The Price of Blood

by Patricia Bracewell

  You will be a queen, and your children will be kings.

  She had always believed that she must marry Æthelred or one of his brood for that to come true. It had never dawned on her that there might be another way. But there was, and this was it. This marriage was an alliance that would inspire northern lords like Thurbrand, men dissatisfied with the kingship of Æthelred, to pledge themselves to the warrior king from Denmark—and to his son. Æthelred might one day find himself ruler of only the southern half of England, while Swein held all the rest.

  And someday, when Swein died and Cnut was crowned king after him, she would be queen beside him.

  How long had her father been negotiating this marriage? And why had the fool not confided in her, not told her that it was Cnut she was to wed? She would have helped him, not betrayed him. If he’d had the good sense to trust her with his great secret, he might still be alive and her brothers would not have been tortured and left to die.

  Her father, damn him, had wasted all their lives.

  The sound of voices outside brought her bitter musing to an abrupt end. She made it back to the bed just before the door was flung wide and the room filled with drunken men. Two of them carried torches, and when one of them stumbled toward the bed, she cried out for fear he would fire the hangings. But he righted himself and she saw that it was Alric, ogling her and grinning like an idiot.

  She scrambled to the top of the bed and pulled the furs up against her breasts, making the men howl with laughter. Catla, the little coward, slipped out the door like a shadow, but Elgiva knew that for her there would be no escape. She was wed to Cnut, and his kinsmen had come to watch him plough his furrow and plant a babe in her belly. Jesu, if they expected to find blood on the sheets afterward they were in for a disappointment, for she was no virgin.

  She glanced at the king, who was staring at her wolfishly, his mouth set in a leer. Would they kill her in the morning because she was no maid?

  No. They needed her to claim the allegiance of her kin.

  She had no more time to think about that, for Cnut had come to the foot of the bed and he was surveying her with eyes that showed no trace of drunkenness. He pulled off his tunic and skinned his breecs away as the men cheered and pounded their feet on the floor—for encouragement, she supposed. But Cnut was naked now, standing tall in the torchlight that gleamed on his skin, and judging by the way his rod stood at attention, the encouragement was hardly necessary.

  Well, she was not going to just sit here like a stick of wood, like a frightened little Catla.

  She drew her feet under her, stood up on the mattress, and slowly walked its length to face her husband. A shout of anticipation went up from the men, and Cnut eyed her warily, perhaps thinking she might spit at him again. But she knew who he was now, and she had no qualms about consummating this marriage. She put her arms around his neck and kissed him, drawing his tongue into her mouth. He responded by slipping his hands beneath her shift and pulling her roughly against him. Beneath the pounding of blood in her ears she heard the howls of the men as Cnut guided her back down to the mattress.

  He sheathed himself inside her and she wrapped her legs about his hips, moving to the rhythm that he set. His thrusts were quick and hard and deep, and it did not take long. Well, what was she, after all, but a prize to be plundered? When he collapsed on top of her the Danes sent up a roar. The slave, Tyra, came forward, and for an instant their eyes met and held. Elgiva felt her skin prickle under that knowing gaze, and she breathed a sigh of relief when Tyra drew the curtains around the bed and that cold glance was hidden.

  They were alone after that, and as she lay spooned against Cnut beneath the furs, he murmured to her in Danish. She did not understand him, and she was glad when he finally fell asleep, his hand cupped possessively over her breast. She was uncomfortable in his arms, though, and in spite of her weariness she lay awake far into the night. She tried to conjure up her future, tried to imagine herself in a great hall wearing a golden circlet, but the only images that rose in her mind were the faces of her father and her brothers, who stared at her with cold, accusing eyes. At last she fell asleep, and she dreamed of a woman in gray who sat spinning, and the golden thread that fell from her fingers shriveled into dust.

  The next day, gowned in her own shift and cyrtel, and bedecked with some of her bridal gold, she followed Cnut through the hall to the dais, where King Swein waited to greet her. Alric, looking haggard after last night’s celebration, fell in behind her, whispering that he had been commanded to act as interpreter.

  Cnut took her hand, standing at her side as Swein pinned her with those black eyes of his, eyeing her belly as if he had the power to discern whether Cnut’s son was already growing there. She resented that look and resented the way this marriage had come about, although she was satisfied enough with her husband—assuming that, in the end, she got what she wanted.

  “I wish to know,” she said, not waiting for the Danish king to speak first, “when King Swein will take the crown of England as his own.”

  She watched Swein’s face as Alric translated her question, and she thought she caught a flicker of amusement in the king’s eyes.

  “When you give Cnut a son,” the reply came back, “blending English blood with Danish, I will wrest the crown from Æthelred. Your father’s death stalled our preparations, but we will begin again. You have but to do your part.”

  She nodded. It would do, for now. She would complete her part of the bargain. After all, even the whey-faced Emma had finally produced a son. Surely she must be as fecund as Emma, although—the alarming thought fluttered into her mind—she had not conceived in the months that she had slept beside the king.

  She reminded herself, though, of the prophecy that Groa had sworn to her was true, that she was destined to wear a crown, destined to bear sons who would be kings. So it was foretold and, therefore, she assured herself, no power on earth could prevent it.

  Windsor, Berkshire

  Æthelred paced his inner chamber as he waited for Emma to respond to his summons. It was late and he was weary but, by Christ, he would not face another night in his bed alone. His dreams were a torment, filled with phantoms—the dead come to haunt him. His brother, his mother, even his father had troubled his sleep for a week. Their faces, decaying and putrid beneath golden crowns, hovered over him, as if they would warn him of some coming disaster. Last night it had been Elgiva, beautiful and naked, riding him hard until suddenly she was no longer Elgiva. It was her father whose dead weight pressed upon his chest and whose rough, bearded mouth covered his own, drawing all the breath from his lungs until he woke, crying out in terror.

  The menace of that nightmare still clung to him, yet it offered a glimmer of hope, for it could mean that Elgiva, too, was now rotting in some unhallowed grave.

  So far, she had not been discovered in either Mercia or Northumbria, and he dared to hope that some mischance had befallen her—the last of Ælfhelm’s brood of vipers.

  Alive, wedded to some powerful Danish lord, she could be a threat—a rallying point for Ælfhelm’s disgruntled northern kin.

  Dead, she could do no more than haunt him.

  He paused at his worktable to finger a pile of scrolls and wax tablets that bore news from Kent, where the Danes continued to burn and plunder. His fyrds were doing exactly as he had ordered, shepherding his people into the burhs to protect them. From within the safety of their fortress walls, though, they had to watch as their homes were torched and their livestock driven away. They were powerless to stop it, for they had not the numbers to confront the better-armed shipmen and their savage leader—some bastard, he saw scrawled on one of the tablets, named Tostig.

  Was Tostig the warlord who had sought the hand of Elgiva? She had been promised to a Dane. What if that marriage had already taken place? What if she was still alive and this Tostig had taken her as prize? Might he not hunger for a far gr
eater treasure than he could plunder from the villages and towns of Kent? Might Elgiva not goad him into seeking a crown?

  All the more reason to hope that Ælfhelm’s daughter was dead.

  He looked up as the door to his chamber swung open to reveal Emma, clad in her night robe. She was as beautiful as the day he had first seen her—perhaps more so. Her pale hair hung in a long braid over her shoulder and her complexion was as smooth and fair as marble. She regarded him with those startlingly light green eyes—not the downcast eyes of a maid but the thoughtful, knowing gaze of a woman and a queen, and for once he was comforted to see her. He was weary of struggling against phantoms; surely she would serve as armor against them. When he buried himself inside her, the lingering horror of Elgiva’s succubus must fade.

  He poured mead into cups for both of them, then gestured toward the table and its pile of tablets.

  “You may as well read those.”

  She sat at the table, and as she read through the reports he studied her face. She looked anxious, and he wondered if it was because of the Danes harrying his realm or some small thing having to do with Edward. Motherhood had softened Emma in a way that puzzled him, for maternal affection was far outside the realm of his experience. His own mother had been cold, had seen him as nothing more than a stepping-stone in her rise to royal power. She had ground him beneath her feet like so much chalk. And as for his first wife, she had barely glanced at her offspring once they’d left her body. God’s plague upon women for the sin of Eve, she’d called them.

  Emma, though, delighted in her son, and was unwilling to be parted from him for very long. That was inconvenient, and it would have to change. Not that he would make an issue of it just yet, but he could not allow Edward to be so closely tied to his mother’s girdle. God willing, he would get her with child again soon—maybe even tonight. Put another babe in her belly and it would be easier to wean Edward from her side. Certainly it helped that while she was here she spent much of her time in his hall, listening to the debates over the English response to the Danes, or consulting with the churchmen and nobles who had answered his summons. It meant that she had little time to spend with her son, but that, he knew, was a double-edged sword. For she was taking this opportunity to make allies among his counselors, and he did not welcome any division of loyalties within his hall.

  He must get her with child soon. Emma’s place was beneath him, on her back, not among the council of the wise.

  A knock sounded at the door, and when his steward entered he was carrying yet another missive that must be dealt with.

  “It is from Jorvik, my lord,” Hubert said, “from Archbishop Wulfstan.”

  Æthelred muttered a curse. There had been an ominous silence from the north since the Scots king had laid siege to Durham. To receive news from Wulfstan now, after a week of dark dreams, boded ill.

  He sat down, steeling himself for catastrophe.

  “Read it.”

  Hubert broke the seal and unfolded the parchment.

  “Archbishop Wulfstan, lupus episcopus, to Æthelred, Rex Anglorum, greetings and apostolic blessings,” Hubert read in his reedy voice. “I write in haste to advise you that Uhtred of Bamburgh has defeated the Scots host at Durham.”

  At last, Æthelred thought. He could claim a victory instead of a rout.

  “King Malcolm escaped with his life,” Hubert read on, “but the greater part of his army was slaughtered. By command of Lord Uhtred, the heads of the slain Scots were placed as trophies upon the ramparts of Durham. By this you will perceive that Uhtred is a fierce and merciless warrior. Ignore him at your peril. If you do not make use of his battle skills, others surely will.” Hubert looked up. “That is all, my lord.”

  Æthelred snorted. “If Uhtred were here now I would set him against the Danish scum that are ravaging Kent.” He waved a hand at Hubert. “Compose a suitable reply. I will look at it in the morning.” As Hubert left, he turned to Emma and found that her face was still troubled despite the good news from Jorvik. “What ails you?” he asked. “Can you not rejoice in our enemy’s defeat?”

  “My lord,” she said, “I have had news from my brother Richard that I—”

  “No!” he barked, slamming his cup onto the table. “Do not weary me with your Norman concerns tonight! I would savor the good news from Durham a while longer before you burden me with whatever your brother would have you lay across my back.” He stood up and took her arm to lead her to the bed. “Get you under the sheets, lady. That is where your duty lies tonight.”

  He tugged off her wrap and watched as she drew her night rail over her head. The tight set of her mouth told him that, as usual, she was in no mood for bed sport. She would submit to him for duty’s sake, to fulfill her royal obligation and no more.

  There had been occasions, though, when she forgot herself and twisted away from him, snappish as one of his hounds in heat. The bedding was better then. Perhaps, he reflected as he covered her body with his, it was strife between a woman and a man that bred sons.

  Now, though, she opened herself to him with placid disinterest, and that bored him. He finished quickly and lay, spent, on top of her, sated yet unsatisfied. The memory of Elgiva’s grotesquely changing face still lingered in his mind. When he finally rolled off of Emma she sat up, obviously intending to return to her own chamber. He clasped her arm to prevent her.

  “You will stay with me tonight,” he said. “Of late I have been waking in the dark hours, and I may have need of you later. In the meantime”—he ran his fingers along the smooth swell of her breast—“as I do not wish to sleep yet, you may as well tell me your Norman news.”

  She pulled the sheet up to her chin, but he dragged it off again. It had been some time since she had spent a night in his bed and her body was like one of his estates—he felt the need to survey it occasionally to make sure that all was in order. And indeed, he decided, Emma’s body was very much in order. She was golden in the light from the candles that still burned in their brackets along the walls. As he made his inventory of breasts, of belly, and of the pale thatch between her thighs, he felt his cock stiffen again.

  “My lord,” she said, “Richard writes that King Swein of Denmark is resupplying his father’s forts.”

  He frowned and stilled the idle movement of his hand at her breast.

  “The camps, you mean? Where Harald trained his armies?”

  “Two of the camps, at any rate,” she said. “The Danish king has sent out a call for warriors.”

  He stared at her for a heartbeat, reading the worry in her eyes, then got out of bed and filled his cup again.

  “Swein’s northern kingdoms are full of landless young thugs,” he said, “who need occupation. One way to keep them from turning against their king is to train them and then loose them somewhere else. The army pillaging in Kent right now is likely there with Swein’s blessing.” He studied his wife, rival emotions warring in his mind—satisfaction that she’d brought him this information, and annoyance that she’d come by it at all. Emma’s sphere of influence was widening—to his benefit, for now. But what else might she know that she used for her own purposes? After all, peace-weaving brides straddled two realms, and who could say which allegiance proved the strongest? “How did your brother come by this knowledge?”

  “One of his bishops visited the new church at Roskilde and returned with word that the Danish king has sworn to thrust you from your throne. It was rumored that he made oaths, my lord”—her voice was insistent now—“both to Odin and to Christ.” The green eyes probed his face. “What will you do to stop him?”

  “Stop him? Christ! We cannot stop the vermin that are even now crawling over our fields and villages. Write to your brother that I am grateful for the warning, but I must slaughter the wolves in my house before I try to confront the enemy at my door.”

  Nevertheless, the news was worrisome. Was this the threat
that his black dreams portended? That Swein, who had allied himself to both God and the devil, was building an army for the sole purpose of destroying England?

  He could well believe that Swein’s army, borne on a perilous tide, would one day reach the English shore. It would not make landfall soon, perhaps not for years, but it was coming. And unless, as his queen urged, he found some way to stop it, that great army and the man who led it would seek to destroy him.

  A.D. 1006 Then the king ordered out all the population from Wessex and from Mercia; and they lay out all the harvest under arms against the enemy; but it availed nothing more than it had often done before. Then, about midwinter . . . was their army collected at Kennet; and they came to battle there . . .

  —The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle

  Chapter Twelve

  December 1006

  Wiltshire

  “It will not be long now.”

  Archbishop Ælfheah’s words were all but lost in the constant roar from thousands of voices, and Emma had to strain to catch them. She stood with him upon the high parapet of a burh that crowned a barren hill near the village of Kennet. A handful of women from her household and a scattering of priests who traveled with the archbishop attended them. Behind them, in the belly of the stronghold, the women and children from the village and nearby farms clustered around campfires beneath makeshift shelters, awaiting the fate of husbands, fathers, and sons. At intervals along the ramparts, armed men from the local fyrd kept watch, and far below them, in a valley between the downs, two armies prepared to face each other in the gray light of a winter afternoon.

  She shivered within her fur-lined cloak, for the mild weather had turned bitter overnight, and the sky was hung with clouds that threatened snow.

  Her Norman hearth troops were out there on the field of battle, thirty men who were well trained and well armed, part of the company led by Athelstan. She could see him with his bannermen beside him, urging his men into position.