The Constant Queen

by Joanna Courtney

  ‘You,’ he told her when he could speak again, ‘shall have your stone house, my sweet.’

  ‘No.’

  ‘No?’

  ‘No. I’ve decided I don’t want that and you don’t either.’

  ‘I don’t?’

  ‘No. A king should not live on a farm.’

  ‘A big farm.’

  ‘No, Hari. Come, you’ve lived in Kiev, you’ve even lived in Miklegard for heaven’s sake so you must see – in this day and age a king needs a city.’

  Harald stared at his tiny wife, her dark cheeks flushed with pain and her belly pulsing with his child.

  ‘You want me to build you a city?’

  ‘Build us a city, Hari, yes. Forget Denmark for now; let us make Norway great and let us start with a proper capital. I have had letters from my sisters in Hungary. Andrew is king, praise God, and Anastasia says they are working to develop a settlement on the Danube river called Buda into a worthy place from which to rule. She writes that she lives in a great new palace and that she has been given free rein to commission builders and artisans to make it greater yet. Agatha confirms it.’

  She ground her teeth as another spasm rocked her.

  ‘A city?’ Harald said, testing the idea. ‘A capital for Norway? But we have Nidaros, Lily.’

  Elizaveta tossed her head.

  ‘Nidaros is not a city, Harald. It is a market, no more; a rough little harbourside market. And what’s more it’s up here, in the north, where all those overblown lords rule the roost. You need a city in the sou . . . ow!’

  He held her through the next pain. They seemed to be getting longer and closer together and he looked nervously to the door wondering if he could call back the midwives, though at the same time his mind was racing. A city in the south, deep within the safety of the great fjord in his Ringerike homelands? As Elizaveta returned to him he leaned back a little to look into her eyes.

  ‘A city, Lily?’

  ‘Yes. That will show Norway where its future lies and who it lies with. Who wants Magnus and his remote wooden farmhouse when they can have Harald in a palace for all to see, in a walled city full of churches and libraries, statues and courtyards and ooowww! Harald, it hurts. It hurts so much.’

  ‘I’ll call Greta.’

  She nodded and he shouted towards the door for assistance. It flew back and Greta, no longer the timid girl he remembered, strode inside, the two midwives waddling in her wake.

  ‘It hurts her,’ Harald told them urgently.

  ‘It will, Sire. It hurts all women, even queens.’

  He crushed Elizaveta against him.

  ‘She will be safe though?’

  ‘We’ll take very good care of her,’ Greta assured him.

  ‘You must. She is very precious.’

  ‘As are all women,’ one of the midwives intoned piously.

  ‘No! She is far more precious than that.’

  The poor woman cowered and Elizaveta, recovering again, let out a low laugh.

  ‘All will be well, Hari.’

  He looked at her. She seemed tired, frail. She had always had a fragile quality to her slim frame but never before had he feared she might actually break. She was tough, strong, wild. He held her against him again.

  ‘I can’t lose you, Lily. I love you – you know that.’

  ‘I know, Hari.’

  Her voice was wavering again.

  ‘You and me,’ he said urgently. ‘It’s just you and me now, my Lilyveta – you and me always.’

  ‘You and me,’ she echoed but the words were swallowed up in a roar of pain and the midwives rushed forward, somehow lifting her from him and moving her onto the bed.

  ‘Let me stay,’ he said desperately.

  Greta put a gentle hand on his arm.

  ‘No, Sire, please. This is woman’s work and we will do it best alone.’

  ‘I . . .’

  ‘We will see her safe, Sire, I promise. Now please . . .’

  ‘Lily!’ he called out but she was lost in the spasm and could not reply and before he knew it, he was outside, staring at the door.

  Behind him someone coughed and he turned to see Ulf.

  ‘You look pale, Hari.’

  ‘Pale? God, yes, it’s horrible in there.’ Ulf waved for a servant and pressed a goblet of wine into Harald’s hand. He gulped at it gratefully. ‘What do we do now?’ he asked his friend.

  Ulf shrugged.

  ‘We wait.’

  ‘That’s all?’

  ‘That’s all.’

  Harald looked slowly around him. The hall was packed. His soldiers were outside in their own camp but all the lords and many of their ladies, come to welcome them home from their raiding, were gathered around the hearth. A large pot of stew sat over it and many held steaming bowls.

  ‘You should eat,’ Halldor suggested now, coming up next to Ulf. ‘Keep your strength up.’

  ‘Eat? Don’t be ridiculous, Hal. I’m not the one who needs strength right now.’

  ‘Even so, it could be a long wait.’

  ‘Nonsense. You heard her – the babe must be close.’

  Halldor shook his head pityingly.

  ‘If I remember Aksel’s birth correctly,’ he said, ‘she’s only just getting started.’

  And so it proved. Hour after miserable hour rolled past. Night fell. The lamps were lit around the walls of the hall and more stew was brought. Harald even ate some. People talked quietly amongst themselves, trying not to stare whenever Elizaveta’s screams drowned out their words. Harald paced up and down, up and down, with his men taking brave turns accompanying him as his temper grew with his fear.

  ‘It’s quite normal,’ a low voice said suddenly in his ear.

  ‘Finn!’

  Harald turned to his foster father. Finn and Einar had marched away to see Magnus laid out with all pomp. They intended taking him to nearby Nidaros to be buried beside Olaf, his sainted father, and Harald was worried what that might do to the mood in the north. Magnus’s death was his chance to unite Norway, not divide her. He looked cautiously into Finn’s eyes but Finn threw an arm around his shoulder as if there was not a care between them.

  ‘Honestly, Harald,’ he said, nodding towards Elizaveta’s door, ‘it sounds as if they are being ripped apart but it’s quite normal.’

  ‘Really? It doesn’t seem very fair.’

  ‘No,’ Finn allowed. ‘I’d not be a woman, even for all the gold in your caskets.’

  Harald grimaced.

  ‘Nor I.’

  ‘Planting the seed seems a deal easier than bearing the fruit. And you, Harald, seem especially good at planting seed.’

  Something in Finn’s voice caught at Harald and even Elizaveta’s cries seemed to fade slightly. Was he saying . . . ? Surely not? Elizaveta would kill him – if she was not dying already.

  ‘What are you telling me, Finn?’

  Finn leaned in close.

  ‘I have news from Austratt. Joyous news.’ Harald felt the stew he had forced down fighting to return. He put out a hand and found Halldor’s broad shoulder, but his old friend could do nothing to protect him from this one. ‘Tora is pregnant.’

  Harald closed his eyes. He longed to ask if it was his but knew that would be mean. Foolish too, as he had been foolish. He’d let himself be seduced by Tora’s softness, by her connections, by memories that ran deep into his past but that might now wreck his future. A cry from Elizaveta, louder than any that had gone before, rang out around the hall and Harald felt it shudder all the way through him.

  ‘A king must have heirs,’ Finn said calmly.

  ‘A king,’ Harald snapped back, ‘would rather have a queen.’

  ‘Oh well,’ Finn said, ‘you have plenty of those too now.’

  Harald stared at him.

  ‘I cannot make Tora my queen, Finn. I am wed already.’

  ‘And pray God your wife stays safe.’ Finn looked pointedly at the chamber door. ‘You could handfast, Harald,’ he went on, his vo
ice dangerously soft, ‘as many have before you.’

  ‘Tora would never agree to that.’

  ‘Tora would do as she is told. As might a king who needed support against a possible rebellion in the north.’

  ‘Are you threatening me, Finn?’

  ‘Of course not. Guiding you, that’s all. Magnus is dead, Harald; this is your opportunity – our opportunity. You are like a son to me, you know that. I just want to see what’s best for you.’

  ‘And you think that is two wives? Good God, man, I am suffering enough with one. When on earth will this be over?’

  ‘I’m sure it will be easier with Tora. Her mother birthed very quickly.’

  It was too much. Harald grabbed Finn’s tunic, pulling him close.

  ‘Now, Finn, is not the time for this. I am busy with my wife, my Christian wife, and . . .’

  A new cry stopped him short – a tiny, plaintive but determined little cry. He looked at the door as the whole court leaped to its feet.

  ‘Not the time,’ Finn agreed calmly. ‘Go, Harald – see your child, your first-born but not, remember, your last. We will talk again.’

  Harald heard the words. Some part of his brain stored them nervously away but for now all he wanted was to see Elizaveta. He ran for the chamber door but it was barred. He banged his fists against the wood.

  ‘Let me in.’

  ‘One moment, Sire.’ The voice was wavery, faint.

  ‘Now. Let me in now.’

  ‘Please, you must . . .’

  ‘No. No more waiting. Let me in or my axe will do so.’ The bolt slid slowly back to reveal the older midwife, her ample frame blocking the gap. ‘Where is she?’

  ‘Your child is safe born, Sire, and . . .’

  ‘Where is she? Where’s my wife?’

  ‘The queen just needs a little time. She just . . .’

  But Harald had heard enough. He pushed her aside and stepped in.

  ‘Lily?’

  Elizaveta was on the bed, lying there so pale it looked as if every drop of her blood had been drained from her and maybe it had, for the sheets were soaked and her poor naked legs were caked red where they poked from her sodden shift. Greta was tending to her but seeing Harald she stepped back, bloody rags clutched to her chest. Harald’s hands went to his mouth. He dared not move.

  ‘This surely,’ he whispered to Halldor at his shoulder, ‘is not normal?’

  Halldor’s strained ‘no’ seemed to scratch at his very soul and he flung himself forward.

  ‘Lily?’ Her eyes flinched open. ‘Oh, thank God. Lily, I thought you were . . .’

  ‘Don’t say it, Hari. I thought I was too but I am here.’

  ‘You are here.’

  ‘The babe?’

  ‘The . . .’ He looked around, confused. ‘I almost forgot.’

  ‘Hari! I go through all this and you almost forget?’

  Her voice was faint but he heard the teasing within it and his spirits soared. Then, suddenly, she sighed and it seemed to shake her whole body.

  ‘Lily – what’s wrong?’

  ‘It is a girl, Hari. I . . . I’m sorry.’

  ‘Sorry? You’re sorry? Oh my sweet – never be sorry. Where is she? Where is my princess?’

  The second midwife brought forward a tiny bundle of white cloth and, taking it, Harald peeled back the warm folds and looked upon his daughter. Two big, dark eyes, so exactly like her mother’s, blinked up at him and to his astonishment and horror he felt tears well in his eyes. Tears!

  ‘She’s beautiful,’ he managed, blinking ferociously.

  ‘Hari – are you crying?’

  ‘No.’

  Elizaveta laughed softly and he went back to her and sat gently on the side of the bed. Greta had pulled a fresh sheet over the mess and all looked pristine but he hadn’t got so soft as to be fooled.

  ‘Has the bleeding stopped?’ he demanded of the midwives.

  ‘We believe so, Sire, but she must rest.’

  Harald looked at Elizaveta. She’d put out a hand to the baby but her eyes were closing and he felt the damned tears rising again. He stood up firmly.

  ‘We shall call her Maria,’ he said.

  ‘Maria?’

  The midwives exchanged glances at the strange Latinate name.

  ‘Maria,’ he repeated, ‘to honour her Rus heritage and in praise of Maria, Mother of Christ, that she may keep Elizaveta safe.’

  ‘’Tis a noble Christian name,’ one of them volunteered.

  ‘For a noble Christian king,’ Harald agreed, adding wretchedly to himself: ‘who has – who can have – only one wife.’

  He glanced back at Elizaveta but she looked little more than a shadow in the stained bed and he prayed, as he had never truly prayed before that, despite his many sins, God would look down on him today and bring her safely back.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  Oslo, Christ’s Mass 1046

  ‘We were trapped!’ Halldor’s voice rang out around the packed hall. ‘Trapped in a fog that wrapped itself around us as if our own dragon-prow were breathing fumes; trapped in a fjord as narrow as a maiden’s passage and as steep as the granite walls of hell; trapped with Danish ships in an arc across our only escape route like a sickle of death.’

  Elizaveta smiled. She had not heard one of Halldor’s tales for some time and, despite the dark content, she welcomed it as a sign that all was well again. Harald had told her little of the men’s bitter campaign against Svein this summer, dismissing it as ‘a disaster’, but listening to Halldor now it sounded a triumph. It seemed that even the worst events could be polished up by the funny warrior’s rhetoric and she wondered what gloss he might find for her own travails.

  If he ever told it, she did not want to hear. Living through the pain of Maria’s birthing and the endless, terrifyingly slow days of recovery, had been bad enough without ever hearing it recounted, but live through it she had and for that she was unendingly grateful. She had held fast to fortune’s wheel and fortune had lifted her out of the mire.

  She and Harald had moved south once she had recovered, both to escape the prying eyes of the northern jarls and to look for the perfect site for their new city. They had found it on the banks of the river Lo and Harald had set his troops to building the great hall in which the courtiers were all now gathered.

  The northern jarls were taking great pleasure in grumbling about its basic comforts but though it was true that it was rough at the moment, they had great plans for it. Some of the commanders had commissioned their own dwellings nearby and it gave Elizaveta great pleasure to see the city they were calling Oslo starting to take shape. She felt desperately proud of it and had personally supervised the plans for a great church. For now, they worshipped in an ancient wooden chapel, but new foundations had been laid and dedicated to Our Lady to give thanks for Elizaveta’s survival and for their own little Maria.

  She looked fondly across to her daughter, now a lively three-month-old and cradled in her father’s big arm, her little hands waving and her dark eyes following Halldor’s every exaggerated movement, though always her head flicked up if her father spoke. Maria was never happier than when she was with Harald and Elizaveta felt the accustomed whip of sadness that she was not a son, able to train with him as she grew. She forced it aside – why wish war on any child?

  ‘It seemed,’ Halldor intoned, arms high, ‘that we were doomed. We had played the water-gods one too many times and they were sick of us.’

  ‘Halldor,’ Harald warned quietly.

  He was still pursuing the devout Christian-king role that Elizaveta had long since realised was aimed at avoiding the handfast ceremony constantly demanded by the relentless Finn. She sighed. It had taken Harald weeks to admit to her that his wretched northern mistress was bearing him a second child and Elizaveta had seen no reason to make it easy for him, for it was as painful as hellfire for her.

  ‘Just you and me’ had been a blissful dream, remembered on a haze of birthing pain, but sh
e’d soon seen that it would not now be possible and much as she hated that fact, she had learned to accept it. What other choice was there? She’d recalled her mother’s laughing words about wishing Yaroslav would take a concubine and had tried to be glad that someone else would have to go through the horror of producing an heir for Norway. But it was hard and, despite her best efforts, her eyes narrowed as she glanced down the table to where Tora sat, her pale skin rosy, her blonde hair glossy and her belly as round as a full moon and every bit as pleased with itself.

  Elizaveta rubbed at her beautiful finger ring, nervously tracing the pattern of Harold’s love in the inset jewels. The Arnassons had come to Oslo two weeks ago and were housed in a sumptuous set of pavilions on the far side of the meadows – though not nearly far away enough for Elizaveta. All through the Yule period the damned woman had been wearing gowns specially cut to exaggerate the swell of her bastard babe and her damned uncle had paraded her on his arm everywhere they went as if she were some sort of jewel – which Elizaveta supposed for her family she was.

  She had envied Tora for birthing in her own land with her mother close, until Harald – in one of their rare, awkward conversations about his mistress – had told her Tora’s mother had died when she was still small. For a moment Elizaveta had almost felt sorry for her rival, and then she’d reminded herself that Tora had both a sister and a brother nearby and of course her devoted, pushy uncle to ever watch her back, and had returned to hating her, stoking her anger to avoid another uncomfortable truth – that, blooming in the seventh month of her pregnancy, Tora Arnasson looked more than ever like Ingrid and Elizaveta, cherishing her own hard-won child, yearned, with a sorrow that made her feel uncomfortably vulnerable, to be with her mother. Now, she tore her eyes away from Tora and, closing them, sent her thoughts across sea and downriver to Kiev.

  Ingrid had sent gifts for Maria, Yaroslav too, and, more precious than the fancy toys and cups, ivory teethers and rich silks for tiny gown, a letter:

  I wish so much I could be with you and your daughter, my own dearest girl, Ingrid had written, and can only hope that she brings you as much joy as you have brought me – and perhaps a little less trouble. Elizaveta had smiled through her tears at that and even more so at her mother’s parting words: say hello to the trolls for me.