The Constant Queen

by Joanna Courtney

  Maria stared at her.

  ‘And what happened?’

  Elizaveta smiled.

  ‘Much, Maria, including more arguments, but in the end he rode back to me – rode down an icy river and leaped a burning ship to claim me as his bride.’ Maria laughed, disbelievingly. ‘It’s true!’

  ‘It sounds like one of Halldor’s stories.’

  ‘It does, doesn’t it? Stories though, you know, can carry much truth.’ As one they looked to the roughly arched window on the seaward side of the broch. ‘And heroes,’ Elizaveta added, ‘do exist. We must trust to that. Trust and pray.’

  CHAPTER FORTY

  York, September 1066

  Riding high on his horse Harald approached the walls of York and seeing the frightened huddle of women above the gates knew that news of his victory had reached the city. He smiled. Victory! It hadn’t been easy but nothing worth winning ever was and besides it was good practice for the battles yet to come. If the men of northern England, their veins supposedly running with Norse blood, had put up such a fight, there would be battle aplenty in the south but he cared not. He was ready. He felt alive, on fire, like a bolt of smoothest silk shot through with gold. He would be king of this pretty country.

  Not that the marshlands at Fulford were pretty now. It had been a bitter fight. The English earls had caught them halfway to York, their troops lined up between a wide, unfordable stretch of the Ouse to the west and marshlands to the east. It had been a brave stand, Harald had seen that from the moment he’d ridden over the hill. He’d admired the young commanders’ guts in leaving themselves little room for retreat, but he’d also seen all too swiftly how that could be exploited.

  Earls Edwin and Morcar had hit him fast, barely before he’d lined up his front troops and with half his army still strung out along the road from the ships at Riccall – though strung out, crucially, behind him so that as the front lines were engaged he was able to keep on filling his ranks from behind. He’d soon outnumbered the defenders – just the way he liked it.

  ‘They will have to surrender, Sire.’

  Harald was drawn from his thoughts by Torr, riding proudly at his side as if he had been instrumental in the battle, which in a way he had. The exiled earl had led them safely to the enemy and, once there, Harald had been able to station his rag-taggle troops to the right, in the marshiest of the marshy land the English had forced them to fight from. The enemy had been unable to resist the lure and had driven hard into them. Torr had not looked so cocky then, with men falling all around him, but he had, at least, held out long enough for Harald to send his own powerful force driving round the side to push the English, giddy on their initial success, deep into the marshland. The fighting had been long and hard but with more troops still arriving from up the road Harald had slowly but surely decimated the English and once their earls had turned tail it had all been over.

  ‘Surrender?’ he queried Torr now, for the English had already surrendered. He had personally driven his horse over a putrid pathway of ‘surrendered’ English soldiers to lead a rout of the fleeing remnant of their lines.

  ‘The city,’ Torr said, gesturing to the great walls before them. ‘The city of York. She is still held, though only by the queen now. That is, the, er . . .’

  Harald put up a hand, still gloved in chain mail.

  ‘She is the queen, Lord Torr, though not I trust for long. And yes, she will surrender. Edyth, I believe she is called. I met her once in Wales, a resourceful woman and no fool. Wait here.’

  Torr obediently drew rein, the rest of the core troops with him, and Harald rode forward alone, assessing the ancient stone walls of the old Roman city before him – they were weak, he decided, crumbling. They’d need replacing, but not until Ulf’s church was built.

  ‘You are defeated, my lady,’ he called up to the cluster of women on the parapet above the gate.

  One stepped forward and he recognised her immediately. She had been Queen of Wales when he’d seen her last and now it seemed she was Queen of England, though not, as he had told Torr, for long. That honour would be Elizaveta’s – he had promised it to her and he would deliver.

  ‘So it seems,’ Edyth called down, her voice steady, ‘for this day at least.’

  Harald laughed.

  ‘Your noble brothers are fled,’ he told her and saw, to his surprise, a flicker not of dismay but of hope. Did she think they would come again? She would not be so foolish when she saw the weight of men sunk in Fulford’s marshes.

  ‘What do you want of us?’ she demanded.

  ‘We seek entry into York which we claim as our own.’

  ‘I cannot oppose you, Sire,’ Edyth said and he felt Torr twitch delightedly behind him, ‘but I can ask that you honour me and all of my people.’

  She glanced to her women and he felt a flash of anger as he understood her implication; he might be a Viking but he was no barbarian.

  ‘We come not to pillage, my queen,’ he told her stiffly, ‘but to conquer. Today is but a step on our path.’

  ‘A victory on the way to defeat.’

  Damn her, she was insolent. It fired his anger but also his admiration. She reminded him a little of Elizaveta and he smiled to himself. His wife would be half-mad with waiting but now he could send good news. He would order a messenger to the Orkneys with report of this, his first triumph, as soon as he was inside York’s walls. He would tell her that she would soon be dining with her sister in the new palace at Westminster.

  ‘If it suits you to see it that way,’ he called up to the English queen. ‘It makes no odds to me. I seek food, I seek wine and I seek terms – hostages.’

  The women whimpered pathetically and he knew, whatever his own feelings, that he would have to keep a tight rein on his men this night. This was no Viking raid, no smash-and-grab looting. He was here in England to be their king and he would behave as their king all the way to Westminster.

  ‘Maria, Maria, come and see!’

  At the sound of Filip’s voice, Maria leaped up and ducked out of the broch doorway. She looked around, puzzled, and Elizaveta, knowing already what she would find, ran after her. Sure enough, Filip was halfway up the outer wall and making steady progress towards the top.

  ‘Filip,’ she called, ‘come down.’

  It was growing late. The sun was diving towards the darkening ocean and already it was hard to make out Filip’s fingers as they darted across the stones seeking solid holds. Elizaveta thought of Greta, back at the hall with ailing Josef, and tried not to panic.

  ‘This tower is York,’ the boy called down, ‘and this time I will master it, as Harald will master that city.’

  ‘How do you know?’ Elizaveta asked him, for at least when he was talking he was still.

  ‘How? Why, because he is the biggest, strongest man in the whole Viking world.’

  ‘England is not in the Viking world,’ Elizaveta objected.

  ‘I’ll wager it is by now.’

  Maria clapped her hands together.

  ‘I’ll wager it is too.’

  ‘Maria . . .’ Elizaveta warned.

  ‘What, Mama? Filip is right. Papa will win; mayhap he already has.’ She peered out to sea. ‘How long would a messenger take to reach us?’

  Elizaveta sighed. She had discussed this with Harald before he left but neither of them had known.

  ‘It could be as much as a week’s hard ride if a man came overland through Scotland, though possibly more as I hear it is mountainous terrain and the local tribes are fierce.’

  Maria sighed but now Filip called out triumphantly from above them and Elizaveta looked up to see him right at the top of the broch, a dark silhouette against the purpling sky.

  ‘I can see England!’ he called. ‘Our England.’

  ‘Can you? Can you really?’

  Maria made a dive for the broch and Elizaveta grabbed her arm.

  ‘Of course he cannot, Maria. There are all the mountains of Scotland in between.’


  ‘I can,’ Filip called down defiantly. ‘Oh!’

  His foot wobbled and a stone crashed into the centre of the broch, smashing to pieces on the earthen floor. Maria dived for the wall and this time Elizaveta did not stop her but before she could so much as hitch up her skirts Filip was sitting safely down, holding the edge to steady himself.

  ‘I’m fine,’ he called, though Elizaveta heard the tremor in his voice.

  ‘Please come down, Filip,’ she implored. ‘Your poor mother would be very vexed if she saw you up there and it grows dark. We must get back to her. And carefully,’ she added as he began slowly to turn himself for the descent.

  Maria’s hands were clasping the wall and her right foot had already found a toe-hold two courses up but Elizaveta tugged at her arm.

  ‘Stand back, Maria – give him space.’

  Her daughter nodded and together they stood and held their breath as Filip slowly, painstakingly crawled down the curved wall towards them. When he was just a little above their heads he looked down, his sudden smile broad in the rising moonlight.

  ‘I’m quite safe,’ he said and then, without warning, leaped to the ground, landing before them and steadying himself with just a slight bend of his young knees.

  ‘Home!’ Elizaveta said darkly and set off down the curve of the Brough towards the hall, glowing in the dusk as the servants lit the rush lights.

  She set a brisk pace, more to walk off her own unease than because there was any real rush. She wanted to deliver Filip safely back to Greta and to see Ingrid, whose calm, however much it might frustrate Maria, always soothed her. The youngsters, though, lagged behind.

  ‘Could you really see England?’ she heard Maria ask Filip.

  ‘I believe so.’

  ‘And what did you see?’

  ‘Victory.’

  ‘Victory?’ Maria was scornful. ‘What does victory look like?’

  Filip chuckled.

  ‘You’ll have to see for yourself,’ was his cheeky reply and then he was running past Elizaveta, Maria hot on his tail, and Elizaveta was so glad to see her unusually sombre daughter losing herself in a child’s chase that she did not think to warn her against doing so.

  CHAPTER FORTY-ONE

  Stamford Bridge, 25 September 1066

  The life of a conqueror, Harald had decided, was a good one. The sun was shining on him and his men as they sat in the sloping grasslands above the babbling River Derwent, coaxing a fire into life to roast the meat the younger soldiers were even now rounding up on the pastures over the wooden bridge at Stamford.

  ‘Catch him, Tomas,’ Aksel called. ‘Surely you can outrun a cow, man?’

  Harald smiled to hear Halldor’s rough humour running through his son’s voice. Here in the strange fields of England he had missed his old friend’s vibrant enthusiasm nearly as much as he had missed Ulf’s quiet pragmatism. Aksel’s bright presence in his army was a balm to the wound of their absence on this, his greatest campaign, and he was unendingly grateful that Hal’s boy had sailed with him from Iceland back when this invasion was little more than a dream.

  It was a dream no longer though. He was here and he must make the most of it. Shaking off the ghosts of the past, he laughed with the rest of his men as the cow, a sprightly young heifer, ducked Tomas’s clumsy attempt to rope her and danced off, hooves kicking high in the autumn air.

  ‘Jump on his back,’ someone suggested and they all laughed again.

  ‘Can we not stick an arrow in the beast?’ another grumbled. ‘Tomas will be all day playing tag with it and I’m hungry.’

  ‘It might be best,’ Harald agreed.

  The men had broken their fast heartily on board the ships, still moored at Riccall, but it had been a twelve-mile march here, to the assigned point for the English to hand over their hostages and treasure, and a man soon worked up an appetite on such a trip, especially in this warm weather. Even in the lightest armour Harald had allowed them they had all been sweating within minutes and many had chosen to throw off their heavy chain mail on arrival in the sweeping fields above the bridge to duck themselves in the blissfully cool waters of the Derwent. Now they sat steaming gently, taking their ease around the landwaster banner, struck into the ground on a long stave, but they did need food.

  ‘Aksel,’ Harald said over his shoulder, ‘set your archers on the cattle, lad.’

  Aksel rose and, taking two of his best men down the bank, waved to poor Tomas and his fellows to stand aside. The heifer was felled with a single strike, offering no more than a strangled moo before it fell to earth with a loud thud and a call of delight from over the bank.

  ‘Good work,’ Harald called to the archer. ‘Save those arrows for the English.’

  The men jeered obligingly then turned their attention to the entertaining spectacle of the younger men trying to drag the dead cow across to the bridge. The fire, as if sensing meat, leaped to life and they called out to them to hurry.

  Harald rose and moved aside, his eyes scanning the horizon. He had not been jesting about the arrows. The English in York had seemed docile enough, the women terrified and those men who’d escaped Fulford in no mood to do battle again, but he still had to be careful. He had set guards on all the roads and outside York’s big south gates to watch for treachery but so far all was quiet. It would soon be midday and the hostages should come. He flexed his wrists, his right one a little sore still from the action at Fulford. It had ached ever since Nisa but he welcomed the reminder. He had made peace with Denmark so he could put all his energies into gaining England and he must stay alert.

  ‘The time draws close,’ Harald said, turning. ‘We should arm ourselves.’

  His men, though, had crowded down to the river. The youngsters on the far side looked hopefully at them, awaiting help, but if Harald knew his warriors they would get none, not to tug the beast over the bridge, nor to gut it on the other side. That was a novice’s task and they would enjoy the show. As should he. Picking up his own helmet, he gave a last glance to the horizon – still empty – and wandered down to join them. It was a fine cow; it would be a good feast indeed, especially with English hostages to serve it.

  ‘An outdoor dinner?’ Elizaveta asked, frowning at her eldest daughter.

  ‘An outdoor dinner,’ Maria agreed, adding as she saw Elizaveta’s face, ‘it was Ingrid’s idea.’

  ‘And it’s a good one,’ Ingrid said unusually firmly. ‘Josef is healing and he needs fresh air, as does Greta. She is too pale.’

  That much at least was true. But . . .

  ‘An outdoor dinner?’ Elizaveta repeated and Ingrid leaped forward to take her hands.

  ‘Why not, Mama? We cannot just sit around staring at walls. It could be weeks until we hear news.’

  ‘Of the victory?’

  ‘Of the victory, yes, so why should we not enjoy ourselves in the meantime? Please, Mama, it is a glorious day.’

  That was true too. The winds had lessened and the sun, though low, shone with real warmth.

  ‘Where?’ Elizaveta asked.

  ‘Up at the broch,’ Maria told her instantly, tugging her towards the door, Ingrid in tow. ‘The children love to play there and it will offer some shelter if the winds rise.’

  ‘As,’ Elizaveta pointed out, resisting, ‘would staying in the hall.’

  ‘Oh, Mama – don’t be so dull.’

  That arrow hit home. Dull? Is that what she had become?

  ‘I’ll have you know,’ she said, ‘that I am not dull. I rode the rapids.’

  ‘I remember,’ Maria said, glancing to her sister. ‘Do you, Ingrid?’

  ‘Mother kayaking dressed as a boy?’ Ingrid wrinkled up her nose. ‘Of course I remember.’

  ‘I was so proud,’ Maria said defiantly.

  ‘You were?’ Elizaveta smiled and stepped towards the door, suddenly twitching to look out to the south, for all the use it would be. ‘The broch it is, then. We must get food.’

  ‘All arranged.’

  E
lizaveta looked at her daughters, women now but looking as guilty as little girls at the admission. She drank in the sight of pretty, blonde Ingrid, so like her grandmother and namesake in both looks and temperament, then dark-haired Maria, too like her mother and father for her own good. She sighed.

  ‘You knew I would agree?’

  ‘You’re always up there, Mama. At least this way you can enjoy your dinner instead of scratching away on that old viol.’

  ‘Scratching . . . ?’ Elizaveta protested but the girls were already spinning away and Greta was calling to the children that it was time to go. ‘Scratching?’ she repeated indignantly to herself but in the doorway Maria spun back.

  ‘I really was proud of you,’ she said and then she was truly gone, leaving Elizaveta to pick up her skirts and follow with a reluctant smile.

  ‘Goodness, Tomas, we’ll all starve at this rate and then we’ll never defeat Harold’s damned southerners. Pull it by the horns!’

  ‘I’ll pull you by the horns,’ came the ferocious reply and the men roared with laughter.

  The group of youngsters had dragged the cow almost to the riverbank now but were in confusion about how best to get it across. The bridge was sturdy but narrow, barely wide enough for two men side by side, and the cow would fill it. Across the pasture behind them another group had somehow succeeded in lassoing a second beast and were leading it, still very much alive, towards them. Harald saw Tomas look round in something close to panic and took pity on him.

  ‘Get the ropes,’ he called to the men on his side, ‘or we’ll never have it cooked before dusk. And besides, we don’t want the English to think us fools, do we?’

  That set them moving. Aksel led a group up the hill where two lengths of rope sat coiled amongst the discarded mail like adders in a nest. He bent to pick up the first one and then froze.

  ‘Hurry, Aksel,’ Harald prompted but in reply Aksel pointed a hand towards the York road and now Harald saw it too – dust rising. ‘They’re coming,’ he roared to his men. ‘The hostages are coming. Get that bloody cow over here now!’