The Chosen Queen

by Joanna Courtney

  ‘We present this evidence to the jury, to the king and to Earl Harold,’ Osric eventually concluded, ‘and ask for justice for the people of Northumbria who wish only to be ruled fairly and with due regard for their own interests and those of their country.’

  Harold rose.

  ‘Does anyone stand in defence of Earl Torr?’ he asked.

  Torr leaped to his feet.

  ‘I do,’ he spat. ‘These people know nothing of the business of government and nothing of its costs.’

  ‘Nay,’ someone called from the back, ‘we can see its costs right here.’

  A bitter laugh rippled through the troops as all eyes roved around Torr’s extravagant lodge.

  ‘How dare you?! I am your earl. Do you expect me to live as you do, with your children in your bed and your animals at your feet and your . . .’

  A great rumble ran around the crowd and instinctively Harold lifted his rod.

  ‘Earl Torr, you will show respect for these people and for this court.’

  ‘Why? They have shown none for me. I have done all I can to control their unruly land and this is how they repay me? It is spite.’

  ‘It is,’ Morcar agreed quietly, ‘but it is you who spite us – and it must stop.’

  Torr went for his sword and, without thinking, Harold leaped to face him, his only defence the jewelled sceptre of the realm. The crowd gasped and pressed forward as the two brothers stood up to each other.

  ‘You would do this to me?’ Torr hissed.

  ‘You have done it to yourself, Torr.’

  ‘You could stop it – you have the sceptre, brother dear, you have the power.’

  ‘This is England, Torr; it is not a dictatorship. Our people have the right to speak and today they have spoken. An earldom is not a toy to play with but a child to care for, and it is all too clear that you have cared little for yours. Jury?’

  He glanced across to the head of the jury, an elderly man, his back hunched but his eyes bright with understanding as he took in the rising tension around the arena. He shuffled forward and said in a loud voice: ‘We find Earl Tostig guilty of failing to rule Northumbria in a just and fair manner.’

  Harold knew what he had to do now but he felt as if he were screaming within. He could feel the sceptre pressing against Torr’s sword with all the expectation of the crowd behind it but he could not form the words to condemn his brother to exile. What sort of a man did that?

  He looked wildly round. He saw the king’s ice-blue eyes boring expectantly into him, young Morcar’s looking trustingly his way, and the troops, brows drawn, waiting. Then he saw Edyth, stood as firm and as sparkling as the damned sceptre. There was no doubt in her at all. Why? He had told her in Bosham that he needed unity, so why was she bringing him division?

  He looked around the arena, confused, and suddenly saw that there was unity here, unity against Torr. Without him England would be stronger and she had seen that first. She might be standing opposite him but she was very much on his side and the strength of that crept through his spine, stiffening it. It was a rich, warm, energising feeling – it was, he realised, belief.

  ‘Earl Torr, much as it pains me, as your brother, to do so, I must bow to the wishes of the people and the might of the great English justice system and pronounce you, for your own crimes, an exile of this land. You will surrender the earldom of Northumbria and you will depart from these shores with your family within five days. After that time, if you are caught in England your life will be forfeit. Do you understand?’

  ‘Harold, no! You cannot do this to me. You cannot—’

  ‘Do you understand?’

  For a moment Torr increased the pressure of his sword against the sceptre but as the myriad nobles around him leaned forward he lost his nerve. Springing back, he lowered the weapon but his eyes stayed fixed on Harold.

  ‘Oh, I understand, brother. I know treachery when I see it. Father would hate the man you have become.’

  ‘Father would do the same.’

  ‘You may think that, if you wish, but we both know otherwise. Family should stand together and you know it. You will pay for this, Harold Godwinson. God will make you pay for this and, believe me, so will I.’

  In a flash of scarlet cloak, he flounced from the arena. Cheers erupted and men flung their hats in the air in celebration but all Harold could see was his father’s face looking down on him. ‘It is Torr that has done wrong,’ he told himself, ‘Torr who has tarnished the family name,’ but even amongst the mass of men baying for his brother’s exile it was hard to believe.

  ‘You did right,’ said a quiet voice at his side and he turned to see Edyth.

  She put out a hand and he clutched at it.

  ‘What is right?’ he asked.

  She had no answer but her fingers in his kept him upright and for now that seemed enough.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

  ‘I have brought you the north, Harold,’ Edyth said softly. ‘As I promised.’

  ‘So it seems,’ he agreed, drawing her away from the carousing rebels, before suddenly spinning round to trap her against an oak. ‘I thought you were against me, Edie.’

  ‘Against you? Never.’

  ‘You led the Welsh against me.’

  ‘A handful, no more, to ensure the correct result for us all.’

  She forced herself to smile up at him. She did not want him to know that her Welsh troops had been bought with Billingsley, the town he had once gifted her. It had felt a sore price when she had negotiated it with Prince Bleddyn but it had been worth it.

  ‘England will be secure,’ she said now.

  ‘With your brothers holding the north for me?’

  ‘Exactly. They are true servants, Harold.’

  ‘I doubt it not, Edyth, but the south will be uneasy with your family holding the balance of power.’

  Edyth laughed.

  ‘Hardly, Harold. Wessex is by far the most powerful earldom and your brothers hold all the riches of Kent and East Anglia.’

  ‘

  ‘The scales are even, perhaps,’ he conceded, ‘but the pans are not linked.’

  ‘My lord?’

  He was talking in riddles and her tired brain could not work them out. Now he leaned in so close she could see the moon curved in the dark blue of his irises like sideways silver smiles. Her heart pumped like a watermill in flood and she fought to quieten it.

  ‘I came here in peace, Harold,’ she protested weakly, ‘to offer you my family’s support and loyalty.’

  ‘Which I accept gratefully but, as with all treaties, it needs ratification.’

  ‘Ratification? You tangle me with snake words, Harold.’ She pushed out at his chest but the solid muscle resisted her feeble protest and now he caught her hand and she felt his own heart beating hard against it. Her body pulsed treacherously. ‘You cannot order me around,’ she protested angrily. ‘I am not yours to command just because you are sub-regulus.’

  ‘Do not call me that!’ His voice was sharp. He grabbed her shoulders, pulling her up against him. ‘I’m sorry. This is hard, yes, but you do understand me, Edyth Alfgarsdottir. You have ever understood me. Your family and mine now hold England in our young hands and there is only one thing needed to make that alliance complete.’

  ‘No!’

  ‘Yes. You must marry me, Edyth.’

  ‘No, Harold.’ Edyth fought to hold back her tears. ‘I have brought you the north,’ she repeated, a plea.

  ‘And in so doing have all but written our nuptial ceremony yourself. God help us, Edyth, but you saw what it’s like out there. The country is not as stable as it was. It needs firm rule. Everyone is looking to me for that but I cannot do it without you.’

  ‘I will keep the north to your cause, Harold, I swear it.’

  He shook his head furiously.

  ‘I know that. You do not understand, Edyth. I meant that I cannot do it without you.’

  It was too sweet to bear. She tried to pull away.

&n
bsp; ‘You are wed already.’

  ‘You know that’s not true.’

  ‘Why not?’ Fury flared in her, instantly hot as the deepest embers. ‘Why did you not marry her properly, Harold? Why did you not spare us this?’

  He shrugged helplessly.

  ‘She would not let me. She does not believe in public conventions. She does not believe in rules and structures and titles.’

  ‘Like queen?’ Edyth whispered.

  ‘Like queen.’

  Edyth knew that much was true but she also knew that even if Harold was asking this of her to spare Svana, her own motivations were far baser. She pushed back against the tree but the bark of the old oak dug into her skin as if pushing her away.

  ‘She will hate me,’ she whispered.

  ‘Nay, Edyth, she does not hate.’

  ‘She should.’

  ‘Your children . . .’

  ‘Are still my children. I will explain the price of greatness to them.’

  ‘I am a price?’

  ‘No! Edyth, you are a jewel.’

  ‘I am sick of jewels. I have four great rubies, Harold, do you know that? Four great rubies on the crown Griffin had made for me. They are beautiful, Harold, but they are of no use at all.’

  ‘That’s not true. They shine, as you shine, and the world needs that or it is too dull to bear.’

  ‘You have an answer for everything.’

  ‘I do not have an answer to my question – will you marry me, Edyth?’

  My dearest Svana,

  I write to you for mercy. You have never cleaved to the Roman church, I know, but I beg you to somehow find it in your heart to embrace their laws, at least outwardly, or we are both in peril. They want me to marry. You will know this. You have ever been wiser than I and ever purer of heart, though God knows that is not difficult now. I do not have the words for this and I know I stumble and make little sense. Forgive me. My pen is as confused as my heart.

  I will say it. They want me to marry Harold, Svana. Your Harold. The court wills it so, the king wills it so, England wills it so. I will it not, but I have not your strength to resist the pulls of duty and expectation. Harold does not love me. Nay, he proceeds with this madness for love of but one woman – you. He seeks to protect you from the world he knows you despise and I, it seems, am to be the shield.

  Preparations are afoot, Svana, and only one person can stop them. If you were to come now, if you were to stand before the altar in my place, the world would have to recognise you as Harold’s true wife. You would be queen, Svana, and I would be your ever-loyal servant, not the viper at your breast.

  I have delayed all I can, my dear friend, but the date is now set for two weeks hence. The king ails again and the court is in a panic that, it seems, only a wedding can calm. You told me the world was spinning and now it has spun me off my unwary feet. I know I can be queen, if so it must be, but I would far rather be your friend.

  I hate to ask this of you for I know you see no reason in pandering to the foolish notions of those less trusting than your dear self. I fear you will despise me for this missive and blame you not, for I despise myself, but for our friendship at least, please come.

  With unending love and sorrow,

  Edyth

  My dearest Edyth,

  Save your spite for me, my dearest child, for I am the one at fault here. I am strong only in the awareness of my own weakness. Know this, Edie, I cannot and I will not come to Westminster to lie on the altar of Rome’s insidious rules and the court’s leeching fears. It would break my soul and even for you, my love, I cannot do that.

  When I handfasted to Harold I knew I was taking on two men – the simple lover who pledged his troth to me barefoot in the grass at Nazeing and the earl who would always, sooner or later, have to put his boots back on and ride forth from my estate. I have treasured the former, and treasure him still, but his path has twisted too far from mine and I am not the right woman to carry him forward in these troubled times.

  I am deeply sorry that it must be you who does so and yet I am also gladder than you will ever believe. For if there was one woman in this bitter world who I can trust to take care of the man who is dearer to me than my own self, it is you. We both know that Harold is not good alone and whilst I will ever be with him in my heart, he needs a woman to ride with him, to talk with him, to mount the throne with him. I have not the birth for it, nor the connections nor, indeed, the desire. It is too high a climb for me but you, Edyth, you have the spirit and the courage and the fire to climb higher than either of us. You always have.

  I ask more of you, my dearest friend, than any woman should but you are more than any woman. Go safely, Edyth, and know that when your wedding bells ring out my heart rings with them.

  Your Svana

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

  Coventry, December 1065

  Coventry was ablaze with light. Edyth, staring out from her hastily refurbished ‘bridal’ chamber, felt as dazzled as if the devil himself were shoving his fiery torches into her face. The sun was not yet up and the city was still in the grip of one of the coldest nights of the year but already revellers were dancing around the braziers lit in every available space and gathering in clusters of vibrant shadows in the myriad pavilions all over the compound. The court, it seemed, was keen to begin its wedding celebrations early.

  ‘I thought we agreed it would be a quiet service,’ she protested to her mother, who was rustling through a mound of gowns behind her.

  ‘You meant that?’ Lady Meghan replied.

  ‘You did not?’

  ‘Clearly,’ Godiva said drily, taking Edyth’s arm to pull her away from the window opening. ‘Come, my dear, we must prepare calmly for the day ahead.’

  Edyth flushed.

  ‘Calmly?!’ she snapped. ‘How can I be calm with this racket? I swear all of England is here.’

  ‘And very good it is for the city too. I hear the market traders have taken more in a week than they usually do in a year. Is that not wonderful?’

  ‘It is, Grandmother, truly. I’m just not comfortable with all this . . . pomp.’

  Godiva wrinkled up her elegant nose.

  ‘It is not there to make you comfortable, my girl, but to proclaim the honour and power of your family – as well you know if you stop to think about it. Besides, all this “pomp” as you call it is something you are going to have to become used to.’

  ‘You are indeed.’ Meghan leaped up. ‘You will be the Lady of Wessex, second in rank only to Queen Aldyth herself. Your father would be so proud.’

  Her eyes misted and, with a soft sigh, Edyth leaned forward to kiss her.

  ‘Father used to tell me to steer clear of Godwinsons,’ she said gently.

  ‘Circumstances change. Alfgar would have embraced that. He was always very . . . adaptable.’

  Edyth thought of their exile ten years ago. Alfgar had crept from Westminster like a squashed beetle but by the time they’d reached Rhuddlan anyone would have thought that a trip west had been his greatest wish. She smiled fondly.

  ‘I wish he could be here with us now.’

  ‘As do I, my dear. He would revel in all this – and you must revel in it for his sake.’ She cast a look back across the room, worry creasing her plump brow. ‘Have you enough gowns, do you think?’

  ‘Enough gowns?! Mother, I have enough gowns to clothe half of England.’

  ‘Nonsense. You must look the part, not just today but in the months and years to come, especially if you are to be—’

  ‘Mother, hush. Do not say it.’

  ‘Everyone else does.’

  ‘Then they are foolish.’

  ‘Or honest. Perhaps, Edyth, my love, you are the one deceiving yourself? The rest of the court sees the situation very clearly indeed – why do you think they are all here?’

  As Meghan clucked back across the room to check the damned gowns again Edyth sighed. She thought back to her first wedding in an isolated hall on the stark Welsh coas
t – warm and raucous and easy. She had loved Griffin, had she not? Sometimes now, when her sharp, violent, guilty feelings for her new groom threatened to topple her, she wondered if her whole eight-year first marriage had been a sham.

  ‘It was not,’ she said fiercely.

  ‘Beg pardon, my dear?’ Godiva asked.

  Edyth grabbed at her grandmother’s arm.

  ‘You said I would have a choice of who I married.’

  ‘And you did.’

  ‘Hardly. No one has ceased sermonising about how good this would be – for England, for the family, for the future, for everyone but me.’

  Godiva looked at her, something of the old sharpness back in her all-seeing eyes.

  ‘I think, my dear, that you do not despise this marriage as much as you feel you should.’

  Edyth looked down. Godiva was right. She had tried to be noble about this, tried to approach her nuptials as the sacrifice she had pleaded it to be to her brothers, to Harold, to Svana, but the truth was far less worthy. The thought of sharing Harold’s bed seemed to lurk like a flame between her legs and there were no words for her betrayal of Svana, not when every damned piece of her flesh willed her on in it. There was no sword point at her back, no hostage on the altar, no coercion save what was ‘good for England’. Was that enough? Maybe, but tonight, in her marriage bed, would England be there then? Edyth doubted it and her skin prickled with shameful desire.

  ‘Do not blame yourself,’ Godiva said softly. ‘In the end, my dear, you only have your own path to forge and yours is a good one. Truly. Now, shall we dress you? If the whole of England is indeed here, we had better not keep them waiting.’

  Meghan needed no second urging and within moments Edyth was encased in her wedding outfit, a beautiful fine wool overgown in deepest green, artistically cut up the long sleeves and at the sides of the remarkably full skirt to show off an expensive cream silk undershift. The hem and cuffs were studded with so many jewels that Edyth marvelled at the seamstresses her mother must have pressed into service to have it ready in time and it was tied at the waist with a similarly studded girdle embroidered with the entwined emblems of Mercia and Wessex.