VIKING
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First published in 2013 by Viking Penguin, a member of Penguin Group (USA) Inc.
Copyright © Patricia Bracewell, 2013
All rights reserved
Map illustration by Matt Brown
Publisher’s Note
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOGING IN PUBLICATION DATA
Bracewell, Patricia, 1950–
Shadow on the crown / Patricia Bracewell.
p. cm.
ISBN 978-1-101-60619-3
eBook ISBN
1. Emma, Queen, consort of Canute I, King of England, d. 1052—Fiction. 2. Ethelred II, King of England, 968?–1016—Fiction. 3. Great Britain—History—Ethelred II, 979–1016—Fiction. 4. Queens—Great Britain—Fiction. 5. Normans—Great Britain—Fiction. I. Title.
PS3602.R323S53 2013
813'.6—dc23 2012028932
Designed by Nancy Resnick
No part of this book may be reproduced, scanned, or distributed in any printed or electronic form without permission. Please do not participate in or encourage piracy of copyrighted materials in violation of the author’s rights. Purchase only authorized editions.
For Lloyd, Andrew, and Alan
Contents
Title Page
Copyright
Dedication
Characters
Glossary
Map
Prologue
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-one
Chapter Twenty-two
Chapter Twenty-three
Chapter Twenty-four
Chapter Twenty-five
Chapter Twenty-six
Chapter Twenty-seven
Chapter Twenty-eight
Chapter Twenty-nine
Chapter Thirty
Chapter Thirty-one
Chapter Thirty-two
Chapter Thirty-three
Chapter Thirty-four
Chapter Thirty-five
Chapter Thirty-six
Chapter Thirty-seven
Chapter Thirty-eight
Chapter Thirty-nine
Chapter Forty
Chapter Forty-one
Chapter Forty-two
Author's Note
Acknowledgments
The English Court, 1001–1005
Æthelred II, Anglo-Saxon king of England
Children of the English king, in birth order:
Athelstan
Ecbert
Edmund
Edrid
Edwig
Edward
Edgar
Edyth
Ælfgifu (Ælfa)
Wulfhilde (Wulfa)
Mathilda
Leading Nobles and Ecclesiastics
Ælfhelm, ealdorman of Northumbria
Ufegeat, his son
Wulfheah, his son (Wulf)
Elgiva, his daughter
Ælfric, ealdorman of Hampshire
Ælfgar, his son
Hilde, his granddaughter
Ælfheah, bishop of Winchester
Godwine, ealdorman of Lindsey
Leofwine, ealdorman of Western Mercia
Wulfstan, archbishop of Jorvik and bishop of Worcester
The Norman Court, 1001–1005
Richard II, duke of Normandy
Robert, archbishop of Rouen, brother of the duke
Judith, duchess of Normandy
Gunnora, dowager duchess of Normandy
Mathilde, sister of the duke
Emma, sister of the duke
The Danish Royals
Swein Forkbeard, king of Denmark
Harald, his son
Cnut, his son
Glossary
Ætheling: literally, throne worthy. All of the legitimate sons of the Anglo-Saxon kings were referred to as æthelings.
Ague: any sickness with a high fever
Augur: to predict from signs or omens
Braies: French term for trousers, made of linen
Breecs: Anglo-Saxon term for trousers
Burh: an Anglo-Saxon fort
Byrnie: a mail tunic
Ceap: the market, or high street
Chasuble: an ecclesiastical vestment, a sleeveless mantle covering body and shoulders, often elaborately embroidered, worn over a long, white tunic during the celebration of the Mass
Chausses: French term for hose, or long stockings
Cope: an ecclesiastical vestment, often of silk and elaborately embroidered; it resembled a long cloak
Culver: Anglo-Saxon term for pigeon
Cyrtel: a woman’s gown
Danelaw: an area of England that roughly comprises Yorkshire, East Anglia, and central and eastern Mercia where successive waves of Scandinavians settled throughout the ninth and tenth centuries
Ealdorman: a high-ranking noble appointed by the king to govern a province in the king’s name. He led troops, levied taxes, and administered justice. It was a political position usually conferred upon members of powerful families.
Fyrd: an armed force that was raised at the command of the king or an ealdorman, usually in response to a Viking threat
Gafol: the tribute paid to an enemy army to purchase peace
Geld: a tax
levied by the king, who used the money to pay the tribute extorted by Viking raiders
Godwebbe: precious cloth, frequently purple, normally of silk; probably shot-silk taffeta
Handfasting: a marriage or betrothal; a sign of a committed relationship with no religious ceremony or exchange of property
Headrail: a veil, often worn with a circlet or band, kept in place with pins
Hearth troops: warriors who made up the household guard of the king or a great lord
Herepath: a military road
Hird: the army of the Northmen; the enemies of the English
Host: army
Kalends: the first day of the month in the ancient Roman calendar, which always fell on a new moon
Leech/leechcraft: a physician; the practice of the healing art
Leman: lover; from Old French
Pennons: banners
Pulses: dried peas and beans
Reeve: a man with administrative responsibilities utilized by royals, bishops, and nobles to oversee towns, villages, and large estates
Rood: the cross on which Christ was crucified
Scarp: a steep slope formed by the fracturing of the earth’s crust
Scop: storyteller; harper
Screens passage: a vestibule just inside the entrance to a great hall or similar chamber, created by movable screens that blocked the wind from gusting into the hall when the doors were opened
Seax: knife
Sending: an unpleasant or evil creature sent by someone with magical powers to warn, punish, or take revenge on a person; from Old Norse
Skald: poet or storyteller
Tafl: a popular board game in early medieval England and Scandinavia with some similarities to modern-day chess
Thegn: literally “one who serves another”; a title that marks a personal relationship; the leading ones served the king himself; a member of the highest rank in Anglo-Saxon society; a landholder with specified obligations to his lord
Wain: a wagon or cart
Wergild: literally “man payment”; the value set on a person’s life
Witan: “wise men”; the king’s council
Wyrd: fate or destiny
A.D. 979 In this year was King Edward slain at even-tide, at Corfe-gate, on the fifteenth before the kalends of April, and he was buried at Werham without any royal honors. Nor was a worse deed than this done since men came to Britain. . . . Æthelred was consecrated king. In this same year a bloody sky was often seen, most clearly at midnight, like fire in the form of misty beams. As dawn approached, it glided away.
—The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle
Prologue
Eve of St. Hilda’s Feast, November 1001
Near Saltford, Oxfordshire
She made a circuit of the clearing among the oaks, three times round and three times back, whispering spells of protection. There had been a portent in the night: a curtain of red light had shimmered and danced across the midnight sky like scarlet silk flung against the stars. Once, in the year before her birth, such a light had marked a royal death. Now it surely marked another, and although her magic could not banish death, she wove the spells to ward disaster from the realm.
When her task was done she fed the fire that burned in the center of the ancient stone ring, and sitting down beside it, she waited for the one who came in search of prophecy. Before the sun had moved a finger’s width across the sky, the figure of a woman, cloaked and veiled, stood atop the rise, her hand upon the sentinel stone. Slowly she followed the path down through the trees and into the giants’ dance until she, too, took her place beside the fire, with silver in her palm.
“I would know my lady’s fate,” she said.
The silver went from hand to hand, and against her will, the seer glimpsed a heart, broken and barren, that loved with a dark and twisted love. But the silver had been given, and at her nod, a lock of hair was laid upon the flames. She searched for visions in the fire, and they tumbled and roiled until they hurt her eyes and scored her heart.
“Your lady will be bound to a mighty lord,” she said at last, “and her children will be kings.”
But because of the darkness in that heart across the fire, she said nothing of the other, of the lady who would journey from afar, and of the two life threads so knotted and tangled that they could not be pulled asunder for a lifetime or forever. She did not speak of the green land that would burn to ash in the days to come, or of the innocents who would die, all for the price of a throne.
There would be portents in the sky again tonight, she knew, and high above her the stars would weep blood.
A.D. 1001 This year there was great commotion in England in consequence of an invasion by the Danes, who spread terror and devastation wheresoever they went, plundering and burning and desolating the country. . . . They brought much booty with them to their ships, and thence they went into the Isle of Wight and nothing withstood them; nor any fleet by sea durst meet them; nor land force either. Then was it in every wise a heavy time, because they never ceased from their evil doings.
—The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle
Chapter One
December 24, 1001
Fécamp, Normandy
The winter of 1001 in northwestern Europe would have been recorded as the coldest and fiercest in seventy-five years, had anyone been keeping such records. In late December of that year, a storm tore out of the arctic north with terrible speed, blasting all of Europe but striking hardest at the two realms that faced each other across the Narrow Sea.
In Normandy, it began with a sudden drop in temperature and a freezing rain that coated the limbs of the precious fruit trees in the Seine’s fertile valley. A driving wind swept behind the rain, snapping brittle, frozen branches and scattering the promise of next summer’s harvest over wide, sleet-covered fields. For a full day and night the storm raged, and when the worst of it was spent, a light snow fell upon the wasted landscape as quietly as a benediction.
Watching from within their abbey walls, the monks of Jumièges and of Saint-Wandrille contemplated the loss of their apple crop, bowed their heads, and prayed for acceptance of God’s will. Peasant farmers, huddling together for warmth in frail, wooden cottages and fearing that the end of the world was come, prayed for deliverance. In the newly built ducal palace at Fécamp, where Duke Richard and his family had gathered to celebrate the season of Christ’s Mass, the duke’s fifteen-year-old sister, Emma, quietly pulled heavy boots over her thick woolen leggings and prayed that she would not waken her sleeping sister—to no avail.
“What are you doing?” Mathilde’s voice, raw and resonating with elder sister disapproval, emerged from a thick nest of bedclothes.
Emma continued to tug at a boot.
“I am going down to the stables,” she said.
She threw her sister a sidelong glance, trying to gauge her mood. Mathilde’s thin brown hair was pulled into a tight braid that gave her face a drawn, pinched look and added to the severity of the frown that she cast upon her younger sister.
“You cannot go out in this storm,” Mathilde protested. “You will catch your death.” She started to say more but was racked by a sudden, cruel fit of coughing.
Emma went to her, snatched up the cup of watered wine from a table beside the bed, and held it for her sister to drink.
“The snow has stopped,” she said, as Mathilde sipped from the cup. “I will be fine.”
And unlike Mathilde, Emma thought to herself, she rarely took sick. Poor Mathilde. It was her misfortune to be the only small, dark-haired, sickly child in her mother’s brood of blond, vigorous giants—eight brothers and sisters, all told.
When her sister had drunk her fill, Emma snatched up a shawl from the foot of the bed and threw it over her thick, bright hair.
“You are going to check on your w
retched horse, I suppose.” Mathilde’s voice was little more than a throaty growl. “I do not see why. God knows all of those creatures are tended with as much care as if they were children. It is mean of you to leave me here all alone.”
Emma, who loved the outdoors, who loved horses, dogs, and hunting, and who was happiest when she was riding along the Norman shore beneath high chalk cliffs, knew better than to try to explain her errand to Mathilde, who detested all of those things. Emma was sorry that Mathilde was ill and bored, but she would go mad if she could not breathe some fresh air and be alone for just a little while. The two of them had been pent up together within doors for three full days.
She lifted a heavy, fur-lined black cloak from its peg on the wall and threw it over her shoulders.
“I will not be gone long,” she said.
Mathilde, though, had thought of another objection.
“What if the shipmen return while you are down there?” she demanded. “You cannot trust those Danish brutes not to molest you if they come upon you alone and unprotected.”
Emma fastened her cloak beneath her chin, pondering this warning.
The Danish king, Swein Forkbeard, had petitioned her brother for winter harbor along Normandy’s northern coast, and Duke Richard, unwilling to offend the fierce warrior king, had granted it. To Richard’s fury, though, Forkbeard’s own ship and a dozen more had sailed into Fécamp’s harbor two days ago, forcing her brother out of courtesy to invite the king to join his family at the palace.
The king had accepted swiftly and had settled into her brother’s great hall with a score of his companions—rough, hard-faced warriors with only the thinnest gloss of civilization about them in spite of the wealth of gold that they flaunted on their wrists and arms. Mathilde, sick with the ague, had kept to her bed. Richard’s wife, Judith, only a few weeks out of childbed, had done the same. So it was Emma’s mother, Dowager Duchess Gunnora, with only her youngest daughter at her side, who had offered the king the welcome cup upon his arrival in the hall. The duchess, proud of her Danish heritage and her blood ties to the Danish throne, nevertheless had no illusions about Swein Forkbeard. She presented Emma to him with formal courtesy, then banished her daughter to the private quarters with all of the other young women.
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