The Constant Queen

by Joanna Courtney

  Jumping the Chain at Miklegard

  Halldor’s grand tale of Harald’s men jumping the great chain across the harbour at Miklegard in Chapter Thirteen is also based on a known story, recorded by the famous Icelandic saga-writer Snorri Sturluson (see above). He was not a man known to be a slave to facts, but the dramatic trick of tipping the boat over the chain by running from one end to the other is recorded in detail so I considered it worthy of inclusion here.

  Greek Fire

  Halldor also delights, in Chapter Seven, in telling of ‘Greek fire’. This mysterious weapon of the Byzantines, first recorded in the 600s, was a huge fascination for storytellers and audiences throughout this period and, intriguingly, remains an unexplained weapon. ‘Greek fire’ was the name given – along with others like ‘sea fire’, ‘liquid fire’ and ‘sticky fire’ – to flames projected at speed from some sort of pressurised nozzle. It was held in awe and fear by other nations as it burned on water so was a huge advantage in naval warfare, although clearly it had its limitations, including the need for calm seas and close-range deployment.

  Its composition was a closely guarded secret and remains a mystery to this day. Even when the Arabs succeeded in capturing some of the substance and the siphons used to dispense it in the 800s, they still failed to copy it successfully for their own manufacture. This was perhaps because the different elements of this weapon system – the formula, the specialised ships that carried it, the device used to heat and pressurise it, and the nozzle projecting it – were kept separate, with the engineers aware of the secrets of only one component, so no enemy could gain knowledge of it in its entirety. This may also explain why it eventually fell out of use in the twelfth century.

  The closest we have to any form of recipe is from Anna Komnene, a twelfth-century imperial princess who wrote The Alexiad, an extant historical and biographical text about her father, Alexius I. She suggests that ‘Greek fire’ was made by collecting inflammable resin from pines, rubbing it with sulphur and propelling it with hot air through tubes of reed so it caught light. There seems, however, to have been more to it than this and over the years historians and scientists have explored the possibility of its base ingredient being saltpetre (which would make it the earliest known use of gunpowder) or quicklime. General opinion now seems to be that it was some form of crude petroleum, a little like modern napalm – clearly a terrifying weapon indeed.

  Geographical Considerations

  Sigtuna

  Sigtuna, the capital of Sweden in this period, was situated on the banks of Lake Malaren which was a deep bay of the Varangian, or Baltic, Sea. Post-glacial rebound (the rising of land no longer pushed down by the weight of ice) subsequently caused many islands and promontories to rise out of the water, eventually cutting Malaren off into an inland lake around 1200. This was about the point when Stockholm, at the outer ‘choking point’ of the channel, rose as a city and it replaced Sigtuna as capital around 1300. These days you would have to follow tight channels to reach Sigtuna by boat but when Harald and Elizaveta sailed in, as shown in Chapter Seventeen, the way would have been much more open.

  The Gault-Elf River

  The Gault-Elf River no longer exists by that name, but seems to correspond most closely to the Gota Alv, running from Lake Vanern to the Kattegat sea between modern-day Sweden and the Danish mainland. In Viking times Skaane – the area now forming the southernmost province of Sweden – belonged to Denmark. The Gault-Elf River, therefore, marked the boundary between the Danish mainland and Norwegian soil which also ran into what is now Sweden below the Oslofjord. It was, therefore, the perfect place to make a peace between the two countries, as shown in Chapter Thirty-five.

  Characters

  Below is a little more detail both about characters included in this book and some that I was forced, in the interests of a tight narrative, to leave out.

  Andrew of Hungary and Anastasia

  Although evidence is uncertain, it is probable that Andrew was not actually in Kiev until 1031 or even possibly some years later. He and his two brothers, Béla and Levente, may well have at first sought safety in Poland where Béla, the youngest of the three, married the daughter of King Miesko II, before the other two moved on to Kiev. I chose, however, to place Andrew there from the start of the novel so he was involved in the narrative all the way through.

  Andrew was invited to return to Hungary, though clearly he had to fight his way to the throne. Some sources suggest that Levente was actually the elder brother but did not take the throne because he was still a pagan, unlike Andrew who had converted to Christianity in Kiev. Andrew was crowned in either late 1046 or early 1047 but the story doesn’t actually end there, especially for Anastasia. For Andrew’s younger brother Béla rose up in rebellion in 1060 and defeated Andrew, who died shortly afterwards. Anastasia and her son, Solomon, escaped to Austria where Anastasia, not one to give up easily, sought the help of King Henry IV of Germany, whose sister Judith was engaged to Solomon. In 1063 German troops invaded Hungary on their behalf, but luckily Béla died (seemingly of natural causes) and his sons fled, leaving Solomon to be crowned King of Hungary under Anastasia’s regency. I would love to explore Elizaveta’s spiky sister’s story further at a later date but, as with so much, there was no room for it in The Constant Queen.

  Henry I of France and Anne

  After the death of his first wife, Matilda of Frisia, Henry seems, in a rather fairytale manner, to have hunted far and wide to find a new bride. Sadly the hunt seems to have been protracted not by romance but by the need to find a woman noble enough to be a queen but not so closely related to Henry for their match to be prohibited by the church – apparently a tough ask. The desperate king sent agents to all the courts of Europe and eventually they found their way to Kiev in time to secure Anne as Henry’s bride in 1051.

  It was not, perhaps, the most flattering way to be chosen but it was a good match for Anne. She does not, mind you, seem to have been very impressed with her new home at first, writing to Yaroslav that France was ‘a barbarous country where the houses are gloomy, the churches ugly and the customs revolting.’ She seems to have been particularly appalled that many of the French were illiterate and spoke few languages, that they did not wash often enough, and, perhaps most amusingly, that their cuisine was very poor compared to what she’d been used to in Kiev.

  She must, however, have settled and soon gained a strong reputation for her intelligence and political understanding. In her husband’s lifetime she often co-signed charters with him, showing his respect for her, and when he died in 1060 and their eldest son, Phillipe, succeeded aged only eight, Anne was made regent – the first Queen of France ever to have been afforded this privilege. She shared the role with Baldwin of Flanders, the father of Matilda, wife of William the Conqueror, and so I will be able to return a little to her story in The Conqueror’s Queen, the third book in this series.

  King Svein of Denmark

  I have also had to cut back Svein’s role in this novel. Throughout his reign in Norway, Harald was perpetually engaged in summer skirmishing with Svein over the hugely disputed possession of Denmark. It seems almost to have been a form of noble game with the two men respecting each other even whilst they fought and I would have liked to include more of their rivalry, but in the end this is Elizaveta’s story and the intriguing scrapping of the rulers had to take a back seat.

  Svein seems to have been a lively and exciting character. He was reported as a large, charming man with three successive wives and any number of mistresses, who provided him with at least twenty children between them.

  An audacious, impressive and seemingly much-loved King of Denmark, he could so easily have imprinted himself on our own history as, born in England to Cnut’s sister Estrith, he was a stronger contender for the English throne than either Harald or William. It seems almost certain that his battles with Harald had made him too weak to take advantage of the chaos in 1066, but he did make determined, though failed, bids for Engl
and in both 1069 and 1074.

  He also seems to have married Harald’s widow, though sources are unclear as to whether this was Tora or Elizaveta (see below).

  Empress Zoe

  This novel only just touches on the life of the Empress Zoe of Byzantium. She was ‘Porphyrogenita’, meaning ‘born into the purple’ – i.e. to a reigning emperor, though apparently the imperial bedchamber actually had purple walls so this is a literal as well as a figurative expression. She was born in about 978 to Constantine VIII, and her father was apparently so reluctant to let another man anywhere near power that, despite numerous proposals, she didn’t marry until the age of fifty when, with her father dying in 1028, she wed Romanus Argyros, who swiftly became Emperor Romanus III.

  Making up for lost time, Zoe tried desperately to fall pregnant using magic charms, amulets and potions, all (not surprisingly) without effect. This was an obsession which she seems to have pursued all her remaining life and her rooms in the palace were filled with apparatus for the manufacture of ointments and perfumes with which she was apparently able to hold onto her beauty and even keep her face free of wrinkles until she was sixty – though not to conceive the longed-for heir.

  I have portrayed her as something of a man eater, both for narrative entertainment and as it seems to run close to the truth. Romanus, who quickly lost interest in impregnating his wife, was found dead in his bath in 1034 and later the same day Zoe married Michael, a courtier and her open lover. Michael IV, however, soon proved of weak health and not really up to the task (if anyone was) of giving the ageing Zoe babies, and when he died in 1041, the imperial crown passed to his nephew Michael V. He had to rule jointly with Zoe – still the Porphyrogenita – but he swiftly banished her to a monastery, causing the popular uprising in Constantinople described in Chapter Twelve.

  Michael was blinded, almost certainly by a force led by Harald, to prevent him challenging for power again and Harald does appear to have had to flee under cover of darkness from the predatory Zoe. She went on to marry a third husband, a former lover Constantine Monomachos, who was then formally proclaimed emperor alongside Zoe and her sister Theodora. To add to the excitement Constantine brought along his mistress, Maria Skleraina, whom Zoe seems to have, to some extent, welcomed into the strange imperial fold. A striking woman, indeed, and one I would love to learn more about when time allows.

  Grand Prince Yaroslav

  Elizaveta’s father seems to have been a genuinely inspirational and forward-thinking ruler but he was not actually Grand Prince of all Russia until 1036 when his brother Mstislav, with whom he had co-ruled at the end of a series of fraternal disputes, died. Mstislav’s base had been in Chernigov and he seems to have kept largely to the east of Russia so I felt his presence in this story would overcomplicate events. It is also possible that Yaroslav only fully moved his royal power base from Novgorod to Kiev in this year but in the absence of any true proof either way, I chose to house his family there from the start of the story to avoid unnecessary complications.

  Earl Hakon

  Chapter Thirty-four shows us the Battle of Nisa and Harald’s victory over Svein, including Aksel as the brave commander of the loose ships which helped turn the battle the Norwegians’ way. In reality, however, it was not Aksel (an invented character) who managed this but Jarl Hakon, a nephew of Einar Tambarskelve who led the northern jarls after Einar’s death.

  Hakon’s story is very interesting in its own right, as he, like Finn, defected to the Danes after a disagreement with Harald but was later forgiven and returned to his service, marrying Ragnhild, King Magnus’s illegitimate daughter (see below). He argued with Harald again a little time later when it emerged that it may well have been he who, perhaps swayed by the Danish king’s kindness to him in times past, let Svein escape the same Battle of Nisa alive, robbing Harald of his chance at the Danish throne. Harald subsequently killed Hakon at the Battle of Vanern in autumn 1064. I hoped to include him in this story but he proved too cumbersome to fit. I could not, however, resist borrowing his brave exploits for Aksel.

  Ragnhild

  King Magnus had a daughter called Ragnhild by an unknown mistress, probably conceived when he was relatively young. She seems to have been a strong-willed type who, in a reported tantrum more typical of skaldic tradition than reality, refused a young northern lord because he was not an earl. That lord was Hakon, he of prowess at Nisa (see above) but as there was, in the end, no room for his story in this novel, Ragnhild had to be lost too.

  What Happened After 1066

  King Harold was merciful to the defeated Norwegians in the wake of the battle of Stamford Bridge, allowing those not killed on the field – including Tora’s son Olaf – to retreat to their ships in safety. This was not, sadly for Norway, a large number and reports have it that although three hundred ships sailed forth on the quest to conquer England in 1066, only twenty-four limped home.

  They returned, first, to Elizaveta in the Orkneys where they over-wintered with Jarls Paul and Erlend, Thorfinn’s sons, who had both survived the carnage in England. In the spring of 1067 they retrieved Harald’s body (where from, we do not know, but he must have been kept safe by someone, again showing mercy by the English, especially in comparison to Duke William’s contemptuous treatment of Harold after Hastings), and took both his and Maria’s corpses home for honourable burial. Maria’s death, which was really recorded as occurring on the very day of the Battle of Stamford Bridge, was thought at the time to have a rather mystical significance which I have made the most of in this novel.

  The rule of Norway was at first shared by Tora’s two sons, Magnus and Olaf, but in only 1069 Magnus died (of what, we do not know) leaving Olaf to be sole king. He is known to posterity as Olaf the Quiet, and I like to think that this reflects Tora’s careful upbringing as well as, perhaps, a surfeit of war under Harald’s ambitious reign.

  As discussed above, Adam of Bremen (a scholarly man who lived through the events of this period and wrote about them in his Gesta Hammaburgensis Ecclesiae Pontificum, or Deeds of the Bishops of Hamburg) reports that Svein took as his third wife ‘the mother of King Olav Kyrre’ though we do not know if this refers to his actual mother, Tora, or his stepmother Elizaveta. The marriage seems to have been part of a batch arranged shortly after 1066 to cement a peace treaty with Denmark. Ingrid, Elizaveta’s daughter, married Prince Olaf, Svein’s third son by an unknown concubine and King Olaf, Tora’s son, married Princess Ingrid, another of Svein’s children.

  King Svein himself could easily have married either of Harald’s widows but within the scope of this story I like to believe that it was Tora who allied herself to this very Scandinavian ruler. After this brief mention, however, no more is said of either of my heroines and we do not even know when or where either queen died. I very much hope that this novel, although as much the product of my own imagination as of historical record, goes some way to reviving their sadly lost stories.

  CHANGED NAMES

  Yaroslav’s children:

  Iziaslav Ivan

  Sviatoslav Stefan

  Vsevolod Viktor

  Vyacheslav Yuri

  Ingigerd (Elizaveta’s mother and daughter) Ingrid

  Ingigerd (Finn’s daughter) Idonie

  Bergljot (Einar’s wife) Brigid

  Jorunn (Tora’s sister) Johanna

  Oystein (Tora’s brother) Otto

  Sveyn (Cnut’s son) Steven

  ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

  I filled the first book in this trilogy with thank-yous so wondered, at first, who to thank in this second one, but the fact remains that all the same people, and a few more besides, have been every bit as important in the creation of this novel, so I think they deserve another mention:

  My husband for his unending patience and indulgence – I promise not to have the bright idea of inviting everyone we know for a party this time round . . .

  My children – to whom this book is dedicated – for putting up with endless talk of Vikings and not groaning
too loud whenever I say ‘Do you know, it was the Vikings who . . . ’ Similarly for trailing round various battle sites/castles/exhibitions with me and even, at times, showing an interest. I know Vikings didn’t have iPhones but they were still pretty cool.

  My parents for being so excited for me and for not, thank heavens, passing their chemists’ genes on! And all the rest of my family for their input, though I’m afraid the orders for Ferraris, holiday homes, motorbikes and the like will have to wait a while yet . . .

  My friends everywhere, who have been so incredibly supportive with The Chosen Queen. I sometimes feel ashamed of myself for making such a fuss about just doing my job and consider myself blessed that everyone else is so happy for me. Thank you.

  Kate, my agent, who has been behind me for longer than anyone outside my own immediate friends and family and whose continued enthusiasm and advice is so much appreciated.

  Natasha, my editor, without whose wisdom, eye for detail, and endless patience this book would not be anywhere near as sharp. And for her lovely, supportive margin comments –‘I’m sobbing now,’ being perhaps my favourite so far.

  And finally the whole dedicated, friendly, enthusiastic team at Pan Macmillan – in particular Susan for fantastic copy-editing, Katie for incredible publicity, and Jo for her gorgeous cover designs. It’s been a pleasure to take this publishing journey with such a strong team and I’m so grateful you chose to back me.

  Thank you all,

  Joanna