The Chosen Queen

by Joanna Courtney

  Edyth blinked. This whole conversation was still twisting like an adder and she felt caught in its coils.

  ‘No one concerns themselves with Duke William now,’ she managed as Torr steered her into the dance once more. ‘Whatever was said, it is past. No one thinks he is King Edward’s heir.’

  Torr smiled, a slow, lazy smile that tore at her guts.

  ‘Duke William does. And tell me, who else is fit for the throne? Harald Hardrada, King of the Vikings, perhaps? There’s certainly no one from the lauded English line of Cerdic. The king has no children, Edyth, no nephews even, just some distant cousin trapped in darkest Hungary. If Edward dies, England is wide open – wide open!’

  Edyth jerked away, stepping off the dance floor and onto the piled rushes at the edges.

  ‘You should not talk like that, my lord. It’s not right. The king isn’t going to die and even if he does we won’t have a Norman duke in his place. No one would allow it.’

  ‘Of course not.’ He followed her so closely that she backed into the timber wall and felt her head clang against a shield edge. She put up a hand to ward away both the pain and her partner but Lord Torr was not so easily rebuffed. ‘Hush now, sweetheart,’ he said softly. ‘Do you want your father to hear such talk on your lips?’ He pressed a finger lightly against her mouth. ‘You should not fret. Let’s leave politics and think more of . . . pleasure.’

  He dipped his finger so that the tip grazed Edyth’s tongue and she felt the contact like a touch paper to a deep well of kindling somewhere uncomfortably low inside her. She fought to make sense of it but could not think with him standing so close over her. It was much darker against the wall than out on the floor and with the whirl of dancers separating them from the others of the court they were all but alone.

  ‘Pleasure, I am told,’ she managed, though her voice was annoyingly husky, ‘is a transient thing.’

  He leaned a hand against the wall above her, curving his hips towards hers.

  ‘Mayhap you are right, Edyth. Better, I am sure, to find love – real love.’

  ‘Like Earl Harold and the Lady Svana?’

  ‘Like Harold and his little handfast woman, yes, but then my brother is the steadfast type. Loyalty comes naturally to him along with responsibility and duty and all those boring traits.’

  Despite herself Edyth giggled.

  ‘You cannot say such things – you’re a lord.’

  ‘For now.’ Torr’s eyes flicked briefly over his shoulder to the packed hall then shot straight back to her. ‘But you are politicking again and it is a waste. What is life without pleasure, Edyth Alfgarsdottir?’

  His amber eyes met hers and Edyth felt herself pulled towards him. Her head swam. She felt as giddy as if she were still dancing and as blind as if it were the depths of night but then a low growl caught her ears and with horror she recognised the rumble of her father’s ever-ready temper nearby. Tearing herself away, Edyth stepped firmly sideways.

  ‘I have taken too much of your time, my lord,’ she said, curtseying. ‘Your wife will, I am sure, be missing you and my father looks for me.’

  For a moment Lord Torr looked angry and the heat in Edyth’s belly turned to ice, but then he chuckled.

  ‘You are a dutiful daughter, Lady Edyth, that is good. You will need to support your father tomorrow.’

  ‘What do you mean?’ she demanded. Alfgar was pushing between the dancers and was nearly upon them. ‘What do you mean, my lord?’

  But, with a low bow and wicked wink, Torr was gone, leaving Edyth alone as her father descended with the force of a Viking fury, seizing her arm and yanking her sideways.

  ‘What on earth are you doing, young lady?’

  ‘Dancing, Father,’ she stuttered out, trying to extricate herself.

  ‘Dancing? Parading yourself like a hoyden, more like – and with him.’

  Alfgar’s face was wine-red and his hand raked through his hair in a gesture she knew all too well; it meant the rise of his fiery temper.

  ‘Lord Torr was very courteous,’ she said nervously.

  Alfgar spat into the rushes.

  ‘I’ll wager he was and I know why too.’

  Edyth opened her mouth to protest but for once she caught herself.

  ‘Why, Father?’ she asked instead, widening her eyes.

  ‘Why?’ Alfgar looked startled, then flushed an all-new shade of red. His voice softened. ‘Never you mind, just stay clear of him. Now, what did he say to you of Northumbria?’

  ‘Northumbria?’ she stammered. ‘Not much.’

  ‘Not much? What does that mean? He did say something. Tell me!’

  Edyth felt tears prickle. Her beautiful amber-studded brooches were heavy on her shoulders and her eyes stung with the smoke from the fire and the tang of mead on her father’s heavy breath. She scrabbled for answers but could find only snake scales – whispers of inheritance and exile.

  ‘He just said I was to, to support you tomorrow.’

  ‘Support me? What does that mean? What’s he insinuating?’

  ‘I don’t know, Father, truly.’

  And now the tears came. She brushed one furiously away but it was enough. Her father loosened his grip on her arm.

  ‘Ah there now, Edie, do not cry. I’m sorry. You are young, a girl yet – which is all the more reason why that oaf Torr should not . . .’

  ‘No, I – I’m not, Father.’ He was looking around for her mother. He was going to send her to bed like a baby and she couldn’t allow that. Forcing the tears down, she pushed her shoulders back and straightened her neck. ‘I think we need to watch him, Father. I can help you with that.’

  He shook his head indulgently but his eyes returned to her face; she had his attention.

  ‘You do not know what you would get yourself into, child.’

  It was true but no use saying so now.

  ‘I could cope with it, Father. For you I could cope with anything.’

  She smiled up at him and, with a soft chuckle, he swept her into his arms, suffocating her with the mingled scents of wool and mead and sweat.

  ‘I could dance with you, Father?’ she suggested sweetly.

  ‘Oh no!’ Alfgar backed away as she had known he would. ‘No, your old man is too stiff for dancing these days, Edyth. Find yourself someone younger, but not – not, do you hear me – a Godwinson.’

  ‘Yes, Father.’

  She dropped a swift curtsey and escaped. The rest of the evening was hers; let the morrow worry about itself.

  CHAPTER TWO

  Edyth reached up for the next branch, cursing her clumsy skirts for slowing her down. She’d be late for the council at this rate. She scrambled higher up the tree then paused to glance guiltily back through the branches to King Edward’s Westminster compound, little more than a hundred paces away on Thorney Island. People were backed up at the wooden bridge over the bubbling Tyburn river, eager to enter in good time for the great meeting. Horses pawed beneath impatient masters, cart-drivers jostled with each other to be first in line, and the air sang with barely suppressed fury. The vast stretch of the Thames rolled carelessly past to the right of the road, safe in its own dangerous currents, but the Chelsea meadowlands on the left were teeming with muddy servants. No one, at least, was looking her way and she glanced back into the woods.

  She’d been coming back from Chelsea market behind the rest of her family when she’d seen Lord Torr slipping into the bushes with a servant girl. Curiosity still sparking after last night’s encounter on the dance floor, she’d been quick to follow. She’d lost the unlikely pair briefly but now there were noises coming from the other side of the bramble thicket – a rough mingling of breaths which she longed to understand – and she had pulled herself into a tree to follow them.

  Edyth glanced guiltily again towards the royal compound where gaudy pavilion roofs peeped over the palisade fencing, the flags of all the great families of the land flapping proudly in the light breeze, taunting those not yet inside. Catching
sight of her own father’s black and gold banner, she shuddered. The council was still a turn of the glass away but he would already be pacing like a caged bear. She had to hurry. Reaching up for a lichen-encrusted branch, she heaved her slender body higher and suddenly there they were.

  ‘Oh!’

  She clasped a hand over her mouth to contain her surprise and nearly lost her balance. It was like nothing she’d imagined. The girl was on her knees, rough brown skirts rucked up so that her most intimate area was exposed whilst Torr, his own trews around his ankles, clasped her roughly back against him.

  As Edyth watched, he reached one hand out to grab at the girl’s hair, arching her back and making her cry out his name, and this time Edyth was too slow to catch her own gasp. Torr looked up. He saw her immediately and far from rushing to hide, locked Edyth in his gaze. For a long moment she was caught, then finally she yanked her eyes away and began to scramble down, half-climbing, half-tumbling through the dense branches of the oak.

  Her hair tugged, her skirts caught, but she dared not stop. She had to get out of there. Nearly at the bottom, her foot slipped and she fell. She screamed as the ground rushed up to meet her but at the last minute two strong arms caught her and lowered her easily. Terrified that Lord Torr had come to claim her, she fought to free herself.

  ‘Steady on now. You’re quite safe.’

  The voice was soft and gentle and Edyth dared to look.

  ‘Oh, thank God.’

  It was not the dark-eyed Torr but his brother, Earl Harold. He was looking at her so kindly that she longed to collapse into his arms but just in time she remembered her father’s displeasure and pulled away.

  ‘Are you quite well, Lady Edyth?’ Harold asked. ‘You’re as white as a sheet.’

  ‘I . . . I fell.’

  ‘So I saw and I’m not surprised. You were coming down that tree like a hound after quarry.’

  ‘I’m late for the council,’ Edyth said weakly. ‘Mama will kill me.’

  ‘She will when she sees your dress. What were you doing up there?’

  Edyth tugged miserably at the rips in her woollen overgown, her thoughts racing.

  ‘I thought I saw a falcon.’

  ‘Really? Where?’

  Harold was instantly alert, scanning the trees, and Edyth cursed under her breath.

  ‘I was mistaken. It was just a . . . a robin.’

  ‘You mistook a robin for a falcon? Come now, Lady Edyth, with a hawkhouse as fine as your father’s I find that hard to believe. What were you really up to?’

  Edyth glanced uneasily at the trees; someone was coming their way, she was sure of it.

  ‘I have to get back,’ she said desperately, and tried to turn up the road towards the royal compound.

  At that moment, however, the bushes parted just ahead of them and Harold grabbed Edyth’s shoulder as the serving girl emerged, still straightening her gown. The poor girl stared at the richly clothed pair, her eyes widening in horror, then she bobbed a hasty curtsey, turned, and ran.

  ‘Some falcon, young lady,’ Harold said darkly to Edyth. ‘Come on, we’d better return you to your mother.’

  ‘No, please . . .’

  But Harold’s hand tightened on her shoulder and Edyth was forced to trot alongside him as he strode back towards Westminster.

  ‘Earl Harold,’ she begged, ‘please don’t tell my mother. I heard noises. I was just . . . curious.’

  ‘Curious? I’d say. And did you find out what you wanted to know?’

  Edyth blushed as she pictured Lord Torr’s naked buttocks and, more frightening still, the look in his wolf’s eyes as he’d caught sight of her. The image tingled inside her with a nauseating mixture of excitement and revulsion.

  ‘I . . .’ she started. Harold’s fingers were digging into her shoulder and one knee was aching where it must have hit a branch as she fell. Her stomach was churning and suddenly she just wanted to crawl into bed and hide. ‘I . . .’ she tried again but could manage no more.

  Harold stopped, halting Edyth with him. She stared at the rough road, tracing the cart-tracks in a desperate attempt to fight back tears.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ she stuttered.

  ‘You’re shocked.’ He held out a linen square and she snatched gratefully at it, scrubbing at her stupid, leaky eyes. ‘Fret not. All will be well.’

  His voice was kind and she was almost ready to believe him when, from behind, she heard a jaunty whistle and approaching footsteps. She tensed, her skin prickling.

  ‘Oh no,’ Harold said, more of a growl than speech. ‘Not you? She didn’t see you?’

  Edyth kept her face hidden in the linen but even blinded she could sense Lord Torr’s brooding presence as he sauntered past, so close he almost brushed against her. Her body pulsed and she bit hard on her lip, fighting the sensation.

  ‘I’ll talk to you later,’ she heard Harold say.

  ‘I’ll look forward to it,’ came the easy reply and then, thank the Lord, he was gone.

  Silence fell, punctuated only by the thud of Edyth’s own blood in her ears. Then she heard Harold sigh.

  ‘I think,’ he said, prising the linen from her fingers and offering his broad arm, ‘that we had better go and see Svana.’

  Edyth stared nervously at the soft canvas doorway, extravagantly trimmed with gold thread so that it seemed to shimmer in the low March sunshine. She’d cherished the Lady Svana’s smiles and waves but, with her father standing a growling guard, had never dared speak to her since that far-off faerie wedding. She’d heard tell that she practised magic – ancient eastern magic. The ladies in the bower said that she’d inherited her East Anglian lands from a line of wizards and kept great secrets. They whispered that she was a hundred years old but kept her youth and beauty with potions and spells, and that she could only ever stay at court for a few short weeks before she shrivelled back to her real self. They claimed she had bewitched Harold into loving her and that she could make her womb quicken at will and – worst of all – that she would not share these amazing secrets with other women.

  To Edyth’s relief, her mother, Lady Meghan, said it was all nonsense but Earl Alfgar still muttered about ‘pagan leanings’ and, despite him having ruled East Anglia for the last three years, he had not let his family onto Svana’s lands since the long-ago wedding that Edyth still held so fondly in her heart. Many times she had ridden to the edges of Svana’s estate at Nazeing, peering across it for signs of enchantment, but she had never seen anything more than sheep and pigs and workers in the fields – though they did seem to whistle more merrily than most.

  Her heart juddered and she glanced around the royal compound, buzzing with people. Those still queuing anxiously on the bridge had parted like churned butter as Earl Harold had approached and she had sailed through on his arm feeling like a true lady. Inside, however, all was a-scramble as servants hastily erected pavilions for late arrivals, their lordly masters fretting to get inside and change out of travel-stained clothes into their council finery. No one was paying any attention to them. No one would know if she went inside with Earl Harold or, indeed, if she came out.

  Only last night, Brodie had told her that when returning from the great hall he’d seen this very pavilion shimmering with a strange light. Edyth had scoffed at him. He was useless at holding his ale and, besides, he was always making things up to scare her, but suddenly, now, all the stories seemed to pour into her mind and harden into a painful rock of fear.

  ‘Perhaps,’ she stuttered out, ‘I would be better returning to my own pavilion?’

  Harold tipped his head on one side and smiled lightly.

  ‘If that’s what you would rather. I shall take you there.’

  ‘No! I mean, no thank you, my lord, I can manage by myself.’

  He looked down at her, not cruelly but with a flint-like determination.

  ‘You know I cannot allow that. We need to talk about what happened to you today and we can either do that over there with your parents,�
�� he gestured across the compound to her father’s stocky black, white and gold camp, ‘or here, with my wife.’

  Edyth looked again at his pavilion. Was the Lady Svana really inside? She still remembered their brief conversation at the wedding but that had been a special day, a free day; dared she speak to her here at court? On the other hand, dared she face her parents’ ranting disappointment? And so close to her father’s big moment.

  ‘I thought so,’ Harold said with a smile. He went up to the door flap, nodding to the serving boy on guard. ‘Morning, Avery.’

  ‘Good morning, my lord, my lady.’

  His bondsman bowed low then whipped back the door flap and Harold ducked inside. Edyth hovered nervously. Would there be pagan images inside? Bones? Runes, maybe? She’d heard tell that you could curse yourself just by reading them if you did not know what you were doing. She didn’t remember any such horrors at the wedding but, then again, she could have been enchanted. Harold’s head poked out.

  ‘Come on in, Edyth, and quickly before your father sees you.’

  He winked and, stunned, Edyth forced her feet to carry her within. She hardly dared look but when she finally forced her eyes upwards, it was with amazement and relief. The red and gold pavilion walls were lined with the palest yellow gauze and hung with delicate tapestries of nothing more pagan than flowers and trees. The floor was strewn with furs that felt soft through the thin soles of her boots and the few furnishings were of simple, light wood.

  An oil lamp hung from the centre pole, surrounded by a pale green glass that cast shimmering patterns around the linen room and the oil had clearly been scented with herbs for the air within smelled fresh and sweet after the more earthy odours of the compound. It was nothing like her own family’s dark pavilion – all heavy tapestries and displays of shields and weaponry – and Edyth gazed around her in wonder until her eyes fell on her hostess and she suddenly felt giddy with nerves.