she had made to the resting places of England’s most beloved saints—might at last have secured God’s blessings on Æthelred’s realm.

  She glanced around, looking past the horse litter that bore her son and his wet nurse to find her three young stepdaughters. Wulfhilde, just eight winters old, was asleep in the arms of the servant who rode with her. Ælfa sat upon her mount slumped within the folds of her mantle. Edyth, the eldest at twelve, stared dully toward the manor hall, her face drawn and pale beneath her fur-lined hood.

  Emma chided herself for pushing them so hard, for they had been on the road since daybreak. She turned in her saddle to lead the group forward, but as she did so the wind made a sudden shift to strike her full in the face. Her mount sidled nervously, and as she struggled to control the mare another fierce gust pushed at her like a massive hand that would urge her away.

  She felt a curious sense of unease, a pricking at the back of her neck, and she squinted against the wind, searching for the source of her disquiet. On the mast atop the manor’s bell tower, the dragon banner of Wessex heralded the king’s presence within. He would be there to welcome her—although not with anything resembling love or even affection, for he had none of either to give. Æthelred was more king than man—as ruthless and cold as a bird of prey. Someti
mes she wondered if he had ever loved anyone—even himself.

  She did not relish the coming reunion with her lord, but that alone did not explain her sudden sense of foreboding.

  As she hesitated, her son began to wail, his piercing cry an urgent demand that she could not ignore. She shook off her disquiet, for surely it must be her own weariness that assailed her. She nodded to her armed hearth troops to take the lead, and then followed them down the hill.

  When she rode through the manor gates she saw a knot of retainers making for the kitchens behind the great hall, one of them carrying the standard of the ætheling Edmund. She puzzled over his presence here while a groom helped her dismount. Edmund had accompanied his elder brothers Athelstan and Ecbert to London in February, charged with the task of repairing the city’s fortifications and the great bridge that straddled the Thames. All three of them were to remain there until they joined the court at Cookham for the Easter feast. What, then, was Edmund doing here today?

  The anxiety that had vexed her on the hill returned, but she had duties to perform before she could satisfy her curiosity. She led her stepdaughters and attendants into her quarters, where she found a fire blazing in the central hearth, the lime-washed walls hung with embroidered linens, and her great, curtained bed standing ready at the far end of the room. Three servants were setting up beds for the king’s daughters, and a fourth stepped forward to take Emma’s hooded mantle and muddy boots.

  She slipped out of the cloak, then looked about the chamber for the women of her household who had been sent ahead and had, she guessed, supervised all these preparations.

  “Where are Margot and Wymarc?” she asked, still unnerved by that moment of unease on the heights above the manor.

  Before anyone could respond, Wymarc entered the chamber with a quick step, and Emma, relieved, drew her into an embrace. They had been parted for only a week, yet it seemed far longer. Wymarc was a bright, comforting presence in her household—and had been since the day they left Normandy together for England. Four years ago that was—four years since Emma stood at the door of Canterbury Cathedral as the peace-weaving bride of the English king, with Wymarc looking on from only a half step away.

 

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