The Chosen Queen

by Joanna Courtney

  ‘You’re a queen, Edie,’ he said simply, ‘of course nobody likes you. They’re all jealous as hell – especially in that crown.’

  Edyth touched her fingers to her magnificent diadem and felt Griffin’s power beneath them. Thank the Lord he’d insisted she bring it; however outmoded her dress, no one would sneer at her in this.

  ‘Griffin had it made for me.’

  ‘He must value you very highly.’ Edwin paused then added, ‘We are next, you know.’

  ‘Sorry?’

  ‘Now that Grandfather is dead we are next. Brodie is glad of it, he is twitching for power, but I am not so sure.’

  Edyth squeezed his arm.

  ‘You need not be sure, Edwin. You are young yet and a second son. You have years to enjoy yourself and you should. You have ever been too serious. Do you have a sweetheart?’

  Edwin shook his head furiously.

  ‘No. Marc’s the one who’s always running around with the girls.’

  Edyth wasn’t surprised, for her youngest brother, though only twelve, had matured fast, growing nearly as tall as Edwin and already broader across the shoulders. A handsome boy with a mop of curly hair and a wicked twinkle in his tawny eyes, he was definitely one to enjoy himself and Edyth was glad of it; there was too much sorrow in the world. Instinctively she looked to Lady Godiva. Her grandmother held her head as high as ever but her sharp eyes were swollen at the edges and her handsome face was lined with grief. Moving closer, Edyth offered her arm. Godiva glanced down, hesitated, and then took it.

  ‘I loved him well, Edyth.’

  ‘And he you, Grandmother. You were lucky.’

  Godiva smiled softly.

  ‘That’s exactly what he used to say and I am glad, in some ways, that he has departed a peaceful England. Storms are coming, Edyth – can you not feel them?’

  Edyth thought carefully. It was certainly true that the court seemed to be turning. Earl Leofric had commanded central England through the reign of four kings and had been the last of his generation of great counsellors. With him gone, the council would be led by the younger earls – Alfgar, Harold and Torr – and uneasy rumblings behind pavilion walls suggested that only Harold was truly trusted. Earl Torr, it was said, was taxing his northern subjects to fund his southern hunting estates where, more and more frequently, he spent his time. Her own father was known by all to be volatile and she was heavily aware of barely whispered concerns about his close associations with the ‘wild Welsh’, of which she was now considered one.

  ‘I have not been here,’ she muttered to Godiva.

  ‘So you will see all the more clearly now.’

  ‘The court does feel . . . uncertain.’

  ‘That is it exactly, Edyth, and spies will report that to the predators over the seas. It is this matter of an heir riling us all. England is not satisfied to have her present secure but must sew up her future too. Still, it seems you have done that for Wales. You must be proud.’

  ‘I am.’

  Edyth was grateful for Godiva’s understanding. So many others at court seemed to think of her marriage country as nothing more than a predator on their own. She wanted to say more but now Earl Leofric’s coffin was being borne into the cathedral and the great choir of monks was singing and she had to content herself with squeezing her grandmother’s arm as they saw her husband to his rest.

  The court lingered in Coventry, encouraged by Godiva’s elaborate hospitality and Alfgar’s childish enthusiasm for his new role as Earl of Mercia, and Edyth lingered with them. November marched in, yanking frost across the land, and it became madness to delay, but delay she did. Every morning she woke knowing that she should order her baggage prepared but every morning she found reasons to stay. She missed Griffin still but life was so familiar in the English court and her small train, most notably young Becca and Lewys, seemed in no hurry to leave its pleasures.

  She told herself it was important Ewan became familiar with his maternal relations but in truth most of her family commitments were despatched within an hour of breaking fast and after that she spent her time with Svana, who lingered also. Together they took the children out riding, Ewan and Crysta tucked safely in before their mothers and Svana’s older boys riding free and, at times, wild. They ate in quaint little inns and bought trinkets from traders, and one ice-bright Sunday they seized the chance to confirm Edyth as little Crysta’s godmother.

  It was a simple ceremony, performed, at Svana’s behest, beneath the open skies in the frosty garden of Coventry’s Benedictine abbey. The only people there with Edyth and the kind-faced monk who offered the fur-swaddled child to God were Harold, Svana and their older children, and in the quiet of that morning Edyth felt as if she had been drawn into the family’s world as magically as at the long-ago wedding but with more solidity, more reality. That same night, though, she watched a heavy sun set over the west and knew she was stealing time.

  ‘Will you head for home soon?’ she tentatively asked Svana a few days later, as they walked into the bustling Coventry market beneath grey skies.

  Svana looked almost shy.

  ‘I think I will remain in the west until Yuletide,’ she admitted. ‘It seems foolish to trek the children home only to turn back for Gloucester within a week or two.’

  Edyth clasped her friend’s hands.

  ‘That’s wonderful, Svana. I’m sure Harold will be delighted to have you with him for so long.’

  ‘If I stay sweet-tempered.’

  ‘Oh Svana, you are always sweet-tempered.’

  ‘Not recently. I think I am with child again, Edie.’

  Edyth flung her arms around her friend.

  ‘You too? That’s wonderful.’

  Svana hugged her back.

  ‘It is, though I do not seem to be carrying as well as you, my sweet. I have been sick as a dog this morning and feel ridiculously dizzy at times. That, mind you, may be from the spinning conversations in the bower. Do you know I heard them saying yesterday that you spend your time in Wales in bacchanalian orgies?’

  ‘If only that were true. Perhaps I should ask a few to visit – just to see them try and wriggle out of the invitation.’ She swallowed. ‘I should really travel back, you know.’

  Svana bent to pluck a brave winter anemone from the ground, playing with its delicate petals as a child might.

  ‘Must you?’ she asked. ‘Could you not stay on for Christ’s mass? Ewan and Crysta are so sweet together.’

  Edyth took the mutilated flower from her friend.

  ‘You know I cannot. Griffin would be angry. Lord knows, he is probably already angry.’

  ‘Angry?’ Svana looked up sharply.

  ‘Not like that, Svana. He is not a violent man, not in his own home anyway.’

  ‘But out of it he is vicious,’ Svana countered. ‘Truly, Edyth, you may not see it but Harold does. He says the people of the Marches are terrified of the Red Devil and he must ride to Hereford soon to inspect their new defences before your husband starts terrorising them again. He worries you are blind to Griffin’s murderous ways.’

  Edyth drew herself up.

  ‘I thought it was just the gossips who spoke of me so.’

  ‘Oh Edyth, please, I do not mean it cruelly.’ Svana grabbed Edyth’s hands urgently in her own. ‘I am just afraid for you. Griffin’s attacks on England grow more impudent every year. Soon he will have to be subdued.’

  ‘Subdued?!’ Edyth asked sharply.

  ‘That’s what Harold says.’

  ‘Is it now?’

  ‘Don’t be angry, Edie.’

  ‘I am trying not to be.’ Edyth looked at her dearest friend, the woman whose letters had sustained her through several dark Welsh winters, and felt suddenly lost. ‘What would you have me do? Hide with my father? How would that help? And what of Ewan? Wales is his birthright; I cannot rob him of that.’

  ‘I’m sure he could be an earl or, or . . .’

  ‘An earl?’ Edyth dropped the little flower and stamped
on it. ‘An English earl is better than a Welsh king, is that it?’

  ‘Not better, Edyth, just – safer.’

  Edyth tossed her head.

  ‘Ever, Svana, you worry about what is safe. What if I don’t want to be safe? What if I want to live? What if I love my husband? What if I love his country? Have you considered that or are you, like all the rest, too wrapped up in the unquestionable wonders of England?’ Svana sank back against a tree, suddenly looking like the fragile, otherworldly sprite Edyth had once considered her, and she felt instant remorse. ‘Oh Svana, I’m sorry. The babe – you are not well. Can I . . . ?’

  But Svana brushed her proffered arm aside.

  ‘Nay, Edyth, do not apologise to me. It should be the other way. My comments were ignorant, foolish – cruel even. You are right, I do prize safety, perhaps too highly. I know Harold thinks so. I irritate him by coveting peace and security and quiet. I am just a backwater girl at heart, Edie. Harold’s father knew it but I thought I could prove him wrong. I thought I could be enough.’

  ‘You are enough. Harold needs you. He could not be half as daring or strong as he is without the peace you offer him and the security and the quiet.’

  She watched Svana anxiously and, to her great relief, saw a small smile steal onto her friend’s lips.

  ‘You are grown very wise, Edyth Alfgarsdottir,’ she said, ‘and I very foolish. I blame the babe, making me so sentimental that I dispense stupid advice to people who, thankfully, know better than to listen.’

  Edyth kissed her but Svana felt frail in her arms and she thought instinctively of Edwin’s words: ‘We are next.’ Was she ready for that? Was anyone ever ready? Better, surely, just to make the most of now?

  ‘Come to Hereford,’ she urged. ‘If Harold has to ride out I can go that far in his train and if you come you can stay with us for longer. Oh, say you will, Svana. It is very beautiful and on clear days you can see all the way to Wales.’

  ‘Your Wales?’

  ‘My Wales, yes.’

  Svana nodded slowly.

  ‘I would like that, Edyth. I would like that very much.’

  ‘Then ’tis settled. Come.’ Edyth held out her arm. ‘There is shopping to be done. I need presents to take home to my husband.’

  Svana nodded and seized her arm, pulling herself to the elegant height Edyth knew so well.

  ‘And victuals for our journey. ’Tis a long way to Wales.’

  ‘Nay, Svana,’ Edyth corrected softly. ‘’Tis not so far.’

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  Hereford, November 1057

  Harold looked at the great stone wall shoring up the western face of Hereford and smiled in satisfaction.

  ‘See, Avery,’ he said, turning to his recently promoted squire. ‘Do the new reinforcements not look fine?’

  Avery wrinkled up his nose.

  ‘They are stone.’

  ‘Yes, Avery, they are stone. It was Earl Ralf’s idea.’

  ‘Earl Ralf is a Norman.’

  ‘It is not necessarily a bad thing.’

  ‘His cavalry were slaughtered when the Red Devil attacked.’

  ‘Only because he didn’t use them wisely. Cavalry can be very effective – as can stone.’

  ‘If you ask me,’ Avery snorted, ‘cavalry are about as much use as the mole on my shoulder.’

  Now, though, someone else rode up and Harold turned to see Edyth throwing back the fur-trimmed hood of her great riding cloak and looking eagerly around.

  ‘So, this is Hereford.’

  ‘It is. Avery and I were just admiring the reinforcements.’

  ‘Stone,’ Edyth said. Avery smirked but the young woman hadn’t finished. ‘That seems a good idea. I sometimes wonder why we don’t use it more.’

  Now it was Harold who smirked, before turning uncertainly back to Edyth. Was she teasing? He usually found people easy to read but Edyth, or at least this new, grown-up Edyth, didn’t seem to think as others did and he was still puzzling her out.

  ‘Do you really wonder about such things?’

  ‘Why not? I may not wield a sword, Harold, but I’m as much a victim of its path as you – maybe more.’

  ‘You sound like Svana, Edyth,’ he told her, glancing back to where his pregnant wife was riding in the wagon with Elaine and the children. ‘She thinks men should not fight.’

  ‘She is right but that will not stop you so we must make the best of it. A woman cannot ride out and fight so a town’s defences are very much her concern. Perhaps we should have something like this at Rhuddlan, though not many would attack that far west.’

  ‘Griffin thinks himself unassailable?’

  ‘Of course not. He’s not stupid, you know. There are many enemies on both land and sea and Rhuddlan is very well defended against them all. You just asked me about stone.’

  Her eyes were blazing and Harold put up his hands in mock surrender.

  ‘I apologise, my lady queen.’

  She shook her head ruefully.

  ‘Good and don’t call me that.’

  ‘It is your title.’

  ‘As Earl of Wessex is yours but I do not use that mouthful every time I address you. Surely you are my friend?’

  ‘I hope so.’

  ‘Then call me by my name.’

  ‘You do not like being royal?’

  She tossed her head, her honey-blonde plaits lifting in the wind.

  ‘You wilfully misunderstand me, Harold. I am more than happy to be queen but it does not define me. Come now, will you show me this stony city of yours or will we stand outside all night like besiegers?’

  She kicked up her beautiful horse – a fine dark mare she called something mystically Welsh – and made for the gates, cloak streaming out behind her.

  ‘She’s a fiery one,’ Avery muttered.

  Harold thought of her tumbling out of the tree into his arms so many years back now and smiled.

  ‘Always has been,’ he said and set his own mount cantering after.

  There was a grand feast that night and all the local dignitaries seized the chance to dine at their lord’s expense. The land hereabouts was fertile but life was tough, for Griffin’s brigands were forever skirmishing at their doors. Edyth, Harold feared – or maybe hoped – knew little of her kingly husband’s darker orders. She thought ‘Red Devil’ nothing more than a glamorous nickname, a compliment perhaps, but the people of Hereford knew the truth. Even with the new defences, they had to be very cautious with their supplies, forever shoring up ‘in case’, and tonight was a rare relaxation for them all.

  As the night wound to a close, Harold looked around at his people sprawled out on pallets at the edges of the great hall. Many of the lords and ladies had retired to their homes in the city, bellies full and heads swimming with their lord’s ale, but others had chosen to sleep here. Some lay alone, others with their women in their arms and others yet had delved beneath the blankets for something more energetic than sleep.

  Harold felt his loins stir and thought longingly of his wife. He was delighted Svana had ridden west with him but concern for her health gnawed at his enjoyment of her company. She had been grey with fatigue before the meats had even been cleared and he had called the ever-solicitous Elaine to help her to bed but now, as he looked at the humps of couples, his arms ached to hold her. He should go to bed. He would go to bed, but first he wanted to try and find out more about the elusive devil king, and Edyth, despite her own lightly swelling belly, was still at his side.

  ‘Will you take a last drink with me, Edyth?’

  ‘I should retire,’ she said, ‘I have a big journey on the morrow.’

  Yet she held out her goblet and Harold beckoned Avery. His squire peeled himself off the wall to pour and Harold shook his head fondly at him.

  ‘Leave the jug, Avery, and be off to bed.’

  ‘Oh no, my lord, I wouldn’t dream of abandoning you to serve yourself.’

  ‘It’s no matter. You were up very early arranging our trav
el.’

  Still his squire shook his head but then Edyth spoke up.

  ‘Truly, the earl likes serving – he has done it for me before.’ Avery coloured. He looked from Edyth to Harold and back again and then, bowing low, backed hastily away. ‘Oh dear,’ Edyth laughed, ‘I fear he thinks I meant something earthier than wine.’

  ‘Some people have such filthy minds.’

  She looked at him sharply.

  ‘Do you speak of me?’

  ‘I wouldn’t dream of it.’

  Edyth smacked at his hand and he laughed. The young men at the fire looked up and then quickly away again. Now they both laughed.

  ‘Bedding you,’ Harold said, ‘would be like bedding one of my sisters.’

  ‘Oh.’

  Edyth’s hand fluttered to her necklace and Harold was suddenly aware of the curve of the fine gold chains over her breasts.

  ‘Perhaps not quite like one of my sisters,’ he stuttered, his tongue curiously thick as if the air had somehow clogged.

  She looked up at him, her eyes dark, but then seemed to shake herself a little.

  ‘I should like to think of myself as your sister.’

  He snatched at this.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Svana’s too.’

  ‘Of course. You are very dear to her.’ Still the air seemed tight and hard to breathe and Harold cast desperately round for a way to ease it.

  ‘You already have several sisters,’ Edyth offered.

  ‘I do,’ he agreed hastily. ‘Hannah and Emma are much younger than me but Aldyth and I used to play together all the time when we were children.’

  ‘Queen Aldyth?’

  ‘As she became, yes, thanks to my father’s endless petitioning, though it wasn’t a happy union at first. King Edward resented my father’s power and for the first few years he refused to consummate the marriage.’

  ‘That’s why they have no heir?’

  Heir! The word tore through Harold; it was all he ever heard these days and he was sick of it. He sloshed wine into his cup.

  ‘At first, yes, but later they tried. They try still but to no avail.’ Harold drank deep. ‘It is eating my poor sister up inside, Edyth. She feels she has flailed Edward, failed England. It is why she hunts so desperately for a substitute.’