The Price of Blood

by Patricia Bracewell

  Perhaps her son would grow up in a kingdom at peace.

  She looked down at the small, fair-haired head beside her as Edward, on his own feet for the moment, pulled his hand free and patted the leather pouch strapped to his belt—a recent, treasured gift from the king.

  “Ange’s carrot is here,” he said.

  She laughed and took his hand again. “Then I am sure that you will be most welcome.”

  “Will my father’s horse be there too?” he asked. “The black one?”

  “Yes, the king’s horse will be there.”

  And even the big black one, as Edward called him, would be placid enough just now to take a gift from a boy’s small hand, for the king had ridden to the hunt this morning.

  It had been a family party for the most part, excepting Lord Eadric, who had been in constant attendance upon Æthelred since December. She wished that he would go back to his lands in Shropshire, for she could not like the man. Behind his dark good looks and honeyed words she sensed a calculating mind and an emptiness of soul that chilled her.

  It should have been Athelstan, not Eadric, at the king’s side today, she thought unhappily. But there had been a heated argument between father and son when Æthelred first announced that he would appoint Eadric as ealdorman of Mercia. After that quarrel even Edmund had not been able to dissuade his brother from leaving the court, and so they had not seen Athelstan since the Easter gathering.

  It worried her, this widening gulf between Athelstan and his father while the king depended more and more on his new ealdorman. Eadric was a man who could charm at will, yet whenever she listened to him speak she felt as if the world tilted slightly—as if the earth was not quite firm beneath her feet. Every instinct warned her that Eadric was not a man to trust, that there was another face behind the one that he showed the world. Which of them, she wondered, did the king see?

  When they reached the stables and stepped inside, she heard a girl’s laughter. Glancing around for the source she spotted a couple embracing in a shadowy corner—a lovers’ tryst, apparently. She might have been amused except that the girl was Edyth, and no matter who the man was, the little game they were playing had to be stopped.

  “Go see Ange,” Emma said to her son, who trotted off happily with Hilde. Then she frowned at the couple in the shadows. “My lord,” she said, aiming the words like stones at Edyth’s companion.

  He unwrapped himself from around the king’s daughter, turned, and bowed. She caught her breath, struck by the sensation of the earth shifting, and wishing that she had something harder than words to throw at him. Eadric and Edyth! Here was something she had not suspected. She thought back to today’s hunt. Had there been glances, touches that she had not seen? Was she so blind? But she could recall nothing, no sign of an attachment between them.

  “Leave us, my lord,” she commanded. “Edyth, you will stay.”

  Eadric glanced once at Edyth, bowed again to Emma with all the grace and self-assurance of a preening cat, and made his exit. Emma turned to her stepdaughter, who was looking offended when she should have been abashed. Sweet Virgin, did the girl not even realize how she had compromised herself?

  “What is it?” Edyth’s voice was tart with impatience.

  Emma managed to control the anger that was making her blood pound. She could imagine the argument that was going to ensue, and although a byre might be a fitting place for it, she did not trust herself to deal calmly with Edyth just now.

  “We will not speak of this here,” she snapped. “Go to my chamber and wait for me.”

  With a smirk that made Emma want to slap her, Edyth stalked out of the stable, head held high. As Emma watched her go, she called to mind that other Edyth, the fair-haired little girl who had once begged her for stories and had brought kittens to show her. How she missed that child! This Edyth, who was all sweetness and deference with the king, was as obstinate and intractable as an ill-bred colt with her.

  She drew in a long breath, voicing a prayer for the patience she was certain to need for the confrontation to come. The last time they had battled, Edyth had been the winner. Just after Christmas she had pleaded with her father that she was too old to stay in the queen’s chambers with the younger children. She had insisted that as she was nearly thirteen and Ælfa nearly twelve, they should have their own quarters. Unmoved by Emma’s arguments against it, Æthelred had granted Edyth’s request.

  When she reflected on her own girlhood, Emma could not recall a moment when she had not been under the strict supervision of someone else—her mother, her nurse, her sister, or her brother’s wife. It had seemed to her a grave mistake to allow Edyth so much freedom, but the king never paid enough attention to his daughter to see the headstrong, surly Edyth that she had come to know.

  She would have to tell him about Eadric, and it would be neither easy nor pleasant, for Eadric was golden in the king’s eyes. Nevertheless, that gilding would be somewhat tarnished once the king realized that the ealdorman had cast covetous eyes and hands on his daughter, and that was all to the good.

  Emma found Edyth waiting for her, seated in a ribbon of sunlight, industriously embroidering a length of delicate silk. The girl’s mouth was still set in that irritating smirk, but Emma schooled herself to be patient.

  “I wish to discuss what you were doing in the stable,” she began.

  “What?” Edyth said, not looking up. “Kissing Eadric?”

  So much for patience, Emma thought. She reached down and snatched the embroidery frame out of Edyth’s hands.

  “You are making light of it,” she snapped, “but surely you understand that you must be circumspect in your behavior toward all of the men of the court. As the king’s daughter, you are not free to show favor to any man—especially in that way—no matter what your personal inclinations and no matter how much he may importune you.” She had no doubt that Eadric was the moving force in this. “However strong the temptation, Edyth, you absolutely cannot give in to it. You must give me your word that what happened today will not happen again.”

  Edyth folded her hands and looked up at her then, her back straight as a board.

  “I can make no such promise,” the girl said, “and I confess that I do not understand your concern. Surely my father has told you that Lord Eadric and I are to be wed at Yuletide.”

  There was a look of amusement and triumph on her face, and Emma felt yet again that her world had suddenly shifted.

  “That cannot be,” she whispered.

  “Has he not mentioned it, then?” Edyth asked, although Emma could tell from the bold look on Edyth’s face that she was well aware that the king had said nothing to her of a betrothal. “Ælfa, too, will be wed at Yuletide. To Lord Uhtred. It is all arranged.”

  Blow upon blow, Emma thought, and this one worse than the first. It demanded all her composure not to recoil from it. Ælfa to marry! The girl was so quiet and shy that she seemed far younger than her twelve winters. To wed her to a man like Uhtred was akin to mating a rabbit to a wolf.

  No. It had to be a lie. The ealdorman of Northumbria was not even free to marry. It was impossible!

  “Lord Uhtred already has a wife.”

  “Yes,” Edyth agreed. “He has gone to Jorvik to rid himself of her. It should not take very long, as my father particularly desires that it be accomplished quickly.” She stood up and smiled. “May I be excused, my lady? I wish to return to my own chamber now if you have nothing more to say to me.”

  For a moment they faced each other, and it seemed to Emma that the seven years’ difference in their ages suddenly contracted to nothing. She could think of a thousand things she wished to say to the girl—first and foremost to beware of Eadric, to hold herself somewhat apart from a man whose ambition might outpace his abilities.

  But Edyth was to wed Eadric. She could not separate herself from him, nor would she wish to do so. The girl de
sired this marriage. Her exultation at having won such a prize as Eadric was writ plain across her face. She would see only the man’s charm and his high standing with the king—and Edyth idolized the king. She must believe that marriage to Æthelred’s favorite could only increase her value in the eyes of her father, a man who for years had paid no heed to his daughters. Edyth, who hungered for her father’s attention and respect, would hope to earn that through this alliance. It would give her greater status at court, and she could expect to wield far more influence with the king as Eadric’s wife than she ever had as Æthelred’s daughter.

  More than that, it would give Edyth the opportunity to step out from under the shadow of a queen—perhaps even to step in front of her. For Edyth, like Eadric, was ambitious.

  “And what would you have said to the king had he consulted you about Ælfa’s marriage to Uhtred?” Margot’s bright eyes had lost none of their intelligence as she aged, and now Emma’s old nurse pinned her with that familiar, discerning gaze. It was late, the young ones were asleep, and Emma finally had a free moment to discuss the king’s marriage plans for his eldest daughters.

  “I would have told him that Ælfa is too young to marry anyone, least of all Uhtred,” she said.

  “Such a response would have earned you little gratitude, I think,” Margot observed. “The king is not concerned, Emma, with what is best for his daughters. He is concerned with what is best for his kingdom.”

  Margot was right, of course. Daughters were expendable—political game pieces on a vast board that covered all of Christian Europe. Emma’s own marriage to Æthelred had been negotiated by her elder brother with little thought given to what her life would be like as Æthelred’s queen.

  And in truth, she understood her husband’s thinking. Although England’s royal daughters had often been wed to foreign princes, Æthelred was concerned with matters closer to home. He needed to do whatever he could to solidify his hold on the northern shires. He had made Eadric ealdorman of Mercia and now would bind him with blood ties through this marriage to Edyth. They would be a formidable couple, both of them hungry for power.

  But it was Ælfa’s fate that made her heart ache. She was prettier, sweeter, more biddable and more loving than her elder sister. And she was so young, barely twelve winters old, while the fierce Earl Uhtred, who decorated his fortress with the heads of his enemies, was nearly as old as the king. Uhtred, who had already rid himself of his first wife, was taking steps to dismiss the second. Ælfa would be the third, and with each marriage the man had garnered more lands, more wealth, and greater power. Now he would wed the daughter of the king, and it did not matter to him that she was but a child, and a fragile one at that.

  “I think that the king is more concerned with what is best for Æthelred than with what is best for England,” Wymarc observed.

  “As to that,” Margot said, “for him they are likely one and the same. But the queen knows that. I expect that there is something else about all this that worries you, my lady.”

  Emma frowned, hesitating even to put it into words. But she needed to unburden herself because she was weary of struggling with her fear by herself.

  “The king,” she said, “did not seek my counsel in this matter of his daughters. He should have included me in his decision making. At the very least he should have informed me of his plans for the girls. His daughters have neither mother nor grandmother to take their part. As Æthelred’s queen, that responsibility—that privilege—is mine.”

  “The king’s children had no mother even when their mother was alive,” Margot replied gently. “She played no part in their upbringing, and they knew only caregivers and attendants. That was what the king wanted, and what he still wants. They are pawns to him, not children. Now that he has two families, he is perfectly willing to play them one against the other, and you will be caught in between. His son Edmund has been wary of you from the start, and Edyth, it seems, has come to resent you.” She reached out to place her hand on Emma’s knee. “Have a care, my lady. I have watched you try to mother the king’s children, but you are throwing your heart against a stone. Look to your own child, and be on your guard. Æthelred will be jealous of the bond between you and Edward, and I fear he will one day do his utmost to break it.”

  Emma was silent, her gaze lingering on her sleeping son as she pondered Margot’s warning. She could not imagine a day in her life that did not in some way revolve around Edward, for he was all the world to her. To Æthelred, though, he was—like the other children—no more than a game piece in the palm of a king, to be used in ways she could neither predict nor prevent. And this, she knew, was what lay at the root of her fear.

  She went to her son, and as she bent to kiss him, murmuring a prayer for his protection, a servant appeared with a summons from the king. Reflecting bitterly that there was but one task that Æthelred deemed suited to his queen, she threw on a shawl and, leaving her son in the care of others, she left her chambers to spend the night in the king’s bed.

  December 1007

  Aldbrough, Holderness

  It was raining. To Elgiva it sounded as if rocks were landing on the roof’s wooden shingles, so loud that it was like a pounding inside her head. She screamed, partly to clear her brain of that drumbeat, but mostly because Cnut’s child was trying to rip her apart. She did not believe in any god, but if one existed, surely he was a man. No goddess would sit back idly and allow women to go through this.

  She was surrounded by so many attendants that she thought she must suffocate, but she managed to draw another gasping breath as the pain eased. They would not let her rest, though. They forced her to walk, even in the trough between contractions, even when she had begged them to let her lie down for just a little while.

  “The child will come more quickly if you stay on your feet,” they promised her.

  And so she walked. She distracted herself from the pain by counting off the reasons that she hated Cnut Sweinson. First, because he was a man. Second, because he had planted this thing inside her. Third, because he was still cowering in Denmark at his father’s side in spite of all her urgent messages that he come to her to lay claim to his son.

  Every time she had sent another envoy across the sea, Thurbrand had laughed at her.

  “Birthing is women’s work,” he had said. “Cnut knows that. Your entreaties will only provoke him and, trust me, lady, he will not heed you.”

  The response to her pleas had always been the same. Lord Cnut will come when he can. The last message had come from Swein. Send word when you bear a son, the messenger had said. She had slapped the servant who relayed it, and that, too, had made Thurbrand howl with laughter.

  As the night dragged on the pains became more frequent, so that she had little time to think any more about Cnut. Her mind focused inward and she was consumed by the agonizing demands of childbirth until the dawn silvered the edges of the closed shutters, and all she wanted was to see her ordeal ended.

  “Push!” Tyra was urging her to do what she was already doing with all her might.

  She was naked now, propped on the birthing chair, sweating from her labor and from the heat that radiated from the fire pit and from the clutch of women who surrounded her. She bore down hard once more, then shouted with triumph as she felt the sudden gush of something large and solid between her thighs. Cnut, damn his eyes, had a son at last.

  She went limp with the release, but almost immediately they made her push some more for reasons she was too weary to question. She complied, and when some other thing had been expelled from her, they bathed her swiftly, then helped her to her feet and guided her to the bed. They gave her a cup of warm ale and butter, and she drank it greedily, listening with satisfaction to the infant’s lusty cry and the women’s excited gabbling. She was exhausted, but far too elated to sleep yet. Besides, there was something else she must attend to first.

  “Catla,” she called
out, beckoning to Thurbrand’s mouse of a wife. “You must send word to Cnut. Say that he must come to me as soon as can be to acknowledge his son.”

  “But Elgiva,” Catla’s whisper was little more than a squeak, “your child is a girl. You have a beautiful daughter. Look at her!”

  Catla drew aside and one of the women came forward with a squalling bundle in her arms.

  Elgiva stared at the thing, but she made no move to take it.

  “You lie,” she whispered. “I bore a son. I must have a son.”

  No one answered her, and the only sound in the room was the wailing of the girl child who could not be hers, who must be some changeling they were trying to foist upon her. She flung away the ale cup and put her hands over her ears to shut out the sound.

  God! Could they not find a way to silence the creature?

  But they were all frozen, staring at her, gaping, and it seemed to her that this was a nightmare and she was attended by madwomen.

  “Take it away!” she screamed. “Get it out!”

  She wanted to throw something at them, but she was too weak. She could only curl herself into a tight ball of misery and weep for her lost son, until at last the nightmare ended and she fell asleep.

  When she woke, it was to face the bitter knowledge of utter failure. The chamber was empty but for Tyra, who sat beside the fire, hands busy with her spindle. Elgiva ignored her, gazing dry-eyed into the darkness of the soot-blackened rafters high above her bed. She was hungry and desperately thirsty. Her breasts were so engorged that even the weight of the coverlet was agony. And it was all for nothing. All that work and pain, all those months of discomfort for nothing! For that was exactly what a girl child was worth to her.