The Price of Blood

by Patricia Bracewell

  He skirted the eastern end of the extensive, walled grounds of St. Paul’s and picked his way through the crowded stalls of the West Ceap. Some distance to his right he could see the palisade that surrounded the royal palace and the single English treasure that he coveted. It seemed incredible to him that after years of avoiding his father’s court and the temptation that was Emma, he was now charged by the king with her protection. If God meant to test him by putting the queen so firmly in his grasp, then God was a fool, for he would surely fail the test. He had tried to banish her from his mind, had taken other women in order to forget the one woman he could not have, but it had been an exercise in futility. He loved her still, unrepentant and unashamed, God help him.

  Not for the first time, he wondered why Emma was still in London rather than in Winchester awaiting the arrival of the king. Why, for that matter, had she not attended the ship meet at Sandwich? Edyth had been there, accorded a privileged seat near the king. Surely that should have been Emma’s place. He had been troubled by her absence at the time, but the catastrophic events at Sandwich had driven all else from his mind.

  He pondered it now, though, searching unsuccessfully for an answer as he passed the reeking butchers’ stalls of the . For a time his mount, made fractious by the smell of blood, demanded all his attention, but soon enough he turned onto the wide lane that ran toward the Aldersgate and the northern road. Moments later he was riding between the square stone towers that marked the entrance to the palace.

  Ahead of him, on the broad track leading from the hall and royal chambers to the workshops and stables beyond, Emma stood on a mounting block beside her white mare. She was gowned in a robe of tawny wool that hung loose from her shoulders, and, seeing her profile limned by sunlight, he found the answer to the riddle he had posed himself.

  The queen was pregnant, and that alone, he thought, was reason enough for her to forgo the rigors of a journey to Sandwich.

  As he drew near she looked up and met his gaze. For an instant her studied reserve vanished and her face brightened in welcome. For an instant she was his alone. The silent acknowledgment of it flashed between them like quicksilver before it disappeared, and she assumed a far more solemn mask for the benefit of the servants and men-at-arms hovering about her.

  He greeted her with matching formal courtesy and asked where she was bound.

  “Out of the city to St. Peter’s,” she said. “The abbot is building a Lady Chapel to house a relic of the Virgin, and has invited me to inspect the progress he’s made. I could go another day, my lord, if you have pressing business with me.” She looked at him uncertainly. “Or would you care to accompany me?”

  So he rode with her small company, slowly, through a gathering crowd, back around St. Paul’s and toward the Ludgate. Emma smiled and nodded to the folk who cheered lustily while several of her Norman guards distributed alms. Sometimes, he noted, the guards would stop and say a few words before depositing coins into eager palms.

  Emma, he realized, was seeking the good opinion of the Londoners not just for herself, but for her Normans as well. His brother Edmund would have denounced this as devious and somehow sinister. He saw it as politic and farsighted. But then, he and Edmund never agreed on anything where Emma was concerned.

  There was little opportunity for conversation as they passed through London’s western gate and out beyond the scattering of houses and shops that perched outside the city wall. Once they crossed the Fleet, though, the number of folk lining the road dwindled to nothing. As they passed fields of ripening grain he answered the questions that Emma posed about the events at Sandwich, and told her of the charge he had been given to organize London’s defense despite whatever suspicions his father harbored against him.

  “The king must still place great trust in you,” she observed, “if he has given all of London into your care.”

  “I suspect it is just the reverse,” he said, “and that my father has placed me in charge of London precisely because he does not trust me.”

  She frowned at him. “I do not understand.”

  “The king knows that whatever the temper in the rest of his realm, the men of London are fiercely loyal to him. The wealthiest landholders and merchants within the city are his thegns, and he has granted them rights and privileges that can be found nowhere else in the kingdom. I expect he is confident that nothing I could say or do would turn the Londoners against him, and so he has placed me here, where I can do him no harm. As for the city’s defense, what is left of our fleet is now anchored in the Thames below the bridge. Those forty ships will likely deter our enemies from attempting to reach London. Their presence alone guarantees the city’s safety, no matter who is in charge of its defense.”

  They rode in silence for a little, then she said, “And are you so certain that there will be an attack? The Danes did not come last summer. Mayhap they will stay away again.”

  “We can hope for that,” he said, “but by now they will know that our fleet has been destroyed.” He shook his head, wishing that he could be more sanguine. “They will come, and soon. There is nothing we can do now to stop them. People are afraid, and the king most of all.”

  “But not to London,” she said softly, “because of the fleet anchored here. Where then?”

  He frowned, for he had been trying to puzzle that out himself for days.

  “Sandwich again, perhaps. The town and its walls have been completely rebuilt since Tostig’s army burned it three years ago, but it is not an easy place to defend. The Sussex coast is vulnerable as well, because when Wulfnoth fled he took a great many of the Sussex defenders with him.”

  “What of the regions north of London? Is it possible they may strike the fen country?”

  “No place is completely safe,” he said, then looked hard at her. “What is your interest in the fens?”

  She frowned into the distance, as if she could see some invisible threat there.

  “The king has sent Edward to the abbey at Ely for schooling,” she said.

  “Ah,” he breathed. “I did not know.” He should have guessed that it had to do with the boy, that Edward was not in London, else he would have been at Emma’s side even now.

  “There are many tempting treasures at Ely,” she said, “and a king’s son would not be the least of them if he should be discovered there.”

  “Perhaps so, but the abbey is protected somewhat by the fens themselves. There are watchers on the coast, and the monks would have adequate warning of an attack that would allow them to flee. Edward is well guarded, is he not?” He knew almost nothing of his half brother, and that was intentional. The child was a maddening reminder of his father’s claim to Emma’s body.

  “He has his own retinue, yes.”

  “I expect they will keep Edward safe, and that you need not fear for him.” He meant to reassure her, but when he glanced again at her ripening figure, a sudden, hot streak of bitterness knifed through him. “There will be another child in his place soon, I see.”

  For a heartbeat, then two, she made no reply, but he saw her face harden and her mouth settle into a thin line. Even before she spoke, he knew that he had blundered.

  “One child can never take the place of another, my lord,” she rebuked him, her voice cold as steel.

  He cursed under his breath. He had spoken from despair and jealousy; had not considered how his words could be willfully misinterpreted by a mother who has just been parted from her only child. Snatching the bridle of her horse, he brought both mounts to a halt.

  “You know that is not what I meant,” he said. “Do not purposely misunderstand me, Emma, I beg you. If you wish me to keep my distance while I am in London, you must say so. But do not invent reasons to push me away.”

  • • •

  Emma gazed into piercing blue eyes that regarded her with an emotion she hardly dared name. It had been many months since she had s
tudied his face, and now she noted the changes that time and events had wrought there. He had watched two of his brothers die, had been through battle and seen men butchered all about him. It seemed to her that he looked older than his years, and that he had already shouldered some of the cares that would come with the burden of a crown.

  She was aware that in the distance, back along the road toward London, her retinue had come to a halt, leaving her sequestered, for courtesy, with the son of the king. She could speak plainly to him here, overheard by no one. But what was she to say? Was she to speak of his grief at the loss of his brothers? Of her bitterness toward the king and her fear for her son? Was she to tell him of her desperate need for someone to talk with and confide in?

  No. She could say none of those things, and perhaps he was right. Perhaps she was inventing reasons to push him away, for almost as strong as her fear for Edward was her fear of the power that Athelstan would have over her, should she allow him to take it.

  She drew in a breath and said, “I am a reviled queen, my lord. I have neither the strength nor the will to push away a friend.”

  She placed such emphasis on the last word that he could not miss her implication.

  The blue eyes flashed, searching her face as if he would read all that was in her mind. At last he spoke in a voice raw with passion.

  “I will never be anything less than your friend, Emma,” he said, “and I would be far more than that, if you would but let me.”

  His words hung in the air between them, potent as wine, dangerous as a naked blade. She dared not give him the response that he so clearly wanted, for along that road disaster waited for both of them. Desperate to step away from what she feared was an abyss she said, “Be my protector, then, and my adviser, for I have great need of both.”

  For a moment he said nothing, and then the dangerous light in his eyes was quenched.

  “As you wish, my lady,” he said, his tone curt.

  He released her bridle and they resumed their progress toward the West Minster, in what she felt was a brittle and stony silence. When she could bear it no longer, for she had great need of his counsel, she said, “My lord, I believe we have a mutual enemy in Lord Eadric. It would be helpful to me to learn what you know of him. Many in London now call him the Grasper. Do you know of this?”

  “I have heard it, yes,” he replied, “and the name is more than apt. He is using his position as ealdorman to enrich himself at the expense of those whom he should protect.”

  To her relief he seemed to have shrugged off his ill humor, and now he continued in the same thoughtful tone that had marked their earlier conversation.

  “My father places too much trust in the Mercian ealdorman, and I would to God I knew how to wean the one from the other. But Eadric has my sister Edyth in thrall, as I am sure you know. If the king is not listening to Eadric, he is listening to Edyth, and what one says the other repeats like a litany.” He grimaced. “I suspect that Eadric was behind the accusations made against Wulfnoth at Sandwich.”

  He described a meeting at Corfe the previous autumn between the æthelings and Wulfnoth—a private council arranged by Edmund. It occurred to her that if it had never taken place, Edgar would still be alive and Wulfnoth would still be in England. The king’s great fleet would not lie at the bottom of the Narrow Sea.

  Edmund, it seemed to her, had much to answer for, but she did not speak her thoughts aloud. Although she believed Edmund to be her enemy, even she had to admit that the consequences of that meeting were far from what he had intended.

  Athelstan went on. “I think that somehow Eadric learned of Wulfnoth’s visit to us at Corfe. Eadric could not know what was said, but he must have suspected that Wulfnoth was planning a move against him. It would not matter to Eadric that I refused to agree to the plan. The meeting itself suited his purpose—to accuse Wulfnoth of treachery and so rid himself of an outspoken enemy.” He shook his head, frowning. “It’s another indication of Eadric’s growing power, that he has spies even among my servants.”

  Even, perhaps, among the æthelings, she thought. She sifted through her memories of Athelstan’s youngest brothers. She had seen little of them in the first years of her marriage, for Edrid and Edwig had been youths then, fostered away from court. Even now she saw them only rarely, at high feast days. Edrid, the more likable of the two, had some of Athelstan’s charm, although she suspected he did not have his eldest brother’s self-confidence. Edwig, though, had earned a reputation for casual cruelty.

  It would not surprise her to learn that he had thrown in his lot with Eadric.

  “Yet none of this,” she observed, “explains why the king placed his trust in Eadric in the first place. Can your father not see that Eadric’s counsel is rooted in a thirst for power?”

  “In that, Eadric is no different from any other of the king’s thegns,” Athelstan said thoughtfully. “I think that, as is his custom, my father has somehow tested Eadric’s abilities and loyalty, and Eadric passed the test. The king does not fear his ambition, and so he trusts him in ways that he does not trust his own sons.”

  Or his queen, Emma thought. Æthelred would not allow her even to raise their son. She was meant only to bear royal children, not to influence them. That would be Eadric’s counsel to the king and no doubt Edmund’s as well, for he had never trusted her. In their minds she would ever be a hostile queen, a Norman and the pawn of her brother. Their own ambitions prevented them from even imagining that she might want nothing more than to give her son the skills that he would need to manage a kingdom, to ready him for whatever role God ordained for him.

  It was something she could not hope to accomplish if she and her son were barred from the king’s presence. How long, she wondered, must they endure such an exile?

  The babe within her moved, reminding her that she was an expectant mother as well as a wife and a queen. She must find a way to reconcile all her roles, but for now her duties as child bearer must come first. Athelstan had assured her that Edward would be safe in East Anglia, and for now she would be content with that. But once this child was born, she must find a way to bring Edward back to her side and, for good or ill, insinuate herself again into the inner circle that advised the king.

  She glanced again at Athelstan. He, too, must find his way to the king’s side; and he must learn to accept that Æthelred would always, always stand between them.

  Chapter Eighteen

  July 1009

  Holderness

  The shadows were long as Elgiva rode with Tyra, Catla, and a handful of hearth men along a muddy track toward her holding at Redmere. She had been away since yestermorn, and now, as the palisade came into view, she wondered if her husband had at last found his way to her hall.

  It had been five days since Catla, seeking shelter from the storm of shipmen who had descended upon Thurbrand’s manor, had brought word of Cnut’s return to Holderness.

  “The hall is crowded with men,” Catla had complained. “It’s no fit place for women or children, so Thurbrand has given me leave to come to you.”

  Elgiva had snorted at this. She’d rather have two shiploads of men underfoot than the mewling Catla and her brace of brats. She had tried to send them straight back home, but for once Catla had proved surprisingly obstinate.

  “I can help you make ready for your husband’s arrival,” she had pleaded. “Surely he will come tomorrow, and there is much to be done.”

  Reluctantly, Elgiva had allowed her to stay. She had consulted briefly with Alric before dispatching him to Jorvik until she should send for him again. Then she and Catla between them had supervised a flurry of baking, roasting, and brewing, had set women to scouring the bench hall and men to mucking out the stables.

  Cnut, however, did not come on the morrow, nor the two days after—apparently preferring Thurbrand’s company to hers, Elgiva thought resentfully. Never mind that she had been awaiting
his return to England for two years. Never mind that it was she, not Thurbrand, who had sent Alric to her father’s allies to stir up hostility toward King Æthelred and his bloody-handed henchman, Eadric. Never mind that Cnut had neglected his duties as a husband so that she had no son while, as if to spite her, that rabbity Catla had given birth to two boys as disgustingly hairy as their father.

  So, determined that she would not endure another agonizing day of watching for her husband’s appearance at her gate, she had left Redmere. She had ridden north, to the village of Rodestan, where, Catla had assured her, she would see a great wonder.

  “In the center of a clearing there is a tall stone,” Catla had said, “placed there by giants who once ruled this land.”

  Tyra had pursed her lips at hearing this.

  “Not giants, my lady,” she said, “but men. The Old Ones, who are no more than memory to us now, raised such stones to honor their gods.”

  Elgiva had wondered how it was that Tyra was so certain of this, for when she saw the great stone for herself she was far more inclined to believe Catla’s tale of giants. A single shaft, as thick as a man could measure with his arms outspread, and as wide across as three brawny men placed side by side, pointed high into the sky. Curious, she had walked up to the thing and into the shadow it cast. Immediately she felt chilled, as if she’d walked into a bank of snow. She backed away, seeking the sunlight again, certain that there was something here beyond her understanding.

  Tyra, though, had stood long in that shadow, her hand upon the stone, as if drawing power from it, her head cocked as if listening.

  Elgiva had watched her and wondered what it was that the Sámi woman heard and felt. Did she pray to the Old Ones as Christians prayed to their saints? Was there knowledge trapped within the stone that Tyra pulled into herself somehow?