The Constant Queen

by Joanna Courtney

  Her family seemed, these days, to be little more than a shadow on vellum. Anastasia had sent a brief note in a neat hand that Elizaveta knew was not her own, though the words had been sincere. She had praised the value of daughters, saying her own Adelaide was a delight to her but Elizaveta had heard the unspoken regret that Anastasia had not, as yet, produced a son either and had felt for her proud sister. Anastasia had always longed to produce kings; it must be hurting her to have so far failed to do so.

  Agatha had written too, a long, rambling missive, full of praise of Edward and funny tales of Hungarian society and with word that she, too, was pregnant. It seemed Yaroslav’s grandchildren were entering the world fast. Anne remained unwed, though the emissaries from France had returned to Yaroslav and he was negotiating her dowry. She’d written that Kiev was quiet these days and that she had heard much praise of Paris, the French first city, and Elizaveta had sensed how she yearned to move on. How far away was Paris, she wondered sometimes? Or Buda? Close enough to visit? She’d vowed to look into it, for in those long days recovering from her vicious childbed she’d felt very alone with just Greta and Aksel – and, of course, Harald.

  For if Harald was seeing the woman bearing his next child, he was doing so very briefly and very secretively. Tora, so Elizaveta had learned from Greta, had a pavilion all to herself but she must be alone in it most of the time for Harald slept every night at Elizaveta’s side and sat at every meal with her. In return, if occasionally he was gone from view for an hour or two Elizaveta let her passions loose on her viol and managed not to snipe or even comment on his return. She was secretly rather proud of herself – this, she hoped, was what her mother would finally recognise in her as ‘dignity’. She blinked and forced herself to return to the present moment.

  ‘What did you do?’ someone called out to Halldor, though whether for dramatic effect or to hurry him out of the metaphors that seemed to grow longer and grander as he grew older, was hard to tell.

  Halldor put up a hand.

  ‘What could we do? We were . . .’

  ‘Trapped,’ his audience provided.

  ‘Exactly! Trapped as a bug beneath a goblet, as a . . .’

  ‘As an audience before a poet,’ someone supplied and Halldor frowned.

  ‘Very well. I shall cut to the chase. If we could not run and we could not dodge, we had to coerce. First we threw barrels full of the finest ale from Odense into the sea to tempt them. One boat went skittering after but it was not enough so we released caskets of treasure. We kept the treasure back, mind, all save a chain or two, artfully draped out of the clasp – Danes are easy to fool!’ This won him a roar of approval which he acknowledged with a grin. ‘They dived for those, losing formation and we edged forward, poised to duck through the gap, but Svein hollered them back and pressed on with the attack. We were, it seemed, doomed.’

  Halldor paused dramatically and, hearing a gasp behind, Elizaveta glanced back to see her squire leaning eagerly forward as if physically pulled into his father’s vivid story. She smiled. Aksel was twelve now and too old to sit at her feet but he had positioned himself, as ever, at her shoulder, poised to serve. The young man had sat at the door of her chamber as much as Harald after Maria’s birth – nay, more, for no one had called him to kingly duties as they had her poor husband. Once she was sitting up, he had brought her fresh flowers to make her chamber smell sweet, and pestered the cooks for delicacies to tempt her pathetic appetite, and always been there to offer her his arm when she wished to try and coax her feeble legs back into action.

  ‘My son is sweet on you,’ Halldor was always teasing her.

  ‘No, Hal,’ she’d correct him, ‘he is just sweet.’

  In truth, she had a suspicion that it was Greta he was sweet on, for there had often been flowers and pastries for her maid too, but since they had come to Oslo, Halldor had drawn his son into training with the men. Looking at his eager face now, Elizaveta supposed it was time but she would miss him if he went raiding in Denmark next summer, and fear for him besides if Halldor’s tales were even half true.

  ‘There was only one thing for it,’ the Icelander was crying gleefully, ‘prisoners. No general can refuse to help his own men so over they went, screaming and yelling in their soft southern accents. Some we tossed high – you should have seen them cutting holes in the mist with their flailing arms and legs. Some we sent out on an oar balanced over the gunwale, teetering and tottering like infants learning to walk until their fat arses overbalanced them and they tumbled into the deep. Some we even drove up the mast at sword-point and made them jump from the very top like our landwaster raven flying high above, only without the wings!’

  Halldor sighed happily.

  ‘Fine sport! Soon the sea was awash with Danes weeping for their mamas and what could Svein do but sail in to scoop them up? And what could we do but slip away through the gaps, set our sails and make for the open seas, a hundred prisoners lighter and faster than he? And here we are!’

  ‘Here we are indeed.’ Harald rose, handing an indignant Maria over to Elizaveta, and clapped Halldor on the back. ‘Though not quite all of us.’ The court silenced instantly. ‘Our Yuletide has been greatly saddened by the loss of my nephew, King Magnus.’

  Elizaveta watched Harald intently. He had not, she knew, been in the slightest bit saddened by Magnus’s death but she had been no better. At his memorial service she had tried to conjure up fond memories of the slim little boy she’d shared a schoolroom with back in Kiev but her thoughts had filled instead with pictures of her own vibrant siblings and all she had managed to remember of the young exile was irritation. She’d sent the news to her sisters but doubted they would feel any more sadness than she did. And, of course, Magnus’s death meant Harald was now Norway’s sole king. Rumours were flying, but even Einar did not seem to be able to make accusations of foul play stick and was contenting himself with obstructing his king in whatever ways he could.

  ‘Our dear Magnus,’ Harald went on, ‘with many of our men, caught a fever aboard ship and though we sped him to land on my own personal craft – the fastest ship we have – we were too late to save him. His royal body is, as you know, interred where he would have wanted to be, with his saintly father and my brother, King Olaf, and I ask you all to pray, as I pray, for his soul and for the Lord’s grace on those of us left behind without his light.’

  Elizaveta kept her head low but over a squirming Maria she could see Einar glowering and feared that the repercussions of Magnus’s sudden death had not yet even begun. The northern jarl had been fiercely devoted to Magnus, his protégé since he’d stolen him from Kiev, and at his funeral he had sworn vengeance on Harald. This icy show of friendship was as thin as the first frost, the waters beneath dark and tangled with dangerous currents.

  The court shifted as Harald, their king, stood, blonde head devoutly bowed, but at last he raised his head, releasing them. Instantly the servants who were crowded at the back doors with the first dishes – curved blood puddings, crisp cheese and leek tartlets, and fat pink prawns – stepped forward. The goblets were filled and the chatter of feasting consumed the uneasy silence of grief. Not that anyone seemed very grieved bar Einar and that was more, no doubt, for loss of his power than loss of his king.

  Harald sat down and Elizaveta, handing Maria to Greta with a kiss, poured him some wine from a small cask she had bought at great expense from a French trader. It was called a ‘rioja’ and was from a country far in the south called Spain. Anne had recommended it after the French emissaries had brought some to Kiev and Elizaveta had been delighted with its rich, fruity taste.

  ‘Try this,’ she urged.

  He drank.

  ‘Nice. Is it Greek?’

  ‘Spanish.’

  ‘Spanish?! You are making me sophisticated, wife.’

  ‘Never!’

  He kissed her and she felt desire stir deep within her healing loins.

  ‘Remember, Harald,’ she said softly, ‘when I was birt
hing Maria . . .’

  ‘How could I forget?’

  He paled and she pushed hastily on.

  ‘I told you then that I was never having anything to do with bedding ever again.’

  He grimaced.

  ‘That I do remember.’

  She ran her lips lightly across his neck.

  ‘Well, I’ve changed my mind.’

  Harald turned, clasping her chin to look deep into her eyes.

  ‘You have? Are you sure?’

  His eagerness set her alight.

  ‘Very sure, Hari, though you may have to be gentle with me at first.’

  ‘I shall try, my lovely Lilyveta,’ he said, ‘though as I recall it is rarely me who sets the pace.’ She giggled, and he pulled her closer, kissing her full on the lips. ‘But how,’ he demanded, ‘with such a promise, am I meant to concentrate on eating?’

  Elizaveta grinned.

  ‘You have no appetite, my lord?’

  ‘Oh I have appetite, Lily, just not for anything on these dishes. Perhaps I should take you prisoner now?’

  ‘Like those poor Danes?’

  ‘Poor Danes?’

  ‘Did you really make them jump from the rigging?’

  He flushed, looked away.

  ‘Of course not.’

  ‘Because it’s hardly going to win Denmark, is it, playing silly games?’

  ‘Silly games?! I’m not the one playing silly games. Einar is the one doing that.’

  ‘But you . . .’ Elizaveta caught herself. His eyes were flashing fury and now was not the time to discuss war tactics. ‘You will sort Einar out,’ she soothed hastily. ‘I know you will. Svein Estrithson too, when the time is right.’

  Harald drew in a deep breath and nodded.

  ‘The only reason I cannot,’ he said tightly, ‘is because Svein ducks battle. If I could draw him into an open fight I would defeat him and he knows it so he hides amongst his islands and forces me into his “silly games”. It is infuriating.’

  ‘Patience, Harald.’

  ‘I do not have much of that, Lily.’

  ‘Nor I, Hari,’ she agreed, drawing him close, ‘nor I, but look, we are growing up enough, at least, to avoid a quarrel.’

  He licked his lips.

  ‘Oh I’m not avoiding it, wife, just saving it for the chamber when I can be more . . . creative in my arguments.’

  Heat stole through her again and she longed for the evening to be over.

  ‘You said you would be gentle,’ she reminded him.

  ‘If that is what you wish?’

  Elizaveta smiled silkily but before she could answer there was a strange cry from down the table and she looked over to see Tora pushing back her chair, her blue eyes flickering strangely. Finn leaped up, calling loudly for assistance, and Elizaveta groaned. The wretched woman must have seen her close to Harald and was deliberately making a fuss.

  ‘You are unwell, my lady?’ she bit out, Old Norse smooth on her tongue these days.

  Tora looked across and for a moment their eyes locked. Elizaveta saw something in the other woman’s – not jealousy, not bitterness, not even any sort of challenge, just naked fear, one woman to another. Then Tora looked down and as Elizaveta’s eyes followed she saw the Norwegian’s fine skirts were soaked through.

  ‘Her waters have broken,’ she gasped. ‘Get her to her pavilion.’

  ‘It’s too far.’

  Finn looked scared and with reason; Tora could not cross the snowy meadow in that condition.

  ‘Get her, then,’ Elizaveta said without thinking, ‘to my chamber. Now!’ she added furiously as everyone looked nervously at each other.

  Could they not see that Tora was before her time, maybe too far before it? She could be in danger and Elizaveta knew all too well how that felt. But as Tora moved up the rough temporary stairs to the royal chambers above, she realised what she had done. Now, instead of Harald making love to her in her beautiful bed, the one piece of luxury in their nascent city, his mistress would be birthing his child there. She felt a brief, evil wish that her rival might not make it through this but that died as the remembrance of Tora’s face pulled at her heart. She could wish no ill on any poor woman in childbirth.

  ‘I shall retire to the church,’ she said.

  ‘Lily.’ Harald put out a hand to her. She placed her own in his but kept her distance and he lifted it to his lips. ‘I love you.’

  She smiled at him but could not bring herself to answer. Pulling gently away, she looked for Aksel who rushed forward, offering his slim arm. Clasping it tighter than anyone else needed to know, she left the hall. New snow was falling on the cleared log-paving and Elizaveta felt it fizz on her hot cheeks, cooling her as they headed towards the church.

  ‘That was well done, my lady,’ Aksel said softly in his newly deep voice.

  ‘Dignified,’ she told him, ‘that’s what I was looking for.’

  ‘It was that indeed, but more besides, my lady; it was queenly.’

  Elizaveta settled into the old chapel for a long night. Aksel fetched chairs and cushions and a brazier, and Greta came running with furs. None of them even pretended to pray. Aksel set wine to warm over the fire and Elizaveta sipped at it, hoping vaguely that this was not her costly Spanish grape he was mulling. But she had barely drunk a single goblet before a messenger scuttered through the big doors and they turned from their makeshift dinner to stare. He bowed low.

  ‘Come forward,’ Elizaveta urged. ‘You have news?’

  ‘Yes, my lady.’

  Her heart beat madly as the man almost crawled towards her, head bowed low. He was here so quickly it could only be an ill report. She rose and looked up to the crumbling ceiling and it seemed as if even the angels in the faded fresco above her head leaned down to hear. The man traced a pattern in the earthen floor with his foot.

  ‘The Lady Tora is safely delivered.’

  ‘Already?’ Elizaveta gasped.

  ‘Yes, my lady.’

  ‘Lucky her,’ she muttered furiously, and then remembered herself. ‘She is well?’

  ‘She is.’

  ‘Good.’ She said it firmly, loudly, forcing it out to echo around God’s church. ‘And the babe?’

  ‘Is small but breathing.’

  ‘Good.’ Again the word rang off crooked walls. ‘It is . . . ?’ The messenger sucked in his breath and with that she knew; had she not, indeed, known already? ‘A boy,’ she said heavily.

  The lad nodded dumbly. Greta ran to Elizaveta’s side and she heard Aksel pouring more wine but put up a hand to refuse such shallow comfort.

  ‘A boy,’ she said again.

  She glanced out of the window opening to the stone foundations of her cathedral – the little slice of Kiev she planned to raise to her daughter – and suddenly it seemed such a futile creation. What use to Harald were fancy stoneworks and glittering frescoes? All he truly needed to be secure in this farmhouse country of his was an heir and it was not she who had given them that. She drew her cloak close around her as once she had done out on the walls of her childhood city when she had urged Harald not to be an empty hero. She had seen such a future for them then, a storyteller’s future, but the story was proving harder to craft than she’d ever dreamed possible.

  ‘What have they named him?’

  They! She did not want there to be a ‘they’ – only a ‘we’.

  ‘Magnus.’

  It was not the messenger who spoke but a deeper, lower, far more familiar voice.

  ‘Harald?’

  He was standing in the doorway, lit up by the ghostly glow of the fast-falling snow beyond, and as she turned his way he came forward, covering the ground in long strides, his boots sending thunder-claps around the tiny church. The messenger ducked thankfully away and Greta drew Aksel tactfully into the shadows as Elizaveta went slowly to meet her husband.

  ‘Magnus?’ she dared to ask.

  ‘In honour of our dead king.’

  ‘That is . . . apt.’

/>   His hand stole around her waist and though she longed to push it away she yearned for his touch.

  ‘I thought so,’ he said lightly.

  ‘And yet you, you always said you wanted an Olaf as your heir.’

  His other hand stole around her waist.

  ‘I do, Lily, and I want him to be yours.’

  She swallowed.

  ‘You should not be here.’

  ‘Yet I am.’

  She dared to look up at him.

  ‘You will have to handfast to her now.’

  ‘Perhaps. Perhaps not. I have other plans for sorting Einar Tambarskelve.’

  ‘Plans? Hari, don’t do anything . . .’

  ‘I will take care of it, Lily. You are my wife and the future King Olaf is yours to have – if you wish it?’

  He was looking at her with such love, such concern. Across the snowy courtyard his son had been born yet he was here with her. Of course she wanted it, yet ringing in her ears were other words: ‘You should not birth again,’ the midwife had said to her. ‘Truly, my lady, you should not; you are too slight. Another baby, especially a big one – especially a boy – could kill you.’

  ‘I have to have a boy,’ she’d told her, even then, with blood still drying on her thighs.

  ‘It’s too dangerous, my lady.’

  Elizaveta had thought of the Rapids Race. Her mind, half-crazed, had seen the course as clearly as if she’d been riding that canoe into the head of the frothing water.

  ‘I like danger,’ she’d said. ‘Tell no one this, do you hear – no one!’

  The midwife had reluctantly agreed and now Elizaveta was glad. She reached up to run her finger slowly down the line of the scar that marked the day Harald had lost his royal brother Olaf back at Stikelstad, the battle that had sent him to her.

  ‘I wish it,’ she said and kissed him.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  Oslo, November 1049

  ‘How dare she?’

  Harald strode into the garden of Tora’s city dwelling where she was helping Magnus to line up ants along the little wooden sword his father had ordered fashioned for him. It was a beautiful toy but two-year-old Magnus much preferred bug-play to war-play and Tora saw no need to change that.