The Constant Queen

by Joanna Courtney

  ‘If you are so set on Harald,’ her uncle had told her during their preparations for the royal visit, ‘we can use that.’

  ‘How?’ she’d asked uneasily.

  ‘You do not need to be a man’s wife to bear him a child, Tora.’

  ‘But . . .’

  ‘And you are, after all, morally his wife in God’s eyes.’

  ‘I . . .’

  ‘And it’s not as if you haven’t done it before . . .’ He’d taken her hand. ‘A king needs a mistress, Niece. It befits his status and helps ensure heirs for the country – Arnasson heirs.’

  ‘But the queen . . .’

  ‘The queen is slight. Birthing will not go easily for her.’

  ‘Uncle!’

  ‘It is a simple truth, Tora, nothing more. She has lost three already. You, though, you are a proper woman. Pieter was not man enough to make the most of that, but there is little doubting Harald’s seed. You would like children, would you not, Niece?’

  He’d cut her where she was already wounded; the lack of children from her first marriage was its only sadness.

  ‘I am not a concubine, Uncle,’ she’d insisted, struggling to resist the lure of the suggestion.

  ‘Of course not,’ he’d soothed. ‘You would be a royal consort and you would have such status. You will bear him fine boys, I know it. Fine kings. And if the Rus girl were not, God forbid, to rise from her childbed it would be good for Harald to find consolation, would it not? Especially if that consolation were already carrying his babe.’

  ‘But the Roman church, Uncle . . .’

  ‘Is safe in Rome. Come, girl, most of our people still marry beneath a tree at midsummer without a priest in sight unless he be in the bushes taking his own pleasure. And we have only Harald’s word for it that he is truly wed to the Slav. Here in Norway, it is more as if she is his mistress and you his true wife.’

  It had been nonsense of course, she’d known that really, but such seductive nonsense. Finn himself had been delighted with the notion. Einar was plotting still and he needed to bind Harald to the Arnasson cause. Johanna marrying Ulf, promoted to the rank of Harald’s marshal and second-in-command, had helped them but not as much as blending the two families’ blood would do. She steeled herself.

  ‘You look tired, Harald.’

  ‘I am tired. I barely slept last night.’

  ‘It must have been very upsetting for you. Shall I help you to your bed?’

  He looked up and seemed to see the emptying hall for the first time.

  ‘No need,’ he said. ‘I might as well kip down with the men.’

  He waved to the hard core of his Varangians, still drinking around the fire. Tora looked too and saw Finn stood in the shadow of a pillar nodding her on. She thought fast.

  ‘You cannot do that, Harald,’ she said, ‘you are the king now.’

  ‘One of the kings.’

  ‘Even so – you do not see Magnus sleeping with the common lords, do you?’

  That seemed to work. Harald rose and she was swiftly up at his side but so too was his troll-friend, Halldor, who had been lurking at the end of the table. Luckily he was not the only one; Tora had never seen her uncle move so fast.

  ‘Count Halldor!’ Finn called. ‘Just the man. I have this delicious golden spirit sent to me from the Orkneys. You must try it.’

  Halldor was helpless in his persuasive clutches and Tora was free to follow a staggering Harald to his chamber. The door led directly off the hall and she knew plenty of eyes were still open enough to watch her move in behind him. Her cheeks flamed but her steps did not falter. This was Harald, she reminded herself – her Harald, her wolf-boy. She was entitled to him.

  ‘Very tired,’ he was mumbling, throwing himself onto the bed, and now it was Tora who had to move fast.

  ‘A last drink,’ she suggested, sloshing wine into a goblet from the jug on the side table and offering it to him, taking the chance to slide onto the pillows at his side as she did so.

  Harald looked at the goblet in askance but then shrugged.

  ‘Why not.’ He drank deep. ‘Elizaveta is not like you, Tora. You are all . . . soft.’

  Tora moved a little closer so he could feel exactly how soft.

  ‘She has too much spirit?’ she suggested.

  ‘Ha! Yes.’

  ‘That must be very challenging for you. I would not be so. I am too meek.’

  ‘Meek is not a bad thing in a woman, Tora.’

  ‘I don’t know. I think I would always just want to please you, to do your bidding.’

  ‘That’s not a bad thing either.’

  ‘No?’

  Tora knelt up, fumbling for her courage with her dress-brooches.

  ‘I still,’ she said, keeping her voice low, ‘want to please you, Harald.’

  The brooches snapped free and her overdress fell to her waist. Harald sat up a little, thrusting his goblet aside, and, encouraged, she undid the lace of her undergown so that it, too, fell loose.

  ‘Do I please you, Harald?’

  He ripped the shift from her shoulders so fast she almost cried out in alarm. It seemed she did please him, but then he just sat there, looking her nakedness up and down, but making no further move to touch her. It needed more. Drawing in a deep breath, Tora pushed herself up to stand on the bed above him and let both gowns fall to her feet. She was naked before him again, as she had been sixteen years ago, though she was older now, less lithe – would she tempt him still?

  Harald moaned and she saw his trousers bulge. Emboldened, she knelt again and released him. She could almost feel her uncle’s eyes on the door and hated herself as a whore but she was here now and suddenly she was desperate for Harald to want her – not for Finn, not for the Arnassons, not even to annoy Elizaveta, but for herself.

  ‘You belong with me,’ she murmured.

  ‘I am wed.’

  ‘I know that. I challenge it not. You can have me too.’ She knelt over him. ‘A king should have a mistress, Harald – it befits his status – and I am yours.’ She leaned in, letting her full breasts touch his face as Pieter had liked her to do. ‘So take me.’

  ‘Yes.’

  He was up and over her instantly, pinning her wrists to the bed and pushing between her legs, driving into her. She longed to grasp him, hold him close, but she could not move, could only lie there at his mercy, fighting to enjoy her triumph. He closed his grey eyes as he thrust, lost in a world of his own and Tora knew, with sick certainty, that it wasn’t her he wanted. Indeed, it wasn’t her he was bedding at all as, with a cry, he spilled his precious royal seed inside her and collapsed, spent.

  In the morning he was tender. Tora woke to find him looking down at her and had the uneasy feeling he’d been doing so for some time. He took her again, slower this time, watching her as if expecting something, though she knew not what.

  ‘We sail for Denmark soon,’ he said when it was over. Tora struggled to make the connection. ‘We can be together until then,’ he explained, like this was a gift; no, like a promotion, as if he had moved her up the ranks of his soldiery. Then he added, ‘Your uncle will expect it now.’

  ‘My uncle?!’

  ‘And I,’ he added hastily, ‘would like it.’

  ‘A king should have a mistress,’ Tora repeated numbly.

  Harald smiled.

  ‘It befits his status?’ She nodded and he kissed her. ‘I will make sure you enjoy it, Tora.’

  And he did, or least she assumed that was his intent when he flipped her and touched her and watched her, and the unease grew that he was looking for something more from her. His body was strong and powerful and, unlike frail Pieter, he made her feel small and pleasingly womanly beneath him. She liked the feel of his skin on hers and she loved lying in his arms after he was spent, but there was none of the thrill she’d yearned for and that confused her. How could she have waited so long to feel so little?

  ‘You are very quiet,’ he said a few nights later.

  �
��Quiet?’ She glanced to the door. ‘I have to be, surely – everyone is outside.’

  He’d laughed at that.

  ‘They know what we’re doing, Tora.’

  She knew that; oh God, she knew that. The endless winks and nudges and knowing smiles told her that every minute of the day, as did the glares from Count Halldor’s dark brow and the reports back from Johanna that ‘Elizaveta will be furious’. She tried to be pleased about that but more than anything else she felt ashamed. She had expected glory in their coming together. She had been uncertain what form it would take, but had been sure that the rightness of their union would manifest itself in the sort of ecstasy she had not found with Pieter.

  Instead, as the days went on, she came to almost fear night-time, not because of Harald’s lack of feelings but because of her own. As the triumph of winning him melted away, she was left wondering, yet again, if she had a weak heart and her overwhelming emotion when the men finally sailed out the mouth of the fjord to reclaim Denmark from the usurper Svein Estrithson was relief.

  ‘Well done, Niece,’ Finn said, holding her close as he bade her goodbye on the jetties. He clutched a big hand to her stomach. ‘Let’s pray you bear fruit.’

  ‘I am not a tree, Uncle,’ Tora said stiffly.

  ‘No indeed, but please don’t be prim. Not now. The family has advanced and you have had fun – all is well!’

  Then he winked and hugged her again and was gone, leaving her holding her belly and feeling certain she was missing something and even more certain it was something that Elizaveta, with her dark eyes and sensuous lips, knew all about. Harald would not, she was sure, be back in her bed and she wished with all her confused heart that it bothered her more.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  Bymarka, September 1046

  ‘Lily! I came as soon as I could.’

  Harald ran into the chamber to find his wife looking even more beautiful than he’d remembered and at least twice as large. She was standing holding onto a bedpost with one hand and her back with the other and panting like a dog out at hunt. She looked at him and something in her eyes made him wave the two well-padded midwives away. Greta hurried them to the door and then, with only the slightest hesitation, slipped out too.

  ‘As soon as you could?’ Elizaveta said drily once they were alone. ‘You’ve been gone four months, Harald.’

  ‘Four very profitable months, my sweet.’

  ‘You defeated Svein Estrithson then?’

  Harald grimaced. They had not defeated Svein, quite the opposite. The bastard had played cat and mouse amongst the islands, refusing to engage them until finally, somehow, he had trapped their ships and they had been lucky to escape intact. Then, after days in a dank fog, Magnus had been taken by a terrible fever and gone to God leaving, to everyone’s surprise, a will giving Denmark over to Svein.

  Harald had denounced this as a fevered insanity and moved to take the fleet back to Jutland to seize the throne as the rightful heir. Einar, however, had blocked the move, insisting that their duty was to escort their royal lord home to Norway in all honour and, with so many men in the jarl’s direct charge, Harald had been powerless to override him. His only consolation was that it had brought him home in time to be with Elizaveta. Not that she needed to know all that now.

  ‘We took Samso,’ he told her cautiously.

  ‘Samso?’ She wrinkled her nose. ‘Where’s that?’

  ‘It’s an island off Jutland.’

  ‘A big island?’

  ‘Very,’ he said firmly – she wasn’t to know.

  ‘Funny,’ came back the swift reply, ‘because I heard it was less than an hour’s walk across and home to little more than a half-wit shepherd and his flock.’

  ‘You did? Who from?’

  ‘Aksel. He told me too that Magnus is dead – which is a blessing, yes, though I know we must not say so – and that Svein is King of Denmark now.’

  ‘He told you that?’

  ‘Oh yes. He talks to everyone who comes through.’

  ‘Ah. I see. I’m so glad I left him with you then.’

  Elizaveta almost smiled, then suddenly her face contorted and she gripped the bedpost and, closing her eyes, began panting again. Harald darted forward but she put out her other hand to ward him off and, ridiculously frightened, he stopped.

  ‘’Tis passing,’ she said eventually, recovering herself.

  ‘Does it hurt?’

  ‘Of course it hurts!’

  ‘I’m sorry. I don’t like you hurting.’

  ‘Really?’

  Elizaveta pushed off the bedpost and moved away from him, both hands in the small of her back, stretching out so he couldn’t help but notice the swell of her breasts pushing against her light shift. He truly had forgotten how beautiful she was; and how much he desired her. Not that she would thank him for such thoughts now.

  ‘Really,’ he said earnestly.

  She spun back.

  ‘Why then,’ she demanded, ‘did you bed the Arnasson girl?’

  Harald flinched.

  ‘You heard that too?’

  ‘Aksel . . .’

  ‘Talks to everyone. I know.’

  ‘And there were plenty of ladies keen to discuss it with me too, Harald. Very sympathetic they were, as I’m sure you can imagine.’

  Harald flinched again. He’d seen the ladies of courts all over the world attacking a good piece of gossip and they were as vicious with it as hounds with a hare.

  ‘I’m sorry.’

  Elizaveta moved towards him. He put out a hand but she did not take it.

  ‘Why, Harald?’ she asked. ‘Why did you bother bringing me to your precious homeland if you were just going to run off to her when you got here?’

  That stung.

  ‘I did not “run off” to her. You sent me to her, Elizaveta. You told me yourself to go to her.’

  ‘But not to bed her. How long did it take, Hari? The first night, was it?’ He tried to stare her down but her dark eyes were too sharp. ‘I’m so glad our wedding vows – vows made before Christ’s own altar and my father, your liege lord for so many years – meant so much to you.’

  She was panting again now, though whether from pain or fury it was hard to tell. Harald drew himself up.

  ‘A king needs a mistress; it befits his status.’

  Elizaveta snorted.

  ‘Says who?’

  ‘Says . . . says the world.’

  ‘And since when did you care what the world says?’

  She spoke true. He edged forward.

  ‘Please don’t be angry, Lily. You are my wife. You are having my child.’

  ‘Don’t I know it?’

  A hiss of pain escaped from between her teeth and Harald seized the chance to reach out for her. For a moment she rested against his chest, burrowing her head into him, her little feet stamping beneath her shift as she fought the birth-spasm, but then it must have passed for she sprung away.

  ‘I thought you loved me, Hari?’

  ‘I do.’

  ‘So?’

  ‘So, I was angry with you and you weren’t there and she, she was.’

  ‘That’s it?’

  He spread his hands wide.

  ‘Need it be more?’ She looked confused and he pressed his advantage. ‘I don’t love her, Lily. She was just . . .’

  ‘Convenient?’

  ‘No! Well, maybe a little, but it runs far deeper than mere physical cravings, Lily. It’s about power. Not over her,’ he added hastily. ‘You are the only woman I crave power over, Lily, and you are the one I fear I will never master.’ Nearly she smiled. ‘Einar is plotting.’

  ‘And bedding an Arnasson helps, does it? Why not go the whole hog and leap between the sheets with the man himself?’

  Harald shuddered.

  ‘He looks very hairy.’ A giggle escaped his wife’s throat, a light, happy sound and he snatched at it. ‘Things are tense, Lily. Magnus’s faction is hardly pleased to have me here in Norway
and I need as many friends as I can get, even with him gone.’

  ‘Are you going to bed them all?’

  ‘Only if you want me to – you can come along if you wish.’

  Elizaveta cried out in sudden pain and he ran to her.

  ‘I never,’ she said between gasps, ‘want to have . . . anything to do . . . with bedding . . . ever again.’

  Harald stroked her back nervously. Her breathing was relaxing again but to his intense relief she did not pull away this time.

  ‘How come,’ she murmured into his chest, ‘this babe of yours was so much fun to put inside me and yet it’s so hellish to get out?’

  He kissed the top of her head.

  ‘It will be fun again,’ he promised.

  ‘Not just for you.’

  ‘No. It’s much more fun for me when it’s fun for you too.’

  It was truer than he’d realised. Tora had been attentive, almost embarrassingly so, but she had never seemed truly to enjoy herself and that had made him feel somehow useless.

  ‘It’s always fun for me,’ Elizaveta said, ‘or it was.’

  This time he claimed her lips, briefly, tenderly.

  ‘Just you,’ he swore to her. ‘From now on, Lily, it’s just you.’

  She tried to reach her hands up around his neck but her bump pushed her too far away and instead she grabbed at his hair, pulling his face down so their foreheads touched and he felt hers slick with sweat.

  ‘I thought a king should have a mistress?’

  ‘Says who?’

  ‘She will not be happy.’

  Harald thought about this.

  ‘I think she might, Lily. She did not seem to find it anywhere near as enjoyable as you do.’

  ‘Hari!’ She batted at his chest. ‘I don’t want to know.’

  ‘Just hear this then, Lily: she will be relieved to be rid of me. I will give her a farmhouse or something.’

  Elizaveta rolled her eyes.

  ‘You Norwegians and your farmhouses,’ she said but the words stumbled and she grabbed at him, pulling his tunic so tight he thought it might strangle him.

  Both of them fought for breath until the pain subsided and her hold loosened.