The Constant Queen

by Joanna Courtney

  ‘Something wrong, Harald?’ she asked mildly.

  ‘Ungrateful, that’s what she is. Ungrateful and mean.’

  ‘Elizaveta?’ Tora hazarded, though of course it was Elizaveta; no one else ever roused the King of Norway to such rage.

  ‘Yes, Elizaveta. Damn her.’

  Tora shifted uneasily. She knew she should be pleased to hear him talk of his Slav queen this way – Finn certainly would be if he were here – but mainly she just found herself wondering if he would ever feel strongly enough about her to damn her. Or, indeed, she about him.

  She loved him, of course she did – loving him was almost part of her blood – and she cherished him as the father of her child, but this crazed passion he had with Elizaveta, all smiles one minute and rage the next, looked exhausting. She had been delighted when their strange, brief affair had taken seed but the arrival of her son had cast further doubt onto her already confused feelings for his father.

  The overwhelming, ecstatic love she’d felt towards little Magnus from the moment she’d held him in her arms far outweighed anything Harald had ever sparked in her, even back on the beach that first midsummer night. This heart-swelling maternal emotion had consoled her that she was not, after all, totally weak-hearted, but she still sometimes wondered at the furious love Elizaveta seemed to feel for Harald.

  For her own part, Tora kept her relations with the king as businesslike as she could. Harald had ordered a beautiful house built for her just outside Austratt. She had a loyal household, a thriving farm, and her dear son. And even when, as now, she had to travel to Oslo to be with the official court, she had this beautiful house, several streets away from Elizaveta’s fancy new palace. Tora longed to dislike Oslo but in truth it was very pretty and far more clement than Nidaros, plus she could spend precious time with Johanna and Johan, the son she had recently borne Ulf. Magnus was fascinated by his tiny cousin and Tora was fascinated by Magnus, and if Harald only visited her rarely, mainly to rage about Elizaveta, she did not much mind.

  She usually roused herself to take him into her bed on the few occasions he requested it but mainly, she had to admit, more out of longing for another child than for him. Every so often Finn muttered about handfasting and some part of Tora would like the affirmation of a ceremony but, truly, the fierce love she felt for Magnus was all the alliance she needed, and his very existence bound her to Norway’s bold king more than any ribbons could. Now she drew Harald forward, pushing him gently down into a seat. His hands were actually shaking with rage; what on earth had happened now?

  ‘You’d think she’d be happy, wouldn’t you?’ he demanded.

  ‘She is a very lucky woman,’ Tora agreed tentatively.

  ‘She is, isn’t she? She should be on her knees thanking God for me, shouldn’t she? Not screaming at me as if I am little Maria caught getting into mischief.’

  Tora smiled at that, though she quickly raised a hand to hide it. Maria, newly turned three, was a headstrong child, always being caught where she should not be. Unlike Magnus who was happy, when allowed into a feast, to sit quietly playing with counters or just watching the adults, Maria was always up and down. Only the other day the All Hallows feasting had been violently interrupted by a hideous scream. Investigation had revealed that Maria had brought a toad into the hall ‘because it looked hungry’. The creature, escaping his mistress the minute her attention had wandered – as it so often did – had taken a liking to one unfortunate lady’s green skirts and sprung himself into her lap.

  ‘She shouldn’t dress like a lily leaf,’ had been Maria’s defence when she’d been unveiled as the culprit by her own cry of ‘There you are, Filip!’

  ‘Filip’ had been returned to the fjord and Maria to her chamber but it had been clear that her doting father had only imposed the punishment for show and, as usual, it had not kept her down for long. Today’s trouble, though, was clearly more than just child’s play.

  ‘What’s happened, Harald?’ Tora begged.

  ‘Happened? She screamed at me, that’s what’s happened.’

  ‘I see that, Harald,’ Tora agreed. Sometimes she almost fell into calling him Hari but always she fought to resist the wretched shortening. ‘But why?’

  ‘Why? Oh. She thinks I was foolish to kill Einar.’

  ‘Ah.’

  Tora bit her lip. She should have guessed and for once she had to agree with Harald’s wretched slip of a wife – not that she would say so. Norway had been a-buzz with the news ever since Harald had invited Einar to negotiations up at Bymarka and Einar had come out in a coffin. Einar, so the story went, vividly told by Harald’s troll-man, had threatened the king – drawn a sword on him. There had been little choice, as sad as it was, but to strike in self-defence.

  Even Halldor, though, had been unable to inject much true sorrow into the piece and another story was being whispered about the court – a story of ambushes, swords left outside, lights extinguished in an artificial Stikelstad. This other tale had a ring of truth but no one was yet challenging the official version for fear of Svein Estrithson getting his claws into Norway as he might surely do without the fearsome Harald securing her borders. Einar’s family, however, were swearing a blood-feud and despite the fact that such ancient practices were banned by the church, news of it was being gleefully passed around.

  ‘What was I meant to do?’ Harald asked Tora now. ‘Stand there and let him slaughter me?’

  ‘No man could slaughter you, Harald.’

  ‘He might,’ he snapped, eyes narrowing, ‘with surprise on his side and a force at his back.’

  ‘He might,’ she rushed to agree. ‘Any man might kill another that way.’

  He looked suspiciously at her but let it go.

  ‘“Reckless”, Elizaveta called me. Reckless – me! I am famed, Tora, for my calm decision-making. I am not reckless.’

  ‘Of course not, Harald, or you would long be dead.’

  ‘Exactly! You understand me.’ He smiled at her but did not move closer, did not pull her into his arms to kiss her. ‘“Ruthless”,’ he raged on. ‘That was another word she threw at me. She said Einar had called me that once, way back in Kiev, and now she knew he was right.’

  ‘Ruthless?’ Tora stepped closer, thinking fast. ‘But is that not, Harald, a good thing in a leader? Strong, decisive, unwavering.’

  He looked at her, surprised.

  ‘I suppose it is, yes. Hardrada.’ He rolled the older Norse word around his tongue. ‘Harald Hardrada – it has a certain ring to it.’ He pulled Tora in, kissing her at last, though when he pulled back he added, ‘That’ll show her!’

  Tora sighed.

  ‘Why does she think it was stupid, Hari . . . Harald?’

  ‘Because of this wretched blood-feud. She says Einar was getting old and cantankerous and no one was paying him much attention anyway. She says that without Magnus he lacked power and if I’d just gone on ignoring him he’d have been no threat. She’s so naïve.’

  Tora wasn’t convinced Elizaveta was the naïve one here, but she saw the chance and would be a fool to miss it.

  ‘She does not, perhaps,’ she suggested softly, ‘understand Norway as well as you and I?’

  ‘That’s it exactly.’

  ‘She does not, perhaps, see how easy it is to drive a wedge into a king’s power in a country so divided by mountains and forests and fjords that men from different regions can go months without seeing each other?’

  ‘She does not, Tora.’

  ‘And she does not, perhaps, sitting in this fancy southern city, understand how strong the lords of the north are? Norway’s defence lies less in stout walls . . .’

  ‘And more in stout hearts!’

  Harald grabbed Tora and swung her round. Little Magnus clapped delightedly and Harald glanced at him, as if seeing him for the first time, but then bent down and drew him, too, into his arms. Magnus squirmed. Tora sometimes thought his big, fiery-eyed father scared him a little and she prayed now that he would
not cry.

  ‘You listen to your mother, son, and you will make a great King of Norway. Stout hearts – that’s it! I told Elizaveta that once, you know, but she does not listen to me, not ever.’

  Magnus squirmed again and Harald, thankfully, put him down but the exchange had given Tora time to think.

  ‘This blood-feud, Harald,’ she said, ‘it is more for show. You know how the northern lords cherish their independence and this is just a way to try and assert that. You need simply offer penance – some money, some land – and they will drop it. We are not pagans any more, even as far up as Tromso.’ He laughed at the local joke and she moved closer. ‘Send Finn.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Send Finn to talk to them, to make peace.’

  ‘Would he?’

  ‘You know he would. Let’s call for him.’

  ‘Now?’

  ‘Now. We can sort this out, Harald. We can sort this,’ she dared to add, ‘together.’

  Harald nodded slowly.

  ‘You are so calm, Tora.’

  ‘Someone has to be,’ she said lightly and went to the door to send for her uncle.

  Finn arrived fast and was more than happy to help on two conditions.

  ‘A handfast ceremony?’ Harald suggested, too wearily for Tora’s comfort, but Finn shook his head.

  ‘I want Kalv back from the Orkneys, Sire. I want him out of exile with Thorfinn and Idonie and back in Norway. He will help me keep the balance of power in the north.’

  ‘Balance – Kalv?’

  Harald laughed bitterly. Tora thought of her hot-headed uncle, who’d always been brewing trouble, and feared Harald was right not to believe her uncle’s claims but Kalv was family and it was her duty to support her uncle in seeking his return.

  ‘He’s matured,’ she suggested.

  ‘You think so?’

  ‘He must have,’ Finn agreed hastily. ‘And even if he hasn’t, Einar’s lot are scared of him.’

  ‘That much is true. Fine, send for him. Second condition?’

  Finn smiled.

  ‘A handfast ceremony.’

  They were bound together that afternoon in the forests above Oslo, in a clearing created by Elizaveta’s many city builders. It was a brief ceremony, assembled quickly before Elizaveta could find out and attended by a ring of courtiers hastily scooped up to bear witness. Delighted with the unexpected excitement on an otherwise dull day at court, the clandestine party was surprisingly merry.

  Johanna was there, Johan on her hip and Ulf at her side, magnificent in his marshal’s uniform. Halldor was there too, glowering darkly and muttering about bigamy as if he was some sort of moral guardian and not a filthy-mouthed soldier with a son by a slave girl. Finn’s choir of ill-rehearsed but sweet-voiced youngsters drowned him out and within what felt to Tora like moments she and Harald were being led round the back streets to her house.

  ‘Bedding,’ Finn announced, almost the moment they crossed the threshold.

  ‘Bedding?’ Tora gasped. ‘Uncle, we have a son!’

  ‘Only one,’ Finn shot back. ‘The court will see this done properly – as, Niece, will you.’

  His meaning was shamefully clear and Tora found herself being bundled into bed by Johanna and her cousin Sigrid, though the winter sun was still high in the sky and she’d had no more to eat than a taste of broken honey-cake and a sip of bridal ale in the rough ceremony.

  ‘Here.’ Johanna reached forward and threaded flowers into her hair. ‘Like your betrothal.’

  They were hardy white winter roses, not soft clover flowers, but Tora appreciated the link all the same and kissed her sister fondly.

  ‘This feels very strange.’

  ‘It is a bit strange,’ Johanna agreed frankly. She glanced at Sigrid, recently married with great ceremony to a worthy young earl, and hastily added, ‘but it is better than nothing.’

  Better than nothing! Tora touched her fingers to the flowers and wished she were back on a beach with twelve-year-old joy in her heart and simple seaweed to bind their hands. Those times were long gone though and now the men were delivering Harald to her, cheering raucously. She forced herself to look up at the door as they tumbled inside and, as she saw he was dressed in only a cloak, another shiver of memory broke the harsh cheer of the afternoon with something more tender.

  ‘Your idea?’ she asked, gesturing to the cloak. ‘Sweet.’

  ‘Oh Tora, if only I were.’ Harald shut the door on the rest of the court and moved closer to the bed. ‘I have used you ill.’

  Tora reached up and touched his cheek.

  ‘I am not complaining.’

  ‘I know! That makes it harder.’

  ‘You would rather I screamed at you?’

  ‘No. I have enough of that from . . . No. Come here.’

  He put out his arms and she moved into them.

  ‘Are you doing this for my uncle, Harald?’ He shook his head.

  ‘No, Tora, truly. The handfasting, yes. It is a nonsense ceremony and I hope you and I know our ties to each other without dancing them out in a wood. This bedding, though, this I do because you, Tora, are the sweet one – sweet and kind and soft and gorgeous.’

  Then his mouth was on hers and he was pulling her beneath him and she clutched him close and wondered as he moved inside her how very glorious it would be to have him hate her as passionately as he hated – as he loved – Elizaveta.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  Oslo, April 1050

  ‘It’s all so perfect, Hari. Isn’t it perfect?’

  Elizaveta looked up at Harald, willing him to love her new venture as she did. The city of Oslo was growing swiftly under her careful guidance and today its myriad new citizens were all out to watch their young men dare to participate in the inaugural Rapids Race. The great seawater fjord did not freeze as the Dnieper had so there was not quite the same feeling of release but up in the forested mountains, the waters of the Lo were being set free and the current was more than strong enough to create an exciting race down into the open finish in the fjord.

  Elizaveta had been delighted when she’d found the winding rocky tributary that rose up out of the north-west of the city into the hills and had been personally supervising the training of the men who would be Norway’s first ever rapids riders. One of them in particular she had trained hard and as she, with the rest of the excited crowd, peered upriver, she prayed sixteen-year-old Aksel would fulfil his potential and take the prize – a jewelled cup she had persuaded Harald to part with from his still-bulging caskets of treasure.

  ‘I hold the keys after all,’ she’d told him, straddling him, naked of all bar her jewelled ring and her neck chain, wrapped like a scarf around her throat.

  ‘You hold all the keys, Lily,’ he’d agreed slightly ruefully, stirring, as always, beneath her.

  ‘And don’t you forget it!’

  Now she squeezed his arm eagerly.

  ‘Isn’t it perfect?’ she repeated.

  ‘It looks quite good,’ he agreed, his lip twitching.

  ‘Quite good?! I think it’s magnificent.’

  ‘Then why do you care about my opinion?’

  She pouted.

  ‘I don’t know, Hari. I sometimes wish I didn’t – it would be much simpler if I could just let you come and go like Tora does.’

  ‘Lily, hush.’

  ‘Why?’ she demanded, pulling three-year-old Maria back from the edge. ‘It’s true and it’s not as if it matters. Finn is happy, there’s peace in the north, Kalv is back – nasty creature that he is – and you have two new children on the way.’

  ‘Lily . . .’

  ‘I’m just stating facts, Hari. Not many kings can have such matching wives.’

  Elizaveta ran a hand over the swell of her belly and looked across to a similarly bulging Tora, tying Magnus’s tunic tighter against the crisp spring air. She had been furious when Harald had sheepishly admitted to his rushed handfasting but really, who wanted a husband you had to wed in th
e secrecy of the forest? Besides, Tora, strange woman that she was, did not seem to bother much with Harald any more.

  ‘You know, Lily,’ Harald said now, grabbing her hand and yanking her close to him, ‘that save your bellies you and Tora are about as like as a deer to an eagle.’

  Elizaveta laughed.

  ‘You are calling me a deer, Hari?’

  ‘You know I am not. Now hush – the race will start soon and you’ll miss it with all this gabbling.’

  Elizaveta smiled and turned to look upriver again, memories swirling around her. She felt a sharp jab of pain that none of her family could be here to share this moment. Greta had been a wonderful support but her maid could hardly join her on the royal grandstand and she missed her sisters.

  Agatha was still in Hungary and had birthed two daughters. She seemed happy there, settled even, and Elizaveta almost envied her proximity to Anastasia. She had heard nothing much from her brothers, though her mother wrote that they were well. She thought of Vladimir, once the closest of her siblings, and suddenly saw him running into the boathouse to fetch her the fateful day that Ulf had visited with the first of Harald’s treasure keys. The memory bloomed and she recalled the eagle-prow that Jakob had offered to carve for her – the eagle-prow that had watched benevolently as she and Harald had first lain together. No wonder that’s how Harold saw her.

  ‘Hari.’ She tugged on his arm and he looked impatiently down. ‘Hari, do you still have my prow?’

  ‘Your what?’

  ‘My prow. The one shaped like an eagle that Jakob carved for me in Kiev. We brought it to Norway, remember?’

  Suddenly it seemed a matter of utmost urgency to see it again. Was Jakob still alive? Was he still lovingly fashioning wood down in the Podol? Did he ever think about the little princess who had wanted wings for her very own ship?

  ‘I remember,’ Harald said. ‘It must be in the treasury.’

  ‘Underground? It will be sad down there.’

  ‘Sad? Elizaveta, it’s made of wood. It cannot be sad.’